After publishing my response to Mr. J.D. Hall regarding his distaste for Greek Orthodoxy, I was contacted by a rather pleasant writer from Pulpit & Pen who advised me that my first piece was way too long for a blog writing. That said, he also invited me to read a piece which he wrote on Hank Hanegraaff.  I have done so and wish to respond to what he has said. I will, however, attempt to break down my response into small parts, especially since some of my answers may tend to length.

Hank Hanegraaff, Greek Orthodoxy, and Patterns in the Cults

BY SETH DUNN · PUBLISHED APRIL 11, 2017 · UPDATED DECEMBER 30, 2017

As for “sola scriptura,” where in the Bible does it say that only that which is in the Bible is the rule of life and worship for believers? I find no such verse in the Scriptures. The most common response I get to this is an appeal to 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which states that the Scriptures are profitable to the believer. It does not say, however, that the Scriptures are all you need. That is called “reading into the text” to make it say what you want it to say.

I find it a little disingenuous that when Orthodox or Catholic apologists reason out certain doctrines from the Bible, for instance, Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant, Protestants take us to task because we don’t have a verse which says that word for word, yet when it comes to their own doctrines, they have no problem with doing the same, trying, for instance, to prove “sola scriptura,” which is not stated word for word, by using hermeneutic creativity with verses like 2 Timothy.

But there is a much more glaring problem with the idea of sola scriptura. It is that of the multitude of beliefs and practices found within Protestantism. This speaks not only to the fact that the Scriptures are not perspicuous (easily understood and clear) but rather to the fact that there must be a final authority to which such interpretations can be submitted for final approval. I can think of perhaps 20 different variations of proper baptism found within Protestantism, with Calvinists themselves arguing between believer’s baptism and paedobaptism. How, if the Scriptures are so clear and easily understood on the subject?

This is where the Church and Holy Tradition come in. But first, we must clearly understand what is meant by Holy Tradition. When I was a Protestant, I looked with dismay upon the idea of tradition, believing that it meant, “we made this up out of thin air and accept it as if God Himself gave it to us.” To me, tradition meant something that people had concocted without any reference to the Bible, which was the rule of faith. Let’s use a particular teaching to try to exhibit what Holy Tradition is.

When the heretic, Arias, was upsetting the Christian world of the fourth century with his idea that Jesus was merely a created being, he used the Bible extensively to prove his point. Like Jehovah Witnesses I have met, he pointed to numerous writings in the Scriptures of that day to “prove” that Jesus was a created and subordinate being to God. Called before the Council of Nicea, he continued in this line of defense. What was the response of those opposing him? Did they trot out verses contradicting Arias? Yes, but as they stood at a loggerhead between these two points of view, the response which carried the day was this:  the teaching of Christ’s divinity goes all the way back to the beginning. That is HOLY Tradition. Your ideas were never taught nor known by the Church. It is an appeal to the very beginning, to that which was first taught by the Apostles and carried forward by those who were faithfully taught.

It is a matter therefore of proper interpretation of the Scriptures as understood and taught by those who learned directly from the Apostles. This is why the writings of the Early Fathers are so important. Even before the Scriptures were put together in a final canon, their writing shows us what they learned from the Apostles and how they understood the teachings of the Apostles found in the New Testament epistles.

Infant baptism – not found in the Scriptures, but found in the writings of the Early Fathers. The idea of “believer’s baptism” was not practiced for 16 centuries in Christianity, therefore, the Holy Tradition which speaks to the proper practice of baptism is paedobaptism. If this was being practiced in the first century, according to the records we have from the writings of the Holy Fathers, then it is the Holy Tradition of the Church to baptize infant children. And there is only one place those Christians could have learned this – from the Apostles.

The Eucharist as the Very Body and Blood of Christ – this is found in the words of  Christ “This IS my Body, this IS my Blood,” but hotly opposed by those who deny this, their defense being, “you have interpreted the Scriptures wrongly.”  By going back in time to the beginning, by seeing how the first preachers and teachers of the Christian faith taught this doctrine, we come to understand how the Scriptures and Christ’s teaching were understood. Holy Tradition protects the original understanding from clever men such as Luther or Calvin who cannot or will not accept that which has been taught since the beginning.

“But what about all the things you Orthodox do that are not found in the Bible?”

If you are going to use that defense, then I would ask you this: why do you not do the things which ARE found in the Bible? For instance, why do you not use incense in your worship, seeing that this is an ancient practice which symbolizes the prayers of the faithful, is said in Scripture to be pleasing to God, and is seen being used in the eternal heaven of God? My thought on this would be that the Reformers wanted to move themselves as far away from the Roman Catholic Church as they could (and given the corruption of that body in that day, this is highly understandable!) but they threw the baby out with the bathwater. What started out with Luther as a desire to reform from within turned into, at last count, 33,000 different denominations, with hundreds of differing and conflicting doctrines, all claiming that the Bible alone, led by the Holy Spirit, is the basis of their faith. That just can’t be. The Holy Spirit is not that schizophrenic!

I can find a number of other things of which the Bible speaks which are, in the haste to be distanced from Roman Catholicism, ignored as well by Protestants

The odd part of discussion with Protestants who are sola scriptura is that while they insist that our Orthodox doctrines must be expressed word for word in the Scriptures, when there is a word for word expression such as “this is my Body,” they will do hermeneutical gymnastics to avoid that which they have just received – a clear, word for word declaration which they should believe and obey.  I find this a tad hypocritical.

In closing (my attempt to keep this short) I would ask my interlocutor to be fair, which the attending article from CRI has not done, and clearly express to me what teachings or doctrines have been “added to the Word of God.” Perhaps he does not know that I, as a dedicated Calvinist many years ago, spent considerable time comparing the ancient faith to modern Protestantism, and as I did so, found that rather than everything being said “word for word” in the Orthodox faith, many things are hermeneutical deductions from taking the whole of Scripture in context (context is important, is it not?) and finding that many teachings are to be arrived at through the use of hermeneutical practices other than scriptural literalism. There is a reason, found in understanding Covenant Theology (which hardly any Christian understands today) that Mary is called “The Queen of Heaven” and “The New Eve.”  But you won’t find those terms word for word in the Scriptures.

So Seth, let’s discuss this in more detail.  What things, what teachings have been added to the Word of God?  Your turn!