Apparently the four gospels are not actually written by the apostles they are named after? Is there a refutation to this to show they were? Or that even if they are not, then that is OK?
Been reading Bart Ehrman. Maybe not the best choice for someone like me who is so shaky in faith. But this is the kind of stuff that troubles me the most, so I feel like if I can read this stuff and get through it without it destroying my belief, then nothing would ever risk that again.
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If you're reading Bart Ehrman, I'm afraid you're not merely "shaky" in faith. It would seem you have very little at all.
The one thing on the side of the traditional authorship is… wait for it..
Tradition. Exactly what it's named after. We have Church Fathers already in the early 100s AD, like St. Ignatius, who attested to Matthew writing that gospel, for example. You accept a guy who lived mere decades after it.. or you accept the other guy from 2000 years later. Your choice.
The only reason why it's even brought into question starts with Protestants to begin with, who originally dispensed with tradition and decided to look on all of it in bad faith. After that, ALL of the faith slowly was chipped away at. This very impetus to break from tradition, in turn, produced later scholars who doubted even more by the Enlightenment period of the 1700/1800s. Finally you get Bart Ehrman in the postmodern period.
People make a big deal about him, as if it was some remarkable thing that a bible scholar lost his faith and writes skeptical books now. But the thing is, he was always a skeptic. His whole pedigree and the family of "faith" he comes from was always trash. It led him down this stupid path to begin with. All Protestants are inherently anti-tradition, overly rational, and will be skeptical in some degrees. And inevitably, their own "kids" will pick up where each generation left off and chip away more and more.. until there's nothing. Only having a real respect for God's church and it's traditions keeps you from doing this.
Oops, correction.. Ignatius only quoted Matthew (but that alone shows it was already widely circulating and had some authority). It was Appolinaris (circa 180) that actually called it Matthew's gospel by name.
Papias was earlier than both of them (right after the Apostles, post 60s AD), but we only have Eusebius' quotations of him from later (300s). In any case, he quotes Papias as saying Matthew wrote a gospel.
Doesn't matter if gospels are misattributed does that refute Christianity? No.
Promptly stop
The very premise of textual criticism is predicated on the rejection of the doctrine of inerrancy. There's actually a good book debating this particular topic called "five views on biblical inerrancy", I think it's on libgen.io
This
And if you kept reading church fathers around 100 ad you’d see
Seems like cherry picking at its finest to me. All of those church fathers that you've named there are far more Catholic in their theology than Protestant. Also Catholics don't have a works based soteriology so that last quote by Ignatius is perfectly in line with the Catholic rejection of Pelagianism
I appreciate that you're at least partly relying on the work of a fellow heretic of yours to justify your Sola Fide nonsense, it's a fresh breath of air from bastardizing real Christian writings but c'mon on now friend, you can't be serious, quoting Eusebius? Please.
If the attributions were based on theologians extrabiblical reasoning it wouldn't be a problem, but when the author names himself (not intending to he pseudonymous) and that is found to be lie, the authority of the text is compromised
Apparently Eusebius of Caesarea was a heretic according to
I mean don't take my word for it, read a book or something.
Eusebius of Caesarea was excommunicated at the First Council for subscribing to the heresy of Arianism and later went on to write against St.Athanasius, an actual Church Father, he probably would've been executed too if he didn't accept the Creed that he was forced into.
Hardly a quotable figure from a theological standpoint no matter how you look at it.
So, they aren't roman catholics, but general apostolics.
Reading the Chieti agreement could have told you the same thing.
This is your brain on Catholicism
Well there's your problem.
Both Eusebius of Nicodemia and Caesarea were Arians. Don't pretend like you know what you're talking about
There's nothing theological about it. It's written for strictly secular audiences. Unless you're only reading it to laugh at it, then yes, you have a problem.
Cool story, bro. I'm Orthodox.
There are much better passages from the Church Fathers that you could have picked
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And there are countless others that have yet to be compiled.
That being said, trying to convince the papists of Sola Fide by showing that many of the Church Fathers taught it won't work. I've tried many times and have noticed that almost all of them fall into this pattern of argumentation:
Phase 1: The papist will at first become startled, nervous, and even angry that you, a lowly Protestant, would even dare to cite the Church Fathers against him. He will try to avoid the argument and hide behind a mask of smug condescension and claim that since the Church Fathers are saints in the Roman Catholic Church they must have been Roman Catholics.
