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What myths do you think I subscribe to? I agree -- and have never denied -- that Constantine was a temporal ruler with no spiritual or religious authority whatsoever. He wanted to use Christianity as a unifying force in his political empire, and wanted the Nicene council precisely for that...

No.

The "CC" broadly defined as the entire Christian Church -- whether acknowledging Roman primacy or not (IT IS FANTASY FOR YOU TO PRESUME THAT ALL BISHOPRICS IN THE EAST DID SO) -- did get it right about the Trinity. We agree on that much. But not only is it POSSIBLE to hold a council without...

Sorry to come late to this party, but I need to ask: Are you distilling this from Hebrews 1:8-9? I hope we can agree that the author of Hebrews is simply quoting from Psalm 45 and reinterpreting it as the Father speaking of the Son (which was, of course, not at all the view of the Psalmist...

Agreement on some matters (like the deity of the Son) does not require agreement on others (like Purgatory) as a matter of logical consistency. A slate of doctrinal pronouncements trumpeted by Rome can be accepted in part and rejected in part without sacrifice of logic. I am free to accept A...

Wow. How gnostic is that? The upshot of such a position is frightening: because the Holy Spirit does not confound, only one of the myriad opposing interpretations/understandings of the same verses by different Christians (peruse this site for 10 minutes, and you'll see just how rampant that...

Thanks for this important post. I have a few objections to sola scriptura. And for my list, I will focus just on the NT. But we first must define sola scriptura – for if we do not agree on its definition we cannot agree on its doctrinal soundness. I define it as an abiding faith that (a) the...

All bishops (and all those with temporal authority) have power to send emissaries, not just the Pope. And his emissaries didn't "preside." The Council was convened by Constantine and the presider would have been Hosius, Constantine's emissary. I don't know where you are getting this notion...

And Paul wrote to the Church at Rome that their faith was proclaimed throughout the whole world, Romans 1:8. By your reasoning, that means Paul would not have thought any other church's faith was equally proclaimed.

The Pope didn't convene Nicaea. He didn't even make the trip. He sent three emissaries. Does that make Nicaea illegitimate?

This quote would be equally apt not only for Rome, but for other episcopates in the early second century. The Alexandrian See envied no one, and taught others. The Antiochian See envied no one, and taught others.. Where in this quote are you distilling Roman primacy?

Καθολικὴ Ἐκκλησία is used by Ignatius as a reference to the doctrinally unadulterated Church – preserving what he and others viewed as the true apostolic traditions against all manner of heresies that were regularly cropping up. He was at pains to distinguish universal truth from factional...

I think this is fantasy, my friend. First, the Logos musings in John's Prologue would never have been the Apostle's early oral "testimony" -- conceptually, it just doesn't lend itself to preaching of the sort that we know was going on in the first decade after Pentecost, nor would it have...

I'm afraid I cannot weigh in on that one, one way or the other. If he had been named "Emmanuel" rather than "Jesus" I might be on surer footing to hazard a guess -- but as it is, I'll just have to plead ignorance here. (As in most things . . .)

That's what I said. And I checked all five boxes you posted in #962. Are you now adding another?

We agree on something!

Philo died before John's gospel was written. It's possible that John read Philo. But not vice versa. Philo likewise taught that the Logos was the creative agent of God. Following Greek philosophical distinctions between types of causes, Philo held that God is the efficient cause, by whom the...

So, do you count Episcopalians (or any Anglican sects) as part of what you call the "Catholic" Church?

The point is that you mistakenly presumed I couldn't check the Ignatius boxes, with a snarky "That's what I thought" comment rendered without waiting for my answers. Are you always so presumptuous, or are you just having a bad day? Meanwhile, Episcopalians trace their roots via apostolic...

So can I. I'm Episcopalian.