Response to Rhology's third cross-ex question

Well, Rhology, I've got a big problem here: your question is very, very difficult for me to answer; this isn't because it's a particularly difficult question in and of itself, but because the mindset presupposed your question is a Protestant one, which is very different from that of the Orthodox. To be honest, as an Orthodox Christian reading a question from such a thoroughly Protestant perspective, it's all Greek to me (and not the New Testament kind either). I'll do my best to explain where the problems are here, and simultaneously to offer the best answer I can to your question.

First, I'll correct the misunderstanding here which is the easiest one to correct. You said:

... since the Church is in fact the infallible interpreter of what Scripture says?

That statement is correct in a sense, but not in the sense that you think it is. Here's why:

1. "The Church" is not a Bishop or group of Bishops. Bishops bearing Apostolic Succession are the overseers of the Church militant, but not the totality of the Church itself. The Church is the community of all baptized, believing members of the Body of Christ, both living and departed, united by the Holy Spirit in the love of Christ through a shared Eucharist, doctrine, and practice (to summarize in as few words as possible).
2. The Church is only the Church insofar as its members cling to the Faith of the Apostles. Apostolic Succession, which is essential to the Church, consists of two parts: 1. the physical link with the Apostles via laying on of hands in ordination of the Bishops and 2. the spiritual link of maintaining the Faith of the Apostles. If any entity lacks either, it is not the Church.
3. Because of both 1 and 2 above, the Church lacks the ability to interpret Scripture in any innovative way. Scripture is interpreted not by some "magisterium" or individual Bishop, but by its place in the Church itself, within the Tradition of the Apostolic Faith.
   

All three of these points will be important to the rest of my entry here.

You said:

... you would affirm that you and the EOC are under the authority of Scripture ...

This is incorrect. The view of the Church being subject to Scripture is a relatively late Western innovation. Due to the corruption of both the Faith and the hierarchy within Roman Catholicism, the Protestant reformers invented the idea of the Scripture standing above the Church, used to judge the Church. This, though, was an extreme counteraction to the extreme corruption within the Western church. As neither the Faith nor the Bishops of the Eastern Church ever fell into such corruption, no such view developed; as a result, the Orthodox Church uniquely retains the ancient Christian view of Church and Scripture.

In the ancient Church, which is the Orthodox Church, Scripture is used as a teaching tool (the teaching tool, really) in order to communicate the Faith of the Church. Scripture has not, historically, been used to determine the content of doctrine; the doctrine of the Church was used to determine the content of Scripture.

St. Anthony the Great, the founder of Christian monasticism, and an illiterate, was once approach by some pagan philosophers who taunted him about his lack of learning. He replied, "which came first, the knowledge or the book?" Although the circumstances are different, the question to be answered here is the same, and the answer, obviously, is that the knowledge (that is, the Faith of the Church) came first, then the book (the Bible).

Allow me to use an allegory to explain the proper relationship between Church and Scripture. Imagine a classroom; this classroom is the Church, and the sign outside the door reads "Salvation 101." Inside the classroom there is a teacher; this is the local Bishop. He has been trained by other teachers of the same subject, with a long line stretching back to the great masters in his field, and he has been appointed by them to teach for having learned and applied the subject so well. There are students; these are the faithful. There are posters and diagrams on the walls; these are the Holy Icons and the instruments used for worship. There are beakers and test tubes and other material for doing experiments to learn more and apply the knowledge already learned; these are prayer, charity, and fasting.

There is also a textbook; this is the Bible. The textbook is the center and guide of the learning that goes on in that classroom, but it is not an authority over the classroom. To say that the textbook has authority over the classroom is nonsense; on the contrary, the textbook was written just for this classroom and has meaning only within this classroom. As the teacher teaches, he uses the textbook to explain the topic to the students. As the students do their lab experiments, they constantly reference the textbook for guidance. They also look to those posters and diagrams on the walls for illumination on the information contained in the textbook. Nothing in the posters or diagrams, or in the experiments, or in the teacher's lessons contradicts or rises above the textbook; rather, all of these go hand in hand and without each other they are meaningless.

The textbook contains information about the subject being taught in the classroom; it is, in fact, a grand depository of the knowledge of the subject. It is the subject (that is, the True Christian Faith) that has determined the content of the textbook, not the content of the textbook the subject.

To try to read the Bible outside of the Church is like reading a textbook meant for a biology class without knowing that the study of biology exists. And to try to use that textbook to judge the study of biology which the textbook was written by, in, and for is completely absurd.

Dropping the allegory: the content of the Scriptures was determined by the Church (specifically, the Holy Spirit working through the Apostles and early Fathers) based on the Holy Faith taught by the Apostles. It is intended to be used by, in, and for the Church to teach that Faith, as it was written by, in, and for the Church to teach that Faith. To separate the Scriptures from the Church is absurd; to posit either Church or Scripture as standing one above the other is absurd; to attempt to judge the Faith of the Church based on the Scriptures is absurd.

As I said, your question is a very difficult one for me to answer as it presupposes a Protestant mindset and the history of Western Christianity, a very different situation from that of the Orthodox Church. I hope that I've done at least a decent job of pointing out why this is such and explaining the very different situation found in the Orthodox Church, still clinging to the ancient Faith once taught by the Apostles.


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