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Eastern Orthodox Vs Protestantism, Which Is the True Church?
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Dyer argued that the debate should rest on Scripture, which both speakers share, and that Protestant positions are hard to pin down given the many Protestant groups. He proposed testing the claims against the four marks of the church (one, holy, catholic and apostolic) from the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.
Dyer argued that Old Testament prophecies of Gentiles turning to the God of Israel and of the Messianic era were fulfilled in the first thousand years of Christianity, and that this fulfilment points to only one true church. He cited Joel 3 with Acts 2 and Acts 10 as examples.
Dyer argued that apostolic authority was passed on by the laying on of hands, citing Luke 10:16 and Paul's words to Timothy, and that this gives a historical succession of bishops. He said the same structure still exists in Orthodox churches and is modelled on Moses passing the Spirit to the elders in Numbers.
Dyer argued that the Apostolic Canons and Pope Damasus in the West accepted a Bible including the Deuterocanonical books by the end of the fourth century, unlike the Protestant canon. He said Luther rejected these books because they did not support his teaching, and that Jerome included them in the Vulgate under Damasus's authority despite his private view.
Dyer concluded that early Christians practised the Eucharist, prayers for the dead, and veneration of images and the cross, and that the church functioned on that basis for centuries. He said only the Orthodox Church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic.
Wood argued that the choice is between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Since he and Dyer both reject the Roman Catholic claim, he said, Protestantism is the remaining option.
Wood argued that at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 the apostles rejected the demand that Gentiles be circumcised, because God had given them the Spirit and salvation comes through grace. He said Paul in Galatians 1 condemns those who add requirements to the gospel.
Wood argued that the Second Council of Nicaea added icon veneration to the gospel by anathematizing those who did not venerate icons, and he compared this to the Judaizers' demand for circumcision in Acts 15.
Wood argued that Acts 15 had no emperor directing its decisions, whereas Nicaea II was, in his account, shaped by Empress Irene. He said this raises doubts about treating that council as infallible.
Wood argued that because the Orthodox Church anathematizes those who would correct it, correction cannot come from within, so reform must come from outside. He said the Orthodox church is therefore incomplete without Protestants.
Dyer replied that Wood misreads Nicaea II: the word translated as communicate means communion, so the anathema concerns not sharing communion with schismatics, not not speaking to them.
Dyer argued that Paul in 1 Corinthians excommunicated members, and that the Jerusalem Council set a pattern for settling disputes that later Orthodox councils and synods followed. He said the Orthodox Church therefore has an internal mechanism for the problems Wood raised.
Dyer argued that Wood names no church or group able to deal with error, and that Christ set up a synodal process rather than leaving believers to resolve disputes through their own reading of the Bible.
Dyer argued that the church of the first thousand years excommunicated heretics such as the Arians and taught salvation involving works and asceticism. He said that if justification by faith alone is the gospel, the gospel was lost before the Reformation.
Wood asked what an ordinary believer should do when one council condemns icon veneration and a later council reverses that, whether to obey the council or to accept the anathema.
Dyer answered that there are false synods and councils and that Orthodoxy does not treat every synod as infallible. He said councils are judged by consistency with earlier teaching and by reception over time, and that a duty to the truth overrides an erring synod, as with John Chrysostom.
Wood argued that laypeople, monks and bishops were on both sides of the iconoclast controversy, and that the outcome was driven by emperors such as Constantine V and Irene, with the policy reversing when the empire began losing to Muslims.
Dyer argued that the essentials are what the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed lays out, including the Trinity and the deity of the Holy Spirit. He said accepting a creed of essentials implies a historic church able to define boundaries.
An audience member asked Wood which church has the right interpretation of 1 Peter 3:21 on baptism. Wood said Acts shows the Spirit sometimes received before baptism and sometimes after, and that he would not say any one church is right on this.
An audience member asked Dyer whether praying with the saints is redundant given direct access to the Father, and whether it attributes omniscience to the saints. Dyer replied that Christians ask one another for prayer, that Amos was spared through a righteous man's prayer, and that saints in Revelation pray for the church.
