Patristic Consensus?

[Mehr Licht]

I love the writings of the church Fathers but the more I read the more I come to the conclusion that there isn't a "patristic consensus" on much of anything beyond the most basic elements of the Christian faith. There may be schools or streams of thought that unite a number of the Fathers on a certain issue. Like the so called Alexandrian or Antiochian schools of biblical exegesis for example. In these specific schools you might be able to find a general consensus on some issue but a consensus of "The Fathers" in general isn't that easy to discern on a great many issues.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

When I was a Christian, I spent some time in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and I was taught that patristic consensus was of great importance. But I found, like you, the more I read of the church fathers, the less I seen that they really agreed on much of anything. Especially in the east, where you had many different schools of thought, and they always disagreed with the west on some point or another. I was always taught that early Christianity, before the Great Schism, and then the Reformation, was monolithic, but this really isn't the case. Early Christianity wasn't as fractured as it is today, but there were still differences of opinion, even if those different schools remained in communion with one another.

 

[Mehr Licht]

Especially in the east, where you had many different schools of thought, and they always disagreed with the west on some point or another.

I think in the medieval West ,post-Augustine, it would have been easier to believe in a consensus because Augustine himself had such a powerful influence that a lot of the later leaders of the western Church were all within his basic school. But when you compare East and West, pre and post- Augustine, the consensus becomes a lot harder to find. Take an important issue like soteriology for example. Compare Augustine, one of the greatest of the Western Fathers, with Chrysostom, one of the greatest of Eastern Fathers. That they disagree is pretty apparent. Then look at the christology or trinitarian theology of any of the pre-Nicene Fathers and compare them with the mature trinitarian thought of the Cappadocians or the Christology of Chalcedon and you start to see a lot of disagreements too. In terms of Biblical exegesis how could there even be a consesnsus among a group so diverse that it includes both the Alexandrian and Antiochian schools?

I should say that I don't necessarily consider this a bad thing though. A broad spectrum of teachings can legitimately exist within the body of Christianity. Different skillfull means for different people to use the Buddhist saying. Some of these differences may very well be providential and could provide vehicles for reaching differing types of people. It does make me scratch my head when people say things like "that can't be right because it goes against the consensus of the Fathers" though. I see people use that phrase as a battering ram against Protestant teachings a lot.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

I think in the medieval West ,post-Augustine, it would have been easier to believe in a consensus because Augustine himself had such a powerful influence that a lot of the later leaders of the western Church were all within his basic school. But when you compare East and West, pre and post- Augustine, the consensus becomes a lot harder to find. Take an important issue like soteriology for example. Compare Augustine, one of the greatest of the Western Fathers, with Chrysostom, one of the greatest of Eastern Fathers. That they disagree is pretty apparent. Then look at the christology or trinitarian theology of any of the pre-Nicene Fathers and compare them with the mature trinitarian thought of the Cappadocians or the Christology of Chalcedon and you start to see a lot of disagreements too. In terms of Biblical exegesis how could there even be a consesnsus among a group so diverse that it includes both the Alexandrian and Antiochian schools?

I should say that I don't necessarily consider this a bad thing though. A broad spectrum of teachings can legitimately exist within the body of Christianity. Different skillfull means for different people to use the Buddhist saying. Some of these differences may very well be providential and could provide vehicles for reaching differing types of people. It does make me scratch my head when people say things like "that can't be right because it goes against the consensus of the Fathers" though. I see people use that phrase as a battering ram against Protestant teachings a lot.

Oh yeah, I agree completely. I think that's also one of the reasons why the east always had a harder time dealing with perceived heresies. Arius, Nestorius, Sabellianism, they were all problems in the east, but not so much in the west. And as far as the development of Cappodician Trinitarianism, or Chrysostom's soteriology, you could also add Athanasius' Christology to that list. But yeah, I think you're also right about differing trains of thought being not necessarily a bad thing for Christianity. This is why the Great Schism took so long to come about. I think they realized that there could be differences of opinion, but still be part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.