I Thought I Understood Doctrinal Development... I Didn't
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- Doctrinal development is basically a cope for realizing doctrines aren't apostolic even though we said they were, right?
Well, it turns out that, as in most things, famous thinker's ideas aren't well-summarized in memes or comment sections.
St. John Henry Newman's famous "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine" has the poor luck of being a work that everyone thinks they understand without reading it because the thesis is so famous. For years, I put off reading it because it's long, and I thought I basically understood it. This was a mistake. It's one I hope you don't make either.
In this video, I give an overview of the book and focus on two of Newman's key criteria for determining valid development of doctrine.
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About the host:
Austin Suggs holds a BA in Theology from Moody Bible Institute and is currently pursuing an MA in Liberal Arts with a focus in Theology and Philosophy from St. John's College, Annapolis. He has served in the local church in a number of ways, including as a full-time staff member,, teacher, church planter, and more. Today, he resides outside of Baltimore with his wife Eliza.
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Great video. If you read the final conclusion of my book on the Papacy, you’ll see how much my view rests on an application of Newman’s point
If?! Erick, my friend, you underestimate me :)
Jokes aside, glad you liked the video!
The best analogy I've ever heard is Triangles.
Triangles. As children, we learn their shape, that they have three sides, and what they look like so we can draw it.
As we get older, in school we learn about trigonometry : angles, ratios (sine, cosine, tangent, secant, cosecant, cotangent), inverse functions, etc.
Then once you get even older, you can further deepen your understanding of triangles by applying trig to different fields and disciplines, such as astronomy, navigation, precise location triangulation, surveying, physics, architecture, acoustics, etc.
At the end of the day, you're still just dealing with the same thing you learned in kindergarten : triangles.
It's not a change ; it's a deepening understanding.
That’s a great insight! I’m stealing that for my middle school theology class
@Stygard happy to be of help. Just passing down what someone else taught to me. Glory to Jesus Christ
Wow, this analogy really blew my mind! Never thought about it that way.
Another way I like to put it: A change would be going from "yes" to "no," or from "no" to "yes." I.e. going from affirming a doctrine to then rejecting that same doctrine later.
A development/growth, on the other hand, is going from "yes" to "yes, because..." to "yes, because... and therefore..." i.e. you take a doctrine to its logical conclusion, leading to necessary consequences that must be affirmed because it is grounded in the original premise.
Properly understood, the Trinity is an equilateral triangle, pointing up. The filioque turns it into an acute isosceles triangle pointed down.
Excellent summary, Austin! It’s important to remember that Newman was not Catholic when he wrote his Essay on the Development of Doctrine. He was searching for answers to why Christianity of the early centuries looked and sounded different than later. So often, he acknowledged, Protestants did not accept the fact of doctrinal development, even though they were the beneficiaries of it. The first step in understanding development is to accept that it happens.
On a more appropriate and accurate terms, his discovery and realization of the development of doctrine has led him to Catholicism. As a matter of fact, he published his essay on it six weeks after he was received in the Catholic Church.
Development of doctrine is a way in which Catholic teaching has become more detailed and explicit over the centuries, while later statements of doctrine remain consistent with earlier statements.
This is probably the most succinct summary of the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.
Thank you! My goal was to do it justice without going on forever.
@@GospelSimplicity Totally wouldn’t have minded if you’d kept going, for what it’s worth!
Newman's work was very significant for me when I started learning more about church history and theology. One thing that I found out later of note is that Newman's ideas were not novel and can be found all the way back in the early church like in st Vincent of lerins work called the commonitorium.
I always thought Newman work was a negative response to saint vincent
@@esoterico7750 huh...interesting. I haven't run across that thought before and am a bit confused by it. Chapter 23 in the commonitorium deals with development of religious knowledge and he even uses the analogy of an infant growing into an adult (similar to Newman) to describe how religious knowledge grows. In both cases there is continuity of essence but also growth.
He says this in the video at 9:30
@@jess96154 St. Vincent of Lerins is awesome
You have my great respect Austin for being the only Protestant I've seen who actually honestly read it cover to cover.
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
Matthew 13: 31-32
The church is supposed to grow organically like a tree. Not stay static like a rock.
Speaking of rocks:
"...Upon this rock I _will build_ my church." (Matthew 16:18)
He does not say "will have built" - as He says of binding and loosing on earth: that it "will have been bound/loosed" in Heaven - but that He will build, and with no specified ending to that process of His building. The foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem are the Apostles... but what about the city built _up_ from there?
My new favourite video from this channel! (Now in second place: the video on Rituals you did some time ago).
Great work, Austin; a very fair treatment.
That rituals one is a throwback! I think the common denominator is me changing my mind, lol
As I have heard some priests put it, doctrinal development can often be thought of like the growth of a tree from an acorn. Everything right and true to the mature oak is there in the acorn, and we should therefore exercise wisdom and caution in pruning the mature tree, especially if we're trying to cram the tree back into the nut from which it sprang.
The question is... is it the same tree? or have things grown that shouldn't have? Is the DNA and emphasis the same? The acorn shares the same DNA as the oak tree.
