Josephus' comments on the canon

http://www.handsonapologetics.com/Articles/5-Josephus%20and%20the%20closing%20of%20the%20canon.pdf

I Tim 2:5 One mediator

from comment 246 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/12/rome-geneva-and-the-incarnations-native-soil/

Regarding the “one mediator” passage of Scripture, the sense in which Christ is the “one mediator” is fully compatible with there being other mediators mediating in senses other than the sense in which Christ mediates. Hence, for example, my interceding for you is not made impossible by Christ’s unique mediation on your behalf. Moreover, we already know that Mary’s fiat (“Let it be to me according to your word” – Luke 1:38) is fully compatible with 1 Tim 2:5, and thus with Christ’s unique mediation. And yet, by her fiat, Mary mediated between God and man, by making way for the union of the divine and human natures in the Person of the Logos. Abraham likewise interceded for the people of Sodom, and Moses did the same for the Hebrews. So the 1 Tim 2:5 passage cannot be interpreted as excluding without qualification all other sorts of mediation between God and man, and thus any other mediators. Rather, it should be interpreted as affirming the uniqueness of Christ’s mediation, as the unique sacrifice that satisfies the justice of God regarding the sin of the world. The doctrine that Jesus is the sole Mediator between God and man is referring to that by which grace is merited for us, and our eternal debt of our sin is paid. Only the God-man Jesus Christ could do that, and has done that. But that does not mean that Christ can use no other person as an instrument by which to bring that grace to us, through their prayers and intercessions; nor does it mean that no one else can aid us with respect to temporal debt; nor does it mean or entail that those who by this grace are united to Him cannot participate in His sacrifice in derivative ways, say, by offering Him to the Father (since the Son gives Himself to us to be offered to the Father), and by offering ourselves and our actions, in union with Christ’s offering, to the Father. concerning communion of the saints:

Titus 3:5

from comment 147 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/12/rome-geneva-and-the-incarnations-native-soil/

If Abram left Ur “by faith,” and faith is sufficient for justification, and justification is only a once-in-a-lifetime event, then he could not be justified again in Gen 15:6. But he was justified in the act of faith described in Gen 15:6. So there’s a problem in your theology.

The Judaizers believed grace was necessary in Galations. But Paul said if they add one merit or work to faith they fall from grace and are severed from Christ. Paul says ” to the one who does not work God justifies the ungodly. The adding in of the necessity of doing sacraments, cooperation, one’s own grace enabled works isn’t going to go well. Titus 3:5 says not even Holy deeds can be a part of our being justified before God.

You are presupposing here an unqualified conception of ‘work.’ And that presupposition is doing all the underlying work in your argument. But as St. Augustine explains (see “St. Augustine on Law and Grace“), the work in view is work done on our own, by our own natural power, and not done by the grace that comes to us from and through Christ. If you don’t recognize the distinction between natural righteousness, and supernatural righteousness, then you won’t recognize that St. Paul is speaking of natural righteousness in Titus 3:5. Of course we are not brought to a state of grace by works of supernatural righteousness either, because that would be a contradiction; a person not in a state of grace cannot do works of supernatural righteousness. But the point in Titus 3:5 is that we are brought to a state of grace not by works, but by baptism. (For evidence that the laver of regeneration is understood by all the Fathers to be baptism, see here.) If your response is that all the Church Fathers are wrong, and you are right, then I would note that such a reply presupposes ecclesial deism (and all its consequences), and then hold up the alternative paradigm in “The Tradition and the Lexicon” post.

philosophy/ with religion

 This video makes some good points . In relation to this Dr.Cross says:

 , .....I have explained why the attempt to bypass philosophy, and jump straight to exegesis (either of Scripture or of historical texts), and then use the results of that allegedly ‘philosophically neutral’ exegesis/interpretation to construct and evaluate philosophical and theological systems is naive, because such an attempt overlooks uncritically the philosophical assumptions brought to the exegetical and interpretive process.

Here is another aspect of philosophy/with religion
Just a few quotes from some comments here in regard to this http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/12/rome-geneva-and-the-incarnations-native-soil/ comment 61

 I just want to say that this idea of that Augustine introduced a legacy of ontology significantly determined by Neoplatonic sensibilities has been essentially dismissed by modern scholarship (see Lewis Ayres and Michel Rene Barnes among Catholic scholars and Maarten Wisse among Reformed scholars). The same (i.e., that the doctrine of participation was Biblical and not fundamentally Neoplatonic) has been abundantly clear among scholars of the Eastern Fathers for many years. So if your critique is based on such dated and inaccurate characterizations, it is hard to take seriously. In any case, it is extremely clear that the pro-Nicene account that supported conciliar Christianity was based on exactly this concept of participation, articulated in terms of the person/nature distinction. Therefore, your argument would prove too much, in that it would tar the entire history of Christianity with the Neoplatonic brush.

