The one who is to come

Posted on behalf of Steve Hays

Joseph Fitzmyer has published a book on messianic prophecy.¹ Oddly enough, this is published by a nominally Protestant publisher rather than a Catholic publisher. Was no Catholic publishing house prepared to go to press with his work? Is the assumption that only Protestant readers would take an interest in messianic prophecy?

The work is what we’ve come to expect of Fitzmyer. Fitzmyer is a learned liberal with a magisterial command of the primary sources. He has also made an effort, in this work, to acquaint himself with some of the conservative Evangelical scholarship on messianic prophecy. Unfortunately, he overlooks the best evangelical writers on the subject.²

In certain respects, the book is useful as a supplementary study to messianic prophecy. At times it is helpful for its philological analysis, survey of the Biblical and extrabiblical literature (e.g. Intertestamental, Talmudic), as well as comparative analysis of the MT and LXX.

However, the work suffers from a number of basic methodological flaws which severely and arbitrarily muzzle the OT witness to the messianic expectation.

1. Perhaps the most fundamental methodological flaw in his analysis is his myopic focus on the occurrence of the word Messiah (in Hebrew and its Greek translational counterparts in the LXX and NT).
   
   The basic problem here is that he is confounding the meaning of a word with the meaning of a concept. But the Messiah is a complex theological construct, involving many different attributes and lines of evidence. The Messiah is a generic title to denote an individual with a variety of traits and prerogatives. The messianic concept is by no means exhausted by the usage of the word or title.
   
   Now, in fairness to Fitzmyer, this is not an unconscious oversight on his part. His restriction is quite deliberate:
   
   

   Mowinckel himself admits at the outset that “’Messiah,’ ‘the Anointed One,’ as a title or technical term for the king of the final age, does not even occur in the Old Testament,” but then he goes on to use it in a broader sense at times, which creates difficulty. In doing so, Mowinckel claims to be adopting “early Church” usage, but he then anachronistically reads back into certain Old Testament passages Christian “messianic” meanings. Thus, he fails to respect the history of ideas and the proper delineation of how the notion of a promised Coming One, even an Anointed One, gradually developed into that of a Messiah as an expected anointed “King of the final age.” As a result, the terms “Messiah,” “messianic,” and “messianism” have been given a rubber-band comprehension, so that even “the Servant of the Lord” and “the Son of Man” are said to be “messianic” figures in Judaism.³
   
   Let it be said at the outset that I have no difficulty in imitating “early Church” usage and in seeing Jesus of Nazareth as “the Son of Man,” “the Servant of the Lord,” and even as “the suffering Messiah,” because New Testament writers have predicated all these titles of him, sometimes distinctively and sometimes in conjunction with others, so that they all become titles of him who is for Christians “the Messiah.” Hence, in Christian usage, “Son of Man,” “Son of God,” and “Servant of the Lord” can be called messianic titles. The problem, however, is whether such titles were used in a “messianic” sense in pre-Christian Judaism, in the Old Testament or in other pre-Christian Jewish writings.⁴
   
   One has to respect, however, the historical development within the Old Testament itself and not anachronistically use the later term to describe passages that may only be building toward such an emergence. One cannot foist a later Christian meaning on a passage that was supposed to have a distinctive religious sense in guiding the Jewish people of old.⁵
   
   A Christian interpreter of the Old Testament should be able to agree with a contemporary Jewish interpreter of the Hebrew Scriptures on the literal meaning of a given passage, even one mentioning masiah, or one related to such a concept, before the Christian invokes his or her canonical meaning…For the Christian canonical sense of the Old Testament is a “plus,” a sense added to the literal meaning of the Old Testament.⁶
   
   It is important, however, to note this meaning of the terms “Messiah” and “messianic,” since in the rest of my discussion it will be used in this strict and narrow sense, of an awaited for future anointed agent of God. I emphasize this narrow meaning because there have been and are many attempts to use “Messiah” and “messianic” in a broad sense, which enables one to use diverse promises of a coming or eschatological salvation, redemption, or deliverance of people in the Old Testament as part of its messianic teaching. The broad sense is found at times even in the writings of other Jewish scholars.⁷
   
   All of this reveals, however, how in modern discussions “messianism” or “the messianic idea” has become a “rubber-band concept” that is made to embrace far more than “Messiah” was ever meant to denote when it first emerged and gradually developed in Palestinian Judaism in pre-Christian times…this extension is often made by Christian writers, who may begin with the correct understanding of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah but, in using hindsight, impose, perhaps subconsciously, on various passages of their Old Testament a meaning that has developed only with the emergence of Christianity and its way of reading the Hebrew Scriptures.⁸

   
   
   Here he’s raising intricate and perennial issues over the apostolic exegesis, the interrelation of the Testaments, and the meaning of meaning. But his own position is, in many respects, intellectually confused, contradictory, and hermeneutically naïve.
   
   It is quite true that we need to guard against anachronistic interpretations. But what, exactly, does that mean?



2. Ordinarily, an author writes to be understood by his audience. So, as a rule, we should avoid an interpretation that runs contrary to what the target audience or implied reader could have understood. A classic case would be an interpretation that relies on later knowledge unavailable to the original audience.
   
   However, we must also make allowance for the literary genre of the writing or speech-act. For example, the OT punctuated by oracles of judgment and salvation.
   
   Now, in the nature of the case, a prophecy is future-oriented. Its fulfillment lies in the future, not the present. Although the timing of the utterance is contemporaneous with the immediate audience, the timing of the fulfillment lies in the future—even the distant future. Its realization may not occur until long after the original audience is dead. So the present perspective of the original audience is inadequate to supply the complete, interpretive framework.
   
   Therefore, the interpretation of a prophecy as fulfilled prophecy is inherently dependent on future information. On information which may well be inaccessible to the author or his target audience.
   
   So given that the genre of prophecy and typology is, by definition, future-oriented, it is not anachronistic to interpret a prophecy with the benefit of hindsight. The fulfillment completes the prophecy, for the prophecy involves an internal relation between the past and the future. Although prophecy is prospective, the interpretation of prophecy is—of necessity—retrospective, since the fulfillment is after the fact.



3. Pace Fitzmyer, this doesn’t mean that we read a surplus meaning into the oracle. In principle, the oracle, as originally framed, gives us enough information to recognize its fulfillment. The fulfillment doesn’t add to the meaning. Rather, fulfillment adds the concrete, historical referent.
   
   In general, a prophet doesn’t know how, when, or by whom a prophecy will be fulfilled. What a prophet gives us is a partial job description.



4. What would be anachronistic? It would be anachronistic to invest earlier, ordinary, generic usage with a later, more developed, technical or specialized import. This is a question of lexical semantics. The meaning of words.
   
   It would also be anachronistic to read the entire messianic concept back into any particular, OT type or prophecy. For example, in OT expectation the Messiah plays more than one role. He is both a suffering servant and a conquering hero. One wouldn’t read the warrior motif into passages dealing with the suffering motif or vice versa. Each passage is allowed to make its distinctive contribution to the constellation of messianic attributes.
   
   But although we don’t read the whole messianic construct back into any particular verse or passage, there’s nothing wrong in reading those verses with a view to where they’re heading. Of how they contribute to the whole.
   
   Indeed, it’s unclear from Fitzmyer’s atomistic approach how it would even be possible to trace or retrace the thematic unfolding and eventual convergence of various messianic motifs as they culminate in the NT. He methodology compartmentalized that it would be difficult if not impossible to chart a trajectory or trend.



5. Moreover, there are many messianic candidates who might seem to fulfill a particular messianic motif. What would distinguish the true heir to the messianic promises from the pretenders is precisely the degree to which all of the messianic promises are fulfilled in his person and work. So the complete theological construct is directly germane to the true identity and historic arrival of the Messiah. That is how you know when The One Who Is to Come is The One Who Has Come.



6. Furthermore, typology is an intra-Testamental feature as well as an inter-Testamental feature. For example, you already have a new Eden motif as well as a new Exodus motif in the later OT writers. So it’s not as if NT typology is alien to the OT perspective.



7. Fitzmyer also sidesteps the question of context. Where does the context begin and end?
   
   For example, do we construe each verse in isolation, or do we treat the Bible, or subsections thereof, as a literary unit? Put another way, are certain verses forward-looking—as well as backward-looking? Clearly, many of the later OT passages—as well as NT passages—allude to earlier OT passages. But does this process also work in reverse? Are some early verses written with later verses in mind?
   
   Take the famous oracle in Isa 7:14. Should we construe this text in splendid isolation? Or should we view this through the telescopic lens of a larger literary unit, comprising Isa 7:1-11:16?⁹
   
   Likewise, do we treat Gen 3:15 in isolation, or do we treat the Pentateuch as a literary unit, and therefore construe Gen 3:15 as the first step in a seminal theme that threads its way through the patriarchal period and beyond?¹⁰
   
   This is not a value-free question. For it’s bound up with higher critical questions regarding inspiration and authorship. An atheist will give a different answer than a Christian. But from the viewpoint of the OT writers, prophecy and providence were genuine phenomena. It would not be anachronistic, from their perspective, to view later events with the benefit of hindsight. God makes promises, and God keeps promises.
   
