Saturday, February 21, 2009

Cyril Lucaris on the Place of Scripture in the Ecclesia

Cyril Lucaris was a Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople. His dates are 1572-1638 CE. He evidently produced an 18 point synopsis of his beliefs, which certain scholars have claimed was influenced by Calvinism. I now quote chapter 2 of Cyril's Confessions:

We believe the Holy Scripture to be given by God, to have no other author but the Holy Spirit. This we ought undoubtedly to believe, for it is written. We have a more sure word of prophecy, to which you do well to take heed, as to light shining in a dark place. We believe the authority of the Holy Scripture to be above the authority of the Church. To be taught by the Holy Spirit is a far different thing from being taught by a man; for man may through ignorance err, deceive and be deceived, but the word of God neither deceives nor is deceived, nor can err, and is infallible and has eternal authority.


Regards,
Edgar

3 comments:

David Waltz said...

Hello Edgar,

A very interesting quote (given the source). This thread raises a question in my mind that I must in all good conscience ask: in your bio you state that you are a Jehovah’s Witness; given the unique claims made by the WTBTS concerning the issue of authority, does not the quote you have given somewhat undermine that claimed authority?


Grace and peace,

David

Edgar Foster said...

Believe it or not, I agree with Cyril Lucaris and I would think that the Witness organization would too. Jehovah's Witnesses do not claim infallibility. We err or make mistakes, but Witnesses believe that the Scriptures never err. I thus see no conflict between the quote from Cyril and what the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses claims.

Respectfully,
Edgar

Jehovah's Servant said...

I have to agree with Edgar. If you do your homework, you will see that Jehovah's Witnesses have repeatedly stated that we are not prophets, and that our teachings are not infallible, nor inspired. We simply do the very best we can to get the Scriptures correct. The Watchtower Society has made herculean efforts to correct doctrines as we have progressed. But, to say that the teachings are from the Watchtower Society would be inaccurate. Our teachings are from the Bible. Open any Watchtower magazine and you will see that every paragraph is packed with Scriptures. Nothing is ever taught without backing it up with Scriptures. Sometimes it only takes one or two to prove the point, other times dozens are used.

Still, I find these types of veiled attacks on Jehovah's Witnesses somewhat two-faced. The same finger is rarely, if ever, pointed at the religions of Christendom. Apparently, it is ok for them to have a governing body, which elucidates doctrine, but not for us.