A sampling of various Roman Catholic takes on Protestants:
First (@September 1, 2013 at 8:07 am):
And this is why I have repeatedly said that if the Church were what Protestants claim it to be, then there would be no reason to be Christian in the first place. I very much appreciate that Protestants can manage the cognitive dissonance required to sustain that state of affairs, but let’s be clear that it is cognitive dissonance. Under no circumstances can what was produced by the Reformation be reconciled with the Christian Church of the conciliar era. And if there is no such institution remaining, then Christianity is dead, and we’re all just in denial about the fact. So that’s what your argument, if sound, would really prove, that Catholics and Protestants are both in denial about Christianity having died in the early modern era and that its death throes have taken a very long time. If we’re all in denial about history, then the inexorable conclusion is that history shows following Christianity is a fool’s game, indulged only by the foolish and unwise.
. . . Protestantism has done the same thing that the Brennan-led justices did to substantive due process; it takes what was a solution to a crisis based on internal principles (the use of a council to clarify papal selection) and used that to work the annihilation of the underlying framework. This is why Protestants are all liberals, even the “conservative” ones, just as even “conservative” judges are now operating in a framework built by liberals. Denial of the principles of the Church is built into your origin; what you teach was an invention that is not what the Church is or ever was. You would do the same thing to the Church that the liberal judiciary has done to the rule of law: destroy it by sheer imposition of your subjective opinion. Alasdair MacIntyre and Brad Gregory have warned you, but you aren’t listening.
Then this:
Mormonism is another version of Protestantism. Instead of deleting books out of scripture, they added books to scripture, which the template of Protestantism permitted them to do. Who could deny them? Luther? Calvin? Henry VIII? Wesley? Mary Baker Eddy? It might be noted that none of those individual’s consulted the others on breaking away or seeking a method of holiness.
The template of Protestantism is that one can make up one’s own version of religion to suit one’s self by making the scripture say whatever that individual wants it to say.
And to round out (@August 31, 2013 at 1:27 pm) the anti-Protestantism (emerging among some Americans as the new acceptable prejudice):
If there is so much agreement in the Solas, why are there over 23,000 Protestant communities? Apparently, it makes quite a bit of difference to Protestants.
I can’t speak for the rest of the Catholics, but I’m pretty sure they agree that what matters is that:
a. Protestant doctrine contradicts Sacred Tradition.
b. Protestant doctrine contradicts Scripture.
c. Protestant doctrine contradicts the Teaching of the Church.
d. Protestant doctrine is illogical.
e. Protestantism is ahistorical.
That is why I’m Catholic and not Protestant. Whether Protestants agree with each other is besides the point. Even if they agreed with each other, they would simply be agreeing upon errors.
Are their bishops reading? Is Pope Francis who said:
The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.
Old Life 
These commenters need to switch to Sanka. Surely not Callers — too much testosterone.
Only 23,000 sects? Our numbers are down. I thought it was 40,000.
Now if only we can get these clear thinking Catholics to compare Paul on justification to Catholic doctrine…
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Being anti-Zwinglian is still the very most “acceptable prejudice”, even in Southern Baptist schools like Baylor (Barry Harvey) and Southern Seminary (Haykin and Wellum) So defend yourself, dgh, by reminding them that you are not Zwinglian and that you wrote a book on Nevin and that (in your own way) you are relatively”high church”.
You even believe in the “objective spiritual reality” of the “sacraments” which are “marks of the church” in a different way than more subjective “discipline”. Unlike prayer (which is human doing enabled by the Holy Spirit, there are two “sacraments”, you confess. So there’s plenty of room for you in between me ( a Zwinglian sectarian) and Flannery O’Conner (Roman Catholic) who said about the sacrament— if the bread does not really turn into the human flesh of Christ, then to hell with it.
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Wow! Pithiness is not their strong suit…and I thought I was longwinded in comm boxes.
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I think this statement by JJS gets at the underlying problem. JJS seems to dismiss the necessity and efficacy of the HS’s role in guiding the individual believer’s interpretation of scripture. It’s almost as if the church was given the holy spirit and her members were left out.
