Ch 2 Sect 2 Dogma in the Early Church

During the era of the early Church Fathers dogmas were articulated as simple creeds, which focused more on the holy life. Analytical reflection upon the gospel was secondary to the practice of Christian ethics, such as love, meekness, humility, etc…

Eventually the church began facing opposition beyond hatred and mockery. Christianity was being attacked scientifically as Bavinck says “in a manner not unlike present day opposition”, which is followed by an editorial footnote mentioning works for today’s atheists such as Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation and Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. Although the scientific polemic did not overcome Christianity, many pagans began to combine pagan philosophies with Christianity. The greatest influence of which was Gnosticism. Fundamentally the Gnostics believed that secret knowledge was the only way to Salvation, and you could only gain access to this knowledge through mystical intellectual exercises. Also the Gnostics view matter as evil and spiritual as good that when applied or combined to Christianity denies the human nature of Jesus, and that God’s creation as good.

These attacks forced the Church to begin to reflect and analysis the content of revelation, and to formulate and articulate true Christian knowledge against all forms of false unbelieving knowledge. So as the Gnostics began presenting philosophies as a religious process, the Christian apologist accepted God and His word as supreme truth and the only philosophy that could unite all elements of truth.

Two schools of thought emerged as the Church began to develop a defense for the faith, an apologetic. One school, represented by Tertullian and others, was sharply opposed to philosophy and summarized their position with the saying “What fellowship is there between Athens and Jerusalem, academy in the Church?” Although Tertullian himself used philosophy by coming to a good necessary consequence from the plain reading of scripture when we began make some fundamental claims concerning the Trinity and Christology.

The Alexandrian theologians alternatively adopted a different attitude toward philosophy. Clement and Origen wanted to use the tools of philosophy to develop church doctrines into a speculative science. Ultimately what Origen wanted to do for Christianity is what Philo did for Judaism. Origen wanted to use philosophical language and categories of the day to articulate Christian truth. This runs the risk of collapsing philosophy into theology, where the distinctions of Christianity are blurred or even lost. But nonetheless as Bavinck teaches us by the 3rd century the church had assumed a firm position by rescuing the independence of Christianity, which set the stage in history for the great internal debates over the formulation of the Trinity and the God Man, Christ. The Councils of Nicea and Constantinople formulated these doctrines further laying the foundation for the Church and her continued pursuit of Dogma.