Let’s move on to some other critics, all from Kimel’s blog:
***QUOTE***
2. Jonathan Prejean Says:
October 12th, 2005 at 3:26 pm
“On what basis does he decide that his interpretation of Scripture is superior to the interpretation of the Church? By his private judgment. This, and this alone, is the ground of his conviction.”
On the contrary, he decides it on based on reading Leon Morris, D.A. Carson, Raymond Brown, and all the other commentaries on the Fourth Gospel and judging their respective arguments in an ordinary way.
That theory of revelation goes WAY beyond the “private judgment” of the Reformers. It’s the recourse of people who don’t actually believe in the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church, except as some self-referencing tautology to the exercise of their own will. They don’t believe in God; they believe in themselves and conceive “god” as an appendage to their egos.
http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=1142
***END-QUOTE***
By what criterion does Prejean identify the action of the Holy Spirit? By what criterion does Prejean identify the true church? By what criterion does Prejean distinguish his own faith from mere egotism?
***QUOTE***
3. THE CLOSET CATHOLIC Says:
October 12th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
“On what basis does he decide that his interpretation of Scripture is superior to the interpretation of the Church? By his private judgment.”
When reading texts like these (the text you referred to), and while reading Scripture I tend to try and remind myself that it is the Church that is the “pillar and support of the truth”, not me or my personal interpretations.
***END-QUOTE***
By what criterion does Kjetil equate any particular contemporary denomination with the “church” in 1 Tim 3:15? Doesn’t he have to interpret 1 Tim 3:15 for himself in order to see its applicability (or not) to some church outside the text? There are, after all, many “churches” which lay claim to 1 Tim 3:15.
***QUOTE***
4. Tom Says:
October 12th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Fascinating indeed. Yes the Scripture doesn’t teach a real presence as if this were too difficult for God. Now to be sure we don’t build doctrine on conjecture or what God could do if He so chooses but the fact is, in the Old Testament we have the Bread of the Presence, literally the bread of the face, in the New Testament we have our Lord say His flesh is real food and His blood real drink. We hear Him say “This Is My Body” “This Is My Blood.” We read Paul in 1st Cor 10-11 discuss the Eucharist as a present participation in the body and blood of Christ. So Steve what idiosyncratic use of the words “tinkering” and “tweaking” are you employing. Yes, just another reason why I came home to Mother Church.
***END-QUOTE***
i) This parallel proves too much or too little. Is Tom saying that transubstantiation applies to the OT showbread as well? Was the showbread the true body and blood of Christ? Is that Catholic dogma? I must of missed that.
ii) The blanket appeal to 1 Cor 10-11 proves too much (or too little) as well since “the body” in this passage sometimes has reference to the church. Or is Tom also applying transubstantiation to the church? Is the church the true body and blood of Christ?
iii) Catholics don’t take 1 Cor 11 literally. They don’t believe that the break and wine is identical with the body and blood of Christ. Rather, they interpose a distinction between species and substance.
This is what happens when you begin with dogma and then cast about for a prooftext.
The appeal to Jn 6 I’ll address further down.
***QUOTE***
5. Chris Jones Says:
October 12th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
It is useless to treat the Scriptures as the foundation for the Eucharist. The Church was celebrating the Eucharist before there was a New Testament. So you cannot treat the Eucharist as being in any way derived from the Scriptures.
The New Testament is a second-order phenomonon: Christ delivered the Gospel to the Apostles, who then wrote the New Testament. The Eucharist, on the contrary, is a first-order phenomonon: Christ instituted the Eucharist and delivered it to the Church, and the Church has been celebrating the Eucharist, unchanged in its essentials, ever since.
***END-QUOTE***
This confuses the existence of the Eucharist with is warrant and right interpretation. No, you don’t derive its existence from the NT. But deriving the warrant and right interpretation of the rite is something entirely different.
***QUOTE***
6. dilys Says:
October 12th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
If a Lone-Ranger dissenter, Protestant or Catholic, ranges himself against Tradition [hundreds of millions of Catholics as well as Orthodox] in this way, I see only 3 possible logical foundation-stones:
1. “I am smarter or more insightful than all those other [utterly Mickey Mouse tinkering and tweaking] people and/or God has granted me a special revelation He has withheld from them;”
1A. A subset of this is “Those old churches and what they teach are old-fashioned because [stragglers who gobble up whatever stale crumbs] their roots are so much older than mine, and time moves forward:”
2. “They know I am right but want to protect their turf and reputation.” This argument at bottom infers bad faith/fatal corruption on the part of the Church [the soiled apron of Mother Church], usually based on a proto-Marxist kind of analysis that credits sola money and power as the preeminent motive for social behavior, particular as regards those shifty priestly classes (see undergraduate anthropology, typical histories of Egypt);
or
3. “During an ‘imprinting’ window, somebody told me something different from the teaching of Holy Tradition (without necessarily coming to terms with ## 1 and 1 above), and my tribal allegiances formed around their position and now trigger this argument.”
