What Does The Phrase "Empty or Man-Made Philosophy based on Human Tradition," Mean?

[Uber Genius]

On 2/8/2021 at 10:37 PM, teddyv said:

Most early doctrines were formulated to counter heresies arising from various false gospels and teachers. For many just to ignore this fact is pretty presumptuous and ignores history.

Great response. By looking at all the scriptures that referred to a topic the early church fathers were able to examine people's arguments and premises based on scriptural references. They often would argue advanced philosophical arguments to show that certain inferences didn't explain all themscriptural data and sometime led to complete contradictions. 

[Uber Genius]

On 2/8/2021 at 10:50 PM, Michael37 said:

Hi teddyv,

Can you give an example of an early doctrine formulated to counter heresies.

https://www.amazon.com/Ante-Nicene-Fathers-Writings-D-Apostolic/dp/1602064695

Volume 1 of ten volume set all written before Nicea.

Example:

From Discourse 1 by Athanasius "Against the Arians"

Chapter 2.

Extracts from the Thalia of Arius. Arius maintains that God became a Father, and the Son was not always; the Son out of nothing; once He was not; He was not before his generation; He was created; named Wisdom and Word after God's attributes; made that He might make us; one out of many powers of God; alterable; exalted on God's foreknowledge of what He was to be; not very God; but called so as others by participation; foreign in essence from the Father; does not knowor see the Father; does not knowHimself.

[Athanasius then responsed to Arius' claims]

And the mockeries which he utters in it, repulsive and most irreligious, are such as these :— 'God was not always a Father.' but 'once God was alone, and not yet a Father, but afterwards He became a Father.' 'The Son was not always;' for, whereas all things were made out of nothing, and all existing creatures and works were made, so the Word of God Himself was 'made out of nothing,' and 'once He was not,' and 'He was not before His origination,' but He as others 'had an origin of creation.' 'For God,' he says, 'was alone, and the Word as yet was not, nor the Wisdom. Then, wishing to form us, thereupon He made a certain one, and named Him Word and Wisdom and Son, that He might form us by means of Him.' Accordingly, he says that there are two wisdoms, first, the attribute co-existent with God, and next, that in this wisdom the Son was originated, and was only named Wisdom and Word as partaking of it. 'For Wisdom,' says he, 'by the will of the wise God, had its existence in Wisdom.' In like manner, he says, that there is another Word in God besides the Son, and that the Son again, as partaking of it, is named Word and Son according to grace. And this too is an idea proper to their heresy, as shown in other works of theirs, that there are many powers; one of which is God's own by nature and eternal; but that Christ, on the other hand, is not the truepower of God; but, as others, one of the so-called powers, one of which, namely, the locust and the caterpillar , is called in Scripture, not merely the power, but the 'great power.' The others are many and are like the Son, and of them David speaks in the Psalms, when he says, 'The Lord of hosts' or 'powers.' And by nature, as all others, so the Word Himself is alterable, and remains good by His own free will, while He chooses; when, however, He wills, He can alter as we can, as being of an alterable nature. For 'therefore,' says he, 'as foreknowing that He would be good, did God by anticipation bestow on Him this glory, which afterwards, as man, He attained from virtue. Thus in consequence of His works fore-known , did God bring it to pass that He being such, should come to be.'

6. Moreover he has dared to say, that 'the Word is not the very God;' 'though He is called God, yet He is not very God,' but 'by participation of grace, He, as others, is God only in name.' And, whereas all beings are foreign and different from God in essence, so too is 'the Word alien and unlike in all things to the Father's essence and propriety,' but belongs to things originated and created, and is one of these. Afterwards, as though he had succeeded to the devil's recklessness, he has stated in his Thalia, that 'even to the Son the Father is invisible,' and 'the Word cannot perfectly and exactly either see or know His own Father.' but even what He knows and what He sees, He knows and sees 'in proportion to His own measure,' as we also know according to our own power. For the Son, too, he says, not only knows not the Father exactly, for He fails in comprehension , but 'He knows not even His own essence;'— and that 'the essences of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, are separate in nature, and estranged, and disconnected, and alien , and without participation of each other ;' and, in his own words, 'utterly unlike from each other in essence and glory, unto infinity.' Thus as to 'likeness of glory and essence,' he says that the Word is entirely diverse from both the Father and the Holy Ghost. With such words has the irreligious spoken; maintaining that the Son is distinct by Himself, and in no respect partaker of the Father. These are portions of Arius's fables as they occur in that jocose composition.

Above was a small sample of claim counterclaim format common in ante-nicene church fathers writings. OThers include significant scripture references. 

In fact there is so much scripture reference that if we were to destroy every NT in the world, we could reproduce the NT with the exception of a handful of verses just by quoting from church father's work.

[Uber Genius]

46 minutes ago, Riverwalker said:

I am sorry.....you are referring to something outside of the bible, the writing of mere men.  Where as the CONCEPT of Trinity is in the bible..  The only Authority here is the God and His word

Yes. Referring to the approach many Christians have adopted of not understanding the difference between use of philosophy to form or defend Biblical doctrine, and using Biblical prooftexts about worldly wisdom/philosophy to attempt to refute Biblical doctrines.

Your example about the concept of the trinity is apt. Many respond that since the word "trinity," doesn't appear in the therefore there was no such teaching. 

What really happened was the Church Father's asked how can we view the statements about Jesus, the Father, the HS and account for them, all of them.

Example:

Hypothesis 1 -We can look at the oneness passages when two figures are in passage as one in essence. 

HYpothesis 2'- we can look at oneness passages as one in person, which means God changes roles from Father, to Son, to HS. 

Problem with hypothesis 2 is that we see multiple characters numerous times in the same scene. Was Jesus praying to himself in the Garden of Gethsemane? Was the Father praising himself at Jesus' baptism, was the HS landing on himself in that scene?

So based on incoherence of the hypothesis and sometimes just the lack of explanatory power (ability to explain all the seiptural data), one view was chosen over another.

These types of discussions are the preponderance of the 10s of thousands of pages of church fathers writings.