The place of Sacred Tradition in the first Church Council.

[The Liturgist]

So is the term "word of God" found in Jn 10:35, Ac 12:24, 1 Th 2:13, 2 Tim 2:9, 1 Pe 1:23, 1 Jn 2:14 etc a mistranslation? Should the translations calling scripture the "word of God" be changed to some other term?

No, its not a mistranslation. According to John 1:1-18 it refers to Jesus Christ, who is therefore Only Begotten Son and Word of God. It secondarily can refer to scripture insofar as Jesus Christ is both the Word of God and makes God known, and all Scripture as we learn at the end of Luke (in which it revealed that all the books of what we call the Old Testament were about Him, and clearly all the books of the New Testament are about Him) makes Jesus Christ, the Word of God, who is also God known, it would therefore be incorrect to speak of the Bible as “the Word of the Word”, so therefore we can instead say this phrased whenever it is used has a primary Christological meaning but can also, in a secondary sense, refer to the Scriptures.

Only where the word “Scripture” is used by itself do we know that the Bible is referring to itself specifically, and most consciously to the Old Testament, but these verses can also be applied to the New since the Church has made those books part of the Canon of Scripture (indeed, after much initial controversy, the New Testament canon has become one of the few things we all agree upon.

 

[ozso]

Catholocism argues that Catholic tradition is a greater authority than scripture.

I'm going to expound on that statement.

“It is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence” (Dei Verbum 9).

However, if there is a tradition or practice that is not clearly taught in scripture, then the authority of tradition takes precedent, in order for it to be official. Which puts tradition in the position of being a grater authority than scripture.

Put another way, if the tradition, practice, doctrine can not be firmly established in scripture, then tradition has to take precedent over scripture, and therefore becomes the greater authority.

 

[ozso]

No, its not a mistranslation. According to John 1:1-18 it refers to Jesus Christ, who is therefore Only Begotten Son and Word of God. It secondarily can refer to scripture insofar as Jesus Christ is both the Word of God and makes God known, and all Scripture as we learn at the end of Luke (in which it revealed that all the books of what we call the Old Testament were about Him, and clearly all the books of the New Testament are about Him) makes Jesus Christ, the Word of God, who is also God known, it would therefore be incorrect to speak of the Bible as “the Word of the Word”, so therefore we can instead say this phrased whenever it is used has a primary Christological meaning but can also, in a secondary sense, refer to the Scriptures.

Only where the word “Scripture” is used by itself do we know that the Bible is referring to itself specifically, and most consciously to the Old Testament, but these verses can also be applied to the New since the Church has made those books part of the Canon of Scripture (indeed, after much initial controversy, the New Testament canon has become one of the few things we all agree upon.

You wrote: "but can also, in a secondary sense, refer to the Scriptures"

I believe that's the way it was being used by @Clare73. And is certainly they way it's used by me. As in words written through God.

I think it should be a forgone conclusion that when someone refers to scripture as "the word of God", they are not saying scripture is Jesus. Or are applying John 1:1-18 to the term. Rather than there always being an argument over it.

 

[The Liturgist]

I'm going to expound on that statement.

“It is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence” (Dei Verbum 9).

However, if there is a tradition or practice that is not clearly taught in scripture, then the authority of tradition takes precedent, in order for it to be official. Which puts tradition in the position of being a grater authority than scripture.

Put another way, if the tradition, practice, doctrine can not be firmly established in scripture, then tradition has to take precedent over scripture, and therefore becomes the greater authority.

Provide a source for the words you added to De Verbum, please, because right now you have quoted a Church document saying one thing, and then have declared something that completely contradicts that statement based on your own opinions and your belief in Nuda Scriptura.

