Tag: protestant

Sola Scriptura – a Conclusion

Christian Renaissance Movement9 Comments

Eamonn Clark, STL

After two previous posts on this topic, I am about ready to wrap it up. My first post, my most popular ever, still retains its value. I did a follow up post responding to a critique, and there is a response to that post. Unfortunately, that second response was intellectually lazy, and, seemingly, just a cop-out which amounted to – “he made some straw men, but I won’t say how, it’s too hard.” Well… Okay then. Disappointing – and also revealing. Read for yourselves to judge and see if that’s really the case. I tried to be quite fair. Anyways, consider this my final word on the matter.

The problem of canonicity is probably the most basic problem for Sola Scriptura. That is, how do we know what books are Scripture in the first place? I submit that there are only 4 ways to answer this question, period.

  1. Scripture is not a rule of faith, so it doesn’t matter (held by non-Christians)
  2. One is bound to be personally wise/holy enough to know intuitively which texts are Scripture (held by nobody)
  3. We have a fallible collection of infallible books (a deeply problematic pretzel of a position held by major Protestant scholar R. C. Sproul – again, how do we know that these books are infallible in the first place, and why would God leave some infallible texts outside our use and possibly allow some fallible texts to show up in what we call the Bible?)
  4. There is an authority external to Scripture which determines what is Scripture and what is not, thus undermining the position that Scripture alone is the entire rule of faith, as if an authority can define what is contained in Scripture, it follows that it is a parallel teaching authority (held by Catholics, Orthodox, etc., and, ironically, in practice held by Martin Luther, who presumed to create his own canon, prompting Trent’s definition of the canon)

With regard to #4, one would struggle to explain how and why an authority external to Scripture would exist solely to define the canon and not also be able to interpret its contents without error. It just does not sound very much like the God of Christianity: “Here’s a book, good luck.” And here we go into the problem of anarchy, which I described in my first post… each is left to his own devices, with many people with contrary positions claiming the support of Scripture and even that they are being instructed from within by the Holy Spirit that “x” is true and not “y.” It’s like we’ve returned to the time of the Judges, when “there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own mind.”

That’s it. If anyone can show me how this point – just this one – falls apart, I will return to this topic. But that’s about all I have to say on it. For more, see here.

Apolog-etc. #3: Sola Scripture – a Reprise

Christian Renaissance Movement3 Comments

Eamonn Clark, STL

I’ve done a few posts like this before (here and here), where I respond to other bloggers, but it is not normal for me. Please let me know in the comments or by “like” if you enjoy this sort of post. They are a little more polemical and therefore possibly of less lasting relevance, but hey, I need to keep the readership interested!

So one of my most popular posts ever is a post on Sola Scriptura. For some reason, in 2021 (years after it was posted) it got well over 5,000 hits. It still seems to get consistent hits on the daily. Anyway, it lists 7 reasons why the doctrine of “Scripture alone” is problematic. In brief, these problems are that Sola Scriptura is:

  1. Anarchic (no infallible interpreter, so everyone is a “little pope,” leading to countless divisions in doctrine and praxis)
  2. Innovative (in the bad sense, it is a “new doctrine” not from the apostles)
  3. Historically impractical (constructing and defining the Biblical canon took time, so how could it be that one must base faith on what did not yet exist?)
  4. Conceptually impossible (what counts as Scripture can’t be defined by Scripture, that is circular reasoning)
  5. Arbitrary (why not “popes alone”?)
  6. Self-Contradictory (a man, Luther, teaches the doctrine of Sola Scriptura – authoritatively?)
  7. Contrary to Scripture (i.e. 2 Thess. 2:15, 1 Tim. 3:15)

You might be able to get around one or two of these. But when presented together, there is quite a bit of weight to the argument.

Let’s take a look at a response that I got (a few years ago) and go through it. In so doing we will tease out some subtleties to the arguments given above. But, alas, we will also conclude that Sola Scriptura is untrue.

My comments in bold. Some formatting adjusted, some content skipped. Go read the whole thing here.

IN DEFENSE OF SOLA SCRIPTURA

“All Christians believe that the Scripture is inspired by God, literally ‘God-breathed’. Protestants also believe that the Scripture is ‘self-authenticating’, as explained by 2nd century Church Father and philosopher Justin Martyr thus:

THE word of truth is free, and carries its own authority, disdaining to fall under any skilful argument, or to endure the logical scrutiny of its hearers. But it would be believed for its own nobility, and for the confidence due to Him who sends it. Now the word of truth is sent from God; wherefore the freedom claimed by the truth is not arrogant. For being sent with authority, it were not fit that it should be required to produce proof of what is said; since neither is there any proof beyond itself, which is God. For every proof is more powerful and trustworthy than that which it proves;
Justin Martyr, On the Resurrection, Ch. 1

As the word of God, the Scripture derives its authority from God, not from man. Therefore, the Scripture is not subject to the proof or approval of man.”

Self-authentication is a very interesting claim. In some sense it is true. I recall to mind the beautiful encounter between Zosimus and St. Mary of Egypt in the desert beyond the Jordan, where she indicates that, despite never having studied the Scriptures, the Word edifies of its own power, giving her words the graced character which they possessed. This is true. However, the question is not whether the Voice of the Shepherd is ultimately able to be recognized within what is authentically Scripture, and much less whether God is trustworthy (of course He is) – His voice is recognizable in texts, by those with the greatest sensitivity to the Holy Spirit – but the question is rather what the mode is of the regula fidei, the rule of faith. In other words, how does God actually want people to know in general what is Scripture and what is not? Luther, for example, threw out a few books which were widely considered Scripture for over 1,000 years, but which were inconvenient for his doctrine. Trent said, “No.” Who is right? But there is the deeper problem, which is that, in actual fact, the Church considered canonicity a major issue from the early days, not only in affirming or denying texts from the apostolic age, but also clarifying that newer texts, like the apocryphal “Gospels” and other Gnostic writings, were not from God. In so doing, the Church “as such” exercised an important ministry for the salvation of souls. To say otherwise is to say that the debates over whether to include Hermas or 1 Clement – or even the Gospel of John, which was looked at with some suspicion in some places – were vain exercises, albeit with pious intentions… the masses ought to just be more spiritual and know for themselves, apparently. We are evidently all bound to be as holy as St. Mary of Egypt. But that is not the case, as evidenced not only by the historical fact of the crises over canonicity being allowed by God to occur within the Church in such a way as to seem important with an authoritative conclusion, but also by His own charge to the Apostles to teach in His Name in the Great Commission. This is a theme to which we will return as it shows that the Voice of the Shepherd is not a hidden voice, it is like a city on a hill, a lamp on a lamp stand, found within a visible, living, unified symbol of authority through which God Himself speaks. That is the mode by which the regula fidei comes to us, and so that is what needs to be recognized by the one who would follow Christ, not whether or not 1 and 2 Maccabees are inspired texts (etc.). However, now we turn to the signs of what counts as Scripture on the author’s reckoning. Maybe we don’t need to be that pious or intelligent in order to know what is Scripture and what is not?

“While we cannot prove divine authorship of the Scripture for the reason mentioned, we can find plenty of evidence of it. In other words, there are distinguishing characteristics that set the Scriptures far above other writings of men. When the early Church Fathers were challenged on this point, they gave the following evidence in support of their belief:

  1. The antiquity of the Old Testament, Moses in particular, predates all the ancient Greek and Roman writings.
  2. The prophesies in the Scriptures (both OT and NT) have been and are still being fulfilled.
  3. Jesus, manifested as the Son of God through the Resurrection, confirms the Old Testament, which prophesies about Him.
  4. The lives of people all around the world have been transformed for good through the teaching of the Scripture. This is unprecedented and unparalleled in history.”

No problem here; in itself, this is correct. However, it is hard to see how this would solve the problem. For instance, there are no prophecies to speak of in 2 John, or 1 Timothy, or many other texts of the New Testament. There was not yet time either for contemporary texts to have had the sort of influence we would expect of authentic Scripture, but once the arch-heretic Marcion put out his canon in about 140 AD, there was a crisis that needed to be resolved. And, just in general, these criteria go towards verifying as Scripture a collection of texts already considered as Scripture rather than serving as a rule for determining what ought to be so considered. Unfortunately, we aren’t given the citations from which these points are drawn, so the commentary stops here. But the problem very much seems to remain.

“Given that God is the author of the Scripture, it follows that He is also the ultimate Interpreter, without whom no man can comprehend the Scripture.”

Granted. But this does not mean that God cannot allow others to participate in that authority somehow.

