The Debate That Divides Protestants & Orthodoxy

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]If scripture and tradition disagree within Eastern Orthodoxy, which one wins? Eastern Orthodoxy claims to preserve the apostolic faith through holy tradition, while us Protestants, we insist that scripture alone is the final authority. Now, in this segment with Dr. Tony Costa and Tony Rogers, we're going to explore this authority question. And maybe the most important question of all, we're going to briefly talk about some key church councils and try to discover how the early Christians understood the relationship between scripture, church leadership, and tradition. Very, very important questions here. We could obviously do a whole show just on this, but we're trying to hit a couple red uh red flags.

[00:00:52]And indeed we are saying that these topics justification and now the question of authority are red flags when biblically examined when you talk about eian orthodoxy. Now let's bring up Dr. Tony Costa. I know it says Tony Rogers but I'm going to flip out and change the name on the screen. Everyone hold on.

[00:01:17]Tony Costa, let's talk about tradition.

[00:01:20]What is the ultimate authority in Christianity and how does that relate to our topic today?

[00:01:29]>> Well, in in in biblical Christianity, the tradition does have its place. Uh, however, the the one exception is when that tradition violates holy scripture.

[00:01:40]So we have examples of this in the New Testament where in Mark 7 1-13 Jesus confronts the Pharisees who were accusing his disciples of not washing their hands before eating and therefore not following the tradition of the elders. Jesus points out to them that they nullify the commandments of God and that they follow man-made traditions.

[00:02:04]And he quotes Isaiah 6:9-10 against them, a passage uh speaking of judgment where uh their hearts are far away from God and in vain do they worship him with their mouths and following the the traditions and commandments of men. So tradition is always always subservient to scripture in all cases and solos scriptor of course demands that. Now in in the Eastern Orthodox Church, sacred tradition and scripture are part of the same stream. That is to say, they both come forth from the Holy Spirit. So uh if I may quote the confession of Dytheus, this is from uh decree number two. It says, "Wherefore," and I'm quoting now, "the witness also of the Catholic Church, in this case, Eastern Orthodox Church, is we believe, not not of inferior authority to that of the divine scriptures. For one in the same Holy Spirit, being the author of both, is quite the same to be taught by the scriptures and by the Catholic Church.

[00:03:05]Moreover, when any man speaks from himself, he is liable to er and to deceive and be deceived. But the Catholic Church, as never having spoken or speaking from herself, but from the Spirit of God, who being her teacher, she is ever unfailingly rich, it is impossible for her, that is the church, to in any wise, or to at all deceive or be deceived, but like the divine scriptures is infallible and has perpetual authority. Close quote. And so in the Eastern Orthodox Church, when they speak of tradition, they're speaking of this aspect of the church that is equal to scripture. And so when they speak of the theotocos, Mary being the portal between heaven and earth. She's the u the u lamb of God and she is the one that that essentially gives permission for anyone to enter into heaven. They would say that you don't need that to come from the Bible.

[00:04:08]that comes from the sacred tradition of the church.

[00:04:12]>> And so in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the tradition of the church and scripture are on the same plane. They're equal to each other. And therefore, if you claim that the tradition of the church contradicts scripture, they'll say, "Well, that's impossible because the source of the church is the same source as the scriptures, namely the Holy Spirit." And therefore uh the Eastern Orthodox Church much like the Roman Catholic Church and other institutional churches will will claim to be the gatekeepers of this oral law if you will, this oral tradition passed down by the apostles to the bishops and down into the present day. So that's the problem with the Eastern Orthodox Church. It does not believe that God's word is perspuous. it it is not clear.

[00:05:03]You need the church to interpret it for you. And therefore, without the church, you cannot understand the Bible. You you can't even know what the cannon of the Bible is, even though they're not even settled on the Old Testament cannon. So, this is a major major issue that we have with our Eastern Orthodox friends because they do not yield and surrender to the only source that is Theonustas, God breathed. That source is scripture.

[00:05:30]The fathers never claimed that they they were God breathed. They never claimed their writings were God breathed. And so this is a major issue. It's it's one of authority. Uh and that is why our Eastern Orthodox friends, they subscribe to solle ecclesia church alone.

[00:05:46]>> Whereas you and I and Tony of course and others uh we hold to soloscriptor.

[00:05:51]>> Exactly. Um there's a a Greek Orthodox theologian. I have trouble with these names. uh Archimedrite Christosimus he writes this scripture is a body of knowledge passed down in the church in many forms. The holy ecumenical senates, the fathers of the church, their inspired writings and the corpus of tradition that constitutes constitutes orthodoxy are in many ways scripture itself completing and witnessing yet never supplanting or contradicting the written biblical cannon. So they say, but Anthony Rogers is so-called holy tradition equal to scripture.

