I'm not saying that you have to know the Bible in and out in order to be saved. I just reject that the clergy has authority over the Bible, before and after the printing press.
I think the Orthodox position is more nuanced than clergy having authority over the Bible. Because the Church is more mystical than that. That might sound like a cop out but I shall try to explain what I mean. Let's say there is a hypothetical Patriarch who decides 'I want to propose a radically different interpretation of Scripture, and I want to force it as the standard in the Church' - he does have authority in the Church, but it is not without limit. The likely result is that the Church as a body would say 'hang out a second, this new interpretation is nothing like the Patristic interpretation, it has no precedence and we are not going to go along with it.' And the Patriarch would ultimately either have to rescind their proposal, or push it forcefully and ultimately cause some kind of schism. The same applies for an individual priest. If they start preaching weird interpretations, people will likely contact the Bishop with their concerns and the Bishop will admonish them to stop, and if the issue continues they will defrock them. So whilst the Church has an authoritative interpretation of Scripture, it cannot change it arbitrarily, because the interpretation of Scripture is essentially the distillation of centuries worth of Saints studying, praying and reflecting over Scripture. So its not something that can be changed willy-nilly. So its not that clergy have authority to interpret Scripture however they want, but the Church as a whole has an authority that is not localized in any one person or group of people.
Historically, the symbolic or allegorical method of interpretation dominated Christendom ever since Origen and until the Reformation which repopularized the literal method. The Biblical authors even go out of their way to stress that what they saw really happened.
As I understand it there are many Church Fathers who took a 'both and' approach to whether the Scriptures are literal or allegorical. For example when Christ curses the fig tree, this is interpreted as something that He actually did in a literal sense. But also it is symbolic, because as tradition at that time held, the tree in the Garden of Eden was a fig tree (due to Adam and Eve making their clothes from fig leaves after the transgression, leading many to suppose the tree itself was a fig tree) and the cursing of the tree was not so much Christ being annoyed at a plant for not bearing fruit when it was out of season, but the cursing represented Christ breaking the curse that was wrought through a tree in the Garden. There are also interpretations that say the fig tree represents Israel, and its being cursed for not bearing fruit, is pretty self explanatory. It is my understanding that the Orthodox Church would accept that the event happened for real as a literal event, but it also simultaneously had a deeply symbolic nature. Indeed when taken literally (as many atheists do to mock Christianity) it almost takes on an absurd character, whereby Christ merely curses a tree for not bearing fruit out of season, which seems a bit odd.
OK, but what is it insufficient to do? Insufficient for what? What is it that the Bible is not able to do?
Is it unable to bring you to a saving faith in Jesus Christ? Is it unable to make every Christian agree on every issue?
It is a good question. I would say by itself it is unable to bring Salvation. But I am not sure what it means. For example a lot depends on the person, someone can read the Bible 50 times and if they would rather mock and blaspheme it than take it seriously then no it cannot help them at all. But someone else might be open to it's message and it might put them on the path to Salvation.
I think it is evident that it is unable to make all Christians agree just by the fact that there are thousands of Churches that all will claim to teach THE Biblical Christianity, and they simply cannot agree. If it was sufficient for doing this then surely the outcome would be agreement would it not?
I would say that the Church is what is sufficient for Salvation, and that is not to be conflated with the clergy. The clergy are a part of the Church but as I said, the Church is the mystical Body of Christ. It's authority cannot easily be localized or pinpointed it a rationalistic way. This is important because it is not putting men above Scripture as is often mischaracterized. When people say the Church they are not just diverting authority to some dudes with beards in robes. It is much more than that. Orthodox Ecclesiology is, like a lot of it's theology, quite mystical, and again this might sound like a cop out, but I hope you will at least take from this that the Orthodox Church does not divert all of its authority to the men who currently comprise the upper ranks of the clergy, but that it is a bit more nuanced than that.
What I'm looking for is if someone's interpretation would cause the Scriptures to contradict themselves in some way and if their interpretation accounts for the totality of Scripture, Tota Scriptura. When you introduce an external standard, all of these contentions you are raising would now be applied to that standard; and so it becomes another question if someone is willing to accept that external standard.
The Church doesn't propose that the Scriptures can contradict themselves either. The resolution to the apparent contradictions is a good point to raise, because having some familiarity with Orthodox commentaries on the Gospels they do point out apparent contradictions and explain them in a way that resolves it. A classic example would be the apparent contradiction between the placing of the casting out of the money changers from the Temple in the Gospel of Saint John, versus the other Gospels. The Orthodox Church accepts that this did in fact occur twice, St John records the first time, and the other Gospels record the time that Christ did it again shortly before the Crucifixion.
I am sure we both agree that all apparent contradictions are only that; apparent. But it does raise an interesting point; some of these supposed contradictions are not so obvious to resolve just by looking at the text itself. Indeed some of them, for those who cannot find sufficient answers, prove to undermine their faith entirely. So how one resolves apparent contradictions is actually quite a good case for the necessity of some kind of means of interpretation. The Orthodox position is always going to come back to 'from whence does the source of that interpretation come?'
Thanks for taking the time. It's good conversation.
I appreciate it also. And thanks for your responses and your time. I know sometimes discussions like this can take on a mean spirited tone at times, but I feel, although I am unlikely to convince you, it is still good practice for me to put my thoughts on these things into writing. Wishing you a blessed day.