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Hyperbole. Slop. Jumping the shark. Apparently Crossian logic is only demanding on Protestants. You have to think Stellman is a little embarrassed by stuff like this. I mean the stuff above the quote that pulls the rug out from under CTC.
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It is the profound insights such as “Church is Christ” (from the post quoted above) that leave me wondering if they read what the write.
I am curious (though not enough to post at CCC and read a 15,000 word response in a comm box) as to how far this roman critique of protestant ecclesiology and approach to scripture applies to Judaism. Would one say that the traditions that developed in Judaism effectively served as a safe guard against false teaching? Was there a central teaching office that produced an official “infallible” magisterium? My understanding is that there were different schools of thought and they disagreed, yet there seemed to be people who extracted enough to be on the right track. To what extent could a listener (such as the thief on the cross) “know” that what Christ said was true without access to an infallible magisterium? When Christ appealed to the scriptures and challenged various traditions, who validated the scripture he referenced as canonical? If the group that established the canon erred on other matters that needed reform, how could one know that the canon to which Christ appealed was the right one? If the church cannot stray as Israel did, what is the point of the various warnings that appear all over the NT if the church is perpetually infallible on pronouncements she makes on matters of faith and morals?
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sdb, For what it’s worth, I too like bringing up the question of Jewish standing, ever since I read that as posed by Paul Tilllich a href=”http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=375&C=23″ title=””>here, about 5 paragraphs in.
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http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=375&C=23
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Jason’s blog is attracting a few Roman Catholic laymen who apparently did not get the memo that they are not the infallible interpreters of the magisterium. A couple of them get especially hurt when you point out the holes in their arguments and launch right into ad hominems. They’ve responded similarly on other blogs when they’ve been called out for trying to be the infallible arbiters of heresy.
It’s hard when you’ve spent time constructing an argument only to have it be cut out right from under you when you point out the premises are all wrong. A good many of them are wearing their hearts on their sleeves and twist and turn when they realize their arguments are bunk.
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Judaism as it exists today (Orthodox) has a its center the pentateuch and from there a large collection of books that act as commentaries on the pentateuch taken with various degrees of holiness. Judaism is a religion of practice beliefs are vastly less important. So there is less emphasis on heresy the whole issue of a rigid definition of what is orthodoxy doesn’t matter nearly so much. Conversely there are much much more serious than any Christian sect on issues of Orthopraxy.
Contrary to Mike’s theory though the sects are able to resolve differences between them without an infallible magisterium. They do it through a consensus / tradition based system with learning. So the problem with the CtC argument, is that if you transfer orthodoxy to orthopraxy, Judaism serves as a counter example to their theory. It actually also serves as a fairly good model for how conservative Protestants could end up resolving their issues… one that IMHO conservative Protestants are moving towards accidentally, slowly and reluctantly.
_____
Now if we talk ancient Judaism. The problem with CtC is their theory of ancient Judaism is mostly pure fiction. No Judaism similar to what they claim ever existed. It is like Brigham Young’s Old Testament Mormonism.
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That Catholic polemicist doth protest too much, don’t you think? Another swing and a miss.
Keep ’em coming, D. Hart, low and fast at the knees on the inside corner. Fans of both teams are watching…
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sdb, or as if church dogma are part of the canon, as in continuing revelation.
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AB, thanks for the link. I’ll check that out.
CD- I was thinking more of 1st century Judaism that Jesus was interacting with. Evidently the prophets and Psalms were seen by at least a few of his adversaries as authoritative. By what authority did a Pharisee adopt say Isaiah as canonical?
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sdb, I have been told that the church gave us Scripture. But what about the OT? What church or council gave us the Hebrew Scriptures? Do they think much? Oh, that’s right, that’s what makes Protestantism bad — thinking.
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Robert: Jason’s blog is attracting a few Roman Catholic laymen who apparently did not get the memo that they are not the infallible interpreters of the magisterium.
I simply cannot believe that people who convert to the RCC are immediately self-appointed to argue with the world on the teachings of Rome.
We would not elevate a recent convert to Elder, that takes years to first make sure they have the theology correct, and that their MOST RECENT abandoning of their faith isn’t simply lily-pad hopping in their immature life.
