All Hat, No Cattle

My recent exchange with some Catholics over at Justin Taylor's blog:

[Bryan Cross] “Jason, Is it even possible, in your mind, that you have misinterpreted St. Paul’s words in his letter to the Galatians?”

Since that objection cuts both ways, it’s self-refuting. We can all entertain the hypothetical possibility of error. However, that, of itself, doesn’t create any presumption of error. And it’s clear that Bryan is very one-sided in his skepticism. Jason ought to be skeptical about his evangelical interpretation of Galatians, but Bryan ought not be skeptical about his Catholic interpretation of Galatians. Jason should doubt his evangelical faith, but Bryan’s Catholic faith is indubitable.

“You are not making any distinction between the works of the ceremonial law as part of the Old Covenant, and works of the moral law, done in a state of grace in the New Covenant, out of love [agape] for God. In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul wasn’t condemning (or even referring to) growth in justification through good works done in a state of grace; he was condemning a return to the Old Covenant by Christians, because that was a rejection of the New Covenant and implicitly a rejection of Jesus as the Messiah who established the New Covenant in which the requirement of those ceremonial laws is done away. If you don’t understand the distinction between the ceremonial law and the moral law, then you have entirely misunderstood Paul’s point in his letter to the Galatians. Then your whole warrant for calling the Church’s teaching a ‘false gospel’ is based on a misinterpretation of Scripture.”

Actually, it’s far more likely that Bryan has “entirely misunderstood” Paul’s point in Galatians. As Gordon Fee explains, in his exegesis of Gal 3:10-12,

“Paul thereby moves from the blessing of Abraham in Genesis (vv7-9) to the curses of Deut 27-28 on those who do not obey the law (vv10-13). He does so by citing the final, summarizing curse in Deut 27:26–as it appears in the LXX, but with some verbal modifications from 29:19-20: ‘Cursed is anyone who does not abide in all the things written in the book of the law, to do them.’ Paul has chosen his citation carefully, as the addition from Deut 29:20 and the citation of Lev 18:5 in v12 make certain. At issue for Paul is the Judaizer’s selectivity with regard to the law…Paul’s point is that those who choose to live by the law thereby exclude themselves from the blessing, because they must now ‘abide in the whole law, to do it,’ and they are cursed if they do not so ‘abide.’ What Paul is thus setting out to demonstrate is the total incompatibility of living on the basis of faith while also trying to live on the basis of doing the law…First, if the Galatian men allow themselves to be circumcised, they are making a choice ‘to live by the law’; and because people must ‘abide in [continue to live in] everything written in the law,’ they are thereby excluding themselves from living by the Spirit, based on faith in Christ Jesus. What the Galatians must recognize is that these two ways of living are mutually exclusive; one lives one way (by faith) or the other (by law); and to live by the other (the law) only partially is to be under a curse. Therefore, second, they cannot be partial in their obedience: to choose to live by the law means of necessity to live by the whole law; partial obedience (just circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath observance) is not permissible. So this too is part of the curse; it is either no law or the whole law. Third, to abide in the law carries with it the necessity of ‘doing the law,’ which automatically means that one is not trusting Christ for salvation. The logical consequence of all this is that the one who chooses to live by the law is thereby excluded from Christ, cut off from salvation altogether; and this is the real concern for Paul in all of this argumentation…Paul’s’ Gentile converts in Galatia cannot pick and choose what they will obey from the law. Rather, to go the way of the Torah is to go the whole way; there is no provision for partial obedience. Here, then, is the paragraph that puts all of this in its starkest form…His point now is, and it is the crucial point in the entire argument with the Galatians, that one cannot add ‘works of law’ to faith as a basis of ‘living’ before God. To the contrary, the law itself is quite plain on this matter…The ‘logic’ is thus certain and forceful, and Paul’s point is clear: You Galatians cannot have it both ways; it is an either/or situation. One either comes to life, and continues to live, on the basis of faith, or one is condemned to living by the law and that alone, and that quite excludes living by faith. To make this mean something else theologically is not only to do injustice to what Paul actually says, but takes the argument out of Paul’s’ context in order to make it fit another concern altogether,” Galatians (Deo Publishing 2007), 117-21.

