One shrug:
One of the most common takeaways from Synod 2015 is that it revealed deep “divisions” within the Catholic Church. While I will suggest that “divisions” is too strong a word, no one can deny that Synod 2015 demonstrated the existence of strong theological tensions within the body of Catholic bishops, and that this in turn points to disturbingly pronounced and conflicting conceptions within the Catholic faithful of what Catholic belief and practice is or ought to be. What did the evident tensions at Synod 2015 mean for the Church? What does the reality of ever more diverse and conflictive creedal alignments among the baptized mean, particularly for the Church in the US? Herewith, I offer some thoughts on both questions. . . .
[W]e can say here that we have come with some confidence to believe that a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into Christianity’s misbegotten step-cousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This has happened in the minds and hearts of many individual believers, and, it also appears, within the structures of at least some Christian organizations and institutions. The language, and therefore experience, of Trinity, holiness, sin, grace, justification, sanctification, church, Eucharist, and heaven and hell appear… to be supplanted by the language of happiness, niceness, and an earned heavenly reward. It is not so much that U.S. Christianity is being secularized. Rather, more subtly, Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith.
Now, replace “Christianity” with “Catholicism” and “Christian” with “Catholic” in that paragraph, and I would suggest this describes the essential creed of thousands of American Catholics.
Such then is the complexity of our Church in the United States. As members of that Body, particularly as ministers, catechists, pastors and evangelists, we simply must understand—with serenity and faith—that this complexity generates tensions, and those tensions will likely continue to characterize the Church in the US for decades to come.
One might be tempted to ask whether we as a Church are not on the cusp of going the way of Judaism—as recently suggested by Daniel McGuire—a religion with “branches”—orthodox, conservative and reform. Do we today have “branches of Catholicism” in the Church? I think not. But tensions we do have, because Catholics embrace conflicting and even incompatible creedal commitments.
What to make of all this? Shall we despair? Shall orthodox Catholics allow themselves to be overcome by a bunker mentality—all the rest be damned? If we have taken it to heart that “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,” then most assuredly, no. Rather, beyond the synods and beyond the tensions, let’s keep our focus on living a robust, orthodox and joyful Catholic faith—extending to our Catholic brothers and sisters who have yet to experience it, the means and opportunities for a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. Let’s do that with trust in the transforming power of his grace, the inscrutable depths of his Divine Mercy, and the sanctifying action of his Holy Spirit.
Two shrugs:
One of the most troubling things about American Catholics is their tendency to go off the deep end.
Conservative Catholics who are upset about the condition of the church and think Pope Francis is evil incarnate seem to be proliferating. . . .
I would therefore recommend to any Catholics who are in turmoil because the present pope isn’t to their liking or their church is not what they want or their bishop unsatisfactory to read some church history. Eamonn Duffy’s history of the papacy Saints and Sinners is a good one. When you read history of the church you’ll realize that turmoil and trouble have been with us since the time of the apostles. Might as well get used to it.
Does that mean you shouldn’t be upset or worried? No. Does that mean one should be complacent about heresy, corruption within and persecution from without? No. Be worried. That’s okay if it leads you to pray more.
What is troublesome is how much time people spend biting their nails and grumbling and posting angry blog articles or getting all worked up into a tizzy about stuff they can’t really do much about anyway.
This is one of the reasons I’ve started my new blog The Suburban Hermit –to get people to spend some time away from the church politics headlines, away from the head banging and nail biting and to try to build their life with Christ and deepen their life of prayer.
More time in work, prayer and reading (the Benedictine formula) will bring stability to your life. You’ll come to realize again, but at a heart level, that God is in charge. He loves his church. Everything will be all right in the end, and you can breathe easy.
Three shrugs:
You are worried about phantoms. The Church cannot alter the sacraments. The most that may happen is that the Church will face the fact that Caesar has decided to pretend that there is such a thing as gay marriage and that people involved in such arrangements require some form of pastoral care. Would you rather the Church simply reject them and their children? Christ comes to call not the righteous, but sinners. So that’s not an option. The desire of some Catholics to cut people off from the very opportunity of grace is as old as Donatism. The Church as a fortress and an engine of vengeance is not the gospel. She is bound to seek the lost.
Part of the problem is that people have no idea what this Synod is about. It is, like all conciliar actions, a time when the Church “holds herself in suspense” as Bp. Robert Barron puts it, and makes up her mind about things. It is supposed to hear from all sides so that it can sift wheat from chaff. The pope did something similar when drafting Humanae Vitae, consulting theologians who urged him to ditch the Church’s ancient tradition about artificial contraception. He declined to do so.
What this come down to is a test of your trust, not in Francis, but in Jesus Christ’s promise that the Holy Spirit will guide the Church into all truth. It is He, not Francis, who is the soul of the Church.
With that kind of resolve, faith, and hope, you’d have thought these folks could have overlooked all of Protestantism’s woes. But Protestantism is not the New York Yankees of Western Christianity.
Old Life 
“Such then is the complexity of our Church in the United States. ”
And fortunately the church is not confined to some subset of bishops in America or Germany.
“When you read history of the church you’ll realize that turmoil and trouble have been with us since the time of the apostles. Might as well get used to it.”
That’s a bingo.
“Does that mean you shouldn’t be upset or worried? No. Does that mean one should be complacent about heresy, corruption within and persecution from without? No. Be worried. That’s okay if it leads you to pray more.”
Apparently this is equivalent to “shrugging”.
“The Church cannot alter the sacraments … It is supposed to hear from all sides so that it can sift wheat from chaff. The pope did something similar when drafting Humanae Vitae, consulting theologians who urged him to ditch the Church’s ancient tradition about artificial contraception. He declined to do so.”
That’s a bingo. There was conflict and opposition with HV. And with Vat2. And with Vat1. And on down the line. But this synod is special for some reason. Chicken littlers deserve shrugging.
“What this come down to is a test of your trust, not in Francis, but in Jesus Christ’s promise that the Holy Spirit will guide the Church into all truth. It is He, not Francis, who is the soul of the Church.”
Yup. Cool.
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James Young, but you don’t know Jesus without the Pope. Sorry, that’s how your infallible guys taught it. So don’t go all Protestant on us.
Yup.
And while I have you, why was the church able to condemn Luther, Pelagians, Jansenists — the list goes on. But now it shrugs, who am I to judge?
“who am I to judge” is catchy.
But you missed the point. If you can shrug away all that, why not shrug away Protestantism’s lack of infallibility? On some things you don’t shrug, you your own pope you.
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CVD:
“What this come down to is a test of your trust, not in Francis, but in Jesus Christ’s promise that the Holy Spirit will guide the Church into all truth. It is He, not Francis, who is the soul of the Church.”
Yup. Cool.>>>>
Yes. Truth that Protestants really should not shrug off or play dodge ball with.
That’s John 17 territory. Maybe now would be a good time for some sola scripturaist to address Jesus’ words and explain how the Holy Spirit leads your group into all truth? What mechanism do yo have for resolving conflicts? Can you defend that mechanism from Scripture?
You are watching the mechanism that the Catholic Church has used for a long, long time, now. It is no mystery why some are pointing out the obvious.
Why do you care so much, Brother Hart? I mean, you can be happy in the OPC without even thinking about Catholicism, can’t you? Very few Protestants, even Reformed Protestants, exhibit this level of anti Catholicism anymore.
The OPC even quit calling the Pope “antichrist.” The OPC website says very little about the Catholic Church. Why are you obsessed? Is it a kind of mal de muchos thing? Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos.
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Darryl,
“but you don’t know Jesus without the Pope.”
You mean I don’t know Jesus without STM-triad. Is the Arian or Mormon or Monophysite or adoptionist or Gnostic Jesus worth knowing?
“why was the church able to condemn Luther, Pelagians, Jansenists — the list goes on. But now it shrugs, who am I to judge?”
The church is not the pope – that’s a reason the article you cited called out Duffy’s work. And the church condemned those positions, it didn’t necessarily condemn all adherents of those positions as culpability is not equivalent to merely external form.
““who am I to judge” is catchy.”
As Shea wrote, “Christ comes to call not the righteous, but sinners. So that’s not an option. The desire of some Catholics to cut people off from the very opportunity of grace is as old as Donatism. The Church as a fortress and an engine of vengeance is not the gospel. She is bound to seek the lost.”
“who am I to judge” does not equate to “the Church can change the sacraments and dogma doesn’t matter” (as if the liturgy doesn’t reflect dogma). As Francis also said in his comments to the woman’s question on communion, “I wouldn’t ever dare to allow this, because it’s not my competence.”
“If you can shrug away all that, why not shrug away Protestantism’s lack of infallibility?”
The same reason in NT times I wouldn’t shrug away a synagogue rabbi’s admitted lack of infallibility when Christ and the Apostles were standing next to him.
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Mermaid,
What mechanism do yo have for resolving conflicts?
Depends on the denomination. In the OPC it falls to the general assembly.
The mechanism exists; all we’re saying is that the mechanism isn’t automatically correct whenever it makes a decision, which is the Romanist position we keep hearing here. But the fact that so many conservative RCs are actually worried about Francis and that now we have to see people say “Don’t worry, trust God,” shows that for all the vaunted claims of infallibility, people who live on planet earth know that the church can’t be automatically correct just because it makes a decision.
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Cletus,
The same reason in NT times I wouldn’t shrug away a synagogue rabbi’s admitted lack of infallibility when Christ and the Apostles were standing next to him.
But for the umpteenth time, the church is not Christ. If you want to make that claim, fine. But that then means no selective infallibility. It’s all or nothing.
And BTW, whatever happened to your going three rounds with Jeff on the “Everything in Moderation” thread?
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Unity, brother. The internet apologist-prot convert-trad-american RC’s need to ‘splain how this unity is ‘posed to work to the german and african bishops. If I keep pushing the tent pegs out far enough, I can unite darn near anything. And If I can marry St. Ignatian spirituality with rahnerianism layered over the top of a thomism nobody finally understands, I can say anything. Including, ‘I saw our lady in that burnt tortilla! Who are you to judge?!’ A aaa a a a a men.
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Robert
Posted November 17, 2015 at 4:35 pm | Permalink
Mermaid,
What mechanism do yo have for resolving conflicts?
Depends on the denomination. In the OPC it falls to the general assembly.
The mechanism exists; all we’re saying is that the mechanism isn’t automatically correct whenever it makes a decision, which is the Romanist position we keep hearing here. But the fact that so many conservative RCs are actually worried about Francis and that now we have to see people say “Don’t worry, trust God,” shows that for all the vaunted claims of infallibility, people who live on planet earth know that the church can’t be automatically correct just because it makes a decision.>>>>
Aw, Brother Robert, I live on planet earth, and in the heavenlies where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. As you know, we have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God. I like where I am – on planet earth and in heaven all at once by the mystery of Christ.
The Church has made no decisions on the subjects that Pope Francis has opened up for discussion. He believes that they are legitimate topics. He is asking the theologians to weigh in. The Church is not dodging serious issues.
The vaunted claims of infallibility are based on Jesus’ promises in John 16 & 17. Add the Apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 4 to the mix.
What part do John 16 & 17 play in the process you use as a denomination?
How can the Holy Spirit lead in a fallible way when He is guiding into all truth? He does not do that in a fallible way because He is not fallible.
Now, you do not believe that the Catholic Church is being led by the Spirit.
Do you believe that the Holy Spirit leads Christ’s Church fallibly or infallibly?
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“But Protestantism is not the New York Yankees of Western Christianity.” Based on this year’s performance, are you sure about that?
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Mermaid, I care because people like you are clueless. Sober up, recognize your church’s woes and why others don’t convert, and don’t be condescending. Then I’m good with you at least.
As I said, Bryan and the Jasons started this.
If everything is fine, why do you care about little old me?
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James Young, so you only submit to infallible authority. Cool. Call yourself an orphan.
Why so timid? People who hold Lutheran or Calvinist positions are heretics. Heresy is a mortal sin. Mortal sin receives eternal judgment. On your view of the church, Rome would never have approved of the Crusades or the Inquisition. Let people believe whatever they want. Except for infallibility.
The pope is not the church? Well, the pope is not Jesus or the apostles. The STM triad is only window dressing for your doubts about the biblical testimony to Mary and infallibility. It’s a triad when it’s convenient. Its the papacy when Protestants are in the room.
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Mermaid, ” As you know, we have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God.”
You don’t know that. Have you confessed all your sins? Are you sure?
#rememberpurgatory
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 17, 2015 at 7:23 pm | Permalink
Mermaid, I care because people like you are clueless.
So saith the David Barton of anti-Catholicism, who gets all his info from trolling blogs on the internet looking for gotchas.
Have you found out what’s actually in the Rosary yet, Dr. Hart? The difference between the Eucharist of 2000 years of Christian history and “the Lord’s supper” of your version of the Christian religion?
Stick around, there are people trying to remediate your confusions so you’ll stop embarrassing yourself. If you do the book on Catholicism you’re threatening to write, you’ll be laughed out of your profession.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 17, 2015 at 3:59 pm | Permalink
“who am I to judge” is catchy.
But you missed the point.
No, you did. Pope Francis was not approving of homosexuality; he was refusing to condemn the person.
Do you people ever actually read this thing?
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/John/Jesus-Forgives-Woman-Taken
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Mermaid,
What part do John 16 & 17 play in the process you use as a denomination?
The OPC trusts that the Spirit will use Scripture to guide the church into truth.
How can the Holy Spirit lead in a fallible way when He is guiding into all truth? He does not do that in a fallible way because He is not fallible.
Nothing the Holy Spirit does He does fallibly. The issue isn’t the Spirit’s fallibility; the issue is the church’s fallibility. It does not follow that if the church is fallible that the Holy Spirit is leading in a fallible manner.
Do you believe that the Holy Spirit leads Christ’s Church fallibly or infallibly?
I believe that the Holy Spirit guides the church and that His church hears His voice. The church has no need of a gift of infallibility to teach the truth, nor has one been promised. The church is also not limited to a single visible institution. And a church with nominal same-home-office-but-no-dogmatic-unity like Rome is not being guided by the Holy Spirit, though I have no doubt there are many fine Christians sitting in Roman Catholic Churches. They are Christians in spite of Rome’s errors at Trent and elsewhere.
I don’t need to know that the church arrived at conclusion X by an infallible process. I simply need to know that conclusion X is true. And there is no Apostolic mandate that I determine that conclusion X is true because the pope said so no matter how ridiculous the exegesis or empty the tradition.
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Darryl,
“People who hold Lutheran or Calvinist positions are heretics. Heresy is a mortal sin. Mortal sin receives eternal judgment.”
Conflates the distinction between material and formal heresy. Also conflates mortal sin with only 1 of the 3 conditions for mortal sin – grave matter. The 2 others are person-variable that only God is privy to, hence why the church has never declared someone to be in hell, and why it has affirmed various possible ways of salvation for those who are not formal members of the church.
“The pope is not the church? Well, the pope is not Jesus or the apostles.”
Nope, but the apostles and those they appointed had divine authority granted by Christ. Which the Magisterium also claims.
“It’s a triad when it’s convenient. Its the papacy when Protestants are in the room.”
Nope, STM-triad attest to each other and form a coherent and consistent rule of faith. Reducing it to Pope-alone doesn’t do that, hence why it’s not advanced by RCs, irrespective of Protestants in the room.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 17, 2015 at 7:23 pm | Permalink
Mermaid, I care because people like you are clueless. Sober up, recognize your church’s woes and why others don’t convert, and don’t be condescending. Then I’m good with you at least.
As I said, Bryan and the Jasons started this.
If everything is fine, why do you care about little old me?>>>>
Brother Rambro, I appreciate your concern for my clueless self. 😉 Thank you for your response. Hmmm. Am I here to try to make you convert to the Catholic Church? Not really, though I think you would make a good Catholic.
I always learn more from people I disagree with. So, I remain a mystery to you. I like that. 😉
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Cletus,
hence why the church has never declared someone to be in hell
Oh please. “Well, we never SAID Luther was in hell, just that anyone who believes what Luther taught would be cursed by God.”
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Robert
Posted November 17, 2015 at 8:47 pm | Permalink
Cletus,
hence why the church has never declared someone to be in hell
Oh please. “Well, we never SAID Luther was in hell, just that anyone who believes what Luther taught would be cursed by God.”
Robert, you’ve been a real straight shooter around here over and above the theological disagreements. You could be right on this, but to shoot straight, you’ve got to do the serious homework that Dr. Hart and the Old Life crew refuse to do, and come up with direct quotes. I’m unaware of any ex cathedra pronouncement that Martin Luther or any of his followers are in Hell.
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Tom,
I’m unaware of any ex cathedra pronouncement that Martin Luther or any of his followers are in Hell.
The council of Trent anathematizes many Lutheran beliefs. Ergo, anyone who holds those beliefs at death is in hell now. Rome doesn’t seek to kill heretic Luther if his beliefs don’t send people to hell.
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Robert
Posted November 17, 2015 at 9:00 pm | Permalink
Tom,
I’m unaware of any ex cathedra pronouncement that Martin Luther or any of his followers are in Hell.
The council of Trent anathematizes many Lutheran beliefs. Ergo, anyone who holds those beliefs at death is in hell now. Rome doesn’t seek to kill heretic Luther if his beliefs don’t send people to hell.
Do you know what “anathema” means in this context? Don’t buy Dr. Hart’s [questionable] understanding of Catholicism. Do the homework that he doesn’t do, and find out for yourself.
That’s the Protestant way, right? Take nobody’s word for anything. 😉
Well, good. I don’t think you’ll find “Martin Luther resides in Hell” as Catholic doctrine. The Catholic Church prays that all will be saved, for one thing.
And as for Luther’s spawn, it is the Catholic Church doing the reaching out, the reconciliation, the healing. And, interestingly enough, some of the Lutherans reciprocating.
If Luther was a “reformer,” don’t you think he would have approved of this?
JOINT DECLARATION
ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION
by the Lutheran World Federation
and the Catholic Church
Perhaps not a miracle, but damned close.
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Your “ergo” was a non sequitur. Anathema does not entail one is irrevocably condemned to hell; it entails one has cut themselves off from the church, that is, excommunicated from the church they were a formal member of. Grave matter alone is not sufficient for mortal sin, nor are all those in error formal heretics. Thus we see throughout history Rome defining solemn dogmas in contrast to heresies using the anathema qualifier, without ever once teaching any specific person is absolutely in hell.
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Cletus van Damme
Posted November 17, 2015 at 9:31 pm | Permalink
Your “ergo” was a non sequitur. Anathema does not entail one is irrevocably condemned to hell; it entails one has cut themselves off from the church, that is, excommunicated from the church they were a formal member of. Grave matter alone is not sufficient for mortal sin, nor are all those in error formal heretics. Thus we see throughout history Rome defining solemn dogmas in contrast to heresies using the anathema qualifier, without ever once teaching any specific person is absolutely in hell.
Researching/counter-checking the Old Life blog’s claims about “anathemas,” this is what I found as well. The Catholic Church wishes not a single soul to Hell, not even those who [think they] hate it.
You may have to unspool this one slowly for those who have been accepting what Dr. Hart has been writing [wrongly] about the Catholic Church, but I trust they will and do have the ears to hear. Mt 21:31. They make a lot of noise but they betray themselves by making too much noise!
The Catholic Church condemned me! The Catholic Church condemned me! Look at me! Look at MEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Easy there, fella. You flatter yourself. Heretics are as common as fleas. Yes, you are noticed. But only when you bite.
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TVD, Cletus, Little Mermaid, you three, of the fake name club, you all provide wonderful reasons not to join your club, you anti-Protestants.
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Shea is the former geek-turned-buffoon, Longenecker the Anglican who always wanted to be called “Father,” and Berg the cradle Catholic who believes “The Church is always right, sonny….” Gag.
The absolutely most unattractive sides of Modern Catholicism, esp. Shea, who is a cross between Hillary Clinton and Bryan Cross. Lord, please stop linking to him. A truer take can be found here…
https://ebougis.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/how-many-p-p-m-of-feces-do-you-like-in-your-rocky-road-ice-cream/
Or int eh writings of Amerio or DeMattei.
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@cvd
” without ever once teaching any specific person is absolutely in hell. ”
Yet an official church creed says,
“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly… his is the catholic faith; which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved.”
I know the teaching has changed to add all sorts of qualifiers about culpability, but that wasn’t always the case.
Indeed, looking at the 6th ec council’s statement on pope h, “And with these we define that there shall be expelled from the holy Church of God and anathematized Honorius who was some time Pope of Old Rome,”
Of course the word anathema here has the same root as accursed and indicated that the subject was no longer part of the “society of the faithful”. Clearly this wasn’t to spur Honorius onto repentance…he was dead, and if not of “the society of the faithful ” not on the way to purgatory. ..sounds a lot like teaching a specific person is in hell. But of course these i fallible teachings have changed…
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Matt
Posted November 18, 2015 at 12:23 am | Permalink
TVD, Cletus, Little Mermaid, you three, of the fake name club, you all provide wonderful reasons not to join your club, you anti-Protestants.
Tom Van Dyke, @dykevantom, pleased to meet you, Matt. Google my ass.
They all know me here. Dr. Hart knows precisely who I am. Even pretends to know my private religious faith and practice. And tries to use it as weapon against me.
So don’t go there, OK? You have no idea what you’re dealing with.
Who the hell are you, “Matt?” Please disclose, brother. Cowboy up or shut up, with all due respect.
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sdb
Posted November 18, 2015 at 12:50 am | Permalink
@cvd
” without ever once teaching any specific person is absolutely in hell. ”
Yet an official church creed says,
“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish everlastingly… his is the catholic faith; which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved.”
I know the teaching has changed to add all sorts of qualifiers about culpability, but that wasn’t always the case.
Indeed, looking at the 6th ec council’s statement on pope h, “And with these we define that there shall be expelled from the holy Church of God and anathematized Honorius who was some time Pope of Old Rome,”
Even though you have your theological head up your ass, Brother SDB, the Catholic Church still prays that you will be saved.
So deal with that and cut the crap. You want to be hated and damned but instead you are loved and prayed for, you beloved asshole, you. 😉
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vd, t, “Pope Francis was not approving of homosexuality; he was refusing to condemn the person.”
You’re safe.
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James Young, kings have divine authority. Parents have divine authority.
They’re not infallible.
Take some valium.
And is the distinction between formal and material heresy infallible dogma?
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Mermaid, your reason is mysterious (if not evident). You yourself are predictable.
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Robert, it’s the Mr. Rogers church. We don’t condemn anyone — anathemas, Crusades, Inquisition, Index of Books? We only determine the saints (for the right amount of money).
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vd, t, Yes, “anathema” worked out real well for John Hus.
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James Young, puhleeze. “They cut themselves off.” You mean the way Gregory VII deposed Henry IV? Henry IV removed himself? Do you hear yourself?
And excommunication is only a removal from formal membership. What, do you go to Willow Creek Community Church? Step up, man! Show some of that weightiness that attracts all the Protestants.
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Joe M., but James Young was all lovey-dovey before Pope Francis.
Odd how the other RC’s here never answer the RC critics of Rome.
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TVD: You want to be hated and damned but instead you are loved and prayed for, you beloved asshole, you.
I have to say, Tom, you are the only person on Old Life that I can think of that regularly calls people “asshole”, “arrogant ass”, “moral imbecile”, “bastard”, “ignorant slut”, etc.
When I am teaching the Caglets how to love one another, one of the basic lessons is that name-calling is off-limits.
Why is a grown man like you doing that?
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Cletus,
.Anathema does not entail one is irrevocably condemned to hell; it entails one has cut themselves off from the church, that is, excommunicated from the church they were a formal member of. Grave matter alone is not sufficient for mortal sin, nor are all those in error formal heretics. Thus we see throughout history Rome defining solemn dogmas in contrast to heresies using the anathema qualifier, without ever once teaching any specific person is absolutely in hell.
So if one is excommunicated they should not believe that they are probably going to hell if they don’t repent? What in the world is the process for anathematizing or excommunicating anyone then?
Basically this newfangled reading of anathema means that nobody whom Rome excommunicates should worry about the state of their soul. I guess that makes Arius orthodox.
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Robert,
You don’t know? That the “you” of “He will guide you into all the truth” is the same “you” of the previous verse, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”
The “Church” wasn’t in the Upper Room. The apostles were, and the Holy Spirit guided them, and them alone, into all the truth. You hold it in your hands every Sunday.
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Robert, listen up:
So Rome is really good at defining things. But none of the words correspond to spiritual realities. It’s just talk which sometimes means mean things and then it doesn’t.
Explains vd, t.
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No one of note,
That’s interesting – so the promise only applies to those that were there. I guess that means all the commands and promises Christ gave to believers in the NT only applied to his direct audience and future generations can ignore them and are out of luck. And I guess there was therefore no guarantee the church was guided in recognizing and identifying what you hold in your hands every Sunday is actually correct and true.
sdb,
“shall be expelled from the holy Church of God” – not “is burning in hell right now”. Anathemas and church trials are not infallible nor do they entail someone is definitely in hell or will definitely be in hell – e.g. Joan of Arc.
Darryl,
“kings have divine authority. Parents have divine authority. They’re not infallible.”
They don’t have apostolic authority that the apostles and those they appointed did. Christ did not promise that those listening to and receiving parents and kings hear and receive Christ or that parents and kings will be guided into all truth or that parents and kings are sent as Christ was sent and so on.
“Henry IV removed himself?”
If he repented, the anathema and excommunication would be lifted, just as it would have been with Luther who was given 3 years after the theses to recant and multiple opportunities. So yes, he removed himself by persisting in obstinate sin.
Robert,
“So if one is excommunicated they should not believe that they are probably going to hell if they don’t repent?”
Why do you conclude that? Nothing I said implies that. Excommunication is a big deal – just because it isn’t an irrevocable sentence to hell doesn’t entail it’s meaningless.
“What in the world is the process for anathematizing or excommunicating anyone then?”
To spur them to repentance. If excommunication entailed an irrevocable sentence to hell, the counter-reformation was a complete waste of time in trying to convert former members back to the church.
“Basically this newfangled reading of anathema means that nobody whom Rome excommunicates should worry about the state of their soul.”
Does not follow at all from what I said. Just because there’s a possibility someone excommunicated is not condemned to hell does not mean it’s guaranteed they won’t be condemned, or that it is even likely that they won’t be condemned.
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TVD,
He probably didn’t approve for the same reason the confessional Lutheran churches don’t approve.
http://www.ilc-online.org/2014/01/28/new-resource-available-a-review-of-lwf-hermeneutics/
If no one can stop you from saying “the Reformed aren’t Catholic” who can stop the LCMS (part of the ILC) from saying “the LWF isn’t Luther-an”?
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James Young, butch up. The pope imposed deposition. He was not passive. That was the point.
You have yet to show that the ones the apostles appointed were infallible. It’s not even clear that Christ’s appointment of the apostles involved infallibility all the time — it only applied to Scripture.
Your claims for infallibility get weaker and more desperate. Why not shrug it off? It works for so much else in Roman Catholicism.
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Cletus,
So, excommunication for Rome means that as far as the church is concerned, the excommunicated person is on his way to hell apart from repentance. Of course, the church may be wrong, in its estimation, but according to its infallibly declared dogma and its best reading of the human heart according to human actions, the excommunicated person should have no confidence that he is in a state of grace and will be eternally condemned unless he repents.
So it’s not an “irrevocable sentence to hell,” it’s a “We are 99.9 percent sure you are going to hell based on the information we have.”
It’s a distinction without a difference. By anathematizing and excommunicating, Rome is stating that said person is on their way to hell and that the only real way back is to repent and be restored to the church.
So Trent’s anathemas basically mean that Protestants are on their way to hell, especially those Protestants who are not invincibly ignorant.
IOW, my essential point stands. And if what I have said about excommunication is true, then according to Rome’s dogma and its best reading of the human heart by human actions, someone like Pelosi is almost certainly on her way to heaven. She hasn’t been excommunicated, after all.
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CVD,
Right…this is also exactly what Protestants claim about the teaching of the church. Even though the teaching of the church isn’t infallible, that “doesn’t entail it’s meaningless.”
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Darryl,
“It’s not even clear that Christ’s appointment of the apostles involved infallibility all the time — it only applied to Scripture.”
So is it clear or is it not? Can you demonstrate that from Scripture?
Robert,
“Rome is stating that said person is on their way to hell and that the only real way back is to repent and be restored to the church.”
Rome is stating that a person who holds such a position is in error. Material heresy is not formal heresy. Nor does being in error or holding heretical beliefs entail you are guilty of mortal sin.
“So Trent’s anathemas basically mean that Protestants are on their way to hell, especially those Protestants who are not invincibly ignorant.”
No, it means Protestants are in error. Those who are not invincibly ignorant are more culpable and in more danger. And Trent’s anathemas applied to formal members of the church holding and promoting those teachings, not those who never were members of it in the first place.
“And if what I have said about excommunication is true, then according to Rome’s dogma and its best reading of the human heart by human actions, someone like Pelosi is almost certainly on her way to heaven. She hasn’t been excommunicated, after all.”
Does not follow at all. Someone can be in mortal sin without being excommunicated. This is obvious – people going to confession every week are not just those who were excommunicated.
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James Young, I’m not the one making the claim. You need to show me. Yup.
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Walton
Posted November 18, 2015 at 11:13 am | Permalink
TVD,
And as for Luther’s spawn, it is the Catholic Church doing the reaching out, the reconciliation, the healing. And, interestingly enough, some of the Lutherans reciprocating.
If Luther was a “reformer,” don’t you think he would have approved of this?
JOINT DECLARATION
ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION
by the Lutheran World Federation
and the Catholic Church
Walton:
He probably didn’t approve for the same reason the confessional Lutheran churches don’t approve.
http://www.ilc-online.org/2014/01/28/new-resource-available-a-review-of-lwf-hermeneutics/
If no one can stop you from saying “the Reformed aren’t Catholic” who can stop the LCMS (part of the ILC) from saying “the LWF isn’t Luther-an”?>>>>>>>
Very interesting comment, Walton. Do you think that Luther really wanted independence or at least greater autonomy for a German church?
Just wondering what the geopolitical motivations may have been for Luther’s actions. He was a complicated man. Not sure he would have wanted the kind of splintering that has happened, even among Lutheran churches.
What particular points of the joint statement on justification would you be in disagreement with? I know you linked to a website, but what do you think?
Even more than what Luther may or may not have thought of the joint statement, what would Jesus have thought about it? Or the Apostle Paul?
I am just not sure why Protestants are so resistant to Pauline doctrine as clearly stated in Ephesians 4:1-6. I can understand why Protestants resist Catholicism. It is what you do – and what I did. I get that.
What I no longer get is why there are so many Lutheran denominations, all of them disagreeing with one another and claiming to represent what Luther really taught.
…or Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Wesleyan, or Pentecostal, or you fill in the blank.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 18, 2015 at 6:49 am | Permalink
Mermaid, your reason is mysterious (if not evident). You yourself are predictable.>>>>
Well, your reason for writing what you do is evident and predictable even though you claim that someone else started this. Still, I am learning from you and from your followers. For that I thank you, Brother Hart.
This is a testing ground for me. BTW, I have never claimed to be a Catholic apologist. You are right. I am not good at that kind of thing. I am doing this for myself. I learn something new every day, and you are facilitating that.
I really like being Catholic. No, I love being Catholic. If you guys are not able to quench that love, then that means something to me. In fact, you guys can’t make me even dislike you guys. If you are happy in your faith, then I am happy for you.
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Well, the everything in moderation thread seems broken. Can’t post. So will post here.
sdb,
The assent of faith is not given to fallible teachings. It is given to divine revelation – that is, infallible teachings. I have no good reason to give the assent of faith to teachings offered as provisional or tentative or probable – that would just be fideism. That does not mean one shouldn’t give deference, respect, submission to fallible teachings from the church any more than it means I shouldn’t submit to fallible parents, teachers, civil authorities.
Scripture being chief judge is a doctrine in WCF offered as nothing more than provisional by its own disclaimer that it has no authority or ability to define irreformable doctrine. Everyone here agrees the canon of Scripture as defined in WCF is provisional. As they should, given WCF’s disclaimers already adduced concerning the nature of churches and synods. The teaching of Scripture as chief judge does not escape this disclaimer any more than the teaching of the canon does.
“there is no advantage I see assuming either is true.”
So there’s no advantage NT Joe had submitting to Christ/Apostles claims to authority and infallible teachings over Jack submitting to synagogue rabbi Levi’s claims to no such authority and his admitted fallible and provisional teachings. Since both Joe and Jack were fallible, there was no advantage. There’s also no advantage a reader of Finnegan’s Wake had with Joyce sitting next to him giving clarification and confirmation, compared to someone without Joyce next to him, since both readers are fallible.
Bob,
“can you distinguish between admitting the possibility of error and committing error?”
Yes. Divine revelation is inerrant as everyone agrees. So a teaching of such should be offered as inerrant, not as possible or susceptible to error. WCF refuses to claim that ability or authority to do so, hence it rejects the type of authority and ability Rome claims.
“Or if you insist, fallible though yrs truly is, 2+2=4 is without error.”
We’ve been over the 2+2=4 stuff – reread the thread.
“Me: So my fallible apprehension of a teaching and my lack of “direct access to infallible documents” and my lack of vulcan mindmelding does not entail”
“You: Fallible = provisional.
Shut up. You just denied your argument that romanism has an advantage over protestantism only you are too stupid to see it.”
My argument has never entailed I or adherents must be personally infallible. Which is why I’ve never argued it. It’s amazing you truncate the citation exactly where I explain why. Given your ridiculous tone that has yet to change over the 2 years I’ve been here, as well as your apparent lack of reading comprehension, future replies will likely be minimal.
“Paul’s teaching is not reformable”
And Protestantism can never offer the identification, let alone the interpretation, of Paul’s teachings as irreformable, by its own disclaimers.
So “our understanding and practice of his teaching” is not the only provisional thing, since as your side has said before “The reality is that while all of our doctrines are in principle provisional”, not just your understanding of those doctrines.
“Yet Scripture alone – not the magisterium or tradition – is the infallible rule for faith and life.”
Which is itself a teaching of certain branches and particular denominations of Protestantism that is never offered as irreformable or as more than provisional by its own disclaimers – which is exactly what I said in what you replied to.
Darryl,
“why would the return of Christ and the apostles make any difference in your scheme?”
Apparently it can’t make any difference in anyone’s scheme. Because we’re all fallible. Oh such woe and despair.
“You have the pope. Why pay attention to the apostles?”
The Apostles that established succession and ordination? Which side pays attention that that again?
“That’s why you defend the infallibility not of the Bible but of the pope.”
But wasn’t RCC all good and admirable in its anti-modernism from Trent to Vat2 by your lights? Not even a smidgen of begrudging respect?
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Jeff,
“are you intending to respond to Round 1 above?”
Yes.
“I asked where in the Bible that the apostles (not Christ) claim “divine authority and ability to distinguish and define divine revelation/irreformable dogma from provisional opinion or tentative human teaching.””
So you apparently agree Christ claimed and had this authority and ability, but the Apostles did not. Now, can you tell me why your argument is not impacted by Christ’s authority and ability to do so, but would be affected by the Apostle’s authority and ability to do so (if it was demonstrated they claimed such authority and ability)?
“I’m used to it meaning “you started too early”, but that meaning doesn’t fit the context.”
I’m using it to mean you are assuming what needs to be established and then jumping ahead with that assumption – I’m calling you back to get the baseline in order.
“It’s hard to answer your question”
Why is it hard to answer my question when you claim Protestantism offers irreformable doctrine? Here’s the exchange again:
Me: “Hence why your side keeps saying things along “The reality is that while all of our doctrines are in principle provisional”, not “The reality is that while all our understanding of infallible doctrines are in principle provisional””
You: “Your mistake comes about because you are overcomplicating something very simple. The latter is what we have affirmed over and over. The former is true only if “our doctrines” is understood to mean “our understanding of Scripture.””
So you are claiming with this (along with the earlier “[Protestants] do not reject such ability”) that you can offer irreformable doctrine. I’m asking, okay, you say you can do it, can you give me an irreformable doctrine then? One that isn’t offered as provisional by you or your confessions? And on what basis is it offered as such?
And then you say “It’s hard to answer”? This does not seem convincing.
“There is an irreformable stratum of divine revelation.”
Is that teaching “a bottom layer of irreformable doctrine upon which other doctrine and moral teaching rests”?
“Now comes the church, who fallibly identifies and interprets that stratum according to its best understanding of the original meaning.”
Right – according to its current best understanding. So all doctrines remain provisional, not just your understanding and apprehension of them.
“Some doctrines are so perspicuously taught in Scripture that they are “practically irreformable.” Others are less so, and it is these that are (rarely) reformed as a result of greater understanding of Scripture.”
Divine revelation is not “practically irreformable” or “let’s leave space for revision” – it is infallible as you already agreed. So Protestantism cannot offer any teaching as such, based on its disclaimers.
“This is entirely unlike the liberal theological project, which rejects Grammatical-Historical Method, rejects propositional understanding of Scripture, and rejects the notion of divine revelation. You can’t get from historic sola scriptura to liberalism without taking … erm … liberties.”
The point is that all these teachings – Scripture is divine revelation, this is the canon, it is inerrant and inspired, SS is the rule of faith, revelation is closed, are not offered as irreformable doctrine, but rather provisional and tentative in your system. That’s why liberalism is not violating Protestant principles, and conservative Protestantism is just liberalism waiting to happen. You can claim liberal Protestants don’t get to count, but your basis for doing so is no less arbitrary and question begging than their countercharge that you don’t count is.
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Robert,
“You submit unto Rome unless and until something makes you change your mind.”
I’ll just say it again since you keep missing the point. Examine what is *consistent* with the claims being made that are assented to in both systems. I am not justified in holding every teaching proposed by Rome as provisional and subject to debate or rejection after assenting to her claims to authority. I am in Protestantism because every doctrine and teaching is provisional and revisable by its own admission and *consistent* with the disclaimers to authority and ability it makes in the first place.
“Protestantism claims fallible authority. Not this weird “hey-we’re-not-inspired-like-the-apostles-but-there’s-no-worry-cause-we-say-so” authority of the Magisterium.”
Right, Protestantism does not claim divine or apostolic authority – if it did, there wouldn’t be the disclaimers we see in all its confessions. Which is the point – no teaching can ever rise above provisional, tentative, “we might be right, might be wrong” status.
“It’s absolutely consistent with Paul’s preaching if revelation has truly ceased and the Apostles were truly unique.”
Semper reformanda is not consistent with Paul’s preaching in NT times is what I mean. Those submitting to him would not be justified in endlessly debating or arguing with his current or future teachings and he wasn’t revising his teaching constantly or offering it as “this might be wrong, but probably isn’t”.
“Dishonest liberals don’t employ GHM correctly.”
So liberal scholars are dishonest and should be stripped of their academic credentials since they are obviously doing a disservice to their field – only conservative scholars get to count as real GHM-practitioners, just as only confessional Protestants get to count as real Protestants. Have you ever considered that GHM alone doesn’t answer the question as to whether it is sufficient for yielding divine truths, nor does it answer how it is to be best applied, nor does it answer what counts as the relevant sources of data to be applied to, nor does it answer the questions concerning all the varied fields and disciplines it relies on (philology, archaeology, textual criticism, history, etc), and that might be why liberals disagree with you? GHM is a tool, but a limited one, and it yields nothing more than tentative provisional conclusions – claiming it as some black box for settling issues as central to Protestantism just highlights the issue.
“Irrelevant to canon.”
What? The contents of the books of the canon are irrelevant to it?
“Actually the early Christians were far more in line with the Protestants on this than Trent.”
So the ones who blew it weren’t illuminated enough right?
“If you mean we can’t know it infallibly on this side of heaven, then no, we can’t. But you can’t infallibly know when Rome has been guided into the truth either.””
I’m not infallible. You’re not infallible. Adherents to Christ/Apostles in NT were not infallible. Not relevant. Which is why Christ could still promise to guide the church made of all those pesky fallible people into truth, not guide them into “infallible assurance we could be wrong, but might get things right later”.
As I said above, I’m human and fallible. That doesn’t mean an NT believer under Christ/Apostles claims and authority/ability were in no different or better position than someone under synagogue rabbi’s claims and admitted lack of authority/ability just because both adherents were fallible and without a vulcan mindmeld. The teachings of the former were infallible and proposed as such, being consistent with Christ/Apostles claims and warranted the certitude of faith for their adherents. The teachings of the latter were fallible and provisional and proposed as such, being consistent with the rabbi’s claims and would not warrant the certitude of faith for their adherents.
“if we want to be radical skeptics”
You’re the side claiming we can’t know anything for sure and must have room for perpetual doubt – both in natural or supernatural spheres – and thus anything like the certitude of faith is illegitimate and impossible, not RCs. Well, except that we know that for sure without a doubt.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 18, 2015 at 10:55 am | Permalink
Robert, listen up:
So Rome is really good at defining things. But none of the words correspond to spiritual realities. It’s just talk which sometimes means mean things and then it doesn’t.
Explains vd, t.
Wow, what a substantive rebuttal! Impressive, Squire Hart! You win again. Crap all over the chessboard, knock over all the pieces, then fly back to your pals and do a victory dance.
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Cletus wrote:
>>No one of note,
That’s interesting – so the promise only applies to those that were there. I guess that means all the commands and promises Christ gave to believers in the NT only applied to his direct audience and future generations can ignore them and are out of luck. And I guess there was therefore no guarantee the church was guided in recognizing and identifying what you hold in your hands every Sunday is actually correct and true.>>
Are you always such a horse’s patootie, or does OL tempt you beyond RC grace?
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No one of note
Posted November 18, 2015 at 4:40 pm | Permalink
Cletus wrote:
>>No one of note,
That’s interesting – so the promise only applies to those that were there. I guess that means all the commands and promises Christ gave to believers in the NT only applied to his direct audience and future generations can ignore them and are out of luck. And I guess there was therefore no guarantee the church was guided in recognizing and identifying what you hold in your hands every Sunday is actually correct and true.>>
Are you always such a horse’s patootie, or does OL tempt you beyond RC grace?
Actually, that was quite a vacuous and nasty Old Life-style rebuttal itself. Must be catching.
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It was deserved. He was condescending and rude. Unlike you (most of the time!)
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Cletus,
I’ll just say it again since you keep missing the point. Examine what is *consistent* with the claims being made that are assented to in both systems. I am not justified in holding every teaching proposed by Rome as provisional and subject to debate or rejection after assenting to her claims to authority. I am in Protestantism because every doctrine and teaching is provisional and revisable by its own admission and *consistent* with the disclaimers to authority and ability it makes in the first place.
Let’s step back for a minute:
1. You have admitted that if they discover the body of Jesus, you will cease being Roman Catholic. Therefore, your submission is provisional. It is contingent upon there never being any discovery to invalidate Rome’s claims. Whether or not that is justified in the Roman system is besides the point at this point. The fact is, your submission is provisional unless and until you admit that there is absolutely nothing that could be done to make you question, doubt, or leave Rome.
2. But that’s a confession of provisional submission that is trivial. Protestantism has the same kind of submission. My submission is provisional unless and until I discover something that invalidates the claims to which I submit. That doesn’t make it false submission. It makes me a thinking person. For all our disagreements, I believe you are a thinking person as well. So I fail to see where the character of our submission is in any way different.
Right, Protestantism does not claim divine or apostolic authority – if it did, there wouldn’t be the disclaimers we see in all its confessions. Which is the point – no teaching can ever rise above provisional, tentative, “we might be right, might be wrong” status.
Protestant churches claim divine authority whenever they accurately teach the Word of God. We just don’t have a red light that goes off when it happens. As for the provisionality, it is the same kind of trivial provisionality mentioned above.
Semper reformanda is not consistent with Paul’s preaching in NT times is what I mean. Those submitting to him would not be justified in endlessly debating or arguing with his current or future teachings and he wasn’t revising his teaching constantly or offering it as “this might be wrong, but probably isn’t”.
Which is why we agree that the individual can’t argue with the Word of God. You just want the red light to come on when the Word of God has been taught accurately. You want something beyond the persuasion of the Holy Spirit.
So liberal scholars are dishonest and should be stripped of their academic credentials since they are obviously doing a disservice to their field – only conservative scholars get to count as real GHM-practitioners, just as only confessional Protestants get to count as real Protestants.
No, there are many honest liberal scholars. That’s somebody like Luke Timothy Johnson, who performs GHM, discerns that the Bible condemns homosexuality and then says that the Bible is wrong. He has performed the method correctly, he just denies its results because he essentially denies biblical inerrancy. Lots of liberal scholars come to accurate and very fine conclusions about what the Bible means, they just don’t believe it.
Have you ever considered that GHM alone doesn’t answer the question as to whether it is sufficient for yielding divine truths, nor does it answer how it is to be best applied, nor does it answer what counts as the relevant sources of data to be applied to, nor does it answer the questions concerning all the varied fields and disciplines it relies on (philology, archaeology, textual criticism, history, etc), and that might be why liberals disagree with you? GHM is a tool, but a limited one, and it yields nothing more than tentative provisional conclusions – claiming it as some black box for settling issues as central to Protestantism just highlights the issue.
GHM is sufficient for discerning the original meaning of Scripture. The fact that dishonest liberals disagree (not the honest ones) with conservatives doesn’t make it insufficient or require that there be some additional way of reading the Bible in order to discern the original meaning any more than disagreements within Roman Catholicism makes the Magisterium insufficient.
What? The contents of the books of the canon are irrelevant to it?
It’s a secondary issue. Whether John 8:1–11 is originally in the text or not has no bearing on whether the gospel of John is canonical. It is canonical whether John 8:1–11 is in the text or not.
So the ones who blew it weren’t illuminated enough right?
Ultimately, yes.
Which is why Christ could still promise to guide the church made of all those pesky fallible people into truth, not guide them into “infallible assurance we could be wrong, but might get things right later”.
There is nothing that says provisionality of knowledge must be eliminated in order for us to be guided into all truth. That is what you are seeking, but you will never have it. Provisional knowledge is a function of our creaturehood. The only way we escape provisional knowledge is to become God.
As I said above, I’m human and fallible. That doesn’t mean an NT believer under Christ/Apostles claims and authority/ability were in no different or better position than someone under synagogue rabbi’s claims and admitted lack of authority/ability just because both adherents were fallible and without a vulcan mindmeld.
But apart from the Vulcan Mindmeld, how does one know one is in a better position? That’s the question. You want to load all of this into our need for infallibility while ignoring the huge problem that such a stress places on the individual’s appropriation of knowledge. Your argument devolves into radical skepticism about my own ability to know anything, including my ability to pick the true infallible source. It ultimately undermines your position.
The teachings of the former were infallible and proposed as such, being consistent with Christ/Apostles claims and warranted the certitude of faith for their adherents. The teachings of the latter were fallible and provisional and proposed as such, being consistent with the rabbi’s claims and would not warrant the certitude of faith for their adherents.
But the issue is that you are coming at this “certitude of faith” that falsifies your source of divine revelation. Hebrews 11:31 tells us that Rahab hid the spies by faith. But if you read the account in Joshua 2, there’s nothing about a claim of infallibility being made. Rahab bases her faith on news of some strange events that she concludes are miracles. She has fallible motives of credibility, no direct divine revelation, and no claim that the Israelites are bringing with them infallible revelation. And yet she is commended for her faith. But according to you, she shouldn’t be commended. She had no grounds for the certitude of faith and no real warrant to do what she did. You are contradicting the book of Hebrews to establish a questionable philosophical point.
And there are other examples from that same chapter as well. Abraham left Canaan by faith. All he had was a voice of some kind. The voice does not identify itself as God initially. It makes no claim of infallibility. And yet in Gen. 12 Abraham goes and is commended for His faith. But if you’re right, he had no ground for any of that. He was not holding things of faith by faith. Unless, of course, that God could somehow convince Abraham that infallible God was talking to him without claiming specifically to be infallible God. But if you grant that, welcome to self-authentication of Scripture.
I could multiply examples.
You’re the side claiming we can’t know anything for sure and must have room for perpetual doubt – both in natural or supernatural spheres – and thus anything like the certitude of faith is illegitimate and impossible, not RCs.
I’ve not once claimed that we must have room for perpetual doubt. All I’ve said is that to have provisional knowledge is inherent to creaturehood. The only way to escape it is to be the Creator. Your demand conflates the creature with the Creator.
There are varying kinds of provisionality. Some trivial. Some not-so trivial. The only kind of provisionality that we or the Protestant confessions are claiming is trivial provisionality. The same kind you admit when you confess that there are some things Rome could do to make you stop being Roman Catholic or some discoveries that could be made to make you stop being RC.
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NooN,
Apologies if you took offense. None was intended. Given the tone of many of the arguments against RCism here, I can often reply in kind – when in Rome and all that jazz. I should have tailored the message differently for someone new until I got a better handle on your sensibilities and style.
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Thanks Cletus.
My comment wasn’t even addressed to you, but to Robert, to call him back to the formal principle of the Reformation, instead of accepting your STM take on John 16:13.
(no offense, I just disagree with you, but respect you very much). But you need to read John 16:12 and ask why the “you” there, who is obviously the apostles, and none but the apostles, all of a sudden changes to “the Church” a few words later in 16:13. Its so simple any 7 year old can see that the “you” in both verse is the same group addressed by Christ.
And no, nobody but the apostles gets “all the truth” from the Holy Spirit. Not me, not you.
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No one of note
Posted November 18, 2015 at 5:38 pm | Permalink
Thanks Cletus.
My comment wasn’t even addressed to you, but to Robert, to call him back to the formal principle of the Reformation, instead of accepting your STM take on John 16:13.
(no offense, I just disagree with you, but respect you very much). But you need to read John 16:12 and ask why the “you” there, who is obviously the apostles, and none but the apostles, all of a sudden changes to “the Church” a few words later in 16:13. Its so simple any 7 year old can see that the “you” in both verse is the same group addressed by Christ.
And no, nobody but the apostles gets “all the truth” from the Holy Spirit. Not me, not you.
Accept or reject it, but Catholicism has a well-developed Biblical case for apostolic succession.
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2009/09/apostolic-succession-various-biblical.html
And, FTR, it is also argued that the “cessationism” that you’re asserting here is itself unBiblical.
For the record. 😉
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Reject it.
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No one of note
Posted November 18, 2015 at 6:01 pm | Permalink
Reject it.
Buyer’s choice, can’t litigate beliefs and truth claims. But the point is they have a valid argument, perhaps more Biblically founded than your rejection of it. That’s as far as discussion can go at a “theological society.”
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I’d never convince you anyway, TVD. But John 16:13-15, rightly understood, renders powerless the doctrine of AS. All the truth, given to the apostles by the omniscient Father, Son, and Spirit.
Sure beats “development of doctrine.”
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I thought ecumenical councils were infallible. So some parts are and some parts aren’t? Joan of Arc wasn’t condemned posthumously by an ecumenical council, so not very relevant.
You said in the last thread that there is no good reason to believe a fallible statement about matter of faith. So what is the point of making an infallible declaration that one is no longer a member of the society of the faithful (posthumously) if there is no good reason to believe it (according to your construction)?
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No one of note
Posted November 18, 2015 at 6:42 pm | Permalink
I’d never convince you anyway, TVD. But John 16:13-15, rightly understood, renders powerless the doctrine of AS. All the truth, given to the apostles by the omniscient Father, Son, and Spirit.
Sure beats “development of doctrine.”
Yes, Jesus is speaking to the apostles in John 16:13-15. It can just as easily be employed as an argument FOR the Catholic position.
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/general/apostolic.htm
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@cvd
There seems to be a quite wide divide between “no good reason to believe a fallible doctrine” and “religious submission of the intellect and will” to the ordinary (fallible) magisterium of the church.
Similarly, the teaching that the RCC is the true church is a teaching of the church. If you can be wrong about that, then everything else that follows could be wrong. If you *assume* (for sake of argument) that the claims the RCC makes for itself are true, then you have a coherent system. The same applies to Sola Scriptura – if the scriptures are not the Word of God through whom the Holy Spirit speaks (i.e., if we have misidentified them) everything else crumbles (or at least is called into question). The WCF disclaimer is that everything must be judged by scripture – that is our starting point. It is not a parallel comparison to allow the identification of the church to stand outside of the system on your side and require the identification of scripture to stand within our system on our side.
This isn’t a good parallel at all. In the comparison you’ve setup to evaluate the epistemological status of the prot and cath, we are assuming that each is true for sake of argument. So a better comparison might be the epistemological status of the blind man who was healed or the thief on the cross who confessed Christ who didn’t know anything about fallibility versus say Peter who presumably knew Jesus was infallible, yet failed miserably at Calvary. Though I don’t think that quite gets at it either. Perhaps we might want to consider the epistemological status of the Christians who tested the apostle’s words – presumably they didn’t believe them to be infallible or there would be no reason to test them. Were these guys worse off than epistemologically than someone who didn’t think they needed to check?
Not at all. There is every advantage of having the author of the words available to you. The question is whether it is better to have the author or the author’s student’s student’s student’s …. student helping you along. Having the Holy Spirit, the author of scripture – God’s living word- is much better even if we don’t always listen so well.
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sdb
Posted November 18, 2015 at 7:10 pm | Permalink
Not at all. There is every advantage of having the author of the words available to you. The question is whether it is better to have the author or the author’s student’s student’s student’s …. student helping you along. Having the Holy Spirit, the author of scripture – God’s living word- is much better
That’s the Catholic argument in a nutshell.
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Clete,
Clete,
And there is no guarantee those partaking of the Lord’s Supper in Reformed churches are orthodox since as Zrim and others said (“Nobody wrestles the sacraments from anybody’s hands. Nobody is grilling anybody on hot button social and political issues, or even on particular church membership. What is publicly read above is sufficient for the Spirit to use to either encourage or discourage souls”), the verbal/written warning and personal discernment is supposed to suffice. Guess that means you can’t ever know what the OPC/PCA consider orthodox.
Compare the stated positions with the practice of the church. If the church admits to the Eucharist a member whom the church knows is violating the confession, then the position taken by the member is de facto orthodox even if it seems to contradict the stated one.
I see. So all the churches I delineated do not show anarchy. It’s just honest diversity.
Anarchy is no standard of truth and no agreement between churches.
An evasion. So these groups are all apparently non-Christians even though you said that professing Christians were not barred from the table. Are you asserting adherents to these churches/beliefs don’t profess themselves as Christian? On what basis do you limit professing Christians to only those Christians that profess WCF, LBCF, Augsburg, or 39 Articles?
1. I don’t limit professing Christians to only those that profess those confessions. I limit Protestantism to those who profess those confessions.
2. A denomination such as the ELCA is apostate, professing the faith without holding to it.
3. An apostate denomination may have individual orthodox congregations and individuals. They should get out, but what can I do about that?
Are you disputing Lutheran churches during the Reformation actively barred Calvinists from the table?
In such cases where this happened, they were wrong to do so. And most such churches that I know of have admitted as much and practice a form of open communion with the fencing of the table.
But many professing Christian churches do not consider homosexuality or abortion sinful. So why should they care what OPC/PCA elders do?
Because they are in an OPC/PCA Church trying to take communion. If they aren’t trying to take communion in an OPC/PCA communion, they shouldn’t care that much.
That’s nice that you would. But why should anyone from a church who disagrees with you care?
In one sense, they shouldn’t. But if they darken the doors of my church and want to be admitted to the table, they should.
They should care whenever my church gets the Word of God correctly just as I should care whenever Rome gets the Word of God correctly. But if you want me to give you a red light to prove when that happens, I can’t. None of the first-century people had a red light over the head of Jesus to persuade them either. The Spirit persuades, not the church.
Right. And those churches that disagree with you claim the same.
But that’s no guarantee they are doing exegesis correctly, just as I don’t have a red light that goes off when I do exegesis correctly. I can sit down and make a case for my position, but at the end of the day it is the Spirit that persuades. And He doesn’t need the church to say “Infallible dogma here” to persuade His people or give them certainty in faith.
That’s the problem. You’re just begging the question by limiting “the church” to only those that subscribe to one of the four confessions.
I’m limiting what can legitimately be called Protestantism to Protestant confessions. If I can’t do that, then you can’t limit Catholicism to churches in communion with the Roman See but must admit as RC any church that claims to be so. There are several hundred other churches claiming to be Catholic (Old Catholic, sedevacantist, etc.) that are not in communion with the pope.
Right, so they’re not essential. So why should the OPC/PCA get to decide what is “essential” and that ecclesiology, baptism, and the lord’s supper are not essential?
The decision has not really been made that they’re not essential in every way, just not essential to get right to be saved. They are essential for the well being of the church but not the being of the church, the bene esse, not the esse.
But why? Well on a purely pragmatic level, it’s because those churches have decided how they will function. On a spiritual level, it’s because the OPC and the PCA are branches of the one church of Christ led by duly appointed men and orthodox in belief.
Right, but why should those outside of that church care or be subject to your definition.
As noted, in one sense they shouldn’t care. Why should they be subject? Because those churches have the most biblical polity and doctrine.
The ELCA and Word of Faith and Unitarian churches get to define such things for their respective bodies because they are churches.
The ELCA and Unitarian churches only have a pragmatic right to do so as corporations. They don’t have any divinely ordained right because they aren’t churches. They don’t confess the deity of Christ. The Unitarians certainly don’t, and the ELCA ordains people who don’t. In fact, Christ is really unnecessary for salvation in both cases. If they can’t get that basic belief correct, they can’t be called churches.
The Word of Faith is more complicated. Some of them aren’t true churches either. Some are heterodox, but there’s enough orthodoxy there to make them a church.
Right, but non-OPC members have no reason to care about that then. So they shouldn’t care whether OPC/PCA considers ecclesiology, baptism, lord’s supper a non-essential if they consider it an essential, or what the OPC/PCA thinks about homosexuality or abortion or the canon of Scripture or its inerrancy or the Trinity and so forth.
Insofar as the OPC/PCA correctly interpret God’s Word, they should care.
Btw, does that mean the Leithart decision was all good then? Or are such decisions only “binding upon the members” except when they’re not?
The Leithart situation is complicated, particularly because of some of the peculiarities of PCA polity. Leithart remains ordained in the NW presbytery, but I don’t know if any other presbytery will take him. Alabama rejected his transfer. Being ordained in one presbytery doesn’t guarantee you can transfer into another.
But if you want my opinion, I don’t think the Leithart case was rightly decided. Is it enough for me to leave. I don’t think so either. If such decisions keep happening, it might be a different matter. The church isn’t perfect. You don’t leave a church the first time it does something that goes against your conscience.
That’s the disconnect. Rome claims the authority to make a judgment binding and normative on all; dogma isn’t defined just for its members
If Rome’s judgment is truly seen by the Magisterium as binding on non-RCs, then everyone whose not a RC is going to hell. But JPII kissed Qur’ans and plenty of RC theologians are out and out universalists/pluralists. So I don’t see where Rome makes the claim to define dogma for all.
or offered as “well, this is what we believe, but you can believe something else and it’s equally true”.
Protestants don’t say that either. I don’t believe that the Baptist view of baptism is equally true as the Presbyterian view. That doesn’t mean I don’t think the Baptist churches aren’t true churches.
Right, and if you compare documents of the various bodies I listed above, you see the massive conflict and contradiction in the wide spectrum of Protestant churches. But as you agree, such is not the case with Rome. So no equivalence.
If you compare the documents of various bodies that are actually Protestant, there is very little difference. It’s about comparable to the differences between Thomists and Molinists. You think it is more significant than it truly is because we don’t define church unity as having one bureaucracy to which all give nominal assent and then believe whatever they want anyway.
The same doctrinal diversity exists among Roman Catholics who are in good standing with their churches as in Protestantism. Its undeniable. Neither you or Pelosi have been excommunicated. But both of you believe in fundamentally different religions, as far as I can tell. If Rome is all that and a bag of chips, it needs to make a real decision about who is in and who is out. I’m not holding my breath, so the claims of unity, infallibility, purity, etc. simply can’t be taken seriously.
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Mermaid,
I don’t want to (and am not sufficiently informed to) discuss the historical inquiry of Luther’s desires and motives. However, we can definitely discuss the joint statement and protestant denominations. One particular reason that the Lutherans are split is in the review I linked to:
I think that some protestants (hopefully us confessionalists) unite around what we actually believe. This is largely the root of the critique here on OL that RCC is unified only on paper. We don’t want to be unified on paper if we’re not actually unified. That’s dishonest, right? There is no way that liberal Lutherans who deny the authority of Scripture agree with that statement. I did find one paragraph that was amicable:
However from conversation with a Roman Catholic friend of mine, it seems RCs would have trouble with Christ’s righteousness being our righteousness. I also disagree with the view of the sacraments (I am a Presby) and the opinions that the RC emphasizes one aspect while “Lutherans” emphasize another. Also, I do not know what they mean in saying Christ’s work is the presupposition of justification. I believe, as Packer (quite the unificator, look out cw) said, that Christ’s death secured the calling, justification, and glorification of the elect. God gave us faith as a gift because of Jesus’ work for us.
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Thanks, Walton, for your kind response. I’ll try too read it over carefully tomorrow and respond. I appreciate your taking the time.
I lost a comment from Robert, too, but I’ll try to find it and respond as well. If not tomorrow, later.
Kind regards,
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Cletus van Damme
Posted November 17, 2015 at 9:31 pm | Permalink
Your “ergo” was a non sequitur. Anathema does not entail one is irrevocably condemned to hell; it entails one has cut themselves off from the church, that is, excommunicated from the church they were a formal member of. Grave matter alone is not sufficient for mortal sin, nor are all those in error formal heretics. Thus we see throughout history Rome defining solemn dogmas in contrast to heresies using the anathema qualifier, without ever once teaching any specific person is absolutely in hell.>>>>>>
TVD:
Researching/counter-checking the Old Life blog’s claims about “anathemas,” this is what I found as well. The Catholic Church wishes not a single soul to Hell, not even those who [think they] hate it.>>>>
This is a really important point. Protestants don’t get this. I think it is especially hard for Calvinists to get.
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Mermaid, I love Jesus.
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James Young, why would it make a difference on your scheme? You’re the one who claims an infallible post-apostolic source. You evaded the question.
I do respect Rome from Trent to Vatican 2. I don’t know why you equivocate the way Protestant modernists do. Oh wait. Equivocation is now infallible. I see the problem. Yup.
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James Young, “The point is that all these teachings – Scripture is divine revelation, this is the canon, it is inerrant and inspired, SS is the rule of faith, revelation is closed, are not offered as irreformable doctrine, but rather provisional and tentative in your system. That’s why liberalism is not violating Protestant principles, and conservative Protestantism is just liberalism waiting to happen. You can claim liberal Protestants don’t get to count, but your basis for doing so is no less arbitrary and question begging than their countercharge that you don’t count is.”
Okay already. We got “the point.” What you haven’t answered is how liberalism creeps into the vaunted Roman Catholic system. All you can do is deny it, say nothing has changed, and cling to your blankie of infallibility. But those of us and plenty of serious Roman Catholics like Joe M are not real pleased with Francis’ universalism. Do you ever answer him or Boniface from Unam Sanctam? No. All you do is mock Protestant for not having infallible pastors. And yet your the guy with the infallible pope and we’re supposed to take that seriously?
Oh, I get it. He’s not Alexander VI. Wow. Welcome to holiness.
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vd, t, “crap”?
You’re on your meds today?
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James Young, “You’re the side claiming we can’t know anything for sure and must have room for perpetual doubt”
So you’re claiming we have knowledge like God’s? Brad Gregory bangs on Protestants for claiming univocity. Nw you act like univocity is no problem because infallibility gives you the kind of knowledge God has.
Check your math.
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b, sd, yes only some parts are respectable. Look at Denzinger. He includes many of the canons of Fourth Lateran. But not the ones about Jews wearing Stars.
And if you look at the list of popes, Denzinger is not there.
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TVD, greetings, it’s the last few words that are error:
You wrote,
>>
Yes, Jesus is speaking to the apostles in John 16:13-15. It can just as easily be employed as an argument FOR the Catholic position.
In fact, Christ Himself declared this to the apostles that this would be the purpose of the Holy Ghost, to guide them in all Truth. Yet there were many things that our lord had wished to expounded to the apostles, but as He said “ (John 16:12) “but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not speak of himself: but what things so ever he shall hear, he shall speak. And the things that are to come, he shall show you them”. Hence, these truths were to be later expounded by the apostles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and faithfully transmitted through their successors.
>>
It was going well until that.
Neither the Son of God, nor the apostles, ever claimed they would have successors.
That’s why RCs, like Mormons and SDAs, require further revelation beyond them.
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No one of note:
Neither the Son of God, nor the apostles, ever claimed they would have successors.>>>>>
Good morning, No one of note,
Have you ever considered these passages in relation to apostolic succession?
1. 2 Timothy 2:2
and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
There is certainly an infallible apostolic teaching that needs to be passed on to faithful men who will teach other faithful men so the truth of the Gospel can be transmitted without error to future generations.
Do you see my point? I don’t think that Protestants would disagree with it, but some might just because it is a Catholic making it. 🙂
2. 1 Corinthians 11:2
Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.
Notice that there were apostolic traditions that the Christians at Corinth were supposed to be maintaining. So, we have apostolic teachings that define doctrine. We have apostolic traditions that govern gathered worship and the Eucharist.
3. You have Jesus handing the keys of the Kingdom to Peter. Check out the book of Acts to see the prominent role Peter played. Check out the end of the Gospel of John as well to see how Jesus commissioned Peter to feed His sheep and lambs. John was a witness of that, so it wasn’t just Peter making things up.
Peter given the keys of the Kingdom and using them.
Peter made the rock upon which Jesus would build His Church.
Peter being commissioned to feed the sheep and lambs.
Matthew 16:18
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock[b] I will build my church, and the gates of hell[c] shall not prevail against it.
Now, your Protestant point of view will take you straight to what you think those passages cannot mean. Why not consider another point of view? What do those passages mean? You will at least see why all of Christiandom except Protestants see in that a primary role for the Bishop of Rome.
It could be that everyone else is wrong and has been wrong for a long, long time, but it could be that Protestants are wrong.
Relate it to the Trinity if you like. Where is the Trinity in the Bible? I believe it is there, but it is the Church that defined it as dogma.
Now, you may not agree, but at least you might be able to see that there is a Biblical basis for Catholic traditions. The Church’s teachings are not just made up out of thin air.
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Hi Mermaid, greetings,
You wrote,
>>
Have you ever considered these passages in relation to apostolic succession?
>>
and then you wrote a whole lot more. Don’t take time on me, OK? Please, you have much better things to do.
I have looked intently at those passages and many others. Of course, none of them claim the apostles would have successors.
Here were dealing with a John 1:1 moment.
John 1:1 nullifies at once the Jehovah Witness claim that Jesus is a created being. Completely and entirely. Argument over.
So too John 16:13 nullifies the claim of apostolic succession. Completely and entirely. Argument over.
So I’ll not get into the “what about this verse?” approach. Since there is no claim in sacred writ that the apostles would have successors, and since God has said the apostles would receive all the truth by the Holy Spirit, why go elsewhere?
It takes attention away from what God has said, and Who, by saying it once, has nullified all other alternatives.
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A papal shrug:
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Mermaid, that’s funny. You need to run to Paul, who hardly acknowledged the primacy of Peter, to support the primacy of Peter.
Maybe you should take Stephen Coulbert’s approach:
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Walton
Posted November 19, 2015 at 12:20 am | Permalink
Mermaid,
I don’t want to (and am not sufficiently informed to) discuss the historical inquiry of Luther’s desires and motives. >>>>
Howdy, Walton,
My bad. I thought you were Lutheran. I am just wondering how much real disagreement there was between Martin Luther and Rome and how much of it was linguistic and cultural. No way to know, I guess. The die is cast. Luther had a big personality. He was a complicated man. I think that the general feeling in the Church at this point in time is that the Church was too hard on Luther. Hence, the overtures towards reconciliation.
Walton:
However, we can definitely discuss the joint statement and protestant denominations. One particular reason that the Lutherans are split is in the review I linked to:>>>>
You mean because they are split on everything?
Walton quoting his link:
“various essays attack the idea that the biblical text is truth, or even that its original message can be discerned by readers today.”
“Authors clearly urge churches not to place the highest priority on preaching the biblical teachings about the person and work of Christ for our salvation,” he continues. “Instead, they urge churches to be open to novel interpretations of the Word which the Spirit allegedly is inspiring in the Church today.” “The result,” he says, “is an open-ended view of the Word of God as something flexible and always changing or in need of change.”>>>>
Yes. Most of what is called Lutheranism has gone completely off the rails and taken much of Protestantism along with it. If that is the reason for rejecting unity with other Lutherans, then I understand. If they were to enter into dialogue with Rome, they would also have to unite in some way with heretical Lutherans. Is that how you understand the unwillingness to talk with Rome?
Walton:
I think that some protestants (hopefully us confessionalists) unite around what we actually believe. >>>>
That is the advantage that Confessing Evangelicals claim. I think it has helped keep many groups more orthodox. There are certainly some fine men involved in the promotion of confessional Protestantism. However, there are enemies within as well as conflicts. I know from experience, – mine and that of others. I also know it from what Brother Hart writes here. All is not well in Confessionalism. Have you read Fea’s article on Machen’s Warrior Children? Good read.
The thing is that Confessional Protestantism is always in a state of flux. Who has the rights to the brand? Who are the real Reformed churches? Who are the true Calvinists? Can Baptists really be Reformed? …and on it goes. Confesionalism looks good on paper, but in reality it is in turmoil. It does help some, though. At least you realize that traditions have something to do with Christianity. You do not claim infallibility for your traditions, which creates other problems and seems to solve some.
Even so, some kind of standard is better than no standard at all it seems to me.
Most Protestants – or non Catholic Christians – just ignore all y’all because of the turmoil you cause in their congregations. Sorry to be the one to tell you the truth, but you probably already know all that. Don’t let it discourage you.
Walton:
This is largely the root of the critique here on OL that RCC is unified only on paper.>>>>
Yes. After Vatican II, the Catholic Church was expected to split at least 3 ways – the Evangelicals, the Traditionalists, and the Modernists. Well, that has not happened. So, Brother Hart sits under his Kudzu Vine waiting for fire to fall on Rome.
Brother Hart prefers pre Vat II Catholicism, but he really doesn’t like Catholicism in any form.
Walton:
We don’t want to be unified on paper if we’re not actually unified. That’s dishonest, right? >>>>
Honesty would be for you guys to take a closer look at yourselves. Then maybe you will see more clearly and be able to help your brothers and sisters in Christ. Seems like Jesus wants it to be that way. We are really all in the same boat, you know. Read Ephesians 4.
More later, maybe. 🙂 Gotta’ go.
You have a good afternoon, Walton
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sdb,
“I thought ecumenical councils were infallible. So some parts are and some parts aren’t?”
Of course not all parts are infallible. Ecumenical councils deal with both dogma and discipline. “Let [clerics] not indulge in red or green cloths, long sleeves or shoes with embroidery or pointed toes, or in bridles, saddles, breast-plates and spurs that are gilded or have other superfluous ornamentation” is not a dogma, nor are Trent’s disciplinary canons focused on church reform which are explicitly labeled as such in each session – you don’t reform dogmas, you reform practice, e.g. “Ordinaries shall take care that all hospitals are faithfully and diligently managed by their administrators, by whatsoever name known and in whatsoever manner exempt, observing the form of the constitution of the Council of Vienne, which begins, “Quia contingit,” which this holy council has thought ought to be renewed and does renew together with the restrictions therein contained.” A council doesn’t have the power to “renew” or “not renew” a dogma, it does for disciplines and practices.
“Joan of Arc wasn’t condemned posthumously by an ecumenical council, so not very relevant. ”
Sure it’s relevant if you’re positing that a church’s judgment of someone as under anathema or excommunication irrevocably condemns them to hell. She was convicted of heresy by a church trial. That conviction was then reversed.
“There seems to be a quite wide divide between “no good reason to believe a fallible doctrine””
I have no good reason to give the assent of faith to a proposed fallible teaching. I have good reason to submit to fallible church teaching, just as I have good reason to submit to my fallible parents, teachers, governments. That’s why there have been plenty of saints who have suffered under obedience to their superiors who were later shown to be wrong and the saint vindicated.
“Similarly, the teaching that the RCC is the true church is a teaching of the church.”
Yep. And that teaching is not offered as provisional or subject to revision. Because doing so would be inconsistent with its claims to authority and ability. No such thing obtains in Protestantism, as you have freely agreed “The reality is that while all of our doctrines are in principle provisional” along with the Protestant affirmation of semper reformanda.
“The WCF disclaimer is that everything must be judged by scripture ”
The WCF disclaimer is this:
“All synods or councils, since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred. Therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith, or practice; but to be used as a help in both.”
“The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan.”
That of course includes everything WCF teaches, including its teaching on the identification of Scripture and the nature/role/function of Scripture. Any teaching is capable of being in error, no teaching is ever offered as guaranteed to be divinely protected from error.
“It is not a parallel comparison to allow the identification of the church to stand outside of the system on your side and require the identification of scripture to stand within our system on our side.”
It is a parallel comparison to hold each system consistent with its own claims. One side, being consistent with its claims, teaches semper reformanda and everything is provisional. One side, being consistent with its claims, teaches irreformable dogma and the certitude of faith.
“This isn’t a good parallel at all. In the comparison you’ve setup to evaluate the epistemological status of the prot and cath, we are assuming that each is true for sake of argument.”
Right. I’m assuming Christ/Apostles claims to infalliblity and divine authority are true. I’m then also assuming rabbi Levi’s disclaimers to such infallibility and authority are true. Which is the difference in the prot and catholic system (note that adherents in both scenarios are personally fallible). So the parallel encapsulates that difference. Consider which side’s arguments constantly makes Christ and the Apostles claims to authority and infallibility irrelevant or superfluous, and which side doesn’t.
“Perhaps we might want to consider the epistemological status of the Christians who tested the apostle’s words – presumably they didn’t believe them to be infallible or there would be no reason to test them.”
That doesn’t follow. They only tested Christ or the apostle’s words in the first place because of the type of claims and authority and ability Christ and the apostles were making. That’s the entire point – Christ and the Apostles gave them reason to actually consider and investigate their claims in the first place – if they were just acting like every other regular synagogue rabbi walking around offering admitted fallible teaching that might be wrong, might be right and that’s the best we can get (a la Protestantism), they’d have no reason to give the assent of faith to the rabbi or bother considering him as a viable contendor in the first place – he cut himself off from consideration by his own admitted disclaimers and lack of authority. So Christ and the Apostles made claims to divine authority and ability to offer irreformable dogma – they at least therefore offered themselves as worthy of consideration and a contendor. Their listeners then investigated the credibility of these claims. Some listeners found their claims to be reasonable, and gave the assent of faith – faith works with reason.
“There is every advantage of having the author of the words available to you.”
So we agree there’s an advantage, despite the fact both readers are fallible.
“Having the Holy Spirit, the author of scripture – God’s living word- is much better even if we don’t always listen so well.”
Bingo. And the Holy Spirit doesn’t teach provisional or tentative doctrines, it doesn’t give “infallible assurance we get things wrong, but might get things right later”. If you actually believe the HS is guiding and teaching you or the church as a whole, you would not argue that the certitude of faith as illegitimate or impossible or that we must always leave room for doubt for any and all doctrines – such is incompatible with a system promising divine revelation.
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Darryl,
“why would it make a difference on your scheme? You’re the one who claims an infallible post-apostolic source. You evaded the question.”
You’re the one who evaded the question when I asked it by ignoring the hypothetical nature of it to say “well that would be weird if the Apostles came back”. Neither of us seriously think Christ/Apostles are going to materialize in someone’s study for a personal week-long seminar on Scripture and revelation. I posited the hypothetical simply to highlight the silliness of the “but we’re all fallible so any infallible teacher is useless” argument.
“I do respect Rome from Trent to Vatican 2.”
Great. So a defense of the RC system or Magisterium does not entail a negligence or disregard for the infallibility of Scripture.
“What you haven’t answered is how liberalism creeps into the vaunted Roman Catholic system.”
Dissent. Not news. Modernism was creeping in over a century ago. It still does. The point is liberalism is not inherent to the RC system – it is to Protestantism because of the nature of the claims it makes.
“So you’re claiming we have knowledge like God’s?”
What? No, I’m not infallible.
“Look at Denzinger. He includes many of the canons of Fourth Lateran. But not the ones about Jews wearing Stars. ”
Because Denzinger was intelligent enough to understand, just like his contemporaries, that councils deal with both dogma and discipline/practice and didn’t conflate the two.
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Cletus,
I have no good reason to give the assent of faith to a proposed fallible teaching. I have good reason to submit to fallible church teaching, just as I have good reason to submit to my fallible parents, teachers, governments.
So even though you don’t believe it and are even convinced it is wrong, you do what they say anyway? You were just doing what you were told even though you knew it was wrong? You think God is going to honor that on the last day?
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Cletus,
I just realized that your argument has the effect of rendering most professing Christians throughout history as rank irrationalists and fideists.
All the Christians who lived before Nicea and believed in the deity of Christ? No reason for them to give the assent of faith because there was no infallible declaration before then. (Unless you accept the self-authenticating character of Scripture and perspicuity).
All the Christians who before Trent held that the OT canon was the OT canon of Trent. No reason for them to do that because there was no infallible declaration before then.
All those who affirmed papal infallibility before V1 had no good reason to give the assent of faith before then because there was no infallible dogma offered.
And on and on and on. Do you want to make Augustine and Aquinas fideists? Because that’s what your argument finally does.
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Robert:
And on and on and on. Do you want to make Augustine and Aquinas fideists? Because that’s what your argument finally does.>>>>
Your appeal to men like Augustine and Aquinas puts you in a pickle, Robert.
Augustine on the sacrifice of the Mass:
“In the sacrament he is immolated for the people not only on every Paschal Solemnity but on every day; and a man would not be lying if, when asked, he were to reply that Christ is being immolated. For if sacraments had not a likeness to those things of which they are sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all; and they generally take the names of those same things by reason of this likeness.”
Letters 98:9 [A.D. 412])
“For when he says in another book, which is called Ecclesiastes, ‘There is no good for a man except that he should eat and drink’ [Eccl. 2:24], what can he be more credibly understood to say [prophetically] than what belongs to the participation of this table which the Mediator of the New Testament himself, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, furnishes with his own body and blood? For that sacrifice has succeeded all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, which were slain as a shadow of what was to come. . . . Because, instead of all these sacrifices and oblations, his Body is offered and is served up to the partakers of it.”
The City of God 17:20 [A.D. 419]
St. Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic priest who loved to celebrate the Mass and loved to spend time in Eucharistic adoration. You know. The kind of guy you would call an idolator.
If Protestants want to claim these guys, then claim all of them. Claim what they believed to be the most important articles of faith. Love ‘em as they are or leave ‘em.
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No one of note
Posted November 19, 2015 at 7:56 am | Permalink
TVD, greetings, it’s the last few words that are error:
You wrote,
>>
Yes, Jesus is speaking to the apostles in John 16:13-15. It can just as easily be employed as an argument FOR the Catholic position.
In fact, Christ Himself declared this to the apostles that this would be the purpose of the Holy Ghost, to guide them in all Truth. Yet there were many things that our lord had wished to expounded to the apostles, but as He said “ (John 16:12) “but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not speak of himself: but what things so ever he shall hear, he shall speak. And the things that are to come, he shall show you them”. Hence, these truths were to be later expounded by the apostles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and faithfully transmitted through their successors.
>>
It was going well until that.
Neither the Son of God, nor the apostles, ever claimed they would have successors.
That’s why RCs, like Mormons and SDAs, require further revelation beyond them.
I’m sorry you didn’t read the link I gave you. The Catholic proof text is
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2009/09/apostolic-succession-various-biblical.html
The Bible contains sufficient enough indication of apostolic succession (though probably not “explicit” enough by unbiblical sola Scriptura standards to convince most Protestants: what else is new?).
St. Paul appears to be passing his office along to Timothy (1 Tim 6:20; 2 Tim 1:6, 13-14, 2:1-2, 4:1-6). See, for example:
2 Timothy 2:1-2 (RSV) You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, [2] and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
There are many indirect indications. When Jesus gives His disciples charge to do certain things, it is seen, by and large, by Protestants, as commands to their successors as well (perhaps not always apostolic succession per se, but at least succession as believers in Christ). So, for example, when Jesus tells His disciples to preach the gospel or to baptize, virtually all Christians today think that this applies to all Christians in perpetuity. Yet when Jesus tells the same disciples to “bind and loose” (Matt 18:18; Jn 20:23; also to St. Peter individually in Matt 16:19), somehow that is not seen as a thing that is perpetually relevant through history, and is relegated to their time only.
This makes no sense. For one to take such a position, they have to establish a solid reason why they regard one instance as perpetual and the other as temporary. I contend that it can’t be done; that any such criterion would be completely arbitrary. Often, sadly, it comes down to merely a contra-Catholic mentality and rationale: “Catholics believe thus-and-so, and so we must oppose it, no matter what the Bible may state on the subject.”
But we’re just rehashing something that’s been going on for 500 years. You are an immovable object on this; my only point is that Catholicism has a valid Biblical foundation for its claims. [Whether they are true claims is a different question, and one not answerable in a comments box.]
Further, your epistemological demand of “if it’s not explicitly in the Bible, I’m not going to believe it” ends any discussion before it starts, since Catholicism asserts a continuing influence of the Holy Spirit, whether it was in deciding what books to put in the Bible or the theology of the Trinity and Jesus’s divinity, which isn’t explicit in the Bible either.
Neither is your “cessationism” in the Bible, that the work of the Holy Spirit ends with the apostolic age. In fact, the Catholic proof text against that is
The apostles then must have successors, since they don’t live forever.
The irony of course is that you can look at John 16 and say it disproves apostolic succession but others say it proves it. Someone needs to break the tie, and of course Catholicism found a way, whereas Protestantism did not, hence its dozens or hundreds of versions and interpretations of the Christian religion.
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James Young, the hypothetical makes no sense. That’s why I didn’t answer it. You still haven’t established why authority without infallibility is not authority still. It’s an assumption you make. You prove nothing.
So now intelligence is an authority. Denzinger isn’t infallible. But he’s right. Don’t you see how self-selective that is?
And also, if infallibility is so great, why has it only produced two dogmas? You’re only in a better position because you have papal infallibility and bodily assumption of Mary? Why?
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James Young, “So a defense of the RC system or Magisterium does not entail a negligence or disregard for the infallibility of Scripture.”
Doesn’t follow. Your defense of the magisterium has to include Vatican 2 and the hedging on everything that went before. Was it intelligent for Pius IX to reject modernity and then for John XXIII to open the church’s windows to modernity? Which is the right posture?
If you believed in biblical infallibility you’d know how to answer that.
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Mermaid,
If Protestants want to claim these guys, then claim all of them. Claim what they believed to be the most important articles of faith. Love ‘em as they are or leave ‘em.
Okay, if I do that will you promise to claim Aquinas’ denial of the Immaculate Conception and His doctrine of unconditional election?
My point to Cletus is only that if the assent of faith is justified only for infallibly declared dogma, then Augustine and Aquinas were fideists and unjustified in holding many dogmas. Augustine, for example, seems to have held to the Tridentine RC canon. But that was not infallibly declared to be the canon until 1000 years after Augustine. So Augustine was a fideist on this matter if you follow Cletus’ argument to its logical end.
Anyone who affirmed the deity of Christ between the death of the last Apostle and Nicea would have to be a fideist as well. The dogma wasn’t infallibly declared, and the books of Scripture in which it was taught were not infallibly declared to be Scripture. They might have been used as Scripture, but Cletus has said that unless you know something is infallible dogma, you cannot give the assent of faith. So all of those people who believed in the deity of Christ based on Scripture until Nicea really didn’t give the assent of faith or were unjustified in giving it because, after all, neither the books of Scripture or the dogma had been infallibly declared.
That’s the logically valid conclusion. It doesn’t make it true. The premises are absurd.
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The question of Aquinas’s “denial” of the Immaculate Conception is complicated.
http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2011/12/did-st-thomas-deny-dogma-of-immaculate.html
Regardless, it is not claimed that Aquinas was infallible. One trivial item is not probative, except to the sophist who tries to make every proposition an all-or-nothing game.
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TVD, you wrote:
>>
When Jesus gives His disciples charge to do certain things, it is seen, by and large, by Protestants, as commands to their successors as well (perhaps not always apostolic succession per se, but at least succession as believers in Christ). So, for example, when Jesus tells His disciples to preach the gospel or to baptize, virtually all Christians today think that this applies to all Christians in perpetuity. Yet when Jesus tells the same disciples to “bind and loose” (Matt 18:18; Jn 20:23; also to St. Peter individually in Matt 16:19), somehow that is not seen as a thing that is perpetually relevant through history, and is relegated to their time only.
This makes no sense. For one to take such a position, they have to establish a solid reason why they regard one instance as perpetual and the other as temporary. I contend that it can’t be done; that any such criterion would be completely arbitrary. Often, sadly, it comes down to merely a contra-Catholic mentality and rationale: “Catholics believe thus-and-so, and so we must oppose it, no matter what the Bible may state on the subject.”
>>
Prots are hardly the measure of biblical loyalty. Anyway, when commands are repeated in the letters to the churches in apostolic writ, we know those commands and duties were meant to extend beyond just the apostles.
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No one of note
Posted November 19, 2015 at 5:59 pm | Permalink
TVD, you wrote:
>>
>>
Prots are hardly the measure of biblical loyalty. Anyway, when commands are repeated in the letters to the churches in apostolic writ, we know those commands and duties were meant to extend beyond just the apostles.
FTR, that passage was from the link, not me, I messed up the HTML. My point here is really on the question of validity: One can have a Biblically valid argument–that is, a reasonable interpretation of the text–that isn’t what God intended. Indeed, I’m fond of pointing out that Luther and Calvin disagree on some matters, and although they each have reasonable arguments, they can’t both be right!
The whole argument of an infallible magisterium isn’t just Bible proof-texting, but the quite reasonable proposition that surely Christ didn’t leave behind a Church that’s in constant theological confusion and fracture [as Protestantism is, let’s be honest]. That such chaos should be the norm is not in the Bible either. That razor cuts both ways.
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Robert,
“So even though you don’t believe it and are even convinced it is wrong, you do what they say anyway?”
No. Deference, respect, submission is not blind obedience. If a priest or my parent tells me to go worship Satan, I’m not going to do it. The obedience I was referring to of saints and the like is what forges the virtue of humility and chips away at pride – it doesn’t entail they must go around offering child sacrifices if ordered to do so.
“No reason for them to give the assent of faith because there was no infallible declaration before then”
Tradition is part of the STM-triad (again). Do you think people had to wait until Trent for the Resurrection or the gospels or the Real Presence or baptism? Of course not.
“Do you want to make Augustine and Aquinas fideists? Because that’s what your argument finally does.”
Here’s Aquinas the fideist not making the argument I make:
“Consequently to publish a new edition of the symbol belongs to that authority which is empowered to decide matters of faith finally, so that they may be held by all with unshaken faith. Now this belongs to the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff…. Hence our Lord said to Peter whom he made Sovereign Pontiff: “I have prayed for thee,” Peter, “that thy faith fail not, and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.” The reason of this is that there should be but one faith of the whole Church, according to 1 Corinthians 1:10: “That you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you”: and this could not be secured unless any question of faith that may arise be decided by him who presides over the whole Church, so that the whole Church may hold firmly to his decision. Consequently it belongs to the sole authority of the Sovereign Pontiff to publish a new edition of the symbol, as do all other matters which concern the whole Church, such as to convoke a general council and so forth.”
“This prohibition and sentence of the council was intended for private individuals, who have no business to decide matters of faith: for this decision of the general council did not take away from a subsequent council the power of drawing up a new edition of the symbol, containing not indeed a new faith, but the same faith with greater explicitness. For every council has taken into account that a subsequent council would expound matters more fully than the preceding council, if this became necessary through some heresy arising. Consequently this belongs to the Sovereign Pontiff, by whose authority the council is convoked, and its decision confirmed. ”
“The universal Church cannot err, since she is governed by the Holy Ghost, Who is the Spirit of truth: for such was Our Lord’s promise to His disciples: “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth.” Now the symbol is published by the authority of the universal Church. Therefore it contains nothing defective.”
“Hence it is not human knowledge, but the Divine truth that is the rule of faith: and if any of the learned stray from this rule, he does not harm the faith of the simple ones, who think that the learned believe aright; unless the simple hold obstinately to their individual errors, against the faith of the universal Church, which cannot err, since Our Lord said: “I have prayed for thee,” Peter, “that thy faith fail not.””
“The various conclusions of a science have their respective means of demonstration, one of which may be known without another, so that we may know some conclusions of a science without knowing the others. On the other hand faith adheres to all the articles of faith by reason of one mean, viz. on account of the First Truth proposed to us in Scriptures, according to the teaching of the Church who has the right understanding of them. Hence whoever abandons this mean is altogether lacking in faith.”
“A heretic does not hold the other articles of faith, about which he does not err, in the same way as one of the faithful does, namely by adhering simply to the Divine Truth, because in order to do so, a man needs the help of the habit of faith; but he holds the things that are of faith, by his own will and judgment.”
“Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith. Even so, it is evident that a man whose mind holds a conclusion without knowing how it is proved, has not scientific knowledge, but merely an opinion about it. Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will. Hence it is evident that a heretic who obstinately disbelieves one article of faith, is not prepared to follow the teaching of the Church in all things; but if he is not obstinate, he is no longer in heresy but only in error. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion in accordance with his own will.”
And here’s Augustine the fideist not making the argument I make:
“The excellence of the canonical authority of the Old and New Testaments is distinct from the books of later writers. This authority was confirmed in the times of the Apostles through the succession of bishops and the propagation of churches, as if it was settled in a heavenly manner in a kind of seat to which every believing and pious mind lives in obedience.”
“Let the reader consult the rule of faith which he has gathered from the plainer passages of Scripture, and from the authority of the Church, and of which I treated at sufficient length when I was speaking in the first book about things.”
“But while we are absent from the Lord, and walk by faith, not by sight, we ought to see the “back parts” of Christ, that is His flesh, by that very faith, that is, standing on the solid foundation of faith, which the rock signifies, and beholding it from such a safe watchtower, namely in the Catholic Church, of which it is said, “And upon this rock I will build my Church.””
“For my part, I should not believe the gospel except moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manicheus, how can I but consent?”
“But I would not believe in the Gospel, except that the authority of the Catholic Church moved me to do so.”
“To be sure, although on this matter, we cannot quote a clear example taken from the canonical Scriptures, at any rate, on this question, we are following the true thought of Scriptures when we observe what has appeared good to the universal Church which the authority of these same Scriptures recommends to you”
“It is obvious; the faith allows it; the Catholic Church approves; it is true”
“Now, in regards to the canonical Scriptures, he must follow the judgement of the greater number of catholic churches”
“And if anyone seek for divine authority in this matter, though what is held by the whole Church, and not as instituted by Councils, but as a matter of invariable custom, is rightly held to have been handed down by apostolic authority….”