“Christians believe that God dwells in each and every believer in the Spirit. This indwelling Spirit acts as an interpreter of God’s Word, and guides the believers into all truth.”

There is a lot to talk about here. I will limit my observations to two points. First, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is called “charity,” or “the state of grace.” This constitutes friendship with God – the Holy Spirit being God’s own Love for Himself. This is lost by mortal sin. Nowhere in Scripture are we told that we, as individual believers, have the gift of infallibly interpreting the Scriptures on account of some perpetual indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Second, were it true that the Holy Spirit “acts as an interpreter of God’s Word” in the soul of each and every believer, we have two problems. First, a problem of circular logic: who counts as a believer? Isn’t being guided “into all truth” what the Holy Spirit does, thus making one a believer to begin with? Where is the entry point? Second, bracketing the question begging, there is the expectation that “believers” would then all interpret Scripture in a uniform way, at least in a way which is not mutually exclusive. Thus, we see, it is impossible to bracket the question-begging problem: who is a “believer”?

“The Church, i.e., the assembly of all believers, is the dwelling place of the Spirit. Therefore, the Church has the power to recognize the divine authority and inspiration of the Scripture, and to formalize, interpret and teach the Scripture.”

Now, of itself, this is correct. The Church does indeed have such authority. But in the context of the argument, he seems to mean that this can and does happen in any old way… But history does not bear that out. Rather, it is those who are specially charged with teaching who have the collective charism (gift) to know what is Scripture and its authentic meaning and have actually used that charism regularly. This would be the whole college of bishops, successors of the Apostles, in union with the Pope, the Successor of St. Peter, and sometimes even just the Pope. It is true that the whole Church, including laity, can “sense” a truth of faith (the sensus fidelium) with a subsequent definition when there is some true need or advantage (i.e. the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption) but this is neither a common occurrence nor does it easily escape the circular logic of “believer-truth” paradigm explored above, at least on a strict interpretation of that principle (which would seem to be required here due to it being the only leg to stand on). It very much seems one might err in what the Church “as a whole” knows without breaking faith. (For example, St. Thomas Aquinas and the Immaculate Conception.) This leaves us without a principle to define faith and morals, including out of the pages of Scripture, except that visible hierarchical structure within the Church, which structure was instituted by Our Lord Himself.

“One common objection to sola scriptura is that the principle was unknown in the Church for the first 1500 years, and only brought into existence in the 16th century by the Reformers.”

Yes. Certainly, the apostles were not teaching it – they could not have, as there was no New Testament yet! Who then decided – somehow using Scripture itself, which has somehow been defined as Scripture – that this is now the whole regula fidei?

“For starters, to use an analogy, scientists didn’t formulate the law of gravity until the 17th century, but it doesn’t mean that the law didn’t exist in nature before then.”

The author seems to mean that Luther is theology’s version of Isaac Newton. There was already this principle before, and he and the other Reformers just articulated it. Let’s see…

“More importantly, Jesus, the apostles, and the early Church Fathers constantly applied the principle of sola scriptura when witnessing to the Jews of their time. They rejected tradition as the “tradition of men”. They didn’t and couldn’t appeal to the religious authorities, the chief priests and Pharisees who persecuted them. Consequently, they reasoned with the Jews using the Scriptures alone. Although the Jews compiled and transmitted the Old Testament Scriptures, early Christians did not trust the Jewish religious authorities with the interpretation, believing that the latter were not illuminated by the Holy Spirit.”

It should be easy, first of all, to find numerous references to such a principle throughout the patristic sources, despite the claim of the analogy with Newton. If Sola Scriptura is in fact THE way that Christianity is lived, THE way that theology is done, then surely, the Fathers will say so, over and over. But such references will be thin – I know of only two texts which indicate something like Sola Scriptura, and their authors, Hippolytus and St. Cyril of Jerusalem, would hardly agree with such an interpretation of their words. When the Fathers talk about doctrine, obviously they make copious use of Scripture to prove their points. However, nobody here is claiming that Scripture is not authoritative… Rather, the claim is that Scripture does not always interpret itself (let alone assemble itself), and sometimes an authoritative interpretation is called for due to some crisis, and this requires appealing to some visible, biologically living authority. Quite to the point, if Scripture interpreted itself fully, there would not be the tomes of exegesis produced by the Fathers. What is more, even St. Peter found the Pauline epistles to be difficult to understand, and a potential cause of division and doctrinal confusion: “Consider also that our Lord’s patience brings salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom God gave him. He writes this way in all his letters, speaking in them about such matters. Some parts of his letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. Therefore, beloved, since you already know these things, be on your guard so that you will not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure standing.” (2 Peter 3:15-17) Additionally, the content of Scripture is itself affirmed by any other doctrinal content which can be derived from other sources, such as the liturgy. Neither I nor the Fathers would have any problem saying that all of the content of Christian faith and morals is found, even if only in seminal form, in the Scriptures, and that if it cannot be so found, it is not Christian. (This is not a controversial position. It is called the “material sufficiency” of Scripture, as opposed to the “formal sufficiency” of Scripture, as the latter would constitute Sola Scriptura.) This would even apply to something like the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which Pius XII explicitly stated when defining that dogma: “All these proofs and considerations of the holy Fathers and the theologians are based upon the Sacred Writings as their ultimate foundation.” Finally, there is a veritable plethora of patristic argumentation against Sola Scriptura, albeit indirectly (since nobody was really asserting such a principle until Luther – it would have been batting at the air). For more on the Fathers’ views on Scripture vis-a-vis the regula fidei, see Dave Armstrong’s wonderful compendium on “Church Fathers vs. Sola Scriptura.” Suffice it to say that it is a pretty good list, both offering positive evidence for the Catholic view and negative evidence against the interpretation made by some of certain Fathers in favor of Sola Scriptura.

The Lord and subsequently His disciples do not trust “Jews” to interpret the Tanakh (the “Jewish Bible”/Old Testament) because, quite simply, the Jews looked the meaning of their Scriptures in the face 2,000 years ago, argued with Him about the Law, and then killed Him. Yes, yes, “not all Jews killed Christ,” but if you don’t believe the Messiah has come, and you have had the Gospel announced to you, then you are an unsafe guide to the Old Testament, period. I wrote a post about that here – which polemic could be applied to another prominent Italian bishop as of recently, but I digress.

“There are some parallels in history between the separation of Christianity from Judaism, and Protestantism from Roman Catholicism.”

There are, but they are not particularly relevant, as far as I can tell. In the one case, the meaning of the Old Testament is fulfilled and constitutes a new and universal Covenant, an open door with the Blood of the Lamb upon the doorpost and lintel, into which the whole world can fit, thus being saved from the Angel of Death. In the other, you have a frustrated Augustinian friar who likely had serious trouble with the 6th Commandment, swinging from deep despair over his sins to deep presumption of his salvation, subsequently building a theology centered around protecting his frail psyche from having to deal with intolerable cognitive dissonance and the challenges of authentic Christian moral life, using other clergy’s moral corruption as a scapegoat.

“Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians say that the Scripture must be understood in the context of Tradition. I asked them in the forum what “Tradition” means and how one can relate to it in daily practice. After nearly a year of discussion, I remain as mystified as ever. I would submit that, because of its lack of clarity, Tradition cannot be a guiding, let alone authoritative, principle in the Christian life.”

Fair enough. Well, frankly, the best definition of “the context of Tradition” is the Liturgy, wherein we find not only the beginnings of the sensus fidelium about what counts as Scripture (which was extremely relevant, as St. Vincent of Lerins is keen to point out), but also through the prayers and practice of the Church in administering grace. For example, that the Church distributes Holy Communion to laity is not something taught directly or clearly in Scripture, but it is nonetheless rooted therein while being explicitly contained as a datum in the liturgical use of the Church. Same for baptizing infants, ordaining men alone, or petitioning the saints. These practices and their accompanying speculative doctrines are rooted in Scripture but are made more articulate by the Liturgy of the Church. Lex credendi, lex orandi – as one believes, so one prays. Tradition does not simply reduce to Liturgy, as it would also include the visible authoritative structure of clerical hierarchy as its own distinct point, and any kind of consistent teaching/preaching about faith or morals (especially among the Fathers) for a long period of time widely throughout the Church (the “universal ordinary magisterium,” for example, Catholic doctrine on abortion or contraception), perhaps along with revelatory teachings which, while not contrary to and which can be found dimly in the Scriptures, were passed on orally in the beginning before the whole of the New Testament was written, with such things ending with the death of the last apostle. (See the aforementioned 2 Thessalonians 2:15 – “So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”) One might also include in “Tradition” the fact of the definition of what the Scriptures actually mean, such as through Ecumenical Councils or the occasional solemn papal definition.