Because what you have said is an offensive remark for most Protestants who follow traditional liturgy and celebrate holy days like Christmas and Easter according to the traditional calendar of the Western Church, events which are clearly scriptural, but the dates for celebrating them are based on tradition and can vary between local churches (for example, the Armenians retain the ancient practice of celebrating Christmas together with the Baptism of our Lord on Theophany Sunday, January 6th, and in Jerusalem all Orthodox churches use the Julian Calendar exclusively for all feasts, meaning that while the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox churches that the Armenians are in full communion with celebrate on December 25th on the Julian Calendar in Jerusalem, whixh is January 7th on the Gregorian, the Armenians celebrate on January 18th on the Gregorian, because that is January 6th on the Julian, but only in Jerusalem.

But this part of the received tradition is clearly treated as important but not Scriptural, because the other Oriental Orthodox, and indeed, Armenians other than Hagiopolite Armenians (Jerusalem is known as the Hagiopolis, or Holy City) observe Christmas on other dates, which can be almost a month earlier in the case of the Syriac Orthodox churches, or eleven days earlier in the case of the Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox, and fwelve days earlier in the case of other Armenians, but all these churches are in full communion, sharing the Oriental flavor of the Orthodox faith.

 

[The Liturgist]

You wrote: "but can also, in a secondary sense, refer to the Scriptures"

I believe that's the way it was being used by @Clare73. And is certainly they way it's used by me. As in words written through God.

I think it should be a forgone conclusion that when someone refers to scripture as "the word of God", they are not saying scripture is Jesus. Or are applying John 1:1-18 to the term. Rather than there always being an argument over it.

In a very large number of cases where liturgical Christians talk about the Word they are referring to Christ, and all instances of the phrase I have encountered in Scripture can be interpreted as either referring only to Christ or as having a Christological meaning in addition to a Scriptural one. This is because Jesus Christ, the Word of God, is God, and reveals God to us, just as the Scripture reveals Jesus Christ to us, but if we called it the Word of the Word that would violate the deity of Christ.

If someone only wants to refer to the Bible or its contents, the Sacred Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and exclude a Christological interpretation, they should use those words and not “the Word of God.”

As an example, the United Methodist denial that Scripture is the Word of God but rather contains the Word of God was once preached upon greatly by an Elder (Pastor, Presbyter or often “Minister” in Methodist parlance, but officially they are called elders, because that is what Presbyter, the Greek word Anglicized as Priest, uses, reflecting John Wesley’s Anglicanism and his desire to use the words that Priest and Bishop translated as, namely Elder and Superintendentent, to avoid confusion) I knew who told me he had substantial doubt about the Nicene Creed declaring Jesus Christ to be of one essence with the Father, which is an admission of Arianism, since Arianism is literally defined as denying the consubstantiality of the Father from the Son, and thus that Jesus Christ is fully God and one with the Father as we are taught in the Gospel according to John.

Since Jesus Christ is the Word, and the Word is God, the Word cannot be contained, so to use a statement like “Scripture contains the Word of God” becomes hugely problematic. Their goal was to avoid saying all of Scripture was the Inspired Word of God, because they believed, as do many, that for example, the minor differences between the Gospels, certain imprecatory Psalms and so on are a result of a human input which is fallible, even though there is also inspired divine material. I myself believe Scripture is the inspired word of God that describes the incarnate Word, who is God, but even if I took the more liberal Methodist view I would object to the use of the word “contained.” There were times when Jesus Christ was paradoxically contained despite being uncontained, for example, when God the Son was contained in the womb of Our Glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary, and later on, following His Passion, when He was contained within the Tomb, but since His Resurrection, it is clear He is no longer contained, as demonstrated by His ability to enter rooms with closed doors, which he perhaps could have done before the Resurrection (since He did walk on water), but did not do so; thus His containment can be regarded as voluntary. But the statement the Methodists use does not bother to explain this, so if someone heard that and then read John 1:1-18, they could become greatly confused.

I have on occasion encountered people who thought John 1:1-18 was about the Bible and not about our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, in whom God the Father is revealed to us, and who sent us God the Holy Spirit as our Comforter and Paraclete, three persons in one Holy and Undivided Trinity (a phrase which is fully accurate yet not found in the Bible, which is a fact abused by the Jehovah’s Witnesses).