“But those reasons which I have here given, I have either gathered from the authority of the church, according to the tradition of our forefathers, or from the testimony of the divine Scriptures, or from the nature itself of numbers and of similitudes. No sober person will decide against reason, no Christian against the Scriptures, no peaceable person against the church.”
“In the books of Maccabees we read of sacrifice offered for the dead. Howbeit even if it were no where at all read in the Old Scriptures, not small is the authority, which in this usage is clear, of the whole Church …”
“Or if he produces his own manuscripts of the apostolic writings, he must also obtain for them the authority of the churches founded by the apostles themselves, by showing that they have been preserved and transmitted with their sanction. It will be difficult for a man to make me believe him on the evidence of writings which derive all their authority from his own word, which I do not believe.”
“What could be more clear than the judgement of the Apostolic See?”
“What, moreover, shall I say of those commentators on the divine Scriptures who have flourished in the catholic Church? They have never tried to prevert these testimonies to an alien sense, because they were firmly established in our most ancient and solid faith, and were never moved aside from error.”
“But perhaps you will quote some other book bearing the name of an apostle known to have been chosen by Christ; and you will find there that Christ was not born of Mary. Since, then, one of the books must be false, the question in this case is, whether we are to yield our belief to a book acknowledged and approved as handed down from the beginning in the Church founded by Christ Himself, and maintained through the apostles and their successors in an unbroken connection all over the world to the present day; or to a book which this Church condemns as unknown, and which, moreover, is brought forward by men who prove their veracity by praising Christ for falsehood.”
“When therefore we see so great help of God, so great progress and fruit, shall we doubt to hide ourselves in the bosom of that Church, which even unto the confession of the human race from [the] apostolic chair through successions of Bishops, (heretics in vain lurking around her and being condemned, partly by the judgment of the very people, partly by the weight of councils, partly also by the majesty of miracles,) hath held the summit of authority. To be unwilling to grant to her the first place, is either surely the height of impiety, or is headlong arrogance. For, if there be no sure way unto wisdom and health of souls, unless where faith prepare them for reason, what else is it to be ungrateful for the Divine help and aid, than to wish to resist authority furnished with so great labor? And if every system of teaching, however mean and easy, requires, in order to its being received, a teacher or master, what more full of rash pride, than, in the case of books of divine mysteries, both to be unwilling to learn from such as interpret them, and to wish to condemn them unlearned?”
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Darryl,
“the hypothetical makes no sense. That’s why I didn’t answer it.”
It makes no sense to do a simple thought experiment that if the Apostles or Christ sat down with you for a week for unlimited discussion and clarification on interpretation and teachings of revelation, you wouldn’t have an advantage over everyone else, even though you and everyone else remains personally fallible? This is not a difficult exercise.
“You still haven’t established why authority without infallibility is not authority still. It’s an assumption you make. You prove nothing.”
Well “you prove nothing” is a very convincing refutation. Here’s the assumption I make – divine revelation is infallible and irreformable. Work it out from there.
“So now intelligence is an authority. Denzinger isn’t infallible. But he’s right. Don’t you see how self-selective that is?”
Denzinger isn’t a lone wolf is my point. Please find me any RC theologians in history who argued that everything an ecumenical council decrees is infallible dogma, or that such councils never dealt with disciplinary matters and practices. Trent itself lists out separate sections devoted to disciplinary reform. I guess Trent didn’t know what it was doing.
“And also, if infallibility is so great, why has it only produced two dogmas?”
Oy vey, you’re still peddling this? Infallibility is … here it is, put it on your fridge … not limited to ex cathedra statements (again).
“So a defense of the RC system or Magisterium does not entail a negligence or disregard for the infallibility of Scripture.”
– Doesn’t follow.”
Of course it follows. Do you deny that the RCC defended its system and claims and magisterium from Trent to Vat2? Do you deny that during this anti-modernist golden age, it was also defending the infallibility of Scripture? If no, then we can move on from your spurious charges that I am denigrating the infallibility of Scripture.
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Mermaid,
1. “Talking with Rome” is ambiguous. I’ll talk to just about anybody. But if by talking you mean saying we agree on stuff that we don’t, then I’ll pass.
2. “Who are the real Reformed churches? Who are the true Calvinists?”
I don’t think this is an important question. Pragmatically, yes, it is very helpful to know which churches are “Reformed”, but it is just a label, currently used to describe the churches that confess the interpretation of Scripture found in the WCF / 3FU. But language and terminology changes.
3. How can we cause turmoil in other churches? Part of being a confessionalist (in contrast with a raging MacArthur-ite or Keller-ite, which may very well be disturbing Protestantism) is usually attending a confessional church.
4. Is there one by Fea? I have read Frame’s Machen’s Warrior Children. But I wrote him off after he explained 2K by saying it was based off one little passage in Genesis 9.
5. Doesn’t the fact that there is disagreement and problems within the Confessional world imply that we are doing some self-examination? And finally, we are definitely trying to help our brothers and sisters in Christ, with the only help there is
through the means God instituted
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Cletus,
Augustine and Aquinas, of course, aren’t fideists. But based on your critique of Protestantism they must be. So let’s look at this:
Tradition is part of the STM-triad (again). Do you think people had to wait until Trent for the Resurrection or the gospels or the Real Presence or baptism? Of course not.
Well based on your critique of Protestantism, I don’t see how any one could have been justified in giving the assent of faith before there is an official dogmatic, infallible declaration of any of that.
Your entire critique is built on how Protestantism doesn’t offer any dogma as infallible, so therefore you can’t give the assent of faith OR if you do give the assent of faith, it is fideism. Let’s grant that premise for the sake of argument.
Where, before Nicea is the deity of Christ offered as an infallible dogma? If you want to say tradition, then okay, where did the church prior to Nicea say this aspect of tradition is infallible. If you want to say Scripture, where does the church prior to Nicea dogmatically declare as infallible that Romans or John or whatever book of Scripture is part of the infallible canon. There’s no ecumenical council until Nicea. So, where is the dogmatic definition.
And if you can’t give me a dogmatic definition until Nicea, then explain how Joseph the Romanite and Susan the Alexandrian were justified in giving the assent of faith to the notion that Christ is God without being a fideist. Where does the church prior to Nicea infallibly declare that said belief is infallibly true?
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Cletus,
And a statement from Augustine or Aquinas that the church cannot err doesn’t count because they are individual writers. Where does THE CHURCH define the deity of Christ as an infallible dogma that must be believed before Nicea. None of this vague unbroken succession stuff either, because as you well know, there were plenty of bishops who were part of the “unbroken succession” that were Arians or who at the very least were unclear that Christ is God. Or if you want to use them, show me where the church, prior to NICEA, says their opinions don’t count.
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Tom,
Regardless, it is not claimed that Aquinas was infallible. One trivial item is not probative, except to the sophist who tries to make every proposition an all-or-nothing game.
I agree. But Mermaid was the one that said if we want to claim Augustine and Aquinas, we have to claim everything they said. If that’s true of me, that’s true of her and her church. But of course her church doesn’t claim everything they said is gospel.
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“It makes no sense to do a simple thought experiment that if the Apostles or Christ sat down with you for a week for unlimited discussion and clarification on interpretation and teachings of revelation, you wouldn’t have an advantage over everyone else, even though you and everyone else remains personally fallible? This is not a difficult exercise.”
That’s really easy to answer. A believer with the Holy Spirit is better off than Peter pre-Pentecost. He had like three years of near unlimited access. Of course Judas had lot of access too…
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James Young, “It makes no sense to do a simple thought experiment that if the Apostles or Christ sat down with you for a week for unlimited discussion and clarification on interpretation and teachings of revelation, you wouldn’t have an advantage over everyone else, even though you and everyone else remains personally fallible?”
Oh. I see. Having the popes is like having Christ and the apostles– even though the popes give no new revelation. Now I see.
Nope.
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James Young, but fallible authorities are authoritative. Kings, fathers, senators. So there. Yup.
Infallibility is not a zero sum game. Infallibility = authority. Fallibility = no authority.
Cool.
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James Young, your catechism says that the magisterium is authoritative. STM, remember?
So now we have fallible teaching that is authoritative. Hmmm.
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James Young, so when are things infallible? First it takes intelligence to wipe away the gold stars for Jews from Fourth Lateran. Then it takes Roman Catholic gullibility to say that most everything else is authoritative.
And then it takes chutzpa to say that doctrines not defined as infallible are infallible. So I guess Laudato Si is infallible then.
Cool. Live with that.
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James Young, what I deny is that except when councils of bishops met, most papal statements between Gregory VII and Leo XIII were all about papal supremacy.
Great. Pope has power. That’s real clear from Scripture and not in the slightest self-serving — especially given the way the papacy was a trophy for wealthy Roman families.
Cool.
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Robert
Posted November 19, 2015 at 7:59 pm | Permalink
Tom,
“Regardless, it is not claimed that Aquinas was infallible. One trivial item is not probative, except to the sophist who tries to make every proposition an all-or-nothing game.”
I agree. But Mermaid was the one that said if we want to claim Augustine and Aquinas, we have to claim everything they said. If that’s true of me, that’s true of her and her church. But of course her church doesn’t claim everything they said is gospel.
Well, it’s a matter of proportion, not just a ding here or there over a doctrinal wrinkle. Your church is not the Catholic Church as Augustine conceives it, so appealing to Augustine is problematic. You do not have “the succession of bishops.” You do not have “the authority of the church.” [Which, in fairness, I don’t believe you claim, though it’s hard to tell.]
You do not have “the supreme authority of the Apostolic See through the Episcopal succession.” Now, you might claim the Catholic Church doesn’t either, but that doesn’t help your own legitimacy problems.
I mean, this is a lot to ignore.
“The excellence of the canonical authority of the Old and New Testaments is distinct from the books of later writers. This authority was confirmed in the times of the Apostles through the succession of bishops and the propagation of churches, as if it was settled in a heavenly manner in a kind of seat to which every believing and pious mind lives in obedience.”
“Let the reader consult the rule of faith which he has gathered from the plainer passages of Scripture, and from the authority of the Church, and of which I treated at sufficient length when I was speaking in the first book about things.”
“But while we are absent from the Lord, and walk by faith, not by sight, we ought to see the “back parts” of Christ, that is His flesh, by that very faith, that is, standing on the solid foundation of faith, which the rock signifies, and beholding it from such a safe watchtower, namely in the Catholic Church, of which it is said, “And upon this rock I will build my Church.””
“For my part, I should not believe the gospel except moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manicheus, how can I but consent?”
“But I would not believe in the Gospel, except that the authority of the Catholic Church moved me to do so.”
“To be sure, although on this matter, we cannot quote a clear example taken from the canonical Scriptures, at any rate, on this question, we are following the true thought of Scriptures when we observe what has appeared good to the universal Church which the authority of these same Scriptures recommends to you”
“It is obvious; the faith allows it; the Catholic Church approves; it is true”
“Now, in regards to the canonical Scriptures, he must follow the judgement of the greater number of catholic churches”
“And if anyone seek for divine authority in this matter, though what is held by the whole Church, and not as instituted by Councils, but as a matter of invariable custom, is rightly held to have been handed down by apostolic authority….”
“But those reasons which I have here given, I have either gathered from the authority of the church, according to the tradition of our forefathers, or from the testimony of the divine Scriptures, or from the nature itself of numbers and of similitudes. No sober person will decide against reason, no Christian against the Scriptures, no peaceable person against the church.”
“In the books of Maccabees we read of sacrifice offered for the dead. Howbeit even if it were no where at all read in the Old Scriptures, not small is the authority, which in this usage is clear, of the whole Church …”
“Or if he produces his own manuscripts of the apostolic writings, he must also obtain for them the authority of the churches founded by the apostles themselves, by showing that they have been preserved and transmitted with their sanction. It will be difficult for a man to make me believe him on the evidence of writings which derive all their authority from his own word, which I do not believe.”
“What could be more clear than the judgement of the Apostolic See?”
“What, moreover, shall I say of those commentators on the divine Scriptures who have flourished in the catholic Church? They have never tried to prevert these testimonies to an alien sense, because they were firmly established in our most ancient and solid faith, and were never moved aside from error.”
“But perhaps you will quote some other book bearing the name of an apostle known to have been chosen by Christ; and you will find there that Christ was not born of Mary. Since, then, one of the books must be false, the question in this case is, whether we are to yield our belief to a book acknowledged and approved as handed down from the beginning in the Church founded by Christ Himself, and maintained through the apostles and their successors in an unbroken connection all over the world to the present day; or to a book which this Church condemns as unknown, and which, moreover, is brought forward by men who prove their veracity by praising Christ for falsehood.”
“When therefore we see so great help of God, so great progress and fruit, shall we doubt to hide ourselves in the bosom of that Church, which even unto the confession of the human race from [the] apostolic chair through successions of Bishops, (heretics in vain lurking around her and being condemned, partly by the judgment of the very people, partly by the weight of councils, partly also by the majesty of miracles,) hath held the summit of authority. To be unwilling to grant to her the first place, is either surely the height of impiety, or is headlong arrogance. For, if there be no sure way unto wisdom and health of souls, unless where faith prepare them for reason, what else is it to be ungrateful for the Divine help and aid, than to wish to resist authority furnished with so great labor? And if every system of teaching, however mean and easy, requires, in order to its being received, a teacher or master, what more full of rash pride, than, in the case of books of divine mysteries, both to be unwilling to learn from such as interpret them, and to wish to condemn them unlearned?”
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Tom,
Well, it’s a matter of proportion, not just a ding here or there over a doctrinal wrinkle. Your church is not the Catholic Church as Augustine conceives it, so appealing to Augustine is problematic. You do not have “the succession of bishops.” You do not have “the authority of the church.” [Which, in fairness, I don’t believe you claim, though it’s hard to tell.]
We don’t have a succession of monarchical bishops. We do have a succession of elders. And we also have the authority of the church.
But of course, Rome doesn’t have the church Augustine envisioned either. No such thing as papal infallibility in His day. And the bishop of Rome was still in communion with the Eastern bishops.
You do not have “the supreme authority of the Apostolic See through the Episcopal succession.” Now, you might claim the Catholic Church doesn’t either, but that doesn’t help your own legitimacy problems.
Well, I don’t have to prove my legitimacy in this argument. All I have to prove is that “Protestantism is wrong, therefore Romanism” is false. But that’s the argument assumed by most RC interlocutors around here.
But I also don’t base the legitimacy of my church on what Augustine says. Of course, neither does Rome. If it did, it would have to give up a whole lot of post-Augustinian development.
I mean, this is a lot to ignore.
1. Not if Augustine is fallible, which Rome admits.
2. Not if Rome’s understanding of this statement is not Augustine’s understanding of them, and for many of them it is not.
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“Of course not all parts are infallible.” So we have an infallible definition of which parts are and which parts aren’t infallible? More to the point, the declaration that a previous pope, now deceased, is *now* excommunicated doesn’t sound like recommendation about what color robe to wear. I understand that the excommunicated can repent and be restored to the society of the faithful, that’s the point of excommunication. But if the person is now dead and declared to not be part of the society of the faithful, you are really splitting hairs to say the church has never definitively stated that a specific person is in hell – purgatory isn’t for those who died in mortal sin. I guess you are saying either that the council’s declaration that a person died excommunicated doesn’t entail they are lost? Very curious… Or perhaps they were mistaken? Why wouldn’t they be protected from error about such a pronouncement? If they weren’t, by your standard you have no good reason to believe them right?
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“I have no good reason to give the assent of faith to a proposed fallible teaching. I have good reason to submit to fallible church teaching, ”
You are moving the goal posts. You said there is no good reason to believe a fallible teaching. You submit to such a teaching that may or may not be wrong (say the OT canon prior to Trent), but you don’t have a good reason to believe it? Very strange construction.
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Robert
Posted November 19, 2015 at 9:12 pm | Permalink
Tom,
“Well, it’s a matter of proportion, not just a ding here or there over a doctrinal wrinkle. Your church is not the Catholic Church as Augustine conceives it, so appealing to Augustine is problematic. You do not have “the succession of bishops.” You do not have “the authority of the church.” [Which, in fairness, I don’t believe you claim, though it’s hard to tell.]”
We don’t have a succession of monarchical bishops. We do have a succession of elders.
You cannot trace your succession back to the early church, as Augustine claimed it for the Church.
And we also have the authority of the church.
You claim the authority of the Church, until the next schism. Then there are two, and six and dozens and hundreds of authorities.
“You do not have “the supreme authority of the Apostolic See through the Episcopal succession.” Now, you might claim the Catholic Church doesn’t either, but that doesn’t help your own legitimacy problems.”
Well, I don’t have to prove my legitimacy in this argument. All I have to prove is that “Protestantism is wrong, therefore Romanism” is false. But that’s the argument assumed by most RC interlocutors around here.
Actually, “Last Man Standing” is Dr. Hart’s trick, and why he’s spending the lion’s share of his time attacking the Catholic Church. But since the Catholic Church has stood for 2000 years, yes, the burden of proof is not equally shared–you bear it. You are the splinter group, you are the ones who don’t even bother calling yourselves the catholic church.
But I also don’t base the legitimacy of my church on what Augustine says. Of course, neither does Rome. If it did, it would have to give up a whole lot of post-Augustinian development.
Well, the subject here is only how good a claim you have to Augustine, Mermaid’s point. You are in schism from the Church he provably historically belonged to. Only with the most tortuous sophistry could you even begin to claim “the supreme authority of the Apostolic See through the Episcopal succession.”
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You are misconstruing the purported “disclaimer”. Article I includes the following:
The excerpts from Articles 25 and 31 have to be read in light of this. I don’t see that Article 25 is a problem – you’ve already allowed that you church can err. The difference is that there is a subset of things your church states that cannot be wrong (which subset we can presumably infallibly define). The excerpt from Article 31 is preceded by the following statement:
The implication of this and the statements in Article I is clearly that if a council conflicts with scripture, then scripture trumps the decision of the council. Scripture is properly basic – if we’ve misidentified it, then we have big problems (same as if you’ve misidentified the church). We believe scripture cannot err even if we can in interpreting it – just as you believe that on matters of the faith the church cannot err even if your laity and clergy are hopelessly confused about what the church infallibly teaches. For us, God’s word is the foundation (speaking through the prophets and apostles with Christ as the chief cornerstone, while for you the church is the foundation which defines doctrine rather than interpreting it).
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The apostles do not claim to be infallible – Paul explicitly warns about apostles who could teach a false gospel. You keep tossing in authority and infallibility, but we’ve already established that one can have authority to which you must submit even if the authority is fallible. Again, Christ is infallible because he is God. The apostles were fallible – when they relayed the Holy Spirit’s words those words were infallible because they were the Holy Spirit’s (and yes I understand that they were not dictating word for word what the Holy spirit was saying). The Holy spirit, working with broken vessels, preserved his word through his broken, fallible church. His word is infallible, but we (including popes and councils) are not.
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Well we’ve already established that one can be compelled to submit one’s intellect to a fallible teacher. Indeed, Christ commanded the people to submit to those fallible (and often wrong) rabbis who clearly were not protected from error. And indeed many people did and were commended for their faithfulness. So no, such disclaimers do not cut one off from consideration nor should they. The reason the people were admonished to test what was said was because the teachers in the church could be wrong – Paul warns the bishops in Ephesus, “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.” John spends quite a bit of time warning against false teachers, about testing the spirits, etc… because they weren’t infallible.
True. God does not teach provisional or tentative doctrines. But people – including popes and councils do.
Unless one takes church doctrines to be our interpretation of God’s word. God’s word is infallible, but the church’s understanding of it is fallible (not necessarily wrong about everything). Our lodestone, our foundation is the living and active word of God. Adding a middleman who is purportedly sometimes infallible about certain things doesn’t confer an advantage – particularly when said middleman gets lots and lots of things wrong and doesn’t bother insisting on the things he gets right. What you call certitude of faith, I call confidence in God’s revelation – a confidence that recognizes that I could be wrong (though I probably am not).
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The Holy spirit, working with broken vessels, preserved his word through his broken, fallible church. His word is infallible, but we (including popes and councils) are not.
It’s still basically the same argument about the Holy Spirit. The Church is, at the end of the day, infallibile–after all, it’s Christ’s church, “My” church, not man’s.
Accordingly, the office of the pope is claimed to be infallible, but not the person himself.
http://www.traditio.com/tradlib/popelim.txt
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Robert
Posted November 19, 2015 at 5:19 pm | Permalink
Mermaid,
If Protestants want to claim these guys, then claim all of them. Claim what they believed to be the most important articles of faith. Love ‘em as they are or leave ‘em.
Robert:
Okay, if I do that will you promise to claim Aquinas’ denial of the Immaculate Conception and His doctrine of unconditional election?>>>>
IC – Aquinas did hold to Mary’s entire personal sinlessness. She was fully sanctified before her conception in Aquinas’ view, but you must know that. Your real objection is that anyway – that Mary was fully sanctified and never sinned.
UE – Catholics are free to accept the doctrine of unconditional election. You must know that also.
Reformed Christians allege that the Mass is idolatrous and that the veneration of Mary and the saints is as well. So, how can you be using men like Aquinas and Augustine as support since according to your theology they are idolators? You even act as though they were not Catholic.
It’s an interesting phenomenon, Brother Robert. It seems like you should at least acknowledge this fact – they were and are Catholics.
That’s all I am saying. Love them as they are, not as what you wish they were.
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No one of note:
John 1:1 nullifies at once the Jehovah Witness claim that Jesus is a created being. Completely and entirely. Argument over.>>>>>
I understand that you have your mind made up. No problem. I would like to suggest that the argument is just beginning when you quote Scripture to support the deity of Christ.
Who gave you the Scripture? Where did it come from? Think about it.
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Robert
Posted November 19, 2015 at 7:59 pm | Permalink
Tom,
TVD:
Regardless, it is not claimed that Aquinas was infallible. One trivial item is not probative, except to the sophist who tries to make every proposition an all-or-nothing game.
Robert:
I agree. But Mermaid was the one that said if we want to claim Augustine and Aquinas, we have to claim everything they said. If that’s true of me, that’s true of her and her church. But of course her church doesn’t claim everything they said is gospel.>>>>
Robert, I didn’t mention IC. I didn’t say you have to claim everything they said, but you should at least acknowledge the fact that they were Catholics. I mean, you invoked super Catholics to refute Catholicsm. It struck me as ironic. That’s all.
Carry on. Don’t mind me. 🙂
Here is part of what I said.:
“St. Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic priest who loved to celebrate the Mass and loved to spend time in Eucharistic adoration. You know. The kind of guy you would call an idolator.
If Protestants want to claim these guys, then claim all of them. Claim what they believed to be the most important articles of faith. Love ‘em as they are or leave ‘em.”
—————————————————–
The Little Mermaid
Posted November 19, 2015 at 4:32 pm | Permalink
Robert:
And on and on and on. Do you want to make Augustine and Aquinas fideists? Because that’s what your argument finally does.>>>>
Your appeal to men like Augustine and Aquinas puts you in a pickle, Robert.
St. Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic priest who loved to celebrate the Mass and loved to spend time in Eucharistic adoration. You know. The kind of guy you would call an idolator…
If Protestants want to claim these guys, then claim all of them. Claim what they believed to be the most important articles of faith. Love ‘em as they are or leave ‘em.
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vd, t, “For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not
so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but
that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully
expound the revelation or Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles.”
Great. Papal infallibility and bodily assumption of Mary were not taught by the apostles. We’re good here.
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TVD, greetings,
you wrote,
>>
The whole argument of an infallible magisterium isn’t just Bible proof-texting, but the quite reasonable proposition that surely Christ didn’t leave behind a Church that’s in constant theological confusion and fracture [as Protestantism is, let’s be honest]. That such chaos should be the norm is not in the Bible either. That razor cuts both ways.
>>
I’m struggling for a metaphor here. Hmmm, The Matrix, or the cults? Let’s stay with cults for 400, Alex.
Is the Mormon Church a Church? Well, they call themselves a Church and they’ve been around 160 years or so. But even though the offer worship to Jesus Christ (wrongly, admittedly) they, as an organization, are a “Church” only in the sense they redefine “Church” to suit their organizational development.
But their own self-designation as a Church needs to be measured against what the apostles taught a church is, and when we do that, we see they are highly disobedient.
So too the RCC, just been around longer. The organization from top to bottom isn’t a “Church” as defined by the apostolic writings.
A church is an assembly of people offering worship to Jesus Christ, not a geographically dispersed hierarchical organization. In Revelation our Lord examines 7 different ones, each in their own city. What do we see there? Much more disobedience than obedience, and never once does He organizationally linked them, one to another, nor does He spiritually linked them to each another.
That is the reality even today. Hence my desire to analogize with the Matrix. There are a ton of RC churches, Prot churches, Mormon churches, Pentecostal churches, Fundy churches, Orthodox churches, etc., etc. All of them are somewhere on the spectrum of highly disobedient to highly obedient to Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of the Father.
But describing some or all of them as “the Church” is simply not how the resurrected Christ knows them.
The litmus of obedience is not an organization’s self-defined meaning of “Church” but the apostolic teaching of what churches are to believe and do.
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Tom,
You cannot trace your succession back to the early church, as Augustine claimed it for the Church.
I can surely trace the laying on of hands by qualified men back to the early church.
You claim the authority of the Church, until the next schism. Then there are two, and six and dozens and hundreds of authorities.
Well it is true that Protestants tend to care about dogma. Rome doesn’t. So it is perfectly content to let Nancy Pelosi be her own pope. It is perfectly content that the vast majority of its adherents practice birth control. And on and on and on. The infallible laity isn’t getting the message about church authority.
Actually, “Last Man Standing” is Dr. Hart’s trick, and why he’s spending the lion’s share of his time attacking the Catholic Church. But since the Catholic Church has stood for 2000 years, yes, the burden of proof is not equally shared–you bear it. You are the splinter group, you are the ones who don’t even bother calling yourselves the catholic church.
Incorrect. The Roman Catholic Church has not stood for 2000 years. It has stood since the Reformation. Everything before that is ours as well. And we call ourselves the catholic church all the time.
Well, the subject here is only how good a claim you have to Augustine, Mermaid’s point. You are in schism from the Church he provably historically belonged to. Only with the most tortuous sophistry could you even begin to claim “the supreme authority of the Apostolic See through the Episcopal succession.”
Which is why I don’t claim it. I claim Augustine where he is biblically correct and reject Him where He is not. Just like Roman Catholic theology accepts him where he agrees with them and conveniently rejects him where he does not.
The church of the early fifth century is not the Roman Catholic Church. That’s provable. It’s so easy, I’ll just list two things:
1. There was no pope with final jurisdictional authority.
2. The Eastern bishops were still a part.
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Mermaid, “If Protestants want to claim these guys, then claim all of them. Claim what they believed to be the most important articles of faith.”
Are you kidding? If you want Roman Catholicism, then step up to this:
The problem with you is that you only see the good in Rome and when someone points out the bad, the messenger is mean.
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Mermaid,
IC – Aquinas did hold to Mary’s entire personal sinlessness. She was fully sanctified before her conception in Aquinas’ view, but you must know that. Your real objection is that anyway – that Mary was fully sanctified and never sinned.
He didn’t hold that it happened at her conception. That’s the point. To believe what Aquinas believed is today theological error.
UE – Catholics are free to accept the doctrine of unconditional election. You must know that also.
And they’re also free to reject it. So if accepting Augustine means believing everything that he believed, then Rome doesn’t accept him either.
Reformed Christians allege that the Mass is idolatrous and that the veneration of Mary and the saints is as well. So, how can you be using men like Aquinas and Augustine as support since according to your theology they are idolators? You even act as though they were not Catholic.
Augustine’s teaching on the mass is not the same as the modern Roman view. It’s no propitiatory sacrifice, there’s no transubstantiation, and he held that the body of Christ offered up to God is the laity/church. Its also questionable how much his view of saintly veneration matches Rome’s modern view.
Aquinas is closer to modern Roman Catholicism, but even he isn’t Tridentine or even a V2 Roman Catholic.
And all truth is God’s truth, so wherever somebody is correct, their views are usable. You all freely use the idolater Aristotle.
It’s an interesting phenomenon, Brother Robert. It seems like you should at least acknowledge this fact – they were and are Catholics.
The were and are catholics. Small c. Not Roman Catholics. There is a difference.
That’s all I am saying. Love them as they are, not as what you wish they were.
But that’s the entire Protestant point to you. Don’t try to read Roman Catholicism into the early church fathers. Let them be who they were. It’s okay. Don’t impute to them beliefs they did not hold based on prooftexting.
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James Young, infallibility is not limited to ex cathedra statements but when bishops meet at a synod convened by the pope, their work has no magisterial authority:
We’re confused. Or maybe you are. Yup.
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Hi Mermaid, greetings,
You wrote,
>>
Who gave you the Scripture? Where did it come from? Think about it.
>>
God tells me He gave it. It came from Him. It fulfills His promise to the apostles in the Upper Room in John 16:13.
And the churches were commanded by the apostles to receive it as from Him immediately (1 Thess. 5:27, Col. 4:16, 2 Thess. 3:14, 1 Tim. 5:18, 2 Peter 2:20-21).
Settling on the canon was a matter of obedience, not an act of revelation.
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Robert or was it sbd, was it this post or another: What do we see there? Much more disobedience than obedience, and never once does He organizationally linked them, one to another, nor does He spiritually linked them to each another.
Aren’t they very much linked Robert/sdb?
I see at least these links (Rev 2-3)
1)Jesus is the head, Who speaks: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand; Who walks among the seven golden lampstands; the first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life;:Who has the sharp two-edged sword ;The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze; Who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, Who opens and no one will shut, and Who shuts and no one opens; The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God; Who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars
2)there are human and angelic authorities “to the angel of the church”
3)there is One Who convinces “the Spirit says to the churches”
4)a group is addressed: ‘he who He who has an ear, let him hear
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Hi Ali, greetings,
You wrote,
>>
Aren’t they very much linked Robert/sdb?
>>
It was my post.
In Rev. 2-3 the churches are never linked organizationally, and they are never linked spiritually by Christ. Meaning this: the obedience/disobedience of one is never connected to the obedience/disobedience of another. Each receives a separate spiritual analysis and evaluation by the risen Lord.
He does not group churches together and give them, collectively, a spiritual analysis, or an organizational recognition.
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Many of us are Reformed.
We get really creeped out when people talk authoritatively of the true meaning of that Revalation book in the Bible.
Not even Calvin dared go there.
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NOON: He does not group churches together and give them, collectively, a spiritual analysis
thanks NOON, I know what you’re saying but I think you also know what I’m saying. The Bible speaks collectively, the Spirit applies individually
organizational recognition: there is Mermaid’s favorite (rightly so): one body, one God: Father, Son ,Spirit one hope, faith,baptism; w/Jesus as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.(Eph 1:22-23)
spiritual analysis: analysis: a careful study of something to learn about its parts, what they do, and how they are related to each other
1 Corinthians 12:4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. 6 There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. 7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.12 For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.14 For the body is not one member, but many. 18 But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. 27 Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers,….etc. ’all gifts’ 31 But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way….
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No one of note:
Settling on the canon was a matter of obedience, not an act of revelation.>>>>>
Howdy, No one of note,
Thanks for your kind response.
Yes. Who did the Holy Spirit entrust that job to, the job of establishing the canon of Scripture?
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Mermaid,
The job of establishing the canon falls to the Holy Spirit. A book is canonical as soon as it is inspired whether it is recognized or not. The church conveys no ontology on revelation. It merely receives it.
IOW, Revelation was canonical as soon as John wrote the last word, even if it took a couple of centuries for the church as a whole to recognize it.
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D.G. Hart:
Mermaid, that’s funny. You need to run to Paul, who hardly acknowledged the primacy of Peter, to support the primacy of Peter.>>>>>
So, arguing the words of Jesus against Paul and then appealing to the authority of a comedian? Of course you know that Paul was not silent about Peter. Peter was still in Jerusalem when Paul went to stay a couple of weeks with him. Why Peter?
Then, Paul once again found it important to mention Peter’s primacy. Was Peter always right in everything he said? No. He made mistakes of judgment and had to be corrected as well. You have trouble acknowledging it, but the Church does not say that the Pope is always right about every word he says. The Church does not say we have to follow the Pope if he tries to lead the Church away from foundational teachings. For example, if the Pope denies the Trinity or the Incarnation, we do not have to go along with him in his apostasy.
Francis is not going to do that, as you know. We don’t have to follow any priest, bishop, or cardinal who apostatizes, either. The man is not the standard. But you know all that and choose to ignore it, sitting under your Kudzu Vine waiting for fire to fall.
Again, why does Paul talk about Peter? Why was it important for Paul to be accepted by the apostles, who were led by Peter as Jesus commissioned him? It would be nice to discuss this with you, but you prefer quoting comedians to support our ideas. Get you sola scriptura on.
Galatians 1
18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days.
Galatians 2
Paul Accepted by the Apostles
2 Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. 2 I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. 3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. 4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. 7 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised 8 (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), 9 and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10 Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.
Paul Opposes Peter
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.[a] 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 20, 2015 at 6:39 am | Permalink
vd, t, “For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not
so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but
that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully
expound the revelation or Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles.”
Great. Papal infallibility and bodily assumption of Mary were not taught by the apostles. We’re good here.
Well, now we’ve brought your Catholicism up to 1870 at least. One miracle at a time.
Now research the role of the sensus fidei in the Immaculate Conception and Assumption, Squire Hart.
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No one of note
Posted November 20, 2015 at 6:44 am | Permalink
TVD, greetings,
you wrote,
>>
The whole argument of an infallible magisterium isn’t just Bible proof-texting, but the quite reasonable proposition that surely Christ didn’t leave behind a Church that’s in constant theological confusion and fracture [as Protestantism is, let’s be honest]. That such chaos should be the norm is not in the Bible either. That razor cuts both ways.
>>
I’m struggling for a metaphor here. Hmmm, The Matrix, or the cults? Let’s stay with cults for 400, Alex.
Is the Mormon Church a Church? Well, they call themselves a Church and they’ve been around 160 years or so.
And Dr. Hart’s church has been around for 80 years and has far [far!] fewer members than the Mormons. You don’t seem to get the irony that they both claim to be the true Church. All heretics do.
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The Little Mermaid
Posted November 20, 2015 at 1:05 pm | Permalink
D.G. Hart:
Mermaid, that’s funny. You need to run to Paul, who hardly acknowledged the primacy of Peter, to support the primacy of Peter.>>>>>
So, arguing the words of Jesus against Paul and then appealing to the authority of a comedian?
Ouch, that one hurt, Dr. Drive-by. And arguing the Bible against the Bible instead of harmonizing the Bible with the Bible is not a love a truth.
Of course you know that Paul was not silent about Peter. Peter was still in Jerusalem when Paul went to stay a couple of weeks with him. Why Peter?
Then, Paul once again found it important to mention Peter’s primacy. Was Peter always right in everything he said? No. He made mistakes of judgment and had to be corrected as well. You have trouble acknowledging it, but the Church does not say that the Pope is always right about every word he says. The Church does not say we have to follow the Pope if he tries to lead the Church away from foundational teachings. For example, if the Pope denies the Trinity or the Incarnation, we do not have to go along with him in his apostasy.
Francis is not going to do that, as you know. We don’t have to follow any priest, bishop, or cardinal who apostatizes, either. The man is not the standard. But you know all that and choose to ignore it, sitting under your Kudzu Vine waiting for fire to fall.
The David Barton of anti-Catholicism. Well, after Boettner, of course. The master.
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Robert
Posted November 20, 2015 at 12:24 pm | Permalink
Mermaid,
The job of establishing the canon falls to the Holy Spirit. A book is canonical as soon as it is inspired whether it is recognized or not. The church conveys no ontology on revelation. It merely receives it.
IOW, Revelation was canonical as soon as John wrote the last word, even if it took a couple of centuries for the church as a whole to recognize it.>>>>
Howdy, Robert,
At least you’re still talking to me. Didn’t mean to interrupt your important discussion with CVD. It is very interesting. Anyway, nice to see you.
There is no disagreement about the fact that the Holy Spirit inspires and then reveals the canon of Scripture to the Church. You would say church.
Yes, it took time for the Church to recognize what books were in the NT canon. It was the Church, though, that had the task of recognizing what the Holy Spirit had inspired. He entrusted that work to gifted men in the Church. He did not speak with a voice from Heaven except as He spoke in the Church. Men sought His leading. Men discussed it, debated it, and even disagreed until it was decided. Now it is set. End of discussion.
That is why it is so important not to allow linguists to take over the job of the Church as led by the Holy Spirit.
There is no disagreement on the NT canon of Scripture – except that the Church would not throw out the story of the woman caught in adultery just based on philology. Not all Protestants reject it either and all translations keep it in along with the last chapter of Mark. Footnotes are added to explain that they are not in all manuscripts. Of course, the footnotes also say the best manuscripts, since no one is unbiased, really. Anyway…
So, there is no significant disagreement among Christian groups about the NT canon of Scripture.
It is the OT that is in dispute. BTW, Maccabees are awesome, as is the book of Wisdom. Quotes from those books have been in the daily Mass readings lately.
Also, the Church was functioning just fine even before the canon of Scripture was recognized by her. The traditions of the apostles passed down from generation to generation in an unbroken succession sustained her, and continues to do so. She had Scripture as well. Scripture and tradition keep her on track.
Protestantism has trouble establishing a tradition that will sustain it throughout the centuries. So, it borrows heavily from what has been there from the beginning, but doesn’t always see how dependent it is on Catholicism.
That is what I could no longer ignore or shrug off.
It’s a beautiful day, here, Robert. I hope all is well with you.
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Robert
Posted November 19, 2015 at 7:59 pm | Permalink
Tom,
Regardless, it is not claimed that Aquinas was infallible. One trivial item is not probative, except to the sophist who tries to make every proposition an all-or-nothing game.>>>>
Robert:
I agree. But Mermaid was the one that said if we want to claim Augustine and Aquinas, we have to claim everything they said. If that’s true of me, that’s true of her and her church. But of course her church doesn’t claim everything they said is gospel.>>>>
Robert, I like you. However, until you actually read and respond to what I wrote to you, I do not see this conversation going anywhere.
I reposted to you what I actually said, yet you continue to misrepresent me. Why are you doing that?
I don’t want you doing to me what Jeff did – saying I lied, yet not being able to prove any actual lie. You play fair, Robert, so don’t change now.
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Mermaid: BTW, Maccabees are awesome
maybe but just not scripture
2 Maccabbees 12:43, “And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Books-Maccabees
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Robert,
“Whether or not that is justified in the Roman system is besides the point at this point.”
No, that is *precisely* the point. That’s the whole point in comparing the 2 systems on their own terms. We both agree everyone is fallible. We both agree that if Christ is not raised, Christianity implodes. That does not mean, “Welcome to Protestantism” or that submission in Protestantism is equivalent to submission in RCism. That’s why I keep belaboring to point out the contrast in what is consistent with that submission afterwards in the 2 systems, and to point out the contrast between Christ/Apostles/successors in NT times vs synagogue rabbis.
“So I fail to see where the character of our submission is in any way different.”
You make a choice. I make a choice. That is common. What is not common is the nature of the claims we are submitting to. Which of course you agree with, since the whole Protestant experiment is founded upon explicitly rejecting those types of claims to authority and ability Rome claims. Which we further see when we examine what is *consistent* with submission to those claims afterwards – the contrast between Protestantism and RCism on that score is what has been pointed out repeatedly here. Ignoring that ignores the argument.
“Protestant churches claim divine authority whenever they accurately teach the Word of God.”
Which they can never actually identify when that’s happening. Because if they did so, they would violate their disclaimers. So this doesn’t rebut the point. Further, this is more jumping the gun – the teaching that something called “the Word of God” exists, let alone the identification of its extent, scope, and nature of authority, remain perpetually provisional and subject to correction in your system.
“Which is why we agree that the individual can’t argue with the Word of God.”
And the identification of the “Word of God”, as well as its inerrancy, functional role, interpretation, etc. that we cannot argue with remains provisional and subject to correction since there is no mechanism in your system for defining or identifying irreformable doctrine, as your confessional disclaimers reflect. Again, semper reformanda is not consistent with Paul’s preaching. Those submitting to him would not be justified in endlessly debating or arguing with his current or future teachings and he wasn’t revising his teaching constantly or offering it as “this might be wrong, but probably isn’t”. In a Protestant world, they would be.
“GHM is sufficient for discerning the original meaning of Scripture.”
What can be gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously denied.
“It’s a secondary issue. Whether John 8:1–11 is originally in the text or not has no bearing on whether the gospel of John is canonical. It is canonical whether John 8:1–11 is in the text or not.”
Oy vey. The content of a book is “irrelevant” and “secondary” to the canon. Enough said.
“Ultimately, yes.”
So everyone who disagrees with you now and historically (even those who blew the canon that you count as ostensibly part of the “church” that was supposedly being “guided into truth”) is either blinded by sin or just dumb. You are part of the special illuminated ones. Your apologetic boils down to “I have the HS and you don’t”.
“There is nothing that says provisionality of knowledge must be eliminated in order for us to be guided into all truth. That is what you are seeking, but you will never have it.”
No, that would mean I’m infallible. Which I’ve never argued (again). What I am seeking is the appropriate type of authority to submit to. That is why Christ could still promise to guide the church made of all those pesky fallible people into truth, not guide them into “infallible assurance we could be wrong, but might get things right later”.
“But apart from the Vulcan Mindmeld, how does one know one is in a better position?”
Did NT believers have the Vulcan Mindmeld with Christ or the Apostles or their successors? No. Were they not in a better position than followers of synagogue rabbi Levi? Earlier you apparently would answer no and that both groups of adherents would be in no better epistemological position than the either because both groups are fallible and human. Maybe you still think that, if you do – fine, but then that’s a stunning admission.
“Your argument devolves into radical skepticism about my own ability to know anything, including my ability to pick the true infallible source. It ultimately undermines your position.”
You keep asserting this but never demonstrating it. The certitude of faith does not entail I can’t know anything – the Catholic Encyclopedia article argued the exact opposite. Newman and Aquinas never argued such. Thomist philosophers current and past throughout the RC tradition never did – Thomist philosophy may have its weaknesses, but an affinity for skepticism could hardly be called one – http://www.catholicapologetics.info/catholicteaching/philosophy/askeptic.htm
“Abraham left Canaan by faith. All he had was a voice of some kind. The voice does not identify itself as God initially.”
I see. So we’re to assume God never identified Himself as God to Abraham. He was just kind of playing games with Abraham to see what he would do and saying things like “what I’m telling you might be wrong, but is probably right, so follow it anyways, but I might have to correct it later”. If you were claiming God was directly speaking to you a la Abraham, we could then move on – you would’ve made yourself a viable contendor to consider and I’d have to evaluate the credibility of your claims to be a spokesman for God.
“I could multiply examples.”
And if we take your interpretation of those examples, will you then be arguing that Christ and the Apostles claims to divine authority and ability to offer and teach irreformable divine revelation that was normative and binding upon all were irrelevant and superfluous? Yes, you will, which should be a red flag.
“I’ve not once claimed that we must have room for perpetual doubt. All I’ve said is that to have provisional knowledge is inherent to creaturehood. The only way to escape it is to be the Creator. Your demand conflates the creature with the Creator.”
No, the certitude of faith does not entail conflation of creature with Creator. If it did, then it wouldn’t be the certitude of … *faith*. Our creatureliness does not entail we must remain in perpetual provisional and tentative doubt about everything, and especially not in matters of faith – because “it rests not upon human reason, which is liable to be mistaken, but upon the authority of God, who cannot err.” That’s why the Protestant system is not up to the task – semper reformanda and “infallible assurance we get things wrong, but might get things right later” and “The reality is that while all of our doctrines are in principle provisional” and WCF disclaimers are not compatible with a system proposing it can offer divine revelation.
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Ali
Posted November 20, 2015 at 3:54 pm | Permalink
Mermaid: BTW, Maccabees are awesome
maybe but just not scripture
2 Maccabbees 12:43, “And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection.”
Do you claim the Holy Spirit told Martin Luther to cut 2 Maccabees out? This part always gets squirrelly. Not just the Catholic Church but the Eastern Orthodox keep it in, they claim by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Does Martin Luther claim the same authority?
_______________________
As for the content of the passage, shall we trust Martin Luther…or Augustine?
ST. AUGUSTINE ON PRAYING FOR THE DEAD, MASSES FOR THE DEAD, AND INVOCATION OF SAINTS ON THEIR BEHALF
[how did this guy ever become the patron saint of Calvinists, and Protestants’ favorite Church father? Indeed, it is a head-scratching mystery . . . If I had written all this, someone like Baptist anti-Catholic apologist James White would quickly conclude that I was no Christian at all (as he has, in fact), yet if Augustine does it, he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, and White and others turn a blind eye to all his myriad “Catholic” beliefs. One can’t miss the highly ironic humor in these things . . . ]
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TVD: Do you claim the Holy Spirit told Martin Luther to cut 2 Maccabees out? This part always gets squirrelly. Not just the Catholic Church but the Eastern Orthodox keep it in, they claim by the work of the Holy Spirit.
TVD –you might read the link previously provided above for you as a service because your Catholic resources likely doesn’t include such things. Purgatory and indulgences seem significant doctrine to hang on one verse so you’ll especially want to be convinced it is the Lord’s word on it. https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Books-Maccabees
“V. Canonicity
First and Second Maccabees were declared to be canonical by the Council of Trent in 1546, although leading Roman Catholic scholars contemporary with Luther denied their right to this status. Protestants have relegated these two books to the Apocrypha, while acknowledging the high quality of 1 Maccabees. Early Church Fathers made frequent use of both books, but Origen, and particularly Jerome, who had broad acquaintance with Heb. and the views of the Jews, excluded them from their lists of canonical writings. The latter scholar omitted them from his famous Vulgate. Only Augustine gave 2 Maccabees canonical ranking and he equivocated at that.
Third Maccabees was regarded as canonical only by the Eastern churches (Greek, Syriac, and Armenian), which also received 1 and 2 Maccabees. Although it does appear in the Codex A of the LXX and the Syriac Peshitta, 3 Maccabees was not even included among the Apocrypha proper by Protestants.
In spite of the influence of 4 Maccabees among martyrologies and its presence in key MSS of the LXX (including A and א), it was rarely considered canonical. A few Church Fathers may have ascribed authority to it owing to its wide circulation and gripping message.”
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Robert,
“If the church admits to the Eucharist a member whom the church knows is violating the confession, then the position taken by the member is de facto orthodox even if it seems to contradict the stated one.”
Zrim said the sacrament won’t be wrestled from the member and that personal discernment with the exhortation is enough. So apparently an abortionist or practicing fornicator can go to some Reformed churches and take communion without issue. If other members know about this and don’t tackle the communicant before she gets in line, apparently the entire church will be thrown into utter confusion about what is orthodox. This is your argument. Thankfully others on your side recognize how self-defeating it is.
“Anarchy is no standard of truth and no agreement between churches.”
So all the churches I listed out are in agreement with each other on what the “essentials” are, and what those “essentials” mean, correct?
“I don’t limit professing Christians to only those that profess those confessions. ”
Great. So your church will be admitting members and officers in good standing and in full doctrinal agreement with all those churches I listed out to the table correct? Since they are professing Christians. Will the next national Reformed conference have Word of Faithers and Unitarians leading a service and theological panel?
“I limit Protestantism to those who profess those confessions.”
And on what basis do you get to limit “true” Protestants to ones subscribing to those confessions?
“A denomination such as the ELCA is apostate, professing the faith without holding to it.”
And why should the ELCA care about your church’s judgment of them? Do you care if ELCA or some fundamentalist Westboro-ish church condemns your denomination as apostate?
“Because they are in an OPC/PCA Church trying to take communion. If they aren’t trying to take communion in an OPC/PCA communion, they shouldn’t care that much.”
But they’re professing Christians. Why are you being so sectarian and divisive? Why are you allowing LCMS members to partake and not ELCA members?
“But why should anyone from a church who disagrees with you care?
– In one sense, they shouldn’t.
Right, but why should those outside of that church care or be subject to your definition.
– As noted, in one sense they shouldn’t care.”
Bingo. That’s Protestantism in a nutshell. What a stunning nonchalant admission. Now couple this with our other discussion. See the point yet?
“The Spirit persuades, not the church.”
So the church’s authority is useless. It all boils down to “I have the HS and you don’t”.
“But that’s no guarantee they are doing exegesis correctly, just as I don’t have a red light that goes off when I do exegesis correctly.”
Right, so everything remains provisional and tenative. Those “apostate” churches have no reason to care what you think of their doctrine, because your churches claim no authority that would make them care. Thus, liberalism.
“I’m limiting what can legitimately be called Protestantism to Protestant confessions.”
We’re still question begging. Protestantism is founded on the rejection the infallibility of the church and its authority – that’s what ignited the Reformation. Now what do we see happening immediately during that time. We don’t see just Augsburg, 39 Articles, and the Reformed confessions and that’s it. We see Anabaptists, antinomians, libertines, Arminians, Phillipists, Zwinglians, fundamentalists, anti-scripturalists, anti-trinitarians, etc. We see the fracturing almost immediately because all such groups, not just confessional, are following Protestant principles.
“If I can’t do that, then you can’t limit Catholicism to churches in communion with the Roman See but must admit as RC any church that claims to be so.”
No, an RC is one that is in communion with the church/bishop of Rome. That’s definitional. Protestantism’s definition is not “those who adhere to confession x, y, or z I personally like”.
“The ELCA and Unitarian churches only have a pragmatic right to do so as corporations. They don’t have any divinely ordained right because they aren’t churches.”
More question begging on “church”.
“Insofar as the OPC/PCA correctly interpret God’s Word, they should care.”
And they dispute you are correctly interpreting God’s Word and so hold you just as in error as you hold them in error. That’s the point. That’s the anarchy.
“I don’t think the Leithart case was rightly decided. Is it enough for me to leave. I don’t think so either. If such decisions keep happening, it might be a different matter.”
Right. Councils are binding upon members, except when they’re not. Thus WCF’s disclaimers.
“So I don’t see where Rome makes the claim to define dogma for all.”
If it claims the authority/ability to define dogma, and dogma is divine revelation, then that obviously applies to all. It’s not saying “well, divine revelation is kind of true and kind of false. It’s true for us, but you guys over there can believe whatever you want and it’s true too”. So, again, Rome claims the authority to make a judgment binding and normative on all; dogma isn’t defined just for its members. We don’t get any such thing in Protestant churches because doing so would be inconsistent with its disclaimers.
“If you compare the documents of various bodies that are actually Protestant, there is very little difference. ”
Question begging again on “actually Protestant”.
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Robert,
“Augustine and Aquinas, of course, aren’t fideists. But based on your critique of Protestantism they must be.”
The point of the citations was to show they aren’t fideists as you argued they would have to be, because they make the exact same type of argument I’ve been making which you argue makes them fideist.
“Well based on your critique of Protestantism, I don’t see how any one could have been justified in giving the assent of faith before there is an official dogmatic, infallible declaration of any of that.”
Then you’ve misunderstood the critique as badly as Darryl does. Infallibility is not limited to ex cathedra or conciliar statements. Do you think a council or pope makes things out of thin air? No, it is based on Scripture and Tradition and the common life, worship, faith of the church handed down through the generations. That’s why people weren’t shocked when the Assumption was defined, or when Trent affirmed the sacraments, and so on.
“If you want to say Scripture, where does the church prior to Nicea dogmatically declare as infallible that Romans or John or whatever book of Scripture is part of the infallible canon.”
See – that’s exactly what I mean. People weren’t grasping in the dark before Trent to know Romans or John was inspired. They were being read in the liturgies and part of the common faith since the beginning.
“And a statement from Augustine or Aquinas that the church cannot err doesn’t count because they are individual writers.”
No, but it counts in you charging my argument as making them fideists. They are presenting the same argument I am (e.g. what warrants faith, infallibility, binding judgments, STM-triad, etc.) And yes they are individual writers, but if they echo what others write or aren’t causing riots and fracturing based on those teachings, that is a testimony and witness to the Tradition of the church.
“Where does THE CHURCH define the deity of Christ as an infallible dogma that must be believed before Nicea.”
Nicaea was held due to controversy and opposition and to clarify. Dogma develops. Let’s grant Aquinas didn’t believe in the Immaculate Conception as finally defined. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have the type of faith he argued for in my citations that you reject.
“None of this vague unbroken succession stuff either, because as you well know, there were plenty of bishops who were part of the “unbroken succession” that were Arians”
Yup, and many eastern sees fell into various heresies at one point or another. Not Rome though. http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2007/03/response-to-orthodox-critiques-of.html Hmmm.
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TVD, greetings,
You wrote,
>>
You don’t seem to get the irony that they both claim to be the true Church. All heretics do.
>>
Trust me, I do. Silly stuff, really.
I also see the dishonesty (or wilful blindness) in the RC claiming it is “one” “apostolic” “holy” and “catholic.” Makes silly look profound.
Add to your list heretics an even longer list of schismatics.
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Ali
Posted November 20, 2015 at 4:49 pm | Permalink
TVD: Do you claim the Holy Spirit told Martin Luther to cut 2 Maccabees out? This part always gets squirrelly. Not just the Catholic Church but the Eastern Orthodox keep it in, they claim by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Ali; you might read the link previously provided above for you as a service because your Catholic resources likely doesn’t include such things. Purgatory and indulgences seem significant doctrine to hang on one verse so you’ll especially want to be convinced it is the Lord’s word on it. https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Books-Maccabees
I’m quite familiar with the arguments in your reply, thanks. I read original sources from all corners of the Christian religion. However, I asked
and
which listed a long Church tradition for the theology of praying for the dead.
The larger point is, on what grounds should I prefer Martin Luther’s unauthoritative theologizing over 1500 years of tradition and apostolic succession that includes not just Augustine but the Eastern Orthodox as well? This is the live question, not your or my personal opinions of the meaning of a given scripture passage, where you say X, I say Y and Luther or Calvin might say Z. [And multiply that by 31,102 verses!]
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No one of note
Posted November 20, 2015 at 5:25 pm | Permalink
TVD, greetings,
You wrote,
>>
You don’t seem to get the irony that they both claim to be the true Church. All heretics do.
>>
Trust me, I do. Silly stuff, really.
I also see the dishonesty (or wilful blindness) in the RC claiming it is “one” “apostolic” “holy” and “catholic.” Makes silly look profound.
That is not a rebuttal, it’s an abandonment of the marketplace of ideas. Vaya con Dios, Tujunga.
I’ll give you a half-credit on the “holy,” though. 😉
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Mermaid, hi,
You wrote,
>>
Who did the Holy Spirit entrust that job to, the job of establishing the canon of Scripture?
>>
Himself. As far as men officially recognizing what was canonical and what was not, it was a group of qualified men from many differnet churches meeting and discussing the matter for many years. The actual talking points were surprising limited in number, 2 Peter vs. Apocalypse of Peter and such. Heretics made it necessary, you know, Marcion et al.
The important point is to see the resultant decisions as wisdom instead of as you say, determination. Can you see how irreverently that can be taken, and how misleading that can be? As if man determines what is God’s communication and what is not. Severe impiety.
But you don’t mean that, I know. But can you see how the RC posture on canonicity arrogates something to itself that is easily taken as arrogant?
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Darryl,
“Oh. I see. Having the popes is like having Christ and the apostles– even though the popes give no new revelation. Now I see. ”
Keep on moving goalposts. The point of the hypothetical was to highlight the silliness of the “everyone is fallible, so an infallible teacher is useless without a vulcan mindmeld”. Not difficult. I trust the continued evasions imply you finally concede the obvious point it took 1000 comments to reach.
“but fallible authorities are authoritative.”
Yes, they are. That’s why I, uh, said it.
“So now we have fallible teaching that is authoritative. Hmmm.”
Um, yeah, we do. We don’t have fallible divine revelation though. That’s an oxymoron.
“So I guess Laudato Si is infallible then.”
Nope. Just like disciplinary canons in an ecumenical council aren’t infallible.
“That’s real clear from Scripture and not in the slightest self-serving”
I suppose you would agree with unbelievers in NT times or now who charge Christ or the Apostles as self-serving because they claimed divine authority and they should be submitted to?
“infallibility is not limited to ex cathedra statements but when bishops meet at a synod convened by the pope, their work has no magisterial authority”
Have you ever bothered to actually read what RCism teaches on infallibility or councils and ecclesiology in general? Maybe start with, “hmm, it’s called a synod – I wonder what that means?” Then maybe follow up with, “well, hmm other assemblies of bishops have been convened by the pope throughout history, but not all of them are considered ecumenical by RCism – hmm wonder why that is?” The confusion is all on one side, I’m afraid.
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No one of note
Posted November 20, 2015 at 5:34 pm | Permalink
Mermaid, hi,
You wrote,
>>
Who did the Holy Spirit entrust that job to, the job of establishing the canon of Scripture?
>>
Himself. As far as men officially recognizing what was canonical and what was not, it was a group of qualified men from many differnet churches meeting and discussing the matter for many years. The actual talking points were surprising limited in number, 2 Peter vs. Apocalypse of Peter and such. Heretics made it necessary, you know, Marcion et al.
The important point is to see the resultant decisions as wisdom instead of as you say, determination. Can you see how irreverently that can be taken, and how misleading that can be? As if man determines what is God’s communication and what is not. Severe impiety.
But you don’t mean that, I know. But can you see how the RC posture on canonicity arrogates something to itself that is easily taken as arrogant?
Unfair, because it’s based on ignoring the fundamental premise, that the Church claims it is the same Holy Spirit that used men to write the Bible working through the Church in determining what books go in the Bible.
Men did not write the Bible on their own authority; neither did they determine the canon by their own authority. Contrasted to
“If your Papist annoys you with the word (alone), tell him straightway: Dr. Martin Luther will have it so. Whoever will not have my translation, let him give it the go-by; the devil’s thanks to him who censures it without my will and knowledge. Dr. Martin Luther will have it so, and he is a doctor above all the doctors in Popedom.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankviola/shockingbeliefsofmartinluther/
–which BTW, Luther claimed!
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TVD, hi,
you wrote,
>>
That is not a rebuttal, it’s an abandonment of the marketplace of ideas. Vaya con Dios, Tujunga.
I’ll give you a half-credit on the “holy,” though.
>>
I introduced a new idea here and it got ignored, that “church” is not a geographically dispersed hierarchical organization, according to apostolic writ.
Snore.
Now “true church.” Everybody likes to define their theology for themselves, while Jesus and His apostles never spoke of such a thing. It’s part of why we’re so schismed.
Tujunga? Wasn’t that Hunter Thompson’s hangout? You know, just up the road from Apperson?
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>
That is not a rebuttal, it’s an abandonment of the marketplace of ideas. Vaya con Dios, Tujunga.
I’ll give you a half-credit on the “holy,” though.
>>
I introduced a new idea here and it got ignored, that “church” is not a geographically dispersed hierarchical organization, according to apostolic writ.
Snore.
Now “true church.” Everybody likes to define their theology for themselves, while Jesus and His apostles never spoke of such a thing. It’s part of why we’re so schismed.
Tujunga? Wasn’t that Hunter Thompson’s hangout? You know, just up the road from Apperson?
Yah, never heard the Hunter Thompson part, though. 😉
As for the “true” church, I’m trying to use Augustine’s sense of “catholic church” without pressing the capital “C” part too literally, although I’ll still continue to contend it’s the same Catholic Church as today–but with the proviso it also includes the Orthodox Catholic Church [“eastern orthodox”] because they are the same Christian religion sacramentally, with theological differences [purgatory, papal infallibility] that pale next not only beside their difffeneces with Protestantism, but often the various sects of Protestantism with each other.
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Tom, yo!
you wrote,
>>
Unfair, because it’s based on ignoring the fundamental premise, that the Church claims it is the same Holy Spirit that used men to write the Bible working through the Church in determining what books go in the Bible.
>>
“determining” ah, that’s the rub. Many before us have traveled this road, and many, like me, say “recognize.”
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/083081258X
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sdb,
“More to the point, the declaration that a previous pope, now deceased, is *now* excommunicated doesn’t sound like recommendation about what color robe to wear.”
This was a 2-phased approach. The first, to show that not everything an ecumenical council decrees is dogma or infallible. The second, to show that judgments on persons for heresy/excommunication/anathema are not infallible, as we saw in Joan of Arc’s case or any other church trial.
“purgatory isn’t for those who died in mortal sin.”
Saying someone is guilty of heresy, or excommunicating them does not entail they are guilty of mortal sin (though it doesn’t preclude it of course). Because there are 3 conditions, not just 1, that need to be met.
“You are moving the goal posts. You said there is no good reason to believe a fallible teaching.”
And you’re misconstruing what I said. Here it is again: “Anyone can claim personal illumination. I have no good reason to then believe what you propose is actually an article of faith”. Article of faith is the key term – “believe” in that context entails “assent of faith”. Why on earth would I say I have no good reason to believe a fallible teaching? That’s absurd and I would have failed school and been grounded for life by my parents.
“You are misconstruing the purported “disclaimer””
I don’t know why you scare-quoted disclaimer – WCF actively rejects the claim to infallible authority/ability Rome makes in those citations. That’s the disclaimer, and a central one, given it ignited and sustained the Reformation in the first place.
“Article I includes the following:”
And Article I is subject to the disclaimers in Articles 25 and 31 I cited. The WCF doesn’t get a special exemption. That’s the point.
“The difference is that there is a subset of things your church states that cannot be wrong”
Bingo. No such ability exists in Protestantism. Due to its disclaimers.
“Scripture is properly basic – if we’ve misidentified it, then we have big problems (same as if you’ve misidentified the church).”
Sure I could have misidentified the church. But based on its claims, after submission, to be consistent with those claims and that submission, I am not justified in holding its teachings as always provisional or subject to revision – I am not justified in affirming semper reformanda. In Protestantism, I am. Why? Because of its disclaimers. Thus the identification of the canon itself and foundational doctrines (SS, inerrancy, inspiration), not just its interpretation, remain provisional and tentative and can never rise above such – that is, they can never be offered as divine revelation or articles of faith. Thus, liberalism being a natural outworking of those principles.
“We believe scripture cannot err even if we can in interpreting it”
And the teaching that something called “Scripture” exists, and that this collection reflects it, and this collection is all of it, and that it cannot err, and that it is the sole ultimate authority, and that it is perspcicuous, and so on remain provisional and tentative in your system.
“For us, God’s word is the foundation (speaking through the prophets and apostles with Christ as the chief cornerstone, while for you the church is the foundation which defines doctrine rather than interpreting it).”
Talk about misconstruals. RCism teaches STM-triad is the foundation. M authoritatively interprets and judges ST and is the servant of it. And the contract between “defining” and “interpreting” is interesting – without the types of claims Rome makes, you can’t even get to the point of “interpretation” in the first place. Because the identification/definition of Protestant foundational doctrines remain just as provisional and subject to revision as its various interpretations that necessarily come after those teachings.
“The apostles do not claim to be infallible”
Really? Considering you argued similarly with Christ’s authority/ability, and I then provided citations demonstrating such, which you never acknowledged, I am hesistant to invest time going down this path.
“Paul explicitly warns about apostles who could teach a false gospel.”
Yes, and what does he tell adherents to compare it to? The gospel *he* gave as divine revelation and they *received* as such. He didn’t give his gospel as “it might be wrong, but is probably right”.
“John spends quite a bit of time warning against false teachers, about testing the spirits, etc… because they weren’t infallible. ”
Yes, and John wasn’t saying “I might be wrong, but probably am not in what I’m teaching” because adherents were to test the spirits against the infallible doctrine he and the apostles and those sent/authorized in Christ’s name were delivering. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have warned people about false teachers in the first place.
“God does not teach provisional or tentative doctrines.”
Great. So can Protestantism offer a non-provisional or non-tentative doctrine then? If not, then why should I bother considering it as a candidate for offering or promulgating divine revelation? If not, why should I bother considering giving the assent of faith to such teachings that are never offered as non-provisional or non-tentative then? Wouldn’t that be fideistic and irrational?
“Unless one takes church doctrines to be our interpretation of God’s word.”
Again, you don’t get to exempt foundational doctrines from your disclaimers and then assert the disclaimers only apply to “interpretation”. That’s handwaving.
“Adding a middleman who is purportedly sometimes infallible about certain things doesn’t confer an advantage”
You’re doing it again. You already agreed there would be an advantage.
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No one of note,
Just dropping in after a few months. Good to see folks still working it around here. Not 100% sure who you are but hope you are blessed. Just jumped in on page three and saw your post… felt like saying a “no doubt” to this.
But can you see how the RC posture on canonicity arrogates something to itself that is easily taken as arrogant?
We Catholics have the most arrogant position in Christendom… That is, if it isn’t true. Everybody took Christ as quite arrogant too, at least those who did not believe Him.
If we Catholics are wrong, please beg our pardon. We are just ignorant, if that be the case.
Peace,
Fool for Christ (MichaelTX)
Hi, everybody. I’m not dead. Just living life.
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No one of note
Posted November 20, 2015 at 6:09 pm | Permalink
Tom, yo!
you wrote,
>>
Unfair, because it’s based on ignoring the fundamental premise, that the Church claims it is the same Holy Spirit that used men to write the Bible working through the Church in determining what books go in the Bible.
>>
“determining” ah, that’s the rub. Many before us have traveled this road, and many, like me, say “recognize.”
[link to “The Canon of Scripture Hardcover – November 28, 1988
by F. F. Bruce (Author)]
Well, yeah, Luther built his whole version of the Christian religion around his Bible, the “sola scriptura” religion. But if you want to speak of “arrogance,” Luther seems to have done all this on his own authority and belief in his own theological and philological brilliance.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankviola/shockingbeliefsofmartinluther/
Now if he [or you says] it was by the power of the Holy Spirit–as the Catholic Church does–then fine, discussion’s over because we can’t debate supernatural truth claims.
But Luther doesn’t seem to claim that, and neither do you, which–and CVD continues to point out–leaves you with a religion built around the Bible that you can’t even claim is infallible.
And if you do claim that your [truncated] Bible is the infallible work of the Holy Spirit, you’re simply making a competing truth claim, and you can give no reason to prefer Luther’s truth claim over the Catholic Church’s, so you’re still no better off than say, the Mormons.
Me, I’m still back at Augustine, and his concept of the Church needs considerable theological tweaking to get to Luther’s [and even more tweaking to accommodate Calvin’s.] By contrast, the Catholic claim is fairly straightforward, and historically unimpeachable.
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Cetus,
The point of the citations was to show they aren’t fideists as you argued they would have to be, because they make the exact same type of argument I’ve been making which you argue makes them fideist.
But they believed a great many things before they were officially declared as infallible dogma. So, how did they know they were infallible dogma before the Magisterium spoke. Was the tradition self-authenticating. I don’t see any other way if the infallible definition is so critical. So how were they not fideists for believing a doctrine that might later be declared infallible but in their day was not.
Then you’ve misunderstood the critique as badly as Darryl does. Infallibility is not limited to ex cathedra or conciliar statements. Do you think a council or pope makes things out of thin air?
Depends on the council and pope. I’m still trying to figure out where Trent got the idea that the Reformers were antinomians.
But that’s fine that infallibility isn’t limited to those things. But how does a person know what he is believing is infallible dogma before a definition is given? Osmosis?
No, it is based on Scripture and Tradition and the common life, worship, faith of the church handed down through the generations. That’s why people weren’t shocked when the Assumption was defined, or when Trent affirmed the sacraments, and so on.
But we know that not all of the traditions that were handed on were kept to this day. So, before a definition is given, how do we know what is infallible and what isn’t. I get that the deity of Christ was taught for 300 years before Nicea in the NT and in many, but not all churches. How did the people who believe it know it was infallible? According to you, Protestantism’s failure to claim an infallible canon declaration makes us fideists and provisional in our submission. There was no infallible canon declaration before Nicea. The books were being read in the liturgy as Scripture, but of course if I looked hard enough I could find 1 Clement or something like that being treated as Scripture in some places. So how do they know without an infallible declaration if the canon hasn’t been defined infallibly?
See – that’s exactly what I mean. People weren’t grasping in the dark before Trent to know Romans or John was inspired. They were being read in the liturgies and part of the common faith since the beginning.
So everything that was read in the liturgies and believed by the people was an infallible dogma before it was declared? How did the people know that? And further, not everything in the liturgies has survived as infallible, so how did people know that the deity of Christ was an infallible dogma worthy of assent before Nicea? The teaching of the church isn’t always infallible, you have said. There was no infallible canon declaration, so there was no way to have the certitude of faith that John was Scripture. There was no council to exercise a canonical definition.
The only way I can see that you can justify something as infallible apart from a dogmatic declaration is by attributing some kind of self-authentication to it.
No, but it counts in you charging my argument as making them fideists. They are presenting the same argument I am (e.g. what warrants faith, infallibility, binding judgments, STM-triad, etc.) And yes they are individual writers, but if they echo what others write or aren’t causing riots and fracturing based on those teachings, that is a testimony and witness to the Tradition of the church.
Okay, but of course lots of things were believed by wide swaths of the church (Arianism) that were later rejected as infallible. So how did Augustine know that the S was S and the T was T and that believing it was worthy of assent before a dogmatic declaration. Are you just supposed to believe what the church believes because the church is teaching it? That sounds odd. The church taught Arianism, the majority of the church was at least friendly to it. Athanasius contra mundum and all that.
Nicaea was held due to controversy and opposition and to clarify. Dogma develops.
Got it, but we know that there were people, including the Apostles, who believed in the deity of Christ, perhaps not with the term homoousios but with the same essential point that Nicea made. We also know that other beliefs were at least being taught and accepted by a great many in the church. So what was the warrant for Susan in Rome in the second century to believe in the full deity of Christ. There’s no dogmatic declaration. There’s no dogmatic statement on Scripture and its teaching. And the church in other places isn’t embracing the doctrine.
I don’t see how than there can be any other answer other than that orthodoxy is self-authenticating. Otherwise, all of the people who were orthodox before orthodoxy was infallibly defined were fideists.
But if orthodoxy is self-authenticating, welcome to Protestantism.
Let’s grant Aquinas didn’t believe in the Immaculate Conception as finally defined. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have the type of faith he argued for in my citations that you reject.
What it would mean is that Aquinas had no warrant to believe in Mary’s sinlessness because there was no infallible declaration. There was no one in the church who believed Mary was a sinner? Hardly.
Yup, and many eastern sees fell into various heresies at one point or another. Not Rome though. http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2007/03/response-to-orthodox-critiques-of.html Hmmm.
Except the monothelite Honorious and Liberius who signed the Arian confession and broke ties with Athanasius. Sure he might have done it under duress and later changed, but if you were a Roman Christian at the time and the pope is so vital to orthodoxy and unity, apparently its okay to be Arian.
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Robert
Posted November 20, 2015 at 8:08 pm | Permalink
What it would mean is that Aquinas had no warrant to believe in Mary’s sinlessness because there was no infallible declaration. There was no one in the church who believed Mary was a sinner? Hardly.
CVD: Yup, and many eastern sees fell into various heresies at one point or another. Not Rome though.
[link]
Robert: Except the monothelite Honorious and Liberius who signed the Arian confession and broke ties with Athanasius. Sure he might have done it under duress and later changed, but if you were a Roman Christian at the time and the pope is so vital to orthodoxy and unity, apparently its okay to be Arian.
Actually, your arguments keep illustrating the need for the magisterium to occasionally speak infallibly and break these tie ballgames. Otherwise you get, well, Protestantism, with dozens if not 100s of versions of the Christian religion.
Indeed, councils and eventually papal pronouncements rose out of the Faithful’s desperate need [and request] for clarity, not the magisterium’s capriciousness or theological tyranny. It’s not that kind of party, where the tyrant drags an unwilling church to apostasy.
https://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2bvm23.htm
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Mermaid, do you read? If Paul was entrusted to evangelize the goyim and Rome was goy, then how did Peter, the minister to the kosher, become the bishop of the city of the goy? The whole Rome as eternal city is off. If you sing the Psalms you think of Jerusalem? Rome? That’s the city of the authorities who killed Jesus.
Hey, wait a minute. . .
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vd, t, look a Terry Gray.
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James Young, “dogma is divine revelation”
So Popes do get new revelation. Sort of like Mormonism’s apostles.
No wonder sola scriptura makes no sense. No fun limiting truth to the prophets and apostles when you can have prophets, apostles, and popes. Then no one even needs to read the Bible.
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James Young, “Dogma develops.”
So what comes latest is the most authoritative reading, not what came first or was oldest. Aquinas didn’t believe it. But later popes did. And they are closer to us than Aquinas so they must be right because dogma develops.
How modernist.
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James Young, so Nicea was not infallible because the pope didn’t call it?
If you really think dogma is divine revelation, you are dangerous and deceived.
And if fallible authorities are authoritative, then why are Protestants not authoritative. Talk about moving goal posts.
At least you’re superior. Nope.
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And James Young explains the relations between S T and M while none of the bishops care — climate, marriage, sex, and citizenship are on the bishops minds. But who is James Young to judge?
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Michael TX, and the bishops were wrong about the priests abusing children. You want a mulligan for that? And you don’t see that the STM triad nurtures a culture where bishops will cover for abusive priests?
But just look the other way, because, like, Christ was arrogant.
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Darryl,
Newman wasn’t a modernist. He was explicitly defended by Pius X whom you love and admire from the modernist attempts to use him and the Essay to support their cause. But we already went over that 2 years ago. Doctrine developing does not mean doctrine evolves or mutates or can be abrogated and overturned a la modernism – it means the church’s understanding of the fixed deposit of faith left by the Apostles has grown and will continue to deepen and organically build on what came before given the inexhaustible nature of it.
This is also partly reflected and spurred when controversy and heresies sprout up and foist upon the deposit the “alien sense” Augustine notes, thus necessitating and motivating refutation and normative binding judgment by the church guided by the HS. You’d have to argue that development or a divinely authorized infallible church entails ongoing revelation, rather than merely assert it.
“If you really think dogma is divine revelation, you are dangerous and deceived.”
Dogma reflects divine revelation. The Trinity is part of divine revelation. Arianism is not. Romans is inspired. Book of Mormon and Gospel of Thomas are not. This means I’m dangerous and deceived. But once again we see the free admission Protestantism cannot cash what it ostensibly claims to be able to – all its doctrines must remain provisional, to do otherwise is dangerous and deceptive.
“so Nicea was not infallible because the pope didn’t call it?”
Okay, clearly you have no intention of trying to actually understand the RC position.
“explains the relations between S T and M while none of the bishops care”
“And you don’t see that the STM triad nurtures a culture where bishops will cover for abusive priests?”
Enough said.
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James Young, Nicea was called by the emperor. I know exactly what Popes have claimed about councils meeting since the — ahem — Western Schism. So the font of Trintarian orthodoxy was based on the emperor’s call, not Rome’s. Deal with that.
The Trinity is revealed in revelation. That does not make dogma revelation as you claim. If church teaching is revelation, all of your blathering about denying the Gospel of Thomas is like your opinion. The ones who are infallible are not defending infallibility. They’ve moved on.
When will you take STM seriously and move on too?
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James Young, looks like I hit a nerve on development of dogma and modernism. Folks on your side with as much infallibility as you are still wondering about Newman
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 20, 2015 at 10:45 pm | Permalink
vd, t, look a Terry Gray.
I have no idea what this means. Dr. Terry Gray questioned a literal Adam & Eve and your own Orthodox Presbyterian Church put him on “ecclesiastical trial” and then he eventually ran away from you.
Are you proud of this, Dr. Hart? I think it makes you and your church look ridiculous.
http://www.asa3.org/gray/evolution_trial/
I’d try to defend your fundamentalism in public if anyone actually gave a damn about your 30,000-member church, which nobody does, but this was some real garbage your church did to Terry, Darryl.
Did you stand up for him? That’s all I want to know.
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Darryl,
“So the font of Trintarian orthodoxy was based on the emperor’s call, not Rome’s. Deal with that.”
Awesome. You just did what 500 years of Protestant apologetics hasn’t – An Emperor convened Nicaea, therefore papal and ecclesial infallibility are proven false. Case closed, duh. As I said, you clearly have no interest in actually trying to understand the RC position.
“The Trinity is revealed in revelation.”
And the Trinity is dogma. Connect the dots. But unfortunately, consistency with your system won’t let you.
“The ones who are infallible are not defending infallibility. They’ve moved on.”
That would be kind of difficult to do considering the liturgy and sacraments reflect infallible dogma.
As to modernism, you touched a nerve because you’re peddling your same mischaracterizations you were corrected on 2 years ago. But I’m glad you’re sourcing your rigorous and scholarly analysis of development from a catholic answers forum. Anyways, if you read the thread and not just ctrl-f’ed through it, you would see the reply echoing what I said with “The article equated growth (or development) of doctrine with new revelation and that just is not what Newman means. Positing development of doctrine does not mean claiming the existence of new doctrines or new revelations” – put that on your fridge along with “infallibility is not limited to ex cathedra statements” until it sinks in as well.
More, “Loisy and Tyrell were condemned and their explanation branded as the heresy of modernism, while Newman was rewarded with the red hat.” More, and a trip down memory lane that got forgotten (or more likely, never assimilated in the first place) apparently – https://oldlife.org/2013/11/whatever-happened-deserves-mentioned/comment-page-4/#comment-106330
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Michael in Texas,
You quoted me,
>>
But can you see how the RC posture on canonicity arrogates something to itself that is easily taken as arrogant?
>>
My point was comparing RC claims vs. claims from apostolic writ, like “read this letter in church immediately” (cf. 1 Thess. 5:27). It’s why I provided verse references. We only recognize Scripture, not determine it.
>>
We Catholics have the most arrogant position in Christendom… That is, if it isn’t true. Everybody took Christ as quite arrogant too, at least those who did not believe Him.
>>
Actually, they mistook Him for the finger of Satan, deceiver of men, and breaker of Moses’ laws. But arrogant? Never.
I’d much prefer you getting your knowledge of God and His holy, sinless, eternal Son from sacred writ than web sites like CTC. The same with “catholicism.”
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@cvd
There are three lines of discussion I think might be getting mixed up here:
1) The comparison of the epistemic status of a prot assuming protestantism is true
2) The questions of whether there is a good reason to believe fallible statements on matters of faith
3) Has the church ever declared that a specific person is in hell.
The first two are closely related and most interesting to me. The third was more of a curiosity on my part.
Regarding 1:
Of course the wf doesn’t get a special exemption but the scriptures do. The question is the nature and scope of the disclaimer – In our system the scripture is not believed because the WCF says so. It stands outside of the confession – the WCF merely recognizes it does not establish it. The point of the disclaimer is that the council’s authority is limited to the extent to which it is consistent with scripture. If and only if it can be shown by scripture that something it declares is wrong may it be reformed. That’s why reading articles 25 and 31 in light of 1 is so important. The claim in article 31 is not that everything is up for grabs on any basis whatsoever. As I noted in the analogy to science, we don’t have infallible knowledge of say the proper theory of gravity. But I can be very certain of lots of things (and in fact every time I drive across a bridge I demonstrate my faith in that fallible teaching). You responded that if someone told me that the earth was flat, I would recognize they were a kook. Well of course. Just because I don’t have infallible knowledge does not mean that I know nothing. I can rule out some options even if I don’t have a complete final infallible theory. Similarly with matters of faith – I may not have a perfect interpretation of scripture, but it the plain reading of the text really does rule out some options – I’m not going to discover that the Bible really means that baal is our savior and Jesus was his prophet (the equivalent say of a flat earth reading of physics). At any rate the protestant disclaimer is that we may misinterpret what the scriptures teach, so we have to be open to revising our interpretation as we study them. The more we study and the longer a particular interpretation survives, the less likely it is that we got it wrong.
But the sole authority against which the confession may be judged is scripture. This is the context of Article 31 which is why your disclaimer is not as expansive as you would like and why those who believe in the infallibility of scripture show much less theological variation than your interpretation of the “disclaimer” would suggest.
Protestantism is not God nor do we claim to be a source of his revelation. Rather we have received and share what he has revealed in his word. You should believe what we teach because it is consistent with scripture.
To borrow Cross’s tic – nothing you said conflicts with what I wrote. We are still left with the possibility that an apostle could teach something false. Thus they aren’t infallible. A broken watch isn’t infallible twice a day just because it happens to be right. The apostles were not infallible – God’s word is that they delivered to us. The Holy Spirit preserved His word that they spoke. Epistemic theories of infallibility weren’t part of the equation for justifying their belief (of what the apostles said or what Jesus said).
No. That’s what the disclaimer is. Read article 1 again. Scripture is not authoritative because the wf says so. It is not subject to the disclaimer which is that everything we teach must be judged against scripture.
No I didn’t. You misunderstood.
Regarding 2:
In the last thread in your interaction with Jeff, you wrote:
This led me to ask about the fallible teachings of the ordinary magisterium. Not everything the church has ever taught is infallible (or was always understood at the time to be infallible – which is a key criterion for infalliblity – it doesn’t just mean happen to be right, but cannot a priori be wrong).
Now you clarify,
Well I don’t think I was misconstruing what you said (see above). I take it you do not believe that fallibility is not logically equal to “no good reason” on matters of faith?
Regarding 3:
Well OK. So not everything a council determines about the faith is infallible. Some teachings are and some aren’t? Is there infallible guide to tell me which is which? Or am I left with Father Martin’s hierarchy of truths – the gospels are more certain than creeds which are more certain than encyclicals which are more certain than what a pastor says in the pulpit. He seems to have in mind degrees of certainty (he actually calls it hierarchy of truths). I’ll let you take that up with him… So I guess this point is somewhat related to the first two. But as to the substantive matter, are you really saying that the judgment of this ecumenical council about the status of Pope H. is fallible and even if they are right the fact that this guy was judged to historically no long be part of the society of the faithful (presumably had he repented he wouldn’t have been posthumously excommunicated) he is not necessarily in hell? Curious…
At any rate, it’s been fun, but I’m done here. I don’t think we convinced one another of anything. I remain unconvinced that adding a human (sometime) infallible interpreter of God’s infallible word adds anything epistemologically. I am convinced that you overstate the provisional nature of protestant belief – it is provisional against God’s word – to reject God’s word is to reject the faith (which many prots have sadly done even if they keep the form). The variety of protestant expressions of faith is a function of political freedom more so than theological theories which also explains the variety of RC expressions. I see far less variety among prots who maintain the infallibility of scripture than I do among RCs who maintain belief in the church. Theological beliefs have very little explanatory power for this empirical fact.
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Tom,
>>
never heard the Hunter Thompson part, though.
As for the “true” church, I’m trying to use Augustine’s sense of “catholic church” without pressing the capital “C” part too literally
>>
Words is he hung out at a motorcycle bar in Tujunga where Hell’s Angels frequented late 60s.
The term “catholic church” meant all the genuine Christians in a city in the Apostolic Fathers. The term is used only 6 times in all their writings, which in volume are larger than the NT. Hardly an important term.
It got challenged for the first time when Novatian and those North African bishops who followed him couldn’t stand allowing those who shrunk back at persecution in church with only a slap on the wrist. Cyprian called Novatian and his ilk schismatics, condemned them all to hell if they didn’t come back under better bishops, but utterly refused Roman oversight of Carthage, or anywhere, as fundamentally “un-catholic.”
The Catholicism you prefer (geographically dispersed with hierarchical leadership) didn’t show up until Cyril of Jerusalem first claimed it, 300 years after the apostles.
Early Cyril, in his 18th Catechetical lecture, emphasizes the the former meaning of local catholicism but also first asserts what you hold – “universal catholicism: “For this is the peculiar name of this holy church, the mother of us all, which is the spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ…”
Augustine introduces a new ecclesiology with his triumphant/militant dichotomy a few years later, and voila, you’re off and running.
But Frank
VoilaViola, really?, really??, who wrote this (before his simplechurch.com web site was taken down)…“The church is an institution that Satan has set up to prevent Christians from doing the work of the Lord.”
One man’s hero is another’s useful idiot? 😉
Sheesh, after his dominant career with the Twins he turns hater (apologies to the real Frank).
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(was it this post, can’t remember?) cw l’unificateur:Ali, listen to how Darryl McMeaniepants is kind and laudatory to a certain type of piety which is wedded to a solid ecclesiology and the ordinary means of grace: http://reformedforum.org/ctc412
Listened to some of this as promised cw, to halfway-just offer one comment – I don’t believe ‘conversion’=sanctification
Galatians 3:2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
Ephesians 1: 13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
2 Cor:21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, 22 who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.
Hebrews 6 4 For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. 7 For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; 8 but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.9 But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.
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MILAN (AP) — A Vatican judge on Saturday indicted five people, including two journalists and a high-ranking Vatican monsignor, in a scandal involving leaked documents that informed two books alleging financial malfeasance in the Roman Catholic church bureaucracy.
Two former members of the pope’s financial reforms commission and a newly identified assistant were indicted on charges of disclosing confidential Vatican information and documents, while two journalists were indicted on a charge of soliciting and exerting pressure to obtain the information, according to the indictments released by the Vatican on Saturday. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_REL_VATICAN_SCANDAL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-11-21-08-11-48
So Rome is finally exercising discipline. Discipline against transparency.
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No one of note:
The term “catholic church” meant all the genuine Christians in a city in the Apostolic Fathers. >>>>
How many different groups, all claiming to be genuine Christians, are there in you town? Do you accept all of them as genuine Christians?
If so, on what basis?
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Tom,
Indeed, councils and eventually papal pronouncements rose out of the Faithful’s desperate need [and request] for clarity, not the magisterium’s capriciousness or theological tyranny. It’s not that kind of party, where the tyrant drags an unwilling church to apostasy.
Depends on the council and papal pronouncement. Who was Jonesing for the pope to clarify that he is infallible except when he’s not except the pope?
But in any case, fine. CVD has been making the point ad nauseum that one has no warrant to put faith in anything that is not infallible. If I grant that, how did anyone before Nicea know that the deity of Christ was an infallible dogma?
Protestants will say Scripture, but CVD says that’s not allowed because we don’t have an infallible canon declaration. Okay, but nobody before Nicea had that either, so he can’t go there either.
Ordinary Church teaching and the liturgy? But not all ordinary church teaching is infallible and not everything in the liturgy is either. Not everything taught and practiced pre-Nicea has survived as infallible. So I don’t see how that works either.
IF something must be called infallible in order to give the warrant of faith, how was anyone able pre Nicea to sort out the belief in the deity of Christ, where it was affirmed, as infallible dogma from other stuff? And if there’s no sure way to do that before Nicea, then nobody had warrant to believe the deity of Christ with the certainty of faith.
Explain how CVD’s argument doesn’t invalidate itself at this point.
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D.G. Hart:
The problem with you is that you only see the good in Rome and when someone points out the bad, the messenger is mean.>>>>>>
The “problem” with me is that I have been in and around Evangelical Protestantism for a long, long time. I don’t think you are mean, but I think you are kidding yourself. I have had the privilege of working with some of the finest men and women God ever created. I have also had the privilege of seeing some of the worst of human behavior through the years.
You have seen the same in Protestantism if you are willing to be honest.
Trying to focus on the sins and divisions of others – real or imagined – makes you feel better about the disaster that is even your little Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
You want division and scandal? Look closer to home. When you start doing that, then you will have greater credibility with me.
Besides, I don’t think you are mean in your real life. If you were, your dear wife would not have put up with you for so long and followed you so faithfully.
You are mean to me, but I don’t take it personally. I am a challenge for you. I stand in your way and remind you of what Protestantism really is, the good and the very evil.
That doesn’t mean I don’t love you guys or even respect and admire many of your Bible teachers who helped me along the way. I have nothing but gratitude in my heart for them. After all, they helped me become Catholic. Reformed theology took me one step closer to Home, so how can I not be grateful?
Interacting with you guys and gals here at OL only confirms the fact that I am in the right place. I love being Catholic. You don’t get that.
Peace, Brother Hart
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vd, t, If I had a vote, I’d have voted to acquit.
Look, a squirrel.
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James Young, I actually try to understand the likes of you, how you can go on and on and on about papal infallibility when your church has moved way beyond that. The converts and apologists are out of synch. And you don’t seem to try to understand Protestants who cannot fathom why anyone would object to a church that at one time promoted Crusades, abducted Jewish boys, and covered for pedophile priests. And that’s just the objections to Rome’s pastoral feng shui. When it comes to doctrine, it’s a little hard to keep up because Denzinger died, the popes keep blabbing, and the doctrine keeps developing. Talk about moving goal posts. Just look at the catechism. No wait. Remember STM. Hold on. Get the right paradigm. It’s a flabby outlook you have.
You do know that lots of Roman Catholics do look at Vat II as modernist. I’ve yet to see you respond to one of my posts where I repeat the objections of Boniface at Unam Sanctam. Like we’re supposed to take your word for all of the “soundness” of Rome? What don’t you understand about “pay grade”?
The Nicene Creed is not divine revelation. It is not the canon. Tell me how it is divine revelation. You plays these games of linguistic analogy and your mind gets flabbier.
Me — my mind on Bible.
You — your mind on papal supremacy.
I get it. You need a brain as big as Elephant Man’s to make sense of all those contradictions.
But move on, I say. Your bishops have and they’re the ones with all that apostolic authority.
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b, sd, James Young writes ad nauseum, “So can Protestantism offer a non-provisional or non-tentative doctrine then?”
And then he tells us that non-provisional non-tentative doctrines develop. But they remains non-provision non-tentative.
Did you ever get the feeling it’s rigged?
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Muddy, see Spotlight. Rome has a history of silencing journalists and covering up.
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Mermaid, so your problem in not looking at the whole RC landscape is that I don’t look at evangelicalism.
You are clueless. I have spent the better part of my career studying and teaching about evangelical Protestantism. Some people regard me as
one of evangelical Protestantism’s fiercest criticsone of Reformed Protestantism’s biggest jackasses.If you think I am as rosy about Protestantism as you are about your warm cuddly self-referential faith, you really don’t know much. And you should be embarrassed.
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D.G. Hart:D. G. Hart
Posted November 21, 2015 at 12:04 pm | Permalink
Mermaid, so your problem in not looking at the whole RC landscape is that I don’t look at evangelicalism.>>>>>
You don’t look at yourself. You shrug. You should be embarrassed. If you start calling yourself a fundamentalist, then you could start to redeem yourself.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 20, 2015 at 10:44 pm | Permalink
Mermaid, do you read? If Paul was entrusted to evangelize the goyim and Rome was goy, then how did Peter, the minister to the kosher, become the bishop of the city of the goy? The whole Rome as eternal city is off. If you sing the Psalms you think of Jerusalem? Rome? That’s the city of the authorities who killed Jesus.
Hey, wait a minute. . .>>>>>
Even the best of your commentators recognize that Babylon is probably a symbol for the city of Rome. That puts Peter in Rome writing his first epistle.