   Ironically, it’s liberals like Fitzmyer, with their secular historiography, who easily succumb to anachronistic interpretations. Because they don’t believe in genuine prophecy or typology, they reinterpret the Bible consistent with their closed-system viewpoint. Even if they don’t subscribe to metaphysical naturalism, they operate with methodological naturalism in their version of Biblical hermeneutics, following the lead of Troeltsch.¹¹



8. Fitzmyer also erects an artificial disjunction between “Christian” and “Jewish” interpretation. For him, the NT interpretation of the OT represents a Christian interpretation as over against a Jewish interpretation, and—by his yardstick—that makes the NT interpretation of the OT anachronistic. Needless to say, this also squelches a major witness to the content and character of the messianic expectation.
   
   But what is actually anachronistic is his classification scheme. Clearly the NT writers didn’t perceives themselves anything other than Jews. Indeed, they regarded their interpretation of the OT as more authentically Jewish than the religious establishment, when it seditiously repudiated the messianic claims of Jesus.



9. Fitzmyer’s review of Intertestamental is useful in filling in, to some degree, the pre-Christian Jewish expectation. At the same time, this material is rather spotty.



10. But the citation of this material can also be misleading. For the implication is that any interpretation of OT messianism at variance with traditional assumptions and expectations is anachronistic and tendentious.
    
    And yet modern commentators don’t believe that they are bound to construe the OT the way Philo, Josephus or the Talmud interpret the OT.
    
    This is even true of modern Jewish scholars. Modern Jewish scholars make use of Bible archaeology. Jewish scholars like Frank Kermode, Robert Alter, and Meir Sternberg apply the techniques of secular literary criticism to the narrative theology of the OT.
    
    So even if a Christian scholar were to find more messianism in the OT than one can document from extrabiblical Jewish sources of that period, this doesn’t necessarily mean that he is foisting a Christian gloss onto the OT. To the contrary, he is doing nothing in principle which modern scholars don’t do as a matter of routine, since it’s quite possible for a modern scholar to understand parts of the OT better than a 1C rabbi.



11. It is also quite blinkered of Fitzmyer to insist that:
    
    

    a Christian interpreter of the Old Testament should be able to agree with a contemporary Jewish interpreter of the Hebrew Scriptures on the literal meaning of a given passage, even one mentioning masiah, or one related to such a concept.

    
    
    For that begs the question of whether an OT passage is open to the NT, or self-contained within the enclosure of the OT. Is the OT going anywhere? Does an OT passage have any directionality?
    
    If, indeed, various OT passages are prepositioned to terminate on the advent of Jesus, then a Christian interpreter cannot agree with a Jewish interpreter on the overall meaning of various OT passages inasmuch the historical referent is supplied by the NT. If these passages are forward-leaning, and if they find their terminus in the person and work of Jesus, then the Jewish interpretation will misinterpret the passages in question by short-circuiting their historical aim.



12. Another artificial disjunction lies in his dichotomy between Jewish and Christian interpreters. But this leaves out of account modern Messianic Jews like Michael Brown.¹²



13. There are also times when his commitment to the historical-critical method predetermines the conclusion. When he dates Daniel to the 2C rather than the 6C, then, by definition, this is a late witness to OT messianism. But that conclusion is an artifact of his liberal dating scheme—as well as his narrow definition of messianism.
    
    In general, though, his liberalism makes less difference to his analysis than you might anticipate, for the reason he rules out so many messianic prophecies, traditionally considered, is not due to his dating scheme, but to his truncated definition of what constitutes a messianic prophecy. Put another way, it has less to do with the definition of a messianic prophecy, than with a messianic prophecy. The sample group is largely confined to that particular word-group.

¹ The One Who Is to Come (Eerdmans 2007).

² Cf. T. D. Alexander, “Messianic Ideology in the Book of Genesis,” P., E. Satterthwaite et al. eds. The Lord’s Anointed: Interpretation of Old Testament Texts (Baker 1995), 19-39; The Servant King (Regent College 2003); J. A. Motyer, Look to the Rock (Kregel 2004); “Messiah,” The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 2:987-94; J. Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative (Zondervan 1992); http://www.etsjets.org/jets/journal/44/44-1/44-1-PP005-024_JETS.pdf

³ Ibid. viii.

⁴ Ibid. viii.

⁵ Ibid. viii-ix.

⁶ Ibid. ix.

⁷ Ibid. 4. In which connection, he mentions Joseph Klausner’s The Messianic Idea in Israel.

⁸ Ibid. 6.

⁹ J. A. Motyer, The Context and Content in the Interpretation of Isaiah 7:14,” TynB 21 (1970), 118-25.

¹⁰ T. D. Alexander, Genealogies, Seed and the Compositional Unity of Genesis,” TynB 44 (1993), 255-70; Further Observations on the Term “Seed” in Genesis,” TynB 48.2 (1997), 363-68.

¹¹ Cf. I. Provan, “In the Stable with the Dwarves: “Testimony, Interpretation, Faith, and the History of Israel,” V. Long et al. eds. Windows into Old Testament History (Eerdmans 2002), 161-97.

¹² M. L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus (Baker 2000-2007); cf. E. V. Snow, A Zeal For God Not According to Knowledge (iUniverse, Inc, 2005).

Uncle Davy's Flea Market

I see that dear old Dave retreated in record time, covering his tracks in a flurry of choice adjectives:

http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2007/07/steve-hays-sophist-extraordinaire.html

That's fine. One less thing for me to waste my time on.

And why does he think I'd want to "dialogue" with him? Armstrong is not, and never was, an official spokesman for the Church of Rome.

Dave runs a roadside flea-market for old sofas with rusty springs poking through the upholstery and B&W TVs with vacuum tubes and rabbit ears. His arguments go back to Bellarmine, dumbed down by Frank Sheed and repackaged by Dave Armstrong.

Oh, I forgot to mention his miracle water hot tubs. I take it that Peter Popoff is his business partner.

But even though Armstrong was unable to offer a substantive reply, some of his commenters did make the effort.

“Scripture is very clear successors are not self appointed (unlike protestantism) and that this anointing carries the authority and power of the Apostles themselves, see Acts 8 with Peter and John for example.”

Nick | 07.10.07 - 6:06 pm | #

i) So Nick thinks that Acts 8 was an ordination ceremony? That’s a very creative interpretation. Unfortunately for him, it’s a bit too much of a good thing. For in that event, the Pope has a surfeit of rivals who may legitimately lay claim to apostolic succession.

Remember, as Nick himself points out, that the Samaritans were ordained (his interpretation) by St. Peter (as well as St. John). So the Samaritans were successors to St. Peter. Therefore, Samaria, rather than Rome, has a far more direct claim to be the See of St. Peter.

ii) And that’s not all. Acts 8 is simply an extension of Acts 2. So, consistent with Nick’s interpretation, we must also treat Pentecost as a mass ordination ceremony. Hence, Jerusalem, rather than Rome, has a far more direct claim to be the See of St. Peter.

iii) Notice, moreover, the universality of the promise (2:17-18,38-39). So, if we, according to Nick’s reasoning, equate the gift of the Spirit with the charism of Holy Orders, then Nick has just supplied us with a prooftext for the Protestant doctrine of the universal priesthood of all believers. We are all successors to St. Peter! We are all incumbents of the papal office! So who needs the Pope when, according to Nick’s irresistible logic, every Christian is his own Pope?

Just think of the possibilities! I, too, can wear an ermine-lined bathrobe and don a pair of papal slippers—made of silk, satin, gold thread, and ornamental rubies!

Moving along:

[[ Ken, listen to what Karl Keating says regarding parallels with pagan traditions: “Once, in a debate with a prominent anti-Catholic controversialist, I asked, ‘Are you married? Yes, I know you are. And when you were married, was your bride wearing a white gown, and did she carry a bouquet of flowers? You say she did. And did the two of you exchange vows and then rings? You're nodding your head. Well, it seems that in your marriage ceremony you engaged in four pagan acts, since the white gown, the bouquet, the vows, and the ring are all taken from pre-Christian pagan rites. Are we to conclude that your brand of Christianity is pagan at its roots?’ My opponent smiled and promptly changed the subject.” ]]

Ben M | 07.12.07 - 3:43 am | #

Wow! What a knockdown argument!

It does, however, suffer from a wee bit of an equivocation—you know, one of those fatal equivocations that invalidate a poorly formulated argument from analogy.

Pagan customs which carry over to something like a western wedding ceremony are entirely expendable. The absence of a white gown, bouquet, and wedding rings would not invalidate the marriage. One could just as well get married in a traditional Jewish ceremony.

By contrast, the very point at issue is what constitutes a valid ordination ceremony, without which you cannot have apostolic succession, valid sacraments, or the one true church. Here, the parallels between Catholic priestcraft and pagan witchcraft, Catholic sacramentology and sympathetic magic, are not incidental and expendable, but essential and constitutive.