This reflects the danger of Nuda Scriptura, in that it can be abused by people who want to deny the Trinity with cheap and obvious remarks while ignoring the content and exegetical meaning of the Scripture. This distortion of meaning is commonly employed by Arians like the J/Ws and presumably the UMC elder* and it can be shown to be false, since just because Scripture lacks the word Trinity does not mean that it does not teach the doctrine the word refers to, that the one God we worship abides in three coequal, uncreated and coeternal persons, the unoriginate Father, who begets the only-Begotten Son, and from whom proceeds the Holy Spirit.

But this shows us the danger of the idea of “that’s not in the Bible”, wherein the absence of a word used to refer to a Scriptural concept or an implicit rather than explicit statement or a doctrine based on multiple verses spanning scripture is abused to fallaciously claim that a doctrine or belief is unscriptural, when in fact it is, one simply must be familiar with scripture and not engage in eisegesis, the cherry picking of verses favorable to one’s beliefs.


*The UMC elder, as so many did, defying his denomination’s own teachings (this came to a head over the issue of sexual perversion last summer, and thus I am estranged from the Methodist church where I was baptized, which is presided over by a lesbian who according to the canons of the early church would be totally disqualified from being a presbyter or even as a reader or doorkeeper, for in the early years even doorkeepers were in Holy Orders, that is to say, ordained, and ranked above exorcists, who were the most numerous of those in Holy Orders, in terms of precedence, since guarding the doors even in the fourth and fifth centuries was vitally important, particularly when Holy Communion was celebrated, as throughout most of the fourth century the church was persecuted by Rome after a brief respite during the reign of the Christian Emperor Constantine, since Eusebius of Nicomedia, a bishop who rejected the Council of Nicaea and supported Arius, ingratiated himself into the Imperial court, convinced St. Constantine to pardon Arian on the false claim Arius had recanted (he had not), and later converted the heir to the throne, Constantius, to Arianism, which resulted in several decades in which Christian clergy who taught Jesus Christ was God Incarnate were persecuted by non-Christian Arians who rejected it.

 

[ozso]

Provide a source for the words you added to De Verbum, please, because right now you have quoted a Church document saying one thing, and then have declared something that completely contradicts that statement based on your own opinions and your belief in Nuda Scriptura.

I know what nuda scriptura is and I don't believe in it. You are completely 100% wrong in that assumption. At the most I believe in Prima Scriptura. Evidence: Here

I am quite frankly sick and tired of your numerous false assumptions about me and the false accusations you make aginst me baed on your false assumptions.

Stop doing that please.

My summation following De Verbum is just that, a superate summation, NOT an addition!

Also I don't see how what I said could reasonably be described as offensive. Except unless you're adding on that I'm saying tradition is bad, or wrong or evil. Which I never have. If you've come to that conclusion, it's based on ASSUMING, rather than based on what I have said. I am quite sure that I have never condemned tradition.

Because what you have said is an offensive remark for most Protestants who follow traditional liturgy and celebrate holy days like Christmas and Easter according to the traditional calendar of the Western Church, events which are clearly scriptural, but the dates for celebrating them are based on tradition and can vary between local churches (for example, the Armenians retain the ancient practice of celebrating Christmas together with the Baptism of our Lord on Theophany Sunday, January 6th, and in Jerusalem all Orthodox churches use the Julian Calendar exclusively for all feasts, meaning that while the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox churches that the Armenians are in full communion with celebrate on December 25th on the Julian Calendar in Jerusalem, whixh is January 7th on the Gregorian, the Armenians celebrate on January 18th on the Gregorian, because that is January 6th on the Julian, but only in Jerusalem.

But this part of the received tradition is clearly treated as important but not Scriptural, because the other Oriental Orthodox, and indeed, Armenians other than Hagiopolite Armenians (Jerusalem is known as the Hagiopolis, or Holy City) observe Christmas on other dates, which can be almost a month earlier in the case of the Syriac Orthodox churches, or eleven days earlier in the case of the Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox, and fwelve days earlier in the case of other Armenians, but all these churches are in full communion, sharing the Oriental flavor of the Orthodox faith.

