As I walked around Rome this morning I could well understand the appeal of Roman Catholicism to Christians in the U.S. who desire a faith more profound than James Dobson’s or even Tim Keller’s. (TKNY’s historical vibe does not seem to be any older than 1990s New York, despite the comparisons of him to C. S. Lewis.) Heck, part of the appeal to me of Reformed Protestantism was that it situated me in a set of debates and a system of Christian reflection and ministry that went well beyond 1938 — the year my parents’ Baptist congregation started (we had no clue about Roger William and Rhode Island). So with Zwingli and Bucer I get almost five hundred years of tradition (or records, anyway). And for a U.S. Presbyterian who just spent a week in Edinburgh, arguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world with a population of less than 600,000, to walk through the streets and read through the archives and be reminded of arguments and assertions that still hold sway in some American communions sure beats following a trail that ends in some recent odd American locale.
Even so, with Rome, you get a lot more and a lot more grandeur, and if you are simply in the who’s-got-the-oldest-church-cornerstone mode, Rome beats Geneva and Edinburgh (though the latter has more polish than Rome which seems to suffer, along with Istanbul, from being too old; when you get used to having ruins around, you may also become accustomed to a place being a tad disheveled). Still, I’m not sure how Rome beats Jerusalem or Antakya except that western Europe has more cultural cache in the U.S. than Asia Minor (Turkey).
Amid these reflections on Europhilia, David Robertson came to the rescue to keep European Christianity real:
Put any group of Christians together and you will get a wide variety of opinions – some of them contradictory. That is particularly true when we are trying to assess the state of the Church in Europe today. On the one hand there are the doom and gloom merchants, the Jeremiahs, full of facts and figures about numbers and visions of the past, pointing out that the church is dying and we are all “doomed, doomed”. On the other there are the “God is doing a new and greater thing” brigade, the revivalists who are also full of facts and figures but their visions are visions of the future. They assure us on the basis of what is happening in a couple of churches, and a dream that they had that victory is just around the corner, revival is on its way and all we have to do is help their ministry. Isn’t it strange how both the “realists” and the “revivalists” seem to be able to justify their own ministeries because of their prophecies? We are told that we need to support the realists because only in that way will the remnant hang on until the Lord returns. On the other hand we had better support the revivalists because we don’t want to miss out on the revival.
So maybe European Christianity isn’t all that we Europhilic Christians in the U.S. make it out to be. It sure has more history, better architecture, and civilizational presence. But freed from all the baggage of Christendom, perhaps Christianity is better off. That’s not an expression of American Christian exceptionalism. Nor is it an assertion that American Christianity is somehow independent from Europe’s churches. Unmoored from Europe’s tragedies and buoyed by America’s can-do (Pelagian) spirit, mixed with a blasphemous belief in the nation’s divine purpose, American Christianity (Protestant and Roman Catholic) has no room to gloat (even though we usually gloat in spades). At the same time, returning to Europe and its Christian ways won’t do either.
Old Life 
Take more long walks, Darryl. I am really enjoying your reflections on this trip.
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C.S. Dinkins?
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” mixed with a blasphemous belief in the nation’s divine purpose”
Blasphemous? Strong word.
Misguided?
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EC, playing with God also raises the stakes.
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They can claim that David Barton & Glenn Beck put them in a hypnotic state.
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to Christians in the U.S. who desire a faith more profound than James Dobson’s or even Tim Keller’s.
To those who know the author of these words best, the implicit self-congratulation that his own “faith”* is more profound than that of two fellow Christians who have clearly carried the Great Commission with far greater efficacy is unsurprising, and still I shall not call it disappointing. For the moment. There is value in greater doctrinal purity and in theological genius, I suppose.
Re Rome, Darryl, I ran across something that suggested “awe” was the highest form of eros. This is what they were after. They did a helluva job.
John Adams was even more virulently anti-Catholic than thou art. I can see the Vatican through your eyes.
http://vox-nova.com/2007/09/12/john-adams-impression-of-the-catholic-liturgy/
But if to awe is human, it is also divine.
_______
*”Faith” is problematic as in Reformed “faith,” since it is merely a theology. In contradistinction, the Catholic “faith” is indeed a faith–in apostolic succession; that the current pope is the direct [more or less] heir of St. Peter; that the Holy Spirit has guided the Church both ecclesiastically and theologically since Peter. But that’s another discussion.
Still, Darryl, your use of “faith” here is about your theology as opposed to Dobson’s and Keller’s. I’d think your God and Savior [and Holy Ghost] is pretty much the same as theirs as is your “heaven.”
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Erik Charter
Posted June 6, 2014 at 3:29 pm | Permalink
” mixed with a blasphemous belief in the nation’s divine purpose”
Blasphemous? Strong word.
Misguided?
How do y’all presume to know the ways of Providence? I don’t do “providential history” ala Beck and Barton, but I don’t discount the possibility.
GWash, 1st Inaugural:
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Darryl,
Aye, I see you are in the Eternal City. Now, don’t be dazzled by all the finery, it’s not like Rome is “Camelot”http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/06/some-thoughts-concerning-michael-hortons-three-recent-articles-on-protestants-becoming-catholic/
Camelot is a silly place!
I actually thought some of the run down parts added to the charm. The juxtaposition of modern with ancient is hard to get one’s head around though. I mean that you can sit at McDonalds and look over at the Pantheon, and that’s a weird feeling. Just the idea that civilizations are buried on top of each civilizations,and that this earth is so old and that time will eventually come to an end…..I mean, wow.
Your heart is in St. Peter’s but your head is becoming a devout Unitarian. Oh no! Follow your heart! 🙂
When you come home and you have time to let it all soak in, take a look at this:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Eternal-City-Catholic-Christianity-ebook/dp/B00ARMN4FY
Hope you have fun. Praying for you.
Susan
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Tom – Re Rome, Darryl, I ran across something that suggested “awe” was the highest form of eros. This is what they were after. They did a helluva job.
Erik – The Roman Catholic Church might want to avoid the subject of Eros entirely given the past few decades. Just sayin…
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Tom,
I wonder if Washington ran that by his slaves.
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Susan,
But can you sit in the Partheon and look over at McDonalds?
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We both goofed it up — “Parthenon”.
Oops – only I did. The Parthenon is in Athens. The Pantheon is in Rome. McDonalds is in both.
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Erik Charter
Posted June 6, 2014 at 10:58 pm | Permalink
Tom,
I wonder if Washington ran that by his slaves.
you really didn’t go there did you
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Erik Charter
Posted June 6, 2014 at 11:00 pm | Permalink
Susan,
But can you sit in the Partheon and look over at McDonalds?
Erik Charter
Posted June 6, 2014 at 11:03 pm | Permalink
We both goofed it up — “Parthenon”.
Oops – only I did. The Parthenon is in Athens. The Pantheon is in Rome. McDonalds is in both.
Dude. Brother. If you’re going to step in and argue Darryl’s case for him, don’t lose it. He doesn’t need your help to do that.
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Tom,
Darryl’s on his own. He wears big boy pants. I know, I’ve met him.
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The point is, if God is the god of Whites, Blacks, and Native Americans, two of the three might not claim “providence” for the founding of the U.S. Generally (and wrongly) most claim providence when they like an outcome and want to attribute it to God (as in, God obviously favors me and has given me this good outcome). What do we attribute our getting cancer to, though? What did the slave whose owner beat him attribute that to?
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Providential America isn’t exactly convenient for Roman Catholics either. They didn’t arrive for the most part until the 19th Century.
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So in a sense I don’t disagree that America is providential. What isn’t?
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Hi Erik,my friend. Yep as you realized,the Parthenon is on a hilltop in Greece while the Pantheon is still in Rome. Yes you can see McDonalds from the Pantheon….though you really don’t care and it’s rather an embarrassment of American Exceptionalism. I mean if you must get fat and be unhealthy it is better that it’s from Mama Roma’s kitchen table than from Capitalism’s countertop. Though he Italians don’t seem to care.
You asked Tom about slavery in the US. I have wondered what the RCC thought about this early on. Now I know. http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/POPSLAVE.HTM
Also, I have wondered if the same kind of question can be asked about the colonies departure from England in the first place. Could not the Intolerable Acts been tolerated? Did it have to erupt in revolution. In England, church and state were conjoined and confounded; thank you Henry VIII, but the American Revolution was a political problem not a religious one. To know more on how religion in England played out see “Mere” Christianity.
Since there are no panaceas and definately no utopias, do you think that the entire American Experiment is a sham? I sorta believe in American Exceptionalism( perfectionism by no means) and take knocks from my existentialist prof. who doesn’t believe that there are some things worth fighting for( democracy, freedom…). He’s given up on dogma totally. Social constructs and so forth.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02137c.htm
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vd, t, submit to Francis.
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vd, t, was the U.S. evacuation of Vietnam also providential?
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Susan, I’m still looking for any reference by Jesus to Rome. Looks to me like Jerusalem still holds the upper hand. But if you like imperial cities, then I guess Rome works (like rooting for the Yankees).
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Erik Charter
Posted June 6, 2014 at 11:23 pm | Permalink
Tom,
Darryl’s on his own.
Darryl’s never on his own around here as long as he lets you do his dirty work, Erik. Let’s get that part straight, OK? You’re his Cromwell. [Thomas, not Oliver.]
Or are you his Richard Rich, my erstwhile pal? Regardless, your loyalty to your sovereign is beyond question.
Out in the real world, I do give you credit for showing up in the First Things letters section so you can have your say, Darryl, even though they get the last word and it reliably makes you look bad. But at least they don’t call you dirty names.
And you get to have your say–not a bad way to run a “theological society.” You are treated far less shoddily there and at the Called to Communion blog than they are treated here. You too, Erik.
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D. G. Hart
Posted June 7, 2014 at 2:08 am | Permalink
vd, t, was the U.S. evacuation of Vietnam also providential?
Still calling me “VD,” Dr. Dirty Mouth?
All-or-nothing on God’s hand in human affairs, on Providence? Deist.
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Susan, but don’t forget Pius XI’s letter to Jefferson Davis:
Funny how your source, EWTN, is shocked, shocked to find that letters were going on:
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While it’s fun to visit old churches in old cities, I do fear that many conservative Protestants make too much of it. They seem to suffer from some kind of notion that there was an idealized past, and, if we can just recover it, everything will be all right. So, they hop from one church to another to another, never realizing that the object of their desiring ought to be in the Parousia and not in 1930s fundamentalism, or Lewis’s England, or Kuyper’s Holland, or the Puritans’ Glorious Revolution, or Calvin’s Geneva, or Zwingli’s Europe, or Luther’s Germany, or Rome.
Eventually, as we look into the churches of any of these periods, we find churches that were as plagued by the effects of the Fall just as ours are today. We see blind spots, theological inconsistencies, egotistical leaders, and so on.
The root problem is idealism combined with nostalgia. In the early 1900s, the fundamentalists reacted to the progressives’ belief in unending progress by adopting a principle of unending regress. According to that theory, there was some point of perfection in the past, and we’ve been on a downhill slide ever since.
So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that many of the Catholic converts from the Reformed camp started out as fundamentalists. They didn’t leave fundamentalism because they abandoned its idealism. To the contrary, they retained the idealism, but simply found that fundamentalism couldn’t live up to their standards. Then, they rejected the Reformed faith for the same reasons. Now, they’ve attached themselves to Rome. Give them a few years, and they’ll probably bail on Rome for Constantinople. And when that fails, perhaps they’ll head back to the local Berean Bible Baptist Church. Or maybe they can convert to the LDS, where the idealism is more explicit.
I’ve long believed that there is no implicit difference between Baptists and Mormons; the differences are merely in the outward presentation. That seems especially true of the Paige Patterson brand of Baptist. But it also seems somewhat true of the Gospel Coalition (Piper, Mohler, Burk) brand as well.
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Susan,
I think the U.S. is probably the best place to live in the world. Judging from the number of immigrants we have here, I don’t think I’m alone. Northern Europe would be nice, too, as would most other places in Europe if you have enough money. Freedom and the rule of law go along way to making a place desirable.
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Tom – Darryl’s never on his own around here as long as he lets you do his dirty work, Erik.
Thanks for the opening. Seeing them live in Kansas City in July.
Just ignore the vd, t. Every time you react to it, it is having its desired effect. D.G. is succeeding at irritating an irritator.
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Tom,
Not deist. Just God orchestrating all things to his own glory. How would anything else make any sense?
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Bobby,
Remind me to not let you anywhere near the 4th of July parade…
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Susan,
Would this phone call create problems for your faith?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-popes-phone-call.html?ref=rossdouthat&_r=1
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You’d like Canada, Erik
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Canada would be fine, other than the weather. I can’t imagine winters that are worse than Iowa. It seems like the warmer the climate the shadier the culture, however, so I remain a northerner.
I met a woman who spent her whole life in Arizona but recently moved to Iowa in her 40s. When I asked her why, she said things are nuts down there. I didn’t ask her too many questions, but when I look at the number of foreclosures in those warm weather states during the great recession, that says something to me about the moral fabric of the people.
O.K., now let loose on me…
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Quote of the year from guess who?:
“The nation-states have always appreciated the moralism of the churches to make for them “good citizens”, but those nation-states have nothing to gain from the good news of grace. The rulers are happy when we repress ourselves in methodist fear of losing our salvation. The NSA and Homeland Security are glad for us to police ourselves. But what do those institutions which operate by the abcs of this age have to gain from our teaching grace, and by our living as though we believed in grace?”
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JohnY, I cheated and googled the quote, but McMark was really my first guess.
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Keep talking Dan and dreamin of those California Stars, ie. the Gospel:
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Erik Charter
Posted June 7, 2014 at 9:59 am | Permalink
Tom – Darryl’s never on his own around here as long as he lets you do his dirty work, Erik.