@@pigetstuck Yes. The early church is the Catholic Church. God the Father Himself is the Vine Grower who prunes the bad branches (John 15:1-8). As it's been said, "the water is purest closet to the source."
Explain theheretical Pope then. If anything all the orthodox churches have a much better claim for that. @jarrahe
@channelMasterGuiGame Convert to Orthodoxy, then. It'd be 1000x better than to continue following any of protestantism's various flavors of man-made falsehoods.
@@jarrahe how do you recommend people determine which is the true church?
Newman makes a similar point about the Arians being scriptural literalists in his book Arians of the Fourth Century. He argues their heresy to be rooted in the more literalist Antiochian approach to Scripture, and Athanasius' defense of Christ's divinity to be rooted in the more mystical Alexandrian approach.
Yeah, great point. But not only that: St Athanasius consistently affirms the divinity of Our Lord through the catholic reading of Scripture (“catholic” as it was used back then, which is often how the documents of the Catholic Church use the word “catholic” when referencing a sense of Biblical interpretation that is “kata holos”, that means “according to the whole”, an idea by which the correct interpretation needs to search for universality not only in geographical or temporal senses (all peoples and all ages, despite particularities), but also for the integrity and the integrality of the one deposit of the faith, a thing by which the very idea of theological conclusions as deduction and expansion through clarification can only make too much sense, while the fragmentation and fossilization of Christian doctrine become biblically nonsensical). But, as said, not only that: St Athanasius also claimed the universal teachings of the bishops (that means, the ordinary and universal Magisterium) up to his own time to prove the divinity of Our Lord against the Arian bishops, as explaining - and serving - Scripture and Sacred Tradition accordingly, as he thought and taught to be so. St John Henry Newman simply knew St Athanasius was just “too Catholic” to be missed in his own studies. On the other hand, Arians and Semi-Arians were the ones who used the exegetical approach towards Scriptures (and only Scriptures) for their claims, accusing Catholic bishops and theologians of “paganism” and “unbiblical development” (accretion?). Does it sound familiar?
@@masterchief8179 Heretics use legitimate argument forms all the time. One could appeal to sedevacantists and their appeal to tradition, and say, "Look!". Or more troublingly, the Pharisees. Or to the various heresies that Iranaeus opposed, with their extra-biblical traditions. Pointing out a misuse of an entire form of argument doesn't invalidate the entire form.
Furthermore, very few Protestants have any huge quarrel with the church until ~450 A.D. and the rise of the papacy.
Finally, as a practical matter, appealing to tradition and church history as an accurate source of authority when you're living in the as yet unfallen Roman Empire and have all manner of now-lost sources is simply less prone to error than after picking up the pieces centuries later in the medieval era. To deny it is to sound like the one thing "worse" than us filthy Protestants, no, i.e. current liberal scholars.
"Arius was a committed theological conservative; more specifically, a conservative Alexandrian." - Williams, Rowan (2004). Arius: Heresy and Tradition.
The development of Arius' view was in reaction to a perceived revival of Sabbelianism and caught on in the Alexandrian Diocese before eventually spreading further afield. If the Alexandrian school of mystical interpretation is such a useful hermeneutic why was its namesake the incubation chamber of this very heresy? Wouldn't Arius have a hard time convincing people there of his view if their approach was ideal?
It's also interesting that the biggest Unitarian group today are Oneness Pentecostal's who, as a charismatic movement, are all too open to a mystical view on things. This is followed by the JW's who have modified the text of Scripture to fit their view, followed by lesser known Restorationist groups that use claims of Prophethood and other cultish means of persuasion.
@zacdredge3859 I cannot dispute Bishop Williams' thesis, not yet having read his book. I can say with some certainty, however, that Cardinal Newman would.
"...it is of far less consequence, as it is less certain, whether Arianism be of Jewish origin, than whether it arose at Antioch; which is the point principally insisted on in the foregoing pages. For in proportion as it is traced to Antioch, so is the charge of originating it, removed from the great Alexandrian school, upon which various enemies of our Apostolical Church have been eager to fasten it."
"Arians of the Fouth Century," Section 1
@tbekoam I concur. The issue about the rival Schools (of Antioch and Alexandria) can relate to the fact that Arius was a presbyter (priest) in Alexandria, so it can make Williams assume he is a kind of perversion of the Alexandrian school. It is hard to tell with microscopic precision, since the writings of Arius were put to the fire, but everything recorded of him suggests - I think - that he isn’t the allegorist, but the literalist type of thinker, more in opposition than in adherence to the Alexandrian typical way of theologizing. So I honestly believe the quarrel Arius had with St Alexander, Patriarch of Alexandria (and then with the great St Athanasius), isn’t actually a dissension on how to interpret the allegorical realm of Scriptures vis-a-vis the Alexandrian way, because Arius probably was the genuine literalist against Alexander (according to Socrates of Constantinople, or “Socrates Scholasticus”, a Greek Church historian of the 5th century), even accusing him of Sabellianism, because, if the Son was generated, there must be a time when He was not, as Socrates Scholasticus describes concerning the Arian perspective. Socrates of Constantinople EXPRESSLY says that he believes Arius derived his theology from Lucian of Antioch: not that Lucian was a heretic, but that Arius probably got his sense of biblical exegesis from Lucian.
