Oldbear83 said:

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Just going by what's actually in Scripture. Mary the Mom is not Eve. Eve was Adam's MATE, and the entire New Testament is clear the Bride of Christ is the Church.

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yes, the church is the new Eve

Realitybites said:

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historian said:

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Realitybites said:

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historian said:

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The ascension was over a month after the resurrection so that's what Jesus was talking about to Mary. It does not contradict Jesus being in heaven between the crucifixion and the resurrection. He could have done many things in those three days. He is God.

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He is God, and he could have done anything he wanted during those three days.

Fortunately the Bible tells us what he did and did not do.

What is your reason for wanting to insist that Jesus went to his father in Heaven between the crucifixion and the resurrection despite His saying he didn't (and other verses that tell us what he did in that interval)? I understand that some have a habit of throwing out parts of the Bible they don't like or trying to explain them away, but this seems to be strange hill to die on.

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Jesus Himself told the thief that they both would be in paradise that day. That's one thing that is clear and explicit.

Who is dying on any hill? I'm referencing the words of God.

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As am I. I'm referencing three verses, you're referencing one. Which means the meaning of that verse is something besides Jesus going to heaven with Saint Dismas on Good Friday. I've already explained how that can be the case without creating a contradiction (the Trinity).

My question is why it is so important for your Christology for Christ to have ascended bodily to his Father in heaven with Saint Dismas on Good Friday based on a single misapplied verse despite three verses of scripture and all of apostolic tradition arguing against you. Thats why I say it is a strange hill to die on.

Usually rejecting scripture is done from a more humanistic/rationalistic perspective (like the real presence, or the gnostic rejection of a bodily resurrection). But I see no benefit to any specific point of view in taking the stance you've taken. Is it that you reject the apostles creed? If so, why?

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It's important to take Christ at his word. Your theory might be correct, Christ's word is definitely correct. I've said before that our reading of some scriptures might be misunderstood or flawed due to translations. It would be arrogant for any of us to assume that we know it all or understand if all when clearly that is impossible. Only God knows and understands all of it. However, Christ's words are direct and pretty easy to understand in full context while some of Paul's writings deal with weighty theological matters that are easily misunderstood (that
may not be the case with the scriptures you cite but it seem more likely than with a single sentence from Jesus).

I've also said that these debates ultimately don't matter as much. I don't think anyone's salvation hinges on whether or not they believe Jesus literally in that one instance. It's too easy for us to get bogged down in senseless debates over minutiae. This might not be an example of that but it seems to be the case in some things I've seen in these boards. Paul and others even warned about wasting time in such things.

Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

---

Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

---

The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

---

If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up. Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition. ITS WRITTEN DOWN. There is no disputing this, sorry.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

4th and Inches said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Just going by what's actually in Scripture. Mary the Mom is not Eve. Eve was Adam's MATE, and the entire New Testament is clear the Bride of Christ is the Church.

---

yes, the church is the new Eve

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The Church-as-New-Eve typology and Mary-as-New-Eve typology are not competing interpretations in patristic thought. They're nested. Irenaeus, who is the earliest and most developed source on this typology, applies the New Eve image to both.

There is no passage in the New Testament that explicitly identifies the Church as the New Eve.

Typological exegesis is not a method you can derive from Scripture alone.

Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

---

Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

---

The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

---

If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up.

Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

---

Your post seems to assume that a historical line of church leaders automatically guarantees correct teaching. However, that is simply not a true statement in any way, shape or form. You can have continuity of office without continuity of truth. See the Catholic Church. The New Testament itself warns that elders, bishops, and even whole churches can fall into error. Paul tells church leaders that false teachers will arise from among them. Indeed, we have examples in scripture of entire churches founded by apostles that have been rebuked for abandoning the faith. So the existence of succession does not remove fallibility.

You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong. The New Testament already models this by correcting churches and leaders through written teaching rather than appeals to lineage and tradition.

In short, your post presents a false equivalency, in large part based on your assumptions and biases as an adherent to Orthodoxy. Contrary to your insinuations, an unbroken chain of bishops simply does not ensure doctrinal correctness.

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

---

Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

---

Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

---

The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

---

If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up.

Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

---

Your post seems to assume that a historical line of church leaders automatically guarantees correct teaching. However, that is simply not a true statement in any way, shape or form. You can have continuity of office without continuity of truth. See the Catholic Church. The New Testament itself warns that elders, bishops, and even whole churches can fall into error. Paul tells church leaders that false teachers will arise from among them. Indeed, we have examples in scripture of entire churches founded by apostles that have been rebuked for abandoning the faith. So the existence of succession does not remove fallibility.

You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong. The New Testament already models this by correcting churches and leaders through written teaching rather than appeals to lineage and tradition.

In short, your post presents a false equivalency, in large part based on your assumptions and biases as an adherent to Orthodoxy. Contrary to your insinuations, an unbroken chain of bishops simply does not ensure doctrinal correctness.

---

Who interprets Scripture when leaders disagree? You've only pushed the fallibility problem back one level. If bishops can err, so can individual interpreters…and demonstrably have, producing thousands of Protestant denominations all claiming scriptural fidelity.

Yes, Paul warns that false teachers will arise from within. Yes, churches are rebuked in Revelation. Orthodox theology has never claimed succession confers impeccability. The claim is that the Church as a whole, guided by the Holy Spirit, will not formally and permanently define heresy as orthodoxy. Individual bishops can err. Councils can be rejected as fraudulent, and were. The reception of councils by the whole Church is itself part of the discernment mechanism. This is far more sophisticated than "bishops automatically guarantee truth," which is a caricature, not the actual position.

The Orthodox critique of Rome is precisely that Rome departed from conciliar ecclesiology by overcentralizing authority in a single bishop…which is itself a betrayal of the apostolic succession model, not a vindication of it.
If a man with a valid ordination teaches heresy, Orthodoxy says his teaching is rejected, not that succession is therefore meaningless. The existence of corruption within a succession doesn't prove the principle of succession false any more than a corrupt judge proves the legal system is fictional.

Y'all need to seriously learn the understanding of this rather than just assuming really basic and elementary things about Orthodoxy and history.

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

---

Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

---

Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

---

The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

---

If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up.

Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

---

Your post seems to assume that a historical line of church leaders automatically guarantees correct teaching. However, that is simply not a true statement in any way, shape or form. You can have continuity of office without continuity of truth. See the Catholic Church. The New Testament itself warns that elders, bishops, and even whole churches can fall into error. Paul tells church leaders that false teachers will arise from among them. Indeed, we have examples in scripture of entire churches founded by apostles that have been rebuked for abandoning the faith. So the existence of succession does not remove fallibility.

You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong. The New Testament already models this by correcting churches and leaders through written teaching rather than appeals to lineage and tradition.

In short, your post presents a false equivalency, in large part based on your assumptions and biases as an adherent to Orthodoxy. Contrary to your insinuations, an unbroken chain of bishops simply does not ensure doctrinal correctness.

---

Who interprets Scripture when leaders disagree? You've only pushed the fallibility problem back one level. If bishops can err, so can individual interpreters…and demonstrably have, producing thousands of Protestant denominations all claiming scriptural fidelity.

Yes, Paul warns that false teachers will arise from within. Yes, churches are rebuked in Revelation. Orthodox theology has never claimed succession confers impeccability. The claim is that the Church as a whole, guided by the Holy Spirit, will not formally and permanently define heresy as orthodoxy. Individual bishops can err. Councils can be rejected as fraudulent, and were. The reception of councils by the whole Church is itself part of the discernment mechanism. This is far more sophisticated than "bishops automatically guarantee truth," which is a caricature, not the actual position.

The Orthodox critique of Rome is precisely that Rome departed from conciliar ecclesiology by overcentralizing authority in a single bishop…which is itself a betrayal of the apostolic succession model, not a vindication of it.
If a man with a valid ordination teaches heresy, Orthodoxy says his teaching is rejected, not that succession is therefore meaningless. The existence of corruption within a succession doesn't prove the principle of succession false any more than a corrupt judge proves the legal system is fictional.

Y'all need to seriously learn the understanding of this rather than just assuming really basic and elementary things about Orthodoxy and history.

---

Saying "the Church as a whole won't permanently teach heresy" immediately raises a new question: how do we know when the Church as a whole has spoken? If bishops can be wrong, councils can be rejected, and entire jurisdictions can split, then someone still has to decide which side represents "the whole Church." That decision itself is made by fallible people, appealing to history and interpretation, which is exactly the problem Orthodoxy says Protestantism has.

Appealing to "reception" doesn't solve this either. Reception only becomes clear after decades or centuries, once history has settled. That doesn't help ordinary believers trying to know what's true now.

You also overstate the Protestant-denominations argument. Many Protestant disagreements are about secondary issues, not the core doctrines defined by the early councils that Orthodoxy itself accepts. And Orthodoxy isn't free from division either. We know that is has likewise split on several occasions.

As for your attempt to analogize this to the legal system, yes, a corrupt judge doesn't abolish law. But the existence of a legal system doesn't guarantee that any given ruling is correct. So the issue remains: all doctrinal judgment - whether by bishops, councils, or churches - still passes through fallible human interpretation. Orthodoxy doesn't escape the basic fact. As the Catholic Church has proven, truth certainty isn't guaranteed simply by moving interpretation from individuals to institutions.

Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

---

Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

---

The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

---

If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up.

Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

---

Your post seems to assume that a historical line of church leaders automatically guarantees correct teaching. However, that is simply not a true statement in any way, shape or form. You can have continuity of office without continuity of truth. See the Catholic Church. The New Testament itself warns that elders, bishops, and even whole churches can fall into error. Paul tells church leaders that false teachers will arise from among them. Indeed, we have examples in scripture of entire churches founded by apostles that have been rebuked for abandoning the faith. So the existence of succession does not remove fallibility.

You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong. The New Testament already models this by correcting churches and leaders through written teaching rather than appeals to lineage and tradition.

In short, your post presents a false equivalency, in large part based on your assumptions and biases as an adherent to Orthodoxy. Contrary to your insinuations, an unbroken chain of bishops simply does not ensure doctrinal correctness.

---

Who interprets Scripture when leaders disagree? You've only pushed the fallibility problem back one level. If bishops can err, so can individual interpreters…and demonstrably have, producing thousands of Protestant denominations all claiming scriptural fidelity.

Yes, Paul warns that false teachers will arise from within. Yes, churches are rebuked in Revelation. Orthodox theology has never claimed succession confers impeccability. The claim is that the Church as a whole, guided by the Holy Spirit, will not formally and permanently define heresy as orthodoxy. Individual bishops can err. Councils can be rejected as fraudulent, and were. The reception of councils by the whole Church is itself part of the discernment mechanism. This is far more sophisticated than "bishops automatically guarantee truth," which is a caricature, not the actual position.

The Orthodox critique of Rome is precisely that Rome departed from conciliar ecclesiology by overcentralizing authority in a single bishop…which is itself a betrayal of the apostolic succession model, not a vindication of it.
If a man with a valid ordination teaches heresy, Orthodoxy says his teaching is rejected, not that succession is therefore meaningless. The existence of corruption within a succession doesn't prove the principle of succession false any more than a corrupt judge proves the legal system is fictional.

Y'all need to seriously learn the understanding of this rather than just assuming really basic and elementary things about Orthodoxy and history.

---

Saying "the Church as a whole won't permanently teach heresy" immediately raises a new question: how do we know when the Church as a whole has spoken? If bishops can be wrong, councils can be rejected, and entire jurisdictions can split, then someone still has to decide which side represents "the whole Church." That decision itself is made by fallible people, appealing to history and interpretation, which is exactly the problem Orthodoxy says Protestantism has.

Appealing to "reception" doesn't solve this either. Reception only becomes clear after decades or centuries, once history has settled. That doesn't help ordinary believers trying to know what's true now.

You also overstate the Protestant-denominations argument. Many Protestant disagreements are about secondary issues, not the core doctrines defined by the early councils that Orthodoxy itself accepts. And Orthodoxy isn't free from division either. We know that is has likewise split on several occasions.

As for your attempt to analogize this to the legal system, yes, a corrupt judge doesn't abolish law. But the existence of a legal system doesn't guarantee that any given ruling is correct. So the issue remains: all doctrinal judgment - whether by bishops, councils, or churches - still passes through fallible human interpretation. Orthodoxy doesn't escape the basic fact. As the Catholic Church has proven, truth certainty isn't guaranteed simply by moving interpretation from individuals to institutions.