I am glad they put the word “probably”, since that is being honest. All of Reformed theology is based on probabilities, as has been so clearly demonstrated here.
Even your infallible rule of faith and practiced is defined by your fallible rule – the WCF. Brother Hart shrugs. Put down your Boettner and read some real scholarship.
1 Peter 5:13 She . . . at Babylon. Probably a reference to the church in Rome (Introduction: Date and Occasion).. “Babylon” is probably a symbol for the city of Rome (17:9 note, 17:18) with its immorality.
– Reformation study Bible
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Robert: Cetus
Great, so now we have a Whale also?
😛
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MichaelTX: We Catholics have the most arrogant position in Christendom… That is, if it isn’t true.
Hi Michael,
Glad to see you. Glad to see you’re off living life.
I appreciate your candor, as always.
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Hi Mermaid,
>>
How many different groups, all claiming to be genuine Christians, are there in you town? Do you accept all of them as genuine Christians?
If so, on what basis?
>>
Nope.
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CVD: And the identification of the “Word of God”, as well as its inerrancy, functional role, interpretation, etc. that we cannot argue with remains provisional and subject to correction since there is no mechanism in your system for defining or identifying irreformable doctrine, as your confessional disclaimers reflect. Again, semper reformanda is not consistent with Paul’s preaching. Those submitting to him would not be justified in endlessly debating or arguing with his current or future teachings and he wasn’t revising his teaching constantly or offering it as “this might be wrong, but probably isn’t”.
There absolutely is such a mechanism. The Bible is identified as irreformable doctrine. The mechanism is the universal consent of the church. What you don’t like about it is that the identification itself is not infallible, nor is the mechanism. Somehow, you work that out to mean that the Bible itself is fallible in the Protestant system, which is a false statement of the position.
As to Paul, he was careful to distinguish his own words from the Lord’s.
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No one of note
Posted November 21, 2015 at 6:48 am | Permalink
Tom,
As for the “true” church, I’m trying to use Augustine’s sense of “catholic church” without pressing the capital “C” part too literally
>>
The Catholicism you prefer (geographically dispersed with hierarchical leadership) didn’t show up until Cyril of Jerusalem first claimed it, 300 years after the apostles.
Even if we stipulate that, it’s still a better claim to the apostolic deposit than Luther’s 1200 year later and Dr. Hart’s church almost 2000 years later.
Admittedly, the first few centuries after the apostles are historically quite foggy–including existing copies of the New Testament itself! Without a belief that the Holy Spirit got the Christian religion to where it is today, everything’s a scholarly crapshoot!
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 21, 2015 at 11:52 am | Permalink
Me — my mind on Bible.
You — your mind on papal supremacy.
Actually, your mind is on papal supremacy, you talk about it ceaselessly, as do your followers. It infests almost every one of your comment boxes.
I don’t hear Catholics talk about it much–the Catholic faith is more about the Eucharist than rabbinical debate. That’s your religion. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
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Tom,
We know that the vast majority of RCs don’t care about the pope or the Magisterium. Heck, most of the 1.2 billion RCs worldwide don’t care enough about the Eucharist to take it weekly. That’s why Darryl isn’t talking to them. He’s poking holes in the CTC apologetic that doesn’t line up with the reality I just mentioned. Rome simply isn’t a religion about dogma in practice. It’s all about ritual, but even then precious few care.
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Robert
Posted November 21, 2015 at 5:24 pm | Permalink
Tom,
We know that the vast majority of RCs don’t care about the pope or the Magisterium. Heck, most of the 1.2 billion RCs worldwide don’t care enough about the Eucharist to take it weekly. That’s why Darryl isn’t talking to them. He’s poking holes in the CTC apologetic that doesn’t line up with the reality I just mentioned. Rome simply isn’t a religion about dogma in practice. It’s all about ritual, but even then precious few care.
It’s about the Eucharist and the sacraments. If you want to dismiss it as mere “ritual,” Augustine and 2000 years of Christianity disagree.
As for Dr. Hart’s jihad against the papacy, it doesn’t address his real theological problem, which is the Eucharist and apostolic succession, both of which are licit and also found with the Eastern Orthodox. His war on Rome is meaningless.
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For those who came in late, this is Augustine, of course. Forget waging war on some unofficial Catholic website. [Badly, let’s add.] It’s all here.
“[T]here are many other things which most properly can keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The unanimity of peoples and nations keeps me here. Her authority, inaugurated in miracles, nourished by hope, augmented by love, and confirmed by her age, keeps me here. The succession of priests, from the very see of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15-17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here. And last, the very name Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called ‘Catholic,’ when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house.” (Against the Letter of Mani Called ‘The Foundation’ 4:5 [A.D. 397]).
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I want to address Robert only, being that he seems (to me)to be the only one here really trying to follow t
he logic.
Hello Robert,
You said, “…..CVD has been making the point ad nauseum that one has no warrant to put faith in anything that is not infallible. If I grant that, how did anyone before Nicea know that the deity of Christ was an infallible dogma?”
The answer is, the same way that we know today, ” By the testimony of the church who passed on and continues to pass on the word of truth”.
Think of it like this: If I had lived before the Council of Nicea, and heard other stories and ideas about this Jesus guy that were different and opposed to the story of Jesus as relayed by those within the ecclesial body called “The Church” and I believed the propagators of other ideas instead, then I would have been in error about an infallible truth.
“Protestants will say Scripture, but CVD says that’s not allowed because we don’t have an infallible canon declaration. Okay, but nobody before Nicea had that either, so he can’t go there either.”
But there was a church that was teaching infallible doctines the whole time. That church has the scriptures and it’s identity as the church founded on the apostles, and it’s being guided by the Holy Spirit so its teachings before Nicea, as well as during and after are infallible when pertaining to faith and morals.
“Ordinary Church teaching and the liturgy? But not all ordinary church teaching is infallible and not everything in the liturgy is either. Not everything taught and practiced pre-Nicea has survived as infallible. So I don’t see how that works either.”
Incense isn’t infallible and genuflecting isn’t infallible, no. But the Agnus Dei expresses and infallible knowledge that Jesus is the Lamb of God. I am being a tad sarcastic because I’m not sure why you think the church would call inanimate objects infallible”. It is infallible, and ineffable that Jesus is substantially present in the bread and wine. If it is not infallible known one way or the other, it is provisional by its own inability to declare “the truth” of the matter.
“IF something must be called infallible in order to give the warrant of faith, how was anyone able pre Nicea to sort out the belief in the deity of Christ, where it was affirmed, as infallible dogma from other stuff? And if there’s no sure way to do that before Nicea, then nobody had warrant to believe the deity of Christ with the certainty of faith.”
I believe everything the church teaches when it tells me that” such and such is true”. A child ( or adult) may not grasp the idea of substance and accidents to but that doesn’t negate that Jesus’s flesh is indeed, true food. It doesn’t mean that no person understood that Jesus was God before it was infallible declared. Just like the Triune Godhead has always been before It was ever grappled with. It just means that if one denies it( before or after it was ratified at Nicea), they walk away from the truth.
I saw you addressing Dr. Anders with this question too, and will continue to watch how that comes out.
I went round and round with these questions myself and realized that unless what I believed was infallible it could never rise above being only provisional.
Anyways, I’m not putting you down, I just don’t understand why anyone would choose to side with ministerial authorities who have no power to delare its doctrines as absolute truths. That is essentially a nonauthority, if it power travels with whoever happens to hold the books.
I hope that this makes sense to you. I really tried to explain why your objection doesn’t hold together. If I have missed it perhaps CVD will engage you further.
I only came back to address what you said, and so I won’t hang out. I never get anywhere when people arent interested. You seem to be more genuinely interested, or I wouldn’t have said anything. Trying to learn to save my words and my time:)
Take care, my friend!
Susan
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Tom,
It’s about the Eucharist and the sacraments.
Bingo. But CVD and the CTC guys want to make it all about the “principled way” of settling dogmatic questions.
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Robert: …..CVD has been making the point ad nauseum that one has no warrant to put faith in anything that is not infallible. If I grant that, how did anyone before Nicea know that the deity of Christ was an infallible dogma?”
Susan: The answer is, the same way that we know today, ” By the testimony of the church who passed on and continues to pass on the word of truth”.
That doesn’t help, though. If our criterion for “article of faith” is “that which is known to be infallibly declared”, then Nicea’s definitions and canons did not qualify at the time they were made, for they made no claim of infallibility.
You, Susan, can look back through the ages and see that the RC church now says that the Nicene definition was infallible then. But the people living at that time had no reason to think that.
Yet mysteriously they did not consider the lack of guarantee of infallibility to be an obstacle to their affirmation of faith, at least by the time the Nicene creed came to be.
Susan: I just don’t understand why anyone would choose to side with ministerial authorities who have no power to delare its doctrines as absolute truths. That is essentially a nonauthority, if it power travels with whoever happens to hold the books.
There is a basic confusion of categories here. “Authority” (exousia) is the moral right to rule; in the case of the church, to make declarations. “Power” (dynamos) is the ability to perform.
Authorities may or may not have power — I may or may not have the power to make my children obey, but I have the right to tell them to obey.
Those with power may or may not have authority — a man with a gun may be a cop or may be a robber.
So to say that authority requires the power to make infallible declarations is to confuse two very different concepts. And in fact, that confusion is at the heart of some fallacious appeals to authority in the form “Because the authority said X, then X must be true.”
Jesus made this distinction, did He not?
The scribes and Pharisees had authority to declare what was right, but they had no power to do what was right. They certainly did not have infallibility.
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Susan,
The answer is, the same way that we know today, ” By the testimony of the church who passed on and continues to pass on the word of truth”.
Think of it like this: If I had lived before the Council of Nicea, and heard other stories and ideas about this Jesus guy that were different and opposed to the story of Jesus as relayed by those within the ecclesial body called “The Church” and I believed the propagators of other ideas instead, then I would have been in error about an infallible truth.
I get that, more or less, but I don’t think you are feeling the weight of my question. Before Nicea, and even after Nicea, there were churches with Apostolic Succession that were effectively Arian. Let’s leave out the situation after Nicea and grant that Nicea settled the question dogmatically. How did people living before Nicea have warrant to give the assent of faith to the deity of Christ when it at least some churches with Apostolic succession, what would later be declared heresy was being taught.
I could give other examples. How about Nestorianism? Nestorius, the patriarch of Constantinople, was later condemned as a heretic. But he was teaching dogmas that hadn’t been settled because many other churches with Apostolic succession were either teaching Nestorianism or one of the other condemned heresies. So, before Chalcedon, what warrant did someone have to affirm the hypostatic union if that had not been declared infallibly and the other positions had not been condemned as heresies?
But there was a church that was teaching infallible doctines the whole time. That church has the scriptures and it’s identity as the church founded on the apostles, and it’s being guided by the Holy Spirit so its teachings before Nicea, as well as during and after are infallible when pertaining to faith and morals.
But even if I grant that, how did the people before Nicea know what was being taught as infallible and what wasn’t? There were churches with Apostolic succession that were Arian or holding to some other false belief. Origen was later condemned, etc. etc. How does anyone know what is infallible apart from a dogmatic declaration. You can’t just say, “well it was always taught and hold on to Apostolic succession when there wasn’t agreement among the churches with Apostolic succession.”
Incense isn’t infallible and genuflecting isn’t infallible, no. But the Agnus Dei expresses and infallible knowledge that Jesus is the Lamb of God. I am being a tad sarcastic because I’m not sure why you think the church would call inanimate objects infallible”. It is infallible, and ineffable that Jesus is substantially present in the bread and wine. If it is not infallible known one way or the other, it is provisional by its own inability to declare “the truth” of the matter.
But before an infallible declaration, how does the average person know that Jesus’ substantial presence is an infallible dogma?
I believe everything the church teaches when it tells me that” such and such is true”. A child ( or adult) may not grasp the idea of substance and accidents to but that doesn’t negate that Jesus’s flesh is indeed, true food. It doesn’t mean that no person understood that Jesus was God before it was infallible declared. Just like the Triune Godhead has always been before It was ever grappled with. It just means that if one denies it( before or after it was ratified at Nicea), they walk away from the truth.
I agree that Nicea’s dogmatic declaration doesn’t mean that no person before then understood that Jesus was God. But if what CVD and everyone else is saying about how you can’t have a warrant of faith unless you have an infallible declaration or infallible recognition of dogma, how did those who (rightly to be sure) affirmed the deity of Christ before Nicea have warrant to believe in the deity of Christ as anything more than a provisional dogma. The question hadn’t been settled by the church. Some places with Apostolic succession weren’t teaching it. We have several realities, if I accept CVD’s argument:
1. You have no warrant for the assent of certitude of faith in a dogma that has not been infallibly declared or recognized. Otherwise, all is provisional.
2. There is no explicit recognition of the deity of Christ as infallible prior to Nicea by the church.
3. There is recognition of the fact infallibly in Scripture.
4. But CVD says that the biblical recognition is not enough unless you know the NT is infallible Scripture
5. But there was no canon declaration, and some churches were treating some non canonical books as Scripture.
So the best we have is the universal witness of the church that is far from universal before and even after Nicea and the teaching of Scripture, which we can’t rest on alone because we don’t know for sure that John is Scripture and 1 Clement is not because the church hasn’t pronounced anything.
So honestly, I’m trying to fit this all together. How did Susan Vader in the 2nd century have the warrant to give the assent of faith to the deity of Christ when there’s no clear way for it to have been infallibly declared or recognized.
Ultimately, I think the only answer that can be given is that orthodoxy is somehow self-authenticating. But if you concede that point, then the whole CTC argument falls apart. Maybe there is another answer, but I don’t see it yet.
I went round and round with these questions myself and realized that unless what I believed was infallible it could never rise above being only provisional.
But the issue, Susan, is that as long as you are a finite creature, your understanding of what anyone says can never rise above provisionality. Your beliefs will always be provisional in some sense. It might be a trivial sense, but it is provisional nonetheless. The only way to escape provisionality is to attain omniscience.
Anyways, I’m not putting you down, I just don’t understand why anyone would choose to side with ministerial authorities who have no power to delare its doctrines as absolute truths. That is essentially a nonauthority, if it power travels with whoever happens to hold the books.
Take care, my friend!
I know, and thank you, Susan.
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Mermaid, See Spotlight and then let’s see you chirp.
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There has been much talk that Protestants here have been misrepresenting the concept of anathema, “wanting” to see themselves as damned when in fact the Catholic church sees them as separated brothers who are desired to be in full fellowship.
The latter part is certainly true — Catholics here have every desire to see Protestants convert. That desire is warm and sincere. However, there is a certain amount of wishful thinking at work.
Here is CathEn on anathema:
— Catholic Encyclopedia
Note the meaning of anathema:
* Deprived of communion from body and blood of the Lord
* Excluded from the bosom of the church in heaven and on earth
* Condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels, so long as he does not do penance
I would observe that the Protestants seem to have represented the meaning of anathema adequately, whereas certain Catholic interlocutors here have softened the term, such that anathema is represented as not involving definite damnation.
Further, it has been suggested that Protestants here should be considered as separated brothers. But the code of canon law (1983) says,
Can. 1364 §1. Without prejudice to the prescript of can. 194, §1, n. 2, an apostate from the faith, a heretic, or a schismatic incurs a latae sententiae excommunication… [JRC: automatic, without sentence being passed]
So while the offered olive branch is sincerely appreciated, I must sadly conclude that it cannot be offered with knowledge of church teaching.
The olive branch does seem typical of present-day Catholic thinking, however. Hence LonelyPilgrim:
But the Catholic Church’s model of excommunication is just as St. Paul’s: it is not a pronouncement of eternal damnation, but a disciplinary measure designed to motivate the sinner to repentance and reconciliation.
Mr. Pilgrim then goes on to say that anathemas could never apply to Protestants (which would have been news to the council of Trent).
Both of these points fail to be fully true under scrutiny. Anathemas are indeed a pronouncement of eternal damnation (without penance). Naturally, they are also disciplinary measures designed to motivate the sinner to repentance. L. Pilgrim gets half-credit.
Further, Protestants are held to be heretics and schismatics, hence automatically under the sentence of major excommunication per above.
Hence Pius IX:
— Iam Vos Omnes
— Code of Canon Law 751.
— Council of Florence Session 11
To repeat: The sincerity of your desire to see us as separated brothers is not questioned. But that desire is at odds with what your official documents teach. There is not room in pre-Vatican II Catholic teaching for Protestants to be members-at-large, or invisibly connected to the church, or anything other than anathematized schismatics who obstinately hold opinions contrary to church teaching.
Did Vatican II change that? It obviously changed how the Catholic-on-the-street thought about their Protestant neighbors. All of you have expressed some view that we are separated brothers.
But did Vatican II change church doctrine? If so, then our discussion of infallibility takes on a different light. If not, then church doctrine itself is revealed to be incoherent. For as we have previously seen in the Balt Cat 4 discussion, teachers of the church in the 19th century firmly believed that Protestants had no reasonable chance of being saved. And from all that I have been able to read, this was the majority position of the 16-18th centuries as well.
In other words, if church teaching about the salvation of Protestants remained the same prior to and following Vatican II, then we have the remarkable problem that almost all Catholics up into the 19th century understood church teaching to mean that Protestants were not saved; whereas almost all Catholics now understand it to mean the opposite. This strikes a blow at the possibility of even reading a document with any understanding.
Either way, whether a changed doctrine or a changed understanding, your epistemological situation looks not so good.
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vd, t, embarrassing. As if RC’s didn’t talk about Pope Francis’ visit.
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For those who came in late, this is Augustine, of course. Forget waging war on some unofficial Catholic website. [Badly, let’s add.] It’s all here.
“[T]here are many other things which most properly can keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The unanimity of peoples and nations keeps me here. Her authority, inaugurated in miracles, nourished by hope, augmented by love, and confirmed by her age, keeps me here. [vd, t does.] The succession of priests, from the very see of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15-17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here. [Papal infallibility does.] And last, the very name Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called ‘Catholic,’ when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house. [That artwork in the Vatican museums is great.]” (Against the Letter of Mani Called ‘The Foundation’ 4:5 [A.D. 397]).
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Susan, “I just don’t understand why anyone would choose to side with ministerial authorities who have no power to delare its doctrines as absolute truths.”
Said like any good Stalinist. “Oh! I go knock kneed over someone with ABSOLUTE authority. I need my DA DA.”
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Dear Robert,
I know that your questions will be answered. I wish I could spend time talking with you about it, but I promised myself that I would stop commenting at Old Life.
Let me say this and then I will step out of the way and let you and CVD converse.
From your point of view their is no way to settle doctries that are in dispute. You might say that scripture is what people have always used to determine the truth from a wrong idea, but that doesn’t pan out in reality where there are many many denominations all claiming that the bible is.their sole rul.of faith with the Holy Spirit guiding. For one, a person wouldn’t need the bible if they were realiing in the scriptures to be their sole rule of.faith, and for another if the holy spirit is guding everyone who claims that the scripture is their only rule of faith, then they should all come to the same conclusion about what the scriptures principle teach, but they don’t.
The Catholic Church has never claimed that the scriptures were its sole rul of.faith and this is logically consistent with the fact that the church had to come before the New Testament scriptures. Also if the scriptures had been the Church’s sole rule the church itself would.have declared that about itself from the beginning and no counsel to settle things would have had people with differing views all needing someone to act as arbiter. Did any counsel ever say, ” the scriptures declare.such and.such and that settles it”.
Do Protestants believe that counsel’s were called so that people could share what they all gleaned from the bible and then a consensus was reached?
If that is the case I don’t understand why a council that squelched a heretical view is seen as such a divine action if that council doesn’t enjoy the state of being the one true church. For it should inherently also have authority that is greater than the meeting of fallible minds.
Authority is not dervived from scripture, because scripture first of all doesn’t choose itself in order that it can knight its rightful owners. Authority comes first and that is a fact consistant with the record within the scriptures.
Again, I’m certain you will eventually grasp this.
I was a little fearful when I was confronted with all of this, but when you see the church as a way to get the graces one needs to reach heaven, you will be relieved that God actually gave is much more than the scriptures. He has given is Himself.
Pray you keep asking questions!
God bless you!
Susan
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Dr. Hart, go fisk yourself.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/11/papal-fallibility.html
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Susan,
From your point of view their is no way to settle doctries that are in dispute.
But this isn’t true. Councils settle doctrines that are in dispute. The fact that not everyone submits to them doesn’t make the dispute unsettled anymore than it does when RCs dissent.
If the OPC or PCA gathers and decides that paedocommunion is contrary to Scripture, the dispute has been settled for that church. If people want to leave for a body that believes otherwise, that’s their business. It’s a free country, and in the West we’ve all basically agreed that freedom of religion is the way to go. Even Rome basically agrees now.
The only question for the OPC and PCA is whether to regard other churches that practice paedocommunion as true churches. As far as I know, neither denomination will say the paedocommunion-practicing church is automatically not a church. They might have concerns about the long term health of the church, but that doesn’t mean they say “nope, other church can’t be a real church.”
In the future, the OPC and a paedocommunion practicing church could decide to establish official relations with each other. That could be anything from fraternal relations all the way to reunifying into a new denomination after a council in which the matter is discussed. Something like that happened with the PCA and the RPCES, not over paedocommunion but over other issues. Nobody needed an infallible declaration for it to work.
So one of the big issues I have is what in the world do you all expect in a world where the state does not possess the sword? Why is the above not enough? Why must we have infallible and pronounce everyone who disagrees with us as automatically not being a true Christian church? From this Protestant’s point of view, it looks an awful lot like pride and self-aggrandizement on Rome’s part. If Rome’s claims weren’t bound up with a whole lot of tragic history consisting of corrupt popes, doctrinal waffling, and a willingness to use the sword to punish dissent, maybe you all would have a better argument. But as it is, this demand for unity based around an infallible Magisterium just looks like sheer arrogance. Maybe I’m wrong, but the history is just so muddy and the church’s understanding of itself in the NT and the earliest centuries so different from what you all say it should be that I just can’t see the point. And in the spirit of good old American pragmatism, it just doesn’t work. A far greater percentage of your laity is in open defiance of the Magisterium than in any evangelical denomination that I know of. In fact, you are more likely to find an evangelical who thinks Rome is right on the key moral issues than you are to find a Roman Catholic.
Why do such disconnects not seem to bother any of you?
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Robert,
“So honestly, I’m trying to fit this all together. How did Susan Vader in the 2nd century have the warrant to give the assent of faith to the deity of Christ when there’s no clear way for it to have been infallibly declared or recognized.”
There’s a great probability that Susan Vader of the 12nd century didn’t even know how to read if she could get her hands on a copy of a few pages of the codexes!! 🙂
So I would have asked If this Jesus guy really did claim to be God and if he did really die on a Roman cross and rose again from the dead. Knowing me, I would have asked how does this coincide with Judaism( if I were Kew or Gentile), because I would really want to know how the crucifixion had anything to do with the Passover. I would want to know many things more if someone told me about the stories in the gospels( like the multiplication of bread and fish, the healings, the story about people leaving Jesus when he scared them with his talk of canabalism and why he was born in a city that meant “bread” and was laid in a manger( a word that means “to eat” in French.)Man I would have thought the stories were to conveniently constructed appearing myth like if there didnt still exist the church that claims to come directly from the Messiah.
I believe that somebody with authority from God would have explained everything that has been revealed.If nothing can be known with certainty than nothing has been revealed.
Okay, I’m done!
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That was autocorrect. I said of the 2nd century.
Btw, from how you talk you want the Catholic Church to say that is is just another denomination and that there isn’t really any such thing as apostolic succession. But there it is in reality and in the written record of history.
One minute you beat it up for what it has done bad in history and the next minute the thing you attack is a chimera.
Do you want a historical revision AND for her to suddenly claim that she too was founded in the 1500’s?
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 21, 2015 at 10:20 pm | Permalink
vd, t, embarrassing. As if RC’s didn’t talk about Pope Francis’ visit.
You realize now that your response here is what’s embarrassing, yes, Dr. Hart? You talk more about the pope than Catholics do. Non-Catholics were actually moved to talk about Francis’s mission to America even more that the Catholics were.
That was the whole point. It was a missionary act, not a rallying of the troops. Dude.
If you ever want to play in the major leagues instead of inside your tiny Orthodox Presbyterian Church [nice to hear you would have acquitted Dr. Terry Gray on evolution, for all the good it did him], take on Dr. Edward Feser face to face or even within the friendly confines of your own little blog here, tough guy, on your favorite subject.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/11/papal-fallibility.html
Cowboy up. Protestant up, Calvin up, Presbyterian up. You’re all about confrontation, Darryl. Confront.
Methinks you’re begging for a smackdown ala Billy Bob Thornton in “The Apostle,” Darryl. You can try your luck with Feser, but you’re not in his intellectual league. Which is OK—neither am I.
The Little Mermaid is your Apostle E.F. She understands you completely. and after you assault her, she punches you to the ground not out of anger but out of mercy.
Sister Susan and James Young minister to the rest of your wounded flock.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 21, 2015 at 10:25 pm | Permalink
“For those who came in late, this is Augustine, of course. Forget waging war on some unofficial Catholic website. [Badly, let’s add.] It’s all here.”
Awesome, big guy. Now we’re getting somewhere. Mock Augustine [with your parentheticals] all you want. He is beyond our poor power to add or detract.
The truth outs; our time is not wasted here. You would not dare point at your basilica or house and dare to call it “catholic.” Not even you could bear the humiliation.
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Hi, Susan,
There’s a great probability that Susan Vader of the 2nd century didn’t even know how to read if she could get her hands on a copy of a few pages of the codexes!! 🙂
Your ability to read doesn’t have any bearing on my question.
I believe that somebody with authority from God would have explained everything that has been revealed.If nothing can be known with certainty than nothing has been revealed.
Okay, but not everything that is explained by somebody with authority from God is infallible. That is what CVD has said, and that is what Rome holds. So if said somebody explains things but never says, “And by the way, this is infallible,” how do you know it’s infallible and you have warrant for faith?
Furthermore, at various points in the early church, you could find various churches with Apostolic succession teaching what would later be declared heretical. If Constantinople is your parish, how do you know Nestorianism is heresy and not infallible dogma before Chalcedon.
Read/taught in the liturgy, it seems, isn’t going to be enough because not everything taught in the liturgy was infallible. Scripture isn’t going to be enough because you all have said there is no warrant to believe X book is Scripture unless there is an infallible canon declaration. You don’t have that before NIcea. Given all that, I think there are really only three possible answers to the question:
1. Nobody had warrant to believe in the deity of Christ before Nicea.
2. Orthodoxy is somehow self-authenticating.
3. One can have warrant/certitude of faith apart from infallibility.
All of those options are damaging, if not fatal to the particular CTC argument we keep hearing. Numbers 2 and 3 concede the Protestant position. Number 1 has the church teaching stuff that no one has warrant to believe.
Btw, from how you talk you want the Catholic Church to say that is is just another denomination
It is just another denomination.
and that there isn’t really any such thing as apostolic succession. But there it is in reality and in the written record of history.
I agree that there is such a thing as dogma of Apostolic Succession. Where I disagree is that such a dogma is in the New Testament or prior to Irenaeus. And even with Irenaeus, you don’t get the full-blown idea of AS.
You don’t have things like Peter, right before he dies, laying his hands on Linus and saying, “You’re pope now.” The idea of the monarchical episcopate isn’t there. Roman Catholic historians now concede this.
One minute you beat it up for what it has done bad in history and the next minute the thing you attack is a chimera.
The problems with AS vary depending on the system. Rome’s is the worst because of papal jurisdictional primacy. The East’s is only slightly better, but the appointment of bishops by secular governments is extremely problematic. While I disagree with the Anglican and Lutheran models as the best representation of Scripture, I don’t think they’re views of AS inevitably lead to problems.
Do you want a historical revision AND for her to suddenly claim that she too was founded in the 1500’s?
Until Rome formally disassociates herself from Protestantism at Trent, there is no real RCC. If you want to accept that Protestantism goes back to the first century AD, then I would have no problem saying the same for Rome. The problem is the selectivity. You have a Western Church that goes back to the first century that is full of various streams of thought. Roman Catholicism represents the consolidation of some streams and the rejection of others, just as Protestantism represents the same.
IOW, John Calvin and Martin Luther have an equally credible claim to the great tradition as Rome does.
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Susan, “The Catholic Church has never claimed that the scriptures were its sole rul of.faith”
So Christianity is not a revealed religion? You think we can create what we think is true about God instead of relying on what God has revealed?
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vd, t, has it ever dawned on you that the folks with the authority to teach what papal infallibility means don’t do it? And why should you elevate Feser’s explanation? He’s not even a bishop. I mean, if you have such a great mechanism for teaching THE TRUTH (plus the good and the beautiful), why are the faithful so confused? And why does it take convert apologists to straighten it out? Maybe because the bishops have moved on. You know, aggiornamento.
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vd, t, mass up.
We now have a poll that confirms you are an ordinary Roman Catholic.
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Mermaid, true, good, beauty. Can you handle true?
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Ali: (was it this post, can’t remember?) cw l’unificateur: Ali, listen to how Darryl McMeaniepants is kind and laudatory to a certain type of piety which is wedded to a solid ecclesiology and the ordinary means of grace: http://reformedforum.org/ctc412 Ali: Listened to some of this as promised cw, to halfway-just offer one comment – I don’t believe ‘conversion’=sanctification
‘course,cw, that’s not to say that from that dawn ‘til the dusk, we are not ever waking up
2 Peter 1:19 So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
song for you today cw – don’t forget, for this day, surrender =freedom :)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb5zQv9kXW4
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Ali, I’m shocked. Since you quote the Bible so much why do advocate non-inspired songs? I’d have pegged you an exclusive psalmodist.
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D.G.: Ali, I’m shocked. Since you quote the Bible so much why do advocate non-inspired songs? I’d have pegged you an exclusive psalmodist.
You’re welcome DG – I had a feeling you would like that as much as cw always does!
non-inspired? – it seems very inspired to me.
Hope you enjoyed it and are encouraged that the day has dawned and the morning star is ever rising in our hearts until that day…
Rev 5:9 And they sang a new song, saying,“Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.10 “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”
Oh, and don’t forget… today’s surrender is tomorrow’s freedom, even though tomorrow will then be a…. Monday
[it didn’t actually link in the above.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb5zQv9kXW4 ]
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I believe Ali’s last few comments confirm that we are being trolled anonymously by Ann Voskamp. Good stuff.
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🙂 aw cw
,,,and ‘course there are others who need other encouragement…
…take up your cross and carry it on.. not our will but yours be done…
Revelation 3:1: “To the angel of the church in Sardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God. 3 So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.
love u guys. take care. have a great day.
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Ali, go squishy on inspiration and next you’ll find popes infallible.
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Robert,
Here’s your options with Aquinas and Augustine. Show the citations I presented are dissimilar and contradictory to the type of points I’ve been raising (this would seem difficult, considering you’ve repeatedly criticized Aquinas’ statements on faith and holding things of faith otherwise than by faith and say things like “Augustine is just one guy’s opinion”),
or simply assert Aquinas and Augustine were wrong and had some intellectual cognitive dissonance going on where they weren’t actually adhering to the points they were making. You can’t simultaneously claim they weren’t fideists while also also asserting the type of arguments they and I advance entails they are fideists.
“I’m still trying to figure out where Trent got the idea that the Reformers were antinomians.”
Here we go again – only confessional Protestants are true Protestants, therefore Rome must only respond to confessional Protestants when responding to Protestantism. Antinomians were all over the place in the Reformation and still are – welcome to Protestantism.
“So, before a definition is given, how do we know what is infallible and what isn’t”
You’re still treating the STM-triad as “official infallible list of official infallible teachings”.
“The only way I can see that you can justify something as infallible apart from a dogmatic declaration is by attributing some kind of self-authentication to it.”
Tradition is not a “dogmatic declaration”. You want to affirm Scripture self-authenticates? Great – so you should follow the RCC canon then. Also, get rid of all the asterisks in your bible and tell all those textual critics “sorry guys, your jobs are done – didn’t you realize Scripture self-authenticates?” Or maybe this is another case where the books self-authenticate but the contents of those books don’t, since the contents are “irrelevant” and “secondary” to the canon.
“The church taught Arianism”
Rome never taught Arianism. That’s part of the point. If the universal church was teaching and practicing Arianism, it would be rather hard for there to have been a controversy and long battle about it then in the first place, wouldn’t it – the disputes and council would never have arisen and materialized in the first place.
“But if orthodoxy is self-authenticating, welcome to Protestantism.”
Orthodoxy is self-authenticating? What does this even mean? A Pelagian Arian universalist Word-of-Faither who holds the deuterocanonicals as inspired, rejects some books of the NT, and considers the historicity of the OT/NT as false but rather just metaphor while also affirming abortion and homosexuality comes to you and says “My beliefs are orthodox and self-authenticating”. Are you just going to say “No, you don’t have the HS. I do. My orthodoxy self-authenticates and you’re unorthodox, so it doesn’t self-authenticate”.
And even if we grant everything you want to grant Protestantism – anything you want to claim for it at all – we still don’t get divine revelation. We never get irreformable doctrine or binding normative teachings and judgments on all. And you freely admit that, being consistent with your confessions. Aquinas, Augustine, and RCs would never admit that, being consistent with Rome’s claims.
As to Arian bishops, yes they existed, but as I said Rome never taught such. From the earlier link: “Arius (c.256-336), the heresiarch, was based in Alexandria and died in Constantinople. In a Council at Antioch in 341, the majority of 97 Eastern bishops subscribed to a form of semi-Arianism, whereas in a Council at Rome in the same year, under Pope Julius I, the trinitarian St. Athanasius was vindicated by over 50 Italian bishops. The western-dominated Council of Sardica (Sofia) in 343 again upheld Athanasius’ orthodoxy, whereas the eastern Council of Sirmium in 351 espoused Arianism, which in turn was rejected by the western Councils of Arles (353) and Milan (355)”
and “All three of the great Eastern sees were under the jurisdiction of heretical patriarchs simultaneously during five different periods: 357-60 (Arian)”
If the best you can do is say an exiled pope signed a confession under torture and duress, therefore Rome taught Arianism, I’ll just let that speak for itself. As Cath Ency states on Liberius:
“Liberius, it is alleged, subscribed an Arian or Semi-Arian creed drawn up by the Council of Sirmium and anathematized St. Athanasius, the great champion of Nicaea, as a heretic. But even if this were an accurate statement of historical fact, it is a very inadequate statement. The all-important circumstance should be added that the pope so acted under pressure of a very cruel coercion, which at once deprives his action of any claim to be considered ex cathedra, and that he himself, as soon as he had recovered his liberty, made amends for the moral weakness he had been guilty of. This is a quite satisfactory answer to the objection, but it ought to be added that there is no evidence whatever that Liberius ever anathematized St. Athanasius expressly as a heretic, and that it remains a moot point which of three or four Sirmian creeds he subscribed, two of which contained no positive assertion of heretical doctrine and were defective merely for the negative reason that they failed to insist on the full definition of Nicaea.”
Liberius pre-exile:
“There followed a kind of persecution at Rome. Bishops, says St. Athanasius, and pious ladies were obliged to hide, monks were not safe, foreigners were expelled, the gates and the port were watched … Liberius was dragged before the emperor at Milan. He spoke boldly, bidding Constantius cease fighting against God, and declaring his readiness to go at once into exile before his enemies had time to trump up charges against him. Theodoret has preserved the minutes of an interview between “the glorious Liberius” and Constantius, which were taken down by good people, he says, at the time. Liberius refuses to acknowledge the decision of the Council of Tyre and to renounce Athanasius … “Who are you”, adds Constantius, “to stand up for Athanasius against the world?” Liberius replies: “Of old there were found but three to resist the mandate of the king.” The eunuch Eusebius cried: “You compare the emperor to Nabuchodonosor.” Liberius: “No, but you condemn the innocent.” He demands that all shall subscribe the Nicene formula, then the exiles must be restored, and all the bishops must assemble at Alexandria to give Athanasius a fair trial on the spot.
Epictus: “But the public conveyances will not be enough to carry so many.”
Liberius: “They will not be needed; the ecclesiastics are rich enough to send their bishops as far as the sea.”
Constantius: “General synods must not be too numerous; you alone hold out against the judgment of the whole world. He has injured all, and me above all; not content with the murder of my eldest brother, he set Constans also against me. I should prize a victory over him more than one over Silvanus or Magnentius.”
Liberius: “Do not employ bishops, whose hands are meant to bless, to revenge your own enmity. Have the bishops restored and, if they agree with the Nicene Faith, let them consult as to the peace of the world, that an innocent man be not condemned.”
Constantius: “I am willing to send you back to Rome, if you will join the communion of the Church. Make peace, and sign the condemnation.”
Liberius: “I have already bidden farewell at Rome to the brethren. The laws of the Church are more important than residence in Rome.”
“the uncompromising attitude of Liberius through at least the greater part of his banishment must have done more harm to the cause the emperor had at heart than his constancy had done when left at Rome in peace.”
“Theodoret says that Constantius was moved by the Roman matrons to restore him, but when his letter to Rome, saying that Liberius and Felix [the Arian antipope] were to be bishops side by side, was read in the circus, the Romans jeered at it, and filled the air with cries of “One God, one Christ, one bishop”. The Arian historian Philostorgius also speaks of the Romans having eagerly demanded the return of their pope, and so does Rufinus. St. Sulpicius Severus, on the other hand, gives the cause as seditions at Rome, and Sozomen agrees. Socrates is more precise, and declares that the Romans rose against Felix and drove him out, and that the emperor was obliged to acquiesce.”
All this opposition in Rome to an Arian antipope. Strange if Rome was Arian.
Post-exile:
“It was clearly not supposed that he had been conquered by Constantius. There is no sign of his ever having admitted that he had fallen. In 359 were held the simultaneous Councils of Seleucia and Rimini. At the latter, where most of the bishops were orthodox, the pressure and delay, and the underhand machinations of the court party entrapped the bishops into error. The pope was not there, nor did he send legates. After the council his disapproval was soon known, and after the death of Constantius at the end of 361 he was able publicly to annul it, and to decide, much as a council under Athanasius at Alexandria decided, that the bishops who had fallen could be restored on condition of their proving the sincerity of their repentance by their zeal against the Arians. About 366 he received a deputation of the Semi-Arians led by Eustathius; he treated them first as Arians (which he could not have done had he ever joined them), and insisted on their accepting the Nicene formula before he would receive them to communion.”
“It should be carefully noted that the question of the fall of Liberius is one that has been and can be freely debated among Catholics. No one pretends that, if Liberius signed the most Arian formulæ in exile, he did it freely; so that no question of his infallibility is involved. It is admitted on all sides that his noble attitude of resistance before his exile and during his exile was not belied by any act of his after his return, that he was in no way sullied when so many failed at the Council of Rimini, and that he acted vigorously for the healing of orthodoxy throughout the West from the grievous wound.”
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 22, 2015 at 8:20 am | Permalink
vd, t, has it ever dawned on you that the folks with the authority to teach what papal infallibility means don’t do it? And why should you elevate Feser’s explanation? He’s not even a bishop. I mean, if you have such a great mechanism for teaching THE TRUTH (plus the good and the beautiful), why are the faithful so confused? And why does it take convert apologists to straighten it out? Maybe because the bishops have moved on. You know, aggiornamento.
Why don’t you learn THE TRUTH and stop being the David Barton of anti-Catholicism? Mt 18:6
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/11/papal-fallibility.html
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Robert
Posted November 21, 2015 at 9:05 pm | Permalink
Tom,
It’s about the Eucharist and the sacraments.
Bingo. But CVD and the CTC guys want to make it all about the “principled way” of settling dogmatic questions.
Well, the whole point of calling these councils is the necessity of dealing with the plethora of heresies and confusions over the centuries–with the authority of the Church. Otherwise you get, well, Protestantism, dozens or 100s of different and conflicting truths and churches, all provisional and “fallible.”
Now, if you don’t buy that, let’s dispense with the fiction that yours is the same Church as Augustine’s and just be honest about it.
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Darryl,
“your church has moved way beyond that.”
Is this where you evaluate the “church” by reading NCR journalists?
“And then he tells us that non-provisional non-tentative doctrines develop. But they remains non-provision non-tentative.”
Yep, more not actually wanting to understand the RC position. Another thing for your fridge “Doctrine develops, when it does, it doesn’t contradict what it developed upon”. No such guarantee in Protestantism – semper reformanda.
“It is not the canon.”
The canon is divine revelation now? Anyways, the teaching of the canon is and remains provisional and tentative in your system.
“Just look at the catechism. No wait. Remember STM.”
The catechism that teaches STM?
“You do know that lots of Roman Catholics do look at Vat II as modernist”
Yup. I also know lots of RCs who view it with a hermeneutic of continuity. Some guy at Vat2 who later became pope said something about that.
“I repeat the objections of Boniface at Unam Sanctam. Like we’re supposed to take your word for all of the “soundness” of Rome? What don’t you understand about “pay grade”?”
So why do you take Boniface’s word? Is he at an appropriate pay grade? What about those Catholic Answers forum participants or the NCR journalists? Are they at the right pay grade?
“Tell me how it is divine revelation.”
It reflects divine revelation. It is dogma. It is irreformable. It is not new revelation.
“Me — my mind on Bible.”
My mind on errant Bible. My mind on gnostic gospels. My mind on Book of Mormon. I’m sure you find such rejoinders convincing in disputes.
“The Catholic Church has never claimed that the scriptures were its sole rul of.faith”
– So Christianity is not a revealed religion?”
What in the world. Non sequiturs are strong with this one.
“vd, t, has it ever dawned on you that the folks with the authority to teach what papal infallibility means don’t do it? And why should you elevate Feser’s explanation?”
But we should accept some dude on catholic answers forums equating Newman with modernism, or Boniface, or some journalist. And Feser’s explanation cited … popes, councils, cardinals, and theologians. Nothing can meet your demand apparently.
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Jeff,
“There absolutely is such a mechanism. The Bible is identified as irreformable doctrine.”
In WCF? The same WCF that makes explicit disclaimers to the authority and ability to do so?
And why are you now offering this as an irreformable doctrine when earlier I asked you to offer such given you asserted Protestantism claimed the ability, and you replied “It’s hard to answer your question”?
“The mechanism is the universal consent of the church.”
And what counts as the “church”? This is just question begging.
“Somehow, you work that out to mean that the Bible itself is fallible in the Protestant system, which is a false statement of the position.”
The teaching that divine revelation exists, it is confined to writing alone, this writing is inspired and inerrant, this writing is limited to the books in the Protestant canon, this writing is the sole ultimate authority, this writing is perspicuous and doctrine is to be drawn from ghm exegesis, and there is no further revelation are all fallible teachings in the Protestant system. They are, as has been repeatedly said by all on your side, provisional in principle and always shall be, being consistent with the claims of your system.
“As to Paul, he was careful to distinguish his own words from the Lord’s.”
Of course he was. And when he offered the Lord’s words, did he offer them tentatively and “this is probably right, but might be wrong”, or as irreformable divine revelation?
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James Young, “even if we grant everything you want to grant Protestantism – anything you want to claim for it at all – we still don’t get divine revelation”
And what do you get with post-Vat 2 Roman Catholicism. Irreformable becomes development. Anathemas become what dissenters choose. Rejection of modernity becomes aggiornamento.
Sorry, but the claims you make for Rome make a lot more sense if you’re a rad-trad or an SSPXer. Otherwise, like I say, your church has moved on and left you holding — way above your pay grade — the infallible bag.
We notice. Yup.
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vd, t, Feser is not ordained. Why don’t you learn the sacraments of Rome?
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 22, 2015 at 5:18 pm | Permalink
vd, t, Feser is not ordained. Why don’t you learn the sacraments of Rome?
CVD got your number. You must think your fans are stupid. Perhaps you’re right.
This was not posted for you, you know, Dr. Hart, but for those interested in the truth.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/11/papal-fallibility.html
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James Young, “No such guarantee in Protestantism – semper reformanda.”
Protestantism’s problems don’t vindicate your church — especially when all we get from you on your church’s problems (like bishops covering for child molesters) is shrug.
Which catechism teaches STM? It doesn’t look like Baltimore or the Roman Catechism do.
I don’t take Boniface’s word. I point out that you need to explain how your presentation of Roman Catholic doctrine is right and Boniface is wrong. (Sort of feels like being Protestant? Yup.)
Right, the creed is not canon. Yup.
Boniface is not some dude on Catholic Answers. Nor is Ross Douthat. And you’ve yet to respond to their criticisms. We notice that you are not infallible, pope, bishop, priest, or ordained. We also notice that you spend a lot more time on infallibility than the pope does. Climate Change? Yup. Cool? Nope. Warmer.
BTW, lots of folks at your paygrade are also trying to figure out Ratzinger and B16 on hermeneutics of continuity and reform. None of the bishops seem to care.
Get up to speed.
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James Young, “And what counts as the “church”? This is just question begging.”
So is it question begging to say that you are right and Boniface is just another guy.
Isn’t it fun having so many interpretations of irreformable dogma? Yup.
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JRC: “There absolutely is such a mechanism. The Bible is identified as irreformable doctrine.”
CVD: In WCF?
Yes.
CVD: The same WCF that makes explicit disclaimers to the authority and ability to do so?
Yes again. Now at last you understand!
CVD: And why are you now offering this as an irreformable doctrine…
Vague. What “this” do you mean? The Bible? Irreformable doctrine. The WCF? Not irreformable doctrine.
The WCF makes a fallible identification of the body of irreformable doctrine. Since we have already agreed that this is epistemologically acceptable, then there should be no problem.
JRC: “The mechanism is the universal consent of the church.”
CVD: And what counts as the “church”? This is just question begging.
I’m sorry, what question did I beg? The boundaries of the church prior to 1054 are easy to discern. The books that were universally accepted by that church as Scripture are the ones in view.
CVD: The teaching that divine revelation exists, it is confined to writing alone, this writing is inspired and inerrant, this writing is limited to the books in the Protestant canon, this writing is the sole ultimate authority, this writing is perspicuous and doctrine is to be drawn from ghm exegesis, and there is no further revelation are all fallible teachings in the Protestant system. They are, as has been repeatedly said by all on your side, provisional in principle and always shall be, being consistent with the claims of your system.
Yes, pretty much. And this is not actually a problem if you are evaluating the Protestant system according to the Protestant system.
But you are having difficulty sticking to that plan (evaluating each system according to its own lights) because your real project is to try to show that the Catholic system is superior to the Protestant. Accordingly, you keep evaluating the Catholic system according to the Catholic system, and the Protestant system according to the Catholic system.
So you keep on being incredulous that Protestants affirm that the boundaries of the canon are not infallible, or that Protestants affirm that the WCF is not infallible. It seems contradictory to you because you have certain Catholic axioms as your standard of measure.
And this is not surprising. If we really want to be faithful to the project to evaluate each system according to its own principles, then we must either (a) be consistent relativists (no thank you!) or (b) adopt some kind of measure by which we test each system to see which leaves in an “epistemologically better position.”
Given that we mutually reject (a), now what candidate would we both accept for (b)? You’ve never really laid that out, and I think that’s probably because you’ve not really reflected on the fact that you have assumed Catholic axioms for your evaluation standard.
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D. G. Hart:Ali, go squishy on inspiration and next you’ll find popes infallible.
yes, thanks. I consider it a blessing and a gift to be convinced of the ‘solas’ because that results in
soli Deo Gloria – our life’s goal.
And btw, I am unaware of your Biblical warrant for exclusive psalmody, but if you point me to it, I would look at it.
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@ Ali: I’m not an exclusive psalmist, but GI Williamson is considered to be a good arguer for it.
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Jeff Cagle
Posted November 22, 2015 at 6:36 pm | Permalink
JRC: “The mechanism is the universal consent of the church.”
CVD: And what counts as the “church”? This is just question begging.
I’m sorry, what question did I beg? The boundaries of the church prior to 1054 are easy to discern.
They do not include Martin Luther or John Calvin. To give their churches equal standing with the apostolic succession and sacraments of the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church certainly does beg the question, that all sects and theologies are equal.
The books that were universally accepted by that church as Scripture are the ones in view.
They do include [according to Augustine]
Your version of Christianity disputes a number of these books. By what authority? You do not say. You cannot say. Even your Bible–the “sole” authority–is all just a matter of opinion.
You reject that authority–the very concept of such authority. So let’s be clear, yours is not the same Church as Augustine’s. To claim that it is “begs the question,” that is, it assumes as given what it needs to prove.
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Cletus,
Here’s your options with Aquinas and Augustine. Show the citations I presented are dissimilar and contradictory to the type of points I’ve been raising (this would seem difficult, considering you’ve repeatedly criticized Aquinas’ statements on faith and holding things of faith otherwise than by faith and say things like “Augustine is just one guy’s opinion”),
or simply assert Aquinas and Augustine were wrong and had some intellectual cognitive dissonance going on where they weren’t actually adhering to the points they were making. You can’t simultaneously claim they weren’t fideists while also also asserting the type of arguments they and I advance entails they are fideists.
If Aquinas and Augustine make the same arguments as you, then how does anyone in a non-fideistic manner hold to the deity of Christ prior to Nicea. It’s a simple question. You’ve said an infallible arbiter is necessary, but there’s no arbitration before Nicea. Some churches with Apostolic Succession teach Arianism or another Christological heresy. Some do not. How do the faithful know what is correct?
Here we go again – only confessional Protestants are true Protestants, therefore Rome must only respond to confessional Protestants when responding to Protestantism. Antinomians were all over the place in the Reformation and still are – welcome to Protestantism.
In other words, you don’t know how your infallible church figured that Luther and Calvin were antinomians either.
You’re still treating the STM-triad as “official infallible list of official infallible teachings”.
You can’t come down on “but you guys have no infallible dogma” and then stress that STM is magically perspicuous when many churches with equally valid Apostolic Succession teach different things based on the same STM.
So, how does John Doe Christian in the 2nd century AD attending a parish wherein the deity of Christ is denied know that he simply cannot put faith in that dogma? I don’t see how the common teaching of the church is the answer—the only common teaching he knows is the teaching of his parish, and there are people who are decidedly unorthodox or who will later be condemned as heretics (Origen). I don’t see how Scripture can be the answer because you won’t let Protestants go there without an infallible canon declaration and there was nothing like that before Nicea.
So what is left to the 2nd century RC to either know that the deity of Christ is true by faith or that the teaching that Christ isn’t God is false by faith????
You want to affirm Scripture self-authenticates? Great – so you should follow the RCC canon then. Also, get rid of all the asterisks in your bible and tell all those textual critics “sorry guys, your jobs are done – didn’t you realize Scripture self-authenticates?” Or maybe this is another case where the books self-authenticate but the contents of those books don’t, since the contents are “irrelevant” and “secondary” to the canon.
Self-authentication doesn’t work apart from history and the text itself. I’m not a fideist or a bosom burning Mormon. Quit reading Bryan Cross.
Rome never taught Arianism. That’s part of the point. If the universal church was teaching and practicing Arianism, it would be rather hard for there to have been a controversy and long battle about it then in the first place, wouldn’t it – the disputes and council would never have arisen and materialized in the first place.
Fine. But the fact is that vast swaths of it did, and so now tell me how anyone before Nicea knew that Arianism was false in a non-fideistic way. There’s been no settling of the question in a conciliar manner. Many churches with valid apostolic succession are teaching it. In fact, it is so disputed that the controversy isn’t put down and a council becomes necessary. So, how did anyone prior to Nicea hold to the deity of Christ in a non-fideistic manner?
Orthodoxy is self-authenticating? What does this even mean?
Simply that the Holy Spirit confirms in the hearts of His people that they have understood the faith correctly. You’re acting like this is crazy, but then you want to stress that the Assumption declaration didn’t come out of nowhere. But that’s only possible if you adhere to the Assumption being self-authenticating in some way, otherwise, every single RC before the twentieth century was a sheer fideist on this matter.
A Pelagian Arian universalist Word-of-Faither who holds the deuterocanonicals as inspired, rejects some books of the NT, and considers the historicity of the OT/NT as false but rather just metaphor while also affirming abortion and homosexuality comes to you and says “My beliefs are orthodox and self-authenticating”. Are you just going to say “No, you don’t have the HS. I do. My orthodoxy self-authenticates and you’re unorthodox, so it doesn’t self-authenticate”.
Self-authentication does not go against the original meaning of Scripture. It’s one of the reasons why so many Roman Catholic doctrines are false. But if you can’t allow for the Bible to speak clearly, then you can’t allow for Rome to speak clearly, and abortion is an act that will make you a saint.
And even if we grant everything you want to grant Protestantism – anything you want to claim for it at all – we still don’t get divine revelation.
But the church is not an organ of ongoing revelation in Protestantism like it is in Roman Catholicism. So that’s no flaw.
As to Arian bishops, yes they existed, but as I said Rome never taught such.
But if the pope is so important, his signing of an Arian confession is irrelevant? So the pope is infallible except when he’s not?
But fine. That still doesn’t explain how anyone can hold to the deity of Christ non-fideistically before Nicea. There’s no declaration. You can’t point to Scripture because there’s no canon declaration. The common faith in the deity of Christ isn’t quite so common if you have Arian bishops. So, how does John Doe 2nd Century Christian believe in the deity of Christ without being a fideist?
If the best you can do is say an exiled pope signed a confession under torture and duress, therefore Rome taught Arianism,
Blah, blah, no ex cathedra. Could you kindly give a statement of belief to the effect that the pope is only infallible ex cathedra prior to Nicea?
All this opposition in Rome to an Arian antipope. Strange if Rome was Arian.
At the point of signing the confession, Liberius was an Arian. Or at least he was too much of a coward to stand for orthodoxy.
Oh, and you need to get the apologetic ready to vindicate Honorious.
But in any case, those other examples are really beside the point. Here are the facts
In the pre-Nicea situation:
1. There is no infallible canon declaration, so you can’t say people know the deity of Christ by Scripture unless you grant Protestants are able to say that without being fideists.
2. There are Apostolic sees that deny the deity of Christ, so you don’t really have the common witness of the church. So no unified S or M.
How does John Doe 2nd century Christian believe in the deity of Christ without being a fideist?
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Tom
We agree that the testimony of the catholic church is of no small weight. We simply deny that it is correct just because it says so.
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Augustine says “authority,” not “testimony.” To change the word is not honest.
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Your argument is hard to follow, Tom.
I said “universal consent of the church”, and you reply with a list of books by one doctor of the church? What happens if others did not consent to his list? Are you claiming that Augustine’s list was universal?
What do Calvin and Luther have to do with this? I clearly indicated that the boundaries of the church prior to 1054 are clear. You really don’t think that Calvin and Luther were alive prior to 1054 do you?
And repeating the phrase “begs the question” is even stranger. What question is being begged?
And repeating the
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Athanasius:
— Athanasius, Letter 39
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Hard for you to follow, true, Jeff. The fault is not necessarily mine. Many others follow every word I say quite easily.
Augustine recognizes an authority you clearly do not, as does Aquinas. Yours is not the same theology or Church.
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/01/st-thomas-aquinas-on-the-unity-of-the-church/
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Ali, so you think human compositions are equal or superior to divinely inspired ones?
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I have this from a secondary source, so I would welcome someone with the primary to confirm/reject it.
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Cyril of Jerusalem:
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Also from a secondary source.
— here
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The comments about Catajan in what appears to be your source are far more probative, since the real issue is the authority of the
Church, to which Cardinal Catajan deferred, and which he himself did not enjoy–making his scholarly views on scripture merely academic. (Including his rejection of Revelation to John.) He appears to have garnered more scholarly opposition than approval, rendering his authority on scripture rather nil.
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/01/cajetan-on-canon-hes-ok-bcause-hes-one.html
He also appears to have been an incompetent interpreter of Aquinas. The prosecution continues to call the most questionable of witnesses.
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Tom,
Augustine says “authority,” not “testimony.” To change the word is not honest.
My mistake, not an intentional change. The point still stands. For us confessional Protestants, as with Augustine, the authority of the church is of no small weight. It’s just not that we think every exercise of authority is illegitimate, nor did Augustine and nor do RCs.
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Tom,
Did you go to mass today?
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Cletus,
BTW, David Anders a RC convert just said that the rule of faith is the church’s teaching office, not the STM triad.
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Robert, you know I don’t discuss my personal religious life in a forum like this that plays so dirty.
You’re better than this. It’s a cheap trick Darryl uses to disguise the fact he’s getting thrashed in the discussion.
As for your rejection of the authority of the Church and of Tradition, we’ve established that Augustine accepted them. Let’s be clear.
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Tom,
But do you not see it as odd that the only information we have on your religious practice is that you are a RC who at best attends mass irregularly but then launches into tirades against the OPC about how it’s not truly Christian or what not. Maybe if you said, “According to the RCC, you don’t have the Eucharist,” it would be less odd. As it is, the way you speak makes it sound as if you agree with the RCC, which would be fine, but then you should just acknowledge that you are a faithful mass-goer if you are because it would make more sense for you to be rooting for that team. I’m not trying to be rude or anything, it’s just a bit odd that we get arguments from you where you endorse Rome’s position but all we know is that it’s not enough to make you go to mass, unless things have changed.
It’s a little bit like stating dogmatically that chocolate is the objectively best ice cream flavor but then ordering vanilla 99 percent of the time.
But for the issue at hand, we don’t reject the authority of church or tradition. We simply reject its infallibility. Whether Augustine thought it would never ever be possible under any circumstance for the church to make a dogmatic error isn’t all that clear. I’ve seen some evidence where he acknowledges errors in councils that should have been ecumenical.
If we rejected the authority of the church and the tradition, we wouldn’t read the Nicene Creed in worship. But we do. And we actually still believe the Athanasian Creed, whereas high and mighty Rome doesn’t.
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D. G. Hart Ali, so you think human compositions are equal or superior to divinely inspired ones?
DG, is that your answer for the request for providing Biblical warrant for exclusive psalmody?
looked at this very very briefly – need scripture commanding the use of uninspired songs in divine worship? or see command in scripture for psalms-only worship?
answer for me – nope – unconvinced. We worship in spirit and truth, we’re told about new songs; and informed opinion -God is our Father Who delights in His children’s song offerings
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Ok, according to the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox as well as some or many Lutherans and Anglicans, you don’t have the Eucharist.
As for Augustine saying “never ever under any circumstances,” nobody has boxed themselves into that ridiculous formulation, so you’re cheating the discussion again.
Augustine said he accepted books of the Bible because the Church said so. Do we have to post that quote for the tenth time or are we going to start acknowledging it at last?
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No one of note
Posted November 21, 2015 at 3:32 pm | Permalink
Hi Mermaid,
>>
How many different groups, all claiming to be genuine Christians, are there in you town? Do you accept all of them as genuine Christians?
If so, on what basis?
>>
Nope.>>>>>
Nope? Nope what?
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 21, 2015 at 10:27 pm | Permalink
Susan, “I just don’t understand why anyone would choose to side with ministerial authorities who have no power to delare its doctrines as absolute truths.”
Said like any good Stalinist. “Oh! I go knock kneed over someone with ABSOLUTE authority. I need my DA DA.”>>>>>
Calling Susan a Stalinist? You have pretty much destroyed any credibility you may have had left.
Why not just go ahead and call Francis the Antichrist and the Catholic Church the Great Whore of Babylon?
You are a fundamentalist after all.
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Ali, you didn’t answer the question. Are new songs better than God’s songs?
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Mermaid, true, good, beauty. Can you handle true?
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Tom,
As for Augustine saying “never ever under any circumstances,” nobody has boxed themselves into that ridiculous formulation, so you’re cheating the discussion again.
That’s exactly the “ridiculous formulation” that CVD has boxed himself into, as well as V1. Because of the Holy Spirit, the church can never dogmatically teach error under any circumstance.
Augustine said he accepted books of the Bible because the Church said so. Do we have to post that quote for the tenth time or are we going to start acknowledging it at last?
I’m not sure exactly what the relevance of this is supposed to be, but if you think that Protestantism says that the testimony of the church is in no way a factor in our receiving the books as Scripture, then you are wrong.
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@ Robert: Exactly. One major difference between the Catholic and Protestant systems is their understandings of what authority is and does.
For the Catholic, the authority declares or even defines what is true, and is believed because he is the authority.
For the Protestant, the authority has the right to make declarations, and his authority lends weight to those declarations, which are always to be evaluated against Scripture.
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TVD: The prosecution continues to call the most questionable of witnesses.
Athanasius, Jerome, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Cajetan are questionable witnesses?
Who are you again?
But in any event, we’re not done.
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DG: Ali, you didn’t answer the question. Are new songs better than God’s songs?
Dear Dr-beat-around-the-bush, you didn’t answer the question first. Biblical warrant please since yours is the Ali-accusation of “DG:, I’m shocked. Since you quote the Bible so much why do you advocate non-inspired songs?”
And Better? And God songs? And which new songs?
New songs in the Bible (Rev 5:9)? or New songs He puts put in our mouth in gratitude for having been brought up out of the pit of destruction (Ps 40:2-3)?
Please don’t make me send another song – cw will NOT have a good day then.
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— William Webster, The Old Testament Canon and the Apocrypha
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Jeff,
I think it is pretty evident that the Apocrypha are canonical in RCism mainly to distinguish them from the Protestants. The evidence that the Western church, at least, had any kind of uniform view on the matter before then is sketchy. The same thing seems to be true of the doctrine of justification.
The more I look at the history, the more Trent looks to me like one giant freakout to prevent the papacy from losing more of Europe. Defining dogma correctly seems to be secondary. Making sure they aren’t those dirty Protestants is the main aim.
How much unity could have prevented if the pope hadn’t lied to Luther about giving him an honest hearing? Sadly we will never know.
Chalk it up to another reason why the doctrine of ecclesiastical infallibility isn’t credible.
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@jeff given the definition of excommunication you offered, one might wonder what the point of excommunicating a dead man might be. Perhaps to identify him as damned?
So a council’s determination that a dead man is currently excommunicated is not a disciplary statement, so how do we know if what they taught was infallible?
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That’s enough. Here’s the point. What happened at Trent, which was by no means an ecumenical council, was that by a narrow vote in which Cajetan himself dissented, a canonical list was “infallibly” declared that ran contrary to the views of a substantial voice in the Church.
In fact, with no apparent sense of irony, Trent anathematized the opinion of Jerome, while simultaneously declaring his translation to be infallible.
But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema…
Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,–in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, –wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,–whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,–hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established. — Trent Session 4
So Jerome would have found himself in an awkward position: His text was considered canonical and sacred, but his view of the text was considered anathema.
Here’s the point: Trent did not represent the unanimous consent of the fathers on the canon. In fact, it didn’t even represent a strong majority of the fathers on the canon.
And here’s the point in the context of the larger argument: The Protestant view of the canon is to receive as Scripture only those books that the church has universally consented to. Not Luther, not Calvin, but the church from the first century on.
That church is not limited to the provincial and poorly-attended council of Trent.
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But let’s suppose, Tom, that you would reject all of the evidence above and still insist that The Church has infallibly declared that the Apocrypha are sacred scripture.
I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that you’ll do that.
Well, it turns out that the book of Tobit contains a positive historical error. According to Tobit,
1 The tale of Tobit son of Tobiel, son of Ananiel, son of Aduel, son of Gabael, of the lineage of Asiel and tribe of Naphtali.
2 In the days of Shalmaneser king of Assyria, he was exiled from Thisbe, which is south of Kedesh-Naphtali in Upper Galilee, above Hazor, some distance to the west, north of Shephat.
3 I, Tobit, have walked in paths of truth and in good works all the days of my life. I have given much in alms to my brothers and fellow country-folk, exiled like me to Nineveh in the country of Assyria.
4 In my young days, when I was still at home in the land of Israel, the whole tribe of Naphtali my ancestor broke away from the House of David and from Jerusalem, though this was the city chosen out of all the tribes of Israel for their sacrifices; here, the Temple– God’s dwelling-place– had been built and hollowed for all generations to come.
5 All my brothers and the House of Naphtali sacrificed on every hill-top in Galilee to the calf that Jeroboam king of Israel had made at Dan. — Tobit 1
And then as the story unfolds, Tobit’s son Tobias lives on to see the Assyrians destroyed:
1 The end of the hymns of Tobit. Tobit died when he was a hundred and twelve years old and received an honourable burial in Nineveh…Tobias inherited the patrimony of Raguel besides that of his father Tobit.
14 Much honoured, he lived to the age of a hundred and seventeen years.
15 Before he died he witnessed the ruin of Nineveh. He saw the Ninevites taken prisoner and deported to Media by Cyaxares king of Media. He blessed God for everything he inflicted on the Ninevites and Assyrians. Before his death he had the opportunity of rejoicing over the fate of Nineveh, and he blessed the Lord God for ever and ever. Amen. — Tobit 14
Now, Shalmaneser V ruled from 727 to 722 and deported the Israelites, and Cyarxes defeated the Ninevites in 609. So far, so good.
But Naphtali broke away from Judea in the years of Rehoboam (cf 1 Kings 11.31: “I will give ten tribes”) in c. 922 BC.
So Tobit apparently lived from 922 (“in my young days”) to sometime between 722 and 609 (“exiled like me to Ninevah”), which is impossible since he died at 112.
Now Cletus, you have previously stated that a contradiction in Catholic doctrine would show that it is not infallible. Here it is.
(1) Catholic doctrine affirms the canonicity of Tobit, hence its infallibility.
(2) Tobit describes a historically impossible situation — namely, that an event in 922 and an event in 722 would both occur in the lifetime of a man who lived 112 years.
Contradiction.
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Jeff, stop wasting everyone’s time with silly rabbinical debate. You don’t have the eucharist so your religion is built on a bunch of lies.
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Ali, I said divinely inspired songs. Do human creations beat them?
Sometimes you don’t need the Bible to win an argument, but you don’t get 2k anyway.
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D. G. Hart: Ali, I said divinely inspired songs. Do human creations beat them? Sometimes you don’t need the Bible to win an argument, but you don’t get 2k anyway.
clarification –though human men did write in their own personality those divinely inspired songs, as moved by the Holy Spirit speaking from God 2 Peter 1:21
Dear Dr-circle-the-hidden 2k knowledge-wagons-ok, I’ll answer something informed by scripture -:maybe the ‘better song’ is the sacrifice-praise-heartsong; you know, not the one we feel generous to offer God because we got some obvious good thing; but the one offered as an act of will, humbly in love and trust, when lousy circumstances try to make it seem God is not coming through Heb 13:15; Heb 11:6; 2 Cor 5:7
Sometimes you don’t need the Bible to win an argument? ah, speaking of humility, you’re kidding right? About not needing the bible for ‘reformed practice’ answers..and speaking of ‘circling’, ending where begun, there goes Jeff and Robert work this am
Have a good day.
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Henceforth known as Ali Voskamp.
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@robert and @jeff: you guys are smart, capable, and prolific. Thanks. Love your writings.
@ali, DGH’s affinity for psalms-only is more easily understood when you realize his church doesn’t have man-made sermons, and just reads Scripture in Hebrew and Greek. 🙂
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 23, 2015 at 6:12 am | Permalink
Mermaid, true, good, beauty. Can you handle true?
The Vatican actually has had scandals.
The Vatican has a history that lends plausibility to the conspiracy lens, and we don’t have to go back to the Middle Ages and the handful of pontiffs believed to have been murdered by rivals to make the point.
One can start in the 1970s, when the Institute for the Works of Religion, better known as the Vatican bank, got involved with a couple of mobbed-up bankers and ended up with its president, the late US Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, dodging an arrest warrant and the Vatican paying $224 million to compensate creditors.
Closer in time, there’s Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, a former Vatican accountant arrested in 2013 in a cash-smuggling scheme worthy of a John le Carré novel. There’s also the Vatican’s slow, and often less than candid, response to the Church’s sexual abuse crisis.
Stop generating actual scandals, and people may be less inclined to see imagined ones everywhere.>>>>
Good morning, Brother Hart,
I hope all is well where you are. We`re gearing up for a big Thanksgiving celebration.
I enjoyed the article. The history of Catholicism is fascinating. The fact that she is still standing and still doing quite well is an amazing miracle.
Of course, the scandals and conspiracies – real or imagined – are not the whole story of the Church. There are scandals of love and service of the truest, most loving, most beautiful kind as well. There are scandals of bravery in the face of persecution that are happening right as we speak, but you never report on any of that.
…and you called Susan a Stalinist. Seriously? She doesn’t read like a mindless robot. Try talking to her sometime. Try interacting with some real arguments. You just shrug them off.
Like, are you ready to admit that Peter wrote his first epistle from Rome? That is an important detail of historical significance. Even your best Reformed scholars are willing to say that is probably true.
Of course, Reformed theology is all based on probabilities. It is all about the best guess. I learned that here on your blog, so I thank you for that.
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Jeff Cagle
Posted November 23, 2015 at 9:53 am | Permalink
But let’s suppose, Tom, that you would reject all of the evidence above and still insist that The Church has infallibly declared that the Apocrypha are sacred scripture.
I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that you’ll do that.>>>>>
Okay, Brother Jeff, are you willing to admit that your rejection of the Deuterocanonical books is based on your acceptance of the Westminster Confession of Faith’s list of canonical books?
The Parliament of England commissioned that confession in an attempt to appease the Scottish Presbyterians. There were no Biblical references at all in the original document. It has gone through several serious revisions since the 17th Century when it was drawn up.
BTW, that was after the Council of Trent’s dogmatic statement about the canon of Scripture.
So, your canon was not the product of any kind of Church council. It was the product of a political move on the part of England. You want us to forget that detail.
In fact, the Jewish canon of Scripture as it is now was not established until the 2nd Century of the Christian era.
Protestants always have a problem of authority. You, Jeff Cagle, try to establish yourself and your WCF as authoritative. It is all man centered.
You want to ignore the Septuagint and the Vulgate, both of which contain the Deuterocanonical books. That is the strongest line of evidence, since the Septuagint was what Jesus and the disciples were used to. Paul made extensive references to statements from the book of Wisdom particularly.
Then, the idea that Jerome objected to including those 7 books to his translation has been debunked, but Protestants keep trotting that argument out.
So, you have problems, Brother Jeff. I do not accept the WCF as authoritative. Sure, there is a lot of good in it, but the good can be gotten elsewhere without all the errors mixed in. I do not accept you as authoritative because you yourself cannot say with certainty that what you argue is indeed fact.
Now, you are free to accept whatever authority tells you that you have the correct canon of Scripture. You are not free to say that anyone else is wrong. You do not have that authority or that confidence.
Now, you have a good Thanksgiving week, my dear brother. I just wish you would show a little less dogmatism in your arguments unless you can say you are 100% sure that you have the proper canon of Scripture.
Remember, too, that if archeology or textual criticism shows that there are books or parts of books of the Bible that should not be there, you will toss them out. So, what is your canon really?
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Mermaid,
Your canon was not the product of any kind of Church council. It was the product of a political move on the part of England. You want us to forget that detail.
I’m trying to be nice, but it’s statements like this that make Darryl question how closely you are paying attention. The first 7 councils were called by Emperors! I guess that means they are invalid as well.
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Darryl,
“And what do you get with post-Vat 2 Roman Catholicism. Irreformable becomes development. ”
Wait I thought Newman was a modernist. And he was pre-Vat2. Hmm. Your anti-catholicism wires are getting crossed again.
“Otherwise, like I say, your church has moved on and left you holding — way above your pay grade — the infallible bag.”
Right, because the post-Vat2 bishops, popes, and theologians Feser cites didn’t care about infallibility I guess. But NCR journalists and some dudes on catholic answers forums have their pulse on RCism.
And Protestantism has moved on from 2k and old school calvinism – American evangelicals and the non-graying churches don’t care. I learned this from some christianity today journalists and TGC articles. Get up to speed.
“Boniface is not some dude on Catholic Answers.”
Nope, but you linked to a dude on a catholic answers forum as if that was sufficient to demonstrate Newman might be a modernist. And why do Boniface and Douthat get love from you and then Feser gets “he’s not ordained, so he doesn’t count, so let me keep on peddling mischaracterizations on infallibility or ecclesiology as if I was never corrected on them multiple times.”
“Protestantism’s problems don’t vindicate your church”
Who said it did? The question is whether Protestantism’s “problems” are compatible with divine revelation. Rome may be compatible with that as I’ve been arguing, but that doesn’t mean it’s automatically correct. Maybe the East is right – so all your complaints about Rome bad, pope bad, some journalists and guys on some forums agree with me, aren’t actually engaging the issue and just distractions.
“especially when all we get from you on your church’s problems (like bishops covering for child molesters) is shrug.”
You mean humanity’s problems, namely sin. And you’ve been corrected on the shrug thing again, but just as with other things you’ve been corrected on, you persist in peddling them. As already pointed out earlier in this thread and even in the article you cited:
“I would therefore recommend to any Catholics who are in turmoil because the present pope isn’t to their liking or their church is not what they want or their bishop unsatisfactory to read some church history. Eamonn Duffy’s history of the papacy Saints and Sinners is a good one. When you read history of the church you’ll realize that turmoil and trouble have been with us since the time of the apostles. Might as well get used to it.
Does that mean you shouldn’t be upset or worried? No. Does that mean one should be complacent about heresy, corruption within and persecution from without? No. Be worried. That’s okay if it leads you to pray more.”
Apparently this is “shrug”. I guess all your constant 2k proselytizing about “hey we live in the suck and are pilgrims, get used to it you dumb neo-cal transformers” is “shrug”.
“Which catechism teaches STM?”
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a2.htm along with CCC 112, 113, 119, 120
“you spend a lot more time on infallibility than the pope does.”
Every time the pope celebrates Mass, reads Scripture, performs sacraments, he’s spending time on infallibility.
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Hey Robert
Today as I was having a late breakfast I decided to turn on EWTN and in the program line-up was The Journey Home( my husband doesn’t like Marcus Grodi very much, so I only watch it when he goes to work, 🙂 , and as I listened to this man’s journey story, I thought of you and just wanted to share it.
Of course, take in what you want and reject what you have to at this point, but please, do try to watch it.
Wish you the best! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family, and blessed beginning of Advent!
May we all be watchfully expectant like the Shepherds!
Peace,
Susan
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=david+currie+on+the+journey+home&FORM=VIRE5#view=detail&mid=373CFB3A89530D0C1493373CFB3A89530D0C1493
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This week on EWTN “Every purchase made from EWTN Religious Catalogue directly supports the important work and mission of EWTN. We sincerely appreciate your choice to support us as we
Bring Christ to the World!’
Featured Items:
El Divino Nino Statue
This is a replica of the statue in the piazza of the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, AL. The Child Jesus offers us His Heart, symbolizing His Love and Mercy. “El Divino Niño” is etched on the base of this white resin statue. Measures 7 1/2″ tall.
Price: $25.00
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CW,
What? I don’t own any religious statues except the nativity idols that will adorn my firplace mantel the first day of advent.:)
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Please, Susan — more stuff about prayer beads, rosaries, and the Co-Redemptrix. That sells really well around here. And in RC bauble stores, too.
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Don’t invoke/link to EWTN (aka papist TBN) and expect not to be Mother Angelica trolled.
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Okay,CW
I dont want to offend. If you watch then use discernment( I think they only talk about praying while meditating on the life of Jesus…..that’s what the prayer beads assist with anyways ya know) for maybe 2 mins).
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Mermaid: Okay, Brother Jeff, are you willing to admit that your rejection of the Deuterocanonical books is based on your acceptance of the Westminster Confession of Faith’s list of canonical books?
No. I had rejected the deuteros long before I ever heard of the WCF.
Mermaid: You want us to forget that detail.
Mermaid: You, Jeff Cagle, try to establish yourself and your WCF as authoritative. It is all man centered.
Mermaid: You want to ignore the Septuagint and the Vulgate, both of which contain the Deuterocanonical books.
You are mistaken on all counts. You actually don’t really understand very well what I want. Remember when you got into trouble earlier by making personal assertions without evidence? Love is honest, and honest people don’t try to play mind-reading games.
What I want more than anything is that you would look to Jesus alone apart from saints for your hope; that you would look to Scripture alone as the Word of God; and that you would seek to be justified by Christ’s righteousness alone, through faith, apart from any works of your own righteousness.
To the extent that you are doing this, I rejoice. To that end, I’ve been trying to shine a light on the ways in which Catholic teachings are contrary to Scripture. I know that it’s uncomfortable, and you have certainly given a lot of pushback, which is not unexpected.
But at the end of the day, my message is, “Be nourished by the pure milk of the Word.”
So it would actually be very contrary to my goals to try to establish my own authority, or the authority of the WCF. I do have a very little authority by virtue of my ordination, but that authority is limited to pointing to the Scripture and teaching it, and it is expected that all who hear would and should test my teaching against Scripture. The WCF also has authority as the collective voice of a portion of the church, but again — its teachings are subordinate to Scripture, and can no more “define” the canon than you or I can “define” the law of gravity.
So if I were to (somehow?!) replace your trust in the Catholic magisterium with a trust in the WCF — or worse yet, in myself — then I would have failed utterly. I have no desire whatsoever to do that.
You have a good Thanksgiving. Perhaps I could ask you to reflect a little on some Scripture this week, some Scripture on the nature and exercise of true and false authority: 2 Cor 10 – 12 and 1 Sam 15.1-6.
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cw, I grew up an hour north of that thing in Hanceville. Once I went there with a group of IHOPers from my UMC church for a prayer walk. Truly wild.
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Wrong citation! 2 Cor 10 – 12 and 2 Sam 15.1-6. Although 1 Sam 15 has some important things to say as well…
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Walton, Alabama + RC folk religion = unparalleled weirdness.
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@Walton,
What can I say, my friend? I love Fr. Pacwa:)
Listen guys, you dont have to watch it and you certainly don’t have to watch it if you don’twant to, but there’s no need to act as censure for everyone else.
It surprises no one that Catholicism has sacramentals, so watch it for the reasons I brought it to Roberts attention and ignore the rest.
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Susan, “censor” is the word you’re looking for…and who’s censoring? I’m pointing out that EWTN is prima facie ludicrous. I want people to go see how bad it is. And you apologists/recruiters leave out the grosser idolatries of Rome — I just want truth in advertising. For every Susan with no statues and images there are 10,000 more with them in spades.
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Jeff,
“The WCF makes a fallible identification of the body of irreformable doctrine. Since we have already agreed that this is epistemologically acceptable, then there should be no problem.”
Right, so every teaching of WCF remains fallible and provisional and tentative, consistent with the disclaimers it defines for itself in article 25.5 and 31.3. Every teaching within RCism does not, consistent with the claims to divine authority and ability it defines for itself.
“I’m sorry, what question did I beg? The boundaries of the church prior to 1054 are easy to discern.”
You’re begging the definition of “church”. Would that include the Marcionite, Arian, Monophysite, Monothelite, Docetist, Donatist, Nestorian, Pneumatomachian, Pelagian, SemiPelagian, Sabellian, Gnostic, Manichaean, Iconoclast, Montanist churches? On what basis are they excluded from the “easy to discern” boundaries of the pre-1054 church?
Did this pre-1054 “church” of yours accept the deuterocanonicals? Did some accept, some reject? If so, how is the “universal church” of pre-1054 you appeal to defined? Were there any doctrines the pre-1054 church accepted you reject? Are there common doctrines shared by both East and Rome now that you reject? On what basis?
Do the following churches/groups all count as part of the “church” today:
PCUSA, ELCA, Arminian, Anglican, Unitarian, Pentecostal, Oneness Pentecostal, Charismatic, Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Arian, Modalist, KJV-onlyist, Marcionite, gnostic, reconstructionist, kinist, biblicist-fundamentalist, seeker-sensitive, liberal, emergent, church of christ, antinomian, Pelagian, NPP, Quakers, Plymouth Brethren, Finneyite, Anabaptist, Adventist, Open Theist?
If not, on what basis?
“Yes, pretty much. And this is not actually a problem if you are evaluating the Protestant system according to the Protestant system.”
Well, right. Everything is and remains provisional. That’s not a “problem” for you. That’s fine, but it’s a stunning admission. Just as the following from your side was:
“But why should anyone from a church who disagrees with you care?
– In one sense, they shouldn’t.
Right, but why should those outside of that church care or be subject to your definition.
– As noted, in one sense they shouldn’t care.”
Or the assertion that those in NT times submitting to Christ or the Apostles/those sent with divine authority were in no better epistemological position than those submitting to synagogue rabbi Levi offering admitted fallible provisional teachings because both groups of adherents were fallible and lacked vulcan mindmelding.
You want to be cool with that, great. Those implications have been all I’ve been arguing for – a very modest argument. I’ve been arguing nothing more than “They are, as has been repeatedly said by all on your side, provisional in principle and always shall be, being consistent with the claims of your system.” – notice that last part – being *consistent* with the claims of your system, and you apparently agree “yes, pretty much”. So we’re back were we were 1500 comments ago when Robert conceded as much, then backtracked.
“Accordingly, you keep evaluating the Catholic system according to the Catholic system, and the Protestant system according to the Catholic system.”
You’ve asserted this multiple times, yet have never demonstrated it.
“It seems contradictory to you because you have certain Catholic axioms as your standard of measure.”
No, my axiom is divine revelation is infallible (again). Which you agree with.
“You’ve never really laid that out,”
Come now – this is getting a bit silly tbh. I have laid it out a million times what is *consistent* with the claims of both systems, evaluating them on their own terms. I then get things from your side like “Whether or not that is justified in the Roman system is besides the point at this point” or “yeah, but you’re still fallible!” over and over. And I’m supposed to be the one guilty of not engaging the actual issue. You’ll forgive me for taking that charge with a truckload of salt.
“So you keep on being incredulous that Protestants affirm that the boundaries of the canon are not infallible”
Yeah, if you’re positing SS as the rule of faith and that the boundaries of the canon are or reflect divine revelation. Here’s an example of Protestant principles working out on that – https://books.google.com/books?id=dlZTBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false
“be consistent relativists (no thank you!)”
Really? Robert seems to think churches who disagree with you shouldn’t care what you think (and he’s right, because of all Protestant bodies’ disclaimers to any authority that would compel them to care). Sounds relativist to me. You got your church and your doctrine, we got ours. It’s all good.
“For the Protestant, the authority has the right to make declarations, and his authority lends weight to those declarations, which are always to be evaluated against Scripture.”
More cart before the horse. You have to have Scripture first before you can always evaluate the authority of those declarations against Scripture. You have to assume your foundational doctrines already listed (that you agree remain ever-provisional) as bedrock before you can then use it to justify evaluating any “interpretations” against it – that is, you’re exempting the foundational “declarations” (did the pre-1054 “church” not “declare” and recognize the canon as you argued above?) from evaluation without any warrant in order to then limit the practice of evaluation to only the sphere of “interpretations” – but that can only happen after the foundational doctrines have been set in the first place.
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CVD: You’re begging the definition of “church”. Would that include the Marcionite, Arian, Monophysite, Monothelite, Docetist, Donatist, Nestorian, Pneumatomachian, Pelagian, SemiPelagian, Sabellian, Gnostic, Manichaean, Iconoclast, Montanist churches? On what basis are they excluded from the “easy to discern” boundaries of the pre-1054 church?
No, No, Maybe, Maybe, No, Probably, Maybe, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, and No.
The Donatists are “probably” because they did not teach anything contrary to the gospel; the Maybes are “maybe” only to the extent that they did not teach anything contrary to the gospel.
But in any event, few of these groups (Gnostics, Marcionites) put forward any serious canonical challenges.
CVD: Did this pre-1054 “church” of yours accept the deuterocanonicals? Did some accept, some reject? If so, how is the “universal church” of pre-1054 you appeal to defined?
Some did accept, some did reject. That’s the point of a standard of common consent: We will not accept books that were partially accepted, partially rejected.
There might be some outliers — a couple of the church doctors excluded Revelation, for example — but in the main it is easy to see what the consensus was. Hint: Tobit was not it.
JRC: “Accordingly, you keep evaluating the Catholic system according to the Catholic system, and the Protestant system according to the Catholic system.”
CVD: You’ve asserted this multiple times, yet have never demonstrated it.
Say rather that I’ve demonstrated it multiple times, yet you have not noticed.
Once more with feeling and four-part harmony.
* You insist that the Protestant system is inferior because we cannot point to an infallible authority who draws the lines of the canon. We insist that this is a feature, not a bug, for if there were such a human infallible authority, it would have authority over the Word of God.
* You insist that the Protestant system is inferior because we cannot point to infallible, irreformable doctrines (other than Scripture). We insist that this is a matter of being honest, in that you yourself have no access to infallible doctrines yourself, since you have only fallible copies of fallible translations of church teaching
* You insist that the Protestant system is inferior because it leads to theological chaos. We reply that Catholics have just as much theological chaos, but they don’t notice because the band-aid of institutional unity covers over the wound of doctrinal disunity.
In all cases, your judgement of “inferior” uses Catholic categories to evaluate.
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Mermaid, how do you shrug with a tail?
And why couldn’t you shrug off Protestantism’s “fascinating” history?
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James Young, and you’re just a Roman Catholic apologist making comments at a Reformed Protestant blog? Do you have Catholic Answers envy?
So the church’s problems are humanity’s problems. Does that work for Protestantism? Did that work for Luther? Oh, wait, anathema developed into communion.
Rome and Baltimore don’t teach STM.
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James Young, “You have to have Scripture first before you can always evaluate the authority of those declarations against Scripture.”
So do you.
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CVD: Do the following churches/groups all count as part of the “church” today:
PCUSA, ELCA, Arminian, Anglican, Unitarian, Pentecostal, Oneness Pentecostal, Charismatic, Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Arian, Modalist, KJV-onlyist, Marcionite, gnostic, reconstructionist, kinist, biblicist-fundamentalist, seeker-sensitive, liberal, emergent, church of christ, antinomian, Pelagian, NPP, Quakers, Plymouth Brethren, Finneyite, Anabaptist, Adventist, Open Theist?
If not, on what basis?
Do they teach consistently with the gospel? Do they uphold the Word of God?
To the extent that the answer is Yes, then Yes. To the extent that the answer is No, then No. Oddly enough, that’s what Paul told the Galatians.
JRC: “You’ve never really laid that [the standard by which to judge superiority] out,”
CVD: I have laid it out a million times what is *consistent* with the claims of both systems, evaluating them on their own terms.
Actually, not even once have you laid out what would make one system “epistemologically in a better position” than the other. I’ve been looking for that in the discussion, and it has been entirely missing.
Instead, you just assert that Catholics *would* be a superior position, and then try to build a case that all Protestant doctrines are provisional, and then you say QED. Believe it or not, that argument only convinces Catholics. You’ve got unconnected dots in your argument because you are assuming that a system that promises non-provisional doctrines is inherently in a better position than one that does not.
What if the first system can’t deliver on its promises? Not just in practice (evaluating outside the system), but in principle (evaluating within the system)? That’s the point of of the “you are fallible” family of rebuttals. In principle, the Catholic system cannot deliver. Hence, it is not superior.
What if the non-provisional doctrines are always true, but are also incomprehensible? That’s the point of the “Vatican II changed everything” family of rebuttals: If you put yourself in the position of saying that nothing changed after V2, then you have to admit that the majority of Catholics (including the Balt Cat 4 writers) didn’t understand church teaching about Protestants.
What if the non-provisional doctrines are always true, but no-one knows infallibly which ones those are? That’s the point of the “you don’t have an infallible list of infallible doctrines” family of rebuttals.
Those are all problems within the system, and you haven’t provided answers for them, except to attack the questioners as “Pelagian” and other such nonsense.
So just saying “Protestants only claim to have provisional doctrine; Catholics claim to have infallible doctrine” is the beginning of an argument, not its triumphal end.
CVD: Everything is and remains provisional. That’s not a “problem” for you. That’s fine, but it’s a stunning admission.
Stunning? Our “side” admitted that in 1647 at the latest. Where have you been, my man?
CVD: You have to assume your foundational doctrines already listed (that you agree remain ever-provisional) as bedrock before you can then use it to justify evaluating any “interpretations” against it…
Wrong, because we are not foundationalists. This is one of several ways in which your mind is locked into Catholic axioms and therefore has a hard time understanding Protestantism on its own terms.
Yes, there are a couple of self-evident axioms: “God’s word must be true” is clearly axiomatic for the Protestant. But the entire project of determining what God’s word IS and what it MEANS proceeds along inductive, coherecist lines and not along mathematical, foundationalist lines.
You may not like that, but your own church is practicing it underneath the hood. Hence Pius XII
— Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu
“as when they edit the sacred text in accordance with the rules of textual criticism.” So much for irreformable texts.
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“Susan, “censor” is the word you’re looking for…and who’s censoring? I’m pointing out that EWTN is prima facie ludicrous. I want people to go see how bad it is. And you apologists/recruiters leave out the grosser idolatries of Rome — I just want truth in advertising. For every Susan with no statues and images there are 10,000 more with them in spades.”
Oops, you’re right….sorry, wrong word.
It isn’t ludicrous however. To a secular modernist yeah, it is, but not to religion. Look at history east.and west.
I think it’s funny that you guys find Catholicism in the south weird. I lived in Mobile and thought the religion I met there weird all around. The Pentecostal ladies with their high right buns, Victorian collared blouses tucked into their long skirts. They were the only holy people that I was familiar with and boy did their snobbery get on my nerves.At least I thought that they considered themselves as holier than thou.
But then again I was 18 and preferred Dalphin Island and kegs of beer with Jimmy Buffet on the stereo.
The only nun I saw was Sally Field:)
You’re probably too young to know what I’m talking about.
Oh and of course I dont have a problem with religious statues. I’m Catholic!
Take care,
Susan
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Robert
Posted November 23, 2015 at 6:38 am | Permalink
Tom,
As for Augustine saying “never ever under any circumstances,” nobody has boxed themselves into that ridiculous formulation, so you’re cheating the discussion again.
That’s exactly the “ridiculous formulation” that CVD has boxed himself into, as well as V1.
Show us where Vatican I says this. Mercy, Robert.
Repeating Dr. Hart’s confusions over and over but that doesn’t make them true.
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Darryl,
Yep, I’m just a dude. NCR journalists are just dudes with journalism degrees. So what makes them and Boniface and Douthat special from Feser or deacons/priests or seminary instructors who participate in CtC?
“Rome and Baltimore don’t teach STM.”
Ah, more moving goalposts. You were the one who said:
“Just look at the catechism. No wait. Remember STM.”
– The catechism that teaches STM?”
I guess by “look at the catechism” you really meant “don’t look at the current catechism”. So since Baltimore and the Roman catechism came after Trent, are you positing Trent and Vat1 did not teach STM?
Hey, you’re reading Feser. Fantastic. Yep, you don’t run into the cart-before-horse and chicken-egg problem of Protestantism when you have parallel and mutually attesting authorities. That’s part of the point on the whole coherency of the rule of faith thing.
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James Young, and you don’t have a chicken-egg problem when papal supremacy doesn’t develop until after the fifth century, well after the canon of Scripture is formed?
Oh that’s right. Jesus lived in Rome and appointed Peter bishop there.