Phase 2: The papist will assert that these passages are out of context. They will never tell what the correct context of those passages are or what they actually mean, mind you, they will only accuse you of cherry-picking. Upon inspection, however, you find that very few of them are out of context. In all my years of studying the Church Fathers, I've found maybe two or three passages that actually were out of context. You're free to check them all for yourself if you don't believe me; they're all online.
Phase 3: The papist will cite passages from the Church Fathers saying that Christians should do good things. Ironically, when read in context, these passages are not saying that good works are necessary for salvation. Usually they're telling Christians not to do things that will bring shame upon Christ's name or that doing bad things is an easy way to get yourself killed or that your reward in Heaven will be smaller or they may just be talking about sanctification(which papists always confuse with justification.)
Phase 4: The papist will cite quotations from Alister McGrath, and only Alister McGrath for some reason, saying that the Church Fathers did not tech Sola Fide, and then scream at the top of their lungs "See! Even Protestant scholars admit that the concept of Sola Fide didn't exist before Luther!!!!1!" Whether McGrath actually said that is something I don't know as I haven't gotten around to reading his works, but this ignores that many other Protestant scholars, and even some Catholic ones like Fr. Joseph Fitzmyer, said that the Church Fathers did teach Sola Fide.
Phase 5: The papist will then say that "salvation by faith alone" didn't really mean "salvation by faith alone" in the days of the early Church. At this point you can't really argue with them anymore since any passage you show them, no matter how explicit, will simply be dismissed with "they didn't really mean what they explicitly said." The only thing you can do now is to dab on them which will cause them to burst into tears and cry to the Pope who will then proceed to reprimand them for not being tolerant enough towards homosexuals and brown people(or homosexual brown people.)
:^)
The Church Fathers are an important source of Tradition, but even they don't get to contradict Scripture.
there is no contradiction, it follows that the Fathers knew the importance of Faith, and then works drawn from the Faith.
correcting the error of sola fide on this account grows tiresome, and you can really truly realize why is it called "a spiritual work of mercy", because it's much easier to just let them stew in their error
faith without works is dead, as every Christian knows.
Can someone explain "overly rational"? To naive eyes, this sounds like a restriction of knowledge, not something that the lord is fond of.
t. protestant
OH NO NO NO NO
I think NIV translators borked up here
It's not a restriction of knowledge. Revelation is plenty of knowledge.. more than we could ever hope for. Revelation is your tool to know God. Both from the Word (Jesus and scripture) and the Spirit whom he sent "to guide us into all truth". When it comes to God, we only know what he tells us.
The intellect is great when applied to things as small as itself, but that doesn't include God. Both medieval scholastics and later enlightenment era thinkers thought differently - that this intellect was precisely the divine element of man (mistaking "logos" to mean simply logic) and that this is what is meant by being created in God's image. Wrong. "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." - 1 Cor 2:14
Jesus Christ is Logos, there's no way to be "overly rationalist", when Christ is typified in human reason itself.
Prove it. Human reason alone is unique. Animals can feel the emotions we feel, they have access to the same natural functions humans do, but they cannot know God, nor know that Christ is God. To know is an image of God, and God's children are destroyed from a lack of knowledge.
"6 My people have been silent, because they had no knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to me: and thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children."
"7 He who teaches a fool is like one who glues potsherds together,
or who rouses a sleeper from deep slumber.
8 He who tells a story to a fool tells it to a drowsy man;
and at the end he will say, “What is it?”*
11 Weep for the dead, for he lacks the light;
and weep for the fool, for he lacks intelligence;
weep less bitterly for the dead, for he has attained rest;
but the life of the fool is worse than death.
12 Mourning for the dead lasts seven days,
but for a fool or an ungodly man it lasts all his life.
13 Do not talk much with a foolish man,
and do not visit an unintelligent man;
guard yourself from him to escape trouble,
and you will not be soiled when he shakes himself off;
avoid him and you will find rest,
and you will never be wearied by his madness.
14 What is heavier than lead?
And what is its name except “Fool”?
15 Sand, salt, and a piece of iron
are easier to bear than a stupid man. "
That isn't some directive to be an egghead. Foolishness in scripture is strictly theological.
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
"The fool says in his heart, there is no God."