---

You're creating your own problem with this argument then...because if it applies to councils, then it applies to you. The problem with this 'fallible interpretation' argument is that it's a double-edged sword. If you claim councils are just fallible people interpreting history, then you have to admit your own reading of Scripture is just a fallible person interpreting a text.

The common response to that is "scripture is the final authority". Scripture doesn't read itself. You're either following the Church's interpretation or your own. It doesn't actually give you the authority of God, it gives you the authority of the reader. It's not "the Bible says," it's "I say the Bible says.".

Protestant disagreements are not just secondary issues. That's nonsense. There are protestants that adhere to penal substitutionary atonement and those that don't: that's a completely different view of the gospel and radically changes how one approaches prayer, scripture, repentance and behavior.
If Protestant disagreements are just 'secondary,' why did the Reformers kill each other over them? You don't execute people over 'non-essential' music styles or pews. They killed each other over Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Trinity...the very 'core' things you claim the Bible makes clear.

canoso said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

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Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

---

Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

---

The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

---

If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up.

Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

---

Your post seems to assume that a historical line of church leaders automatically guarantees correct teaching. However, that is simply not a true statement in any way, shape or form. You can have continuity of office without continuity of truth. See the Catholic Church. The New Testament itself warns that elders, bishops, and even whole churches can fall into error. Paul tells church leaders that false teachers will arise from among them. Indeed, we have examples in scripture of entire churches founded by apostles that have been rebuked for abandoning the faith. So the existence of succession does not remove fallibility.

You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong. The New Testament already models this by correcting churches and leaders through written teaching rather than appeals to lineage and tradition.

In short, your post presents a false equivalency, in large part based on your assumptions and biases as an adherent to Orthodoxy. Contrary to your insinuations, an unbroken chain of bishops simply does not ensure doctrinal correctness.

---

Who interprets Scripture when leaders disagree? You've only pushed the fallibility problem back one level. If bishops can err, so can individual interpreters…and demonstrably have, producing thousands of Protestant denominations all claiming scriptural fidelity.

Yes, Paul warns that false teachers will arise from within. Yes, churches are rebuked in Revelation. Orthodox theology has never claimed succession confers impeccability. The claim is that the Church as a whole, guided by the Holy Spirit, will not formally and permanently define heresy as orthodoxy. Individual bishops can err. Councils can be rejected as fraudulent, and were. The reception of councils by the whole Church is itself part of the discernment mechanism. This is far more sophisticated than "bishops automatically guarantee truth," which is a caricature, not the actual position.

The Orthodox critique of Rome is precisely that Rome departed from conciliar ecclesiology by overcentralizing authority in a single bishop…which is itself a betrayal of the apostolic succession model, not a vindication of it.
If a man with a valid ordination teaches heresy, Orthodoxy says his teaching is rejected, not that succession is therefore meaningless. The existence of corruption within a succession doesn't prove the principle of succession false any more than a corrupt judge proves the legal system is fictional.

Y'all need to seriously learn the understanding of this rather than just assuming really basic and elementary things about Orthodoxy and history.

---

Saying "the Church as a whole won't permanently teach heresy" immediately raises a new question: how do we know when the Church as a whole has spoken? If bishops can be wrong, councils can be rejected, and entire jurisdictions can split, then someone still has to decide which side represents "the whole Church." That decision itself is made by fallible people, appealing to history and interpretation, which is exactly the problem Orthodoxy says Protestantism has.

Appealing to "reception" doesn't solve this either. Reception only becomes clear after decades or centuries, once history has settled. That doesn't help ordinary believers trying to know what's true now.

You also overstate the Protestant-denominations argument. Many Protestant disagreements are about secondary issues, not the core doctrines defined by the early councils that Orthodoxy itself accepts. And Orthodoxy isn't free from division either. We know that is has likewise split on several occasions.

As for your attempt to analogize this to the legal system, yes, a corrupt judge doesn't abolish law. But the existence of a legal system doesn't guarantee that any given ruling is correct. So the issue remains: all doctrinal judgment - whether by bishops, councils, or churches - still passes through fallible human interpretation. Orthodoxy doesn't escape the basic fact. As the Catholic Church has proven, truth certainty isn't guaranteed simply by moving interpretation from individuals to institutions.

---

You're creating your own problem with this argument then...because if it applies to councils, then it applies to you. The problem with this 'fallible interpretation' argument is that it's a double-edged sword. If you claim councils are just fallible people interpreting history, then you have to admit your own reading of Scripture is just a fallible person interpreting a text.

The common response to that is "scripture is the final authority". Scripture doesn't read itself. You're either following the Church's interpretation or your own. It doesn't actually give you the authority of God, it gives you the authority of the reader. It's not "the Bible says," it's "I say the Bible says.".

Protestant disagreements are not just secondary issues. That's nonsense. There are protestants that adhere to penal substitutionary atonement and those that don't: that's a completely different view of the gospel and radically changes how one approaches prayer, scripture, repentance and behavior.
If Protestant disagreements are just 'secondary,' why did the Reformers kill each other over them? You don't execute people over 'non-essential' music styles or pews. They killed each other over Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Trinity...the very 'core' things you claim the Bible makes clear.

---

Speaking of killing people over religious disagreements, can we get a comment on the Inquisition? I mean, since we want to talk about history, and all.

---

The Inquisition was a Roman Catholic development, so that's a swing and a miss if you're aiming at Orthodoxy. We don't have a centralized 'Office of the Inquisition' because our authority isn't built on a legalistic Roman model.

Orthodox are the most persecuted and killed in all of Christianity though. More Orthodox Christians died for Christ in the 1930s alone than in the entire first three centuries of the Roman Empire. We aren't a 'system of power' trying to control people, we are a Church of Martyrs that has survived every attempt by the world to delete it. Of an estimated 70M martyrs, 40M of them are Orthodox.

Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

---

Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

---

Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

---

The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

---

If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up.

Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

---

Your post seems to assume that a historical line of church leaders automatically guarantees correct teaching. However, that is simply not a true statement in any way, shape or form. You can have continuity of office without continuity of truth. See the Catholic Church. The New Testament itself warns that elders, bishops, and even whole churches can fall into error. Paul tells church leaders that false teachers will arise from among them. Indeed, we have examples in scripture of entire churches founded by apostles that have been rebuked for abandoning the faith. So the existence of succession does not remove fallibility.

You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong. The New Testament already models this by correcting churches and leaders through written teaching rather than appeals to lineage and tradition.

In short, your post presents a false equivalency, in large part based on your assumptions and biases as an adherent to Orthodoxy. Contrary to your insinuations, an unbroken chain of bishops simply does not ensure doctrinal correctness.

---

Who interprets Scripture when leaders disagree? You've only pushed the fallibility problem back one level. If bishops can err, so can individual interpreters…and demonstrably have, producing thousands of Protestant denominations all claiming scriptural fidelity.

Yes, Paul warns that false teachers will arise from within. Yes, churches are rebuked in Revelation. Orthodox theology has never claimed succession confers impeccability. The claim is that the Church as a whole, guided by the Holy Spirit, will not formally and permanently define heresy as orthodoxy. Individual bishops can err. Councils can be rejected as fraudulent, and were. The reception of councils by the whole Church is itself part of the discernment mechanism. This is far more sophisticated than "bishops automatically guarantee truth," which is a caricature, not the actual position.

The Orthodox critique of Rome is precisely that Rome departed from conciliar ecclesiology by overcentralizing authority in a single bishop…which is itself a betrayal of the apostolic succession model, not a vindication of it.
If a man with a valid ordination teaches heresy, Orthodoxy says his teaching is rejected, not that succession is therefore meaningless. The existence of corruption within a succession doesn't prove the principle of succession false any more than a corrupt judge proves the legal system is fictional.

Y'all need to seriously learn the understanding of this rather than just assuming really basic and elementary things about Orthodoxy and history.

---

Saying "the Church as a whole won't permanently teach heresy" immediately raises a new question: how do we know when the Church as a whole has spoken? If bishops can be wrong, councils can be rejected, and entire jurisdictions can split, then someone still has to decide which side represents "the whole Church." That decision itself is made by fallible people, appealing to history and interpretation, which is exactly the problem Orthodoxy says Protestantism has.

Appealing to "reception" doesn't solve this either. Reception only becomes clear after decades or centuries, once history has settled. That doesn't help ordinary believers trying to know what's true now.

You also overstate the Protestant-denominations argument. Many Protestant disagreements are about secondary issues, not the core doctrines defined by the early councils that Orthodoxy itself accepts. And Orthodoxy isn't free from division either. We know that is has likewise split on several occasions.

As for your attempt to analogize this to the legal system, yes, a corrupt judge doesn't abolish law. But the existence of a legal system doesn't guarantee that any given ruling is correct. So the issue remains: all doctrinal judgment - whether by bishops, councils, or churches - still passes through fallible human interpretation. Orthodoxy doesn't escape the basic fact. As the Catholic Church has proven, truth certainty isn't guaranteed simply by moving interpretation from individuals to institutions.

---

You're creating your own problem with this argument then...because if it applies to councils, then it applies to you. The problem with this 'fallible interpretation' argument is that it's a double-edged sword. If you claim councils are just fallible people interpreting history, then you have to admit your own reading of Scripture is just a fallible person interpreting a text.

The common response to that is "scripture is the final authority". Scripture doesn't read itself. You're either following the Church's interpretation or your own. It doesn't actually give you the authority of God, it gives you the authority of the reader. It's not "the Bible says," it's "I say the Bible says.".

Protestant disagreements are not just secondary issues. That's nonsense. There are protestants that adhere to penal substitutionary atonement and those that don't: that's a completely different view of the gospel and radically changes how one approaches prayer, scripture, repentance and behavior.
If Protestant disagreements are just 'secondary,' why did the Reformers kill each other over them? You don't execute people over 'non-essential' music styles or pews. They killed each other over Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Trinity...the very 'core' things you claim the Bible makes clear.

---

Yes, everyone is fallible. All protestants I know already agree with that. That's not a problem for sola scriptura; it's part of it. Admitting "I might be mistaken" does not undermine scripture. Claiming that "this council cannot be mistaken" is the extra claim that needs proof.

Of course scripture must be interpreted. But interpreting something does not make you its authority. Just as reading a law doesn't give you the power to rewrite the law, interpreting Scripture doesn't turn your opinion into God's voice.

With respect to the creeds and councils, protestants don't reject creeds or councils. They accept them because they summarize scripture well, not because they're automatically errorproof. Authority comes from scripture to the church's teaching, not the other way around. Moreover, councils don't eliminate interpretation. You still have to decide 1) which councils count; 2) when councils contradict, which one wins; and 3) whether a council actually taught what people say it taught. That is still a human judgment.

As for Protestant disagreements, you continue to exaggerate. Protestants overwhelmingly agree on the core: 1) the trinity: 2) Christ's divinity and resurrection; 3) salvation by grace; and 4) authority of scripture. I would submit real disagreement exists just as much within Catholic and Orthodox theology; it's just kept under one institutional roof.

Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

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Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

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The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

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If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up.

Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

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Your post seems to assume that a historical line of church leaders automatically guarantees correct teaching. However, that is simply not a true statement in any way, shape or form. You can have continuity of office without continuity of truth. See the Catholic Church. The New Testament itself warns that elders, bishops, and even whole churches can fall into error. Paul tells church leaders that false teachers will arise from among them. Indeed, we have examples in scripture of entire churches founded by apostles that have been rebuked for abandoning the faith. So the existence of succession does not remove fallibility.

You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong. The New Testament already models this by correcting churches and leaders through written teaching rather than appeals to lineage and tradition.

In short, your post presents a false equivalency, in large part based on your assumptions and biases as an adherent to Orthodoxy. Contrary to your insinuations, an unbroken chain of bishops simply does not ensure doctrinal correctness.

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Who interprets Scripture when leaders disagree? You've only pushed the fallibility problem back one level. If bishops can err, so can individual interpreters…and demonstrably have, producing thousands of Protestant denominations all claiming scriptural fidelity.

Yes, Paul warns that false teachers will arise from within. Yes, churches are rebuked in Revelation. Orthodox theology has never claimed succession confers impeccability. The claim is that the Church as a whole, guided by the Holy Spirit, will not formally and permanently define heresy as orthodoxy. Individual bishops can err. Councils can be rejected as fraudulent, and were. The reception of councils by the whole Church is itself part of the discernment mechanism. This is far more sophisticated than "bishops automatically guarantee truth," which is a caricature, not the actual position.

