Fahrenheit 451

This is a sequel to my earlier post, from comments I left at Beggars All:

steve said...

Notice Guy's faithless response to Luke and John. He openly scorns the assurance they give the reader. He refuses to credit what they say on their own terms.

He's a rank infidel with a bit of borrowed religiosity.

steve said...

"I don't deny the assurances of Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James,Jude, Matthew or Mark. I know the books associated with them are God breathed because I have it on the authority of the Church established by Christ."

The passages I quoted don't condition their assurance on your extraneous putative authority. Rather, the assurance they proffer is predicated on their own writings, as is. It's self-contained.

You refuse to accept the claims of Luke and John on their own grounds.

They say that by reading and believing what they wrote, a reader will have certainty about the life of Christ and saving knowledge of his person and work.

You directly contradict what they say. You look them square in the eye and say: "No, I don't believe you!"

You don't believe Luke and John. You only believe Pope Francis.

"Steve, without an infallible Church, you don't even know what the Bible is."

Suppose I'm stranded on a deserted island. Suppose I never heard of "the Bible" or "the church."

Suppose a copy of Luke's gospel or John's gospel or 1 John washes ashore.

If I read it and believe it, do I have the certainty, the saving knowledge, that they promise the reader?

If you deny that, then you're an infidel.

steve said...

i) You disbelieve what Luke or John say on their own merits. You deny that what they claim is obligatory or authoritative in its own right.

This despite how them themselves frame the issue. Luke grounds the assurance he gives a reader, not in Pope Francis signing off on what he wrote, but on the quality of his own sources. His personal research is the stated basis for the assurance he gives.

John grounds the assurance he gives a reader, not on the approval of Pope Francis, but on John's firsthand knowledge of Jesus, and inspired recollection.

What if Pope Francis told you not to believe Luke's Gospel or John's Gospel, or 1 John? Evidently, you take his word over theirs.

ii) If Luke is true or John is true, then its truth does not depend on my ability to prove it. If it's true, then even if I fail to prove it, it is still true.

Suppose John's Gospel washes up on the beach of my deserted island. I have no idea where it comes from. Do I have life in Christ's name by believing what John recorded (Jn 20:31)?

Suppose I'm walking along the beach of my deserted island and I find a copy of Luke's Gospel on the shoreline. I'm not familiar with the author. By reading and believing it, do I true and certain knowledge of what Luke recorded (Lk 1:1-4)?

steve said...

"Steve, without an infallible Church, you don't even know what the Bible is."

That's an empty-headed trope you mechanically repeat–like pulling a string on a doll.

It disregards internal evidence. It ensnares you to a vicious infinite regress. And it reflects your double standard.

steve said...

If a book contains false divine promises (i.e. promises falsely attributed to God), then believing them doesn't make them true. If, however, a book contains true divine promises, then God will do for the reader what he promised in the book independent of any corroborative evidence.

Is it a fact that by reading the Gospel of Luke, a reader can acquire sure knowledge about the life of Christ? Is it a fact that by reading the Gospel of John, a reader can acquire saving knowledge?

steve said...

"I don't deny the assurances of Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James,Jude, Matthew or Mark. I know the books associated with them are God breathed because I have it on the authority of the Church established by Christ."

You invoke a secondary (alleged) authority while disowning the direct authority of the writers themselves.

Luke doesn't predicate his Gospel on the authority of "the Church," but the evidence his own investigations.

Likewise, when John says "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life" (1 Jn 1:1-2), he's not appealing to the authority of "the Church," but his personal authority as an intimate eyewitness to the public ministry of Christ.

When you only accept what Bible writers say on the authority of your sect, you disrespect their stated truth-conditions and substitute an alien rationale.

"Why didn't Christ just leave us a book like the Koran or something?"

Given your ecclesiolatry, we could turn the question around. Why did God give us a Bible at all? Who needs a book when you have the living oracle of Mother Church to answer all your questions?

steve said...

"I know the books associated with them are God breathed because I have it on the authority of the Church established by Christ."

You don't have an authoritative church–although you do have an authoritarian church. All you really have is the authority of your own individual opinion. Your fallible personal opinion that your particular denomination is infallible. Your "infallible external authority" is your private judgment in disguise. You postulate an infallible external authority.

John says, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands…"

Pope Francis is in no position to say that.

The author of Hebrews says the message "was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard" (Heb 2:3).

Pope Francis is in no position to say that.

Luke says, "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you" (Lk 1:1-3).

Pope Francis is in no position to say that.

"I also can say the same for the OT including those 7 books you don't have."

And the Ethiopian Orthodox church can say the same for the books you don't have. And the LDS church can say the same for the books you don't have.

"There were Church councils, presided over by Catholic bishops, ratified by popes, that decided which books stayed and which books didn't."

