From Jerusalem to the uttermost parts of the Earth.

Distraction and discouragement must happen but I surely won’t encourage it. I have a great deal of hope.

Don

As one who calls himself an Anglo Catholic, I consider us to be both Confessional and Conciliar.

Hey, Cenny, is it just a Weshman that can live with such dichotomies? Or, is it the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
My response in “1.” was made because whenever I have run across those making the arguement of “non-agreement” on the history and essence of Anglicanism is because they like division - they would like to see a divide. I appreciate Dean Munday giving a cogent reply. My own idea that most of the problem lies in the failure to acknowlege that the “39 Articles” addressed the common problems of their time by defining the means to good teaching and churchmanship. Though not strictly a confession of faith, they point the way to a good confession of faith.

I consider myself fortunate to have grown up in a church where members were actually to know and remain within the 39 Articles (save the political ones).

But I do not consider myself an Anglo-catholic.

Don

AC folk can not be confessional since they really do not believe all of the articles.  That is why Bishop Duncan says Anglicanism is not confessional.  Protestant types do not think they need councils: they have the Bible and the Confession.

If there is to be a confession in the new Anglican Communion it will have to be a new one that AC can sign on to.

4. Eugene:

“Protestant types do not think they need councils: they have the Bible and the Confession.”

I used to think in a like manner, myself, but I found that you get any good sola Scriptura protestant in a difficult theological spot and it was always with a wry humor on my part that I watched them reach back into history (&/or councils) for support or an answer.

As for this Protestant, I think yours a caricature of what a Protestant is.

Besides, the Articles address the auithority of councils.

Don

Here we go again. More of my co-religionists arguing before they’re familiar with the texts. Might I suggest that before the argument becomes personal and ad hominem, why not study the actual histories of the General or Oecumenical Councils of the Church. A good place to begin is The Church In Crisis, A History of the General Councils 325-1870 by Philip Hughes. Or, The Creeds of Christendom by Philipp Schaff. Our English Reformers were eminently familiar with the histories of the early Church Councils and could read Latin and Greek sources in the original languages, some of them had even mastery of Occidental languages including Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. It might surprise some of you but these men weren’t knuckle-draggers.

Thanks DG (#5) for the rejoinder.  I agree that I described a hard core Protestant position and that early reformers were more nuanced in their view of councils etc.  But I do not think that I am wrong about ACs.  They really can not accept the 39 articles as written in our 79 PB or any of the earlier editions.  That is why I feel that a new confession must be written if there is to be a confessional statement in a united new Anglican Communion.

What must there be a choice?  This is to diminishe the fullness of the Church.  Anglicans whould be Creedal, Sacramental, Confessional (though not polemical), Conciliar (the college of bishops held to a higher standard), and most importantly: hold to the necessity of spiritual regeneration by the Holy Spirit through Faith to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God.  This means a return to Cranmer’s catholic understanding of Baptism.

I think it’s unfair to categorize all Anglo Catholics as not believing the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion.  In my mind, they are not so much a confession of faith as they are a guide to live by.

Pusey was Anglo Catholic. He helped define the term, and he could accept the Articles, interpreting them in a less Calvinist fashion.

Don Gander wrote: “I used to think in a like manner, myself, but I found that you get any good sola Scriptura protestant in a difficult theological spot and it was always with a wry humor on my part that I watched them reach back into history (&/or councils) for support or an answer. “

Don, you want those Prods to “prove” their beliefs and they turn to history, scripture, and the councils. Before you scorn them, answer this: “prove” to me the validity of your councils. Last I knew the closest anyone came to “proving” anything was Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. If you’re looking for proofs, I wonder if you’re not floating in the same little leaky bath tub as the protestants?

Reformed Christians do not think of the Church Councils as an other soruce of truth other than the Bible but as Holy-Spirit led occasions when the actual meaning or necessary implication of the Bible wrt the Trinity or Christology was determined. The Articles do say ‘Councils can err’.

If you’re looking for proofs, I wonder if you’re not floating in the same little leaky bath tub as the protestants?

justinmartyr, I think you are missing Don’s point. It is, I think, pretty much what you said, except turned as a point made against Sola Scriptura. We are all in the same boat in terms of needing to back up the validity of the Bible or the councils by appeals to history. And history is another form of Tradition. Tradition is a form of History, it is the church’s history, which passes down to us the larger contexts of both an individual practice in the church and a passage of Scripture.

What Don was saying is that protestants have to appeal to the history contained in our Tradition just as catholics do. The problem is that catholics know this while many protestants will not admit it.