The Orthodox critique of Rome is precisely that Rome departed from conciliar ecclesiology by overcentralizing authority in a single bishop…which is itself a betrayal of the apostolic succession model, not a vindication of it.
If a man with a valid ordination teaches heresy, Orthodoxy says his teaching is rejected, not that succession is therefore meaningless. The existence of corruption within a succession doesn't prove the principle of succession false any more than a corrupt judge proves the legal system is fictional.

Y'all need to seriously learn the understanding of this rather than just assuming really basic and elementary things about Orthodoxy and history.

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Saying "the Church as a whole won't permanently teach heresy" immediately raises a new question: how do we know when the Church as a whole has spoken? If bishops can be wrong, councils can be rejected, and entire jurisdictions can split, then someone still has to decide which side represents "the whole Church." That decision itself is made by fallible people, appealing to history and interpretation, which is exactly the problem Orthodoxy says Protestantism has.

Appealing to "reception" doesn't solve this either. Reception only becomes clear after decades or centuries, once history has settled. That doesn't help ordinary believers trying to know what's true now.

You also overstate the Protestant-denominations argument. Many Protestant disagreements are about secondary issues, not the core doctrines defined by the early councils that Orthodoxy itself accepts. And Orthodoxy isn't free from division either. We know that is has likewise split on several occasions.

As for your attempt to analogize this to the legal system, yes, a corrupt judge doesn't abolish law. But the existence of a legal system doesn't guarantee that any given ruling is correct. So the issue remains: all doctrinal judgment - whether by bishops, councils, or churches - still passes through fallible human interpretation. Orthodoxy doesn't escape the basic fact. As the Catholic Church has proven, truth certainty isn't guaranteed simply by moving interpretation from individuals to institutions.

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You're creating your own problem with this argument then...because if it applies to councils, then it applies to you. The problem with this 'fallible interpretation' argument is that it's a double-edged sword. If you claim councils are just fallible people interpreting history, then you have to admit your own reading of Scripture is just a fallible person interpreting a text.

The common response to that is "scripture is the final authority". Scripture doesn't read itself. You're either following the Church's interpretation or your own. It doesn't actually give you the authority of God, it gives you the authority of the reader. It's not "the Bible says," it's "I say the Bible says.".

Protestant disagreements are not just secondary issues. That's nonsense. There are protestants that adhere to penal substitutionary atonement and those that don't: that's a completely different view of the gospel and radically changes how one approaches prayer, scripture, repentance and behavior.
If Protestant disagreements are just 'secondary,' why did the Reformers kill each other over them? You don't execute people over 'non-essential' music styles or pews. They killed each other over Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Trinity...the very 'core' things you claim the Bible makes clear.

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Yes, everyone is fallible. All protestants I know already agree with that. That's not a problem for sola scriptura; it's part of it. Admitting "I might be mistaken" does not undermine scripture. Claiming that "this council cannot be mistaken" is the extra claim that needs proof.

Of course scripture must be interpreted. But interpreting something does not make you its authority. Just as reading a law doesn't give you the power to rewrite the law, interpreting Scripture doesn't turn your opinion into God's voice.

With respect to the creeds and councils, protestants don't reject creeds or councils. They accept them because they summarize scripture well, not because they're automatically errorproof. Authority comes from scripture to the church's teaching, not the other way around. Moreover, councils don't eliminate interpretation. You still have to decide 1) which councils count; 2) when councils contradict, which one wins; and 3) whether a council actually taught what people say it taught. That is still a human judgment.

As for Protestant disagreements, you continue to exaggerate. Protestants overwhelmingly agree on the core: 1) the trinity: 2) Christ's divinity and resurrection; 3) salvation by grace; and 4) authority of scripture. I would submit real disagreement exists just as much within Catholic and Orthodox theology; it's just kept under one institutional roof.

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The question was never whether individuals are fallible. The question is: what is the mechanism for resolving disputes when fallible interpreters disagree on something essential? It's not "better exegesis"…that just produces another fallible interpreter.

You're requiring proof for conciliar authority but treating your own interpretive conclusions as the default. Why? Both require justification.

The Orthodox claim is not that councils are mechanically infallible but that the Holy Spirit preserves the Church from formally defining error. That's a claim with direct scriptural warrant in John 16:13 and Matthew 16:18.

Who taught you what Scripture says well enough to evaluate whether the council summarized it correctly?

Is baptismal regeneration core? Is the Lord's Supper merely symbolic? Is justification forensic or transformative? Is predestination essential?

Orthodoxy has a mechanism for adjudicating disputes that doesn't produce permanent fragmentation.

If sola scriptura is a workable epistemology, give me a concrete procedure, not a principle, a procedure, for resolving a genuine dispute between two Spirit-filled, Scripture-saturated, exegetically serious Christians who have reached contradictory conclusions on a salvation relevant doctrine.

Which men handed us the canon? Fallible ones.
Which men translated the Bible? Fallible ones.
Which men taught us the hermeneutical principles by which you read? Fallible ones.

We're all standing on a tower of fallible men, if your go to is to tell others not to trust fallible men…then you can't trust anything. If the mere fact of human fallibility disqualifies a transmission chain from conveying reliable truth, then you cannot trust a single damn thing.

Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

---

Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

---

The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

---

If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up.

Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

---

Your post seems to assume that a historical line of church leaders automatically guarantees correct teaching. However, that is simply not a true statement in any way, shape or form. You can have continuity of office without continuity of truth. See the Catholic Church. The New Testament itself warns that elders, bishops, and even whole churches can fall into error. Paul tells church leaders that false teachers will arise from among them. Indeed, we have examples in scripture of entire churches founded by apostles that have been rebuked for abandoning the faith. So the existence of succession does not remove fallibility.

You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong. The New Testament already models this by correcting churches and leaders through written teaching rather than appeals to lineage and tradition.

In short, your post presents a false equivalency, in large part based on your assumptions and biases as an adherent to Orthodoxy. Contrary to your insinuations, an unbroken chain of bishops simply does not ensure doctrinal correctness.

---

Who interprets Scripture when leaders disagree? You've only pushed the fallibility problem back one level. If bishops can err, so can individual interpreters…and demonstrably have, producing thousands of Protestant denominations all claiming scriptural fidelity.

Yes, Paul warns that false teachers will arise from within. Yes, churches are rebuked in Revelation. Orthodox theology has never claimed succession confers impeccability. The claim is that the Church as a whole, guided by the Holy Spirit, will not formally and permanently define heresy as orthodoxy. Individual bishops can err. Councils can be rejected as fraudulent, and were. The reception of councils by the whole Church is itself part of the discernment mechanism. This is far more sophisticated than "bishops automatically guarantee truth," which is a caricature, not the actual position.

The Orthodox critique of Rome is precisely that Rome departed from conciliar ecclesiology by overcentralizing authority in a single bishop…which is itself a betrayal of the apostolic succession model, not a vindication of it.
If a man with a valid ordination teaches heresy, Orthodoxy says his teaching is rejected, not that succession is therefore meaningless. The existence of corruption within a succession doesn't prove the principle of succession false any more than a corrupt judge proves the legal system is fictional.

Y'all need to seriously learn the understanding of this rather than just assuming really basic and elementary things about Orthodoxy and history.

---

Saying "the Church as a whole won't permanently teach heresy" immediately raises a new question: how do we know when the Church as a whole has spoken? If bishops can be wrong, councils can be rejected, and entire jurisdictions can split, then someone still has to decide which side represents "the whole Church." That decision itself is made by fallible people, appealing to history and interpretation, which is exactly the problem Orthodoxy says Protestantism has.

Appealing to "reception" doesn't solve this either. Reception only becomes clear after decades or centuries, once history has settled. That doesn't help ordinary believers trying to know what's true now.

You also overstate the Protestant-denominations argument. Many Protestant disagreements are about secondary issues, not the core doctrines defined by the early councils that Orthodoxy itself accepts. And Orthodoxy isn't free from division either. We know that is has likewise split on several occasions.

As for your attempt to analogize this to the legal system, yes, a corrupt judge doesn't abolish law. But the existence of a legal system doesn't guarantee that any given ruling is correct. So the issue remains: all doctrinal judgment - whether by bishops, councils, or churches - still passes through fallible human interpretation. Orthodoxy doesn't escape the basic fact. As the Catholic Church has proven, truth certainty isn't guaranteed simply by moving interpretation from individuals to institutions.

---

You're creating your own problem with this argument then...because if it applies to councils, then it applies to you. The problem with this 'fallible interpretation' argument is that it's a double-edged sword. If you claim councils are just fallible people interpreting history, then you have to admit your own reading of Scripture is just a fallible person interpreting a text.

The common response to that is "scripture is the final authority". Scripture doesn't read itself. You're either following the Church's interpretation or your own. It doesn't actually give you the authority of God, it gives you the authority of the reader. It's not "the Bible says," it's "I say the Bible says.".

Protestant disagreements are not just secondary issues. That's nonsense. There are protestants that adhere to penal substitutionary atonement and those that don't: that's a completely different view of the gospel and radically changes how one approaches prayer, scripture, repentance and behavior.
If Protestant disagreements are just 'secondary,' why did the Reformers kill each other over them? You don't execute people over 'non-essential' music styles or pews. They killed each other over Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Trinity...the very 'core' things you claim the Bible makes clear.

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Yes, everyone is fallible. All protestants I know already agree with that. That's not a problem for sola scriptura; it's part of it. Admitting "I might be mistaken" does not undermine scripture. Claiming that "this council cannot be mistaken" is the extra claim that needs proof.

Of course scripture must be interpreted. But interpreting something does not make you its authority. Just as reading a law doesn't give you the power to rewrite the law, interpreting Scripture doesn't turn your opinion into God's voice.

With respect to the creeds and councils, protestants don't reject creeds or councils. They accept them because they summarize scripture well, not because they're automatically errorproof. Authority comes from scripture to the church's teaching, not the other way around. Moreover, councils don't eliminate interpretation. You still have to decide 1) which councils count; 2) when councils contradict, which one wins; and 3) whether a council actually taught what people say it taught. That is still a human judgment.

As for Protestant disagreements, you continue to exaggerate. Protestants overwhelmingly agree on the core: 1) the trinity: 2) Christ's divinity and resurrection; 3) salvation by grace; and 4) authority of scripture. I would submit real disagreement exists just as much within Catholic and Orthodox theology; it's just kept under one institutional roof.

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The question was never whether individuals are fallible. The question is: what is the mechanism for resolving disputes when fallible interpreters disagree on something essential? It's not "better exegesis"…that just produces another fallible interpreter.

You're requiring proof for conciliar authority but treating your own interpretive conclusions as the default. Why? Both require justification.

The Orthodox claim is not that councils are mechanically infallible but that the Holy Spirit preserves the Church from formally defining error. That's a claim with direct scriptural warrant in John 16:13 and Matthew 16:18.

Who taught you what Scripture says well enough to evaluate whether the council summarized it correctly?

Is baptismal regeneration core? Is the Lord's Supper merely symbolic? Is justification forensic or transformative? Is predestination essential?

Orthodoxy has a mechanism for adjudicating disputes that doesn't produce permanent fragmentation.

If sola scriptura is a workable epistemology, give me a concrete procedure, not a principle, a procedure, for resolving a genuine dispute between two Spirit-filled, Scripture-saturated, exegetically serious Christians who have reached contradictory conclusions on a salvation relevant doctrine.

---

Councils don't magically avoid interpretation. They are groups of people arguing about Scripture, just like individuals. So appealing to councils doesn't remove fallibility; it just hides it behind an institution.

The Bible promises that the Church won't fail, not that every official statement will be perfectly correct. If councils were guaranteed to settle doctrine without error, Orthodoxy wouldn't still have real disagreements today but it does.

Sola Scriptura doesn't claim everyone will always agree. It gives a clear way forward: go back to Scripture, use good reasoning, listen to the church through history, make accountable decisions, and be willing to be corrected by God's Word.

In the end, Orthodoxy still asks you to make a personal judgment that its Church and councils are the protected ones. That choice isn't any less interpretive than reading the Bible yourself. So the real issue isn't fallibility, everyone has that. The issue is where final authority lives: in a human institution that must be interpreted, or in Scripture, which stands above all human interpreters.

I will go with the latter.

Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Mothra said:

---

Doc Holliday said:

---

Oldbear83 said:

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Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

---

Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

---

The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

---

If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up.

Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

---

Your post seems to assume that a historical line of church leaders automatically guarantees correct teaching. However, that is simply not a true statement in any way, shape or form. You can have continuity of office without continuity of truth. See the Catholic Church. The New Testament itself warns that elders, bishops, and even whole churches can fall into error. Paul tells church leaders that false teachers will arise from among them. Indeed, we have examples in scripture of entire churches founded by apostles that have been rebuked for abandoning the faith. So the existence of succession does not remove fallibility.

You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong. The New Testament already models this by correcting churches and leaders through written teaching rather than appeals to lineage and tradition.

In short, your post presents a false equivalency, in large part based on your assumptions and biases as an adherent to Orthodoxy. Contrary to your insinuations, an unbroken chain of bishops simply does not ensure doctrinal correctness.

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Who interprets Scripture when leaders disagree? You've only pushed the fallibility problem back one level. If bishops can err, so can individual interpreters…and demonstrably have, producing thousands of Protestant denominations all claiming scriptural fidelity.

Yes, Paul warns that false teachers will arise from within. Yes, churches are rebuked in Revelation. Orthodox theology has never claimed succession confers impeccability. The claim is that the Church as a whole, guided by the Holy Spirit, will not formally and permanently define heresy as orthodoxy. Individual bishops can err. Councils can be rejected as fraudulent, and were. The reception of councils by the whole Church is itself part of the discernment mechanism. This is far more sophisticated than "bishops automatically guarantee truth," which is a caricature, not the actual position.

The Orthodox critique of Rome is precisely that Rome departed from conciliar ecclesiology by overcentralizing authority in a single bishop…which is itself a betrayal of the apostolic succession model, not a vindication of it.
If a man with a valid ordination teaches heresy, Orthodoxy says his teaching is rejected, not that succession is therefore meaningless. The existence of corruption within a succession doesn't prove the principle of succession false any more than a corrupt judge proves the legal system is fictional.

Y'all need to seriously learn the understanding of this rather than just assuming really basic and elementary things about Orthodoxy and history.

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Saying "the Church as a whole won't permanently teach heresy" immediately raises a new question: how do we know when the Church as a whole has spoken? If bishops can be wrong, councils can be rejected, and entire jurisdictions can split, then someone still has to decide which side represents "the whole Church." That decision itself is made by fallible people, appealing to history and interpretation, which is exactly the problem Orthodoxy says Protestantism has.

Appealing to "reception" doesn't solve this either. Reception only becomes clear after decades or centuries, once history has settled. That doesn't help ordinary believers trying to know what's true now.

You also overstate the Protestant-denominations argument. Many Protestant disagreements are about secondary issues, not the core doctrines defined by the early councils that Orthodoxy itself accepts. And Orthodoxy isn't free from division either. We know that is has likewise split on several occasions.

As for your attempt to analogize this to the legal system, yes, a corrupt judge doesn't abolish law. But the existence of a legal system doesn't guarantee that any given ruling is correct. So the issue remains: all doctrinal judgment - whether by bishops, councils, or churches - still passes through fallible human interpretation. Orthodoxy doesn't escape the basic fact. As the Catholic Church has proven, truth certainty isn't guaranteed simply by moving interpretation from individuals to institutions.

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You're creating your own problem with this argument then...because if it applies to councils, then it applies to you. The problem with this 'fallible interpretation' argument is that it's a double-edged sword. If you claim councils are just fallible people interpreting history, then you have to admit your own reading of Scripture is just a fallible person interpreting a text.

The common response to that is "scripture is the final authority". Scripture doesn't read itself. You're either following the Church's interpretation or your own. It doesn't actually give you the authority of God, it gives you the authority of the reader. It's not "the Bible says," it's "I say the Bible says.".

Protestant disagreements are not just secondary issues. That's nonsense. There are protestants that adhere to penal substitutionary atonement and those that don't: that's a completely different view of the gospel and radically changes how one approaches prayer, scripture, repentance and behavior.
If Protestant disagreements are just 'secondary,' why did the Reformers kill each other over them? You don't execute people over 'non-essential' music styles or pews. They killed each other over Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Trinity...the very 'core' things you claim the Bible makes clear.

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Yes, everyone is fallible. All protestants I know already agree with that. That's not a problem for sola scriptura; it's part of it. Admitting "I might be mistaken" does not undermine scripture. Claiming that "this council cannot be mistaken" is the extra claim that needs proof.

Of course scripture must be interpreted. But interpreting something does not make you its authority. Just as reading a law doesn't give you the power to rewrite the law, interpreting Scripture doesn't turn your opinion into God's voice.

With respect to the creeds and councils, protestants don't reject creeds or councils. They accept them because they summarize scripture well, not because they're automatically errorproof. Authority comes from scripture to the church's teaching, not the other way around. Moreover, councils don't eliminate interpretation. You still have to decide 1) which councils count; 2) when councils contradict, which one wins; and 3) whether a council actually taught what people say it taught. That is still a human judgment.

As for Protestant disagreements, you continue to exaggerate. Protestants overwhelmingly agree on the core: 1) the trinity: 2) Christ's divinity and resurrection; 3) salvation by grace; and 4) authority of scripture. I would submit real disagreement exists just as much within Catholic and Orthodox theology; it's just kept under one institutional roof.

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The question was never whether individuals are fallible. The question is: what is the mechanism for resolving disputes when fallible interpreters disagree on something essential? It's not "better exegesis"…that just produces another fallible interpreter.

You're requiring proof for conciliar authority but treating your own interpretive conclusions as the default. Why? Both require justification.

The Orthodox claim is not that councils are mechanically infallible but that the Holy Spirit preserves the Church from formally defining error. That's a claim with direct scriptural warrant in John 16:13 and Matthew 16:18.

Who taught you what Scripture says well enough to evaluate whether the council summarized it correctly?

Is baptismal regeneration core? Is the Lord's Supper merely symbolic? Is justification forensic or transformative? Is predestination essential?

Orthodoxy has a mechanism for adjudicating disputes that doesn't produce permanent fragmentation.

If sola scriptura is a workable epistemology, give me a concrete procedure, not a principle, a procedure, for resolving a genuine dispute between two Spirit-filled, Scripture-saturated, exegetically serious Christians who have reached contradictory conclusions on a salvation relevant doctrine.

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Councils don't magically avoid interpretation. They are groups of people arguing about Scripture, just like individuals. So appealing to councils doesn't remove fallibility; it just hides it behind an institution.

The Bible promises that the Church won't fail, not that every official statement will be perfectly correct. If councils were guaranteed to settle doctrine without error, Orthodoxy wouldn't still have real disagreements today but it does.

Sola Scriptura doesn't claim everyone will always agree. It gives a clear way forward: go back to Scripture, use good reasoning, listen to the church through history, make accountable decisions, and be willing to be corrected by God's Word.

In the end, Orthodoxy still asks you to make a personal judgment that its Church and councils are the protected ones. That choice isn't any less interpretive than reading the Bible yourself. So the real issue isn't fallibility, everyone has that. The issue is where final authority lives: in a human institution that must be interpreted, or in Scripture, which stands above all human interpreters.

I will go with the latter.

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What does it mean for the Church to not fail if every definition it has ever produced remains permanently open to revision by any individual with a Bible and sufficient confidence in his own reasoning?

You're right that joining Orthodoxy requires a personal judgment. But there is a categorical difference between a one-time judgment that this community is the Spirit-guided custodian of apostolic teaching, after which you submit your private interpretation to its authority, and a system that requires you to personally adjudicate every disputed doctrinal question indefinitely with no final court of appeal beyond your own exegesis. The first is a judgment that ends private judgment. The second permanently enshrines it.

You say final authority lives in Scripture, which stands above all human interpreters. That is precisely the Orthodox position. The Church does not claim to stand above Scripture. It claims to be Scripture's Spirit-guided custodian and authentic interpreter

The question you haven't answered is the only one that matters: when Scripture has been misinterpreted by people call claiming the Holy Spirit guides them, and you agree it can be, what did God actually provide to correct that error?

Doc Holliday said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

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Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

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The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

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If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up.

Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

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Your post seems to assume that a historical line of church leaders automatically guarantees correct teaching. However, that is simply not a true statement in any way, shape or form. You can have continuity of office without continuity of truth. See the Catholic Church. The New Testament itself warns that elders, bishops, and even whole churches can fall into error. Paul tells church leaders that false teachers will arise from among them. Indeed, we have examples in scripture of entire churches founded by apostles that have been rebuked for abandoning the faith. So the existence of succession does not remove fallibility.

You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong. The New Testament already models this by correcting churches and leaders through written teaching rather than appeals to lineage and tradition.

In short, your post presents a false equivalency, in large part based on your assumptions and biases as an adherent to Orthodoxy. Contrary to your insinuations, an unbroken chain of bishops simply does not ensure doctrinal correctness.

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Who interprets Scripture when leaders disagree? You've only pushed the fallibility problem back one level. If bishops can err, so can individual interpreters…and demonstrably have, producing thousands of Protestant denominations all claiming scriptural fidelity.

Yes, Paul warns that false teachers will arise from within. Yes, churches are rebuked in Revelation. Orthodox theology has never claimed succession confers impeccability. The claim is that the Church as a whole, guided by the Holy Spirit, will not formally and permanently define heresy as orthodoxy. Individual bishops can err. Councils can be rejected as fraudulent, and were. The reception of councils by the whole Church is itself part of the discernment mechanism. This is far more sophisticated than "bishops automatically guarantee truth," which is a caricature, not the actual position.

The Orthodox critique of Rome is precisely that Rome departed from conciliar ecclesiology by overcentralizing authority in a single bishop…which is itself a betrayal of the apostolic succession model, not a vindication of it.
If a man with a valid ordination teaches heresy, Orthodoxy says his teaching is rejected, not that succession is therefore meaningless. The existence of corruption within a succession doesn't prove the principle of succession false any more than a corrupt judge proves the legal system is fictional.

Y'all need to seriously learn the understanding of this rather than just assuming really basic and elementary things about Orthodoxy and history.

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Saying "the Church as a whole won't permanently teach heresy" immediately raises a new question: how do we know when the Church as a whole has spoken? If bishops can be wrong, councils can be rejected, and entire jurisdictions can split, then someone still has to decide which side represents "the whole Church." That decision itself is made by fallible people, appealing to history and interpretation, which is exactly the problem Orthodoxy says Protestantism has.

Appealing to "reception" doesn't solve this either. Reception only becomes clear after decades or centuries, once history has settled. That doesn't help ordinary believers trying to know what's true now.

You also overstate the Protestant-denominations argument. Many Protestant disagreements are about secondary issues, not the core doctrines defined by the early councils that Orthodoxy itself accepts. And Orthodoxy isn't free from division either. We know that is has likewise split on several occasions.

As for your attempt to analogize this to the legal system, yes, a corrupt judge doesn't abolish law. But the existence of a legal system doesn't guarantee that any given ruling is correct. So the issue remains: all doctrinal judgment - whether by bishops, councils, or churches - still passes through fallible human interpretation. Orthodoxy doesn't escape the basic fact. As the Catholic Church has proven, truth certainty isn't guaranteed simply by moving interpretation from individuals to institutions.

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You're creating your own problem with this argument then...because if it applies to councils, then it applies to you. The problem with this 'fallible interpretation' argument is that it's a double-edged sword. If you claim councils are just fallible people interpreting history, then you have to admit your own reading of Scripture is just a fallible person interpreting a text.

The common response to that is "scripture is the final authority". Scripture doesn't read itself. You're either following the Church's interpretation or your own. It doesn't actually give you the authority of God, it gives you the authority of the reader. It's not "the Bible says," it's "I say the Bible says.".

Protestant disagreements are not just secondary issues. That's nonsense. There are protestants that adhere to penal substitutionary atonement and those that don't: that's a completely different view of the gospel and radically changes how one approaches prayer, scripture, repentance and behavior.
If Protestant disagreements are just 'secondary,' why did the Reformers kill each other over them? You don't execute people over 'non-essential' music styles or pews. They killed each other over Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Trinity...the very 'core' things you claim the Bible makes clear.

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Yes, everyone is fallible. All protestants I know already agree with that. That's not a problem for sola scriptura; it's part of it. Admitting "I might be mistaken" does not undermine scripture. Claiming that "this council cannot be mistaken" is the extra claim that needs proof.

Of course scripture must be interpreted. But interpreting something does not make you its authority. Just as reading a law doesn't give you the power to rewrite the law, interpreting Scripture doesn't turn your opinion into God's voice.