As a Catholic, thank you for this!
I didn't know much about Newman before I became a Catholic after being a Baptist for more than 40 years. It all started with my reading the Church Fathers. Behind their writings, their agreements and disagreements I saw the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church staring at me and inviting me. I could not resist its Mother voice.
"But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.
For, amen, I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them: and to hear the things that you hear and have not heard them." (Matthew 13:16-17)
Great breakdown of fairly heady stuff. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Austin, this video came at a really good time! I'm about 100 pages shy of finishing this book and I've really enjoyed it. Newman's insistence on the mystical interpretation and how that plays out in history is fascinating, especially with Theodore of Mopsuestia's extremely literal interpretation of Scripture and the Nestorian controversy. I've also found Newman's treatment of the Vincentine Canon to be well-argued. Definitely glad I got this book!
Great video about one of my favorite modern works by one of my favorite saints. I dare say I wouldn't be catholic if it were not for this work. Still shapes my thinking and has had a monumental influence on the life of the Church. St John Henry Newman, Ora pro nobis.
All the Catholic: So will you convert, Austin?
Austin: Probably not.
Several other protestants: I really hadn't heard it put the way Austin did. I might convert.
Jesus: 😂
hahahaha I've definitely seen this play out
Logical development which gets us to the third and fourth Marian dogmas:
1) Mary is the new Eve
2) Eve was created sinless.
3) Because antitypes are superior to their types, Mary must have been created sinless (Immaculate Conception)
4) Because Mary is held to have remained sinless, and since death and decay are the consequence of sin, she was not subject to the grave (Assumption).
Except Mary did rest in the grave for a brief time before the Assumption (The Dormition).
Where does "Mary is the new Eve" come from? And where does the idea that Mary remained sinless come from?
I don't see any clear evidence for either doctrine in scripture, and I'm not aware of any passage teaching either in the Apostolic Fathers. And if you can't even find the seeds of a doctrine in the Apostolic era, it seems grossly irresponsible to elevate that doctrine to the level of a dogma.
@@stephengray1344 Justin Martyr just off the top of my head calls Mary the new eve. You can find quite a bit on that from tradition.
Jesus never calls Mary "mom" or by her name. He calls her "Woman" which is the name that Adam gave Eve before she commits sin. When God finds the serpent in the garden he says he will bestow a woman whose offspring will crush his head. (This prophecy is referring to Mary.)
@haronsmith8974 how is Mary "he"?
@@kazager11 “And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
The woman in this prophecy is Mary. Woman as we discussed earlier was what Adam named the new eve. Her offspring is Jesus. He is the one that strikes the head of the serpent.
Very interesting to watch as a Latter-day Saint.
I need to read the original but I think a critical question is "what are the necessary qualifications for an authorized arbiter of doctrinal development?"
The qualifications are still the same as they were since the first generation after the apostles: the collective voice of the successors to the apostles who are acting in concert with the successor to Peter.
I am strongly recommending again that you bring Christian Wagner on to talk about this. He has the most content in regard to this and is very informed about the subject.
I'd be happy to talk to him about it
Facts, he’s very knowledgeable
It would be great to see Christian Wagner here on this topic.
@@GospelSimplicity Great to hear! He said you can DM or email him.
@@MerePleb True!
I'm glad that other Protestants are also interested in Newman and his thought. The subject fascinated me enough to devote my master's thesis in theology to it. I first describe Newman's theory of doctrinal development, then summarize the history of its reception, and finally make a critique of it from a classically Protestant position, exposing seven key problems with it. Within a few years I intend to publish a revised, improved and expanded version of my work in the form of a book.
Sounds fascinating!
Austin, the work you put into understanding concepts is remarkable.
My wife would laugh at me for saying this, but that's genuinely one of my favorite things to do.
One of the interesting things is that Newman wrote the Essay in the course of his final year or so towards conversion to the Catholic Church. In a sense, at least in taking the final step, he convinced himself of the Catholic Church in writing this work.
Newman's point about mystical interpretation being essential to orthodoxy was one of the key stumbling blocks for me in Protestantism. Because it became really obvious that it just simply wasn't the case that, using a standard reading of texts, you could absolutely exclude all the interpretations (or even most of the interpretations) of the Bible the orthodox want to exclude. How much God is Christ? The orthodox think there's basically only one answer here: fully God. But also fully man. But a person off the street, with no commitment to Christianity or any sense of its interpretative tradition, could absolutely come to any number of different conclusions just from reading the text. But those conclusions are excluded. Or at least they are by the Protestants most intent on Sola Scriptura. Lots of protestants in more theologically liberal communities, with less attachment to the reformation principles as such, are perfectly willing to allow more diversity in Christology or Trinitarian theology. And I'd say they're right, if what we're doing is just using ordinary interpretative principles to read a text. But that's not what we're doing. We're reading through the eyes of faith, the lens of history, the tradition of a church.
Prayer of the Act of Faith
O my God, I firmly believe that you are one God in three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I believe that your divine Son became man and died for our sins and that he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches because you have revealed them who are eternal truth and wisdom, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
In this faith I intend to live and die. Amen.