3A. The subset here is “Look how enthusiastic our worship is, and how uneducated their followers.” Cultural de gustibus at best.
Numbers and centuries and the claim of continuity by the Ancient Church would seem to put the burden of persuasion or demonstration on Steve and his colleagues.
There is much more to these matters than logic, of course. But all the emotion and revelation in the world do not override my question on its own terms. Which is it?
***END-QUOTE***
i) All that Dilys has done here is to substitute a set of straw man arguments for the actual arguments I deployed. I congratulate him for conceding the force of my arguments by ignoring them and changing the subject.
ii) He appeals to “numbers and centuries” when it happens to support his contention. What about the areas where the Catholic church and the Orthodox church diverge? Both have numbers and centuries.
***QUOTE***
8. Fr. Stephen Freeman Says:
October 12th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
I feel, in reading this, that there is no use in arguing with someone who does not accept the authority of Christians who have gone before him. The hubris of a modernist protestant attacking the doctrine of real presence and the interpretation of John 6, against the universal interpretation of the fathers is beyond me. I pray that he will be saved - and I mean this in a way that will be soon manifest and not just in an eternal sense. God correct him and all who are in such delusion.
***END-QUOTE***
i) Notice how an initial appeal to the authority of Christians past instantly atrophies into a truncated appeal to the church fathers. So it boils down of a very selective and arbitrary appeal indeed.
ii) To my knowledge, all of the church fathers were also of the firm opinion that every child who died without benefit of baptism was damned. Does Fr. Freeman still believe that? If not, does his doctrinal revisionism reflect the hubris of a modernist in vestments?
***QUOTE***
14. Jonathan Prejean Says:
October 12th, 2005 at 7:35 pm
So the citation of the Church Fathers is more or less irrelevant, since the question is what St. Paul intended to convey by penning those words. Not what God intended to convey, but what St. Paul “under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit” intended to convey.
Of course, that would be an account of Scripture that every one of those millions and billions of Christians (including Luther) would have rejected, so it’s far easier to simply point out that this is not a Christian way of looking at Scripture any more than the Mormon view of Scripture is. If you hold this view of Scripture, then plainly, you don’t believe in the skopos of revelation as acknowledged by Christianity throughout the centuries, which means that your theology isn’t “Christian” except by abuse of language.
***END-QUOTE***
i) Inspiration does not imply omniscience. God does not reveal everything he knows.
Prejean intrudes a false dichotomy between God’s intent and Paul intent. This intrusive dichotomy would defeat the very purpose of inspiration.
ii) The fact that God knows more than Paul, and has a multitude of aims of which Paul is ignorant, is quite irrelevant to the fact that a word or set of words has a finite meaning. The words are vehicles of meaning, finite vehicles. “White” doesn’t mean “black,” “black and white” doesn’t mean “red.” The meaning is confined to the meaning of the words, in their concrete combination and cultural preunderstanding.
***QUOTE***
15. Fr. Glenn Spencer Says:
October 12th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
“The hubris of a modernist protestant attacking the doctrine of real presence and the interpretation of John 6, against the universal interpretation of the fathers is beyond me.”
I agree Father Freeman. The words of institution are powerful: “This is my body…” Of course we live in a day and time when it is considered perfectly reasonable to caste doubt on what the meaning of “is” is.
***END-QUOTE***
i) Oh, but according to Prejean, there is what St. Paul intended “is” to mean, and then there’s what God intended “is” to mean. So the “is-ness” of “is” gets quite convoluted in Prejean’s enigma machine.
ii) Notice that Fr. Glenn doesn’t really take the words of institution at face value. Rather, he mentally substitutes “become” for “is.” On his view, the bread is not the body of Christ: rather, the bread “becomes” the body of Christ, while retaining the outward accidents of bread.
This, again, is what happens when you have an ingrown theological tradition.
***QUOTE***
16. obpoet Says:
October 12th, 2005 at 9:08 pm
I have to admit, as a former Protestant, this teaching has always been difficult, because it cannot be reasoned. It in the end it is a matter of faith, unable to be proven or disproved. No doubt that is how it is meant to be. I see it as a gift from God that I must struggle with this idea for the rest of my life. What a wonderful place to turn our thoughts to again and again.
