FWIW, David, I think that I largely empathize with your struggles over these questions. Your comment about "having one's cake and eating it too" really struck home, as that is something I have been mulling over for awhile now. I think that these questions should be openly and intelligently discussed; I suspect that not a few people have them, and not giving them attention really won't help to answer them.

I also have wondered over the similarities between strong Confessional Protestantism and the Magisterium and/or body of teaching and confessions of the church. I remember when I first signed onto this board, there was one person in particular (who still sometimes posts, but rarely) who used to argue so stridently based on the Confession that he would say things like, "Why would God give light to me that He did not give to the Westminster Divines", almost brushing off any "newness" as a matter of principle. Of course, if we adopt that method, then we wouldn't be Protestant.

I think that many of these growing pains are due to the "cookie-cutter" version of events that we learned growing up, just like school-children are taught a "simple" version of the electron, before things start getting very complicated. Growing up I was given a conception of a monstrous and ferocious church that was full of corruption to the brim, overflowing with iniquity, and a heroic man named Martin Luther who stood against it and brought Christianity back to the truth.

But as we grow older, it's not nearly so simple. That being said, I'm sure that people like you and I are simply in the shallows; I'm sure that neither Turretin nor Bellarmine would frame the debate in the way that you or I would, and in that respect, an immense amount of education needs to take place before one can even understand the precise boundary lines that are in question.

It just smacks of irony and inconsistency when we so stridently critique the councils of the Roman Church, or even the accepted body of Orthodox teaching, and yet quote single phrases of the Confession to prove points, and not only that, even quote prooftext references as if they were carved in granite. I realize I am not very erudite in explaining these things, but it just seems like a clanging inconsistency in my mind.

The more one learns about Christianity, doctrinally and historically, the more one realizes how inextricably linked it is to the "real world" and history. And all of us take the church's judgments seriously (if not the rationale behind them) when discussing the canon, the Trinity, the Hypostatic Union, etc. We give those things real authority, and we give our Confessions and churches real authority, but there's a gap between ~ 600 and ~ 1500 that we just write off.

I know that I used to feel so uncomfortable when Orthodox friends would say, "Well, Basil says..." or "According to St. Symeon the New Theologian" when discussing a particular doctrine. I'd almost want to laugh at them. But we as Protestants get on message boards, and 90% of our doctrinal discussion is, "Well, Calvin says... Witsius says... Polanus says... Gentry says..."

Granted Protestants do not ask these men to pray for them! That is a vastly different issue. But nonetheless we do have our "saints", at least in the didactic sphere. There are also questions of Tradition and the historical witness of the church: We accept that all of the apostles but John were martyred for their faith based on the memory of the church, yet we do not accept other things that the church witnesses do as a matter of history.

I suppose I have simply realized that some of my reasons for remaining outside of Rome or an Orthodox communion are purely cultural and superficial.
And as you hinted at, David, (I think), if one were to completely say, "My personal reason is not the sole authority in interpreting Scripture; I must submit to the church's teaching", one would immediately have to rely on one's personal reason to decide which church's teaching to submit to. I see that point as unavoidable.

At the end of the day, though, there are many reasons why I remain outside of Rome and an Orthodox church; at least things that seem to me to mitigate against it:

1) The very division between Rome and the Orthodox churches is, to me, a devastating blow against the concept of one holy, apostolic, catholic church, at least in a visible, institutional form. Were they united, and Protestantism was a lone way-ward child, the situation would seem more persuasive.

2) On Rome's side alone, Avignon has always stuck out as a sore thumb, and the issues between papal and conciliar authority raised during that era seem to be a bit unresolved; but I am very deficient of knowledge in that area.

3) If Peter can be rebuked, and Honorius (from memory, I might have been wrong) can be deemed a heretic, then Papal infallibility seems rather impossible, and the ex cathedra proviso seems like semantics. Furthermore, didn't Gregory the Great say that anyone claiming the title of universal bishop was near to the antichrist, or something along those lines?

