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Only when the work of Jesus on earth was finished could there be any authoritative statement about the whole of his life and its significance; and this would have to be provided by the Apostolic ChurchRead more at location 2335
we need evidence that the Apostolic Church founded by Jesus has continued until today and that it provides a plausible account of his actions and teaching and that of the Apostolic Church, and plausible interpretations thereof which are plausibly true.Read more at location 2346
Ever since its foundation the Church has been subject to divisions about the content of Christian doctrine and about the way the Church should be organized; and these divisions have often led to formal separations, ‘schisms’, resulting in the creation of two or more separately organized ‘churches’ which I’ll call ‘ecclesial bodies’.Read more at location 2355
What makes a society (a club or a university, for example) at one time the same society as some society at an earlier time?Read more at location 2361
Suppose that a football club was founded in 1850; it ceased to play football in 1900, but its members continued to meet and formed themselves into a political party. That party would not be the same society as the original football club because the society no longer had to any extent the same aim. But if it continued to play football but with somewhat different rules,Read more at location 2364
New members have to be admitted, new officers elected with similar powers in accord with procedures similar to the original proceduresRead more at location 2368
In the case of the Church, continuity of aim amounts to continuity of doctrine.Read more at location 2371
Some body which advocated polygamy or taught pantheism (that everything was divine) would have doctrines evidently quite contrary to the teaching not merely of JesusRead more at location 2378
But sometimes, as I shall emphasize shortly, it is not obvious which of two conflicting doctrines follows most plausibly from the teaching of Jesus,Read more at location 2381
it is important to have also the other criterion: the criterion of continuity of organization.Read more at location 2383
When a society splits into two societies, it is sometimes the case that each of the subsequent societies has greater continuity with the original society in a different respect. Suppose a football club votes in accord with its constitution in future to play rugby football instead of soccer, but a minority breaks away and continues to play soccer. The majority may claim greater continuity of organization with the original club, while the minority may claim greater continuity of aim.Read more at location 2388
Schisms are produced both by disagreements about the interpretation of doctrine, and by disagreements about whether Church officers have been properly commissioned and about what their powers are.Read more at location 2393
officers have been properly commissioned and about what their powers are.Read more at location 2395
The fourth-century schism between the Catholics (a term used then in a much wider sense than the later Roman Catholics), who claimed that the Son (Jesus) was ‘of the same substance’ as the Father (that is, fully divine), and the Arians, who claimed that the Son was ‘of similar substance’ to the Father (that is, almost divine), was a division solely about doctrine.Read more at location 2395
The eleventh-century schism between Roman Catholics and Orthodox was largely concerned with organization. Both agreed that bishops were the Church leaders and they had to be ordained by other bishops. Roman Catholics, however, insisted that the Pope, the bishop of Rome, had great authority over all Christians, while the Orthodox denied this.Read more at location 2397
Roman Catholics came to insist that, while the natural method of resolving doctrinal differences was by a vote of an ‘Ecumenical Council’ of bishops (who recognized the Pope’s authority) from all parts of the Church, the Pope acting alone had authority to resolve these differences.Read more at location 2400
Later Roman Catholics came to insist that a Pope acting alone could issue a doctrinal definition which (unlike most of his doctrinal pronouncements) was infallible (that is, necessarily true, quite incapable of being amended by later decisions).Read more at location 2402
The Orthodox, however, claimed that only an Ecumenical Council of bishops (and not only ones who recognized the Pope’s authority) could decide issues of doctrine infallibly;Read more at location 2403
The sixteenth-century schism between Roman Catholics and Protestants (and Anglicans) turned both on issues of doctrine and on issues of organization.Read more at location 2407
Protestants emphasized (to varying degrees) the depths of original sin and our guilt for it, and the inability of humans to reform themselves, asserting that we could only be saved by a faith in God given to us by God.Read more at location 2409
Roman Catholics claimed that human free will was not totally damaged by original sin, and that humans need to do more than just believe in God in order to achieve salvation.Read more at location 2411