***END-QUOTE***
One don’t do exegesis by faith; one does it by reason. Faith applies to product of exegesis, not the process.
***QUOTE***
18. Apolonio Says:
October 12th, 2005 at 11:19 pm
First, it seems that Steve Hays has been polemical lately (is it just me?). This just takes my desire to fully interact with what he says. Second, again, I think his approach to scripture is faulty. He says,
“But there are not a few problems with this move. To begin with, it isn’t very sound exegetical method to complete your interpretation of one writer by ransacking another author. This is, frankly, a way of filling in the gaps of an interpretation that goes beyond the textual evidence. You can’t find everything you need in the text before you, so you import some putty to plug the cracks.”
What “exegetical method” he is talking about, I don’t know. Is it historical-critical? Is it spiritual? Is there room for both? How? On and on.
*********************************************
Since I explained what I meant at the time, it’s hard to account for Apolonios’s incomprehension. Continuing:
The Tradition has always been reading Scripture *as a whole* rather than an isolated piece.
**********************************************
i) To begin with, since the normative status of tradition is the very point at issue, Apolonio is begging the question.
ii) His characterization is very simplistic. As a rule, you don’t interpret one writer by another writer unless one writer is writing about another writer—by way of quotations and allusions. Absent specific evidence, you can’t assume that one writer knows what another writer was thinking and writing.
The way to read Scripture as a whole is to interpret each writer on his own terms, consistent with his own usage and citations and allusions and culture and context, as well as taking into consideration his relation to earlier authors. Once you’ve done that, then, and only then, are you in a position to read Scripture as a whole. But the cut-and-paste method whereby you start with a little snippet in John, but unable to find what all you were looking for, flip over to scissor out a little snippet from Paul to “complete” what is missing in John, is a miserable little patch-job which has no basis in what either author intended.
There’s a reason John says as much as he does and no more. There’s a reason Paul says as much as he does and no more.
Continuing:
If we apply his method to say, the doctrine that Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity, how exactly are we going to exegete passages which gives us that doctrine? One might say Matthew 28. But how would we read Jesus as the Second Person of the Trinity in that passage alone (notice also how I speak of Jesus as the *Second* Person)? And does Matthew speak of the Holy Spirit as God? What about the phrase “the Son of God”?
**********************************************************
Once more, the problem of an insular and hidebound theological tradition. If Apolonio read Evangelical scholarship, he’d wouldn’t have to ask that question since he’d know how we do theology.
Where the Trinity is concerned, we simply glean what various authors of Scripture have to say about the persons of the Godhead, and then integrate the data. That is quite different than using one writer as an interpretive grid through which to filter the statements of another.
Continuing:
I don’t find this type of circular reasoning as vicious. Al is warranted in interpreting the Scriptures within the lenses of the Church and Tradition simply because the Church and Tradition are reliable and are guided by the Holy Spirit. Guided by the Holy Spirit, it is truth-aimed, Christocentric. If someone asks, “how do you know they are reliable?” or “how do you know the Holy Spirit is guiding them?”, I think one is justified in avoiding the (internalist) objections. It seems that what I have said is analogous to Thomas Reid’s principle that our faculties are reliable. In fact, William Alston does not hold that epistemic circularity is vicious. In what way is Al’s argument different from the argument Alston presented on epistemic circularity?
**********************************
The problem with this comparison is that it’s disanalogous at the very point where it needs to be analogous. We all have same faculties; we don’t all have the same church. So we don’t have the same universal and indispensable lens in both cases.
BTW, as the critics go, Apolonio is one of my better critics.
***END-QUOTE***
Moving along:
***QUOTE***
22. Brother Quotidian Says:
October 13th, 2005 at 6:33 am
For what it’s worth (probably not much) …
I came to faith in the theological matrix Steve did, at least insofar as its view of the Bible is concerned. I was reared on the views of the Eucharist that he was. I most definately did not read catholic teachers on any subject, especially the Eucharist.
***END-QUOTE***
I wasn’t raised in any particular theological matrix, and the matrices in which I was raise were not hostile to the Real Presence. From early childhood to my upper teens, I first attended a Lutheran church, then a Presbyterian church, then a Methodist church. After that I was old enough to strike out on my own.
***QUOTE***
23. Petra Says:
October 13th, 2005 at 7:52 am
What has always boggled my mind is the way evangelical Protestants read Jn 6 and then say: “There is no proof whatsoever that He is talking about the Eucharist (or whatever they call it) in this passage.”