4) The East seems at times to have the true succession at times, when compared to the Roman papal issues, but it lacks two very important things, imo, that Rome and Protestantism have, namely, 1) an emphasis on divine predestination and foreordination, a la Augustine, Aquinas, and the Reformers, and 2) an emphasis on the forensic and judicial aspects of the cross and the Christian life, which is why they seem to make fun of Anselm as much as they do Calvin.

5) The Arian controversy, to me, has always seemed like it could provide some curious insights regarding Protestantism and succession. Once again, I'd need to more thoroughly study the statistics, and I'm a fool compared to scholars on all sides, but weren't the Arians, at one point, in numerical control of the church? Or at least sizeable? I'm very curious as to whether these men were ordained through the laying on of hands by other bishops, also. If so, then RC's and EO's would admit that, for a time, the institutional church with a visible succession was corrupted, and the true doctrine persisted outside of that institutional form. If so, why could the same not be true, in principle, with Protestantism?

6) As messy as the personal lives of Luther and other Protestants could be, I don't really see Rome or the Eastern tradition as having a flawless witness either, from the Borgia popes to all of the Imperial meddlings in Byzantine church affairs.

7) Regional councils often disagreed with ecumenical councils, and fathers and theologians disagreed with one another. Simply going by years, Anselm and Gottschalk were both technically Orthodox, since 1054 hadn't happened yet, and the Council of Valence was a regional Orthodox council, though they are traditionally only considered to be Roman Catholic. Yet the Orthodox seem to pay no attention to these Western strains of Predestinarian or forensic thought.

8) What is "true succession"? Even if we make succession institutional and ceremonial (laying on of hands), on top of being doctrinal, many of the Reformers would nevertheless qualify. In that sense, sometimes I wonder if the elaborate dress and huge churches don't obscure the real issue for me.

9) Lastly, justification. I think Michael Horton wrote an article once about how he stood in St. Peter's Basilica, and longed to have connection to the history and tradition of Rome, but at the end, he kept coming back to his disagreement on justification. I realize that the arguments are complex, and the more I study Protestant scholasticism, the less I ridicule Rome for being obtuse and wordy and corrupting the simple Scriptures, since that mindset could also militate against our side. But I can't escape the fact that, Scripturally, justification is both forensic, and it's something that has been already accomplished, and can be looked backwards upon, "having been justified by faith". In the past year Horton had Sungenis (sp.?) on the WHI talking about Justification, and Horton pretty much nailed him on the forensic issue and made an irrefutable point, and Sungenis just baldly denied it. It came across to me as smacking of intellectual dishonesty.

Which is related to...

10) Purgatory and toll-booths. I see "toll-booths" as the Orthodox equivalent, roughly, of Roman Catholic purgatory. Both suggest that more or less you have to pass through rigorous purifying ordeals and trials and stations before you are taken to heaven. This actually seems to have logic behind it. Even we as Protestants say that we actually have to be changed internally, and that this process starts simultaneously with our forensic justification. That being said, it might seem to have logic, but I can't reconcile it cutting against Scripture. To me the contrast is glaring. The thief went from an unregenerate state to Paradise in one day; Lazarus was carried by angels to meet Abraham; and Paul said, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and that even those who don't die will be changed in the twinkling of an eye.

The issues of authority and history are inextricable, and honestly, to begin studying these things is a little like a drunk man or a child walking into the middle of a 1,000 year old conversation. Eventually you learn that your unformed opinion simply doesn't matter, and it would be better to learn how the conversation has progressed than to begin offering your unformed and misinformed insights.

It can be very stressful, contemplating which is the true church, and whether you stand outside of it. I think anyone who takes these matters seriously has to have contemplated it. At the end, at least for me, I honestly come to a point where I respectfully set aside Constantinople, Moscow, Rome, Geneva, and even the Westminster Confession, and simply rest my heart and my soul on John 5:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." As Mr. Rafalsky once told me when I was going through a rough personal time, "We have nothing else but his word to go on in the matter."

So I rest my soul on Christ's words and public promises when all is said and done, and not on untying a historical and ecclesiastical Gordian knot.

__________________
Joshua Wiseman
Riverview PCA
Charleston, WV

"Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings."
- Psalm 17:8