[00:06:43]>> Well, absolutely not. So obviously, as Dr. Costa said, if you point to something that is at variance with scripture, they're just going to say it's not because we say what scripture means, right? So it's entirely circular.

[00:07:00]But notwithstanding that, I don't think most people would have trouble recognizing the blatant contradiction between certain of their traditions and the teaching of the word of God. Now, we could mention any number of these, but uh here here's some here's some interesting ones that uh you know people can can think about. So, for example, uh one of the things that's taught in canon law and remember you just read a source very timely. You read a source where he's talking about all these different things that comprise the teaching of the church which are in uh in effect scripture itself. Right? That includes their canon law. They believe their canon law is inspired. This is the these canon laws come out of the second seven ecumenical councils for example and these are supposed to be infallible deliverances of the church. So, uh, one of their canon laws says that a woman who, now notice this, a woman who involuntarily has expelled a baby through miscarriage receives her penance for a year. Okay?

[00:08:08]Now, what's going on here is the idea is that she's effectively excommunicated.

[00:08:14]She's put under a penance. She's barred from communion, which for them is the source of eternal life. She's cut off from the sacramental life of the church, which which we as Protestants don't have at all. Right? Because and they're saying we're not saved. Well, a woman who has a miscarriage is put under penance and excluded from the sacrament for a year. Think about that. A miscarriage, this is not a voluntary act. This is not a sin. Now, this actually hits close to home for me in some respects because I had a friend decades ago who was Eastern Orthodox and I even have some of his books still. If he's watching, I lost contact with him.

[00:08:56]He was in the military, but uh we we would talk all the time. We were friends. His wife and my wife became friends and at one point his wife had a miscarriage. And the next thing I know, my wife is asking me, "Hey, you know, what's going on with soand so? she hasn't responded to me at all. You know, I'm trying to figure out what's going on. And uh my friend's still talking to me. And so I ask him and eventually he tells me that his wife can't talk to my wife anymore. Because what was happening here is I if you're operating under this mindset that a miscarriage requires a woman to be put under penance for a year, what this assumes is that she somehow is guilty of something. She had a miscarriage because she did something wrong or something. And so what this friend of mine inferred is that it must be because she was talking with my wife. Right? Now I don't know why it's not because he was talking with me. Right? Why why somehow she uh guilty here and he's not. Right? When So anyways, but this is just one cannon law. I can go on. Let me let me give you one other. This one's a bit more humorous on the lighter side of things.

[00:10:05]This is another cannon. It says Christians attending weddings must not waltz or dance but must suffer dine in a decent fashion as becomes Christians.

[00:10:15]Now here's how this is interpreted in the rudder which is their official uh source that you know today this is the standard source where they go to to get these cannons and and see their interpretation. It says, "The present cannon prohibits Christians when they go to weddings from waltzing or in other words, keeping time with drums or other musical instruments and dancing in accordance with their measure of harmony and variety of sounds. On the other hand, they are commanded to dine and suppate these weddings with reserve and sobriety as befits Christians." Now, some of you are probably thinking, "Well, wait a minute. This doesn't make sense. I've seen my big fat Greek wedding, right? Clearly these these Greeks, these Orthodox are not observing this. Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean it's not part of canon law. Just means they're not very good at keeping their own canon law. And there are 101 things like this. But my point is this is just blatantly contradictory to scripture.

[00:11:11]Women are not, you know, excommunicated as it were or or barred from the sacrament or put under a penance because they've had a miscarriage. Uh this just looks phariseaical and like uh Judaizing nonsense.

[00:11:26]H [sighs] >> now uh truth defender says his tradition goes way back. That is to eat tacos as often as possible. But I'm going to read a quote and then I'm going to ask this question. How can we test tradition?

[00:11:39]Here's the quote. It's from a Greek American Orthodox bishop named Maximos Agorusius.

[00:11:47]And here's what he says here. The Holy Bible and more specifically the New Testament does not contain all the doctrine and teachings of Christ. The church which has produced the Bible does not completely submit itself to only one of the epifenomena of its life even if it is the most authoritative one the holy scriptures. An important part of the teachings and doctrine of the Christ continues to be present and handed down to the generation of saints through other means in ways that are also part of the life of the church, a life in the Holy Spirit. Dr. Costa, how do we test this stuff?