I mean, Jesus keeps talking here about the necessity of eating His body and drinking His blood for about half a page, calling His body the Bread of Life several times, insisting on its importance etc.; all the way undeterred by questioning listeners and incredulous disciples, some of which even leave Him after this speech.
I mean, WHAT ON EARTH do Evangelicals (who absolutely LOVE talking about “the plain sense of Scripture” in other contexts) think He is reffering to? His mother’s cooking????
By the way, I’ve developed a new definition for evangelical Protestantism some time ago:
“To read Genesis 1-3 literally and ALL sayings of Jesus figuratively.”
***END-QUOTE***
i) There many similar epithets applied to Christ in the Fourth Gospel: he’s the lamb of God, the light of the world, the true vine, the door, the good shepherd. Does Petra intend to reify these other metaphors as well? Is the front door into his church the true body and blood of Christ?
What about the vine? Notice that Jesus doesn’t just call himself a vine. He adds an adjective: he is the “true” vine or “real” vine.
ii) The Bread of Life Discourse wasn’t addressed to Christians: it was addressed to Jews. The Eucharist hadn’t even been instituted at the time Jesus was speaking to the Jews. You can’t have the Lord’s Supper before the Last Supper, now can you?
How would if be sinful for his audience to disbelieve him if they couldn’t know what he was talking about? If he was talking about the Eucharist, they’d be in no position to know that. So in what sense, on a sacramental reading of Jn 6, is their disbelief culpable? The Eucharist didn’t exist at that time.
This, again, is the sort of thing that happens when your liturgical practice preconditions and overrides your reading of Scripture. You stop asking elementary questions like: When was this said? To whom was it said?
Finally, I wish to end on a more general note. The appeal to what billions of Catholics have believed for two thousand years is simply bogus.
For one thing, widespread literacy and the widespread availability of affordable reading materials is really quite recent—dating to around the 18C or so. So to say that billions of Catholics have always read Jn 6 eucharistically is historically false, and by a simply huge margin of error.
Billions of Catholics over the centuries have not read Jn 6 that way because billions of Catholics over the centuries have not read Jn 6 at all.
But, for the sake of argument, let us stipulate to this claim. Now, by any reckoning, the Catholic church has an unrivalled talent pool. Sheer numbers alone guarantee as much.
Now, if I gave several billion Catholics two thousand years to come up with an argument for the Real Presence, it’s quite something that this is the best they’d have to show for it: “we believe it cuz we believe it. You should believe it cuz we believe it too.”
“We believe in burning widows because our parents believed in burning widows, and their parents, and their grandparents, for as far back as anyone can remember.
“And if that weren’t proof enough, we’ve got the guidance of our ancestral spirits. Just ask the local Shaman.”
“Then here you come along, what with your new-fangled notions and modernistic airs and go spitting in the face of our widow-burning elders and betters! How arrogant! How hubristic!”
I might as well be debating with a witchdoctor over the intellectual merits of suttee.
With respect to Mr. Prejean's question: “On what basis does he decide that his interpretation of Scripture is superior to the interpretation of the Church? By his private judgment. This, and this alone, is the ground of his conviction.”
ReplyDeleteWell, the problem underlying the presupposition of this question is that there is rarely, if ever, any such "interpretation of the Church." Your own authorities dispute your presupposition...
Raymond E. Brown - Roman Catholics who appeal explicitly to Spirit-guided church teaching are often unaware that their church has seldom if ever definitively pronounced on the literal meaning of a passage of Scripture, i.e., what the author meant when he wrote it. Most often the church has commented on the on-going meaning of Scripture by resisting the claims of those who would reject established practices or beliefs as unbiblical. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997), p. 31.
Maurice Bévenot, S.J. - But very few indeed are the Scripture texts of which the Church authorities have defined the meaning, and even there, their intervention has generally been to say what Scripture does not mean, otherwise leaving open what it does. See his chapter “Scripture and Tradition in Catholic Theology” in F.F. Bruce and E.G. Rupp, eds., Holy Book and Holy Tradition (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), p. 181.
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J. - When one hears today the call for a return to a patristic interpretation of Scripture, there is often latent in it a recollection of Church documents that spoke at times of the ‘unanimous consent of the Fathers’ as the guide for biblical interpretation.(fn. 23) But just what this would entail is far from clear. For, as already mentioned, there were Church Fathers who did use a form of the historical-critical method, suited to their own day, and advocated a literal interpretation of Scripture, not the allegorical. But not all did so. Yet there was no uniform or monolithic patristic interpretation, either in the Greek Church of the East, Alexandrian or Antiochene, or in the Latin Church of the West. No one can ever tell us where such a “unanimous consent of the fathers” is to be found, and Pius XII finally thought it pertinent to call attention to the fact that there are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, “nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the Holy Fathers is unanimous.” (fn. 24) Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Scripture, The Soul of Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), p. 70.