Great video, Austin! Very fair treatment to Newman’s investigation. You explained some complex ideas with great synthesis, so thanks a lot! Just to point out one little thing: some people in the comment section maybe don’t know (or fail to remember) that St John Henry Newman wrote this Essay *still as an ANGLICAN (!),* not as a converted Catholic. He was one of the greatest - if not the greatest - proponent of the theory of Anglicanism as “Via Media” between ‘Romanism’ and ‘Protestantism’ (as it was common among Anglicans during that time) and his compilation “The via media of the Anglican church: illustrated in lectures, letters and tracts written between 1830 and 1841” represents the acumen of the Oxford Movement. In trying to find the best arguments for the “Via Media” theory and getting rid of the poor ones, he paved the way for his later conversion. But as an Anglican luminary and professor, he was one of the most prestigious preacher of the Kingdom and is up to this day considered to have written the greatest sermons of Victorian England, so what could his conversion out of Anglicanism gain for him? It is kind of ugly that some people say the “Essay” is a Catholic “cope” because that doesn’t even make sense.
God bless!
Glad you enjoyed it! That's a good piece of background that probably would've been smart to add to the video. I found his treatment of the anglican quagmire on defending infant baptism really interesting, but there was just so much I had to cut to keep this a manageable length (including the last two of Newman's criteria)
@@GospelSimplicity It was perfect! As someone coming from the world of Law, sometimes (many times, actually) I envy - in a good sense - those who can be succinct. It’s a huge quality. There is this story about someone who has written a huge letter ending with “sorry for this long letter, I didn’t have time to write it short”. That’s what this is about! You did great in what mattered the most: the video nailed it and it did a good for us all by making justice to Newman, a humble servant of the Lord; it combats a caricature online that is usually erected - unfortunately - on a strawman of Newman. Kudos! It’s already 10k views in only two days!
Really excellent, clear and convincing. You are such a natural teacher! Thank you for this one.
Newman was a sound voice in a world full of a whole lot of noise. He seems to remain a treasured resource specific to the modern/post-modern era. I mean to read more of him, and to consult his work. What I've read of him has been edifying.
Great video! I always find that people only think of doctrinal development as being logical development, but they miss so much by not recognizing the other forms mentioned. I think the assumption of Mary fits very well in the historical development piece, whereas to say it is a logical development is a little silly.
You’re right, but You don’t have to say “this or that” it can be “both or all” as well.
Remember...St. Newman did not come up with the idea and it had been (for about 6-7 centuries at that point) a common area of theology to discuss long before St. Newman wrote his essay.
St. Newman basically takes the same reading of the Development of Doctrine as Francisco Suarez (d. 1617).
so true
Thanks, I learned something new today. I knew Newman's ideas were good, but you added meat to the bone!
It's so freaking crazy.
I was baptized in the Catholic Church when I was studying in a Catholic school at 10 years old.
Never learned a single thing about it, eventually went with my parents to Protestant congregations for my whole youth.
After so much trouble, began studying the faith, went to study History... Scripture... the saints... the Holy Mother. Ceased whatever doubts I had regarding the veracity of the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Praised be God... I hope more people can find this holy conversion, this holy truth... It's so crazy that there are so many people that live without it... Blessed be God, a million times, for allowing me to taste the Truth of His Word, quite literally.
I think what St J.H. Newman calls "rupture of type" is what Thomists would call "substantial change."
Yep exactly right!
That was a tour de force. ☝
I appreciate you making this video and actually reading Newman (many Protestants seem to avoid him like the plague) but his work is worth far more than this 20 minute video. The rapid summarization you give of preservation of type in each time period does not do Newman or the Catholic Church justice. You should at least read all of his beautiful prose on those! He summarizes them
It was obvious to me, as a mathematician, that Jesus came and gave the apostles all the axioms. Over time, the church has worked towards writing proofs based on the axioms. They've never added axioms or gotten rid of any.
Regardless, when a sufficeintly complex system of axioms is described, it's never clear what are all the truths that the system of axioms entails. In fact, if a system of axioms passes certain complexity thresholds, all possible proofs derrivable from those axioms become uncomputable! That's why sometimes it takes a long time to write a proof. Logic isn't straightforwardly obvious.
Fantastic video, Austin.
Newman was not only a watershed theologian, he was also a brilliant philosopher who made a compelling case for Christianity being the worldview that unites the human family by grafting on all that is true, good, and beautiful. He's a future doctor of the Church, I'm sure.
Newman also followed the truth wherever it led him, at great personal expense.
The problems come in with doctrines that are explicitly and flatly denied by early church documentation and scripture being added as "development".
Your patience with the text shows. Only problem is that you’re wearing a Liverpool polo. Yanited!
How about continuity of practice, way of life, and mindset (phronema)?
I have a feeling that if you asked ancient Christians if theology was the inquiry of faith, they would give you a blank stare.
His development of doctrine itself falls under the development of doctrine, and can therefore be used to justify almost anything (see the state of the Roman catholic church for examples).
Praying for you. Hope you find the church Jesus established.