“Also, the bible itself has many ‘striking’ parallels to pagan religions! The most familiar of these would of course be the ‘flood traditions’ and the numerous ‘creation myths’.”

i) Yet another fatal equivocation. As far as flood traditions are concerned, this is a case of multiple-attestation. The same event is recorded in Scripture and extrascriptural documents. The fact that the same event has more than one historical witness is hardly analogous to the intellectual dependence of Catholic sacerdotalism and sacramentology on pagan exemplars.

And there is no creation myth which clearly parallels Gen 1-2. That claim is loosely made from time to time, but it disintegrates under closer inspection.

We can run through other “parallel,” if need be.

ii) Where, moreover, does Ben think he’s going with this argument? Is he admitting that Catholic theology is, indeed, indebted to pagan theology—but attempting to blunt the force of this admission by claiming that a Protestant is in the same boat?

That’s a suicidal tactic, for—if valid—it would only succeed in disproving your opponent’s position by disproving your own.

Truth's Victory Over Error

Truth's Victory Over Error: A Commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith by David Dickson

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Church cancels Sunday services to watch Evan Almighty.

And, yes, it's in their newsletter, to which Tim Ellsworth links.

And we wonder why we're having a problem with the concept of "regenerate church membership" in the SBC and, in fact, across all Baptist groups at present!

If Benedict says so...

This story make the front page of my local newspaper today, along with several other newspapers, it seems.

Recently, we've seen some interesting thinking on another blog.

I'll draw your attention to these statements:

"Again, I continue to be misunderstood about a fundamental point (something I’ve underscored over and over again): Just as an evangelical is not defined by majority opinion about what evangelicals believe, a Catholic is not defined by official pronouncements about what Catholics believe."

and from here:

"While we, as Protestants, may interpret Trent and other official statements prima facie, we have to be careful not to require all Catholics to interpret their documents the way we do."

I'll just say this much. It may sound nifty and attractive to some to say that we shouldn't take Roman Catholic official pronouncements as not being definitional of what Catholics believe, etc., but why should we take this sort of commentary seriously when Pope Benedict himself is saying that Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation? Catholicism has a particular rule of faith, and when the individual Romanist acts like an evangelical, it is in spite of, not in accordance with that rule of faith. It is by no means problematic to interpret Trent and these sorts of statements as not representative of Catholicism, when they are coming from the Magisterium, indeed, the Pope himself. It is no more unfair to Catholics to interpret these documents according to their original intent, as did Bellarmine, et.al., when the Pope himself has taken it upon himself to do it for us. So, if Benedict says so, why shouldn't we?

Let the Pope be the Pope!

Filed under: Theology-Ecclesiology — Kevin D. Johnson

Most of our readers likely know we don’t go around quoting James White on this site, but hey…it’s been an interesting week here. Why not add one more bit of spice to the mix? Actually, the reason I’ve linked to his site is simply to acknowledge and denounce the continued arrogance of the communion of Rome in asserting herself as the ‘one holy catholic and apostolic church’. White quotes the document in full that of late makes it clear that neither Pope Benedict XVI nor the Roman Church is backing down on this point.

This is the one barrier that exists that keeps any real ecumenical progress from happening between Rome and the Protestant communions. Sad and terrible at the same time. May Rome repent of her arrogance!

http://www.reformedcatholicism.com/?p=1225

Speaking for myself, I'm not the least bit offended by the pretensions of Rome.

The only folks who take umbrage are lower case “catholics” who fancy that they are entitled to some sort of honorary membership status in the Mother Church without having to pay their dues. If you want to be included in the Roman Catholic definition of “the Church,” then you have to cough up the membership fee.

They have a childish longing to belong without becoming what they long to belong to.

Was There a Big Bang?

Was There a Big Bang? by David Berlinski

From Banana to Man

BY STEVE HAYS
Associated Press

The discovery that man shares half his DNA with bananas has triggered a paradigm shift in religion, paleoanthropology, and bioethics.

Richard Dawkins has already penned several bestsellers on the subject, including The Selfish Banana, The Blind Banana, and Climbing A Banana Split.

In an interview I recently conducted with him, he said, “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in the bananan origin of man, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane or wicked—but I'd rather not consider that.”

Jumping on the bandwagon, Daniel Dennett rushed to press with Darwin’s Dangerous Banana.

Edward O. Wilson published a book entitled Sociobananthropology in which he derives a secular blueprint for human ethics from the social life of bananas.

For his part, Stephen Jay Gould published a book highly critical of Wilson’s thesis, entitled The Mismeasure of Banana-Man. He proposed punctuated paleobananthropology as a scientific alternative to sociobananthropology.

His colleague, Richard Lewontin, has made this an issue of scientific method. In an exclusive interview for this reporter, he said, “We take the side of methodological bananaturalism in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

By contrast, Francis Collins took issue with Lewontin’s naturalistic bananthropology. Describing his own position as theistic bananthropology, Collins explained to me that man evolved from a banana at the point in time when God miraculously endowed the banana with a rational soul.

Dr. Collins deplored “woodenly literalistic” interpretations of Genesis. He expressed his concern that Appalachian fundies, by their backward denial of bananthropology, would drive many young students away from the Christian faith.

Other lines of dissent have begun to emerge. John Maynard Smith has argued that man is actually descended from a cucumber while Ernst Mayr has argued, to the contrary, that the zucchini is the true ancestor of modern man. In turn, Francis Crick recently proposed the theory of directed panbananaspermia.

The Significance Of Eyewitness Testimony

What's wrong with this thread (the article and the comments posted in response to it)? Why should we limit ourselves to "eyewitness testimony to the life, death and supposed resurrection of Jesus Christ"? What about eyewitness testimony related to other subjects relevant to an objective case for Christianity? Why isn't much said about eyewitness testimony outside of the gospels? How many Christians appeal to eyewitness testimony for "movie-like" or "perfect" memories? How relevant is something like observation of a "car accident" or "purse snatching" to observation of something like whether relatives of Jesus reported that He was a descendant of David, whether He gave sight to a man who seemed to be blind, or whether His tomb was empty? Why should we think that the gospels were anonymous? What about the large amount of evidence to the contrary? See, for example, Martin Hengel's The Four Gospels And The One Gospel Of Jesus Christ (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2000) and here, here, here, here, and here. Former_Fundy tells us:

"If there is genuine eyewitness testimony in Scripture, it is from individuals who had to 'make sense' of what they saw. They interpreted what they saw in accordance with their world view, which in the first century, was one in which the supernatural realm (angels, demons, God) regularly invaded the natural realm. So, their testimony is 'colored' by their world view, a world-view which is largely rejected since the Enlightenment."

But see Glenn Miller's argument to the contrary here. The large majority of people in today's world believe in "the supernatural realm", including activity by angels and demons, answers to prayer, and other occurrences which are thought to be "regular". Supernaturalists don't believe every supernatural claim. The reason why we're discussing eyewitness testimony is because the early Christians' concern for evidence was such that they structured their belief system around historical events involving verifiable evidence, including eyewitness testimony.

Former_Fundy acknowledges that he hasn't read Richard Bauckham's book on eyewitness testimony, which addresses the findings of Jan Vansina and other sources. Bauckham discusses a lot of relevant material that Former_Fundy and the people who responded to his post don't address.

"All four Gospels are anonymous in the formal sense that the author's name does not appear in the text of the work itself, only in the title (which we will discuss below). But this does not mean that they were intentionally anonymous. Many ancient works were anonymous in the same formal sense, and the name may not even appear in the surviving title of the work. For example, this is true of Lucian's Life of Demonax (Demonactos bios), which as a bios (ancient biography) is generically comparable with the Gospels. Yet Lucian speaks throughout in the first person and obviously expects his readers to know who he is. Such works would often have been circulated in the first instance among friends or acquaintances of the author who would know who the author was from the oral context in which the work was first read. Knowledge of authorship would be passed on when copies were made for other readers, and the name would be noted, with a brief title, on the outside of the scroll or on a label affixed to the scroll. In denying that the Gospels were originally anonymous, our intention is to deny that they were first presented as works without authors. The clearest case is Luke because of the dedication of the work to Theophilus (1:3), probably a patron. It is inconceivable that a work with a named dedicatee should have been anonymous. The author's name may have featured in an original title, but in any case would have been known to the dedicatee and other first readers because the author would have presented the book to the dedicatee....In the first century CE, most authors gave their books titles, but the practice was not universal....Whether or not any of these titles originate from the authors themselves, the need for titles that distinguished one Gospel from another would arise as soon as any Christian community had copies of more than one in its library and was reading more than one in its worship meetings....In the case of codices, 'labels appeared on all possible surfaces: edges, covers, and spines.' In this sense also, therefore, Gospels would not have been anonymous when they first circulated around the churches. A church receiving its first copy of one such would have received with it information, at least in oral form, about its authorship and then used its author's name when labeling the book and when reading from it in worship....no evidence exists that these Gospels were ever known by other names." (Richard Bauckham, Jesus And The Eyewitnesses [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006], pp. 300-301, 303)