“When an age of rampant relativism has run its course, people tend to gravitate toward authoritative figures, perhaps due to a deep-seated need for justification. In politics, it is the Supreme Court or the President, in religion, it is the Pope or the Patriarch, in academics, it is the most outspoken scholars. However, appealing to authority, apart from being a logical fallacy, is also futile, for authority figures are fallible and fallen men.”

Unless such fallen men are given the office to teach with participation in God’s own authority. Even if they are sinful, they retain that authority (to teach, govern, and sanctify, just as Christ with His gold, myrrh, and frankincense) until they lose the office. Just like Saul was really King of Israel, so too are bad popes and bishops really popes and bishops. On the natural plane, an evil governor or judge still exercises his office with the authority proper to it. Recall St. Peter’s words about Nero – that he ought to be honored – or St. Paul’s – that he ought to be obeyed and given his taxes. (1 Peter 2:17, Romans 13:1-8) This is the same Nero who would later execute them both.

“An Ecumenical Council might serve a necessary function in the life of the Church. It provides a venue for spiritual fellowship and rational discourse, a venue for resolving conflicts and maintaining unity, but it is not the ultimate authority of Christian faith.”

This is true, but the contrary is not being claimed, as should now be clear. Ecumenical Councils serve, in part, to define what the Scriptures actually mean – the Councils have the authority to interpret another authority, indeed a higher authority, if one wants to say so – perhaps it is better to say that it is a different kind of authority rather than a higher or lower one, as Scripture contains revelation (through inspiration) while Councils only enjoy protection from error in their solemn definitions.

“Another common objection to sola scriptura is that there are many different, even contradictory, interpretations of the Scriptures. Therefore, it is not a reliable approach to the truth.”

Almost but not quite. It’s more specific: many self-identifying Christians, who claim to believe the teachings of Scripture, and who believe those teachings are extremely important for salvation, have mutually exclusive interpretations of Scripture. Who cares what atheists think about Genesis, or what Hindus think about the Gospel of Matthew, or what universalist Unitarians think about 1 Corinthians?

“Firstly, as Paul writes, ‘When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things’. It is only natural that Christians believe different things in different stages of their spiritual life. If they all believed the same thing, it might actually be a sign of brainwashing.”

If truth is One as God is One, then there cannot be contradictory truths. Therefore, believing “the same thing,” at least on matters pertaining to what suffices for salvation, is rather important. It is no less brainwashing than it is to believe God on His own authority, for that is what is being asserted to begin with: that Scripture is the Word of God transmitted through human language. So at least the fundamental matters, both speculative and practical (moral), ought to be communicated clearly enough to be believed by all who are attempting to approach God through Christ.

“Secondly, it is true that we tend to project our personal opinions into the things we read, the Scripture not excepted, which results in errors and even abuses. But, we can avoid falling into this trap by heeding Augustine’s admonition: ‘For to believe what you please, and not to believe what you please, is to believe yourselves, and not the gospel.’
(St. Augustine, Contra Faustum, Bk. XVII)

Augustine makes an important distinction between sola scriptura and the misuse of scripture. If one follows the principle of sola scriptura, he would uphold the whole scripture, not just accept the parts he approves and reject the rest; Origen, when he defends the doctrine of free will, examines all the relevant passages in the Scripture, including those verses that seem to contradict free will, and provides an interpretation of those verses that both make sense in context and are consistent with free will. This is the type of exegesis that we can all learn from.

Augustine also writes that there can be many valid interpretations of the same passage of the Scripture, as long as they don’t contradict the rule of faith and logic; Origen demonstrates that there are many levels of interpretations of the Scripture, literal, allegorical, moral and spiritual. These manifold interpretations are all valid and help us to grow deeper in faith and understanding.”

We should certainly follow the advice of St. Augustine. But his advice does nothing to solve the problem of circular reasoning, as mentioned above, nor the problem of canonicity. Leaving aside canonicity, how do I know that I am really and correctly taking into account all of Scripture, especially if others say that they are too but disagree in a mutually exclusive way with me on the same point? The interpretation of the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6 is a great example. Is the Eucharist really, substantially Christ, or just some kind of unique symbol? The stakes are about as high as they get on that issue… And yet the Protestants jettisoned what had been settled doctrine since the 1st century, only meaningfully being first challenged by Berengar of Tours about a thousand years later (who was thankfully reconciled to the Church before his death). So, who is right? Are Catholics material idolaters, or are Protestants rejecting the greatest gift the Lord has left with us? It is one or the other. Same goes for whether faith alone, without “works,” suffices for salvation – that is not exactly a small disagreement.

“At the most basic level, sola scriptura is an approach to the inquiry for truth. It shares common characteristics with other approaches to inquiry, such as the scientific method. For it focuses attention on objective data, i.e., what is independently observable and verifiable, not opinions that may or may not be grounded in the data.”

Sola Scriptura is an approach, but it is a flawed approach. There is, in fact, an additional font of data which we can and in fact must use to interpret Scripture, which is the Church’s teaching office, the Magisterium (which, when functioning, is necessarily always in line with Tradition).

“Reading the Scripture is like reading the Book of Nature. God is the author of both. An interpretation is like a scientific theory. If any scientific theory contradicts known facts or experimental results, then that theory is falsified. Similarly, if any interpretation contradicts part of the Scripture, it is not a valid interpretation.”

Nature does not require faith to understand. The Scriptures do. The science of theology, which is primarily done out of the Scriptures (best done out of their original languages – or at least out of the Septuagint), takes God’s authority as its starting point. And as God is One, the truth is One as well. So, correct, no true contradictions are possible.

“As an inquiry for truth, sola scriptura aims at preventing people from elevating themselves above the Scripture, the objective standard of truth. In other words, it is a countermeasure against tyranny. It proclaims that everyone has access to the Truth, and everyone becomes accountable, being measured against the objective standard.”

Anarchy is just as tyrannical as despotism. However, Christ is no despot, He is a true King, and those who participate lawfully in His teaching office therefore do not constrain the mind except to bring it to the truth – which is a freeing act. One no longer needs to worry about so many questions, as they are already answered infallibly. But this in no way limits the horizons for Biblical exegesis – on the contrary, it expands them, opening one up to “all truth.”

END COMMENTARY

In the end, I remain unconvinced and stand by my original list of 7 problems.

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My post on my trip to Poland is coming soon – apologies for the delay, I know I must feed the readership!

The Historical-Critical Exegetes: A Brief Summary of the Consensus in the 41st Century

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Herman Von Voelkenhausen
Catholic University of Cologne
St. Benedict XVI Chair of Theology
April 12, 4019

+JMJ+

Before outlining the views of the majority of contemporary scholars on the historical-critical tradition of the 19th and 20th century, it is worth first mentioning the traditional view of that school from which our own views have arisen and evolved beyond.

Writers of the 22nd century onward who reflected deeply on the historical-critical phenomenon, scattered as such writers are, assume that the exegetical school was simply directly inspired by Spinozistic and post-Kantian ideals to re-envision the Scriptures in a radical way, breaking with the cumulative conclusions of the ages and the clear teaching of the Church. These exegetes supposedly became immensely popular, even holding chairs in the most distinguished theological faculties of Europe, where they would really speak and teach their students directly. Their lectures and writings were the real motion towards a culmination in the “Jesus Seminar,” the fullest expression of the movement, which was followed by a number of special disciples who gradually unpacked the wisdom contained therein in the midst of the larger academic community that turned to join the historical-critical movement in this final phase of critical scholarship.

We must now pause and admit that all of this seems rather childish to us, but to the majority of theologians and historians from the year 2100 until well into the 3800’s, this simplistic position was simply taken for granted. It is no wonder; due to the limited knowledge of the 19th and 20th century which was available to the early authors, we cannot expect very much accuracy on their part. The advent of the internet came only near the very end of the 20th century, and immediately afterward came that dark cloud of Fake News, which persisted well into the mid-22nd century. With such imprecise methods of research and communication, we should be inclined to go easy on those who first attempted to react to the historical-critical phenomenon. The tradition which took their analyses in good faith, it is true, has less excuse insofar as their means of investigation increased in quality, but those authors were hindered by the all-too-natural allure of continuity and the professional risk of speaking out too boldly.

The first point which nearly all authors now make is that of the difference between the “historical exegetes,” and the “scholars of faith.”