With respect to the creeds and councils, protestants don't reject creeds or councils. They accept them because they summarize scripture well, not because they're automatically errorproof. Authority comes from scripture to the church's teaching, not the other way around. Moreover, councils don't eliminate interpretation. You still have to decide 1) which councils count; 2) when councils contradict, which one wins; and 3) whether a council actually taught what people say it taught. That is still a human judgment.

As for Protestant disagreements, you continue to exaggerate. Protestants overwhelmingly agree on the core: 1) the trinity: 2) Christ's divinity and resurrection; 3) salvation by grace; and 4) authority of scripture. I would submit real disagreement exists just as much within Catholic and Orthodox theology; it's just kept under one institutional roof.

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The question was never whether individuals are fallible. The question is: what is the mechanism for resolving disputes when fallible interpreters disagree on something essential? It's not "better exegesis"…that just produces another fallible interpreter.

You're requiring proof for conciliar authority but treating your own interpretive conclusions as the default. Why? Both require justification.

The Orthodox claim is not that councils are mechanically infallible but that the Holy Spirit preserves the Church from formally defining error. That's a claim with direct scriptural warrant in John 16:13 and Matthew 16:18.

Who taught you what Scripture says well enough to evaluate whether the council summarized it correctly?

Is baptismal regeneration core? Is the Lord's Supper merely symbolic? Is justification forensic or transformative? Is predestination essential?

Orthodoxy has a mechanism for adjudicating disputes that doesn't produce permanent fragmentation.

If sola scriptura is a workable epistemology, give me a concrete procedure, not a principle, a procedure, for resolving a genuine dispute between two Spirit-filled, Scripture-saturated, exegetically serious Christians who have reached contradictory conclusions on a salvation relevant doctrine.

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Surely you can name names with reference to your last paragraph. We'll wait.

Doc Holliday said:

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Which men handed us the canon? Fallible ones.
Which men translated the Bible? Fallible ones.
Which men taught us the hermeneutical principles by which you read? Fallible ones.

We're all standing on a tower of fallible men, if your go to is to tell others not to trust fallible men…then you can't trust anything. If the mere fact of human fallibility disqualifies a transmission chain from conveying reliable truth, then you cannot trust a single damn thing.

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Do you not believe that Scripture is infallible, being the very word of God?

There is a (HUGE) difference between going by what Scripture says, and going by what uninspired church fathers said. Interpretation is a different thing. Look at the SOURCE first. Which source is infallible - the word of God, or the word of fallible men like Irenaeus, who said that Jesus was near 50 years old when he was crucified?

YOU might be standing on a tower of fallible men. That's your problem. You've built your theology on them. You believe that Mary was the "New Eve" because those fallible men said it. However, we don't, because we're not standing on a tower of fallible men, we're standing on the infallible word of God, where such beliefs are NOWHERE to be found.

You really have built your house on a foundation of sand.

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I keep hearing this claim that Scripture alone can give you a perfect definition of the Holy Trinity as defined by Nicea and Chalcedon which most Protestants affirm.

Thats absolute nonsense.

Aries made his case to deny the Trinity with texts like Proverbs 8:22 ("the Lord created me at the beginning of his work"), John 14:28 ("the Father is greater than I"), Colossians 1:15 ("firstborn of all creation"), and Mark 13:32 (the Son not knowing the day or hour).

The Trinity was not settled by a better proof text. It was settled by a council with binding authority. Which is the problem. You can't affirm Nicaea and Chalcedon as settled Christianity, but then reject other conclusions from that same tradition and that same authority. You cannot selectively invoke conciliar authority when it suits you and discard it when it doesn't or you have no way to bind everyone.

Nobody actually relies on scripture alone either. Yall need to cut out that nonsense. Total bs. When a Reformed Protestant settles a disputed question by appealing to Calvin, or a Lutheran defers to Luther's exegesis, or a Baptist cites the Second London Confession, they are functionally doing exactly what they accuse Catholics and Orthodox of doing: grounding theological conclusions in the authority of post biblical teachers and confessional documents rather than scripture alone.

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You realize that you're arguing against solO scriptura, and not solA scriptura?

And the concept of the Trinity is fully derivable from Scripture, as I had already demonstrated to you. Besides, if it wasn't, how could have the councils come to that conclusion? Did they create a concept out of whole cloth?

Here's a question for you, as well as for everyone else: is the belief in the Trinity necessary for one's salvation?

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If the Trinity were simply derivable from Scripture by careful reading, Arius would not have been a serious theological threat requiring an ecumenical council to resolve.

Councils have the authority of the sacrament of apostolic succession. That gives them guidance by the Holy Spirit.

Mainline prots wouldn't be gay and secular. People interpret text multiple ways. You interpret debt and slavery language in a 21st century lens vs me who took time to understand how Jews viewed what those concepts meant in their time.

Yes, Trinitarian faith is necessary.

Have you ever questioned your denomination? Is there anything you think your church is doing wrong?
Do you know that there are numerous Protestant pastors that have become Orthodox?

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- so, you agree that you were arguing against solO scriptura, and not solA scriptura?

- I never said the Trinity was "simply" derivable. That's you adding words so you can validate your argument. It takes very careful reading and long, diligent study to derive the Trinity from Scripture. Therefore, it is not surprising that Christians, even true, saved Christians, would not be able to draw it from a simple reading. Arianism, on the other hand, is completely different. It says that Jesus is a created being, and therefore not God. However, Scripture CLEARLY indicates that Jesus is God. And therefore, no church council is needed to know that Arianism is false.

- So, you believe that a belief in the Trinity is necessary for salvation? You believe that if someone hears the gospel and believes and trusts in Jesus for their salvation, and they believe Jesus is God.... but they don't believe the Holy Spirit is God, but rather a kind of subordinate entity "sent" by God - then that means they are not saved? Does salvation depend on having a correct theology, especially one that is not explicitly taught in Scripture? And when did Jesus or his apostles every teach that?

- Look at what you're saying here: you're saying that the Trinity, which is 1) NOT derivable from Scripture but can only be known by the utterances of a council of men, and 2) is necessary for salvation - which is ultimately saying that the word of God is insufficient for our salvation!! Is this truly what you believe?

- I belong to no denomination. I'm simply a bible-believing Christian. Yes, there are things I question about certain teachings coming from various Protestant churches, and it's based on what Scripture says (the word of God), not based on what a council of men declared (the Tradition of men). I don't know how many Protestant pastors became Orthodox, but I'm sure it happens the other way around too. I will say that if a Protestant pastor becomes Roman Catholic or Orthodox, then something is really, really wrong with their faith if they are turning to a church that teaches a different gospel than the Bible and actively promotes and even requires the practice and belief in rank heresy and idolatry. Again, if they are okay with bowing and praying to images and saying "Mary is the salvation of my soul", then it's quite possible that they never really were a true Christian.

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If you die and learn that Orthodoxy was the true visible church...are you going to be mad at God?

No you cannot derive the Nicean/Chalcedon understanding of the Holy Trinity from scripture alone. Impossible. The word homoousias (of the same substance), is the entire linchpin of Nicene Trinitarianism and appears nowhere in scripture. The Council of Nicaea took a non-biblical Greek philosophical term and made it the binding theological test of Orthodoxy. That non scriptural vocabulary binds all Christians sotereologically: who authorized it to do so? A COUNCIL.

Every major Christian confession in history, including your own, explicitly requires Trinitarian faith: the Westminster Confession, the London Baptist Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, Belic Confession and every reformed document every written. Do you understand that the ' Jesus Only' position, held by Oneness Pentecostals is classified by every single reformed confession as heresy?.

Jehova's witnesses believe Jesus is a god, but not THE GOD. Are they saved?

Christology is important. Stop making the case that it isn't. You have no faith that Christ was capable of setting up a VISIBLE church. Your theology forces you to believe that the true church is invisible, that most of history people are left in the dark and only a few elect individuals can be saved. You also have no idea how CLOSE your theology is to medieval roman Catholicism. Your faith is derived from Latin assumptions. You wouldn't have PSA without nominalist medieval roman catholics already creating a PSA foundation that only ever appeared in history after the 1000s.

You claim you're trying to argue for sola scriptura, but not solo, while simultaneously claiming man made tradition is a secondary interpretative authority...then you claim Orthodox theology is off limits because its "Man made tradition". Your logic isn't consistent.

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Oh thanks for clarifying...

Truth is only true if a council declares it to be true? NO
The truth is true regardless of what any human had to say or think about it. The truth exists on its own.
Jesus declared himself to be "the truth". He doesn't need a council to approve of that statement.
Likewise the Trinity is very clearly described in scriptures. The word "trinity" doesn't need to be used in scripture for the basic concept of the Trinity to be understood.

Some of the early councils recognized and affirmed the truth, they did NOT create it. Later councils created nonsense like the ever sinless ever virgin and the infallible pope.

The Nicea council leaned heavily on the scriptures from the apostolic era... they did not create doctrine, they clarified and confirmed it.

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By what principled criterion do you distinguish a council that "recognized truth" from one that "invented nonsense"?

You can't claim scripture because it's only possible to claim your interpretation of scripture. You're using your interpretation of scripture to validate the councils you like and invalidate the ones you don't, which means scripture isn't actually your authority, YOUR INTERPRETATION is.

1 Timothy 4:14, 2 Timothy 1:6, and Acts 14:23 all show the laying on of hands as the mechanism of authoritative transmission. Titus 1:5 shows Titus appointing elders by Paul's authority. This is a chain of transmitted authority, not an invisible spiritual succession. Jesus established a visible Church.

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It's not that hard to understand if you actually read the Bible.

The councils that recognized the truth are the ones who took truth directly from the scriptures. The nonsense is the stuff that had no scriptural basis. Example: the Marian dogma.

The Bible never says that Mary was without sin. In fact it says the opposite. Romans 3:23 NIV
[23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:10 NIV
[10] As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;

The Bible never says that Mary was a forever virgin, in fact it says the opposite. Matthew 12:46 NIV
[46] While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Matthew 13:55-56 NIV
[55] "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? [56] Aren't all his sisters with us?"

The Bible never says that Mary is co-Redemer or co-Mediator or in any way involved in our salvation, in fact it says the opposite. 1 Timothy 2:5 NIV
[5] For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, John 14:6-7 NIV
[6] Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [7] If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." Acts 4:11-12 NIV
[11] Jesus is " 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.' [12] Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." 1 John 2:1-2 NIV
[1] My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the FatherJesus Christ, the Righteous One. [2] He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Most of the scriptures are very clear. They don't require a magisterium to be understood.

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On Romans 3:23, does "all have sinned" include Christ? By your own reading it must, since the text says "all" without exception. You obviously don't believe that, which means you are already doing interpretive work to exclude someone from the universal. The question is not whether exceptions exist, you already grant one. The question is who has the authority to identify them?

On the brothers of Jesus, "adelphos" in the Septuagint describes Lot's relationship to Abraham in Genesis 13:8. Lot was his nephew. The word does not require biological siblings. Jerome, Athanasius, Augustine, and Cyril all held perpetual virginity. The position you are calling obviously biblical was considered the novel one in the patristic period.

If no human being can in any sense participate in bringing others before God, then asking your fellow Christian to pray for you is also forbidden. You don't actually believe that. What the verse excludes is a rival savior, not the prayers of those alive in Christ.

You have 45,000 Protestant denominations with the same Bible who cannot agree on baptism, the Lord's Supper, or predestination. The Arian crisis was resolved not by a better proof text but by a council speaking with binding authority.

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Yes. If you have no council, no magisterium, no
Tradition; you end up Being your own pope and 45,000 denominations arguing and some dude in skinny pants living in a 5,000 sq foot house sleppin for God or a woman preacher convincing you "none of that stuff matters. Just believe. Nothing else"

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And with the magisterium you get hundreds, maybe thousands, of priests who rape children and get hidden & protected by the magisterium for decades.

Do you really want to go down this road? There are hundreds of years of horrible corruption in the Vatican. Far more corruption than even the false teachers who you incorrectly assign to protestants. The most vocal critics of false Christians like Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland are protestants. Meanwhile pope Francis was confirming Kenneth Copeland in his effort to create unity. Massive failure of the magisterium there.

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That's disgusting. Thats a W for you? Weird.

Now do the Protestant numbers of rape and sexual assault and molestation.

Do you really want to go Down that road? You think you have rape moral high ground? Wow what a hill to camp on. What Christian wouldn't denounce rhat evil by anyone. You ever known someone raped? If so doesnt seem something youd go to to score points on a little message board.

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Sad that you can't even follow your own discussion.

Your comment was implying that because of a lack of magisterium, Protestants end up with bad preachers and such.

