***QUOTE***
You, Steve Hays, and Jason Engwer all responded by reasserting the exact thing to which I objected.
Every one of these statements simply reasserts what people already said: that the GHM is the only reliable method to extract meaning from Scripture, and that it is sufficient for its purpose. Both asserted without philosophical justification, and both fallacious for the reasons I already gave.
This is what I mean, guys. They just don't get it. These are not responsible answers to serious objections. No one is obligated to answer people who aren't willing to do what is necessary to establish their case reasonably, and they haven't.
I'm done. The hand-waving has become all the more vigorous, but it is just hand-waving in the end.
Edited by - crimsoncatholic on 08/20/2005 11:23:51 AM
***END-QUOTE***
No, it’s actually Jonathan who just doesn’t’ get it.
To begin with, I, for one, did respond to his philosophical objection. And I did offer a justification for GHM.
I didn’t spend a lot of time on the subject, but that’s because Jonathan didn’t spend a lot of time on it either. His alternative proposals were all so indefinite and under-developed and under-argued that he didn’t give us much to respond to. Like a pointillist painting, the closer you look the less you see.
Second, as I also pointed out, naming names—and I could name a lot more names--GHM is not just an Evangelical thing. It represents mainstream Catholic scholarship as well.
Jonathan seems to be hibernating in some sort of Patristic time-warp—Rip Van Winkle-like. But while he’s snoozing, his own church has long since moved on.
Jonathan isn’t only at war with Evangelical hermeneutics—he is equally at war with contemporary Catholic hermeneutics.
So I agree that it may well be premature of him to engage Evangelicalism before he has learned to come to terms with his own communion.
I’d add that when a man continually declines to make a reasoned case for his own position, the continual air of intellectual superiority rings pretty hollow. There’s nothing to back up the pose. More argument, and less affectation, is sorely in order.
After I posted my response to CC, I thought to myself, "now what are his possible responses?"
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was that he'd engage the matter of CCC P116 and give us some detail on why that is not actuall GHM. My second thought was that he'd criticize my analogy of the shell game as too simplistic. My third thought was that I'd better cut the lawn before it rained.
I never expected him to ignore the fact that it is the formal teaching of the CCC that GHM is the foundational reading of Scripture, and all other readings are based on a sound literal exposition of the text.
Go figure. I should have been manning the weed wacker.