John “JC” Dirks

STREAM ANNOUNCMENT: @TheOtherPaul2 will me joining be to discuss the real authority of councils specifically Nicaea. Did Nicaea think it was infallible? Monday 6/15 at 8:30pm (CST) | Tuesday 6/16 at 12:30pm (AEST)

@ChrisCallsIt Because yellow is lame

@johncdirks Why yellow?

You Protestants are lame

@NickQuient 😂

@johncdirks So … PCUSA?

Global Methodists talking to Baptists

Here is the epistemology. God exists: that’s the assumed starting point. If God chooses to speak through a text that text must be formally sufficient for its purpose. Otherwise God failed in His communication. The text must also contain marks of His divinity authoring the text. (Perspicuity, fulfilled prophecy, etc) These marks are visible to us naturally giving grounds for belief. The believers mind illuminated by the Holy Spirit would be even more able to see the divine marks. We see across history the people of God transmit and preserve the books of the canon compiling lists as they go. This is exactly what we would expect to see of Gods divine perfections like perspicuity and self authentication were at work. We read in these texts that the intended purpose of scripture is Salvation of mankind. Thus scripture is formally sufficient for assenting to the doctrine of Christ. Everything after the age of divine revelation is a minister of the logic and summary of the scriptures.

@timwmson @johncdirks I understand the ontological point. My question is the epistemological one: how do you know which books constitute that divine speech?

Catholics and EOs what is your strongest objection to Sola Scriptura? 👇🏼

@RonaldsRDonalds You think it’s dishonest?

@johncdirks It’s a response that you like hence why you deem it as honest

This is an honest response

@Orthodox_Elijah It’s in the OP

@johncdirks Example?

True

@PenitentColumbo I have no issue with typology. But arguing icons from typology is a stretch.

I saw elsewhere you stating discomfort with typology. But typology is usually the way the Bible interprets itself That said, the 2nd commandment is actually an exception. Deuteronomy 4 explains the prohibition of images by explaining that God did not show Moses a form on Mt. Horeb Obviously, that changes with the Incarnation.

I am unconvinced that the doctrine of Icon Veneration can be substantiated biblically and its historical ground is dubious to say the least…

@DexterousWarden Does all truth require an infallible authority to be truth?

@johncdirks Even if you posit that sacred scripture exists, you can't know what constitutes it without an infallible authority.

@heliec574 I think Sola Scriptura is winning those debates so I’m trying to find new arguments.

@johncdirks I don't know why we have to keep going over the same arguments over and over again. There has already been plenty of Sola scriptura debates. Its getting old

EOs I know you have a lot to say about this…it’s oddly quiet in the comments.

So do you reject the idea that the honor literally passes to the prototype? are you saying that the honor is just in the mind of the person performing the veneration? It seems to me that all of the examples you are giving are examples where the honor stays within the being of the person who is doing the venerating, they are not actually passed to the prototype as is claimed in the orthodox doctrine of veneration. Am I misunderstanding?

Its exactly what Im describing. If the love of the mother towards the child is given to the stuffed horse and not the child, if it isnt a real bond with the child, she's doing something very mentally unstable. We're reading a lot into heady theological language that is acually very simple. And to be fair to you, a lot of people arent explaining it simply like they should be. The honor showed to the stuffed horse is given to the actual child. Meaning the bond betwee mother and child being increased, which is the whole point of giving honor, is increased and not decreased. Likewise the only purpose of veneration icons is to increase the bond between us and Christ and His family. Same reason I compliment people, tell them I love them, etc. I am expressing honor through symbols even then.

The problem is veneration gets overcomplicated in people's minds. There doesnt need to be a doctrine any more than you need a "doctrine of reading text" or "singing songs." Veneration of images is everywhere in life, and even the greatests iconoclasts dont escape it because it is a basic, obvious part of human nature. Like all things in human nature, the issue is pointing it at God or away from Him. Its obvious in the OT all idols were of demonic figures. When a woman loses a child and hugs the stuffed animal, that is image veneration. When you wont disrespect the Bible, that is image venerstion (letters are images, symbols that bring to mind ideas). When we salute the flag, that is image veneration. When a child's crayon drawing of the family goes on the fridge, that is image veneration. "As you did unto the least of these, so you did unto me." That is image veneration, because the first image of God ever made was mankind. The iconography practice of the Church is simply to draw this natural part of God's design for humans towards its healthy form and away from the demonic, such as pornography or hindu idols, which are also image veneration.

I agree this does not get you all the way to solar scripture. I’m just laying the groundwork so that we can both agree that scripture is formally sufficient for whatever it’s purposes from there. Then I can begin to lay out arguments that I think disqualify other sources from having equal authority

I agree that, in the abstract, Scripture must be formally sufficient for whatever God intended it to do. But that does not get you Sola Scriptura yet. The argument only becomes meaningful once you identify what Scripture is for, and that is exactly where your Protestant account gets loaded into the premise. To make your argument work, you still have to prove: A) that you have correctly identified Scripture’s intended purpose; B) that this purpose is for Scripture to function as the unique final infallible norm for communicating the saving Gospel and binding the conscience to Christ; C) that the Church, Tradition, history, language, liturgy, and apostolic practice are merely ministerial aids, rather than part of Scripture’s intended context; D) that Scripture’s purpose is not precisely to be read, preached, preserved, interpreted, and lived within the Church that received it. From “Scripture is divine communication,” none of that follows. A divine communicative act can be fully sufficient for its God-given purpose while being designed to function within its intended context. And if the AIT reply is, “But God’s speech cannot be defective,” I agree. But needing its intended context is not a defect. Human language, history, genre, apostolic practice, liturgical use, and the Church that received the text are not defects in Scripture. They may be part of how God intended Scripture to function. So the question remains: how do you prove Scripture’s intended purpose is the Protestant one, rather than the Orthodox one?

@Chi_Rho_Goomba @WalmartThomist @sincead33 Yes Kevin has great stuff on this. However I would push back with this: can divine faith be hindered in any way? Sin for example?

@johncdirks Protestants get stuck at reason, relying on it to both identify and interpret revelation, so the conclusions remain probabilistic/human faith @WalmartThomist & @sincead33 have a lot of great material on this on their YT channels, I'm still trying to understand it all myself

@OfOttawa My argument does not rest on what scripture is for. Whatever it’s for it must be formally sufficient for that purpose. Once things granted we can make the argument as to what its purpose is.

These are two points that our previous conversations ended at, and I just never got back to having enough time to give a measured response: (1) You have a nice delineation of Sola Scriptura, but it still seems to rest on an assumption I don't think you've justified: that God intended Scripture to play a unique, totalizing and independent role in transmitting the faith. Every time you bring this up, I point this out, and I do not think you directly address it.

@NGTown_26 Ah the ol circle argument

@johncdirks This pretty much.

@Chi_Rho_Goomba But you understand that divine faith is proceeded by human faith, correct? Which is based on probability.

@johncdirks Yes that basically the argument, TL/DR: because of the canon conundrum, protestants who follow Sola Scriptura are stuck at probabilistic faith, rather than divine faith in response to God revealing

@Dark_Justice_21 @DunamisBacchus I do, but that’s the point. Something can be true even if people disagree.

@johncdirks @DunamisBacchus Yeah! You dont?