The problem is not so much between the heads of Catholic and Orthodox churches, so much as it is with the Orthodox church themselves. They’re so destroyed by schism and can’t seem to agree on anything, that all negotiations seem fruitless. Though recently some have admitted at least a papal primacy of honor even if not of jurisdiction. ANd they do believe in purgatory, they just don’t believe it contains fire, which Catholic teaching has compared it too. I’ve not ever heard Orthodox critics cite indulgences, as it’s simply analogous to priestly absolution. They don’t have the practice, but they do not dogmatically oppose it.

You said-
Remember Sola Scriptura is a super doctrine. It is the doctrine that tells us how to approach all other questions of doctrine. Therefore if it was introduced at some point after Pentecost that would mean the way God reveals Himself to man had shifted significantly. When did that happen? On what basis should we believe this happened?

Randy- you are making the issue much more difficult than it actually is. Think about it simply for a moment and the logic reveals itself. The Scriptures are God-breathed. They are given to us by God NOT man and are infallible. If these things are then true, they are the unchanging infallible word of God that we can refer to. Then, observing man, we can see man changes his mind all the time, often at a whim. Man seeks power and control and will claim many different things about God that are not true in order to gain or keep power and control. God allows this to happen because it does happen. There is however something provided by God that does not change. The written word does not change, and history shows that we can be confident that we have the original text of the Bible within the ‘critical text’. So we can then refer to the unchanging Word of God as the sole infallible rule of faith just on logic alone!

It is not an act of creating a ‘new covenant’- God created that with Jesus Christ. It is Scriptures unchanging reference to that new Covenant that is in question.

But how can Sola Scriptura be possible on Pentecost when not one word of the New Testament was written yet and would not be for decades.

Wow. The entire point of the reply that I wrote- that you then responded to- answered that objection as being illogical. Sola Scriptura is NOT the gospel Randy. The Scriptures transmit the gospel, but they can be learned by hearing it preached as well. I recommend reading on the subject from a Protestant source in order to come to understand the doctrine. I recommend for everyone the book ‘Holy Scripture’ Volume 1 David T King.

God bless,
Garret

Thanks for your perspective: I like the fact that you are willing to claim that the Orthodox Church is the true Church (which is what we as Catholics claim for the Catholic Church as well).

I just gave a talk last night at my parish class on the Orthodox Churches. I plan to upload the audio as a podcast in the next few days and would be very interested in you (and your husband’s) thoughts on it. I do not expect you to agree with the history I recount and the conclusions drawn from it, but I would very much like to know where I could read thorough historical accounts from the Orthodox perspective of the history from 100 AD – 1054 AD.

For my part, I don’t think Protestants would feel comfortable in either of our Churches. But none of us are (immediately) comfortable in environments that starkly differ from that which we have grown used to.

Two rebuttals I would present to you regarding the claim you make that those particular doctrines are false and novelties created by the Catholic Church after 1000 AD are that:

1. There is evidence for these doctrines prior to 1000 AD (some of which I include in my talk), and

2. Twice in the past 1,000 years the Orthodox have reunited with the Catholic Church, first at the 2nd Council of Lyons in 1272 AD and the second at the Council of Florence in 1439 (just 14 years before the disastrous loss of Constantinople to the Muslims).

All of the issues you bring up, and the Filioque, were resolved in those brief reunions with the assent of the Orthodox bishops.

Finally, regarding Purgatory, both Orthodox and Catholics believe that prayers for the dead are commendable (correct me if I’m wrong), which is a big rub for Protestants. Purgatory might as well be true to them if praying for people who have died is true.

I offer these thoughts, not in a combative way, but with a desire for us to find the truth in humility. God bless and thanks for all of your kind comments on our blog!

Yes, the journey to becoming an adoptive parent is different than the journey to becoming a biological parent” (I substituted the term biological for natural because natural implies that adoption is unnatural, and that isn’t how I like to characterize it. But once the initial journey has reached its destination of motherhood, it isn’t necessarily all that different. It depends on the specifics of each adoption, the personality of the adoptive mother, etc. I honestly don’t know how anyone could have adopted my son at birth and not fallen head-over-heels in love with him within days, as much as they would with a baby they gave birth to. His lovable qualities have nothing to do with his biology, and the love and care I give him as a mother also has nothing to do with biology.

If the veneration to the Most Holy Mother of God is the only thing keeping a Protestant away from the Orthodox Church or the Roman Catholic Church, then perhaps it is true that they would feel more at home in the Roman Catholic Church, but I doubt it. I think that Protestants would feel more at home in a Church that has never believed in the infallibility of the Pope, his universal jurisdiction, purgatory, indulgences, the Immaculate Conception,and other such dogmas. These teachings, which Protestants reject, never existed in the Roman Catholic Church for the first 1000 years and still do not exist in the Orthodox Church from which Rome separated in 1054. This being said, I think that even Roman Catholics, who unbiasedly research their own Church history, might find themselves being drawn to what their own Church believed for the first 1000 years – a Faith still alive in the Orthodox Church. Did you know that the Orthodox Church is the second largest Church in the World?

For more info: http://orthodoxyinamerica.org

In adoption, however, we face pages of checklists about what we will or won’t accept in an adopted child. Like it or not, that forces you to consider more issues than just “growing your family” — issues about what children you are willing to welcome, what needs you are willing to try to meet. And that can make you feel as much like a potential “problem-solver” as a future parent.

Again, I trust that whichever boxes on those forms we do check, and whomever God sends to be our newest son or daughter, they will be exactly that — a son or daughter, not a “problem” or a “project.” But I also won’t be surprised if the mental shift from the process to the person takes some time.

Oh, and while I adored my first daughter from the very first second, I was also mostly miserable for the first 3 months of her life. Not full-out depressed, but pretty shell-shocked by the combination of learning curve, sleep deprivation and hormones. With number 2 the love and the happiness came together pretty quickly. So the experience can vary even with 2 natural children.

God bless you Katie for your transparency and humility.

So you are saying the scriptures were determined by another rule of faith and then at some point in time the Sola Scriptura rule of faith kicked in. That is logical but isn’t it quite arbitrary? It even sounds like two covenants. Remember Sola Scriptura is a super doctrine. It is the doctrine that tells us how to approach all other questions of doctrine. Therefore if it was introduced at some point after Pentecost that would mean the way God reveals Himself to man had shifted significantly. When did that happen? On what basis should we believe this happened?

Protestants don’t want to say there was a new covenant because each covenant is to be greater than the last. Saying Luther brought in a greater covenant than Jesus did is unthinkable. So having two phases of history has many problems. But how can Sola Scriptura be possible on Pentecost when not one word of the New Testament was written yet and would not be for decades.