the Protestant bodies (but not the Anglicans) claimed that the Church leaders need not be bishops ordained by earlier bishops; they might be ordained by priests or simply by congregations of the baptized. And all Protestants (and most Anglicans) claimed that the only way to resolve doctrinal differences was by deriving doctrines directly from the Bible,Read more at location 2412
Despite these differences between Protestants and other Christians, for the past thousand years almost all ecclesial bodies (at least until the last fifty years) satisfied the criterion of continuity of doctrine to a very large extent.Read more at location 2415
almost all ecclesial bodies had continuity of organization with the Apostolic Church in that (with the exception of a few Protestant groups) they had the same procedure for admitting Church members—baptism—and celebrated the central Christian service of the eucharist.Read more at location 2419
But maybe we must say that the Church is divided; and that it can only function properly if reunited.Read more at location 2422
From at least the second century onwards the Church had a generally recognized procedure (part of what constituted its organization) about the proper way of deriving doctrinesRead more at location 2430
Doctrines should be derived from the record of that teaching contained in ‘the deposit of faith’. The deposit of faith consisted of the Bible (Old Testament and New Testament), often called ‘Holy Scripture’, and perhaps also, many claimed, of some unwritten traditions (the teaching of Jesus and his Apostles not yet committed to writing). (The second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in AD 787 put the ‘unwritten’ traditions of the Church on a level with the ‘written’ ones—that is, with the Bible—when it declared anyone who rejected either tradition to be heretical.Read more at location 2433
Bible—when it declared anyone who rejected either tradition to be heretical.Read more at location 2437
The Old Testament (which also forms the Bible of the Jewish religion) had been put together gradually over many centuries so as to reach more or less its present form by the time of Jesus. And gradually, in the course of the first century AD, the Church came to recognize certain books as containing the essence of the revelation which had been given through Jesus, and these came to form the core of the New TestamentRead more at location 2440
of Jesus. And gradually, in the course of the first centuryRead more at location 2441
and these came to form the core of the New TestamentRead more at location 2443
Old Testament was regarded as containing the record of God’s gradual earlier revelation, and to be interpreted in the light of the New Testament.Read more at location 2443
The first time that anyone listed as canonical (that is, as proper parts of the Bible) exactly the books contained in our present New Testament was in AD 367;Read more at location 2447
In his book The Canon of the New Testament Bruce Metzger analyses three criteria which led Church bodies to recognize some book as New Testament Scripture: its conformity with basic Christian tradition, its apostolicity (being written by an Apostle, or someone closely connected with an Apostle), and its widespread acceptance by the Church at large.Read more at location 2450
three criteria which led Church bodies to recognize some book as New Testament Scripture:Read more at location 2450
The first two of Metzger’s criteria are criteria of continuity with the original revelation;Read more at location 2458
There were, however, often different equally plausible interpretations of biblical passages, and different interpretations led to different theological doctrines. In that case, the Church held, what ‘the Fathers’ said about these interpretations should carry significant weight.Read more at location 2466
‘The Fathers’ were the Christian theologians of the early centuriesRead more at location 2469
But councils of bishops of the Church were recognized as having greater authority, and, as mentioned above, Ecumenical Councils of the Church were recognized (by virtually all the Church, from the beginning until the sixteenth century) as having the final say in determining the truth of a disputed doctrine.Read more at location 2470
the final say in determining the truth of a disputed doctrine.Read more at location 2473
that decisions of such councils require the approval of a Pope;Read more at location 2474
Pope can pronounce infallibly on doctrine without needing prior council approval.)Read more at location 2474
But where there was a virtually unanimous tradition of doctrine on some matter, clearly there was no need for any council decision.Read more at location 2475
given that doctrines about the teaching and actions of Jesus and the Apostolic Church must be derivable from the Bible (or perhaps from ‘unwritten traditions’), the only justification for this would seem to be that everything in the Bible is true. The Bible was often described as ‘inspired’ by God, but no Ecumenical Council ever said anything as precise as that every sentence in it was true.Read more at location 2482
Bible was often difficult to understand—both because it seemed to contain sentences which contradicted other sentences, and also because it seemed to conflict with secular knowledge in the form of Greek science.Read more at location 2486
we need to examine the rules for interpreting this ‘tricky’ text,Read more at location 2488