Just ignore the vd, t. Every time you react to it, it is having its desired effect. D.G. is succeeding at irritating an irritator.
Calling me and Cletus “VD” belies Dr. Darryl’s theological claim to grace, Erik. How graceless. If this is the “Elect,” give us Barabbas. You guys are the ones all about “by their fruits…”
Erik Charter
Posted June 7, 2014 at 10:01 am | Permalink
Tom,
Not deist. Just God orchestrating all things to his own glory. How would anything else make any sense?
Ah. Much better. Giving us consciousness, intelligence, and the free will to praise His glory all on our own. Yes, were man’s voice silenced, the stones would still cry out. But having stones cry out in praise would be empty, and boring. Stones don’t write psalms. They’re stones. ;-P
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Did you really play the filthy “Pope Pius IX letter to Jefferson Davis” card, Dr. Hart? Against “Susan,” who comes to your “theological society” with all sincerity?
Looks like you did. I don’t mind your theological attacks on the Vatican, since your religion is as much anti-Catholicism as Christianity. But still, Dr. Hart, you’re a reputed historian, and your use of Pius IX’s letter as a weapon against the Catholic Church is unconscionable.
Any reading of the pope’s letter is that it’s generic pablum to stop the war, one of the bloodiest and unmerciful in human history.
C’mon, Darryl. Susan deserves better, if not everybody else who reads this blog. That wasn’t right. These people trust you.
http://www.danvilleartillery.org/popeletter.htm
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Tom – You guys are the ones all about “by their fruits…”
Erik – Last week you said we were antinomians. We can’t be both. Which are we?
Tom – and the free will to praise His glory all on our own.
Erik – How is God orchestrating all things compatible with free will for man?
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Tom – Did you really play the filthy “Pope Pius IX letter to Jefferson Davis” card, Dr. Hart?
Erik – Don’t you regularly play the Hitler card when it suits you?
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Tom – Any reading of the pope’s letter is that it’s generic pablum to stop the war
Erik – How does generic pablum spring from an infallible teacher?
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Erik Charter
Posted June 7, 2014 at 10:59 pm | Permalink
Tom – Did you really play the filthy “Pope Pius IX letter to Jefferson Davis” card, Dr. Hart?
Erik – Don’t you regularly play the Hitler card when it suits you?
Erik Charter
Posted June 7, 2014 at 11:00 pm | Permalink
Tom – Any reading of the pope’s letter is that it’s generic pablum to stop the war
Erik – How does generic pablum spring from an infallible teacher?
Tu quoque, they call this tactic you’re using here, Erik. If Dr. Hart–a reputed historian–does the same thing that you accuse me of, it’s OK?
Nah. If we’re both wrong, Darryl’s still wrong.
Yes, I will play the Hitler card when it’s relevant, but that doesn’t mean I play it unfairly. So too, Darryl’s playing the slavery/Jefferson Davis card, but my complaint isn’t that he played it, only that he played it unfairly.
I’d like to converse with you, Erik, but most times I only help you bury my original comment. Your objections here are not to the substance, only about putting me on the defensive, not Darryl’s argument. If you want to defend Darryl’s argument, fine and good.
To restate the discussion/debate, then. It’s about the letter.
—Dr. Hart’s attempt to use an innocuous letter from Pope Pius XI to Jefferson Davis to smear the Catholic Church. Not good.
Did you really play the filthy “Pope Pius IX letter to Jefferson Davis” card, Dr. Hart? Against “Susan,” who comes to your “theological society” with all sincerity?
D. G. Hart
Posted June 7, 2014 at 2:31 am | Permalink
Susan, but don’t forget Pius XI’s letter to Jefferson Davis:
The pope’s letter to Jefferson Davis was accompanied by an autographed picture of the pope.
Looks like you did. I don’t mind your theological attacks on the Vatican, since your religion is as much anti-Catholicism as Christianity. But still, Dr. Hart, you’re a reputed historian, and your use of Pius IX’s letter as a weapon against the Catholic Church is unconscionable.
Any reading of the pope’s letter is that it’s generic pablum to stop the war, one of the bloodiest and unmerciful in human history.
C’mon, Darryl. Susan deserves better, if not everybody else who reads this blog. That wasn’t right. These people trust you.
http://www.danvilleartillery.org/popeletter.htm
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This one is worthy
Tom – and the free will to praise His glory all on our own.
Erik – How is God orchestrating all things compatible with free will for man?
although it’s already asked and answered: The stones might cry out if necessary [Lk 19:40] but if I were God, the Psalms [Ps 1-150, the longest book in the Bible] would make me happier than anything that I orchestrated Myself, by Myself, for Myself.
I think Calvin, or Calvinism, got too hung up on the question of predestination, a snake eating its tail. If God is omniscient, how could He not know the future in advance? And since He’s omnipotent, how could anything that happens not be the result of His Will?
I get the argument. It’s not all that tremendously complicated. But that leaves God writing the Psalms in praise of Himself. David’s just a bystander, really, a scribe.
But why bother to create man in the first place? The angels, seraphim and cherubim and shit, they had all that perfectly covered already, no?
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vd, t, yes, as innocuous as Ronald Reagan writing Gerry Adams about their common Irish ancestry. And you dabble in history?
Diplomacy was a big deal in the Civil War and if the South had received recognition from a European power (and the pope was still a temporal prince at the time), it would have complicated Lincoln’s aims significantly. Wait, there’s more:
Even the Times thought it fitting to reflect on the parallels between Italian and U.S. politics.
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vd, t, “But that leaves God writing the Psalms in praise of Himself.”
If the pope can declare his own infallibility, why can’t God praise himself?
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Tom – But why bother to create man in the first place? The angels, seraphim and cherubim and shit, they had all that perfectly covered already, no?
Erik – Why do you use a swear word in a discussion about God?
What would be wrong in God writing the Psalms about Himself? Is He not worthy of praise?
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That is the great thing about our sovereign God, everything is done to the praise of His glory
Not to say that one has the easiest time learning to embrace this at first
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Tom – Tu quoque, they call this tactic you’re using here, Erik. If Dr. Hart–a reputed historian–does the same thing that you accuse me of, it’s OK?
Erik – If you don’t think highly of your qualifications to do history, why should we? Haven’t you damaged your own credibility here?
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E, i think the work ethic is more inscribed into a people who live in regions where they would literally freeze to death if they messed up things too much.
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JohnY, A selection that might be more attuned to the theology of our resident (and learned) Hardshell Anabaptist than “California Stars” :
As you may know, the author of the song (Augustus Toplady) intended it as a rebuke to Arminians in general and John Wesley in particular. The linked performance is by a Mennonite Youth Choir singing in a Methodist church.
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Dan,
I guess the point is that life and people just don’t seem to make any sense a lot of the time. What’s up with that?:
http://www.dailymotion.com/…/xp3mqd_bob-dylan…
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That did not link right- have to do it again:
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Darryl,
Do you think that the Church has ever reversed the strong stance it took against slavery in at least 1537 (Sublimus Dei)?
I don’t know the story of what Pope Pius IX’s letters to J. Davis were about, but I’m certain it was not to put his stamp of approval on the continued slavery of southern black people treating them as animals and property. If it were the case that the Vicar of Christ mandated that an evil be considered a good, binding the consciences of Christian’s, then you’re right…chaos, anarchy, wickedness and satan, win. But that will never happen. You cannot deconstruct Catholic and Orthodox Christianity and then slip Protestantism in as its stead. If you can break it down, do your best, but the materials that you use to build it back-up will be your( or another fallible men’s) interpretation plus ad hoc tradition.
The main reason that I was forced to walk away from Protestantism was that it could never demand my allegiance to its precepts because its precepts could never be dogmatic( that awful and hated word by all nonconformists, free-thinkers, modernists). I didn’t walk away from my Protestant brothers and sisters( or from faith in God and Jesus Christ), but only their man-made frameworks that lacks a principled means to know what doctrines I am required to hold; or otherwise, be outside the pale of orthodoxy. And every time a Protestant says that the bible is that principled means, I don’t hear his one voice saying “scripture alone” for he is just the representative of but one de-nomination, so I hear rather a plethora of voices saying “scripture alone”( and they are all smart, kind, genuine, and most committed/faithful to their respective “ideas”). So as you can imagine( or maybe you can’t) I had the most difficult time reading the bible right before I became Catholic. I felt like the book on the table was shape shifting. I “could” read it and come to agree with Luther’s thought, or I “could” read it and come to agree with Calvin’s thought, or I “could” agree with Oliver Cromwell, or William Brewster, or Jonathan Edwards, and so on… The scriptures were as pliable as Descartes’ ball of wax, even if I didn’t want to face that fact. It was clear to me that using scripture and tradition wasn’t a foolproof way to know what are the aspects of faith, morals, and ecclesial government that “must”( to have the term “ortho” affixed to any doctrine) be “conserved” during the course of time/history, or otherwise “one” faith wouldn’t fight against itself. But then I’ve said this so many times, and no one here understands or chooses to ignore it altogther while frantically looking around for the lynchpin that will undo the Catholic Church.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/julyweb-only/7-14-53.0.html
Susan
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Susan – I felt like the book on the table was shape shifting
Erik – Of course the question this leads to is, to what degree is the RCC a shape-shifter as well? Pope Francis certainly appears to be one, depending on who he’s talking to. In matters of religion it appears that we can’t get away from fallible men.
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Susan, you might want to take a look at Mark Noll’s “The Civil War as a Theological Problem.” While primarily focused on Protestantism, he does a nice job of summarizing Catholic interactions with various systems of slavery in the New World. I don’t have the book in front of me since I only read a public library copy several years ago, but as I recall he does cite to the existing literature, which is extensive though not terribly accessible to non-specialists. Suffice it to say that how the RCC dealt with slavery in its many mutations is more nuanced than one Papal statement from the 1500’s.
BTW, you may have answered this elsewhere, but why the RC instead of EO?
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Speaking of the RCC, I just ran across this in going through some papers from the 1950s from an estate:
St. Anthony’s Guild
Franciscan Monastery
Paterson 3
New Jersey
“It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”
II Mach.: 12, 46
Dear Fathers:
Kindly enroll the following in the deceased membership of the Guild that they may share its very many spiritual benefits:
Name _________________________________
Name _________________________________
Name _________________________________
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Erik- “Of course the question this leads to is, to what degree is the RCC a shape-shifter as well? Pope Francis certainly appears to be one, depending on who he’s talking to. In matters of religion it appears that we can’t get away from fallible men.’
Susan- Well, that depends on whether or not there is someone in the RCC who can, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, provide an interpretation when there is disagreement about a particular idea.
Erik- “Pope Francis certainly appears to be one, depending on who he’s talking to.”
Susan-” I have no loyalty to the Pope if he is not by Divine choice, the head of the visible church on earth. If you can clearly prove that he is changing dogma in the RCC, not just being his own individual, expressing faith in a touchable( maybe too touchy-feely for some)way, then the argument will be over, but I’m not sure who( what Protestant denom. has won).
Erik- ” In matters of religion it appears that we can’t get away from fallible men.”
Susan- We must be able to because we both believe that the theological representatives of our respective and exclusive theologies are, in fact,rightly dividing the word of truth. We believe this on those subjects that divide us or we wouldn’t be divided.
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Hello Dan,
Thank you for recommending a book to me, that is kind and respectfully engaging.
Maybe I should try to make myself more clear. I don’t know what’s in Mark Noll’s book, but if he points out that there were Catholics who supported slavery or who were slave owners themselves, then he isn’t arguing against what I am trying to point to. What I am saying is that, if we can look at the scriptures and they are explicit that slavery is sinful then no person should engage in slavery or endorse it. If a Christian whether they are Protestant or Catholic understands this from their reading of scripture then, Thank God, they have both understood the truth about what God wants.
But if there is a denomination that says slavery( not endentured servitude) is in the scriptures and that God isn’t explicit in his will concerning this or that doesn’t care one way or the other,then that denomination’s representative( current leader or founder) cannot be said to have understood God’s revelation to man about this moral question. And if you had been attending his church until you finally had enough and told him that you disagreed with slavery, you would argue against the “position” of the man who was for it, but you would have to go elsewhere to find a leader who hopefully never changes their mind. What I’m saying is that even if the church did not decree dogmatically that slavery was a sin until the 1500’s it was implicit in the organic constituiton of the church that slavery was very wicked, because the church is the mystical body of Christ. As far as ecclesial representatives on earth go……”if “there are many as Protestantism nature admits…..why not appeal to the default one( RCC) who should, all things being equally fallible, have just as fair a shake at the question as any other “biblical” representative?
Have I made myself clear? Sorry if I haven’t. It’s hard to express.
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Susan, Noll primarily is concerned with doctrine. Good read, not terribly long, but the whole subject defies simplification whether one looks at it from a Prot or RC point of view. Sorry for the short reply, but I have to feed my cat and go to bed.
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Susan,
No one has hit .400 since Ted Williams. If you can hit .333 you’re a Hall of Famer.
We don’t need a man to bat .1000 in religious matters to make it through life.
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Thank you, Dan. I just might look it up. Have a good rest. Goodnight.
Erik, But I ask , how do you know the margin for error? Which truths are you willing to let slide? Does God agree? Unitarians reject the Holy Tritinity. How do they get to home plate?
You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you just might get there.;)
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Susan,
If it’s Scriptural, we can talk about it and look at the evidence for various interpretations.
The difficulty comes when men — either inside our churches or out — want to make extra-scriptural things dogma. This isn’t just a beef we have with Catholics.
We need a standard to compare the teachings of men to. Scripture is fixed and is therefore a good place to start.