I am taking about traditions, practices and doctrines that are not clearly taught in scripture. Not what date a tradition is observed on.

 

[ozso]

In a very large number of cases where liturgical Christians talk about the Word they are referring to Christ, and all instances of the phrase I have encountered in Scripture can be interpreted as either referring only to Christ or as having a Christological meaning in addition to a Scriptural one. This is because Jesus Christ, the Word of God, is God, and reveals God to us, just as the Scripture reveals Jesus Christ to us, but if we called it the Word of the Word that would violate the deity of Christ.

If someone only wants to refer to the Bible or its contents, the Sacred Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and exclude a Christological interpretation, they should use those words and not “the Word of God.”

As an example, the United Methodist denial that Scripture is the Word of God but rather contains the Word of God was once preached upon greatly by an Elder (Pastor, Presbyter or often “Minister” in Methodist parlance, but officially they are called elders, because that is what Presbyter, the Greek word Anglicized as Priest, uses, reflecting John Wesley’s Anglicanism and his desire to use the words that Priest and Bishop translated as, namely Elder and Superintendentent, to avoid confusion) I knew who told me he had substantial doubt about the Nicene Creed declaring Jesus Christ to be of one essence with the Father, which is an admission of Arianism, since Arianism is literally defined as denying the consubstantiality of the Father from the Son, and thus that Jesus Christ is fully God and one with the Father as we are taught in the Gospel according to John.

Since Jesus Christ is the Word, and the Word is God, the Word cannot be contained, so to use a statement like “Scripture contains the Word of God” becomes hugely problematic. Their goal was to avoid saying all of Scripture was the Inspired Word of God, because they believed, as do many, that for example, the minor differences between the Gospels, certain imprecatory Psalms and so on are a result of a human input which is fallible, even though there is also inspired divine material. I myself believe Scripture is the inspired word of God that describes the incarnate Word, who is God, but even if I took the more liberal Methodist view I would object to the use of the word “contained.” There were times when Jesus Christ was paradoxically contained despite being uncontained, for example, when God the Son was contained in the womb of Our Glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary, and later on, following His Passion, when He was contained within the Tomb, but since His Resurrection, it is clear He is no longer contained, as demonstrated by His ability to enter rooms with closed doors, which he perhaps could have done before the Resurrection (since He did walk on water), but did not do so; thus His containment can be regarded as voluntary. But the statement the Methodists use does not bother to explain this, so if someone heard that and then read John 1:1-18, they could become greatly confused.

I have on occasion encountered people who thought John 1:1-18 was about the Bible and not about our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, in whom God the Father is revealed to us, and who sent us God the Holy Spirit as our Comforter and Paraclete, three persons in one Holy and Undivided Trinity (a phrase which is fully accurate yet not found in the Bible, which is a fact abused by the Jehovah’s Witnesses).

This reflects the danger of Nuda Scriptura, in that it can be abused by people who want to deny the Trinity with cheap and obvious remarks while ignoring the content and exegetical meaning of the Scripture. This distortion of meaning is commonly employed by Arians like the J/Ws and presumably the UMC elder* and it can be shown to be false, since just because Scripture lacks the word Trinity does not mean that it does not teach the doctrine the word refers to, that the one God we worship abides in three coequal, uncreated and coeternal persons, the unoriginate Father, who begets the only-Begotten Son, and from whom proceeds the Holy Spirit.

But this shows us the danger of the idea of “that’s not in the Bible”, wherein the absence of a word used to refer to a Scriptural concept or an implicit rather than explicit statement or a doctrine based on multiple verses spanning scripture is abused to fallaciously claim that a doctrine or belief is unscriptural, when in fact it is, one simply must be familiar with scripture and not engage in eisegesis, the cherry picking of verses favorable to one’s beliefs.