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You’re welcome, sdb. I read the whole thing again, seeing as I’m posting heterodox theological writing. To me, if these CTCers want to argue on grounds that protestants aren’t free to break away, how do they answer the fact that we as Christians broke away from Judaism. To me, this ‘CTC thing’ needs to decrease, not increase, in our attention. It should be a reminder to us for our need to stay sharp. Nothing more.
Later.
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PS this specifically is what I was thinking of, so you can avoid the rest unless you want to read more.
We think of the Reformation. This was a moment in the history of the Church in which the question of authority was once more in the center of events. Luther, and consequently the whole Protestant world, broke away from the Roman Church and from 1500 years of Christian tradition when no agreement about the authority of the pope and the councils could be reached. Here, again, someone had arisen who spoke and acted with an authority the sources of which could not be determined by legal means. And here also we must ask, “Are the Catholic authorities who rejected him in the name of their established authority to be blamed for it?” But if we do not blame them, we can ask them, “Why do you blame the Jewish authorities who did exactly the same as you did when the people said of the Reformers that they spoke with authority and not like the priests and monks?” Is the same thing so different if it is done by the Jewish high priest and if it is done by the Roman high priest? And one may ask the present-day Protestant authorities in Europe and in this country, “Are you certain that the insistence on your authority, on your tradition, and on your experience does not suppress the kind of authority which Jesus had in mind?”
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@dgh now, now – you are free to think…as long as you have the right paradigm. Kind of like you can have any color car you want as long as it’s black.
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Kent,
The key is self-appointed. These former Protestants do not shed entirely their Protestant ways of thinking; i.e., they think they have some kind of right to interpret Scripture and tradition for themselves. Call them on it, and you become a bigot who misunderstands Protestantism.
Meanwhile history inconveniently reminds them that until Luther, Rome killed anyone who even broached the subject of doubting the Magisterium.
And Protestants are the ones who are disconnected from history…
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@sdb
Jews don’t have a Protestant concept of canon where there are a collection of extremely important inerrant writings authored by God and everything else is at a much lower level. The have a series of graduating levels. Nevi’im (“Prophets”) had Isaiah early. There wasn’t much disagreement as to the content (4 early prophets, 4 later prophets including Isaiah and 12 minor prophets). There was disagreement during the time of the Pharisees as to exactly how important, how authoritative Nevi’im are. Sects, like those that evolved to become the Christians, tended to put a lot more emphasis on prophetic writings than the sects that ended up winning. The majority of Jews then treated them as excellent ethical guides, and they are paired with Torah (pentateuch) readings that are on similar themes (list of pairings). “Canon” because you are using it in a Christian sense is carrying with it a lot of Christian / Protestant concepts that are likely to be misleading.
As by what authority, there is no authority needed. By the time of the Pharisees Isaiah’s inclusion in the Nevi’im was just a fact. The Pharisees didn’t do anything with the Nevi’im other than treat it as literature of ceremonial importance for education, (example synagogue services) which the teachers (Rabbis) have full authority over. So they didn’t determine it was canon they just determined it was a good study aide and good commentary on Torah. Finally the declaring of prophets is in the bible explicitly and authority given to the people at large not any institution (in particular not the priesthood). Israel had, and still does judge Isaiah a true prophet so he is listed with the prophets.
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In his book Brutal Unity, Ephraim Radner places the blame NOT SO MUCH on an elusive pattern of secularization (Taylor) or on Protestant fragmentation (Gregory) but instead on the much wider phenomenon of Christian disunity itself, for which there is ample blame to go around. For Radner, of course, Christian disunity is what gave birth to the liberal democratic state.
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I occasionally pop in to see if anything interesting is on. Nope – still bayly boys and now RCs ad infinitum.
Rousting around with Catholics doesn’t do it – I don’t know why dgh bothers, waste of time.
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sbd, but if the pope calls that cat white . . .
just saying.
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CD,
Not sure what inerrancy has to do with canon, nor that canon is a uniquely Christian concept. Clearly there was nothing like a pope, creed, or councils in 1st Century Judaism. My question isn’t what critical theory has to say about this. Rather why doesnt the lack of a pope, etc… ding judaism the way it does protestantism from within the so-called interpretive paradigm of the c2c/ccc folks?