If doctrine is always developing and is free to develop you have no sure anchor.
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Susan,
You say you didn’t know how to read Scripture or what to believe when you were a Protestant.
How did you choose a husband?
How do you cope when you shop?
As adults we make choices and live with them, knowing we may not be 100% right. That’s life.
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Erik -“If it’s Scriptural, we can talk about it and look at the evidence for various interpretations”
Susan- That would be awesome. Can we start with transubstantiation? This was the way the church believed up to the time of the Reformation. How do you figure out which views are biblical?
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Erik,
“How did you choose a husband?” My husband and I weren’t Christians when we where married. But if I had been raised a Catholic I would have, hopefully, chosen a Catholic husband. That would have been the right way to think about it. Now that we’re married, he’s stuck with me.How ’bout you?
“How do you cope when you shop?” I think elegant, modesty, will it work with th other garments I have at home, but mostly….. is it cheap?! Unfortunately that means Target:(
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Susan, The Civil War was about more than slavery and it is a contortion of enormously modern understandings to look at it that way. Your pope understood that. You still regard it the way Protestant abolitionists did. Welcome to America.
What you say about your switch to Roman Catholicism and the need for a dogmatic faith — in other words, you needed to be a slave to what the hierarchy tells you to believe. That may sound like a cheap shot. But it may also explain why Pius IX liked the Confederacy — both were anti-modern and defended hierarchy.
But it’s good you converted when you did, at a time when any RC can decide what Roman Catholicism means — in other words, when Rome turned Protestant.
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Susan, to understand Rome’s teaching on slavery by looking at one document is to understand Roman Catholicism in a Protestant way — you stress doctrine just like confessional Protestants. Rome doesn’t.
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Susan, this is why CtC conversion narratives sound so fundamentalist—the convert seems to require the kind of absolute-infallible-no-questions-asked-doctrinal-certainty that certain moralists must have about personal holiness. But in order to justify the infallibility of the magisterium, you say that the Bible becomes the proverbial ball of wax in the hands of men and so what is needed is another infallible source, but why don’t you see that no matter what kind of infallible source (textual or human) the problem is men, that everything becomes a shape shifter when sin abides? If you did then maybe siren song of papal infallibility might begin to lose its luster.
But ironically enough, since both have human beings involved your Catholic problem seems worse than the Protestant conundrums because you are actually ascribing infallibility to the one source inherently unable to be infallible. At least Prots stop at the Bible alone when ascribing infallibility—we can admit to the divisions and fractures since we never make any prior claims to infallibility. So we revise when it looks like we get it wrong. You can’t. All you can do is develop an anathema to mean merely separated and kinda sorta right and wrong. How can that be even remotely reassuring?
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Susan: The main reason that I was forced to walk away from Protestantism was that it could never demand my allegiance to its precepts because its precepts could never be dogmatic … I felt like the book on the table was shape shifting. I “could” read it and come to agree with Luther’s thought, or I “could” read it and come to agree with Calvin’s thought, or I “could” agree with Oliver Cromwell, or William Brewster, or Jonathan Edwards, and so on… The scriptures were as pliable as Descartes’ ball of wax, even if I didn’t want to face that fact.
What you are describing is the Absalom effect, or what in modern times is called Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
You remember that Absalom installed himself at the gate of King David and did this: Anyone who had a problem for the king to settle would come here. When someone came, Absalom would call out and say, “What city are you from?”
The person would answer, “I’m from one of the tribes of Israel.”
Then Absalom would say, “Look, your claims are right, but the king has no one to listen to you.” Absalom would also say, “I wish someone would make me judge in this land! Then people with problems could come to me, and I could help them get justice.”
People would come near Absalom to bow to him. When they did, Absalom would reach out his hand and take hold of them and kiss them. Absalom did that to all the Israelites who came to King David for decisions. In this way, Absalom stole the hearts of all Israel. — 2 Sam 15
What Absalom did was to undermine the confidence of the people in the efficacy of the word of the King. In so doing, he opened a wedge to steal the hearts of the people.
In our case, we have in the Scripture the word of the King, as I’m sure you agree. It is infallible (Matt 24.35, Is 40.8), profitable (2 Tim 3.16), a reliable guide (Ps 119), nourishing (Matt 4.4), true (John 17.17), and to be preferred to the traditions of men (Is 29.13, quoted by Jesus in Matt 15.1-11).
But now, sometimes we bring to the word of God a desire not only to have the word of the King, but also to know its meaning without error. God never promised this, but we desire it. I certainly have.
And Catholic apologists now step into the gate and say, “Oh, but that there were someone in the church who could infallibly interpret for you.” And they begin to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the reliability, nourishment value, and even the comprehensibility of the word of the King. Instead of a rock, the Bible is portrayed as a wax nose.
This is done deliberately, so that one will begin to doubt whether any person can possibly read the Bible and understand its message — without an infallible interpreter. One begins to see the Bible not as a “lamp unto the feet”, but as a shape-shifting illusion that needs the right light. But that feeling of uncertainty is itself illusory. It is the result of the rhetorical strategy that is used to exalt the authority of Rome.
The Absalom effect is that feeling that one gets when a usurper casts doubt on the lawful authority.
Susan, I want to make sure that I’m not misunderstood here. If it were just a question of one tradition v. another — Presbyterianism v. Catholicism, for example — then I would not be making this argument. Indeed, when I speak with “cradle Catholics” about doctrine, we are able to freely exchange views on what Scripture means, and the question of authority is hardly ever broached. I’m not arguing here that you landed in the wrong theological tradition.
No, what concerns me is the way in which we get there: That in order to establish the authority of Rome, the apologists first denigrate the authority and reliability of Scripture.
They play Absalom and make the word of the King seem uncertain and inferior to the word of his stewards. That’s a grievous thing, and my grief has nothing to do with “modernism” or “autonomy” or “solo scriptura” or “individual interpretive authority” or any other such tag that the apologists use. It has everything to do with being loyal to the King first and foremost, and to his representatives second.
It was clear to me that using scripture and tradition wasn’t a foolproof way to know what are the aspects of faith, morals, and ecclesial government that “must”( to have the term “ortho” affixed to any doctrine) be “conserved” during the course of time/history, or otherwise “one” faith wouldn’t fight against itself. But then I’ve said this so many times, and no one here understands or chooses to ignore it altogther while frantically looking around for the lynchpin that will undo the Catholic Church.
No, we really do understand. You express a fear that if we do not have infallible interpretation, everything devolves into chaos over time and history. You’re probably correct about that.
What if God’s purposes include times of chaos, as well as other times of unity, during time and history? I mean, wouldn’t you have to say that we are living in such a time of chaos right now?
But here’s the thing: Even with a (purported) infallible interpretive authority, we still end up with chaos within time and history. Isn’t there a rather chaotic situation within the Catholic church right now, especially at its universities?
So maybe we are not called to avoid chaos by latching onto an infallible interpretive authority. Maybe instead we are called to live on this side of eternity always on the alert for wolves in sheep’s clothing, for bad trees bearing bad fruit, for false teachers who desire to add the traditions of men to the word of God.
The reason we seem unconcerned about the possibility of fallibility is that we believe that God’s plan and purposes are much larger than our ability to control. When He wants to bring about unity of the faith (per Eph 4), He will do so — and that unity will not be the result of Rome exerting its authority. In fact, unity in the church cannot be the result of Rome exerting its authority, since it lacks temporal enforcement abilities.
Indeed, I would venture to suggest that Rome’s continued claim to infallibility is one of the obstacles to true unity, and it may well be that Rome will need to repent before the church can be one in the faith.
Blessings,
Jeff
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Bah, the quote tags don’t work anymore. The paragraph starting with It was clear to me that using Scripture and tradition… is my quote of Susan. Sorry!
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This is a test … this is only a test of the emergency citation system. If this were an actual citation, there would be a reference.
Bweeeeeee
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So I’m reading this article in the WSJ this morning about Christians and WWI and I think, “Wow, I have to show this to Hart.” Then I notice that he wrote it:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB40001424052702304363404579591922881983230?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB40001424052702304363404579591922881983230.html
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Zrim & Jeff, Good stuff.
Susan,
Re: Transubstantiation
If we take Jesus physical body seriously (he is a real man, after all) he can’t be with the Father and going into millions of people’s mouths on Sunday morning at the same time. The Real presence is spiritual, not physical.
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Jeff, very well said @ 11:47 am. Hear! Hear!
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Darryl,
” Susan, The Civil War was about more than slavery and it is a contortion of enormously modern understandings to look at it that way. Your pope understood that. You still regard it the way Protestant abolitionists did. Welcome to America.”
Honestly, I held back from saying I believed that the war was not only about slavery. In matters between large groups of people it can never be that easy: ” ‘The south favored continued slavery because they were( take your pick)…….. racists, bigots, backwards, evil, in it for the money.. vs. “The north favored the abolishion of slavery because they were( take your pick)……….enlightened,non-racists,intellectually superior, not it it for the money..
There’s always more than what’s on the surface, though what was on the surfacein this case was an atrocious evil. I’ve read RL Dabney. And I was too born in the south.
I’m glad to see you that you agree with Pius IX, but confused as to why you called attention to his sending a letter to the man who was President of the Confederate states of America. I apologize for my ignorance. Will you be so kind as to explain to me giving me the same courtesy as you would one of your students, please?
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Susan – “The north favored the abolishion of slavery because they were( take your pick)……….enlightened,non-racists,intellectually superior, not it it for the money..
Erik – How about because they didn’t own any slaves?
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I’ve heard it said that the War Between the States wasn’t North vs.South but more like East vs. West, and I’m inclined to agree.
Dr. Hart, what do you think about the ideas of Walter L. Fleming?
Jeff, Steve, EriK( Gentlemen) 🙂
I will get back to ya as soon as I can. I write slow and have a beautiful 12 yr old that wants her mommy’s attention.
Blessings,
Susan
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Zrim,
“why don’t you see that no matter what kind of infallible source (textual or human) the problem is men, that everything becomes a shape shifter when sin abides?”
Well except for that statement. Sin clouds all so we can’t have infallibility/certainty – but I’m certain that position itself derived from Scripture isn’t clouded.
Jeff,
” It is infallible (Matt 24.35, Is 40.8), profitable (2 Tim 3.16), a reliable guide (Ps 119), nourishing (Matt 4.4), true (John 17.17), and to be preferred to the traditions of men (Is 29.13, quoted by Jesus in Matt 15.1-11).”
No RC disagrees.
“But now, sometimes we bring to the word of God a desire not only to have the word of the King, but also to know its meaning without error. God never promised this, but we desire it. I certainly have.”
Do you think the promise to guide into all truth only applied to the Apostles? Are you uncertain He guided the recognition/identification of Scripture, given all your statements/criticisms in your post presuppose that foundation? If not, where did he promise he would guide the recognition of Scripture then and why would that also then not apply to extracting its meaning?
“Instead of a rock, the Bible is portrayed as a wax nose.”
Why do you think Rome/Trent bothered defining a canon or used such in the liturgies leading to Trent? Couldn’t it have just gotten rid of books that “contradict” it if it was master instead of servant? Was it just to keep up appearances?
“That in order to establish the authority of Rome, the apologists first denigrate the authority and reliability of Scripture.”
If Scripture’s authority cannot function properly in a SS framework, then it is not denigrating the authority of Scripture to point that out. If the authority/reliability of Scripture was denigrated, seems odd that RC apologists would also say Scripture’s authority is an essential part of the tri-fold authority.
Secondly, many Protestants do a fine job denigrating the authority and reliability of Scripture. See all the debates on inerrancy/inspiration and textual criticism/disputed authenticity of passages/authorship between conservative and liberal Protestants. I fail to see how a liberal Protestant is not applying Protestant principles just as much as a conservative is.
“Even with a (purported) infallible interpretive authority, we still end up with chaos within time and history. Isn’t there a rather chaotic situation within the Catholic church right now, especially at its universities?”
Was Christ and the Apostle’s infallible interpretive authority to be justifiably questioned because there were those that dissented from that teaching?
Erik,
“Not deist. Just God orchestrating all things to his own glory. How would anything else make any sense?”
How would anything else besides occasionalism and passive non-cooperative progressive sanctification make any sense?
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ec, thanks for sharing.
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Tony and Jeff, ding hear ding hear!
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Susan, I call attention to Pius IX’s letter because the reputation of Roman Catholicism is not what the Protestants-turned-Roman Catholic believe. In fact, the ignorance of history among converts is amazing. If you’re going to brag about your church, you may also want to be ready with answers to history’s most difficult questions.
I’m here for you — with the questions. Now that you’re RC, you need the answers.
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Susan, I don’t know Walter Fleming. I do know Walter Sobchak.
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victor delta foxy lady, and what’s wrong with pointing out the papal infallibility doesn’t work in an papal infallibility framework? So what has Susan gained? Go ahead, tell her.
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At first I thought victor delta foxy lady was Susan’s new nickname. She does have a nice wedding photo.
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CvD, sin clouds all human sources. It doesn’t cloud the Bible, so we can have infallibility in that source. And so in Prot’ism we can admit getting it wrong without having a bout of cognitive dissonance. What can you admit over there and keep the faith?
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Zrim,
“CvD, sin clouds all human sources. It doesn’t cloud the Bible, so we can have infallibility in that source”
But you can’t have infallibility/certainty in extracting the meaning from/of that source because sin clouds all and leads to shape-shifting. Except it doesn’t cloud that very belief itself (which was extracted from Scripture) which then launches and drives your criticism of RC notion of infallibility/certainty. It seems to be an ad hoc and undercutting exemption.
“What can you admit over there and keep the faith?”
That popes and saints can get things wrong and that history is messy.
