Kevin DeYoung is channeling yours confessionally with a post about the U.S. founders’ view of human nature. He cites a remarkably Augustinian (though he attributes it narrowly to Calvinism — why can’t he be as generous as I?) passage from James Madison’s Federalist #51, which I happened to be teaching yesterday:
But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attach. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of man must be connected with the constitutional right of the place.
It may be a reflection of human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
And if this understanding of human nature is good for the goose of temporal authorities, it is just as applicable to the gander of spiritual authorities (since the charism comes and goes like the wind-blowing Spirit). That is one reason why Reformed Protestants prefer councils to bishops. It’s not simply a preference for committee meetings. It is a recognition that shared rule prevents absolute authority from resting in the hands of one man (or if you’re a mainline Protestants, one woman). During the fourteenth and fifteen centuries, the conciliar movement tried to correct the abuses of Renaissance popes who made claims about being the highest power on earth (e.g. Unam Sanctum). It failed within Roman Catholicism (until Vatican II maybe) but prevailed among Presbyterian and Reformed communions who even acknowledge that committees err.
I wonder if the guys at CTC ever consider this after being awe-struck by papal audacity.
Old Life 
Should’ve spelled attack I see this same error at DeYoungs article.
As to the meaning of the post, and taking this particular sentence at its meaning, I also observe that when like minded and externally or internally unrestrained individuals come together, a synergy begins to feed their lust for power such that an equal or greater synergy is needed to oppose it. If restraints aren’t in place to stop it in the early stages, it becomes more difficult as the beast grows.
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“or if you’re a mainline Protestants, one woman”
Nice.
Reading last night how the UPCUSA provided $10,000 for the defense of Angela Davis. Liberal Protestants never cease to amuse. CTC never ceases to amuse, either.
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The author of the CTC post you link to at the end says, “Protestantism has no principled way to differentiate dogma from theological opinion – no coherent way even to identify the contours of Christian doctrine – that does not reduce to question begging or subjectivism. Catholicism, by contrast, posits an objective way to draw such distinctions.”
From that point he goes on to describe this “objective way” that, to a Protestant, is nothing but Catholic question begging.
CTC needs to lose the air of superiority. They beg far more questions that we do because they affirm far more theologically than we do. Last I checked the questions in the Heidelberg & Westminster were numbered in the hundreds. The questions in the Catholic Catechism were numbered in the thousands.
At least we have a fixed set of propositions to argue about — Scripture. Their system is ultimately open-ended as long as an allegedly infallible man is a part of it.
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No, actually, I love committee meetings. I sit in the back and shoot spitballs.
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First some of the wags over at OLTS tell me that JPII is the Roman JFK. Then the chief wog tells me that Lord Acton performatively was a calvinist. What?
Like the song says, ‘don’t go breaking my mental paradigm”.
It hurts. One’s mental world is crumbling and all we get is . . . .
Yet for those who already know who Paul Harvey is, without watching Stupor Bowl commercials, there is a “The Rest of the Story” aspect to: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The context is Acton’s reply to a letter from Creighton after Acton had reviewed Creighton’s A History of the Papacy (1887).
While Lord A doesn’t seem to be too much of a fan of protestants – he refers to the “general wickedness of men in authority” before going on to name Luther, Calvin, Knox and others, Roman as well – arguably the context of his famous dictum is that both ‘Pope and King must be judged like other men’. Ergo divine right of kings and the infallibility/supremacy of popes might be in view and on the chopping block.
Coming as it does from over on the other side of the fence – Acton was a lifelong member of the Roman church who also opposed the Vatican I of his day – I’ll take it for what it’s worth, any endless CtC litanies of objections notwithstanding.
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D.G. Hart: I wonder if the guys at CTC ever consider this after being awe-struck by papal audacity.
RS: Upon my first and second reading “papal audacity” looked like “paypal audacity.” Perhaps there are a few things in common between the two.
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