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David, let your put downs be put downs.
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@SDB
Well first off my discussion above would have been perfectly acceptable to religious Jews. What it means to be an educated in the faith is to learn the debates of the Pharisees as they were responding to Judaism as a religion within a supra state (the Greek and then Roman empire), and then later Rabbinic commentaries on those works. Judaism is a religion of practice not belief, it has a much easier time incorporating scholarship into itself and not having a hostile relationship with it. Also critical theory doesn’t have the same kind of hostile relationship with the evolution of Judaism it does with the evolution of Christianity since mostly the religious and the critical scholars are in agreement as to what was happening 322 BCE – 2013 CE. Where religious Jews mostly have problems with critical scholarship is the Persian period and before. Also remember that Spinoza was enormously popular among Jews, so problems with critical scholarship that Christianity wouldn’t have to confront as a popular movement until the 19th century Judaism had to confront from the the 17th century onward. They are more at peace with critical scholarship.
Getting to the main point. AFAIK the CtCers don’t believe that Judaism had any principled way of distinguishing divine revelation from personal opinion. Ultimately what in Judaism was absorbed into Christianity they believe came from the authority of the Catholic Church. So they are dependent on 0 in Judaism directly. Judaism doesn’t have any authority within the CtC frame that Hinduism wouldn’t have had, had Jesus been born Hindu and not Jewish. This contrasts with the Reformed notion that Judaism had viable covenants with God and there is a dependency on those covenants.
So for example the Old Testament canon in Catholicism is what the church councils choose it to be. The 9/12 books in the Catholic canon that were rejected by the Jewish canon don’t trouble them. The extra chapters in some books don’t trouble them. Disagreements between the OT canon and Catholicism don’t trouble them.
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Thanks for not throwing in the towel, David. We’re always here for ya.
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CD,
Sorry I was unclear. I’m not disputing your claims about 1st century Judaism – I just don’t care for the purpose of this conversation. My question isn’t really directed at you so much as the Ctc/CCC folks, and it is really rhetorical. Clearly, Paul believed that the OT books had authority (all scripture is God breathed…) and Jesus believed the OT books had authority (as it was written…). Jesus’s appeal to the OT predates the Church, indeed the way the Gospel’s present his use of the scriptures, the appeal was to a commonly understood shared authority (the debates with the scribes and pharisees weren’t about whether the various texts were relevant or authoritative). It strikes me that the CtC/CCC arguments directed at protestantism would apply similarly to Christ’s/Paul’s use of the OT and thus undermines their argument. If I’m in correct, I’d be interested in hearing from them how their critique of the protestant approach to scripture does not apply to the pre-Church use of the OT.
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sdb,
This is exactly the issue I was trying to get at with MichaelTX in the If You Can’t Stand Superiority, Get Off the Top Shelf post. Unfortunately, like you, I still don’t really have an answer. It seems to me the best out they would have would be some sort of OT shadow/NT reality appeal but such an approach doesn’t square with their rhetoric concerning the canon in every other area.
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@sdb
What I’m saying is AFAIK the CtCers don’t believe the Jews ever had authority of canon. For them the Western Rite OT canon is the correct canon because the church not the Jews declared it to be the canon. So for them if the Jews had a doctrine like sola scriptura and thus the question of canon were important than the same arguments would apply.
But you can always ask the CtCers. They pretty regularly fail to come up with easy refutations to counter arguments.
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<iThe authority crisis you are pointing to in the Catholic Church (which is very real), is not at the level of Catholicism’s theological working principles; but at the level of dissent arising from obstinacy or ignorance.
Been busy and missed this.
Is the rest worth reading, i.e. JStellman opining on On the Magisterium’s (Sort Of) Superiority?
It might seem that for at least a couple of the Called to Confusion bunch – Ray and Jase – implicit faith is not a theological working principle for Romanism.
Neither evidently is invincible ignorance.
Gotta love it. I was worried for a moment, but my fears were realized; I was scared they didn’t know what they were talking about and they have done proved it and horrified me.
IOW we rest our case and resist the proposition tendered that to have the mind of Christ is akin to being a kindergartner.