The exegetes are the real human beings at the center of the scholarly movement traditionally placed in the 19th to 21st centuries (although it seems increasingly likely that these early dates are fallacious). Many of them, it is granted, really did exist as human beings. But it matters very little what these men really were in their historical lives – it mostly matters that they existed. For instance, whether or not some sayings of Rudolph Bultmann were actually spoken by him is largely irrelevant; what really matters is that a tradition developed which sees him in connection with such sayings.

The “scholars,” then, are the writers in the minds of those who received their teachings and modified them. We encounter the scholars in the writings which are associated with them by name.

Immediately the question is raised – how were these writings produced? “The books bear the names of the authors themselves,” it is objected. As foolish as it sounds to us, it was once unthinkingly presumed that, since an exegete’s name was attached to a text that he must have actually written that text himself. The prevailing theory today is that while some writers did indeed exert a kind of influence over the writings that bear their names, in almost every case we see a kind of pseudepigraphy.

A fundamental body of writing in the historical-critical tradition will serve as a fine framework for an introduction to the methods we are using today to analyze this period of theology. This collection of books was traditionally presumed to be the work of a single author, but now the agreement is that it actually is an amalgamation of several written traditions under the redaction and collection of later theologians. First, there is the Kuenen source, or K. Next, the Graf source, G. Third, the Hupfeld source, H. Finally, the Reuss source, R. Over time, a careful redaction on the part of later German exegetes over the coming decades would piece these writings together to form what the historical-critical tradition, and those who uncritically write of its history, has called the collected works of Julius Wellhausen.

Perhaps there really was a Julius Wellhausen, but the “historical exegete” is, in any case, less important than the significance of the “scholar” represented in the popular imagination of the academy of the 20th century. For those first disciples of the masters of the historical-critical tradition, such as Wellhausen was to those who followed in that tradition, they really were seen as true scholars, important figures who somehow had advanced the theological milieu towards a new era.

It should be noted that the most recent quest for the historical Albert Schweitzer has come up largely empty. There is now, however, a broad consensus that he was not born in Alsace-Lorraine, but in Tübingen – to place his birth in an as-then recently annexed part of France was a clever narrative device used to broaden the appeal of the historical-critical movement beyond Germany in the long-term. That is to say, there was a value of a kind of “academic annexing” being imposed on the narrative of the Schweitzer character during the period of redaction of the earlier records of his life. It is well established that he did spend time in France, but to place his birth and childhood in anywhere but Germany finds no support except the primary texts themselves, which, as we have said, have changed the narrative to suit their own ideological agenda.

In the 19th century, the time for historical-critical exegesis was ripe, as there were expectations in the air for such a movement, after the Prussian myth of Schleiermacher had taken hold of the European imagination. (The Schleiermacher-myth was distinct from but related to the Prussian myths of Fichte and Kant, all of which were zealously absorbed and appropriated by the “Hegelian Community.”) Eventually, this all culminated in the well-known “Jesus Seminar” Event. While most scholars agree that there really was a Jesus Seminar, there is little consensus beyond three points: that the Jesus Seminar was formed around the year 1980, that it preached an apocalyptic doctrine about the coming end of traditional Biblical theology (with itself as a central catalyst), and that it ended in a shameful demise.

An example will serve us well to illustrate the attitude of current scholarship on post-Jesus Seminar thought. Virtually all historians of theology today recognize the minimal “historicity” of the writings of Bishop Spong, that is, Spongian authorship. Instead, various radical publishing houses collected the reports of various moderate pieces of scholarship on the part of Bishop Spong, and they published books under his name. Why? Clearly, these publishing houses had their own theological agenda which they were willing to advance, even in the face of such enormous ridicule. Their reflection on the meaning of Spongian theology prompted them to take a courageous attempt at promoting work largely inspired by his own teachings but which was itself a radical development of them. This is a standard model for the era.

The writings of all the post-Jesus Seminar theologians are typically dated to the late 21st to early 22nd century. It was a common pious mentality of devotees of the historical-critical exegetes, and especially those following the Jesus Seminar, to view the writings traditionally attributed to figures such as Bishop Spong, Bart Ehrman, and Paul Bradshaw as being written much earlier than they really were. It has been firmly established, however, that Bradshaw did indeed write his work first, and Spong and Ehrman based their writings on his, and upon other accounts of the Jesus Seminar and the tradition it represents. Furthermore, these three works draw on a common source, “Q,” (from the French, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” – “What is it?”) which links them together. They are altogether in a different tradition, however, than the Reza Aslan tradition, which is decidedly more “spiritual” than historically minded in its presentation.

Of course, as is well-known, current academics consider many of these texts to have been compiled by the communities which gathered around these figures. The Spongian community, the Aslanian community, and so on. (Bradshaw, it is true, perhaps did actually write his own works – but it is altogether clear that he himself could not have come up with the idea that John was unaware of an Institution Narrative – this was a later redaction by the publishing house.) The growing majority also views most of the writings attributed to Bart Ehrman actually to be complete forgeries – fully dishonest, albeit clever, pseudepigraphy. (Several editions and translations of his work have also left us wondering what the “true” or “original” texts were in the first place – the recent unearthing of hundreds of copies of the text “Jesus Interrupted” in what is thought to be a 25th century Siberian landfill may prove to be a crucial discovery to aid us in getting to the bottom of this vexing problem. My own forthcoming work “Misquoting Bart Ehrman” will investigate this data at length.)

The motivation for our project is simple: it is altogether unrealistic that such men would have really existed, taught, and written as they are traditionally have thought to have done. Their doctrines are too systematically bizarre and radically incoherent to have been the products of single authors; it is altogether unthinkable that, even given such bad scholarship, they somehow gained wide acclaim to the point of wielding true academic and intellectual authority. Therefore, what was at stake in the 19th and 20th centuries, and what was carried on by the disciples of historical-criticism in the centuries which followed, must be studied under a hermeneutic which takes the spirit of the tradition seriously while retaining the position that such fantastical theories themselves were not taken literally by those who first originated them. It was only later generations of devotees of historical-critical exegesis who, in their zeal, took these traditions to be literal works of Biblical scholarship.

Post by: Eamonn Clark (NB: Faith is a gift – let no man boast… Let us pray for souls who lack such a great grace to see and know the Living God!)

Apolog-etc. #2

Christian Renaissance Movement1 Comment

Eamonn Clark

I recently scanned a blog which regularly appears in my feed called “exCatholic4Christ” for the word “Orange.” This may sound quite strange – including to the author of that blog, who I am confident is reading – but I assure you, it is not.

I have had a few online exchanges with the author, a former Catholic turned rabid anti-institutional Christian, most of them to incredibly frustrating ends. He, like nearly all such men and women, beat, pound, stab, and ridicule a straw-man of the Catholic Church and Her teachings to a self-declared triumphant victory, often to the applause of a well-established echo-chamber which has an even worse understanding of the issues at hand. The lack of the relevant use of the word “Orange” anywhere in this man’s blog archive proves my point. Allow me to explain.

His favorite issue is “works.” His argument, which he reiterates ad nauseam (in literally almost every other post), is that salvation is not based on doing enough good works to earn (or “merit”) it. To the surprise of no regular readers of mine, I agree… Because this is the teaching of the Church. Remember, we baptize infants who do nothing other than breathe, eat, etc. – and yet the gates of Heaven are open wide… How less “worky” can you get than that? The child has done absolutely nothing but exist. (But I wonder if the blog author supports infant baptism… Hmm.) He and those like him want it both ways apparently – no works, and yet the need to do the work of an inward confession of faith – or even an outward confession of faith. Lest we forget, belief is an act of the will which moves the intellect to assent to a proposition whose referent is unseen… it is no less a work than prayer, or feeding the hungry, or healing the sick. Except we know that faith is an infused virtue, meaning, one that is given by God directly and not acquired by practice or natural effort. This virtue, however, can be resisted, which is sin, or it can be allowed to become active in one’s life by placing no obstacle before it, which is good. (The latter is what necessarily happens with infants who are baptized, as they can place no obstacle before an infused virtue or any grace. They have the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, but they just can’t really actively use them on account of their feeble minds.) And of course, any work which is actually meritorious, is a work which is powered by and completed through the working of interior grace. Meanwhile, unrepentant murderers, adulterers, thieves, etc. who happen to believe in the Resurrection (etc.), may indeed have the virtue of faith, but they will go to Hell because they do not love God with charity, the greatest virtue which “binds the rest together.”

But let’s hold on to that thought and return to the word “Orange.”