*The UMC elder, as so many did, defying his denomination’s own teachings (this came to a head over the issue of sexual perversion last summer, and thus I am estranged from the Methodist church where I was baptized, which is presided over by a lesbian who according to the canons of the early church would be totally disqualified from being a presbyter or even as a reader or doorkeeper, for in the early years even doorkeepers were in Holy Orders, that is to say, ordained, and ranked above exorcists, who were the most numerous of those in Holy Orders, in terms of precedence, since guarding the doors even in the fourth and fifth centuries was vitally important, particularly when Holy Communion was celebrated, as throughout most of the fourth century the church was persecuted by Rome after a brief respite during the reign of the Christian Emperor Constantine, since Eusebius of Nicomedia, a bishop who rejected the Council of Nicaea and supported Arius, ingratiated himself into the Imperial court, convinced St. Constantine to pardon Arian on the false claim Arius had recanted (he had not), and later converted the heir to the throne, Constantius, to Arianism, which resulted in several decades in which Christian clergy who taught Jesus Christ was God Incarnate were persecuted by non-Christian Arians who rejected it.

This seems to be a personal pet peeve with you. And I'm going to leave it as such.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

However, if there is a tradition or practice that is not clearly taught in scripture, then the authority of tradition takes precedent, in order for it to be official. Which puts tradition in the position of being a grater authority than scripture.

You ought to realise that what you wrote is not true, sacred Tradition is interpretive it is not, generally speaking, revelatory. The only Tradition that is revelatory is that which comes from Jesus Christ himself. He is the Word of God, he is God's revealer.

 

[ozso]

You ought to realise that what you wrote is not true, sacred Tradition is interpretive it is not, generally speaking, revelatory. The only Tradition that is revelatory is that which comes from Jesus Christ himself. He is the Word of God, he is God's revealer.

So what is to be said regarding traditions as in beliefs, practices and doctrines that Jesus and His Apostles never directly taught?

What takes precedent regarding those matters? Jesus or the decision of a counsel that was held hundreds of years later?

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

So what is to be said regarding traditions as in beliefs, practices and doctrines that Jesus and His Apostles never directly taught?

No such thing exists in the Dogma of the Catholic Church.

 

[ozso]

No such thing exists in the Dogma of the Catholic Church.

I never used the word dogma in this thread.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

I never used the word dogma in this thread.

you should have because it is the dogmas of the faith that are to be believed.

 

[ozso]

you should have because it is the dogmas of the faith that are to be believed.

That doesn't answer the question you replied to.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

That doesn't answer the question you replied to.

and?

 

[ozso]

and?

I don't understand the question.

 

[The Liturgist]

I know what nuda scriptura is and I don't believe in it. You are completely 100% wrong in that assumption. At the most I believe in Prima Scriptura. Evidence: Here

You say that, but your evidence is your having said that. So if that’s what you want to call your beliefs, fine, that is your prerogative.

However, the fact is that you have repeatedly berated the Roman Catholic church for traditions “which aren’t in the Bible”, which is representative of the idea of the Sole Sufficiency of Scripture, which along with Perspicuity of Scripture, is one of two positions that make up the Solo Scriptura or Nuda Scriptura concept.

Most people agree that the Roman Catholic Church adheres to Prima Scriptura, because the Roman Catholic Church officially recognizes Sacred Scripture as being authoritative over the Magisterium and can provide scriptural backing for all of their doctrine which is shared with the Orthodox Church, and furthermore attempts to provide scriptural backing for the rest, in some cases adopting scriptural arguments which resemble those of Protestantism in that they ignore the Patristic interpretation of those verses, particularly by Greek, Alexandrian and Syrian fathers who led what are now the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches.