Johann Adam Möhler: Except in the explanation of a very few classical passages, we know not where we shall meet with a general uniformity of Scriptural interpretation among the fathers, further than that all deduce from the sacred writings, the same doctrines of faith and morality, yet each in his own peculiar manner; so that some remain for all times distinguished models of Scriptural exposition, others rise not above mediocrity, while others again are, merely by their good intentions and love for the Saviour, entitled to veneration. Johann Adam Möhler, Symbolism: Exposition of the Doctorinal Differences between Catholics and Protestants as evidenced by their Symbolical Writings, trans. James Burton Robertson (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997), pp. 301-302.
Catholic Encyclopedia: (a) Defined Texts.—The Catholic commentator is bound to adhere to the interpretation of texts which the Church has defined either expressly or implicitly. The number of these texts is small, so that the commentator can easily avoid any transgression of this principle. Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. V, Exegesis (New York: The Encyclopedia Press, Inc., 1913), p. 699, 2nd column.
Thus the underlying presupposition of Mr. Prejean's question is farce. The presumed official Roman interpretation of Scripture, for all practical purposes, doesn't exist. In other words, that dog, as placed in the woods by Roman apologists, won't hunt.
Anti-theism presupposes theism (as Van Til said) and Catholicism presupposes Protestantism!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, doesn't the fallible Prejean interpret what his Church says is a particular position or doctrinal teaching? The Church may teach X but how can Prejean be certain that what he takes to be X isn't really Y, afterall, he had to read X through his subjective and fallible grid. The Church's teachings must still go through Prejean's fallen and fallible mind. Can he ever know for sure that he has interpreted what he takes to be the Church's teaching on a particular subject, correctly? Or, does he think that only when one reads the Bible (and not the councils) one is in danger of judging it by his private judgment?
I maintaion that Prejean's theological foundationalism suffers from the infinite regress that foundationsalists attemtped to avoid. The argument goes like this: Prejean's interpretation of the Bible and theological truths must be, in order to be objective, founded upon the interpreation of the Church. Well, what of *THIS* theological truth and Prejeans interpretation of it? The Church must interpreat this for him. But that gives us a new theological truth to understand (the new interpreation used to back up the first one). SO in order to interpet it Prejean needs the Church to. But now he has a new theological truth, ad infinitum...
Paul:
ReplyDeleteYou seem like a thoughtful guy, and your only mistake was trusting David King as an interpreter of my view. In point of fact, my view has absolutely nothing to do with the ham-handed caricature that Pastor King presented of it. You'll note, for example, that the question that he attributed to me was one that I quoted from someone else, and that my own response was actually an ironic jab at the rather perverse (and Protestant) view of what "private judgment" actually is. For some reason, oddly enough, Protestants seem quite incapable of comprehending that "private judgment" is not an epistemological category, but an ontological one.
"Private judgment" does not refer to the independent exercise of one's faculties; everyone must do that to some extent or another. Nor does it refer to the basis of one's subjective certainty, which everyone also determines individually. Rather, and quite simply, it refers to the question of whether right belief is a mental state derived from Scripture based on interpreting Scripture with a correctly disposed heart. A Catholic would assert that such a claim absolutely disqualifies someone from even being an interpreter of Scripture, because it necessarily posits an autonomous basis for interpretation apart from the ontological Body of Christ. Properly speaking, the accusation of "private judgment" is a transcendental argument for the ontological inadequacy of any attempt to derive tenets of faith from Scripture. That doesn't mean that arguments can't be made from Scripture in a fashion that resembles those of Protestants, but they merely attempt to exploit the truth that is already (inconsistently) held by such people to destroy their inadequate worldviews.
Where Catholic and Orthodox Christians sharply differ from Van Tilians is on the question of the One and the Many and its implications for the necessity of grace. The universal answer of both East and West to that question has been in the Platonic concept of participation given its fullest explanation in Pseudo-Dionysius, as outlined by Eric Perl in his dissertation _Methexis: Creation, Incarnation, and Deification in St. Maximus Confessor_. The Western gloss on the question is most clearly perceived in St. Augustine's _On Christian Doctrine_ and summarized brilliantly in St. Bonaventure's _Itinerarium_. Another source is Jean-Luc Marion's _God without Being_, but take some care about matters on which he has been subsequently corrected, particularly in attributing certain views to St. Thomas that more appropriately belong to Cajetan or Suarez.