Ironically and unwittingly, Bryan is siding with the Judaizers.

[Bryan Cross] “You claim that ‘passages like Romans 3:27 and Galatians 3:21-25 illustrate [that] Paul wanted works of every type excluded.’ But the texts don’t demand that interpretation.”

Well, according to the Catholic NT scholar Joseph Fitzmyer, commenting on the follow-up verse (3:28):

“[Paul’s] emphasis falls on pistei, ‘by faith,’ as Kuss, Bardenhewer, and Sickenberger recognize. That emphasis and the qualification ‘apart from deeds of (the law)’ show that in this context Paul means ‘by faith alone,’” Romans (Doubleday 1993), 364.

[Bryan Cross] “But that shouldn’t be interpreted as ruling out the ability to store up a righteous reward in heaven for good works done here: ‘every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.’ (1 Cor 3:8), and ‘Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to each man according to what he has done.’ (Rev 22:12) The reward for our good works is based on the law, not on some arbitrary standard God just makes up on the Day of Judgment.”

Two problems:

i) As a point of exegetical method, it’s methodologically erroneous to use John to gloss Paul. The usage of each author needs to be construed on its own terms. After we’ve established what each writer meant, we can then proceed to systematic theology.

But until you interpret each writer on his own terms, it’s circular to assume that two different authors are even talking about the same thing. You need to exegete each writer on his own terms to know what he’s talking about in the first place before you’re in any position to relate what he says to what another author says.

ii) The fact that Scripture has a doctrine of heavenly rewards doesn’t mean that good works are justificatory (in the Pauline sense). Bryan is assuming the very conclusion which he needs to prove.

[Bryan Cross] “Steve, You’re conflating initial justification and growth in justification.”

Bryan, you’re interpolating a distinction between initial justification and final justification without first having established the existence of said subdivision in the text. You need to demonstrate through suitable exegesis that Paul conceived of justification as gradual process with different stages.

“Fitzmeyer’s comment, whether true or not, is fully compatible with works being excluded from initial justification, and yet not excluded from growth in justification or from final justification.”

Compatible under the tendentious assumptions that (a) justification is phased in over time, and (b) works contribute to final justification. You keep assuming what you need to prove.

“And Fee gets St. Paul wrong in the quotation you cited, because he doesn’t understand that it is through agape that we fulfill the whole law, as Jeremiah foretold (Jer 31:33) and St. Paul teaches in Rom 2:29.”

Which doesn’t establish that law-keeping is justificatory. You constantly anticipate your conclusion–minus the supporting argument.

“This is precisely why to break one point of the law is to break the whole law (James 2:10), because by doing so one has abandoned agape.”

It’s fallacious to use James to gloss Paul. To begin with, that prejudges the meaning of James. In addition, unless you already know what Paul means, you don’t know whether the two statements are even conceptually related.

“And by contrast, to retain agape is to fulfill the whole law, as St. Paul teaches. (Gal 5:14) Fee presents us with an either/or [all the OT law, or faith alone]. But that’s not St. Paul’s either/or. St. Paul’s either/or is Old Covenant or New Covenant.”

Several problems;

i) Gal 5:14, with its appeal to Lev 19:18, accentuates the continuity between the old covenant and the new at this juncture. That’s not either/or.

ii) Moreover, it’s in the context of the new covenant that Paul accentuates the inadmissibility of law-keeping as a basis of justification before God. So that’s not a contrast between the old covenant and the new. Rather, that’s a contrast within the new covenant itself.

iii) Do you think law-keeping was justificatory under the old covenant? Were Jews saved by works while Christians are saved by grace?

“With regard to the moral law and faith, in Christ they are both/and, by the supernatural gift of agape. The law is not abolished in the New Covenant; it is written on the hearts of men by the Spirit.”

The internalization of the law doesn’t mean the law is justificatory. You keep presuming the very thing you need to demonstrate. Is that because you’re reading everything through a Catholic lens–which superimposes Catholic concepts onto the text? Unfortunately, your conclusions are etched on your lens rather than your prooftext. Remove the lens and the conclusion disappears.