So whereas the Orthodox would never accept a scriptural argument that disagrees with what Calvinists call the Consensus Patrum, that is, the consensus of the Fathers which became the received Tradition of the Orthodox Church and which is reflected in our liturgical books and hymnals and our canon law, and certain other books we regard as of great importance such as the writings of St. Athanasius, St. John of Damascus and the 18th century anthology of fourth through I think roughly the fifteenth century Patristic writings* known as the Philokalia (with a “k”, the Philocalia with a “C” is a collection of the more important and less controversial writings of Origen, compiled by the Cappadocian Fathers in the Fourth Century), the Roman Catholics actively make arguments which disagree with Patristic cases, in some cases, even of Latin fathers such as St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. John Cassian, St. Vincent of Lerins, St. Isidore of Seville, and even a controversial remark by Pope St. Gregory the Great (who is extremely popular in the Orthodox Church).

Thus part of the reason why your argument that the Roman Catholic Church rejects Prima Scriptura is obviously wrong from my perspective is because Catholics make some arguments in support of their doctrines without regard to the Patristic consensus, and engage in some practices which contradict those of the early church, and their own ancient praxis, and indeed began to move in this direction with the emergence of the “Scholastic” era of theologians in the late first millenium (Roman Catholics believe St. John of Damascus was the last Church Father whereas the Orthodox do not, ascribing Patristic status to the likes of St. Symeon the New and St. Gregory Palamas, and even more recent figures such as St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite, St. Macarius of Corinth, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, and St. Seraphim of Sarov, who is beloved in the same way Western Christians love St. Francis of Assisi, for example, his love of nature and of animals, although the two saints were very different, with St. Seraphim, after his legs failed him, ceasing to be the priest for the famous convent in Sarov and retiring instead to a hermit in the nearby woods to pray, where he would open the window of his hermit to visit with people and animals that would come to see him. These are church fathers to the Orthodox. Although we do not regard the writings of any individual church father to be infallible, but rather those writings which were received by the Church and which are reflected in our liturgical books, hymnals and canon law.
* I am not sure how far the Philokalia goes, because Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, memory eternal, reposed before, as far as I am aware, completing the translation of Volume V of the Philokalia with Mother Mary, and the only version of the Philokalia I have seen which goes past that point is a partial translation of the Romanian Philokalia which is incomplete, although it has some additional material the Romanians later included which was absent from the earlier Athonite Philokalia.

 

[Clare73]

Jesus Christ, who we know is the Word because of John 1:1-18.

No, its not a mistranslation. According to John 1:1-18 it refers to Jesus Christ, who is therefore Only Begotten Son and Word of God. It secondarily can refer to scripture insofar as Jesus Christ is both the Word of God and makes God known, and all Scripture as we learn at the end of Luke (in which it revealed that all the books of what we call the Old Testament were about Him, and clearly all the books of the New Testament are about Him) makes Jesus Christ, the Word of God, who is also God known, it would therefore be incorrect to speak of the Bible as “the Word of the Word”, so therefore we can instead say this phrased whenever it is used has a primary Christological meaning but can also, in a secondary sense, refer to the Scriptures.

As it does in Jn 10:35, as well as in Ac 12:24, 1 Th 2:13, 2 Tim 2:9, 1 Pe 1:23, 1 Jn 2:14.

Only where the word “Scripture” is used by itself do we know that the Bible is referring to itself specifically, and most consciously to the Old Testament, but these verses can also be applied to the New since the Church has made those books part of the Canon of Scripture (indeed, after much initial controversy, the New Testament canon has become one of the few things we all agree upon.

The apposition, "--and the Scripture cannot be broken--," adjunct to "the word of God," grammatically qualifies "the word of God" as "the Scripture," not as Christ, right?

Scripture is the Word in a secondary sense (one should not call it the Word of the Word, because Jesus Christ, the Word, is God, so words about Him or of Him are words of God), because all of it testifies about Him, even the Old Testament* and thus it represents our primary means of accessing His teachings when read and with the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church we confess in the creed, however one defines it (most Evangelicals and Fundamentalists either go for an invisible church or a local church ecclesiology, but Anglicans, the largest Protestant denomination, often follow a branch ecclesiology, while Lutherans, except for Pietists, liberals and crypto-Calvinists tend to follow an ecclesiology centered around orthodox worship as defined by Martin Luther, which was a pretty good summary of how traditional churches work, one of the many reasons why I have developed such a good friendship with LCMS and LCC members like @MarkRohfrietsch).