[00:12:28]How >> well we always have to ask the question by what standard? And we see that in scripture. Jesus himself uh cited scripture against his opponents. He said the scriptures cannot be broken. He cited it against Satan during his temptation in the wilderness. In Acts 17, Luke is uh very quick to commend the the Berean Jews. He tells us in Acts 17:11 that the Jews of Berea were more noble than those in Thessalonica because they checked the scriptures to see whether these things were so. They didn't go with Paul and say, "Okay, what does the apostle say? We don't need the scriptures. We have the church and we have a living apostle here. Let's see uh let's check with Paul. They didn't do that. They checked what Paul taught and preached with the scriptures. And even the apostle Paul uh himself uh placed himself under the anathema in Galatians 1:69. He says, "If we if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one you received, let him be anathema." So you notice he places himself under the anathema of the of the go uh the truth of the gospel, which of course is contained in holy scripture.

[00:13:38]Uh Luke reminds us that the Berean Jews were correct in assessing what Paul taught by the scriptures. And throughout scripture, the normative means by which we judge things is the word of God. Um the Old Testament itself uh was not a product of the church. The church didn't give us the Old Testament. Paul tells us who gave us the Old Testament in Romans 3:2. Uh God gave his oracles to the Jews and he gave them the not only the oracles, he gave them all the books and they didn't need some infallible Sanhedrin to tell them this. They didn't need an infallible council to to list out the books for them. And therefore by the time of Jesus when all these or Mishnaic laws are beginning to evolve that later become part of the tommed the oral law. It's very interesting that on every count Jesus countenances those so-called claims to the tradition of the elders which would later be equated with the Torah the oral Torah being equated with the written Torah. Uh it's very clear that that the Lord Jesus Christ and later the the the apostles themselves they tested everything with scripture. Um and therefore even the fathers of the church Athanasius said in these alone the scriptures in these alone are the fountains of salvation.

[00:14:59]And then you go to Augustine he says let the inspired scriptures judge between us. St. Basel the great uses similar language in his uh in his engagement with with some heretics. And so throughout the apostolic fathers you find even John Chrysm a Christian should have a Bible. They should be studying the Bible to to to be discerning and so on. That has been the standard of the church. And it's not until you get these institutionalized churches that v for power either claiming to have papal supremacy because Peter is the successor uh of the vicer of Christ on earth and therefore the bishop of Rome is his successor or you have the Eastern Orthodox claiming we have the Holy Spirit and we have the same authority as Holy Scripture does.

[00:15:47]And all of this sounds eerily familiar to the Pharisees. It it sounds very early familiar u to this claim that uh only the the rabbitic authorities can tell you how to keep Shabbat. They can tell you how to keep kosher. They can tell you how to to please uh the Lord.

[00:16:05]Um you can't trust in the scriptures alone. It's the same dance uh just with a different label on it.

[00:16:12]>> I agree. Same song, different verse.

[00:16:15]Rogers.

[00:16:16]>> Yeah.

[00:16:16]>> Our mutual friend says you deserve Rev in front of your title. So, I put Rev in front of you and I put mayor in front of me cuz this is God City. I don't know if it's blasphemous. I'm just It's the name of the show. So, since I'm the host, I'm like the mayor just of this particular program. See? So, I'm Mayor Malone.

[00:16:35]You're Reverend Rogers and we got Dr. Costa. Let me ask you this question.

[00:16:40]Did the apostles Tony Rogers did they teach this two source revelation or two source authority model?

[00:16:48]>> No. Oh, and and I would say that we're used to speaking of this as a two source thing, the contrast to solar scriptor because we're usually engaging Rome. But the East would say they don't hold to a two source idea either. They'd say there's just the tradition and it's the church of course that speaks for tradition and uh everything is subsumed to to it. But uh scripture is one way the tradition is conveyed and so is the liturgy and so are icons for example. Uh and by the way since I mentioned icons I know we're going to probably talk about that but just as an aside remember scripture calls the images that people were worshiping one of the things it calls them. It has all kinds of names for them. I wish that some of our translations would carry some of these names over more literally. They don't always do that, but but one of the things that the prophets will refer to them as are lying images. They're lies.

[00:17:49]They don't speak truth. And so, the fact that icons are a source of revelation, and that's that's not me making this up.

[00:17:58]This is their language. They say that these things are part of they're they're inspired by the spirit. Icons are inspired. They're not just an a, you know, a monk's best idea of what a picture should look like that can eventually be venerated.

[00:18:15]It's a cooperative synergistic effort between the the person making it and the Holy Spirit. It's inspired and it's revelatory. And so, you know, they have these lying images that are communicating untruths, falsehoods. Well uh so the idea that the church is infallible though uh just founders on the fact that well go back to the idea that we've already expressed a couple of times some of the we've even provided some quotes where they'll say things like the church gave us the Bible right the church authorized the Bible the church gave the Bible its authority I could give quotes for days on any one of these statements Well, when you look at the the New Testament though, the books are being written to the church. Yes, the apostles are part of the church, but in their apostolic office, they're not properly, you know, they're laying the foundation for the church.