Unlike animals, human beings have certain capacities for instance, to learn languages or a capacity for generosity. These capacities are realized in action when particular human beings speak languages or perform generous actions. But between capacity and action there is an intermediate state possible. when we say that a man can speak french, we mean neither that he is actually speaking french, nor that speaking french is a mere logical possibly, States such as knowing french are dispositions. A disposition is halfway between a capacity and an action, between pure potentiality and actuality.For Aquinas regeneration is an infused habit or disposition that is somewhere between a mere logical possibility and a realized action: prevenient, but not actual grace.Auqinas writes” infuses the gift of justifying grace in such a way that, at the same time, he also moves the free choice to accept the gift of grace” the forgiveness of sins”. The case of infant baptism is paradigmatic for this process from infused justification to forgiveness of sins. Regeneration replaces imputation: God works in us is the basis of forgiveness.

Exactly, and orthodox Christianity formulates that distinction in terms of nature (capacity) versus person (exercise). So long as the capacity is supernatural, its exercise cannot possibly be the work of the person. But this does not imply that the person does not actualize it, i.e., that God does not work through the person. So Aquinas’s distinction is well-grounded in the categories historically articulated by conciliar Christianity.

For Calvin we by contrast say” that justification consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. If we make regeneration to be the basis of the non imputation of sin, as Tomas had it, there remains no reason to distinguish between the two. Regeneration, after all, is sanctification viewed from the angle of an initiating moment rather than a larger process. Hence, Calvin insists on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, in this development the decisive role was played for the reformed by Calvin’s response to challenge of a one-time Lutheran ny the name of Osiander. Byan salvation is ethical and juridicial as opposed to ontological and mystical. Calvin held that the righteousness of Christ is not a substance but his active obedience in fulfillment of the law and passive obedience on the cross. Calvin made a significant contribution in the distinction between essential righteousness and acquired righteousness, not only to the reformed but also to Protetantism in general. ”

I agree with you that Calvin’s position was an innovation that he himself introduced. And that innovation would rightly be characterized as a contradiction or a corruption of the nature/person distinction, rather than a development. As we saw above with your characterization of Aquinas, you have essentially collapsed the nature/person distinction that is fundamental to understanding Aquinas’s position. This collapse of the nature/person distinction was characteristic of the late medieval nominalism in which Calvin was steeped, so he had to invent a completely new category to account for it, which was this idea of ethical/juridical/covenantal salvation. Unfortunately, that category is itself contradictory of the metaphysical account of participation (nature and person) on which conciliar Christianity was built. So while you claim not to be introducing philosophical concepts, you are in fact relying on a philosophy (late medieval nominalism) that cannot be reconciled with Christianity.

By contrast, history has shown that conciliar Christianity used the categories of nature and person *without* relying on the underlying Neoplatonic philosophy; it legitimately transformed the philosophical categories to fit the Biblical categories. In fact, the heretics like Arius, Eunomius, and Nestorius were the ones who relied on philosophical categories to negate Biblical teaching, so the orthodox Fathers were actually the ones opposing the misuse of philosophy. This is the same method that Paul used in the Areopagus, and indeed, one of the most influential Christian saints was actually believed to be the same Dionysius the Areopagite mentioned in the Bible. Ironically, you are setting Calvin’s philosophical invention (the concept of free-standing juridical/legal salvation) against the dogmas taught by the very people who opposed the Neoplatonizing of the Gospel, the orthodox Fathers of the Church. Nor does Biblical scholarship support this idea of justification as juridical/legal salvation being separate from sanctification, as numerous Catholic Biblical scholars have pointed out. This isn’t to say that juridical/legal salvation plays no role, but it is grounded in the fundamental categories of the Incarnation, nature and person.

Absent that artificial separation, one would not read Bible verses as you do. For example, one would not view Peter’s communion with the divine nature as a purely covenantal category, even though that is clearly an aspect of the communion described therein. Likewise, one would understand the sense of “perfection” in Hebrews in terms of participation rather than a purely legal category, so those who are saved are legitimately perfected when they are baptized, even though that perfection can still be lost. Rather than reading the Bible through the philosophical categories of Calvin, which you admit that he invented, I would encourage you to put the late medieval nominalism aside and instead read the Bible through the categories of the Fathers who fought against the philosophers and defended the Biblical teaching.

comment 96

What may be helpful is to show how your anti-intellectual method is affecting your exegetical method. Your paraphrase of Hebrew 10:14, which you claimed to have quoted before in your paraphrase, doesn’t actually say the words that you quoted. That just goes to show how your anti-intellectual approach is corrupting your reading of Scripture. You made a similar misrepresentation of Titus 3:5; a perfectly consistent explanation is that Paul considers baptism to be the work of God, not of man, which you could see if you weren’t playing rhetorical games. Lastly, everyone agrees that Paul disdains Greek philosophy in 1 Corinthians, but your interpretation is so extreme that it would reject even Hebrew wisdom literature about natural knowledge. That approach is contradicted in Acts 17:22-34, where Paul was willing to credit Greek religion and philosophy with reaching some true conclusions, while still challenging their belief that they know it all (in particular, their denial of the resurrection). This illustrates that you aren’t taking your philosophical method from Scripture but rather reading the nominalist denial of philosophy back into Scripture.

If you want to understand more about the Christian philosophical method of the Fathers, as opposed to Neoplatonism, then maybe you should read the work of your highly learned countrymen, Luigi Gioia and Giulio Maspero. They know more about the Bible and the Fathers than you or I ever will.