Jul 28, 2020

"To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." (Or so we thought!)


                                                        

Cardinal John Henry Newman once said that "to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant". This idea is reflected emphatically in modern Roman Catholic apologetic material (to be fair, not all Catholic apologists promote this myth, but it has circulated among the Catholic Answers folks) and by Roman Catholics in general. Basically some Roman Catholics have this view that if Protestants would simply read the church fathers, then they would instantly become Catholic (some include Eastern Orthodox in there, this ought to give you an idea). 

An article from Catholic Answers [link] says the following about Newman's famous quote:



"Newman’s maxim is not intended to be a “rule” that those Protestants versed in Church history “must” enter the Catholic Church. It is a general observation that Church history argues against Protestantism and that those Protestants who study history deeply many times realize that the Catholic Church is the true Church."

For anyone who has truly studied the issues between Protestants and Catholics, this anti-Protestant myth (yes, I can do polemics too, Dave Armstrong) is truly laughable, especially considering that lots of our knowledge of church history has come from people like Philip Schaff and J.N.D. Kelly, both of whom were Protestants (The above Catholic Answers article never directly addresses them)!


Some Catholic converts at the ETWN organization have said that the early church fathers were instrumental in their conversion to Catholicism [link]


To demonstrate that this idea is false, here are some material from major works of Reformed Theology:


The great Puritan Reformed theologian John Owen in his book The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, in which Owen gives a case for limited atonement, there is an index in the back of the book [link] called 'A Few Testimonies from the Ancients' in which he gives quotes from the church fathers  to support the doctrines of grace:


                                                                                           



                                                                                            

                                                                                                         





Eutyches and the Double Consubstantiality of Christ

  During the Home Synod of Constantinople, Eutyches was summoned multiple times to appear before the assembly of bishops. On one such instan...