Monday, December 13, 2010

The "real" reason why sola Scriptura is untenable


According to Michael Liccione:

The distinction I’m invoking is important when dealing with sola scripturists, especially those of the Reformed persuasion. They typically hold that, at some point, we come to understand the semantic meaning of scriptural and confessional statements as well as they can be understood, which is supposed to be all that’s necessary for understanding the Christian faith. It is true that we often can and do reach such a point with scriptural and confessional statements themselves; when we do, that suffices for telling us what the statements mean as expressions of human thought. But of course it does not follow that that suffices for telling us what we ought to believe now. That question can only be answered by locating, identifying, and submitting to the authority by which such statements are propounded. Hence, when dealing with those who uphold the “perspicuity” of Scripture, we can readily grant that, in many instances, Scripture is perspicuous enough to tell us what its human authors meant. The same goes a fortiori for creedal and other confessions. But without some further account of authority, that does not suffice to tell us all that we ought to hold as de fide, or even why what they meant even is de fide.

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/11/sola-scriptura-a-dialogue-between-michael-horton-and-bryan-cross/#comment-12734


i) This objection drives a wedge between divine and human intent. Yet the human intent of the Bible writer is divinely inspired. God inspired the authorial intent of the Bible writer. It is therefore fallacious to oppose divine and human intent when human intent amounts to inspired intent. For God expresses his intentions through the intentions of the writers and speakers he inspired to write and speak in his name.


ii) It sounds as though Liccione is operating with a theory of partial inspiration, whereby it’s necessary to winnow the Scriptural statements we’re supposed to believe from the chaffy statements we are free to disregard.


iii) In the meantime, notice his fatal concession. He admits that we can arrive at a correct understanding of the text without the services of the magisterium.  

This is why there’s no getting round the question by what authority Scripture is to be accepted as a record of divine revelation, and by what authority it is to be interpreted as containing what we ought to believe. The authority questions remain even we reach an upper limit of linguistic explication. That’s the real reason why sola scriptura is untenable.

i) Well, if you wish to cast the question in authoritarian terms, then we accept the revelatory status of Scripture on the authority of the very God who revealed it.


ii) But why cast the question in authoritarian terms? Why not recast the question by simply asking how we know the Bible is the word of God? We can know many things without recourse to some “authority” or another. Why make “authority” the default condition for knowing what is true or false?


iii) If the Bible is plenarily inspired, then it’s incumbent on you and me to believe the whole thing. We don’t need an extrabiblical authority to isolate and identify which statements contained in Scripture oblige our belief–in contrast to other Biblical statements which don’t. Liccione is creating a false dichotomy.

7 comments:

  1. "Why make “authority” the default condition for knowing what is true or false?"

    That is *THE* $64,000,000 question!

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  2. The false dichotomy does seem set up to lead to a foregone conclusion. Catholics dealing with Protestants on these issues don't usually account for how a Protestant who takes their arguments seriously could still skip Rome entirely and go to Eastern Orthodoxy? That's what my relatives who left Protestantism did, for instance. The Orthodox believe that the West has failed to fully account for all seven ecumenical councils and so is in error. Roman Catholics who think Protestants need to consider solid authority and "come home" aren't anymore "home" by Orthodox standards on a lot of things than they think Protestants are, are they?

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  3. Liccione's reasoning relies on not just partial inspiration but also on partial revelation.

    The Magesterium is supposed to clear up confusion on the meaning of Scripture. This suggests that God's Holy Word to His people is somehow hidden from them, requiring some further revelation.

    In actual practice, Liccione's solution is nowhere in sight. How many passages of Scripture have been infallibly defined? For example, which is the correct view of the Creation (YEC / OEC / Evolution, etc...)

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  4. "How many passages of Scripture have been infallibly defined? For example, which is the correct view of the Creation (YEC / OEC / Evolution, etc...)"

    Indeed, here is one major example of what SHOULD have caused Rome to employ its infallible teaching ability - if it had really possessed it.

    IF Rome had truly possessed doctrinal infallibility, it should have called forth an ecumenical council to deal with the challenge of Darwinism back in the 19th century, in order to set the minds of believers at rest concerning this startling new challenge to the faith. After all, the early ecumenical councils were called forth to deal with such crises.

    But alas, for #some reason# Rome did not see it necessary to clarify to the world what it exactly thought about this momentous issue which so intimately concerned not only Christians but all of mankind as well. On the evolution issue, the Vatican totally neglected its supposed duty of teaching towards the Body of Christ.

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  5. Sounds to me as if the Reformed arguments for Sola Scriptura are pushing him into a corner. He feels the weight, but is trying desperately to hold onto some shred that will allow him to have that need for a real-time authoritative interpreter. At this point, he has no good reason though to hold onto that "authoritative" "de fide" provider other than that he wants one.

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  6. "IF Rome had truly possessed doctrinal infallibility, it should have called forth an ecumenical council to deal with the challenge of Darwinism back in the 19th century, in order to set the minds of believers at rest concerning this startling new challenge to the faith. After all, the early ecumenical councils were called forth to deal with such crises.
    "


    Exactly.

    One of the arguments put forth by Catholics is that the Magesterium is in place to settle disputes of interpretation or challenges to the faith. What bigger challenge to the faith has arisen over the last 3 or 4 centuries than Darwinism?

    Yet something as foundational as whether the Creation account in Genesis is literal or metaphorical is left to the individual Catholic to determine. Either interpretation, by the way, is acceptable in Catholicism.

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  7. "One of the arguments put forth by Catholics is that the Magesterium is in place to settle disputes of interpretation or challenges to the faith. What bigger challenge to the faith has arisen over the last 3 or 4 centuries than Darwinism?"

    Yes, the Magisterium frauds deserted their faithful in the most pressing need. RC hierarchy never took a firm stand even in the days of Pius IX, and or course have by now generally sold out to theistic evolution:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution#Early_reaction

    "The Catholic Church delayed official pronouncements on Darwin's Origin of Species for many decades. While many hostile comments were made by local clergy, Origin of Species was never placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum;[6] in contrast, Henri Bergson's non-Darwinian Creative Evolution (1907), was on the Index from 1948 until it was abolished in 1966[7].
    ...

    In 1868, the Blessed John Henry Newman corresponded with a fellow priest regarding Darwin's theory and made the following comments:

    "As to the Divine Design, is it not an instance of incomprehensibly and infinitely marvellous Wisdom and Design to have given certain laws to matter millions of ages ago, which have surely and precisely worked out, in the long course of those ages, those effects which He from the first proposed. Mr. Darwin's theory need not then to be atheistical, be it true or not; it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of Divine Prescience and Skill. Perhaps your friend has got a surer clue to guide him than I have, who have never studied the question, and I do not [see] that 'the accidental evolution of organic beings' is inconsistent with divine design — It is accidental to us, not to God.[13]""

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