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Jeff Cagle
Posted November 23, 2015 at 2:59 pm | Permalink
Mermaid: Okay, Brother Jeff, are you willing to admit that your rejection of the Deuterocanonical books is based on your acceptance of the Westminster Confession of Faith’s list of canonical books?
No. I had rejected the deuteros long before I ever heard of the WCF.
YOU reject them. By what authority? Martin Luther’s as a philology scholar? Your own as a scholar?
What if someone in your church believes the deuterocanonicals are just fine? By what authority do you impeach him?
The point is that your conception of the Church is not St. Augustine’s, which is why you “beg the question.” Or that it’s just like Augustine’s, and you just deny the Catholic Church is that Church and substitute your own reality.
You end up in a different church than Augustine’s anyway, either by denying his concept of the Church or substituting yours for his.
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Chortlyn:Henceforth known as Ali Voskamp.
since you love Ann – “yada, yada, yada” cw – from this am: http://www.heartlight.org/articles/201511/20151123_yada.html
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Susan,
A kind word about Mobile Catholicism: I attended a “Conversation between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism” at Springhill College a few years back. The Catholic priest (from Our Savior Catholic Church) clearly thought the whole thing was as much hooplah as I did. He seemed way more personable and conservative than the Jesuit religion students or the Jews or the Nation of Islam scholar who said something about “that curse of Ham stuff” then tried to convince me Hagar was black.
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Darryl,
“when papal supremacy doesn’t develop until after the fifth century, well after the canon of Scripture is formed?”
The canon was formed when the final word was written. The authority of the church (Magisterium) was formed before that, when Christ established the church and appointed apostles who appointed their authorized teachers and successors. The identification/recognition of the full canon took centuries to develop after that. And part of that development included judgments of the authoritative church – thus Augustine’s statement one must follow the judgment of the church and tradition in the canon. In other words, STM.
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Tom: YOU reject them. By what authority? Martin Luther’s as a philology scholar? Your own as a scholar?
By the universal consent of the church as strong (overwhelming) confirming evidence.
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LoserStar
Posted November 23, 2015 at 10:21 am | Permalink
Jeff, stop wasting everyone’s time with silly rabbinical debate. You don’t have the eucharist so your religion is built on a bunch of lies.
Exactly. The obsession with the Catholic Church misses the whole point. You’re out of harmony with 2000 years of the Eastern Orthodox, who also can licitly trace their Church, priesthood, sacraments and Bible to the early Church.
“Rabbinical” is well-put, arguing over jots and tittles just like the Pharisees while missing the larger point. JUdaism was once a sacramental religion too, but is now reduced to talk.
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Tom,
Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God our savior, for the exaltation of the Catholic religion and for the salvation of the Christian people, with the approval of the Sacred Council, we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable.
Vatican 1
It is impossible, if you read the teaching of the church in its historical context like a good Protestant does, for Rome to ever under any circumstance teach error dogmatically. That’s the whole point of infallibility.
Now try and find a RC friend here to agree with you that Rome can under some conditions teach dogmatic error.
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Dear Walton,
Glad you had a good experience with a priest. I have now live in southern California since 1985 and I never met a priest until I converted.
A few years back I want to a debate on Biola’s
campus, between James White and a Muslim scholar and while it was interesting, no one won.That’s the nature of debates I guess….attack attack.( exterminate! exterminate!)
Conversations between willing people is the only thing that will allow us to get anywhere.
Have a lovely Thanksgiving, Walton!
Susan
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Jeff Cagle
Posted November 23, 2015 at 6:01 pm | Permalink
Tom: YOU reject them. By what authority? Martin Luther’s as a philology scholar? Your own as a scholar?
By the universal consent of the church as strong (overwhelming) confirming evidence.
You don’t have anywhere near “universal” consent. You’re pretending to have a Church where none exists–and that is our point here. [Mathematically, at 800 million “Protestantism” is less than half the total of Christians, which number 1,2 billion Catholics and another 300 million Eastern Orthodox.]
Further, your first answer was that you construct your Bible based on your own personal [fallible] authority. That would make for a pretty pickle in a “sola scriptura” church, where what qualifies as “scriptura” is only a matter of personal taste.
And if that is not your final answer, then you’re accepting the authority of “Protestantism,” which leaves you no better off than with Catholicism, East or West. You’re still picking an authority to side with–which was Thomas More’s point, that since few of us will ever be experts in ancient Greek and Hebrew, we’re accepting some expert’s “authority” regardless.
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Robert
Posted November 23, 2015 at 6:07 pm | Permalink
Tom,
Vatican 1
It is impossible, if you read the teaching of the church in its historical context like a good Protestant does, for Rome to ever under any circumstance teach error dogmatically. That’s the whole point of infallibility.
Now try and find a RC friend here to agree with you that Rome can under some conditions teach dogmatic error.
You keep changing the words, now you’re slipping in “dogmatically,” which is not the same as your formulation “never ever under any circumstances.” Wearin’ me out, dude.
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Tom,
You keep changing the words, now you’re slipping in “dogmatically,” which is not the same as your formulation “never ever under any circumstances.” Wearin’ me out, dude.
That’s what I thought I said from the get go. I certainly meant to say that.
So the point still stands, Augustine believed the church had authority (as do the rest of us confessionalists), but whether he believed the church could never ever make a dogmatic error is another issue. Rome says number one and number two. CTC and CVD say there’s no number one without number two, but as Darryl has been pointing out repeatedly, it’s a rather odd position to take when nobody on the Roman Catholic side seems to take ecclesiastical infallibility seriously.
So yeah, Rome is big. But if we’re going to measure catholicity and seriousness by size, the church of 1.2 billion members doesn’t get to play the numbers game and then say “well of course not everyone is faithful” and expect us to take the apologetic seriously.
Especially when professing evangelicals on even the broadest definition of the term are far more likely to be orthodox small-o Christians than Roman Catholics.
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“Augustine believed the church had authority (as do the rest of us confessionalists),”
What an equivocation. Here’s how you honored Augustine earlier in the thread “And a statement from Augustine or Aquinas that the church cannot err doesn’t count because they are individual writers.” But now you’re totally on board with him. Here’s Augustine upholding the “confessional Protestant” arbitrary distinction view of the church and tradition again:
“The excellence of the canonical authority of the Old and New Testaments is distinct from the books of later writers. This authority was confirmed in the times of the Apostles through the succession of bishops and the propagation of churches, as if it was settled in a heavenly manner in a kind of seat to which every believing and pious mind lives in obedience.”
“Let the reader consult the rule of faith which he has gathered from the plainer passages of Scripture, and from the authority of the Church, and of which I treated at sufficient length when I was speaking in the first book about things.”
“But while we are absent from the Lord, and walk by faith, not by sight, we ought to see the “back parts” of Christ, that is His flesh, by that very faith, that is, standing on the solid foundation of faith, which the rock signifies, and beholding it from such a safe watchtower, namely in the Catholic Church, of which it is said, “And upon this rock I will build my Church.””
“For my part, I should not believe the gospel except moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manicheus, how can I but consent?”
“To be sure, although on this matter, we cannot quote a clear example taken from the canonical Scriptures, at any rate, on this question, we are following the true thought of Scriptures when we observe what has appeared good to the universal Church which the authority of these same Scriptures recommends to you”
“It is obvious; the faith allows it; the Catholic Church approves; it is true”
“Now, in regards to the canonical Scriptures, he must follow the judgement of the greater number of catholic churches”
“And if anyone seek for divine authority in this matter, though what is held by the whole Church, and not as instituted by Councils, but as a matter of invariable custom, is rightly held to have been handed down by apostolic authority….”
“But those reasons which I have here given, I have either gathered from the authority of the church, according to the tradition of our forefathers, or from the testimony of the divine Scriptures, or from the nature itself of numbers and of similitudes. No sober person will decide against reason, no Christian against the Scriptures, no peaceable person against the church.”
“In the books of Maccabees we read of sacrifice offered for the dead. Howbeit even if it were no where at all read in the Old Scriptures, not small is the authority, which in this usage is clear, of the whole Church …”
“Or if he produces his own manuscripts of the apostolic writings, he must also obtain for them the authority of the churches founded by the apostles themselves, by showing that they have been preserved and transmitted with their sanction. It will be difficult for a man to make me believe him on the evidence of writings which derive all their authority from his own word, which I do not believe.”
“What could be more clear than the judgement of the Apostolic See?”
“What, moreover, shall I say of those commentators on the divine Scriptures who have flourished in the catholic Church? They have never tried to prevert these testimonies to an alien sense, because they were firmly established in our most ancient and solid faith, and were never moved aside from error.”
“But perhaps you will quote some other book bearing the name of an apostle known to have been chosen by Christ; and you will find there that Christ was not born of Mary. Since, then, one of the books must be false, the question in this case is, whether we are to yield our belief to a book acknowledged and approved as handed down from the beginning in the Church founded by Christ Himself, and maintained through the apostles and their successors in an unbroken connection all over the world to the present day; or to a book which this Church condemns as unknown, and which, moreover, is brought forward by men who prove their veracity by praising Christ for falsehood.”
“When therefore we see so great help of God, so great progress and fruit, shall we doubt to hide ourselves in the bosom of that Church, which even unto the confession of the human race from [the] apostolic chair through successions of Bishops, (heretics in vain lurking around her and being condemned, partly by the judgment of the very people, partly by the weight of councils, partly also by the majesty of miracles,) hath held the summit of authority. To be unwilling to grant to her the first place, is either surely the height of impiety, or is headlong arrogance. For, if there be no sure way unto wisdom and health of souls, unless where faith prepare them for reason, what else is it to be ungrateful for the Divine help and aid, than to wish to resist authority furnished with so great labor? And if every system of teaching, however mean and easy, requires, in order to its being received, a teacher or master, what more full of rash pride, than, in the case of books of divine mysteries, both to be unwilling to learn from such as interpret them, and to wish to condemn them unlearned?”
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TVD: Further, your first answer was that you construct your Bible based on your own personal [fallible] authority.
Nope. When have I ever said that I base things off my own authority?
TVD: You don’t have anywhere near “universal” consent.
Can you point to some book in the Protestant canon that is rejected by some segment of the church?
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Robert
Posted November 23, 2015 at 6:46 pm | Permalink
Tom,
“You keep changing the words, now you’re slipping in “dogmatically,” which is not the same as your formulation “never ever under any circumstances.” Wearin’ me out, dude.”
That’s what I thought I said from the get go. I certainly meant to say that.
Well, it’s more a theological theory than an exercised power. Yes, Christ put Peter in charge, as Aquinas said, simply because Christ himself wouldn’t be around. But you really need to look up–and I have posted links–how the Pope approached his only 2 exercises of papal infallibility–he polled the bishops, and asked them to poll the faithful, the “sensus fidei.” He was still seeking the “universal sense of the Church” even in exercising papal infallibility.
He did not come down like Moses from the papal mountaintop, nor can he do something like deny the Trinity, which is why your formulation “never ever under any circumstances” is a false locution.
So the point still stands, Augustine believed the church had authority (as do the rest of us confessionalists), but whether he believed the church could never ever make a dogmatic error is another issue.
Actually, via Mr. Cagle, we’re seeing just how thin–if not meaningless–that “authority” of the Church turns out to be. Even the Bible itself is provisional, and under the authority not of the Holy Spirit, but of linguists, philologists and other “experts.”
Rome says number one and number two. CTC and CVD say there’s no number one without number two, but as Darryl has been pointing out repeatedly, it’s a rather odd position to take when nobody on the Roman Catholic side seems to take ecclesiastical infallibility seriously.
“Nobody?” Darryl gets his info on the Catholic Church from blogs and the morning newspaper. That’s the “authority” you should be questioning.
So yeah, Rome is big. But if we’re going to measure catholicity and seriousness by size, the church of 1.2 billion members doesn’t get to play the numbers game and then say “well of course not everyone is faithful” and expect us to take the apologetic seriously.
Actually, Mr. Cagle tried to claim some “universal consent” for Protestantism’s teachings, a claim of “sensus fidei” no different than Catholicism’s–but with considerably less numerical support.
Especially when professing evangelicals on even the broadest definition of the term are far more likely to be orthodox small-o Christians than Roman Catholics.
I don’t know what that means. The “Greek Catholics” are formally “The Orthodox Catholic Church,” and at 300 million, number more than any single Protestant denomination. You want to talk “orthodox,” leave the Vatican out of it and “orthodox” Christianity still dates back 2000 years, with apostolic succession, a priesthood, and the sacraments, especially the Eucharist in the Eastern Orthodox.
Protestants are not “orthodox” except by their own arrogation of the term. To any historian, sans its theological truth claims [which a historian cannot evaluate], Protestantism is clearly a new church and a variant religion [with some exception possibly carved out for the Lutherans and Anglicans, who largely kept the religion although they changed management].
Otherwise, “orthodox” has no meaning in Protestantism, except in reference to itself [such as the “Orthodox” Presbyterian Church, itself a splinter group from a larger whole].
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You mean here?
Wearin’ me out.
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Tom,
Reading comprehension problems on your part do not constitute an admission on my part.
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Jeff,
“No, No, Maybe, Maybe, No, Probably, Maybe, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, and No.”
Great. So your answer to “On what basis are they excluded from the “easy to discern” boundaries of the pre-1054 church” is “because they did not teach anything contrary to the gospel”. But all of these groups of course thought they were teaching according to the gospel and your interpretation of the gospel was the one that was in error, as does Rome and the East today, along with all the contemporary Protestant sects you reject as unorthodox. So on what basis do we exclude them from the church? On what basis do we allow or disallow the “maybes”?
“But in any event, few of these groups (Gnostics, Marcionites) put forward any serious canonical challenges.”
Um yeah, if you exclude canonical challenges, there were no canonical challenges. That’s not very responsive to the point.
“Some did accept, some did reject. That’s the point of a standard of common consent: We will not accept books that were partially accepted, partially rejected.”
But 2 Peter and Revelation and Hebrews and others you accept were partially accepted and disputed. What to do? Also, did the pre-1054 church accept passages in your canon as inspired you now reject or asterisk as authentic? So what do we do there?
“There might be some outliers — a couple of the church doctors excluded Revelation, for example — but in the main it is easy to see what the consensus was.”
Oh so that’s what we do, handwave. Why not exclude Revelation from your canon or force others to submit to it?
“Tobit was not it.”
Ah, so all the early fathers and councils who held Tobit as canonical just weren’t illuminated enough correct?
“We insist that this is a feature, not a bug, for if there were such a human infallible authority, it would have authority over the Word of God.”
You’d have to demonstrate that, rather than merely assert it, especially since said authority explicitly claims it is servant to the Word of God. This would also entail Christ and the Apostles who had infallible authority must have had authority over the Word of God.
“You insist that the Protestant system is inferior because we cannot point to infallible, irreformable doctrines (other than Scripture).”
And that teaching that Scripture is infallible and irreformable itself remains provisional and tentative, just as much as the identification of what it consists of does, consistent with your system’s claims. Thus, liberalism.
“We insist that this is a matter of being honest, in that you yourself have no access to infallible doctrines yourself, since you have only fallible copies of fallible translations of church teaching”
And this would entail again that that those in NT times submitting to Christ or the Apostles/those sent with divine authority were in no better epistemological position than those submitting to synagogue rabbi Levi offering admitted fallible provisional teachings and rejecting any such divine authority/ability because both groups of adherents were always personally fallible and lacked vulcan mindmelding.
“You insist that the Protestant system is inferior because it leads to theological chaos. We reply that Catholics have just as much theological chaos, but they don’t notice because the band-aid of institutional unity covers over the wound of doctrinal disunity.”
I’m afraid you’d have to demonstrate RCs have “just as much theological chaos”. As I said before, compare the catechisms/confessions/statements of faith from the following churches/groups: PCUSA, ELCA, Arminian, Anglican, Unitarian, Pentecostal, Oneness Pentecostal, Charismatic, Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Arian, Modalist, KJV-onlyist, Marcionite, gnostic, reconstructionist, kinist, biblicist-fundamentalist, seeker-sensitive, liberal, emergent, church of christ, antinomian, Pelagian, NPP, Quakers, Plymouth Brethren, Finneyite, Anabaptist, Adventist, Open Theist.
Lots of conflict and contradiction.
Now compare the RC catechism with the RC catechism. No conflict and contradiction, by definition.
Further, draw out the implications of the Protestant disclaimers as others on your side have:
“But why should anyone from a church who disagrees with you care?
– In one sense, they shouldn’t.
Right, but why should those outside of that church care or be subject to your definition.
– As noted, in one sense they shouldn’t care.”
That’s the anarchy.
But based on Rome’s claims, other denominations should care. Rome is claiming to be the one true church Christ founded and concordantly to have the divine and infallible authority/ability to identify, define, and teach irreformable doctrine binding upon all. No Protestant body does this, but rather rejects such claims to authority that would compel any church that disagrees with you to care in the first place.
“In all cases, your judgement of “inferior” uses Catholic categories to evaluate.”
So I responded to the points. No importing of Catholic categories. My only axiom is that divine revelation is infallible, which we both share. So I’m still waiting for the demonstration of “Accordingly, you keep evaluating the Catholic system according to the Catholic system, and the Protestant system according to the Catholic system” that I should take notice of.
“Do they teach consistently with the gospel? Do they uphold the Word of God?”
They certainly think they do, don’t they? So what to do?
“What if the first system can’t deliver on its promises?”
Oh, so what if we don’t actually grant the system to be true for argument’s sake in evaluating, rather than begging the question? The thing I’ve been doing this entire thread in evaluating each system, granting the truth of those claims, and then seeing what is *consistent* with those claims.
“In principle, the Catholic system cannot deliver. Hence, it is not superior.”
It can’t deliver a vulcan mindmeld? No, it can’t. Neither did Christ or the Apostles and those sent with divine authority. So I guess their claims to divine authority and infallibility were superfluous. And the Protestant system cannot deliver anything like the certitude of faith because apparently that is illegitimate and impossible for human beings to have.
“Stunning? Our “side” admitted that in 1647 at the latest. Where have you been, my man?”
Excellent. And all I’ve been arguing is the implication of that position. Then you guys hem and haw with “well you’re not personally infallible so tu quoque” and “well actually we can offer irreformable doctrine”. Then I ask “okay what’s an example?” Then I get from you, “It’s hard to answer your question”. But I’m glad we agree now. So many comments to get there.
“Wrong, because we are not foundationalists.”
Okay so you can “interpret” things without first having established what you are to interpret. You can have a standard to evaluate against without first knowing that standard or establishing that as the rule of faith in the first place. Makes sense.
And you earlier said, “There is an irreformable stratum of divine revelation.” So, is that teaching “a bottom layer of irreformable doctrine upon which other doctrine and moral teaching rests”?
“Yes, there are a couple of self-evident axioms: “God’s word must be true” is clearly axiomatic for the Protestant.”
And is “God’s word exists” axiomatic?
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No one of note,
Sorry. You are not who I thought you might have been. Nice to meet you and sorry our meeting has been cross. BTW, I spend and have spent a whole lot more time in Scripture than I will ever spend at C2C. Thank you for the advice though. I recommend the same to others. I like the place. I have interacted with some of the guys at C2C and have read a few of the articles, but they are not Christ, Scripture, the Church or any form of Revelation.
I will say though… If the “finger of Satan, deceiver of men, and breaker of Moses’ laws” isn’t arrogant, then I don’t know what arrogant is. I didn’t say rude. I said arrogant. Christ was never taken for rude. Arrogant though? I think that can fit the bill. People thought He believed Himself to be more than He truly was. The problem was I, and Christians, disagree and think He was all He believed Himself to be. Someone may take me for arrogant when I say “God is my Father and not yours”, but that doesn’t make it untrue when talking to an unbaptized non-Christian. I’m not being rude, just stating what I believe is a revealed from God fact. Often this is called arrogant and I believe it is valid to say people took Christ this way often.
Again sorry our first meeting came across mixed.
Peace,
MichaelTX
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Jeff,
Glad all is well. Don’t know that I will sped much time around, but always nice to hang a bit.
God bless,
MichaelTX
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Hart,
Love your place. But, not much to bit there in the post worth the time. We have been around these blocks before. You don’t stick around for the long run in the debates that matter and I just don’t have the time anymore anyway.
Later,
MichaelTX
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Tom,
Well, it’s more a theological theory than an exercised power.
And we’re watching the current pope exercise it into give-peace-a-chance meaninglessness.
Yes, Christ put Peter in charge, as Aquinas said, simply because Christ himself wouldn’t be around.
A statement like this simply means that for all the bluster to the contrary, Rome doesn’t think the Holy Spirit can guide the church without somebody on a throne in Rome.
But you really need to look up–and I have posted links–how the Pope approached his only 2 exercises of papal infallibility–he polled the bishops, and asked them to poll the faithful, the “sensus fidei.” He was still seeking the “universal sense of the Church” even in exercising papal infallibility.
On those occasions, yes. Of course, Francis recently whined about conservatives in his synod. We’ll see what happens if he ever gets around to an letter on the subject.
He did not come down like Moses from the papal mountaintop, nor can he do something like deny the Trinity, which is why your formulation “never ever under any circumstances” is a false locution.
He can’t do something like deny the Trinity according to what? RC theory. If that’s your basis for believing it, you’re a rank fideist.
Actually, via Mr. Cagle, we’re seeing just how thin–if not meaningless–that “authority” of the Church turns out to be. Even the Bible itself is provisional, and under the authority not of the Holy Spirit, but of linguists, philologists and other “experts.”
God’s Word isn’t provisional. The church’s recognition of it is, trivially so. Just as your recognition of what the church has said is infallible is provisional. Trivially so.
“Nobody?” Darryl gets his info on the Catholic Church from blogs and the morning newspaper. That’s the “authority” you should be questioning.
Darryl is quite able to distinguish theory from practice. It’s not as if he doesn’t know the theory. His issue is that the people touting Rome as the cure-all ignore the fact that at least in the current day, the Magisterium doesn’t seem to care much about the theory.
Actually, Mr. Cagle tried to claim some “universal consent” for Protestantism’s teachings, a claim of “sensus fidei” no different than Catholicism’s–but with considerably less numerical support.
If you want to go with determining who has the right sensus fidei according to numerical support, then homosexuality is a-ok. Just look at Roman surveys and the one in seven bishops at the recent synod who couldn’t figure out that homosexuality is a sin.
I don’t know what that means.
It means that routine polls of Roman Catholics and evangelicals show such things that evangelicals are far more likely to think homosexuality is a sin than Roman Catholics are. Take that for your sensus fidei. Oh wait, the numbers for the sensus fidei don’t matter anymore when they disagree with the nominal teachings of the Magisterium, but when they disagree with Protestants they do.
The “Greek Catholics” are formally “The Orthodox Catholic Church,” and at 300 million, number more than any single Protestant denomination. You want to talk “orthodox,” leave the Vatican out of it and “orthodox” Christianity still dates back 2000 years, with apostolic succession, a priesthood, and the sacraments, especially the Eucharist in the Eastern Orthodox.
If you define Christianity as the religion with apostolic succession, a priesthood, and seven sacraments (notice nothing about Christ alone or grace alone there, hmmm), then the EO can make a claim to go back to about the time of Irenaeus. Go earlier than that and the Presbyterian form of church government actually predominates.
Protestants are not “orthodox” except by their own arrogation of the term.</i.
Now you are being hilarious. Roman Catholics aren’t “orthodox” except by their own definition, which no one else shares fully, not even the East. The East isn’t orthodox except by its own arrogation of the term, which no one fully agrees with, even the Vatican.
To any historian, sans its theological truth claims [which a historian cannot evaluate], Protestantism is clearly a new church and a variant religion [with some exception possibly carved out for the Lutherans and Anglicans, who largely kept the religion although they changed management].
Hilarious again. If you want to poll historians, you are not going to find one that says Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy is 2,000 years old. Even Roman Catholic historians don’t say that. The best they can give us is development, which is a theological claim.
Otherwise, “orthodox” has no meaning in Protestantism, except in reference to itself [such as the “Orthodox” Presbyterian Church, itself a splinter group from a larger whole].
If modern history is the judge, then orthodoxy has no meaning at all except as a convenient label that the winners applied to their own position.
I’d be careful about judging the orthodoxy of Protestantism and its age by historians. Those same historians laugh at Rome’s claims.
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JRC: “Some did accept, some did reject. That’s the point of a standard of common consent: We will not accept books that were partially accepted, partially rejected.”
CVD: But 2 Peter and Revelation and Hebrews and others you accept were partially accepted and disputed. What to do?
This is a reasonable question. It goes to the question of evidence. Are all books equally contested, or are there are some that are clearly accepted as canonical by the large majority and others not?
So, let’s do the homework, then. Who rejected 2 Peter and on what basis? Revelation? Hebrews?
CVD: Also, did the pre-1054 church accept passages in your canon as inspired you now reject or asterisk as authentic? So what do we do there?
You mean, such as the Johannine comma? To re-quote Pius XII, we follow the rules of textual criticism.
That’s certainly what Jerome did when compiling the Vulgate.
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I’m afraid this must be my last post for a while (week plus?). I hope everyone has a good thanksgiving.
@ Cletus: I think in the main we are just talking at each other. I hope something can break that impasse in the future.
@ Zrim: I thought your comment about worldview and doctrine opened up a great line of discussion, but then I — hey! Squirrel! Anyways, I can’t find it now. So maybe in the future.
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Jeff Cagle
Posted November 23, 2015 at 2:59 pm | Permalink
Mermaid: Okay, Brother Jeff, are you willing to admit that your rejection of the Deuterocanonical books is based on your acceptance of the Westminster Confession of Faith’s list of canonical books?
No. I had rejected the deuteros long before I ever heard of the WCF.>>>
Okay, so you reject the Deuterocanonical books on your own authority.
Jeff:
Mermaid: You want us to forget that detail.
Mermaid: You, Jeff Cagle, try to establish yourself and your WCF as authoritative. It is all man centered.
Mermaid: You want to ignore the Septuagint and the Vulgate, both of which contain the Deuterocanonical books.
You are mistaken on all counts. You actually don’t really understand very well what I want. Remember when you got into trouble earlier by making personal assertions without evidence? Love is honest, and honest people don’t try to play mind-reading games.>>>>
It was you who got yourself into trouble. Remember? Now you are doing it again. I am basing what I said on the arguments you were making. Love would clarify if I read you wrong. If I don’t understand, then love would explain without insulting me.
Jeff:
What I want more than anything is that you would look to Jesus alone apart from saints for your hope; that you would look to Scripture alone as the Word of God; and that you would seek to be justified by Christ’s righteousness alone, through faith, apart from any works of your own righteousness.>>>>
You are the one playing mind games and making assumptions about what people believe and what people are trusting in. Everything in the Church points to Jesus. She is all about Jesus. She is all about grace.
Trent:Canon 1.If anyone says that man can be justified before God by his own works, whether done by his own natural powers or through the teaching of the law,[110] without divine grace through Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.
Jeff:
To the extent that you are doing this, I rejoice. To that end, I’ve been trying to shine a light on the ways in which Catholic teachings are contrary to Scripture. I know that it’s uncomfortable, and you have certainly given a lot of pushback, which is not unexpected.>>>>>>
You cannot believe the nourishment I have gotten from the Deuterocanonical books. No, you cannot. Your mind and heart are not open to them, so you miss that blessing. Your loss. That’s fine. If you are happy, then I am happy for you.
Jeff:
So it would actually be very contrary to my goals to try to establish my own authority, or the authority of the WCF. I do have a very little authority by virtue of my ordination, but that authority is limited to pointing to the Scripture and teaching it, and it is expected that all who hear would and should test my teaching against Scripture. The WCF also has authority as the collective voice of a portion of the church, but again — its teachings are subordinate to Scripture, and can no more “define” the canon than you or I can “define” the law of gravity.>>>>
Yet both you and the WCF pretend to define the canon without admitting that others have a valid point of view. At least you are willing to sorta’ kinda’ preach the Gospel at me even if it is in frustration.
Jeff:
So if I were to (somehow?!) replace your trust in the Catholic magisterium with a trust in the WCF — or worse yet, in myself — then I would have failed utterly. I have no desire whatsoever to do that.>>>>
Well, that has not happened, so not to worry.
Jeff:
You have a good Thanksgiving. Perhaps I could ask you to reflect a little on some Scripture this week, some Scripture on the nature and exercise of true and false authority: 2 Cor 10 – 12 and 1 Sam 15.1-6.>>>>
Jeff, I reflect on Scripture every day. Catholic Christians are Bible Christians. If it will make you happy I will read those passages. I would ask you to do the same and reflect on the nature and exercise of true and false authority.
Now, you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, Jeff.
Mermaid out, for now 🙂
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James Young, that’s a nice theory. But it has no historical basis. No Roman Catholic historian tells the story that way.
Get up to date Old Life-commenter-who-has-no-chops-for-his-own-Catholic-Answers-dude. #aggiornamento
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Robert
Posted November 23, 2015 at 8:55 pm | Permalink
Tom,
Well, it’s more a theological theory than an exercised power.
And we’re watching the current pope exercise it into give-peace-a-chance meaninglessness.
Again, you’re believing too much of Darryl Hart’s confusions. Pope Francis hasn’t submitted a single thing that the Faithful aren’t permitted to disagree with. You’re simply not hearing the other side of these discussions.
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/07/catholics-can-respectfully-disagree-with-pope-francis-on-economics/
“Yes, Christ put Peter in charge, as Aquinas said, simply because Christ himself wouldn’t be around.”
A statement like this simply means that for all the bluster to the contrary, Rome doesn’t think the Holy Spirit can guide the church without somebody on a throne in Rome.
Protestantism, with its dozens if not 100s of denominations and deal-breaking theological disagreements, is proof. This was Aquinas’s point, even before Martin Luther and the theological anarchy he wrought.
“I don’t know what that means.”
It means that routine polls of Roman Catholics and evangelicals show
Polls do not count. That is sociology, not ecclesiology–although in Protestantism, “the authority of the Church” becomes synonymous with “the will of the people.” But this is not the same same thing as the Catholic “sensus fidei.”
I know you’re trying, but you’re subscribing to Dr. Hart’s simplistic reduction of very theologically developed concepts. “Papal infallibility” does not mean “whatever the Pope says goes,” nor is “the sense of the faithful” equal to “majority rules.”
And that’s the only problem here, clarity. Until Old Life can state the Catholic positions fairly and accurately, there is no discussion atall, only remediation of the confusions its spreads.
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James Young, that’s some pretty dubious cutting and pasting. But you’re just a commenter at a Protestant blog doing a really good imitation of Jimmy Akin.
Some of the quotes I couldn’t find. One I could was not exactly in context:
That’s hardly an affirmation of the papacy and its infalliblity. As vd, t keeps saying “Catholic” doesn’t mean “Roman Catholic.”
#weaksauce
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James Young, “Rome is claiming to be the one true church Christ founded and concordantly to have the divine and infallible authority/ability to identify, define, and teach irreformable doctrine binding upon all.”
Read Brian Tierney and Francis Oakley, two Roman Catholic historians of substance, and then see if you buy those claims so gullibly.
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Michael TX, You comment three times in two months and tell me that I’m not around much. Audacious indeed.
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Mermaid, “Everything in the Church points to Jesus. She is all about Jesus. She is all about grace.”
Mary as co-mediatrix?
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Jeff, it was here:
https://oldlife.org/2015/11/just-a-goat-breeder/comment-page-3/#comments
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ROBERT:
[tvd]:”To any historian, sans its theological truth claims [which a historian cannot evaluate], Protestantism is clearly a new church and a variant religion [with some exception possibly carved out for the Lutherans and Anglicans, who largely kept the religion although they changed management].”
Hilarious again. If you want to poll historians, you are not going to find one that says Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy is 2,000 years old. Even Roman Catholic historians don’t say that. The best they can give us is development, which is a theological claim.
Um, you want it both ways, to be the Church that Christ founded but that it doesn’t exist.
Either way, you ain’t it.
Better you argue with Augustine than my poor self. I’m really trying to not get in the way. Really.
Now it’s fine if you disown Augustine. Luther was on the borderline because Augustine answered the question I keep asking and Old Life refuses to answer: By what authority do you form a church, then kick people out of it if they fall afoul of your doctrines? By what authority do you interpret the Bible?
By what authority can you even decree what’s the Bible and what’s not?
Since man’s unassisted reason can reasonably disagree about these things when unwinding the scriptures–even the Trinity!–by what authority do you “break the tie?” At the end of the day, at the end of the discussion, when Augustine answers, “By the authority of the catholic church,” not a word of that means anything anymore. You’ve deconstructed the very concepts of “authority,” “catholic” and “church.”
And that’s where this discussion stands. Mr. Cagle attempted an honest and sufficient answer
But that answer actually redounds to the Catholic Church/the Eastern Orthodox pro-Deuteros’ side of the ledger, not Luther’s, by weight of both numbers and history.
See, I agree with the [unintentional] premise of Jeff’s answer–and so does Augustine–that if Christ left behind a Church and the Holy Spirit to guide it, “the authority of the catholic church” and not the ever-shifting sands of expert philological opinion should prevail, that God did not leave man in 500 or 1000 or 2000 years of confusion and darkness about His Will and His Word.
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Tom,
Um, you want it both ways, to be the Church that Christ founded but that it doesn’t exist.
No. I’m responding to you’re obviously wrong quip that if you poll historians, Protestantism isn’t Christianity. If you poll modern historians, there is no such thing as orthodoxy other than the results of whoever had the most power.
Now it’s fine if you disown Augustine. Luther was on the borderline because Augustine answered the question I keep asking and Old Life refuses to answer: By what authority do you form a church, then kick people out of it if they fall afoul of your doctrines?
I don’t form a church. I’m part of the catholic church that has splintered because Rome got greedy.
By what authority do you interpret the Bible?
In myself I have no authority other than the ability to read the text rightly. Whether I do so or not is not for me to baldly assert. If I were ordained, it would be the authority of the catholic church to declare, not determine. I’m not ordained.
By what authority can you even decree what’s the Bible and what’s not?
No one but God has authority to “decree” what’s in the Bible and what’s not.
Since man’s unassisted reason can reasonably disagree about these things when unwinding the scriptures–even the Trinity!–by what authority do you “break the tie?”
If you think disagreements over the Trinity are reasonable, then you prove yourself a fool who imputes to Rome clarity it just doesn’t have. Professing Romanists disagree on just about everything despite the claims of “authority.”
At the end of the day, at the end of the discussion, when Augustine answers, “By the authority of the catholic church,” not a word of that means anything anymore. You’ve deconstructed the very concepts of “authority,” “catholic” and “church.”
So I guess if the church had not concluded that the Trinity is the teaching of Scripture, then you would be an Arian, right?
But that answer actually redounds to the Catholic Church/the Eastern Orthodox pro-Deuteros’ side of the ledger, not Luther’s, by weight of both numbers and history.
Actually, it doesn’t, as evidenced by the fact that nobody knew what the OT was until Trent if CVD is correct.
See, I agree with the [unintentional] premise of Jeff’s answer–and so does Augustine–that if Christ left behind a Church and the Holy Spirit to guide it, “the authority of the catholic church” and not the ever-shifting sands of expert philological opinion should prevail, that God did not leave man in 500 or 1000 or 2000 years of confusion and darkness about His Will and His Word.
But again, if CVD was right, there was ever-shifting confusion about whether one needs to believe the Trinity to be saved (once Rome said yes—Ath. Creed, now it doesn’t), the doctrine of justification, the canon, etc., etc.
So you’re back to the cheering for Rome again. Okay, I thought you weren’t going there. When was the last time you went to mass?
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Tom,
Again, you’re believing too much of Darryl Hart’s confusions. Pope Francis hasn’t submitted a single thing that the Faithful aren’t permitted to disagree with. You’re simply not hearing the other side of these discussions.
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/07/catholics-can-respectfully-disagree-with-pope-francis-on-economics/
Says the man who just quoted a non-Magisterial source to assure us of what we can disagree with.
But in any case, my comments weren’t about economics but about Francis’ whining about conservatives at his synod on the Family who were reluctant to rubber stamp what it seems he’s going to let go through anyway—even easier annulments, letting bishops determine who gets communion regardless of their marital state, etc.
Protestantism, with its dozens if not 100s of denominations and deal-breaking theological disagreements, is proof. This was Aquinas’s point, even before Martin Luther and the theological anarchy he wrought.
I have no principled means to figure out if Nancy Pelosi or Mother Teresa are better RCs since the infallible church has excommunicated or disciplined neither. Meanwhile, the majority of RCs think homosexuality is a-ok. But the numbers don’t matter for the sensus fidei even though they do prove catholicity. Coherence?
Polls do not count. That is sociology, not ecclesiology–although in Protestantism, “the authority of the Church” becomes synonymous with “the will of the people.” But this is not the same same thing as the Catholic “sensus fidei.”
If the sensus fidei is only what the Magisterium says it is, which is what you are now conceding, there goes any claim to the infallibility of the laity.
I know you’re trying, but you’re subscribing to Dr. Hart’s simplistic reduction of very theologically developed concepts. “Papal infallibility” does not mean “whatever the Pope says goes,” nor is “the sense of the faithful” equal to “majority rules.”
Nobody really knows what papal infallibility means because you can’t get RCs to agree on when he has spoken infallibly. But if the sensus fidei is not equivalent to the majority, then you don’t get to tout the proof that 1.2 bilion members give you. The only numbers you get to promote are the numbers of those who agree with the Magisterium. Good luck figuring that out when nobody can figure out what the pope says. When both Rolling Stone and conservatives think the pope is really on their side, then Protestant division doesn’t look so bad.
And that’s the only problem here, clarity. Until Old Life can state the Catholic positions fairly and accurately, there is no discussion atall, only remediation of the confusions its spreads.
But the problem is not that we are ignorant of RC positions. The problem is that the apologists act as if Rome’s positions solves Protestant’s problems when the vast majority of RCs clearly believe that they do not or act as if Rome’s positions don’t matter. If the CTC would show some more wailing over Roman Catholic disunity or say, “Man our church really is as screwed up as Protestantism” (because it is; when more than half of the laity disagree with Rome’s teaching on homosexuality and 90 percent of it ignores the teaching on birth control, you’ve got the same theological dissent) Darryl would leave them alone.
It’s the dishonesty of the conservative Roman apologists, which the Vatican doesn’t even know exists, that moves Darryl. Hence his repeated emphasis that he sympathizes with traditionalist RCs.
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TVD
Posted November 23, 2015 at 7:25 pm | Permalink
Jeff Cagle
Posted November 23, 2015 at 6:59 pm | Permalink
TVD: Further, your first answer was that you construct your Bible based on your own personal [fallible] authority.
Nope. When have I ever said that I base things off my own authority?
TVD: You mean here?
Jeff Cagle
I had rejected the deuteros long before I ever heard of the WCF.
TVD: Wearin’ me out.
Jeff Cagle
Posted November 23, 2015 at 7:36 pm | Permalink
Tom,
Reading comprehension problems on your part do not constitute an admission on my part.
First you accuse others of not making any sense, then accuse them of not understanding you.
But everybody understands each other here just fine, Jeff. That’s your problem with the discussion. As an unmuddied lake, friend. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer.
The question is not the philology, it is by what authority you proclaim these things. The Catholic Church answers ‘by the Holy Spirit,” Augustine assents, yes, the Holy Spirit is the authority of the catholic church.
You [quite conspicuously] decline to answer by what authority you speak and/or believe, which I reckon is wise. It’s best you do your philologizing without risking blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Me, I’d much rather take my chances with Augustine and Aquinas than Luther and Cagle. If that make me a fideist, so be it.
There are limits to even papal infallibility, but as Protestantism has proven, there are no limits to human error.
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Robert
Posted November 23, 2015 at 10:59 pm | Permalink
Tom,
Again, you’re believing too much of Darryl Hart’s confusions. Pope Francis hasn’t submitted a single thing that the Faithful aren’t permitted to disagree with. You’re simply not hearing the other side of these discussions.
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/07/catholics-can-respectfully-disagree-with-pope-francis-on-economics/
Says the man who just quoted a non-Magisterial source to assure us of what we can disagree with.</i.
It was a priest fer crissakes, Robert. For informational purposes only. Your edification not mine, of something you should already know but obviously don't.
And what's your response? Not thx for the info, but parroting Darryl's war on catholicism.
Did you read the article? No. Because it was about the licitness of disagreeing with the pope, not economics. The larger point holds. You're simply not listening.
It’s the dishonesty of the conservative Roman apologists, which the Vatican doesn’t even know exists, that moves Darryl. Hence his repeated emphasis that he sympathizes with traditionalist RCs.
No, he throws Douthat at the wall to see what sticks–and only to attack, not defend the Catholic Church.
He should throw Augustine. That Dr. Hart is clearly afraid to discuss what really matters should be painfully obvious even to his fans. He pretends to be part of the discussion but is not. You are the discussion, Robert, and to a lesser degree, Jeff Cagle. The others have headed for the hills–and not out of boredom, but out of inability to hang at the grownup table.
Augustine is the grownup table. The morning paper isn’t, see?
But Old Life does not state them fairly, Robert. Again and again. I don’t know why this is. Darryl is either stupid or dishonest.
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“Now it’s fine if you disown Augustine. Luther was on the borderline because Augustine answered the question I keep asking and Old Life refuses to answer: By what authority do you form a church, then kick people out of it if they fall afoul of your doctrines?”
I don’t form a church. I’m part of the catholic church that has splintered because Rome got greedy.
Well, actually, your splinter church [“Protestantism”] just kept splintering and splintering into dozens if not 1000s of churches. The Catholic Church stayed together, and so did the Eastern Orthodox–and they’re on pretty good terms, with the same priesthood and Eucharist and sacraments and all. The “Great Schism of 1054” still left each intact, the “splintering” stopped there.
“By what authority do you interpret the Bible?”
In myself I have no authority other than the ability to read the text rightly.
I don’t know what that means except it means you are your own magisterium. You are not an expert in Hebrew or Greek, don’t understand the underlying theology. You are incapable of “reading the text rightly” on your own, indeed, even reading the original text atall atall.
You don’t even know what the original text is. there is this version from 250 AD and there is this fragment from 125 AD.
You’re going to have to take somebody’s word for it all. The only question is whose.
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IOW CVD according to your provisional and fallible judgement “Rome is claiming to be the one true church Christ founded and concordantly to have the divine and infallible authority/ability to identify, define, and teach irreformable doctrine binding upon all.”
Whatever.
Seeya.
You’re just as epistemologically confused/compromised as you were when you first got here, if not hypocritically maintaining the same old double standard papists always do.
Thanks for sharing.
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Bob,
Brilliant as always. Im fallible. Youre fallible. Everyone gets a fallibility!!! Wheres Oprah. Nothing changes in the arguments or points. So to bring that up (again) shows you havent grasped the argument in the first place and remain as confused as ever 2 years later. Thanks for sharing and confirming.
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Then you must not be everybody CVD because you still don’t get it.
If you can be fallible and still know infallible truth then prots can know just like cats.
If you can’t know infallible truth because you are fallible, then neither prots nor cats can know.
Hint, it’s called a dilemma.
You have yet to address it.
I’m not holding my breath.
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Reread the thread Bob. Im not spoon feeding you everything again I went over with jeff sdb and robert. Heres a hint – my argument does not entail I must be personally infallible which is why Ive pointed that out a million times in this thread and the previous one. But considering you like to truncate sentences where I address points you end up then repeating as if theyre new, Im not optimistic on your effort to try to sincerely understand it anyways. So yes Ive addressed it, you just still dont get it.
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Bob S
Posted November 24, 2015 at 12:08 am | Permalink
IOW CVD according to your provisional and fallible judgement
“Rome is claiming to be the one true church Christ founded and concordantly to have the divine and infallible authority/ability to identify, define, and teach irreformable doctrine binding upon all.”
Whatever.
Seeya.
You’re just as epistemologically confused/compromised as you were when you first got here, if not hypocritically maintaining the same old double standard papists always do.
Thanks for sharing.
Um, actually BobS did state the Catholic Church’s position accurately except for poisoning the well with
In contrast to Jeff Cagle’s claim for the truth of his own “Protestant” church [sorry, Jeff, I forget which one yours is] which he admits is subject to
Clarity at last. Quite so, exactly as Augustine says. Once again–
““Rome is claiming to be the one true church Christ founded and concordantly to have the divine and infallible authority/ability to identify, define, and teach irreformable doctrine binding upon all.”
True fact.
BobS departs with, and embarrasses Old Life completely with
which of course is an abandonment of the “marketplace of ideas.” Then with which he digs his hole even deeper
“You’re just as epistemologically confused/compromised as you were when you first got here, if not hypocritically maintaining the same old double standard papists always do.
I cut this part out, BobS, but your personal attack and ugly language is even worse than what I left in and further embarrasses Dr. hart and his Old Life “theological Society.”
5 pejoratives in a single sentence. Even the left-wingers I know can barely debase the English language so thoroughly as you do here in such a short time.
Epistemologically compromised
confused
hypocritically
double standard
papists
Darryl, letting these people do your dirty work while pretending not to see it makes your anti-Catholicism look even more swinish.
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MichaelTX. Often this is called arrogant and I believe it is valid to say people took Christ this way often.
Hi Michael, probably, but Jesus wasn’t and the facts of His life/death testify to the fact that He stands alone in perfect humility-always humble in heart (Matt11:29) -w/His mindset: His equality not used to His own advantage; made Himself nothing; took on servant nature; as a man obedient to death on a cross (Phil 2:5-8)
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Michael from Texas,
No problems on anything friend.
You wrote,
>>I will say though… If the “finger of Satan, deceiver of men, and breaker of Moses’ laws” isn’t arrogant, then I don’t know what arrogant is. I didn’t say rude. I said arrogant. Christ was never taken for rude. Arrogant though? I think that can fit the bill. People thought He believed Himself to be more than He truly was.
>>
In your previous comment you analogized the RCC with Jesus, calling both arrogant.
I was contradicting the analogy. I like the way you ascribe arrogance to Jesus in your above quote. But I reject that the RCC is what it claims.
As I’ve said earlier in this post thread when discussing what a church is according to the apostles and Jesus, the RCC is much, much less than people believe.
Two opposing types of arrogance.
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Tom,
Well, actually, your splinter church [“Protestantism”] just kept splintering and splintering into dozens if not 1000s of churches. The Catholic Church stayed together, and so did the Eastern Orthodox–and they’re on pretty good terms, with the same priesthood and Eucharist and sacraments and all. The “Great Schism of 1054″ still left each intact, the “splintering” stopped there.
The Roman Catholic Church has stayed together organizationally in a nominal way, not theologically. If it had, I would know whether Nancy Pelosi’s position on abortion or Mother Teresa’s position on abortion was correct.
I don’t know what that means except it means you are your own magisterium.
It means that if the individual can correctly read and understand 500 years of conflicting RC documents plus 1,500 years of church history before that, then I can correctly read and understand the Bible. For a system who purportedly believes that there is a Word of God, it’s remarkably strange that God can’t communicate with his people through it.
You are not an expert in Hebrew or Greek, don’t understand the underlying theology. You are incapable of “reading the text rightly” on your own, indeed, even reading the original text atall at all.
Not to be prideful but:
1. I read Hebrew and Greek
2. I have two masters degrees in theology.
3. I have an essential knowledge of the principles of textual criticism embraced even by RC text scholars, particularly of the NT.
4. I have done post-graduate studies in the New Testament.
So your criticism doesn’t apply to me, but even if it did, I don’t need anything of what I just mentioned to be able to read and understand the basic message of the Bible.
You don’t even know what the original text is. there is this version from 250 AD and there is this fragment from 125 AD.
You’re going to have to take somebody’s word for it all. The only question is whose.
Well I certainly can’t take Rome’s word for it here since Rome has yet to produce an infallible edition of the Greek NT. Theoretically, the Magisterium could do it. Give us a critical text or tell us that Vaticanus or Sinaiticus or some other codex is the official reflection of the autographs.
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It was a priest fer crissakes, Robert. For informational purposes only. Your edification not mine, of something you should already know but obviously don’t.
And what’s your response? Not thx for the info, but parroting Darryl’s war on catholicism.
My response is what it is because if I were to quote a priest in opposition to the argument CVD produces and to which you are at least sympathetic, the response would be to put your fingers in your ears and say “a priest is not the Magisterium.”
Did you read the article? No. Because it was about the licitness of disagreeing with the pope, not economics. The larger point holds. You’re simply not listening.
Sure it is theoretically licit to disagree with the pope, but if that is the case, there goes the advantage of the papacy, as well as the perspicuity of Roman doctrine. We’ve already established that the peons in the pews don’t have the right to interpret dogma for themselves, so when the pope in an official teaching letter promulgates certain views of economics, or when he says things that are certainly unclear, and that’s being generous, the system starts to break down.
IOW, don’t go all papist on us when the pope ain’t helping your cause.
No, he throws Douthat at the wall to see what sticks–and only to attack, not defend the Catholic Church.
Darryl is simply pointing out that the liberal view that the dogma is changing isn’t just liberal. There are a good many conservatives to deal with who are very much afraid of what this current pope is doing. We don’t hear any of that from the CTC side. All we hear is that the church’s dogma is intact. But it’s not intact when Lutherans are free to take the Eucharist with impunity.
He should throw Augustine. That Dr. Hart is clearly afraid to discuss what really matters should be painfully obvious even to his fans. He pretends to be part of the discussion but is not. You are the discussion, Robert, and to a lesser degree, Jeff Cagle. The others have headed for the hills–and not out of boredom, but out of inability to hang at the grownup table.
I’m just a glutton for punishment, and talking helps me think through many issues. Everyone else has, quite correctly, seemed to have reasoned that there is no real reasoning with people who gloss over severe problems in the Roman system as if they don’t make Roman apologists look like credulous fools.
But Old Life does not state them fairly, Robert. Again and again. I don’t know why this is. Darryl is either stupid or dishonest.
But Darryl isn’t trying to critique the dogma in itself, at least not regularly. All he’s trying to do is to get CTC and the other people to be less triumphalistic. The Roman system isn’t giving better results when it pertains to orthodox theology and practice than Protestantism. In fact, the results are often far worse. And one can blame the entire mess of “Protestantism” on the papacy, so to purpose it as the only possible solution (as CTC does) is to propose a cure worse than the disease.
As Darryl keeps saying, CTC “started” this with its triumphalistic posturing. But its views do not represent the Magisterium or the vast majority of the laity. If they want to call to communion, they need to make the call honestly, and that’s just not happening. Those who are considering the call should at least have the courtesy of seeing the huge mess they are getting into if they swim the Tiber. Nobody in the OPC or the PCA is promising that if you become Presbyterian, all of the church’s problems will pass away.
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Darryl,
Um, I’m not assuming “catholic” means “Roman Catholic” – the citations of Augustine were to show his views on the authority of the church and tradition. Robert was asserting that either Augustine’s view was incompatible with the points I was advancing – which he never demonstrated – or that Augustine’s views were shared with Protestantism’s view of church authority – which he never demonstrated. And considering you and every other Protestant does not hold that the universal church cannot err, the distinction between catholic and Roman Catholic is immaterial to evaluating whether Augustine’s view of church and extra-scriptural authority is compatible with yours.
And the fuller citation you provided out of the many I provided did nothing to change that – that citation shows orthodox commentators “never tried to pervert these testimonies to an alien sense, because they were firmly established in our most ancient and solid faith, and were never moved aside by the novelty of error” – that is they were consistent with Tradition as protected by the church.
That’s why he then goes through faithful writers and concludes with “Well, then, let this writer [Pelagius] dare to call these Manicheans; let him, moreover, under this scandalous imputation asperse that most *ancient tradition of the Church*, whereby infants are, as I have said, exorcised with exsufflation, for the purpose of being translated into the kingdom of Christ, after they are delivered from the power of darkness — that is to say, of the devil and his angels. As for ourselves, indeed, we are more ready to be associated with these men, and with the *Church of Christ, so firmly rooted in this ancient faith,* in suffering any amount of curse and contumely, than with the Pelagians, to be covered with the flattery of public praise.”
#learntoreadbetter
“Read Brian Tierney and Francis Oakley, two Roman Catholic historians of substance, and then see if you buy those claims so gullibly.”
Yes, and I should read Kung and Brown and every other liberal under the sun, and ignore all conservative RC scholars with comparable erudition and qualifications, because conservatives are fundy idiots who haven’t gotten up to speed and don’t get to count according to you. Please read only liberal textual critics and historical scholars and then see if you buy the claims of the Protestant canon of Scripture or its inspiration and inerrancy so gullibly.
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Robert
Posted November 24, 2015 at 9:34 am | Permalink
Tom,
Well, actually, your splinter church [“Protestantism”] just kept splintering and splintering into dozens if not 1000s of churches. The Catholic Church stayed together, and so did the Eastern Orthodox–and they’re on pretty good terms, with the same priesthood and Eucharist and sacraments and all. The “Great Schism of 1054″ still left each intact, the “splintering” stopped there.
The Roman Catholic Church has stayed together organizationally in a nominal way, not theologically.
The Catholic Church is quite visible to everyone except those who don’t want to see it.
If it had, I would know whether Nancy Pelosi’s position on abortion or Mother Teresa’s position on abortion was correct.
Obtuse, of course you know. You know it’s Mother Teresa’s. Here for the 5th time is Pelosi being corrected by her bishop.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/san-fran-archbishop-responds-to-pelosi-no-catholic-can-dissent-in-good-cons
Wearin’ me out, Robert.
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Robert:
Well I certainly can’t take Rome’s word for it here since Rome has yet to produce an infallible edition of the Greek NT. Theoretically, the Magisterium could do it. Give us a critical text or tell us that Vaticanus or Sinaiticus or some other codex is the official reflection of the autographs.>>>>>>
Robert, you do realize that you just did damage to your own claim to having an infallible rule of faith and practice, don’t you?
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Jeff,
JRC: “Some did accept, some did reject. That’s the point of a standard of common consent: We will not accept books that were partially accepted, partially rejected.”
CVD: But 2 Peter and Revelation and Hebrews and others you accept were partially accepted and disputed. What to do?
– This is a reasonable question. It goes to the question of evidence. Are all books equally contested, or are there are some that are clearly accepted as canonical by the large majority and others not?”
So now we see things aren’t so clear. Elsewhere, you argued for the standard for your canon being universal consent by the pre-1054 “church”. You did not explain why you excluded all the pre-1054 groups I listed from counting as part of the “church”, or why this “church” should guide your belief on the canon but not on other doctrines you freely reject. But let’s just let that slide for now.
Now, it’s well universal consent, except when there wasn’t universal consent and then we bring in other criteria. And now we appeal to “large majority” but you don’t appeal to “large majority” when it comes to Calvinist doctrine and exclude the “large majority” of the contemporary “church” that rejects Calvinism. Similarly, you reject beliefs the “large majority” of the pre-1054 “church” accepted such as baptismal regeneration, the ecclesiology and nature of church authority, and infused justification. So everything seems rather ad hoc and special pleading.
“Who rejected 2 Peter and on what basis? Revelation? Hebrews?”
They were disputed due to questions on authorship. Apostolicity of those Scriptures is part of Tradition – something you reject as an infallible authority.
“CVD: Also, did the pre-1054 church accept passages in your canon as inspired you now reject or asterisk as authentic? So what do we do there?
– You mean, such as the Johannine comma? To re-quote Pius XII, we follow the rules of textual criticism.”
So once again, we see the universal consent of the pre-1054 “church” isn’t the standard. RCism doesn’t hold to SS as the rule of faith. That’s why textual criticism and historical criticism can be employed and viewed as a useful, but limited, tool – it’s given a proper and limited context within the RC rule of faith – Raymond Brown and others didn’t nullify councils and dogmas. But apparently SS as the rule of faith can still coherently function with a sliced and diced canon that continues to be sliced and diced. How that works I have no clue.
“That’s enough. Here’s the point. What happened at Trent, which was by no means an ecumenical council, was that by a narrow vote in which Cajetan himself dissented, a canonical list was “infallibly” declared that ran contrary to the views of a substantial voice in the Church.”
And here we see again the question begging on “church”. Why could not any heretical group pre-1054 make this exact same argument against the ecumenical councils condemning them? Why are Rome and the East that both rejected Protestant doctrines (including its canon) not counted as “a substantial voice in the Church” by your side then or now? Why are all the contemporary Protestant groups I listed not counted as “a substantial voice in the Church” by your side and only those subscribing to WCF, LBCF, Augsburg, 39 Articles get to count?
“Here’s the point: Trent did not represent the unanimous consent of the fathers on the canon.”
And apparently you don’t follow your view of the “unanimous consent of the fathers of the canon” since you have books in your canon certain fathers disputed and dispute certain passages they accepted. So it’s more special pleading.
“In fact, it didn’t even represent a strong majority of the fathers on the canon.”
So since a majority of bishops were Arian, Arianism should’ve been affirmed rather than condemned? Calvinism did not even represent a strong majority of Protestants, and Protestantism did not even represent a strong majority of Christianity as both Rome and the East rejected it. So by your standard, you should give up Calvinism.
“And here’s the point in the context of the larger argument: The Protestant view of the canon is to receive as Scripture only those books that the church has universally consented to. Not Luther, not Calvin, but the church from the first century on.”
Except those books it accepts that weren’t universally accepted, and those passages it rejects that were accepted.
“That church is not limited to the provincial and poorly-attended council of Trent.”
Doesn’t explain why the East blew it on the canon by your lights. Any heretic in history could make this argument. Arminians weren’t represented at Dort, so Dort must not count. The Reformed don’t invite all those contemporary groups I listed to shape their confessions and catechisms, so they are provincial and exclusionary. You need to address your question begging of “church” before you continue to advance this type of argument.
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Tom,
Obtuse, of course you know. You know it’s Mother Teresa’s. Here for the 5th time is Pelosi being corrected by her bishop.
Has Pelosi been excommunicated or denied the Eucharist? Not to my knowledge. If you have other information, I’d be glad to see it. Otherwise, her position is de fact orthodox.
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Mermaid,
Robert, you do realize that you just did damage to your own claim to having an infallible rule of faith and practice, don’t you?
How?
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Well, Robert, like I keep saying. I like you.
It’s just what do you do with the story of the woman taken in adultery? What do you do with the 16th Chapter of Mark? They are in the Bible and have been for a long, long time now.
They have been taught as the very Word of God all that time. They still are.
Do you trust them as part of what we both accept as the infallible Word of God? Who gets to decide?
What about other discoveries? Doesn’t it cast doubt on the whole NT? I know it doesn’t for you, Robert, but how do you tell others that it should or should not be kept in the NT?
It was taken as Scripture at least by Augustine. I mention him because you accept him as small “c” catholic and you give him a certain amount of credibility if not authority. Now, I don’t know who Ed Smith is, but he gives a link to the primary source. Smith seems to be a credible, Evangelical scholar. Well, he links to a translation of the primary source. Well, a translation of a reliable manuscript of Augustine. 🙂
————————————————————————————
Preaching from this passage in the fifth century, Augustine (Tractates on the Gospel of John 33.6-7) helpfully comments on this tension between mercy and holiness and how we tend to love the first but are slow to embrace the second:
“Neither will I condemn you.” What is this, 0 Lord? Do you therefore favor sins? Not so, evidently. Mark what follows: “Go and sin no more.” Therefore the Lord did also condemn, but condemned sins, not the sinner. For if he was a patron of sin, he would say, Neither will I condemn you; go, live as you will; be secure in my deliverance, however much you will to sin. I will deliver you from all punishment even of hell, and from the tormentors of the infernal world. He did not say this. Let them pay attention, then, who love his gentleness in the Lord, and let them fear his truth…. The Lord is gentle, the Lord is long suffering, the Lord is full of pity; but the Lord is also just, the Lord is also true. He bestows on you an interval for correction, but you love the delay of judgment more than the amendment of your ways (cited in Oden and Elowsky, On the Way to the Cross: 40 Days with the Church Fathers. Kindle Location 640-643).”
http://www.edsmither.com/blog/augustine-on-jesus-and-the-woman-caught-in-adultery
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Jeff,
Lest I be accused of not being a man of my word, here is reply to your earlier round 1 from the other thread. Much is overlap with what we’re discussing already, but I figured why not.
On one hand, you say “I would counter that the model of believing the person rather than the message is not the NT model of faith, nor of authority. I would radically reject that entire picture of faith and understanding on the grounds that the Bible knows nothing of it.”
On the other, “In the NT, only one Person is held up as the one in whom we place our faith.”
So which is it?
“For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.”
Yup. Doesn’t mean the Apostles weren’t infallible or those hearing them weren’t to submit to them rather than endlessly debate and argue with them after assenting to their claims to authority.
“But authority is never presented as the right to command belief upon the strength of the person.”
So you are contending everyone who assented to Christ was then justified in constantly debating and arguing with his teachings and only holding His current and future teachings in a tentative and provisional matter – rather than something analogous to the certitude of faith you claim is illegitimate – after that supposed assent to His authority. You are contending the same applied for prophets, apostles, and those that were divinely authorized and sent by Christ. Because only the message matters, not the authority of the one delivering it.
“I cannot think of a place in which a NT speaker other than Jesus points to his own person or his own authority as the ground for belief.”
And as I said earlier in this thread at end of page 1:
“You: I asked where in the Bible that the apostles (not Christ) claim “divine authority and ability to distinguish and define divine revelation/irreformable dogma from provisional opinion or tentative human teaching.
– Me: So you apparently agree Christ claimed and had this authority and ability, but the Apostles did not. Now, can you tell me why your argument is not impacted by Christ’s authority and ability to do so, but would be affected by the Apostle’s authority and ability to do so (if it was demonstrated they claimed such authority and ability)?”
“Accordingly, authorities in both OT and NT are considered to have authority, but provisional upon actual truthfulness.”
So adherents were supposed to constantly hold open for debate, re-evaluation, argument, and to provisionally and tentatively hold those teachings. They could go with the message if they were convinced for the time being, but needed to hold out room for doubt in case they changed their minds.
“But if their prophecy failed to come true, they were to be deposed and executed.”
Yup. Because then they were a false prophet. The evidence for the credibility of their claims was lacking and false. That does not entail the claim to divine authority true prophets made was unnecessary and superfluous in the first place, which is what you are arguing. False messiahs existed. So did Christ. But your argument would entail Christ’s claims to authority were unnecessary, which contradicts what you claim at the beginning of this post. The claim was necessary – that’s why both false and true prophets/messiahs/apostles made it.
“Note carefully that the people were commanded to check the words of the prophet against reality. ”
Yup. And the faithful check the words of popes and bishops against STM-triad.
“Note carefully that the ground for belief is the truthfulness of the gospel because its source is direct revelation from Jesus. At no point does Paul present his own authority as the ground for their belief, and he even disqualifies the authority of himself, or of angels, or of any apostle to overturn the message.”
And RCism claims the truthfulness of its infallible teachings and authority is guided and protected by the Holy Spirit and Christ’s promises, not due to itself or of “human origin”. So this doesn’t advance anything.
Further, you’re ignoring what Paul says at the very beginning – “[E]ven if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you,” – what’s the standard – the message he preached to them that they received. He’s not saying, “that gospel I preached, it could’ve been wrong, but probably wasn’t, so feel free to hold it tentatively” – that wouldn’t be consistent with him commanding his adherents to use it as the baseline standard.
And of course that would make his entire command you cite here self-defeating as well – you’re arguing his message to compare against the baseline was itself provisional and subject to revision and change. Your view makes the apostles incoherent.
“So your statement, “I am not justified in holding any future or current teaching of the authority assented to as provisional or tentative…” is exactly backwards from the Biblical position.”
Not demonstrated thus far. Paul wasn’t saying to his adherents “my gospel is provisional”, nor was he saying “my command to test against my gospel is provisional”. Peter said “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” not “I might be wrong about this, but probably am not, and you guys can tentatively hold to it, but leave room for some doubt and future revision”.
“In the Bible, prophets, apostles, and angels are viewed as potentially able to teach falsehood, and their utterances should be tested against known truth.”
And how was the “known truth” that’s the standard first established in the first place? In your system, it’s semper reformanda all the way down. Everything can be debated and is subject to revision. That’s not the faith we see reflected in the bible.
” I am unable to find any passage in which the hearers placed their faith in Peter, Paul, or the apostles.”
So Peter and Paul and the Apostles did not make claims to any infallible divine authority right? Of course they did – they claimed to be speaking for God. That’s the whole point. And you still have to show how Christ who you concede the point on, doesn’t affect your argument, but the Apostles would if the point was shown to apply to them.
“Amos had no sacramentally conferred authority, but God spoke to him and expected the authorities to listen to him”
So are there any in Protestantism claiming the authority of prophets right now? God spoke to Amos – that’s the point (again). If a Protestant church or person was claiming God was speaking to them a la Amos or Abraham, that would move the discussion forward. But obviously no one does that.
“On the speaking side, prophecy does not occur by virtue of authority, but because of the direct work of the Spirit ”
And RCism claims it is protected by the HS when teaching dogma and infallibly. So this also doesn’t advance anything.
“On the interpreting side, the meaning of prophecy is not subject to one’s own interpretation — I cannot twist Scripture whichever way I wish and declare my meaning “correct.””
Exactly right. But RCism contends Protestants and the Reformation did exactly that. Hence the argument during the Reformation asking where the Reformers got their authority to foist their alien sense upon the Scriptures.
“Peter was sharply rebuked by Paul. It is likely that Paul erred in disputing with Mark and Barnabus.”
Conflating discipline/practice with dogma. Peter rebuked by Paul is like papal apologetics 101. Come on.
“Namely, it is entirely possible for an authority to be wrong. Hence, it is an error to reason from authority to unprovisional acceptance.”
It is certainly possible for an authority to be wrong. There have been many errant bishops, priests, and popes. And that is perfectly compatible with RC claims to authority and infallibility, which has a limited, not unlimited, scope.
“On your model, they would logically have had to embrace Peter’s words and actions even when he was wrong. And I am sure that we agree that this is absurd conclusion.”
Not any more than RCs throughout history would logically have had to embrace a pope or bishops words and actions even when they were wrong. You’re not distinguishing between when infallibility applies and when it does not, which is causing your errors.
“In short, Scripture knows nothing of unprovisionally accepting the words of an authority on the ground of his authority. ”
Only it does, as shown above.
“The exception, of course, is Jesus — precisely because He is the omniscient and infallible God of the Universe. He alone is capable not merely of proclaiming truth, but defining it.”
Great. So you concede the point with Jesus. And his adherents and followers were still fallible. So there goes the vulcan mindmeld argument. Further, there goes the rest of your argument that every teaching must remain provisional and there can be no certitude of faith – you’re affirming such applied in the case of Jesus. As said above, “Now, can you tell me why your argument is not impacted by Christ’s authority and ability to do so, but would be affected by the Apostle’s authority and ability to do so (if it was demonstrated they claimed such authority and ability)?”
“If we are to be true to the Biblical model of teaching and authority, we must reject the one you have presented.”
Perhaps you can offer something more compelling than this effort. All I see so far is reinforcement the RC model is more faithful to the Biblical witness.
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Robert
Posted November 24, 2015 at 5:10 pm | Permalink
Tom,
Obtuse, of course you know. You know it’s Mother Teresa’s. Here for the 5th time is Pelosi being corrected by her bishop.
Has Pelosi been excommunicated or denied the Eucharist? Not to my knowledge. If you have other information, I’d be glad to see it. Otherwise, her position is de fact orthodox.
That is not logical. No church of over a billion souls can discipline them all, nor do their sins diminish the church itself.
Pelosi’s a lay person. Theonomist nutberger Kevin Swanson is a pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Does that make his theonomy “orthodox?”
http://www.joemygod.com/2015/11/08/pastor-kevin-swanson-lets-not-execute-homosexuals-until-they-have-a-chance-to-repent-video/
We’re going past the point of discussion to
absurdities now, Robert.
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James Young, mebbe “that most *ancient tradition of the Church” doesn’t mean Rome. Mebbe it means Jerusalem. You act like Augustine was bishop of Rome or something.
Fine if you want to ignore history even though the claims of infallibility originated well after the early church. Some historians are honest about that. Fundamentalists only call them liberal. Yup. Um. For sure.
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James Young, “You need to address your question begging of “church” before you continue to advance this type of argument.”
We’re here for you since you are incapable of starting your own Roman Catholic Answers website. Yup. Cool.
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James Young, “And the faithful check the words of popes and bishops against STM-triad.”
I’m sorry, but we’ve already established that even the likes of you shrug. Checking my arse.
But there you go again with all the converts on theory over fact. Be careful during holiday travels. I’m not confident in your powers of observation. Um.
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Darryl,
Yep, maybe “that most *ancient tradition of the Church” doesn’t mean Rome. Maybe it means the East have it right. Either way, he doesn’t share your view of church authority/tradition in that citation or the others given, so your fuller citation didn’t do anything but reinforce the point. #strongsauce
“Fine if you want to ignore history even though the claims of infallibility originated well after the early church. Some historians are honest about that. Fundamentalists only call them liberal.”
Ah, so Tierney’s all good. Since you like referencing random dudes on CAF, maybe a random dude on amazon will suffice:
“Tierney’s book is indeed a scholarly work and has many merits. However, his central thesis about Pope John XXII has been refuted in James Heft’s “John XXII and Papal Teaching Authority” (1986). I strongly recommend that all readers of Tierney’s book also read the critical reviews of it by A.M. Stickler (and the exchange between Stickler and Tierney) in the Catholic Historical Review (Oct.,1974 and April, 1975) along with J.A. Watt’s insightful comments in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History (Jan., 1974). Both Stickler and Watt are renowned scholars. As you will see Tierney is hardly the last word on this issue.
Wiki:
Theological history
Pope Leo XIII, as Bishop of Rome and successor of the Apostle Peter, represented as guiding the ship of God’s Church (painting by Friedrich Stummel in Kevelaer Shrine 1903).[31] Klaus Schatz asserts that “it is impossible to fix a single author or era as the starting point” for the doctrine of papal infallibility. Others such as Brian Tierney have argued that the doctrine of papal infallibility was first proposed by Peter Olivi in the Middle Ages. Schatz and others see the roots of the doctrine as going much further back to the early days of Christianity.
Brian Tierney argued that the Franciscan priest Peter Olivi was the first person to attribute infallibility to the Pope.[32] His idea was accepted by August Bernhard Hasler, and by Gregory Lee Jackson,[33] It was rejected by James Heft,[34] and by John V. Kruse.[35] Klaus Schatz says Olivi by no means played the key role assigned to him by Tierney, who failed to acknowledge the work of earlier canonists and theologians, and that the crucial advance in the teaching came only in the 15th century, two centuries after Olivi; and he declares that “it is impossible to fix a single author or era as the starting point”.[36] Ulrich Horst criticized the Tierney view for the same reasons.[37] In his Protestant evaluation of the ecumenical issue of papal infallibility, Mark E. Powell rejects Tierney’s theory about 13th-century Olivi, saying that the doctrine of papal infallibility defined at Vatican I had its origins in the 14th century–he refers in particular to Bishop Guido Terreni–and was itself part of a long development of papal claims.[38]
But all people who disagree with Tierney are fundy idiots or dishonest. Except that Schatz also rejects conservative claims on the papacy, and yet says Tierney is out to lunch. Hmm.
Tierney’s reply to Stickler:
“Father Stickler’s basic assertion is that a scholar who sets out to write the history of a theological doctrine must write as a theologian. This apparently involves, not only accepting the truth of current doctrinal formulations, but also interpreting the data of the past in accordance with them. Obviously this is not the way in which historians do their work. The whole vocation of being a historian consists in an effort of self-discipline whereby the historian seeks to free himself from the presuppositions of the present in order to understand the past in its own terms. It will sometimes happen then that the historian’s enhanced understanding of the past will change his perception of the present. This was my own experience with papal infallibility.”
That is trademark liberalism. Compare with Ratzinger (echoing the patristic understanding of Scripture in the context of Tradition and the church):
“The link between Bible and Church has been broken. Historico-critical interpretation of Scripture has made of it an entity independent of the Church: The Bible is read not starting from the Church and in company with the Church, but starting from the latest method claiming to be “scientific.” Only thus it is asserted, can the Bible be read correctly ….
Thus the final word on the Word of God no longer belongs to the lawful pastors, to the magisterium, but to the expert, to the professor, to everchangeable hypotheses. We must begin to see the limits of an exegesis which really is itself a reading conditioned by philosophical prejudices, by ideological pre-understandings, and which does nothing but substitute one philosophy for another.”
And “Broad circles in theology seem to have forgotten that the subject who pursues theology is not the individual scholar but the Catholic community as a whole, the entire Church…. In any case, the last word about the Word of God as Word of God does not in this conception belong to the legitimate pastors, the Magisterium, but to the expert, the professor with his ever-provisional results always subject to revisions …
Scripture has again become a closed book. It has become the object of experts. The layman, but also the specialist in theology who is not an exegete, can no longer hazard to talk about it. It seems to have almost been withdrawn from the reading and the reflection of the believer, for what would result from this would be dismissed as “dilettantish’. The science of the specialists has erected a fence around the garden of Scripture to which the nonexpert now no longer has entry ….
Every Catholic must have the courage to believe that his faith (in communion with that of the Church) surpasses every ‘new magisterium’ of the experts, of the intellectuals … The rule of faith, yesterday as today, is not based on the discoveries (be they true or hypothetical) of biblical sources and layers but on the Bible just as it is, as it has been read in the Church since the time of the Fathers until now. It is precisely the fidelity to this reading of the Bible that has given us the saints, who were often uneducated and, at any rate, frequently knew nothing about exegetical contexts. Yet they were the ones who understood it best.”
Hmm those criticisms sound awfully familiar in the context of discussions in this thread.
But it’s cool – I expect you’ll be letting Enns and Ehrman know you’re available for any blurbs? #doublestandards
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 24, 2015 at 9:15 pm | Permalink
James Young, “You need to address your question begging of “church” before you continue to advance this type of argument.”
We’re here for you since you are incapable of starting your own Roman Catholic Answers website. Yup. Cool.
It is cool. Your surrogates can’t hold up their end of the discussion and your own inability and fear of participating and holding up the “Protestant” end of the discussion is painfully obvious.
So you mock.
Quite. Whatever Augustine meant by “the authority of the catholic church,” you clearly don’t have it and are loath to claim it, because the claim is laughable.
You’re not even in the discussion, just an expectorator.
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It’s a shame that CVD’s deep research is not read here, or if it is read it’s not understood, or if it’s understood it’s glossed over, ignored.
I like Brian Tierney: He can read medieval Latin as few can: He understands the Catholic Church’s pronouncements on Canon Law.
But Tierney is not a theologian, and the criticisms of his theologizing are not criticisms of his scholarship-linguistics-philology, but of the very real possibility that he just doesn’t understand the underlying theology.
The “experts” are not such experts afterall. That we would put the authority on the Bible, the Holy Scriptures–the sola scriptura–into their hands instead of the hands of the Church that Christ founded and which the Holy Spirit descended upon–well that’s
Tierney’s reply to Stickler:
That is trademark liberalism. Compare with Ratzinger (echoing the patristic understanding of Scripture in the context of Tradition and the church):
And
Hmm those criticisms sound awfully familiar in the context of discussions in this thread.
The Catholic Church hears and understands the philological and theological debate. “Protestantism” refuses to consider the rebuttal, that Christ left behind a Church, not a synagogue.
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TVD:
The question is not the philology, it is by what authority you proclaim these things. The Catholic Church answers ‘by the Holy Spirit,” Augustine assents, yes, the Holy Spirit is the authority of the catholic church.>>>><
Philology has no spiritual authority. All it can do is help the translator gain a better understanding of the usage of a word or how grammar works. Things like that.
I am surprised that 2 Kers fall into what for them seems to be a contradiction. I mean, there is no such thing as a Christian goat breeder, but there is such a thing as a Christian philologist or grammarian or linguist or translator?
Of course, linguistics can be used to serve the cause of Christ, but there is nothing particularly Christian about linguistics. We all use words no matter what our religious beliefs may be. Words are to literature what colors are to paining and sounds are to music. They are tools. They represent things and concepts of all kinds. They are used to communicate messages of all kinds. The same words that are used in Scripture are used in daily life even by atheists.
It looks like there are a few words in the NT that are special, but mostly the Bible words were taken from daily conversation.
A linguist has no special authority over the teachings of the Church.
So, are 2kers arguing for the authority of the textual critics to determine the canon of Scripture? I hope they are not. Sure, the Church will consult experts in language. The Church dare not allow them to control the canon of Scripture.
I would think that Protestants should feel the same way. Philologists have no special spiritual authority just because of their profession. So, what are you 2Kers going to do with the story of the woman caught in adultery?
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Mermaid,
It’s just what do you do with the story of the woman taken in adultery? What do you do with the 16th Chapter of Mark? They are in the Bible and have been for a long, long time now.
You don’t take them as Scripture if in fact they are not Scripture.
They have been taught as the very Word of God all that time. They still are.
Do you trust them as part of what we both accept as the infallible Word of God? Who gets to decide?
But this is not accurate. The reason why the passages are in question is because they haven’t been taught as the very Word of God all that time and don’t appear in the oldest manuscripts. Who gets to decide what belongs in Mark? Mark does. John? John.
What about other discoveries? Doesn’t it cast doubt on the whole NT? I know it doesn’t for you, Robert, but how do you tell others that it should or should not be kept in the NT?
The reason why we can see that Mark 16 and John 8:1–11 are exceedingly doubtful is because the text of the NT has been so well preserved. You seem to want to substitute the evidence of history for the church’s claim that it has infallibly preserved the text of Scripture (does Rome even make that claim?) That’s the exact claim that Islam makes for the Qur’an, and there’s very little textual history to confirm or deny it. Its a fideistic approach that is echoed by some of you when it comes to Rome.
You also have the bigger problem of Roman Catholic-endorsed textual criticism. There’s no reason for the pope to endorse textual criticism, particularly critics who conclude that John 8:1–11 and Mark 16 aren’t original, if it makes the claim to have perfectly preserved the text of Scripture
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James Young, now comments at Amazon is deep scholarship according to vd, t? Can you say desperate? Sure you can. Yup.
The leading journal of medieval studies gives Tierney all sorts of props. If you want to counteract that with a book published by a vanity press (Mellen), that’s your call.
But here’s the thing. The Roman Catholic world of scholarship recognizes Tierney. And so somehow all the advantages of papal infallibility that it gives to the church has not prevented the likes of Tierney or his arguments as emerging as mainstream at Roman Catholic universities.
If you want to console yourself that you’re not a fundamentalist, fine. But your church has moved on from you. I advise you follow Boniface at Unam Sanctam. He might have more insight for you.
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vd, t, and when did you stop being confused?
So on the one hand, you insist that historians should leave theology out. And you say your own personal practice is irrelevant to your “comments.”
On the other hand, theology informing history is deep research.
I wonder if you are aware of how James Young’s “deep research” (heh heh) is at odds with your point.
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James Young, yes, to accept reality is liberal:
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James Young, but there’s hope:
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Darryl,
That’s very interesting about the Franciscans proposing the doctrine in order to limit papal sovereignty. If so, that’s quite the backdrop to V1’s promulgation of the doctrine precisely as it was losing political sovereignty.
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Robert, ding.
For a church that is so big on history and tradition, the apologists rarely do any work with real history. It’s just a club to beat up on little old Protestants. They do have a view of the church and dogma similar to fundamentalists’ dictation theory of biblical inspiration. Their problem is that popes and bishops left many more records than apostles and prophets.
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I’ve spilled a lot of electronic ink on this, so this will probably be my last comment (at least extensively) on the matter for some time. The basic contention of CVD and the CTC guys is that without a claim to infallibility, one has no warrant for faith or the certitude of faith. There are many critiques that could be leveled here, but in my mind there are some significant issues that need to be dealt with if the argument is going to be any way plausible to a confessional Protestant.
1. Typically when we point to Scripture, we get the response of “how do you even know what is Scripture” because the apologists believe that we can’t have a warrant of faith regarding Scripture unless we have an infallible canon declaration.
In this, however, our RC interlocutors end up having Jesus commend people for their trust in their Hebrew Scriptures even though they had no warrant to do so. If CVD is right, then Jesus is commending them for being fideists, which Rome is supposed to eschew.
After all, many books of the OT do not contain within them a direct claim to being Scripture or to being infallible. Think all the historical books. Yet Jesus clearly saw them as Scripture and expected his hearers to do the same even before he said anything about them. So, if one wants to be true to Jesus, there is warrant to believe books are Scripture without any infallible canon claim. Otherwise, Jesus is a sinner for condemning people when they did not know the Scriptures that He expected them to know and receive as Scripture.
The common response has been: “But Judaism was not a sola Scriptura religion.” Leaving aside the fact that the response more often than not reflects a misunderstanding of sola Scriptura, let’s assume that it is correct. My point stands. The argument is that we have no warrant to believe or have certitude of faith about something to which infallibility is not imputed. But there was no infallible canon declaration in Judaism prior to the end of the first century AD (if you want to say they were infallible), and Rome certainly doesn’t hold Jewish tradition to be infallible.
In sum, Jesus treatment of the OT and expectations of the audience mean that one does not need an infallible canon declaration in order to have a warrant of faith to believe Genesis or 2 Kings is Scripture. Therefore, CVD’s broader argument is invalidated by Christ Himself.
2. If CVD is correct, then Hebrews 11 is false and in error for praising the faith of so many of the individuals in it. Rahab may be the best example. If you read her story in Joshua 2, we have a woman who has no direct encounter with the miracles of the exodus. All she had was the testimony of others, even others who were pagans, of what had happened with the Israelites. Furthermore, the spies she hid made no claim of infallibility. The best we can say that she had to go on was fallible oral tradition. Yet Hebrews 11 says she acted in faith by hiding the Hebrew spies. If that is so, then a claim of infallibility is unnecessary to give the warrant of faith, and the Bible again invalidates the argument. If we accept the premises of CVD, Rahab had no warrant to do what she did and, in fact, should have been able to turn over the spies with impunity given that she had no basis for faith. More importantly, if CVD is right, then Hebrews 11 errs in commending Rahab, meaning that Rome has fallibly declared Hebrews Scripture, invalidating the church’s claims to infalliblity on the matter.
3. CVD’s argument cannot coherently explain how anyone has the warrant of faith to believe a dogma until it is dogmatically defined. The example I keep raising is the deity of Christ. What warrant was there before Nicea to believe this dogma if, indeed, CVD is correct?
a. You can’t say Scripture and maintain the need for an infallible canon declaration. No infallible canon exists before Nicea and the churches are not unified on what counts and what doesn’t count as Scripture. All you can point to is common reception of certain books, but there is no way for John Doe in the 2nd century to know that the reception has been infallible.
b. Unified church teaching—but there was Arianism and other heresies being taught in churches that had a purported Apostolic lineage, so you don’t have “unified” teaching.
c. No magisterial declaration exists.
Therefore, nobody had warrant to believe in the deity of Christ prior to Nicea, if Cletus was correct.
Further, consider the Assumption. The example of common practice/belief as being infallible and giving reason for the warrant of faith is invalidated by the laity asking for a definition of the dogma. If there is certainty of faith, why ask for the church to clarify things? So, prior to the declaration of the Assumption, there is no warrant for faith in that dogma.
There are other issues as well, but given the above, the argument that a specific claim to infallibility is necessary in order to justify belief fails.
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Robert
Posted November 25, 2015 at 6:25 am | Permalink
Mermaid,
It’s just what do you do with the story of the woman taken in adultery? What do you do with the 16th Chapter of Mark? They are in the Bible and have been for a long, long time now.
Robert:
You don’t take them as Scripture if in fact they are not Scripture.>>>>>
Who decides that?
I said:
They have been taught as the very Word of God all that time. They still are.
Do you trust them as part of what we both accept as the infallible Word of God? Who gets to decide?
Robert:
But this is not accurate. The reason why the passages are in question is because they haven’t been taught as the very Word of God all that time and don’t appear in the oldest manuscripts. Who gets to decide what belongs in Mark? Mark does. John? John.>>>>>
The story of the woman caught in adultery was not questioned until a manuscript was discovered a few years ago that did not have that story. You know that.
I said:
What about other discoveries? Doesn’t it cast doubt on the whole NT? I know it doesn’t for you, Robert, but how do you tell others that it should or should not be kept in the NT?>>>>
Robert:
The reason why we can see that Mark 16 and John 8:1–11 are exceedingly doubtful is because the text of the NT has been so well preserved. You seem to want to substitute the evidence of history for the church’s claim that it has infallibly preserved the text of Scripture (does Rome even make that claim?) That’s the exact claim that Islam makes for the Qur’an, and there’s very little textual history to confirm or deny it. Its a fideistic approach that is echoed by some of you when it comes to Rome.>>>>
Your approach is based on your acceptance of the infallible rule of faith and practice – until further notice. See, this is eye opening for me. I did not know that conservative Reformed theologians allowed for so much uncertainty. It does explain why the majority of Reformed denominations have now apostatized. How many Calvinists and Lutherans still believe in the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ, for example?
Textual criticism moves in. Orthodoxy moves out. Did you read the excerpts from Pope Benedict?
The Church – or church if you prefer – determines the canon of Scripture with other criteria. The decision is not based solely on textual criticism. You know that. It is a very dangerous thing spiritually to put that decision in the hands of textual criticism.
Robert:
You also have the bigger problem of Roman Catholic-endorsed textual criticism. There’s no reason for the pope to endorse textual criticism, particularly critics who conclude that John 8:1–11 and Mark 16 aren’t original, if it makes the claim to have perfectly preserved the text of Scripture>>>>>>
The Old Life shrug and dodge. “Critics who conclude” should not determine the canon of Scripture even for Protestants.
You are putting all your faith in textual criticism. You know where that has led others. Sure, maybe you will be able to continue to teach the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice, but others could not resist the urge to go ahead and cast doubt on the whole thing based on textual criticism.
It is a battle that most of Protestantism has lost. Is the Catholic Church also in danger? Of course. We have an enemy who does not sleep. He is our common enemy. The Catholic Church is not your enemy, but is fighting the same enemies you are.
It seems to me that the most consistent thing that you would say about the canon of Scripture is that good Christians have disagreements about what the canon is. Each side presents their arguments. It is a few Old Testament books that Protestants question. Otherwise, there is only one Bible and we all need to defend it as the very Word of God.
It seems that you guys protest too much. I can only speculate as to why. It does not make sense.
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.
Robert: You don’t take them as Scripture if in fact they are not Scripture.>>>>>
Mermaid: Who decides that?
You need someone to tell you that you don’t take non-Scripture as Scripture.
The story of the woman caught in adultery was not questioned until a manuscript was discovered a few years ago that did not have that story. You know that.
That is incorrect. We’ve known for centuries that there are serious textual problems with John 8:1–11. It doesn’t appear in Vaticanus, which your church owns!
Your approach is based on your acceptance of the infallible rule of faith and practice – until further notice.
What are you talking about?
See, this is eye opening for me. I did not know that conservative Reformed theologians allowed for so much uncertainty.
What are you talking about? Your own church endorses scholarship that renders uncertain in an essentially insignificant way the content of John and Mark. I agree with your church on this. I guess that means Rome is allowing “for so much uncertainty.”
It does explain why the majority of Reformed denominations have now apostatized. How many Calvinists and Lutherans still believe in the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ, for example?
If you can be a true Lutheran or Calvinist and deny the bodily resurrection, then you can be a true Roman Catholic and spit on the pope.
Textual criticism moves in. Orthodoxy moves out. Did you read the excerpts from Pope Benedict?
What are you talking about. And if this is so, why does Rome endorse textual criticism?
The Church – or church if you prefer – determines the canon of Scripture with other criteria.
The church receives the canon; it does not determine it.
The decision is not based solely on textual criticism. You know that. It is a very dangerous thing spiritually to put that decision in the hands of textual criticism.
Textual criticism and canonicity are different issues. Now maybe you can explain to me which orthodox doctrine is lost if we lose Mark 16 and John 8:1–11? You are starting to sound like the RC equivalent of a KJVonlyist.
The Old Life shrug and dodge. “Critics who conclude” should not determine the canon of Scripture even for Protestants.
Canonicity is a different issue than textual criticism. But the point stands: If textual criticism is so bad, why does Rome endorse it?
You are putting all your faith in textual criticism.
I’m putting faith in God to preserve His Word. Where is the Roman Catholic officially designated autographs?
You know where that has led others. Sure, maybe you will be able to continue to teach the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice, but others could not resist the urge to go ahead and cast doubt on the whole thing based on textual criticism.
??????
It is a battle that most of Protestantism has lost. Is the Catholic Church also in danger? Of course. We have an enemy who does not sleep. He is our common enemy. The Catholic Church is not your enemy, but is fighting the same enemies you are.
We have some common enemies. But Rome and Geneva are enemies at several significant points.
It seems to me that the most consistent thing that you would say about the canon of Scripture is that good Christians have disagreements about what the canon is. Each side presents their arguments. It is a few Old Testament books that Protestants question. Otherwise, there is only one Bible and we all need to defend it as the very Word of God.
It seems that you guys protest too much. I can only speculate as to why. It does not make sense.
None of this follows. The only significant disagreement is between Protestants and Rome/the East on the extent of the OT canon. But Protestants have Jesus on our side. It is clear that Jesus affirmed the traditional Jewish canon.
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vd, t, look! Liberal squirrels.
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Robert
Posted November 25, 2015 at 1:10 pm | Permalink
.
Robert: You don’t take them as Scripture if in fact they are not Scripture.>>>>>
Mermaid: Who decides that?
Robert:
You need someone to tell you that you don’t take non-Scripture as Scripture.>>>>
Yes, and so do you. Who decides that? Does a handful of textual critics decide that, or does the Church decide that taking into account all lines of evidence as the Holy Spirit leads the Church into all truth? Substitute “church” for “Church” if it makes you more comfortable.
IOW, a group of individuals should not take it upon themselves to make that decision without the input of the rest of Christianity.
In the case of the woman caught in adultery, there is no reason on the basis of the story itself to say it is not the inspired Word of God. You cannot say with certainty that the Holy Spirit did not want that story in the NT. What if He did?
Good Christians from many different traditions have honest disagreements. It is some Protestants who want to decide everything about the canon for everyone else even though you guys are not really so sure yourselves.
Robert – you said this while back :
I think it is pretty evident that the Apocrypha are canonical in RCism mainly to distinguish them from the Protestants. >>>>
Wouldn’t it be the other way around? At least Luther put the Deuterocanonical books in the back of his German translation. Now they have been completely removed as though Protestants wish they did not exist at all.
The problem is that they are in the Septuagint and the Vulgate. They have always been there. Why take them out? There really is no reason to do so. You tell me why Protestants did that.
Why not put them in an appendix as Luther did with an explanation as to their historical, spiritual, and devotional value? There is no reason not to. The books of Wisdom is especially good. Then all the stories of martyrdom during the time of the Maccabees are truly inspiring. I now understand better how Christians from ancient churches are able to face ISIS and declare “Jesus is King” right before their heads are severed from their bodies.