[00:19:20]The spirit is using them to produce holy scripture. And in that capacity, it's not the church producing the scriptures.

[00:19:28]It's the apostles under the superintendence of the spirit that that's producing uh the the scriptures and and these scriptures are being written to the churches, not by the churches, to the churches. And they're full of rebuke, reproof, correction.

[00:19:47]Clearly, the the churches are not infallible. That's that's just never something that you see in the text. It's always the assumption that this text has priority over those that it's coming to and being sent to and and so yeah, I mean this this the whole idea that there's some infallible tradition determined by the church which cannot heir and so forth is just at variance with the paniply of scripture.

[00:20:18]>> Dr. Costa and thank you for that Reverend Rogers. [laughter] Dr. Costa, how did the early church understand authority? How did they understand it?

[00:20:30]>> Well, the the understanding of the early church was that the church was was described as a building. It had a cornerstone which was Jesus Christ. Then it had a foundation, the prophets and the apostles. And the church was built on the ground. It is the ground and pillar of the truth. And so she is the house that is built on that foundation.

[00:20:50]No man can lay any other foundation than that which has already been laid. Christ Jesus being the cornerstone of course prophets and apostles. And so what is the job of the church? Well, as pillars um pillars keep the roof up. That's what the job of a pillar is to keep the roof up on a house. And so as the church we we keep the gospel up. We we present the gospel to the world. We lift up the word of God to the world. And so the church understood that her foundation was from Christ and the Holy Spirit and the prophets and the apostles. But they also understood that with the passing of the apostles, she did not teach that past the point of the first century or the death of John the last apostle which is traditionally the belief that he was the last. You don't see this language of apostles continuing. So take for example the pastoral epistles. uh Paul writes to Timothy 1, second Timothy to Titus and Paul tells us that the offices of the church are binary. They're two elders and deacons or elders, overseers, and deacons. Those are interchangeable terms. And you'll notice that as the Apostle Paul is ready for his martyrdom, he talks about it. Second Timothy 4, he says, "The time of my departure has come." Isn't it interesting? The only two offices he leaves behind in the church is that of elders and deacons.

[00:22:11]not elders, deacons, and apostles. Now, of course, the overseer, the bishop is going to become uh a third office in the church. Something that even Jerome would mention and even openly admit it was done not on biblical principles, but more on uh resisting heresy, countenancing the Gnostics who claimed that their bishops went back to the apostles. And and so what we what we find here is that the early church understood that the deposit of holy scripture of the faith once for all delivered to the saints was given to us to contend for to to defend. And there's already an understanding that as the apostles are dying out, they need to of course they need to tie the ends of course of the of the canon because as they were dying off and being persecuted, you didn't want to lose what they taught. And so they committed what they taught orally into writing as Paul says that well we gave you orally uh we also said to you uh not just in in oral form but also in written form. And therefore the early church recognized from the beginning that the scriptures in this case were supreme. And that is why 2 Timothy uh 3:16 all scripture is theosttoas. It is God breathed. And it's profitable for teaching instruction.

[00:23:33]It's profitable for correction. And it's also uh profitable verse 17 to to to be able to furnish the man of God for every good work to fully furnish not partially not half and half not partly but fully furnish the man of God for works of ministry. And therefore you've already you already see the sense that the scriptures there is nothing like the scriptures. There is nothing on par with scripture. And therefore the the fathers of the church the apostolic fathers they constantly went to the scriptures. They appealed to the scriptures at as the ultimate authority in the church. So when Athanasius says in these alone referring to the scriptures in these alone are the fountains of salvation it's very obvious that by these alone he is indicating that these scriptures are not the same as what I've written or what my colleagues have written. And therefore the idea that scripture is the ultimate authority in the church you can trace that even up to Augustine where Augustine says scripture is not just uh uh authoritative scripture is inherent.

[00:24:46]So that if there's a perceived error in a manuscript he says it could be because it's a faulty manuscript. It could be that our interpretation is wrong. But one thing that he will not indict the scriptures with is that it is an error.

[00:25:00]Right? And so this is specifically said of scripture. You don't see them say this about tradition. But as I said, with the rise of of the papacy, uh with the rise of Constantinople, you have to appeal to your own tradition and authority to maintain power. And I think what you have here are the results of a power keg that continued in early Christendom after Constantine and came to a head in 1453 with the great schism, but it still continues today. Every group claiming we're the ancient church and and we have the the true tradition of the apostles. We have, you and I and an and Tony, we have the real u the posit of the apostles because when we pick up the scriptures, we have what John wrote, what Peter wrote, what James wrote, what uh Jude wrote and so forth. Uh and therefore that is the writings of the apostles.

[00:25:58]That is the the authority of the apostles what they've conveyed to us in writing. [music] Make your city [music] be city.