Apparently Jason Stellman thinks the historical arguments about Roman Catholicism are unfair if Protestants themselves don’t also have to answer arguments against their brand of Christianity. He might have a point if such Protestants were converts from Rome and continually banged the drum for the superiority of Protestantism to Roman Catholicism, all the while skirting such issues as the lack of institutional unity, the variety of interpretations of the Bible, or acting as if Augustine passed the torch directly and in the flesh to Luther. So far, I haven’t seen those blogs.
What I have seen, though, are Jason and the Callers ducking for cover whenever unpleasant historical incidents from Roman Catholicism show a less than attractive side to the church (and so make the conversion narratives look — let’s say — incomplete). Jason and Bryan Cross claim that they have repeatedly answered these objections. Jason does so by pointing to one — ONE!!! — post (too numerous to count) and Bryan does it by linking to a series of other links which take readers the same place the the Condor’s phone calls did when he re-patched the wires in Three Days of the Condor — for the cinematically illiterate — that is, nowhere. Jason and the Callers do not interact with the direct changes between, say Unam Sanctam and Vatican II on religious freedom and the separation of church and state, or with the conciliar tradition that antedates (according to leading medieval historians who are supposed to have the right paradigm) their preferred high (read: audacious) papalism, or anything about Edgardo Mortara and the Vatican’s place in Italian and European politics, or the Inquisition, or the Index of Books, of the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism and the crisis of the papacy. Granted, they don’t need to answer each and every one. But talk about hand waving. When you promote something as the best there ever was, and then you find that the best was also responsible for some of the worst in Christian history, maybe you want to change your story?
So let’s clarify the issue. We have a blog, known as Called to Communion, where converts from Reformed Protestantism talk about the woes of Protestantism and how Rome solves all those problems. The converts who have posted there make historical claims but their history almost never includes the dark side of Roman Catholic history. Perhaps they don’t know the history. Or perhaps they are so keen to justify their switch that they cherry pick from the past. Here’s a sampling:
From Stellman himself:
Historically speaking, the idea that the written Word of God is formally sufficient for all things related to faith and practice, such that anyone of normal intelligence and reasonably good intentions could read it and deduce from it what is necessary for orthodoxy and orthopraxy, is not a position that I see reflected in the writings of the early Church fathers. While there are plenty of statements in their writings that speak in glowing terms about the qualitative uniqueness of Scripture, those statements, for them, do not do away with the need for Scripture to be interpreted by the Church in a binding and authoritative way when necessary.
From David Anders:
I began my Ph.D. studies in September of 1995. I took courses in early, medieval, and Reformation Church history. I read the Church Fathers, the scholastic theologians, and the Protestant Reformers. At each stage, I tried to relate later theologians to earlier ones, and all of them to the Scriptures. I had a goal of justifying the Reformation and this meant, above all, investigating the doctrine of justification by faith alone[…]
My first difficulty arose when I began to grasp what Augustine really taught about salvation. Briefly put, Augustine rejected “faith alone.” It is true that he had a high regard for faith and grace, but he saw these mainly as the source of our good works. Augustine taught that we literally “merit” eternal life when our lives are transformed by grace. This is quite different from the Protestant point of view[…]
No matter where I looked, on whatever continent, in whatever century, the Fathers agreed: salvation comes through the transformation of the moral life and not by faith alone. They also taught that this transformation begins and is nourished in the sacraments, and not through some individual conversion experience[…]
From Jason Kettinger:
I have made two perhaps frustrating assumptions: that the Church of Christ is visible, and that the Catholic Church today is that Church. I can only say that Petrine primacy was rather easily established from the Fathers, and that patristic authors on the Eucharist and apostolic succession cast more than a reasonable doubt on both the authority of my community to believe otherwise (and still be the Church) and the antiquity of those particular beliefs. Some might say that I have been a rebel from day one, and there is some truth in that. However, even as I actively investigated Catholic claims, and explored Catholic life, I never lost sight of Christ Jesus. I found Him there as I went; I pleaded with Him to guide me. I gave Jesus every question.
From Jason Stewart:
Going into this I had to admit that my familiarity with the actual works of the Fathers was limited. Thumbing curiously through a random volume from Schaff’s Patristics collection or culling a quote from Ignatius or Augustine or reading a history of early doctrine text for seminary coursework exhausted my contact with these ancient Christian authors. I had known for a long time that the Church Fathers did not share my Reformed theological vocabulary. But such was to be expected, I guessed. The Protestant Reformation with its precise theological formulations was many centuries away when these men wrote. So what (my thinking went) if Irenaeus or Justin or Augustine didn’t sound exactly like our Reformed creeds and catechisms? Yet now in examining their writings I began to sense that indeed there was something more profound at work than a mere difference in expression or emphasis. Was the Catholic claim right? Continued reading suggested that the actual theological substance of the Fathers was different. Certainly the Fathers didn’t seem at odds with the positive elements of the Reformation. But I noticed in my reading that they thought differently than did the reformers. Their approach to the Christian faith took another route. They seemed to cut an early theological path that when traced did not exactly connect to the one blazed by the reformers in the 16th century. I began to consider whether a person would naturally pick up the distinctive trail of the Protestant Reformation if one started with the writings of the early Church? The answer increasingly seemed to be no.
The pattern is pretty clear. Throw Protestantism aside by examining the past. The past in view is invariably the early church fathers, against which Protestants come up short. Then elide right into the idea that “this is the church Christ founded” and you have the early church as no different from Benedict XVI. Let’s just say, this is not very good history, but history is pretty crucial to the Callers’ understanding of their conversion. In which case, bringing up other parts of the past is entirely fair, and if the Callers can’t answer, then call David Barton.
In the conversion narratives I examined I saw only one that conceded Rome’s defects. Joshua Lim admitted:
As many Protestants warn, there are certain difficulties that the Catholic convert must necessarily face. The contemporary Catholic Church in America is far from perfect. Liturgically, there are, at least in Southern California, very few parishes that celebrate Mass the way Catholics should; there are numerous liberal Catholics who don’t submit to the Magisterium (to the delight of Protestants), the list seems endless.
That’s a pretty contemporary list (like Stellman’s), suggesting to me Joshua doesn’t have any idea about the difficulties between theory and reality from Roman Catholic church history.
Even so, Lim goes on to make it all better:
. . . none of this is actually new for the Church; things have always been so. These issues have not moved me from the conviction that the Catholic Church is the true Church; on the contrary, they have only increased my faith that this must be the true Church. If Christ could continue to work to build his Church with such a history of failings on the part of the laity, various priests, bishops, and even popes, surely this Church must be sustained by God himself. . .
By that logic, (and I’ve seen it several times at CTC in the comm box — this must be the true church because it is so flawed), Protestantism wins the argument. What, with 40k denominations, our fractured state has to be evidence that God is at work among us. You know, you will know them not by their love but by their errors and divisions?
But even then, Lim cannot avoid appealing to history:
. . . despite the passage of over two millennia, the Church continues to hold and to teach in substance what it has always held and taught. Unlike much of Protestantism which no longer believes what even the magisterial Reformers once held to be fundamental tenets of the faith (Trinity, inerrancy, etc.), the Catholic Church remains unmoved, not by virtue of her own strength, but by virtue of the grace of the Holy Spirit preserving the Church.
I understand the appeal of wanting to have it both ways — appeal to history but no responsibility for historical claims. But I had not heard that Rome’s authority extended to re-writing maxims that say you can’t.
Old Life 
Anytime someone says “all the early church fathers” my first inclination is to dismiss them as an honest student of history. Call me audacious.
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Darryl, this should be where they hit you with your failure to ‘read history’ with a hermenuetic of continuity. You lack the proper ‘faith’ posture. I’ll tell you what I have determined about all this; ‘you’re a really poor roman catholic by CtC standards, but maybe not so much by Kung’s.’ It was like after I converted to protestantism and Madrid told me I was destined for hell, but Fr. Morrel wanted me to go talk to my old classmates because my faith was obviously alive. Rome, she’s a fickle one.
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I’m glad you said this. I put up a similar post myself recently: http://church-discipline.blogspot.com/2013/08/did-jesus-found-roman-catholic-church.html
The historical argument is by far the weakest part of the CtC apologetic Their apologetic hinges in an absolutely crucial way on the shape of 1st and 2nd century Christianity. The CtC apologetic makes claims that are contradicted by almost every single piece of evidence we have about the shape of 1st and 2nd century Christianity. There was no Catholic church nor anything like the Catholic church in the 1st century.
Your points about the later centuries are equally strong. You cannot have a situation where there are simultaneously that
a) three people with equally valid claims to be Pope (at least as understood by the people of the time) b) a belief that all through history people were able to determine what the Church Jesus founded was
c) the Pope is the defining marker of the true church
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@Robert —
I’ve pointed out counter examples to “all the early church fathers” numerous times to CtCers. Generally what “all the early church fathers” means is “those church fathers who agree with the later consensus”. In other words everyone who agrees agreed, a worthless historical tautology.
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Mrs. Hart must have made D.G. east his Wheaties for breakfast yesterday morning. He still had some steam left in the afternoon:
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/comment-page-10/#comment-58612
Michael,
I am genuinely sorry to hear of your experience as a teen and I do respect your commitment to Rome despite your circumstances. I don’t think that confessional Protestants necessarily think that RC’s believe they are more virtuous than others, nor that the authority of the church hangs on the morality of its clergy. I do think that CTC does set up the problem of Protestantism in such a way that RC’s wind up being the smartest guys in the room because of all that coherence. And that’s where the problem precisely lies. If you want to say that you believe in the church because you trust God, fine. But then you go and say that the issue is really epistemological and about paradigms and then it does look like you are truly the smartest guys in the room. But it doesn’t look smart to us when Rome is incoherent in a number of ways, such that you guys become the true interpreters and take over the duty of interpretation (from the magisterium).
For instance, you write: “Bryan, I, and many others have repeatedly addressed just that point–as have many contemporary Catholic authors–showing that the Magisterium has not contradicted itself when teaching with its full authority about ecclesiology.” Well, when does the magisterium turn on the light to let you know when its speaking with full authority as opposed to the times when it’s only “just saying.” Just because you and Bryan say so doesn’t mean a thing. It really depends, in your paradigm, on the church being that clear about when it’s teaching with full authority and when it’s not. And if, as I constantly hear, we have only two instances of infallible teachings from the papacy, then what happens to all the talk about church councils and early church fathers? In other words, where does the magisterium provide a program for understanding the rank of church authorities and their teachings in descending order, like a baseball lineup.