"Nevertheless the fact remains that it is utterly improbable that in this dark period, at a particular place or through a person or through the decision of a group or institution unknown to us, the four superscriptions of the Gospels, which had hitherto been circulating anonymously, suddenly came into being and, without leaving behind traces of earlier divergent titles, became established throughout the church. Let those who deny the great age and therefore basically the originality of the Gospel superscriptions in order to preserve their 'good' critical conscience, give a better explanation of the completely unanimous and relatively early attestation of these titles, their origin and the names of authors associated with them. Such an explanation has yet to be given, and it never will be. New Testament scholars persistently overlook basic facts and questions on the basis of old habits." (Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels And The One Gospel Of Jesus Christ [Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2000], p. 55)

"There is no evidence that the Pharisees abstained from writing their 'traditions of the fathers.' There is even less reason to suppose that an insistence on oral transmission alone characterized other Jewish groups at the time of Jesus, such as the (highly literary) Qumran community. However, again it is not true that Gerhardsson entirely neglected the role of written materials: he postulated that, just as private notebooks were in fact used by the rabbis and their pupils, so writing, as an aid to memory, could have been used in early Christian circles prior to the Gospels....In a predominantly oral society, not only do people deliberately remember but also teachers formulate their teachings so as to make them easily memorable. It has frequently been observed that Jesus' teaching in its typically Synoptic forms has many features that facilitate remembering. The aphorisms are typically terse and incisive, the narrative parables have a clear and relatively simple plot outline. Even in Greek translation, the only form in which we have them, the sayings of Jesus are recognizably poetic, especially employing parallelism, and many have posited Aramaic originals rich in alliteration, assonance, rhythm, rhyme, and wordplay. These teaching formulations were certainly not created by Jesus ad hoc, in the course of his teaching, but were carefully crafted, designed as concise encapsulations of his teaching that his hearers could take away, remember, ponder, and live by. We cannot suppose that Jesus' oral teaching consisted entirely of such sayings as these. Jesus must have preached much more discursively, but offered these aphorisms and parables as brief but thought-provoking summations of his teaching for his hearers to jot down in their mental notebooks for frequent future recall. (Obviously, therefore, it was these memorable summations that survived, and when the writers of the Synoptic Gospels wished to represent the discursive teaching of Jesus they mostly had to use collections of these sayings.) This kind of encapsulation of teaching in carefully crafted aphorisms to be remembered was the teaching style of the Jewish wisdom teacher. As Rainer Riesner puts it, 'Even the form of the sayings of Jesus included in itself an imperative to remember them.' Jesus' hearers would readily recognize this and would apply to memorable sayings the deliberate practices of committing to memory that they would know were expected....Such notebooks [as ancient rabbis used] were in quite widespread use in the ancient world (2 Tim 4:13 refers to parchment notebooks Paul carried on his travels). It seems more probable than not that early Christians used them....The eyewitnesses who remembered the events of the history of Jesus were remembering inherently very memorable events, unusual events that would have impressed themselves on the memory, events of key significance for those who remembered them, landmark or life-changing events for them in many cases, and their memories would have been reinforced and stabilized by frequent rehearsal, beginning soon after the event. They did not need to remember - and the Gospels rarely record - merely peripheral aspects of the scene or the event, the aspects of recollective memory that are least reliable....We may conclude that the memories of eyewitnesses of the history of Jesus score highly by the criteria for likely reliability that have been established by the psychological study of recollective memory....[quoting Gillian Cohen] Research has tended to emphasize the errors that occur in everyday memory functions. The picture that emerges is of an error-prone system. This emphasis is partly an artefact of research methodology. In experiments it is usually more informative to set task difficulty at a level where people make errors so that the nature of the errors and the conditions that provoke them can be identified....People do make plenty of naturally occurring errors in ordinary life situations, but, arguably, the methodology has produced a somewhat distorted view of memory efficiency. In daily life, memory successes are the norm and memory failures are the exception. People also exhibit remarkable feats of remembering faces and voices from the remote past, and foreign-language vocabulary and childhood experiences over a lifetime. As well as such examples of retention over very long periods, people can retain large amounts of information over shorter periods, as when they prepare for examinations, and sometimes, as in the case of expert knowledge, they acquire a large amount of information and retain it for an indefinitely long time. Considering how grossly it is overloaded, memory in the real world proves remarkably efficient and resilient. [end quote of Gillian Cohen]" (Richard Bauckham, Jesus And The Eyewitnesses [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006], pp. 252, 282, 288, 346, 357)

The Descent of Man

In the past, unscrupulous fundies have exploited the gaps in the fossil record to attack macroevolution.

But thanks to the cutting edge science of comparative genetics, the theory of common descent has been put on an unshakable foundation.

Genetic evidence now supplies unmistakable evidence that the first hominid was a banana:

"Robert May is a UK Chief Scientist. In New Scientist magazine (July 1, 2000)on page 5 he stated, 'We share half our genes with the banana'."

http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2005-01/1106711681

The point at which early man forked off from the other primates is known in the paleoanthropological literature as the Banana Split, which took place sometime between the Pliocene and Maraschino epochs.

Preaching Christ from Genesis

Preaching Christ from Genesis by Sidney Greidanus

Why Believe the Bible

Posted on Behalf of Steve Hays:

“I was wondering if you could recommend a book (or books) that builds a ground-up case for the Bible as divine revelation. That is, something that addresses the unbeliever's question, ‘Why should I believe that the Bible is divinely inspired?’ Any thoughts?”

This is not a simple question to answer. Someone may believe or disbelieve the Bible for a variety of reasons. There may also be a difference between the reasons we have for believing the Bible, and the reasons we’re able to give, since there is a dimension of religious experience which is inaccessible to an outsider. In addition, we often know more than we can put into words.

I. Hermeneutics

Unbelievers may reject the Bible out of sheer ignorance. Their knowledge of scripture is confined to hostile, thirdhand caricatures.

The Bible is less of a book than an anthology. Indeed, some books of the Bible are anthologies.

As such, it can be hard for a novice to get a feel for the overall shape of Scripture and sense of where it is going. For example, the prophetic books tend to be anthologies of individual oracles, delivered at different times and places, to differing audiences. As such, they lack linear flow. In addition, they refer to topical sociopolitical events that are obscure or unintelligible to the modern reader without some background. It’s just a jumble.

Likewise, a lot of OT law is geared to the sociological conditions of the ANE, which renders it apparently meaningless to a modern reader.

So, just for starters, a seeker needs to have a roadmap to find his way through what may otherwise seem at times to be an impenetrable thicket or trackless wilderness. Examples include G. Fee & D. Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth; T. Longman, Making Sense of the Old Testament; T. Schreiner, Interpreting the Pauline Letters, and V. Poythress, The Returning King.

They should also read a good study Bible, such as W. Kaiser & D. Garrett, eds. Archaeological Study Bible.

II. Bible History

Some unbelievers claim that Scripture is unhistorical. For a sampling of literature to the contrary, see: A. Allis, The Old Testament: Its Claims and Its Critics; P. Barnett, Is the New Testament Reliable? and The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years; R. Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple; C. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel; F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?; D. A. Carson, & D. Moo, An Introduction of the New Testament; M. Casey, An Aramaic Approach to Q: Sources for the Gospels of Matthew & Luke, and Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel; C. Evans & S. Porter, eds. Dictionary of New Testament Background; M. Hengel, The Four Gospels & the One Gospel of Jesus Christ; J. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt, and Ancient Israel In Sinai; J. Hoffmeier, & A. Millard, eds. The Future of Biblical Archaeology; K. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament; A. Köstenberger, Encountering John; V. Long, et al., eds. Windows into Old Testament History; P. Maier, In the Fullness of Time; I. H. Marshall, Luke: Historian & Theologian; A. Millard, Reading & Writing in the Time of Jesus; I. Provan, et al., eds. A Biblical History of Israel; J. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, and The Priority of John, and D J Wiseman & E. Yamauchi, Archaeology and the Bible.

For a philosophical defense of Scripture, see: P. Helm, The Divine Revelation.

A number of commentaries on various books of the Bible also accentuate the historicity of the books, such as John Currid on the Pentateuch, Douglas Stuart on Exodus, R. K. Harrison on Numbers, Daniel Block (forthcoming), Peter Craigie, and J. A. Thompson on Deuteronomy, Richard Hess on Joshua, Daniel Block and K. Lawson Younger on Judges, Craig Blomberg, Craig Evans (forthcoming), and Craig Keener on Matthew, James Edwards and Craig Evans on Mark, Darrel Bock on Luke, Craig Blomberg and Craig Keener on John, as well as Darrell Block (forthcoming), F. F. Bruce, Walter Gasque (forthcoming), Craig Keener (forthcoming), Stanley Porter (forthcoming), and Ben Witherington on Acts.

III. The Historical Jesus

Some of the standard “quest” literature includes P. Barnett, Jesus and the Logic of History, and Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity; R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses; F. F. Bruce, Jesus & Christian Origins Outside the New Testament; P. Copan & R. Tacelli, eds. Jesus’ Resurrection; C. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels; G. Habermas, & M. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus; T. Jones, Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus"; J. Komoszewski, et al. Reinventing Jesus; L. Strobel, ed. The Case for Christ; R. Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate, N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, and Who Was Jesus?

IV. Bible “Contradictions”

Some unbelievers reject the Bible because it’s full of “contradictions.” This usually involves a very wooden preconception of what constitutes accurate reportage. Some helpful correctives include C. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, and V. Long, The Art of Biblical History.