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CvD, no, but you can get the Bible right. Calvinists hold to total depravity, not utter depravity. So human interpreters can get it right just as much as they can get it wrong. We’re content reserving infallible/unreliable in relation to the Bible alone and right/wrong in relation to its human interpretation, and happy to leave the mixing and matching to others (which is what makes Catholics sound like theonomists who talk about theonomy/autonomy when it comes to natural and special revelation and human beings.).
But if popes can get things wrong how does this not undermine the very nature of an infallible source? Does the Bible get things wrong on certain days and/or in certain parts? Is water wet only some days and in some parts but not others? But if not infallible at all times and in all places and in relation to all it speaks, then not infallible at all and thus unreliable. You talk about the pope the way the Jesus Seminar talks about the Bible. Fubar.
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Unmoored from Europe’s tragedies and buoyed by America’s can-do (Pelagian) spirit, mixed with a blasphemous belief in the nation’s divine purpose, American Christianity (Protestant and Roman Catholic) has no room to gloat (even though we usually gloat in spades). At the same time, returning to Europe and its Christian ways won’t do either.
Hm. Unlike the Church of Scotland or the Presbyterian Church of America or any of virtually hundred of Christian denominations that identify themselves by their geographical location on Earth [say “the Missouri Synod”], the “church of Rome” is actually called the Catholic Church as in “universal,” not “the Roman Catholic Church” or whatnot that might imply a theological hegemony limited by geography or ethnicity.
As far as “American” Catholicism, that of Nancy Pelosi or Garry Wills or the National Catholic Reporter
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bishop-finn-national-catholic-reporter-should-not-call-itself-catholic/
the wise historian–or at least prudent journalist of religion–should proceed with caution in granting liberal Catholicism any more than dissident status. It is not a church, and it’s certainly not the Church.
As for the formulation The [insert denomination here] Church of [insert geographical location here], we ask again: ¿Hm?
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Tom – the wise historian–or at least prudent journalist of religion–should proceed with caution in granting liberal Catholicism any more than dissident status. It is not a church, and it’s certainly not the Church.
Erik – If Catholic priests will allow these dissident members to receive communion, who are we on the outside to exclude them from our definition of Catholics?
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Garry Wills writes very thought provoking pieces on his church.
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vd, t, in case you didn’t notice, the Roman Catholic left and right in the U.S. love that the church is universal through the Holy See depending on whether the pope is left of right, sort of like U.S. partisan politics.
Anyway, why do you care? You’re not Roman Catholic and you study the American founding.
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Hi Cletus,
Thanks for the many question. I don’t think I can do justice to all of your questions, but maybe I can provide cursory answers and then you can focus on one or two that seem the most fruitful?
CvD: Do you think the promise to guide into all truth only applied to the Apostles?
Yes. They were the audience to whom Jesus was speaking.
CvD: Are you uncertain He guided the recognition/identification of Scripture, given all your statements/criticisms in your post presuppose that foundation? If not, where did he promise he would guide the recognition of Scripture then and why would that also then not apply to extracting its meaning?
Answering with a question: We mutually agree that 1 John is canonical. Which manuscript is the infallible manuscript? p9? p74? Vulgate? Textus Receptus? (This isn’t a flippant question)
CvD: Why do you think Rome/Trent bothered defining a canon or used such in the liturgies leading to Trent? Couldn’t it have just gotten rid of books that “contradict” it if it was master instead of servant? Was it just to keep up appearances?
That’s a complicated question. Speaking as a non-expert, I think the most important source here is the Decrees. Paul III and Session 4 answer the “why.” With regard to the purpose of Trent:
Wherefore, relying and resting on the authority of that Almighty God, Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, and on the authority of His blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, (an authority) which we also exercise on earth; with the advice also and assent of our venerable brethren, the cardinals of the holy Roman Church; after having removed and annulled, as by these presents we do remove and annul, the suspension aforenamed, we indict, announce, convoke, appoint, and decree a sacred, ecumenical and general council,–to be opened on the ensuing calends of November of the present year, MDXLII, from the Incarnation of the Lord,–in the city of Trent, a place commodious, free, and convenient for all nations; and to be there prosecuted, concluded, and completed, with God’s help, to His glory and praise, and the welfare of the whole Christian people; requiring, exhorting, admonishing all, of every country, as well our venerable brethren the patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and our beloved sons the abbots, as also all others soever, unto whom, by right or privilege, the power has been granted of sitting in general councils, and of delivering their sentiments therein; enjoining moreover, and strictly commanding them, by virtue of the oath which they have taken to us and to this holy See, and in virtue of holy obedience, and under the other pains, which, by law or custom, are usually passed and proposed in the celebration of councils, against those who do not attend, that they are, undoubtedly to repair to and to be present themselves in person at this sacred council–unless they shall happen to be hindered by some just impediment, of which, however, they shall be obliged to furnish proof–or at all events by their own lawful deputies and proctors. — Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, Bull of Indiction.
What is notable about this declaration, other than the fact that it is a single sentence, is the centrality of papal authority, and the absence of any mention of studying, searching, or even putting forth the teaching of Scripture. What Paul III seems to say is that Trent shall be convened so that papal authority may be exercised to bring final resolution to controversies.
Perhaps the study of Scripture is implied; we don’t want to read too into an isolated paragraph. Yet the centrality of papal authority, not only here but within the whole document, is notable within the context of the rejection of conciliarism (1460). Further, this paragraph is of a piece with session 4, which defines the canon:
Let all, therefore, understand, in what order, and in what manner, the said Synod, after having laid the foundation of the Confession of faith, will proceed, and what testimonies and authorities it will mainly use in confirming dogmas, and in restoring morals in the Church. — ibid, Session 4
We see clearly here that the Synod declares itself authoritative over the Scripture in that it sees itself as authorized to define which books are canonical (thus “[laying] the confession of the faith”). And it sees the purpose of the Scripture to be of “use in confirming dogmas, and in restoring morals in the Church.”
So speaking as a non-expert, I see in Trent a hierarchical structure: Church > Scripture > congregation.
This is not “to keep up appearances” but for some other purpose.
Do you agree with my reading of Trent?
CvD: Secondly, many Protestants do a fine job denigrating the authority and reliability of Scripture. See all the debates on inerrancy/inspiration and textual criticism/disputed authenticity of passages/authorship between conservative and liberal Protestants.
This was confusing to me. Why omit the debates between conservative and liberal Catholics? But also,
CvD: I fail to see how a liberal Protestant is not applying Protestant principles just as much as a conservative is.
Even more confusing to me. The Protestant principle is, “The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.”
Clearly, liberal Protestants define themselves by a rejection of this very principle.
Finally:
CvD: Was Christ and the Apostle’s infallible interpretive authority to be justifiably questioned because there were those that dissented from that teaching?
Clearly not. Return volley: Is the perspicuity of Scripture to be justifiably questioned because there are those who confuse its teaching?
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erratum: The Vulgate and Textus Receptus are texts, not manuscripts.
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Zrim,
“CvD, no, but you can get the Bible right. Calvinists hold to total depravity, not utter depravity.”
Now I’m confused. You were rejecting RC notion of certainty/infallibility because sin clouds all. Now you seem to be saying we can be certain of some things (get it right) despite sin clouding all. If we can get things right, why the rejection of RC notion of certainty/infallibility? Or is your stance we can get things right, but just never be certain we got it right and so must always be open to correction/revision?
“So human interpreters can get it right just as much as they can get it wrong.”
Perhaps this speaks to above. How do you know interpreters get it right if you are always hesitant to claim infallibility/certainty and are quick to jump to the sin-clouds-all? But if you can’t know interpreters get it right, how do you know sin-clouds-all interpretation used as your foundation is valid? If we can get it right just as much as we can get it wrong, isn’t it equally likely the sin-clouds-all approach is wrong then even if we assume it?
“But if popes can get things wrong how does this not undermine the very nature of an infallible source? Does the Bible get things wrong on certain days and/or in certain parts? Is water wet only some days and in some parts but not others? But if not infallible at all times and in all places and in relation to all it speaks, then not infallible at all and thus unreliable. You talk about the pope the way the Jesus Seminar talks about the Bible. Fubar.”
First, your bible has asterisks with certain passages/sentences. Does that mean the bible got things wrong in certain parts?
Secondly, I can understand the JS comparison, but I think it’s more apt to compare with defenses of biblical inerrancy – someone affirming biblical inerrancy is going to note how books need to be analyzed according to the genre they are written in as well as the style and range of literary concepts employed by the author in various segments within a book – it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Nonbelievers often just roll their eyes at that, as they also roll their eyes at gospel harmonization attempts. Jews and non-believers will roll their eyes at arguments of the NT fulfilling the OT or defenses against alleged failed prophecy. And so on. Just because popes can (and have) gotten things wrong doesn’t mean they get it wrong all the time (which would be destructive to the faith per your original point) – that’s why the definition of RC infallibility is nuanced (and one of the nuances being infallibility not applying only to papal statements so this is a bit of a rabbit trail).
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Erik Charter
Posted June 8, 2014 at 8:51 am | Permalink
Tom – But why bother to create man in the first place? The angels, seraphim and cherubim and shit, they had all that perfectly covered already, no?
Erik – Why do you use a swear word in a discussion about God?
What would be wrong in God writing the Psalms about Himself? Is He not worthy of praise?
Sorry about the scatology [not actual swearing], Erik. It was for rhetorical effect, to contrast the aesthetic perfection of these perfect angels with smelly ‘ol mankind.
As for my musing that God writing praises to Himself would be so much less glorious than creating a dirty smelly murderer like David who would write psalms of his own free will, well, I wish y’d have given that a bit more air. I think in sum, David’s Psalms accrue to God’s greater glory than all the racket the cherubim and seraphim make gin up.
But that’s more a meditation than an assertion of fact, never having personally heard choirs of angels and shit.
_________________
BTW, on first reading I missed your reference to Steely Dan and their tune “Dirty Work,” which I dig as well. The vocals are by David Palmer, their singer until he was booted. He is of course suing.
http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/legal-and-management/5923015/steely-dan-sued-by-former-singer-david-palmer-over
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Susan
Posted June 8, 2014 at 7:45 pm | Permalink
Darryl,
Do you think that the Church has ever reversed the strong stance it took against slavery in at least 1537 (Sublimus Dei)?
I don’t know the story of what Pope Pius IX’s letters to J. Davis were about, but I’m certain it was not to put his stamp of approval on the continued slavery of southern black people treating them as animals and property.
Quite so, Susan. Uncle Screwtape is having a little of his fun at your expense. As a reputed historian he either knows that Pope Pius IX never gave approval of slavery in his letter to Jefferson Davis
http://www.angelusonline.org/index.php?section=articles&subsection=show_article&article_id=2443
or, well, I don’t know what else he might be up to. For when he tells you that
Pius IX liked the Confederacy
it might be good to ask him if he’s speaking as a professional historian, a volunteer Protestant church elder, or some sort of medium channeling the thoughts of the dead.
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“CvD, no, but you can get the Bible right. Calvinists hold to total depravity, not utter depravity.”
Now I’m confused. You were rejecting RC notion of certainty/infallibility because sin clouds all. Now you seem to be saying we can be certain of some things (get it right) despite sin clouding all. If we can get things right, why the rejection of RC notion of certainty/infallibility? Or is your stance we can get things right, but just never be certain we got it right and so must always be open to correction/revision? How do you know interpreters get it right if you are always hesitant to claim infallibility/certainty and are quick to jump to the sin-clouds-all? But if you can’t know interpreters get it right, how do you know sin-clouds-all interpretation used as your foundation is valid? If we can get it right just as much as we can get it wrong, isn’t it equally likely the sin-clouds-all approach is wrong then even if we assume it?
CvD, the right-yet-fallible point is a live-by-faith-and-not-by-sight point. Certainty aligns with sight. The Reformed aren’t concerned with absolute certainty. But how does getting something right imply infallibility? If I know that 2*2=4, it doesn’t mean that I’m mathematically infallible and whatever I say about advanced mathematics is correct and to be believed without question. Do I really have to be infallible before you believe me when I say 2*2=4? Or is it by faith that you trust the things I teach you are true? That’s the point here—where is there any room for faith in the Roman system? Most of life is about taking things others tell us on faith and religious belief is no different. Sure, in the Reformed system we have one infallible source by which fallible teachers can be measured, but most of us believe what we do more so because we’ve taken on faith what has been proclaimed to us than we’ve scrutinized it against holy writ, much less because an allegedly infallible proclaimer says so.
Just because popes can (and have) gotten things wrong doesn’t mean they get it wrong all the time (which would be destructive to the faith per your original point) – that’s why the definition of RC infallibility is nuanced (and one of the nuances being infallibility not applying only to papal statements so this is a bit of a rabbit trail).
Not really a rabbit trail. It’s pretty relevant to the point. Nobody is saying that just because a pope gets it wrong sometimes that he gets it wrong all the time. If he gets it right, he’s right, just not infallible. What’s being said is that selective infallibility is no infallibility whatsoever. Frankly, it’s a shell game. Here’s what it sounds like to Reformed ears: “Today, here at this time, I am infallible on this particular thing I’m saying because I say so. And tomorrow, over there, I am not and what I say is subject to scrutiny because I say so.” Um…
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Tom,
Palmer was really good on “Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)” but he was hideous on a version of “Do It Again”:
I like the late Jim Hodder’s lead vocals on “Midnight Cruiser” and “Dallas” a lot.
Fagen & Becker quickly realized they were Steely Dan and everyone else could be moving parts. Kind of like Jeff Lynne and ELO.
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Tom – As for my musing that God writing praises to Himself would be so much less glorious than creating a dirty smelly murderer like David who would write psalms of his own free will, well, I wish y’d have given that a bit more air.