However all scriptural references I have seen that refer to the Word have a Christological interpretation, especially including John 10:35. But one can apply them to Scripture insofar as Scripture depicts Christ, like an icon, and in Christ God is revealed to us. However, Scripture is not uncreated or a divine person who became incarnate for our salvation.

The problem is that people elevate Scripture to being our supreme authority, when that station resides with Christ - Scripture records His life and works and prophecies of it, and the exposition of His Gospel by the Apostles, as well as eschatological prophecy, but it can be mistranslated, misinterpreted by ecclesiastical authorities and misunderstood by the laity, which is why it should always be read, whether privately or in divine worship, together with the Church (however one defines the Church) rather than apart from it.

This is clearly illustrated by the New Testament’s emphasis on the authority of the Apostolic Tradition in 1 Corinthians 11:6, 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and Galatians 1:8-9, which was recognized by the Sola Scriptura of Luther, Calvin, Cranmer and Wesley, all of whom, even Calvin, paid attention to tradition and Patristics, but not by the Nuda Scriptura approach we see associated with fundamentalism.

*See Luke ch. 24

 

[The Liturgist]

Are you saying Jn 10:35 refers to Christ?

The apposition, "--and the Scripture cannot be broken--," adjunct to "the word of God," qualifies "the word of God" as "the Scripture," not as Christ, right?

Yes, I would say John 10:35 refers to Christ more clearly than most such texts, particularly since it follows from John 1, and also since Christ did literally come, as the pre-incarnate Logos, to the people of Israel (it was He who delivered the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai; we can state this because God the Father is clearly stated at the beginning of John to have not been seen except through the Son, and we know of only two cases where it was definitely the Father who was heard, at the Baptism of Christ and the Transfiguration, and also, more importantly, Moses interacted with God vis-a-vis, which indicates that it was clearly the Logos.

Now, the Pharisees probably did not understand this reference, but they might have, particularly if He said “Memra” in Aramaic (which St. John probably used as the basis for translating as Logos, particularly once he was made aware of the use of the word Logos by the Hellenic philosophers, which was conveniently similar although not exactly the same).

The sentence clearly establishes that the Scriptures originated with the Word, and that happened on Mount Sinai and involved the person of Christ. Thus, John 10:35 when it refers to the Word of God and the Scriptures in the same breath is not being redundant, but is rather explaining the Christological origin of the Torah, which makes quite a lot of sense given Luke 24:25-27 and Luke 24:44-46 .

The difficulty with the interpretation you present is that it literally contradicts the definition of the Word provided in John 1, so if we accepted it, we would be accepting that the Holy Apostle John, the Evangelist, Beloved Disciple and Theologian contradicted himself within the first ten chapters of his Gospel, and it also is redundant, since in many other places our Lord simply says “the Scriptures” or “the Law” without using the more complex phrase “the Word of God.” So when we consider that, and also where the basis of the Scriptures came from, the vis a vis interactions between Jesus Christ and Moses on Mount Sinai, I think the Christological understanding of that passage is clear.

Indeed it could well be that St. John identifies Jesus Christ as the Logos because of this saying of our Lord, since He in the same chapter where He identifies Himself as one with the Father, and in the same Pericope where he indirectly states that He is the Son of God, refers to the Word of God in the same manner, so that one can easily deduce that He was referring to Himself as the Son and Word of God who is with God (and is God), which we see expressed clearly in John 1.

There are other texts in Scripture where the Christological meaning is less adroit and less important than in John 10:35, but John 10;35 is really at the top of the list, I would argue, in terms of its imperative Christological context, which is ironic because it is also the verse that people use to try to proof-text the idea that the phrase “the word of God” mainly refers to Scripture (which is an untenable position in light of John chapter 1; Scripture is only the word insofar as it describes Jesus Christ, who is God and who is the incarnate Word of God; we cannot call Scripture the word of the Word for the reasons of avoiding Arianism and of denying the deity of Christ, so the result is a phrase which has more than a single meaning, something not actually that uncommon in the Greek text of the New Testament, since many Greek words have multiple meanings which are often used together in a compound way, which is what gives that language so much expressiveness and makes it so ideal for theological writing.