To comment on the Catholic Church’s teaching on grace and works, one must have read and understood the declarations of the Second Council of Orange (among other sources). Consider that Second Orange was called to deal with the teaching of later followers of Pelagius – the one who said that we can merit salvation without the help of grace… The doctrine had been refined to “semi-Pelagianism,” which still held that the first grace could be earned by our natural powers. This is an extremely attractive position. After all, if we don’t – or even worse, can’t – earn salvation through what we are born with, how else would God’s creative and salvific action be fair? How can we really be free if we are unable to choose the good on our own? Wouldn’t that mean that the Commandments are cruel taunts of an evil god who created some people just so that He could send them to Hell? What would human action even be for at all in such a paradigm? These are the questions at the center of the debate, and they are not easily answered, including from Scripture. (For instance – are we speaking here of Christ knocking on the door, or are we ourselves knocking on the door? See Matthew 7:7 vs. Revelation 3:20… The Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians certainly had strong Scriptural arguments at their disposal. Debates such as this help prove the inadequacy of “sola scriptura” – see my post on that topic here.) Anyway, shall we take a look at a few of the canons of Second Orange? The few readers interested enough can go compare these with his rather wild, tedious, and repetitive accusations that the Catholic Church is guilty of what amounts to a legalistic Pelagianism…

“If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, “What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7), and, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10).”

“If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, “For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5).”

“God loves us for what we shall be by his gift, and not by our own deserving.”

Does this sound Pelagian or legalistic to you?

Anyone wishing to study in detail this issue will find plenty of information (and further references) in the commentary on grace by my own university’s most prestigious professor emeritus, the late Fr. Reginal Garrigou-Lagrange: here. The topic is not at all simple, because the human soul is not simple to begin with, and sin has only complicated it. Add to this the transcendence and inscrutability of God’s inner judgments about how to dispense grace, and we are off to the races.

To simplify these things (and almost every other issue in theology and law), which heresy invariably does, is to ignore the reality of competing truths: human freedom (and the ability to choose what is truly good), and human corruption and weakness (due to the Fall from the original state of Adam in Eden). The many heresies on grace and works basically sacrifice one for the sake of the other. Protestants basically choose human corruption over human freedom. The call to “be free” is actually a call to resign to one’s inability to do good – which is to lead one to resist sufficient grace.

The cruelest particular error which the Protestant heresy brings to the world is that the Commandments are impossible to follow, and thus they are not required for salvation. Apparently, the New Testament is speaking in vain with practically every other line – or God has set up a wicked game where we are forced to do evil which we will be punished for unless we just happen to believe (which is itself something that we do, lest we forget) that Jesus rose from the dead (and other items which, in this case, derive from no symbol or creed in particular – and all of which the demons also believe and tremble at and thereby profit nothing). If we don’t actually have to love our enemy, if we don’t actually have to refrain from anger, if we don’t actually have to forgive others, if we don’t actually have to give thanks to God, if we don’t actually have to… well, you get the idea. Half of the sense of the New Testament is precisely that we do indeed have the grace available to us to follow the Commandments, and thus if we should fail and not earnestly seek God’s forgiveness after failure, we condemn ourselves by choosing that sin over the love of God. We can, however, do much more than simply avoid grievously offending our greatest Friend – we can live the Beatitudes. We can live a common life of poverty. We can enter into a radical relationship of obedience, destroying our own will so as to serve God better. We can forego marriage so that we are freer for the love of God and His work. These things were preached by the Savior and the Apostles, and they are also practiced to great effect in our own day. One ought especially see the Lord’s interaction with the Rich Young Man (a story present in all the synoptic Gospels)… “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer is, of course, to follow the Commandments, the most basic rules of charity and justice (a theme which is reiterated in the Epistolary tradition which follows, especially in the Johannine corpus). But, if objective perfection is sought, and in the case of the Rich Young Man it was possible (or else Christ would not have offered the special invitation to “follow,”) then greater freedom from the world is necessary… Perhaps the Rich Young Man made it to Heaven. But how much greater would his harvest have been, how much more fruit would he have borne, how much heavier would have been his glory, if he had sold his property and joined up with the Twelve? Apparently, none, according to the ethic I am here critiquing, even though this is confirmed in Christ’s assurance to the Twelve that those who have left social and material wealth will receive a hundred times more than those who have not, as He does in Matthew 19. The Rich Young Man was just “saved” or “not saved,” depending on his subsequent faith in the Resurrection and – I guess his belief in the supreme authority of the Bible, a book which would not exist for quite a while. The prescription to follow the Commandments was unnecessary, and the invitation to follow more closely in a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience was even more unnecessary. The words of the Lord, then, were quite in vain. How asinine a position. If the 10 Commandments were impossible to follow, they would be the 10 Suggestions. In truth, the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience are “Suggestions.”

For some verses which stress the importance of “works” (as in not committing grievous sins which reject God’s love in such a way that we destroy our friendship – our charity – with Him, depriving ourselves of a “trajectory” toward Heaven, which is the consummation of that friendship), one might begin with: Gal 5:6, 6:6-10; Phil 2:12; 1 Cor 6: 9-10, 13:2 (ESPECIALLY THIS ONE!); 2 Cor 5:10; Rom 2:6-10, 13, 3:31; Mt 25:32-46; Rev 20:12; 1 Jn 2:3-4; 1 Jn 3:24; 1 Jn 5:3… But pretty much, turn to any page of the New Testament, and you will see God telling us: “You need to LOVE as I have instructed, or you will lose your soul to Hell!” Love is the greatest commandment… Love God, love neighbor. The thought that what the law and the prophets are built upon, and which Christ gives as a “new commandment” (“love one another as I have loved you” Jn 13:34), is just icing on the proverbial cake, is quite blasphemous. It makes God into a vain talker at best, and a liar at worst.

Salvation is not about doing enough good works to earn it… but it is about loving God, which is His own life operating within us. When we act contrary to the letter or spirit of the Commandments, we remove that life, even though we might retain faith.

But does faith just mean loving God? Doesn’t a believer do good works just because they are good to do on account of how we have been loved by God? Perhaps some people operate this way. (Atheists often say something similar, and they will claim moral superiority by it… Strange, huh?) Faith, as it is strictly understood, is not the same as doing everything such belief would urge one toward doing. In a broad sense, the sense of total fidelity, faith does imply action based on the love of God. But if we insist on the latter meaning, then we end up with an absurdity: anyone who sins can’t possibly have faith. After all, if one really believes that it is best to follow the Commandments and love God with one’s whole heart, mind, and soul, how could that person ever do something wicked? It’s simple: we allow ourselves to be blinded to the truth from moment to moment through spiritual distraction. (It is this reality of blindness which differentiates our actions from those of the angels, who are confirmed in glory or damnation immediately upon their first action, good or bad – we can come to see that we made a wrong decision, while an angel chooses with complete knowledge with the meaning of the choice in itself and also of the consequences.)

Canon law is another perpetual target on the blog. One of the most recent posts details the supposed “dilemma” with which Catholics are faced by the overlapping of Ash Wednesday with Valentine’s Day – which I told the author would be a hilarious, bizarre, and irrelevant critique to any Catholic who heard it. What on Earth is complicated about this? We have a memorial of a saint which people in the West usually associate with romance, and we also have the beginning of Lent which requires fasting and abstinence for certain people, which are categories that can easily be checked.

But the problem with positive ecclesiastical law goes much deeper, I think. Why all the “extra” laws and rules? “Nobody could ever follow all of these rules! And so many just ignore them anyway!” That is just about the whole argument… Shall we unpack it?

The Church, as Christ’s Mystical Body, participates in His triple office of priest, prophet, and king. The first regards the authority to sanctify the people of God through the dispensation of grace through the sacraments. The second regards the authority to teach in God’s own Name and with His own authority, namely, infallibly. The third regards the authority to bind the people of God for the good of the order of the Church and the health of Her members. This third one is the source of ecclesiastical law. (“Ecclesiastical law” is a narrower term than “canon law,” as canon law also includes some Divine law. For example, it is canon law that baptism cannot be repeated – but this is a law directly from God, not a law from the Church’s own initiative.) Law is essentially about leading human beings to virtue, and canon law is no different. It also provides rules for what would otherwise be left to a chaotic soup of choices – just like we are told, “Drive on the right side of the road.”