Erik – Do you think that’s what the Apostle Paul taught?
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D. G. Hart
Posted June 9, 2014 at 2:16 pm | Permalink
Susan, I don’t know Walter Fleming. I do know Walter Sobchak.
😉 Does my heart good, Darryl. Finally arriving at an understandingishness.
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Erik Charter
Posted June 10, 2014 at 10:45 pm | Permalink
Tom,
Palmer was really good on “Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me)” but he was hideous on a version of “Do It Again”:
I like the late Jim Hodder’s lead vocals on “Midnight Cruiser” and “Dallas” a lot.
Fagen & Becker quickly realized they were Steely Dan and everyone else could be moving parts. Kind of like Jeff Lynne and ELO.
Agree.
I make it “Reelin’ in the Years” was Steely Dan’s Rubicon, do you? As you know I’m still a musician and we were studying this the other day in the studio:
Fagen’s vocals are competent and much more interesting in telling the story in the verse than a traditional/solid “singer.” Palmer holds up the big chorus sound well, but afterward Steely Dan went on more with sophisticated lyrics and jazzy music than with some Phil Spector “Wall of Sound.”
Sonically, “Reelin’ in the Years” was their “biggest” record if you follow me here.
After that, they composed more for FM rather than AM, a stereo rather than a “record player” or transistor radio. “Reelin’ in the Years” is more like Cheap Trick than anything they ever did again.
Cool discussion.
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Erik Charter
Posted June 10, 2014 at 11:29 pm | Permalink
Tom – As for my musing that God writing praises to Himself would be so much less glorious than creating a dirty smelly murderer like David who would write psalms of his own free will, well, I wish y’d have given that a bit more air.
Erik – Do you think that’s what the Apostle Paul taught?
Honestly, Erik, I struggle with Paul. He is not my savior. He is certainly not my God, part of the Trinity. If you struggle with the papacy–as I think even the popes have–especially the squirrelly ones–which only the non-squirrelly ones didn’t–then you see where this is going.
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Tom Van Dyke,
Thank you for the link to “Angelus Press”.
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foxy victor delta, charlie, “If we can get things right, why the rejection of RC notion of certainty/infallibility?”
Because the Bible doesn’t teach it and — get this — it is a tad self-serving. You wouldn’t be a tad suspicious if I claimed to be the smartest man in the world?
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vd, t, yes, that is quite the historically reliable website, with an ad for the Daily Missal on the side.
Why don’t you go back to church. You really do act more like a RC jackass than a secular one.
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vd, t, nothing does your heart good unless it’s coming from the Holy Spirit. Where will stand in that great day?
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Darryl,
Do you discount the idea that J. Davis petitioned Pope Pius IX? Without a full historical investigation,what is wrong with that being a plausible explanation? Earlier your reason in pointing out the existence of the letter(s)? was to let us converts know that the history of the Roman Catholic Church isn’t what we think it is. But that isn’t an argument. The fault, foible, or whatever done by Pius IX in, at least, this regard doesn’t appear grievous to me. We know that the Church officially didn’t stand for slavery, and there is nothing on the surface that conclusively spells out that Pius IX personally condoned ownership of black people,(with which you agree).
And if, Pius IX reasons for coresponding with the Representives of the Confederacy was in truth for the interest of the Catholic Church’s stability in the region( Mass being held, priest and parishioners safety, safety of Church property…), Peace overall, for all that old liberal conservativism stands for( The Permanent Things),as well to signify rejection of Modernism’s errors, you don’t have a problem with that anyways, so I am still confused why you bring up the letter.
In the interest of the truth of the situation, it is very important that you present an argument.
“Catholicity lost nothing and Protestantism gained nothing by (this) the discussion.”
Susan
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That quote, btw, is from a Cincinnati paper after a debate between Alexander Campbell of the Restoration Movement and Archbishop John Purcell. Since the start of our converstion, I’ve gotten more curious about the religious differences in our country in the period before, during and after the Civil War, and have been digging around, so thank you. I found this, and think I will get it.
http://www.amazon.com/European-Civilization-Protestantism-Catholicity-Compared/dp/1407601849/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1402508557&sr=8-2&keywords=european+civilization%3A+Jaime+Luciano+Balmes
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Susan, you started this by bringing a link from ETWN on what Rome thought about slavery, as if that makes the papacy squeaky clean. ETWN didn’t seem to know about the Pope’s letter and friendship with the president of the Confederacy (which owned slaves). If you are not troubled by that, then maybe you are not also troubled by the papacy’s teaching against child abuse and then its actual dealings with it.
In other words, pointing to papal teaching isn’t an argument and solves nothing about the papacy’s capacity to give you certainty. The reason is that for every teaching you can find, I can find actions that compromise such teaching (unless you are still a logocentric doctrinal minded Protestant who now communes with the Holy See).
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Zrim,
“CvD, the right-yet-fallible point is a live-by-faith-and-not-by-sight point. Certainty aligns with sight.”
So you’re right but not certain about it?
“The Reformed aren’t concerned with absolute certainty.”
I assume they’re concerned with truth. Is truth certain? Isn’t divine revelation certain by definition? Are they concerned with only kinda certainty?
“But how does getting something right imply infallibility? If I know that 2*2=4, it doesn’t mean that I’m mathematically infallible and whatever I say about advanced mathematics is correct and to be believed without question.”
Is 2*2=4 a truth and infallible? Is it certain? My questions aren’t assuming ongoing infallibility or a charism of such – they are asking about teachings/interpretations you take as certain/right to then launch attacks against the notions of having infallibility/certainty (whether that be ongoing or just pre-existing instances).
“That’s the point here—where is there any room for faith in the Roman system?”
The Eucharist for one. Anyways, the entire system is taken on faith (informed by reason) – one can’t assent to supernatural revelation/doctrine without faith – if one could, such revelation would be reduced to natural revelation (2*2=4) – that’s why Rome and the tri-fold authority is presented as an object/article of faith.
“Most of life is about taking things others tell us on faith and religious belief is no different.”
Exactly right – see previous statement.
“What’s being said is that selective infallibility is no infallibility whatsoever. Frankly, it’s a shell game. Here’s what it sounds like to Reformed ears: “Today, here at this time, I am infallible on this particular thing I’m saying because I say so. And tomorrow, over there, I am not and what I say is subject to scrutiny because I say so.” Um…”
Again, this is how non-believers view defenses of Scriptural inerrancy/inspiration. “Oh you just take from the OT what you like as ongoing ethics huh? Oh, the NT authors weren’t trying to retro-fit OT prophecy fulfillment huh? Oh, now we have to interpret things according to various literary styles/conventions and genres – keep moving around. Oh, cultural/historical context now has direct bearing on meaning of something inspired and spoken by God? Oh, some of the teachings of the OT and NT no longer apply huh – you just pick and choose what you like. Oh, zombies walked the street in Matthew (which has caused even intra-conservative battles with people like Licona) but I guess the bible is still historically reliable. Oh, gospel and biblical harmonization attempts aren’t special pleading? Oh, God couldn’t preserve the originals but that doesn’t matter and we know what’s inspired and what’s been added with perfect clarity huh? Oh you just reinterpret OT according to science and archaeological findings (or dismiss such) to make it fit.” And so on. The point being mountains have been written by conservatives discussing inerrancy/historicity and inspiration – most of which just looks like a “shell game” and cognitive dissonance and special pleading to non-believers and liberals.
I do not see how selective infallibility is no infallibility whatsoever. Just because it might be unclear in certain cases/times when infallibility applies, it does not mean it’s always unclear, nor does it mean there are not obvious examples of infallible teaching.
Darryl,
“Because the Bible doesn’t teach it”
That sounds like you’re certain about that. Sin clouds all remember (certainly it does).
“and — get this — it is a tad self-serving.”
Just as a NT non-believer could say to Christ/Apostles in order to justify rejecting their authority.
“You wouldn’t be a tad suspicious if I claimed to be the smartest man in the world?”
Sure I would – just as I’d be suspicious of David Koresh’s claims – I would need some evidence for your credibility in your claims. Blind faith/Fideism – bad. Faith working with reason – good.
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Cletus,
Do you do any of drive, fly, or ride a bus?
If so, why do you trust your chosen mode of transportation any more than hitchhiking or freighthopping?
None of those methods is 100% safe, none is infallible. Yet some are preferred and some are “dangerous.” Why?
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Hi Darryl,
Ok, the RCC has officially said that slavery is wrong, but some people still do what they want. Pius IX didn’t own slaves, and we don’t know if he himself personally condoned it just because he sent a letter to Jefferson Davis. EWTN isn’t psychic, and it isn’t criminal to not know something. If Pius IX was involved in shady dealings then “someone”would know and they should be able to prove it.
Do you think that every single person who is heirarchy in the RCC is or knows a child molester? Did you expect the RCC to shut down because there is wickedness in her ranks?
If I can fully admit that I sin and that other Catholics still sin, and that there are degrees of wickedness, then what am I missing? Impeccability isn’t a Church claim. To interpret infallibly just means that what she has so far established as dogma is commensurate with truth in the world. This should cause relief…..somebody knows what is orthodox Christianity.
Hi Jeff,
What the RCC means by infallibility is the Church’s teaching authority that resides with the Supreme Pontiff. Catholics are not to go against this teaching. It is a matter of faith, but faith that is informed by reason, based on motives of credibility.
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@Cagle
This is a very good question and I think it gets to the fundamental problem of CTC-esque apologetics for their chosen authority. The Church doesn’t even claim to have an infallible interpretation of all of scripture. As far as I can tell they don’t provide a list of their infallible statements, and there are few ex cathedra pronouncements.
I think the analogy to science is really quite helpful here. The data are infallible, our theories are not. However, theories that stand the test of time while falsifiable in principle, will not be in practice. There may be extensions of the theory or more general ways of formulating it, but the theory isn’t going anywhere. I would say that the scriptures are the infallible data. The ecumenical councils are the established theories that have stood the test of time and aren’t going anywhere. While fallible in principle, in fact they are correct. Of course the analogy breaks down, but I think this gets at the problem with the RC critique of sola scriptura. We don’t need a theory to be infallible or the last word to be useful. Similarly, there may be tweaks at the edges of our theology (particularly as it confronts new data), but the bulk of it isn’t going anywhere.
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sdb and Jeff,
Perhaps this will help: http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.com/search/label/Truth
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Few roman catholics know an 1/16th of what the church believes or teaches, Nor is it necessary to their faith and piety. RC’s have invested in the notion of the church as mediator not in church as catechist or disciple maker. So, while the various doctrinal trails are interesting and even occasionally edifying, they are, in the end, trivial.
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Hello Sean,
“Few roman catholics know an 1/16th of what the church believes or teaches, Nor is it necessary to their faith and piety”
What interests me is that the Church actually has dogmatic teaching in the first place. If a person is ignorant in some or many regards at least he can stay faithful in practice by going to confession and taking communion. Honestly, there are many Protestants who don’t know much about the history and theological differences that led to the Reformation but they are trusting that somebody does( the early Reformers, their pastors, their husbands) and that those somebody’s are absolutely correct. Then they sit down, all comfy in their certainty without ever asking if it is true.
“So, while the various doctrinal trails are interesting and even occasionally edifying, they are, in the end, trivial.”
You ended up rejecting one framework for another based on something. If you’re saying that it’s all trivial inside the Catholic Church and no one is served, then you will have to argue each tenant of the Church’s teaching to show how and why none of it matters.
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Susan, you bypassed the meat of the comment in favor of a partitioning that enables you to press your point. The assertion still stands. And considering that even the most protestant of you converts confess that it(RC) is a faith more caught than learned, you yourselves wittingly and even unwittingly capitulate and acknowledge a faith expression that is NOT preeminently propositional or syllogistically appraised but rather nurtured and assumed and culturally apprehended. Cradles will always better appreciate the ‘nature’ of Rome as opposed to those late assimilating. It’s not your fault, give it a decade and two. But what is not available to you is a word based, didactic, propositional proselytizing that says more about your protestant, even fundy, upbringing than anything related to RC.
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So you’re right but not certain about it?…I assume [the Reformed] concerned with truth. Is truth certain? Isn’t divine revelation certain by definition? Are they concerned with only kinda certainty?…Anyways, the entire [RC] system is taken on faith (informed by reason) – one can’t assent to supernatural revelation/doctrine without faith…
CvD, the Reformed are persuaded that we have discerned the Word of God rightly as it is expressed in the confessions. What we deny is that we have discerned without error and in such a way that it can never be revised. It’s a proximate knowledge. The subtext of your question seems to be that this is insufficient, but that is the nature of faith—to be fully persuaded in the midst of something less than sight and to co-exist with a relative measure of doubt. But if you can take the entire Roman system on faith so defined then why is it so problematic for the Reformed to take ours on faith?
But you sound even more unbeliever-ish when you try to poke holes in sola scriptura. The unbeliever’s entire criticism is based on the emphasis on faith and the lack of sight. That’s the Roman critique of sola scriptura: “Oh, the Bible’s all we need? Is that why we have 30k denoms? No, the Bible’s clearly not enough, we need a mechanism that hedges us in and gives us absolute certitude so that when I hear the Magisterium speak it is THEE voice of God.” Very doubting Thomasy, baby.
Selective infallibility of a source is like selective wetness of water. As it is inherent to water to be wet in all places and at all times, it is inherent to an infallible source to be infallible in all places and in all times. Once water dries up, it’s no longer water; once a source errs, it is no longer infallible.
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Point of order: I thought slavery persisted in South America until the 19th century?
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@ Susan:
Thanks.