 

[Clare73]

Yes, I would say John 10:35 refers to Christ more clearly than most such texts,

And I would say the difficulty with your interpretation is the actual grammar of the text itself (post #70).

Is this really The Liturgist?

 

[ozso]

You say that, but your evidence is your having said that. So if that’s what you want to call your beliefs, fine, that is your prerogative.

However, the fact is that you have repeatedly berated the Roman Catholic church for traditions “which aren’t in the Bible”, which is representative of the idea of the Sole Sufficiency of Scripture, which along with Perspicuity of Scripture, is one of two positions that make up the Solo Scriptura or Nuda Scriptura concept.

Most people agree that the Roman Catholic Church adheres to Prima Scriptura, because the Roman Catholic Church officially recognizes Sacred Scripture as being authoritative over the Magisterium and can provide scriptural backing for all of their doctrine which is shared with the Orthodox Church, and furthermore attempts to provide scriptural backing for the rest, in some cases adopting scriptural arguments which resemble those of Protestantism in that they ignore the Patristic interpretation of those verses, particularly by Greek, Alexandrian and Syrian fathers who led what are now the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches.

So whereas the Orthodox would never accept a scriptural argument that disagrees with what Calvinists call the Consensus Patrum, that is, the consensus of the Fathers which became the received Tradition of the Orthodox Church and which is reflected in our liturgical books and hymnals and our canon law, and certain other books we regard as of great importance such as the writings of St. Athanasius, St. John of Damascus and the 18th century anthology of fourth through I think roughly the fifteenth century Patristic writings* known as the Philokalia (with a “k”, the Philocalia with a “C” is a collection of the more important and less controversial writings of Origen, compiled by the Cappadocian Fathers in the Fourth Century), the Roman Catholics actively make arguments which disagree with Patristic cases, in some cases, even of Latin fathers such as St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. John Cassian, St. Vincent of Lerins, St. Isidore of Seville, and even a controversial remark by Pope St. Gregory the Great (who is extremely popular in the Orthodox Church).

Thus part of the reason why your argument that the Roman Catholic Church rejects Prima Scriptura is obviously wrong from my perspective is because Catholics make some arguments in support of their doctrines without regard to the Patristic consensus, and engage in some practices which contradict those of the early church, and their own ancient praxis, and indeed began to move in this direction with the emergence of the “Scholastic” era of theologians in the late first millenium (Roman Catholics believe St. John of Damascus was the last Church Father whereas the Orthodox do not, ascribing Patristic status to the likes of St. Symeon the New and St. Gregory Palamas, and even more recent figures such as St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite, St. Macarius of Corinth, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, and St. Seraphim of Sarov, who is beloved in the same way Western Christians love St. Francis of Assisi, for example, his love of nature and of animals, although the two saints were very different, with St. Seraphim, after his legs failed him, ceasing to be the priest for the famous convent in Sarov and retiring instead to a hermit in the nearby woods to pray, where he would open the window of his hermit to visit with people and animals that would come to see him. These are church fathers to the Orthodox. Although we do not regard the writings of any individual church father to be infallible, but rather those writings which were received by the Church and which are reflected in our liturgical books, hymnals and canon law.
* I am not sure how far the Philokalia goes, because Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, memory eternal, reposed before, as far as I am aware, completing the translation of Volume V of the Philokalia with Mother Mary, and the only version of the Philokalia I have seen which goes past that point is a partial translation of the Romanian Philokalia which is incomplete, although it has some additional material the Romanians later included which was absent from the earlier Athonite Philokalia.

Sorry but that's way too much data for me, and probably most anyone else, to sort through to figure out what your point is.