A useful reference work is: G. Archer, The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.

V. Prophecy

The argument from prophecy is a traditional argument for the inspiration of Scripture. In conventional apologetics, it has tended to focus on isolated Bible verses. A more contextual approach traces the unfolding fulfillment of certain theological motifs, such as we find in T. Alexander, The Servant King, and A. Motyer, Look to the Rock.

VI. Canonics

Sceptics often claim that the canon is a late and arbitrary collection of books, cobbled together by ecclesiastical power politics. But there are several line of evidence for the canon that undercut this Marxist-cum-conspiratorial claim, such as R. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church; F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture; E. E. Ellis, The Making of the New Testament Documents, and The Old Testament in Early Christianity; B. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament; J. Sailhamer, Introduction to Old Testament Theology: A Canonical Approach, and D. Trobisch, The First Edition of the New Testament.

VII. Miracles

Some unbelievers reject the Bible because they agree with Hume’s critique of miracles. For a couple of fine examinations, see: Earman, J. Hume’s Abject Failure, and D. Geivett & G. Habermas, In Defense of Miracles.

VIII. Comparative Mythology

Some unbelievers reject the Bible because of comparative mythology. For some useful studies on this topic, see: J. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament; J. Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ, and J. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament.

IX. Creation/Evolution

Some unbelievers reject the Bible because it’s “unscientific.” There are many aspects to this controversy.

One should become conversant with differing schools of thought on the philosophy of science, such as L. Lauden, Progress and Its Problems; J. P. Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science, and Del Ratzsch, Nature, Design, and Science.

Some books document the internecine warfare within the Darwinian community, such as M. Brown, The Darwin Wars; R. Morris, The Evolutionists; M. Ruse, The Evolution Wars, and K. Sterelny, Dawkins vs. Gould.

A number of roughly religiously-oriented writers have published books critical of secular theorizing on cosmological or biological origins, such as S. Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith; M. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, and The Edge of Evolution; J. Byl, God & Cosmos, and The Divine Challenge; W. Dembski, No Free Lunch; A. Menuge, Agents Under Fire; V. Poythress, Redeeming Science; J. Sanford, Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome; J. Sarfati, Refuting Evolution 2; Lee M. Spetner, Not by Chance; J. Wells, Icons of Evolution, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, and K. Wise, Faith, Form, and Time.

There are also a number of books by authors who are not religiously oriented, but nevertheless find fault with various aspects of evolutionary biology, such as M. Denton, M. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, and Nature's Destiny; H. Gee, In Search of Deep Time; J. Greene, Debating Darwin; F. Hoyle, Mathematics of Evolution; M. Midgley, Evolution as a Religion; R. Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism; G. Sermonti, Why Is a Fly Not a Horse? and D. Stove, D. Darwinian Fairytales.

X. Ethics

Some unbelievers reject the Bible on ethical grounds. Some useful treatments from that viewpoint are: G. Wenham, Story as Torah, and D. Wilson, Letter from a Christian Citizen.

XI. The Paranormal

Many people disbelieve the Bible because they have no experience of anything out of the ordinary. So, for them, the world of the Bible doesn’t correspond to the world they know. But there are many case studies in the field of the paranormal, including the occult, which document the fact that the world of Scripture is not a world apart from the world outside our window, such as, G. Amorth & N. Mackenzie, An Exorcist Tells His Story, and An Exorcist: More Stories; D. Bartholomew, Uncertain Belief; D. Fontana, Is There An Afterlife: A Comprehensive Overview of the Evidence; F. Goodman, How About Demons; G. Habermas & J. P. Moreland, Beyond Death; J. Houran and R. Lange, eds., Hauntings and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives; K. Koch, Christian Counseling and Occultism, and Occult Bondage and Deliverance; David Lester, Is there Life After Death?; M. Martin, Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans; H. Montefiore, The Paranormal: A Bishop Investigates; J. W. Montgomery, ed. Demon Possession, and Principalities & Powers; R.W.K. Paterson, Philosophy and the Belief in a Life After Death; M. Scott Peck, Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist's Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption; J. Richards, But Deliver Us From Evil; M. Saborn, Light & Death; M. Stoeber and H. Meynell, eds., Critical Reflections on the Paranormal; L. Storm and M. Thalbourne, eds., The Survival of Human Consciousness, and M. Unger, The Haunting of Bishop Pike.

Mary Mnemonic

(Posted on behalf of Steve Hays.)

Lutherus Triumphans
Dave Armstrong has responded to my review of Koons.

My original review can be found here.

Proceeding with Armstrong:

This is an ethereal, fictional "conflict", then, because "Rome" does not deny sola gratia at all.

Except that Rome negates sola gratia by its commitment to synergism. Consider a few examples from the Council of Trent:

CANON IV.-If any one saith, that man's free will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-operates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of Justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema.

CANON XXX.-If any one saith, that, after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise, that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world, or in the next in Purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened (to him); let him be anathema.

CANON XXXII.-If any one saith, that the good works of one that is justified are in such manner the gifts of God, as that they are not also the good merits of him that is justified; or, that the said justified, by the good works which he performs through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of that eternal life,-if so be, however, that he depart in grace,-and also an increase of glory; let him be anathema.¹

We could cite many other examples. Rome believes that sacramental grace is resistible. Rome believes the regenerate can commit apostasy and lose their salvation.

It's fine if Hays wants to bring in his Reformed approach to things (as a sort of "footnote" or aside), as long as he doesn't confuse the reader with regard to what Koons himself was attempting to argue.

Except that one of the flaws in Koons’ argument is his acting as if there are only two alternatives—Catholicism or Lutheranism—such that the denial of the one entails the affirmation of the other. Lutheranism is his proxy position for Protestantism in general.

This begs the question. Being "scriptural" and being in accordance with sola Scriptura are not one and the same.

Irrelevant to my point that Koons prematurely demotes sola Scriptura to a secondary issue. If one or more Catholic dogmas are contrary to Scripture, then that alone falsifies Catholicism.

So when Hays caricatures the Catholic position as "exegetical foundation[s]" of any given doctrine supposedly being a "secondary issue" he is engaging in sheer obscurantism, straw men, and circular logic, because he has presupposed that sola Scriptura is essential to exegesis or desire to biblically support any doctrine, when it is not at all.

Dave suffers from reading incomprehension. At this juncture I wasn’t commenting on Catholic theological method, but on Koons’ methodology.

Strictly speaking, that is correct; however, one has to immediately ask why, if something is so biblical and true, was it so difficult to locate in historic theology?

Several reasons:

i) For most of its history, the polity of the church paralleled the secular social structure, which, in the Roman Empire, feudal era, and the like, was authoritarian rather than democratic. The bishops, under the auspices of the Emperor, decided what was orthodox or heterodox. They didn’t solicit open debate or a free exchange of views. And dissent was penalized. So what you find in historical theology of the period is the party line.

ii) Once a primitive error becomes dogma, tradition takes on a life of its own. The object of exegesis is the secondary source (tradition) rather than the primary source (Scripture). Instead of questioning the traditional interpretation, the traditional interpretation is the point of reference and point of departure for further elaboration. Tradition supplies the premise.

iii) The Latin church quickly lost touch with Jewish culture and the Bible in the original Greek and Hebrew. It became reliant on the Vulgate, philosophical categories, and the syncretistic influence of pagan culture to fill the vacuum.

Patron saints take the place of patron gods; the Pope takes the place of the pagan priest (Pontifex Maximus); the sacraments take the place of sympathetic magic. The names change, but the underlying conceptual scheme remains the same.

Does God not have the power to guide the Christian Church in major areas of theology, so that she doesn't fall into serious heresy or, worse, apostasy?

God has guided the remnant throughout the ages, which is quite different from the institutional church.

But to be novel in relation to those two eminent Fathers is itself a novelty, given how both sides have argued through the years, in claiming to be legatees of the teaching of those two men and other eminent Church Fathers. Therefore, it is relevant to note whether there is actual agreement or disagreement, since Catholic, Lutherans, and Calvinists alike all appeal to St. Augustine as in agreement with their views.

Dave is confusing polemical theology with systematic theology. Because Rome made a big deal about historical continuity, the Protestant Reformers and post-Reformation theologians like Chemnitz and Turretin (to name a few) spent a lot of time calling her bluff. "You bet twenty traditional chips? Fine. We’ll match your chips and raise you another twenty traditional chips!"

This showdown is a way of answering Rome on her own grounds. We can quote the church fathers too! And we can quote them against you!

That’s a useful tactic as part of an internal critique of Catholic theology. And it also comes naturally to Protestants who were one-time Catholics, trained in Catholic theology. To some extent they defined themselves in opposition to their former religious identity.

And there is still a place for that line of argument. But it was never the foundation Protestant theology. And it is less relevant to later, Protestant generations.

It’s like the difference between first, second, and third generation immigrants. The first generation defines itself by the old country. The old customs. It identifies with the national culture in which it was raised.

The second generation is torn between the old and the new. Between its immigrant parents and its indigenous friends.