I don’t know why that whole Church tradition has been deliberately removed from Protestant knowledge. Jesus didn’t remove it. The apostles didn’t remove it. The early Church didn’t remove it. Even now, it is in our Bibles.
Why did you guys do that?
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Mermaid, feel the love of your fellow fish eaters.
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James Young, look, a sensible apologist squirrel!
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Mermaid,
Yes, and so do you. Who decides that? Does a handful of textual critics decide that, or does the Church decide that taking into account all lines of evidence as the Holy Spirit leads the Church into all truth? Substitute “church” for “Church” if it makes you more comfortable.
The church receives the canon and yes by taking into account all lines of evidence as the Holy Spirit leads the Church into all church.
But with this specific issue, I’m saying that the church is NOT taking into account all lines of evidence, or at least you are not. Vatican-approved RC biblical scholars are quite comfortable with saying that John 8:1–11 and Mark 16 are not part of those books/written by those authors. What is more, actual copies of Scripture from the era in which the consensus was achieved (ie, the fourth century) don’t include those chapters or when they do indicate that they are very doubtful.
IOW, take out those chapters, and you have the Bible of the guys who first indicated a common consensus on the text and canon.
IOW, a group of individuals should not take it upon themselves to make that decision without the input of the rest of Christianity.
The rest of Christianity needs to listen to the arguments and evaluate them accordingly. The evidence is that it is. Every single Bible printed today that’s not printed by a KJV onlyist, even RC Bibles, will indicate that those chapters are almost certainly not original to those books.
In the case of the woman caught in adultery, there is no reason on the basis of the story itself to say it is not the inspired Word of God. You cannot say with certainty that the Holy Spirit did not want that story in the NT. What if He did?
The best we can say is that the HS wanted that story in the Bible but that He chose not to make sure it got in there in a traditional way (like being written by an Apostle in a book). Could the Holy Spirit have done that? Sure. Is it likely. No.
Good Christians from many different traditions have honest disagreements. It is some Protestants who want to decide everything about the canon for everyone else even though you guys are not really so sure yourselves.
What are you talking about? All the major Protestant confessions agree on the extent of the canon. And we agree with Rome and the East on the extent of the NT.
Wouldn’t it be the other way around? At least Luther put the Deuterocanonical books in the back of his German translation. Now they have been completely removed as though Protestants wish they did not exist at all.
The problem is that they are in the Septuagint and the Vulgate. They have always been there. Why take them out? There really is no reason to do so. You tell me why Protestants did that.
There was no canonical declaration until Trent, so to say that Luther took them out is not accurate. Trent imposed a position that did not reflect any Christian consensus, as seen in the fact that nether Protestants nor the East agree with Rome on the OT canon. And then when you look at the history, it is quite clear that the Apocrypha was never received with the same degree of confidence as the Protestant OT even by those who did think they were Scripture.
In addition to that historical evidence, the Apocrypha are never quoted as Scripture by Jesus and the OT, and they contain blatant factual errors. Its for all those reasons that Protestant said no to the Apocrypha, a position that was fully orthodox even in your own communion until Trent. Trent had the unenviable task of trying to distinguish itself from Protestantism in order to stem the hemhorraging of converts and preserve papal influence in Europe. One of the best ways to do that is to respond to the exaltation of Scripture with a canonical statement that, in essence, says Protestants don’t have Scripture. It is a reactionary move that never would have happened without the Reformation. That is far different than the circumstances surrounding the final acceptance of the NT canon.
Luther didn’t take anything out. Trent put in stuff that until then nobody was really sure should be in there.
Why not put them in an appendix as Luther did with an explanation as to their historical, spiritual, and devotional value? There is no reason not to. The books of Wisdom is especially good. Then all the stories of martyrdom during the time of the Maccabees are truly inspiring. I now understand better how Christians from ancient churches are able to face ISIS and declare “Jesus is King” right before their heads are severed from their bodies.
Some Protestant Bibles do that, and personally I have no problem with them doing so. But in any case, there are plenty of Martyrdom stories apart from the Apocrypha. Those where the stories that Protestants held dear while Rome was cutting off the heads of its separated brethren.
I don’t know why that whole Church tradition has been deliberately removed from Protestant knowledge.
What are you talking about? There’s no “deliberate removal.” Anyone who can read knows this stuff.
Jesus didn’t remove it. The apostles didn’t remove it. The early Church didn’t remove it.
The only one of these that even remotely can be said to have received the Apocrypha as Scripture is the early church, and then only isolated figures.
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Darryl,
“The leading journal of medieval studies gives Tierney all sorts of props”
Great. Do you think it’s impossible to find leading journals of biblical or historical studies giving historians and liberal scholars whose conclusions and analysis and methodology you strongly disagree with on issues of the inspiration, inerrancy, historicity, development of your canon props?
“But here’s the thing. The Roman Catholic world of scholarship recognizes Tierney.”
Yup, and it also recognizes Brown. That’s why Ratzinger respected Brown, but also placed his type of approach and analysis in the appropriate context as shown above from his interview in the Ratzinger Report – subsets of ever-provisional scholarship is not the magisterium, and provisional scholarship doesn’t have a stranglehold on the faith.
“And so somehow all the advantages of papal infallibility that it gives to the church has not prevented the likes of Tierney or his arguments as emerging as mainstream at Roman Catholic universities.”
Somehow all the advantages have prevented the likes of Tierney and his arguments being enshrined in the catechism or magisterial documents or changed the liturgy or marginalized Dulles’ and Harrison’s and Sullivan’s works on the magisterium and so on that are taught in seminaries and theological schools. Hmm. Again, your narrative can never absorb inconvenient facts while mine, Feser’s, CtC, etc can absorb Tierney, Brown, Schillebeeckx, Johnson, Fitzmyer, McBrien, Kasper, and others.
“If you want to console yourself that you’re not a fundamentalist, fine. But your church has moved on from you.”
So Burke, Barron, Harrison, Hardon, Dulles, Sullivan, the catechism, Ratzinger, canon law, CDF documents, Most, Laurentin, Gilsdorf, George Kelly, Vatican 2(!) were/are all relics left in the dust?
“yes, to accept reality is liberal:”
Great – so Ehrman and Enns and Lampe are accepting reality right? Have you let them know you’re available for blurbs yet?
“Professor Tierney’s answer is that Peitro Olivi did it, toward the end of the thirteenth century.”
Yep. And the scholars cited earlier disagree with him, even those scholars who disagree with the conservative claims. What to do?
“And Peitro Olivi was also, according to Tierney, the first Christian theologian-indeed, the first Christian writer of any kind-to formulate a doctrine of papal infallibility.”
So Aquinas did not formulate a doctrine of papal infallibility? I also thought “papal supremacy” began in the 5th century according to you? But I guess you no longer view that as relevant to the development in PI right?
“Indefectibility is something else and indefectibility is a doctrine which the classical canonists both understood and commonly accepted”
Ah, so we see again Protestantism is a no-go, even accepting Tierney’s thesis.
“I’d join an easier-to-hang with church if the truth didn’t compel me to stay”
Ding. No such thing obtains in Protestantism – there’s no compulsion to stay in Protestant church x or y or z, by its own disclaimers.
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I said:
Jesus didn’t remove it. The apostles didn’t remove it. The early Church didn’t remove it.
Robert:
The only one of these that even remotely can be said to have received the Apocrypha as Scripture is the early church, and then only isolated figures.>>>>
Robert, you are wrong about that. I can read. I see the Apostle Paul being heavily influenced by the book of Wisdom in his first chapter of Romans and his 3rd chapter of 1 Corinthians vv. 10-15. Those are just two examples.
Does it prove canonicity? It doesn’t disprove it, that’s for sure. It is evidence more on the side of the canonicity of the Deuterocanonical books than it is against them. It is at least evidence to support the idea that Luther had – leave them in, but in an appendix apart from the other OT books. Why not do that in your Protestant Bibles? They were influential over the NT writers and even Jesus Himself.
The Septuagint was the Scripture of Paul’s day, and you know it. You cherry pick the lines of evidence that best support your thesis – the Deuterocanonical books are not canon.
Why? It’s the dogmatism of Protestant scholars that is quite amazing given the fact that you reject the dogmatism of the Catholic Church. You are unable to even allow for the idea that a vast number of Christians have no trouble accepting those 7 Old Testament books as Scripture and that they may be right and you may be wrong. You do not even allow for the fact that the arguments in favor of the canonicity of the Deuterocanonical books is quite strong.
It is your dogmatism that makes me question you. You protest too much.
Besides, why would you assume that I cannot read Greek or that I know nothing about how language works?
When I see the evidence before my very eyes as I read the Scripture itself and come to the conclusion that by golly, the Catholic Church got it right, you call me a fideist. A mindless robot. Maybe even a Stalinist like Brother Hart called Susan.
Anyway, I really do not want to alienate myself from you, my dear Brother Robert. I do respect your scholarship and all the work you have done to learn Scripture and to defend it with all your heart, mind, and will. I also assume you seek to live it out in your daily life.
There are other Christian who call themselves Catholic who seek to do the same, believe it or not.
So, anyway, you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
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Robert, you are wrong about that. I can read. I see the Apostle Paul being heavily influenced by the book of Wisdom in his first chapter of Romans and his 3rd chapter of 1 Corinthians vv. 10-15. Those are just two examples.
Being heavily influenced by and regarding as Scripture are two different things. The Apostle Paul was also heavily influenced by Pharisaism, Hellenistic culture, etc. etc. Doesn’t mean he saw any of that as Scripture.
The Septuagint was the Scripture of Paul’s day, and you know it. You cherry pick the lines of evidence that best support your thesis – the Deuterocanonical books are not canon.
The Septuagint was the main Greek translation used by Greek-speaking Jews of His day. It was not the only version, and plenty read it in Hebrew. I’m not cherry picking. The fact is that the NT never quotes it as Scripture and the comments we have by Jesus on the canon indicate that he held to the Jewish canon.
Why? It’s the dogmatism of Protestant scholars that is quite amazing given the fact that you reject the dogmatism of the Catholic Church. You are unable to even allow for the idea that a vast number of Christians have no trouble accepting those 7 Old Testament books as Scripture and that they may be right and you may be wrong. You do not even allow for the fact that the arguments in favor of the canonicity of the Deuterocanonical books is quite strong.
But the arguments aren’t strong. It’s why they are not really held in the same regard as the 39 books of the Jewish canon even among RC scholars.
But could I be wrong? Sure. Do I think I am? Not on this matter. But until better evidence surfaces, there is no reason to believe that the church ever universally regarded the Apocrypha as Scripture, at least in the west, until Trent. Church fathers do not agree. RC scholars at the time of the Reformation don’t agree. Jesus and the Apostles do not use it as Scripture.
Besides, why would you assume that I cannot read Greek or that I know nothing about how language works?
I don’t assume that unless you make a statement that shows you don’t know how Greek works.
When I see the evidence before my very eyes as I read the Scripture itself and come to the conclusion that by golly, the Catholic Church got it right, you call me a fideist. A mindless robot. Maybe even a Stalinist like Brother Hart called Susan.
I don’t think you are fideist for accepting the Apocrypha. I believe that your approach to Rome, as well as CVD’s, Susan’s, Tom’s, and just about every RC commentator here evidences fideism. I don’t think you all are without reasons; I think you don’t evaluate the evidence well and are driven more by a concern for absolute certainty than by actual historical evidence.
But in any case, Happy Thanksgiving.
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James Young, Ehrman and Enns are not pastors or bishops.
You keep maintaining an equivalency between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism which always leads to your conclusion that Roman Catholicism is superior, that you are better off with a doctrine that history disputes. And then you even console yourself more with assertions I’ve made about papal supremacy.
It’s like Eagles’ fans saying, “at least I’m not the Cowboys.”
Oh, wait, I compared you to a Yankees fan.
I’m liberal.
I’m Protestant.
I suck.
Except, I don’t need a pope to tell me when science is accurate. Will you accept Tierney when the church does, the way it did with Gallileo? Do you floss? Has the pope told you that dental science is okay?
Um, great, mebbe, yup, for sure.
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CVD I am not going to bother rereading, much more reading the whole thread.
Your arguments are that bad, never mind The Veronian Disciple’s one way skepticism, blasphemy and non responsive ad homs.
Robert and Jeff are far more gracious and have far more time on their hands than I do, much more the caliber of the papal third string has declined in the ongoing debate which began w. Cross and Stellerman long before you showed up.
Epistemologically there is chasm between your cat apprehension of the (supposedly) infallible statements of Rome just as much as there is between the prots apprehension of Scripture.
All you’ve done is add one more layer to the mix and tried to put the Holy Spirit, who blows where he wills, under lock and key in your ex opere sacraments without dealing with the question.
But if prots can’t know anything neither can cats even before we talk about how walking by faith scandalizes those who walk by sight in spiritual matters, and consider a visible, nominal and superficial unity the sine qua non of biblical Christianity.
(Along with the possession of the “apostolic” bones.)
Hence the appeal to infallible Mother Rome when it’s pretty clear in the infallible record of the apostolic church i.e. the N Testament, that Rome’s distinctives didn’t exist; the pope, mariolatry, images, Tradition, the Magisterium etc. if not the crowning touch, implicit/ignorant sesus fidei.
Maturity in Christ for the hoi polloi in the pew, if nothing else, corresponds to a rote response and a blank slate.
Right.
cheers
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Robert:
Being heavily influenced by and regarding as Scripture are two different things. The Apostle Paul was also heavily influenced by Pharisaism, Hellenistic culture, etc. etc. Doesn’t mean he saw any of that as Scripture.>>>>
It doesn’t mean the Apostle Paul didn’t. At least you see the influence.
I already wished you a happy Thanksgiving, so I will wish you one again. Maybe I’ll pick this up later, but we’re just going around in circles.
It comes down to a matter of trust, and on this one, I trust the scholarship of my Church. If the Apostle Paul allowed himself to be influence by the Deuterocanonical books, then I will let them influence me as well. An informed decision based on reliable scholarship and apostolic witness.
You have to trust somebody, and even more important. You have to trust that the Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture also identifies and preserves it through the Church-church- in which He was deposited on the day of Pentecost.
Now, don’t shug that last part off. 😉
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Darryl,
“Ehrman and Enns are not pastors or bishops.”
Tierney is not a pastor or bishop. Lampe is an ordained minister. But who cares – they’re solid scholars living in reality right? So why not give em a nice endorsement blurb?
“you are better off with a doctrine that history disputes.”
So you’re not better off with your canon or its supposed inerrancy and inspiration and authority? History disputes it after all.
“And then you even console yourself more with assertions I’ve made about papal supremacy.”
I know – it’s difficult being consistent and keeping your anti-catholic and conservatives-are-ostriches wires uncrossed when you jump on whatever you can whenever you can.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 25, 2015 at 7:08 am | Permalink
vd, t, and when did you stop being confused?
Father Stickler’s basic assertion is that a scholar who sets out to write the history of a theological doctrine must write as a theologian. This apparently involves, not only accepting the truth of current doctrinal formulations, but also interpreting the data of the past in accordance with them. Obviously this is not the way in which historians do their work. The whole vocation of being a historian consists in an effort of self-discipline whereby the historian seeks to free himself from the presuppositions of the present in order to understand the past in its own terms. It will sometimes happen then that the historian’s enhanced understanding of the past will change his perception of the present. This was my own experience with papal infallibility
So on the one hand, you insist that historians should leave theology out.
No, I’m saying expertise in one field [linguistics or history] does not mean one is an expert in another [theology].
Your esteemed self is the perfect example. You may be some sort of expert in the history of Calvinism, but when it comes to Catholic theology, your competence and accuracy are wanting.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-experts-are-almost-always-wrong-9997024/?no-ist
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 25, 2015 at 1:36 pm | Permalink
Mermaid, feel the love of your fellow fish eaters.>>>>>
You know, sometimes what you say to me gives me a combination of ataque de risa and vergüenza ajena. At first I don’t know whether to laugh at this or pity you or both.
So, I engage in both. No, I don’t shurg. This is too funny to shrug off.
You have a wonderful Thanksgiving, my dear Brother Hart. I have my special pumpkin pie ready to stick in the toaster oven. I love Marie Callender’s brand. It has flaky crust made from scratch and real pumpkin. Good with Cool Whip, the extra creamy kind.
I have my new slow cookers lined up and ready to receive the sides – like my special green bean and bacon recipe. Just cans of green beans and a pound of bacon from Costco. I hope the instant Stove Top dressing will work in a slow cooker. I have to figure out one more side because there are 3 cookers and none can go to waste. Maybe spinach or corn something or other.
We have the pre cooked turkey breast ready along with some ham steaks.
Keep it simple. I don’t deal well with turkey carcasses. They don’t do well in garbage disposals. We will haul all the food over to our daughter’s place.
Anyway, I hope you have a good one, Brother Hart. That goes for all y’all.
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James Young, ah but you keep deriving spiritual comfort from those dirty Protestants like me. You set the bar higher. You have the glorious doctrine of infallibility. It’s not the winner simply because I see through the hype and know you’d still believe in a geocentric universe is your holy father said — boo!. You’re the one who has to explain why so many people of pre-Vat 2 questionable views are now bishops and teaching theology at RC institutions.
Please don’t hide behind Burke. It’s not very good for your “case.” Um yup.
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Robert,
“one has no warrant for faith or the certitude of faith.”
You’re the side who argues you have (and can have) no certitude of faith and it is illegitimate even in principle. That’s of your own free accord (and consistent with your system’s disclaimers).
“Typically when we point to Scripture, we get the response of “how do you even know what is Scripture” because the apologists believe that we can’t have a warrant of faith regarding Scripture unless we have an infallible canon declaration.”
No, it’s because to be consistent with SS as the rule of faith, you need one. There wasn’t an infallible canon declaration in the 3rd century. Yet we see the church chugging along, worshipping, performing sacraments, operating. Why? Tradition. Something you reject as having any infallible authority. Stop treating STM-triad as “infallible list of infallible declarations”.
“If CVD is right, then Jesus is commending them for being fideists, which Rome is supposed to eschew.”
No, Jesus is commending them for following the fallible authorities they were supposed to submit to, fallible because revelation was still unfolding and yet to be complete or fulfilled. Prophets and Apostles are no longer being raised as they were during times of revelation (and who were constantly correcting Jews’ erroneous interpretations and teachings), hence Christ founding a church He gives promises to regarding truth, guidance, protection, and so on that are far superior to OT times.
“After all, many books of the OT do not contain within them a direct claim to being Scripture or to being infallible.”
Yup, which is why we see a fluid canon in Judaism at the time of Christ. And which is why your apologetic for your particular canon boils down to “I have the HS and you don’t and this self-authenticates for me”.
“So, if one wants to be true to Jesus, there is warrant to believe books are Scripture without any infallible canon claim. ”
More cart before the horse and torpedoes the whole basis of your argument. How do you know the words of Jesus to be true to? Your fallible and provisional canon you must leave doubt for. On what basis does your current canon guarantee Christ’s words rather than gnostic or other gospels? How many “words” of Christ have been sliced and diced by textual criticism with no guarantee there won’t be further slicing and dicing?
“If CVD is correct, then Hebrews 11 is false and in error for praising the faith of so many of the individuals in it”
Yep, more cart before the horse. Hebrews 11 is guaranteed to be canonical by what in your system again? And why would it be in error? Those people had direct contact with God or people who claimed to be authorized or confirmed by God.
Now, if Robert is correct, then all of the attestations and claims to divine authority and infallibility Christ and the apostles and those sent by Christ made are useless and superfluous – lots of wasted ink the HS chose to inspire and preserve. Which makes Hebrews just a provisional and tentative teaching and opinion subject to revision and correction, just as much as the wider canon is. Remember, contemporary scholarship should serve as your magisterium according to Darryl.
If Robert is correct, those submitting to Christ and the Apostles claims to divine authority and infallibility in NT times were in no better epistemological position or position of faith than those who submitted to rabbi Levi rejecting any such claims to divine authority/infallibility and consonant with that, offering self-admitted provisional teachings and opinions that are subject to revision.
“The example I keep raising is the deity of Christ. What warrant was there before Nicea to believe this dogma”
STM-triad.
“You can’t say Scripture and maintain the need for an infallible canon declaration.”
I can say that if you are claiming SS as the rule of faith.
“Unified church teaching—but there was Arianism”
We already went over this. Arianism was not taught by Rome. You keep question-begging on the “church” just as much as Jeff was.
“So, prior to the declaration of the Assumption, there is no warrant for faith in that dogma.”
You’re still reducing STM-triad to “list of dogmatic declarations”. There is no infallible commentary on Scripture. That does not mean one cannot hold what is recorded in Scripture by faith. There is no “dogmatic declaration” (doesn’t even make sense, but let’s roll with it) of Tradition – doesn’t mean one does not hold the sacraments and so forth by faith.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 25, 2015 at 4:16 pm | Permalink
James Young, ah but you keep deriving spiritual comfort from those dirty Protestants like me. You set the bar higher. You have the glorious doctrine of infallibility. It’s not the winner simply because I see through the hype and know you’d still believe in a geocentric universe is your holy father said — boo!. You’re the one who has to explain why so many people of pre-Vat 2 questionable views are now bishops and teaching theology at RC institutions.
By that logic, Elder Hart and his version of the Christian religion are responsible for the psychotic theonomist Kevin Swanson, a pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/23/pastor-who-hosted-republicans-paris-victims-were-devil-worshippers.html
Please don’t hide behind Burke. It’s not very good for your “case.” Um yup.
Cardinal Burke is very good for his case, and very bad for yours, as your case depends on arguing the exceptions against the rule, the sophist’s trick.
This is the Catholic Church, not laymen like Michael Sean Winters and the “National Catholic Register,” which has been admonished by its bishop. An alleged scholar like Dr. Hart should know this.
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vd, t, Michael Sean Winters has more standing than you or James Young.
A squirrel knows that.
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Hi Robert,
Just finished cleaning the fridge and putting away groceries and now taking a break:)
Hey I have a question? Given that protestnism rests on the scriptures and picks and chooses among the church father’s ( who write like Catholics) if they agree with the bible( as understood by Lutherans( trying to nail down a congregation that you identify with), does your church affiliation change if new retractionss are found?
Also another thing occured to me: if someone hears that Jesus died and rose again and they have a conversion experience and search for a place to ground themselves since the scriptures say that one does have to go to church, where would you say they should and up on their journey if say they intially chose Church of Christ being that it was the only. church in town? Would their study eventual bring them to Lutheranism?
Just trying to figure out how sola scriptura can function in real life.
Thanks!
Susan
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@Robert and @Jeff, you guys are super solid, reasoned, scholars. Very much appreciate your comments here a lot. Thanks for the time/effort you put into them!
(fwiw, a few of my comments from the last couple weeks are in DGH’s comment purgatory black hole. No great loss to OL, I’m sure.)
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Perhaps this could be made clearer?
“The church receives the canon and yes by taking into account all lines of evidence as the Holy Spirit leads the Church into all church.”
Both sides in the debate have differing definitions of “church.” Why don’t you guys define it from the apostles, agree on it, and then go from there?
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Cletus,
You’re the side who argues you have (and can have) no certitude of faith and it is illegitimate even in principle. That’s of your own free accord (and consistent with your system’s disclaimers).
Actually, we don’t buy your particular Thomistic category. I’m not sure I even understand it except that it’s clear you believe apart from an infallible declaration, we’re all Pelagian fideist rationalists or something odd like that.
No, it’s because to be consistent with SS as the rule of faith, you need one.
Then for STM to be a rule of faith, we need an infallible collection of T.
There wasn’t an infallible canon declaration in the 3rd century. Yet we see the church chugging along, worshipping, performing sacraments, operating. Why? Tradition. Something you reject as having any infallible authority. Stop treating STM-triad as “infallible list of infallible declarations”.
Tradition has fallible authority, so I have no problem holding to fallible tradition.
No, Jesus is commending them for following the fallible authorities they were supposed to submit to, fallible because revelation was still unfolding and yet to be complete or fulfilled.
Now you are just making things up. Scripture by definition has infallible authority if it is divine revelation. Jesus expected them to know what Scripture was apart from any declaration. Therefore, I have no need of any infallible declaration for the “assent of faith” to recognize Scripture.
Prophets and Apostles are no longer being raised as they were during times of revelation (and who were constantly correcting Jews’ erroneous interpretations and teachings), hence Christ founding a church He gives promises to regarding truth, guidance, protection, and so on that are far superior to OT times.
Which you have yet to prove exegetically. Your argument amounts to a form of dispensationalism. Era of law bad; era of grace good.
Yup, which is why we see a fluid canon in Judaism at the time of Christ. And which is why your apologetic for your particular canon boils down to “I have the HS and you don’t and this self-authenticates for me”.
The HS is the final deciding factor, not the only one. Meanwhile, if M says it you must believe it even if S and T disagree.
More cart before the horse and torpedoes the whole basis of your argument. How do you know the words of Jesus to be true to? Your fallible and provisional canon you must leave doubt for. On what basis does your current canon guarantee Christ’s words rather than gnostic or other gospels? How many “words” of Christ have been sliced and diced by textual criticism with no guarantee there won’t be further slicing and dicing?
The invalidation of your system doesn’t depend on any of the gospels being canonical. It just depends on them being historically accurate. Now if you want to deny their historical accuracy, then we have bigger problems. Presumably you agree with me that they are. Therefore, it is easy to note that Jesus, whom you claim as the founder of your religion, fully expected the Jews to have the warrant of faith to believe Genesis and other books that make no explicit claim to be Scripture apart from any infallible declaration from himself or Judaic tradition. It’s “search the Scriptures [which you already know]” not “search the Scritpures that have been infallibly recognized as such.”
The Jesus you follow is either a rank fideist, a sinner for expecting people to have knowledge they could not possibly have had, or your argument is crap.
Yep, more cart before the horse. Hebrews 11 is guaranteed to be canonical by what in your system again?
Irrelevant to the point being made about how your own infallibly defined canon contradicts your demand that a warrant of faith is impossible apart from an infallible declaration.
And why would it be in error? Those people had direct contact with God or people who claimed to be authorized or confirmed by God.
Rahab had no such contact when she hid the spies. That’s the point. She hid Jewish spies based on second hand information about some interesting stuff that happened to the Israelites. The spies make no claim of infalliblity to her. Yet her hiding is an act of faith. If so, then either Hebrews 11 should be rejected by you because Rahab had no warrant to exercise faith or a claim to infallibility is unnecessary to warrant faith.
Now, if Robert is correct, then all of the attestations and claims to divine authority and infallibility Christ and the apostles and those sent by Christ made are useless and superfluous – lots of wasted ink the HS chose to inspire and preserve.
Not useless, but not absolutely necessary, as is clear from Jesus expecting the Jews to by faith believe that Genesis was Scripture. Not everything spoken or recorded is absolutley necessary to give warrant for faith.
Which makes Hebrews just a provisional and tentative teaching and opinion subject to revision and correction, just as much as the wider canon is. Remember, contemporary scholarship should serve as your magisterium according to Darryl.
Therefore, Jesus believed the Jews should see Genesis as provisional and tentative because he expected them to receive it as Scripture apart from an infallible imprimatur.
If Robert is correct, those submitting to Christ and the Apostles claims to divine authority and infallibility in NT times were in no better epistemological position or position of faith than those who submitted to rabbi Levi rejecting any such claims to divine authority/infallibility and consonant with that, offering self-admitted provisional teachings and opinions that are subject to revision.
A claim is insufficient, nor is it necessary to put one in a superior position let alone keep things from being provisional, as Jesus demonstrates by expecting people to know Genesis was Scripture apart from any infallible decree.
I can say that if you are claiming SS as the rule of faith.
Then I can say I need a full list of infallible tradition if you are claiming STM as the rule of faith. If it’s just M, I don’t really need that. Just need an infallible definition of what the church is. But then you’d have to admit to your sola ecclesia.
We already went over this. Arianism was not taught by Rome. You keep question-begging on the “church” just as much as Jeff was.
So really truth isn’t defined by the Magisterium but by Rome? Again before Nicea there is no infallible canon, no infallible collection of tradition, and members of the Magisterium taught Arianism. And nobody but nobody recognized Rome as having anything more than first among equals primacy. So there was absolutely no way for anyone before Nicea to have the warrant of faith to believe the deity of Christ if you are correct.
You’re still reducing STM-triad to “list of dogmatic declarations”.
But that’s basically what you demand of us re: canon.
There is no infallible commentary on Scripture. That does not mean one cannot hold what is recorded in Scripture by faith.
I thought an infallible canon was necessary? Now it’s not. Good. My point confirmed. Or, if it is necessary, nobody had warrant to believe the Roman canon was actually the canon before Trent, so therefore it couldn’t really function as a rule of faith or as STM triad. Sola ecclesia.
There is no “dogmatic declaration” (doesn’t even make sense, but let’s roll with it)
And why not? You keep saying it would be impossible to list all American traditions as proof. But America isn’t divinely guided. Rome is.
The real answer is that Rome doesn’t know what T is until it’s convenient.
of Tradition – doesn’t mean one does not hold the sacraments and so forth by faith.
Oh, so you can have warrant for faith apart from an infallible guide. Thank you.
Until the sacraments are actually dogmatically and infallibly identified and explained in your system, no one had any warrant for the certainty of faith. If you want to apply the same standards to your triad, that is.
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Petros,
Thanks!
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Susan,
Cleaning out the refrigerator—not the best job in the world but oh so glad to have completed!
does your church affiliation change if new retractionss are found?
I don’t know if I understand the question. Retractions from the church fathers? That wouldn’t affect my decision.
Also another thing occured to me: if someone hears that Jesus died and rose again and they have a conversion experience and search for a place to ground themselves since the scriptures say that one does have to go to church, where would you say they should and up on their journey if say they intially chose Church of Christ being that it was the only. church in town?
Presumably they would go first to the church from whence came whoever shared the gospel with them.
Would their study eventual bring them to Lutheranism?
Well I may be biased ( 🙂 ), but I would say that those who actually work to submit everything to Scripture and are truly open to following it will eventually find their way into the Reformed tradition if they live long enough. I suppose that may sound arrogant, and I don’t mean it to. But I suspect the RC would say that any true study of history/Scripture/tradition should lead one to Rome.
Some might really start to study later in life and die before they get there, ending as a Lutheran or something. But as we know, all of us will be Calvinists in heaven. 😉
Does that answer your question?
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 25, 2015 at 5:39 pm | Permalink
vd, t, Michael Sean Winters has more standing than you or James Young.
A squirrel knows that.
General manager of a religious bookstore. Impressive.
But he has no standing in the Catholic Church, that’s the point here, Dr. Hart. You troll the internet for malcontents and try to pass it off as the Catholic Church. That’s the fraud here.
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Robert
Posted November 25, 2015 at 8:41 pm | Permalink
Susan,
Cleaning out the refrigerator—not the best job in the world but oh so glad to have completed!
does your church affiliation change if new retractionss are found?
I don’t know if I understand the question. Retractions from the church fathers? That wouldn’t affect my decision.
Also another thing occured to me: if someone hears that Jesus died and rose again and they have a conversion experience and search for a place to ground themselves since the scriptures say that one does have to go to church, where would you say they should and up on their journey if say they intially chose Church of Christ being that it was the only. church in town?
Presumably they would go first to the church from whence came whoever shared the gospel with them.
Would their study eventual bring them to Lutheranism?
Well I may be biased ( 🙂 ), but I would say that those who actually work to submit everything to Scripture and are truly open to following it will eventually find their way into the Reformed tradition if they live long enough. I suppose that may sound arrogant, and I don’t mean it to. But I suspect the RC would say that any true study of history/Scripture/tradition should lead one to Rome.
That’s fair. But I’m not sure you’ve read much Aquinas or actual Catholic documents. They’re positively lousy with scripture. Scripture is indeed the backstop against which all theology must be measured and passed.
But the real question is not the tall weeds of philology and scholarship, it’s about what the Church even is. It’s not a rabbinical theological-philological debating society. That’s what Jesus condemned as “whitewashed sepulchers,” all letter of the law and none of the spirit.
This is why splitting hairs on the philology of the Bible is counter to the Catholic concept of the Holy Spirit descending on the Church at Pentecost, why the Word of God could be given to all nations in all tongues before the New Testament was ever written!
Pentecost is the beginning of the Church, not Martin Luther taking his razor to the scriptures 1500 years later, setting the results on the Christian altar as the new alpha and omega, and sola.
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vd, t, sorry but I was just trying to keep up with your boast of 1.2 billion. Now I see that estimate is off. Just you and James Young, maybe Mermaid and Susan ride along on Friday nights if you can put the top down.
Call me.
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Robert
Posted November 25, 2015 at 3:02 pm | Permalink
Mermaid,
“Yes, and so do you. Who decides that? Does a handful of textual critics decide that, or does the Church decide that taking into account all lines of evidence as the Holy Spirit leads the Church into all truth? Substitute “church” for “Church” if it makes you more comfortable.”
The church receives the canon and yes by taking into account all lines of evidence as the Holy Spirit leads the Church into all church.
But with this specific issue, I’m saying that the church is NOT taking into account all lines of evidence, or at least you are not. Vatican-approved RC biblical scholars are quite comfortable with saying that John 8:1–11 and Mark 16 are not part of those books/written by those authors. What is more, actual copies of Scripture from the era in which the consensus was achieved (ie, the fourth century) don’t include those chapters or when they do indicate that they are very doubtful.
I’d like to see you work on this more fully, Robert.
The question is not which “Vatican-approved RC scholars”–although you are obliged to provide links to who/what/when for informational purposes, not this vague formulation–but it also evades the argument, that these people somehow speak for the Catholic Church, have authority over Bible, the the Christian religion.
Are you claiming the authority of the Holy Spirit for academic scholars to cut out one of the most beloved passages in all the Christian Bible?
This is the question that Ms. Mermaid asks, the only important question. Your refusal to answer is thus far the only thing the record shows.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 25, 2015 at 9:58 pm | Permalink
vd, t, sorry but I was just trying to keep up with your boast of 1.2 billion. Now I see that estimate is off. Just you and James Young, maybe Mermaid and Susan ride along on Friday nights if you can put the top down.
Call me.
The 1.2 billion more or less get the Eucharist part. You keep trying to reduce the Christian religion to rabbinical debate of the scriptures. That’s the Pharisees and their whitewashed tombs. The Pharisees will always be with us.
You keep saying that Christianity is a “revealed” religion. First and foremost, it’s a sacramental one. Even in your own version of the Christian religion, scriptural debates mean nothing without the sacrament of baptism.
Your paradigm is flawed.
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Tom,
The question is not which “Vatican-approved RC scholars”–although you are obliged to provide links to who/what/when for informational purposes, not this vague formulation–
Raymond Brown for one.
but it also evades the argument, that these people somehow speak for the Catholic Church, have authority over Bible, the the Christian religion.
So Vatican endorsed work that says John 8:1–11 isn’t original to the gospel of John isn’t Germane?
Are you claiming the authority of the Holy Spirit for academic scholars to cut out one of the most beloved passages in all the Christian Bible?
No. I’m denying the right of any entity to declare that John wrote something if He in fact didn’t write it. Neither you nor Mermaid show that you have even a clue about the issues with this particular passage or textual criticism in general. Your position is essentially identical to the KJV onlyists whose only response when faced with a mountain of historical evidence against their position is: “But God promised to preserve His Word.” Yes He did. His Word, not the KJV, and not what Rome says is God’s Word when Rome’s own manuscripts like Vaticanus don’t have it.
But go ahead. Pretend that what is taught at Roman Catholic seminaries the world over about the provenance of this text is irrelevant to the actual position Rome takes. Just as you ignore Rome’s failures to discipline, medieval corruption, turn toward modernism at V2, etc. etc.
That’s fair. But I’m not sure you’ve read much Aquinas or actual Catholic documents. They’re positively lousy with scripture.
Well actually, Aquinas was probably a better preacher than he was a systematician. And as far as RC documents possessing Scripture, well, so do JW and Mormon documents. Roman exegesis on topics such as Mary isn’t any better than theirs on everything else.
Scripture is indeed the backstop against which all theology must be measured and passed.
Welcome to Protestantism. This is not the RC position. The RC position is that the backstop against which all theology must be measured and passed is the current Magisterium’s understanding of Scripture and tradition.
But the real question is not the tall weeds of philology and scholarship, it’s about what the Church even is. It’s not a rabbinical theological-philological debating society. That’s what Jesus condemned as “whitewashed sepulchers,” all letter of the law and none of the spirit.
What Jesus condemned was the substitution of tradition for divine revelation, not theological discussion.
This is why splitting hairs on the philology of the Bible is counter to the Catholic concept of the Holy Spirit descending on the Church at Pentecost, why the Word of God could be given to all nations in all tongues before the New Testament was ever written!
Well yes, I know that what the Word of God actually is is basically irrelevant to Roman Catholicism despite all claims to the contrary. What matters is the bishops today and what they are saying now. Nothing else except insofar as it can serve as window dressing.
Pentecost is the beginning of the Church,
Agreed.
not Martin Luther taking his razor to the scriptures 1500 years later, setting the results on the Christian altar as the new alpha and omega, and sola.
For Luther to have cut something out, first it must be proven to belong there in the first place. You and Mermaid are begging the question about the real issue.
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Robert
Posted November 25, 2015 at 10:26 pm | Permalink
Tom,
The question is not which “Vatican-approved RC scholars”–although you are obliged to provide links to who/what/when for informational purposes, not this vague formulation–
Raymond Brown for one.
but it also evades the argument, that these people somehow speak for the Catholic Church, have authority over Bible, the Christian religion.
So Vatican endorsed work that says John 8:1–11 isn’t original to the gospel of John isn’t Germane?
Please show your work.
“Are you claiming the authority of the Holy Spirit for academic scholars to cut out one of the most beloved passages in all the Christian Bible?
No. I’m denying the right of any entity…
Answer the question, por favor. It’s a theological question, not a philological one. We are all aware of the scholarly doubts about the pericope adulterae, as The Story of the Adulteress is called. The Catholic Church is not going to cut it out because it holds the Holy Spirit gave it to the Church for pritnear 2000 years now, at least the last 1000 or so. [This makes the “Raymond Brown” part of your reply moot, absent further clarification.]
Are you “Protestants” going to cut John 8 out, based on the authority of scholars? If not by their authority, by what authority will you monkey with the Bible?
If you do not, why not? [You will not like where this leads either, my friend. It hangs you in your own provisional noose.]
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Robert,
You are very good natured, my friend. Thank you for the feedback.
I mean’t “redaction”. Haha:) Could you change the word I have you and respond to me original question? ( when you have time)
So you spoke of a general Reformed tradition. So should everyone be led to a pure Lutheranism to be generally Reformed and in “church” proper? Of course they should, You said as much. What do you say to the other Reformers who disagree with you by refusing to be Lutheran by following a later tradition?
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving:)
Susan
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Sorry about the choppiness of my last comment. Stupid autocorrect ya know:)
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Robert:
I don’t think you all are without reasons; I think you don’t evaluate the evidence well and are driven more by a concern for absolute certainty than by actual historical evidence.>>>
Actually, I think you are driven by a need to have absolute certainty and you think you will find it in actual historical evidence. For you, certainty is an impossible and illusive dream.
Yours seem to be more of a Scully – Mulder kind of search. The truth is out there.
I see the Church saying something more like, “the truth is in here.” Come and see. The Holy Spirit is in the Church and He is leading her into all truth.
Yes, the Church includes you as part of her whether you like that or not. Sure, historical and textual evidence plays a role, but it does not play the primary role. It is subordinate to the leading of the Holy Spirit. I think you guys don’t emphasize that much at all.
Robert:
But in any case, Happy Thanksgiving.>>>>
You, too, Robert. Happy Thanksgiving.
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Robert:
But with this specific issue, I’m saying that the church is NOT taking into account all lines of evidence, or at least you are not. Vatican-approved RC biblical scholars are quite comfortable with saying that John 8:1–11 and Mark 16 are not part of those books/written by those authors. What is more, actual copies of Scripture from the era in which the consensus was achieved (ie, the fourth century) don’t include those chapters or when they do indicate that they are very doubtful.>>>>>
I am not sure what you mean by Vatican approved RC scholars. The story is still in our Bibles. It is still in the daily Mass readings.
I think that your dogmatism on the matter is unfounded. Not all scholars agree with you. There are some very early manuscripts that have the story. It is a story consistent with the kind of stories told about Jesus’ ministry. There is nothing heretical about it. It doesn’t read like a made up story.
Textual critics question everything and criticize everything, even the Johannine authorship of the Gospel of John. Modern scholars – whoever they are – say he did not write it. They also say that it is not historical but rather fictional.
See the problem in allowing textual critics to determine what is and what is not canonical? You are ignoring that. I think I have a pretty good handle on the dangers of allowing gangs of scholars to, unbridled, determine what is and what is not Scripture. Sure, they can give their opinions and state their case, but the final decision cannot be made by them. Some of them don’t even believe that Scripture is infallible at all.
The example of the story found in John 8:1-11 is not so cut and dried as you pretend it to be. You are protesting too much. Some scholars agree with you. That has been going on for a long, long time.
Notice Augustine’s explanation as to why some wanted to remove the story from Scripture. Those who removed it from their manuscript were said to be of little faith. It is clear that he believed it belonged. So, to pretend that all scholars agree that the passage does not belong is really not true – unless you want to say that Augustine is not a scholar. He is from the 4th Century.
Aug. 3 Conj. adult. ii 6 – “Some of little faith, I suppose from a fear lest their wives should gain impunity in sin, removed from their MSS the Lord’s act of indulgence to the adulteress”.
Here are more quotes from Augustine about the woman. It is clear that he believed the story to be the very Word of God in spite of what others during his time were saying.
— St. Augustine: he looks with eyes of meekness upon her, he who with a tongue of justice repulsed her adversaries
From Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea
— St. Augustine: Thus smitten then with the voice of justice, as with a weapon, they examine themselves, find themselves guilty, and one by one retire.
— St. Augustine: Listen to what follows, Go, and sin no more. So then our Lord condemned sin, but not the sinner. For did He favour sin, He would have said, God, and live as thou wilt: depend on my deliverance: howsoever great thy sins be, it matters not: I will deliver theee from hell, and its tormentors. But He did not say this. Let those attend, who love the Lord’s mercy, and fear His truth.
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Tom,
The RC isn’t going to take it out, but it is going to give its imprimatur to scholars such as Brown, saying that his denial of the text in question denies no Dogma, which is contradictory if Brown says it doesn’t belong to John.
One could hold it is canonical without it being a part of John originally. That would be a position inconsistent with Protestantism, which stresses Apostolic authority of the text. It would not be inconsistent for Rome in theory, for authorship is more or less irrelevant when your view is that the church imparts canonical ontology to the sacred text. But of course, Rome hasn’t done that, so for it to approve of the work of someone like Brown is quite an issue for anyone who thinks infallibility demands consistency.
But as far as authority to remove, no one has the right to make something canonical, to add something, or to take something away. So I disagree with the assumption that the church makes or does not make something canonical. The text either belongs in John or not. If not, it’s not Scripture for the Protestant. We’re sticklers that way. It’s less relevant for the RC because Scripture doesn’t really serve as a determinative authority. Rome could hold it as canonical by mere fiat, which is what it should do. It’s doublespeak to say John did and did not write it.
The church’s job is merely to acknowledge it is canonical or not, and to ignore textual scholarship is to do so Fideistically. There’s not one scholar on the Pontifical Biblical Commission that’s going to say “John absolutely wrote that.” That’s incredibly significant to the question at hand if you care about history and consistency. But as we have seen, history and consistency don’t matter when you have blind faith.
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Robert, “I’m denying the right of any entity to declare that John wrote something if He in fact didn’t write it.”
But the church determines canon, the church determines its own infallibility, the church covers for wayward priests? A pattern? Nope. Coincidence.
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Robert
Posted November 26, 2015 at 8:26 am | Permalink
Tom,
The RC isn’t going to take it out, but it is going to give its imprimatur to scholars such as Brown, saying that his denial of the text in question denies no Dogma, which is contradictory if Brown says it doesn’t belong to John.
So are you going to cut it out of the Bible?
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Tom,
So are you going to cut it out of the Bible?
I reject the premise of the question. It’s the same question/issue raised by KJV onlyists, and it is improperly framed. No one, not even the church, has the right or authority to add to or take away from the Bible except for God Himself.
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Robert
Posted November 27, 2015 at 8:37 am | Permalink
Tom,
So are you going to cut it out of the Bible?
I reject the premise of the question. It’s the same question/issue raised by KJV onlyists, and it is improperly framed. No one, not even the church, has the right or authority to add to or take away from the Bible except for God Himself.>>>>>
So, what has God said about the Pericope Adulterae? In or out?
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Susan,
I would say everyone “should” be Reformed, but for various reasons most people don’t become Reformed, at least not so far. It’s mostly because of enslavement to tradition and the belief that God owes everyone a chance at salvation, but that’s a different topic.
What would I say to those who choose another Protestant tradition? I would talk to them and an attempt to convince them that they are wrong, but I wouldn’t tell them that their church is not a true church or that they don’t have the sacraments just because they disagree with my tradition. Most of the differences between orthodox Protestant churches are “relatively” superficial, and they’re certainly no more significant than the difference between Thomism and Molinism. That’s not to say the differences aren’t important, but a disagreement over baptism isn’t enough to automatically make Baptist churches not churches.
As far as redactions changing my belief. Well, if credible historical information arises that were to cast doubt on my tradition, then I would certainly consider changing it. But that’s what everyone should do.
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Mermaid,
So, what has God said about the Pericope Adulterae? In or out?
The best textual and historical evidence makes it extremely unlikely that the Pericopae Adulterae was not a part of John’s gospel. It was, therefore, never Scripture to begin with.
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Robert
Posted November 27, 2015 at 11:50 am | Permalink
Mermaid,
So, what has God said about the Pericope Adulterae? In or out?
The best textual and historical evidence makes it extremely unlikely that the Pericopae Adulterae was not a part of John’s gospel. It was, therefore, never Scripture to begin with.>>>>
Thank you for a straight answer. The word “unlikely” shows that you are not 100% sure whether or not it belongs. Also, the term “the best” shows that there is other evidence that supports the inclusion of the Pericopae Adulterae in the canon. Augustine’s testimony is pretty strong textual and historical evidence that has to be brushed aside in favor of the testimony of others. I could find more, but I like to camp on Augustine with you guys since you fancy yourselves to be Augustinian.
Now, you might say that Augustine was not an expert in Greek since he was a Latin father. I would say that he knew Greek better than most who consider themselves to be Greek scholars in our day. Read The City of God for evidence of that. He quotes the Greek philosophers and poets quite extensively. He hated Greek, but he knew it well.
See, there is an issue that you are dodging. How does God communicate to His people what is and what is not inspired Scripture? Does He do it through His Church or through philology? What if the majority of Christians – Catholic, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Protestant, etc.- decide they want that passage in the Bible? What are you going to do about it?
You still have to trust a group of human beings – in your case textual critics who decide what is and what is not the best textual evidence. Before the philologists weighed with their opinion, did you consider that story to be inspired by God?
Then, since you allege that Protestants are better able to deal with this kind of issue, are Protestants going to remove it from their Bibles?
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Thank you Robert,
Dialoguing with you is pleasant experience, even though it can be frustrating that we aren’t completely holding hands( metaphorically of course).
You’re as sharp as CD Host. Sometimes I feel I am taking to him, when you perfectly express my epistemology yet deny it’s basis.
Anyways, through what you have said, I see places for ground work, and am hopeful we can zero-in on doctrines.
I want to hit you up, again( I think we’ve talk before about the subject) and find out what you do with theology, that is outside your tradition, and when the adoption of it puts you into another tradition altogether. Say you did a bible study to learn more about the typology of the OT’s Ark of the Covenant and the fulfillment of it in the NT, and that resulted in your being forced to adopt doctrine that was more Catholic than historically Reformed. You know that your own tradition cannot hold it and your tradition will not let itself be reformed by this new scriptural information( as it is supposed to,given that it’s boast is not to be statically locked into it’s own tradition per say,but in scripture to form the tradition), so what do you do?
Yes, my plan is to give you scriptural proof for.doctrines your tradition cannot hold 😉
But right now I need to go run off some of that pumpkin cheesecake and mashed potatoes!
God bless you all,
Susan
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The Little Mermaid
Posted November 27, 2015 at 2:53 pm | Permalink
Robert
Posted November 27, 2015 at 11:50 am | Permalink
Mermaid,
So, what has God said about the Pericope Adulterae? In or out?
The best textual and historical evidence makes it extremely unlikely that the Pericopae Adulterae was not a part of John’s gospel. It was, therefore, never Scripture to begin with.>>>>
Thank you for a straight answer.
With all due respect, that’s not a straight answer. A straight answer would be, “Out!” I’m taking a razor to my Bible! If I were the Presbyterian Pope, I would recall all copies and cut it out! If I were an Elder, I would vote to have everyone bring their Bible on Sunday and we’ll all scratch out the passage together!
Mark 16:9–20, too. And be prepared to stay late!
http://listverse.com/2015/08/11/10-bible-passages-that-might-be-totally-bogus/
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Oops, I see that I misspelled “per se”.
Let me add too, that when I learned certain doctrines were provable from sacred scripture and also lived historically inside only the Catholic tradition,( that tradition that also entailed the magesterium), I couldn’t deny the magesterium without also denying the tradition and ultimately, sacred scripture.
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Mermaid,
Thank you for a straight answer. The word “unlikely” shows that you are not 100% sure whether or not it belongs. Also, the term “the best” shows that there is other evidence that supports the inclusion of the Pericopae Adulterae in the canon. Augustine’s testimony is pretty strong textual and historical evidence that has to be brushed aside in favor of the testimony of others. I could find more, but I like to camp on Augustine with you guys since you fancy yourselves to be Augustinian.
It’s one piece of evidence among many. But Augustine was no textual scholar, so his evidence has to be given less weight than others.
Now, you might say that Augustine was not an expert in Greek since he was a Latin father. I would say that he knew Greek better than most who consider themselves to be Greek scholars in our day. Read The City of God for evidence of that. He quotes the Greek philosophers and poets quite extensively. He hated Greek, but he knew it well.
Does he quote them in Greek or a Latin translation of them? I honestly don’t know the answer to the question.
See, there is an issue that you are dodging. How does God communicate to His people what is and what is not inspired Scripture?
I’m not dodging it necessarily. This is the key question.
Does He do it through His Church or through philology?
This is a false dichotomy, and it’s possible only if you have a fundamentalistic view of the church. The Holy Spirit confirms to His church those books he has inspired. But he doesn’t do so entirely apart from external means such as philology.
What if the majority of Christians – Catholic, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Protestant, etc.- decide they want that passage in the Bible? What are you going to do about it?
What am I going to do about it? Nothing. I’m just one guy. I’m not a Bible publisher, and Bible publishers aren’t going to leave it out of the text (well, except for the Anchor Bible, which does not include it in Roman Catholic on-the-pontifical-biblical-commission scholar Raymond Brown’s commentary).
You still have to trust a group of human beings – in your case textual critics who decide what is and what is not the best textual evidence.
Sure, we all have to trust a group of human beings. And in this case, both Christian and secular philologists, as well as the ancient church, indicate that it is highly unlikely that John wrote this text.
Before the philologists weighed with their opinion, did you consider that story to be inspired by God?
I don’t recall a time in my life where I ever read the text where philologists haven’t weighed in with their opinion. Every Bible I’ve ever owned has marked the text as doubtful, and every sermon I’ve heard on the text is prefaced with “this may not be original to John.”
Then, since you allege that Protestants are better able to deal with this kind of issue, are Protestants going to remove it from their Bibles?
No, because of the weight of tradition. This is evidence of where our traditions are not helpful. If John didn’t write the text, it shouldn’t be in there. But it is so well loved, that no publisher will dare leave it aside. The best we can hope for in my lifetime is the text marked with a disclaimer as to its originality.
This is the perennial problem for both RCs and Protestants, and that is the elevation of tradition above Scripture.
But if you want my full opinion, I think it is highly unlikely that John wrote this text, and therefore it is unlikely to be Scripture. Thus, I”m not going to cite the text in any theological argument. I could be wrong, and I’m not as sure about this text as I am other text like the comma johaneum in 1 John. The best I could say is that maybe the text in question is something God wanted us to have and He gave it to us just a an isolated story, but that would be highly unusual so it is unlikely to be the case. But can I rule it out absolutely? No. I also can’t rule out that we’re all part of the matrix. But that doesn’t mean I believe it.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 26, 2015 at 8:39 am | Permalink
Robert, “I’m denying the right of any entity to declare that John wrote something if He in fact didn’t write it.”
But the church determines canon, the church determines its own infallibility, the church covers for wayward priests? A pattern? Nope. Coincidence.
Dr. Hart’s chosen alternative, the theological and ecclesial anarchy that is “Protestantism,” stands in refutation. Even in his own micro-denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church [population 30,000, or about 1/3 of what watches your average Milwaukee Brewers game], Dr. Hart’s radical “Two Kingdoms” sits uneasily cheek-by-jowl beside the radical theonomist Kevin Swanson’s and of course neither could begin to bear the Presbyterian Church USA, which is 50 times larger.
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Lesbian-Couple-Ordained-Jointly-in-Presbyterian-Church-Delaware-297184461.html
At least John Calvin realized that if tyranny is bad, anarchy is far far worse.
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Robert,
I am curious where you earned your two master’s of theology degree and if those were schools opposed to the theology of the other, or if you were just earning specialities in two different areas.
Did you study typology?
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I said:
Then, since you allege that Protestants are better able to deal with this kind of issue, are Protestants going to remove it from their Bibles?
Robert:
No, because of the weight of tradition. This is evidence of where our traditions are not helpful. If John didn’t write the text, it shouldn’t be in there. But it is so well loved, that no publisher will dare leave it aside. The best we can hope for in my lifetime is the text marked with a disclaimer as to its originality.>>>
Why didn’t you say marked with a disclaimer as to its inspiration? You do know that this argument has been going on at least since the 4th Century, right? Augustine referred to those who wanted to remove it from the Bible.
What does that mean? It was in his Bible. It is possible that the story is not in a lot of early manuscripts because it had been removed. Augustine says as much.
“Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if he who had said, Sin no more, had granted permission to sin.”[14]
This passage is an example of how tradition is the only arbiter. If you think that tradition is wrong, then as TVD said, get out your razor and remove the story from your Bible.
—————————————
From Wikkipedia:
Until recently, it was not thought that any Greek Church Father had taken note of the passage before the 12th Century; but in 1941 a large collection of the writings of Didymus the Blind (ca. 313- 398) was discovered in Egypt, including a reference to the pericope adulterae as being found in “several copies”; and it is now considered established that this passage was present in its usual place in some Greek manuscripts known in Alexandria and elsewhere from the 4th Century onwards. In support of this it is noted that the 4th century Codex Vaticanus, which perhaps was written in Egypt, marks the end of John chapter 7 with an “umlaut”, indicating that an alternative reading was known at this point.
Jerome reports that the pericope adulterae was to be found in its usual place in “many Greek and Latin manuscripts” in Rome and the Latin West in the late 4th Century. This is confirmed by some Latin Fathers of the 4th and 5th Centuries CE; including Ambrose, and Augustine. The latter claimed that the passage may have been improperly excluded from some manuscripts in order to avoid the impression that Christ had sanctioned adultery:
“Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if he who had said, Sin no more, had granted permission to sin.”[14]
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Mermaid,
Why didn’t you say marked with a disclaimer as to its inspiration? You do know that this argument has been going on at least since the 4th Century, right? Augustine referred to those who wanted to remove it from the Bible.
What does that mean? It was in his Bible. It is possible that the story is not in a lot of early manuscripts because it had been removed. Augustine says as much.
Sure. It’s also possible that it’s not in a lot of manuscripts because it doesn’t belong there. The external evidence isn’t itself conclusive. The fact that the story just doesn’t seem to fit where it is placed adds weight, and then when you find it in Luke’s gospel in at least one manuscript, you have even bigger problems. The evidence isn’t as simple as “Well, Augustine said it belonged, therefore…”
This passage is an example of how tradition is the only arbiter. If you think that tradition is wrong, then as TVD said, get out your razor and remove the story from your Bible.
Which tradition? RC tradition? Protestant tradition? The tradition of Vaticanus that doesn’t have it? The tradition of Augustine that does? and on and on and on.
I haven’t taken it out because of the way the Bibles are printed, I’d lose some of John 6, etc. If I were to be preaching through John, I would either skip the passage altogether or preach it with the disclaimer that it may not be Scripture.
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Robert,
“I’m not sure I even understand it except that it’s clear you believe apart from an infallible declaration”
It’s simple – you assert you must hold everything and anything as potentially incorrect and revisable (except of course for that belief itself). Your side asserts such for natural knowledge (you’re not sure if cows might jump over the moon one day as you told Bryan, sdb’s not certain there’s a law of gravity – you guys probably aren’t even sure laws of logic exist which is an incoherent and self-defeating position). And then you – bizarrely – even hold this out for supernatural matters as well, which should be surer (and infallible) considering the divine source and authority from which they are given – an authority that cannot err by definition. Thus your hesitancy and tentativeness with affirming the Cath Ency quotes on the matter. And thus you’re in no better position after assenting in faith than you were before and supernatural knowledge is no different in kind than natural knowledge – you treat them the same, faith does no work in your system – thus the rationalist and Pelagian charge.
“Then for STM to be a rule of faith, we need an infallible collection of T.”
Doesn’t follow.
“Tradition has fallible authority, so I have no problem holding to fallible tradition.”
Well, right – the point is you reject it as having any infallible authority. Thus, your disclaimers.
“Jesus expected them to know what Scripture was apart from any declaration.”
Scripture has infallible authority. What I meant was Christ’s statement, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” Fallible authorities had been established in OT times Jews were to follow. Jesus expected the Jews he addressed to follow those authorities and dealt with them on a case-by-case basis, e.g. correcting the Sadduccees on the resurrection from their limited canon rather than simply saying “you have the wrong canon dummies – get the right one and you’d see your error” while correcting the Pharisees with their fuller canon. And in both cases, they were misunderstanding Scripture. He also expected them to know those Scriptures pointed to Him and His teachings. So apparently Christ had no need to actually declare his divinity or his interpretations – after all if he expected them to adhere to and understand it, there was no need for him to preach and teach with his divine authority in the first place according to your logic.
“Your argument amounts to a form of dispensationalism. Era of law bad; era of grace good.”
It’s pretty simple. Lots of error in OT and intertestamental times right? Prophets are raised and correct errors. Christ and the Apostles come onto scene. More correction of error as things are now coalescing as revelation is reaching its imminent end and fulfillment. All of this ongoing error and correction of error would be expected since revelation is still unfolding and incomplete. Christ will be departing – there will be no more apostles or prophets (well, Tradition teaches that, but let’s let that slide on your side for argument’s sake). So, what guarantee do we have that the OT pattern won’t continue with all that error popping up over and over again? Christ promising everything will be written down? Apostles frantically running around to write things down when they sense their lives coming to an end? Nope. Instead we see Christ establishing a church with divine promises related to truth, guidance, protection. We see Him appointing teachers with divine authority (no, not just as civil authorities and parents as Darryl likes to analogize) as part of these promises. We see those teachers then appointing their successors. We see types from the OT being fulfilled in order to do this. This is not “dispensationalist”.
“The HS is the final deciding factor, not the only one.”
Right – it’s the academic magisterium of a particular subset of current scholars you provisionally accept right now. But then we get your “the canon of Scripture self-authenticates” business. So it ultimately boils down in a conflict between you and some other Protestant’s canon “I have the HS and you don’t, so my canon self-authenticates, and yours doesn’t, even though you claim yours also self-authenticates because you claim to have the HS”. It’s just a stalemate, and can go no further, because of the disclaimers both of you subscribe to.
“It just depends on them being historically accurate.”
And many scholars disagree Hebrews or other NT books you accept are historically accurate. So this didn’t advance anything. Your acceptance as them as historically accurate is just as provisional, tentative, and subject to revision as your acceptance of them as canonical.
“Now if you want to deny their historical accuracy, then we have bigger problems.”
I don’t. Just like I don’t deny their canonicity. But I’m not beholden to your system’s principles as you are – so it’s still cart before the horse. How do you know the words of Jesus to be true to? Your fallible and provisional canon you must leave doubt for. On what basis does your current canon guarantee Christ’s words rather than gnostic or other gospels? How many “words” of Christ have been sliced and diced by textual criticism with no guarantee there won’t be further slicing and dicing?
“Irrelevant to the point being made”
Nope – quite relevant. You’re assuming Hebrews 11 is canonical. But your system holds that teaching just as provisional and tentative as every other teaching regarding the canon or the passages therein you hold. So this is cart before the horse if you want to then use it to argue your point. What guarantee do you have that Hebrews 11 is canonical – after all it was one of the disputed books in the early church and is still the subject of liberal critiques – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Epistle_to_the_Hebrews
“your demand that a warrant of faith is impossible apart from an infallible declaration. ”
That’s not my demand. Otherwise RCism could be reduced a list of dogmatic declarations. Christ and the Apostles could’ve walked around with a piece of paper listing “infallible declarations” on it they just kept holding up to people as they walked around.
Here is the account of Rahab: “Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death.”
“Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.”
Rahab held the men to be part of the people divinely confirmed by God – thus the miracles she references. Thus, their promise to her request, confirming their unique connection with God.
“Not useless, but not absolutely necessary, as is clear from Jesus expecting the Jews to by faith believe that Genesis was Scripture. Not everything spoken or recorded is absolutley necessary to give warrant for faith.”
There we have it. Christ expected the Jews to know the Scriptures pointed to Him and taught what he preached, therefore the NT is “not absolutely necessary”, nor were any of Christ’s claims to authority or divinity. Welcome to Judaism.
“A claim is insufficient, nor is it necessary to put one in a superior position let alone keep things from being provisional, as Jesus demonstrates by expecting people to know Genesis was Scripture apart from any infallible decree.”
Excellent. So we’re doubling down on “those submitting to Christ and the Apostles claims to divine authority and infallibility in NT times were in no better epistemological position or position of faith than those who submitted to rabbi Levi rejecting any such claims to divine authority/infallibility and consonant with that, offering self-admitted provisional teachings and opinions that are subject to revision.” Glad that’s clear. Welcome to Judaism again.
“Then I can say I need a full list of infallible tradition if you are claiming STM as the rule of faith.”
Nope. You could if I held to sola-T. But I don’t. You hold to SS.
“So really truth isn’t defined by the Magisterium but by Rome?”
What? Liberius did not teach Arianism to the church. He didn’t bind the church to affirm it. And the bishops in union with him did not bind the church to affirm it. That’s the point.
“And nobody but nobody recognized Rome as having anything more than first among equals primacy.”
Let’s grant that. Still doesn’t explain your rejection that the “universal church cannot err” and the nature of church authority that both Rome and the East accept.
“So there was absolutely no way for anyone before Nicea to have the warrant of faith to believe the deity of Christ if you are correct.”
Still not demonstrated. You’re still treating STM-triad as “sola dogmatic declarations”.
“But that’s basically what you demand of us re: canon.”
No, that would be the case if I asked you for a list of all infallible dogmas in Scripture. But I don’t ask that. Which is why your demand that I must supply such a thing is a distraction.
“I thought an infallible canon was necessary?”
An infallible canon is not strictly necessary if you hold to STM-triad and mutual parallel authorities. I don’t see how it is not necessary if you hold to SS.
“And why not? You keep saying it would be impossible to list all American traditions as proof. But America isn’t divinely guided. Rome is. ”
Yeah, and God can’t make a square circle. It’s a nonsensical demand is the point. Tradition is the common life, worship, teaching, faith handed down the generations. You can’t equate “life” with “list of dogmas”.
“Oh, so you can have warrant for faith apart from an infallible guide. Thank you.”
What? The sacraments were part of Tradition and constantly affirmed by church authority when they were being practiced for centuries. That’s the point. The faithful before Trent weren’t wondering “huh, I wonder if baptism and the eucharist are important or really matter”.
“Until the sacraments are actually dogmatically and infallibly identified and explained in your system, no one had any warrant for the certainty of faith”
Wrong again. Stop reducing STM-triad to “list of dogmatic definitions”.
“I would talk to them and an attempt to convince them that they are wrong, but I wouldn’t tell them that their church is not a true church or that they don’t have the sacraments just because they disagree with my tradition. Most of the differences between orthodox Protestant churches are “relatively” superficial, and they’re certainly no more significant than the difference between Thomism and Molinism.”
And the question-begging on “church” continues. So the differences between these churches are relatively superficial, and they’re certainly no more significant than the difference between Thomism and Molinism:
PCA, LCMS, PCUSA, ELCA, Arminian, Anglican, Unitarian, Pentecostal, Oneness Pentecostal, Charismatic, Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Arian, Modalist, KJV-onlyist, Marcionite, gnostic, reconstructionist, kinist, biblicist-fundamentalist, seeker-sensitive, liberal, emergent, church of christ, antinomian, Pelagian, NPP, Quakers, Plymouth Brethren, Finneyite, Anabaptist, Adventist, Open Theist.
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Robert
Posted November 27, 2015 at 9:52 pm | Permalink
Mermaid:
“Why didn’t you say marked with a disclaimer as to its inspiration? You do know that this argument has been going on at least since the 4th Century, right? Augustine referred to those who wanted to remove it from the Bible.”
What does that mean? It was in his Bible. It is possible that the story is not in a lot of early manuscripts because it had been removed. Augustine says as much.
Sure. It’s also possible that it’s not in a lot of manuscripts because it doesn’t belong there. The external evidence isn’t itself conclusive. The fact that the story just doesn’t seem to fit where it is placed adds weight, and then when you find it in Luke’s gospel in at least one manuscript, you have even bigger problems. The evidence isn’t as simple as “Well, Augustine said it belonged, therefore…”
“This passage is an example of how tradition is the only arbiter. If you think that tradition is wrong, then as TVD said, get out your razor and remove the story from your Bible.”
Which tradition? RC tradition? Protestant tradition? The tradition of Vaticanus that doesn’t have it? The tradition of Augustine that does? and on and on and on.
I haven’t taken it out because of the way the Bibles are printed, I’d lose some of John 6, etc. If I were to be preaching through John, I would either skip the passage altogether or preach it with the disclaimer that it may not be Scripture.
The Church of Robert. The Gospel According to Robert.
Not only every man his own pope, but every man’s Bible his own too.
“Tradition” isn’t just habit, eh?, it’s a capital “T,” the work of the Holy Spirit. 98% of what’s in Robert’s Bible is the work of the Holy Spirit yet he spells it with a small “T.” Then he presumes to have authority over that last 2%. But what is to prevent some other “Protestants” to claim authority over the rest?
Why, nothing, TVD, since you bring it up…
http://www.biblicalunitarian.com/100-scriptural-arguments-for-the-unitarian-faith
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“sdb’s not certain there’s a law of gravity”
@cvd you are bordering on the kind of nonsense coming from the trolls around here. I have never written anything here suggesting there isn’t a correct theory of gravity (what I presume you mean by “law”). We don’t know what that true theory is. Our current theory is not infallible. Just as Newton’s broke down and we rely on GR to keep GPS working, Einstein’s breaks down too.
The fact we don’t have THE true, infallible description of the data doesn’t mean we can’t rule some (lots) things out definitively. Your inability to recognize degrees of certainty lies at the root of your misunderstanding of epistemology more generally.
“And thus you’re in no better position after assenting in faith than you were before and supernatural knowledge is no different in kind than natural knowledge – you treat them the same, faith does no work in your system – thus the rationalist and Pelagian charge.”
Your thus doesn’t follow.I’m better off after assenting in faith as I am then justified and declared righteous by God. Faith is a gift we are given by which we are saved.
The cath enc is foundationalist nonsense.
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sdb:
The fact we don’t have THE true, infallible description of the data doesn’t mean we can’t rule some (lots) things out definitively. Your inability to recognize degrees of certainty lies at the root of your misunderstanding of epistemology more generally.>>>>>>
When you say that Scripture is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, what do you think you mean?
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Sdb,
I can hardly believe my ears…
“Your thus doesn’t follow.I’m better off after assenting in faith as I am then justified and declared righteous by God. Faith is a gift we are given by which we are saved.”
What are you assenting to by faith if what you are reading is always provisional and without certainty?
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No one of note,
Regarding, https://oldlife.org/2015/11/shrugged-and-always-shrugging/comment-page-7/#comment-364603
You can take that position regarding the Catholic Church. I just don’t, therefore the analogy works for me. I believe Jesus is humble when He says “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” I believe the Church is humble when she says “I am the only Church of Christ, be in my bosom.”
Peace,
MichaelTX
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Hart,
Regarding, https://oldlife.org/2015/11/shrugged-and-always-shrugging/comment-page-7/#comment-364544
Sorry if it came across that way. My point wasn’t that you aren’t here. It was that I have yet to be able to complete a substantial conversation with you. Maybe that is my fault. Either way I don’t have the time to put into attempting another round right now. Hope you have had a good Thanksgiving.
God bless,
MichaelTX
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Robert,
You must be busy, and I dont mean to bombard you. Get to it when you can, but I’m very curious about the things you say:
“What would I say to those who choose another Protestant tradition? I would talk to them and an attempt to convince them that they are wrong, but I wouldn’t tell them that their church is not a true church or that they don’t have the sacraments just because they disagree with my tradition. Most of the differences between orthodox Protestant churches are “relatively” superficial, and they’re certainly no more significant than the difference between Thomism and Molinism. That’s not to say the differences aren’t important, but a disagreement over baptism isn’t enough to automatically make Baptist churches not churches.”
For you to use the word ” relatively” you must be gauging it against what you belive is orhodox, right? And if you believe in an orthodox belief in baptism you wouldn’t truly say that one belief is as good as another. Care to give me the orthodox view and stand behind it? Is orthodoxy at the discretion of any tradition then? You could not tell anyone that they were wrong if you didn’t believe that your tradition was orthodox and exclusive.
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I said:
This passage is an example of how tradition is the only arbiter. If you think that tradition is wrong, then as TVD said, get out your razor and remove the story from your Bible.>>>>
Robert:
Which tradition? RC tradition? Protestant tradition? The tradition of Vaticanus that doesn’t have it? The tradition of Augustine that does? and on and on and on.>>>>
You have already said that the Pericopae Adulterae was: “… never Scripture to begin with.”
So, take it out of your Bible. What does Tradition or tradition even matter to you as far as this passage goes?
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Sdb,
Heres the earlier exchange:
“Me: Scientific laws are not infallibly set forth, but there is no rational basis for denying them – you would be insane to reject the law of gravity. The same does not apply in matters of faith and a revealed religion because they are, well, matters of *faith* – they can only be shown to be reasonable, not rationally compel assent as natural and scientific truths do.
You: But there *can* be a rational basis for denying them. There can also be an a-rational basis for denying a scientific theory. ”
So instead of agreeing, you oppose and assert it could be rational to deny gravity. Apparently there may be a rational basis for denying everything (well except for that statement of course – no inconsistency there). Apparently we would need to leave room for doubt on the laws of logic as well, which is self-refuting and incoherent.
Great, so we have degrees of certainty. What is your degree of certainty on the following:
You exist. Other minds and people exist. 2+2=4. Laws of logic exist. God exists. Christ walked on earth and rose from the dead. The Protestant canon and passages therein are inspired and God’s Word. Disputed or asterisked passages are not Gods Word. SS is the rule of faith. Protestant justification is true. You are elect. RCisms view of faith is false. Gravity affects you and earth. The earth is not flat. Obama is president of America. String theory is true. Cows will not jump over the moon.
And you cant be any surer of your justification than you are of all the other things of faith you reduce to provisionality and tentativeness and possible revision. Thats the point of the cath enc citations – the authority on which we accept things of faith is divine and that authority cannot err – thus warranting our faith in the first place and giving us greater certitude than any natural reasoning. Your arguments eviscerate that notion. Christ forgave peoples sins on the basis of his divine authority he claimed, something you and others think was superfluous. So you cant consistently hold you are in a better position in that regard in being justified while simultaneously defending the position that everything must remain provisional and tentative both before and after assent. Further, you glean that conclusion on being justified from your canon, but since that remains as provisional as any other doctrine, this is just cart before the horse and special pleading.
Radical skepticism is nonsense, which you continually defend and dig heels in on for some reason.
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Hi Michael from Texas,
You wrote,
>>
I believe Jesus is humble when He says “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” I believe the Church is humble when she says “I am the only Church of Christ, be in my bosom.”
>>
Hi, but you shouldn’t. Instead you should believe what those appointed by Jesus Christ to be His witnesses claimed. They were guided into all the truth by His Holy Spirit. By that infallible influence they claimed John 14:6, as you do. Well done! but also, because of that infallible influence, they never claimed anything about your ecclesial institution.
Specifically, they never taught, affirmed, or established a geographically dispersed church with priests or layers of hierarchy.
So to claim the RCC is established by Christ is to claim an equality with Christ’s apostles without being chosen by Him. It is to the opposite of humility.
“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come” (John 16:13).
That promise was made to the apostles, and the apostles alone, and is worthy of complete trust.
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Tom,
The Church of Robert. The Gospel According to Robert.
This point will have more bite from you when you can confirm to us that you are attending mass at least weekly and affirm that believing the Assumption is necessary to be in full communion with Rome. Until then, you’re just a garden-variety cafeteria RC. Not trying to be mean. Just want you to be more honest.
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“Heres the earlier exchange:
“Me: Scientific laws are not infallibly set forth, but there is no rational basis for denying them – you would be insane to reject the law of gravity. The same does not apply in matters of faith and a revealed religion because they are, well, matters of *faith* – they can only be shown to be reasonable, not rationally compel assent as natural and scientific truths do.
You: But there *can* be a rational basis for denying them. There can also be an a-rational basis for denying a scientific theory. ”
1) you: insane to reject law of gravity
2) me: can be reason to reject law of gravity
3) you: sdb’s not certain there is a law of gravity
4) me: not saying there isn’t a correct theory but we don’t have it yet.
5) you: you assert it could be rational to deny gravity.
So you’ve employed the same slight of hand as you do when discussing faith. There is the data and there is the theory. Data is infallible. Our apprehension of the data is fallible and our theories describing the unobserved phenomena giving rise to the observed phenomena is fallible. F=GMm/r^2 is the law of gravity. It is pretty good in some regimes -those you and I experience, but it is false. The fact it is false does not mean cows can jump over moons. The fact we don’t know what the rigt theory is does not mean we have to be radical skeptics. But you continually make the illegitimate leap from uncertainty about the true theory (what you call law of grav) to uncertainty about the existence of the thing described (gravity ) leading you to conclude that I am left with radical skepticism. Your refusal to distinguish between the epistemolgical status of the two is at the root of our impasse.
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@susan pretty sure we aren’t saved on basis of our epistemic certainty. Ask Mother Theresa.
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vd, t goes to the library for his knowledge of Presbyterianism.
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b, sd, so that means we’re not saved by papal infallibility? Hmmmm.
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Robert:
One could hold it is canonical without it being a part of John originally. That would be a position inconsistent with Protestantism, which stresses Apostolic authority of the text. It would not be inconsistent for Rome in theory, for authorship is more or less irrelevant when your view is that the church imparts canonical ontology to the sacred text. But of course, Rome hasn’t done that, so for it to approve of the work of someone like Brown is quite an issue for anyone who thinks infallibility demands consistency.>>>>>
All Protestant Bibles – including the ESV – still have it in. Why is that? Seems inconsistent if it has been proven that it does not belong.
Why the inconsistency? Yet you continue to rail against Catholicism.
See the problem? A little more humility and a little less dogmatism should be in order. Check your ESV Study Bible. They weasel their way out of it as well. What is the “it”? Putting in the Bible a text that the editors believe is not canonical.
When publishers start removing it, then maybe I will believe all the bluster about Protestant consistency. The ESV Study Bible could easily have removed it. Why didn’t they? They are sending a mixed message.
That is why Tom said this. :
The Church of Robert. The Gospel According to Robert.>>>>>
You are making your own determinations about what is and what is not canonical. You are doing so sometimes in a dogmatic way, and then sometimes in a less confident way. Maybe the story of the woman caught in adultery belongs. Maybe it doesn’t.
It’s like playing “he loves me, he loves me not” with a daisy. Or “she loves me”, “she loves me not”.
You are not certain about anything, even the orthodoxy of Presbyterianism. All of that is also provisional.
Do you see the problem at all? No need to insult anyone about it, Robert. It’s just hard not to notice the problems and inconsistencies related to Protestantism as a coherent system. There is little or no coherence even in determining the canon of Scripture.
Besides, you know that many Protestants have thrown the whole thing out. – infallible rule and orthodoxy. That is consistent with Protestantism.
You can say that the Catholic Church has also done that, and parts of her have. However, those parts are diminishing and the orthodox parts are growing – which is what we would expect from the leading of the Holy Spirit. You don’t even seem to notice that. Besides, the Catholic modernists were influenced by the Protestant modernists, just as you are being by placing textual criticism above the testimony of the Church – including the testimony of all Protestants up to just a few decades ago in reference to the woman caught in adultery.
Your comparison of the divisions that characterize Protestantism with the differences between Molinists and Thomists does not work. Both sides are orthodox. In fact, two of the most well known Molinists are Protestants – William Lane Craig and Platinga.
So, whenever you talk, it is all your opinion all the time. The only thing consistent is your opposition at all costs of anything and anyone Catholic.
Besides, if you think that other non Catholic Christian people are really Christians, but they should be Reformed Christians, then are you willing to accept all the sins of all the Protestants as part of your religion? What I mean is that most of what is argued here is really ad hominium attacks against Catholics.
Since there are some terrible cases of abuse that involve Catholic parishes, therefore the whole thing is rotten. Are you willing to do the same with Protestantism? Since there are some really terrible actors who are and have been Protestant, therefore the whole thing is rotten.
Surely you know enough about the rules of logic to see through what Brother Hart is doing here, right? At least you are willing to interact with Catholics and deal with some real arguments. I commend you for that much.
You have a wonderful rest of the day, Brother Robert. I doubt that you will read this, and it got a little long, but please understand. You really should not act so dogmatic when you really are not as sure as you try to let on. You Protest too much.
I will tell you a little secret about myself. I spent many years “helping” Catholics leave the Church. Now look at me. What brought me up short? I couldn’t explain away John 17 and Ephesians 4:1-8 anymore. I had no way of explaining those passages with a Protestant point of view.
I tried different analogies, like a zoo full of caged animals that, if let go, would eat one another. That just didn’t seem like what Jesus was talking about.
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No one of note,
“Hi, but you shouldn’t”[believe the Church].
I don’t believe it lightly. Thanks for the advice. I tackled all those ideas years ago. I am a convert from a Reformed background. I think you are smart enough to study it yourself. You don’t need me hashing it out in a blog. I wish you well. I can be email from my blog page, if you have any questions or just want to chat more.
Peace,
MichaelTX
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Morning sdb,
@susan pretty sure we aren’t saved on basis of our epistemic certainty. Ask Mother Theresa.
I think the difference is that her doubt( as well as ours) was within herself because God seems so hidden and silent some times and she suffered but her assent of faith was still rightly directed towards the God who exists external to ourselves and whose revelation ( from and inside his church)calls for our full assent whether our sufferings or our Enlightenment minds are prone to doubt.
Do you hold back willfully on giving intellectual assent to the incarnation or the resurrection?
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See, what I mean, Robert, is that leaving the Catholic Church 500 years ago didn’t solve anything. You may as well get back onboard the Ark and work to reform the Church from the inside. Reformers are needed and valued in the long run – though at times persecuted as well. You could at least take a more conciliatory tone towards your Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ.
You might want to consider these words. I must point out, though, that the Pauline authorship of the epistle of Ephesians is called into question by your friends, the textual critics. So, maybe that will give you an out. 😉
Ephesians 4English Standard Version (ESV)
Unity in the Body of Christ
4 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says,
“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”[a]
———————————
Oh, BTW, no Catholic is defending the evil actions of those within her. As cases come up, Catholics react in horror. You know that, but we are still baited no matter what we say. What do the OL guys do when some horrific case of abuse is exposed in non Catholic groups? The response is more like “glad we’re not like those horrible sinners.”
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Mermaid: Since there are some terrible cases of abuse that involve Catholic parishes, therefore the whole thing is rotten. Are you willing to do the same with Protestantism?
you’re being disingenuous mermaid.
please accept sincere serious objection discussed many times (not that the wide spread abuse is not also serious)
http://thecripplegate.com/reformation-reminders-rome-her-desecration-of-christ/
let’s fix our eyes on JESUS, the author and perfecter of faith
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Mrs. Webfoot,
Is Robert a former Catholic?
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By the way, Ali
All the anti- Catholic “proofs” have stronger counter proofs, if one is serious about understanding the differences.
The Catholic Church is completely about Jesus. Without Him we have no life now, no spiritual life, no communion with other believers in His holy name, and no holy mother church.
Yours in Christ Jesus our Lord,
Susan
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The discussion on the Pericopae Adulterae cracks me up. If it’s true that it doesn’t belong in scripture, along with the end of Mark, the whole idea of a self attesting cannon is complete bullshit by and honest rational assessment. We shouldn’t need any scholarship if the Holy Spirit of God were attesting to the divine. Just pray about it and get back to us.
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Susan:By the way, Ali.All the anti- Catholic “proofs” have stronger counter proofs, if one is serious about understanding the differences.The Catholic Church is completely about Jesus. Without Him we have no life now, no spiritual life, no communion with other believers in His holy name, and no holy mother church.Yours in Christ Jesus our Lord, Susan
I appreciate your respectful exchanges Susan. I appreciate learning more about a few Catholics and about your faith. My experience previously can be summarized by two examples 1) a office mate who assured me being Catholic was not about what she believed, but about ‘who she was’ 2) a conversation after a friend lost his mother, so with renewed faith interest, his whole conversation was about Mary this and Mary which left me speechless, realizing he had no idea, that if his mother might be in heaven, it was only because of JESUS.
So, I guess what I am saying is that it seems your faith is so very, and so often, so misunderstood’ and I am wondering about that- that is, why is that so in that faith, so much misunderstanding and misdirected-ness.
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Ali,
So you are getting mixed messages; Does any of it contradict? I can say
In the same breath that being Catholic is about who I am as a person and about what I believe.
You can still get down to the nitty gritty if you plumb to see how it all makes sense even though on the surface it looks confusing. I think the reason it looks so confusing is because Protestantism is a beast with a hundred heads all saying something about something it doesn’t fully understand. When misunderstanding and fear are propagated it grows a new head. They take milk fom error and the whole thing repeats itself.
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Ali
Posted November 28, 2015 at 12:11 pm | Permalink
Mermaid: Since there are some terrible cases of abuse that involve Catholic parishes, therefore the whole thing is rotten. Are you willing to do the same with Protestantism?
you’re being disingenuous mermaid.
please accept sincere serious objection discussed many times (not that the wide spread abuse is not also serious)
http://thecripplegate.com/reformation-reminders-rome-her-desecration-of-christ/
let’s fix our eyes on JESUS, the author and perfecter of faith>>>
Ali, did you have something you wanted to discuss from the article you linked to? You do realize that Reformed people are anti Catholic, right? They have been for 500 years.
This blog is anti Catholic. Surely you noticed that. It is also anti Evangelical, anti Pentecostal, anti neo-Calvinist, anti- everyone, really. I am not even sure what they are promoting except some extreme view of 2K theology that not even their denominations accept fully. I guess they promote that.
You tell me what they believe and what they stand for. Do you know?
They don’t like Pentecostals, Pietists, or Papists. They don’t even like most Reformed teachers. That leaves what?
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Now, you might say that Augustine was not an expert in Greek since he was a Latin father. I would say that he knew Greek better than most who consider themselves to be Greek scholars in our day. Read The City of God for evidence of that. He quotes the Greek philosophers and poets quite extensively. He hated Greek, but he knew it well.
Does he quote them in Greek or a Latin translation of them? I honestly don’t know the answer to the question.>>>>>
Just to answer. If you have read his Confessions, you will see that he was taught Greek by his teachers. Their cruelty and his childlike desire to be out playing ball instead of being forced to learn Greek and Greek myths gave him a loathing of the language. That doesn’t mean he was not expert in Greek, having studied it from childhood.
His City of God is in Latin. I am sure he could go toe to toe with any classics scholar of our day. He is a classic, one that scholars study.
I really don’t think that his testimony should be brushed off lightly. You know, it is very possible that commentators and scribes did not know what to do with the pericope adulterae in the earliest days of the Church. After all, you have a woman who should have been stoned according to the Law of Moses. You have Jesus forgiving her, yet telling her to go and sin no more.
That would be a problem especially for those who were coming out of Judaism. You see why it is not so cut and dried? Augustine said that people wanted to remove it for those kinds of reasons. They didn’t want their wives committing adultery and then thinking they would be forgiven.
In fact, that was an issue in the 2nd Century Church. Should adulterers be forgiven and allowed back into communion? St. Callistus I addressed that issue, even. Maybe this story is part of the answer to that question, even. It seems that the same critics that do not want to consider it inspired also note that it seems to be a genuine story from the life of Jesus, but that it fits more the kind of narrative and style found in the synoptic Gospels.
So it seems that no one really denies that Jesus did not do and say those things. How does that add up to the story not being canonical?
Do you see why it is dangerous to put the determination of the canon into the hands of the textual critics? Do they play a role? Yes. Should they be the determining factor without consulting Tradition? No. If they are given that role, then the whole canon is in danger. You see that, don’t you?
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 28, 2015 at 8:52 am | Permalink
vd, t goes to the library for his knowledge of Presbyterianism.
Dr. Hart tries to divert attention from his cynical use of lay people’s blogs instead of official documents in his attacks on the Catholic Church. Use primary sources from the Church itself, Darryl. I certainly go right to your religion’s website directly and try not to judge it by its fringes like Kevin Swanson. Or you, Butch. 😉
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@Susan
Not seeing the difference… I believe the wcf is an accurate summary of scripture and I am committed to it. I recognize the possibility that I could be mistaken. Are you saying that it is impossible for you to be wrong about what you believe about the RCC? If so, there isn’t much use in talking further.
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Robert
Posted November 28, 2015 at 8:18 am | Permalink
Tom,
“The Church of Robert. The Gospel According to Robert.”
This point will have more bite from you when you can confirm to us that you are attending mass at least weekly and affirm that believing the Assumption is necessary to be in full communion with Rome. Until then, you’re just a garden-variety cafeteria RC. Not trying to be mean. Just want you to be more honest.
Sorry to see you trying Dr. Hart’s reliable trick of getting personal because you have no honest and principled reply. Everyone knows I decline to discuss my personal religious life here, precisely because of that dirty trick.
Besides, it doesn’t matter. Ms. Mermaid goes to Catholic Church every Sunday and you’re dodging the question when she asks it too. You’re not fooling anybody, not even the Protestants here.
“The Church of Robert. The Gospel According to Robert.”
stands. It’s the logical product of your “choose 1 from Column A and 3 from Column B” do-it-yourself approach to the Christian religion. Yes, of course there are Cafeteria Catholics, but all Reformationists are “Cafeteria Protestants.”
And as you’ve affirmed, even your Bible is idiosyncratic. Cut out what doesn’t suit you. Interpret Verse 9 this way, or 180 degrees the other way. All things are possible under the “Protestant” umbrella.
You may claim that the 1.5 million-member PCUSA aren’t Presbyterians
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Lesbian-Couple-Ordained-Jointly-in-Presbyterian-Church-Delaware-297184461.html
but they are, Robert, they undeniably are. This is the inevitable product of the Reformation.
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Sdb,
I have pointed out and affirmed the distinction between divine revelation and our fallible apprehension of it multiple times. Saying we are fallible does not entail the Protestant position, nor does it exclude the RC position, nor does it make them equivalent simply by bare virtue of that fact. Theres no impasse – you freely agree there was no epistemological advantage and no certitude of faith secured when comparing the NT adherents of christ and apostles to those of rabbi levi – nothing in that regard changed pre or post assent. RCism does not.
If you want to say you are sure and certain gravity exists, you just deny or arent sure the laws describing it are true – great. Now why are you sure gravity exists? Do you leave any room for doubt that it actually doesnt exist? Is there or can there be a rational basis for denying it exists or affirming the earth is flat?
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Dear SDB,
You said, “Not seeing the difference… I believe the wcf is an accurate summary of scripture and I am committed to it. I recognize the possibility that I could be mistaken. Are you saying that it is impossible for you to be wrong about what you believe about the RCC? If so, there isn’t much use in talking further.”
It’s possible that hi could be wrong about my understanding of something, sure, but I can also get clarification and correction and know the thing pretty well. Take Marian dogma for instance. I can express to you that she is the New Eve and the Ark of the New Covenant, but without pulling finding the scriptural refernces that support those two doctrines, I can’t offer you more insight. So I am deficient in that I dont have the references by heart and I don’t know the narratives that illuminate the dogmas, but I still know with certainty that she is the New Eve and the Ark of the New Covenant.
The things I am to believe are not provisional; they are absolutely the truth, but the extent of my knowledge is shorter by comparison.
Is this the same within your system?
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Ok, so Cats have the purported wherewithal to have epistemological certainty, and therefore is superior. Perhaps that’s the case (or not), but, where’s the beef?
Here’s a thought experiment. This may even rile up the Presby’s a bit. 🙂 Take a survey of any 100 random people who exit the doors of John MacArthur’s (or, John Piper’s, or TKNY’s, or Alistair Begg’s) church on a Sunday morning. Then, separately, survey any 100 random people who exit the doors of your local RCC church on a Sunday morning.
Which group of 100 people are more likely to a) be more Biblically literate and have personally read a chapter out of the Bible in the past week, and b) personally understand the Gospel and be able to explain to a seeker secularist how to become a Christian.
Anyone want to bet on the outcome of this survey?
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Petros
Posted November 28, 2015 at 5:39 pm | Permalink
Ok, so Cats have the purported wherewithal to have epistemological certainty, and therefore is superior. Perhaps that’s the case (or not), but, where’s the beef?
Here’s a thought experiment. This may even rile up the Presby’s a bit. 🙂 Take a survey of any 100 random people who exit the doors of John MacArthur’s (or, John Piper’s, or TKNY’s, or Alistair Begg’s) church on a Sunday morning. Then, separately, survey any 100 random people who exit the doors of your local RCC church on a Sunday morning.
Which group of 100 people are more likely to a) be more Biblically literate and have personally read a chapter out of the Bible in the past week, and b) personally understand the Gospel and be able to explain to a seeker secularist how to become a Christian.
Anyone want to bet on the outcome of this survey?
Dr. Hart’s false premises
1) You’re doing sociology, not theology or ecclesiology with this poll business.
2) Catholicism is a sacramental religion: The Mass is foremost about the Eucharist, not a theological debating society. Jesus said
This is the only Bible quiz that matters. You just put the Christian religion into Protestant terms and thus begged the question.