I’m trying to understand the ground of your critique. If I’ve got it correctly, you view sola scriptura as inadequate because we are uncertain that our interpretations are correct. Protestants have no guarantee of infallible interpretation. Good so far?
And if that’s the problem then I can understand the difficulty.
But I don’t understand how becoming Catholic solves the problem. In principle, you instantly obtain access to infallible interpretation, but … Only if you’ve correctly perceived that the Catholic church has said authority. The ground of your faith is still your (fallible) belief that the Catholic church has infallible teaching.
And if you’re right, then excellent, but if not, well….
Instead of a thousand little possibilities of error, it seems as if the Catholic places all of his or her possibility of error into one huge role of the dice: “I choose to place my faith in the Roman Catholic Church.”
What that gets you is not infallibility pure and simple, but infallibility relative to your fallible belief in the church.
That’s not a criticism (after all, in my Protestant system, I still have to live with the potential fallibility of the canonical list), but a way of explaining why the Catholic system does not appear to me to solve the need for infallible interpretation. Rather, it seems to trade one type of fallibility (exegetical decisions) for another (belief in the church).
Does that make sense?
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foxy lady victor delta, Jesus and the apostles didn’t hold a council to declare their infallibility at a time when they were losing their temporal power (funny, they didn’t have temporal power and still thought they could be authoritative).
And if you think that total depravity means lack of understanding, you’re wrong. But let’s say that’s the case. Then why is it that you need an infallible pope if you are not as tainted by sin as we are?
Face it, papal infallibility is a stretch and its one that most Roman Catholics don’t buy. But the Protestant converts show it off like they just got a new bike.
Your point about the shell game of inerrancy, btw, doesn’t apply to papal infallibility. Unam Sanctam? Oh, it’s only discipline, not doctrine. Problem is, the pope doesn’t come with a light that goes on when he’s infallible.
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Sean,
If my intentions are to have a respectul dialogue that gets to the bottom of our differences it should be possible. If I bypassed the meat of the comment, then please fshow me how I have done so. I have no interests in pressing my point, and so have not wittingly partitioned my defence.
” And considering that even the most protestant of you converts confess that it(RC) is a faith more caught than learned, you yourselves wittingly and even unwittingly capitulate and acknowledge a faith expression that is NOT preeminently propositional or syllogistically appraised but rather nurtured and assumed and culturally apprehended.”
No, I’m sorry I deny that the RCC as a legitimate institution isn’t propositionally appraised in its varying parts. I don’t know how I could have arrived at that conclusion that it is in fact the Church Christ founded without some use of critical thinking, but I confess that I am not a logician. I don’t know how this exactly breaks down but consider the claim that the Papal ministry wasn’t given to Peter( that Peter wasn’t the first Pope with subsequent Popes following a long succesion). Is it possible for us to arrive at a decisive conclusion where we can both agree? This is what is being dealt with at CTC right now. Should we avoid the arguments and the proofs, and simply adopt our stances without proof? Forgive me for making you upset. I didn’t mean to make you angry. I agree with you that cradles understand things better for being culturally in tune, but I didn’t learn by culture.
Cradles will always better appreciate the ‘nature’ of Rome as opposed to those late assimilating. It’s not your fault, give it a decade and two. But what is not available to you is a word based, didactic, propositional proselytizing that says more about your protestant, even fundy, upbringing than anything related to RC
Like I said, I sincerely did not mean to make you upset, but you don’t have a right to speak for me. I wasn’t raised fundamental and I came into the church by desiring the truth. It’s funny that you speak of experience over propositions. A Protestant philosopher told me that the bible was just a series of propositions. That really blew me away for if that’s all it was then what was connecting my soul to the God of the universe?! And I was told that my journey was all about romance and certitude rather than an honest desire for truth. You have lived life in the RCC, I understand that and respect your privacy,but your experience does not refute the idea that the RCC is who she says she is. Maybe it is a hard life to live,but again that doesn’t make it untrue. If it is all experiential and not able to be expressed in words than I’m not sure how to dialogue with any Protestant.
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Susan, there is church teaching, there is personal sin, and there is Vatican policy.
At least this doesn’t happen with the Bible.
Some might think you’re being a tad naive about your church.
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JC, welcome back if you’re.
Yes, slavery did not end in Brazil, for instance, until 1880s, I believe.
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Susan, you should have included foxy young lady victor charlie in that link since he seems to be as obsessed with certainty as you are with infallibility:
I thought that converts to Rome would all agree now that you have all that authority and order.
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Hello Jeff, thank you for the thoughtful dialogue:)
“I’m trying to understand the ground of your critique. If I’ve got it correctly, you view sola scriptura as inadequate because we are uncertain that our interpretations are correct. Protestants have no guarantee of infallible interpretation. Good so far?”
Well not really. When you disagree with a fellow protestant do you believe that your interpretaion is correct or most reliable?
And if that’s the problem then I can understand the difficulty.
But I don’t understand how becoming Catholic solves the problem. In principle, you instantly obtain access to infallible interpretation, but … Only if you’ve correctly perceived that the Catholic church has said authority. The ground of your faith is still your (fallible) belief that the Catholic church has infallible teaching.
It’s not like that exactly, because I’m also asking questions of the tradition prior to the time of the Reformation, like did the church historically practice the sacrifice of the mass? Did she believe in purgatory, prayers for those in purgatory, intercession of saints, icons…? I am not pulling an idea of what Church means from out of thin air, there is a historical context and continuity. I trust the RCC to know because I believe that it is historically and scripturally credible, and if that is in place then yes, it is guided by the Holy Spirit to lead Christians into the full truth.
“And if you’re right, then excellent, but if not, well….
Instead of a thousand little possibilities of error, it seems as if the Catholic places all of his or her possibility of error into one huge role of the dice: “I choose to place my faith in the Roman Catholic Church.”
What that gets you is not infallibility pure and simple, but infallibility relative to your fallible belief in the church.”
My answer is that I am taking the same gamble that you are except that I have great motives of credibility. I have come to the conclusion that if Christianity is a real revelation from God that the Catholic Church is that revelation, and no other.
That’s not a criticism (after all, in my Protestant system, I still have to live with the potential fallibility of the canonical list), but a way of explaining why the Catholic system does not appear to me to solve the need for infallible interpretation. Rather, it seems to trade one type of fallibility (exegetical decisions) for another (belief in the church).
Does that make sense?
I see what you are talking about and I’ve considered it all. What if you’d like to know what view of the Lord’s Supper is true, how do you come to an informed decison that leads you to know how it is supposed to be viewed and practiced?
Another thing, how do the scriptures disprove the Catholic and Orthodox views?
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Darryl,
Once one has established the place where truth resides, then certainty follows, but only about the doctrines that have been dogmatically pronounced. For instance, I don’t have certitude that I will enter heaven because it hasn’t been dogmatically declared and it isn’t a first principle. Yeah, that was scary but the other option was to trust a fallible interpreter. I had no principled way to know if the Protestant dismantling of the Catholic practice was legitimate except by trusting other mere men who were depraved and blind by their own admittance. If men can and do err then what was preventing the Reformation from going to far? Who was calling the boundries? What was protecting the Reformers that wasn’t there to protect the Church earlier?
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@ DGH, Erik, others: Thanks for the greetings. Oldlife is three parts catechal, one part pie-fight, and one part Cheers.
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@ Susan: How would you complete the sentence? “Sola scriptura is inadequate because…”
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Jeff, don’t forget those on here who are well past 40 years of age and still haven’t grasped that they need to develop a metanarrative for life.
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Susan, I’m not angry or upset. I’m trying to communicate to you the nature of RC and compare/contrast that with how you and other CtCers come across. RC is a faith expression composed of ethnicity, culture, sectarianism, family and priestly/churchly mediation. Rome is not primarily, nor particularly interested in, propositional, catechetical assimilation. And even, to the degree in which it(catechesis) goes forward, one of the end results of such an indoctrination is to rest in the mediatorial and priestly charism(think gnosis) of the priestly class. Again, even Bryan, grasps this ‘surrender’ as a departure point and necessary prerequisite to becoming RC. I read you guys and watch you interact, and I see and hear fundy prots. I see and hear this, because when you’re raised in the bosom of the RC, you don’t act the way you folks do. For example, Francis shows up and starts telling the conservatives that the way of narrowness and dogma is a house of cards;
“But it is difficult to speak of the Society,” continues Pope Francis. “When you express too much, you run the risk of being misunderstood. The Society of Jesus can be described only in narrative form. Only in narrative form do you discern, not in a philosophical or theological explanation, which allows you rather to discuss. The style of the Society is not shaped by discussion, but by discernment, which of course presupposes discussion as part of the process. The mystical dimension of discernment never defines its edges and does not complete the thought. The Jesuit must be a person whose thought is incomplete, in the sense of open-ended thinking. There have been periods in the Society in which Jesuits have lived in an environment of closed and rigid thought, more instructive-ascetic than mystical: this distortion of Jesuit life gave birth to the Epitome Instituti.”
“Ignatius is a mystic, not an ascetic,” he says. “It irritates me when I hear that the Spiritual Exercises are ‘Ignatian’ only because they are done in silence. In fact, the Exercises can be perfectly Ignatian also in daily life and without the silence. An interpretation of the Spiritual Exercises that emphasizes asceticism, silence and penance is a distorted one that became widespread even in the Society, especially in the Society of Jesus in Spain. I am rather close to the mystical movement, that of Louis Lallement and Jean-Joseph Surin. And Faber was a mystic.”
“The people itself constitutes a subject. And the church is the people of God on the journey through history, with joys and sorrows. Thinking with the church, therefore, is my way of being a part of this people. And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief, and the people display this infallibilitas in credendo, this infallibility in believing, through a supernatural sense of the faith of all the people walking together. This is what I understand today as the ‘thinking with the church’ of which St. Ignatius speaks. When the dialogue among the people and the bishops and the pope goes down this road and is genuine, then it is assisted by the Holy Spirit. So this thinking with the church does not concern theologians only.”
Susan, I could go on and on. This is why Francis is such a riddle and even a threat to conservative and prot-catholic converts. Rome isn’t who you think she is. You’ll never grasp Rome through the catechetical lens.
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“You’ll never grasp Rome through the catechetical lens.” Word to your (church) mother.
That’s a durn tweet.
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Sean,
I’m grasping what you’re saying. But again and from the outside, I didn’t go looking for a faith expression that was internally didactic nor internally subjective. I didn’t know what I was going to get. I was only trying to figure out how I could know what was the correct interpretation about those doctrines that were argued within the Protestant denominations. So when you say that it isn’t completely didactic and learned then I can say ,” But I have a copy of the catechism, and can instruct myself”. If you say that it has different expressions and concentrations in the different religious orders, then say ” I understand that these are the different ways people with different gifts live the faith most harmoniously to their own temperment. And since I can grasp what the religious orders are by way of definition then I have learned it through Rome’s own ability to teach about itself”. In other words, I don’t feel a riff between what is to know about the faith and how that faith can be known.
I think we can successfully take each aspect of the church’s teaching and practice and find out something more about it. Whether or not we agree with our learning is a different matter. So , I confess, that I don’t see it as a contrast between reason and experience.
I was so relieved to have discovered that there was a way to confidently know things that pertain to faith. For far too long I had lived within an expression that ignored the spiritual aspect of the faith (even though Christianity had a long history of mysticism), and that is theologically and philosophically ignorant. I had some real hard questions, and was told that there wasn’t a “category” for that. I wanted to say, “well invent one because I’m your case model!”. I got the answers I was needing by becoming Catholic, and that tells me that the RCC is familar with all that is human. There is a strong theological dualism existent in Protestantism and it isn’t sustainable as a system, and that is why you have both proponents of the words of scripture and sacramentalism on one side (Reformed and Baptist) to the experiential movements of the Spirit on the other side( The Four Square, Vineyard Movement). Everyone is trying to figure out how to balance faith and reason.
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Susan, God.
Why aren’t Protestants good enough for you? We believe the Nicene Creed. Some Roman Catholics don’t. What gives?
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Susan, if you want mysticism and spirituality, why not Pentecostalism? What does the catechism have to do with mysticism?
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Jeff! haha, ok, I’ll give it a shot 🙂
Sola scriptura is inadequate because… it cannot answer second order, and so on, questions that are put to it. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be divisions. And since it is clear that it isn’t functional as a method, one is forced to deny his reason that acknowledges this discrepancyI insanity) or fideistically adopting a particular branch that most fits one’s private interpretation.
It is better explained by others who have given it a thorough treatment….
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/06/the-catholic-and-protestant-authority-paradigms-compared/
Because of time constraints, I’m going to bow out of further discussion. Thanks for the thoughtfulness and kindness.
Peace,
Susan
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Susan,come on now. If no divisions and total unity were the litmus test then papal infallibility fails as well. You guys are as divided as we are. Besides, why so down on divisions–Paul says there must be divisions among us to show who has the approval of God.
And if you “…have come to the conclusion that if Christianity is a real revelation from God that the Catholic Church is that revelation, and no other” then why do you wonder “…how do the scriptures disprove the Catholic and Orthodox views”? Your latter question almost seems to want to lump the RCC and Orthodoxy together, but if the RCC is THEE revelation from God what does Orthodoxy have to do with anything?
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Hi Darryl,
Are you still in Rome? I’m very envious:)
“Susan, if you want mysticism and spirituality, why not Pentecostalism? What does the catechism have to do with mysticism?”