Interesting to see many people with different Christian backgrounds commenting
Love the T-shirt, Austin! As a Liverpudlian born into a family of Reds, I approve. Blessings from the UK ❤
Austin is always so drippy 🔥🔥🔥
I’m blaming the hour I’m watching, but the blowfish with “Austin?” Sent me into paroxysms of laughter.
Excellent analysis. I think your genius is making the genius of great thinkers, like Nueman, accessable to blokes like myself. Thanks, mate 🧉!
I really appreciate the kind words! Hopefully I can do more videos like this soon
11:21 thank you for catching my attention.
Man as someone REALLY struggling with this, professed my faith in Christ. Originally wanted to be Baptist, then Orthodox, then Catholic, and currently Anglican... Feeling so so so lost. I pray every day, I pray the rosary, I go to church but I find fault in every denomination I look into. Catholicism seems the most true on paper from my extensive research, but I feel like it has so many man-made doctrines added to it. Then I think Jesus gave the church the power to add man-made doctrines; I feel some doctrines just feel so distant from who Christ is and what he would say, like people outside of the Catholic church, potentially not being saved or going to heaven. I feel like the Lord looks at someone's heart, their love and their being, their fate in the Lord. Not following dead rituals like the Pharisees. I feel the Catholic faith has so many technicalities in regards to things. But then Jesus gave the apostles the power to forgive sins. I think many of those 'dead rituals' have tremendous power, and actions shape character. I feel lost. Pray for me. Just want to say you are awesome and I feel I relate to your videos so much. I feel like Anglicans is the best of both worlds; less technicalities and man-made traditions with a lot of holy tradition, liturgy, sacraments and beauty.
Thanks for such a thoughtful comment. I know how disorienting this can be and can relate to much of what you wrote. May God guide you on your journey, wherever it leads.
I'm PCA, but I will admit that the Anglican worship is really the greatest hits of Christianity.
If you're Roman, you pray the magnificat, Eastern: the prayer of John Chrysostom, Lutheran: real presence, Reformed: 39 Articles and Psalms, Methodist: Wesleys were Anglican, Baptist/Evang. : original 1 year Bible plan.
Approved by the Pope and the Eastern Bishops, yet deeply Protestant...that prayer book is really special.
@ozzysaritas8115
I feel all of that, and I would say that I don't think God wants for us to be anxious about tradition or whatever is the right path. You've done your research, now rest in Him.
thx for jarring my already very jarred worldview even further
This video is immensely helpful summary to under these works, I keep flipping through it back and forth to find content I heard you distill, could you break the video down into chapters so I can jump back and forth easier?
I can put that on my list of things to do!
It's worth noting that the development of doctrine/dogma isn't something St. Newman invented by a long shot (it had been a topic of discussion by theologians for centuries), but his account/application of it was very influential.
Slap some Newman on it!
Mystical historicity?
The best kind of historicity!
Basically, imo, take the facts of history to be incorporated within Divine Providence, and look for the ways that God manifests Himself and accomplishes His good therein.
Awesome video, thank you! You should next read DBH's "Tradition and Apocalypse." He addresses Newman and has some critiques.
Cats playing on RUclips! That drives my dog wild!!
I liked/loved it when you call him St.
Glad you liked that! To be fair, it was less of a deeply thought out thing and more of my nature of preferring not to cause unnecessary offense.
Great summary. Now I'd love to hear you compare Newman's essay with Jaroslav Pelikan's book with the same title!
A comparison of those two would be fascinating, albeit a lot of work!
Please reach out to Christian B Wagner (Scholastic Answers) to talk more about this and related topics! Great video!
I found your description as the bible being wrote in layers very helpful. I think all christians accept e.g. that many old testamen prohecies are both about and prophet and on another level about Jesus.
Man Austin, 😮😮😮. Thanks for sharing this.
My pleasure!
It will be helpful to clarify what you mean by 'literal meaning' here.
The historical-grammatical method does not neccessaitate that every passage should be taken literally in the normal sense of the word.
Christian B. Wagner's channel _Distinguo_ has an excellent video called "Everything in the Bible is literally true".
@@john-paulgies4313
Yes, in that video he uses a definition of "literal" which diverges from the normal everyday meaning of the word (and explictly says so).
Which rather proves my point here.
@@IamGrimalkin It should be obvious which sense is the diminution of the basic meaning of literal: we tend to use the tem when we mean to indicate the "actual" or "intentional" or "strict" or "straightforward" meaning of a word/message. In other words, our colloquial usage thereof is a metaphor from literary study, which is the... um, literal sense of literal.
@@john-paulgies4313 sorry I misunderstood you for a second.
@@john-paulgies4313
The colloquial usage is the actual meaning of the word.
Words mean how people use them, the etymology of the word is irrelevant.
In the video, and in this video perhaps; they redefine "literal" to mean something different from what it generally means today.
The word "literal" works in how itbu
Is used in "all the bible is literal" because they explictly define the term before using it.
But if someone does not define the term you have to assume it means the normal usage of the term because that's what everyone else means by it.
I love watching your content. An open heart and love for truth will bring anyone to the Catholic Church.
Fr Thomas Guarino has done good work on this. Newman rejected the apostolicity of indulgences and prayers for the dead--these were developments that began as "fitting" innovations.