[Francis Beckwith] “Well, some us actually believe that it does not ‘harmonize the data’ as well as you think, if you mean by ‘harmonize the data’ a theory that best accounts for the data of scripture (including the teachings of Jesus), requires fewer ad hoc hypotheses, and best accounts for the development of the practices and beliefs of the ante-nicean and post-nicean church. After all, the first readers of Scripture should be accorded great deference since it is in their communities that canon developed and was eventually recognized, its parts recited and read in their liturgical practices, and they were the closest to the Apostles and their immediate successors (including Ignatius and Polycarp).”

i) Is Beckwith telling us that Roman Catholicism has ad hoc hypotheses, but fewer ad hoc hypotheses than Protestantism?

ii) Notice the slippage as he goes straight from the “first readers of Scripture” through the subapostolic fathers and ante-nicean fathers to the post-nicean fathers–as if all these different generations enjoy the same privileged epistemic situation. But that’s’ clearly not the case. Consider a court of law. If you subpoenaed a witness to offer testimony on the state of the NT church, would you subpoena Papias or John Chrysostom? Clearly Papias. No court of law would summon a “witness” who lived centuries after the fact. That would be hearsay evidence many many many times removed from the event in question.

iii) There are other obvious distinctions. While an eyewitness may well know more about an event he saw than somebody living 100 years after the event, it’s possible for a historian living 500 years after the event to know more about the event than somebody living 100 years after the event. That’s because the historian may consult more sources of information. Likewise, a modern Egyptologist knows more about ancient Egypt than St. Anselm, even though Anselm was born hundreds of before the Egyptologist.

iv) And we also know from reading the NT epistles that it was quite possible for contemporaries of the apostles who sat at their feet to misconstrue apostolic teaching. That’s why Paul is forced to write a follow-up letter to correct their misunderstanding. And that’s despite the fact that he also taught them face-to-face.

v) Finally, does the church of Rome consistently defer to the church fathers? Or does the church of Rome pick and choose which patristic teachings to follow?

Who was closer to NT times: Marcion (c. 85-160) or Gregory the Great (c. 540-604)? Does this mean, using Beckwith’s chronological yardstick, that Marcion takes precedence over Gregory the Great? Does that represent Catholic priorities? I don’t think so.

“To do a word study on the word ‘work,’ for example, as if that can ever settle this sort of question is lexical gnosticism, reminiscent of the sort of exoteric/esoteric reading of classical texts found among the followers of Leo Strauss in political philosophy. People write in sentences, embedded in paragraphs of which letters and books are composed.”

Of course, that’s just a straw man argument.

“But, remember, for those of us who are many generations removed from the founders of that theology, we are reading the text with those background beliefs firmly in place, situated in the center of a well-regarded theological tradition with some of wonderful Christian thinkers who advocate for it…some people are going to come to the theological table with a different plausibility structure than others, and this is why some of us find some arguments and reasons better than others…Suppose, also, that the person has been a life-long member of a Baptist Church that has a wonderful pastor and loving and charitable Christians who live out the words of Christ. These people, who he knows and trusts, teach him that the proper way to look at the Lord’s Supper is that it is symbolic. This person’s plausibility structure (or ‘evidential set’) will make it difficult for him to accept the Catholic position, even if one can make a church history argument for it. So, this person is going assess counter-arguments from Catholics and Orthodox partly on the resources of his plausibility structure.”

i) Of course, the problem with this objection is that it cuts both ways. A cradle Catholic will have a Catholic plausibility structure or evidential set. So that objection either proves too much or too little.

ii) Moreover, it’s misleading to suggest that Catholic exegetes arrive at Catholic conclusions while Protestant exegetes arrive at Protestant conclusion. If you actually read modern Catholic exegetes (e.g. Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer; John Meier, Luke Timothy Johnson), they frequently challenge traditional Catholic interpretations of Scripture and offer more “Protestant” interpretations in their place.

iii) And as far as church history is concerned, let’s remember that Protestants can be church historians, too. Protestant church historians are also “deep into church history.” They know the same primary and secondary source materials as Catholic theologians.

