Orcs and hobbits

There’s a debate over the papacy at Green Baggins. The debate is going badly, for the same reason debates there always go badly. That’s because outsiders like Bryan Cross are always allowed to dictate the terms of engagement.

For instance:

Bryan Cross said,
July 27, 2012 at 2:18 pm

You’re [sic] “textualist” stance is a question-begging stance. It presupposes the impossibility (at least unacceptability on your part) of God establishing the Church with a living and authoritative oral Tradition.

Notice, for instance, how Bryan rigs the burden of proof, as if the onus lay on Protestants to prove the “impossibility” of God establishing the Church with a living and authoritative oral Tradition. But, of course, that’s backwards. It’s up to Bryan to demonstrate the reality of God establishing the Church with a living and authoritative oral Tradition.

Also notice how easy it would be to perform a reductio ad absurdam on Bryan’s argument, viz.

Joseph Smith said,
July 27, 2012 at 2:18 pm

Your “countercult” stance is a question-begging stance. It presupposes the impossibility (at least unacceptability on your part) of the angel Moroni revealing the golden tablets (magic reading glasses not included) to Joseph Smith

Blarney Stone said,
July 27, 2012 at 2:18 pm

Your “anti-fairyist” stance is a question-begging stance. It presupposes the impossibility (at least unacceptability on your part) of leprechauns on the Isle of Man hiding from investigators.

Bryan accuses Lane of begging the question. But if (arguendo) it’s question-begging for Lane to frame the issue in “solo-Scriptura” terms, then it’s equally question-begging for Bryan to frame the issue in (allegedly) Catholic terms. It’s not enough to say Protestants must justify their interpretive paradigm, and leave it at that, as if Catholics don’t share a parallel burden of proof to justify their own paradigm. If Bryan is going to appeal to the church fathers, then he needs to take the preliminary step of first explaining why his interpretive paradigm is right.

And not just a hypothetical argument for the hypothetical virtues of the Catholic paradigm, but an argument for why we should believe that’s actually the case.

Moreover, as I pointed out recently, there’s no reason to think Bryan’s “interpretive paradigm” is the Catholic paradigm. Compare it to this paradigm:

Finally, Wall says that interpretation–presumably both as exegesis and as application insofar as the two are distinguished–is subject to the rule of faith, going back to Irenaeus. However, why should any churchly summary of the gospel, an extracanonical interpretation, be the norm for subsequent interpretation?…Should not our creeds be subject to Scripture and revisable in light of our growing, or at least changing, understanding of biblical teaching?...Appeal to any creed or rule of faith needs to be conscious of its human, fallible character.

Stanley Porter & Beth Stovell, eds., Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views (IVP Academic, 2012), 173.

Finally, even if, for the sake of argument, Lane was guilty of begging the question, that objection only goes so far. Bryan needs to know, for his own sake, that Catholicism is true. Deflecting Protestant objections isn’t sufficient. How does Bryan know that Catholicism is true? What’s his argument? That’s something he need to know for himself, regardless of whether Protestants are leveling fallacious objections (which I don’t concede). Why does Bryan keep running away from that question? Is it because he can’t answer that question? He can’t give a good answer? He can only swat the objection away?

His tactic is to prevent his opponent from winning. But that doesn’t make him win the argument. There’s a difference between not losing and winning. A stalemate isn’t victory.

What is Bryan’s positive case for Catholicism? What is Bryan's concrete evidence that Catholicism is true? Not hypotheticals, but actual evidence.

Bryan loves to change the subject. Instead of proving Catholicism, he tries to rebut Protestant objections to Catholicism. But that’s not the same thing.

Now Bryan might say that he can’t give direct evidence because the interpretation of evidence is paradigm-dependent. But he doesn't offer a direct argument for his interpretive paradigm, either.

To say you can’t begin with the evidence, you must begin with the interpretive paradigm, only pushes the question back a step. Okay, so suppose we begin with the paradigm. Suppose we take Bryan up on the offer. In that event he needs to make a case for his paradigm. Where’s the argument?

All Liccione ever says to justify the paradigm is that that’s necessary to close the gap between opinion and the assent of faith. But why is it necessary to close that (alleged) gap in the first place? He’s tacitly appealing to a Catholic presupposition. So it’s turtles all the way down.