The bottom line is that the Body of Christ is ontologically identifiable with the Church itself, and the recognition of the revealed Christ is identical with this identification, so that any attempt to interpret Scripture outside the regula fidei of the Church is a nullity. The ontological ground of faith is the reality of the risen Christ in its full implications and significance (which the Eastern Fathers called the "skopos" of Scripture, and St. Irenaeus called the "regula fidei"): the dependence of creation on the Creator, the transcendence of the Creator, the significance of the Incarnation, and the resultant effectiveness of salvation. If one denies the _skopos_ in any part (as heretics do), one does not acknowledge the Christian faith, and therefore, one has no adequate basis for Scriptural interpretation. What allows the very freedom of interpretation described above is the commonality of the _skopos_, the acknowledgment of the Word Incarnate for our salvation.
If you have further interest in the subject of authentic Christian hermeneutics based on the _skopos_ of revelation, I recommend the following in addition to the works I cited above:
Frances Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture
Steven A. McKinion, Words, Imagery, and the Mystery of Christ: A Reconstruction of Cyril of Alexandria's Christology
Daniel A. Keating, The Appropriation of Divine Life in Cyril of Alexandria
Jaroslav Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism
But I entirely agree with you: the ontological inadequacy of the ground of one's worldview is a serious problem. The only question is whether Protestants will allow themselves to realize that the faith in human language as an "image" of divine communication (by application of J.L. Austin's speech-action theory and the so-called "accommodation" of God to human language) is entirely inadequate for that purpose. The absurd anthropomorphism required to picture the members of the Trinity actually speaking to one another is an obvious clue, but one that seems to have escaped all but the most subtle of presuppositional apologists. See, e.g.,
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/vantil-list/archive-Jan-2003/msg00053.html
God bless you in your quest.
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan, though I wasn't on a "quest" I'm not one a quest to get at what you're saying.
ReplyDeleteYou said: "The bottom line is that the Body of Christ is ontologically identifiable with the Church itself, and the recognition of the revealed Christ is identical with this identification, so that any attempt to interpret Scripture outside the regula fidei of the Church is a nullity."
I don't know what this means that the "B"ody (why the capitalization?) of Christ is "ontologically identifiable" with the Church. Do you mean the physical body? What about the body that I/you am/are a member of (or, if I am not since I may be a heretic, then you're a part of the body), and so if you're not in on the decision then is the *body* not in on the decision? So, this is not at all clear here. Is it the physical body, or the body that you're a member of. If the former, I don't get this. How is a physical body with location, *ontologically* identifiable with an abstract entity, i.e., "the Church?" If the latter, then if you are not in on the council's interpretation then how can it be said that the *BODY* was in on the interpretation? Should not you say that *part* of the body is in on the interpretation?
Furthermore, what is "the Chruch?" Is Christ's body ontologically identified with "the Church" made up of both the damned and the saved? Or is it identified with those who are saved (visible/invisible)?
Also, I'd like to know how you know for certain that you've interpreted what you've read correctly? You didn't just make this stuff up, right? Your view comes from "the Church," right? Certainly people have disagreed about what "the Church" has meant on a certain topics (Abelard's sic et non comes to mind) and so on what basis do you say that you've properly understood what the Church is teaching or saying? We could ask: On what basis does he decide that his interpretation of the Church's interpretation is superior to the interpretation of hsi neighbor? By his private judgment. This, and this alone, is the ground of his conviction.”
"I don't know what this means that the 'B'ody (why the capitalization?) of Christ is 'ontologically identifiable' with the Church. Do you mean the physical body?"
ReplyDeleteNo, I mean (hypostatically) the actions of the entity are identifiable with the actions of Christ in a systematic way (e.g., the Liturgy is actually Christ doing something). Consequently, the authority of the entity is identifiable with the authority of Christ. When the Church acts qua Christ, the authority is identical with Christ's. To the extent I act as Christ, I am part of the same Body. This is the concept of synergism that pervades all of Scripture; humans can act in a way that is truly God's act. The notion of Catholic authority is that one's judgment qua individual must necessarily concede to the Church's judgment qua Christ, and in that judgment qua Christ, there must be an essential sameness (because Christ is not divided against Himself).
"Furthermore, what is 'the Chruch?' Is Christ's body ontologically identified with 'the Church' made up of both the damned and the saved? Or is it identified with those who are saved (visible/invisible)?"
Neither. It's identified with individuals insofar as they are acting as Christ. The ontological question is whether it is the person or Christ living in the person. Whoever acts as Christ is the Church in that respect. Obviously, in the eschaton, we are fixed in our personal mode of living, and thus, we are either in Christ or not, but in the interim, there is some of column A and some of column B.