You have something of a point about the lack of Catholic evangelism, which is why Pope Francis is emphasizing it. But you may find that Catholics aren’t so interested in “converting” Protestants as much as talking God with atheists. I have found evangelicals in particular not very quipped in that respect, as they tend to have only the Bible as their ammunition. [As you know, there is a strong anti-philosophical streak in Protestantism.]
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Petros,
Biblical familiarity is great, but literacy is meant to inform the person about God and the way of salvation. I’m certain that there are Protestants who know many more passages and narratives, and doctrines derived from scripture than I do. But this isn’t about being able to quote scripture, its to have an understanding about what the NT means for us by understanding what it points to. So to be really literate you have to know the OT so that you can read the NT and discover what and who the OT was promising and pointing towards.
This is why, ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ! 🙂
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Petros,
Missing the point and youre question begging on “church” just like everyone else. Why did you limit your survey to confessional presbyterians? What to do with other Protestant churches that disagree your presby churches listed are orthodox? They wouldnt care how well catechized those members are – those surveyed could grasp Reformed theology perfectly but that wouldnt matter any more than you care if 100 Arians or prosperity gospelers were in agreement. Nor should it, because of those churches you listed disclaimers and rejection of any authority that would compel them to care in the first place.
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@cvd
” I have pointed out and affirmed the distinction between divine revelation and our fallible apprehension of it multiple times…”
Then why conclude that I deny gravity or left thinking flat earthers are rational?
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Clete,
Robert,
It’s simple – you assert you must hold everything and anything as potentially incorrect and revisable (except of course for that belief itself).
As must you because you admit that it is at least theoretically possible to find the body of Jesus one day. As long as you hold that, everything based on that belief is potentially incorrect and revisable. The only way out of it is to say that there is absolutely nothing at all that would make you stop being a RC. But then you’d be a fideist.
Your side asserts such for natural knowledge (you’re not sure if cows might jump over the moon one day as you told Bryan, sdb’s not certain there’s a law of gravity – you guys probably aren’t even sure laws of logic exist which is an incoherent and self-defeating position).
My point to Bryan was that the motives of credibility are broadly circular and only prove what he thinks they prove if you first accept Rome’s explanation of what they mean. The fact that somebody comes back from the dead does not in itself prove anything. It could be just highly unusual. You have to accept someone else’s explanation of what it means. The cow discussion was the result of Bryan’s attempt to prove that resurrection=supernatural simply because we don’t see it in bodies dead longer than three days. And my point was the fact that we haven’t seen a cow jump over the moon yet doesn’t mean that it is impossible for it to do so one day. After all, about the same time your church embraced modernism, you also embraced Darwininsm. And you can’t tell me that it is absolutely impossible for cows to possess some unlocked genetic potential to jump over the moon.
And then you – bizarrely – even hold this out for supernatural matters as well, which should be surer (and infallible) considering the divine source and authority from which they are given – an authority that cannot err by definition.
I hold that supernatural matters are infallible but that my recognition and interpretation is not because I’m not God. Neither is the church, and neither is the church an organ of revelation (which you nominally affirm), therefore, their interpretation is not infallible either.
Thus your hesitancy and tentativeness with affirming the Cath Ency quotes on the matter. And thus you’re in no better position after assenting in faith than you were before and supernatural knowledge is no different in kind than natural knowledge – you treat them the same, faith does no work in your system – thus the rationalist and Pelagian charge.
My hesitancy is because I don’t affirm the wrong Thomistic premises. As far as Pelagianism, that’s insane since I believe grace is necessary to come to apprehension of the truth, and particularly spiritual truth. Neither is it rationalism to affirm I might be wrong. And, since many unbelievers can apprehend what the Bible (supernatural revelation) means, neither is it rationalism to believe that you don’t need the gnostic help of the magisterium and the secret tradition (and it’s essentially secret until you can give me a comprehensive list of tradition) to know what the revelation means.
Robert: “Then for STM to be a rule of faith, we need an infallible collection of T.”
Clete: Doesn’t follow.
Then it doesn’t follow that I need an infallible declaration regarding the canon for it to be a rule of faith. And BTW, sola Scriptura says the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith, not that it’s the only rule of faith.
Scripture has infallible authority.
Yes, and Jesus expected the Jews to know what Scripture was before He got there. So, according to the witness of Jesus, an infallible declaration is unnecessary for faith.
What I meant was Christ’s statement, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” Fallible authorities had been established in OT times Jews were to follow. Jesus expected the Jews he addressed to follow those authorities and dealt with them on a case-by-case basis, e.g. correcting the Sadduccees on the resurrection from their limited canon rather than simply saying “you have the wrong canon dummies – get the right one and you’d see your error” while correcting the Pharisees with their fuller canon. And in both cases, they were misunderstanding Scripture. He also expected them to know those Scriptures pointed to Him and His teachings. So apparently Christ had no need to actually declare his divinity or his interpretations – after all if he expected them to adhere to and understand it, there was no need for him to preach and teach with his divine authority in the first place according to your logic.
The point is that it is not absolutely necessary for there to be an infallible declaration in order to give the assent of faith. And since Jesus expected the Jews to know Genesis was Scripture apart from his say-so, an infallible canon declaration is not, strictly speaking, necessary. So your argument doesn’t hold unless Jesus is a sinner or a fideist.
It’s pretty simple. Lots of error in OT and intertestamental times right? Prophets are raised and correct errors. Christ and the Apostles come onto scene. More correction of error as things are now coalescing as revelation is reaching its imminent end and fulfillment. All of this ongoing error and correction of error would be expected since revelation is still unfolding and incomplete. Christ will be departing – there will be no more apostles or prophets (well, Tradition teaches that, but let’s let that slide on your side for argument’s sake). So, what guarantee do we have that the OT pattern won’t continue with all that error popping up over and over again? Christ promising everything will be written down? Apostles frantically running around to write things down when they sense their lives coming to an end? Nope. Instead we see Christ establishing a church with divine promises related to truth, guidance, protection. We see Him appointing teachers with divine authority (no, not just as civil authorities and parents as Darryl likes to analogize) as part of these promises. We see those teachers then appointing their successors. We see types from the OT being fulfilled in order to do this. This is not “dispensationalist”.
God makes the same promises in the OT to Israel. I will never leave you or forsake you and all that. And yet there was lots of error in the OT. He also appointed leaders in the OT who were to ordain successors. And yet there was lots of error in the OT. So not one thing you have said means that what is different about the NT is no dogmatic error ever.
Right – it’s the academic magisterium of a particular subset of current scholars you provisionally accept right now. But then we get your “the canon of Scripture self-authenticates” business. So it ultimately boils down in a conflict between you and some other Protestant’s canon “I have the HS and you don’t, so my canon self-authenticates, and yours doesn’t, even though you claim yours also self-authenticates because you claim to have the HS”. It’s just a stalemate, and can go no further, because of the disclaimers both of you subscribe to.
And since your acceptance of Rome is provisional upon never discovering the body of Jesus or something else, all we have is Rome’s claim versus the East’s claim vs. Protestantism’s. All equally provisional unless and until you tell me there is absolutely nothing that could ever happen in any possible world for you to leave Rome. Until then, your submission is no less provisional than mine.
And many scholars disagree Hebrews or other NT books you accept are historically accurate. So this didn’t advance anything. Your acceptance as them as historically accurate is just as provisional, tentative, and subject to revision as your acceptance of them as canonical.
It advances the point that the Scripture you say is infallible does not support your point. It praises lots of people for faith when they had no infallible declaration, Rahab is only the clearest example. Therefore your argument is invalid or Scripture endorses rank fideism.
I don’t. Just like I don’t deny their canonicity. But I’m not beholden to your system’s principles as you are – so it’s still cart before the horse. How do you know the words of Jesus to be true to? Your fallible and provisional canon you must leave doubt for. On what basis does your current canon guarantee Christ’s words rather than gnostic or other gospels? How many “words” of Christ have been sliced and diced by textual criticism with no guarantee there won’t be further slicing and dicing?
You start with fallible motives of credibility. That’s where I am starting from on this particular point. So there’s no cart before the horse. I use the same historical investigation to come to a conclusion about the reliability of Jesus’ words that you have to use to come to accept the motives of credibility. And based on that standard, it is evident that Jesus does not hold to the argument we keep hearing from you; either that or He is a sinner or fideist. Your argument is refuted by the very source you claim to follow.
Nope – quite relevant. You’re assuming Hebrews 11 is canonical. But your system holds that teaching just as provisional and tentative as every other teaching regarding the canon or the passages therein you hold. So this is cart before the horse if you want to then use it to argue your point. What guarantee do you have that Hebrews 11 is canonical – after all it was one of the disputed books in the early church and is still the subject of liberal critiques –
Hebrews’ canonicity is quite irrelevant to my argument. You hold it canonical; it refutes your argument.
That’s not my demand. Otherwise RCism could be reduced a list of dogmatic declarations. Christ and the Apostles could’ve walked around with a piece of paper listing “infallible declarations” on it they just kept holding up to people as they walked around.
Well if that’s true, then you have no argument against Protestantism. Because in fact you have no way of knowing what is fallible or not apart from the Magisterium’s pronouncements. Not everything that has come down via tradition is infallible.
Here is the account of Rahab: “Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death.”
“Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.”
Rahab held the men to be part of the people divinely confirmed by God – thus the miracles she references. Thus, their promise to her request, confirming their unique connection with God.
There is not one claim on the part of the witnesses to be infallible, and I could point to examples from other religions in which something apparently miraculous happened. So you are not helping your point. Rahab only had the testimony of others that the god of the Israelites did something incredible. That testimony was not infallible, and the testimony of the Israelite spies was not infallible. They make no such claim. And a promise to their request doesn’t confirm their “unique connection to God, and even if it did, the spies make no claim of infallibility.” So, Rahab assented to faith based on no notion of infalliblity. So either Hebrews 11 endorses fideism or you are wrong.
There we have it. Christ expected the Jews to know the Scriptures pointed to Him and taught what he preached, therefore the NT is “not absolutely necessary”, nor were any of Christ’s claims to authority or divinity. Welcome to Judaism.
The NT is not absolutely necessary to knowing that Jesus is the Messiah, it is true. That doesn’t mean it is unnecessary for other things. The point at hand is whether the claim of infalliblity is necessary to give the assent of faith. Since Jesus expected Jews to know and believe that Genesis was Scripture, your argument fails, unless you make him a sinner or a fideist.
Excellent. So we’re doubling down on “those submitting to Christ and the Apostles claims to divine authority and infallibility in NT times were in no better epistemological position or position of faith than those who submitted to rabbi Levi rejecting any such claims to divine authority/infallibility and consonant with that, offering self-admitted provisional teachings and opinions that are subject to revision.” Glad that’s clear. Welcome to Judaism again.
Rabbi Levi offered the Scripture as infallible, just like Protestants do. We do not ask you to put your faith in the church, which is perhaps Rome’s chief blasphemy and the root of all your problems, but in Christ. Jesus did not say that an infallible declaration or system was necessary to justify the assent of faith; in fact, the way he treats Scripture, it is clear that he expects the assent of faith to be justified apart from a system of infallibility. I can do no better than Jesus. If Rome were Jesus, it would be different. But Rome isn’t Jesus. So I am perfectly justified in adhering to Scripture as the only infallible rule of faith apart from any infallible declaration to the canon, just as Jesus believed the Jews were justified in believing Genesis was Scripture and to be obeyed apart from an infallible system, claim on the part of Genesis, or declaration from the Jewish Magisterium.
Your argument finds no justification in the way you purported Lord teaches. He claimed infalliblity for Himself, and it was enough. I need nothing more than the claim of Jesus, and I don’t even need that to know Genesis is Scripture. Unless you believe Jesus was a sinner or a fideist.
Nope. You could if I held to sola-T. But I don’t. You hold to SS.
If I need an infallible canon list for my rule of faith to be legitimate and function, then you need an infallible canon list, an infallible list of tradition, and an infallible way to determine the Magisterium and where it has spoken infallibly. I do not accept your double standard.
What? Liberius did not teach Arianism to the church. He didn’t bind the church to affirm it. And the bishops in union with him did not bind the church to affirm it. That’s the point.
How did anyone prior to Nicea know that the deity of Christ was infallible? How did anyone post-Nicea. Bishops surrendered left and right before and after to Arianism. There was no infallible collection of tradition or infallible canon declaration. Liberius could have been the most orthodox bishop like ever, and he isn’t the sum total of the Magisterium according to Rome. The business of “he didn’t bind the church to affirm it” is bull when Arianism was a perfectly orthodox view according to the bishops, which it was even after Nicea. I’m trying to make this easy on you.
So let’s try again. Apart from an infallible canon or an infallible arbitration between what was true in the tradition and what wasn’t, how did Joe Doe 2nd Century know that the deity of Christ warranted the assent of faith, particularly when you can find bishops and priests and others not teaching the deity of Christ?
Let’s grant that. Still doesn’t explain your rejection that the “universal church cannot err” and the nature of church authority that both Rome and the East accept.
What explains it is that there is absolutely no justification for the belief other than some ideas that really didn’t get going until after Constantine.
Still not demonstrated. You’re still treating STM-triad as “sola dogmatic declarations”.
Before Nicea what do we have that teaches the deity of Christ as a warrant of faith?
1. Protestants say Scripture, but you won’t let us use that because there is no infallible canon. Thus, you can’t say that either.
2. You can’t say tradition because the tradition is not unified. There are bishops who are not teaching the deity of Christ before and even after Nicea—and after Nicea because the idea of it speaking with some guaranteed infalliblity was held by no one until much, much later.
3. You can’t say Magisterium because there is no declaration and there is no unity among the bishops. If there were, no one would have supported Arius.
I see nothing in your triad that gives warrant to accept the deity of Christ as dogma before Nicea, therefore, every Christian pre 325 AD was a rank fideist Pelagian rationalist, and their mother dressed them funny too.
No, that would be the case if I asked you for a list of all infallible dogmas in Scripture. But I don’t ask that. Which is why your demand that I must supply such a thing is a distraction.
You’ve said that Scripture cannot function as a rule of faith apart from an infallible canon. So it is no distraction to supply something similar for the T or the M. You are the one telling me I need an infallible system to give the assent of faith and denying me to put forth Scripture as that infallible system/rule because I have no infallible canon. I therefore deny to you the right to put forward STM unless I have an infallible list of T and M statements, or something that would be the equivalent. You don’t get to dictate the terms of the discussion. Rome must be held to the same standard as Geneva.
An infallible canon is not strictly necessary if you hold to STM-triad and mutual parallel authorities. I don’t see how it is not necessary if you hold to SS.
The first is mere assertion. I don’t see how an infallible recognition of T and M is not necessary if you hold to STM.
Yeah, and God can’t make a square circle. It’s a nonsensical demand is the point. Tradition is the common life, worship, teaching, faith handed down the generations. You can’t equate “life” with “list of dogmas”.
Please demonstrate that it is logically impossible to give me a full account of all dogmas, practices, intuitions, historical accounts, common beliefs, etc. It is not. So it’s not nonsensical.
What? The sacraments were part of Tradition and constantly affirmed by church authority when they were being practiced for centuries. That’s the point. The faithful before Trent weren’t wondering “huh, I wonder if baptism and the eucharist are important or really matter”.
Yes but lots of things were part of Tradition and constantly affirmed by church authority (like Rome having no jurisidictional primacy) when they were being practiced for centuries. That’s the point. How does anyone before an infallible declaration know that Tradition was wrong or incomplete on the pope but correct on the Eucharist?
Wrong again. Stop reducing STM-triad to “list of dogmatic definitions”.
And the question-begging on “church” continues. So the differences between these churches are relatively superficial, and they’re certainly no more significant than the difference between Thomism and Molinism:
PCA, LCMS, PCUSA, ELCA, Arminian, Anglican, Unitarian, Pentecostal, Oneness Pentecostal, Charismatic, Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Arian, Modalist, KJV-onlyist, Marcionite, gnostic, reconstructionist, kinist, biblicist-fundamentalist, seeker-sensitive, liberal, emergent, church of christ, antinomian, Pelagian, NPP, Quakers, Plymouth Brethren, Finneyite, Anabaptist, Adventist, Open Theist.
If you get to list all those as true churches, then I get to claim that any Roman Catholic layman, priest, or bishop who affirms birth control, abortion, denies the deity of Christ, and thinks the pope is a big loser is fully orthodox Roman Catholic whose opinion is equally valid and should be affirmed in its entirety.
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Tom,
Besides, it doesn’t matter. Ms. Mermaid goes to Catholic Church every Sunday and you’re dodging the question when she asks it too. You’re not fooling anybody, not even the Protestants here.
“The Church of Robert. The Gospel According to Robert.”
stands.
I’ve dodged nothing. To the extent that I or anyone puts any thought into religion, anything we believe is the gospel according to the individual. Mermaid has no mind meld with the Vatican. You clearly don’t. Neither of you can tell me which one of you is the actual true RC representative. Rome can’t give me a coherent outline of its faith in the same way it demands of Protestants.
It’s the logical product of your “choose 1 from Column A and 3 from Column B” do-it-yourself approach to the Christian religion. Yes, of course there are Cafeteria Catholics, but all Reformationists are “Cafeteria Protestants.”
As long as there are “Cafeteria Catholics,” then I have no way of knowing what Rome’s teachings are with any certainty. At best I have my best guess based on whichever way I want to read the bishops, but as you’ve demonstrated, the most conservative reading is as legitimate as the most liberal.
And as you’ve affirmed, even your Bible is idiosyncratic. Cut out what doesn’t suit you. Interpret Verse 9 this way, or 180 degrees the other way. All things are possible under the “Protestant” umbrella.
Says the religion that incorporates worship of Mary, apparitions of saints on toast, rosaries, paying to get an early release from purgatory, worshipping with Muslims, worshipping with Buddhists, saying we shouldn’t judge homosexuals….
You may claim that the 1.5 million-member PCUSA aren’t Presbyterians
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Lesbian-Couple-Ordained-Jointly-in-Presbyterian-Church-Delaware-297184461.html
but they are, Robert, they undeniably are. This is the inevitable product of the Reformation.
You may claim that Luther and Calvin aren’t true sons of the church, fully orthodox in every way, but they are, Tom, they undeniably are.
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@tvd – yes, you’re right, I thought I’d throw in a little sociology. But, if the debate between Cats and Prots is about proving ‘superiority’, I think a sociological perspective may illumine the conversation. But, I surmise you don’t wanna take the bet, wise man that you are.
@susan – I largely agree that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. That, essentially, was my point. Most cats (especially cradles) are ignorant, if not entirely spiritually lost. (I realize that doesn’t ‘prove’ that the prot paradigm is superior, per se.)
@cvd – I haven’t missed any ecclesiology points, but merely made a different point. Fwiw, you may not be aware that the people in my survey, other than TKNY, are not confessional presby’s. They’re all eeeevangies. The lack of introspection by cat apologists on the spiritual state of their own flock is curious to me.
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Susan,
The things I am to believe are not provisional; they are absolutely the truth, but the extent of my knowledge is shorter by comparison.
Is this the same within your system?
Unless you have omniscience, your beliefs are always provisional in some sense. You cannot examine every single piece of evidence for or against, you cannot consider every truth claim possible. Further, Cletus has admitted that there are some things that could happen wherein he would no longer be RC. Presumably, since you have put some thought into the matter, the same is true for you.
If they were to find the body of Jesus tomorrow and prove that it absolutely is the body of Jesus, would you still be a Christian, let alone RC. I suspect you would say no. Therefore, your belief in Christ and in Rome is provisional, it’s provisional upon the fact of them never finding the body of Jesus.
This is a trivial degree of provisionality, but it is provisionality nonetheless. Rome doesn’t get you out of the provisionality of belief, and that is my only point. It doesn’t make Rome false automatically.
It just means that the argument about provisionality is not one that you all can use. Your system has provisionality wrapped up in it as well. The best you could say is that maybe the provisionality is found at different points. But it is still there, and it is still at points that make it impossible to be an RC if that is your reason for being an RC—if you follow through consistently.
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Robert
Posted November 28, 2015 at 8:44 pm | Permalink
Tom,
Besides, it doesn’t matter. Ms. Mermaid goes to Catholic Church every Sunday and you’re dodging the question when she asks it too. You’re not fooling anybody, not even the Protestants here.
“The Church of Robert. The Gospel According to Robert.”
stands.
I’ve dodged nothing. To the extent that I or anyone puts any thought into religion, anything we believe is the gospel according to the individual. Mermaid has no mind meld with the Vatican. You clearly don’t. Neither of you can tell me which one of you is the actual true RC representative. Rome can’t give me a coherent outline of its faith in the same way it demands of Protestants.
Of course it can, and does. You just have to get to the primary documents of the Church and stop getting your information on Catholicism from blogs. [Like this one.]
The most laughable thing about anti-Catholics like Darryl is they think Catholicism is as ill-thought out and arbitrary as their own version of Christianity. But the fact is that over 2000 years, the Catholic Church has thought everything through, every jot and tittle. As they say, name the subject and there are 7 shelves in the Vatican library on it.
The Catholic Church may be wrong on this that or the other thing [or everything!], but it is not lazy or ignorant.
“It’s the logical product of your “choose 1 from Column A and 3 from Column B” do-it-yourself approach to the Christian religion. Yes, of course there are Cafeteria Catholics, but all Reformationists are “Cafeteria Protestants.”
As long as there are “Cafeteria Catholics,” then I have no way of knowing what Rome’s teachings are with any certainty.
That’s Dr. Hart’s false premise, all right.
And as you’ve affirmed, even your Bible is idiosyncratic. Cut out what doesn’t suit you. Interpret Verse 9 this way, or 180 degrees the other way. All things are possible under the “Protestant” umbrella.
Says the religion that incorporates worship of Mary
There he goes detonating his Blessed Mother suicide vest again, blowing up the discussion. Old Life’s tricks are so banal.
“You may claim that the 1.5 million-member PCUSA aren’t Presbyterians
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Lesbian-Couple-Ordained-Jointly-in-Presbyterian-Church-Delaware-297184461.html
but they are, Robert, they undeniably are. This is the inevitable product of the Reformation.”
You may claim that Luther and Calvin aren’t true sons of the church, fully orthodox in every way, but they are, Tom, they undeniably are.
Since they disagree with each other on the core doctrine of the Eucharist, this is an empty statement. They can’t both be right, they can’t both be “orthodox,” and so to return to the point of this discussion, neither can the Church of Robert tell us why we should prefer Luther or Calvin’s version of “This is My body” over the other.
“Protestant orthodoxy” is an oxymoron–by definition.
____________________
I’ve dodged nothing.
Of course you did, by playing the “Do you go to Mass” card that Dr. Hart always plays when he’s clearly flummoxed by the discussion. You’re better than that, man, you’ve been a faithful interlocutor. Props. So please let’s don’t play that, OK?
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Robert
Posted November 28, 2015 at 8:50 pm | Permalink
If they were to find the body of Jesus tomorrow and prove that it absolutely is the body of Jesus, would you still be a Christian, let alone RC. I suspect you would say no. Therefore, your belief in Christ and in Rome is provisional, it’s provisional upon the fact of them never finding the body of Jesus.
For the record, this hypothetical is itself built on a self-negating premise: If they found the body of Jesus of Nazareth, it would not be the body of Jesus [the] Christ. “Christianity” would be a meaningless term.
“I believe in Jesus Christ” is of course a “fideism.” That word should not be thrown around as a trump card, for it is not.
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Robert,
May beliefs are not processional in any sense because they absolutely demand that I give assent.
I dont need omniscience to know whether or not Jesus is risen from the dead. Do you?
Before I was Catholic i doubted it, but only because there were different churches that would never claim that their identity was as the authority to teach and to discipline. Since they couldn’t do this they left open the bible to grant authority to others who contradicted their teaching and therefore their authority.
The only entity that would claim me as a child and would love me enough to teach me the truth and discipline me as a living father, was my mother the Jerusalem from above.
I’m not gonna die for something that I can’t be sure about. Rome doesn’t tell me that Jesus may not have resurrected after all. It tells me that he did and it makes other claims too that Protestantism cast-off one by one through time.
We are not in the same epistemological boat. I jumped out of that one for a reason and its the same reason I could never jump back!
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vd, t, right, you’ve only linked to the nbc story about lesbian Presbyterians about as many times as you gave correct answers on Joker’s an Ass.
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vd, t, look a couple of lesbian squirrels.
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James Young, way to question beg “confessional Presbyterian.” As if MacArthur and Begg are confessional.
You don’t know confessionalism na nana nana.
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Petros, you don’t understand the Roman Catholic apologists’ mind. Reality doesn’t matter. It’s paradigms, theories, concepts.
Of course, no one else has those (see Communists, Hegelians, Kuyperians, Platonists, Occupy Wall Streeters).
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 28, 2015 at 10:52 pm | Permalink
vd, t, right, you’ve only linked to the nbc story about lesbian Presbyterians about as many times as you gave correct answers on Joker’s an Ass.
D. G. Hart
Posted November 28, 2015 at 10:53 pm | Permalink
vd, t, look a couple of lesbian squirrels.
Actually it’s called the Joker’s Wild and by some measures I’m the all-time champion. Here’s let’s watch it together again–you clearly have. 😉
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v1017171YB6AN7T4
As for the “lesbian squirrels,” the 1.5 million-member Presbyterian Church of the United States of America ordained a lesbian couple. Not just a lesbian, but a lesbian couple.
That’s not “hey, look there’s a squirrel,” Elder Hart. Your “Orthodox Presbyterian Church” has 30,000 members. They’re 50 times the size of your version of the “Presbyterian Church.”
And your OPC church has Pastor Kevin Swanson in it, a guy who wants to kill homos.
You’re the squirrel, big guy.
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Tom,
“I believe in Jesus Christ” is of course a “fideism.” That word should not be thrown around as a trump card, for it is not.
Tell that to Cletus.
But more seriously, fideism is typically used of beliefs without evidence/justification. So it is pejorative.
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Susan,
May beliefs are not processional in any sense because they absolutely demand that I give assent.
I dont need omniscience to know whether or not Jesus is risen from the dead. Do you?
No I don’t need omniscience, which is why the whole epistemological argument is bogus. My point is that you don’t need non-provisionality to justify assent. That is the whole CTC/CVD argument, namely, that provisionality makes something unworthy of assent. But that is false because human beings never rise completely above provisionality. We lack omniscience, our understanding can always be corrected, etc. We are finite, which means we will never know how belief A intersects with every other fact and belief in existence. The only person who has that kind of knowledge is God.
Before I was Catholic i doubted it, but only because there were different churches that would never claim that their identity was as the authority to teach and to discipline. Since they couldn’t do this they left open the bible to grant authority to others who contradicted their teaching and therefore their authority.
Susan, I mean this in the kindest way possible, but this is evidence of cultic thinking. You can’t be sure of the resurrection until Rome says it happened???? But in any case, you don’t solve the problem. There are churches that contradict what Rome says, so based on that, you shouldn’t be any better off unless you just assume that Rome is right whenever Rome says she is right.
That might be well and good, but that is a provisional belief based on your provisional estimation of the motives of credibility. As CVD has said, the motives of credibility can only make something reasonable, they don’t eliminate provisionality. Any assent based on them is provisional.
The only entity that would claim me as a child and would love me enough to teach me the truth and discipline me as a living father, was my mother the Jerusalem from above.
The church will discipline you but not Nancy Pelosi.
I’m not gonna die for something that I can’t be sure about.
Well good. You confuse provisionality with uncertainty. It is the mistake that CVD makes. I’m not uncertain about the resurrection, but that doesn’t mean my belief in it is wholly lacking in provisionality.
Rome doesn’t tell me that Jesus may not have resurrected after all. It tells me that he did and it makes other claims too that Protestantism cast-off one by one through time.
Protestantism cast off many of those claims because they weren’t there from the beginning. But in any case, I don’t know any Protestant who says Jesus may not have resurrected after all in any sense other than the theoretical sense that Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 15. For Paul to entertain that possibility even in theory indicates provisionality.
We are not in the same epistemological boat. I jumped out of that one for a reason and its the same reason I could never jump back!
Yes you are. You cannot have any understanding that Rome is the church Christ founded apart from provisional estimation of the evidence. Your initial assent is based on a provisional foundation, and you can’t get any stronger than your foundation.
You seem to take a great deal of comfort from the fact that some Roman Catholics believe declared dogma cannot change. But comfort doesn’t make the claim true. And all you have is provisional apprehension of that claim.
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TVD:Actually it’s called the Joker’s Wild and by some measures I’m the all-time champion. Here’s let’s watch it together again–you clearly have. http://www.veoh.com/watch/v1017171YB6AN7T4
wow TVD, but the “The Game Show TEMPLE” (@ beginning) ?! 2k, TVD
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vd, t, I don’t defend Kevin Swanson. You defend David Barton.
Ha ha.
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Robert,
I don’t understand why you don’t understand the difference in claims.
If someone said I have gold ring with 5 carat flawless and colorless diamond and another person said they had a 4 carat diamond ring with inclusions and slightly yellow, you could choose the better diamond without the choice being made on provisional knowledge. If the flawed diamond was said to be set on the Ring of Gyges, you would then base your choice on the claim, but the claim itself wouldn’t be provisional( if it were true). So no, my choosing is not provisional if the offer does not claim to be shaky.
Surely you can recognize the difference.
I can see that all of Protestantism came from the Catholicism that it attacks for many different reasons,today. However, I can also see that the Reformation was initially about one thing, so this causes me to be curious as to why other aspects would be challenged since it was not on Luther’s list. Common sense tells me that a religious body doesn’t become less complex through time, so I could see that the charge that Catholicism gained accretions, that no person ever challenged until after Martin Luther, was a false charge and based solely on protestant antiCatholic sensibilities, since it was always part of the tradition( Luther believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary, how many Protestants believe that today?)
This means the only charge against Catholicism that I needed to address was the one by Luther on justification. When I understood that bad works will result in my damnation because God’s will for man is that his works conform to God’s works and will, it wasn’t hard to see that a person cannot be saved by faith alone. If I sin and a non- Christian also sins, and our only difference is that I have faith, then Jesus shouldn’t have given us any warnings about hell fire being the result of willful sinning. Plus when I consider that Catholicism correctly fleshes out other doctrines and it is first and oldest, then I know it is correct on its doctrine of justification. Justification is in the scriptures so the Catholic Church has fleshed it out too.
Another thing that I look at is the ability that Roman Catholicism has in fleshing out doctrines from scripture. This proves that the Holy Spirit is with this Church. You might say, that any scholar should be able to flesh out the same teachings if they exist in the scriptures. And you might be right, but so far they haven’t or they refrain because doing so will prove Roman Catholicism, or they do and go home to Rome. In any case the doctrine’s origins are Roman Catholic and to prove that you can look at the so-called accretions that coincide with the fleshed out scriptures.
Anyways, you’re not a person easy to convince, so I won’t try to do that anymore!
I wish you peace on your journey:)
Happy first Sunday of Advent!
Maranatha!
Susan
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Hi Susan,
You wrote,
>>
My beliefs are not processional in any sense because they absolutely demand that I give assent.
I don’t need omniscience to know whether or not Jesus is risen from the dead. Do you?
Before I was Catholic i doubted it, but only because there were different churches that would never claim that their identity was as the authority to teach and to discipline. Since they couldn’t do this they left open the bible to grant authority to others who contradicted their teaching and therefore their authority.
>>
Do I misunderstand you here? Are you saying when you were in Protestant churches you doubted the resurrection of Jesus, but that after you became a Roman Catholic you no longer did, because the Roman Catholic Church’s Magisterium said He resurrected?
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No one of note,
Let me see if I can explain because it’s not easy to explain.
I has a conversion based on the knowledge that God exists combined with the message that Jesus loved me and died on the cross for my sins and was resurrected. I didn’t need special revelation to know that God exists, so the only asditional information that I has to taken into my world view was that Jesus is God and that he does for my sins.
I heard the message from a Southern Baptist and was baptised in that community. Later I moved to California where I became more charismatic( I just considered it a personal relationship with Jesus) in my expression and zealous in my love. Later I moved into Reformed territory because I began to recognize that Christianity as a historical phenomenon didn’t look or function the way it was in my current group, so it made sense to me to allow in creeds and.confessions( that I assumed were drawn from the ancient church yet purified from error). So I beloved that Reformed churches were the true church.
I eventually went through a period of doubt and lost my faith, however Reformed theology didn’t have a category for my situation. In that theology God’s sovereignty and my loss of faith couldn’t coexist. I had to assume that I was never saved in the first place yet I knew that I had been and that I loved Jesus and had what every believer professes. So what happened? My conclusion was that grace is irresistible and that I has a free will. And that is what excercised when I first believed even though I didn’t realize it.
So I could have faith again, but this time I didn’t have a way to pick my faith community. Protestantism as a whole contradicts the position of the other on so many important doctrines that it’s existence undermines the notion of truth. So I went towards the place that claims infallibility(will stand behind everything it teaches and will not change) and is the origin of every sect and whose existence is supporable by scripture and has to conform to scripture, yet doesn’t irrationally claim scripture as its birth mother.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 29, 2015 at 8:49 am | Permalink
vd, t, I don’t defend Kevin Swanson. You defend David Barton.
Ha ha.
I have no link to David Barton. Kevin Swanson is a pastor in your Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Ha ha yourself, the joke’s on you.
Pastor Thinks Parents Should Drown Themselves Instead Of Letting Kids Read ‘Harry Potter’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kevin-swanson-harry-potter_5640bd73e4b0411d3071a74e
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Robert
Posted November 29, 2015 at 7:42 am | Permalink
Tom,
“I believe in Jesus Christ” is of course a “fideism.” That word should not be thrown around as a trump card, for it is not.
Tell that to Cletus.
But more seriously, fideism is typically used of beliefs without evidence/justification. So it is pejorative.
Yes it’s pejorative. That’s why using it as a weapon so freely is not honest or helpful. If believing in the Resurrection is “fideism,” so be it.
As we see, the Catholic/Thomistic approach is anything but fideistic
However Cornelius Van Til’s “presuppositionalism” needs quite a bit of work to avoid the charge.
https://bible.org/seriespage/17-fideist-apologetics-faith-alone
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vd, t, actually, I found plenty of links to you and Barton:
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2014/12/throckmorton-on-david-barton-lawsuit.html?showComment=1419231830730#c6354880842055319925
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2014/12/21/david-barton-settles-defamation-claims-out-of-court/#comment-1755615219
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/warrenthrockmorton/2015/01/26/president-of-southern-baptist-convention-hosts-david-barton-at-the-summit/#comment-1820894345
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/10/09/david-barton-christopher-columbus-and-the-potential-costs-of-myth-making/#comment-386664
https://graceuniversity.edu/iip/2013/11/13-11-09-1/#comment-140156
https://faithandamericanhistory.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/whats-really-at-stake-in-the-christian-america-debate/#comment-631
But for the life of me, I’m having trouble figuring out how Edward Feser is a Roman Catholic website.
I get it. Truth is arbitrary for you since you follow (but don’t commune with) the papacy.
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Susan, please explain how Roman Catholicism doesn’t contradict truth. In 1864 the church via the papacy condemned everything modern. At Vatican II, a century later, when modernity was a whole lot more threatening to the West’s traditions, the church updated and opened the windows to things modern.
And we’re not supposed to notice?
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Tom,
Yes it’s pejorative. That’s why using it as a weapon so freely is not honest or helpful. If believing in the Resurrection is “fideism,” so be it.
Believing the resurrection because Rome claims to be without error and Rome says it happened is fideistic. I don’t think that’s the only reason CVD believes it. The other RCs I’m not so sure.
As we see, the Catholic/Thomistic approach is anything but fideistic
The Roman Catholic approach outlined here and by CTC is incredibly fideistic and borders on viciously circular argumentation.
But the bigger point is this, and that is that CVD et al say that without an infallible church you have fideism and provisionality. It’s a bogus claim.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 29, 2015 at 5:29 pm | Permalink
vd, t, actually, I found plenty of links to you and Barton:
Wow, what a pathetic way to spend The Lord’s Day, Dr. Hart, trolling the internet for gotchas in a personal vendetta. And had you found a smoking gun, you’d have used it.
But for the life of me, I’m having trouble figuring out how Edward Feser is a Roman Catholic website.
A pity you read only for spite instead of truth and knowledge.
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/11/papal-fallibility.html
I get it. Truth is arbitrary for you since you follow (but don’t commune with) the papacy.
My private life is none of your business, Dr. Hart.
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Robert
Posted November 29, 2015 at 5:56 pm | Permalink
Tom,
Yes it’s pejorative. That’s why using it as a weapon so freely is not honest or helpful. If believing in the Resurrection is “fideism,” so be it.
“Believing the resurrection because Rome claims to be without error and Rome says it happened is fideistic. I don’t think that’s the only reason CVD believes it. The other RCs I’m not so sure.”
I’m not interested in your personal problems with others. That many or even most Catholics are poorly catechized is stipulated. As they say in chess, play the board, not the opponent. Exploiting the errors of a bad opponent amounts to little or nothing of value.
I ignore your bad arguments and engage only the best of them.
“As we see, the Catholic/Thomistic approach is anything but fideistic”
The Roman Catholic approach outlined here and by CTC is incredibly fideistic and borders on viciously circular argumentation.
But the bigger point is this, and that is that CVD et al say that without an infallible church you have fideism and provisionality. It’s a bogus claim.
You’ll have to make your argument instead of asserting it. You did not respond to the materials; you merely proclaimed them fideistic, circular and “bogus.”
You are obliged to say why, for once you do attempt to say why you’ll find yourself subject to exactly the same criticisms. Perhaps even more egregiously, as a sola scripturist–“Because the Bible tells me so.”
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/according-to-scripture
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Robert:
No I don’t need omniscience, which is why the whole epistemological argument is bogus. My point is that you don’t need non-provisionality to justify assent. That is the whole CTC/CVD argument, namely, that provisionality makes something unworthy of assent. >>>>>
You have said that faith is a gift from God. Did God give you provisional faith?
But that is false because human beings never rise completely above provisionality.>>>>
Then how can you say you have faith? Does God give as a gift a faith that does not work, but only might work?
See, you are leaving out God’s work, which is never unsure and never provisional. I keep saying that the Holy Spirit has gone quite missing in your formulations. You don’t even mention Him. Jeff did not mention His work of regeneration in the heart of the Philippian Jailer until I called him on it.
Why are you guys doing that? Even in determining the canon of Scripture, you rely on textual criticism, but do not factor in the Holy Spirit’s working through the Church in which He was deposited on the Day of Pentecost as a reliable source of knowledge as far as the canon goes. Why do you do that?
Honest questions that I think need to be answered. They are important because without faith it is impossible to please God. You have to have as your starting point faith that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Read Hebrews 11.
If all you have is provisional knowledge, then how can you ever have anything but provisional faith? How can that be enough for salvation by grace through faith? Especially given the fact that you believe – possibly only provisionally until proven otherwise – that faith is a gift.
Your extreme reliance on provisional knowledge, which would have to lead to provisional faith, is starting to look more like what the Bible calls unbelief.
You are putting yourself and your own doubts at the center of your “faith” it seems to me. That is, you will believe until further notice.
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“Susan, please explain how Roman Catholicism doesn’t contradict truth. In 1864 the church via the papacy condemned everything modern. At Vatican II, a century later, when modernity was a whole lot more threatening to the West’s traditions, the church updated and opened the windows to things modern.
And we’re not supposed to notice?”
Show me two doctrines side by side demonstrating the change. If you are going to make such claims you should be able to prove it.
It’s simply untrue.
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Robert:
But more seriously, fideism is typically used of beliefs without evidence/justification. So it is pejorative.>>>>
What evidence are you willing to accept? Read Hebrews 11. Are you willing to accept the testimony of those men and woman of God as reliable evidence as to the existence of God? Are you willing to accept the testimony of Christians right now as to God’s miraculous and very personal intervention in their lives as evidence that God exists?
I accept that kind of evidence, and the Bible uses that kind of evidence to support the fact that God exists. Are you willing to do that? It is not the only line of evidence, but it is probably the strongest.
That is the kind of evidence presented as to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as well. You know the arguments and the evidence is in Scripture itself. How can you accuse people who accept that evidence of fideism when that is the kind of evidence presented in God’s Word?
What evidence is there that God sent the Holy Spirit to His Church on the day of Pentecost?
You give textual criticism so much power over the Scripture, but I have presented evidence to show you how dangerous that is. You ignore it. So, you have more faith in textual criticism than you have in the Bible itself. What pejorative shall we attach to that?
If you want to accuse others of having a faith that is not supported by evidence, then produce the evidence to back up what you say. All you do is over and over and over again like a broken record invoke provisional knowledge. Why not invoke some evidence if that is what you demand from others?
Prove from Scripture alone that the Bible ever argues the way that you do. Where in the Bible do we find provisional knowledge? I can think of one outstanding example. Doubting Thomas.
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Mermaid,
Whoa Nellie,
What evidence are you willing to accept? Read Hebrews 11. Are you willing to accept the testimony of those men and woman of God as reliable evidence as to the existence of God? Are you willing to accept the testimony of Christians right now as to God’s miraculous and very personal intervention in their lives as evidence that God exists?
I accept that kind of evidence, and the Bible uses that kind of evidence to support the fact that God exists. Are you willing to do that? It is not the only line of evidence, but it is probably the strongest.
Sure.
That is the kind of evidence presented as to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as well. You know the arguments and the evidence is in Scripture itself. How can you accuse people who accept that evidence of fideism when that is the kind of evidence presented in God’s Word?
I accuse people of fideism when they say they didn’t know Jesus was raised from the dead for sure until the RCC told them so.
What evidence is there that God sent the Holy Spirit to His Church on the day of Pentecost?
The book of Acts, the gospels, church history…
You give textual criticism so much power over the Scripture, but I have presented evidence to show you how dangerous that is. You ignore it.
I haven’t ignored any of it. What I have seen ignored is the fact that Roman Catholicism endorses and encourages textual criticism.
So, you have more faith in textual criticism than you have in the Bible itself. What pejorative shall we attach to that?
I rely on textual criticism as a motive of credibility to establish what the Apostles actually wrote. That is all.
,i>If you want to accuse others of having a faith that is not supported by evidence, then produce the evidence to back up what you say. All you do is over and over and over again like a broken record invoke provisional knowledge. Why not invoke some evidence if that is what you demand from others?
Prove from Scripture alone that the Bible ever argues the way that you do. Where in the Bible do we find provisional knowledge? I can think of one outstanding example. Doubting Thomas.
Provisional knowledge is inherent to being a creature. You can never know everything or how one fact relates to every other fact in existence. That belongs only to God. Paul the Apostle says He knows only in part. He also holds out the theoretical possibility that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. It’s a trivial possibility as he presents it, but it is one nonetheless. Therefore, provisionality.
Your epistemological error, as CVD’s and Susan’s and the whole of this crap RCC epistemological argument is to equate provisionality with doubt. If that is so, then none of you can have certainty about anything because your apprehension of Rome and its teaching is subject always to your provisional and finite understanding.
There might be good reasons to be RCC. The idea that it somehow takes away your provisional knowledge isn’t one of them. Because it doesn’t.
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Mermaid,
You have said that faith is a gift from God. Did God give you provisional faith?
The gift of faith does not eliminate provisional knowledge and apprehension. If it did, there could be no growth in understanding.
Then how can you say you have faith? Does God give as a gift a faith that does not work, but only might work?
The purpose of faith isn’t to make our knowledge non-provisional. Such knowledge is impossible for human beings. Until you know every fact and the way every fact relates to every other fact, your knowledge is provisional.
See, you are leaving out God’s work, which is never unsure and never provisional.
I’m not leaving out God’s work. I’m pointing out that God’s work doesn’t make you omniscient or infinite, which must happen to eliminate provisionality in your knowledge/apprehension. Provisionality doesn’t mean wrong and it doesn’t mean everything is up for grabs.
God’s work is never provisional. My understanding of it always is. I’m not omniscient.
I keep saying that the Holy Spirit has gone quite missing in your formulations. You don’t even mention Him. Jeff did not mention His work of regeneration in the heart of the Philippian Jailer until I called him on it.
Jeff didn’t mention it because if you know anything about Reformed theology, it is assumed. Moreover, since the Spirit’s work always accomplishes its end in Reformed theology, it’s quite hysterical for you to accuse us of suggesting that God’s work is provisional. It’s Rome that says God’s grace routinely fails to convert and make people persevere.
Why are you guys doing that? Even in determining the canon of Scripture, you rely on textual criticism, but do not factor in the Holy Spirit’s working through the Church in which He was deposited on the Day of Pentecost as a reliable source of knowledge as far as the canon goes. Why do you do that?
Careful, you are getting close to lying about my position. I don’t rely on textual criticism to “determine the canon of Scripture,” because for one, neither I nor the church determines it. Textual criticism only tells me which parts of John, Genesis, etc. the original author actually wrote. It doesn’t tell me whether or not the book is canonical. That comes through various lines of evidence—church reception, Apostolic and prophetic authorship, conformity to the rule of faith, etc.—with the final deciding factor being the work of the Holy Spirit to self-authenticate His Word.
Honest questions that I think need to be answered. They are important because without faith it is impossible to please God. You have to have as your starting point faith that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Read Hebrews 11.
If all you have is provisional knowledge, then how can you ever have anything but provisional faith? How can that be enough for salvation by grace through faith? Especially given the fact that you believe – possibly only provisionally until proven otherwise – that faith is a gift.
Your extreme reliance on provisional knowledge, which would have to lead to provisional faith, is starting to look more like what the Bible calls unbelief.
You are putting yourself and your own doubts at the center of your “faith” it seems to me. That is, you will believe until further notice.
You are speaking like a cult member now. Is there really absolutely nothing that could ever happen that would make you lose your faith? What if they discover the body of Jesus? Paul said if Jesus hasn’t been raised your faith is in vain.
Every thinking person believes until something comes along to make them change their belief. If that weren’t so, then your conversion to Romanism was entirely an unthought-out process.
You don’t understand provisionality, which is the fundamental error that CVD keeps making.
I don’t have any doubts, serious ones anyway, about the resurrection, the Bible, or Reformed theology. But that doesn’t mean my apprehension of any of that escapes provisionality. I’m not omniscient.
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Tom,
You’ll have to make your argument instead of asserting it. You did not respond to the materials; you merely proclaimed them fideistic, circular and “bogus.”
The typical RCC argument for trusting the church begins with motives of credibility such as miracles, holiness of the church, etc. that make it reasonable to believe. That is actually fine as far as it goes as long as RC’s acknowledge the circularity of the argument. The motives of credibility only point to Rome if you first accept Rome’s interpretation of them. In themselves, what Rome calls miracles, for examples, are just unusual events. The resurrection of Jesus, apart from interpretation, proves absolutely nothing supernatural. In fact, I’ve seen people look at the evidence for the resurrection and conclude not that God exists but that some naturalistic event has happened that we cannot yet explain via naturalism but one day will.
The motives of credibility are credible only if you accept Rome’s interpretation of them. At best they are part of a broadly circular argument for Romanism.
You are obliged to say why, for once you do attempt to say why you’ll find yourself subject to exactly the same criticisms. Perhaps even more egregiously, as a sola scripturist–“Because the Bible tells me so.”
I acknowledge a degree of circularity in my foundational claim. A final authority cannot point away from itself for its justification, otherwise it isn’t the foundational authority. This is something the hardcore RC rationalists like the CTC guys don’t get. Ultimately, Rome can rest its claim for itself only on itself and its profession of divine authority. If it didn’t, the church wouldn’t be the final authority but something else would be.
To quote John Frame: “As Van Til says, circular argument of a kind is unavoidable when we argue for an ultimate standard of truth. One who believes that human reason is the ultimate standard can argue that view only by appealing to reason. One who believes that the Bible is the ultimate standard can argue only by appealing to the Bible. Since all positions partake equally of circularity at this level, it cannot be a point of criticism against any of them.
Narrowly circular arguments, like “the Bible is God’s Word, because it is God’s Word” can hardly be persuasive. But more broadly circular arguments can be. An example of a more broadly circular argument might be “The Bible is God’s Word, because it makes the following claims…, makes the following predictions that have been fulfilled…, presents these credible accounts of miracles…, is supported by these archaeological discoveries…, etc.” Now this argument is as circular as the last if, in the final analysis, the criteria for evaluating its claims, its predictions, its accounts of miracles, and the data of archaeology are criteria based on a biblical worldview and epistemology. But it is a broader argument in the sense that it presents more data to the non-Christian and challenges him to consider it seriously.”
http://www.frame-poythress.org/presuppositional-apologetics/
The arguments of some of the RC interlocutors here border on vicious circularity. That’s my point.
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From Feser’s blog:
there is much that Catholics have to assent to even though it is not put forward as infallible.
Wait a minute…
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Robert
Posted November 29, 2015 at 8:12 pm | Permalink
I don’t rely on textual criticism to “determine the canon of Scripture,” because for one, neither I nor the church determines it. Textual criticism only tells me which parts of John, Genesis, etc. the original author actually wrote. It doesn’t tell me whether or not the book is canonical. That comes through various lines of evidence—church reception, Apostolic and prophetic authorship, conformity to the rule of faith, etc.—with the final deciding factor being the work of the Holy Spirit to self-authenticate His Word.
Congratulations. You’ve come around to the Catholic position.
Otherwise, you’ve perpetrated a colossal waste of everyone’s time, since everyone was aware their have been philological concerns against the Pericope Adulterae for nearly 2000 years. The only question ever was whether the Church of Robert would cut it out. At first I thought you said yes, but we now know your final answer is no.
Provisionally. 😉
with the final deciding factor being the work of the Holy Spirit to self-authenticate His Word.
Catholicism [including the Eastern Orthodox] kept the Deuterocanonicals; Luther and Protestantism cut them out. Somebody’s Holy Spirit is wrong. Back to where this all started–you have no method or reason to prefer one over the other.
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Robert
Posted November 29, 2015 at 8:24 pm | Permalink
Tom,
‘You’ll have to make your argument instead of asserting it. You did not respond to the materials; you merely proclaimed them fideistic, circular and “bogus.”’
The typical RCC argument for trusting the church begins with motives of credibility such as miracles, holiness of the church, etc. that make it reasonable to believe.
No, it’s the Bible, and not just “Thou art Peter.” You need to do your homework before we can have this discussion. You’re just not in the zone yet.
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/peter-and-the-papacy
Sorry, Robert, I’m really tired of anti-Catholics skipping over the dozen-plus other arguments. As for the rest of your assertion, the other arguments are supporting arguments, and indeed “the holiness of the Church” is a bit of a laugher. The sins of the Church are worst-kept secret in human history.
During a frustrating argument with a Roman Catholic cardinal, Napoleon Bonaparte supposedly burst out: “Your eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church?” The cardinal, the anecdote goes, responded ruefully: “Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/opinion/29douthat.html
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Robert:
You don’t understand provisionality, which is the fundamental error that CVD keeps making.
I don’t have any doubts, serious ones anyway, about the resurrection, the Bible, or Reformed theology. But that doesn’t mean my apprehension of any of that escapes provisionality. I’m not omniscient.>>>
See, Robert, I don’t think you understand the limits of provisionality. You seem to be trying to make it apply to everything.
It has its place, of course. You need to know its place, and I don’t think you do. I could give you examples from what I have read here.
Robert:
I accuse people of fideism when they say they didn’t know Jesus was raised from the dead for sure until the RCC told them so.>>>>
Oh, nonsense. Who says that? You are misinterpreting what has been said to you. How did the Church tell them? Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church and you will see how the Church tells people about the Resurrection of Christ. Here, I will help you by posting it below. This is how she teaches the phrase “on the third day He rose from the dead” from the Nicene Creed.
This is what catechumens are taught in class.
————————————————————–
Paragraph 2. ON THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD
638 “We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this day he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus.”488 The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal mystery along with the cross:
Christ is risen from the dead!
Dying, he conquered death;
To the dead, he has given life.489
I. THE HISTORICAL AND TRANSCENDENT EVENT
639 The mystery of Christ’s resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bears witness. In about A.D. 56 St. Paul could already write to the Corinthians: “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. . .”490 The Apostle speaks here of the living tradition of the Resurrection which he had learned after his conversion at the gates of Damascus.491
The empty tomb
640 “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”492 The first element we encounter in the framework of the Easter events is the empty tomb. In itself it is not a direct proof of Resurrection; the absence of Christ’s body from the tomb could be explained otherwise.493 Nonetheless the empty tomb was still an essential sign for all. Its discovery by the disciples was the first step toward recognizing the very fact of the Resurrection. This was the case, first with the holy women, and then with Peter.494 The disciple “whom Jesus loved” affirmed that when he entered the empty tomb and discovered “the linen cloths lying there”, “he saw and believed”.495 This suggests that he realized from the empty tomb’s condition that the absence of Jesus’ body could not have been of human doing and that Jesus had not simply returned to earthly life as had been the case with Lazarus.496
The appearances of the Risen One
641 Mary Magdalene and the holy women who came to finish anointing the body of Jesus, which had been buried in haste because the Sabbath began on the evening of Good Friday, were the first to encounter the Risen One.497 Thus the women were the first messengers of Christ’s Resurrection for the apostles themselves.498 They were the next to whom Jesus appears: first Peter, then the Twelve. Peter had been called to strengthen the faith of his brothers,499 and so sees the Risen One before them; it is on the basis of his testimony that the community exclaims: “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!”500
642 Everything that happened during those Paschal days involves each of the apostles – and Peter in particular – in the building of the new era begun on Easter morning. As witnesses of the Risen One, they remain the foundation stones of his Church. the faith of the first community of believers is based on the witness of concrete men known to the Christians and for the most part still living among them. Peter and the Twelve are the primary “witnesses to his Resurrection”, but they are not the only ones – Paul speaks clearly of more than five hundred persons to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion and also of James and of all the apostles.501
643 Given all these testimonies, Christ’s Resurrection cannot be interpreted as something outside the physical order, and it is impossible not to acknowledge it as an historical fact. It is clear from the facts that the disciples’ faith was drastically put to the test by their master’s Passion and death on the cross, which he had foretold.502 The shock provoked by the Passion was so great that at least some of the disciples did not at once believe in the news of the Resurrection. Far from showing us a community seized by a mystical exaltation, the Gospels present us with disciples demoralized (“looking sad”503) and frightened. For they had not believed the holy women returning from the tomb and had regarded their words as an “idle tale”.504 When Jesus reveals himself to the Eleven on Easter evening, “he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.”505
644 Even when faced with the reality of the risen Jesus the disciples are still doubtful, so impossible did the thing seem: they thought they were seeing a ghost. “In their joy they were still disbelieving and still wondering.”506 Thomas will also experience the test of doubt and St. Matthew relates that during the risen Lord’s last appearance in Galilee “some doubted.”507 Therefore the hypothesis that the Resurrection was produced by the apostles’ faith (or credulity) will not hold up. On the contrary their faith in the Resurrection was born, under the action of divine grace, from their direct experience of the reality of the risen Jesus.
The condition of Christ’s risen humanity
645 By means of touch and the sharing of a meal, the risen Jesus establishes direct contact with his disciples. He invites them in this way to recognize that he is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified, for it still bears the traces of his Passion.508 Yet at the same time this authentic, real body possesses the new properties of a glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills; for Christ’s humanity can no longer be confined to earth, and belongs henceforth only to the Father’s divine realm.509 For this reason too the risen Jesus enjoys the sovereign freedom of appearing as he wishes: in the guise of a gardener or in other forms familiar to his disciples, precisely to awaken their faith.510
646 Christ’s Resurrection was not a return to earthly life, as was the case with the raisings from the dead that he had performed before Easter: Jairus’ daughter, the young man of Naim, Lazarus. These actions were miraculous events, but the persons miraculously raised returned by Jesus’ power to ordinary earthly life. At some particular moment they would die again. Christ’s Resurrection is essentially different. In his risen body he passes from the state of death to another life beyond time and space. At Jesus’ Resurrection his body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in his glorious state, so that St. Paul can say that Christ is “the man of heaven”.511
The Resurrection as transcendent event
647 O truly blessed Night, sings the Exsultet of the Easter Vigil, which alone deserved to know the time and the hour when Christ rose from the realm of the dead!512 But no one was an eyewitness to Christ’s Resurrection and no evangelist describes it. No one can say how it came about physically. Still less was its innermost essence, his passing over to another life, perceptible to the senses. Although the Resurrection was an historical event that could be verified by the sign of the empty tomb and by the reality of the apostles’ encounters with the risen Christ, still it remains at the very heart of the mystery of faith as something that transcends and surpasses history. This is why the risen Christ does not reveal himself to the world, but to his disciples, “to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.”513
II. THE RESURRECTION – A WORK OF THE HOLY TRINITY
648 Christ’s Resurrection is an object of faith in that it is a transcendent intervention of God himself in creation and history. In it the three divine persons act together as one, and manifest their own proper characteristics. the Father’s power “raised up” Christ his Son and by doing so perfectly introduced his Son’s humanity, including his body, into the Trinity. Jesus is conclusively revealed as “Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his Resurrection from the dead”.514 St. Paul insists on the manifestation of God’s power515 through the working of the Spirit who gave life to Jesus’ dead humanity and called it to the glorious state of Lordship.
649 As for the Son, he effects his own Resurrection by virtue of his divine power. Jesus announces that the Son of man will have to suffer much, die, and then rise.516 Elsewhere he affirms explicitly: “I lay down my life, that I may take it again. . . I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”517 “We believe that Jesus died and rose again.”518
650 The Fathers contemplate the Resurrection from the perspective of the divine person of Christ who remained united to his soul and body, even when these were separated from each other by death: “By the unity of the divine nature, which remains present in each of the two components of man, these are reunited. For as death is produced by the separation of the human components, so Resurrection is achieved by the union of the two.”519
III. THE MEANING AND SAVING SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESURRECTION
651 “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”520 The Resurrection above all constitutes the confirmation of all Christ’s works and teachings. All truths, even those most inaccessible to human reason, find their justification if Christ by his Resurrection has given the definitive proof of his divine authority, which he had promised.
652 Christ’s Resurrection is the fulfilment of the promises both of the Old Testament and of Jesus himself during his earthly life.521 The phrase “in accordance with the Scriptures”522 indicates that Christ’s Resurrection fulfilled these predictions.
653 The truth of Jesus’ divinity is confirmed by his Resurrection. He had said: “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he.”523 The Resurrection of the crucified one shows that he was truly “I AM”, the Son of God and God himself. So St. Paul could declare to the Jews: “What God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.'”524 Christ’s Resurrection is closely linked to the Incarnation of God’s Son, and is its fulfilment in accordance with God’s eternal plan.
654 The Paschal mystery has two aspects: by his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God’s grace, “so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin and a new participation in grace.526 It brings about filial adoption so that men become Christ’s brethren, as Jesus himself called his disciples after his Resurrection: “Go and tell my brethren.”527 We are brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because that adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his Resurrection.
655 Finally, Christ’s Resurrection – and the risen Christ himself is the principle and source of our future resurrection: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. . . For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”528 The risen Christ lives in the hearts of his faithful while they await that fulfilment. In Christ, Christians “have tasted. . . the powers of the age to come”529 and their lives are swept up by Christ into the heart of divine life, so that they may “live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”530
IN BRIEF
656 Faith in the Resurrection has as its object an event which as historically attested to by the disciples, who really encountered the Risen One. At the same time, this event is mysteriously transcendent insofar as it is the entry of Christ’s humanity into the glory of God.
657 The empty tomb and the linen cloths lying there signify in themselves that by God’s power Christ’s body had escaped the bonds of death and corruption. They prepared the disciples to encounter the Risen Lord.
658 Christ, “the first-born from the dead” (⇒ Col 1:18), is the principle of our own resurrection, even now by the justification of our souls (cf ⇒ Rom 6:4), and one day by the new life he will impart to our bodies (cf ⇒ Rom 8:11).
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vd, t, I’d prefer your private life to remain so but it keeps bubbling up here.
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Hi Susan,
Thanks for sharing what sounds like both an excruciating and exhilarating pilgrimage… especially here, on the net, and on…. OL …..
But i do have a further question or two. Here goes.
In the dark times of your loss of faith (i.e., unbelief), and up until the time you embraced the Roman Catholic Church and its authority, was the apostolic testimony to the resurrection, by itself, insufficient to heal your unbelief?
And, is that apostolic testimony, by itself, insufficient for you still?
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 29, 2015 at 9:34 pm | Permalink
vd, t, I’d prefer your private life to remain so but it keeps bubbling up here.
Well, you can cease your part in it, Dr. Hart, and urge your fans to do likewise. Librarians shouldn’t want to go there if you know what I mean, Professor, hitting people who don’t hit back.
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Susan, play Muhammad Ali if you like. You actually think the post-Vatican 2 popes are condemning of modernity the way pre-Vatican 2 popes were? Do you read history at all?
Read a Roman Catholic priest and historian:
I know, I know. The response will be that nothing changed. No dogmas were revised. And for those of us in the cheap seats of Protestantism, we’ve seen this show before. When the PCUSA went liberal it didn’t change a single article in the Westminster Confession.
If you have any thoughtfulness in you, you’ll consider the modernist stance and style of the Vatican II church. But if you must preserve your own religious testimony and experience, you’ll do what all evangelicals turned Roman Catholic do — hear, see, and say no evil (except in Protestantism).
Again, are we not supposed to notice? Are we not supposed to read a Jesuit magazine (not a blog, vd, t).
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D. G. Hart
Again, are we not supposed to notice? Are we not supposed to read a Jesuit magazine (not a blog, vd, t).
Yes, liberal Catholic dissenters at America Magazine. You use them as weapons against the Church. Your act is boring.
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2009/06/georgetown-jesuit-makes-pres-obama-into-americas-pope/
You should clean up your own house, [say that hideous psychotic OPC pastor Kevin Swanson, who wants to kill gays], but instead you troll for Catholic dissenters on the internet to attack the Church.
I know, I know. The response will be that nothing changed. No dogmas were revised.
You admit you have no case. But still you fling the poo-poo.
And for those of us in the cheap seats of Protestantism, we’ve seen this show before. When the PCUSA went liberal it didn’t change a single article in the Westminster Confession.
Ordaining a lesbian couple is a lot more than “liberal,” and renders much of your Confession as so much theological trivia. Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the show?
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vd, t, you can’t call America folks dissenters unless you identify yourself as a loyalist and fish eater.
And I get no credit for a website? Of course not. Look vd, t’m mullet is a squirrel tail.
Is the Vatican hiring gay priests orthodox?
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 29, 2015 at 10:05 pm | Permalink
vd, t, you can’t call America folks dissenters unless you identify yourself as a loyalist and fish eater.
Anyone who knows anything about the Catholic Church can. Even a librarian who can’t get a real academic job.
And I get no credit for a website? Of course not. Look vd, t’m mullet is a squirrel tail.
Beats a bowtie any century. Now that’s the sign of a true wanker. You’re going to double down on the personal attacks, eh? I suppose that’s all you got.
Is the Vatican hiring gay priests orthodox?
They don’t make a ceremony out of it like the Presbyterians.
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Lesbian-Couple-Ordained-Jointly-in-Presbyterian-Church-Delaware-297184461.html
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Hi everyone and especially CVD,
I hope you had a good Thanksgiving.
Cletus and other Catholics, I’ve been reflecting a lot on why it seems to obvious to me and (seemingly) Robert, Zrim, No-one, and SDB as well others that your argument appears self-defeating, yet all of you steadfastly deny this. Likewise, it seems self-evident to you all that we have no warrant at all for our faith, yet we steadfastly deny this. The fact that we cannot come to agreement on even the weak and strong points of each other’s arguments points to something that goes beyond garden-variety partisanship.
Further, we can’t even seem to agree what each other’s systems ARE, much less what they entail. Hence, I find myself frequently pointing out that I’ve not actually said anything Pelagian, or that I “base things on my own authority”, etc. That points to some basic confusion on that side as to what the Protestant position actually is and entails. Perhaps you experience a similar frustration on the other side.
In other words, we are at a kind of impasse. In the interest of breaking the logjam, I would like to aim for some clarity and mutual listening. Below, I’ve outlined what seem to me to be CVD’s core axioms, together with citations from this thread that illustrate those axioms. CVD, you’ve been consistent across the discussion, so I did not feel the need to dip into other threads.
The point of doing this is to have some concise sentences that we can point at and say, “Yes, this is the Catholic argument.” Accordingly, I want to be sure that you (CVD, but others also) agree that this is your argument.
Afterwards, if you would like to do the same for the Protestants, that would be fine. Or, I’d be happy to supply my own statements. Either way, it would be nice to have some concise sentences that we can point at and say, “Yes, this is the Protestant argument.”
Obviously, we will not agree with one another’s systems. But at this point, it appears to be the case that we cannot even agree what those systems are.
—
(Belief Categories) 1. Beliefs fall into two categories: irreformable and provisional
2. Beliefs are irreformable if and only if they are infallible.
This wasn’t a topic of discussion, but since you interchange the words “irreformable” and “infallible” freely I wanted to note that you treat the two terms as synonyms. I’m not signalling disagreement.
(Authority Axiom) 3. The ground of belief is authority. That is, proposition P is believed because of the authority of the speaker of P.
(Assent of Faith Criterion) 4. The assent of faith should be given only to infallible = irreformable propositions
BUT this is qualified to apply only to “articles of faith”:
(Equivalence of Provisionality and Uncertainty) 5. The alternative to believing on the ground of the infallible authority of the RC Church is to be unsure about everything, which is logically equivalent to liberalism.
(Voluntarism Axiom) 6. Faith is an act of the will: One chooses to place one’s faith into X authority.
(Foundationalism Axiom) 7. Beliefs are arranged foundationally, each implying the next in logical order.
(Church teaching is STM) 8. For the Catholic, the teaching of the Church is found in the Scripture-Tradition-Magisterium-triad
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Just following, and I must say, Jeff I like the direction you are going. Haven’t read all your CVD quotes and such yet, but hope I get a chance tomorrow sometime. I like you, Jeff. We never have finished some of our started conversations yet. You know about origin of doctrine/dogma in Scripture and/or Tradition. Too bad. Man it is tough not having all the time I want to just chat with folks in the blog here at OL. Probably won’t get much chance to interject, but blessings on the endeavors of all. Thanks again for OL, Hart.
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@jeff
Thanks for organizing that. If you or CVD want to make the same kind of summary of the Prot. position, that would be very helpful for moving the discussion forward in a helpful way.
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Dear Darryl,
You said that I won’t find an change in dogma, and you would be correct. A change in language( and the loosening of any amount of authority) doesn’t constitute a change that, you believe, equates to the church not still believing itself to be the Magesterium.
“If you have any thoughtfulness in you, you’ll consider the modernist stance and style of the Vatican II church.”
I have considered the so-called modernist stance, but I believe that the behavior/language that you think signals modernism has lived continually within Christianity( aka. Catholicism). Sure epochs take on an ethos but that doesn’t mean that the culture of then was so totalitarian that is makes the culture of today look like Mr. Roger’s neighborhood.
I understand that there was a list of books( modern philosophy was included in this ban) that was off-limits for faithful Catholics, and I don’t know if that ban has been lifted or not, but if I would have known this I would have at least read Kant with the help of Aquinas, and just maybe I wouldn’t have lost my faith.
When I entered the church one of the first things that I confessed was reading books that were contrary to my faith.
Can you present something that actually demonstrates a change in dogma?
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vd, t, right. They cover it up — can you say Cardinal Law?
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Susan, more rope-a-dope.
Consider this. What was the dogma that allowed popes to reject all of modernity — Syllabus of Errors. And what was the dogma that allowed John XXIII to say the church needed to adopt a new relation to the modern world — the one of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
Could the current church ever call for a Crusade or an Inquisition? It knows better? So what changed?
Think.
Modernists don’t change dogma. They don’t have to. Read Machen and don’t be gullible.
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Tom,
No, it’s the Bible, and not just “Thou art Peter.” You need to do your homework before we can have this discussion. You’re just not in the zone yet.
This is correct in one sense, and incorrect in another. The Bible can be believed only on the authority of the church in RCC, and the way you identify the church is via the motives of credibility, which makes the claim “reasonable” to put one’s faith in.
I’m quite within the zone. The question is why entertain Rome in the first place. The answer given is consider the motives of credibility. Just ask CVD.
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Dear Darryl,
Happy Monday to you:)
“Consider this. What was the dogma that allowed popes to reject all of modernity — Syllabus of Errors. And what was the dogma that allowed John XXIII to say the church needed to adopt a new relation to the modern world — the one of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
Could the current church ever call for a Crusade or an Inquisition? It knows better? So what changed?
Think”
Thinking……thinking.
Let me get this straight, and correct me if I’m wrong……. You believe that a new relation with the modern world is also a adption of the modern world?
You know earlier corrective measures were to try to keep errors from propagating?Now that the poison is so wide spread( we’re all modernists) the Church has to tackle error a different way. No, an inquisition to see who is reading what, isn’t going to work, but that doesn’t mean that church isn’t interested in combating error, nor does it mean that it changed dogma.
Look at the substance of what constitutes modernism and see if there exists any dogmas that teach Catholics to adopt those or to ignore those tenents. That there are modernists inside the church is a problem for Catholic faith but it’s also only the Catholic Church’s faith that is the remedy for modernism. Protestantism may want to tackle the problem, but since it is the fruit of modenism it’s like parent saying, ” Do as I tell you, not as I do.”.
.
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Robert:
I’m quite within the zone. The question is why entertain Rome in the first place.>>>>>
You can hold to that kind of provisional knowledge if you wish, but there is a limit for you if you are claiming to be orthodox and Reformed. Can you see that?
If you make belief in Scripture itself based on provisional knowledge, that makes everything you believe only temporary. You do know what the word “provisional” means, right? It means temporary. It means until further notice. It means until you change your mind based on whatever you wish to accept as evidence to disprove your faith.
Let’s go to your example of Paul and the resurrection. Are you really saying that Paul himself had provisional knowledge of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Are you claiming that he shared your epistemology? I reject that outright.
Notice that in the passage – 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 – Paul is not expressing any kind of doubt of his own. He is not saying anything like “if they find Jesus’ body, then I will abandon Christianity”. He is refuting the arguments of those who claim that there is no resurrection of the dead. He is refuting unbelief and he is not using any kind of personal appeal to provisional knowledge to do so.
Now, if you said that your understanding of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is growing and changing as you study it more, then I can understand that. In your understanding of the doctrine, your knowledge is provisional. You can’t allow yourself to put your faith in the resurrection itself into the provisional knowledge category.
That would be a denial of what you have accepted as the only infallible rule of faith and practice – the Word of God. There is plenty of evidence presented in the Bible as to the resurrection. You can camp there with confidence without any flawed argumentation that if Jesus’ body were found you will give up Christianity.
Christianity in all of its orthodox forms claims to have special knowledge, revealed knowledge. It does not claim to be based on provisional knowledge. You cannot apply your epistemology to what even Machen called “the fundamentals of the faith.” The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is one of those fundamentals. Without it, there is no Christianity.
You can apply the principle to your own understanding of them, but not to the fundamentals themselves. I am trying to use your own terminology here. Machen saw the need for a kind of infallible doctrine that is clearly to be found in the infallible rule of faith and practice. Without it, everything is up for grabs like it is in modernism. Everything gets lost that way and you end up like Tom’s example – ordaining a lesbian couple.
Read also how Paul ties his own defense of his apostleship to having seen the resurrected Christ. It is also in 1 Corinthians 15. Christ appeared to him. We also have the testimony of Acts 9 and the conversion of Paul. There is no indication whatsoever that Paul himself believed in Christ’s resurrection provisionally. He is using a rhetorical device in vv. 12-19. You must know that, though.
Check it in the Greek, even to see that he is not expressing any kind of doubt, but rather refuting those who doubt.
1 Corinthians 15:12-19English Standard Version (ESV)
The Resurrection of the Dead
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope[a] in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
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Susan, think. Modernists don’t change dogma.
Why would popes pray with Muslims? Why would popes say Protestants are separated brothers when Protestants used to be heretics? Dogma doesn’t change. It’s not important.
In case you never THOUGHT this, ecumenism and mercy and social justice are classic marks of modernism.
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Susan,
Look at the substance of what constitutes modernism and see if there exists any dogmas that teach Catholics to adopt those or to ignore those tenents. That there are modernists inside the church is a problem for Catholic faith but it’s also only the Catholic Church’s faith that is the remedy for modernism. Protestantism may want to tackle the problem, but since it is the fruit of modenism it’s like parent saying, ” Do as I tell you, not as I do.”.
Here’s one: Roman Catholic Pluralism. Modernism and now post-modernism is insistent that there cannot be only one way of salvation. Now Roman Catholics hold interfaith prayers services instead of launching Crusades to liberate the Holy Land from infidels. That’s a substantial change that reflects a changed dogmatic understanding of Muslims and their religious rights.
You need to do a better job of looking at the evidence. Another widespread modernist concept is the primacy of the individual. The vast majority of RCs in America, and even worldwide have embraced this, rejecting the corporate church’s teaching on sexual ethics and many other matters. And Rome just shrugs and lectures conservatives at the synod on the family for not being open-minded enough. Your church is going the way of the PCUSA a couple of generations later and in a slower fashion, but make no mistake, it is going in that direction. And Francis shows no inclination to stop it. Your seminaries are largely compromised. Your colleges do not hand down the faith. I can find parishes in my town that are fiercely conservative and parishes that are so liberal that they teach what amounts to a different religion. The best your church seems to have are some third-world bishops—who got lectured by the pope and walked away with some crumbs while Kasper et al continue on their liberalizing tack—and some conservative Internet apologists that nobody except a handful of conservative Protestants even pay attention to.
The remedy isn’t working. Countries with majority RC populations, including Spain, Italy, France, etc. are more thoroughly secular and naturalistic than countries with minority RC populations such as the U.S. At some point, you are going to have to actually deal with all this data.
Your view of the RCC is not the view shared by the vast majority of professing RCs worldwide. One would think that should bother you. Maybe you are the one who is wrong.
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I second that, sdb. This post may start getting somewhere fast. Will follow as I can.
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Hart,
“Dogma doesn’t change. It’s not important.”
Did you ever read Dominus Iesus?
“5. As a remedy for this relativistic mentality[in which Christian revelation and the mystery of Jesus Christ and the Church lose their character of absolute truth], which is becoming ever more common, it is necessary above all to reassert the definitive and complete character of the revelation of Jesus Christ. In fact, it must be firmly believed that, in the mystery of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6), the full revelation of divine truth is given: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him” (Mt 11:27); “No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has revealed him” (Jn 1:18); “For in Christ the whole fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form” (Col 2:9-10).”
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
It’s pretty simple… Modernist aren’t faithful Catholics. The Church is clear whether they or you believe her. I do and that is enough for me. It could be enough for you, but that is your choice.
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Mermaid,
You can hold to that kind of provisional knowledge if you wish, but there is a limit for you if you are claiming to be orthodox and Reformed. Can you see that?
If you make belief in Scripture itself based on provisional knowledge, that makes everything you believe only temporary. You do know what the word “provisional” means, right? It means temporary. It means until further notice. It means until you change your mind based on whatever you wish to accept as evidence to disprove your faith.
I’m using the word “provisional” because that is the favorite word of CVD. But it’s actually not the best word to use. A better one to use would be “finite.”
Let’s go to your example of Paul and the resurrection. Are you really saying that Paul himself had provisional knowledge of the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Paul had certainty of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but this certainty was not based on His own claim to possessing infallible knowledge or the testimony of an infallible arbiter like the Roman church. If anything, it is based on an encounter with the infallible Christ. Which is exactly what Protestants claim for our epistemology. Our certainty/assurance is based on the work of the Spirit immediately as His Word is mediated via preaching. It’s not based on the mere claims of an institution.
Are you claiming that he shared your epistemology? I reject that outright.
I am claiming that Paul understood his finitude and therefore did not base His dogma on His finite apprehension of the claims of an infallible Christ.
Notice that in the passage – 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 – Paul is not expressing any kind of doubt of his own. He is not saying anything like “if they find Jesus’ body, then I will abandon Christianity”. He is refuting the arguments of those who claim that there is no resurrection of the dead. He is refuting unbelief and he is not using any kind of personal appeal to provisional knowledge to do so.
He is setting forth the theoretical possibility that Christ has not been raised, a possibility that He clearly does not believe at all. That is what Protestantism means by provisionality. It is theoretically possible what we could be wrong. After all, we are finite. But we do not believe we are wrong.
Now, if you said that your understanding of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is growing and changing as you study it more, then I can understand that. In your understanding of the doctrine, your knowledge is provisional. You can’t allow yourself to put your faith in the resurrection itself into the provisional knowledge category.
Growing and changing knowledge indicates provisionality/finitude. The only way out of it is to say that there is absolutely no evidence possible that would get you to stop believing in the resurrection, not even the discovery of the body of Jesus and the certain proof that He did not rise again. CVD has admitted that such a discovery would mean that He would have to stop being RC. That’s a statement that indicates a non-cultlike submission to certain truth claims. He just needs to carry it forward and admit that such introduces a degree of provisionality into His epistemology.
Now as for you, I don’t know what you would say. Based on what you are saying, it appears that there is no conceivable possible evidence that could cause you to deny the resurrection. The disciples themselves could come to you and say it was a lie, the body of Jesus could be discovered, etc., and you would still believe the resurrection because Rome has claimed infallibility for itself and has said the resurrection happened. Am I correct in this? If so, then your faith is not really based on substantial evidence. If I am incorrect, your faith is provisional. You will believe as long as you agree the evidence points to the resurrection.
In saying that, I am not even saying that there is any real chance that the resurrection didn’t happen. I’m simply pointing to your (and my) finitude.
That would be a denial of what you have accepted as the only infallible rule of faith and practice – the Word of God. There is plenty of evidence presented in the Bible as to the resurrection. You can camp there with confidence without any flawed argumentation that if Jesus’ body were found you will give up Christianity.
The evidence means nothing without the Apostolic interpretation. Which is why the RCC motives of credibility are circular in a broad sense. But that is actually okay as long as we’re honest about it.
Yes, there is plenty of evidence. There’s also Paul for the sake of argument and in a theoretical way suggesting what would be the case should the resurrection have not happened. Welcome to provisionality.
Christianity in all of its orthodox forms claims to have special knowledge, revealed knowledge. It does not claim to be based on provisional knowledge. You cannot apply your epistemology to what even Machen called “the fundamentals of the faith.” The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is one of those fundamentals. Without it, there is no Christianity.
I agree, which is why I don’t base my faith on provisional knowledge. I base it on Christ. But as good as I can get in examining the evidence, I am still finite. Divine truth is unchanging and wholly non-provisional. My understanding of it never is. Neither is yours. So, even if your claims for the church were correct, you are in the exact same boat as I am. Your apprehension of Rome is always limited and potentially in error. So if you are going to throw all your eggs in that basket, you have to be prepared to deal with the consequences. My certainty and assurance is not based on having non-provisional apprehension of the truth, so I don’t have the same problem. I recognize that I can never escape my own understanding, that God has in fact made me that way, and that I can hear Him nevertheless even when no claim to infallibility is made. That is the approach Jesus took. He expected people to know Genesis was Scripture apart from an infallible canon declaration. Therefore, professed infallibility is unnecessary for the assent of faith.
You can apply the principle to your own understanding of them, but not to the fundamentals themselves.
Bingo. But this means that Roman Catholics are in the same position as Protestants.
I am trying to use your own terminology here. Machen saw the need for a kind of infallible doctrine that is clearly to be found in the infallible rule of faith and practice. Without it, everything is up for grabs like it is in modernism. Everything gets lost that way and you end up like Tom’s example – ordaining a lesbian couple.</i.
Machen held to the need for an infallible rule of faith and practice. He did not hold that our summaries of doctrine found in that infallible rule had to be uttered by a church with a guaranteed gift of infalliblity. He was a Protestant. All that is necessary is for the teaching to be true. Fallible people come to knowledge of the truth all the time, and the Spirit is the final persuader, not the church.
Read also how Paul ties his own defense of his apostleship to having seen the resurrected Christ. It is also in 1 Corinthians 15. Christ appeared to him. We also have the testimony of Acts 9 and the conversion of Paul. There is no indication whatsoever that Paul himself believed in Christ’s resurrection provisionally. He is using a rhetorical device in vv. 12-19. You must know that, though.
That of course is largely true, but in itself all it proves is that Paul was convinced of the resurrection. It doesn’t prove the resurrection actually happened. Only the Spirit can persuade people of that. Paul’s added claim of infallibility in itself (when and if He makes it) doesn’t make His belief more likely to be true or more worthy of consideration.
When we say Protestantism embraces provisionality, that’s the kind of provisionality we’re talking about. The possibility of being wrong exists only in theory; none of us believes that it is likely in any sense that the resurrection didn’t happen. But the reason for that is not in our own infallibility or the infallibility of the church, because once you go there, you end up with a system that covers up child abuse, launches Crusades, and more. Indeed, some of these things it must do because when your faith is in the church, you have to keep the church in the best light possible or the faithful will lose their faith.
My faith is not in the church. It is in Christ. Christ needs to hide nothing. Sinful men do. So when you impute infallibility to them, the result is widespread abuse of power that cannot ever be checked in any real way without cleaving the church (the Reformation) or having the secular authorities step in (the child abuse scandal).
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I will have to address this more fully, later.
For now, what Michael from TX said.
Do notice the direction of orientation in your example, Robert. Congregants going the way of the PCUSA.vs. The RCC going the way of Kasper.
In each example.which is the sheep and which is the shepherd?( Kasper isn’t all of the cardinals and he doesn’t have veto power.Did the Church change any dogmas as a result of the synod, a synod that you think was outnumbered by not only modernist cardinals but a modernist Pope. Since the top is so heavy with liberal’s and modernists, why didnt dogma officially change. To put it another way; why isn’t the proverbial Pelosi’s happy?
As for the charge of pluralism….doesn’t the church still baptize, and in it’s ecumenical dialogues isn’t it still issuing invitations for the world join her? Just because the methods are peaceful( kind of nice since the world is up to Its eyeballs in blood and violence)doesn’t mean that she doesn’t still consider herself the only church of Jesus.
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Robert:
Paul had certainty of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but this certainty was not based on His own claim to possessing infallible knowledge or the testimony of an infallible arbiter like the Roman church. If anything, it is based on an encounter with the infallible Christ. Which is exactly what Protestants claim for our epistemology. Our certainty/assurance is based on the work of the Spirit immediately as His Word is mediated via preaching. It’s not based on the mere claims of an institution.>>>>
Okay, you still have not shown how you arrive at canonicity. How does your epistemology help you determine what is inspired Scripture? If a Protestant decides that, say, the book of Wisdom is Spirit breathed because they see the influence it had on the Apostle Paul’s thinking and teaching especially in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6, how are you going to stop them from accepting the book of Wisdom as canonical?
You still have to respond to the challenge put forth by textual critics that Ephesians was not written by the Apostle Paul. If that is true, then the book is flawed because in Eph. 1:1 the author claims to be Paul.
You still have to explain according to your Protestant epistemology what all the “ones” refer to in chapter 4 of the book of Ephesians. Unless you have decided that the canonicity of the whole book is questionable based on the work of your textual critic friends.
BTW, I did say that the Church accepts a limited role for textual criticism. She does not nor should she accept their decisions as binding on the canon of Scripture. Not even all Protestants accept that. You don’t even accept that given your waffling on the pericope adulterae. You are not convinced yourself that it doesn’t belong in Scripture.
It would be good if you, Jeff, and CvD were to give a summary in your own words of what you are arguing. It is all really quite dense. What stuck me was your statements about the resurrection. That was just weird.
I would say that all that Protestantism is based on is anti Catholic propaganda if I were to base my understanding on the content of this blog. I expect Brother Hart any day now to link to lithographs of Spaniards feeding Indian children to their dogs.
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Michael, then why did John Paul II say what he did about Islam?
Harry Emerson Fosdick could not have said it better.
Something changed. Roman Catholics used to propose Crusades against Muslims.
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Jeff,
That is a great summation of James argument. Nice work. One rather large part of the confusion seems to be that both sides cannot get on the same field of play. Daryl wants to imagine that our side of the Tibet is more or less the same as his (epistemologically speaking) because there are divisions in both sides.
This ENTIRELY misses the point of our discussions. Everyone acknowledges that divisions and disputes will always arise no matter what Church you find yourself in. However, the only way to settle disputes in the sola scriptura model is schism, which is a sin. In the STM format disputes and confusions are definitively settled “in house” so that every time confusion crops up later generations benefit from the conclusion.
I fully acknowledge that a thing can be self authenticating. I fully endorse the ministry if the Holy Spirit to the believer. But these are first person subjective experiences that have little weight in conversations between the two sides. Further, the personal testimony of self attestation becomes even less valuable when sincere Christians from numerous denominations have differing opinions “authenticated” over time. How can a cannon be self authenticating when no one can tell me with certainty which passages of scripture are authentic and which aren’t? How can heresy be taken seriously in the semper reformanda paradigm? How can schism be taken seriously? These are questions that have.never been answered to my satisfaction and I perceive them to be deal breakers.
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Darryl,
It’s as if you think Catholicism only recently began extending a message of peace.
Have you ever read a Catholic doctrine that says it’s fine to torture, to abuse women, to abort babies, or to euthanize? Kind of contrary of a religion that is all about love, good, life, and the dignity of human life to say cruelty is now the new law.
Whenever Christians behave in any way that degrades the dignity of another, they are misrepresenting God.
You’re the historian. Tell me how much civil authority had a part to play in the Inquistion? I want to see a papal document that gives the greenlight to break the moral law.
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Robert:
My faith is not in the church. It is in Christ. Christ needs to hide nothing. Sinful men do. So when you impute infallibility to them, the result is widespread abuse of power that cannot ever be checked in any real way without cleaving the church (the Reformation) or having the secular authorities step in (the child abuse scandal).>>>>
I think that you underestimate your own tendencies to abuse power. I think you need to look at what the Reformation actually reformed. What you say about the Catholic Church doubles back on you as well.
Take an honest look at the history of Protestantism. Take an honest look at abuse in Protestant churches. Take an honest look at your own denomination.
Until you do that, you will not be able to give constructive criticism to any Catholic. You have plenty of sinful Reformed men who are willing to hide the truth and cover up abuse. You guys have the reputation of being a Good Ol’ Boys Club. You might want to work on that.
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Ken,
Good questions:
Are you speaking of ontology or epistemology? The canon is self-authenticating because if it is God’s Word, then it is, by definition, infallible. If you’re talking about epistemology, then Protestants argue that we cannot know with “certainty.” As Jeff has mentioned elsewhere, individuals are told to test the spirits and to judge prophets by their teaching and conformity with God’s previous spoken Word. This testing requires motives of credibility, which are accessible to reason, which is precisely what the Catholic claims of the Magisterium. So if we’re talking about identifying Scripture then everything you would say about finding the Magisterium applies to Scripture.
I’ll once more state that you are already setting yourself up to lose if you admit your side is not continually reformed to Scripture. I believe that is true of your position, but I know that you don’t actually want to concede that–and your best theologians don’t and won’t.
More to the point, however, heresy is taken seriously because the standard is God’s Word, not mans. Heresy is undermining and denying what God’s Word says in Scripture. Those faith’s that submit themselves to God’s Word allow heresy to apply to violations of God’s Word, not merely violations of what one bishop says is heresy.
I’ll grant Rome has a neater delineation of schism, but that’s because it truncates catholicity. Was the division between Paul and Barnabas schism? Was the diversity of early Christian belief and distinct worshiping communities schism? In the apostolic age, it was divergence from the Apostolic teaching that marks out schism. You may be suspicious of Protestantisms inability to clearly demarcate schism from legitimate diversity, but I’m more concerned about Rome’s willingness to define schism in relation to one particular bishop. In principle, at least, Protestants want the Apostolic teaching to provide the contours for schism not one bishop. And we believe the S-T-M triad is dubious for actually getting us to Apostolic teaching, another point of disagreement. But under Protestant principles, I believe it is internally consistent.
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Mermaid,
I think that you underestimate your own tendencies to abuse power. I think you need to look at what the Reformation actually reformed. What you say about the Catholic Church doubles back on you as well.
Yes Protestants have abused power. No, it hasn’t been to the degree of the Roman Catholic Church. We haven’t had popes claiming to be the tradition. We haven’t had Protestants launching Crusades. We haven’t had papal harems.
Take an honest look at the history of Protestantism. Take an honest look at abuse in Protestant churches. Take an honest look at your own denomination.
My denomination has been working on coming up with policies for dealing with child abuse since before Rome’s cover up was exposed. Is it perfect? No policy can prevent all abuse. Has the PCA or OPC moved child abusing pastors from one presbytery to another without notifying others. Not that I know of. In fact, the handful of cases in which I am personally aware of, the first response has been to call the police.
Until you do that, you will not be able to give constructive criticism to any Catholic. You have plenty of sinful Reformed men who are willing to hide the truth and cover up abuse.
Possibly. Can you name any?
You guys have the reputation of being a Good Ol’ Boys Club. You might want to work on that.
As is true of any sinful organization. Which means the notion of ecclesiastical infallibility won’t work. We don’t claim to be infallible in the exercise of our “Good-Ol’-Boys-Clubiness.” We don’t claim that failure to conform to the Good Ol’ Boys Club puts one automatically under hellfire.
We’re not perfect, and there’s plenty of sin to go around. But we also don’t make any claims to be perfect, nor do we hold up select members of our communion as having achieved perfection.
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Kenneth,
However, the only way to settle disputes in the sola scriptura model is schism, which is a sin.
This is incorrect. There are many occasions on which disputes have been settled without schism. There have also been many occasions when former divisions were healed via SS. Many evangelical denominations have merged with others. After the Civil War, many formerly divided denominations reunited.
In the STM format disputes and confusions are definitively settled “in house” so that every time confusion crops up later generations benefit from the conclusion.
This is true of Protestant bodies as well. The PCA isn’t fighting over whether abortion is right or wrong. We settled that years ago.
I would also add that at the point STM decides, schism occurs. The group that doesn’t agree with the STM conclusion almost always leaves now that we have freedom of religion. So STM does not solve disputes or prevent schism in any way that is meaningfully different in practice than what happens in Protestantism.
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I said:
Until you do that, you will not be able to give constructive criticism to any Catholic. You have plenty of sinful Reformed men who are willing to hide the truth and cover up abuse.
Robert:
Possibly. Can you name any?>>>>>
Is that a joke? Are you kidding me? I will give one name, and see how you react. This is a test for you.
Mahaney
I said:
You guys have the reputation of being a Good Ol’ Boys Club. You might want to work on that.
Robert:
As is true of any sinful organization. Which means the notion of ecclesiastical infallibility won’t work. We don’t claim to be infallible in the exercise of our “Good-Ol’-Boys-Clubiness.” We don’t claim that failure to conform to the Good Ol’ Boys Club puts one automatically under hellfire.
We’re not perfect, and there’s plenty of sin to go around. But we also don’t make any claims to be perfect, nor do we hold up select members of our communion as having achieved perfection.>>>>
Okay, you just said that your system was superior because in it you do not condone abuse. You only follow Christ. Now you are saying that you are sinners just like others.