The Church legislates positive and negative laws (“do this” and “don’t do that”) which do not exist in Scripture (or elsewhere in revelation) but which She does see as good for the whole or for the part. Fasting and abstinence laws, for example, are constructed to impose a minimal exercise of self-denial. Self-denial is a basic part of Christian life, and therefore, it is only fitting that the Church, as a caring Mother, would require at least a little bit from her members. Because of the serious and clear character of the obligation, it is a serious offense to dispense oneself for no good reason. Just as a natural parent can bind natural children, so too can the Church, a supernatural parent, bind Her supernatural children. And even though some kids don’t want to eat vegetables, or refuse to do their chores, or throw temper tantrums because they can’t play with their toys all the time, a good parent will make rules nonetheless which directly address these problems.

Ecclesiastical laws, however, and especially positive laws, certainly do not bind under every circumstance. (Not even Divine positive law always binds – thus was the Sabbath made for man, and not the other way around!) There are plenty of exceptions, and sufficient ignorance of ecclesiastical law can also excuse from guilt for breaking it.

I can hear the protesting now… “Silly human laws! Ha! So complicated! It’s impossible to figure out all those Catholic laws!” To which I respond – okay…? Any time there is a command and someone who seeks to follow that command, the command must necessarily be interpreted. As the issues which require the guiding hand of law grow more numerous, and the circumstances also increase in variety, the difficulty of interpretation will also rise. Look at civil laws… We certainly need those, right? And civil laws are always clear, yes? No. And that’s why the settling of certain difficult cases can “make law,” so to speak. But the fact is that Christ did not seek to establish an earthly kingdom, and so He left us to determine most temporal (and usually prudential) laws ourselves, both within the Church and in the civil sphere. (Where does the Bible tell us which side of the road to drive on? How long robbers deserve to be in prison? What a fair tax rate is? These kinds of questions exist within the Church’s governance and administration as well, like how to appoint someone as a pastor of a parish, for example…) The Apostles clearly thought that it was their responsibility to govern… To “bind and loose,” as it were. See Acts especially, but also the Pauline corpus. Why is there no complaint about Paul adding up laws on top of what Christ commanded?

“It’s Scripture,” goes the objection. But this does not change the fact that the Apostles actually gave laws which were temporal and prudential. We do not require women to cover their heads in churches today… Why? It’s commanded of the women in Corinth, after all, and it’s in the Bible, so why do we tolerate anything else if this is the only source of law? This is why the authority of the pope to “bind and loose,” and the Church’s extraordinary (and universal ordinary) magisterium to interpret Scripture infallibly, are so important, along with the authority of local bishops to govern the territory given to their care. If all we had was a big book written in ancient languages which we knew was free of error, we would have a much, much larger task on our hands than someone who has everything prepackaged in a codified law.

Furthermore, the vast majority of canon law is either intuitive (i.e. that clerics are the ordinary ministers of baptism), is easy to learn in a basic and practical way (i.e. consanguinity and affinity restrictions on marriage), or is pretty much irrelevant to the average layman at any given time (i.e. how to run a seminary).

The author also seems fascinated with Pope Francis, specifically, with the in-fighting surrounding Amoris. Close followers of this blog need no reminder of my position regarding the legal and moral aspects of the debate… I recounted my opinions in a series here, and there is really no meaningful update, other than to say that the appearance of the Buenos Aires document in the Acta does not meaningfully change the objective situation at all, though it certainly might have changed the prudential situation “on the ground.” I will not even bother to go further than that – those interested in the topic can comment on the series I wrote on the apologia of the document. Suffice it to say that his treatment is – no surprise – lacking in the necessary subtleties to be at all useful and therefore is not even worth critiquing. (I may, however, do a post eventually on my own take on the possibility of heresy in the Petrine office, looking at Bellarmine’s position and others’, careful to be sure to make the material-formal distinction, which is of course nowhere to be found in the author’s investigation of the subject.)

Okay. I could go on (and on and on and on!), but that is enough, as so much of his content is the same tune played on different strings, time and time again. I invite him, his fans, or other Protestants to tell me where I’m wrong and start an open and respectful discussion.

Apolog-etc. – Episode #1

Christian Renaissance Movement4 Comments

Eamonn Clark

I often come across articles on WordPress (the platform this site uses) which don’t quite seem to get “the Catholic thing.” Usually, they fight strawmen (caricatures or weakened versions of a position), and many times the authors are former Catholics, which is very sad. Quite recently, I ran across a post, which I commented on, and which prompted a whole post of its own on the author’s part. With that, I’ve decided to start an ongoing series of posts on apologetics (etc.) – thus the strange title. I will dissect such articles (at least in part) and try shed some light on the matter.

The link to the article in question. From here on, comments in red.

[BEGIN QUOTE]

In response to one of my posts here, I received a comment which says:

I’m interested to know where exactly you think the “Bible” comes from? How do we know “these” books are in it, and others are not? Who and what is responsible for determining that? Why and how can there be disagreements about this?

The question is actually four questions, and the second and third ones can be answered together in a single response.  The question is “How do we know ‘these’ books are in [the Bible] and others are not, and who and what is responsible for determining that?”

The books included or excluded from the ‘finished’ Bible as we know it were compiled, curated, or determined – generally – by a group of individuals who ‘authorized’ that particular version of the Bible.

They then go on to describe the history of several versions of Bibles – the KJV, Tyndale, Coverdale, Vulgate, etc., most of which was just ripped straight from Wikipedia… And this, of course, does not answer the question at all – who cares where this version comes from – where did the right version come from, and how, and why? Then we have this gem:

Tyndale’s Bible was an affront to the Roman Catholic Church because it challenged many of the Church’s established doctrines and – by giving access to God’s word to everyone – would have negated the Church’s position that only the Church (and its priests/bishops) could properly ‘interpret’ God’s word and act as intercessory agents between mankind and God.

Nevermind the translation issues with the Tyndale Bible – as the Italians say, “traduttore, traditore,” there is no perfect translation, though Tyndale did try to target buzzwords of Catholic doctrine – but there is a very persistent Protestant myth that the Catholic Church used to keep Bibles away from laymen for “intellectual safety” or something like that. Given the fact that trying to interpret Scripture without a good education is often extremely dangerous, this is plausible. This did happen once in southern France in the 13th century, because Albigensians were handing out Bibles with a little “extra” stuff thrown in there to make converts for their sect, but by and large it was simply too expensive to buy a Bible (which would have been handwritten), and literacy was not that widespread anyway.

Who is responsible for determining what books are chosen for each different version of the Bible?  A question I did not ask. The group, agency, organization, entity, or individual responsible for publishing the version is the ‘who’ that selected what books to include.

How do we know that these versions, book selections, and translations are official or authoritative or correct? Another question I did not ask. Unless we can read and have access to the original texts, we don’t know. We make a leap of faith and let our belief in the word be guided by the Holy Spirit. Interesting – so there is some trust put in the operation of God through human beings who preserved the text down to our own time? Did God really give mere human beings His own authority in this way? Curious… This sounds very Catholic. But the questions remain – which version and why?

Where do I think the Bible comes from?

If you ask 100 different people this question, you will likely get at least a dozen different answers.

…

According to scholars, which ones? why should we listen to them? isn’t the devil a Scripture scholar too? the authors of the individual books of the Bible were from all walks of life – kings, tax collectors, poets, farmers, priests, and others – and that the texts created by these people were divinely inspired by God.  In other words, they were writing about ‘religious’ subjects while under the influence of God through the Holy Spirit.  This point of view (the scholars’ presumption) is the belief I hold regarding ‘where’ the Bible comes from. Ok… Still no answers.

Why and how can there be disagreements about all this?

That’s the easiest question of all to answer. We’ll see… No matter what the subject is, there can always be a disagreement if two or more people are present and discussing it.  People can even argue about the color of the sky (sky blue, cerulean, robin’s egg blue, bright blue, milky blue, etc.) or which direction the sun rises from (east, slightly northeast, a bit more southerly than easterly, etc.). … Okay, so we disagree about which particular shade of blue the sky is, and also the categories of written content of the definitive revelation of Almighty God which is supposedly the only means of accessing the truth which can save us from everlasting torment – got it. But there seems to be a confusion about the question… Obviously, people disagree, but how can that be so? Are there no means of determining the matter? How strange that God would leave us to our own devices on such an important matter… What if I don’t like the Gospel of John, especially chapter 6? What if I disagree with the 10 Commandments, can I take out the books which talk about them? What if it’s too hard to believe some things in the Book of Acts – I can just say it’s not from God, right? Luther pulled exactly this kind of stunt… His theology was at odds with some books (especially James), so he discarded them.