It’s not “what does the catechism have to do with mysticism”, it’s that mysticism is fully compatible with Christianity. To be Pentecostal I’d be further removed from my Christian roots and would have to give up all the sacraments, and traditon. To be Reformed, I have to give up fasting with prayer, lectio divina AND marriage as a sacrament, confession, the real presence in the Eucharist, my priests who are anointed and have the hand of the Bishop, who is in communion with the Pope, laid on them when they recieved their Holy Orders… In Catholicism, I get a fully integrated existence. It’s “both, and”
This is why I became Catholic. Modern man splits everything apart. We all have our presuppostions( and knowing this is a magic talisman)and our personal tastes even in regards to” revealed religion”( how does one account for that level of autonomy?) This is a bit of shaky ground when one still believes in such a thing as Truth.
I wonder how I can properly do my homework( and get a good grade from you) when it comes to things that are matters of faith? Must I concur with the OPC, or PCA, or URC, or some other? If I just could know which denomination holds all the correct doctrines regarding matters of faith than it would be a cinch. It’s impossible to concur with all, so I need someone to point me to just one.
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Susan,
I wonder how I can properly do my homework( and get a good grade from you) when it comes to things that are matters of faith? Must I concur with the OPC, or PCA, or URC, or some other? If I just could know which denomination holds all the correct doctrines regarding matters of faith than it would be a cinch. It’s impossible to concur with all, so I need someone to point me to just one.
The problem is that you all don’t apply this radical skepticism consistently. You have the same problem with knowing that Rome has all the correct doctrines.
Frankly, it gets kind of old, the old, how do you know which interpretation of the Bible is correct given the 30 gabillion or whatever number is put forth these days number of Protestant denominations. How do you know which interpretation of the reams and reams and reams of patristic writings, papal encyclicals, visions, off the cuff papal statements, conciliar documents, etc. etc. is correct. You have as many opinions within Rome that nobody settles. And then even when they do, how do you know which interpretation of the pope and the Magisterium is settled?
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“Must I concur with the
OPC, or PCA, or URCJesuits, Augustinians, Bendictines, or some other?” There fixed it for you. Note that one can move relatively seamlessly amongs the OPC, PCA, and URC (for example). I’m pretty sure if I were vacationing in PA and happened upon an OPC church I would be welcome to enjoy Christ’s real (spiritual) presence at the table.LikeLike
Robert,
My sometimes skepticism in the RCC is equivalent to my sometimes skepticism about the existence of God. I cannot prove either well enough to stop all doubt, but if God is real and if Christianity is the revealed religion that allows us to see the Father, then the only manifestation I can go out on a limb and put my confidence in to arrive at the truth when there are competing ideas within the same field with all things being equal [ see “Inscrutable Likelihood Differential (ILD)” from the first “preliminary principle” that is in the response given to Brandon Addison over at CTC], it is the RCC. Christianity may be more than this( 1 Cor. 2:9)but there is no reason to trust in a reduction of what it historical has been in order to fit the a new theology.
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Zrim, why bring up Paul? He wasn’t even a pope.
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Tom,
Paul had apostolic credentials. With all due respect, you don’t. When you & Paul disagree, which direction do you suggest we go?
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@ Susan: Thanks. I’ve appreciated our conversation also. I wanted to make a final statement and then perhaps we can pick up another time.
The linked article is helpful in that Stamper lays out probably the best articulation I’ve seen of the Catholic position:
As a thought experiment, imagine that Jesus Christ personally and directly began commenting on the Called To Communion site … Why will no one in such a scenario use their reason to argue with Jesus? Or asked another way, why will all parties in the discussion (both Catholic and Reformed) restrict the use of their reason simply to gaining a clarified understanding of Jesus’ position? Why will all theological argument or dispute with Jesus be off the table? It is because, having used reason to arrive at an acceptance of Jesus’ divine authority, thereafter whatsoever He says – no matter how counterintuitive or contrary to our previous confessional commitments – simply must be accepted as the truth – as theological orthodoxy.
This is helpful because it argues well that Jesus’ words are, for those who own him as Lord, above controverting. By analogy, argues Stamper (and many Catholics), the authority of the church is above controverting. This is clearly reasoned and compelling.
It is also helpful in a backhanded way to explain why the Protestant has such heartburn.
For Jesus’ words are above controverting because He Himself is God. He alone has the unique properties of never being wrong AND of never lying. Jesus appealed to his oneness with the Father and to his sinlessness as grounds to believe the truth of His words (John 8)
The Catholic church now claims that authority for itself. You can see why a Protestant might view this as Absalomic in character. If false, that claim is not merely incorrect, but quite blasphemous, for the church is placing its own authority to be on the same level as God’s.
It is indeed a high-stakes roll of the dice to place one’s epistemic trust in the authority of the Church!
So when you ask,
What if you’d like to know what view of the Lord’s Supper is true, how do you come to an informed decison that leads you to know how it is supposed to be viewed and practiced?
We have to consider both what decision is being made, and what the stakes are. The Protestant decision is essentially between memorialism, real presence (Calvin), or real presence (Luther). And while I happen to have a definite position (surprise!), I don’t view the stakes as being amazingly high. All parties agree that Christ is present; the question is one of mode.
Don’t get me wrong. The differences between the views have enough spillover that Lutherans and Calvinists can’t commune together. But the difference is not so great that I believe that Lutherans fail to communion when they have communion.
By contrast, I think the RCC doctrine of the church’s authority is so problematic that it tempts its followers to idolize the church, to replace the authority of God’s word with that of the Church’s word.
Not trying to be rough here, but to give a sense of how wide the gulf is between Protestant and RCC, in contrast to the relatively smaller gulf between Baptist, Calvinist, and Lutheran on communion.
Finally, you ask,
How do the scriptures disprove the Catholic and Orthodox views?
The most plainly problematic is the use of icons in worship. The 2nd Commandment is clear: Do not make images nor bow down (Gr: proskuneo) to them. Both EO and RCC contravene this command by … interpreting it to not mean what it plainly means.
Secondarily, the teachings of transubstantiation and the Marian doctrines are problematic, for different reasons. I view transubstantiation as a clear mixing of the divine attributes (specifically, omnipresence) and human (specifically, having a physical body) of Christ.
By contrast, I’m willing to believe that it is remotely possible that Mary and Joseph never consummated their marriage. But it is not remotely possible that such a teaching is necessary for our salvation. AIrenaeus, if that were so, then the apostles would have written it down for us.
In a way, this last post has been “prickly” because it raises a number of points that we disagree on. But as I said above, I’ve appreciated our conversation
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Hey! I wasn’t done editing! Bad computer!
Anyways:
I’ve appreciated our conversation also, and I would be happy to pick up one or more threads at another time.
Peace,
Jeff
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You know what, Jeff, you are a breath of fresh air!
I don’t have time to respond right now( getting some things together for a trip to the beach tomorrow with my kiddos), but I will spend time thinking and responding as soon as I get the chance.
You are great at expressing your disagreement, in a very courteous manner, I thank you.
Blessings!
Susan
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Hi Steve,
“Susan,come on now. If no divisions and total unity were the litmus test then papal infallibility fails as well. You guys are as divided as we are.”
When Protestants disagree with Catholicism, is not the object of their disagreement a body of heresies that the whole of Catholicism agrees?
Besides, why so down on divisions–Paul says there must be divisions among us to show who has the approval of God.”
See that’s why you need an infallible intepreter! lol! I took that vs. and plugged it into my handy-dandy Catholic commentary and viola!
“By “factions,” here he means those which concern not the doctrines, but these present divisions. But even if he had spoken of the doctrinal heresies, not even thus did he give them any handle. For Christ Himself said, “it must needs be that occasions of stumbling come,” Matthew 18:7 not destroying the liberty of the will nor appointing any necessity and compulsion over man’s life, but foretelling what would certainly ensue from the evil mind of men; which would take place, not because of his prediction, but because the incurably disposed are so minded. For not because he foretold them did these things happen: but because they were certainly about to happen, therefore he foretold them. Since, if the occasions of stumbling were of necessity and not of the mind of them that bring them in, it was superfluous His saying, “Woe to that man by whom the occasion comes.” But these things we discussed more at length when we were upon the passage itself ; now we must proceed to what is before us.
Now that he said these things of these factions relating to the tables, and that contention and division, he made manifest also from what follows. For having said, “I hear that there are divisions among you,” he stopped not here, but signifying what divisions he means he goes on to say, “each one takes before other his own supper;” and again, “What? Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? Or despise ye the Church of God?” However, that of these he was speaking is evident. And if he call them divisions, marvel not. For, as I said, he wishes to touch them by the expression: whereas had they been divisions of doctrine, he would not have discoursed with them thus mildly. Hear him, for instance, when he speaks of any such thing, how vehement he is both in assertion and in reproof: in assertion, as when he says, “If even an angel preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed;” Galatians 1:8 but in reproof, as when he says, “Whosoever of you would be justified by the law, you are fallen away from grace.” Galatians 5:4 And at one time he calls the corrupters “dogs,” saying, “Beware of dogs:” Philippians 3:2 at another, “having their consciences seared with a hot iron.” 1 Timothy 4:2 And again, “angels of Satan:” 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 but here he said no such thing, but spoke in a gentle and subdued tone.” ~ Chrysostom’s Homily 27
“And if you “…have come to the conclusion that if Christianity is a real revelation from God that the Catholic Church is that revelation, and no other” then why do you wonder “…how do the scriptures disprove the Catholic and Orthodox views”? Your latter question almost seems to want to lump the RCC and Orthodoxy together, but if the RCC is THEE revelation from God what does Orthodoxy have to do with anything?”
That was directed at Jeff where I wanted to know how he percieves that the Catholic and Orthodox doctrines are unscriptural. I don’t lump them together entirely, but they are closer by having less article’s of faith that are not in common. They have a greater degree of doctrinal unity.
Hope you are doing well, and that Michigan is having a beautiful spring!
Susan
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I respect Susan for coming here and having more self-control and civility than the last 10 Callers who flamed out here in 24 hours before retreating with wet undies.
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Susan,
When Protestants disagree with Catholicism, is not the object of their disagreement a body of heresies that the whole of Catholicism agrees?
When Roman Catholics disagree with Protestants, is not the object of their disagreement a body of heresies that the whole of Protestantism agrees—JBFA, Sola Scriptura, ecclesiastical infallibility, the non-sacrifice of the mass, Mary and the saints as non-mediators, etc. etc.
The idea that Rome is more united doctrinally than Protestantism must die. It was wrong before V2, and V2 filled the already dead idea with more bullet holes.
When every last impenitent member of Catholics for Choice are excommunicated and we get a coherent teaching that salvation is only through Christ, then you guys can start talking about how unified y’all are. Until then, it just looks to us like a bunch of people who think religious ritual is important but don’t care about what the church teaches. That is Sean’s entire point.
I don’t mean to be harsh, and I’m probably coming across meaner than I actually am. There are legitimate differences between us that can be discussed. This whole more unified than thou ain’t one of them.
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Jeff’s our very own resident Nabakov sans the questionable “Lolita” thing.
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I’d better explain that one…They both like(d) butterflies.
And it’s Nabokov.
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Susan, your fully integrated existence isn’t historically integrated. Why, for instance, did the Roman Catholic Church have an index of forbidden books and now after 1966 it doesn’t? Was it a mistake to have one? Or is it a mistake not to have one? If the church was right to have the index, it’s wrong not to have the index. The contradiction goes on.
The source of your integration if fundamentally in contradiction with itself.
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Susan, give up RC’sm and you reduce your skepticism by half. You don’t have to worry about whether Reformed churches are infallible. They aren’t.
Oh, you say that Rome is infallible and that’s what’s wrong with Protestantism — it’s not.
But infallibility causes doubt.
I get it — mystical.
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Susan, but when Paul promotes divisions why no mention of an infallible interpreter to settle matters? Sure seems like if the quintessential category for infallible interpreter were viable it would come up, as in, “But don’t worry–I’ll be getting Peter on it, you know, the guy Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom to. Sure, I had to correct him once on the nature of the gospel and all, but nobody’s perfect all the time.”
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Susan,
Do you ever consider that the RCC might be more about power than anything else? Especially since it has been intertwined with politics since at least the time of Constantine.
It’s not a bad gig for socially awkward men who have no desire to be with a woman, no?
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Look at the Bishop of Bling for instance. What better place for a man with an eye for fashion, design, and interesting architecture — all on someone else’s dime, no less.
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Zrim,
“Quoting” Paul you said,
The question begging assumption here is that it couldn’t be possible that someone is perfect all the time under certain conditions and also wrong about the same thing at certain times in other conditions. So while Peter was fallible about the Gospel in one manner he was also simultaneously infallible about it in the other. Simul recta et non recta, you know.
Makes “perfect” sense, doesn’t it? /end sarcasm
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Erik, Bishop Schprockets should be invoked at least once a month. LIEBE MEINE APSCHMINKE!
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“abschminken — to remove the makeup from”
?!
Es fehlt mir der Sinn.
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Anyone who’s married knows that wives are perfect, although they occasionally admit to a lapse from perfection.
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@ Brandon: The question is one of nature/gift v. occasion.
If one has the gift of inerrancy, one ought to exercise one’s gift always. Especially when speaking in matters of faith and morals. Popes should speak ex cathedra or not at all, exercising their gifts for the building up of the body. If Peter had the gift, it is unaccountable that he should get the Gospel wrong, especially when he had *previously* gotten it right (Acts 10)!
If on the other hand inerrancy is a matter of occasion, as in, “For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit”, then there is no gift that inheres to the office or person.
The latter makes more sense, given that Amos was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, and Balaam’s donkey even less so.
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Chortles,
If the Bishop had been a PCA Pastor in NYC the powers that be would have understood that he was all about human flourishing, the renewal of all things, showing everyone that Christians in the City understand architecture, style, pizazz, etc.
The Pope was not so forgiving.
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Brandon, but the Bible is infallible about the gospel all the time, so what makes it insufficient?