I'll try to check out his work!
@@GospelSimplicity He is a Vincentian scholar and has written books on that. He has published an article specifically on Newman: "TRADITION AND DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT: CAN VINCENT OF LÉRINS STILL TEACH THE CHURCH?"
For those who say I am "taking him out of context," I interviewed him on my blog where he states his views quite plainly: "Questions about John Henry Newman vis a vis Vincent de Lerins with Father Thomas G. Guarino."
As for Orthodox, they have their own quite distinctively different view of developmemt which boils down to "words develop, not concepts." I have also written on this.
All I know about him is that my local college is named after him.
As a Catholic, I really love your shirt. YNWA! Anyone else here loving the shirt?
As a challenge to Newman, review “The Infallibility of the Church” by George Salmon
I’ll just leave this here: David Bentley Hart’s recent book Tradition and Apocalypse. I hope some of you will read it.
The analogy that Scott Hahn has used is the development of the oak tree from an acorn.
Which came first?
@@TP-om8of Hmmm...good question...🤔
Basically, listen to Mother Church and what she hands us through time. Don't worry about the hiccoughs, they'll be flattened out as time moves on.
JHN: mystical reading and orthodoxy stand or fall together.
Me, decidedly unorthodox: Your terms are acceptable. 😂
You'll get what you want.
Also, a danger of hyper-literalism is the anachronistic superimposition of current trends, moral sway, and history over the text, and then drawing conclusions that are foregone and justified with circular arguments.
We can be guilty of misreading the Bible with our own culture's eyes.
Who's to say that the mystical was nothing more than an old Roman method that was evidence of a trend from that time. In other words, the literal was boring and had no life! That was Augustine's complaint. When he discovered the spiritual sense, he liked it more. And yet, the was unregenerate at the time, if I'm not mistaken.
Wouldn't a mystical approach be far more vulnerable to being read in ways that echo our own culture?
If we take the question of homosexuality, for example, the advocates for it are very much interested in arguing for development and that the literal reading of the text can't be held to apply 2 thousand years later. It's also quite clear at this point they don't have an answer to the 6 or so passages in Scripture that explicitly condemn the practice so they simply call them 'clobber passages' and ignore the literal sense entirely...
@@zacdredge3859 I agree, that is a danger
Re: Trinitarian interpretation, if you look at Heiser's Jewish Trinity video, you will see that at least one sect of ancient Judaism was binitarian.
the most impressive part of this video was that you managed to find pictures of newman that I, the most die-hard newman fanatic i know, had not seen before. bravo. but srsly where did you find them
If you paste the images into Google Images it will tell you exactly where they came from
Credit to my editor for that!
Your comments on continuity of principle and seeing it with the eyes of faith bring to mind 2 things in Scripture. Jesus said that He would send the Holy Spirit to teach many things that He had not taught. Jesus told Thomas that those who believe without seeing are blessed , not a small thing considering that blessed is the word used by Elizabeth to describe Mary's unique gift from God, and Mary, being the first Christian, shows us that we can hope for blessings also( Behold, your Mother). Abraham is called our Father in Faith. It seems to me that blessing always entails or implies the need for faith. The Publican was rebuked. The Jews balked indignantly at the healing of the Centurian's servant. The woman caught in adultery showcased the hypocrisy of those who would stone her. Jesus went to both Matthew and Zacchaeus' homes causing a flurry of gossip. Jesus asked his disciples "will you leave also?(paraphrase). It seems that His teaching involved a continual challenge, or indication of the need for change, that a faithful response would bring an answer to, a solution that man is incapable of. It seems that Jesus was always developing faith in His teachings.
Where did Jesus say he is sending the Holy Spirit to teach things he never taught? Quite the contrary, Jesus sent the Spirit to remind them of what he had taught them. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”(John 14:26)
Doctrine development is certainly modeled by the OT. The entire thing is doctrine development. It's crazy how people approach scripture when their way isn't modeled in anything God spoke in creation or scripture
As a staunch Catholic, I have long said that protestants frequently get the "what" correct, but rarely the "why" and "how," and that is where Catholics excel and find the fullness of truth. You've about said that today.
Note: Newman doesn’t introduce the concept of doctrinal development. Doctrinal development is inevitable, and as he shows, necessary to uphold even the beliefs proclaimed by the Nicene Creed. Rather, he introduces a *theory* of doctrinal development to explain why and how this happens. He also clearly states that his os just one theory, and if you don’t like his theory, you should come up with another theory. The point being that the problem is not that doctrine develops-it always has and always will-rather, the problem is understanding how such development occurs. Newman’s contribution is a theory for this development, nor the notion of development itself.
Scripture isn't an algorithm in which you input a modern concern and it spits out an apostolic answer. We are all living in the time of Christ, none of us are living in 1st century Israel
We should be!
Doctrinal development is basically take the faith to its logical conclusions. If A is true, and A implies B is true, then B is logically true, even if it was never affirmed before. Newman was not bringing anything new to the table but he was great for explicitly defining something that we always knew.
@@JeffersonElder That is only one of the types of development that Newman identifies, and I don't think it should even count as development.
Taking faith to its logical conclusions is a disaster every time, though.