The weakness of your paradigm approach is really evident when you write: “the critics’ response to that defense typically is that we defenders are “re-interpreting” the pertinent ecclesiological claims so as to make them appear mutually consistent, when they actually are not. That is basically what the SSPX’s response to Pope Benedict was, which is why that organization is not reconciled with Rome, and still considers itself more Catholic than the Pope. I can assure you that they won’t fare any better with Pope Francis. But notice once again that the dispute is about how to interpret certain statements and facts. One can do that in terms of the “hermeneutic of continuity” (HoC) advocated by Ratzinger and the consensus of the Catholic hierarchy as a whole, or one can do it in terms of the “hermeneutic of discontinuity” (HoD) advocated by Catholic rad-trads, Catholic progressives, and many conservative Protestants such as Darryl. I favor the HoC because I believe it takes account of a wider range of theologically relevant facts, and explains them in a way that makes more sense, than does the HoD. ”
What’s curious here is that you started by contrasting the (R)CIP with the PIP. But it turns out there is no single (R)CIP. But you have several, the HoD, the HoC, the trads, the SSPXers, the Augustinian Thomists, the Whig Thomists, not to mention the very gifted historians (like Oakley and O’Malley) who are Roman Catholic. That makes CTC just one paradigm out of many, which is a lot like the diversity you disdain among Protestants. Plus, not even your holy father can reign it all in even though he has the authority to insist on one paradigm. All JPII and BXVI could do was “advocate” the HOC, not demand it the way Leo XIII or Pius X did with the condemnations of Americanism and Modernism. And then you have your own “preference” of paradigms. Really, for all the CTC talk of a single RC paradigm, you just blew it into several different bits.
You conclude: “But if this discussion is to make any progress, you need to understand how the basic disagreement is one of IP, and what is involved in assessing our mutually incompatible IPs against each other.” Well, Protestants are not the ones who are calling for this conversation. You guys are. And if you want progress, you may actually want to get the RC paradigm straight. But as it stands, there is no (R)CIP except what CTC says it is. But CTC has no authority to make that determination. It’s merely a preference.
This is (in part) the dishonesty that I detect here among Jason and the Callers. You have all of this antithesis between Protestants and Roman Catholics and yet RC’s have a fair amount of interpretive antithesis among themselves. And you guys are supposed to be on the same page because you have one interpretive authority.
The disorder in your house is not moral. It is epistemological. Frankly, I don’t care as much about philosophy as theology. And there the disorder in your ranks is even greater. Honesty about that situation might bring back down to earth those claims about intellectual superiority and satisfaction.
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CD-Host, you have put forth the screwiest possible contrivance of earliest Christianity that’s available (from the Bauer-Bultmann-Koester axis). The problem with that is that it’s been discredited. And here is why:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/08/earliest-christians-what-did-they-know.html
Your theory anachronistically starts with the heresies in the second century and traces them backward into the first century. It completely fails to take first century writings at their word and hubristically begins with its own faulty assumptions (that the disjointed nature of the various groups in second century Rome somehow had traceable roots in first-century Christianity).
So when you come here spouting your nonsense, you are beginning with a set of assumptions that no one here holds at all.
Your statement that “1st and 2nd Corinthians demonstrate this sort of redacted structure indicating multiple authors” fails to take into account that 1 and 2 Corinthians are, along with Romans and Galatians, the UNCONTESTED letters of Paul — that is, uncontested by everyone outside of the little fringe group that occupies the space between your ears.
I’m glad you take the time to point out the errors of the CTC gang. But otherwise, you should admit coming in here that you are, in yourself, a fringe voice to which no one else here at all would give any credence.
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Erik, my other take away from all this is, you may not wanna take on credentialed and published YUP historians on subjects such as; history, even particularly church history, without a cup and a helmet. And then if you’re feeling real froggy and you do it while claiming to have been one of his students and claiming the historical representations were skewed(protestant) or you were bored, you might wanna go; helmet, cup, shinguards, chest protection and sidearm. And then if you wanna do all that and blog about it………………………………………………..maybe go witness protection.
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ex-credobaptist, two steps to Rome, Lim: If Christ could continue to work to build his Church with such a history of failings on the part of the laity, various priests, bishops, and even popes, surely this Church must be sustained by God himself. . .
dgh: By that logic, ( this must be the true church because it is so flawed), Protestantism wins the argument. What, with 40k denominations, our fractured state has to be evidence that God is at work among us. You know, you will know them not by their love but by their errors and divisions?
mark: an analogy–modern Israel is so racist and anti-Christian that it must have a divine right to kill other Arabs in self-defense….You just can’t argue about the fact that Rome’s power still exists…
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Joshua Lim – . . none of this is actually new for the Church; things have always been so.
Erik – So why rely on the Early Church Fathers?
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@John
Your own article cites James Robinson and Helmut Koester, how much more mainstream can you get than that?
The most influential scholarly work on Corinthians is Gnosticism in Corinth;: An investigation of the letters to the Corinthians by Walter Schmithals which rejects even a single author for 1st and 2nd Corinthians or even that the letters in their canonical form were composed by the same generation of authors. Romans has a variety of theologies going back and forth like we frequently see in texts that Catholics and early Christians adopted like the gospels. It is almost impossible to try and construct a stream.
You are also arguing in a circle here. Traditional scholarship has Marcion’s versions deviating from the canonical versions not the other way around. Of course is Marcion’s versions aren’t earlier Encratite / Marcionic Christianity didn’t predate Catholicism. That’s just begging the question.
Traditional scholarship (i.e. conservative Christian) like Köstenberger and Kruger that you site doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t even explain the record we have both inside or outside the new testament. Köstenberger can’t answer basic questions about the evolution of the theology surrounding Melchizedek, which couldn’t have originated from Catholicism unless you want Catholicism existing from 100 BCE.
You have to put together a timeline that explains the evidence we have.
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Sean,
D.G. is one of a kind. That’s why you need to make the trip to Iowa Nov. 1-2, my friend.
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CD,
You would enjoy my atheist friend’s book, “The End of Biblical Studies”:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Biblical-Studies-Hector-Avalos/dp/1591025362/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376956919&sr=8-1&keywords=the+end+of+biblical+criticism
It’s down my list a ways, though. If I determine the Bible is unreliable before I get to it I’m going to just skip it and buy a subscription to “Penthouse” instead…
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Michael (#457) – Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church’s growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability “are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all”; they are “motives of credibility” (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is “by no means a blind impulse of the mind”.30
Erik – What miracles of the saints? What proof of them can you offer me?
What prophecies? Biblical prophecies or prophecies by the RCC?
What holiness of the church? If I am to consider holiness may I also consider unholiness?
If I am to consider RCC church growth can I also consider more recent declines in membership?
What fruitfulness?
If I am to consider stability can I also consider instability (The Avignon Papacy, bad popes, etc.)?
Most certain signs of divine revelation?
Once again, I don’t see how this reformulation improves your position. These statements involve the evaluation of evidence, and unless I start out as a Catholic there is no assurance that I will evaluate the evidence as you want me to.
I need way more specifics.
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mcMark, tsk, tsk.
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I get super annoyed with the errors of “Protestantism,” as if we’re some giant, monolithic group. I’m a Lutheran, and we view the history of the church quite different from the Reformed, the baptists, the Methodists, etc. But do we ever see that nuanced? It’s like when Lutherans say “Reformed” when they are talking about Methodists.
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Darryl,
Brilliant! Keep ’em coming. By the way, where do you find the time?
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but surely you are not a fan of modern zionism, are you?
as in, since it’s still there, inductively it must be a good thing?
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We Told You So” may be Jason and the Callers Newest Single; but I think a good old song for D.G. Hart and gang would be , “I’ve Got you Under my Skin” http://youtu.be/xRLyVTcJoDA 🙂 These CTC guys seem to be getting under your skin!
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Kim,
It’s real simple. OLTS is into excellence. Even when it comes to frauds.
So while Rome is a fraud, it is at least a highly polished one of long historical standing. The CtC are more like vain and hack amateurs of the moment; nouveau riche so to speak.
We
resemble this immenselyresent this inappropriate usurpation on their part and respond accordingly.cheers,
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Speaking of musicians, Donald Fagen’s book, “Eminent Hipsters”, is out in October:
http://literatecomments.com/2013/08/20/donald-fagens-book-eminent-hipsters-comes-out-october-22-2013/
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Kim,
Actually, taking on the Callers is dirty work, but someone has to do it:
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Erik —
I did enjoy it. He was terrific about the inherent conflicts that exist with biblical studies being a Christian/Jewish field of study. He was quite insightful and brutally honest about the state of the field. That being said I think he underestimates the progress being made despite all the problems. Whether the progress is worth the effort of not is not really an academic issue.
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@Nick
I agree. It is particularly galling in that conservative reformed is a fairly small subset of Protestants. The CtCers are better than they were about making sure it is understood they mean “conservative reformed” when they say “Protestant” but they still really should deal with the reality of what Protestantism looks like. OTOH they refuse to deal with the reality of what Catholicism looks like either.
Robert who is on this thread had an amusing dialogue with them about the degree of theological diversity that exists in the real Catholic church that real Catholics go to as opposed to the theoretical Catholic church of their imagination.
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“The pattern is pretty clear. Throw Protestantism aside by examining the past. The past in view is invariably the early church fathers, against which Protestants come up short. Then elide right into the idea that “this is the church Christ founded” and you have the early church as no different from Benedict XVI. Let’s just say, this is not very good history, but history is pretty crucial to the Callers’ understanding of their conversion.”
The way the folks at CtC use the language of “The Church that Christ founded” is very very historical and depends on a very literal interpretation of Magisterial teaching, that I for one am very skeptical of. Most Catholic Biblical scholars and Church historians would be very reluctant to make that sort of claim.
And yet many of their works have been approved by bishops and their work has been commended by Popes.
It’s as if CtC has exported the Historical Grammatical hermeneutic from Evangelical Protestantism and applied it to Papal documents while ignoring how the teaching actually works itself out in the life of the Church.
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CD-Host, you need to come in here with a warning label: “The views I espouse are mainstream liberal and maybe even out of bounds for that”.
You begin conversations with some appearance that “we all can see through this Roman Catholic nonsense”. But what you espouse is far afield.
You have to put together a timeline that explains the evidence we have.
The “timeline” that you have begins with the second century. It is not as if we don’t have compelling first-century evidence.
This is very telling for you to say this, when your hero Robinson begins with “Q”, which is something we assuredly DON’T have. [I’m not saying such a thing didn’t exist; I’m saying we don’t have it. To suggest it exists is pure speculation.]
On the other hand, we do have the letters of Paul – we have his travel itinerary and we have it cross-referenced with other historians of the period. Even among most skeptics, Paul’s letters to the Romans and Corinthians are regarded as wholly authentic.
We have actual New Testament documents that were revered from the earliest times, that are the products of minds and hands who (a) espoused moral purity and (b) claimed that that purity came from interactions with the man Jesus Christ.
Hurtado addresses Robinson and Koester not because they are “mainstream”, [as in mainstream Christian] but because they are “mainstream academia”. In the academy, you have all kinds of odd theories put on the table, and they are considered because some academics, especially those who wish God didn’t exist, like to “spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.” – new theories, that is, which operate around the concept that God actually exists and actually reveals Himself through the Scriptures. They are born skeptics who have no place at the Christian table.
To suggest that “Romans has a variety of theologies” is laughable. But such is the circle that you have adopted.
A conservative commentator like Thomas Schreiner can (and does) categorically say that “no serious scholar today doubts that Paul wrote Romans. A few scholars in the history of interpretation, especially at the end of the 19th century, have doubted its authenticity”. Authenticity which encompasses the fact that Paul, a single, coherent mind, himself is the author – is behind the so-called “variety” of theologies.
Schreiner cites Cranfield (1979) saying that to think that Paul did not write Romans is “among the curiosities of NT scholarship”.