The third generation has assimilated with the mainstream culture. It identifies with the new country because the new country isn’t new to the third generation. That’s all it’s ever known.

Theological traditions are like colonies that eventually outgrow the mother country and develop their own way of life. They no longer feel the need to compare and contrast what they were with what they are. The mother country no longer supplies the standard of comparison.

They grew up, left home, got married and had kids. They have their own family traditions. They don’t spend all their time looking back—longing nostalgically to be a teenager all over again. They don’t feel the need to move back in with mom and dad. They have a home of their own. A wife of their own. A life of their own.

Now, there are some arrested adolescents like Timothy George and Thomas Oden who can’t quite bring themselves to cut the apron strings. And some of these overgrown adolescents, like Scott Hahn, Thomas Howard, Francis Beckwith, and Mr. Bubblator do move back in with mom and dad. Back to the old bedroom—plastered with the faded posters of Farrah Fawcett, Cheryl Tiegs, and Saturday Night Fever.

And I’d add that one result of the theological life cycle is that some of the fire has gone out of the old debates. The issues remain, and, in some cases, have intensified (e.g. adding the errors of Vatican II to the errors of Trent), but there’s no need to take it as personally.

For example, some people act as if Beckwith’s reversion to Rome was an act of betrayal. But that reaction is a bit too possessive, as if Beckwith was disloyal to his homiez.

Beckwith was never my homeboy or gang leader. He did nothing to wrong me personally. If he reverts to Catholicism, that is his business. He is responsible for his own choices in life. He is free to make his own mistakes—and suffer the consequences.

I will continue to respond to the arguments of a Koons or Hahn or Beckwith or Mr. Bubblator. I will continue to post a warning sign beside a washed out bridge. But if some folks decide to drive across the bridge and plunge into the waters below, I can stay high and dry.

In the modern cult of celebrity, it may make a big splash, but I don’t identify with these people, any more than I identify with tabloid scandals involving some decrepit rock star or Hollywood bimbo of the month.

And of course, we argue that both Lutheran and Reformed theology is novel according to Augustine and Paul and John alike. It all has to be discussed at great length.

And of course, we argue that Roman Catholic theology is novel according to Paul and John alike. It all has to be discussed at great length.

Obviously, to locate an alternative, biblical rule of faith; sola Scriptura having been shown to be unbiblical and false.

Koons hasn’t shown that.

The choice is between those who adhere to sola Scriptura (basically, all Protestants) and those who do not.

Wrong. He pinned the case for sola Scriptura on a specifically Lutheran version in which a Protestant must be able to deduce everything he believes or does from Scripture.

This is sensible; however, in practical terms it doesn't work, because if a non-scriptural "tradition" is appealed to in Protestantism, then the door is left wide open for contradiction and doctrinal chaos, because it then finds itself in "no-man's land" insofar as the Bible is silent and it has no binding authority other than Scripture.

i) This begs the question of whether we need "binding authority" for everything we do.

ii) And, assuming for the sake of argument that we do need such authorization, then the Catholic is at an impasse as well. Even Ratzinger admits that Catholicism does not and cannot offer ready-made answers to many bioethical questions.

We are in fact constantly confronted with problems where it isn’t possible to find the right answer in a short time. Above all in the case of problems having to do with ethics, particularly medical ethics. But also in the area of social ethics. For example, the situation in American hospitals forced us to deal with whether it is obligatory to continue giving food and water to the very end of patients in an irreversible coma. This is certainly enormously important for those in positions of responsibility, if only because they are rally concerned and because it’s necessary to find a common policy for hospitals. We finally had to say, after very long studies, "Answer tht for now on the local level; we aren’t far enough along to have full certainty about that."²

Again in the area of medical ethics, new possibilities, and with them new borderline situations, are constantly arising where it is not immediately evidence how to apply principles. We can’t simply conjure up certitude. Then we have to say, "Work this through for now among yourselves, so that we gradually mature to certainty from level to level within the context of experience."³

What is Armstrong’s "binding authorization" to hawk hot tubs as a cure for cancer? And what is the authorized hot tub?

Absent binding authority, the door is left wide open for chaotic no-man’s land of competing hot tubs. Why doesn’t the Vatican issue a certified hot tub consumer review? That’s the problem with the Magisterium—never there when you need it.

I agree. But I would turn the tables (using one of Hays' favorite approaches) and argue: "assuming, for the sake of argument, that one has demonstrated catholic self-contradiction in dogmatic proclamations: does that automatically make sola Scriptura true by default?" Of course it does not. So the Protestant has as much burden of proof in establishing sola Scriptura, as the Catholic does for his system. And they have failed to do so in no uncertain terms. Hays himself will try to skirt the issue and wiggle himself out of his own dilemmas at every turn. We have seen it already, and we will till the end of his paper. It must be that way, because sola Scriptura is a thoroughly indefensible doctrine, any way you look at it. That's why it is simply assumed as true by most Protestants.

I wasn’t attempting to make a case for sola Scriptura in my review of Koons. I was merely answering him on his own level.

I have argued for sola Scriptura on many other occasions. No need to repeat myself.

That's right, strictly speaking, yet in practical terms (since people invariably disagree in doctrines and interpretations), this is exactly what is needed…That tells us nothing in concrete terms; it is merely a typically Protestant desperate, pious-sounding abstraction (and ultimately logically circular when actually applied to real human affairs). How does this help us attain to the truth unless someone can tell us with definite assurance, "this is the truth about doctrine x, and it is dogmatized in this Christian communion" (and provide some solid epistemological basis for believing same?

i) One of the flaws in Armstrong’s style of counterargument is that he treats my points in isolation. He will raise an objection to a statement I make even though I address that objection further down the line.

ii) In addition, Dave is the one who, like every Catholic polemicist, must indulge in pious-sounding abstractions of papal primacy while glossing over the many historical sandbars on which his pretty little theory runs aground. To take a few awkward examples, shall we?

If one has asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no.⁴

In the West as in the East, papal leadership was far more a program than a reality. The "eastern patriarchy" embracing Illyricum and Greece as well was by no means a Church ruled from Rome, but a very loose-knit and heterogeneous entity…For the most part, however, reality fell far short of Roman ambitions. In Spain, southern Gaul, and North Africa dogmatic decisions were still made on matters of faith and heretics were condemned without any reference to Rome.⁵

The saying of Bishop Augustine of Hippo (396-430), Roma locuta, causa finita ("Rome has spoken, the matter is settled") was quoted repeatedly. However, the quotation is really a bold reshaping of the words of that Church Father taken quite out of context.⁶

Concretely the issue was the teaching of Pelagius…this teaching was condemned by two North African councils in Carthage and Mileve in 416.But since Pelagius lived in Rome, and Rome was the center of the Pelagian movement, it seemed appropriate to inform Pope Innocent I of the decision. Ultimately, the struggle against Pelagianism could only be carried on with the cooperation of Rome. The pope finally responded in 417, accepting the decisions of the two councils. Augustine then wrote: "In this matter, two councils have already sent letters to the apostolic see, and from thence rescripts have come back. The matter is settled (causa finita est); if only the heresy would cease!"⁷

Both the context of this statement and its continuity with the rest of Augustine’s thought permit no interpretation other than that Rome’s verdict alone is not decisive; rather, it disposes of all doubt after all that has preceded it. This is because there remains no other ecclesiastical authority of any consequence to which the Pelagians can appeal, and in particular the very authority from which they could most readily have expected a favorable decision, namely Rome, has clearly ruled against them!⁸

In reality, of course, the causa was by no means settled, for under Zosimus, the next pope, the Pelagians succeeded in obtaining a hearing at Rome and defending their orthodoxy. Augustine did not wait for Rome’s decision; in 418 he called another council at Carthage that solemnly condemned particular Pelagian doctrines. The decree was simply communicated to Rome, and the pope confirmed the council’s decisions.⁹

The African Church was even more determined to defend its jurisdictional autonomy. Councils at Carthage in 419 and 424 forbade any appeals to Rome…it was unthinkable that God would give the spirit of right judgment to a single individual, the Roman bishop, and withhold it from an entire council of bishops.¹⁰

This particular decision had been preceded by a similar case involving a bishop who had fallen out with his congregation but was protected by Rome; at that, even Augustine of Hippo threatened to resign. From now on, the only court of appeal was to be the North African council at Carthage. This case was to be brought up repeatedly in future as an example of resistance by the episcopate of a national Church against Roman centralism.¹¹

In fact, until the modern era the Roman church constituted such a coordinated center only to a very limited degree, and not at all before the eleventh century, if only because very few popes pursued a consistent and active ecclesiastical policy; their actions were mainly reactions.¹²

Since the time of Paul VI many, including Cardinal Ratzinger, have repeatedly stated that as far as the Orthodox Churches are concerned the task at hand is to restore the unity that existed in the first millennium. The problem is only that such a unity in the first millennium is an equivocal concept. It looked very different in different eras and was very differently interpreted, not only in the West and East, but especially within the Eastern Church itself…It is clear especially in the conflicts surrounding Canon 28 of Chalcedon and the allegiance of Illyricum that Rome was scarcely or not at all able to accomplish its aims in serious jurisdictional questions affecting the whole Church, especially when the emperor took the opposing side.¹³

