"An Orthodox person may argue that the Reformed doctrine of Scripture has not been a safeguard against the emergence of heresy. This is sadly true. On the other hand, neither has the Orthodox view of Scripture and tradition prevented heresy - it was in the Eastern church that most of the major early heresies arose. All this shows is that a correct grasp of doctrine, in its proper context, must be wedded to prayer and faithfulness, in dependence on the grace of God." Letham, p. 198
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Sunday, August 16, 2009
Scripture and Heresy
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In the Church---that is, in her members---false teachings do arise, but then the infected members fall away, constituting a heresy or schism and not desecrating the holiness of the Church.
Alaxander Khomiakov, The Church is One.
One question, Robin, that I´ve put before to people who advocate open communion: How can the church stay pure if there is no way to excommunicate heresy? If all the Orthodox parishes were just to throw their doors open and give communion to whoever wants it, there would be no effective way to deal with heresy---heresy we would both agree on. Excommunication is used as a tool to keep doctrine pure (when we look at church history protestants don´t usually have a problem with this, only when the context is today...why?). If every man is to be his own conscience, which would be the case with protestants who weren´t accountable to local Orthodox clergy, then what would stop the line from not being drawn in the case of new agers and wizards who wanted to participate? Maybe that´s a bit of a stretch to imagine, but if the only criteria is the conscience of the individual (collapsed papism) then intercommunion would rob the church of a useful tool it has to keep heresies out. Would potential intercommunion also mean that non-ordained clergy could serve litergy? That´s where it would lead because, not viewing the sacraments in isolation, sharing one would be tantamount to sharing them all.
Sharing communion should be the fruit of first sharing doctrinal communion, not a tool or means to sharing doctrinal communion. If the eucharist is a tool to establish communion of spirit then there is no outside criteria for determining weather true communion of spirit really exists. But there are many areas where the various Christian bodies can agree and act corporately, politically for example, and that is one impetus for eccumenical diolouge.
Patrick Phillips
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