When Church Fathers disagree, how do we know whom to trust? Karlo Broussard tackles this question, explaining the importance of following unanimous consensus rather than relying on outliers.
Transcript:
Protestants bring up this point about, um, why should— in light of 2 Timothy 3:16— why should we trust the early Church Fathers if they would actually contradict each other on things having to do with eschatology and other things? How would you answer that?
Yeah, well, I would just target the assumption there, Gil, that we as Catholics believe that the early Church Fathers must and always be consistent with their interpretation of Scripture and their teaching of theology. And that’s just not something we believe as Catholics.
We acknowledge that the early Church Fathers can and do, in fact, contradict each other and get things wrong when it comes to scriptural exegesis and their theological assertions. Where the early Church Fathers become relevant is especially when you have a unanimous consent of the early Church Fathers— where they’re all affirming something, say baptismal regeneration or the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. And that provides for us, Gil, a strong indication that that particular belief is part and parcel of the historic Christian faith given to the apostles and transmitted to their successors, the bishops.
And furthermore, we as Catholics would be bound by Church precept to not interpret Sacred Scripture contrary to that unanimous consent. And so it’s whenever they have a unanimous consent that the early Church Fathers are going to be valuable in the highest way.
And even when there’s not a unanimous consent, and you might have a few voices that are diverging from the norm, we can still have the norm to provide for us guidance to the reasonable conclusion that whatever that normative belief is— even though you may have some dissenting from that norm— is a strong, yet further, stronger, further more a strong indication that that belief is coming from the apostles as well.
And so I guess really, when we’re talking about the early Church Fathers, you know, the image that comes up often, Gil, is if we were to get into a time machine with, say, our Protestant friend and travel back to the first and second and third centuries of the early Christian testimony of the Fathers— who would feel more at home? And I do think, according at least to my judgment and the judgment of many others, whenever you do that thought process or that thought experiment, you come to the conclusion that the Catholic is feeling more at home.
That indeed, as Joe Heschmeyer states in his book— as the title states— The Early Church Was the Catholic Church.
So, I don’t know, Gil, if you have that book or not, or if you have access to it, or have we ever sent you that book, Gil? Like, we could send you the audio version probably.