“On the other hand, there are other people, such as Scott Hahn, Jimmy Akin, Richard John Neuhaus, Avery Cardinal Dulles, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Robert Louis Wilken, and R. R. Reno, who have found the Reformed account less plausible than the Catholic one.”

Sure you want to use Newman to prove your point? As a recent historical monograph has documented, “it was events in Newman’s life that changed his interpretation of the Fathers, not the interpretation of the Fathers that caused Newman to change his life. King argues that Newman tailored his reading, ‘trying on’ the ideas of different Fathers to fit his own needs.”

Cf. B. King, Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers (OUP 2009).

Continuing with Beckwith:

“After all, these gentlemen, after careful study and reflection, though it no longer possible to embrace the Reformed view in good conscience. Are they irrational?”

But, of course, that’s misleading. Beckwith isn’t vying for epistemic parity between Catholicism and Protestantism. He doesn’t content himself with the even-handed notion that both sides are rational. Rather, Beckwith is vying for the superiority of Catholicism.

“However, there are other aspects of Catholic theology–apostolic succession, Eucharistic realism, the importance of avoiding the sin of schism, its ancient patrimony, etc.–that tip the scales for me in favor of Catholicism.”

i) That’s a makeweight. Unable to justify your Catholic interpretation of Scripture on exegetical grounds, you leverage your Catholic interpretation by lobbing a kitchen sink of extraneous considerations at the text. But how does that ascertain the meaning of the Bible writer? Do we simply vacate the meaning of Scripture if it comes into conflict with extrascriptural precommitments?

ii) And, of course, it’s not as if astute Protestants never evaluated the “other aspects” of Catholic theology.

[Francis Beckwith] “On the other hand, there are other people, such as Scott Hahn, Jimmy Akin, Richard John Neuhaus, Avery Cardinal Dulles, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Robert Louis Wilken, and R. R. Reno, who have found the Reformed account less plausible than the Catholic one.”

i) I’m unclear on why Beckwith is casting the debate in terms of Calvinism v. Catholicism (since “Reformed” is synonymous with “Calvinist”). Belief in sola fide is hardly limited to Calvinism.

ii) Of the names he ticked off, Newman and Dulles are clearly the most distinguished of the lot. I’ve already commented on Newman. So what about Dulles? Well, let’s take a few test-cases, shall we?

a) Consider his articles on the topic of salvation and damnation: “The Population of Hell,” “Who Can Be Saved?” (both of which are available online). On a related note is his article on the Jewish question: “The Covenant With Israel” (also available online).

As he rummages through church history, notice how he traces out the checked history of this central issue in Catholic theology. Notice the sea-change in Catholic theology.

On a different topic, but illustrating the same theological instability, consider his article on “Catholicism & Capital Punishment” (available online).

b) Then we have his article “From Ratzinger to Benedict” (available online).

On the one hand, it documents the way in which Karol Wojtyła and Joseph Ratzinger arrive at divergent interpretations of Vatican II. This despite the fact that both men were participants at the council, worked side by side for a quarter century, and ascended the papacy (one right after the other.

On the other hand, it also documents the divergence between early Ratzinger’s interpretation of Vatican II and late Ratzinger’s interpretation of Vatican II.

c) I’d also recommend that people read the book by Dulles on the Magisterium, which details the difficulties in arriving at a definitive statement of Catholic theology.

Catholicism is a sea island, the boundaries of which keep shifting.

“This person’s plausibility structure (or ‘evidential set’) will make it difficult for him to accept the Catholic position, even if one can make a church history argument for it.”

Keep in mind that Catholic church historians like Ignaz von Döllinger, Klaus Schatz, and Robert Eno challenge the official version of Catholic church history.

Indeed, Döllinger was excommunicated for his refusal to rubberstamp the historical revisionism of Vatican I.