Keener (Cambridge ©2005) notes that if 2 Corinthians were a composite, “one would expect some recognition of this fact at least in Corinth, hence in some early manuscripts or church fathers; but such is not the case. Neither Marcion nor his early detractors seem aware of fragments”.
Over and over again, you are the one with the speculations, the one without “the evidence we have”, and you are relying on pure, Godless speculations.
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I would pay money to see CD-Host and Tom Van Dyke interact. How did they miss each other?
CD-Host is what Tom aspires to be, but can’t quite get there because he can’t deal with the implications of his own worldview. Maybe if/when Tom comes back he’ll be ready.
We’re still waiting for the story of how Christian CD-Host became post-Christian CD-Host, though.
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From D.G.:
Mike,
I bet that 2 % of RCs know about the CDF Doctrinal Commentary and 1 % of the priests ever refer to this. It’s a good effort — even if it reads a little like an IKEA book case manual — but it doesn’t really solve the problem of the huge gap over what counts for Roman CAtholicism between CTC and National Catholic Reporter. It’s just hand waving (Bryan’s phrase) to point to this and say it resolves all your problems. (The thing is, I bet as many as 15 % of RC’s followed such a statement intuitively circa 1950.)
But you still have the problem of the papal history after the French Revolution (other times as well) when the theory and theology of papal supremacy was built on the shifting sand of European politics. The Syllabus of Errors was just a mulligan? The notion that the spiritual power of the papacy depended on the pope holding temporal power? And then when temporal power vanishes, Pius IX doubles down with infallibility?
The claims of papal supremacy are not spiritual. They are political through and through. Now those claims about temporal power don’t matter any more? Pius IX didn’t mean it?
At least John Courtney Murray wrestled with whether temporal power was of the essence of papal power (or merely accidental). I don’t see any wrestling at CTC. It’s a big part of Roman Catholic history for the pope to be a prince and head of the church. The fact that the subject never comes up at CTC in a serious way is either dishonest or denial.
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Ikea book case manual…
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Michael (#476) – Most of your comment consists in expressing skepticism about the Catholic MOCs pending much more detail than is given by the sources we’ve considered so far. So you want the case laid out in detail. I don’t know of any single book accomplishing that in a way that’s both comprehensive and tightly argued. If I had adequate financial support, I would do it myself. Since that support is probably not forthcoming, I probably won’t do it. But in the context of this thread, I don’t believe that further detail would be any more desirable than possible.
Erik – That’s an honest answer.
Michael – My main argument for the CIP is that the CIP is fit to achieve that purpose while the PIP is not.
Erik – You have your interpretive paradigm and I have mine. That’s not news. If you want to win over anybody but the low hanging fruit in the Reformed world, though (seminarians, recent graduates) you’ll need to do better (at least to convince me).
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I dreamed I had a fever
I was pushin’ one-oh-three
My mom’s all upset – cryin’ by my bedside
Everybody’s prayin’ for me
I hear a scratchin’ at the window
I somehow twist myself around
I realize I’m eyes to eyes
With the fella in the Brite Nitegown
You can’t fight with the fella
In the Brite Nitegown
Ten milligrams of Chronax
Will whip you back through time
Past Hebrew kings – and furry things
To the birth of humankind
I shared in all of nature’s secrets
But when I finally came around
I’m sittin’ on the rug gettin’ a victory hug
From the fella in the brite Brite Nitegown
Donald Fagen
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2006/05/donald-fagen.html
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1 Cor 11:19: “there must be factions among you in order tthat those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”
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Rube, you quote the Bible?
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Darryl,
The pattern is pretty clear. Throw Protestantism aside by examining the past. The past in view is invariably the early church fathers, against which Protestants come up short. Then elide right into the idea that “this is the church Christ founded” and you have the early church as no different from Benedict XVI. Let’s just say, this is not very good history, but history is pretty crucial to the Callers’ understanding of their conversion.
God is in the details. If you abstract the “early church fathers” from their actual writing, positions of authority and proximity and relation to the actual apostles you have some sort of point here. The problem is when one actually reads them they are so profoundly Catholic in their beliefs and so profoundly not Protestant that this history becomes a little too obvious even for those who have been inoculated by reading deeply of the protestant fathers of the 16th century and their great grandchildren of our time.
One theme I do notice, Darryl, with you and so many Reformed bloggers is how much time you spend defining yourself against the Catholic Church. At least the collective subconsiousness of confessional protestantism still recognizes her authority. So that leaves me with a question. What does scripture compare rebellion to?
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Dave, speaking of details, the early church may be Catholic but is it Roman Catholic? Do the early church fathers regard the papacy or Rome the way Jason and the Callers do, or the way most contemporary Roman Catholics do? That’s a pretty important question and lots of historians of the papacy do argue that Rome’s centrality in the Western Church did not emerge until the 11th and 12th centuries. So what’s up with the details of appealing to the early church? You may want to argue about baptismal regeneration or justification. But the point of Jason and the Callers is that Rome alone has the capacity to fix what ails Protestantism — and this is not a bunch of theologians writing throughout Asia Minor in the second century. It is the see of Rome.
BTW, Rome wasn’t much of an topic at Oldlife until converts began throwing Rome’s superiority into our faces, along with all that disparagement of Protestantism. Check for yourself.
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Dave H, ECFs are Roman Catholic? When I was interested in Christology, I turned to Cyril of Alexandria, via an EO priest, John McGuckin. Being protestant my whole life, I saw nothing resembling Roman Catholicism during my time with McGuckin abd Cyril. You’re grasping. Tell me precisely where you see Trent in the ECFs. Until you do that, you’re not exactly shooting straight down the fairway, maybe you belong on CTC with comments like that..
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Elmore Leonard (“Justified”, “Jackie Brown”) has died:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/books/elmore-leonard-master-of-crime-fiction-dies-at-87.html?emc=edit_na_20130820&_r=0
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Thanks, Mark.
“Two Against Nature” is a solid album.
I have a moral dilemma. Steely Dan is in Kansas City on 9/3. I’d like to go with my wife, but, not being a fan, she’s skeptical. Would Moses have allowed me to put her away and take another wife on these grounds?
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Darryl,
Maybe we do want to start with Baptism Regeneration or Justification, or the Eucharist, or the Authority fo Bishops etc. That is not an invalid point. My point is… the ECF’s look entirely Catholic (Roman, Byzantine, Maronite, Syro-Malabar etc.) on all of these and more. So even if we grant your point about the Bishop of Rome, which I do not, you have to deal with all the rest. You cannot just say “Yeah but the Papacy was not fully defined at that time”. That does not solve Protestanisms problem with church history or more precisely the church in history for the first 1500 years. The papacy still existed then and there is evidence for it all over the place, east and west. There is far far more evidence in the ecf’s for the primacy of the the Bishop of Rome than there is for sola scriptura ans sola fide. But even if there was not they would recognize the Catholic Mass and Catholic beliefs and sacraments. They would not recognize a Reformed worship service or the meanings your pour into your two ordinances. They were not recognize your elders authority but the would the local Catholic Bishop.
There is a mountain you need to climb with the ecf’s even without the papacy.
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@John
No it doesn’t. We have pre-Christian Gnosticism from about 100 BCE easily datable. We have finds from the Dead Sea Scrolls from before the common era. We have a full timeline for the Sethians that starts around 100 BCE. Once we get to the first century we have a plethora of archeological evidence as well.
Since when did my assertion he’s “mainstream” make him a hero? Anyway of course we have Q, Q is nothing more than a list of almost word for word quotes that exist in both Luke and Matthew. Anyone can construct a Q. Now what you probably mean is we don’t have Q as an independent work, and that is true.
We have very few references to Paul’s travels pre-Acts (i.e. about 134+) and those we do have mostly contradict what Acts says about Paul.
I’ve given you the clear cut citation: Walter Schmithals. Rudolf Bultmann agreed with him. Which is the single most important theologian of the 20th century. Sorry, but conservative Evangelical scholarship is not the mainstream.
Really? OK show me the passage where anyone says that was the source in: Hebrews, Revelation, Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, Jude, Peter’s epistles… The New Testament authors mostly say precisely the opposite that their knowledge of Jesus comes from scripture not from interaction.
First off if you date Corinthians to Paul then you have a problem with Gnosticism being 2nd century. Who do you think the opponents are in that book? In any case, there is recognition of the fact since the 4th century commentaries that comment how the letters conclude multiple times. As for Corinth there is little evidence of any tie between Corinth and 1Corinthians prior to Marcion. Frankly there is little evidence of anyone knowing of 2Cor, the best cases being Ignatius who knows of 1Cor but not 2Cor.
My “speculations” are pretty clear cut. We start with what we can definitely date, and work from there.
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@Dave H
Baloney. They most certainly are far away from Catholic. Take Justin Martyr for example. In Dialogue with Trypho he talks about his own conversion. He considers Christianity to be a Jewish flavored form of Middle Platonic philosophy where he sets up his own school and teaches. While he over the course of his life moves towards Catholic theology in many areas he never considers Catholicism as an existent entity much less one that he is religiously bound to. He seems oblivious to a church hierarchy.
Theophilus of Antioch believes that Christians are converted directly by reading the Jewish scriptures and being anointed. He minimizes the role of any particular hierarchical authoritative church and clearly would have rejected apostolic succession if he had ever heard of the idea.
Athenagoras of Athens doesn’t even believe in an incarnation at all. He doesn’t acknowledge any forms for ritual as binding and seems totally unaware of the existence of a Catholic church.
Epistle to Diognetus has no knowledge of an authoritative church or that anything came of an incarnation of the Logos that came somewhere in the undefined past.
Tatian believes Christians are directly God taught rejecting any notion of an authoritative church.
No the ECFs are not Catholic. They become Catholic by the late 2nd – early 3rd century and that’s because by that point all the non-Catholic teachers
a) There finally are some figures who hold something like primitive Catholic beliefs to quote
b) Anyone who strongly disagrees gets rejected from the pool of ECF, thus introducing selection bias.
Certainly they agree with the Catholics on many points like the key importance of the Eucharist and
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AB,
Dave H, ECFs are Roman Catholic?
The ECF’s were Catholic. The name of the Church is not “The Roman Catholic Church”. It is the Catholic Church.
When I was interested in Christology, I turned to Cyril of Alexandria, via an EO priest, John McGuckin. Being protestant my whole life, I saw nothing resembling Roman Catholicism during my time with McGuckin abd Cyril. You’re grasping.
June 27th is the memorial of the good Bishop. Who is a Catholic saint. Pope Pius XII wrote an entire encyclical about him – Orientalis Ecclesiae
I am not grasping at all. He doesn’t sound Catholic? Have you read him on Mary?
I am not unfamiliar with Orthodoxy I studied it for a solid decade and almost converted to the Orthodox Church. I even married an Orthodox girl in the Orthodox Church. She is now Eastern Catholic by the way.
I actually studied the Eastern Fathers first. It was studying Orthodoxy the showed me the truth of the Catholic Church.
Tell me precisely where you see Trent in the ECFs. Until you do that, you’re not exactly shooting straight down the fairway, maybe you belong on CTC with comments like that.
I see. I must now pour through all the Father’s to validate one of 21 ecumenical councils or I am not an honest golfer. Got it.