An audience member asked Wood to reconcile his claim that icon veneration arose in the sixth or seventh century with recent art-historical work arguing for continuous cultic use of images. Wood said art historians and church historians use different criteria; Dyer added that recent scholarship challenges the late dating, citing the protective use of the cross.
Dyer argued that the essentials are set out in the 381 Creed's marks of one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. He said the bishops who composed the creed at Nicaea, including Athanasius, understood their decisions as guided by the Holy Spirit.
Dyer said fourth-century Christians in East and West accepted the Deuterocanonical books, the real presence and baptismal regeneration, and that many Evangelicals would call these additions to the gospel.
Dyer said the Orthodox Church is decentralised and synodal, with an internal way of handling disputes, while classical Protestant groups do not hold to a historical line of laying on of hands.
Wood argued that the church is essential but exclusivity is not, and that reform is essential. He said that if correction from within is impossible, reform must come from outside, and that the promise that the gates of hell will not prevail does not show councils are infallible.
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Dyer argued that no group in the first thousand years was Protestant or Evangelical, except heretics such as iconoclasts who shared Protestant positions on images, relics and the real presence. He pointed to Jerome's writings against Helvidius and Vigilantius.
Wood recapped that he argued the Orthodox Church added icon veneration to the gospel and blocked correction by anathematizing dissenters. He replied to Dyer that Paul's excommunications concerned serious moral sin rather than adding to the gospel.
Wood argued that 1 Corinthians 1 warns against dividing into factions, and that Orthodox divisions, such as the Russian Orthodox Church's declaration that Ukrainian Orthodox must be rebaptised, fall under that warning.
Wood argued that a council controlled by an empress gives political leaders a way to direct the church. He asked why, if that concern applies to Irene, Nicaea II should be treated as infallible.
Wood argued that false teachers came out of the apostolic church itself (Acts 20, 1 John), so descent from the apostles does not prove truth. He said the test is whether teaching matches the apostles' instruction.
Wood said the essentials are what the apostles preached: Jesus' death for sins, his resurrection, his divine nature and his messiahship. He said he did not think a believer must know every disputed matter.
Dyer argued that the magisterial Reformers kept some church governance but were tied to state churches, with Calvin's Geneva a state theocracy and Luther supporting the drowning of Anabaptists. He said this shows where individual Protestant authority leads.
Dyer argued that Protestantism rejects apostolic succession and sacramentalism and produces no recognised saints such as Athanasius, and that Athanasius would not be welcomed in a Protestant church.
Wood replied that the New Testament uses church for the local congregation and for the universal body Christ gave himself for, and that believing the gospel brings a person into that church.
Wood argued that state control of the church is a real problem, citing Irene's rapid elevation of a layman to patriarch and the Ottoman-era patriarchate going to the highest bidder. He said accepting Nicaea II as infallible builds that risk into the church.
Wood said many Christians across the first nine centuries held core beliefs such as Christ's atoning death, his resurrection, his Lordship, the triune God and the Bible as God's word. He said later doctrines need their own reasons, not only a council's decision.
Wood said the essentials of the gospel are that Jesus died for our sins, rose from the dead and is Lord, and that submitting to him is what is required to accept the gospel. He said this is not a complete list of what a Christian must believe.
Dyer argued that in Acts the apostles placed new converts such as Apollos and John's disciples under the episcopate and instructed them further. He said this counters Wood's view of self-directed Christian formation.
Wood said Irenaeus's Against Heresies, Book 3, uses the succession of bishops at Rome from Peter and Paul to refute the Gnostics, so apostolic succession is not a Gnostic claim.
Dyer replied that he had not meant that. He said the Gnostics tried to claim succession, and Irenaeus answered that succession is public in the churches.
An audience member asked Wood which of the many Protestant denominations is most true. Wood said it would have to be judged case by case, citing Presbyterian and Baptist churches he considers sound and others he does not.
Wood said the early churches were diverse and that later doctrinal development came in reaction to heresy, such as the canon Marcion produced and the Gnostics' claim of apostolic succession. He said Irenaeus replied that succession is public.
Wood argued that identifying the one true church among divided denominations would require examining each split in philosophy, theology and church history. He said this does not fit Jesus' invitation to the weary to come to him.