Ultimate Truth Has Hair on His Arms
Books in the Making - Chrestomathy
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
"Another common objection to the early creeds is their supposed 'Hellenism.' The early church was limited by its Greek cultural surroundings, so the argument goes, and so of course it is understandable that they unwittingly imported Hellenistic concepts into the Hebrew world of Scripture. This objection is tiresome because of the ignorance manifested by it, but it is also kind of fun to answer. The early creeds, foremost among them Nicaea and Chalcedon, were to Hellenism what Waterloo was to Napoloeon. It is quite true that the early centuries were a time of pitched battle between Hebraism and Hellenism in the church. It is quite true that this is what was at stake during these councils. But it was the heretics who wanted to make an accommodation with Hellenism, and it was men like Athanasius who maintained that the Eternal Word had ten fingers and ten toes -- something unspeakably offensive to the philosophical Greek mind" ("Sola Scriptura, Creeds, and Ecclesiastical Authority" in When Shall These Things Be? pp. 280-281).
1 comment:
Is Half of The Story Sufficient For Salvation?
How many sides are there to a story? If you say two, then you are wrong. If you had one side and I had one side that would make two sides. However, there is a third side, the side of truth.
Rule # 1... One half of truth does not a truth make. Neither does one half of a story make the full story.
No intelligent person can hear one side of a story and decide which side has the truth.
Both sides have to be heard, then analysed, and then a decision has to be made as to which side (if either) has a valid story, and after that, the right side(s), or truth side, can be determined.
This thinking holds true for discerning what Holy Scripture tells us.
Throughout the Bible there are double standards, yet the fundamentalist thinking shows only one standard, or one side of the story, or only one half of the truth.
Their thinking is in violation of rule # 1. With only one half of truth, you do not have truth. Anything less than the whole truth is error.
In the following example, side 'A' is the first side, side 'B' is the second, and side 'C' is the right, or truth side.
Sola Scriptura... Only the Bible.
Fundamentalist thinking is that the Bible is sufficient and nothing else is needed for salvation. First of all, in order to believe in the 'Bible Only' philosophy, you have to show that Scripture says it. Is that not true? The doctrine of 'Sola Scriptura' is not to be found in Scripture.
A. Tradition is condemned in many places in Scripture, such as Job 22:15, Matthew 15:6, Mark 7:3-13, Galatians 1:14, Colossians 2:8, 1Timothy 1:4, Titus 1:14, and 1Peter 1:18. Look at these verses and grasp their meaning. They all address 'vain' human traditions and are rightly condemned. This is one half of the truth.
B. Tradition is supported in more places in Scripture than it is condemned. Study Isaiah 59:21, Luke 1:2, 2:19,51, Luke 10:16, 2 Thessalonians
2:14-15 - "Stand firm and hold the traditions you have learned..", 2Timothy 1:13,2:2, 1Pet 1:25, 1John 1:1,2:24, 2John 1:12, Revelation 12:17,19:10.
These are different traditions than mentioned in 'A'. These are the Traditions of GOD, or 'Apostolic' Tradition. Again, this is only half of the truth.
C. The truth is, yes, we do condemn the vain tradition of men, as shown in 'A', and we must keep the Tradition of GOD, as shown in 'B'.
Thus we have half the truth in 'A', and the other half in 'B', and combined we have the full truth. The false doctrine of Sola Scriptura adds A and B together and puts the total in A, rejecting all of tradition. A+B=C.
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