tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post3548939624837336192..comments2024-03-24T15:19:06.377-04:00Comments on The Continuum: Laymen's guide to the Thirty-Nine ArticlesFr. Robert Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-57511417225436425872011-02-02T15:46:05.643-05:002011-02-02T15:46:05.643-05:00Fr. Hart,
It is pretty hard to require Articles th...Fr. Hart,<br /><i>It is pretty hard to require Articles that set a standard for judging articles of faith.</i><br /><br />Last thought: I would say the Articles or any revised Articles that might be required are by the Berean standard beneath and dependent on Holy Scripture, the final rule and judge of doctrinal truth - as it should be. It seems to me that that standard doesn't negate the validity of the Articles as a potential subscribed confession (although I agree, they aren't comprehensive and not easily understood on some points), rather it just puts forth the Reformational doctrine of sola scriptura as interpreted by the Church via these very Articles. The principle seems consistent. And though the Articles could certainly be improved upon (by better men than me for sure), having no church confession defining doctrine often leads to Latitudinarianism. But nothing replaces the necessity of godly men contending for the apostolic faith once delivered... always vigilant.<br /><br />Thanks for your gracious input.<br /><br />JackJack Millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18281378425270530573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-86519986176984566672011-02-02T15:13:39.120-05:002011-02-02T15:13:39.120-05:00I believe the Articles make a good guide, but not ...I believe the Articles make a good guide, but not a comprehensive one. And, part of why we're writing this series is to clarify the meaning of the Articles, inasmuch as they are easy for modern people to misunderstand. That is, if they are given legal status again, a guide to interpreting their correct meaning, such as this series, will almost certainly need to accompany them. <br /><br />But, no matter what status they are given, that Article VI insists on the Berean standard. It is pretty hard to require Articles that set a standard for judging articles of faith.Fr. Robert Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-91067393757787603032011-02-02T12:46:25.929-05:002011-02-02T12:46:25.929-05:00Fr Hart,
I didn't at all take you to be saying...Fr Hart,<br />I didn't at all take you to be saying that Cranmer and company didn't understand the Articles to be anything less than Scriptural.<br /><br />wrote:<br /><i>But, ultimately, truth must be a matter of persuasion. No authority can actually dictate what you believe. Persuasion, therefore, must be based on answering real skepticism honestly, and teaching must be on the basis of solid grounding. </i><br /><br />I do agree completely with the above. Maybe I'm just picking at a nit (at least from your vantage) but though an authority can't dictate what one believes, it can dictate what the church purports to be true doctrine, unless proven otherwise by Scripture via church agreement, as the Article implies. Thus the Articles or, again, a confession that articulates a church consensus on doctrine becomes a major help for clergy in their attempts <b>to persuade</b> the flock of the the true faith. And it causes clergy to weigh their pulpit interpretations against that confession in order to better guide them in their ministry of the Word.<br /><br />We may just see this differently. So I don't want to push my point any further. As I said, I am thankful for the ministry you and Fr. Wells are providing and glad you are about "persuasion" for the sake of sound doctrine.<br /><br />JackJack Millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18281378425270530573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-38476460708765858532011-02-02T11:24:29.610-05:002011-02-02T11:24:29.610-05:00Jack Miller:
I would not suggest for a minute tha...Jack Miller:<br /><br />I would not suggest for a minute that the men who wrote the Articles considered them anything less than the objective truth. They did have authority in England. But, ultimately, truth must be a matter of persuasion. No authority can actually dictate what you believe. Persuasion, therefore, must be based on answering real skepticism honestly, and teaching must be on the basis of solid grounding. The Articles were, in England, a matter of royal command. But, this did not stop the men who wrote the Articles from appealing to a higher authority than th crown. It did not stop them from inviting the people to test the content of their Articles by the Scriptures.<br /><br />The Creeds are time tested, Scripturally proven, and universally received. The Berean test was applied to them long, long ago.Fr. Robert Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-32836811336103658332011-02-02T11:13:28.189-05:002011-02-02T11:13:28.189-05:00Fr. Hart,