Gordian, might I ask what level of authority you think should be given to the Councils? That is, what level of proof do you believe necessary to demonstrate that they are wrong in this or that before you can dismiss them? I am assuming you are not dismissing their authority altogether. Saying that Councils can err is not the same as saying that their judgment is no better than mine.

Chris, I don’t know a single protestant who doesn’t try to view scripture in light of its historical context. I think that you shortchange sola scriptura when you assume it implies such. Protestants are not history averse (okay, some are idiots, but not all of them). They are human-skeptics. All have sinned, including those who make the footprints that are ultimately called tradition. I have to respectfully disagree that “history is another form of tradition” or that “tradition ...is the church’s history.” History, like the present, is populated with a range of people who had a multitude of views, most of them contradictory. The ones that win out become church or other tradition. (Note that I am not making a truth judgment here, just an observation.)

Protestants rely on reason (hopefully guided by Spiritus Sanctus) to interpret Holy Writ. The irony is that Catholics, who criticize reason in favor of ecclesial consensus and tradition, rely on it, albeit in a circular fashion. Tradition is simply the reasonings and truth claims of past human beings interpreting Scripture or historical documents. And each and every human being makes a truth judgment when they decide if the claims and traditions of the church are reasonable and valid. Catholics do it once for all traditions, protestants do it on a case by case basis. FOR BOTH PERSONAL REASON IS THEIR ULTIMATE DECIDER.

Also, the claim that church tradition and interpretation are time-tested and more likely to be valid than present decision is not entirely true. You have to remember that when those interpretations were adopted the truth claims didn’t have the shiny patina of centuries to back them up. They were new and determined to be true based on their persuasiveness.

Tradition can never replace reason to determine truth. It is itself simply the reasoning of those that came before.

Saying that Councils can err is not the same as saying that their judgment is no better than mine.

You’re dizzying me with your circular logic. Do you see that you used personal reason to determine that the reasoning of the council is better than your own reasoning? To what reason are you appealing to to show Gordian the error of his ways?

justinmartyr, your illogic does not make me dizzy. I am used to other’s inability to distinguish between predicates. Of course I used my own personal reason. I used to to conclude, through deductive reasoning, that my reason is not the ONLY reason, and that superior levels of reason can be reasonably imagined and that the reasoning of groups and of elders is relatively superior to that of a young individual. If I see a man with multiple PhDs in a given field in which I have only begun to study it is not unreasonable to suppose that his judgments in this field are more trustworthy than mine. This doesn’t mean he is right, for all men are fallible. But universal fallibility doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t respect greater knowledge or that the adage “Two heads are better than one” shouldn’t hold some weight for me to restrain my natural inclination to believe that my thoughts are identical with Truth.

What part of this do you find hard to understand?

Regarding the superiority of Reason over Tradition: It is an empiriical observation that the young often think they know more than their elders, which conciet they usually begin to lose when they get older. Putting Tradition over Reason, while understanding that you must do this through reason (and Hooker well understood the dual nature of Reason as a source of Truth and as a process) is the church’s way of admitting that its own present reasoning is no less fallible than that of other ages and that correcting it by judging it by the collective reasoning of the ages is the best path toward Truth, and toward keeping on that path.

Protestants are not history averse. They are human-skeptics. All have sinned, including those who make the footprints that are ultimately called tradition.

C.S. Lewis once said that he wasn’t calling for less scepticism, but MORE. He wanted us to be sceptical of the sceptics. What I find in historians who dismiss the evidence of tradition is a conciet that they can resurrect the past all by themselves. There is this myth in the soft science that we can, CSI like, ignore fallible eyewitnesses and ascertain the truth based upon physical evidence (this is even a bit of a myth in forensics). Most historical evidence is some kind of eyewitness or close reporting of eyewitness accounts. With what do hsitorians filter the historical evidence except the ideological template that they possess? And where did they get that template?

I prefer a historical reasoning that is open and honest about what is the chain of witnesses it relies upon to build up its contextual understanding with which it annalyzes and critiques other historical questions.

From your response I think that we agree more than we differ. I concur with your argument for the persuasiveness and credibility of tradition or experience. I am not against tradition, but its deification. Like Hooker I believe in the importance of exercising personal reason and decision, where necessary in opposition to established tradition. I was reacting against the vile, cult-like censorship of reason by some in catholic circles, those of the “each man his own pope” school.

I prefer a historical reasoning that is open and honest about what is the chain of witnesses it relies upon to build up its contextual understanding with which it annalyzes and critiques other historical questions.

Agreed.