Because, for you, the word of God has no inherent authority. If the Pope gives thumbs up to the Gospel of Thomas, then it's in. If the Pope gives thumbs down to the Gospel of Matthew, then it's out.

steve said...

Guy,

By your own admission, you don't begin with an infallible church–because you can't. Rather, you posit an infallible church. You begin with your fallible postulate of an infallible church.

It is viciously circular for you to retroactively validate your fallible option by reference to an infallible church, when that's nothing more than your fallible postulate in the first place. Your endpoint can't rise higher than your starting-point.

"Reasonable" and "infallible" are not synonymous. Not even close.

steve said...

i) Guy's demand for an "infallible external authority" generates an infinite regress. If we can't be certain of anything without reference to an external criterion, then by what additional criterion do we test our external criterion? 

This approach fails to distinguish between first-order knowledge (knowing that) and second-order knowledge (knowing how we know, or proving what we know).

To halt the vicious regress, some knowledge must be immediate.

ii) In addition, Guy shows contempt for Biblical assurances based on the witness of the Spirit.

iii) Let's take a comparison. Suppose Calvinism is true. Suppose God intends someone to be a Christian. One way God can do that is to predestine that person to be raised in a Christian church. Perhaps that's all he's every known.

Now, considered in isolation, believing something just because you were raised that way is not a good reason to believe it.

If, however, Christianity is true, then what this man believes is true. Moreover, it isn't just a historical accident that he believes it. Rather, God put him in that belief-forming environment to foster faith in Scripture.

So he's right to believe it. It's the right thing to believe, and he was conditioned to believe it by a reliable belief-forming mechanism–God's special providence. God prearranged the events in this man's life so that he'd be exposed to the truth. God regenerated him to make him receptive to the truth. He isn't mistaken, and under those circumstances, he cannot be mistaken.

However, because Guy despises Calvinism, he's cut himself off from that providential source of justified true belief.

steve said...

Keep in mind that there was never a church of Rome. Rather, there were churches of Rome. A variety of house-churches, under different leaders. That's on display in Rom 16. There was no church of Rome in the 1C. Just a number of neighborhood fellowships scattered across the far-flung city. No one church of Rome. No singular church.

steve said...

"Do you mean the burning in the bosom experienced by every schwarmer?"

Even though the word of God appeals to the witness of the Spirit, Guy considers that equivalent to Mormonism. Further evidence that Guy is a hardened infidel.

For Guy, the Bible has no more authority or credibility than the book of Mormon.

"Boys and Girls, Let's put our thinking caps on."

That would be a radical change in Guy's modus operandi:

"Before around 1450, when Gutenberg invented the printing press and printed a Catholic Bible, your foundational belief of 'Bible Only' was a physical impossibility."

Evidently, Guy thinking cap is out of order. Before the invention of the printing press, there were no mass copies of papal encyclicals, conciliar proceedings, Scholastic theologians, or church fathers.

Guy's alternative is no more or less dependent on the printing press than the Protestant rule of faith. The church of Rome also disseminates its dogmas in writing.

"Really? Have you ever been to Rome?"

As a matter of fact, I have–several times.

More to the point, I'm discussing 1C Rome, not 21C Rome

Notice, though, how Guy blows right past Rom 16. He doesn't even know what it means. Try reading Fitzmyer's commentary on Rom 16. A Jesuit commentator. Notice what he says about the house-churches referenced in the text, with different leaders.

"Kephas, the wicked high priest, uttered infallible prophecy in virtue of the office he was holding.:

That's Guy's bare assertion. To the contrary:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/11/was-there-jewish-magisterium.html

"( Pssst! Kaiphas/Cephas )."

Guy robotically reiterates the same refuted claims. I already corrected him on that. He offers no counterargument.

"Suppose black was white and up was down."

Notice that Guy has no counterargument.

"I won't bore you again with my 'amateurish' description of Richard Whately's method of argumentation which says we can trust our powers of observation and the testimony of history when it comes to Christ"

Guy has yet to demonstrate how that method of argumentation yields infallible conclusions.

Let's try one more time:

"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 Jn 5:13).

Does Guy agree or disagree with that promise? If a reader believes what John wrote, does he thereby know that he has eternal life?

Is that a true or false promise? The promise isn't conditioned on believing in Pope Francis or an infallible church, but on believing what John wrote.

steve said...

"You reject the Church that predates your Bible, the Church you are totally dependent on for that Bible."

Catholic apologists imagine that church history is on their side, yet they make utterly unhistorical claims about how the church of Rome gave Christians the Bible. That's because Catholic apologetics is really based, not on church history, but an a priori methodology.

They begin with their conclusion: the alleged necessity of an infallible church. Then they stipulate whatever is necessary to yield their foregone conclusion.

There are many excellent treatments of the canon. For instance:

OT Canon:

Roger Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church.

Andrew Steinmann, The Oracles of God: The Old Testament Canon.

Apocrypha:

David deSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance.