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The authority crisis you are pointing to in the Catholic Church (which is very real), is not at the level of Catholicism’s theological working principles; but at the level of dissent arising from obstinacy or ignorance.
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Bob S,
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, it doesn’t really matter for the CTC bunch whether the Roman Church ever practices what it preaches. As long as they have a means in theory, all is well. It doesn’t matter if 99.9% of the Roman Church would say “huh?” to this notion of principled difference that solves the problems of Protestantism. It doesn’t matter if the magisterial statements that are supposed to settle things are usually so vague that they raise more questions than they answer. It doesn’t matter if those who promulgated the doctrine of infallibility can be wrong about when they are actually infallible. All that matters is this philosophical theory entirely divorced from history that solves nothing but gives people with philosophy PhDs a little bit easier time falling asleep at night.
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Bob S,
And you’ll love this gem from a Roman Catholic fundamentalist who I’ve been talking to on Jason’s blog:
I am flat out telling you that the popes are not always infallible even when they might think they are infallible.
Rome always has a way out. The deck is stacked, and if we Protestants are confused, there are dozens of infallible lay interpreters of the infallible Magisterium to set us straight.
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@Robert —
Best way to handle that BS IMHO is plain old empirical testing.
Church type 1 is always fallible
Church type 2 is sometimes infallible but is fallible in determining when it is infallible.
Given church X and church Y one of type 1 and one of type 2 what test can I run to tell which is which? If there is no test, then the distinction they aim for is meaningless.
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BTW one more thing I’ve noted… following up on the conversation with Bob S and Robert. If you go to Creed to Cult right now the discussion is on traditional view of salvation vs. annihilationism and universalism and how Catholicism would do better. Except that’s not what the data shows. According to Pew (http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report2religious-landscape-study-chapter-1.pdf)
84% of Protestants believe in Heaven
73% of Protestants believe in Hell
(86/82 for evangelicals only)
vs.
82% of Catholics believe in Heaven
60% of Catholics believe in Hell
In on the very topic being debated on Creed to Cult as an example of Catholic superiority, Evangelical in practice do substantially better than Catholics. CtCism and Catholicism are different religions.
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CD,
What I don’t get is how Church Type 2 does not ultimately collapse int Church Type 1. All that Church Type 2 gives is the ability for the church with that self-understanding to never be wrong when it declares itself infallible. It’s a rigged game when you can say, “well that declaration or understanding was misunderstood to be infallible; now, decades later, we know it to be fallible.”
I could think of half a dozen reasons that are more valid to be Roman Catholic than this load of bunk even though I’m not Roman Catholic. The thing that gets aggravating is this assertion of epistemological certainty and the ability to provide answers that Rome doesn’t actually provide.
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@Robert
That was my point. There is no difference between type 2 and type 1 churches; they are the same thing just phrased differently, synonyms.
And I agree with you on bunk. Weaken many of these claims a bit and you end up stuff that is both true and makes for a positive case.
a) Catholicism was the religion of the early church is false. But
a1) Catholicism was likely the first Christian sect that aimed to be a religion
a2) Catholicism is the oldest church
a3) Catholicism is the dominant form of Christianity from the 3rd century onward
b) Catholicism has a perfect infallible magisterium is false but
b1) Over time Catholicism has developed a track record of working through theological issues in a way that is able to hold up well over generations.
c) All Catholics share one faith is false but
c1) All Catholics believe the magisterium / hierarchy plays an important role in their faith and are willing to give their views a respectful listening and engage with them.
c2) Most Catholics tend to define their faith relative to the magisterium, they see it as a central or launching off point.
etc…
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CD,
Bingo.
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CD,
Yeah, I got your point. My question is why these RC apologists don’t see that there is no difference between a fallible church and an infallible church that is fallible in regards to when it has been infallible.
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@Robert —
Well if I had to guess I’d say because what converted them was coming to believe that they could no longer intellectual defend the faith, like a protestantism demands. Sola scriptura has collapsed for them, but they still want to be able to claim orthodoxy. They don’t want there to just be a variety of churches all equal, all making contradictory claims with no meaningful way to pick between them. So they desperately cling to straws.