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Jeff,
I absolutely agree. My comment was a satirical (and cynical) response to Zrim from an assumed Catholic perspective. My (failed) attempt at sarcasm was to point out that in Catholic ecclesiology Peter must be right even when he’s wrong.
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Brandon, ah, but careful not to bruise that cheek with your tongue so deeply plunged into it.
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Ah, sorry!
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Zrim,
Duly noted, although, I’m curious; didn’t it sound like a CtC-esque response? If so, that will at least allow me to sleep a little easier at night knowing that while I failed, it was a less-than-awful attempt.
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Yikes…
That was supposed to read “better-than-awful.” Maybe the typo was a Freudian slip…
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Brandon, you had me fooled, but that’s not saying much. In my defense, “Brandon” is such a Catholic name. Like “Bryan” or “Jason.”
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You had me fooled. I know at least one Brandon who has been targeted for conversion in the past.
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Jeff,
What does targeted for conversion look like?
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Brandon, but Paul was more infallible. Why wasn’t he the first pope? His remains are in Rome too!
No peace, no justice.
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My (failed) attempt at sarcasm
Failed only on your Prot brothers, Brandon. Sheesh! 🙂
‘Dis Catolick girl smiled the Cradles’ smile.
Let’s face it, we rule ’cause we’re cool. Cool on the Iron Rod, cool on Apologia Vita Mia vanity of vanities.
From Trollope’s Barchester Towers and Francis Arabin’s high-church perturbation and temptation to Rome:
Mr Arabin was at this time a very young man, and when he left Oxford for his far retreat was much too confident in his powers of fence, and too apt to look down on the ordinary sense of ordinary people, to expect aid in the battle that he had to fight from any chance inhabitants on the spot which he had selected. But Providence was good to him; and there, in that all but desolate place, on the storm-beat shore of that distant sea, he met one who gradually changed his mind, quieted his imagination, and taught him something of a Christian’s duty. When Mr Arabin left Oxford, he was inclined to look upon the rural clergymen of most English parishes almost with contempt. It was his ambition, should he remain within the fold of the church, to do somewhat towards redeeming and rectifying their inferiority, and to assist in infusing energy and faith into the hearts of Christian ministers, who were, as he thought, too often satisfied to go through life without much show of either.
And yet it was from such a one that Mr Arabin in his extremest need received that aid which he so much required. It was from a poor curate of a small Cornish parish that he first learnt to know that the highest laws for the governance of a Christian’s duty must act from within and not from without; that no man can become a serviceable servant solely by obedience to written edicts; and that the safety which he was about to seek within the gates of Rome was no other than the selfish freedom from personal danger which the bad soldier attempts to gain who counterfeits illness on the eve of battle.
Mr Arabin returned to Oxford a humbler but a better and a happier man; and from that time forth he put his shoulder to the wheel as a clergyman of the Church for which he had been educated. The intercourse of those among whom he familiarly lived kept him staunch to the principles of that system of the Church to which he had always belonged. Since his severance from Mr Newman, no one had had so strong an influence over him as the head of his college. During the time of his expected apostasy, Dr Gwynne had not felt much predisposition in favour of the young fellow. Though a High Churchman himself within moderate limits, Dr Gwynne felt no sympathy with men who could not satisfy their faiths with the Thirty-nine Articles. He regarded the enthusiasm of such as Newman as a state of mind more nearly allied to madness than to religion; and when he saw it evinced by a very young men, was inclined to attribute a good deal of it to vanity. Dr Gwynne himself, though a religious man, was also a thoroughly practical man of the world, and he regarded with no favourable eye the tenets of any one who looked on the two things as incompatible. When he found Mr Arabin was a half Roman, he began to regret all that he done towards bestowing a fellowship on so unworthy a recipient; and when again he learnt that Mr Arabin would probably complete his journey to Rome, he regarded with some satisfaction the fact that in such case the fellowship would be again vacant.
When, however, Mr Arabin returned and professed himself a confirmed Protestant, the master of Lazarus again opened his arms to him, and gradually he became the pet of the college. For some little time he was saturnine, silent, and unwilling to take any prominent part in university broils; but gradually his mind recovered, or rather made its tone, and he became known as a man always ready at a moment’s notice to take up the cudgels in opposition to anything which savoured of an evangelical bearing. He was great in sermons, great on platforms, great at after dinner conversations, and always pleasant as well as great. He took delight in elections, served on committees, opposed tooth and nail all projects of university reform, and talked jovially over his glass of port of the ruin to be committed by the Whigs. The ordeal through which he had gone, in resisting the blandishments of the lady of Rome, had certainly done much towards the strengthening of his character. Although in small and outward matters he was self-confident enough, nevertheless in things affecting the inner man he aimed at a humility of spirit which would never have been attractive to him but for that visit to the coast of Cornwall. This visit he now repeated every year.
I’m by birth, baptism and now inclination a Catolick girl. But something stirs in me when I behold a convert raggin’ on their old tradition. It’s like the gurgling of lava.
I’ve ragged on RCism. But it was most ungrateful and must have been perceived (awfully mixing metaphors) at the time as some unseemly monkey on my back.
Cheers,
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Darryl,
Brandon, but Paul was more infallible. Why wasn’t he the first pope? His remains are in Rome too!
I’ll admit that Rome’s love affair with Peter has always perplexed me. Was it because Rome was the capital and Peter was the best candidate they could find for having been in the city? But even then, we know with certainty now that Peter didn’t found the church there, so in typical RC fashion, you ignore the historical evidence to maintain the curia.
I know Peter was supposedly the first to confess Jesus as the Christ, but Joseph and Mary knew who Jesus was long before Peter hit the scene. Why not one of them? Maybe because Mary ends up being the de facto Savior in so many ways.
One thing’s for sure, I don’t see Peter, Paul, Joseph, Mary, or most importantly, Jesus Himself, having a huge palace, a secretary of state, a popemobile, an ambassador to the Vatican, bling, and so on.
Ironically, the Vatican is probably the best apology for 2 K theology.
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Brandon,
I got it. Jeff’s out of practice. Not sure what Van Zrim’s excuse is.
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Jeff,
“CvD: Do you think the promise to guide into all truth only applied to the Apostles?
Yes. They were the audience to whom Jesus was speaking.”
So Christians should not have historically engaged or continue to engage in evangelism per the Great Commission?
“Answering with a question: We mutually agree that 1 John is canonical. Which manuscript is the infallible manuscript? p9? p74? Vulgate? Textus Receptus? (This isn’t a flippant question)”
Why are you certain that Christians were guided correctly into recognizing 1 John (whatever its extent be) is canonical, inspired and infallible, but not any of its meaning? I thought the promise of truth guidance only applied to the Apostles. For SS to operate coherently isn’t it necessary to have the infallible manuscript?
“We see clearly here that the Synod declares itself authoritative over the Scripture in that it sees itself as authorized to define which books are canonical”
I do not see how that follows. Being able to definitively recognize/identify Scripture does not mean it’s authoritative over it. The Apostles definitively interpreted senses of the OT – were they authoritative over it? Authorities can work in parallel, which is what the tri-fold conception entails. And again, if Rome was authoritative over Scripture in the sense above, seems they would be perfectly justified in just jettisoning “problematic” books or passages, or just adding in whatever they like a la Mormonism to strengthen their doctrines. That they didn’t speaks to the role as servant rather than master.
“Do you agree with my reading of Trent?”
Do you think Trent’s view of the role of Scripture conflicts or is harmonious with Vat2?
“This was confusing to me. Why omit the debates between conservative and liberal Catholics?”
Because the debate does not strike at the heart of the rule of faith for RCs, unlike for SS.
“CvD: I fail to see how a liberal Protestant is not applying Protestant principles just as much as a conservative is.
Even more confusing to me. The Protestant principle is, “The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.”
Clearly, liberal Protestants define themselves by a rejection of this very principle.”
All you did was cite an opinion that your branch of Protestantism holds. That “principle” is a confessional statement which the very statement says is to be ever-examined (i.e. it doesn’t go anywhere). That’s what I mean by Protestant principles – and which has been echoed by people in this thread with their stance towards and criticisms of infallibility. What is a liberal Protestant rejecting by disagreeing with that opinion? What is a non-confessional Protestant violating by disagreeing with that confessional statement? Further, your citation does not address the inerrancy issue – many types of liberals could affirm it (they might just disagree what constitutes “Scripture” or they might disagree on the manner/character of inspiration and inerrancy) – what is a liberal Protestant violating by denying or qualifying inerrancy to the point where conservatives disagree? Affirming (a particular flavor of conservative) scriptural inerrancy is just one opinion among others. If a system rules out identifying infallible teachings/interpretations which have greater authority than tentative opinion, that also applies to identification of any proposed religious authority, and if one holds that preclusion for any church claiming infallibility (all over this thread), it holds just as much for any other proposed authority including “Scripture” (however that may be tentatively defined). By deflating the church’s authority and notions of infallibility, Protestantism in one swoop opens the door for liberalism to do the same with Scripture.
“Clearly not. Return volley: Is the perspicuity of Scripture to be justifiably questioned because there are those who confuse its teaching?”
Nope. So how does the confusion get resolved?
“Do you do any of drive, fly, or ride a bus? If so, why do you trust your chosen mode of transportation any more than hitchhiking or freighthopping? None of those methods is 100% safe, none is infallible. Yet some are preferred and some are “dangerous.” Why?”
And you’re arguing against liberals how again?
Zrim,
“CvD, the Reformed are persuaded that we have discerned the Word of God rightly as it is expressed in the confessions. What we deny is that we have discerned without error and in such a way that it can never be revised.”
If something proposed as an article of faith/divine revelation claims it is revisable, can it actually be an article of faith/divine revelation by definition?
“but that is the nature of faith—to be fully persuaded in the midst of something less than sight and to co-exist with a relative measure of doubt.”
I agree to some extent – again, conflating natural and supernatural revelation is no bueno, and RCs don’t affirm such. But that needs to be held with the previous statement in mind.
“But if you can take the entire Roman system on faith so defined then why is it so problematic for the Reformed to take ours on faith?”
See above – the insistence on revisable nature (and associated jettisoning of notions of infallibility) is the problem.
“But you sound even more unbeliever-ish when you try to poke holes in sola scriptura.”
I was saying your critique of RC infallibility was just as unbeliever-ish as critiques of Biblical inerrancy/inspiration.
“The unbeliever’s entire criticism is based on the emphasis on faith and the lack of sight. That’s the Roman critique of sola scriptura: “Oh, the Bible’s all we need? Is that why we have 30k denoms? No, the Bible’s clearly not enough, we need a mechanism that hedges us in and gives us absolute certitude so that when I hear the Magisterium speak it is THEE voice of God.” Very doubting Thomasy, baby.”
You say the bible’s all we need – but whatever the bible is defined/recognized as is open to revision per your first statement, so this seems to put the cart before the horse.
Darryl,
“foxy lady victor delta, Jesus and the apostles didn’t hold a council to declare their infallibility at a time when they were losing their temporal power (funny, they didn’t have temporal power and still thought they could be authoritative).”
Do you think Rome didn’t consider Trent infallible?
“And if you think that total depravity means lack of understanding, you’re wrong. But let’s say that’s the case. Then why is it that you need an infallible pope if you are not as tainted by sin as we are?”
One can be affected by sin in many ways. The need for an authority does not necessitate the understanding of sin and associated criticism of infallibility mentioned in this thread.
“Face it, papal infallibility is a stretch and its one that most Roman Catholics don’t buy.”
Biblical inerrancy is a stretch and its one that most liberals don’t buy.
“Your point about the shell game of inerrancy, btw, doesn’t apply to papal infallibility. Unam Sanctam? Oh, it’s only discipline, not doctrine.”
US is doctrine.
“Problem is, the pope doesn’t come with a light that goes on when he’s infallible.”
There are conditions and criteria. When those conditions have been met is sometimes clear, and sometimes not. Does the Bible come with a light saying which books and which passages/sentences are inspired and in what manner they are to be taken as inerrant? Does that mean you’ll be abandoning the infallibility of Scripture?
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@ Cletus: Our conversation is hydra-lyzing.
What would you like to focus on?
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foxy lady, if appealing to liberals makes you feel better about biblical infallibility, what are you going to do with all those RC liberals who disregard papal infallibility?
Sure, Rome considerED Trent infallible. I don’t know many RC’s today who think it’s even true (except for former Protestants).
Do you bitch and moan this way about your own tribe, or is this just the side you show to Protestants.
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Erik, duh, public schooling.
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CvD, if you think anything I’ve said opens the Bible to revision then I’m not sure how closely you’ve been following. The shared assumption between us has been the absolute infallibility of the Bible. The point from over here has been how it is the only needed and possible infallible source.
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Zrim, but foxy lady also believes in an infallible interpreter who needs to conform to certain rules of infallibility that have been established by an infallible hierarchy and that are patently evident to every schlub who has enough coin to buy a copy of Denzinger.
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Zrim, but foxy lady also believes in an infallible interpreter who needs to conform to certain rules of infallibility that have been established by an infallible hierarchy and that are patently evident to every schlub who has enough coin to buy a copy of Denzinger.
And this is the fundamental problem with the RC idea of infallibility. Don’t tell us your church is infallible if you can’t tell us all that it teaches that meets that criteria. We have no way of knowing when you’re telling the truth and when you’re not, and generations can think something is infallible but be completely wrong.
I know why Rome doesn’t do it. Lot easier to give the illusion of ever the same when nobody but the current Curia can know of define what is infallible, but whatever.
The whole thing betrays an “Ask no questions” mentality—and so you end up with Crusades, kidnapping of babies in the 19th century, the sex abuse scandal, the Donation of Constantine, …
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