But since you asked the canon of scripture alone (as defined in Trent) has the support of Augustine, Irenaeus, Polycarp, Clement, Hippolytus, Jerome, Cyprian, The Councils of Rome, Hippo and Carthage and Pope Innocent I.
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Dave H. – That does not solve Protestanisms problem with church history or more precisely the church in history for the first 1500 years
Erik – Yeah, Constantinianism leads to Fubar, so what? How was the protest to begin while the Church was claiming control of both swords?
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15126a.htm
John Wycliffe was born in 1320 & Jan Hus was born in 1369 so I don’t grant you 1500 years.
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My experience is that cradle Catholics (and I know a lot of them) don’t respect these converts either and keep them on the margins of Catholic discourse about Catholicism.
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AB,
St. Augustine (from On Man’s Perfection in Righteousness):
We run, therefore, whenever we make advance; and our wholeness runs with us in our advance (just as a sore is said to run when the wound is in process of a sound and careful treatment), in order that we may be in every respect perfect, without any infirmity of sin whatever result which God not only wishes, but even causes and helps us to accomplish. And this God’s grace does, in co-operation with ourselves, through Jesus Christ our Lord, as well by commandments, sacraments, and examples, as by His Holy Spirit also; through whom there is hiddenly shed abroad in our hearts . . . that love, “which makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered,” . . . until wholeness and salvation be perfected in us, and God be manifested to us as He will be seen in His eternal truth.
That is Tridentine theology.
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AB,
If you want to go earlier read St. Irenaeus. Against Heretics also sounds quite Tridentine.
Dave
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Anthony Bradley: “My experience is that cradle Catholics (and I know a lot of them) don’t respect these converts either and keep them on the margins of Catholic discourse about Catholicism.”
Me: Hello. Anthony it’s tough when they missed all the dinner table conversations. That and they’d like to erase the collective wisdom of the movement of God amongst the laity and 3/4 of the ordinary magisterium from roughly 1965 to 2005. That’s a tough sell.
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Buzzz
Irenaeus rejected: Philemon, 2Peter, Jude, 3John
Irenaeus accepted: Hermes and 1Clement
He contradicts himself on Hebrews and James.
____
Polycarp is even worse. John, Colossians, Titus, Revelations are out in addition to Irenaus’ Philemon, 2Peter, Jude, 3John.
Finally Trent’s OT canon and the Vulgate disagree on 3 books. Arguably Catholics didn’t get their bible’s consistent with Trent until the Nova Vulgata in 1979.
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Dave H, it’s pretty tough to get much of Tridentine RC before the 11th century and the gregorian reforms. This was when you saw the rise of the priestly class and the formalization of the subjection of the state to the holy see.
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Dave H., do you think the ecf would recognize Vatican 2?
But you are overreading the church fathers if you think they all agree like the Westminster Assembly. I’m no authority on the ancient church, but I have read works like J N D Kelly’s and it is hard not to see a lot diversity in the early church.
Then you have the problem of Augustine whom Protestants may rightly claim on parts of what he taught and the same goes for RC’s.
Either way, who makes the ecf authoritative when Leo XIII is looking to Thomas to restore philosophical and theological order in the church?
I suspect we have a different way of understanding history. You like the theory, I respect the reality. You know, all of that paradigm difference stuff.
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CD-H, thanks for bringing Dave back within range of earth history.
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Sean – Anthony it’s tough when they missed all the dinner table conversations
Erik – Not to mention the raps on the knuckles from the sisters.
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Thanks for sharing, Dave H, and for chatting with me. Take care.
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AB,
Anytime.
Best,
Dave
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CD-Host,
Irenaeus rejected: Philemon, 2Peter, Jude, 3John
Irenaeus accepted: Hermes and 1Clement
He contradicts himself on Hebrews and James.
You take a great deal of liberty with history here. How is not mentioning 4 epistles the same as rejecting them? No need to answer – that was rhetorical.
Yes Bishops did accept Hermes and 1 Clement and other books as scriptural. That certainly does not help the cause of Sola Scriptura. It just provides further evidence that the Church predates the NT canon.
Polycarp is even worse. John, Colossians, Titus, Revelations are out in addition to Irenaus’ Philemon, 2Peter, Jude, 3John.
Polycarp? You mean the guy who was a contemporary of St. John? The martyr? What I said above.
But this all misses the point. AB asked me where the the ECF’s agreed with Trent. I referenced these ECF’s because of their agreement on the Old Testament canon. So you see how your response is not touching the actual issue I was addressing?
Finally Trent’s OT canon and the Vulgate disagree on 3 books. Arguably Catholics didn’t get their bible’s consistent with Trent until the Nova Vulgata in 1979.
Care to explain further? Which three books? I am comfortably certain you are not correct as I have seen similar claims refuted. But I need more information.
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Hi Darryl,
Dave H., do you think the ecf would recognize Vatican 2?
Of course. They knew what a council was and how they worked.
But you are overreading the church fathers if you think they all agree like the Westminster Assembly. I’m no authority on the ancient church, but I have read works like J N D Kelly’s and it is hard not to see a lot diversity in the early church.
Not overreading – just reading. On those issues that were never in dispute, Baptismal Regeneration, the Sacraments in general, justification, ecclesiology, the real presence, the perpetual virginity of Mary etc. they were all in agreement.
I agree with you that there was a lot of diversity in the early church… just like now. Look at the different sui juris within the Catholic Church and you will see that diversity reflected. But there was nothing like the diversity that the various protestant churches reflect. The meaning of baptism is disputed, the meaning of Holy Communion is disputed, ecclesiology is disputed, the role of Mary is disputed. All these things are disputed among protestants. That was not the case in the early church.
Then you have the problem of Augustine whom Protestants may rightly claim on parts of what he taught and the same goes for RC’s.
I thought the same thing as a Protestant. Then I read Augustine just a little more deeply, in context instead a quote here and there and I was disabused on that notion. He was thoroughly Catholic.
Either way, who makes the ecf authoritative when Leo XIII is looking to Thomas to restore philosophical and theological order in the church?
We do not believe in sola ecf’s.
I suspect we have a different way of understanding history. You like the theory, I respect the reality. You know, all of that paradigm difference stuff.
I think that is reversed. Protestants twist themselves in knots with the ECF’s like they do with James, Hebrews, Romans 2, Revelationsthe teachings of Jesus etc. Simply reading clear texts in context – which I know Protestants sincerely think they are big on – is so freeing. It really is. It is also scary. I can respect that – in all sincerity – to acknowledge that they may be saying what they appear to be saying does create a theological crisis. That is not a small thing for a devout Christian. It sucks.
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Dave H. – I think that is reversed. Protestants twist themselves in knots with the ECF’s
Erik – Not really. In the end they were just dudes with opinions, kind of like you. Now Jesus and the apostles, that’s another matter…
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Dave – the role of Mary is disputed. All these things are disputed among protestants. That was not the case in the early church.
Erik – If the ECF’s all agreed on the role of Mary, why is the doctrine of Mary still developing? Are the ECF’s authoritative or not?
From Wikipedia:
Two separate doctrines address the Virgin Mary’s conception and death. The doctrine of Immaculate Conception states that Mary was conceived without original sin, namely that she was filled with grace from the very moment of her conception in her mother’s womb.[85] The Immaculate Conception was proclaimed a dogma Ex Cathedra by Pope Pius IX in 1854, as the first definitive exercise of papal infallibility.[86] The dogma of the Assumption of Mary states that she was assumed into Heaven body and soul. This was also defined by Pope Pius XII in 1950.[87]
Lumen Gentium, the dogmatic constitution derived from Vatican II in 1964, declared that the Lord had consecrated Mary as “Queen of the universe”, reflecting the contemporary expansion of knowledge regarding outer space.[88]
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Dave – Simply reading clear texts in context
Erik – Like trying to read Galatians in the context of the Roman Catholic paradigm? Not so clear.
The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
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When you write “there was nothing like the diversity that the various protestant churches reflect”, to whom are you referring? Diversity among the laity? Among the clergy? Official church statements? I’m genuinely curious. Further, who counts as “protestant”? Are we restricting it to the Magisterial Reformation or expanding it to all western dissenters to the RCC who more or less retain a Christian heritage (e.g. Jehovah’s Witness and Mormon but not Scientology)?
Actually, I think there is a broad consensus among mainstream protestants (not to be confused with the mainline) about the issues you mention – low church, non-sacramental baptistic evangelicals such as southern baptists, assembly of god, calvary chapel, vineyard, evangelical free, willowcreek, and other independent seeker sensitive evangelical churches make up the overwhelming majority of church going protestants in the US, and these folks share songs, bible study material, VBS curriculum, radio stations, fastfood preference, and move in and out of one another’s churches interchangeably. I would say that there is far less divergence of opinion among the laity than there is among the laity within the US RCC. Similarly, there is far less divergence among their clergy and intellectual leaders than among their counterparts in the RCC (The distance between say Fr. McBrien/Wills on the one hand and Neuhaus/Donohue on the other on these issues is much larger than between say Rick Warren/James Dobson vs Tony Campolo/Ron Sider on the other).
Going back to the early church, do we have sufficient data to compare the extent of the divergence of opinion among communicant members in the early church compared to protestants today? Given the challenges various heresies posed, I think inferring that all non-heretics agreed on everything else is tough to swallow. It is hard to believe that an official monarchial church would have risen without the state power behind it – where state enforcement is weak, so is church unity. This suggests that RC “unity” says more about political power than philosophical superiority. The post hoc hypothesizing by the CTC crowd misattributes ecclesiastical theory as the causal agent rather than political/religious freedom for the diversity of denominations in the west.
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@Dave
No it wasn’t rhetorical it was false. 4.20.2. of Adversus Haerese he quotes Hermas as scripture. In AH 3.3.3 he specifically considers 1Clement among the scriptures using the same language. 3.16.5 he considers 1John and 2John as one book.
Irenaeus doesn’t implicitly reject your canon, he explicitly rejects it. Now Irenaeus is a good Catholic and would have yielded had an authoritative canon existed in his day, but it did not.
You still have problems. For example the Book of Judith isn’t in most early lists but is in the Trent canon. Personally I think when we start talking about ECFs they had a Jewish and/or Catholic conception of canon and not a Protestant conception and trying to read back rigid Protestant notions of canon into the past is apologetics not history. But if we are going to play this game, no Trent is still not perfectly agreed to.
not a Christian conception of canon, and in trying to
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@sdb —
Excellent points, agree with all you wrote.
___
@Dave
The last line of my previous response is a ghost. Ignore it.
The only people who assert that the early church fathers were in broad agreement are people who either don’t read them or read them quite dishonestly, generally with huge selection bias. The diversity of Protestantism today pales in comparison to the diversity of the early church. Far too much of the Catholic legacy remains for Protestantism to yet be genuinely free.
For an example of that diversity read the Acts of John and some other apocryphal acts of the apostles. There we see a doctrine of dual fulfillment. Just as Jesus underwent a heavenly crucifixion a sacrifice in the heavenly sanctuary (see Hebrews) the apostles underwent an earthly crucifixion and through this linkage we have dual fulfillment. Your sect then turns around and makes the apostles chronological successors to an earthly Jesus carrying on his teachings. Their martyrdom then becomes a progenitor to later martyrdoms and a cult of martyrs emerges as a defining trait of your sect.