[Francis Beckwith] “How do you know that this author is not mistaken as well?”

i) Why do you pose a self-defeating question? If you can ask me that question, then I can ask you the same question in return. So what does that move accomplish for you?

Have you settled for mutual skepticism? How does that give anyone a reason to be Roman Catholic rather than Lutheran or Anglican or Presbyterian or Baptist or Anabaptist?

For example, you earlier cited Cardinal Dulles. What if I replied by saying, “How do you know Dulles isn’t mistaken as well?” Surely you don’t think that’s an adequate response.

ii) Moreover, the possibility that so-and-so could be mistaken doesn’t ipso facto create a presumption that he is mistaken, or probably mistaken. And some folks are less likely to be mistaken than others. Benjamin King is a church historian who’s obviously made a specialized study of Newman. His monograph is published by a leading academic press. Is he infallible? No. But if we were to choose between his interpretation and yours, doesn’t he bring more expertise to the subject than you do?

Sure, you can challenge his interpretation. You might even be right. But you’d have to bring some counterevidence to bear. Not simply float the abstract possibility that he might be mistaken.

“One of the things you learn over the years…”

That line might work with one of your 19-year old students at Baylor. But since you’re about one year my junior, that just doesn’t fly.

“If I may offer a pastoral note here, it is really unhealthy to always be worrying about arguments as the woof and warp of your faith and walk with Jesus. Arguments are, of course, important. And I suspect less important than you think.”

Well, that disclaimer is rather duplicitous in this setting, don’t you think? Both you and Bryan are trying, kinda sorta, to argue for Catholicism. To argue against the Evangelical alternative.

So why do you suddenly introduce this disclaimer? Is that a fallback maneuver because you sense you’re losing the argument?

Disclaimers like this simply boomerang on yourself. It looks like you’re trying to preemptively minimize the value of arguments against Catholicism while, however, we’re supposed to take your arguments against evangelicalism (such as they are) far more seriously.

“Parts of the Development are clearly better than others, but in general I think he makes a good case.”

But that’s in tension with your initial appeal to “the first readers” of Scripture, the subapostolic fathers, &c.

As Mozley pointed out in his 19C review of Newman’s essay, if you’re going to invoke primitive tradition to validate Catholic dogma, then the dogma should be more evident upstream, not downstream.

“For example, Steve cites the B. King book, published in 2009. Are we to actually believe that prior to 2009 he was just waiting for the B. King book or something like it in order to not be tempted to cross the Tiber.”

I was merely responding to Beckwith on his own terms. A tu quoque argument. That doesn’t mean I have a dog in that fight one way or the other as far as Newman is concerned.

[Francis Beckwith] “Yikes Steve. I wrote this right after I dealt with King’s book. It was just a kind word to point out that none of us waits for the next issue of Theology Today or the next OUP catalog to see if its still rational to believe what we believe. For if we did, it would be a horrible and creepy (and thus, unhealthy).”

No, you just wait for the next papal encyclical to see if what you were required to believe the day before is what you’re forbidden to believe the day after, or vice versa.

[Phil Buster] “The great irony here: Justification by faith alone being turned into self-justification and a means for boasting, in this case, ways to justify oneself against the Catholic church and boast in the superiority of Protestantism. And therein lies the shallowness of evangelical Protestantism, it loves to wield doctrines but seldomly takes them to heart.”

First of all, I notice that you don’t rebut a single thing that Jason and I have said. So, to judge by your own performance, you regard your Catholic faith as indefensible.

Beyond that, your statement is a study in confusion. Whether we, as sinners, can merit our justification before God is a completely different question than providing an intellectual justification for our belief-system. An intellectual justification is not a question of personal merit, much less personal merit in relation to God. That’s hardly the “boasting” which Paul had in mind. Don’t you know the difference? And there’s nothing essentially “boastful” about an intellectual justification.

And if you think that providing an intellectual justification for one’s faith betrays the shallowness of one’s faith, then you condemn the Roman Catholic tradition of fundamental theology and polemical theology. Likewise, doesn’t Catholicism claim to be superior to evangelicalism? Why are you Roman Catholic rather than Protestant if you deem the two positions to be coequal?