So my response was pointing out that the magisterium hasn't saved roman catholics from having horrible issues within the church. Even more, the RC leadership tried to cover up the sexual assault of children for decades.

You were trying to say that the magisterium is better than the Protestant way, and I was pointing out that the magisterium has lead to horrible levels of corruption & cover up of horrible sins. The catholic rape issue is just the most commonly known example because it happened in our lifetime, but there are plenty of other examples of Vatican corruption & evil acts throughout history.

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Ummm. You completely dreamed up whatwver you thought my post "implied". I know for a fact the violent rape of someone never crossed my mind till I read your post

I think the prevalent protestant Christian rape scandals has farrrrrr outweighed anything the infiltrated priests in the Catholic Church have done but theres no reason for the media to try to bring down protestantism as it's already fractured j to 45,0000 different groups gets significantly less air time. Even 1 though is disgusting and one of if not the most evil things a human can do to another human.

Interesting how your mind works though

Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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ShooterTX said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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I keep hearing this claim that Scripture alone can give you a perfect definition of the Holy Trinity as defined by Nicea and Chalcedon which most Protestants affirm.

Thats absolute nonsense.

Aries made his case to deny the Trinity with texts like Proverbs 8:22 ("the Lord created me at the beginning of his work"), John 14:28 ("the Father is greater than I"), Colossians 1:15 ("firstborn of all creation"), and Mark 13:32 (the Son not knowing the day or hour).

The Trinity was not settled by a better proof text. It was settled by a council with binding authority. Which is the problem. You can't affirm Nicaea and Chalcedon as settled Christianity, but then reject other conclusions from that same tradition and that same authority. You cannot selectively invoke conciliar authority when it suits you and discard it when it doesn't or you have no way to bind everyone.

Nobody actually relies on scripture alone either. Yall need to cut out that nonsense. Total bs. When a Reformed Protestant settles a disputed question by appealing to Calvin, or a Lutheran defers to Luther's exegesis, or a Baptist cites the Second London Confession, they are functionally doing exactly what they accuse Catholics and Orthodox of doing: grounding theological conclusions in the authority of post biblical teachers and confessional documents rather than scripture alone.

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You realize that you're arguing against solO scriptura, and not solA scriptura?

And the concept of the Trinity is fully derivable from Scripture, as I had already demonstrated to you. Besides, if it wasn't, how could have the councils come to that conclusion? Did they create a concept out of whole cloth?

Here's a question for you, as well as for everyone else: is the belief in the Trinity necessary for one's salvation?

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If the Trinity were simply derivable from Scripture by careful reading, Arius would not have been a serious theological threat requiring an ecumenical council to resolve.

Councils have the authority of the sacrament of apostolic succession. That gives them guidance by the Holy Spirit.

Mainline prots wouldn't be gay and secular. People interpret text multiple ways. You interpret debt and slavery language in a 21st century lens vs me who took time to understand how Jews viewed what those concepts meant in their time.

Yes, Trinitarian faith is necessary.

Have you ever questioned your denomination? Is there anything you think your church is doing wrong?
Do you know that there are numerous Protestant pastors that have become Orthodox?

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- so, you agree that you were arguing against solO scriptura, and not solA scriptura?

- I never said the Trinity was "simply" derivable. That's you adding words so you can validate your argument. It takes very careful reading and long, diligent study to derive the Trinity from Scripture. Therefore, it is not surprising that Christians, even true, saved Christians, would not be able to draw it from a simple reading. Arianism, on the other hand, is completely different. It says that Jesus is a created being, and therefore not God. However, Scripture CLEARLY indicates that Jesus is God. And therefore, no church council is needed to know that Arianism is false.

- So, you believe that a belief in the Trinity is necessary for salvation? You believe that if someone hears the gospel and believes and trusts in Jesus for their salvation, and they believe Jesus is God.... but they don't believe the Holy Spirit is God, but rather a kind of subordinate entity "sent" by God - then that means they are not saved? Does salvation depend on having a correct theology, especially one that is not explicitly taught in Scripture? And when did Jesus or his apostles every teach that?

- Look at what you're saying here: you're saying that the Trinity, which is 1) NOT derivable from Scripture but can only be known by the utterances of a council of men, and 2) is necessary for salvation - which is ultimately saying that the word of God is insufficient for our salvation!! Is this truly what you believe?

- I belong to no denomination. I'm simply a bible-believing Christian. Yes, there are things I question about certain teachings coming from various Protestant churches, and it's based on what Scripture says (the word of God), not based on what a council of men declared (the Tradition of men). I don't know how many Protestant pastors became Orthodox, but I'm sure it happens the other way around too. I will say that if a Protestant pastor becomes Roman Catholic or Orthodox, then something is really, really wrong with their faith if they are turning to a church that teaches a different gospel than the Bible and actively promotes and even requires the practice and belief in rank heresy and idolatry. Again, if they are okay with bowing and praying to images and saying "Mary is the salvation of my soul", then it's quite possible that they never really were a true Christian.

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If you die and learn that Orthodoxy was the true visible church...are you going to be mad at God?

No you cannot derive the Nicean/Chalcedon understanding of the Holy Trinity from scripture alone. Impossible. The word homoousias (of the same substance), is the entire linchpin of Nicene Trinitarianism and appears nowhere in scripture. The Council of Nicaea took a non-biblical Greek philosophical term and made it the binding theological test of Orthodoxy. That non scriptural vocabulary binds all Christians sotereologically: who authorized it to do so? A COUNCIL.

Every major Christian confession in history, including your own, explicitly requires Trinitarian faith: the Westminster Confession, the London Baptist Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, Belic Confession and every reformed document every written. Do you understand that the ' Jesus Only' position, held by Oneness Pentecostals is classified by every single reformed confession as heresy?.

Jehova's witnesses believe Jesus is a god, but not THE GOD. Are they saved?

Christology is important. Stop making the case that it isn't. You have no faith that Christ was capable of setting up a VISIBLE church. Your theology forces you to believe that the true church is invisible, that most of history people are left in the dark and only a few elect individuals can be saved. You also have no idea how CLOSE your theology is to medieval roman Catholicism. Your faith is derived from Latin assumptions. You wouldn't have PSA without nominalist medieval roman catholics already creating a PSA foundation that only ever appeared in history after the 1000s.

You claim you're trying to argue for sola scriptura, but not solo, while simultaneously claiming man made tradition is a secondary interpretative authority...then you claim Orthodox theology is off limits because its "Man made tradition". Your logic isn't consistent.

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Oh thanks for clarifying...

Truth is only true if a council declares it to be true? NO
The truth is true regardless of what any human had to say or think about it. The truth exists on its own.
Jesus declared himself to be "the truth". He doesn't need a council to approve of that statement.
Likewise the Trinity is very clearly described in scriptures. The word "trinity" doesn't need to be used in scripture for the basic concept of the Trinity to be understood.

Some of the early councils recognized and affirmed the truth, they did NOT create it. Later councils created nonsense like the ever sinless ever virgin and the infallible pope.

The Nicea council leaned heavily on the scriptures from the apostolic era... they did not create doctrine, they clarified and confirmed it.

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By what principled criterion do you distinguish a council that "recognized truth" from one that "invented nonsense"?

You can't claim scripture because it's only possible to claim your interpretation of scripture. You're using your interpretation of scripture to validate the councils you like and invalidate the ones you don't, which means scripture isn't actually your authority, YOUR INTERPRETATION is.

1 Timothy 4:14, 2 Timothy 1:6, and Acts 14:23 all show the laying on of hands as the mechanism of authoritative transmission. Titus 1:5 shows Titus appointing elders by Paul's authority. This is a chain of transmitted authority, not an invisible spiritual succession. Jesus established a visible Church.

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It's not that hard to understand if you actually read the Bible.

The councils that recognized the truth are the ones who took truth directly from the scriptures. The nonsense is the stuff that had no scriptural basis. Example: the Marian dogma.

The Bible never says that Mary was without sin. In fact it says the opposite. Romans 3:23 NIV
[23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:10 NIV
[10] As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;

The Bible never says that Mary was a forever virgin, in fact it says the opposite. Matthew 12:46 NIV
[46] While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Matthew 13:55-56 NIV
[55] "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? [56] Aren't all his sisters with us?"

The Bible never says that Mary is co-Redemer or co-Mediator or in any way involved in our salvation, in fact it says the opposite. 1 Timothy 2:5 NIV
[5] For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, John 14:6-7 NIV
[6] Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [7] If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." Acts 4:11-12 NIV
[11] Jesus is " 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.' [12] Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." 1 John 2:1-2 NIV
[1] My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the FatherJesus Christ, the Righteous One. [2] He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Most of the scriptures are very clear. They don't require a magisterium to be understood.

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On Romans 3:23, does "all have sinned" include Christ? By your own reading it must, since the text says "all" without exception. You obviously don't believe that, which means you are already doing interpretive work to exclude someone from the universal. The question is not whether exceptions exist, you already grant one. The question is who has the authority to identify them?

On the brothers of Jesus, "adelphos" in the Septuagint describes Lot's relationship to Abraham in Genesis 13:8. Lot was his nephew. The word does not require biological siblings. Jerome, Athanasius, Augustine, and Cyril all held perpetual virginity. The position you are calling obviously biblical was considered the novel one in the patristic period.

If no human being can in any sense participate in bringing others before God, then asking your fellow Christian to pray for you is also forbidden. You don't actually believe that. What the verse excludes is a rival savior, not the prayers of those alive in Christ.

You have 45,000 Protestant denominations with the same Bible who cannot agree on baptism, the Lord's Supper, or predestination. The Arian crisis was resolved not by a better proof text but by a council speaking with binding authority.

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We know that Paul wasn't referring to Christ in Romans 3:23 because he has already told us Christ was without sin in 2 Corinthians 5. So it's clear he wasn't referring to Christ in those verses - nor would it make sense for him to do so since he acknowledged Christ was a deity and not a mere mortal man.

Did Paul or anyone else make similar proclamations about Mary? Did Paul say Mary was without sin? No. You and I both know he did not.

As for Christ's siblings, the Greek word adelphoi (brothers) in these contexts most naturally refers to children born to Mary and Joseph after Jesus. There really is no disputing this.

Can I ask you a question? Why is it important for you to try and maintain the narrative that Mary was a sinless virgin?

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I'm not maintaining a narrative, its a fact and it's important because of what she reveals about Christ and the nature of God's grace.

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." Genesis 3:15. The Fathers read this as the first announcement of redemption in scripture, and the woman here is understood typologically as Mary. The enmity God places between the woman and the serpent is total and absolute. Not partial. Not intermittent. Complete hostility between her and the devil. Sin is the serpent's domain and instrument. If Mary ever fell under the power of sin, even momentarily, under the dominion of the one she is placed in total enmity against, then the enmity God declares would be compromised. Its right there in Genesis man.

Scripture uses words like "blameless" (Job 1:1) and "righteous" (Luke 1:6, regarding Elizabeth and Zechariah) to describe humans. If Job can be "blameless" in a fallen world, the concept of a human being preserved from sin by God's grace is not a scriptural impossibility. Mary's sinlessness isn't a display of her own power, but the ultimate display of God's power.

This all goes back to your view of salvation. You might think "if she's sinless then why does she need salvation?". From a protestant framework, that would be a fair question, but the protestant framework doesn't understand salvation the way the early church/eastern orthodoxy does.

What did salvation mean for Adam before the fall? You probably think he didn't need to be saved. He wasn't created perfectly. If he was, he couldn't have fallen. If we define salvation as Theosis (becoming partakers of the divine nature), then even an unfallen Adam was on a journey toward a deeper union with God. Adam was made for the purpose to choose God and commune with Him.

The reason the reformers got off track from the early church and church fathers who all share the Orthodox view, is because this doesn't jive with Calvinism. You're looking at Mary through the lens of 'Total Depravity,' where God's glory depends on us being as fallen as possible. But the earlier view, the one held by the Church for 1,500 years, was that God's glory is shown by His ability to actually heal and preserve a human being perfectly, making Mary the first 'finished product' of the Gospel.

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In the plain, narrative context of Genesis, the woman is Eve. She is the only woman present in the story. The verse follows God's judgment on the serpent after the Fall. Her "offspring" refers to her descendants - humanity who will live in ongoing conflict with the serpent and evil. The idea that it's Mary does not make any logical sense, regardless of what the "Fathers" of your church believed, unless once again you are trying to perpetuate a narrative - a false one, at that.