Unless God himself personally appears and declares that he ‘instructed’ the writing of the Bible via the Holy Spirit, which He has, through the visible Catholic Church… there WILL be disagreements about it. And perhaps there would still be even if he did appear and unequivocally inform us of where the Bible comes from. Which there is, among non-Catholics…

…

As always, seek your own understanding, meaning, and interpretation of the intention behind God’s word by reading it for yourself.  Don’t believe others, because we are all only human, and none of us is more qualified to discern a revelation from God’s word meant for you other than you yourself. So now, not only do we have no idea how to know what is really inspired by God, but even if we did, we should just try to figure its meaning out all by ourselves… Because each individual is less fallible than the next, or something like that? If only there was some kind of teaching authority which God gave the Church which could help with all of this…..

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OKAY: So, there was no satisfying answer to my questions – and there can’t be any from a Protestant or non-denom. The conclusion is inescapable… Either God gave an authority to the Church to define what is contained in Scripture, and therefore the Church “as such” has, in some way, authority to teach in God’s Name (viz. infallibly), or we are essentially left as orphans with a bunch of ancient texts with no way to know for sure what God has inspired or to interpret what we think He has inspired. See my post on sola scriptura here.

I enjoyed a friendly exchange with this author, and I gave them a heads up that I would also take a look at some of their claims in the original post which sparked my questions. (I often come across tragic and sometimes downright weird misconceptions about Catholicism, many times from former Catholics – including this individual. It is very unfortunate.) However, I usually talk about the authority of Scripture, because inevitably the discussion will turn to: “Where is that in the Bible?” Now, I can play that game quite well (and I will play it here in this post a bit), but it is, at bottom, a game… I do not have the authority to explain definitively what Paul means about grace and law, nor does the interlocutor – all there can be is suggestion. It is a cat-and-mouse “gotcha” paradigm which can and does lead to pitting one part of Scripture against another. This shows the need for an authority, visible and living, to intervene and settle the matter. Anyway, my friend found some “list of infallible dogmas” (which I think is probably some blogger’s summary of Denzinger or Ott), and here are the sorts of things that they were on about, all the while claiming (rather arrogantly) that the Catholic Church needs to read the Bible… Yikes. I will just look at some of it.

A link to the article.

[BEGIN QUOTE]

#106 states that ‘after the birth of Jesus, Mary remained a virgin.’  There is no foundation whatsoever for this in the Bible, and the Bible actually goes on to refer to the brothers of Jesus (which some people say is a general ‘mankind’ reference).  In a day and age when large families were common and Jesus’ Earthly family was a ‘common’ one, why wouldn’t Mary and Joseph have had other children after the birth of Jesus?

That’s the whole argument. Forget that we should not expect such a statement in Scripture, for various reasons. Forget the perennial tradition among the early Church about Mary’s virginity. Forget the puzzling question of Mary at the Annunciation about how she will conceive (if she is getting married like a normal person, she would not have been wondering how she will become pregnant). Forget the widespread use of the word “brother” to refer to non-biological family (perhaps cousins). Forget the internal problems with such an interpretation, which I believe Sheen so masterfully described in his book on Mary. Rather, we should just think that Mary did all the same things that other women did, because, after all, she is only the mother of the Incarnate Son of God… not like that would require anything special of her. 

Moving on, item #133 says that ‘grace can be increased by good works.’  No, no, no.  You cannot ‘work’ your way into heaven, you cannot ‘work’ your way into a higher state of grace, you cannot ‘work’ your way into becoming more saved or more blessed or more beloved of God.  God has NO respect of persons (Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11, Ephesians 6:9, 1 Peter 1:17), which means we are all saved, blessed, loved, and granted grace on equal footing with each other.  Sure, good works make you feel better – but they won’t make God love you more, give you more grace, or bestow upon you a higher ‘status’ than anyone else.  Items #135 and #136 on this list also deal with how ‘good works’ can improve your status with God.  The Catholic Church really needs to READ the Bible, instead of trying to create it for themselves.

This is one of the big ones. The myth is: Catholics are Pelagians (viz. they think that trying really hard to be good, by our own efforts alone, earns us grace). On the contrary, the Catholic Church teaches, with Paul, that even the mere desire to do something good (for a right reason) is preceded by the movement of grace in the soul. Grace which is sufficient for following the Commandments is given to all, (at least to all the baptized,) and resisting that grace results in sin, which, if serious enough, destroys friendship with God (charity), reordering the soul away from Heaven, though possibly with the person remaining a believer who hopes for salvation (thus continuing to enjoy a kind of justification). When a good work is done, whether to follow the Commandments or even to go beyond them (see the dialogue with the Rich Young Man – we can do better than simply not sin!), then God has given even more grace than was there originally, called efficient grace. This is how some enter the Kingdom ahead of others, this is why there are many mansions in the Father’s house, this is why the better servant who humbles himself more will be called the greatest, this is how the division of talents among the stewards translates to the spiritual life, etc., etc., etc. Perhaps my friend ought to READ the Bible, instead of Googling anti-Catholic apologetics. It all fits together… Both grace AND works. (By the way –  some of the “works” that Paul talks about are the works of the Mosaic law, perhaps including the established rabbinic interpretation among his own Jewish sect, the Pharisees… It is certainly true that doing your dishes a certain way will not save you. Nor will even circumcision save you. You must follow the Commandments, which, as John says, is how we first love God. Read the letters.)

Item #153 says ‘the Church founded by Christ is unique and one.’  That is true, but Jesus did not create the Catholic Church.  He didn’t create a church of any denomination.  We are one body in Christ with many members, which means we are non-denominational, and any division into denominations is a violation of Biblical edict.

Here is the “non-denominationalist error.” By choosing to be one who rejects doctrinal clarity in various ways, and by choosing a certain kind of ecclesiology (an understanding of what “the Church” is), one separates himself from other Christians who disagree. In short, to be “non-denominational” is to be in a denomination. The word “denomination” literally means “what you are named.” Because there is division within Christianity, one simply must make choices about “sides” once one is faced with the options. Division in the Church is the result of doctrinal, liturgical, and sometimes political disputes – finding the “authentic Church” is not done by simply ignoring these entrenchments, nor is it done by denouncing them all as “divisions.” The former is like an awkward family reunion where everyone pretends that the serious problems which exist between various members don’t exist, for the sake of having a good time – it is superficial and unsustainable in the long-run. The latter is like sawing off the branch which one is sitting on, as was already explained. This topic deserves its own post at a later date, but this will suffice for now.

Items #205 through #209 discuss the Catholic Church’s power to remit (forgive) sin, whether it was committed before or after baptism.  Once again – wrong!  The only ‘power’ that exists to remit or forgive sin is the power of Jesus’ blood shed on the cross at his crucifixion.  Jesus did not bestow upon anyone or anything the power to forgive sins.

So… John 20:23? I guess we are ignoring that instance. The apostles understood it well enough, and so did their successors, and their successors, etc. In the meantime, the New Testament was being written. We can see, then, that Christianity is not based on Scripture – it is the other way around. The Word did not just become more words… He became a man and dwelt among us – and those with whom He dwelt bore Him witness, first by speech, and then later by writing. The authority rests in the lineage of the apostles, then, especially with Peter, who was privileged with preeminence by the Lord and by the other apostles in many ways. And these men understood themselves to have power, in the Lord’s Name, through His saving work which they were chosen to participate in by the Lord Himself, to forgive sins. Solus Christus has its own post coming too – it is an even bleaker doctrine than sola scriptura. We indeed are called to share in His own ministry and life in various ways, according to His own action within us. In this case, it is through priestly ordination. There are now many Joshuas whom God will obey, as He did when the sun stood still…

Item #212 claims that the confession of sins (to a priest) is necessary for salvation.  Wrong again.  The only thing necessary for salvation is faith in Jesus (2 Timothy 3:15).  The Bible also tells us that our transgressions should be confessed to God, not to another fallible human being (and does not specify that it is necessary for salvation!).

So……. James 5:16? But what authority does James have anyway… Luther threw out that book because it says: faith alone does not suffice for salvation (James 2:14-26). James is not talking about sacramental confession, of course, but it seems my friend is simply poorly read in Scripture (or is missing this book in their Bible – which goes back to the original question).

[END QUOTE]

That is enough of a look at these posts. Hopefully, this will suffice to show what kind of misunderstandings can be out there – and I hope my new friend does not mind a bit of my rhetoric, but rather embraces a little correction. There are so many more things to say, but perhaps a good perusal of the wonderful site of Catholic Answers would be better than me blabbing on. It is not hard to find good explanations of this stuff…

Have you encountered similar objections and misunderstandings? Share in the comments below – but be charitable!