I cited you a 1/2 dozen sources above. Some of those don’t even believe in the incarnation at all.
I agree with you here Dave. Pity you don’t really mean it. I’ve had enough debates with Catholics. They completely ignore the biblical text virtually everywhere. I have plenty of criticism of Reformed Protestant hermeneutics, but they don’t have anything remotely as distorting in their read as typologies. They don’t have to pretend that Jews, who consider adult virginity a negative trait, have vows of perpetual virginity anymore than they had vows of perpetual shoplifting. They don’t have to pretend there is any similarity between the teaching office Catholic Priests and the completely ritual based Levitical Priesthood. Etc…
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Dave H. maybe Protestants twist over ecf, RCs simply bury their heads over Edgardo Mortara.
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Michael (#476) – Most of your comment consists in expressing skepticism about the Catholic MOCs pending much more detail than is given by the sources we’ve considered so far. So you want the case laid out in detail. I don’t know of any single book accomplishing that in a way that’s both comprehensive and tightly argued. If I had adequate financial support, I would do it myself. Since that support is probably not forthcoming, I probably won’t do it. But in the context of this thread, I don’t believe that further detail would be any more desirable than possible.
Aside from the Bible, Liccione might break out of the mold and apply himself to WCF Chapt. 1 On Holy Scripture. But in that the CtC forte is in ignoring the obvious all the while building elaborate epistemological and philosophical labyrinths in the combox, probably not much hope of that. You still gotta love/have some respeck for the kind of chutzpah and brass foreheads it takes though, to implicitly consider oneself more perspicuous than Scripture.
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There is a mountain you need to climb with the ecf’s even without the papacy.
Dave, weren’t you the one that thought Dave Armstrong had a substantive review of Webster and King on Scripture and the ECFs?
Two, the papacy performatively defines the magisterium/Roman church for the Callers. No pope, no Bryan and Jase Social Club.
Capiche?
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Bob S.,
Except Scripture doesn’t argue for Rome being the One True Church That Jesus Christ Himself Founded, which is what the Callers say the Motives of Credibility establish. Except for the fact that they don’t unless you presuppose the truth of Catholicism.
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Michael Liccione appears to be the Darrell Todd Maurina of Callerdom.
Wordy, somewhat interesting, but definite Dan the Illogical Scientist tendencies.
http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Illogical%20Scientist
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Darryl,
Dave H. maybe Protestants twist over ecf, RCs simply bury their heads over Edgardo Mortara.
You are starting to remind me of the left during the Bush years. Halliburton! Bush stole the election! Dick Cheney!
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@CD-Host
You wrote, “Irenaeus rejected: Philemon, 2Peter, Jude, 3John”. How do you know that he “rejected” these epistles as inspired scripture? Could he have simply been unaware of these texts (assuming that he explicitly laid out something that could be called a canon, did he?)? Or if he didn’t lay out an explicit canon, could it have been that his arguments didn’t rely on information in these epistles? Saying that Irenaeus rejected these letters is an awfully strong statement. I find it remarkable that letters distributed to wide flung communities were preserved, collated, and seen as a whole as early as the end of the second century. That’s really quite remarkable in my mind. Given that some reformers had problems with various books of the NT, I don’t see it as particularly problematic that there was disagreement at the boundaries (hard cases and all). I do see why debate and eventually a decision by a council was needed to eventually establish the canon – I don’t see how that creates problems for sola scriptura or why the possibility that heremes got left off and shouldn’t have or that 3John was included and shouldn’t have been are problematic. It isn’t as if any major doctrines stand or fall on the basis of these boundary cases. Or am I missing something?
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@Erik —
Michael Liccione got this one note schtick where he proposes that the only possible solution to knowing the deposit of faith is a living magisterium. The problem is there are dozens of other possible solutions. In particular the prophetic system which is mentioned in the bible something like over 1000x and is upheld by the apostles explicitly as their claim does precisely what he claims for the magisterium.
He really doesn’t have a refutation for that. His system for determining the “deposit of faith” contradicts what is agreed upon within the deposit of faith.
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CD-Host,
Bingo on Liccione. What never makes sense to me is that these people who share his view start with, there must be a principled means in this particular fashion that I dreamt up myself but I’ll pretend it is obvious to all.
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@sdb —
Irenaeus clearly had the idea of canon. One of his primary goals in Adversus Haerese was to argue against Gospel of Truth being included as a canonical gospel. In terms of what did he know about. Philemon was in Marcion’s canon, Irenaeus knew Marcion ergo he was aware of Philemon. Under Dave-H’s theory of development the apostle John wrote 3John, Polycarp was his direct successor and Polycarp was Irenaeus’ predecessor and teacher so under his theory he couldn’t not have known about 3John. I think the evidence is pretty clear that the Johanne epistles hadn’t stabilized by Irenaeus’ time but Dave can’t use that counter argument.
As for 2Peter that’s a much more interesting case. Bishop Serapion (Antioch) postdates Irenaeus. He has a congregation in Rhossus which is using the Gospel of Peter. Other churches in the area believe Gospel of Peter is Marcionic and complain. Serapion contacts a Rhossus Docetic church to get a timeline, believing they predate Marcion. Evidently the Catholics and the docetic church are on friendly terms even though Serapion is not docetic. He gets from them the entire Petrine corpus (7 books) and kicks it up the chain of command. So it is entirely plausible that Irenaeus doesn’t know about 2Peter. But for Dave that’s a big problem. How could the Catholic church not have had the Petrine corpus until almost the 3rd century if it were founded by Peter? So even though Catholic historians and early church fathers all agree on the origins of the Petrine corpus, it knocks a big hole in the CtC timeline.
As for Jude, that one is tricky. It is not uncommon to believe that 2Peter may have originated with Jude because of literary dependency. Again if Jude is Jesus’ 1/2 brother and well known in a hierarchical church that is maintaining a deposit of faith why doesn’t Irenaeus know about Jude? That’s just as damning as his having rejected it.
They weren’t. The canon hadn’t stabilized by then. You see major figures of the 3rd century who would differ on the canon. For example Tertullian. He also accepts Shepherd of Hermas. Tertullian fights hard against Acts of Paul being considered canonical so this was a live debate in his day. He also doesn’t include II Peter, James, II John, and III John.
Well…. Revelation is your most problematic New Testament book. That one is being debated well into the 4th century and major doctrines do hinge on it. As for sola scriptura… for most believers in sola scriptura is a belief that canonical books have a status which non-canonical books do not. Once you flatten the field out to “early Christian religious literature” and include say 200 major surviving works things start to shift quite a bit.
For example how does Jesus communicate with his followers primarily.
a) He grants them enlightenment so that their thinking merges with his
b) He communicates directly so they are overcome by a spirit of prophecy
c) He sets up a material institution that instructs them and through submission they can learn
d) There is a fixed body of works which contain his core teachings and those stand for all time
Or let’s make it even worse. Did Jesus suffer or appear to suffer? Was he ever incarnate? If he did appear on earth was it as an apparition or was he fully human? Is his divine persona the Logos much like the “Son of Man” angel / deity of 1st century Judaism not possessed of genuine coequal status to the Father? We have tons of authentic early Christian literature that goes the other way. Hermas, to use your example, is explicitly adoptionistic. I can’t think of any major doctrine more important to modern Christianity than the incarnation and that’s one with terrible, terrible support from early Christian literature.
If the bible is not self authenticating and the bible along is the means by which we achieve theological truth then the canon question becomes a very complex one. For a Catholic the bible is just a product of the church in the same way a pew is. But for a Protestant…. canon is a very serious question.
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@Robert —
Yes you were there for that debate. It was weird. The bible unambiguously rejects his system and chooses another and that didn’t phase him one bit. And this was on point after point, like the seer / prophet being answerable to the institutional church where the bible is explicit the seer / prophet’s is a check on the church and is answerable only to God, the truth of his message to be determined directly by the faithful on the basis of perfect accuracy.
That’s in addition to the point you kept making that the magisterium doesn’t even work for actual Catholics in resolving the private judgement problem. In practice they have a bunch of competing disagreeing theologies from sources they consider authoritative (i.e. their magisterium) from whom they must pick thus rendering the contents of the deposit of faith mere opinion, even in the church using his system.
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“I can’t think of any major doctrine more important to modern Christianity than the incarnation and that’s one with terrible, terrible support from early Christian literature.”
CD-Host, I see the incarnation assumed by almost all the ECF
(Origen) Of all the marvelous and splendid things about the Son of God there is one that utterly transcends the limits of human wonder and is beyond the capacity of our weak mortal intelligence to think of or understand, namely, how this mighty power of the divine majesty, the very Word of the Father, and the very Wisdom of God, in which were created “all things visible and invisible,” can be believed to have existed within the compass of that man who appeared in Judaea; yes, and how the wisdom of God can have entered into a woman’s womb and been born as a child and uttered noises like those of crying children.
(Irenaeus) There is one God, who by his word and wisdom created all things and set them in order. His word is our Lord Jesus Christ, who in this last age became man among men to unite end and beginning, that is, man and God. The prophets, receiving the gift of prophecy from this same Word, foretold his coming in the flesh, which brought about the union and communion between God and man ordained by the Father. From the beginning the word of God prophesied that God would be seen by men and would live among them on earth; he would speak with his own creation and be present to it, bringing it salvation and being visible to it.
(Hippolytus) We know that the Word assumed a body from a virgin and, through a new creation, put on our old nature.
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CD,
On the cannon questions you raise, I would call your attention to the work of Dr. Michael Kruger over at his blog Cannon Fodder. I think he gives a rational defense of the 27 books of the NT canon, and also exposes many of the flaws in the sorts of arguments you raise here. If I am able to find the time I will comment more extensively on the issues you raise here, if not, I would still commend Kruger’s work.
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@CDH Even granting everything you wrote, I still don’t see how you can conclude that Irenaeus rejected Philemon, 2Peter, IIIJohn, and Jude. As far as I can tell Irenaeus never constructs a canon per se. Rather he is arguing against what he sees as false doctrines and the sources advocates of those doctrines cite. Does he articulate a doctrine of scripture and distinguish between the authority of post-apostolic bishops and the writings of the apostles themselves. If a text doesn’t apply to a particular heresy he has in his sites, then I don’t see why it should be surprising that it doesn’t get mentioned.
Why is that? It is a short letter John sent to someone other than Polycarp. Just because Polycarp was a disciple of John doesn’t imply that he had John’s complete works. Why wouldn’t it take a while for word to get around that this document existed? There was no pony express.
Wasn’t Revelation, James, and Hebrews debated among some reformers (Luther maybe?). Again, I don’t see the problem. You have a couple of very minor epistles short on content that don’t get mentioned often or otherwise neglected. Acts is a bit of surprise, but Tertullian was an outlier on other topics as well (e.g. Baptism). I’ll have to read up on Tertullian’s critique of Acts. What is the source?
But there really does seem to be substantial consensus on a major chunk of the canon by the end of the second century that is more or less preserved. Given the paucity of evidence as well as the conditions under which the letters were received, transmitted, and circulated (there was no cloud – how did anyone know anything before the internet?), I’m surprised it it works out as well as it does.