Often Rome is only the first see in the series of patriarchs, but its preeminence does not seem to be qualitatively different from that of the other patriarchates. In the latter theory of the pentarchy the issue is mainly that of harmony among the five patriarchs, and not simply union with Rome.¹⁴

Thus came about the greatest and longest papal schism in history, lasting almost forty years (1378-1417) and splitting Christianity in two…Because both popes had successors and the political power blocs and opposing forces cemented the schism, it put down deep roots.¹⁵

How else was the Church to escape from this blind alley? During the next three decades most hopes rested on a solution within the system itself in cooperation with the popes, without reference to a foreign authority. The "papal summit" never took place. That ended the last chance for the divided papacy to restore the unity of the Church through its own efforts.¹⁶

The behavior of the two popes, which in retrospect seems so grotesque, can only be understood if we take account of factors beyond the personal. Each of the two popes was convinced of his own claims and identified them with the claims of the papal office itself; he thus believed he could not resign without surrendering the claim of the office not to be subject to judgment by any higher authority. The popes of the schism were ultimately the prisoners of their own system, namely an exaggerated papal theory that they, of course, carried to the limits of absurdity because they could not cope with the situation. In truth it was the absolutizing of the papacy that had led the Church down the blind alley of the schism in the first place and was incapable of bringing it out again…The answer could only come from a completely new ecclesiology.¹⁷

A second attempt was made to resolve the schism by means of a council, namely Constance (1414-1418). That the tragedy of Pisa was not repeated was due on the one hand to the fact that there now existed, in the person of the German king Sigismund, a dominant figure and central authority who took control of the council with superior diplomatic skill and guided the infinitely tedious negotiations.¹⁸

John XXIII owed his authority to the very principle to which the fathers of the council of Constance appealed, namely the emergency power of a council over the pope. If the decision at Pisa were overturned the council ran the risk of having not three, but four popes; above all it seemed that the one legal basis on which they were able to proceed might be destroyed.¹⁹

Then cam another stroke of bad news; the pope [John XXIII] had fled from Schaffhausen to Breisach; he had revoked his promise to resign, saying that it was forced and therefore invalid, and he had called on the cardinals to leave the council and come to him. It was the council’s fatal hour.²⁰

Now it was purely a question of survival: Should they admit that the pope could dissolve the council and thus abandon all hope of escaping the dead end of the schism for the foreseeable future, or should they stand firm on the basis of their own rights? Under the leadership of the chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Gerson, they chose the latter course.²¹

The fruit of this decision was the decree Haec sancta of April 6, 1415. Its most important statements are the following: The synod solemnly declares that it possesses its own authority stemming immediately from Christ. It is "legitimately assembled in the holy Spirit," represents the Church, and receives its power immediately from Christ. The practical consequence that follows is that everyone of whatever condition or status, including the papal, is bound to obey it in "those matters which pertain to the faith, the eradication of the said schism and the general reform of the said church of God in head and members." Although the first statement applies only to the current council at Constance the second part, threatening punishment of everyone of whatever dignity, "even papal," who refuses obedience, is more general in scope; it applies not only to the current council, but also to the decrees of "any other legitimately assembled general council" called on the same principles, that is, for matters of faith, the eradication of schism, or Church reform.²²

In any case this decree was the basis on which the council continued to meet even without the pope and ultimately put an end to the schism. John XXIII was put on trial; he was arrested, taken to Radolfzell as a prisoner, and finally deposed. Of the three popes only Gregory XII, the pope of the "Roman" line, acceded to gentle persuasion. He finally announced his resignation, but not without first formally calling the council. This mode did not succeed with the pope of the "Avignon" line, Benedict XIII, who had the greatest personal integrity of the three popes but was possessed of a rigid notion of legitimacy…when Sigismund presented the point of view that since the outbreak of the schism in 1378 there had been no legitimate pope at all, Benedict gave an answer that was as logical as it was estranged from reality. He said that in that case no cardinals had been legitimately appointed either. And since he himself was the only living cardinal who had received the purple before 1378, he consequently had the sole right to elect a pope; he would elect a pope, promising at the same time to elect someone other than himself.²³

A game was played similar to the previous one with Gregory: Benedict’s supporters and the "assembly at Constance" mutually invited one another to a newly-constituted ecumenical council in Constance. They were thus permitted to construe the law to mean that the council only became ecumenical when they joined it. Benedict himself (Pedro de Luna) was deposed in 1417. Residing in his castle of Peniscola on the Aragon coast, his "Noah’s ark," he continued to regard himself, until his death in 1423, as the only legitimate pope, and excommunicated all the rest of Christendom.²⁴

For a conception of the Church oriented to Vatican Council I the events of those times, and especially the council of Constance’s decree Haec sancta, remain a hard nut to crack. Even to the present time they have not been thoroughly examined by theologians. A number of questions arise: How is this decree to be interpreted? Does not the superiority of a council over the pope that it claims contradict later teaching of the Church, and especially of Vatican I. Can it be that Haec sancta is also a dogmatic definition contrary to Vatican I, so that one of the two must necessarily be wrong?²⁵

The minority opposed to a definition of infallibility comprised about twenty percent of the [Vatican I] council fathers (some 140 out of 700); these came primarily from the more socially and intellectually developed countries.²⁶

In particular they argued not only on the basis of individual documentary teachings but more from the whole sweep of Church praxis to show how questions of doctrine were decided in the first millennium. This, they said, had always taken place through a long and tedious process of consensus building; no one ever thought it possible to shorten that complicated process by means of the "short cut" of papal pronouncement. The idea of the papal magisterium as a living oracle was regarded as contrary to the genuine historicity and humanity of the Church.²⁷

Theoretically, said Cardinal Rauscher of Vienna, God could have used the preaching of the apostles to anticipate all later false teachings by placing in it all later dogmatic formulations and precise definitions in a clear an unmistakable manner and in systematic order. In the same way, he could have said from the outset: Whenever disputed questions arise, simply ask the successor of Peter! Such a simple solution would seem most obvious to our human understanding. But God’s ways are different. He preserves his Church in the truth through arduous struggles and seeking, as the history of the Church demonstrates.²⁸

And it will hardly do for Armstrong to take refuge in the theory of development, for that directly undercuts his appeal to certainty. At most, such certainly only operates in hindsight. Tomorrow’s certainty is yesterday’s uncertainty.

Scripture teaches that many mutually-exclusive views of baptism can be true at the same time? That's interesting . . .

A straw man argument since this is not what is meant by the adiaphora.

Because folks have learned a few things and advanced in understanding over hundreds of years. Because we now have the Holy Spirit to guide us, and the apostolic deposit, and the power of regeneration and the New Covenant. We have had the benefit of the teaching of the God-Man, Jesus, and that of the Apostles. We have the New Testament. I should think that even Steve Hays would readily agree that these are humongous differences between the Church and "second Temple Judaism."

I see. Dave subscribes to the liberal, evolutionary view of Bible history. For Dave, Bible history is not the record of God’s revelation to man, but the record of man’s groping in the darkness from animism to polytheism to ethical monotheism to Trinitarianism, and—to carry the story down to our own times—to process theology and secular humanism. Wellhausen, Durkheim, and Freud would be proud of Armstrong’s analysis.

Poor old Abraham and Moses, David, Isaiah and Daniel didn’t have the Holy Spirit to guide them. They were uninspired and unregenerate.

Well, all I can say is that I have a very different take on covenant theology than Armstrong’s hyperdispensationalism, which is worthy of E. W. Bullinger. As I read it, Jer 31:33-34 are two different ways of saying the same thing. Or more precisely, v34 is epexegetical of v33.

In context, v34 probably has reference to the fact that the new covenant will abolish the priesthood (as well as the Temple). So there will be no sacerdotal mediators between the believer and his Lord.

Hence, we should use v34 to interpret v33. The immediacy in view (v33) is the fact that no priest will channel the benefits of the new covenant to the believer. No Temple. No repeated sacrifice.

Dr. Koons did not argue that it does; rather, he is saying that the logical reduction of the sola Scriptura position requires every believer to make basic, crucial decisions and choices and judgments that in fact are best reserved for the experts (or a magisterium, as it were).

i) A Catholic is in the same boat. Indeed, he has to find the right boat, since he thinks that only one boat in the whole marina is the true boat.

ii) I don’t have any problem with expert opinion. There is, however, a big difference between a blind appeal to raw authority, on the one hand, and an expert who presents the evidence and marshals his arguments so that the reasoning process is transparent to the reader, on the other.

This is what passes for expert opinion in Roman Catholicism:

Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.

It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.²⁹

One has the burden of finding the "most true church" within Protestantism or else succumbing to doctrinal indifferentism and de facto relativism, as millions of Protestants do, because their system is of little use in leading them to theological certainty in faith.

The only necessity is to come to a saving knowledge of God. One can find that in many different churches. One can find that outside the institutional church as well. The gospel is widely available.

This is always the Protestant appeal, in trying to divert away from the crucial issues. It won't work. Baptism is not a secondary doctrine.

Armstrong is assuming what he needs to prove.

Nor is sola fide, etc.