Jason talks about losing faith in sola fide and sola scriptura. Bryan talks about losing faith there was any principled distinction about what he believed about the church and what Mormons believe. There is a period of time when someone is losing their faith when they can still desperately cling to straws. I think for the CtCers the straw is that there is any definitely final trustworthy knowable source of revelation. I think they are really and genuinely worried about an alternative that they can never know for certain orthodoxy and are not for life going to be in a world of agnosticism where at best things they believe are likely true.
Jason has said as much when he is talking to SS and to some extent to me. For him Peter has to be Catholic, because if Peter really was something else then the faith Jesus founded really is lost. For Bryan Peter really has to be Catholic, because if Peter really was something else then there Church that Jesus founded really is lost. Their faith is a lot weaker than it seems. The cultural Catholic is desperately holding onto Catholicism he is loosely holding on because they have no fear they will be pulled away.
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Well, Robert, what’s the secret password to keep the comments from blacking out over at the mirror site for CalledToConfusion? Or do you turn on email notification and allow your inbox to overflow with the idiocy?
When management turns out the lights, it makes it kind of difficult to keep up one’s end of the . . . “discussion” of the paradigm that may not be questioned
Empiricism? Did somebody say empiricism?
Hey, all I know is if I close my eyes, I can’t read CDH’s posts. He must be some kind of demonic electronic figment of the innurnet.
Works for me.
cheers
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Bob S,
I wonder about all these shady characters of the interwebs. Including myself at times…(emoticon).
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Andrew, I used to worry about myself until I realized that really was me up there on the interweb. So, now I’m no longer worried but for some reason everyone else is alarmed
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Sean,
Well said. I blame the puritans, whose writings also played a part of where yours truly types from on his smart phone.
In the introspection of Owen,
Andrew
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Bob,
It seems that the C2C guys and their ilk can’t really handle the snark. They let Dr. Hart’s comments through without moderation, but I suspect that’s because converting him would be a real jewel in their crown. Just think of the front page headlines that would make there. I can imagine it now:
“I fought the principled distinction and the principled distinction won.”
I was talking to one guy who comments there but isn’t part of the crew. He would go on and on about how Calvin was one of the worst villains of history (up there with Marx) who intentionally destroyed the common good. He’d also talk about Reformed thinkers being a bunch of simpletons who do not know history and can’t possibly claim to be in line with the earliest church councils. After months of attempting to dialogue with him and giving him the benefit of the doubt I told him his arguments were absurd, dishonest, and asinine (as in foolish). That made me a hatemonger but somehow sullying the reputations of Calvin and even modern Reformed thinkers with no evidence offered makes him a saint. It’s quite amusing.
They can dish it out, but they can’t take it. And they especially get all huffy when you point out they are not judging their own arguments by the same standards they judge Protestants.
I wouldn’t update them with your email, however, unless you relish loads of infallible lay interpretation of the infallible and perspicuous Magisterium. Too bad these guys are married. We could use some fine thinking among the ranks of the bishopric and some better writing to justify the current pope’s off the cuff remarks when they sound suspiciously post-modern and anti-Roman Catholic. But then again, there’s always an out. The pope is not necessarily infallible whenever he thinks he’s infallible.
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Case in point my latest little exchange on Creed2Cult. TRobert is having to argue whether Calvin slight changes in wording in traditional trinitarian formulations did or did not indicate slight deviations in doctrine, which everyone agrees that modern Reformed don’t hold to. Conversely they openly hate the Judaism of Jesus’ time while wanting to claiming continuity with it.
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@Robert —
It occurs to me that Sister Carol Keehan’s break with Cardinal Dolan over the Health Care Bill is a good example of a violation of AC2. You had two Catholic figures of some importance with opinions on a theological issue. They had to determine whether certain institutional behaviors were or were not procuring contraception. Dolan and Keehan disagreed. Dolan lost and Catholic policy followed Keehan.
They might argue that the practice of the church in theory is Dolan’s even though the practice of the church in practice is Keehan’s but I can’t see how this isn’t a clear AC2 violation. She’s even been called the head of the “magisterium of nuns” because of this fight.
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CD,
Careful there, that C2C crowd can’t handle it when you start using actual verifiable evidence about how the theory works in practice.
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