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The inclusion of a letter like 3 John is actually a strong argument for the self-authenticating nature of the canon. From one perspective, we could say that we would not lose much if 3 John was left out. The very fact that the church “kept” it indicates that they they felt compelled to keep it even though it doesn’t contribute very much at all to our understanding of doctrine. Why did they feel compelled to keep it—apostolic authority (of the epistle) and self-authentication. They just couldn’t bring themselves to reject it.
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CD – His system for determining the “deposit of faith” contradicts what is agreed upon within the deposit of faith.
Erik – Generally speaking, what it means to be Catholic depends on what these guys have had for breakfast from day-to-day.
Michael also said that people who say the Pope has only taught infallibly twice are all wet. O.K., so where’s the complete list?
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CD,
Bart Ehrman called and wants his persona back.
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@Erik
I quote Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament all the time, so that ain’t shocking. Bart got worse when he went for mainstream and thus had to oversimplify but when he did primarily academic work it was fantastic. So no problem with that association, while I don’t agree with him on everything I see us preaching the same gospel.
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CD,
Biblical critics don’t bother me because if they’re right and I’m wrong I’m just as dead as they are. Catholic critics (at least Pre-Vatican II) at least have the potential to rattle me because if they’re right and I’m wrong I could wake up someday in hell (or at least Purgatory).
You have a bit of the Tom Van Dyke problem. So say we’re all wet. Share your alternative plan for life with us.
And if you’re right, why are you wasting time arguing over it. Is this the funnest use of your time?
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CD,
And on complicated scholarly issues, why should we believe you? What are your credentials as a biblical scholar? With most of these scholarly debates you could throw out a scholar and we could throw out another to match you. That’s why they are scholarly debates.
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@Jed
Kruger tends to use a very presuppositional approach in his apologetic for the canon. I don’t find that apologetic convincing at all. For him, we know there is a God and a people of God from scripture. God wants to reveal himself through scripture and thus the church must be able to determine what is scripture, etc… BTW I’m not making any claims about his work he himself would disagree. He starts his book off by saying it is an apology that a belief in the canon is reasonable, not that it defends against the full on skeptical / naturalistic / historical system.
Where he does make testable claims are in the 3 traditional arguments of: community, historical and self authenticating. For community I mostly agree with the canon though there are problems. On community I think you can make a plausible case. There are arguments here like Epistle to the Laodiceans (not Ephesians but the one we have from lists) should have been in certainly if the Pastorals are going to be, but those are not the strongest arguments.
On historical grounds though the evidence is against the orthodox canon. Within books we have a well documented history of theological shifts towards orthodox (Catholic) theology. For a few books we have earlier versions that allow contrasts both in and out of the canon: Gospel of the Lord and Luke, Jude and 2Peter, Epistle of the Damascus Document and James, Colossians and Ephesians, … So that argument I think he passes over much to quickly and in nowhere near enough detail. If you are going to argue for Colossians being authentic to Paul of Ephesians a serious argument needs to be made in detail and Kruger just doesn’t do it.
Finally in terms of self authenticating. I continue with my simple experiment. If self authenticating were true then I should be able to present to people from your church the following:
A 10 passages of the bible translated normally (say from the ESV)
B 10 passages from non-canonical books translated to sound like the ESV
C 10 passages from the bible translated with gnostic language
D 10 passages from non-canonical books translated to sound gnostic
shuffle them up, explain the 4 stacks and ask them to sort A&C from B&D. I don’t know any Christian who believes the people in their church could pass that test. Anyone who has spent time with Christians know the bible just isn’t self authenticating. Heck the LDS church more or less conducts this experiment regularly and Christians who read the Book of Mormon in bad King James version style English say it feels like the bible.
Kruger doesn’t believe that naturalistic history is “neutral ground”. And that’s a real problem. I can grant that if I accept a bunch of false things there exists a strong apologetic for the canon. The question is whether a plausible case can be made starting from naturalistic history. Take the very first book: if there was some guy named Matthew who was an apostle of Jesus and wrote this book why does he borrow so heavily from Mark for his narrative? Why is there good evidence of an older version (Hebrew Matthew)? Why is there shared material with Luke? Etc… I don’t think it is unreasonable to demand good solid plausible answers for those questions. I’d love to read a more serious critique of the “history of religions” style argument. So far I don’t know of one.
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@Erik
You shouldn’t. You should verify what I’m saying and check for yourself. You absolutely, positively should never take what I or anyone else says on faith.
None.
Not really. See the post with Jed directly above. I don’t buy into this Reformed intellectual nihilism of Van Til that it all comes down to presuppositions. The truth is knowable. One can distinguish good scholarship from bad, and scholarship from apologetics. Even as an amateur and even not knowing much.
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CD- So no problem with that association, while I don’t agree with him on everything I see us preaching the same gospel.
Erik – And what a fine gospel that is…
Soon you’ll be dead and rotting in the ground, but don’t despair. Join us in some do-gooder projects.
Yay.
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CD – The truth is knowable
Erik – Subject to the limits of your senses and what you can witness firsthand. After that things get pretty dicey.
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I’m listening to Hitchens’ memoir. I get a kick out of atheists’ skepticism toward certain truth claims while at the same time hearing them definitely say things about the fact that God positively does not exist. Yeah, like they know that for sure. We are human and have limits — let’s be humble about it.
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Dave H., that’s only because you’re reminding me of Rush Limbaugh.
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@Todd —
We are at the outer edge talking 200 BCE – 200 CE and moreover mostly pre 134 CE. By the time of Origen or Hippolytus there really isn’t much debate. These other sects exist but are fading fast and Catholic like sects are the dominant form of Christianity. That’s still not enough for the CtC crowd because you don’t have a full on institutional hierarchy with all the properties they claim originated from Jesus but one can reasonably call what exists Catholic.
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@Robert
I’m losing your thread here. How is the inclusion of 3John evidence of anything? There are other short letters with little important doctrine that weren’t included would that constitute evidence against self authentication? Or are you arguing that we somehow know this particular short letter is important and should have been included while others aren’t, in which case how?
We do know for sure this letter didn’t have apostolic authority because we have almost no mention of it early and when it is mentioned it is heavily doubted. It has a weak apostolic credentials and many in the early church, even some who accepted it as authentic / early, thought that 2John and 3John were written by someone other than the apostle John (in their mind author of the gospel).
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CD Host,
The fact that some doubted 3 John was written by the Apostle matters little to my point. It was included finally when other short letters were not because the final consensus was it from an Apostle either directly (a la Paul) or indirectly (a la Mark recording the preaching of Peter). The church at the end of the day felt that they had no right to discount it whereas other short letters they could.
Perhaps it has “weaker” credentials than other books and less attestation, but the church was eventually convinced it was apostolic when they could not be convinced other letters were. From a merely human perspective, a letter like 3 John could have been left out with little if any impact on Christian doctrine and practice. But it was included anyway because of its apostolic connection. I could say the same thing about Jude, whose content is essentially given to us in 2 Peter. Why both 2 Peter and Jude? Because the church as a whole was convinced that they were apostolic.
The letters not included do not contradict self-authentication. In fact, that they weren’t included helps prove self-authentication. The church read other letters and felt, at the end of the day, that they should not be included even if they were orthodox because they could not be convinced either that the letter in question had sufficient apostolic credentials or that God was speaking through it.
Sufficient apostolic credentials is the category to look at, not whether they are particularly strong or attested multiple times. Multiple attestation helps to prove apostolic credentials, but lack of multiple attestation does not disprove them.
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@Robert —
That sounds much like a “heads I win, tails you lose” type criteria. Assume we have two worlds identical to earth in their history through the year 200. Then they fork.
On A the church is able to properly discern from 50 letters which 5 are apostolic
On B the church completely fails to properly discern which 5 are apostolic and and picks the wrong 5.
I show you both worlds. How do you discern A from B?
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@SDB
Dave’s original argument as I understood it was that Irenaeus had a canon and it was the Trent canon. Later he specified that he only meant the Old Testament canon, and the argument over the nine books Trent canon that aren’t in the Protestant canon. You are raising a different argument entirely that Irenaeus didn’t have a canon but that something very much like the current Christian canon was already well on its way to forming, and that while groups and individuals had minor divergences there weren’t major divergences. I can agree with that. I think there was a gradual political / consensus process from which the canon arose. It wasn’t just a fiat declaration by some magisterium, it was not handed down directly from the apostles but a political process took place.
According to traditional Christianity he did have 3John from John the apostle to quote Trent, “three of John the apostle”. The question becomes how does the Catholic Church know that John the apostle wrote 3John if they can’t trace it? Polycarp (and I’d even disagree we know much of anything about Polycarp, but I’ll grant the traditional position for now) is more or less our only tie to John the apostle. Lose that tie and how do they know, for example that the authors of the Peshito Syriac bible that excluded it weren’t right? How do modern Protestants know?
This is an issue because traditional Protestants want to claim an authentic canon. You don’t seem to be as bothered by issues like this on the edges.
Yes. Luther wanted these books rejected along with Jude. He won the battle on the 12 apocryphal books but lost on these. As an aside, IMHO he showed proper humility and took a step by step approach allowing the church to build a consensus. Luther handled this issue marvelously. Which is why as a Protestant I never had much problem with the canon, because IMHO the living church had affirmed it, even if the factual basis for its original construction was questionable. But I was a Baptist and so believed that God rises up a bible for his people. So I had problem affirming that the Gothic bible canon was God’s canon for the Goths, the Vulgate canon was God’s canon for the Wycliff and the Protestant canon the canon for us.
Acts of Paul ( http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/actspaul.html ) not canonical Acts.
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Erik —
Yes but we handle that via. philosophy. Once there does not exist an experiment to distinguish statement A from statement B they become the same statement. In the same way that 1/2 and 2/4ths are the same number because all equations satisfied by one are satisfied by the other.
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“Yes but we handle that via. philosophy. Once there does not exist an experiment to distinguish statement A from statement B they become the same statement. In the same way that 1/2 and 2/4ths are the same number because all equations satisfied by one are satisfied by the other.”
This is way off topic, so feel free to ignore, but this statement gets at a pet peeve of mine. Inability to distinguish two hypotheses does not entail that the hypotheses are identical. Data are underdetermined – multiple, logically inconsistent hypotheses can explain the data equally well. The most famous example are the two main formalisms of quantum mechanics. The Copenhagen interpretation vs Bohm. They make opposite statements about what the world is like (causal and nonlocal versus non-causal and local to put it very crudely), but in the end make the same predictions for all observables. See Cushing’s Quantum Mechanics: Historical Contingency and the Copenhagen Hegemony for a readable account.
Science can provide empirically adequate stories that make sense of data, but it cannot give you the truth. If this is true for relatively simple systems like the interactions of protons and electrons for which we have nearly unlimited data and nearly infinite precision, how much more so must it be for really complicated systems like interactions among people. It seems to me that as the data get sparser, more uncertain, and more complicated the scholars involved get ever more sure of themselves. It is striking really. A lot of these researchers in the humanities have a serious case of Venus-envy – they expect to approach the level of certitude found only in math and physics seminars.
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Erik.
This might help you understand CD-Host’s approach:
“It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatic_maxim
I think the fact that the CtC folks are philosophical realists is a real barrier to dialogue which makes it very hard for them to see historical events or sociological phenomena as having anything to do with their claims.