As for Job, I mean, if you read Job you know he wasn't without sin. He admits as much in the last few chapters. The idea that any human, outside of Christ, led a sinless life is just not supported by the great weight of scripture.

Paul was clear that "all have sinned." The overarching narrative of the NT is likewise that all have sinned. Mary, Job, Elizabeth - there simply is no scriptural support for the idea that any of them lived a sinless life. Nor is any of this relevant to our walk or salvation.

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If one cannot tie Eve in the OT to Mary the new Eve and the NT, you're frankly missing something woven between the old and new convenants ad nauseam in the Bible. Is this something most protestant Christians dont know about or understand ?

And yes let's ignore the writings of people that walked with Christ or with the people that walked with Christ. Im sure the brilliant Sola Script Tourists of our day have better insights as their own popes.

Doc Holliday said:

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Mothra said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Doc Holliday: "Eve did not crush the serpent... she was defeated by him. Her offspring (Cain) murdered his brother. St. Paul calls Jesus the "New Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). If there is a New Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, logic dictates there must be a "New Eve" who succeeds where the first Eve failed."

The key mistake you made there, is that The Church is the Bride of Christ. There is no 'New Eve' for that role.

It's also vital to understand that Christ serves many purposes and missions. His exemplar for what Humanity may hope for is just one dimension.


Doc Holliday: "Do infants who die at birth sin? Does a person with severe cognitive disabilities commit personal sin? If not, then "all" refers to the mass of humanity, not a literal census of every soul.

If Mary isn't sinless, then sin is an essential part of being human. But if Mary is sinless, it proves that sin is a disease, not a requirement. It shows us that through Christ, we can actually be healed. If even the Mother of God couldn't be kept from sin, what hope do we have of 'becoming partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4)?"

Mary absolutely was born into the same sinful nature all Humanity has. In the first place, consider that we are made 'in the image of God'. That's not a physical description, but describes our creation as entities who are capable of making decisions of consequence. Adam and Eve created their consequence through their decision, as did Abraham (don't forget the same man who pleased God and received the Covenant from Him is responsible for Ishmael and his descendants) and David (God was very pleased with David but the guy did commit both Adultery and Murder). All humans are born with a sinful nature, and denying it is the road to much folly.

If it were that God just allowed someone to be born sinless aside from His Son, then it would create an unjust system that forced many to live with a sinful nature and a few allowed to escape that condition through no merit of their own. It would also mock the Atonement of Christ, if you think about it. More on that point if you wish to discuss it.

It also matters that we all have that sinful nature. The Angels who rebelled cannot be forgiven, specifically because they understood what they were doing, while the soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross were forgiven because they did not understand the consequence of their actions. We are able to ask for forgiveness in part due to being shielded from a terrible knowledge we may not understand at the time we make decisions.

And of course, in the end we depend on Scripture. Scripture makes plain that Mary pleased the Lord, but no where does it ever say she was sinless.

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Why should your 21st century theological reasoning overturn the unanimous judgment of the men who received the faith from the apostles?

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The claim that Orthodox Christians received their faith directly from the apostles assumes a continuous, uniform, and controlled transmission of doctrine from the first generation of Jesus's followers to later Christian communities. Historical evidence, however, simply doesn't support this assumption. Instead, early Christianity was a diverse, decentralized movement shaped by multiple individuals.

The apostles were a small group operating within a narrow geographical and temporal window. Most were active for only a few decades in the midfirst century and could not have personally instructed the vast majority of Christians who emerged across the Mediterranean by the end of that century. By around 100 CE, Christian communities existed in Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa - well beyond any plausible reach of direct apostolic teaching. Even the New Testament itself acknowledges that the movement spread largely through secondary missionaries and local leaders rather than the apostles alone.

Even the earliest Christian sources themselves attest to major doctrinal disagreements on issues such as adherence to Jewish law, the nature of Jesus, salvation, and authority. Paul's letters reveal disputes not only with other missionaries but also with leaders associated with Jerusalem. This suggests that even during the apostles' lifetimes, there was no unified teaching consistently received "directly" from them

So, the idea that there was some "unanimous judgment" by the apostles or early church that the verses in question refer to Mary just isn't a historical reality.

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If your claims are true then it's not just that Orthodox apostolic succession is doubtful, but that no Christian tradition can claim authentic apostolic teaching.

If the diversity and decentralization of early Christianity invalidates Orthodox claims, it equally invalidates every Protestant appeal to "biblical Christianity" or "the faith once delivered".

You guys can deny apostolic succession all you want, but it's CLEARLY outlined in scripture. Irenaeus around 180 CE can name the succession chains in Rome and other churches. This isn't a later invention retrofitted backward. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about it around 107 CE. It's not made up. Apostolic faith was never claimed to be a magical telepathic download to every Christian simultaneously. It was entrusted to specific men, who appointed specific successors, who produced a recognizable and traceable tradition. ITS WRITTEN DOWN. There is no disputing this, sorry.

That Christianity spread beyond the apostles direct personal presence through secondary missionaries is not evidence against apostolic coherence. That was the mechanism by which apostolic succession operated and its clearly shown in scripture. The New Testament itself testifies to an intentional and structured transmission of authority: Paul appointed elders in the communities he founded. Titus was explicitly charged with appointing elders throughout Crete. Timothy received a solemn commission to guard the deposit of faith and entrust it to faithful men who would in turn teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). The Pastoral Epistles do not merely hint at this structure, they describe it with deliberate juridical precision.

Acts 15 shows the first council and they settled a dispute…and here you guys are saying that's a nonsensical structure of authority.

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Dont you realize all those people that were around then were cloistered at home reasing the text of the Bible and ruminating on what it meant and then coming to their own conclusions? Your post is nonsense.

" If one cannot tie Eve in the OT to Mary the new Eve and the NT, you're frankly missing something woven between the old and new convenants ad nauseam in the Bible. Is this something most protestant Christians dont know about or understand ?"

It's a lot more that people understand that Eve was Adam's mate, so Mary would not be the "New Eve" if one existed ... and absolutely no where in Scripture is the phrase 'New Eve' written.

Oldbear83 said:

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" If one cannot tie Eve in the OT to Mary the new Eve and the NT, you're frankly missing something woven between the old and new convenants ad nauseam in the Bible. Is this something most protestant Christians dont know about or understand ?"

It's a lot more that people understand that Eve was Adam's mate, so Mary would not be the "New Eve" if one existed ... and absolutely no where in Scripture is the phrase 'New Eve' written.

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No where in Scripture is the phrase 'sola Scriptura' written to be fair.

Mothra said:

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You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong.

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Orthodoxy ties doctrine to scripture and tradition. This achieves exactly what you propose, preserving apostolic teaching in a way in which leaders can be corrected if they stray.

On the other hand, protestantism attempts to reverse engineer apostolic teaching from scripture alone, and this is why you end up with thousands of conflicting opinions about what that apostolic teaching is within that body of churches.

There's a difference between preserving apostolic teaching with scriptural guardrails and attempting to recreate it ex-nihilo.

Doc Holliday said:

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If sola scriptura is a workable epistemology, give me a concrete procedure, not a principle, a procedure, for resolving a genuine dispute between two Spirit-filled, Scripture-saturated, exegetically serious Christians who have reached contradictory conclusions on a salvation relevant doctrine.

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Oh, that's easy.

The church split.

Half the congregation goes one way, the other half goes the other way, and typically the other half calls a new pastor.

Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes by being pressured to leave.

This happens, and over issues far less serious than salvation relevant doctrines.

This Youtube channel has documentaries about multiple such episodes and their legal fallout.

https://www.youtube.com/@ChurchReformInitiative/videos

Mothra said:

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The issue is, the verses you cite don't actually say what you attribute to them. That's merely your interpretation of those verses, and an intellectually dishonest one at that.

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This is the typical evangelical out when confronted with scripture that they don't personally agree with, whether it is the three verses that tell us what Jesus did between the crucifixion and resurrection, the real presence, or the Genesis account of creation (Scofield was a gap theorist).

And further proof that Sola Scriptura is merely Sola Opinionata.

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."
II Timothy 3:16

Coke Bear said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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" If one cannot tie Eve in the OT to Mary the new Eve and the NT, you're frankly missing something woven between the old and new convenants ad nauseam in the Bible. Is this something most protestant Christians dont know about or understand ?"

It's a lot more that people understand that Eve was Adam's mate, so Mary would not be the "New Eve" if one existed ... and absolutely no where in Scripture is the phrase 'New Eve' written.

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No where in Scripture is the phrase 'sola Scriptura' written to be fair.

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Sola Scriptural is not my argument, but I did notice your evasion on the point.

Fre3dombear said:

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Mothra said:

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ShooterTX said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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ShooterTX said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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I keep hearing this claim that Scripture alone can give you a perfect definition of the Holy Trinity as defined by Nicea and Chalcedon which most Protestants affirm.

Thats absolute nonsense.

Aries made his case to deny the Trinity with texts like Proverbs 8:22 ("the Lord created me at the beginning of his work"), John 14:28 ("the Father is greater than I"), Colossians 1:15 ("firstborn of all creation"), and Mark 13:32 (the Son not knowing the day or hour).

The Trinity was not settled by a better proof text. It was settled by a council with binding authority. Which is the problem. You can't affirm Nicaea and Chalcedon as settled Christianity, but then reject other conclusions from that same tradition and that same authority. You cannot selectively invoke conciliar authority when it suits you and discard it when it doesn't or you have no way to bind everyone.

Nobody actually relies on scripture alone either. Yall need to cut out that nonsense. Total bs. When a Reformed Protestant settles a disputed question by appealing to Calvin, or a Lutheran defers to Luther's exegesis, or a Baptist cites the Second London Confession, they are functionally doing exactly what they accuse Catholics and Orthodox of doing: grounding theological conclusions in the authority of post biblical teachers and confessional documents rather than scripture alone.

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You realize that you're arguing against solO scriptura, and not solA scriptura?

And the concept of the Trinity is fully derivable from Scripture, as I had already demonstrated to you. Besides, if it wasn't, how could have the councils come to that conclusion? Did they create a concept out of whole cloth?

Here's a question for you, as well as for everyone else: is the belief in the Trinity necessary for one's salvation?

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If the Trinity were simply derivable from Scripture by careful reading, Arius would not have been a serious theological threat requiring an ecumenical council to resolve.

Councils have the authority of the sacrament of apostolic succession. That gives them guidance by the Holy Spirit.

Mainline prots wouldn't be gay and secular. People interpret text multiple ways. You interpret debt and slavery language in a 21st century lens vs me who took time to understand how Jews viewed what those concepts meant in their time.

Yes, Trinitarian faith is necessary.

Have you ever questioned your denomination? Is there anything you think your church is doing wrong?
Do you know that there are numerous Protestant pastors that have become Orthodox?

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- so, you agree that you were arguing against solO scriptura, and not solA scriptura?

- I never said the Trinity was "simply" derivable. That's you adding words so you can validate your argument. It takes very careful reading and long, diligent study to derive the Trinity from Scripture. Therefore, it is not surprising that Christians, even true, saved Christians, would not be able to draw it from a simple reading. Arianism, on the other hand, is completely different. It says that Jesus is a created being, and therefore not God. However, Scripture CLEARLY indicates that Jesus is God. And therefore, no church council is needed to know that Arianism is false.

- So, you believe that a belief in the Trinity is necessary for salvation? You believe that if someone hears the gospel and believes and trusts in Jesus for their salvation, and they believe Jesus is God.... but they don't believe the Holy Spirit is God, but rather a kind of subordinate entity "sent" by God - then that means they are not saved? Does salvation depend on having a correct theology, especially one that is not explicitly taught in Scripture? And when did Jesus or his apostles every teach that?

- Look at what you're saying here: you're saying that the Trinity, which is 1) NOT derivable from Scripture but can only be known by the utterances of a council of men, and 2) is necessary for salvation - which is ultimately saying that the word of God is insufficient for our salvation!! Is this truly what you believe?

- I belong to no denomination. I'm simply a bible-believing Christian. Yes, there are things I question about certain teachings coming from various Protestant churches, and it's based on what Scripture says (the word of God), not based on what a council of men declared (the Tradition of men). I don't know how many Protestant pastors became Orthodox, but I'm sure it happens the other way around too. I will say that if a Protestant pastor becomes Roman Catholic or Orthodox, then something is really, really wrong with their faith if they are turning to a church that teaches a different gospel than the Bible and actively promotes and even requires the practice and belief in rank heresy and idolatry. Again, if they are okay with bowing and praying to images and saying "Mary is the salvation of my soul", then it's quite possible that they never really were a true Christian.