You take *any* sound scriptural principle and overemphasise it and you get heresy or gross sin. Even things as basic as "There is only one God", or "Forgive others".
This just rubber stamps whatever extension to logical limits that Catholicism has made.
@@SeanusAurelius your examples are not taking the faith to its logical conclusions is taking ONE doctrine and focus solely on that going against the others. One great examples is sola scriptura.
Youve gotta read DBHs "Tradition and Apocalypse" next. Its a direct response to Newman.
Is DBH a Christian still??
@@1984SheepDog depends on what a Christian is, DBH teaches Universalism and Monism, which is rejected by most mainline Protestants and all Catholics and Orthodox (I hope).
@@NJWEBER18 And he's outright flirting with other religions too. I think he says he prefers Eastern religions to most forms of Christianity now. So, no.
It's on my list
Backs up how we got the Trinity.
Prots:attrition
Ortho Caths: Doctrinal Development
Jesus: mustard seed = grows
To wit: Church History 👏
Insofar as a Protestant accepts the trinity and the fully-God fully-man understanding of Christ, the Protestant is dependent upon doctrinal development. The burden is therefore upon the Protestant to put forward a theory of doctrinal development to justify his own beliefs, firstly, and reject the development of Catholic beliefs, secondly.
Ha, I never thought about scriptures as being doctrinally developed, but it seems pretty obivous put that way.
It’s either Rome or Orthodoxy. You can’t run forever Austin.
The next question is how can so many Roman Catholics stay with the Church when the Holy Father says so many things that lack coherence.
We have condemned previous popes in ecumenical councils, Pope Francis, as bad as he is, doesn't touch any claims of vatican 1
If the Catholic church only rested in Man's hands it would have fallen apart long ago.
How? The power hungry popes always fought for power and wealth. Heck, it was its own kingdom.
More likely is that the Roman leadership rested in Satan's hands.
@@kianoghuz1033think about how ridiculous it is that it’s still around 2000 years later. GK Chesterton said he knew Catholicism is true because how could you explain and institution so mismanaged for thousands of years has managed to survive.
@@johnbrion4565 It may have more to do with birth rate than anything else.
@@jeromepopiel388 are you saying that God, who is the author of life itself, is not connected with, indeed direct, procreation?
Okay... I'm done.
The problem with Newman's idea of doctrinal development is that doctrines become unverifiable, and conclusions unfalsifiable. Mystical exegesis of history is often used to obscure evidence against doctrinal claims.
I've been thinking about making a follow up video on critiques of the theory, one of which is falsifiability.
@@GospelSimplicity that would be awesome! Thanks for the work you do in making this content!
If doctrine can develop, it can develop in a liberal direction. As we can see with the modern Vatican.
The doctrine of development of Doctrine. Is a historicizing tendancy in western or Latin theology to try to account for the fact that many of the central features of Roman Catholicism are not present in the teaching of the Apostles.
The East just larps and reads medieval practice into the Apostles, which is simply not historically tenable.
Only protestants can come to a consistent position re tradition by making it subservient or inferior to Holy Scripiture.
Otherwise one can never discern what is development and what is corruption, one needs a holy rule or standard.
Thankfully God has given us this in his Holy Word.
There is no third person to pray to: the "Spirit of God" is God (almighty) who is a spirit.
A discussion on how we first bought into these dogmas, on who persuaded us of these things and how. These are the dry works of men, often completely divorced from the Spirit they claim to be serving. I don't know how this ended up in my feed, but I recognize it as the worship of men, of religion, and of academia in general. This is phariseeic in nature. It is spiritually dead, deckchair re-arrangement, and I can only plead with you to seek The Living God. Hear what He is saying to the saints TODAY, and flee from the wrath to come! None of this will do any good for those who perish, and we are straightly charged to avoid such vain babblings and pointless academic debates. You ignore the vitally important substance, while debating the background minutuae. Jesus' return is imminent! Yet this is what you concern yourself with. The apostles themselves would be astonished, you ignore the gospel they preached, in order to discuss the historicity of church dogmas attributed to them. Aren't you standing in the very doorway, yet preventing those who would enter from going in? If you are not about God's business, what exactly is this for, and who's purposes does it serve? Are you working FOR God's kingdom here, or against it?
Austin did you say "Idear" lol
Oh dear, I hope not, lol.
“We shall find ourselves unable,” he says again, “to fix an historical point at which the growth of doctrine ceased. Not on the day of Pentecost, for St. Peter had still to learn at Joppa about the baptism of Cornelius; not at Joppa and Caesarea, for St. Paul had to write his Epistles; not on the death of the last apostle,..."(pg.107)
Sorry this is clearly heretical and should be enough to condemn his whole theory, because this is the essence of why he wrote his essay in the first place.
Pope Pius X condemned his idea in Lamentabili Sane, July 3, 1907-- #21: Revelation, constituting the object of the Catholic faith, was not completed with the Apostles. --condemned.
St. Pius again condemns his theory in the same syllabus:
#22. The dogmas the Church holds out as revealed are not truths which have fallen from heaven. They are an interpretation of religious facts which the human mind has acquired by laborious effort.--condemned.
catholicvox.blogspot.com/2009/07/john-henry-newmans-essay-on-development.html
Unfortunately your sweet Christ on earth Joe Taylor explicitly gave a thumbs up to Newman, as even Mario Derksen acknowledges at length.