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@DanH —
Yes exactly.
____
@SDB —
Yes this is off topic. Two hypothesis can’t be “logically inconsistent” if there is no experiment to distinguish between them. A logical inconsistency between X and Y is defined by the existence of a test P such that: P(X) = true and P(Y) = false . If no such P exists then X and Y aren’t logically inconsistent.
Quantum Mechanics are the equations. Copenhagen interpretation and Bohm are mostly poetical statements about these equations, metaphors to help us relate to things totally outside our mental framework of experience. Neither is in any meaningful absolute sense “true”.
“This song is pretty” cannot be true in an absolute sense. Really what this statement is a convention for “I have an emotional reaction I associate with ‘pretty songs’ when I hear this song”. A statement I make about whether a song is pretty is at its root a statement about me not a statement about a song. But because people are highly similar to one another, if I experience these emotions you are likely too as well. It is wholly different than a statement like “this song is in the key of F” which is objectively testable.
It is only when this P exists, that is it is only when there is some test that would be true for Broglie–Bohm that would be false for Copenhagen that there is any meaningful notion of truth between them.
This is where we have a genuinely profound disagreement. I’m perfectly comfortable defining truth as “empirically adequate stories”. I acknowledge this argument is a bit circular, and I make no claim to being a philosopher but what property would a “true statement” have than an “empirically adequate story” wouldn’t? If the answer is none then I don’t see any point.
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Dan & CD,
There’s an element to these debates that is missing given the nature of the internet: I have no way to observe the life of the man making the argument.
For instance, if CD runs a site dealing with church discipline because he was kicked out of church for adultery, his wife has left him, and he is now typing stuff all the live-long day in his parents’ basement, that’s relevant. Life is not lived solely on the basis of logic.
When CD & Tom Van Dyke come here on the attack, but will never present a coherent alternative to Reformed Christianity, that’s relevant and speaks volumes. If I give up A, I need to know what B is in order to make the change. If there is no appealing, coherent B, then A may be the best I can do.
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Erik,
I’ve never been particularly interested in anyone’s personal life on the internet. I mean CD-Host could be the third best rated Magic player in Indiana or he could be Antonio Banderas, he could even be the bass player for Hoobastank. The problem is, unless he told me, I would never know, and if he told me, he could just be blowing smoke up my ass.
The other problem is, I still wouldn’t care. I just think I’ve learned some things reading his comments here, and that he makes some good arguments.
I’m really glad Tom and CD don’t lay out a principled case for “B” here. If they’d want to do that they can do it on their own internets. Here they’ve just interacting with Darryl and his commenters.
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Dan,
Why do you suppose Scripture lays out several practical requirements for church officers beyond merely their knowledge of doctrine?
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Erik,
I’ve always thought that those requirements were the product of exegesis of the Hebrew Bible, the experience of the early Church, and the leading of the Spirit.
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That being said CD isn’t claiming to be either a member or officer of any church. He’s just debating on the internets. Just like you and me.
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Well Erik I’m not going to give you too much. But as I’ve said before, I gradually distanced myself as my views became more heretical. There was no confrontation, I was treated well by all the churches I attended and have no personal bitterness towards any of them. When I could no longer affirm the Apostle’s Creed (exact wording not intent) I stopped calling myself Christian, which would have probably been a good defense since most churches don’t excommunicate people who make no claim to being Christian.
As for the wife, I’m happily married 17 yrs there is no great controversy there either. Like most Blue State liberals I have very liberal political positions on marriage and personally live a fairly conservative life. In terms of kids, my daughter is so conservative she could be a Mormon. Not my wife or my doings, but peer pressure cuts both ways and she likes the Asian kids.
I run a moderately successful IT company. Earnings are up and down I make over 100k every year (net not gross) rarely break 200k and have never broken 300k. So during good stretches I can almost reach upper-middle class but mostly live on the high end of middle-middle class. Which I think is fairly typical for Old Life’s demographic. I’m not famous for anything having to do with Christianity.
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Fun fact: Lutheran’s don’t have a canon, but do have a hierarchy.
Simple explanation for the layman
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/thinking-about-the-canon-a-lutheran-view
Expanded in detail in Chemnitz’s Examination of Trent
The apocryphal books were in our Bibles until the late 19th century (in America), just between the Testaments. They are fine for devotional reading and history, but are not to be used in the lectionary. CPH recently published an Apocrypha with notes and commentary.
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Dan,
Might there also be wisdom in not taking advice on weighty matters from someone who common sense reveals to be a tool?
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Katy – Expanded in detail in Chemnitz’s Examination of Trent
Erik – I checked that out from a local LCMS the day of my daughter’s wedding. Sitting by my bed.
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CD,
Thanks.
Why the site dealing with church discipline? Looks like axe-grinding.
Why don’t you use your liberation from Christianity as an opportunity to have some wicked fun? Why do you still value matrimony, faithfulness, hard work, thrift, etc? Would it be in some sense wrong if you didn’t?
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Erik,
The appeal to common sense is so Old Princeton! (McCosh & Machen both!)
My philosophical commitments lie elsewhere however, so I’ll take the individual arguments on their merits.
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@Erik —
Who says you can’t have wicked fun and still have matrimony, hard-work, thrift…? I’d argue that faithfulness in particular becomes easier with honesty which becomes easier without people having to lie about their desires. And I think the data from the United States, proves that with a huge representative sample.
As for wrong it depends on the specifics but morality is mostly intrinsic to the nature of humanity. Not that much changes between atheism and conservative Christianity. Obviously there are some changes but very few. Sex is obviously a big one, but we have good data on sexual behaviors and the actual behaviors are only lightly correlated with beliefs about sex; and not always in the way one would expect. The difference between Christians and atheists is not what the do, but what they feel guilty about and how honest they are with the people in their lives about it.
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@Erik —
Yes it does look like axe-grinding. Which is unfortunate. Worse yet the people who were attracted to church discipline were mostly the borderline mentally ill who were getting disciplined because the church wasn’t equipped to handle their emotions. My blog wasn’t either. The blog has mostly shifted focus now to random articles a few times a year about stuff that interests me. It might be better to change the name and and the heading, though I don’t think I can change the blogger address.
The blog has handled some massive injustices effectively. More then anything else what Church-Discpline did achieve was discussion across denominations. Mormons are completely unaware of problems that pentecostals have with their church discipline and being able to be cross denominational is sometimes of some limited use.
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CD,
Interesting about your site. Who knew that Christian churches were even practicing discipline anymore.
So if decide to become an atheist and opt to be a mean, scumbag atheist you would not have a problem with that, I assume? If so, on what grounds. If being a nice atheist floats your boat and if being a mean one floats mine, who are you to judge?
What does “data” have to do with anything? Who says I can’t be an outlier.
I think you confuse what we ordinarily see vs. what is possible. If there is no god, anything is truly possible with no consequences beyond the here and now.
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CD,
Atheists these days normally explain “evil” behavior by saying the “evildoer” suffers from a chemical imbalance that causes them to lack empathy for others. But what if I do evil, because, while having empathy for others, I consider my own gratification a higher good? For instance, I want people to not feel bad, but even more than that I want to gratify a particular desire that I have, and unfortunately people feel bad when I use them to gratify that desire. Who are you to judge?
For instance, say I like to sleep with a different woman every night I can find one. I rarely call them back. They feel bad, but I feel good. One what grounds can you say I have done anything wrong?
Taking it a step further – have you seen Woody Allen’s “Match Point”? In what sense has the protagonist done anything wrong by killing his mistress when her pregnancy threatened his marriage, social standing, and wealth? Another man was wrongly convicted of the crime and he got off because of his “good luck”. No consequences for him in a universe without God, right?
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@Erik —
You assume wrong. I live in a human society I’m invested in that society working well. For a society to work well the people in it have to engage in behaviors that may be individual harmful but collectively beneficial.
What do you mean by “judge here”? If you mean who is society in a collective sense to deter you, they are the one being harmed. Individually I’m invested in that social order.
What data has to do with something, is that it is how we measure cause and effect statistically in complex situations.
True. But so what? The here and now is still rather effectual.
That’s a normal part of the human condition. Humans are social animals and have a strong desire for love and acceptance by others. And in general how that’s fixed is by the people whom you hurt engaging in: positive reinforcement when you don’t do those thing, negative reinforcement when you don’t do those things, and punishment when you do those things. The degree is raised to a level that changes your behaviors. You are conditioned. Moreover and more importantly you are designed to internalize this conditioning and that’s your morality.
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Why is the book “Walden II” from high school philosophy class suddenly coming to mind. Wierd.
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CD – I’m invested in that society working well
Erik – How much longer will you be around?
CD – What do you mean by “judge here”?
Erik – What consequences will I suffer if I do bad things as an atheist but I don’t get caught by any earthly authorities?
CD- What data has to do with something, is that it is how we measure cause and effect statistically in complex situations.
Erik – You may have data that demonstrates that most people behave in a certain way, but why should I behave like most people? Maybe I want to make my own rules and do what’s best for me and me alone.
CD – Humans are social animals and have a strong desire for love and acceptance by others.
Erik – See my last answer
CD – Moreover and more importantly you are designed to internalize this conditioning and that’s your morality.
Erik – No, as an atheist I just see people as a bunch of suckers. If I can put one over on them to my benefit, why not? You can’t punish me and neither can a nonexistent god.
You don’t realize how much you’re living off the steam of Christians who have come before you.
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CD,
Have you not seen “Match Point”? You need to face the consequences of a godless universe the way Woody has. You’re still trying to dress it up nicely and find meaning. There is none if Woody is right.
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CD – Moreover and more importantly you are designed to internalize this conditioning and that’s your morality.
Erik – Designed?
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one leaves and another shows up to take his place
can set my watch by it
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CD-Host: I live in a human society I’m invested in that society working well. For a society to work well the people in it have to engage in behaviors that may be individual harmful but collectively beneficial.
Why should Joe Stalin have changed his methods then? Who’s to argue with him? His goal was to keep Joe Stalin in power, and he was hugely successful!
Or the current Chinese government, or some future atheistic US totalitarian government? You think this NSA spying thing is bad. You have no grounds to complain should things turn worse.
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CD-Host, you seem to play fast-and-loose with the sources.
You said up above:
4.20.2. of Adversus Haerese he quotes Hermas as scripture.
This is by no means clear. He cites Hermas, to be sure, but the phrase he uses is: “the writing well says…” – that’s Grant’s translation, which I’ll like to think is more capable with the Latin text [which itself is a translation of a lost Greek edition] than the earlier translations. Kruger cites Koester as well, saying that the NT Canon was “essentially created by Irenaeus”. So here you’ve got two critical scholars disagreeing with you that Irenaeus “quotes Hermas as scripture”.
Aside from that, what is Irenaeus talking about? “The writing well says” could easily be pointing to a generically known written document. “The writing” is distinguished from “the prophets” in the very next sentence. And what this writing “says” is this:
From Grant’s translation of Irenaeus:
“First of all, believe that there is one God, who created and completed all things and made everything exist out of the non-existent, he who contains all and alone is contained by none.”
Now from Holmes’s translation of Hermas:
“First of all, believe that God is one [sounds like Deut 6:4], who created all things and set them in order [sounds like Gen 1], and made out of what did not exist [sounds like Hebrews 11:3] everything that is [sounds like Acts 17:24], and who contains all things [citing himself from 2.1.1] but himself is alone uncontained”.