NT Canon:

E. E. Ellis, The Making of the New Testament Documents.

C. E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels?

Michael Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books.

–––––, The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate.

Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance.

Stanley Porter, How We Got the New Testament: Text, Transmission, Translation.

steve said...

"Tell me more about the trustworthiness of that 'Inner Witness of the Spirit' you said you rely upon to know if you are reading inspired scripture or not."

I didn't make a personal claim. And I didn't propose the witness of the Spirit is a canonical criterion. Rather, I made an observation about how Scripture appeals to the witness of the Spirit as a source of Christian assurance.

"Do you get all misty eyed and choked…"

Your comments on the Biblical witness of the Spirit are sacrilegious. What possesses you to mock what Scripture says about a source of spiritual assurance? What is it about Catholic piety that makes you blaspheme the work of the Spirit?

"I know I am a Christian.
I have the Baptismal certificate to prove it although I have no recollection of the event.
I know my sins are forgiven when I hear the priest say, 'Absolvo te'.
I know I have the Holy Ghost because I was Confirmed."

Yes, I understand your faith in priestcraft. And if you were Sikh, you'd have faith in its Gurus. Your faith begins and ends with externals. Pure ritualism.

"On your trips to Rome, did you ever consider investigating any ancient places of worship? Evidently not."

Do you always make ignorant assumptions about your opponents? I've visited such ancient Roman churches as Santa Sabina and Santa Costanza–among other sites.

"Steve, since day one, the Church has had a highly organized structure for transmitting the Faith to the laity called the "hierarchy". For centuries, only the Catholic clergy could read."

Why did they need to read unless the Catholic religion depends on writings to disseminate the faith?

"Before Gutenberg, the principle of SS did not/could not exist."

Which undercuts your appeal to the church fathers, church councils, &c. Can't have it both ways.

"Anticipating your oft repeated question about how do I know the priest who absolved, Confirmed or Baptized me had the right intention,all I need to know is whether or not proper form was used. The intent is presumed if the form is used."

What about Simony? What about idle European noblemen who sought ordination for the sole purpose of collecting ecclesiastical preferments? Absentee bishops who had no intention of performing religious duties? Just gaming the system for money.

"If you doubt me, ask EA…He wouldn't be so brash as to be on this blog shooting his mouth off on things beyond his area of expertise."

What's your area of expertise, Guy? Do you have a degree from the Pontifical Gregorian University?

steve said...

"Ea, You need to repent. I don't know how much of a Catholic you were, but if you were raised and Confirmed in the Faith, your problem is probably not intellectual but emotional and spiritual. Soaking up a bunch of anti-Catholic propaganda is the last thing you need. Go get the healing you need. Talk to a priest."

Let's see. Hans Küng is still a priest. So I guess EA should talk to Küng about papal infallibility. Thanks for the recommendation, Guy!

steve said...

"You are in the hot seat on this point."

I have asbestos padding.

"Before Gutenberg, the principle of SS did not/could not exist."

You don't know what the principle is. Take a Fahrenheit 451 scenario. Suppose ownership of Bibles was punishable by death. Not only you, but every family member–as a deterrent.

Suppose a Protestant community evades the ban by memorizing the Bible. Different members commit different books of Scripture to memory–before they destroy their copies to avoid detection. That community is still governed by sola Scriptura, even though it has no physical copies of Scripture.

The content of a book can be orally transmitted. Many people can memorize the same copy. A one-to-many relation.

Indeed, that's more than hypothetical. You have people like Alec McCowen and Max McLean who do that sort of thing.

That's different from oral history or oral tradition, where it's word-of-mouth all the way. By contrast, this is controlled tradition, because it has a written frame of reference. One can double-check memory against the exemplar. The standard exists.

steve said...

According to Trent: 

"Of the New Testament: the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke the Evangelist; fourteen epistles of Paul the apostle, (one) to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, (one) to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, (one) to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter the apostle, three of John the apostle, one of the apostle James, one of Jude the apostle, and the Apocalypse of John the apostle."

Notice that this is based on certain authorial attributions. Moreover, that view was maintained at least through the pontificate of Leo XIII.

However, the modern magisterium no longer demands assent to those authorial attributions. But in that case, the Tridentine list is obsolete. The modern Magisterium has relaxed the presuppositions on which the list was originally and logically based.

steve said...

Once again, Guy advertises his chronic incapacity for rational discourse. He doesn't grasp the nature of hypothetical arguments. My hypothetical was a limiting case (another concept which eludes Guy) concerning what is or is not consistent with sola scripture in *principle*. That, of course, sailed right over Guy's head.

Every Christian doesn't need direct access to the Bible to be governed by sola Scriptura. That confuses content with the mode of dissemination.

If, say, the Bible was read aloud in public worship to a congregation of illiterate Christians, that would be consistent with sola Scriptura.