Again thank you and Fr. Wells for this s...Fr. Hart,<br />Again thank you and Fr. Wells for this series and this next installment.<br /><br />I do have some questions, though, that I hope either of you can address. You wrote:<br /><i>If the Articles set forth the truth that God revealed from the beginning, published in the Canon of Scripture where all may find it, they need no legal status. If we are to accept the clear words of Article VI, we cannot grant them legal status. If they pass the test, however, then a proper understanding of their intended meaning is a guide to genuinely useful and helpful study of the Bible....<br />Rather, the danger is that of private interpretation. Indeed, when some individuals warn against sola scritpura (the Scriptures alone), they really mean to warn against private interpretation.</i><br /><br />If the Articles are to have no legal status (as is the case today), how can their words be taken as evidence to that point? And, the Article seems only to be saying (in this part) that the Church or any believer is not to be held to any doctrine except that it can be proven clearly by Scripture. How are we to know that except there be clear authoritative (legal?) teachings. It seems that without that (the Articles or such) that the slippery slope of "private interpretation" is there for not just the individual believer but any particular minister, parish, or church. That appears to be the situation today. <br />So, I don't understand the aversion to a more prominent or formal role for the Articles. You wrote:<br /><i>... and no doctrine can be correct if it stands in contradiction to the faith of the Church, especially as summarized in the great Creeds.</i> The Creeds are early 'articles' or confessions of faith, are they not? They have legal status. They are not comprehensive, yet essential in that they clarify the doctrine in Scripture regarding that which they speak to for the benefit and protection of the faithful.Jack Millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18281378425270530573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-88445690479242826112011-02-01T11:24:59.786-05:002011-02-01T11:24:59.786-05:00It's refreshing to see the catholic expression...It's refreshing to see the catholic expression of Sola Scriptura defended here. Holy Tradition is inviolable precisely because it comes from the fount of the Apostolic source, i.e., the New Testament. <br /><br />The Two Source folks have a very thin defense simply because it has to be assumed doctrine X, nowhere found in the Scripture (implicitly or explicitly) is held from the beginning. It is merely asserted.<br /><br />That said, I think the process by which we determine what is necessarily deduced from the Sacred Text is where we butt heads with our Baptist and Regulative Principle friends. The WCF allows for no multiple layers of meaning in the text, as the Medieval interpreters allowed for. Tradition's value safeguards the limits of our reading, I think. <br /><br />In the end, I think WHICH version of Sola Scriptura is equally important to address, and the Anglicans do more good here than the Genevans or Westminster Divines ever could.<br /><br />In my old Orthodox Presybterian Church days I remember quite clearly the pastor decrying the use of candles in some churches, for the Bible never issues such a command to use them. I was taken aback by the complaint, but I had to remind myself that's the world in which many Protestants find themselves. Calvin for all his genious was zealous for the right things, but the implementation was soured by the excessed of the age in which he lived.<br /><br />Good work, gentlemen.<br /><br />S. Augustine<br />ACC Churchman<br />Church of the Guardian AngelsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-34222202321221323442011-01-31T23:16:37.409-05:002011-01-31T23:16:37.409-05:00I assume the first paragraph was meant to end with...I assume the first paragraph was meant to end with, "but it would still one <i>answer</i> of St. Jerome's objections."<br /><br />I sincerely doubt that we would find a Hebrew original to the insertions in the Book of Esther; but, the others could have had a Hebrew original.<br /><br />And, I assume that "exactly what St Paul prophesied about what was to come and just whose doctrine it actually was" refers to what opens the very next chapter (I Tim. 4).Fr. Robert Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-49965475119012581902011-01-31T23:11:47.187-05:002011-01-31T23:11:47.187-05:00Since an Hebrew original for Sirach has now been f...Since an Hebrew original for Sirach has now been found, it suggests that the others also had a Hebrew original which has since been lost. Or, as I seem to have read it suggested, deliberately neglected because of political and other issues stemming from the Herodian monarchy. If we were to find the Hebrew originals for the others, I doubt that we would be tempted to promote them into the canonical Old Testament, but it would still one of St. Jerome's objections. <br /><br />My concern for the teaching of Holy Scripture is that we are too quick to ignore the way in which others play fast and lose with some of its requirements such as the totality of what St Paul writes about marriage in First Timothy. We may not wish to give unnecessary offense but do we not equally give offense by ignoring exactly what St Paul prophesied about what was to come and just whose doctrine it actually was?Canon Tallishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05182884929479435751noreply@blogger.com