Certainly you don’t want to say that Irenaeus is citing himself as Scripture!
Either way you look at this, Irenaeus is not “defining the canon” here. What you have is the precursor of the “rule of faith”, citations which eventually found their way into the Apostles’ creed and the Nicene creed.
You said immediately following:
AH 3.3.3 he specifically considers 1Clement among the scriptures using the same language.
Your interpretation here is farther off than the one above. What Irenaeus actually says is:
“in the third place from the apostles, Clement received the lot of the episcopate; he had seen the apostles and met with them and still had the apostolic preaching in his ears and the tradition before his eyes. He was not alone, for many were then still alive who had been taught by the apostles. Under this Clement … the church at Rome wrote a most powerful letter to the Corinthians to reconcile them in peace and renew their faith and the tradition which their church had recently received from the apostles: one God almighty, creator of heaven and earth, who fashioned the human race, brought about the deluge, called Abraham, brought the people out of the land of Egypt, spoke with Moses, who gave the law, sent the prophets, and prepared fire for the devil and his angels.”
Grant clearly notes that the portion of this selection that begins “one God almighty” is NOT based on 1 Clement. That selection is the “tradition” “received from the apostles” – that “tradition” being the history provided in the Hebrew Scriptures, which again, draws a distinction between 1 Clement and “the scriptures”.
By the way, Irenaeus uses that same “One God” language in three other places in Against Heresies (1.2, 3.4.1, and 4.53.1). There is no question that he holds these “summaries of Scripture” in high regard.
I’m sure I could go through some of the other off-the-cuff things you’ve thrown out, (as if to prove that you are some kind of authority in this), but tracing these things down takes time, and these two examples illustrate well for the Brethren the faulty methods you employ.
And speaking of “employment”, I’ve got other work to do now as well.
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@John
congrads on the new job.
. He cites Hermas, to be sure, but the phrase he uses is: “the writing well says…” – that’s Grant’s translation
The same word is used by the bible for scripture. For example: Matt 21:42, 22:29, 26:54, 26:56. So in your theory of how to treat “grafe” did Jesus fulfill scripture or merely writings? Grant’s the The Formation of the New Testament he does consider Irenaeus to believe Hermas as scripture. So I’m not sure where exactly you found Grant saying the opposite. Anyway here is the most famous usage. I’ve noted the other scripture quotes. You tell me if you see any deviation in his tone or any indication he is not grouping Hermas with these other books:
As for 1Clement the entire argument in AH 3.3 hinges on 1Clement being authoritative in a way that other writings about the demiurge are not. He explicitly indicates that 1Clement contains the teachings of the apostles: apostles -> Linus -> Anencletus -> Clement. If you want to take the position that Irenaeus believes in a non-scriptural binding authoritative tradition generated by the bishops, that’s fine. But it contradicts a lot of your arguments with the CtCers.
The Gnostics and other Jewish derived groups were also working with the Hebrew scriptures, example Psalms 82, so that can’t be all he meant. The meaning of the Hebrew scriptures was the point in question.
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I do see a difference — the Hermas quote (itself full of Scripture) is set apart (as I said above) from the rest of the section. It introduces it. It is a “writing”, not “Scripture”. This is not a hard distinction to make, You are fond of saying what a person was “aware of” and “not aware of”. Irenaeus is certainly aware of the distinction between what is Gospel and what is not; that’s the whole point of what he’s arguing. “Writing” here a summary, after which he then begins “Among the prophets…” and another distinction “the Apostle also says…” and thus begins his citations of the New Testament writings.
You are not foolish enough to think that Irenaeus did not know that Hermas was his near contemporary, whereas, as Kruger notes, the apostolic writings are much older and clearly attested to be the Apostles.
The “powerful letter” 1 Clement certainly does not have the authority of either the Hebrew Scriptures nor the Apostolic writings. There is no claim of authority other than that Clement was in a line of succession. (A line which I’ve argued is not a line of “bishops” as the CTC gang would say).
There is another distinction, which you are missing, when you say “the entire argument in AH 3.3 hinges on 1Clement being authoritative in a way that other writings about the demiurge are not”.
It is true that “other writings about the demiurge are not” authoritative. He clearly thinks they are ridiculous. The fact that the writings of Clement and Hermas are on the same side of the “ridiculous/not-ridiculous” divide as is Scripture does not give them the authority of Scripture.
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This epistemological model has many problems with it. Namely, reality is dependent on our ability to establish tests. But a theory could in principle describe something for which all evidence has been lost. You can imagine a court case in which two competing hypotheses result in the same observables (e.g. the nurse goofed up and accidentally gave too much morphine to the patient versus the nurse couldn’t bear to see the patient suffer and purposefully put the patient out of her misery). The evidence may not be able to distinguish between these cases, but that doesn’t mean they are equivalent. Data is underdetermined in principle.
The theory that “wins” may do so because it is more parsimonious. Fruitfulness and consilience come to mind as well. But these are pragmatic and subjective standards. They don’t necessarily result in theories that tell us what actually happened. The underdetermination problem is a problem when studying simple things like atoms interacting with photons. As the data get sparser underdetermination becomes a more serious concern. My problem with biblical studies (of conservative and liberal varieties) is their misplaced confidence in their assertions. So many of the cases are arguments from credulity which is a really weak foundation for acquiring knowledge.
I’m not a realist (scientific or otherwise) – I find constructive empiricism is a much better account of how science works. I also think it would be a better model for critical studies in the humanities – it might bring more humility and tolerance to those fields. van Fraassen’s “The Empirical Stance” is worth reading on this…
OK, this was way too much on something entirely off topic… time to get back to work.
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You think so? I’ve always found this line of reasoning for Christian Theism pretty weak. It isn’t clear to me that our metaphysical beliefs really inform our daily choices, what we like, etc… People don’t like Stalin because he was a murderous jerk who made living in the Soviet Union really unpleasant. Japan seems to have formed a pretty non-theistic society that has done pretty well over the past few thousand years. In the NT Jesus points out that even the lost love their family and friends. It is something intrinsic to us.
When you ask what the consequences are for doing something “bad”, one answer is guilt. We don’t really choose to feel crappy for being a jerk. We just do (unless you are a sociopath, but then metaphysical beliefs aren’t all that relevant). I don’t see much in terms of new morality in the NT. The NT seems to take knowledge of right and wrong for granted. The question that Christianity answers is what do we do about the fact that we’ve made a hash of things. It make real reconciliation possible, and this does seem to be something uncommon among various societies – indeed we don’t do such a great job ourselves (the fall, depravity, etc…). Forgiveness, loving one’s enemies, blessing those who curse you, taking care of the weak and outcasts, etc… were not characteristics of pre-Christian Rome. D.B. Hart has written convincingly on some of this…
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sdb: I’ve always found this line of reasoning for Christian Theism pretty weak.
This isn’t an argument for Christian theism (assuming you are talking about Stalin). It’s an argument against the notion that atheists have any claim at all to any kind of morality. Nobody at all has to like Stalin. Stalin, the consummate atheist, did exactly what he pleased, and atheists have no moral ground for saying “he was a bad man”. It’s all just molecules floating around anyway.
So go ahead and be “guiltless”. Let’s just see how the molecules scatter around — there will be another tyrant, maybe with NSA information backing him — and there is no atheistic argument at all to counter that, except for maybe, “if only I had the power!” What a bleat.
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John I think you are seeing what you want to see. He uses the same Greek word for scripture. The word Jesus. Did Jesus fulfill scripture or writings? Irenaeus includes it in a long line of scriptural quotes. There is no setting it apart at all. Rather he jumps into “another quote” from Malachi directly after. There is no break at all in the thought process. As for authorship Hermas of Rom.16:14 was a common belief in that time period. Under the unknown authors are excluded: Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews would all fall out so we know Irenaeus because he most certainly and great length and explicitly indicated he considered both Mark and Luke canonical.
As for 1Clement. That is not Irenaeus’ argument. Irenaeus argument is that 1Clement is authoritative. He is addressing people who find the demiurge argument convincing not people who are willing to assert prima-facie that it is ridiculous. And he absolutely is asserting authoritative because he is arguing that 1Clement is more authoritative than those other works.
For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere….
How much more clear could he possibly be?
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sdb – Japan seems to have formed a pretty non-theistic society that has done pretty well over the past few thousand years.
Erik – Ask their pre-WWII neighbors about that. We reduced them to rubble, were gracious enough to let them rise by making crap to import to us, and now they’re doing alright.
sdb – In the NT Jesus points out that even the lost love their family and friends. It is something intrinsic to us.
Erik – No quoting Jesus allowed. If atheism is correct Jesus’ opinion is no better than the next guy’s.
sdb – When you ask what the consequences are for doing something “bad”, one answer is guilt
Erik – Why have guilt in an atheistic universe? You’ll cease to be conscious soon, as will the person you’ve done wrong. No big deal.
I’m not doing this to reason for Christian theism.
When Tom Van Dyke and CD-Host and their ilk come here on their high horses they need to present an affirmative case for their belief systems. If they can’t do it, what I believe could be no better than fairy stories and I could still have a leg up on them.
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CD-Host: For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere….
How much more clear could he possibly be?
That’s a bad Latin translation of an unknown Greek text. And it’s got to be the most unclear, most questionable statement in the ECFs.
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The Latin/Greek paired text is also available online for free: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009025834
I’m not a scholar but I don’t see any evidence that the translation isn’t representative of the Greek.
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@Erik —
People aim to socialize themselves. Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment work to socialize people. The data is crystal clear that humans can form complex societies, can organize complex tasks involving thousands or even millions, even atheistic societies. We know this is true because it has happened, and happens every day all over the world.
In terms of what happens to people who don’t follow the rules of society. Most people get caught and get punished. The deterrence is effective and we know this because people resist temptations everyday that they wouldn’t resist were it not for societal structures. I want to speed on my way to work on streets with wide lanes and only moderate traffic, the cops in NJ hand out lots of tickets so I don’t. Nothing more complex than that.
As for what happens to someone who gets away with being a jerk and never gets caught. OK congratulations he won the be a jerk lottery. Lots of people manage to do bad stuff and not get punished. Others get punished for stuff they didn’t do. On average the system works pretty well, in particular cases it might not.
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@Erik —
The affirmative case is pretty clear cut. Those things that can be best be know are those that generate predictions, predictions subject to multiple repeatable experiments. That’s the affirmative case. The theory of addition makes strong claims about what happens if you have X number of things in one place, Y in another and combine them. Those are testable via. counting. Overtime you’ve confirmed that this system seems to work. empirically as have others. The affirmative case is not complex you get to believe what the evidence shows to be true.
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Two other more mundane observations, RE: Catholic conversion testimonies:
[1] They convert to Rome. They are not converted to Christ.
[2] They choose to join ROME. They are not converted to CHRIST.
They feel more “fulness” there, see more venerability, get magisterial authority, ad nauseam.
And the reason they can disregard their new church-state’s “dark history,” is b/c it’s “Christ’s Church,” and hence, made up of pesky sinners (“no one’s perfect” – even the occasionally infallible one) and b/c there’s no other game in town.
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