"Also, I'd like to know how you know for certain that you've interpreted what you've read correctly? You didn't just make this stuff up, right?"
True.
"Certainly people have disagreed about what 'the Church' has meant on a certain topics (Abelard's sic et non comes to mind) and so on what basis do you say that you've properly understood what the Church is teaching or saying?"
On the same basis that I think that I've properly understood what anyone ordinarily says. Reasons, logic, experience, and the like. I suppose the degree of certainty or confidence that I have in it would be attributable to faith, but I suspect that I would have sufficient reason for the viability of the position even if I weren't.
As such, I consider it highly improbable, considering Who is revealed, that God would reveal Himself through text. He could do so, no doubt, but it would be a bit perverse from a presuppositional standpoint to reveal something by a method that by definition is inadequate to the task, rather like Picasso attempting to convey his artistic vision in a typed page. Requiring that much direct intervention, that much identification between the individual's volition and the Holy Spirit, strikes me as little better than appealing to private revelation. Rather than positing such a thoroughly inadequate means of revelation supplemented by such drastic intervention, I would think that it would be far more aesthetic to conclude that God did not Incarnate Himself meaninglessly, and that His ongoing revelation is (ontologically) of one kind with His Incarnation. This leads to a fundamentally Christological and Eucharistic hermeneutic, unique to Scripture. Hence, the distaste for "private judgment," which more or less presumes a presuppositionally inadequate form of revelation that must be supplemented by God's direct personal revelation of Himself.
Before I move on, if I could trouble you for one more explanation:
ReplyDelete" It's identified with individuals insofar as they are acting as Christ"
How do we know what it is to "act as Christ?" How did we learn how to "act as Christ?" Do we have to perfectly "act as Christ?" If so, how can one do this? If not, did you rather mean that the Church and, thus, the interpreters, "act as Christ".... kindof?
"How do we know what it is to 'act as Christ?'"
ReplyDeleteSame way we know anything: reasons, logic, experience, etc. You live, and you make judgments. The Christian answer is that we know by virtue of God creating us to know.
"How did we learn how to 'act as Christ?'"
In the fullest sense, by those acting as Christ in the teaching office. Partially, through the sources that I identified above. We instinctively have some grasp of goodness, even though being motivated by love of God eludes us.
"Do we have to perfectly 'act as Christ?' If so, how can one do this?"
In the individual case, there is not even a possibility of imperfection; something is either Christ's act or not. To suggest that we could imperfectly act as Christ is to say that Christ can act imperfectly, which is nonsense. Obviously, if Christ can truly live and work in us (Gal. 2:20, Phil. 2:13), then we must be able to act perfectly, and in fact, to the extent we are not acting as Christ, we are truly not acting at all (Jas. 1:13-17, John 15:5, 1 Cor. 4:7 and 15:10, 2 Cor. 3:5). In the sense of *always* acting perfectly, that is equally impossible on account of creaturely finitude. Being God solely by participation rather than by nature, the divine initiative is a prerequsite to any action we take as Christ. Of course, one must understand these things correctly on account of them being revealed by Christ before you can even interpret Scripture correctly, as I have done above.
My point is that someone who doesn't even *claim* to be acting as Christ in the teaching role clearly isn't, which means that either you're appealing to direct unmediated revelation from God Himself (pretty implausible, I'd say), hence "private judgement," or you're admitting that what you believe was not revealed to you by Christ.
"Same way we know anything: reasons, logic, experience, etc. You live, and you make judgments. The Christian answer is that we know by virtue of God creating us to know."
ReplyDeleteThis is odd? We know how to act like Christ by "reasons, logic, experience, etc" and it is the "Same way we know anything." Well, if it is the same we know anything then since I know some things by induction then we know how to "act like Christ" by inductive reasoning. Since inductive reasoning cannot yeild certainty then in some (at least) instances you cannot be certain the those who interpret the Bible (the Church) is acting like Christ.
Furthermore, what does it mean to say that we know how to "act like Christ" by "etc?"
Experience, likewise, is not universal and immune from revision and infalible, then you have another area where you and those who interpret the Bible, don't know for certain that they are "acting like Christ" and so you and they don't know if they should (or have done so correctly) interpret the Bible.
As far as knowing how to "act like Christ" from "logic" I'd have to see what you mean by this. You would at least need to have specific premises in your syllogisms and those premises are only to be found in Scripture. Therefore you have to presuppose that you're acting like Christ in order to know how to act like Him from logic, i.e., you beg the question.
Reasons, is likewise very vague.
