TurretinFan to the rescue…

After typing up three quick posts this morning in response to comments made in a couple of different threads (including an older one on Islam), I had to drive my wife to the hospital for some tests (all were negative—in the good sense). When I finally got back home I checked the comboxes to see if there had been any further communication and noticed that I had missed that there was a link at the end of the comments section of the May 27th, 2008 thread, which takes one to THIS THREAD at TurretinFan’s blog.

I would make my comments to TurretinFan’s new thread (hereafter TF) in his blog’s combox, but my submitted musings rarely get posted; so, rather than waste time, I am going to respond here at AF.

TF provides his readers the Khaled Anatolis English translation of the Athanansius quote that I typed up in my previous thread, introducing it with:

“Recently, David Waltz provided the following alleged quotation from Athanasius, which immediately caught my attention…”

Now, I have NO idea why TF thinks that it is an “alleged quotation from Athanasius”. I am not aware of any scholar who doubts that the quotation is from Athanasius himself; and curiously enough, even William (Bill) Webster, who TF later invokes, does not challenge the quote’s authenticity.

TF then proceeds to state the obvious, that Antolis used Migne’s Patrologiæ Græca (26.593, 594) as the source for his English translation, providing a snippet from Google Books (with the appropriate links).

TF then remarks:

I'm not saying that Anatolis' translation is bad - just not strictly literal. Taken within the broader context of what is being said, the translation is not necessarily bad. Taken out of context, though the translation is misleading. For the word "Scripture" - which is emphasized in Waltz's argument - is not a word emphasized by Athanasius. Instead, it has been supplied to help the flow of the text by the translator. It's really aimed at distinguishing the previous Scriptural statements about the Holy Spirit himself from the following about the Trinity. For within the same section (28) Athanasius immediately turns to Ephesians 4:6, Exodus 3:14, and Romans 9:5 - and concludes by establishing what the faith of the Church is by quoting the Lord's words from Matthew 28:19. It is the baptismal formula and Ephesians 4:6 (over all, through all, in [you] all) that Athanasius calls the foundation of the Church's faith (see the first part of section 29).Thus, I think we have to conclude that Waltz's tag line for the above quotation from Athanasius ("BTW, in the many citations that James provided in his essay from the corpus of Athanasius, he conviently [sic] left out this one") was a bit misleading at best - for Athanasius not only was saying nothing contrary to Scripture - he was simply turning from one set of Scriptural doctrines to another.
TF is correct on two points: first, Anatolis’ English is not “literal”; and second, taken “within the broader context of what is being said, the translation is not necessarily bad.” As for the rest, IMHO, TF has misread Athanasius (as has Bill Webster), by reading post-Reformation doctrine back into his writings.

Here is some of the “broader context”:

“Taken even by themselves, these [scriptural] sayings about the Holy Spirit demonstrate that it has nothing in common with or proper (idom) to the nature or essence of creatures, but that it is other than originated beings and belongs to (idom) and is not foreign to the being and divinity of the Son, through which it belongs to the Holy Trinity. This puts their senselessness to same.

Moreover, aside from these scriptural utterances, let us also consider the tradition and teaching and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, that which the Lord has given, the apostles preached, and the fathers [596A] guarded. This is the foundation on which the Church is established, and the one who strays form it is not a Christian and should no longer be called so: The Trinity is holy perfect, confessed as God in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, having nothing foreign or extrinsic mingled with it , nor compounded of creator and created, but is wholly Creator and Maker. It is identical with itself and indivisible in nature, and its activity (energia) is one. For the Father does all things through the Word and in the Holy Spirit. Thus the oneness of the Holy Trinity is preserved and thus is the one God “who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:6) preached in the Church – “over all,” as Father, who is beginning (archē) and fountain; “through all,” through the Son; and “in all” in the Holy Spirit. It is Trinity [596B] not only in name and linguistic expression, but Trinity in reality and truth. Just as the Father is the “One who is” (Ex. 3:14), so likewise is his Word the “One who is, God over all” (Rom. 9:5). Nor is the Holy Spirit non-existent, but truly exists and subsists.” (Athanasius, Epistola I Ad Serapion – English trans. by Khaled Anatolis, Athanasius, Routledge: London, 2004, p. 227.)

Anatolis could have put brackets around the second usage of “scriptural” in 1.28 as he did in its first use towards the end of 1.27; however, Anatolis wanted to make it clear that a distinction was being made between “these scriptural utterances” (numerous citations from the OT, NT and the book of Wisdom!!!), and “the tradition and teaching and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning.”

Now, what TF and Bill Webster want their readers to believe is that Athanasius was instead saying this: “aside from these scriptural utterances, let us also consider some more scriptural utterances”.
Sorry guys, that just will not fly. Though Athanasius’ regula fidei (i.e. “the tradition and teaching and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning”) was certainly based on Sacred Scripture, and supported by Scripture texts, the regula fidei itself was not Scripture.

The patristic scholars I quoted (in my previous thread), prior to the citation from Athanasius, clearly understand this fact, but TF, Bill Webster, James White, and a few other Protestant polemicists completely miss it (I will let my readers ponder the why for themselves.)

And further, many of the scholars that Bill Webster selectively quotes from in the book referenced by TF (Holy Scripture - The Ground and Pillar of our Faith – Vol. 2), actually concur with scholars I quoted, contra Bill. Tomorrow, the Lord willing, I will provide numerous citations to support this, but for now R.P.C. Hanson will suffice:

“Perhaps the most important aspect of the rule of faith is that it gives us what the Church conceived to be ‘the main body of truth’ (to use Irenaeus’ phrase). The Scriptures are, after all, a body of documents testifying to God’s activity towards men in Christ. They are not a rule of faith, nor a list of doctrines, nor a manual of the articles of a Christian man’s belief. In the rule of faith we have a key to what the Church thought the Scriptures came to, where it was, so to speak, that their weight fell, what was their drift. This interpretation of their drift was itself tradition, a way of handling the Scriptures, a way of living in them and being exposed to their effect, which, while not an original part of the Christian Gospel, not itself the paradosis par excellence, had been developed from the Gospel itself, from its heart, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as an essential part of the existence of the Christian faith in history…

We cannot recognize the rule of faith as original tradition, going back by oral continuity independently of Scripture to Christ and his apostles. But we can recognize it as the tradition in which the Church was interpreting Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and as such claim it as an essential ingredient of historical Christianity.” (Tradition In The Early Church, pp. 128, 129.)


Grace and peace,

David


P.S. Want to thank TF once again for catching my typos.