Which is it? Reformer, reform yourself. Then you will see clearly to reform others. A little paraphrase of the speck and beam analogy that Jesus gives us.
Well, Robert, I do have a clearer understanding of your epistemology. Thank you for that. I’m fine with Catholicism. I hope you rejoice in the Lord today.
BTW, it is a beautiful day here. Glorious! I hope you are safe and warm wherever you may be. God bless, you, Brother Robert.
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Hart,
Can’t just paint JPII in a box like that. Here is some more of his words:
“Whoever knows the Old and New Testaments, and then reads the Koran, clearly sees the process by which it completely reduces Divine Revelation. It is impossible not to note the movement away from what God said about himself, first in the Old Testament through the Prophets, and then finally in the New Testament through His Son. In Islam, all the richness of God’s self-revelation, which constitutes the heritage of the Old and New Testaments, has definitely been set aside.
“Some of the most beautiful names in the human language are given to the God of the Koran, but He is ultimately a God outside of the world, a God who is only Majesty, never Emmanuel, God with us. Islam is not a religion of redemption. There is no room for the Cross and the Resurrection. Jesus is mentioned, but only as a prophet who prepares for the last prophet, Muhammad. There is also mention of Mary, His Virgin Mother, but the tragedy of redemption is completely absent. For this reason not only the theology but also the anthropology of Islam is very distant from Christianity.”
– Crossing the Threshold of Hope
Somedays God calls us to be the Maccabean revolutionary slaughtering the oppressive unbelievers; other days He calls us to be the Good Samaritan binding our enemies wounds. When we can we should be the first to be the binder of wounds and reconciler of differences.
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Brandon Addison,
Thank you for taking the time to address my questions. I’m confident that I dont understand them so perhaps you could bare with me a bit longer.
Are you speaking of ontology or epistemology? The canon is self-authenticating because if it is God’s Word, then it is, by definition, infallible. If you’re talking about epistemology, then Protestants argue that we cannot know with “certainty.” As Jeff has mentioned elsewhere, individuals are told to test the spirits and to judge prophets by their teaching and conformity with God’s previous spoken Word. This testing requires motives of credibility, which are accessible to reason, which is precisely what the Catholic claims of the Magisterium. So if we’re talking about identifying Scripture then everything you would say about finding the Magisterium applies to Scripture.
I was speaking of epistemology. From where do protestants get this principle of testing the spirits? From scripture itself? If so, how is that not circular? Appealing to prior revelation is also circular because you have only moved things back one step. How do you know which books belong and which do not? How do you know which passages of scripture are apostolic and which are later additions? What about the ending of Mark fails the “test of the spirits”? What about Jesus saying “he without sin cast the first stone” fails the motives of credibility? These tests dont even seem to apply at all in these instances. If there is no certainty, then how would you know whether or not any given scripture or proof text commands the asset of faith?
I’ll once more state that you are already setting yourself up to lose if you admit your side is not continually reformed to Scripture. I believe that is true of your position, but I know that you don’t actually want to concede that–and your best theologians don’t and won’t.
This is just a language game. Our dogmas are not continually reformed to scripture because they do not need reform. They are infallible and protected from error. Roman Catholics do not have an “everything is always up for grabs” rule of faith. This is how we know when people have fallen into heresy with certainty. However, that does not mean that our religion and the men who lead our church are not continually conformed to what scripture teaches.
More to the point, however, heresy is taken seriously because the standard is God’s Word, not mans. Heresy is undermining and denying what God’s Word says in Scripture. Those faith’s that submit themselves to God’s Word allow heresy to apply to violations of God’s Word, not merely violations of what one bishop says is heresy.
You have just switched from speaking about epistemology to ontology. I recognize that if one objectively undermines or denies Gods Word (whatever that happens to be) they have fallen into heresy. My question is how do YOU know what is/ what is not heresy? With the sola scriptura model how is heresy taken seriously when you do not know with certainty what even constitutes scripture and have nothing but fallible reformable opinion on everything else in-between?
I’ll grant Rome has a neater delineation of schism, but that’s because it truncates catholicity. Was the division between Paul and Barnabas schism? Was the diversity of early Christian belief and distinct worshiping communities schism? In the apostolic age, it was divergence from the Apostolic teaching that marks out schism. You may be suspicious of Protestantisms inability to clearly demarcate schism from legitimate diversity, but I’m more concerned about Rome’s willingness to define schism in relation to one particular bishop. In principle, at least, Protestants want the Apostolic teaching to provide the contours for schism not one bishop. And we believe the S-T-M triad is dubious for actually getting us to Apostolic teaching, another point of disagreement. But under Protestant principles, I believe it is internally consistent.
What principles? You havent given me any protestant principles for identifying schism. Just for the sake of illustration, can you please provide a modern example (within the last hundred years) of the sin of schism?
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Robert:
Yes Protestants have abused power. No, it hasn’t been to the degree of the Roman Catholic Church. We haven’t had popes claiming to be the tradition. We haven’t had Protestants launching Crusades. We haven’t had papal harems.>>>>
Oh, but the trick for you is to take an honest look at Protestantism as it is, not as you wish it were.
I won’t even ask you to look at Catholic history through more objective eyes. I will ask you to look at your own history through more objective eyes.
What is my reason for asking you to do that? It does not affect me, since when you bring up Catholic abuses and I counter with Protestant abuses, we are only engaging in an exchange of ad hominem arguments which actually tend to blow one another up.
Remember that Catholic history was your history up until 500 years ago anyway, but you would never concede that.
It would be good for you to do some honest soul searching yourself if you are going to search the souls of others. That’s Biblical, even.
After all the dust of the ad hominem attack counter attack settles, the questions still remain.
Are you ready to face John 17 and Ephesians 4? Are you ready to embrace Catholics as your brothers and sisters in Christ? Are you ready to acknowledge the fact that Christ is not a disembodied spirit, but He has a body that He loves and cherishes as much as He loves Himself? Are you able to love her as well? Are you able to see that the Holy Spirit was sent to the Church, all of her?
That would be a good place for you to start to see what is meant by there being “…one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Love all of her, not just the parts that you like better than other parts. Catholics are not going away, you know. You can come out from under your Kudzu Vine anytime now. The Holy Spirit is calling us to communion. Will it happen in our lifetimes? Probably not, but it will happen. We are commanded to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
That unity includes Catholics, like it or not.
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If the whole provisional discussion is not just a replay of the typical prot fallible private judgement thing vs. the infallible papal
privatepublic judgement that the papal faithful piggyback upon and appropriate regarding their own private apprehension of papal “truth”, what exactly is it? If “provisional” is not a weasel word/equivocation in aces and spades, can any of the romanist give us a nonprovisional definition?Didn’t think so.
Contra the propaganda, that 2+2=4 is made or affirmed by less than infallible parties is no necessary denial that it is true, however much again papists want to insinuate precisely that. That it is, like all prot statements, inherently trustworthy and reformable upon a moment’s notice.
IOW all prots at bottom can do is repeat Pilate’s question “What is truth?”
But like
the possession of theapostolicbonessuccession, somehow the chrism manages to jump the gap and not only are the ordinary magisterial successors equal to the extraordinary apostles, now the sycophantic followers and papal adherents posses the magic joojoo and prots categorically can’t. This is the fundamental suppressed premise to the argument.IOW this typical black and white mischaracterization by papists, many of them supposedly ex prots, bears a curious relationship to Bryan’s notorious either monolithic papal truth according to STM or the anabaptist burning in your bosom anarchy of SS, meanwhile they get to play fast and loose again with how, what and who they really really nonprovisionally know.
But the “what do you think you mean by SS?” takes the cake when it comes to the one way skepticism.
Meanwhile TVD, the former dethroned champ, (who refuses to tell us if he has any skin in the game) tells us that:
Scripture is indeed the backstop against which all theology must be measured and passed.
(Next he’ll be telling us he writes for the Cable Guy. )
But it gets worse.
You keep saying that Christianity is a “revealed” religion. First and foremost, it’s a sacramental one.
Which is why John tells us that:
In the beginning was the Sacrament and the Sacrament was with God, and the Sacrament was God. The same (sacrament) was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by the sacrament and without the sacrament was not any thing made that was made. In the sacrament was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Indeed.
Or Matthew when Christ was tempted in the wilderness:
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every sacrament that proceedeth out of the mind of God.
Our skeptic concludes:
Your [prot] paradigm is flawed.
If that’s not his provisional judgement, we’re in deep trouble.
But perhaps – we’re again speaking provisionally – the height of hubris was this statement:
When I understood that bad works will result in my damnation because God’s will for man is that his works conform to God’s works and will, it wasn’t hard to see that a person cannot be saved by faith alone.
Leading to the conclusion in their next post:
My conclusion was that grace is irresistible and that I had a free will.
Just exactly what don’t we understand about the gospel: that Christ is the reason that God can not only be just in punishing sin and also the the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus Rom. 3:26?
To ask is to answer.
And while grace is irresistible and man does have a free will, Scripture
provisionallyplainly tells us that man is dead in his sins and trespasses Eph. 2:1. Consequently all his “free” will can and does do only and all the time is sin and that “freely”.The natural man can neither will or “do” anything when it comes to his salvation until he is born again/regenerated by the Holy Spirit who blows where he wills. Then and only then can man will to do the good, much more actually do it i.e. believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Even then, this faith is the gift of God and not a meritorious work of his will, albeit regenerated.
This erroneous over estimation of the power of their free will though, is one of the reasons why romanists so blithely assume that they can know and choose the truth while prots can’t. That Scripture is not self attesting, that walking by sight is infinitely and infallibly better than walking by faith, that their provisional judgement is perfect . . . all the while Mama Roma declares that all those who claim that assurance of saving faith is Not provisional – that one Can be assured of salvation – are anathema. Evidently (our ProvJudg kicking in here) it’s easier to get the faithful to pay for masses and a ticket out of purgatory if saving faith is not only provisional, but dispensed ex opere by the Roman sacraments.
Go figure. My guess is this provisional thing is at bottom provisional and the papists will come up with a new schtick as soon as its provisionality becomes too perspicuous to pooh pooh away.
cheers
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Loser Ken, “In the STM format disputes and confusions are definitively settled “in house” so that every time confusion crops up later generations benefit from the conclusion.”
That doesn’t address the history of infallibility which as Roman Catholic historians have shown didn’t develop until much later than Peter’s death. Doesn’t a theology have to reflect historical truth? Or are you still going to defend Constantine’s Donation?
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Kenneth,
The motives of credibility are circular. They don’t prove anything until you accept Rome’s interpretation of them.
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Susan, think. Why would your church not say this (from the Fourth Lateran Council) today?
If you can say, times have changed, well, welcome to modernism.
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Michael TX, as I asked Susan, why wouldn’t John Paul II say this (from Fourth Lateran Council)?
Rome changed and you’re either late to the party or a modernist who doesn’t want female priests. You do have gay ones like the PCUSA, you know, right?
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Ken,
To be clear, I’m attempting to show the internal consistency of the Protestant position, not necessarily that it is true at this point.
So to your first section on determining the canon: the process of developing the canon is fallible. Epistemologically we cannot have certainty because we are fallible. However, there are motives of credibility for Scripture. Some are historical (which applies to the passages you mention), some are philosophical, some are existential. This is exactly the same thing that you would say about finding the church. Identifying the canon for the Protestant is the same thing as identifying the church for RCs.
You then said,
This, is not the Catholic position according to the Catholic theologians I have read. All your dogmas are reformed to Scripture, even if they do not come explicitly from Scripture. The church only infallibly confirms what is already in the Deposit and so the Church is constrained by the Deposit itself.
And neither do Protestants. And my point is that if we’re working towards mutual understanding you should drop this line of rhetoric for two reasons. First, as I noted above, it’s not what Catholics actually believe. Second, it’s not actually what Protestants believe. Both believe we are constrained by the Apostolic Deposit. It’s not that everything is “always up for grabs.” It’s that everything needs to be measured by the Apostolic Deposit. For Rome, part of the Apostolic Deposit is the Magisterium, so the Magisterium infallible defines the Deposit under apostolic commission. For Protestants the church fallible defines the Deposit under apostolic commission. Fallibly defining the Word of God is not the same thing as “everything is up for grabs.”
You then said,
How do I know infallibly? I can’t. How do I know (fallibly) what heresy is? By measuring it against the Apostolic Deposit. As should be expected, there are some things that are more difficult to demarcate than others, but this is the process by which you evaluate heretical beliefs.
First, it’s important to note that the distinction between schism and heresy is not readily apparent in the NT. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes,
Conceptually, I grant this fourth/fifth century distinction makes some sense. It’s also manifestly clear that in this definition the existence of an episcopate is necessary for schism to exist. If the definition of schism depends on the episcopate then you’re assuming something that most Protestants don’t concede.
There are also the historical problems of identifying schism in this way. I’ve cited this elsewhere, but Allen Brent article “Was Hippolytus a Schismatic?” is helpful for showing how different “schism” was viewed in third century Rome.
To give an example of something I’d generally regard as schismatic, though, would be someone who stirs of controversy or gossip against members of leaders in a church and attempts to establish their own church or group by splitting the body. This thing happens all too often in Protestant churches and has happened multiple times in the past 100 years.
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MichaelTX
Posted November 30, 2015 at 2:34 pm | Permalink
Hart,
Can’t just paint JPII in a box like that. Here is some more of his words:
Too much honest discussion. Count on Darryl Hart to throw his little monkey wrenches into it.
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vd, t, now it’s a monkey?
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OK, so we have one positive vote from Ken W so far for the Catholic system as laid out. Anyone else?
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 30, 2015 at 4:21 pm | Permalink
vd, t, now it’s a monkey?
Before your “hey look a squirrel” tactic was just verminous. Now that you’re throwing monkey wrenches, you’re more of a tool. 😉
If you’re going to pretend to be part of the discussion [which you’re not] with your disruptive little cheap shots, then stop dodging when someone bothers to reply to you.
Cowboy up, tough guy. Hit her with your diploma.
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Jeff Cagle
Posted November 30, 2015 at 4:43 pm | Permalink
OK, so we have one positive vote from Ken W so far for the Catholic system as laid out. Anyone else?
You didn’t mention the Holy Spirit, so it’s DOA. Without the Holy Spirit, the discussion remains empty theologizing. [Or philosophizing on the impossibility of certainty anywhere on this mortal coil.]
The Catholic position is that Christ started His Church with the apostles and esp Peter, the Holy Spirit descended upon them on Pentecost [as Christ promised] and continues to guide and correct the Church until this very day, and will until “the end of the age,” until the age when Christ comes again.
The rest is corollary.
These arguments are 2000 years old, or at least 1500. 😉 Trying to trap CVD or anyone else in a comments box does not seek truth, only victory.
There are several dozen scripture passages in this essay
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/06/christ-founded-a-visible-church/
to dispute the Protestant paradigm of “Ecclesial Docetism,” which sounds reasonable, but unfortuanately results in eternal theological schism, and more importantly, to justify the Catholic paradigm of Petrine unity, very simply that even though “the keys of the kingdom” were given to all 12 apostles, they still didn’t go out and each start their own church.
On the visceral level, one looks at Catholicism and cannot deny that the Church is a mess. But when one looks at the theological and ecclesiastical chaos that creates the dozens or 100s of varieties of “Protestantism” [and more every day], one can only ask, “Is this mess a Church?”
This is the Catholic position, more or less. 😉
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TVD
Posted November 30, 2015 at 4:13 pm | Permalink
MichaelTX
Posted November 30, 2015 at 2:34 pm | Permalink
Hart,
Can’t just paint JPII in a box like that. Here is some more of his words:
TVD:
Too much honest discussion. Count on Darryl Hart to throw his little monkey wrenches into it.>>>>
Yup. I was hoping that one of the Protestants would give a summary of their arguments. It is nice to try to box in CvD I suppose, but when will the Protestant summary be done? Maybe Jeff is still working on it.
It is more fun for Brother Hart to throw fire bombs into the discussion than to actually discuss anything openly. So, is Brother Hart in favor of reformation or not? Is he looking forward to living under Sharia Law himself? Not sure. I am still waiting for the links to the lithographs of Spaniards feeing Indian children to their dogs.
Here is my summary. :
That whole provisional knowledge line is just a way of avoiding the obvious. If you let provisional knowledge drive your epistemology pretty soon you have to give up your infallible rule of faith and practice – which is what most Calvinists and Lutherans have done. How did they do that? By letting textual criticism become their final arbiter. Someone or something is going to be the final arbiter.
All you got right now are textual critics who are chipping away at your only infallible rule of faith and practice. You have invited them in, fawned over them, and given them the principle place at your table. You can’t blame Catholicism for that.
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TVD: Trying to trap CVD or anyone else in a comments box does not seek truth, only victory.
Yes, asking for clarity is clearly a trap.
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D.G. Hart:
Something changed. Roman Catholics used to propose Crusades against Muslims.>>>>>
Ecclesiastes 3King James Version (KJV)
3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
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Jeff Cagle
Posted November 30, 2015 at 5:28 pm | Permalink
TVD: Trying to trap CVD or anyone else in a comments box does not seek truth, only victory.
Yes, asking for clarity is clearly a trap.
If you didn’t get the Holy Spirit part after a month of this, and now after what I just wrote, then clarity will elude your grasp forever.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a2.htm
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Tom,
The point was that if you’d like to make a positive contribution, you are welcome to do so.
For example, you might suggest alternative wording to 1 – 8. Or you might suggest a #9.
So if you would like to do so, feel free. Otherwise, don’t be surprised to get very little interaction.
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Jeff Cagle
Posted November 30, 2015 at 6:10 pm | Permalink
Tom,
The point was that if you’d like to make a positive contribution, you are welcome to do so.
For example, you might suggest alternative wording to 1 – 8. Or you might suggest a #9.
So if you would like to do so, feel free. Otherwise, don’t be surprised to get very little interaction.
Don’t you worry about li’l old me. I get heard loud and clear.
With all due respect, it’s not about #1-9, it’s about #81-89.
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Brandon Addison,
So to your first section on determining the canon: the process of developing the canon is fallible. Epistemologically we cannot have certainty because we are fallible. However, there are motives of credibility for Scripture. Some are historical (which applies to the passages you mention), some are philosophical, some are existential. This is exactly the same thing that you would say about finding the church. Identifying the canon for the Protestant is the same thing as identifying the church for RCs.
A couple of very important epistemological differences.
1. In finding the Church we are looking for the ONE Church. Find it, and you are off to the races. In determining the canon for the 21st century protestant you need to first determine which books belong in the canon. To do this you would need to go through each and every single book individually along side every other book that was ever a contender and decide for yourself. After that, you would need to determine which passages are authentic and which are not. SO then we would need to apply this same test (whichever motive of credibility test you promote) and apply it to each and every passage of said books. After ALL THAT you finish with a highly subjective and tentative rule of faith. How much trust can you really put into such an effort? I think all protestants really know this isnt a realistic way of living out the faith. None of them have actually done such a thing. Protestants accept those books because they were told to accept them. Its a tradition. Not an intellectual accomplishment. Or at least, thats the way it seems to me.
This, is not the Catholic position according to the Catholic theologians I have read. All your dogmas are reformed to Scripture, even if they do not come explicitly from Scripture. The church only infallibly confirms what is already in the Deposit and so the Church is constrained by the Deposit itself.
There is no Catholic on the planet that thinks our dogmas must be continually reformed to scripture. They are already in complete harmony with scripture per infallibility. They are not eligible to be “reformed”. Thats what “de fide” means. Thats not to say that the Church can do whatever it wants. Obviously it is the servant to Scripture/Tradition and only defines what has already been passed down…. but thats not the same thing as semper reformanda.
And neither do Protestants. And my point is that if we’re working towards mutual understanding you should drop this line of rhetoric for two reasons. First, as I noted above, it’s not what Catholics actually believe. Second, it’s not actually what Protestants believe. Both believe we are constrained by the Apostolic Deposit. It’s not that everything is “always up for grabs.” It’s that everything needs to be measured by the Apostolic Deposit. For Rome, part of the Apostolic Deposit is the Magisterium, so the Magisterium infallible defines the Deposit under apostolic commission. For Protestants the church fallible defines the Deposit under apostolic commission. Fallibly defining the Word of God is not the same thing as “everything is up for grabs.”
So then are you prepared to say that salvation by faith alone, through grace alone, by christ alone, is not reformable to scripture? Is it a Protestant dogma that may never be challenged? May no scriptural evidence ever be considered against these doctrines? It was my understanding that semper reformanda meant that no idea was untouchable. EVERYTHING must be continually reformed to meet scripture. Catholics do not share this understanding at all. Catholics are not free to come up with a “new understanding of Paul” or a new theory of justification. We do not entertain theological debates over the Trinity and so forth. These things are simply not reformable. Dogma is set in stone. Is it your understanding that this is not a difference between our two sides?
How do I know infallibly? I can’t. How do I know (fallibly) what heresy is? By measuring it against the Apostolic Deposit. As should be expected, there are some things that are more difficult to demarcate than others, but this is the process by which you evaluate heretical beliefs.
So then is it fair to say that when it comes to heresy (epistemologically) its your best guess verses mine?
First, it’s important to note that the distinction between schism and heresy is not readily apparent in the NT. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes….
Conceptually, I grant this fourth/fifth century distinction makes some sense. It’s also manifestly clear that in this definition the existence of an episcopate is necessary for schism to exist. If the definition of schism depends on the episcopate then you’re assuming something that most Protestants don’t concede.
So then does it make sense or not? I thought that Presbyterians had an episcopate?
There are also the historical problems of identifying schism in this way. I’ve cited this elsewhere, but Allen Brent article “Was Hippolytus a Schismatic?” is helpful for showing how different “schism” was viewed in third century Rome.
I want to know what YOUR principles are. Not what you think of ours.
To give an example of something I’d generally regard as schismatic, though, would be someone who stirs of controversy or gossip against members of leaders in a church and attempts to establish their own church or group by splitting the body. This thing happens all too often in Protestant churches and has happened multiple times in the past 100 years.
So doctrine doesnt even play a role in schism from this perspective correct? Schism is just being disagreeable and spreading gossip?
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Brandon Addison,
I forgot to write the second epistemological difference between how we find church and how you find canon. Just add this in mentally and respond to both points whenever you find the time.
2. When looking for the Church we can begin by reading the gospels and early christian letters as fallible documents. The seeker can read the gospels assuming total fallibility and still reason to Christ leaving behind a Church fairly easily. What one can not do, is read these letters assuming fallibility and discern that there will one day be a new testament that is meant to guide the Church for all time. Even if we could find that through the letters alone (2 Peter would be your best bet….. which is placing virtually your entire argument on one of the most contested books in the entire canon) we would certainly never guess that the infallible ones came from a guy that wasnt even present during Jesus earthly ministry and two of his travel companions! So i think that there is natural progression that develops in the catholic paradigm that is missing from the protestant understanding
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Jeff,
I did get to read through the post with all the CVD quotes. I don’t mind agreeing to the basic outline there. I will also confirm the TVD point that we as Catholics would ditch the whole system in a moment if we did not believe it is founded on the truly loving Spirit of God, Whom dwells in us and will never leave the “Body of Christ”.
Hart,
Not sure what to tell you. JPII would still tell you Fourth Lateran is Ecumenical and infallible. Just doesn’t function that way in a non-Catholic un-European world of nation states often in rebellion to God. What State would listen to that talk. What would be the point of Pope Francis telling Pres Obama to imprison Planned Parenthood workers or Muslims or Protestants? Would he not just look stupid? Pres Obama wouldn’t listen, nor would the Queen of England, or the Pres of France. Would I not look stupid telling you to teach papal infallibility in your next book? Just not real pragmatic. Kind of have to get you back on the right path before we can really get things clear.
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Ken,
Catholics do not share this understanding at all. Catholics are not free to come up with a “new understanding of Paul” or a new theory of justification. We do not entertain theological debates over the Trinity and so forth. These things are simply not reformable. Dogma is set in stone. Is it your understanding that this is not a difference between our two sides?
That’s a nice theory, but it’s patently untrue. Rahner entertained debates over whether the economic Trinity was the ontological Trinity and wasn’t kicked out. A whole host of RC scholars is bowing to the NPP, which is neither Protestant nor RC. You all just held a synod in which no perspective was off the table. That’s not the words of a church who believes the dogma on the family is actually settled.
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MichaelTX: I will also confirm the TVD point that we as Catholics would ditch the whole system in a moment if we did not believe it is founded on the truly loving Spirit of God, Whom dwells in us and will never leave the “Body of Christ”.
Sure, and I don’t object there. As a Reformed Protestant, I would likewise ditch the system if I did not believe that it relied on the finished work of Christ applied to us by the Spirit.
My point to Tom is that if he wants to suggest a change, now is the opportunity. I welcome suggested changes that better help express what Catholics are actually saying.
Tom seems to have declined to do so.
Feel free to pick up the ball and run.
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Mermaid, “All you got right now are textual critics who are chipping away at your only infallible rule of faith and practice.”
And whom do you have teaching theology at leading Roman Catholic universities? Are they sidling up to James Young to defend your only infallible interpreter?
And is Pope Francis all that interested in infallibility? Who is he to judge, you know?
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Jeff, look, a squirrel trap that vd, t incapacitates with a monkey wrench used by two lesbian Presbyterian ministers when they appeared on a television game show.
I’ll stop.
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Mermaid, please include a link to The Birds.
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Michael Tx, “Fourth Lateran is Ecumenical and infallible. Just doesn’t function that way in a non-Catholic un-European world of nation states often in rebellion to God. What State would listen to that talk.”
That’s funny since popes were pretty vigorous about asserting their views outside Europe on Muslims in the Holy Land. Crusades, remember?
So it’s a pastoral thing? Make war was pastoral then. Julius II makes war against France. Now it’s all about coming along side.
If you guys ever had the spirituality of the church you could have maintained the same convictions. Now you do the rope-a-dope with Susan.
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Hi Darryl,
I’m too busy to respond right now; will get back to you later.:)
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Jeff Cagle
Posted November 30, 2015 at 8:27 pm | Permalink
MichaelTX: I will also confirm the TVD point that we as Catholics would ditch the whole system in a moment if we did not believe it is founded on the truly loving Spirit of God, Whom dwells in us and will never leave the “Body of Christ”.
Sure, and I don’t object there. As a Reformed Protestant, I would likewise ditch the system if I did not believe that it relied on the finished work of Christ applied to us by the Spirit.
My point to Tom is that if he wants to suggest a change, now is the opportunity. I welcome suggested changes that better help express what Catholics are actually saying.
Tom seems to have declined to do so.
Feel free to pick up the ball and run.
Your omission of the Holy Spirit rendered all your hard work null. I declined to accept your premises, which are faulty.
As for your own claim to the Holy Spirit, this is the first I’ve heard you make it. Luther and Calvin disagree on the Eucharist. One of their Holy Spirits is wrong.
Catholicism does not have this problem, much as Dr. Hart tries to create one. Where there is disagreement, there are not competing claims of my Holy Spirit vs. yours. The Catholic Church does not work that way.
Protestantism unfortunately does.
Damned right I’m questioning your premises. Jeff. They are not the Catholic Church’s premises and self-understanding of what the Church even is. Yours are the Protestant premises, that Christianity is a Biblical debating society.
There is only one Eucharist, one apostolic succession, one magisterium, One Church, not dozens or 100s that agree to disagree.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 30, 2015 at 8:43 pm | Permalink
If you guys ever had the spirituality of the church you could have maintained the same convictions. Now you do the rope-a-dope with Susan.
Susan
Posted November 30, 2015 at 9:29 pm | Permalink
Hi Darryl,
I’m too busy to respond right now; will get back to you later.:)
Oh, some dope’s getting roped all right. 😉
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Hart,
“If you guys ever had the spirituality of the church you could have maintained the same convictions. Now you do the rope-a-dope with Susan.”
Please explain farther? Maybe I am dense. That does not seem clear enough. Specifically what do you mean by “spirituality of the church”, at least?
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Robert,
We are discussing the coherence and consistency of our theological positions. Once fallible humans are thrown into the mix obviously things get messy. In principle dogma can not be changed or reformed. In practice men try to do.so I’m every generation (but never succeed)
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Robert,
One thought on this:
“I would also add that at the point STM decides, schism occurs. The group that doesn’t agree with the STM conclusion almost always leaves now that we have freedom of religion. So STM does not solve disputes or prevent schism in any way that is meaningfully different in practice than what happens in Protestantism.”
In a sense you are right. The difference is when the schismatic side looks at itself it sees it has abandoned one important idea… it was “part” of the infallible Church. It must decide it was not “the” Church, but now it is. Basically it must decide the Holy Spirit failed to uphold the “old” Church or He never was upholding it, but “it” decides it is now upheld by the Holy Spirit. It does this with no new revelation. “It” chooses on “its” own. Surely, freedom from God, if its previous beliefs were true. It abandons old convictions without examining them to embrace new possible convictions without measuring against the old.
The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. This is a Christian fact. More could be said, but that is the gist of my thought.
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D. G. Hart
Posted November 30, 2015 at 8:39 pm | Permalink
Mermaid, please include a link to The Birds.>>>
I thought you’d like that quote, Brother Hart. 😉
Hey, you have a good rest of the evening.
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I might add… they are/were foundational convictions.
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Don’t you worry about li’l old me. I get heard loud and clear.
With all due respect, it’s not about #1-9, it’s about #81-89.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a2.htm
81 “Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.”42
“And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching.”
Well then you’re late to the party then TVD. We’ve been asking Bryan since 2009 for just an infallible table of contents of the lost apostolic oral traditions and have yet to receive the courtesy of even the typical mumble jumbo eyewash of a diversion that is the CTC forte.
IOW mum’s the word.
Love of the truth, a tinkling cymbal and sounding brass?
Yup.
Kenny, long story short schism is a sin against charity and separation is from error/heresy.
IOW the catholic reformed churches separated from the deformed Roman church alone at the Reformation by reforming their doctrine, worship and government according to Scripture alone.
For her part, Rome balked at the Word of God and consequently fell by the wayside into theological apostasy though in the eyes of man or the flesh she still presents a an impressive carnal and triumphalist presence.
MiTex, JPII isn’t the only one looking stupid.
IOW maybe Snow White could look in the mirror for a change.
Susan, it’s not that you’re too busy, it’s that you don’t understand what modernism is to begin with, not to mention that you’re an ex prot that believed in free will as a prot, much more now.
TVD so now the eucharist is the standing or falling of a church. Who would have guessed?
Contra your eucharistic gloss of Eph. 4:5 it actually reads:
One Lord, one faith, one baptism
I know, biblical literacy is not a cat strong point.
The Staple’s article on 2 Tim. 3:15 you referenced was pathetic. Somebody has taken a permanent felt marker to 2 Tim. 3:17 in rRoman versions of the bible ever since at least 2009. You’d think Bryan and Jase were vampires the way they melt and go AWOL whenever it is mentioned.
cheers
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Bob S
Posted November 30, 2015 at 10:55 pm | Permalink
Don’t you worry about li’l old me. I get heard loud and clear.
“And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching.”
Well, then you’re late to the party then TVD. We’ve been asking Bryan since 2009 for just an infallible table of contents of the lost apostolic oral traditions and have yet to receive the courtesy of even the typical mumble jumbo eyewash of a diversion
What “party?” You guys are such a drag. Always aruing. And on Darryl’s posts about Protestantism that no normal Christians care about, you argue with each other.
Please put your point in the form of a point, Bob. Your string of 5 pejoratives in 7 words
typical
mumble
jumbo
eyewash
diversion
is almost record-setting. Normal people don’t talk that way in any forum on any subject.
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Bob S.:
Well then you’re late to the party then TVD. We’ve been asking Bryan since 2009 for just an infallible table of contents of the lost apostolic oral traditions and have yet to receive the courtesy of even the typical mumble jumbo eyewash of a diversion that is the CTC forte.
IOW mum’s the word.>>>>>
Like are you guys kidding? Have you read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is a summary of Church teaching.
It’s not that hard to read and understand.
Lost oral traditions? What in the world are you even asking for? Before the NT was completed, and before it was identified as the canon of Scripture, Christianity was functioning quite well. Read the book of Acts. People were spreading the Gospel by word of mouth. Churches were being established based on teachings passed on by word of mouth.
That is called oral tradition. Word of mouth. Oral tradition. You know. 2 Timothy 2:2.
“and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
Paul didn’t say “what you can read in my epistles only.” He said “what you have heard from me.” You know. Orally. It has all been preserved in the Church. Otherwise how would we understand what was written down?
If you read St. Thomas Aquinas’ commentaries you will see that he gathered all the comments he could find from saints and doctors of the Church that went before him. Even your Protestant commentaries rely heavily on the work that he did – and others. All of that is transmitted from generation to generation by faithful men teaching others also. Part is written down. Part is taught orally.
I was stuck by that fact when I read just a few paragraphs of his commentary of the Gospel of John. It was almost exactly word for word what I was taught by my teacher – a Protestant.
Good grief, man, this is not that hard. You make it hard because you want to discredit the Catholic Church. It just makes you look kind of, well, silly.
Of course, I don’t understand what you are talking about, Bob S. so maybe you are asking something else. Are you using a special code of some kind? “mumble jumbo eyewash of a diversion that is the CTC forte” must mean something to someone. I am sure it is very clever.
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Michael tx, the church’s power is spiritual, not temporal. If popes had not tried to be political players from 1073 (at least) until the late 18th century (throne and altar), Reformation would have been easier and less disruptive. And exactly how much teaching did the popes between 1100 and 1700 do about matters of the faith as opposed to the nature and supremacy of their power? And why did infallibility become dogma? Retaining the papal states amidst calls for the unification of Italy had nothing to do with that?
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Mermaid, “Before the NT was completed, and before it was identified as the canon of Scripture, Christianity was functioning quite well.”
The fish swims in the sea of chocolate. Arianism, docetism, gnosticism, Marcionism, Montanism — yes, Christianity was doing just great. Sort of like the church today.
And how well did oral tradition work for the Pharisees?
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Mermaid,
He said “what you have heard from me.” You know. Orally. It has all been preserved in the Church. Otherwise how would we understand what was written down?
So you can demonstrate what the Apostle Paul taught that never got written down? Let’s have it.
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D. G. Hart: Mermaid, please include a link to The Birds.
Mermaid: thought you’d like that quote, Brother Hart. Hey, you have a good rest of the evening.
I think he meant it, mermaid :) so….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zx6j4vI8lE
He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart.I know that everything God does will remain forever
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DG:And is Pope Francis all that interested in infallibility? Who is he to judge, you know?
The pope is not expected to directly address issues of gay rights in Uganda. It is not even clear where Francis stands. In the past, he has said, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” …“If nothing comes out, it’s not him as a person, it’s the Vatican or the Catholic Church, that says you can’t talk about homosexuality in Uganda,” Mr. Mugisha said. “In his heart, I think it is something he would have loved to say.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/world/africa/pope-francis-uganda.html?_r=0
and sheesh…
“Vendors worked through the lines, wads of Ugandan shillings in their hands, doing an excellent business selling clocks, fans, T-shirts and visors — all emblazoned with the pope’s face.”
…preaching the kingdom of God ….and teaching concerning the LORD JESUS CHRIST with all openness, unhindered. Acts 28:31
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Roman problems — no market value.
“Assets that would never be sold and thus have no market value — including St Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and priceless art treasures by Michelangelo — will be included in financial statements though the Vatican is still considering whether and how they should be valued.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-01/pope-orders-audit-of-church-s-wealth-as-whistleblowers-pursued
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@Hart
Ah… 2K thing. In the world is part of the Church though, just not of the world. Kind of a razor’s edge on some things and prudence can fail at times. Just the nature of life.
“Reformation would have been easier and less disruptive”
Maybe…maybe not. Things also depends on whether one thinks the Reformation is a good thing or at minimum has elements of rebellion against God and His Church, even if elements were dead on elsewhere.
“…exactly how much teaching did the popes between 1100 and 1700 do about matters of the faith as opposed to the nature and supremacy of their power?”
How much annihilation of faith have secular or even “religious” states undergone from 1700-2015? We really could keep doing this, Hart, but I don’t know why. You disbelieve the Church. I don’t. I think the Middle Ages were pretty good. You don’t. If these were real questions, it would be worth someones time, but they aren’t. Like I said the other day. I have yet to finish any substantial conversation with you and I’m okay with that if you are. If not, I’d be happier to pick up on some of our old topics rather than this one. Some more foundationally important ones. Which this thread seems to have the opportunity to get into.
@others
Someone going to lay out the Reformed/Protestant position in an orderly way like Jeff has sought to do with the Catholic basics?
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Mermaid, Susan, TVD, CVD, hear the words of your pope:
“Fundamentalism is a sickness that is in all religions,” said the Pontiff. “We Catholics have some — and not some, many — who believe they possess the absolute truth and go ahead dirtying the other with calumny, with disinformation, and doing evil. They do evil. I say this because it is my Church.”
He said that “religious fundamentalism isn’t religion, it’s idolatry,” adding that ideas and false certainties take the place of faith, love of God and love of others.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/11/30/pope-francis-says-he-is-not-losing-any-sleep-over-vatican-leaks-trial/
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Morning coffee and a quick read of The Hart Herald.
“Michael tx, the church’s power is spiritual, not temporal. If popes had not tried to be political players from 1073 (at least) until the late 18th century (throne and altar), Reformation would have been easier and less disruptive. And exactly how much teaching did the popes between 1100 and 1700 do about matters of the faith as opposed to the nature and supremacy of their power? And why did infallibility become dogma? Retaining the papal states amidst calls for the unification of Italy had nothing to do with that?”
The Church is never supposed to join up with the state as an official single entity,so I can agree on that much. Buuuuutttt, Jesus came in time and His lineage is of King David( whose rule was earthly) and so Jesus’s rule of iron extends over Heaven and Earth. King of kings and Lord of lords!!
His coming was to fulfill a promise to Israel who, during Solomon’s reign ,was taken into captivity and the of the Ark of the Covenant( the place where God dwelled)was hid, and so the people awaited the ulfillment of prophecy that the Ark would return as a sign that God would once again dwell among His people through the lineage of David, showing peace and mercy.
So there is no way for the church , which is the reestablished Kingdom of David to stay out of political affairs since political affairs are human affairs, and God wants His will done on earth( peace and mercy) as it is done in Heaven.
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Michael tx, do you really want to have a conversation about history or do you want your theory of what happened without looking at the past? It’s an important set of questions that helps to explain Protestantism and also helps to explain what converts overlook in order to join Rome. I haven’t seen any of the converts here engage the historical questions. Just shrugs.
That’s a shame because your faith is wrapped up with an institution that exists historically. You seem to be dismissive of the spirituality of the church for not being in the world. But you have an idea of the church that somehow transcends the world — as if the really bad historical actions of church authorities don’t matter, as if they weren’t in power to make those bad decisions because of your theory.
And now you have recent events where the bishops are still capable of enormous wickedness in sheltering abusive priests. It’s your theory that allows that sort of thing to go on.
Shrug at reform if you will. But you’re an enabler.
Want to discuss that?
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Susan, so I should vote against a Roman Catholic candidate for political office, right? Because he or she will try to establish a Christian state and will prohibit false religion and worship?
(do you) Think!
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Robert: from link “ When asked a question about religious fundamentalism, in the light of the attacks by ISIS terrorists on Paris, the Pope responded by saying that “we are all God’s children, we all have the same Father.”
I really wish he would quit saying that and people linking to that
-John 1:12 But as many as received Him (Jesus), to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name
-1 John 2: 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.
preaching the teaching concerning the LORD JESUS CHRIST with all openness, unhindered. Acts 28:31
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Robert,
Good morn’n to you:) Nearing the end of my classes so I is a happy girl today:)
“Mermaid, Susan, TVD, CVD, hear the words of your pope:
“Fundamentalism is a sickness that is in all religions,” said the Pontiff. “We Catholics have some — and not some, many — who believe they possess the absolute truth and go ahead dirtying the other with calumny, with disinformation, and doing evil. They do evil. I say this because it is my Church.”
He said that “religious fundamentalism isn’t religion, it’s idolatry,” adding that ideas and false certainties take the place of faith, love of God and love of others.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/11/30/pope-francis-says-he-is-not-losing-any-sleep-over-vatican-leaks-trial/”
I love the Holy Father, he is right. Truth doesn’t belong to me as if i am the only or am in a group that possess truth. Truth is a person and that person s reaching out to others and loving them. No one owns truth but we can know Truth.
This is why the church can call protestants and others separated brethren. Think of it this way; when Catholicism meets Islam does it say, ” We deny that we are the Church of Jesus Christ.”? No she oesn’t say that. What she says( without actually saying it) is that she recognizes that Islam is a Christological error( heresy), that she wants to correct.
Cathoics can behave like fundamentalist too, and so we need a call to humilty and conversion. I dont have to protect truth so much as if i am keeping it alive( fundamentalism) but I also don’t abandon what is dogma, leaving behind any notion of truth( modernism(slash) atheism). I have an obligation to the truth but I dont have the right to do evil to the other’s dignity. Truth and love go togther. You can really have one without the other.
Hmmm, my phone doesnt have a forward or backward slash…what’s up with that?
Do you understand Robert?
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Yea, I just don’t believe. I’ve heard the narrative, read the arguments, lived the life, and rome isn’t who she claims to be. The pope and bishops, to their credit, seem to acknowledge this. Even the converts are forced to acknowledge it but desperately hold on to the principled means which isn’t very principled once the MOC is discredited and the magisterium almost never exercises, including modern popes who laugh and admit they never intend to pull it out of mothballs. Relic of a bygone era. But you got some classic architecture and latin mass transcendence and some nifty cassocks and some earthy congregants and priests. You do need to get this celibacy/access/accountability/sexual deviance thing sorted and the Vatican needs to own up to it’s part. More MOC erosion.
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Dear Editor-in-chief,
“Susan, so I should vote against a Roman Catholic candidate for political office, right? Because he or she will try to establish a Christian state and will prohibit false religion and worship?
(do you) Think!”
If they are for policies that are anti-the good( virtue), you’d better not vote for them!
If politicians( who are not neutral) dictates where we worship then we lost the most valuable freedom. What does earthly life mean if not considered in light of eternity? That would be a state that is materialistic and secular. And imposing its empty values and evils on the rest of us….what good is democracy?
A Christian state today is one that obeys God’s commands.
On the other hand a state without an awareness that eveything that is has, that is good, is exactly because it was acting most justly as Christian.
This is why I despise modernism; I don’t believe that all religions are equal. If the state listens to the church as it is supposed to by recognizing her authority rather than bitting heads, we could have the best of both kingdoms. So a true son of the church in a role as leader of state would be ideal.
Some things in religion have to be prohibited because they by harming another are not true to true religion.
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Susan, “If politicians( who are not neutral) dictates where we worship then we lost the most valuable freedom.”
That’s Luther.
“If the state listens to the church as it is supposed to by recognizing her authority rather than bitting heads, we could have the best of both kingdoms.”
That’s anti-Luther.
You haven’t thought this through. You can’t have religious liberty and a state that listens to the church. Haven’t you been paying attention to American history?
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Sean, it’s like watching the higher critics discover videos of Jesus and the apostles, caches of letters and memos between Christ and his followers, and a library of second-hand accounts of the early church. Somehow with all of that historical material, we’re supposed to shrug and listen to the theory — but not to all the theory because salvation now is possible outside the church.
My bad. Development of dogma (read historicism).
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Hart,
I want you to propose one “theory” of how any group of human being are united in the world in which no sin occurs. If that can be explained clearly, there “might” be some other ground to stand on other than Rome’s historic Christianity. I don’t see it in any sect of Protestantism. Some better than Catholics? Sure. Perfect? None. But my ears are open to some unknown theory you may have.
BTW, regarding a Catholic candidate. Depending on the candidate, right. They are to take an oath to uphold the Constitution which limits the Fed establishing a church. If you don’t believe they can, don’t vote them in. But hey, I’m for states being allow to have an established religion. Freedom of the people, you know. People want an established and supported faith? Let them have it. We in the US are established in a way that has actually had it and allows it(in my understanding of history and the Constitution anyway). We have limited the Fed in establishing, not the States.
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Susan: when Catholicism meets Islam does it say, ” We deny that we are the Church of Jesus Christ.”? No she oesn’t say that. What she says( without actually saying it) is that she recognizes that Islam is a Christological error( heresy), that she wants to correct.
“without actually saying it” Susan?
isn’ that too bad, then, Susan ,because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17) We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. As you say, “Truth and love” go together. You can’t really have one without the other.”
.
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Michael, this has always been strange ‘ground’. She (Rome) has the audacity to claim it,way back in the day(she and Jim Jones and Mooney and Koresh, etc) and this sort of hegelian kick start provides the ground for her claim because she, allegedly(see the aforementioned), is the only one to do so, so, she wins by paradigmatic default. I ran into a guy out at PB(Pacific Beach) with a sign around his neck proclaiming to be Jesus Christ. So, in the paradigmatic system, he wins by philosophical default. Though his MOC is gonna be as shaky as rome’s. but with less offenses cuz it’s just him.
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Michael tx, “I want you to propose one “theory” of how any group of human being are united in the world in which no sin occurs.”
What does that even mean?
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Dear Ali,
You said and asked:
“Susan: when Catholicism meets Islam does it say, ” We deny that we are the Church of Jesus Christ.”? No she oesn’t say that. What she says( without actually saying it) is that she recognizes that Islam is a Christological error( heresy), that she wants to correct.
“without actually saying it” Susan?
isn’ that too bad, then, Susan ,because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17) We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. As you say, “Truth and love” go together. You can’t really have one without the other.”
Well, I was taking about the church not confronting Muslims about Islam being a heresy. It isn’t a way to start a conversation, but that doesn’t mean that the church keeps quiet. Catholicism still state’s that Islam is heterodox.
Yes faith does come by hearing the word but that doesnt mean having to beat anyone over the head.
I used to be that annoying zealous person who was always preaching that people needed to be saved. 😉 And while everyone needs to come to the knowledge of Jesus ,and while he alone is man’s redemption, my way of witnessing didn’t gain any converts. I was a nuisance and I appeared too judgemental.
As for the pope, he is coming in the name of the Lord and if any person desires( by the moving of the Holy Spirit) they can ask about how to give their lives to Jesus.
Does that address your question well enough?
God bless!
.
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Sean,
so, she wins by paradigmatic default.
Is it just me, or is that what the CTC apologetic breaks down to at the end of the day? Protestant’s claims just aren’t strong enough for them, so Rome wins?
But I can find groups with stronger claims.
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Dear Darryl,
“Susan, “If politicians( who are not neutral) dictates where we worship then we lost the most valuable freedom.”
That’s Luther.
“If the state listens to the church as it is supposed to by recognizing her authority rather than bitting heads, we could have the best of both kingdoms.”
That’s anti-Luther.
“You haven’t thought this through. You can’t have religious liberty and a state that listens to the church. Haven’t you been paying attention to American history?”
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oops, sent too soon.
Thoughts formulating, to be announced;)
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Nice evasion, TV. Likewise MWF.
Substance? Nah.
We have a canon of Scripture. Where’s yours for the STM?
Oops, that’s right the CCM is the sum total of the STM based on what a drive by appeal to . . . . 2 Tim. 3:16, 17 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God . . . that the man of God would be equipped unto ALL good works?
What good work would be left out?
Determining whether in the beginning was the Eucharist and the Eucharist was with God, and the Eucharist was God?
Didn’t think so.
Further, one of the fundamentally provisional items in the discussion is the blind assumption, historical anachronism and non sequitur attested to across the board by the papists, that the early church categorically can only mean the Roman church.
It never has to be defended or admitted, only assumed.
But we can’t find infallible or even provisional proof for Roman catholicism in the early church. (Try as he may, Bryan can only say the ECFs didn’t deny Matt. 16 applied to Peter the first pope. Likewise Paul didn’t address Peter in his epistle to Rome because everybody knew Peter was the apostle to the Jews or something like that.)
Rather, Romanism started about the 4th century and gradually grew along side and inside the Christian church. The first so called pope showed up in the 6th century and there was a papal revolution (see Berman) that solidified its power in the 13th. Yet until Trent the church never formally announced the canon/condemned justification by faith alone in Scripture alone etc. and it was not until Vat I that the pope was declared infallible – arguably these being the more seminal and distinctive Roman doctrines contra Reformed catholicism.
Yet the Reformers have just as much claim to the early church, since they were able to study copies and manuscripts of the ECFs as well as Scripture making their way west in light of the Turks in the east at the Reformation.
Meanwhile at one time or another the church voted against and for images long before Luther was taught a mixture of truth and error as a priest. Neither by far was Luther the first to call the pope antiChrist. Neither is it that Erasmus’s Greek New Testament came from outside the church like Joe Smith’s Book of Mormon.
IOW provisionality, thy name is popery.
But don’t expect to hear it from the fanbois. According to the provisional paradigm only prots can be phonies.
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Yo MiT “regarding a Catholic candidate” and taking an oath to the constitution. Whatever happened to the clause/fine print where it was OK to break faith with heretics?
Which at one time included secularists?
You know, those folks who denied that the church had two swords?
ItwasntdoctrinerightIknow.
Susan, the reformers were right when they called the pope the western antichrist and Muhammed the eastern.
For starters, both add to Scripture, albeit the Magisterium or M’s Koran (after discarding everything but the Pentateuch, Psalms and Gospels)
Both find the essence of their religion in the external rituals and locations.
Both see church and state as one (tho the Reformation broke the back of that one).
Both persecute their enemies with the sword, tho again the Reformation put an end to that also.
Robt. you’ve been around here long enough. Prot sins imagined or real justify the Rome bubble zone, lock stock and barrel.
I’m mean ick. Look at all that disagreement. Let’s go somewhere where there’s at least a nominal pretence of unity.
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Hi Darryl,
Let me try this again;)
“Susan, “If politicians( who are not neutral) dictates where we worship then we lost the most valuable freedom.”
That’s Luther.”
The problem is Luther doesn’t get to create his own church. And that’s exactly what he tried to do with the help of Fredrick of Saxony. And others:
*John of Saxony (the brother of Frederick);
*Grand-Master Albert of Prussia, who converted the lands of his order into a secular duchy, becoming its hereditary lord on accepting Lutheranism;
*Dukes Henry and Albert of Mecklenburg;
*Count Albert of Mansfield;
*Count Edzard of East Friesland;
*Landgrave Philip of Hesse, who declared definitively for the Reformation after 1524.
He didn’t know that he was doing so, but he opened Pandora’s Box. He helped make all of Europe unstable, and what eventually happened? It wasn’t safe to belong to the old religion anymore, AND it began a free-for-all of people deciding for themselves what was correct worship and church, so that pressure got put on different sects and they left their homeland for a new land where they can create what?….. their own religion.
What happened in England in 1532; Cranmer and all that? An usurpation and a takeover is what it was. If it’s bad to begin with, it doesn’t make any sense to usurp authority from an apostolic line and hand it over to civil authority.
It’s a really bad problem because it decimates the notion of any authentic Godly authority by equating the churchs with either a chosen king or an elected president.
“If the state listens to the church as it is supposed to by recognizing her authority rather than bitting heads, we could have the best of both kingdoms.”
That’s anti-Luther.
“You haven’t thought this through. You can’t have religious liberty and a state that listens to the church. Haven’t you been paying attention to American history?”
So God gives freewill to men of European decent so that he can create democracy, so that he can decide what religion he wants and what laws of his new formed religion he will obey? Okay, but I don’t think I can tell God on Judgement Day, “Hey didn’t you give me liberty and democracy? Two spheres, remember?”
Kings have to obey too, recall David and Nathan.
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Hart,
You said I want a “theory of what happened without looking at the past” and you “haven’t seen any of the converts here engage the historical questions. Just shrugs” and “bishops are still capable of enormous wickedness in sheltering abusive priests. It’s your theory that allows that sort of thing to go on. Shrug at reform if you will. But you’re an enabler.”
I detest sin. In me and in the Church and in all.
I want you to propose a “theory” of a system in which the past is not possible that is valid with reality and revelation.
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MTX: Someone going to lay out the Reformed/Protestant position in an orderly way like Jeff has sought to do with the Catholic basics?
I would be happy to do that also, but I’ve been waiting to hear from CVD. He gets first dibs at the task and also deserves to have input on the Catholic position before we lock in the wording, since I was relying on his train of thought.
Which, by the way, is the true explanation of why the work of the Spirit goes unmentioned. CVD did not make the Spirit’s work a central premise in his argument, although I do not infer from that that he disbelieves it, just as I do not infer that he disbelieves in the Father’s work despite a complete lack of mention.
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Darryl,
I think I need to make this more clear.
I said: “If politicians( who are not neutral) dictates where we worship then we lost the most valuable freedom.”
We are where we are now in history in America and since we can’t go backwards we do have to elect officials that at least remember and respect the Western Christian heritage.
But democracy doesn’t always have to be progressive and modern:
But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able to understand. I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German historian against the tradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is strictly appealing to aristocracy. He is appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.” ~GK
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 1, 2015 at 6:16 am | Permalink
Michael tx, the church’s power is spiritual, not temporal. If popes had not tried to be political players from 1073 (at least) until the late 18th century (throne and altar), Reformation would have been easier and less disruptive. And exactly how much teaching did the popes between 1100 and 1700 do about matters of the faith as opposed to the nature and supremacy of their power? And why did infallibility become dogma? Retaining the papal states amidst calls for the unification of Italy had nothing to do with that?
Dr. Hart continues to dodge the question of why his version of the Christian religion is so radically different than the Eastern Orthodox, whose Church and sacraments are more or less the same as in 1054.
All Darryl’s tiresome prattle about Rome is irrelevant, for it does not justify his own schism.
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Robert
Posted December 1, 2015 at 6:49 am | Permalink
Mermaid,
He said “what you have heard from me.” You know. Orally. It has all been preserved in the Church. Otherwise how would we understand what was written down?
So you can demonstrate what the Apostle Paul taught that never got written down? Let’s have it.>>>>
What? Paul said, it not me. What did he mean? At the very least it means that the Church was functioning quite well before anything was written down. Then, it was Tradition that kept those teachings alive once they were written down. Tradition also informs our understanding of the written text.
Your tradition has a similar role. You just say it is not infallible.
I don’t know what he said that night when Eutychus fell out the window, do you? He taught on and on, into the night.
In 1 Corinthians he talked about the traditions he had set down. He taught them orally before they were written down.
You at least have to concede that much. Of course, your canon is provisional, so I really do not know what your faith is based on. Something provisional cannot also be infallible, but in your epistemology, maybe it can be. It does not make sense to me, but that doesn’t mean your epistemology is wrong, necessarily.
If it works for you, then I am happy for you.
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Robert:
Protestant’s claims just aren’t strong enough for them, so Rome wins?>>>>
Well, your claims don’t seem strong enough for you. You will believe unless proven otherwise. That includes belief in the resurrection.
Provisional knowledge just doesn’t seem strong at all. In fact, I’m not sure the Protestant Reformation would have even happened if Calvin and Luther thought they were acting on a epistemology based on provisional knowledge.
Luther thought he had the true Christianity. Calvin the same. They were every bit as dogmatic as the Pope.
I can’t imagine they would even recognize what you guys are arguing for here. I may be wrong, but this doesn’t sound like Calvin and Luther.
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Susan, great. Kings have to obey. So governments should prohibit Protestantism. Is that what you (do you) think?
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Michael, I’d respond (if I could) but I have no idea that this means: “I want you to propose a “theory” of a system in which the past is not possible that is valid with reality and revelation.”
Do remember that the church can’t err: “Every teacher in the Church, from the Pope down to the humblest priest, like all of the faithful, is capable of falling into sin. But in the Catholic Church, because of the promise of Infallibility, the Holy Ghost cannot permit the purity of a single doctrine to be stained.”
No shrugs. Your stakes can’t be Protestantism’s.
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Susan: “I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition.”
Consider the 19th century papacy. More thinking.
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vd, t, so Hart dodges is your answer to what happened with the papacy and its claims of papal supremacy. Alex Trebek says “epic dodge.”
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Mermaid, Luther and Calvin thought they were right. They did not claim to be infallible or believe in Constantine’s Donation. They were not gullible.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 1, 2015 at 9:19 pm | Permalink
Mermaid, Luther and Calvin thought they were right. They did not claim to be infallible or believe in Constantine’s Donation. They were not gullible.>>>>
Yes, they thought they were right. They thought they were the Church. They did not think that provisionally. Neither were subject to the WCF.
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Luther said,
Luther held out the possibility that he could be convinced by scriptural exegesis or by reason that he was wrong. He was convinced he was right, but did not insist he was infallibly so. You can call this provisional if you want. That was CVD’s characterization not ours.
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sdb
Posted December 1, 2015 at 9:34 pm | Permalink
Luther said,
Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason-for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves-I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me. Amen.
Luther held out the possibility that he could be convinced by scriptural exegesis or by reason that he was wrong. He was convinced he was right, but did not insist he was infallibly so. You can call this provisional if you want. That was CVD’s characterization not ours.>>>>
Possibly. 🙂 I just don’t see that the way truth is being expressed here would have caused any kind of Reformation, within or without the Catholic Church. Now, maybe the actual preaching in the churches is stronger, but from what I read here, I don’t see a whole lotta’ passion for the truth of the Gospel.
Lotsa’ anti Catholic passion, which was also true of the early Reformers, especially. Not a whole lotta’ positive passion. Those guys were passionate about what they believed, not only about what they didn’t believe.
I’m thinkin’ the epistemology may need a little tweaking. Just a thought. The concept of provisional knowledge may be quite sound for many things, even in some ways for theology. However, it has to have its positive side. As is, it is only being used as a way to attack Catholicism. Not good enough to convince others that what is being preached is positively true.
See, Luther held out the possibility that he could be convinced, and not just provisionally. I think that’s a big difference actually. I really cannot tell you want some of the guys are convinced about except that Catholicism is wrong. So?
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Hart,
Maybe I missed something… Did you just cry “uncle”? Sounds like you just said Protestantism can’t offer anything better in theory than Catholicism?
Maybe I can reword my quest for you.
Propose a “system” that could have been in place that prevented from the time of Christ all failures among and by the People of God while dealing in the real world the People of God were created in and this “system” must be able to function at least without contradicting God’s Word and the actual context of the creation in time of God’s apostolic group?
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See, sdb, I think the problem I have is applying the principle of provisional knowledge to the resurrection itself. Once someone is convinced, there is no need to hold that truth provisionally.
I think that is consistent with Luther’s comment. He was convinced, and not provisionally, that the testimony of Holy Scripture was a sure basis.
Once a person is convinced, he or she doesn’t think in therms of provisionality. I don’t see that you guys, once convinced, hold to your beliefs provisionally. Your minds are made up and you are in total agreement with Luther. How is that provisional?
Now, your minds can change, but when they are made up, there is no thought of “maybe I am wrong.” At least there is no evidence of that here at OL in the staunch, dogmatic, anti Catholic position that has been taken.
Sure. You could change your minds. Pigs could fly, too. Any talk of provisionality in that matter is bogus.
Luther:
Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason-for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves-I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me. Amen.
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@tlm just pointing out that Luther acknowledged he could be wrong and would only be corrected by scripture or reason.
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sdb
Posted December 1, 2015 at 10:54 pm | Permalink
@tlm just pointing out that Luther acknowledged he could be wrong and would only be corrected by scripture or reason.>>>>
Yes, and thank you.
I am not sure why Jeff or Robert don’t write up a summary of what they are arguing. That would help.
Not sure why they don’t do that. Maybe some links to articles on the subject would help if they are not able to give a summary. It seems to be a key to understanding Reformed faith in the 21st Century.
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Dr. Hart,
You cram grade us, huh? You looked over our assignments and put a couple of red “x’s” on my essay. No fair, teach. Did you read any of it?
Haha, okay no more exams if you don’t read! 🙂
What of Luther having the backing of civil authority to have His church? You missed so much of what I said.
And that one quote that you handed back to me. it wasn’t me it was GK. Guess I need a works cited page too.
to quote Ali, ……sheesh!
( thanks Ali 🙂
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sdb,
I really respect Luther in many aspects, most especially in his confidence in the truth of Scripture.
“Luther held out the possibility that he could be convinced by scriptural exegesis or by reason that he was wrong. He was convinced he was right, but did not insist he was infallibly so.”
This is my understanding of Luther, too. My problem is, when faced with choosing to be a leader and teacher and seeking to destroy the existing edifice which he was born into, he chose to destroy on the basis of his “fallible” and “reformable” belief rather than spend the rest of his life seeking to know infallibly first before the destruction of what “may” be infallibly desired by God.
“Unless I am convinced” is saying please teach me. Then he lives his life teaching while he has said “teach me” and then not waiting to be convinced.
Just a contradiction in his life I see.
“God help me. Amen.”
My mind makes me wonder, did he wait for God to help him or not? It seems more like he waited a bit and the rising “state” helped him effect on others his thought, but that is just my meager knowledge of the affairs.
Seems like it is the rising “state” we have been fighting ever since. Our founding and Constitution is an utter attack on the risen “state”. I believe we are actually a repentance of a marriage of the “state” and a will to effect others by force, rather than by intellect and a patient faith in God. The “state” seems to be overtaking the Constitutional attack right now in our very midst. A people’s gov should be an effect of their universal conscience informed by faith and truth, not the effecter of the individual action confronted by universal state will. That is the French Revolution vs. the American Revolution. Our American Revolution seems to be devolving into the French Revolution at a slow pace over centuries, though. Many people don’t seem to care… they are busy. Maybe they just don’t notice. Frogs in the warming water you know.
Anyway… I could go on and on. Glad you seem well.
Peace,
Michael
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@tlm I can’t speak for Jeff or Robert, but I am waiting for cvd to do so. Jeff laid out the case he understood cvd to be making. I agree with it. Mtx seems to think it is a fair characterization at first blush.
Before moving on, I’d like to hear from CVD on whether that properly captures the gist of his argument and get his summary of what he thinks our argument is. Then we can chime in with clarifications if necessary. Stay tuned.
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@mtx
“My problem is, when faced with choosing to be a leader and teacher and seeking to destroy the existing edifice which he was born into, he chose to destroy on the basis of his “fallible” and “reformable” belief rather than spend the rest of his life seeking to know infallibly first before the destruction of what “may” be infallibly desired by God.”
Not sure this is fair to Luther…an admittedly flawed genius. He certainly didn’t see his call to reform “seeking to destroy” the western church. Also while open to correction, he was convicted that he was right. Finally, who can know “infallibly “? Seems like a high bar to me. Infallible doesn’t me true. It means can’t be wrong. There is an important difference there. If you don’t know a priori that a speaker’s word must be true, then the speaker was not infallible.
Regarding the role of the state, it is true the state kept Luther from meeting the same fate as Tyndale and Hus. Perhaps God, in his providence, used the state? Of course technology helped too. US is secularizing to be sure… mostly mainline and nominal RCs as far as I can tell. Don’t see the parallels to the French Revolution.
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Susan
Posted December 1, 2015 at 11:26 pm | Permalink
Dr. Hart,
You cram grade us, huh? You looked over our assignments and put a couple of red “x’s” on my essay. No fair, teach. Did you read any of it?
Haha, okay no more exams if you don’t read! 🙂
What of Luther having the backing of civil authority to have His church? You missed so much of what I said.
He heard you just fine. Then he ran and hid, hoping everyone will forget how you flummoxed him once again.
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sdb
Posted December 1, 2015 at 11:49 pm | Permalink
@tlm I can’t speak for Jeff or Robert, but I am waiting for cvd to do so. Jeff laid out the case he understood cvd to be making. I agree with it. Mtx seems to think it is a fair characterization at first blush.
Before moving on, I’d like to hear from CVD on whether that properly captures the gist of his argument and get his summary of what he thinks our argument is. Then we can chime in with clarifications if necessary. Stay tuned.>>>>
Thanks, Brother sdb. Yes, that makes sense. I appreciate that.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 1, 2015 at 9:18 pm | Permalink
vd, t, so Hart dodges is your answer to what happened with the papacy and its claims of papal supremacy. Alex Trebek says “epic dodge.”
Nobody has any idea what you’re talking about beyond your usual anti-Catholic spew, Darryl. Inquisition! Crusades! The Assumption! Whatever!
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Mermaid,
I am not sure why Jeff or Robert don’t write up a summary of what they are arguing. That would help.
Jeff wanted to give CVD first crack, and I think that’s fair since what we have seen is a Prot evaluation of a RC argument.
But in broader measure, all I’m saying is that the “Protestantism says everything is up for grabs because it doesn’t claim infallibility” argument is nonsensical and that to say what we believe is provisional is ultimately dishonest, because the RC’s beliefs are just as “provisional” unless and until the believer making the charge is able to attain omniscience.
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Mermaid, I know it makes your conversion seem so much more significant if you can paint Calvin and Luther as antagonists. But when oh when are you going to wake up and recognize that your hierarchy has moved on?
Wouldn’t it be fun if popes still condemned heretics? Wouldn’t it be great to belong to a conservative church?
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michael tx, some church government other than episcopacy? Absent bishops? Immunity from criticism or reform from below? A failure to remember that the first shall be last?
Hierarchy doesn’t work politically. The whole modern world rejected monarchy. Rome maintains it (though Francis is ambivalent).
Have you not noticed that bishops can move around wayward priests? It takes journalists to get the bishops to change up?
So “aunt.” Episcopacy is lousy. Infallible bishops absolutely lousy.
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Mermaid, so the testimony of the pope is a sure basis for the bodily assumption of Mary?
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Susan, I’m not asking about how you’re like Luther. What is this RC apologetic that “you guys do it too”?
I’m asking you about your political assumptions. This is a 2k place that rejects the magistrate has a duty to enforce the first table of the law. OL is critical of both Calvin and Boniface VIII.
But you want to return to a conflation of throne and altar? You want a Christian state? If so, please explain how OL will still be allowed to publish.
Think.
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Michael, “when faced with choosing to be a leader and teacher and seeking to destroy the existing edifice which he was born into, he chose to destroy”
The order of Christendom was crumbling well before Luther was born. Avignon papacy? Western Schism? Scotus, Ockham?
You need to get over your anti-Protestant bigotry and look in the mirror of your own church’s history. But that would require letting history check theory.
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vd, t, we hear you loud and clear — you are the 8 year old tattle tale in the classroom and bully on the play ground.
But I’ll help:
I said:
You said:
You dodged by saying I dodged. the conversation was about the spirituality of the church in relation to the papacy. But you brought up a squirrel. And then you love to call foul when etiquette breaks down or people don’t answer questions here.
Your wife, I pity the woman.
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Hart,
So… anything but Catholic. No “one holy catholic and apostolic” possibles? Just something else. Ok. Not as clear as I hope you might attempt.
Don’t have to be anti-Protestant… I’m for something and it is not of my making. I’m Catholic.
” Immunity from criticism or reform from below?”
Maybe you should read some about some Saint’s lives. Largely nobodies who made some major impacts from out of nowhere. Many were quite well known for their “criticism” or “reform”. Just a suggestion, if you really want to know why Catholic is really “something”. Funny how the Church keeps encouraging the faithful by proclaiming “critics” of the a “don’t rock the boat” institutional hierarchy to look as examples for life. What the Saints didn’t do was rip up to boat to make their own for people to get in. Hints my criticism of Luther. Do I like him and hope to see him in heaven? Yes. On a slightly different path, he would have been a saint of the Church.
sdb,
Hope that closing helps you understand, too. One doesn’t have to “see” what they are doing as seeking to destroy for it to be what they are doing. Prudence is a virtue we don’t all have developed as we ought. Also, you really should read some good accounts of the French Revolution.
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Michael, why is anti-episcopacy anti-Roman Catholic. Anglicans have bishops too and in case you haven’t noticed, the Anglican communion is not in the greatest shape.
Sure lots of problems in all churches, though you don’t hear that much from the Roman Catholics doing their impersonation of Charlie Sheen.
But you’re still not doing justice to the complicity of your own hierarchy — the one that’s infallible — in making the church something that everyone wanted to reform. Consoling yourself with the lives of saints is nice. But then why become a Roman Catholic for that? Jim Elliott anyone? Corrie Ten Boom?
No, what makes Roman Catholicism tick is Rome. Can’t have valid sacraments without the Bishop of Rome. Doesn’t matter whom your favorite saint is (what is this an evangelical summer camp fire?). And the Bishops of Rome have a lot of ‘splaining to do. If you’re going to go all in on Rome, you might want to consider some ‘splaining yourself (and stop telling the fib that the Protestants wrecked the church).
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I have to say that the argument that Luther should have stayed in the church is inane. Luther tried to stay in the church; the pope wasn’t entertaining any of his criticisms. Further, let’s just for a moment assume the wild-eyed noting that Luther was right and the gospel was at stake. It’s more important for the institution to survive and preach a false gospel than it is for the truth to be proclaimed and the institution broken up? Because that’s really what you RCs are saying, assuming that Luther was correct and serious reform was needed.
This is why the Protestant criticism will always be that no matter what, for Rome the institution always trumps the truth.
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Robert
Posted December 2, 2015 at 10:44 am | Permalink
I have to say that the argument that Luther should have stayed in the church is inane. Luther tried to stay in the church; the pope wasn’t entertaining any of his criticisms. Further, let’s just for a moment assume the wild-eyed noting that Luther was right and the gospel was at stake. It’s more important for the institution to survive and preach a false gospel than it is for the truth to be proclaimed and the institution broken up? Because that’s really what you RCs are saying, assuming that Luther was correct and serious reform was needed.
This is why the Protestant criticism will always be that no matter what, for Rome the institution always trumps the truth.>>>>
See, it is this kind of statement that makes me wonder what you mean by provisional knowledge. These are dogmatic statements, Robert, that do not allow any thought of “I could be wrong.”
So, I don’t see that the idea of provisional knowledge works in every real life situation. Provisional knowledge may help a person in the decision making process. Once one’s mind is made up, there is no turning back as far as the one who has his or her mind made up goes.
I see no element of provisionality in what you are saying about the Catholic Church. Your mind is made up. That’s fine. That makes sense even given your point of view.
Going to the example of the conversion of the Phillipian jailer once again. Okay, so you guys would factor in regeneration by the Holy Spirit as a given. In your minds, you don’t need to mention it every time. I get that.
So, the work of the Holy Spirit in a person’s heart makes them predisposed to considering the truth of the Gospel. In that way, provisional knowledge would “work” to change a person’s mind because the Holy Spirit is working from the inside not just the outside. The inner call vs. the outer call of the Gospel.
The question that I have is whether or not provisional knowledge itself exists beyond the mind of the person. I mean, God does not have provisional knowledge, does He? He is the source of all wisdom and knowledge, so how can any knowledge in a true sense be provisional?
It is just provisional from our point of view. There is nothing inherently provisional in knowledge itself.
Right? The Christian has to assume that God is omniscient even though one is not.
The Christian has to assume that revealed truth is not provisional.
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Hart,
Maybe my words have not been clear. Protestants haven’t wrecked the Church. Only Catholics can try that really and we haven’t been able to do it yet either. It is the lives of Saints that are not only for non-Catholics becoming Catholic, but even more so, Catholics truly being Catholic in heart and deed, including the members of Holy Orders. You know bishops, priest, deacons.
“…why is anti-episcopacy anti-Roman Catholic.”
No one would use episcopacy if it was not part of what they believe is Tradition. That comes from Catholic; therefore, anti-episcopacy is one sect of being anti-Catholic. Anglicans are episcopal because they thought it up. They received it. Problem is no Holy Spirit protecting their “dogma” anymore.
BTW, “infallible” does not mean “impeccable”. Jesus was both. We are not. He “is”… we “are becoming”.
Been mentioned before… Pope St. Pius V said: “All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics.”
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Mermaid,
The question that I have is whether or not provisional knowledge itself exists beyond the mind of the person. I mean, God does not have provisional knowledge, does He?
Of course not. By definition, God can’t be wrong or have incomplete knowledge, ever.
He is the source of all wisdom and knowledge, so how can any knowledge in a true sense be provisional?
Provisional knowledge, if we want to use that term, does not equate to false knowledge. It’s simply a recognition of my finitude. Ultimately, truth is non-provisional whether it is supernatural or not. Truth is. But truth and my knowledge of that truth are two different things, which is why we keep saying that even if Rome claims infallibility, you aren’t automatically better off. The only thing you ever have is your finite apprehension of Rome’s claims. That makes you no different than us. The only way out of it is to become omniscient. Until you know every fact and every relationship between every fact, your knowledge is subject to correction.
It is just provisional from our point of view. There is nothing inherently provisional in knowledge itself.
Provisionality/finitude/whatever isn’t located in the knowledge or content, which seems to be where CVD starts going off. The content proclaimed is either true or it isn’t. But there is a difference between the content and the knowledge of the content. My apprehension of content is always subject to my finitude, so there is some aspect of provisionality in my apprehension. You can’t escape it.
Right? The Christian has to assume that God is omniscient even though one is not.
Absolutely.
The Christian has to assume that revealed truth is not provisional.
Yes. But there is a difference between revealed truth and my apprehension of it. And that’s the entire point. My apprehension is finite, and so is yours. Your view of Rome, in the best case scenario, is held because it makes the most sense to you based on the evidence you have. But you are finite. You could have read the evidence wrongly. You haven’t seen every possible scrap of evidence. And you can never get around either of those facts because you are a creature.
None of that means you are necessarily wrong or that you must have access to every possible scrap of evidence. You act based on the knowledge you have. But the knowledge you have is always incomplete, even if it is true. The way CVD and you all talk seems to make it sound like Rome’s claims somehow get around the problems of finitude. But they don’t.
IOW, you can’t put all this weight in having an infallible claim unless and until you become infallible yourself. Until then, all you have is your provisional knowledge that Rome makes an infallible claim. But you haven’t examined every shred of evidence. Maybe Rome doesn’t really make the claim to be infallible. I think on the best reading of the evidence, one must say that it does, but I’m finite and I could be mishearing Rome. So could you. That’s the point, or at least one of the points that nobody on your side is willing to acknowledge. What if your very reading of Rome’s claims is completely and totally off? Can you rule that out absolutely? Have you considered very possible counter claim, every Magisterial statement, every shred of evidence? No you haven’t, and you will never be able to.
No claim of infallibility is absolutely necessary. What we see in Scripture is the paradigm of God speaking and people, who are fallible, believing. On many occasions no claim is made of infallibility and people are expected to believe certain things apart from an infallible proclamation. If CVD is right, then the Scripture he claims to follow is teaching error on this point or at least is causing a problem by endorsing as faith the submission to non-infallibly-made claims. Welcome to Protestantism.
Ultimately, people don’t have to be infallible or have someone else be infallible to tell them where God is speaking. They just know. I’m not endorsing subjectivism; I’m simply acknowledging that there is an inescapable subjective confirmation of the Spirit in the heart of the individual that I don’t see any room for in Roman Catholicism.
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@mtx
“One doesn’t have to “see” what they are doing as seeking to destroy for it to be what they are doing.”
I would think that from your perspective (the gates of hell shall not prevail [against the Roman Catholic Church]), all that matters is Luther’s intentions. If I hit you with my car it makes a big difference to the judge whether I was targeting you or if it was just an accident. I don’t think Luther (at least at the Diet of Worms was setting out to topple the hegemony of the Western Catholic Church. If he had his druthers, the Pope would have repented of his errors and we would all be united. Alas, they decided differently and fractured the church. Ok, maybe not… Rome maintained unity with the sword – as they have lost temporal power, they have lost market share. In the IT age of quick and easy information, it is very hard to control what people read – thus the continued drop off in adherence. I don’t think it makes much sense to “blame” protestantism or the reformation for that (any more than it does to “blame” protestantism for democracy, free markets, science, or apple pie).
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Dear Robert,
It looks to me that you grant Luther non provitional knowledge, only because you believe his is a correct interpretation.
(Mrs.Webfoot did a and wonderful job discussing this with you.).
Is your apprehension of the content (Jesus is God), provisional?
“Ultimately, people don’t have to be infallible or have someone else be infallible to tell them where God is speaking. They just know. I’m not endorsing subjectivism; I’m simply acknowledging that there is an inescapable subjective confirmation of the Spirit in the heart of the individual that I don’t see any room for in Roman Catholicism.”
But Robert by your own admission, all knowledge is provisional, so to the identification of words that God spoke is provisional and the statement “God speaks” is provisional.
You’ve left no way for man to apprehend the truth but you still say it exists, but internally and subjectively., What you are saying is that you know your own subjective experience but because God is wholly other( creature, creator distinction), we cannot know him absolutely. This is relativism.
Catholicim says ,yes you have a subjective(because it’s yours, not because it’s wrong) experience but your experience exists because God certainly exists and what can possibly be apprehended is absolutely apprehended( not provisitionally known; a self defeating statement)even though we cannot, in this life, see God except through a cleft in the rock or through a veil.
Thats then difference that David Anders is currently discussing with you.
Soooo, ” What’s keeping you from becoming a Catholic?” 🙂
Joking, well half joking because ,of course ,my prayer is that you all do.
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Mermaid: The question that I have is whether or not provisional knowledge itself exists beyond the mind of the person. I mean, God does not have provisional knowledge, does He? He is the source of all wisdom and knowledge, so how can any knowledge in a true sense be provisional?
It is just provisional from our point of view. There is nothing inherently provisional in knowledge itself.
Right? The Christian has to assume that God is omniscient even though one is not.
The Christian has to assume that revealed truth is not provisional.
You’re on the edge of something important here. There is a crucial line being drawn on our side between the message and the hearer, a line that appears to get blurred on your side.
God’s truth is never provisional. When Jesus spoke, he was never in doubt about the truth of his words. When Paul spoke under inspiration of the Spirit (as opposed to at other times), he was not in doubt about the truth of his words.
BUT
As soon as those words left Jesus’ mouth (or Paul’s), they were now heard and understood by fallible men.
We see the effects of this all over the gospels. Many heard Jesus teach, but only some believed. The disciples believed, but they misunderstood.
When an infallible message hits fallible ears, the propositions believed by the fallible hearers are no longer infallible — for the precise reason that the hearer does not infallibly know what was said, nor what that message meant.
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Mrs.Webfoot,
The topic of your discussion( epistemolgy) is the reason I couldn’t remain a Reformed Protestant. Modern philosophy was the stuff that made up rue in the Protestant sauce.
If nothing can be know but provisionally it can never heat up to being known with certainty. Never. It prohibts one from saying “God spoke” because even that statement is provisional, and further since we can never know, with certainty, what God spoke, what does it matter anyways?
Maybe CVD can make headway.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 2, 2015 at 6:46 am | Permalink
vd, t, we hear you loud and clear — you are the 8 year old tattle tale in the classroom and bully on the play ground.
But I’ll help:
I said:
Michael tx, the church’s power is spiritual, not temporal. If popes had not tried to be political players from 1073 (at least) until the late 18th century (throne and altar), Reformation would have been easier and less disruptive. And exactly how much teaching did the popes between 1100 and 1700 do about matters of the faith as opposed to the nature and supremacy of their power? And why did infallibility become dogma? Retaining the papal states amidst calls for the unification of Italy had nothing to do with that?
You said:
Dr. Hart continues to dodge the question of why his version of the Christian religion is so radically different than the Eastern Orthodox, whose Church and sacraments are more or less the same as in 1054.
All Darryl’s tiresome prattle about Rome is irrelevant, for it does not justify his own schism.
You dodged by saying I dodged. the conversation was about the spirituality of the church in relation to the papacy.
Yes, you did dodge.
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The Little Mermaid
Posted December 2, 2015 at 11:42 am | Permalink
The Christian has to assume that revealed truth is not provisional.
Yes, this is where they ran aground. Dr. Hart insists Christianity is a “revealed” religion, but as we see, even that revelation is not reliable, only provisional.
Of course the Catholic view is that the Holy Spirit is not “provisional,” and neither are the true sacraments, especially the Eucharist. They are not up for opinion or human interpretation–which is why Luther and Calvin disagree on the Eucharist. One is wrong. Maybe both.
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Susan,
Thank you for your kindness. I think this is a helpful discussion.
Is your apprehension of the content (Jesus is God), provisional?
I don’t think “provisional” is the best word to describe what I am saying. I would say that my apprehension of the content is finite and so my apprehension is limited by my finitude. The only way out of it is to become omnisicient.
But Robert by your own admission, all knowledge is provisional, so to the identification of words that God spoke is provisional and the statement “God speaks” is provisional.
Truth is non-provisional, unchangeable, etc. But my apprehension of is finite and therefore fallible. That doesn’t mean it is wrong necessarily; just that I can never get out of my finitude.
In one sense, then, yes, my identification of such things is provisional because it is finite. But that does not set me apart from any other human beings. I keep saying it, but because of your finitude, your apprehension of Rome being the church is just as provisional as my identification of the words of God. You have not and cannot examine every single line of evidence for or against Rome.
You’ve left no way for man to apprehend the truth but you still say it exists, but internally and subjectively.
No. What I have left no way for is for man to apprehend truth the way that God apprehends truth. Creator-creature distinction. You must have exhaustive knowledge of all things to achieve an infallible apprehension of truth. No one has that but God. That doesn’t mean there is no overlap between God’s knowledge and my knowledge in any sense. What it does mean that although both God and I can know truth, my knowing of the same truth is always fallible and His is always infallible. There are other consequences as well, but that is the foundational one. No omniscience, no infallible knowledge of truth, which means that the claim to infallibility doesn’t inherently make Rome a better position, and that is one of your planks. Even if Rome IS infallible, your apprehension and belief in that claim is the end result of a fallible process.
What you are saying is that you know your own subjective experience but because God is wholly other( creature, creator distinction), we cannot know him absolutely. This is relativism.
No it’s not. The very definition of the incomprehensibility of God is that we cannot know God absolutely. We cannot know God as God knows God. Even a Roman Catholic who submits to the Magisterium cannot know God as God knows God. I don’t think that the Magisterium would claim that the Magisterium can know God as God knows God.
Relativism is the denial that objective, absolute truth exists. It’s a self-defeating proposition.
Catholicim says ,yes you have a subjective(because it’s yours, not because it’s wrong) experience but your experience exists because God certainly exists
I don’t see where I or any other Reformed Christian would disagree with this.
and what can possibly be apprehended is absolutely apprehended
But only God can apprehend something absolutely because only God knows it perfectly. Creatures cannot absolutely apprehend anything. It’s part of being the creature.
( not provisitionally known; a self defeating statement) even though we cannot, in this life, see God except through a cleft in the rock or through a veil.
There is nothing self-defeating about admitting that my knowledge is finite. If we cannot see God except through a veil, then we cannot absolutely apprehend Him. And therefore, we either know God provisionally/in a finite way or we do not know Him at all. This is one of the things that SDB and Jeff have been hammering on here. You all ultimately have this idea that its either absolute knowledge or no knowledge, but that’s a false dilemma. But this exchange is helpful because you are coming out and admitting your real position—human beings must have absolute knowledge or they have no knowledge.
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Thanks for that, Robert.
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A couple of you should find an infallible grammar and spell checker.
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Dear English Teacher,
Your correct. heehee. 🙂
Earlier I wrote( on another thread, I think) the word”rue” when what I meant “roix” . It’s funny that you happen to come here and mention grammar and spelling, when I was rueing my mistake:)
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Dear Robert,
I do wish that CVD would come back because I don’t feel confident on my own, but I will continue to attempt it.
You said:”And therefore, we either know God provisionally/in a finite way or we do not know Him at all. This is one of the things that SDB and Jeff have been hammering on here. You all ultimately have this idea that its either absolute knowledge or no knowledge, but that’s a false dilemma. But this exchange is helpful because you are coming out and admitting your real position—human beings must have absolute knowledge or they have no knowledge.”
I want to break this down a bit. Provisional and finite are not the same thing. No we know him absolutely but we don’t know him exhaustively. Too fully unpack this we are going to need Bryan Cross or Ed Feser, or someone with a good grounding in Thomistic philosophy.
There is no knowledge, as in truth, if it isn’t absolute. IOW’s You can’t call truth provisional.
The only thing I admit is that when it comes to supernatural truths( religious dogma) and things that are not evident in themselves,we had better have absolute knowledge or we have not been visited by the truth.
God Bless!
Susan
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Susan,
I want to break this down a bit. Provisional and finite are not the same thing.
Provisionality is a consequence of finitude.
No we know him absolutely but we don’t know him exhaustively. Too fully unpack this we are going to need Bryan Cross or Ed Feser, or someone with a good grounding in Thomistic philosophy.
But to know absolutely is to know exhaustively. Absolute knowledge would be any knowledge that cannot be improved upon.
There is no knowledge, as in truth, if it isn’t absolute. IOW’s You can’t call truth provisional.
But I am not calling truth provisional. I am distinguishing between truth, which is absolute, and my apprehension of the truth, which is finite and therefore non-absolute. I don’t see where you RCs are consistently doing that. That’s part of the problem.
The only thing I admit is that when it comes to supernatural truths( religious dogma) and things that are not evident in themselves, we had better have absolute knowledge or we have not been visited by the truth.
But I’m not exactly sure what truths that are not evident in themselves even means. But in any case, why are supernatural truths not evident in themselves? And if supernatural truths are not evident in themselves, there go the motives of credibility for Rome. Bryan has disagreed with me that the resurrection is not self-evident proof of Christianity. (It’s not. The bare fact of resurrection proves nothing apart from the Apostolic interpretation).
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This is my understanding of Luther, too. My problem is, when faced with choosing to be a leader and teacher and seeking to destroy the existing edifice which he was born into, he chose to destroy on the basis of his “fallible” and “reformable” belief rather than spend the rest of his life seeking to know infallibly first before the destruction of what “may” be infallibly desired by God.
Hilarious MiT.
Luther put his theses up for debate.
They met nothing but hot air.
He continued to stand and ask.
And got excommunicated for his efforts.
No rebuttals from Scripture or reason would be forthcoming.
Believe because the Church says so.
That’s not good enough then and it isn’t now.
The spoon fed among our interlocutors don’t get that.
But hey. We try.
But in broader measure, all I’m saying is that the “Protestantism says everything is up for grabs because it doesn’t claim infallibility” argument is nonsensical and that to say what we believe is provisional is ultimately dishonest, because the RC’s beliefs are just as “provisional” unless and until the believer making the charge is able to attain omniscience.
Agreed Robt. much more the cats continually assume that because somebody is fallible they cannot ever truly know anything. IOW if prots were really honest to their presuppositions 2+2=4 would have to be continually questioned by a prot – effectively preventing him from making any further advances in knowledge – meanwhile cats can know anything and everything because the pope said so.
What’s not to like, said the double minded man?
Well, when it comes to blatant bare ass assertions, the cat contradictions on provisionality do come to mind among some of us who are more twisted.
Again the cat argument has essentially been that because someone’s knowledge is not infallible, intuitive and eternal as God’s knowledge is (or the earthly vicar of Christ and we all know who that is) one can know nothing. That prots are perpetually sentenced to wandering around in a hall of mirror of their own making epistemologically.
But not only is this an attack on knowledge, as well that man has a reasonable soul, much more that God can reveal himself to man in Scripture no less, this conversation couldn’t even take place if the dogmatic and equivocating definition of provisionality that the cats constantly resort to, is true.
That someone may err or is capable of error – Full Stop – does Not categorically mean that they have erred.
That is to be determined by examination and discussion in light of Scripture, history and reason, (which to put it mildly is no the strong suit of what we are seeing here.)
To the contrary though, the cats assume the non sequitur necessarily follows and belabor the issue to the point that at this stage of the game one wonders if they are really that slow, or malice is coming into play.
But hey. We won’t assume the worst like cats do regarding prot knowledge.
Mebbe they could return the favor.
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Dr. Hart continues to dodge the question of why his version of the Christian religion is so radically different than the Eastern Orthodox, whose Church and sacraments are more or less the same as in 1054.
Obviously the last apostle died and the canon was closed in 1054 so everything after that is post apostolic.
Got it.
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Dear Robert,
I sincerely enjoy exchanging ideas with you. You are patient and kind; thank you.
You said,”But I am not calling truth provisional. I am distinguishing between truth, which is absolute, and my apprehension of the truth, which is finite and therefore non-absolute. I don’t see where you RCs are consistently doing that. That’s part of the problem.”
When you distinguish, you have to mentally divide content. Take a bowl of material(content) and separate it according to absolute and non-absolute. If you are able to do that, then congratulations( 🙂 ) you have distinguished truth about God and not truth about God.
Doesn’t it make sense to you that the only thing you are able to say absolutely is that God Is?
Everything after that is provisional according to your system.
Does that make sense?
:
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Here’s another way of looking at it:
You said: “and my apprehension of the truth, which is finite and therefore non-absolute.”
If you are apprehending, something that is truth in itself than your apprehension of it must therefore be an absolute apprehension of data that is absolute, or you could not call it “truth”.
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Michael, and what about deceptive bishops? You can only blame the laity so long. And since you depend on an infallible magisterium, a defective hierarchy is — wait for it — a problem.
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Bob S
Posted December 2, 2015 at 4:18 pm | Permalink
Dr. Hart continues to dodge the question of why his version of the Christian religion is so radically different than the Eastern Orthodox, whose Church and sacraments are more or less the same as in 1054.
Obviously the last apostle died and the canon was closed in 1054 so everything after that is post apostolic.
Got it.
No, it means Rome’s sins post 1054 are theologically irrelevant. Dr. Hart likes to attack the low-hanging fruit to divert attention from the shortcomings of his own church.
The fact is that there is still a such a thing as The Catholic Church, and there is no such thing as The Presbyterian Church, which has broken down into complete chaos, both visibly and Biblically.
You can run from the facts but you can’t hide. Go, ahead, call yourself “catholic.” Watch the world laugh.
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Susan, so now that you’re Roman Catholic philosophy is no problem. You have unprovisional knowledge? Infallible knowledge? Or you have faith in someone with infallibility?
Gee, golly. You’re still a human being and Descartes and Hume are still out there. Just because you turn your brain off doesn’t mean philosophy has gone away.
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vd, t, yes, you did dodge. Selah.
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Huh?
IOW TVD the EO is the real RC church.
Then why are you arguing for the pope?
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 2, 2015 at 4:33 pm | Permalink
vd, t, yes, you did dodge. Selah.
Not me. You’re not even part of this discussion and all you talk about is papal infallibility. We can catch your act any time, on any thread, 24/7/365. And you still dodge why your version of Christianity is so radically different from the Eastern Orthodox–even if Rome is false, that does not make whatever’s left of Calvinism true.
D. G. Hart
Posted December 2, 2015 at 4:32 pm | Permalink
Susan, so now that you’re Roman Catholic philosophy is no problem. You have unprovisional knowledge? Infallible knowledge? Or you have faith in someone with infallibility?
Gee, golly. You’re still a human being and Descartes and Hume are still out there. Just because you turn your brain off doesn’t mean philosophy has gone away.
Dr. Hart confuses philosophy with theology and ecclesiology. Again.
