Pearls of Wisdom

[Liudmilla]

In another thread, we discussed the possibility that God in his infinite wisdon, plants pearls of wisdom in the writting of other faiths, in the thoughts of philosophers, in the most unusal places. Having watched the conversations recently, it occurs to me that perhaps the opposite is true also. That the evil one places small bits of untruth in those places where WE seek truth.

To me this would seem to explain some of the inconsistancies that prevail in the writtings between this elder or that bishop, this priest philosopher and that saint. I would think that we have to conceed that most (not all) of the writings were written before some of these people were gained the status of "saint" or even "blessed". In their moments of weakness, could not the evil one have slipped something in that they may have failed to notice? to correct? And as such, later thoeologians strove to correct the error that came from these "oops", creating our confusions?

I would like to hear everyones thoughts on this and would ask that we have a reasoned discussion, please.

Milla

[Justin Kissel]

Milla,

I'm suprised there have been no responses thus far. I agree with what you are saying, here. For example, I've read that St. John Chrysostom wrote about Mary having sinned (which goes against what the Church eventually accepted), and certainly there are many many other examples of Saints making doctrinal mistakes (and not just in the area of theologumena). On the other hand, I think saying this opens up a big can of worms, where we might start going back through the Fathers and trying to correct them, when it is the Fathers who should be informing our beliefs. What do you think? How do we acknowledge their errors when we find them (and perhaps even covering their nakedness), without falling into judgmentalism and end up going on heretic-hunts?

[Joshua F]

St. Vincent of Lerins provided a very simple rule for the establishment of Orthodox doctrine:

in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.

This pithy formulation is loaded with meaning, but simply explained it tells us that if we want to know whether a disputed point is Orthodox or heterodox, we can look to a point in the history of the church prior to the beginning of the dispute to determine the Orthodox doctrine. When there is no explicit rule in both tradition or Holy Scripture, as sometimes happens, we can still resolve things by looking at whether or not the questionable idea conflicts or agrees with "that which has been believed everywhere, always, by all."

The full text of the "Commonitory", a must read for any Orthodox Christian capable of understanding it, is online at http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading ... erins.html

Note chapter ten, titled "Why Eminent Men are permitted by God to become Authors of Novelties in the Church" http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading ... ins10.html

While all of this may at first glance seem to apply more to prominent heretics and heresies, it still works with simple errors better called mistakes.

[Liudmilla]

Justin:

I do not mean to suggest that we should start taking apart the wrtings of the fathers looking for errors, you are right it is a can of worms and would rather lead US into error. But I do think that we need to remember that mankind is, in its sinfulness, fallible. As such we need to be careful in using their errors to justify our own purposes. True pearls of wisdom are going to shine, while the rest is rejected, either through correction by another or even by the author himself. It is [i]wrong[/i] to accuse them of error, but it is necessary to remember that they might be [i]mistaken[/i]. It is here that study is so important. Unfortunately in our haphazard lives, few of us devote the time necessary to understand this possibility.

I have often wished that some sort of formalized study were available on a parish level, open to all. I know that I certainly would make time for something like this.
Milla