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If you die and learn that Orthodoxy was the true visible church...are you going to be mad at God?

No you cannot derive the Nicean/Chalcedon understanding of the Holy Trinity from scripture alone. Impossible. The word homoousias (of the same substance), is the entire linchpin of Nicene Trinitarianism and appears nowhere in scripture. The Council of Nicaea took a non-biblical Greek philosophical term and made it the binding theological test of Orthodoxy. That non scriptural vocabulary binds all Christians sotereologically: who authorized it to do so? A COUNCIL.

Every major Christian confession in history, including your own, explicitly requires Trinitarian faith: the Westminster Confession, the London Baptist Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, Belic Confession and every reformed document every written. Do you understand that the ' Jesus Only' position, held by Oneness Pentecostals is classified by every single reformed confession as heresy?.

Jehova's witnesses believe Jesus is a god, but not THE GOD. Are they saved?

Christology is important. Stop making the case that it isn't. You have no faith that Christ was capable of setting up a VISIBLE church. Your theology forces you to believe that the true church is invisible, that most of history people are left in the dark and only a few elect individuals can be saved. You also have no idea how CLOSE your theology is to medieval roman Catholicism. Your faith is derived from Latin assumptions. You wouldn't have PSA without nominalist medieval roman catholics already creating a PSA foundation that only ever appeared in history after the 1000s.

You claim you're trying to argue for sola scriptura, but not solo, while simultaneously claiming man made tradition is a secondary interpretative authority...then you claim Orthodox theology is off limits because its "Man made tradition". Your logic isn't consistent.

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Oh thanks for clarifying...

Truth is only true if a council declares it to be true? NO
The truth is true regardless of what any human had to say or think about it. The truth exists on its own.
Jesus declared himself to be "the truth". He doesn't need a council to approve of that statement.
Likewise the Trinity is very clearly described in scriptures. The word "trinity" doesn't need to be used in scripture for the basic concept of the Trinity to be understood.

Some of the early councils recognized and affirmed the truth, they did NOT create it. Later councils created nonsense like the ever sinless ever virgin and the infallible pope.

The Nicea council leaned heavily on the scriptures from the apostolic era... they did not create doctrine, they clarified and confirmed it.

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By what principled criterion do you distinguish a council that "recognized truth" from one that "invented nonsense"?

You can't claim scripture because it's only possible to claim your interpretation of scripture. You're using your interpretation of scripture to validate the councils you like and invalidate the ones you don't, which means scripture isn't actually your authority, YOUR INTERPRETATION is.

1 Timothy 4:14, 2 Timothy 1:6, and Acts 14:23 all show the laying on of hands as the mechanism of authoritative transmission. Titus 1:5 shows Titus appointing elders by Paul's authority. This is a chain of transmitted authority, not an invisible spiritual succession. Jesus established a visible Church.

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It's not that hard to understand if you actually read the Bible.

The councils that recognized the truth are the ones who took truth directly from the scriptures. The nonsense is the stuff that had no scriptural basis. Example: the Marian dogma.

The Bible never says that Mary was without sin. In fact it says the opposite. Romans 3:23 NIV
[23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:10 NIV
[10] As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;

The Bible never says that Mary was a forever virgin, in fact it says the opposite. Matthew 12:46 NIV
[46] While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Matthew 13:55-56 NIV
[55] "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? [56] Aren't all his sisters with us?"

The Bible never says that Mary is co-Redemer or co-Mediator or in any way involved in our salvation, in fact it says the opposite. 1 Timothy 2:5 NIV
[5] For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, John 14:6-7 NIV
[6] Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [7] If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." Acts 4:11-12 NIV
[11] Jesus is " 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.' [12] Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." 1 John 2:1-2 NIV
[1] My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the FatherJesus Christ, the Righteous One. [2] He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Most of the scriptures are very clear. They don't require a magisterium to be understood.

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On Romans 3:23, does "all have sinned" include Christ? By your own reading it must, since the text says "all" without exception. You obviously don't believe that, which means you are already doing interpretive work to exclude someone from the universal. The question is not whether exceptions exist, you already grant one. The question is who has the authority to identify them?

On the brothers of Jesus, "adelphos" in the Septuagint describes Lot's relationship to Abraham in Genesis 13:8. Lot was his nephew. The word does not require biological siblings. Jerome, Athanasius, Augustine, and Cyril all held perpetual virginity. The position you are calling obviously biblical was considered the novel one in the patristic period.

If no human being can in any sense participate in bringing others before God, then asking your fellow Christian to pray for you is also forbidden. You don't actually believe that. What the verse excludes is a rival savior, not the prayers of those alive in Christ.

You have 45,000 Protestant denominations with the same Bible who cannot agree on baptism, the Lord's Supper, or predestination. The Arian crisis was resolved not by a better proof text but by a council speaking with binding authority.

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We know that Paul wasn't referring to Christ in Romans 3:23 because he has already told us Christ was without sin in 2 Corinthians 5. So it's clear he wasn't referring to Christ in those verses - nor would it make sense for him to do so since he acknowledged Christ was a deity and not a mere mortal man.

Did Paul or anyone else make similar proclamations about Mary? Did Paul say Mary was without sin? No. You and I both know he did not.

As for Christ's siblings, the Greek word adelphoi (brothers) in these contexts most naturally refers to children born to Mary and Joseph after Jesus. There really is no disputing this.

Can I ask you a question? Why is it important for you to try and maintain the narrative that Mary was a sinless virgin?

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I'm not maintaining a narrative, its a fact and it's important because of what she reveals about Christ and the nature of God's grace.

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." Genesis 3:15. The Fathers read this as the first announcement of redemption in scripture, and the woman here is understood typologically as Mary. The enmity God places between the woman and the serpent is total and absolute. Not partial. Not intermittent. Complete hostility between her and the devil. Sin is the serpent's domain and instrument. If Mary ever fell under the power of sin, even momentarily, under the dominion of the one she is placed in total enmity against, then the enmity God declares would be compromised. Its right there in Genesis man.

Scripture uses words like "blameless" (Job 1:1) and "righteous" (Luke 1:6, regarding Elizabeth and Zechariah) to describe humans. If Job can be "blameless" in a fallen world, the concept of a human being preserved from sin by God's grace is not a scriptural impossibility. Mary's sinlessness isn't a display of her own power, but the ultimate display of God's power.

This all goes back to your view of salvation. You might think "if she's sinless then why does she need salvation?". From a protestant framework, that would be a fair question, but the protestant framework doesn't understand salvation the way the early church/eastern orthodoxy does.

What did salvation mean for Adam before the fall? You probably think he didn't need to be saved. He wasn't created perfectly. If he was, he couldn't have fallen. If we define salvation as Theosis (becoming partakers of the divine nature), then even an unfallen Adam was on a journey toward a deeper union with God. Adam was made for the purpose to choose God and commune with Him.

The reason the reformers got off track from the early church and church fathers who all share the Orthodox view, is because this doesn't jive with Calvinism. You're looking at Mary through the lens of 'Total Depravity,' where God's glory depends on us being as fallen as possible. But the earlier view, the one held by the Church for 1,500 years, was that God's glory is shown by His ability to actually heal and preserve a human being perfectly, making Mary the first 'finished product' of the Gospel.

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In the plain, narrative context of Genesis, the woman is Eve. She is the only woman present in the story. The verse follows God's judgment on the serpent after the Fall. Her "offspring" refers to her descendants - humanity who will live in ongoing conflict with the serpent and evil. The idea that it's Mary does not make any logical sense, regardless of what the "Fathers" of your church believed, unless once again you are trying to perpetuate a narrative - a false one, at that.

As for Job, I mean, if you read Job you know he wasn't without sin. He admits as much in the last few chapters. The idea that any human, outside of Christ, led a sinless life is just not supported by the great weight of scripture.

Paul was clear that "all have sinned." The overarching narrative of the NT is likewise that all have sinned. Mary, Job, Elizabeth - there simply is no scriptural support for the idea that any of them lived a sinless life. Nor is any of this relevant to our walk or salvation.

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If one cannot tie Eve in the OT to Mary the new Eve and the NT, you're frankly missing something woven between the old and new convenants ad nauseam in the Bible. Is this something most protestant Christians dont know about or understand ?

And yes let's ignore the writings of people that walked with Christ or with the people that walked with Christ. Im sure the brilliant Sola Script Tourists of our day have better insights as their own popes.

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God says openly in the NT that Jesus Christ is the second (new) Adam (1 Cor 15). Please cite God in His inspired word as He says the same thing about Mary in some relationship to Eve. That, or cut out the puny attempt to put words in His mouth. If you can't, just dodge and deflect, or ignore a little more.

Realitybites said:

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Mothra said:

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You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong.

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Orthodoxy ties doctrine to scripture and tradition. This achieves exactly what you propose, preserving apostolic teaching in a way in which leaders can be corrected if they stray.

On the other hand, protestantism attempts to reverse engineer apostolic teaching from scripture alone, and this is why you end up with thousands of conflicting opinions about what that apostolic teaching is within that body of churches.

There's a difference between preserving apostolic teaching with scriptural guardrails and attempting to recreate it ex-nihilo.

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Yep and you'll even see pastors/elders within the same church disagreeing on major issues. One will preach something on Sunday and the other will preach the exact opposite contradiction the following Sunday.

It's the Wild West out there and it's obviously becoming business oriented first and everything else is secondary. For young people it's pretty much a choice between a mega church, a mega church wannabe or a boomer dominated Calvinist church. The mainlines are all gay and full of skittles people. Many young people are becoming Orthodox!

Most people didn't have a background in theology until recently and now they're watching debates, reading about church history and seeing people for the fist time asking Protestants to justify their positions. That's why there's been an explosion toward Orthodox/Catholic.

historian said:

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"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."
II Timothy 3:16

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A careful reading of that verse makes one realize that the author used the word "all" and not "only".

Realitybites said:

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Mothra said:

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You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong.

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Orthodoxy ties doctrine to scripture and tradition. This achieves exactly what you propose, preserving apostolic teaching in a way in which leaders can be corrected if they stray.

On the other hand, protestantism attempts to reverse engineer apostolic teaching from scripture alone, and this is why you end up with thousands of conflicting opinions about what that apostolic teaching is within that body of churches.

There's a difference between preserving apostolic teaching with scriptural guardrails and attempting to recreate it ex-nihilo.

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Except you can't tie your extra-biblical traditions to the apostles.

Doc Holliday said:

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Realitybites said:

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Mothra said:

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You seem to believe that "if Orthodoxy fails, all Christianity fails. However, that is false equivalency. While Orthodoxy ties doctrinal certainty to an ongoing chain of "tradition," Protestantism, by and large, ties it to apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture. Saying succession doesn't guarantee truth does not mean apostolic teaching cannot be preserved at all; it means it must be preserved in a way that can correct leaders when they go wrong.

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Orthodoxy ties doctrine to scripture and tradition. This achieves exactly what you propose, preserving apostolic teaching in a way in which leaders can be corrected if they stray.

On the other hand, protestantism attempts to reverse engineer apostolic teaching from scripture alone, and this is why you end up with thousands of conflicting opinions about what that apostolic teaching is within that body of churches.

There's a difference between preserving apostolic teaching with scriptural guardrails and attempting to recreate it ex-nihilo.

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Yep and you'll even see pastors/elders within the same church disagreeing on major issues. One will preach something on Sunday and the other will preach the exact opposite contradiction the following Sunday.

It's the Wild West out there and it's obviously becoming business oriented first and everything else is secondary. For young people it's pretty much a choice between a mega church, a mega church wannabe or a boomer dominated Calvinist church. The mainlines are all gay and full of skittles people. Many young people are becoming Orthodox!

Most people didn't have a background in theology until recently and now they're watching debates, reading about church history and seeing people for the fist time asking Protestants to justify their positions. That's why there's been an explosion toward Orthodox/Catholic.

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Roman Catholic and Orthodox theology is so obviously wrong, and it's been proven in these threads. It's why you guys keep running away from my questions. Those who go to Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy have shown to have the common characteristic of being ignorant of Scripture and REAL church history (not the history those churches tell them) and a desire to be part of an "ancient" church because they think it means "original" (which it doesn't). The ones within Roman Catholicism and who look into the bible and church history for themselves, and are honest and truth seeking rather than tribe-seeking, are the ones who leave those churches for Protestantism or Bible churches.