I never said that sola fide is a secondary doctrine. What I said is that, in Reformed theology, sola fide is an essential doctrine without being a central doctrine. Sola fide is a special case of sola gratia. Sola gratia is the general principle.

As we know from Pauline usage, justification by faith is opposed to justification by works. And works, in the synergistic sense, are also opposed to salvation by grace. So we are justified by faith alone in order to be saved by grace alone.

Of course, Catholics also pay lip-service to sola gratia, but we also know, from reading the fine print, that this is hopelessly adulterated by their commitment to synergism.

Some Reformed spokesmen like to imitate the Lutheran priority (sola fide as the article on which the church stands or falls). But the Reformed center of gravity is rather different. And our commitment to sola fide is deepened by embedding it in the bedrock of sola gratia. Ironically, Lutheranism weakens the foundation for sola fide by weakening the foundation for sola gratia in its commitment to gratia universalis.

So is denominationalism. Well said! yet every Protestantism is a member of a denomination, if only in the vaguest sense of "generic Protestant" -- which is different from historic Catholic Christianity and cannot historically trace itself back to the apostles.

i) Many Evangelicals belong to independent churches rather than denominations.

ii) I couldn’t care less whether Protestant theology can "historically" trace itself back to the apostles, since that is irrelevant to true doctrine.

As I’ve said before, apostolic succession commandeers the framework of witchcraft. To be a true sorcerer, you must be apprenticed to a sorcerer. When the sorcerer dies, he transfers his mojo to his apprentice.

This conception is characteristic of pagan priestcraft. It accounts for vicious succession disputes in Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as Catholicism and Orthodoxy—as bitter, ambitious rivals vie for the top spot.

Because both the Bible and common sense and logic rule that out. The Bible teaches indefectibility of the true Church (Matt 16:18; John 16:13; Acts 15:28 [implied] ).

Classic Catholic spooftexting. Jn 16:13 refers to the Apostolate, not the church.

Mt 16:18 refers to the survivability of the church, not the indefectibility of the church. And Dave is also equivocating over the identity of the church.

I’ve discussed the council of Jerusalem on many occasions.

Paul presupposes that there is one truth and that it wold continue on in perpetuity in the Church.

Dave doesn’t explain what he’s referring to. Is this an allusion to 1 Tim 3:15? 2 Thes 2:15? Both of which I’ve discussed on multiple occasions.

Apostolic succession is taught in Scripture.

I recently dealt with Scott Hahn’s spooftexting for apostolic succession.

The argument from common sense and logic are that it is senseless for God to establish a new community of believers (granting His providence and omniscience and the indwelling and guidance of the Holy Spirit) and yet not enable it with enough power and protection to even survive through history. So we have both biblical indications and God's nature to lead us to the catholic and Orthodox view of the historical Church.

Been there, done that. Dave reminds me of an over-the-hill swinger, like the role that Sonny Bono played in Troll—before Torok turned him into a seedpod.

It is made rather more simple than it might be, due to insuperable Protestant internal difficulties and self-contradictions, both in actual denominational teaching and in Protestant foundational structures (sola Scriptura, the conundrum of an "unbiblical" canon, etc.).

I’ve been over the canon on beaucoup occasions. Dave’s disco music is getting to be pretty dated, don’t you think?

Hays is reduced to embracing a counsel of despair: the very opposite of a hopeful, sunny biblical faith.

This is where Armstrong should cut to a soundtrack of some violin music. Unfortunately, you’ll have to use your own imagination.

In this mentality, one cannot find the one true Church of Scripture. It's futile to even try. God is not able to preserve one truth or lead His followers to it. This is how low Protestant sectarian chaos and doctrinal relativism has brought most Protestants. They no longer think it is even possible to find and believe in one Christian truth (it is viewed as a "romantic" and childlike notion, as we see Hays -- astonishingly -- do above).

Bracketing the illicit slide from the "one true church" to "one Christian truth," Christians don’t need to find the one true church because so many churches exemplify the true church. Although I’m not a Lutheran, Koons would have done just fine to stay in the Lutheran church. Unfortunately, he left a true church for a false church.

Like the Council of Jerusalem? That is certainly not how they viewed what was going on at the time (Acts 15:28-29).

Bad example, since this was bound up with the Judaizers. So there were false teachers afoot—even in the NT church.

No one was at liberty to dissent ("they delivered to them for observance") from "the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders".

A straw man argument since the question at issue is no whether a Christian is at liberty to dissent from apostolic doctrine.

The existence of a heretic doesn't disprove the existence of a true Church.

A red herring since my comment was directed at Koons’ claim about the necessity of a doctrinally inerrant church. Even apostolic churches were not synonymous with doctrinally inerrant churches, for although the apostles were doctrinally inerrant, their churches were not—which is what made heresy possible in NT times.

In its own way, this is perhaps the clearest indication that the Protestant like Hays has actually conceded the argument on authority to the Catholic, and admitted that Protestants really have no authority and are left to glib acceptance of irresolvable differences and relativism amongst themselves.

What I accept is the way in which God has chosen to govern the world. The way to avoid heresy or lesser disputes would be to directly inspire every Christian. God didn’t do that. And nothing short of that preempts the rise of heresy.

Very simple: the saints, being with God in heaven, are outside of time. That being the case, they simply have no problem of number and sequence as we do, since we are temporal creatures, and hence, severely limited in that sense.

i) This is a breathtakingly ambitious, metaphysical claim. Where is the supporting argument?

ii) What about Purgatory? Does the Church Expectant also subsist outside of time? But aren’t the penitents supposed to spend a certain amount of time in Purgatory? Isn’t Purgatory a process?

iii) Or does Dave maintain that one part of the afterlife is timeless, while another part is temporal? Why is heaven timeless while Purgatory is temporal?

iv) What about hell? Is hell timeless or temporal?

v) If Mary is timeless, then Mary cannot learn anything knew? So how does Mary come to know who prayed what?

Is Armstrong conjecturing that at the moment Mary was translated into heaven, God instantly uploaded a billion gigabytes of encrypted, future petitions into her head? Mary Mnemonic instead of Johnny Mnemonic?

vi) If Mary is timeless, then how does she intercede for the faithful on earth? How does she communicate or express her will to the Father or the Son? How does Mary respond to their petitions if she is timeless?

This is not a problem for Reformed theism, where an omniscient God has foreordained our prayers as well as their answers.

What we see in Armstrong’s explanation is the apotheosis of Mary into goddess with divine attributes. This goes to a fundamental tension in Mariology, where the BVM must be just human enough to model synergism, but sufficiently divine to process millions of prayers per day.

The power to say no!

No one has the power to say "no" to God and make it stick.

Perhaps Hays thinks that God would force her to bear Jesus if she didn't want to?

i) There’s a long scriptural history of reluctant prophets and other unwilling servants of God, viz. Moses, King Saul, Elijah, Jonah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, &c.

ii) There’s nothing Mary could do to prevent a virginal conception. And unless she was prepared to perform a self-induced abortion, she had no veto.

Let’s remember that in Bible times, marriages were arranged. Eligible young women didn’t choose to get married or bear children.

Armstrong is reading the text as if he were Rosemary Reuter, with Mary as a pioneer of women’s lib. But his exercise in feminist theology, while very postmodern, is quite anachronistic.

The reason Roman Catholic superimpose this interpretation onto the Annunciation is because they want to elevate Mary to be the paradigm of synergism.

He didn't force Adam and Eve to not rebel and to always do the right thing. He could have prevented the Fall had He done so.

True, because he decreed the Fall.

I was foolish enough to think that Hays was gonna deal with the soteriological arguments. But he never did. I believe someone else took a crack at them. I'll have to take a look at those. But Hays has offered us nothing here of any note or substance, to prove to anyone that Protestantism is a superior choice over Catholicism.

Armstrong is foolish enough to think many things. That’s why he’s a Romanist.

What does he suppoose I should have dealt with? Sola fide?

But, as I already explained, Koons’ priorities are not the same as mine. And although sola fide is a cornerstone of Reformed theology, it is not the only cornerstone of Reformed theology.

Conversely, even if Catholicism were right about justification, it would still be wrong about many other things of equal consequence.

---

1 http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct06.html

2 Salt of the Earth (Ignatius 1997), 100-101.

3 Ibid. 101.

4 K. Schatz, Papal Primacy: From Its Origins to the Present (Liturgical Press 1996), 3.

5 Ibid. 32.

6 Ibid. 34.

7 Ibid. 34.

8 Ibid. 34.

9 Ibid. 35.

10 Ibid. 35-36; Cf. CCL 149.170-71 [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina], 40n47.

11 Ibid. 36.

12 Ibid. 36.

13 Ibid. 60.

14 Ibid. 60.

15 Ibid. 101.

16 Ibid. 101-102.

17 Ibid. 102.

18 Ibid. 106.

19 Ibid. 107.

20 Ibid. 107.

21 Ibid. 107.

22 Ibid. 108.

23 Ibid. 108.

24 Ibid. 108.

25 Ibid. 111; cf. 113.

26 Ibid. 158-159.

27 Ibid. 160.

28 Ibid. 159-160.

29 http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus_en.html