"In the fullest sense, by those acting as Christ in the teaching office. Partially, through the sources that I identified above. We instinctively have some grasp of goodness, even though being motivated by love of God eludes us."
But they would have to be "acting like Christ" in order for them to interpret the Bible. You said only those who "act like Christ" are the Church and only the Church can authoratatively tell us what the Bible says. So, how can one know what it is to act like Christ (since we only know how he acted from Scripture) if only those who act like Christ can interpret the scripture. This is very fishy.
"In the individual case, there is not even a possibility of imperfection; something is either Christ's act or not. To suggest that we could imperfectly act as Christ is to say that Christ can act imperfectly, which is nonsense."
And so if I can show that you never act perfectly your argument will be dead.
"Obviously, if Christ can truly live and work in us (Gal. 2:20, Phil. 2:13), then we must be able to act perfectly, and in fact, to the extent we are not acting as Christ, we are truly not acting at all (Jas. 1:13-17, John 15:5, 1 Cor. 4:7 and 15:10, 2 Cor. 3:5)."
First off, your ability to properly interpret any verse is in question. Secondly, God may accept our works as perfect as looked upon Christ's work. But those works are still imperfect since they are done by you. You can never say that you've done something perfect
"JOB 9:20 If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse."
1JO 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
ROM 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
PHI 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
GAL 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
1PE 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.
ROM 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
"Well, if it is the same we know anything then since I know some things by induction then we know how to 'act like Christ' by inductive reasoning. Since inductive reasoning cannot yeild certainty then in some (at least) instances you cannot be certain the those who interpret the Bible (the Church) is acting like Christ."
ReplyDeleteThat's being pretty obtuse, and if you're serious, I suggest that you abandon the rhetoric. Clearly, knowledge is not tied to inductive reasoning, because we know plenty of things that we can't induce. With most reasonably complex issues, it's a complex process, as it is with Christianity.
"Furthermore, what does it mean to say that we know how to "act like Christ" by 'etc?'"
It means that we can't possibly enumerate every factor that contributes to a belief. It's nonsense to think that one's beliefs about any non-trivial subject are formed in that way. But I notice that you've substituted "like" for "as," which means you're using exactly the language of private judgment. I'm not talking about similarlity or analogy; I'm talking about ontological identity. The action IS God's; it is not LIKE God's. If you claim to be Christ-like, then you aren't even advancing a cognizable claim of truth by my lights.
"Experience, likewise, is not universal and immune from revision and infalible, then you have another area where you and those who interpret the Bible, don't know for certain that they are 'acting like Christ' and so you and they don't know if they should (or have done so correctly) interpret the Bible."
And? People know nothing for "certain" in that regard, unless they happen to be omniscient, something that I reject as a possibility. Certainty is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for true knowledge.
"As far as knowing how to 'act like Christ' from 'logic; I'd have to see what you mean by this. You would at least need to have specific premises in your syllogisms and those premises are only to be found in Scripture."
That's ridiculous. If you really believe that, then you might as well just pack it in on trying to convince any reasonable person of your position.
"Therefore you have to presuppose that you're acting like Christ in order to know how to act like Him from logic, i.e., you beg the question."
Now you're confusing ontology with epistemology in addition to confusing identity with analogy. My beliefs about the ontological reality are formed in the same way that I form any of my beliefs about ontological reality. My point is that based on sheer logic, a claim of analogy to Christ, or applying revelation by analogy, is insufficient. One must claim identity, or one claims nothing. I can reject a logically insufficient claim in reality on its face regardless of whether I have any independent way of verifying its falsity.
"Reasons, is likewise very vague."
And detail would take days. We have to recognize limitations here.
"But they would have to be "acting like Christ" in order for them to interpret the Bible. You said only those who "act like Christ" are the Church and only the Church can authoratatively tell us what the Bible says. So, how can one know what it is to act like Christ (since we only know how he acted from Scripture) if only those who act like Christ can interpret the scripture. This is very fishy."
That's because you're not listening. I say that acting AS Christ is a logical prerequisite for what someone says being revelatory. If someone denies acting AS Christ, then he denies his own authority to teach, period.
"And so if I can show that you never act perfectly your argument will be dead."
No, you'd have to show that Christ can't act perfectly. That's a rather large gap.
"First off, your ability to properly interpret any verse is in question. Secondly, God may accept our works as perfect as looked upon Christ's work. But those works are still imperfect since they are done by you. You can never say that you've done something perfect."
But I don't claim that I'm acting perfectly. I claim that Christ is acting perfectly. Your verses apply to people generally, not to individual acts. Again, you can't seem to grasp that this is about act and not class of person.