Somehow my comment isn't complete. the above quote from Newman was condemned as heresy by Pope St. Pius X
Another goody. In short .. no, I mean it .. i) The Faith (whatever that means) ii) Sacred Tradition (however much that entails) iii) Magisterium (whoever gets that job, Lord help them - and us besides).
Here 'development' means : saying the same thing ( I believe/ We believe ) in various ways, at different times, and through many perspectives ( We believe in God/ I believe in One God, the Lord ) and withal under a particular and even peculiar authority running in, across and through all these 'lived' and/ or living experiences ( We solemnly declare as binding upon us in faith : 'I believe in One God = the Father the Almighty, and His only Son, Jesus called Christ, begotten not made, in the Unity of the Holy Ghost' ). Clearly, this is not an Anglican version of a Darwinian evolutionary Tree Of Life type of development - from root to branch and from fruit to root, etc - it is a much more disturbing concept: one body with one spirit, actually abiding.
What a terrifyingly odd body this quirky spirit must enliven leads us, willy nilly, from Newman to Chesterton ...
Keep the Faith; tell the truth, shame the devil, and let the demons shriek.
God bless. ;o)
Pope accepting idols as per Vatican news service. Is that really a development? To people who know anything at all of the person of Christ that's a regression.
It was a gift that he accepted from pagans, he did not venerate it.
@@1984SheepDog Well, his sponsoring and attendance of the pachamama worship, JPII venerating the Qu'ran, and Benedict praying in a mosque towards Mecca make it almost irrelevant to point out just how ridiculous it is to accept an idol in the first place. "No thanks" is the Christian thing to say.
I will say in terms of Rowan Willaims: as a C of E anglican, I remember when he was archbishop of canturbury. I do not want to go back to those days.
Complain about Justin Welby all you want, I still very much prefer him to Rowan Williams.
How come?
@@roaringforties
I never liked his "liberal catholic" tradition.
It doesn't surprise me that a book he wrote seems to support the 'liberal catholic' tradition within the C of E, I'd attribute that to his bias.
In addition, he has always spoken in the most vague unclear way possible on a wide range of topics. Some people like it because it makes them feel clever when they finally decipher what he's maybe saying, I just find it incredibly annoying.
Justin Welby at least admits it when he's unsure of something instead of hiding it behind a mess of words.
Maybe I'm being unfair as english isn't Rowan's native language but honestly I would be astonished if he is much better in Welsh. I think it's deliberate.
This is linchpin of Vatican I(though it says believed at all times) and II is essentially the final argument for papalism. I'm glad to see others arriving at similar conclusions.
Vincent of Lérins did not hold the same views as Newman. Vincent argued that doctrine must 'become firmer and more deeply entrenched by the years, but remain incorrupt and uncorrupted’ (Commonitorium, ch. 23). He clarifies that true development is the 'explication of what was formerly believed in simplicity, now with greater clarity' (Commonitorium, ch. 23).
Admittedly, Gregory of Nyssa aligns more with Newman on the deity of the Holy Spirit, affirming that such truths were revealed over time. But Newman’s approach is ad hoc and circular: how do I discern which doctrines are true? Those that 'faithfully develop.' How do I know which ones are faithfully developed? The pope. But the papacy itself is a development-circular reasoning.
Have you read Newman's full essay?
I was praying for this, will you be coming home to Rome with this? Will you finally join His Holy Roman church because it’s certain beyond reasonable doubt that Catholicism is true?
No I prefer to stay with the Episcopal church. the Episcopal Church I attend is in between moderate and conservative.➕🕯️🕯️🍞🍷🕊️✨
Infallibility? I'm sorry, but that's not really a good example in my opinion. Even Peter is seen to struggle with staying in line with Jesus' teaching when it comes to the relation between jewish and greek believers. Above that, history has seen some figures as popes, who hardly deserve this title or might even find themselves in hell after judgement day.
This video has some good points for sure, but I think we shouldn't lift the church up to be anything else than a human organization partly housing the true, invisible church.
These aren't arguments against papal infallibility as defined at Vatican I. Peter personally struggled with eating with Gentiles but he ultimately did define the doctrine correctly. To point out that some popes were rascals and may be in hell does not mean they didn't have the gift of infallibly defining doctrine should they have chosen to exercise it. Neither example is related to the doctrine of papal infallibility.
Papal infallibility is a man made doctrine.
This is how we understand the Blessed Virgin & Mother Mary. She is the Ideal Woman and so we know she was assumed & is Queen of Heaven
In the words of the other Paul “Just slap some Newman on it”.
Props to Austin for reading Newman. The Other Paul hasn't otherwise he'd never say something so callus.
Of course some people can be butthurt that the greatest sermon writer of the Victorian England and the greatest proponent of Anglicanism as “Via Media” later converted to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church - losing all his prestige in the British Empire eventually. The guy’s arguments for Sola Scriptura are really bad and, judging by that and your comment here, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even read the works of St John Henry Newman.