The video above is interesting because of the author’s conclusions. You see, once you reject the Early Church, you have very few options left to you as to what the place of the Bible is in the Christian Church. More than that, once you reject the Early Church and adopt Sola Scriptura as your principle, then Scripture becomes the subject of interminable arguments as to its meaning, arguments that have no hope of resolution.
It is important that we realize that there is nothing whatsoever wrong or faulty with Holy Scripture. But, that does not mean that Holy Scripture either contains everything we wish to know or that the interpretation of Holy Scripture is obvious or a built in part of Holy Scripture.
Nevertheless, for many people, such as those in the video, the discrepancy in interpretations among the various Christian groups, and the insistence in many of those groups that their interpretation must be obeyed at the risk of going to hell, creates a dissonance that may lead to extreme attempts to resolve the crisis. What crisis? That if we make the wrong choice, we may end up in hell.
So, what is the solution to this crisis? Well, one solution is the one reached by the author of the video above. If various interpretations are a problem because we may choose the wrong solution and end up in hell, then the solution is to do away with the document that causes the tension. Once the document is declared to be a false document, then the tension is released and the person can relax about their salvation.
Videos, such as the one above, are helpful in reinforcing the necessity of accepting the witness of the Early Church Fathers. When one rejects the Early Church Fathers but tries to retain Holy Scripture, one runs into an untenable set of discrepancies that can only be handled either by denial or by solutions such as the one above.
When I was new to Orthodoxy I heard a very telling statement: Luther’s reformation turned us all into Popes. We all now have the “right” to interpret the bible any way we see it. This man has done just that! Wow!
“Sola scriptura” is inherently self-contradictory because the Bible points to the authority of the Church, “the pillar and ground of the truth” and “the fulness of [Christ] who fills all in all” and its Apostolic authority, to whom is given the power to “bind and loose” and whom are called to “obey” in Hebrews 13.
While the notion disseminated in the video is more bizarre, it falls into a very similar logical category, or lack thereof.
How would you respond to the notion that one’s own interpretation of the Church’s teachings (an interpretation of the Interpretation) is a back-step in interpreting the Scriptures? This is a common refutation I’ve come upon and am not entirely sure how to answer it, other than pointing out historical evidence (Orthodoxy’s consistency vs Protestantism’s exponential branching).
Rather easily, you see there is no “back-step” to be found in any of the early writings. Thus, those who argue that they are returning to an earlier interpretation of Scripture have no large set of writings to cite. Rather, they have to argue that all the Early Church Fathers are making mistakes from the very beginning and that we, today, know the real interpretation of Scripture in a way that the Early Church Fathers did not. At best, those who claim that can find an occasional heretic who sounds something like a Protestant. Then they have to build up that early heretic into a suppressed martyr. That is usually rather hard since most early heretics have some odd beliefs that have to be explained away.
I sent the video to some of my friends who have been in the Evangelical circus all of their lives. I sent it out of meanness and in retaliation to the “number of the beast” crap they often send me. They didn’t like it. Totally failed to see the irony.
My bad.
Tom