Sola Scriptura: 7 Fatal Flaws of a Bleak Doctrine

Christian Renaissance Movement7 Comments

Eamonn Clark

“Sola Scriptura” means “only Scripture,” as in “Scripture alone is the authority for Christian doctrine.” It is one of the foundations of Protestant theology… It rejects the teaching authority of the Church as such. Given that this day marks the dreadfully unhappy 500th Anniversary of the beginning of Protestantism, shall we examine this idea and expose it?

I submit that there are at least 7 massive problems with Sola Scriptura.

First: Sola Scriptura is anarchic. This is evident from the endless multiplication of divergent theologies and denominations within Protestantism. Without a unifying voice, namely, a bishop, pope, or something similar, one becomes his own definitive authority on the meaning of Scripture. Perhaps a pastor or teacher can help one form ideas, but it is I and I alone who am responsible for determining the true meaning of any given passage. Of course, I might say that the Holy Spirit is giving me the truth – which would mean that everyone must actually listen to me. In Protestantism, everyone is their own little pope. This same “bottom-up” approach to God existed once before, at the Tower of Babel. And there too did the languages multiply endlessly unto chaos, just as we see within Protestantism now, where there is splinter after splinter. Pentecost was the opposite – God came down to us (the Church as such, as represented by the Apostles and Mary in the Upper Room) and gave us a principle of unity from which to adapt to the many situations and needs of the day. Without a visible, living Pentecost among us, there can be no public unity around Christ. From the mere fact that there can be morally, liturgically, or doctrinally significant disagreement about the meaning of the same Biblical passage, it is evident that Scripture does not fit the bill of the “visible and living Pentecost”… Remember, the Devil knows Scripture too! (Mt. 4: 1-11) Unless one speaks about Scripture with the very authority of Christ, there is no end to disputation. As Peter says, interpreting Scripture can be very difficult and sometimes it ends badly, especially with Paul’s letters! (2 Pt. 3: 16) Would God really leave us orphans in this way? Did the Word really in practice just become more Words?

Second: Sola Scriptura is innovative. It did not exist until 500 years ago when Luther came up with it. Protestants often complain about “man-made traditions” infecting Christianity – well, Sola Scriptura is one of them. Would we not expect a Christian “God-made tradition” to have existed long before the 16th century? It sounds quite a bit like one of those “winds of doctrine” which Paul warned about (Eph. 4: 14). Of course, Scripture has been treated as authoritative throughout the ages, but it was not treated – or attempted to be treated – as the only authority until relatively recently. Did God let Sola Scriptura remain an obscure but correct practice and then even fall out of existence for centuries until Luther was inspired to revive it? This does not sound like the God of Christianity, does it… It sounds like a God Who did not remain among us but Who left us orphans instead – not only with no definitive interpreter of Scripture (see #1), but without the right doctrine about what Scripture is. And to think, He only left the children of Jacob in Egypt for 400 years…

Third: Sola Scriptura is historically impractical. This is not primarily due to illiteracy (though one might also wonder if that would be an impediment to being a good Protestant), it is due to the fact that for many years there simply was no such thing as Christian Scripture, let alone a collection of texts organized into “the Bible.” When Thomas the Apostle went to India, he did not bring with him the Gospel of Luke. When Peter went to Antioch, he did not bring Paul’s letters with him. When Matthew went to Alexandria, he did not bring the Johannine corpus with him. We can note that Paul in his missionary journeys, based on the whole Book of Acts and his own letters, is not using anything but Jewish Scripture in his disputations and preaching. How then could there be Christians in the wake of these evangelists? Doesn’t a Christian need a Bible? Obviously not. There were local churches set up in many places across the globe for a long time with little to no Christian Scriptures available, relying on the oral tradition and the authority of the Church as such, and it took even longer to form a real, authoritative canon (viz. “the Bible”) which allowed people to know what Scripture consisted of… Which brings us to the next problem.

Four: Sola Scriptura is conceptually impossible. We must know what actually is Scripture in order to use “Scripture alone,” yes? But how do we know what really counts and what doesn’t? The truth is that Scripture was defined by the Church, finally confirmed in a special way at the Council of Trent in response to the preaching and teaching of Luther, who wanted to throw out a few books which he didn’t think were really Scripture, but which most others did. Without descending into the minutiae of the history of the so-called “deuterocanon,” we can simply note that it was indeed widely regarded as Scripture from an early time, even though there was some controversy surrounding it. A Protestant response might be to fall back on the principle of St. Vincent of Lérins, that the faith is that “which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.” (Never mind that this was about faith in “the Catholic Church,” as Vincent says, nor that he only holds it out as a general rule for finding heresy rather than as a specific rule for formulating a biblical canon.) Universal acclamation of texts as Scriptural does not really work on its own… If there is a little disagreement, which there certainly was about non-deuterocanon, then one must begin to wonder, “How universal is universal enough?” There is no good answer. Instead, an authority must decide what is Scripture and what is not. Yes to 2 Peter, no to 1 Clement. Yes to Revelation, no to The Shepherd of Hermas. Etc. The New Testament itself does not and cannot provide a guide – nor does the New Testament provide a list of what belongs in the Old Testament. So the very existence of an authoritative canon which does not assemble itself or fall from the sky necessitates an authoritative compiler. That is the Church itself, which therefore must have its own special authority to speak for God. This guarantees the texts of Scripture are actually the ones which God inspired. (Let’s not even get into the bizarre and self-refuting theory that the Bible is a fallible collection of infallible texts…)

Five: Sola Scriptura is arbitrary. Of course, it makes sense that a revealed religion would involve a sacred text which has authority, but it is conceivable that it would not. And there is, therefore, no a priori need for “Scripture” as an authority at all, let alone as the sole authority. Let me be clear: I am not saying the Bible is not an authority, I am saying it is not clear that it automatically must be… And anyone who says that it is an authority has to appeal to something outside of Scripture. An appeal to Scripture to prove the authority of Scripture is perfectly circular. Why is Scripture an authority? Why not “Sola Papa” (the Pope Alone)? Why not “Sola Ego” (I Alone)? Why not “Sola Luther” (Luther Alone)? There must be an authority which supports Scripture as an authority, and that authority must derive from God. Seeing as Christ did not give us a biblical canon, He must have somehow given authority to mere human beings to decide what texts God actually inspired. In the end, men must cooperate in the governance of the Church, at least in this way. This brings us to problem #6…

Six: Sola Scriptura is self-contradictory. It is a teaching of Martin Luther, a mere man, and by those following him: also mere men. By obeying those who teach Sola Scriptura, the very doctrine is violated. To practice it on one’s own is also a violation, as one must listen to one’s own interpretation of passages (especially in cases of controversy), or one must say that the Holy Spirit is interpreting – Who is clearly not Scripture. And let us also note that Sola Scriptura is not taught by Scripture… So finally, we have the last and most problematic issue for the doctrine…

Seven: Sola Scriptura contradicts Scripture. The Bible does not teach Sola Scriptura, but it does teach the importance of the oral tradition which is not written down. Scripture also teaches the authority of the Church as such. Two verses will suffice. The first is 2 Thessalonians 2: 15 – “So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.” (Other translations render παραδόσεις “traditions” instead of “teachings.”) This is enough to show that at least Paul thought that more than Scripture might be necessary for safeguarding Christian doctrine. What might the mechanism be? He describes it in the second verse for our examination, 1 Timothy 3: 15 – “…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.” How can “the church” be a “pillar” for the truth unless it functions as a means of connection to God, whereby false doctrines are corrected with good authority? The truth is tied at least to this pillar, “the church.” And how can it also be the “foundation” for truth unless it has a special means of holding up truth in a special way? What else could be the foundation of truth except that which is first in announcing it in the world? The guarantee of truth – infallibility – rests upon “the church.” God corrects error and announces truth through “the church.” This is how the Catholic Church understands its role in condemning heresies and defining doctrines (including what is Scripture and what is not).

There we have it… 7 fatal flaws with Sola Scriptura. Protestant readers (if there are any) might object with many verses of Scripture (especially 2 Timothy 3: 16, which simply insists that Scripture is indeed important – I do not deny this!)… However, in so doing they will no doubt demonstrate the points above.

You might consider sharing this post with any Protestant friends and see what they say. Tell them that no, God did not abandon us, leaving only a special book behind… That is a bleak doctrine indeed.

UPDATE (April 5, 2021): This post has become very popular, read many times every day – if you are reading, let me know how you found it! I always love to hear.

Main image: “The Tower of Babel,” Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563