Since he doesn’t have a real church but only an ad hoc theological debating society, he resorts to Descartes and Hume, and flees from Augustine:
A pity Dr. Hart doesn’t actually read what he links to, because all he’s looking for is gotchas, not truth. That’s no way to go through life, son.
But Dr. Hart is far from alone in his confusions. Mark Shea:
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Dear Darryl,
“Susan, so now that you’re Roman Catholic philosophy is no problem. You have unprovisional knowledge? Infallible knowledge? Or you have faith in someone with infallibility?”
Philosophy is a problem if can’t leave the runway. Philosophy is suppose to orientate us towards objective knowledge in the same way that the law of non-contradiction is suppose to keep us from saying things like, “there is no such thing as truth”.
You have unprovisional ( is that a word?)knowledge too. Do you believe in “the way, the truth, and the life”? Then that knowledge is not provisional. That Jesus is God, is infallible knowledge, so you think that thought with infallibility. Do you trust the NT writers to write and inform others with data, that may be contestable, yet still stand on it as the truth? If you do then you are trusting an infallible source!
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Bob S
Posted December 2, 2015 at 4:52 pm | Permalink
Huh?
IOW TVD the EO is the real RC church.
Then why are you arguing for the pope?
I’ll defend anyone who’s falsely accused. You don’t know me, Bob.
Sacramentally, the Eastern Orthodox are indeed also the true Church even by Rome’s account. You could learn a lot about your own version of the Christian religion by examining the issue, to separate your ecclesiastical grievances against Rome from your own actual theological problems. Tell me this doesn’t sound familiar:
http://fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.com/2012/05/myth-of-schism-by-david-bentley-hart.html
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Hart,
I didn’t blame the “laity”. My quote is aimed at all lukewarm Catholics. This includes Bishops, all of which started out as laity. Every Bishop was a layman once. Born of the vocation of husband and wife.
“And since you depend on an infallible magisterium, a defective hierarchy is — wait for it — a problem.”
No. Actually an infallible magisterium that can include defective hierarchy is actually a miracle. When those who can actually faithfully reveal the truth to you and save your soul, also can be damned to hell for their rebellion is pretty amazing. Doesn’t mean we put up with it, not put people in jail or have them defrocked. Just means we don’t despair and give up on God’s will and revealed truth while we fight the good fight. We can function just fine as sheep among the wolves when necessary.
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@susan My watch is stopped. It gives the true time twice a day. The watch is not infallible. I have to have ancillary information to know whether the watch is correct.
Any source of information that cannot be defined as infallible a priori is not infallible. If a source could be wrong and thus must be tested, then the source isn’t infallible even if the source proves to be correct (think of the answer key to a math book – it is not infallible even if it happens to get everything right…it *could* have been wrong).
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sdb,
“I would think that from your perspective (the gates of hell shall not prevail [against the Roman Catholic Church]), all that matters is Luther’s intentions. If I hit you with my car it makes a big difference to the judge whether I was targeting you or if it was just an accident. I don’t think Luther (at least at the Diet of Worms was setting out to topple the hegemony of the Western Catholic Church.”
Never said I didn’t think is was impossible Luther was invincibly innocent, just that he aimed his car at the Church and got lots of people in the car with him. I actually hope he was invincibly innocent. I want to meet Luther in the peace of heaven.
“In the IT age of quick and easy information, it is very hard to control what people read – thus the continued drop off in adherence.”
Funny all that information functionally promoted my conversion. Sure is plenty of good stuff to read now days. Especially all the pre-1933 non-copyrighted stuff. Doesn’t seem to be people that read a bunch of solid Catholic theology and apologetic than leave the pews. More like those who don’t understand the Faith and marry outside the Church or find a good preacher down the street with better modern music.
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sdb
Posted December 2, 2015 at 6:18 pm | Permalink
@susan My watch is stopped. It gives the true time twice a day. The watch is not infallible. I have to have ancillary information to know whether the watch is correct.
Any source of information that cannot be defined as infallible a priori is not infallible.
The Holy Spirit. As long as y’all keep writing him out of the equation you’re not in the discussion.
What’s interesting is that the Protestant claim to “provisionality” and “fallibility” is an admission they don’t believe the Holy Spirit guides their church.
Which is prudent, since all Protestant churches are “provisional”–they only stay together until the next doctrinal dispute, the next schism. By contrast, Augustine’s “catholic” church is not the least bit “provisional.” It is a rock, and the gates of hell have not as yet prevailed against it.
This is not Protestant stuff here. “Confessional” churches have no authority, only assent of their members, which can be withdrawn or altered at any time, a revision of the “confession,” a new breakaway church down the street, ordaining lesbians, whathaveyou.
Of course Protestant “faith” is provisional; their churches themselves are provisional.
[This is why they cannot discuss the Church on Catholic terms. The ontology is completely different: Augustine would not recognize the Protestant model.]
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TVD does theology. Is that like Ted Bell selling tofu? I think it is.
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sean
Posted December 2, 2015 at 6:50 pm | Permalink
TVD does theology. Is that like Ted Bell selling tofu? I think it is.
Take that meat out of your mouth and deal with Augustine.
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Dear Sdb,
The watch is not infallible. I have to have ancillary information to know whether the watch is correct.”
Is the ancillary information them infallible or does it also need ancillary information?
“Any source of information that cannot be defined as infallible a priori is not infallible.”
Who says that? Is the source who tells you this a priori? If they are a prior, by definition they don’t have to say so.
” If a source could be wrong and thus must be tested, then the source isn’t infallible even if the source proves to be correct (think of the answer key to a math book ”
I agree. But tested in the light of what? Something, right?
But just acknowleging that such a thing as infallibity exists and can be tested for proves that something things rose above provisional knowledge.
“– it is not infallible even if it happens to get everything right…it *could* have been wrong).”
True something can be programmed to spit out all the correct answers, but a programmer inserted data and is therefore checking for answers, answers already known by the programmer. The machine could have been wrong but of course since the programmer can identify the wrong answers an infallible source wasn’t needed.
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Augustine wasn’t infallible, but what was your scripture reference? And rome surely has a reputation known to all, including hollywoooood.
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That evades the issue TVD.
1054 is a long way from the pristine apostolicity that both the EO and the RC boast of.
All three parties to the debate at least start w. the NT and we know at least two are a long way from home.
True, not if you believe that in the beginning was the Eucharist and the Eucharist was God, but not all of us are so credulous when it comes to appeals to age vs. what all parties again agree is the Word of God.
The Holy Spirit. As long as y’all keep writing him out of the equation you’re not in the discussion.
What’s interesting is that the Protestant claim to “provisionality” and “fallibility” is an admission they don’t believe the Holy Spirit guides their church.
No, it’s an admission that they are not the Holy Spirit. Of course that’s a no brainer, since both the EO and Rome claim to have the HS boxed up in their sacraments, obviously the prots are going to come up short when it comes to having the goods at hand.
“Confessional” churches have no authority, only assent of their members, which can be withdrawn or altered at any time, a revision of the “confession,” a new breakaway church down the street, ordaining lesbians, whathaveyou.
Of course the truth has no inherent authority, nor does it accomplish God’s ends God’s way, including hardening the reprobate. What we really want is raw power to wield the sword and coerce people into our carnal kingdom. Yup, gotta go elsewhere for that.
[I]f you acknowledge the supreme authority of Scripture, you should recognise that authority which from the time of Christ Himself, through the ministry of His apostles, and through a regular succession of bishops in the seats of the apostles, has been preserved to our own day throughout the whole world, with a reputation known to all. (Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, 33:9; NPNF 1, Vol. IV, 345)
This was before the rise of full blown Romanism right? Or was Augustine also a
Carthaginian bishopRoman pope? And we know Augustine never contradicts Rome (or is that the other way around?), because Rome says so. Sounds like an airtight case to me.What does Scripture say? That’s anachronistic. The Magisterium’s got the final word now.
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Susan, so I have an infallible source and yet I don’t have THE infallible source (papacy).
Think!
You’re complaint was that Protestantism lacked the certainty you needed when confronting philosophy.
Now it turns out Protestants have certainty. So why did you stop rooting for the Dodgers and switch to the Yankees?
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vd, t uses a blog not a Roman Catholic website.
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Michael TX, “Actually an infallible magisterium that can include defective hierarchy is actually a miracle.”
I’ve got a bigger miracle for you. A branch of Christianity that has 33k denominations is — wait for it — UNITED.
Oh, but now you’ll go all rationalist and get literal about unity.
With arguments like yours (mystical) it’s all faith and no reason.
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Michael tx, stop already with Luther aiming at the church. The papacy aimed at the church. What say you to the Western Schism? Shrug. Crickets?
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vd, t, go ahead. Lean real hard and the Holy Spirit. Boom! There goes the magisterium.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 2, 2015 at 8:41 pm | Permalink
vd, t uses a blog not a Roman Catholic website.
Actually it’s a reprint of a semi-scholarly article by David Bentley Hart, who is Eastern Orthodox, Dr. Hart, presented for information purposes, not necessarily to discredit your version of the Christian religion.
For that we have Augustine.
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vd, t, and Edgardo Mortara came from wikipedia.
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Bob S
Posted December 2, 2015 at 8:24 pm | Permalink
That evades the issue TVD.
1054 is a long way from the pristine apostolicity that both the EO and the RC boast of.
That’s indeed the formal point: Rome’s sins post-1054 are therefore irrelevant. Your theological problems predate it. Dr. Hart is just indulging his anti-Catholicism, which is why I linked to the David Bentley Hart article.
“The Holy Spirit. As long as y’all keep writing him out of the equation you’re not in the discussion.”
What’s interesting is that the Protestant claim to “provisionality” and “fallibility” is an admission they don’t believe the Holy Spirit guides their church.”
No, it’s an admission that they are not the Holy Spirit.
It’s an admission they do not have the Holy Spirit, and the proof is the dozens or 100s of different varieties of “Protestantism.” Indeed you cut out my best point, that even your churches are “provisional,” until the next schism.
Of course that’s a no brainer, since both the EO and Rome claim to have the HS boxed up in their sacraments, obviously the prots are going to come up short when it comes to having the goods at hand.
There is some ecclesiastical case to be made for the Lutherans and Anglicans. Not for you.
“Confessional” churches have no authority, only assent of their members, which can be withdrawn or altered at any time, a revision of the “confession,” a new breakaway church down the street, ordaining lesbians, whathaveyou.
Of course the truth has no inherent authority
This is where you run well afoul of Augustine, see below.
nor does it accomplish God’s ends God’s way, including hardening the reprobate. What we really want is raw power to wield the sword and coerce people into our carnal kingdom. Yup, gotta go elsewhere for that.
This is cant, to which there can be no intelligent response.
This was before the rise of full blown Romanism right?
No*, but even stipulating that point, your version of Christianity lost “regular succession of bishops in the seats of the apostles, has been preserved to our own day throughout the whole world, with a reputation known to all.”
Both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox have a claim to “regular succession of bishops in the seats of the apostles, has been preserved to our own day throughout the whole world, with a reputation known to all.”
Your version of Christianity has zero claim to the Church that Augustine describes. Zero. That is the point here, merely a plain fact.
__________________________________
*http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/apologetics/num16.htm
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 2, 2015 at 9:53 pm | Permalink
vd, t, and Edgardo Mortara came from wikipedia.
Actually I posted it just for this graf
Don’t hate the mirror, Dr. Hart. Hate what’s in it.
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Tom,
It’s an admission they do not have the Holy Spirit, and the proof is the dozens or 100s of different varieties of “Protestantism.” Indeed you cut out my best point, that even your churches are “provisional,” until the next schism.
It’s simply a bald assertion that differences among Protestants prove that the Holy Spirit is not guiding their churches. You need to actually make an argument for that biblically.
Both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox have a claim to “regular succession of bishops in the seats of the apostles, has been preserved to our own day throughout the whole world, with a reputation known to all.”
Oh well, that settles it. Never mind the fact that there’s no evidence for a monarchical episcopate until at least 100 years after the Apostles. Never mind that our earliest post-Apostolic sources about the church in Rome point to a church that is led by a group of elders. Never mind the actual historical evidence. Just assume Augustine was correct about everything he said about the church and shrug.
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Robert
Posted December 2, 2015 at 6:14 am | Permalink
Mermaid,
I am not sure why Jeff or Robert don’t write up a summary of what they are arguing. That would help.
Jeff wanted to give CVD first crack, and I think that’s fair since what we have seen is a Prot evaluation of a RC argument.
But in broader measure, all I’m saying is that the “Protestantism says everything is up for grabs because it doesn’t claim infallibility” argument is nonsensical and that to say what we believe is provisional is ultimately dishonest, because the RC’s beliefs are just as “provisional” unless and until the believer making the charge is able to attain omniscience.>>>>
Howdy, Robert,
Wonderful rain, here. We Mermaids love this kind of weather the most.
I will look forward to your summary statement. I don’t think it is a dishonest claim to say that in Protestantism, everything is up for grabs given the fact that most of the older Reformed churches have indeed rejected orthodoxy in favor of modernity. Most of that kind of Protestantism is now apostate by any measure you wish to apply. No, that doesn’t mean that every Protestant is apostate, of course, even in the mainline denominations. It doesn’t mean that there will never be a revival of faith. There are many faithful who are trying to reform from within.
The sections of the Catholic Church that have adopted modernity have followed the lead of the German higher critics, as I am sure you know. The source of the infection is the same. It seems to me that you cannot allow textual criticism and the philosophy of science to determine and define canonicity. That is most unwise.
Anyway, now is the time for me to bring in one of my stock statements. We really are all in this together. We have common enemies, so why are we enemies? I don’t think that you and I are.
So, as I said, I will look forward to summary statements, my dear Separated Brother Robert.
It would be good to hear how you guys who accept the philosophy of provisional knowledge protect your churches from antinomianism. After all, if fallen human reason and a conscience that is still set on sin according to your theology is allowed to be king, then how do you deal with chaos or avoid the charge of antinomianism?
Your fallible rule of faith and practice has to act as though it were infallible it seems to me.
Otherwise everyone will just blow you off. Sure, Catholics do that kind of thing, too, but most who do become Protestants. So, you have a lot of ex Catholics who think that what they are being taught in your churches is infallible. That helps maintain order.
Now, you will be annoyed. Just working through this myself.
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Hart,
“What say you to the Western Schism? Shrug. Crickets?”
What do you say to a pope who stepped down to make sure the world could know there was no schism only confusion in the world over truth?
“I’ve got a bigger miracle for you. A branch of Christianity that has 33k denominations is — wait for it — UNITED.”
Do you include Mormons in your oneness? How do you discern your oneness or do you just not care who you are as long as you are not part of us?
“With arguments like yours (mystical) it’s all faith and no reason.”
Scripture doesn’t say I have to have “reason” to please God. It does say “Without faith it is impossible to please” Him. Not that I don’t have reasons. He throws them in to boot, but no reason is enough without faith. Putting the cart before the horse though just gets the horse eating the apples in it and going nowhere. Get the order right and I’m riding in the cart enjoying some good apples and feeding the horse on the way. Mystical I may be, but it is who I am created to be.
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Mermaid,
I will look forward to your summary statement. I don’t think it is a dishonest claim to say that in Protestantism, everything is up for grabs given the fact that most of the older Reformed churches have indeed rejected orthodoxy in favor of modernity. Most of that kind of Protestantism is now apostate by any measure you wish to apply. No, that doesn’t mean that every Protestant is apostate, of course, even in the mainline denominations. It doesn’t mean that there will never be a revival of faith. There are many faithful who are trying to reform from within.
The sections of the Catholic Church that have adopted modernity have followed the lead of the German higher critics, as I am sure you know. The source of the infection is the same. It seems to me that you cannot allow textual criticism and the philosophy of science to determine and define canonicity. That is most unwise.
It’s dishonest only because most RCs ignore the fact that everything is actually up for grabs in RCism as well. Hence the fact that sections of the RCC have adopted modernity. And the fact that large swatches of the church were once Arian. No, that doesn’t’ mean every RC or RC bishop is apostate or that there will never be a revival of faith. There are many faithful who are trying to reform within.
Textual criticism and the philosophy of science don’t define canonicity even in the Protestant model. What defines canonicity is ultimately what the Apostles and Prophets actually wrote. The debate is over how one comes to conclude what that is. What has ended up happening with RCism is that the complete divorce of text criticism and canonicity leaves you on the one hand saying that John 8 is Scripture and on the other hand that John didn’t write it and, in fact, no one knows. It divorces the canon/text from a historical context, leading to an ahistorical religion.
It would be good to hear how you guys who accept the philosophy of provisional knowledge protect your churches from antinomianism. After all, if fallen human reason and a conscience that is still set on sin according to your theology is allowed to be king, then how do you deal with chaos or avoid the charge of antinomianism?
But this isn’t the traditional Protestant position. Fallen human reason and the individual conscience are not allowed to be king when they are wrong. The real question is how one knows when the conscience is right and when it is wrong. You all seem to want an answer that God has not given: “The church tells me whenever my conscience is certainly right and certainly wrong.”
But it isn’t fallibility that leads to chaos or antinomianism. It’s the failure to enforce the standards.
Your fallible rule of faith and practice has to act as though it were infallible it seems to me.
But the rule of faith and practice—God’s Word—is infallible. There’s no acting as if it is or isn’t. What is fallible is the church’s recognition and interpretation of God’s Word. The fundamental problem with RCism is the failure to distinguish the deposit of faith from the interpretation of the deposit of faith. They are, for all practical purposes, identical. Which makes the Magisterium an organ of revelation, no matter how much one protests to the contrary.
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Robert:Textual criticism and the philosophy of science don’t define canonicity even in the Protestant model. >>>>>
Then why do you allow it to color your view of the pericope adulterae? What does define it, then?
How do you keep yourselves from sliding down with the Jesus Seminar? YOU guys, Robert. How?
Robert:
But this isn’t the traditional Protestant position. Fallen human reason and the individual conscience are not allowed to be king when they are wrong.>>>>
In your theological paradigm, both fallen human reason and individual conscience are always wrong. They are never right, nor can they be.
Robert:
But it isn’t fallibility that leads to chaos or antinomianism. It’s the failure to enforce the standards.>>>>
The standards you hold to are by definition, fallible. Those are the standards that are supposed to keep you from sliding into antinomianism. They don’t, except in a very limited way.
In order to enforce the WCF standards, for example, you have to pretend that they represent an infallible rule of faith and practice. Otherwise, how would you ever dare to put someone on trial if you didn’t believe in the WCF?
Your actions speak louder than your words. Even here, you use your standards to judge everyone else by – which is fine. It is good to have standards. It is practically nonsense to say that those standards in the WCF are fallible and then use them as a standard.
Words like “rule” and “standard” have to do with absolutes when combined with the Word of God. Why not call them guidelines and suggestions if they are not absolute and infallible?
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Michael, unimpressive. If RC apologists are going to gripe about all of Protestantism’s woes, you can at least step up and also acknowledge your team’s and then lets see how we each live without exceptionalism. All you do is shrug.
Do you include Protestants in your unity? Rome produced us.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 3, 2015 at 4:27 pm | Permalink
Michael, unimpressive. If RC apologists are going to gripe about all of Protestantism’s woes, you can at least step up and also acknowledge your team’s and then lets see how we each live without exceptionalism. All you do is shrug.
Do you include Protestants in your unity? Rome produced us.
False equivalency. The Catholic Church is not just one denomination among many as yours is. Neither would Augustine recognize your version of the Christian religion, nor your concept of the Church.
You “produced” yourselves. You are not the Church.
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Thanks TVD, I didn’t know Augustine was an infallible apostle, but I do now.
And 2 Cor. 2:14-16 is cant?
Who could have known?
Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:
To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.
How about Is.6:10, quoted in all the Gospels, Acts and Romans?
Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
Instead of all this jazz about provisional and your choice of Rome over Protestantism accordingly, start thinking about predestination and election a little more and consider that it is not about willing, running or working, it is about God that sheweth mercy Rom. 9:16. IOW maybe your free will choice of Rome is not all it’s cracked up to be.
It’s not even about the Eucharist in your previous typical roman drive by of John 6, contra 6:35 where Jesus says as the bread of life: “he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst”.
It was the Jews then, the papists now, who get hung up on the hard saying and think Christ is talking about them eating his flesh in 6:52, meanwhile Peter, the erstwhile first pope, says Christ has the “words of eternal life” in 6:68.
Words. Not Wonderbread.
Without Scripture, we couldn’t even know there was such a thing as the Lord’s supper.
Salvation only comes by hearing the Word of God and believing it; neither is communion a converting ordinance, S. Stoddard and the RC not withstanding.
Meanwhile more blathering in the same irrational vein continues.
Your actions speak louder than your words. Even here, you use your standards to judge everyone else by – which is fine. It is good to have standards. It is practically nonsense to say that those standards in the WCF are fallible and then use them as a standard.
This nonsense evidently from a papist who claims to be infallible, not mind you, like that horrible old WCF. But for the nth time, if papists can’t distinguish between being capable of error and actually erring, they are incompetent to the discussion and need to kindly shut up and sit down.
IOW while prots might be capable of murder, most of them have yet to actually commit the crime. Capiche?
But interlocutors like this that assume prots still deserve the electric chair before they shoot the Tooth Fairy in real time definitely push buttons.
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TVD,
The Catholic Church is not just one denomination among many as yours is.
Says Rome about herself. Nobody else seems to agree.
Neither would Augustine recognize your version of the Christian religion, nor your concept of the Church.
You have no idea what Augustine would or would not have recognized. You have your best guess based on a selective reading of Augustine. What happens when Augustine is convinced that the church has erred? What happens when he sees the pope claiming to be the tradition? You don’t know because you never have seen and will never see Augustine in such a setting.
You “produced” yourselves.
There is no Protestantism without the abject failure of the papacy. That’s plain historical fact. The papacy failed, the Western monarchs no longer felt beholden to kiss his ring, and the complaints of Luther, which weren’t new, took off because of it.
You are not the Church.
According to Rome? We don’t care what Rome says about our status as Christians or as churches.
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You’re not even the Church according to each other, or you wouldn’t have denominations by the sackful.
There is no such thing as ‘Protestantism’ except as not-The Catholic Church. There is no such thing as The Presbyterian Church. They are meaningless terms.
And we’ve posted enough from Augustine to show that your idea of The Church is not remotely his. Sorry. The truth hurts. You did not reform the Church. You atomized it. Meanwhile the papacy and the Catholic Church continue to chug along, the oldest continuous institution in human history. That is not failure.
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Look! An unchurched lesbian squirrel.
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Hart,
Not seeking to impress. I know who I am. I am not impressive. Without God I would take one true free hellish joy and love hell[separation from God] over the love needed for heaven. “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.” Life would be so much easier if God did not exist and Jesus just a myth. Love is too hard. Christ’s commands too much. I am one who at times would be joyous I did not need to love. But by God’s grace “Woe unto me, if I do not preach the Gospel.” He alone is my help to love. Love often brings me no joy, but is my only hope and I have faith and believe… it is who I am. I love God and can not forsake Him who did not and will not forsake me. God “is” and I “am not”, but by grace I am becoming. He has called me His son. His only beloved Son was willing to suffer to show His love for the Father to us. We are all called to some varying degree of reflecting the same.
“Pick up your cross and follow Me.”
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to address this:
“Do you include Protestants in your unity? Rome produced us.”
Do you include possibly following Rome, if it is the truth, in your search for truth?
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“Woe unto me, if I do not preach the Gospel.”
MiT that’s just the point, to preach popery is not to preach the gospel.
Do you include possibly following Rome, if it is the truth, in your search for truth?
Been there done that fren. Was born in the communion and returned to it after calling upon the Lord. Took a while but while the Bible was clear enough on what a man must do to be saved, believe int he Lord Jesus Christ, Rome was anything but.
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Michael, I sure wish you’d bring such Lutheran theology of the cross to your fellow religionists. I hear a lot of Roman Catholic exceptionalism. Dare I say, you thought it superior to Protestantism.
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Michael, Rome came up small in the 16th century on the remedy for sin. Human dignity and human flourishing — the current themes of Roman Catholic discourse — are just Pelagianism with a dollop of the therapeutic.
But if Rome talked about following the Bible, we might have a conversation.
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MTX: Love is too hard. Christ’s commands too much. I am one who at times would be joyous I did not need to love. But by God’s grace “Woe unto me, if I do not preach the Gospel.” He alone is my help to love.
So … I agree here. But in my understanding, this pushes me first to need forgiveness for not loving as I ought, and only then, as a son, seeking the love that God gives through the Spirit.
In other words, I would think that anyone who understands that “love is too hard” would also understand that justification cannot be a matter of God first making me right, then declaring it so. It must instead be a matter of God declaring me right, then making it happen in time.
Anyways, this derails from the topic. But I wanted to plant the thought.
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Mermaid, step up and hear the question:
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Tom,
You’re not even the Church according to each other, or you wouldn’t have denominations by the sackful.
Wrong again. You’re the one who thinks Christianity reduces to bread and wine. I can freely commune at every Protestant church that I know of.
There is no such thing as ‘Protestantism’ except as not-The Catholic Church. There is no such thing as The Presbyterian Church. They are meaningless terms.
The Catholic in Roman Catholic is meaningless. A truly catholic church doesn’t behave like the Vatican. Which is why most RCs don’t even buy the Rome is the only true church anymore. They see through the facade. And I’m talking about mass goers here.
And we’ve posted enough from Augustine to show that your idea of The Church is not remotely his. Sorry. The truth hurts. You did not reform the Church. You atomized it.
None of us here did anything to the church. We weren’t alive at the time of the Reformation.
And Augustine’s definition of the church is correct only insofar as it conforms to Scripture. But in any case, the Roman Catholic Church bears no resemblance to the church of Augustine’s day either except for the nominal existence of bishops. Rome ain’t in communion with the other “Apostolic sees.”
Meanwhile the papacy and the Catholic Church continue to chug along, the oldest continuous institution in human history. That is not failure.
Well if success means that 95 percent of your adherents ignore your teaching on most matters, you’re a failure.
The Japanese Monarchy has at least a good a claim to being a continuous institution and its older. Meanwhile the emperor has no real power. Kinda like the pope and the “faithful,” who think he’s great only insofar as he talks platitudes about helping the poor and other things that almost nobody would disagree with.
Yeah, Francis winning person of the year from some gay rights magazines and organizations. That’s being successful with your message:
http://www.wsbtv.com/videos/news/pope-francis-named-gay-magazines-person-of-the/vCLXQX/
Oh wait, a church we all regard as apostate ordained a lesbian! Invalidates everything cause TVD says so. Squirrel!
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Robert, “Wrong again. You’re the one who thinks Christianity reduces to bread and wine.”
To be fair, I believe for vd, t Christianity reduces to having billions of members and not ordaining lesbians.
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Darryl,
My mistake. It’s confusing, what with all the talk about Christianity being really all about the Eucharist and then the shots at the OPC for having only tens of thousands of members and all.
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Hart,
My heart cry is Catholic to the core. Ask any Catholic if I contradict their understanding of Catholic teaching. Ever Mass begins with confessing this.
“Now how can those who do not know their own sinfulness recognize and correct it in others? They are neither able nor willing to go against themselves.” – St. Catherine of Siena (proclaimed Doctor of the Church in 1970) There are only 33 saints called doctor’s of the Church. You want to hear/see Catholicism go to them.
I know that I can love through Holy Spirit inspired obedience rather than feelings and selfishness. This is love of God, if one feels they would be so much better to forsake God, yet continue out of faith in God’s utter loveliness, goodness and mercy, though they “feel” it not. The will and the intellect crushing the flesh into submission is love in action. A man can not do this on his own. Only God in him can bring this about. The man of the flesh would cheat on his wife, if he “feels” mistreated by her and “feels” like he would be better off. The man of the Spirit endures out of love, though his greatest desire may be to hate his wife. The desires of the flesh will die. This is a promise we must as Christians count on.
Jeff,
“So … I agree here. But in my understanding, this pushes me first to need forgiveness for not loving as I ought, and only then, as a son, seeking the love that God gives through the Spirit.”
This is Catholic understanding as well. Especially if you tweak the word “seeking” to live. It continues growing and processing through out our lives. This is why ever Mass begins with confessing our grave sinfulness.
Bob S,
If we think of Peter on Pentecost preaching repentance and baptism and say “Well that is just what you think.” Then walk away. We miss the boat.
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Michael, get that crying bit under control. You need to double as a devotional writer for TGC. I prefer Sister Aloysius’ line.
Priest: “Where’s your charity?”
Sister: “Nowhere where you can get at it.”
Let’s strike some balance between romanticism and borg like paradigmatic conversation enders. Let’s work on the human being part.
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English Teacher
Posted December 2, 2015 at 3:16 pm | Permalink
A couple of you should find an infallible grammar and spell checker.>>>>>
That is funny! I cast myself upon thy mercy.
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D. G. Hart
Posted December 4, 2015 at 7:35 am | Permalink
Robert, “Wrong again. You’re the one who thinks Christianity reduces to bread and wine.”
To be fair, I believe for vd, t Christianity reduces to having billions of members and not ordaining lesbians.
It’s a start. Presbyterianism failed on both counts.
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MichaelTX
Posted December 4, 2015 at 1:28 pm | Permalink
Hart,
My heart cry is Catholic to the core. Ask any Catholic if I contradict their understanding of Catholic teaching. Ever Mass begins with confessing this.
“Now how can those who do not know their own sinfulness recognize and correct it in others? They are neither able nor willing to go against themselves.” – St. Catherine of Siena (proclaimed Doctor of the Church in 1970) There are only 33 saints called doctor’s of the Church. You want to hear/see Catholicism go to them.
Dr. Hart prefers to get his knowledge of Catholicism from blogs. And what he doesn’t know, he makes up.
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So has cvd finally written us off as hopeless? Surely he can’t be out having a life!
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Michael, so you could be a Christian outside the Roman Church, right? Nothing there about the magisterium, papacy, infallibility, tradition, history, unity, or 1.2 billion.
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b, sd, yup.
Cool.
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Robert,
“As must you because you admit that it is at least theoretically possible to find the body of Jesus one day. ”
It’s theoretically possible you don’t exist and are a figment of my imagination. It’s theoretically possible your parents were secretly aliens and Obama is a time-traveling reptilian overlord from dimension x and the moon landing was staged. It’s theoretically possible nothing is theoretically possible. It’s theoretically possible everything is theoretically possible. This thought that I must hold everything provisionally because I’m not omniscient or infallible is just plain skepticism.
“My point to Bryan was that the motives of credibility are broadly circular and only prove what he thinks they prove if you first accept Rome’s explanation of what they mean.”
And he engaged you on that assertion and the others you’re repeating again in this paragraph as if they were never addressed. Here’s the thread again starting at comment 61 till the end – http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/11/lawrence-feingold-the-motives-of-credibility-for-faith/#comment-147179
“And you can’t tell me that it is absolutely impossible for cows to possess some unlocked genetic potential to jump over the moon.”
And this just shows you’re still presupposing skepticism. Apparently everything Bryan wrote to you was dismissed. In that thread, he pointed out multiple times how your position was skepticism and self-refuting. You ended up never actually countering that charge, but instead focusing on the whole “PCA is the church Christ founded” point.
“I hold that supernatural matters are infallible but that my recognition and interpretation is not because I’m not God.”
So your assertion that “supernatural matters are infallible” is itself provisional and theoretically possible to be false right? The point is one system’s principles can actually accommodate supernatural truths, as well as natural truths. One system does not, reducing all “truths” to our knowledge of them, thus confusing and conflating the order of being with the order of knowing. If you were consistent with your ostensible view of supernatural truths, you would affirm something like the certitude of faith, you would not reject it and argue it as illegitimate just because humans are not God.
“My hesitancy is because I don’t affirm the wrong Thomistic premises. ”
No, you just affirm skepticism. It’s not a surprise you and other Reformed tend towards presuppositionalism.
“As far as Pelagianism, that’s insane since I believe grace is necessary to come to apprehension of the truth, and particularly spiritual truth. ”
It’s insane to argue you’re not Pelagian, then in your arguments make an equivalence between knowledge of supernatural truths and natural truths to justify ever-provisionality and space for doubt. Of course since natural “truths” are impossible in your system anyways, you don’t even get that far – cows might jump over the moon tomorrow somewhere or are already doing it but we didn’t detect it (but by saying such, you’re already admitting you know what a “cow” is and its nature in the first place, thus self-refuting your skepticism again).
“And BTW, sola Scriptura says the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith, not that it’s the only rule of faith. ”
Yep, it does. So please stop putting the cart before the horse and be consistent with your SS rule of faith to address the canon issue.
“Yes, and Jesus expected the Jews to know what Scripture was before He got there. So, according to the witness of Jesus, an infallible declaration is unnecessary for faith….And since Jesus expected the Jews to know Genesis was Scripture apart from his say-so, an infallible canon declaration is not, strictly speaking, necessary”
And Jesus expected the Jews to understand Scripture pointed to Him and accept His interpretations. So, the NT is not “strictly speaking, necessary”, after all, He expected Jews to recognize those teachings just as he expected them to recognize Genesis as Scripture.
“God makes the same promises in the OT to Israel….And yet there was lots of error in the OT.”
I see. So the OT had the character of the following:
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”
“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you.”
“He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”
“He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.”
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build My Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.”
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
“if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.”
“just as My Father has granted Me a kingdom, I grant you that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
The OT promises were shadows and types of what Christ fulfilled in the NT. The Apostles, successors, and church in the NT are not just OT redux. That’s why the pattern we see in the OT of prophets being raised no longer applies. Revelation has ended – Christ planned for that. Your argument returns us back to the OT.
“Until then, your submission is no less provisional than mine”
Oy vey. We’re still doing this. Rome makes different claims than Protestantism. Compare what’s consistent with granting the truth of those claims. Protestantism claims are true: The stalement situation of “I have the HS and you don’t” obtain – because of the disclaimers to authority it makes. RCism is true: The stalement situation does not apply – because of the claims to authority it makes. Protestantism claims are true: All teaching remains provisional and subject to correction – because of its disclaimers. RCism is true: all teaching does not remain provisional and subject to correction – because of its claims. Protestantism claims are true: Semper reformanda all the way down. RCism is true: Not semper reformanda all the way down. Protestantism claims are true: certitude of faith is illegitimate and impossible. RCism claims are true: certitude of faith is warranted and essential.
“It advances the point that the Scripture you say is infallible does not support your point”
I say that Scripture is infallible because of STM-triad and infallible authority. You don’t hold to STM-triad, but skepticism, ever-provisionality and semper reformanda. Thus you keep putting the cart before the horse and cutting off the legs of your argument before you can even get it off the ground.
“So there’s no cart before the horse.”
Sure there is – you keep assuming Hebrews 11 is either inspired, or if not inspired, at least historically accurate and thus should be taken into account. But I don’t see how you do so while being consistent with your principles and arguments and rampant skepticism.
“Your argument is refuted by the very source you claim to follow.”
It’s actually the other way around since you’re the one who keeps making the NT unnecessary, as well as Christ’s claims to divine authority, by your interpretation of His words and actions.
“Because in fact you have no way of knowing what is fallible or not apart from the Magisterium’s pronouncements.”
STM-triad is not sola dogmatic declarations (again).
“There is not one claim on the part of the witnesses to be infallible, and I could point to examples from other religions in which something apparently miraculous happened. So you are not helping your point.”
Bingo. Miracles are part of the motives of credibility. Would you bother investigating those religions if they didn’t claim something miraculous happened? Nope. That’s the point. It would have been fideistic if Rahab arbitrarily acted in faith with no reason. But she gives her reasons – “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death.”
It would have been fideistic if the spies then said, “What are you talking about? We have no idea where you got that from. We’re just normal Joes, not part of this group you claim is being divinely confirmed by God” and she just repeated what she said again. But what do the spies do, they confirm their unique connection to God – “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.” The necessary claims were made for her to act in faith.
“So either Hebrews 11 endorses fideism or you are wrong.”
So you tried with Abraham. You tried with Rahab. Maybe there’s someone else in Heb 11 that will help your point. But I wouldn’t be optimistic, considering your argument makes the NT unnecessary in the first place (from which you get Heb 11), as well as makes Christ and the Apostles claims to infallibility and divine authority unnecessary. So either we go with your interpretation and make a complete mess of Scripture. Or we go with the interpretation and argument that makes Scripture consistent and coherent.
“The NT is not absolutely necessary to knowing that Jesus is the Messiah, it is true.”
Well, that’s just fantastic. Welcome to Protestantism folks. No fideism here, move along.
“The point at hand is whether the claim of infalliblity is necessary to give the assent of faith. Since Jesus expected Jews to know and believe that Genesis was Scripture, your argument fails, unless you make him a sinner or a fideist.”
Why did you bold this? I already replied to it. Jesus holding Jews accountable to their fallible authorities does not cause my argument to fail. On the other hand, your argument entails the NT and Christ’s teachings are not necessary, because Jesus expected Jews to know and believe His teachings. Christ did not actually need to come to earth – the NT wasn’t necessary. Welcome to Judaism.
“Rabbi Levi offered the Scripture as infallible, just like Protestants do.”
Yep, but Rabbi Levi did not claim he had divine authority or was doing so infallibly, just like Protestantism does. The Apostles claimed the opposite. Welcome to Judaism.
“We do not ask you to put your faith in the church, which is perhaps Rome’s chief blasphemy and the root of all your problems, but in Christ.”
False dichotomy. Christ made promises to the church your arguments nullify and neuter. And your arguments nullify Christ’s authority as well, so it’s a two-fer, which would make sense though, since the church’s authority is based on Christ’s authority to make those promises He did.
“He claimed infalliblity for Himself, and it was enough.”
Ah, so the NT writers weren’t infallible. I suppose we should chuck out the NT.
“I need nothing more than the claim of Jesus”
Would that be the claims He made in apocryphal and gnostic literature? What about the claims He made in disputed passages? More cart before the horse.
“I do not accept your double standard.”
It’s not a double standard. I’m asking how SS functions coherently with a fallible provisional canon. You keep asking questions like I hold to sola-S or sola-T or sola-M. But no RC does.
“How did anyone prior to Nicea know that the deity of Christ was infallible? How did anyone post-Nicea.”
STM-triad.
“Bishops surrendered left and right before and after to Arianism.”
Did Rome? Nope.
“The business of “he didn’t bind the church to affirm it” is bull when Arianism was a perfectly orthodox view according to the bishops, which it was even after Nicea.”
I already cited Cath Enc on the nature of Rome at the time of Arianism. Arianism wasn’t “perfectly orthodox” in Rome. If it was, there wouldn’t have been a controversy and council in the first place.
“What explains it is that there is absolutely no justification for the belief other than some ideas that really didn’t get going until after Constantine.”
Oh brother. Are we doing Da Vinci code style apologetics now? Augustine no good now? His belief that the universal church cannot err is hardly novel to him.
“Before Nicea what do we have that teaches the deity of Christ as a warrant of faith?”
Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium.
“Protestants say Scripture, but you won’t let us use that because there is no infallible canon. Thus, you can’t say that either.”
Of course I can say Scripture. I don’t let you use that because I’m asking you to be *consistent* with SS. You keep avoiding how SS is a coherent rule of faith with a fallible provisional canon and contents therein.
“You can’t say tradition because the tradition is not unified.”
Arianism is not tradition. That’s why the laity in Rome rose up against the emperor and the antipope. You’re begging the question on “tradition is not unified” just like on “church”. Arianism is not part of the church or tradition.
“You can’t say Magisterium because there is no declaration and there is no unity among the bishops.”
Rome never taught Arianism before the crisis, during the crisis, or after the crisis. Dissenting bishops does not refute that.
Let’s see what Athanasius said about the rule of faith around this time:
“But the sectaries,who have fallen away from the teaching of the Church, and made shipwreck concerning their Faith…”
“For, what our Fathers have delivered, this is truly doctrine; and this is truly the token of doctors, to confess the same thing with each other, and to vary neither from themselves nor from their fathers; whereas they who have not this character are to be called not true doctors but evil.”
“See, we are proving that this view has been transmitted from father to father; but ye, O modern Jews and disciples of Caiaphas, how many fathers can ye assign to your phrases?… For the faith which the Council has confessed in writing, that is the faith of the Catholic Church; to assert this, the blessed Fathers so expressed themselves while condemning the Arian heresy; and this is a chief reason why these apply themselves to calumniate the Council.”
“[B]ut ill disposition and the versatile and crafty irreligion of Eusebius and his fellows, compelled the Bishops [at Nicea], as I said before, to publish *more distinctly* the terms which overthrew their irreligion; and what the Council did write has already been shewn to have an orthodox sense, while the Arians have shewn to be corrupt in their phrases and evil dispositions.”
“Wherefore keep yourselves all the more untainted by them, and observe the traditions of the fathers, and chiefly the holy faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, which you have learned from the Scripture, and of which you have often been put in mind by me.”
“”[T]hat of what they now allege from the Gospels they certainly give an unsound interpretation, we may easily see, if we now consider the scope of that faith which we Christians hold, and using it as a rule, apply ourselves, as the Apostle teaches, to the reading of inspired Scripture. For Christ’s enemies, being ignorant of this scope, have wandered from the way of truth”
“This then I consider the sense of this passage, and that, a very ecclesiastical sense.”
“Had Christ’s enemies thus dwelt on these thoughts, and recognized the ecclesiastical scope as an anchor for the faith, they would not have made shipwreck of the faith, nor been so shameless as to resist those who would fain recover them from their fall, and to deem those as enemies who are admonishing them to be religious.”
“But the Councils which they are now setting in motion, what colourable pretext have they? If any new heresy has risen since the Arian, let them tell us the positions which it has devised, and who are its inventors? and in their own formula, let them anathematize the heresies antecedent to this Council of theirs, among which is the Arian, as the Nicene Fathers did, that it may appear that they too have some cogent reason for saying what is novel. But if no such event has happened, and they have it not to shew, but rather they themselves are uttering heresies, as holding Arius’s irreligion, and are exposed day by day, and day by day shift their ground, what need is there of Councils, when the Nicene is sufficient, as against the Arian heresy, so against the rest, which it has condemned one and all by means of the sound faith?”
“The blessed Apostle approves of the Corinthians because, he says, ‘ye remember me in all things, and keep the traditions as I delivered them to you’; but they, as entertaining such views of their predecessors, will have the daring to say just the reverse to their flocks: ‘We praise you not for remembering your fathers, but rather we make much of you, when you hold not their traditions.’ ”
“[R]emaining on the foundation of the Apostles, and holding fast the traditions of the Fathers, pray that now at length all strife and rivalry may cease, and the futile questions of the heretics may be condemned, and all logomachy; and the guilty and murderous heresy of the Arians may disappear, and the truth may shine again in the hearts of all, so that all every where may ‘say the same thing’, and think the same thing, and that, no Arian contumelies remaining, it may be said and confessed in every Church, ‘One Lord, one faith, one baptism’, in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom to the Father be the glory and the strength, unto ages of ages. Amen.”
“However here too they introduce their private fictions, and contend that the Son and the Father are not in such wise ‘one,’ or ‘like,’ as the Church preaches, but, as they themselves would have it.”
“But, beyond these sayings [Scripture], let us look at the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the Apostles preached and the Fathers kept.”
“But after him and with him are all inventors of unlawful heresies, who indeed refer to the Scriptures, but do not hold such opinions as the saints have handed down, and receiving them as the traditions of men, err, because they do not rightly know them nor their power.”
STM.
“You’ve said that Scripture cannot function as a rule of faith apart from an infallible canon. So it is no distraction to supply something similar for the T or the M.”
Again, I’m not asking you for a list of all infallible dogmas in Scripture. So, yes, it’s a distraction.
“Rome must be held to the same standard as Geneva.”
Of course. My entire argument has always held each system to its own standards and seeing what the implications of that are.
“So it’s not nonsensical.”
So a person’s life and history can be reduced to a list of propositions? I read an infallible list of propositions, and I fully and exhaustively know a person? No, the “common life, faith, teaching, worship of the church handed down the generations defined as a list of propositions” makes as much sense as a square defined as a circle or bachelor as married.
“Yes but lots of things were part of Tradition and constantly affirmed by church authority (like Rome having no jurisidictional primacy) when they were being practiced for centuries. That’s the point.”
Still begging the question on church and Tradition. Arianism wasn’t part of either, nor were any of the other heresies, even though those heresies were practiced by people. Rome did not affirm them.
“If you get to list all those as true churches, then I get to claim that any Roman Catholic layman, priest, or bishop who affirms birth control, abortion, denies the deity of Christ, and thinks the pope is a big loser is fully orthodox Roman Catholic whose opinion is equally valid and should be affirmed in its entirety.”
And you did it again. You keep jumping to adherents and dissenters of particular churches to make some type of equivalence in unity/disunity. I keep focusing on comparing official statements of faith, confessions, catechisms etc. So the question-begging on “church” continues from your side. So the differences between these churches (see what I said there – churches, not adherents/dissenters of these churches) are relatively superficial, and they’re certainly no more significant than the difference between Thomism and Molinism:
PCA, LCMS, PCUSA, ELCA, Arminian, Anglican, Unitarian, Pentecostal, Oneness Pentecostal, Charismatic, Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Arian, Modalist, KJV-onlyist, Marcionite, gnostic, reconstructionist, kinist, biblicist-fundamentalist, seeker-sensitive, liberal, emergent, church of christ, antinomian, Pelagian, NPP, Quakers, Plymouth Brethren, Finneyite, Anabaptist, Adventist, Open Theist.
There is no reason why anyone should care or accept your definition of “church” that the only “true” Protestants that get to count as the church are confessional ones. As you agreed:
“But why should anyone from a church who disagrees with you care?
– In one sense, they shouldn’t.
Right, but why should those outside of that church care or be subject to your definition.
– As noted, in one sense they shouldn’t care.”
Why shouldn’t anyone who differs with you care? Because of Protestantism’s disclaimers to any type of authority that would compel them to care.
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Cletus van Damme
Posted December 4, 2015 at 5:28 pm | Permalink
“My point to Bryan was that the motives of credibility are broadly circular and only prove what he thinks they prove if you first accept Rome’s explanation of what they mean.”
And he engaged you on that assertion and the others you’re repeating again in this paragraph as if they were never addressed. Here’s the thread again starting at comment 61 till the end – http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/11/lawrence-feingold-the-motives-of-credibility-for-faith/#comment-147179
“And you can’t tell me that it is absolutely impossible for cows to possess some unlocked genetic potential to jump over the moon.”
And this just shows you’re still presupposing skepticism. Apparently everything Bryan wrote to you was dismissed. In that thread, he pointed out multiple times how your position was skepticism and self-refuting. You ended up never actually countering that charge, but instead focusing on the whole “PCA is the church Christ founded” point.
Oy.
“We do not ask you to put your faith in the church, which is perhaps Rome’s chief blasphemy and the root of all your problems, but in Christ.”
False dichotomy. Christ made promises to the church your arguments nullify and neuter. And your arguments nullify Christ’s authority as well, so it’s a two-fer, which would make sense though, since the church’s authority is based on Christ’s authority to make those promises He did.
Yes. Taking a razor to their Bible again. This is the Catholic Biblical case, asked and answered. Over and over.
http://www.angelfire.com/home/protestantchallenges/promises.html
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Well, nix that thought. CVD, that’s horrible. Say less.
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Cletus van Damme
Posted December 4, 2015 at 5:28 pm | Permalink
Robert,
Robert said:
“As must you because you admit that it is at least theoretically possible to find the body of Jesus one day. ”>>>
CvD:
It’s theoretically possible you don’t exist and are a figment of my imagination. It’s theoretically possible your parents were secretly aliens and Obama is a time-traveling reptilian overlord from dimension x and the moon landing was staged. It’s theoretically possible nothing is theoretically possible. It’s theoretically possible everything is theoretically possible.
This thought that I must hold everything provisionally because I’m not omniscient or infallible is just plain skepticism.>>>>>>
Oh, it is much worse than just plain skepticism. I’m going to drop a Scripture in here – one that the confessionalists say is infallible – and see what they say. Let’s see if they are able for once to apply a Scripture to themselves and not to someone else.
Whatever else this whole discussion may have done for me, it has shown me that the shifting sands of Confessionalism cannot be the rock that Christ built His Church on.
That is a liberating realization.
James 1
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
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Susan
Posted December 1, 2015 at 5:10 pm | Permalink
Hi Darryl,
Let me try this again;)
“Susan, “If politicians( who are not neutral) dictates where we worship then we lost the most valuable freedom.”
That’s Luther.”
The problem is Luther doesn’t get to create his own church. And that’s exactly what he tried to do with the help of Fredrick of Saxony. And others:
*John of Saxony (the brother of Frederick);
*Grand-Master Albert of Prussia, who converted the lands of his order into a secular duchy, becoming its hereditary lord on accepting Lutheranism;
*Dukes Henry and Albert of Mecklenburg;
*Count Albert of Mansfield;
*Count Edzard of East Friesland;
*Landgrave Philip of Hesse, who declared definitively for the Reformation after 1524.
He didn’t know that he was doing so, but he opened Pandora’s Box. He helped make all of Europe unstable, and what eventually happened? It wasn’t safe to belong to the old religion anymore, AND it began a free-for-all of people deciding for themselves what was correct worship and church, so that pressure got put on different sects and they left their homeland for a new land where they can create what?….. their own religion.
Dr. History: My Calvinism gets schooled again by a nice Catholic lady. On his own home field, at his own choice of game. All with grace and elegance and yes, love.
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Cletus,
This discussion is getting huge, so I’m not going to address everything. So let me just get a couple of the main things:
It’s theoretically possible you don’t exist and are a figment of my imagination. It’s theoretically possible your parents were secretly aliens and Obama is a time-traveling reptilian overlord from dimension x and the moon landing was staged. It’s theoretically possible nothing is theoretically possible. It’s theoretically possible everything is theoretically possible. This thought that I must hold everything provisionally because I’m not omniscient or infallible is just plain skepticism.
Very good. Therefore, you should stop with the “you Protestants hold everything provisionally because you and your system don’t make a claim to infallibility.”
And this just shows you’re still presupposing skepticism. Apparently everything Bryan wrote to you was dismissed. In that thread, he pointed out multiple times how your position was skepticism and self-refuting.
Bryan never answered the point that a extraordinary event in itself proves nothing. It has to be interpreted. And that’s my point. The motives of credibility aren’t in themselves credible or prove anything until you accept Rome’s interpretations of them. Just be honest about it.
My position isn’t skepticism. My position is if you are going to double down on falliblilty and provisionality, you better be stinking sure that you take it to its logical conclusion or actually listen to what Protestants mean.
So your assertion that “supernatural matters are infallible” is itself provisional and theoretically possible to be false right? The point is one system’s principles can actually accommodate supernatural truths, as well as natural truths. One system does not, reducing all “truths” to our knowledge of them, thus confusing and conflating the order of being with the order of knowing. If you were consistent with your ostensible view of supernatural truths, you would affirm something like the certitude of faith, you would not reject it and argue it as illegitimate just because humans are not God.
I still don’t know what certitude of faith means. I’m sorry, maybe I’m just dense. If certitude of faith means I cannot even theoretically be wrong, which seems to be what you are asserting, then I don’t affirm it. Because all Protestants mean by fallible is that we could theoretically be wrong. But if that doesn’t reduce to skepticism and provisionality for you, neither does it for us.
Cows might jump over the moon tomorrow somewhere or are already doing it but we didn’t detect it (but by saying such, you’re already admitting you know what a “cow” is and its nature in the first place, thus self-refuting your skepticism again).
If you accept Darwinism as your creed, as Rome does, I don’t see why you can’t affirm that a cow might one day evolve the ability to jump over the moon. It’s a silly example to be sure, but the point stands. An extraordinary occurrence in itself proves nothing.
And Jesus expected the Jews to understand Scripture pointed to Him and accept His interpretations. So, the NT is not “strictly speaking, necessary”, after all, He expected Jews to recognize those teachings just as he expected them to recognize Genesis as Scripture.
It’s not necessary to know Jesus was the Messiah, no. That doesn’t mean it’s not necessary for other things. You are the one that says the warrant of faith is impossible apart from infallibility. That clearly contradicts the fact that Jesus expected the Jews to have certitude of faith that Genesis was Scripture without any infallible pronouncement that Genesis was Scripture from him or from Israel. Address the point. Prove to me that despite this example, an infallible pronouncement/church is necessary for the warrant of faith
Bingo. Miracles are part of the motives of credibility. Would you bother investigating those religions if they didn’t claim something miraculous happened? Nope. That’s the point. It would have been fideistic if Rahab arbitrarily acted in faith with no reason. But she gives her reasons – “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death.”
It would have been fideistic if the spies then said, “What are you talking about? We have no idea where you got that from. We’re just normal Joes, not part of this group you claim is being divinely confirmed by God” and she just repeated what she said again. But what do the spies do, they confirm their unique connection to God – “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.” The necessary claims were made for her to act in faith.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO CLAIM TO INFALLIBILITY MADE BY THE SPIES HERE AND THAT IS THE POINT. You missed it entirely. You are the one that says a claim to infallibility is necessary for the warrant of faith. The spies don’t disagree with Rahab’s reliance on fallible reports of what happened, but neither do they say ‘we’re from God and that’s an infallible truth.'” By the way, the Protestant makes the exact same kind of claim, namely, that they represent God (or at least the ministers do). Like the spies, they make no claim to infallibility.
So you haven’t proven how your system can hold both that Hebrews 11 is Scripture and that a claim of infallibility is necessary for the warrant of faith.
Again, I’m not asking you for a list of all infallible dogmas in Scripture. So, yes, it’s a distraction.
You are asking for an infallible list of books. If I need that for S to work, you need an infallible list of tradition and an infallible identification of the Magisterium to be a true STM rule of faith church. You certainly don’t have that for tradition, and it’s debatable whether you have it for the M.
Arianism is not tradition.
Says who at the time? Part of the professing church with Apostolic succession. Part of the professing church with Apostolic succession says it is part of tradition. How does one know before the pronouncement and the dust settles?
That’s why the laity in Rome rose up against the emperor and the antipope.
The church is bigger than Rome. Other parts of the church with as good a claim to Apostolic succession didn’t rise up.
So are you saying that the laity know what tradition is based on the actions of Rome? Well, until Honorius anyway…
You’re begging the question on “tradition is not unified” just like on “church”. Arianism is not part of the church or tradition.
Arianism most certainly was part of the church. Apostolic sees embraced it even if, in theory, Rome never did. Apart from the infallible pronouncement, how does one know?
See you can’t throw all your weight on how Rome is better because it can offer at least one infallible statement and then disregard the fact that the Bible makes claims to infallibility at least in certain places. So Protestantism can offer at least one infallible statement.
So then you are left with ah, but you don’t have an infallible canon. But then you can’t ignore the fact that for centuries there was no infallible canon for Rome and there still exists no infallible collection of tradition. You only know what tradition is for sure once the church has spoken. For vast swatches of the church, Arianism was tradition.
And then of course, by appealing to Rome to prove what tradition is (Rome never surrendered), you make my point for me, namely, that it’s sola ecclesia. It doesn’t really matter what the rest of the church thinks or believes but only what Rome says today.
It’s a rigged system. We all see it.
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Robert: I don’t see why you can’t affirm that a cow might one day evolve the ability to jump over the moon
Evolution or no, the energy needed would turn the cow into beef mist.
Just sayin’
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The Little Mermaid
Posted December 4, 2015 at 8:17 pm | Permalink
Cletus van Damme
Posted December 4, 2015 at 5:28 pm | Permalink
Robert,
Robert said:
“As must you because you admit that it is at least theoretically possible to find the body of Jesus one day. ”>>>
CvD:
It’s theoretically possible you don’t exist and are a figment of my imagination. It’s theoretically possible your parents were secretly aliens and Obama is a time-traveling reptilian overlord from dimension x and the moon landing was staged. It’s theoretically possible nothing is theoretically possible. It’s theoretically possible everything is theoretically possible.
This thought that I must hold everything provisionally because I’m not omniscient or infallible is just plain skepticism.>>>>>>
Oh, it is much worse than just plain skepticism. I’m going to drop a Scripture in here – one that the confessionalists say is infallible – and see what they say. Let’s see if they are able for once to apply a Scripture to themselves and not to someone else.
Whatever else this whole discussion may have done for me, it has shown me that the shifting sands of Confessionalism cannot be the rock that Christ built His Church on.
That is a liberating realization.
James 1
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Ah, I see the trick at work here. “Confessional” Protestantism is indeed subject to “revisions.” Therefore Dr. Hart must argue that the 2000-year-old Catholic Church’s sands shift the same as do the sands of the “Presbyterian” church, whatever that means.
And of course with his own [radical] “Two Kingdoms” theology, Darryl G. Hart presumes to “correct” the putative founder of his own church, the founder of “the Reformed Faith,” John Calvin–who ran Geneva like his own private Papal State.
This is rich. Rock on, nice Catholic lady. Thomas More would be proud of you. Back in his day, women were bullied into submission by the intellectuals, be they of the Catholic Church or by the Reformers. But perhaps less than by the Reformers.
St. Teresa of Avila is a Doctor of the Catholic Church. I do not know of any women in “Protestantism” who are anything.
I learn something here every day. So does everybody else, even you, Billy Bob. Your posts show it, always seeking out some Apostle E.F. to charitably kick your ass. Good man.
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And this just shows you’re still presupposing skepticism. Apparently everything Bryan [Cross] wrote to you was dismissed. In that thread, he pointed out multiple times how your position was skepticism and self-refuting.
Robert: Bryan never answered the point that a extraordinary event in itself proves nothing.
Sorry, bro. I’ve read enough of Called to Communion, and some Old Life regulars trying their luck in the comments sections [!]–they always answered enthusiastically, never dodged, and treated with love and courtesy.
These ex-reformed Protestants are happy to share their faith, chapter and verse–that is to say, in “Protestant” [sola scriptura] language. As ex-Protestants–and often very learned ones–they know the Bible as well as you do [and often better].
Show us one example of how you or Darryl G. Hart or any Old Lifer ever got the better of “Jason [Stellman] and the Callers.”
I’ve been watching the Old Life act for years now. You talk about your victories over the Catholic Church but you never actually show them. Show them. Actually, “Protestantism’s” victories are mostly against each other.
They started their own league and mostly compete with each other. Dr. Hart tries to bring his team to play in the major leagues here at Old Life, but with ‘presuppositionalist” Cornelius Van Til as his cleanup hitter instead of Thomas Aquinas, it’s really not a fair contest.
Schism is your only measure of victory. But it’s Pyrrhic victory, Dr. Hart, as you are now realizing, we hope. Forget The Catholic Church–it’s now clear that the idea of “The Presbyterian Church” is a fanciful lie.
The Catholic Church is a mess, as you have proven. But “Presbyterianism”–Calvinism–is mess that is not remotely a “church,” by any conceivable definition.
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If we think of Peter on Pentecost preaching repentance and baptism and say “Well that is just what you think.” Then walk away. We miss the boat.
MiT
Yeah, Rome misses the boat by teaching justification by faith and works. And your point was?
“Now how can those who do not know their own sinfulness recognize and correct it in others? They are neither able nor willing to go against themselves.” – St. Catherine of Siena (proclaimed Doctor of the Church in 1970) There are only 33 saints called doctor’s of the Church. You want to hear/see Catholicism go to them.
Wait a minute.
What happened to the pope?
Or did the pope declare the doctors infallible?
Ex cathedra or at the breakfast table. All the time or only when we quote them at mass?
The obfuscations get deeper and deeper.
Yo Tommy, since you caught a real case of the blatheritis from cvd (thanks for poking the sleeping dog, sbd. really) maybe you can show us where Bryan can charitably describe SS according to prot definition instead of always and everywhere being anarchistic anabaptism. (We never had to get the best of the drunk ex pastor used car salesman, he did himself in.)
I know, I know. To those with the crimethink mentality, possibility of erring always and only means error and revision of doctrine cannot mean fine tuning and sharpening the focus of the historical body of Christian dogma; it always and everywhere means raze to the ground and start over.
Gotta love the ability to ignore salient distinctions.
So how do you know those lesbian squirrels are presbyterian anyway?
Because Rome only ordains homosexual squirrels and the nuns have to jump ship.
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Mmmmm….beef mist.
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@robert
The fact I can rule out that a cow can jump over the moon does not entail infallibility or even that my understanding of the physics is true. Newton’s physics was better than Aristotle, Einstein is better than Newton. That doesn’t mean everything goes.
Similar to exegesis. Arminians and Calvinists may disagree on the precise implications of john 3:16, but we all agree that it does not mean one must be an atheist to be saved.
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SDB,
The fact I can rule out that a cow can jump over the moon does not entail infallibility or even that my understanding of the physics is true. Newton’s physics was better than Aristotle, Einstein is better than Newton. That doesn’t mean everything goes.
I agree. I don’t remember how the silly example came up. I think Bryan suggested it. My initial and only point was that Bryan et al are wrong to treat the motives of credibility as if they are somehow in themselves proof of anything apart from the Magisterium’s interpretation.
I think we were talking about the resurrection and how in itself, a person coming back to life after being clinically dead doesn’t prove anything other than an extraordinary event happened. The resurrection doesn’t prove anything about God or Christ unless you submit to the Apostolic interpretation of the event. The “holiness” of the Roman church (ha!) doesn’t prove anything about Rome unless you accept Rome’s definition of holiness and what that means.
IOW, the motives of credibility are circular.
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Tom,
Sorry, bro. I’ve read enough of Called to Communion, and some Old Life regulars trying their luck in the comments sections [!]–they always answered enthusiastically, never dodged, and treated with love and courtesy.
Links to 20,000 word articles in which Bryan assumes Romanism are “answers” that are non-answers. And yeah, the guys there are nice for the most part, until they go all school-marmy. Meanwhile, they’ve yet to actually define sola Scriptura accurately.
These ex-reformed Protestants are happy to share their faith, chapter and verse–that is to say, in “Protestant” [sola scriptura] language. As ex-Protestants–and often very learned ones–they know the Bible as well as you do [and often better.
Show us one example of how you or Darryl G. Hart or any Old Lifer ever got the better of “Jason [Stellman] and the Callers.”
Brandon Addison’s lengthy article about the early church has yet to be refuted. Bryan’s response admits to “well yeah, if you don’t assume Rome’s view of the early church then you won’t find it.” Talk about rabid presuppositionalism.
They started their own league and mostly compete with each other. Dr. Hart tries to bring his team to play in the major leagues here at Old Life, but with ‘presuppositionalist” Cornelius Van Til as his cleanup hitter instead of Thomas Aquinas, it’s really not a fair contest.
Rome has moved on from Aquinas. Just read Francis’ comments.
The Catholic Church is a mess, as you have proven. But “Presbyterianism”–Calvinism–is mess that is not remotely a “church,” by any conceivable definition.
It’s not a church by Rome’s definition—well we think. Nobody really knows. Some churches with Apostolic succession are churches (the East, which Rome never had jurisdiction over) but others, Anglicans (which Rome once did have jurisdiction over) are not. Seems awfully convenient—break away from Rome and you ain’t a church if and only if Rome once exercised authority over you. But if Rome never really did, you still are a church. Back to the theology of glory.
But again, we don’t really care about Rome’s definition except insofar as the claims are made to people who want to think themselves smarter than others.
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Jeff,
Evolution or no, the energy needed would turn the cow into beef mist.
Just sayin’
Mmm Beef mist. (to echo the good SDB).
But my assumption is that if Darwinism is true, there’s nothing that I know of that precludes the eventual evolution of the ability and the possibility of having the energy and being able to withstand the launch, etc.
Now is it possible in theory. I think so. But it’s a trivial possibility. And my point to CVD that the “fallibilty” of Protestantism is similar. It’s possible in theory that we’re wrong, but it’s trivial. The system has the same kind of “provisionality” and trivial possibility of being wrong as the individual does. But since the individual possesses it, his submission to Rome’s claims are not in any sense less provisional than ours. And part of CVD’s argument is that Rome’s claims to infallibility makes the RC’s submission categorically different and non provisional.
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Susan,
So have you THOUGHT that the Western Schism happened with the help of the French monarchy? Why do popes get to start a new church?
But also remember the situation. If Luther doesn’t get help from the princes, he’s dead. Or he has to believe something he doesn’t believe. No freedom of conscience existed then, thanks to your church. Europe did not know cafeteria Roman Catholics.
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Mermaid, “Whatever else this whole discussion may have done for me, it has shown me that the shifting sands of Confessionalism cannot be the rock that Christ built His Church on.”
And the post was about shrugging off Roman Catholicism’s woes.
Talk about motives of gullibility.
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Jeff, they could stage that feat in a television studio, just like when men “landed” on the moon.
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Everyone has issues with their boss:
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The bind for those who like to spend their spare time feeding nuts to the lesbian squirrels of their imagination is the same bind that Bryan Cross and the gaggle of cackling geese at Called to Confusion also suffer from. Which bind blinds all our roman novices to the obvious.
To wit, how can fallible romanists know the infallible truths of the magisterium if fallible prots can’t know the infallible truths of Scripture.
IOW epistemological skepticism for the goose is the same for the gander in any consistent reality or argument.
Enter stage left, the various Roman
shell gamesapologists.Bryan’s out becomes his so called Motives of Credibility.
The problem then becomes, for our (incompetent) ex-prot expert witness on protestantism, that the WCF has already been there and done that.
Chapter I Of Holy Scripture says:
IV. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received because it is the Word of God (2 Pet. 1:19, 21, 2 Tim. 3:16, 1 John 5:9, 1 Thess. 2:13).
V. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to a high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture.(1 Tim. 3:15) And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.(1 John 2:20, 27, John 16:13, 14, 1 Cor. 2:10 – 12, Isa. 59:21)
Bryan’s counterfeit essentially runs:
IV. The authority of the Magisterium, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any paradigm, or Churchman; but wholly upon the Magisterium (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received because it’s all about the Word of the Magisterium.
V. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Pope and Tradition to a high and reverent esteem of the Magisterium. And the heavenliness of the matter, . . . yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Most Holy Tradition bearing witness by and with the Sacrament in our hearts/peeking out of the monstrance.
Who you gonna believe?
The nuts feeding squirrels?
Didn’t think so.
cheers
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Jeff,
I naturally agree with your quotations of me. Half of these threads have just been me making the same point from different angles, which I suppose you saw since you remark I’ve been consistent. As to your labels, I have some issues with them, but I don’t want to spend time quibbling to get every nuance right – just make an argument you want to make. The clarifications will come naturally. You can either reply to my 2 replies to you on page 7 from after you left for tgiving or start something new with confined and surgical points if you don’t want to end up with text walls. I will say off the bat your labels aren’t exhaustive – as Tom noted with the role of grace and the HS, nor did you call out the distinction between ontology/order of being and epistemology/order of knowing I and RCism affirms that seems to cloud much of this discussion.
Now, just to clarify things before you start taking certain angles, I feel it is important to note the backdrop of faith, certitude, and reason RCism is coming from since we’re trying to get the RC position. I’ve already quoted Cath Ency and Aquinas and Newman earlier, but these might give further insights to be taken into account in some points your side repeats and I see popping up again in the assemblies thread.
Scheeben’s dogmatik:
The prophecies, miracles, and other signs by which we prove the credibility of the fact of Revelation, must not be confounded with the Motive of Faith, which is the authority and veracity of God. The Motives of Credibility do not produce the certitude of Faith; they merely dispose, lead, and urge the mind to submit to the Divine authority, of which they are signs. This explains the condemnation of Prop. ix. among those condemned by Innocent XI “The will cannot make the assent of Faith more firm in itself than is demanded by the weight of reasons inducing us to believe.” By the “weight of reasons” are meant the Motives of Credibility, the rational certainty of which is neither the measure of the confidence with which the will clings to the contents and facts of Revelation, nor the measure of the firmness with which the intellect impelled by the will adheres to them.
In eliciting the act of Faith man’s freedom is elevated to the supernatural order. This supernatural dignity and excellence lead to a supernatural and Divine freedom of the mind, the freedom of the children of God, the freedom from error and doubt, the full and perfect possession of the highest truth in the bosom of the Eternal Truth. Its childlike simplicity is really the highest sense, and leads to the highest intellectual attainments, whereas infidelity leads only to folly. “No more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness“ (Eph. iv. 14; cf. Luke x. 21).
Vatican 1 statements:
This faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, the Catholic Church professes to be a supernatural virtue, by means of which, with the grace of God inspiring and assisting us, we believe to be true what He has revealed, not because we perceive its intrinsic truth by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God himself, who makes the revelation and can neither deceive nor be deceived.
If any one shall say that the condition of the Faithful is on a footing with that of those who have not yet reached the one true Faith, so that Catholics can have just cause for calling in doubt the Faith which they have received under the Church’s teaching, until they shall have completed a scientific demonstration of the truth and credibility of their Faith, let him be anathema.
Consequently, the situation of those, who by the heavenly gift of faith have embraced the Catholic truth, is by no means the same as that of those who, led by human opinions, follow a false religion; for those who have accepted the faith under the guidance of the Church can never have any just cause for changing this faith or for calling it into question.
Although faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason; since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, and God cannot
deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. The false appearance of such contradiction is mainly due, either to the dogmas of faith not having been understood and expounded according to the mind of the Church, or to
the inventions of opinion having been taken for the verdicts of reason.
Smith’s Faith and Revealed Truth at https://www.ewtn.com/library/CHRIST/FTHRT.TXT
But there is a radical difference between the assent of divine faith and the assent given under the circumstances above described. The jury believe the witness, the historian believes his informant, because and in so far as they know him to be relating what is in conformity with reality. The motive of their assent is the evidence that they have of the truth of the statement; and such assent is probably not a free act; it is certainly no personal compliment to the witness. The believer accepts a revealed truth not precisely because he knows that God has revealed it and knows that God is infallible. This knowledge is the necessary condition, but it is not the motive, of his faith. He believes because God, who is infallible, has said it. The difference is perhaps subtle, but it is important. The motive of the act of divine faith is not my knowledge of that authority as accrediting revealed truth, however certain, however evident that knowledge may be, but the divine authority itself. My knowledge is finite, my knowledge is fallible. God’s authority is infinite; God can neither deceive nor be deceived. If, when I believe, I rely upon my knowledge, I rely upon what is human; if I rely upon God’s authority I rely upon what is divine. In the act of divine faith the believer abstracts from the arguments which have led him to the judgment of credibility. They were a necessary preliminary; they were, if you will, the tinder that lit the torch. But the torch burns now by its own brilliance; the light of God’s authority illumines revealed truth with its infinite radiance; and this is the motive of faith: I believe because God has said it. Reason has led me to faith. Reason has told me that God’s revealed word is credible, and in accordance with her advice I freely and unreservedly submit myself to the guidance of his Truth.
There is, however, this important difference between the assent of faith and the assent of immediate knowledge. The assent in the latter case is caused by the perception of the intrinsic truth of the statement; so that when it is made I say: “I see; of course, that must be so”; and, when once the truth is seen, nothing further is required to gain my assent. In the case of faith, I see indeed–otherwise there could be no assent– but I do not see within the truth itself. I understand the terms of the revealed proposition, but neither the analysis of those terms nor my own experience assures me that they should be connected. The ground, or the ” motive,” of my assent to the proposition is extrinsic to it, and that motive is the authority of God, who tells me that it is true. In both cases there is evidence: in the former the evidence is intrinsic, in the latter it is extrinsic. The believer sees the truth, says St Thomas, “as credible; … for he would not believe unless he saw that he must believe.”
Now it is important at once to preclude a possible misunderstanding of the function of the will in the act of faith. The will cannot make the mind believe anything it chooses; it is not that “the wish is father to the thought.” Before the mind can accept a statement, even at the behest of the will, the statement must be “credible”; it must be attested by a trustworthy witness; and, moreover, it must not be nonsense. Nonsense is meaningless and can have no relation to the mind. Briefly, a revealed statement can be accepted by the mind provided that it fulfills the conditions necessary to render it credible–i.e., fit for intellectual acceptance. It is seen to be not unfit for acceptance because it has an intelligible meaning; it is seen to be positively fit for acceptance because it is attested by an infallible witness. In fact, since the witness in this case is God himself, who has a right to our homage and obedience, the fitness is presented as a positive duty.
An instructive incident in the life of our Lord illustrates the nature of divine faith. The Pharisees, as is well known, were constantly rebuked by our Lord for their unbelief. They had seen, as others had seen, evident signs that Christ spoke the words of God; and yet they stubbornly refused to believe him. One day after they had made one of their frequent attempts to discredit him, he took a little child and said: “Amen I say to you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child, shall not enter it.” The act of divine faith has more in common with the trusting belief of a child in his mother than with the assent of the critical historian. For the child it is enough to know that his mother has said it, and he believes on that authority. His assent is a prudent one, for he has motives of credibility which for him are sufficient, everything leads him reasonably to suppose that his mother knows everything and would not deceive him. But when he believes, he believes simply and solely because his mother has said it. He does not advert to the reasons which have led him to regard his mother as trustworthy. His belief is an unaffected and trusting homage of love to his mother. So also in the Act of Faith which every Catholic child recites: “O my God, I believe … because thou hast said it, and thy word is true.” To the motives of credibility the child does not advert; he has probably forgotten them. But the motives of credibility are not the motives of his faith. He relies not upon them, but upon the authority of God itself. What is true of the child is true of the Christian adult; and this the experience of each will confirm. When he makes an act of faith, he thinks not of the proofs of the existence of God, not of the miracles which Christ worked, but of the authority of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
This is why faith is a ” theological ” virtue, this is why faith is an act of free obedience to God; this, finally, is the reason of its sovereign certitude.
The certitude of faith is supreme because the believer’s assurance rests upon a ground more secure than all human science, upon the infallible authority of God. “If we receive the testimony of man,” says St John, “the testimony of God is greater”; infinitely, unspeakably greater, since God is very Truth. But, as in regard to the freedom of the act of faith so also in regard to its certitude, a difficulty often arises from a misconception of the precise motive of faith. It is sometimes urged that since no chain is stronger than its weakest link, therefore the assent of faith can enjoy no greater certitude than the assent given to any of the preambles of faith which are its foundation. Metaphors are misleading here. Even the word “foundation” may lend itself to misunderstanding. The preambles of faith are the foundation of faith in the sense that they are a necessary prerequisite. But they are not its foundation in the sense of supplying the security of the edifice. The metaphor of the chain is no less fallacious. There is no continuous “chain” of reasoning that leads from the first argument which proves the existence of God to the truth, for example, that in one God there are three Persons. If the act of faith were the logical conclusion of such a chain, then evidently that conclusion could have no greater weight than is warranted by the series of arguments that lead to it. But the act of faith is not an inference from preceding arguments.
The series of truths which we have called the preambles of faith leads logically to the judgment of credibility, but no further. I aver, in view of my previous reasoning, that it is reasonable, prudent, in fact obligatory, to believe that, e.g., there are three Persons in one God. I then proceed, impelled not by my previous reasoning, but by God’s authority, to believe it. I believe it, not precisely because and in so far as I know that God has revealed it, but because God has revealed it. Hence the firmness of my assent is measured not by the cogency of any one, or indeed of the sum, of the reasons which led me to judge the truth as credible, but by the infinite weight of the divine authority which is the motive of my faith.
But although the certitude of faith is supreme, supreme as is the divine authority upon which it is based, yet the mind of the believer is not completely satisfied. Under the influence of the will it holds firmly to the truth; but within the truth it does not see; and nothing save vision can satisfy the mind. Faith is an evidence–i.e., a firm conviction–but it is a conviction “of things that appear not.” As long, then, as intrinsic evidence is denied, the mental assent is not spontaneous and requires the concurrence of the will. Hence it is misleading to compare the state of mind of the believer with the complete repose of the mind in a truth clearly demonstrated, or with the evidence of the senses. In the latter case there can be little or no temptation to doubt. The believer, on the other hand, precisely because he does not see within the truth, may be subject to many such temptations. But temptations are not doubts, and the believer is able by an effort of will to dispel them, to concentrate his attention upon the infallible motive of his faith, and thus to achieve a state of security from error as superior to that of human knowledge as the Truth of God infinitely transcends the fallible reason of man.
A further duty regarding perseverance in faith arises from what was said in the previous section. It was there established that in order that the act of faith may be reasonably made it is sufficient to have a conviction concerning the preambles which, relatively to the circumstances of the individual, is prudent. But what is the duty of the child, for instance, when he grows to manhood and discovers– as he may–that the motives upon which he relied for his judgment of credibility no longer satisfy him? Is he to give up his faith until he has once more gone over the preliminary ground and satisfied himself concerning the preambles?
The answer of the Church as far as Catholics are concerned is peremptory: a Catholic can never have a just reason for abandoning the faith that he has once embraced. And the first reason of this is that the Catholic has constantly before him an absolutely, and not merely a relatively, sufficient motive of credibility–namely the Church herself, divinely instituted, and assuring her children “that the faith which they profess rests on the most secure foundation.” The second reason is that faith is not only a supernatural gift of God, but is accompanied by the graces necessary to preserve it God’s providence will not allow the faithful to lack the helps which they need to protect their faith. The ever-watchful Father, to whom his children daily pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” will never allow them to be in such circumstances that the loss of their faith would be inculpable. Whatever be the greater or lesser degree of blame that may attach in individual cases, whatever be the mysterious means that God may use to protect his faithful ones, it is certain that ” God does not abandon us until we first abandon him.”
Cath Enc:
(d) But much misunderstanding exists regarding the meaning and office of the motives of credibility. In the first place, they afford us definite and certain knowledge of Divine revelation; but this knowledge precedes faith; it is not the final motive for our assent to the truths of faith — as St. Thomas says, “Faith has the character of a virtue, not because of the things it believes, for faith is of things that appear not, but because it adheres to the testimony of one in whom truth is infallibly found” (De Veritate, xiv, 8); this knowledge of revealed truth which precedes faith can only beget human faith it is not even the cause of Divine faith (cf. Francisco Suárez, be Fide disp. iii, 12), but is rather to be considered a remote disposition to it. We must insist upon this because in the minds of many faith is regarded as a more or less necessary consequence of a careful study of the motives of credibility, a view which the Vatican Council condemns expressly: “If anyone says that the assent of Christian faith is not free, but that it necessarily follows from the arguments which human reason can furnish in its favour; or if anyone says that God’s grace is only necessary for that living faith which worketh through charity, let him be anathema” (Sess. IV). Nor can the motives of credibility make the mysteries of faith clear in themselves, for, as St. Thomas says, “the arguments which induce us to believe, e.g. miracles, do not prove the faith itself, but only the truthfulness of him who declares it to us, and consequently they do not beget knowledge of faith’s mysteries, but only faith” (in Sent., III, xxiv, Q. i, art. 2, sol. 2, ad 4). On the other hand, we must not minimize the real probative force of the motives of credibility within their true sphere—”Reason declares that from the very outset the Gospel teaching was rendered conspicuous by signs and wonders which gave, as it were, definite proof of a definite truth” (Leo XIII, Æterni Patris).
(e) The Church has twice condemned the view that faith ultimately rests on an accumulation of probabilities. Thus the proposition, “The assent of supernatural faith … is consistent with merely probable knowledge of revelation” was condemned by Innocent XI in 1679 (cf. Denzinger, Enchiridion, 10th ed., no. 1171); and the Syllabus Lamentabili sane (July, 1907) condemns the proposition (XXV) that “the assent of faith rests ultimately on an accumulation of probabilities.” (CVD: Also add Denz 1169 condemnation: “The will cannot effect that assent to faith in itself be stronger than the weight of reasons impelling toward assent.”)
That temptations against faith are natural and inevitable and are in no sense contrary to faith, “since”, says St. Thomas, “the assent of the intellect in faith is due to the will, and since the object to which the intellect thus assents is not its own proper object — for that is actual vision of an intelligible object — it follows that the intellect’s attitude towards that object is not one of tranquillity, on the contrary it thinks and inquires about those things it believes, all the while that it assents to them unhesitatingly; for as far as it itself is concerned the intellect is not satisfied” (De Ver., xiv, 1).
(b) It also follows from the above that an act of supernatural faith is meritorious, since it proceeds from the will moved by Divine grace or charity, and thus has all the essential constituents of a meritorious act (cf. II-II, Q. ii, a. 9). This enables us to understand St. James’s words when he says, “The devils also believe and tremble” (ii, 19) . “It is not willingly that they assent”, says St. Thomas, “but they are compelled thereto by the evidence of those signs which prove that what believers assent to is true, though even those proofs do not make the truths of faith so evident as to afford what is termed vision of them” (De Ver., xiv 9, ad 4); nor is their faith Divine, but merely philosophical and natural.
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CVD: Thanks. A couple of things are coming into focus here.
Let me ask a couple of clarifying questions. On the one hand, you have rejected the idea that Catholics receive a “Vulcan mindmeld” with the magisterium when they believe. On the other, you cite
In eliciting the act of Faith man’s freedom is elevated to the supernatural order. This supernatural dignity and excellence lead to a supernatural and Divine freedom of the mind, the freedom of the children of God, the freedom from error and doubt, the full and perfect possession of the highest truth in the bosom of the Eternal Truth.
This appears to saying that in the act of faith, men are freed from error and are in full and perfect possession of the truth.
Could you explain that? It seems to go well beyond Vulcan mindmelding and into omniscience on the part of the believer.
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Had family stuff all weekend folks, but you guys seem to manage just fine without me. Blessings and peace. Look to Christmas folks. God is good.
MichaelTX
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Robert,
“Very good. Therefore, you should stop with the “you Protestants hold everything provisionally because you and your system don’t make a claim to infallibility.” ”
Do you hold everything provisionally? Or do you not? And saying we are finite does not mean we do hold and must hold everything provisionally.
“Bryan never answered the point that a extraordinary event in itself proves nothing. It has to be interpreted. And that’s my point”
You were addressed by Bryan, Ray, and Joshua on that point starting at comment 69 on through the end. If the motives of credibility are as you characterize, then those who rejected them in the NT were not culpable for doing so – they were justified because of their “interpretation” you offer that “’Well, that’s unusual. Perhaps we all have that ability but haven’t been able to access it’ or some other such thing.” concerning the Resurrection. Christ and the Apostles arguments are nonsense then.
“The motives of credibility aren’t in themselves credible or prove anything until you accept Rome’s interpretations of them. Just be honest about it.”
If that were true, then there would be no rational way to adjudicate between competing truth claims. Welcome to fideism (skepticism’s natural outworking). So you might want to rethink your own affirmation of this position and your desire to persuade others to affirm it.
“My position isn’t skepticism”
Saying you don’t know if cows may already have or maybe able to jump over the moon is skepticism.
Saying, “Based on all the evidence we have so far, it would seem that the answer to your question would be no.” when answering whether cows can jump over the moon is skepticism. The answer is no. If a cow jumps over the moon, it is not of its own powers – we would *know* it was assisted in some way outside its own powers – we wouldn’t say “well, maybe the cow was assisted, maybe he wasn’t” and just live in perpetual ignorance.
Saying “How do we determine natural limitations of something except by natural observation? Have you examined every possible cow? Has anyone? Is that even possible?” is skepticism.
Saying “One could say the same thing about even the resurrection of Jesus. Maybe he just came to life through heretofore undiscovered natural means.” is skepticism.
Saying “Reason isn’t a realm of neutrality.” is skepticism.
Saying “there is no such thing but acting according to your more fundamental presuppositional commitments” is skepticism.
Saying we must hold room for doubt on everything is skepticism.
Saying things that prompt Bryan’s reply to you of “The philosophical mistake in your argument is making God’s way of knowing something, the standard for what counts as knowledge in humans. Hence, since we cannot know the way God knows, then (according to your reasoning) we humans cannot know anything at all. Thus skepticism. The mistake there is in the very first premise. Humans can and do attain knowledge, even if they do not know in the way God does. Our inability to know as God knows does not mean that we cannot attain knowledge, including the knowledge of the essences of things, or that we cannot attain certainty, or that our knowledge is always “provisional and fallible.” Skepticism does not justifiably follow from the truth that humans cannot know just as God knows.”
which is exactly what you’ve still been arguing in these threads – “you’re finite and not God!”
“My position is if you are going to double down on falliblilty and provisionality, you better be stinking sure that you take it to its logical conclusion or actually listen to what Protestants mean.”
I’ve listened to what you, sdb, and Jeff have said on provisionality, as well as what your confessions and theologians have said on things like authority and semper reformanda. All of my arguments have cited your positions multiple times.
“Because all Protestants mean by fallible is that we could theoretically be wrong. ”
Right, thus it’s not divine or supernatural faith. Thus the Pelagian/rationalist charge. As vat1 said: This faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, the Catholic Church professes to be a supernatural virtue, by means of which, with the grace of God inspiring and assisting us, we believe to be true what He has revealed, not because we perceive its intrinsic truth by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God himself, who makes the revelation and can neither deceive nor be deceived.
“It’s not necessary to know Jesus was the Messiah, no. That doesn’t mean it’s not necessary for other things.”
So the NT isn’t necessary to know Jesus role and mission, but it’s necessary for other things? That seems strange – Christ is just a secondary footnote to the NT? What are these “other things” that take precedence over Christ that gave necessity to the NT? If you want to say the HS could beam knowledge into everyone’s head, sure, but that would entail subjectivism and fideism as I said. Christianity is a revealed religion, as the NT attests – your position nixes that.
“You are the one that says the warrant of faith is impossible apart from infallibility. That clearly contradicts the fact that Jesus expected the Jews to have certitude of faith that Genesis was Scripture without any infallible pronouncement that Genesis was Scripture from him or from Israel.”
So when Christ affirmed Genesis was scripture, that wasn’t an infallible statement from Him?
“There is ABSOLUTELY NO CLAIM TO INFALLIBILITY MADE BY THE SPIES HERE AND THAT IS THE POINT.”
Right, but there was a claim they were part of a people divinely confirmed by an infallible authority. A priest or relative who points someone to the faith isn’t personally infallible.
“The spies don’t disagree with Rahab’s reliance on fallible reports of what happened”
Right, motives of credibility. Without the miracles or other divine confirmation, there would be no reason to give the spies the time of day. That’s the point.
“By the way, the Protestant makes the exact same kind of claim, namely, that they represent God (or at least the ministers do). Like the spies, they make no claim to infallibility.”
If Protestant ministers were claiming miracles confirming them or their authority, the conversation would shift – you’d at least have some supposed motives of credibility to be considered. That was part of the point of RC apologists during the Reformation.
“If I need that for S to work”
Okay, so you don’t need an infallible canon for SS to work. So can you please explain how Scripture can be the sole ultimate standard against which proposed teachings and doctrines are to be ever-evaluated, when the identified extent/scope/content of Scripture is never defined as infallible and subject to revision and correction? Would SS work if we take out the NT? How about just a few books? What about one chapter?
“Says who at the time?…The church is bigger than Rome. Other parts of the church with as good a claim to Apostolic succession didn’t rise up.”
Rome who never taught it. RCism defines the church as being in communion with the church and bishop of Rome. You can’t just say “yeah, but Arianism had followers” as a rejoinder.
“Well, until Honorius anyway…”
So Liberius was no-go for you. Now you want to go to Honorius – probably the most widely and frequently addressed pope concerning infallibility. This is papal apologetics 101 stuff – google’s your friend.
“Arianism most certainly was part of the church.”
No – it was not part of the faith of the church. That some bishops and sees embraced it is not relevant to Rome’s claims any more than Unitarians and Word-of-Faithers existing today is relevant.
“even if, in theory, Rome never did.”
Bingo.
“You only know what tradition is for sure once the church has spoken. ”
I see – so the laity rising up in Rome, the massive controvery Arianism sparked which spurred the council, and Athanasius’ statements during the controversy attesting to STM, were just a coincidence.
“that it’s sola ecclesia.”
We’ve been over this. Rome can’t tomorrow define Romans is uninspired or Arianism is true or the eucharist can be discarded from the liturgy or Orange actually affirmed Pelagianism or the book of mormon is inspired. So it’s not sola-M, it’s STM-triad.
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This faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, the Catholic Church professes to be a supernatural virtue, by means of which, with the grace of God inspiring and assisting us, we believe to be true what He has revealed, not because we perceive its intrinsic truth by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God himself, who makes the revelation and can neither deceive nor be deceived.
Well yeah, but that’s not the point CVD. The object of the faith it is talking about, is the revelation of the authority of God in the Church, not Christ and his Word.
IOW the principium of cognoscendi/knowing is not Scripture as it is for prots.
Okay, so you don’t need an infallible canon for SS to work. So can you please explain how Scripture can be the sole ultimate standard against which proposed teachings and doctrines are to be ever-evaluated, when the identified extent/scope/content of Scripture is never defined as infallible and subject to revision and correction? Would SS work if we take out the NT? How about just a few books? What about one chapter?
Start with WCF Chapt. 1 on Scripture. When you can show us where it errs, we can have a profitable discussion. Until then all you are doing is wasting your time talking hypotheticals.
We’ve been over this. Rome can’t tomorrow define Romans is uninspired or Arianism is true or the eucharist can be discarded from the liturgy or Orange actually affirmed Pelagianism or the book of mormon is inspired. So it’s not sola-M, it’s STM-triad.
Tis the beauty of the Roman whore. She keeps adding to the deposit, not taking away. Like adding M & T to the infallible perspicuous prov. preserved and sufficient NT apostolic deposit of faith.
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CVD: I’ve listened to what you, sdb, and Jeff have said on provisionality, as well as what your confessions and theologians have said on things like authority and semper reformanda. All of my arguments have cited your positions multiple times.
But you have yet to accurately represent the position, so what value is that?
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Jeff,
“It seems to go well beyond Vulcan mindmelding and into omniscience on the part of the believer.”
No need for omniscience. Scheeben is affirming the certitude of faith, hence his reference of Eph 4:14. To that you could add many more NT texts. If it entailed omniscience, that would mean there could be no development of doctrine. It would make the notion of “faith seeking understanding” an oxymoron and preclude the virtue of intellectual humility. It would also mean we walk by sight, not by faith – believers are not in the same state as those in heaven. Asking questions is not equivalent to calling into question, or doubting.
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The shrug that keeps on shrugging:
But it’s those bishops who determine the faith, the infallible ones. How would you know that they were right about the important stuff? Infallible gullibility.
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When the shoulder hurts from shrugging so much:
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When scandal is normal:
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When you’re in the habit of shrugging:
Shrugs, implicit trust, and gullibility.
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Rome is superior because Rome sucks less:
Cardinal Law only moved around 95 sexually abusive priests.
So much for a call to holiness.
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DG Hart, get a good night’s sleep much?
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Personally, I started with St. Thérèse of Lisieux, affectionately referred to as The Little Flower. I read her reluctant autobiography, and saw in her such a genuine, beautiful, passionate relationship with Jesus that I didn’t know Catholics could have. She became my first Saint friend, as well as my Confirmation Saint.
Wow, we prots are really missing out. DG, would you be my saint friend? #imaginary
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“I’m mad as hell, and I’m still going to shrug“:
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New book no scandal because it’s what it’s:
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