Two paradigms

I recently had a Facebook discussion with a Catholic. I've changed his name to anonymize the exchange:

Hays 

How does Rick establish with certainty the Roman Magisterium in the first place? How does he sidestep private judgment at that preliminary stage of the argument?

Rick 

The Protestant, once he invests his principle into the Scripture (however much history, tradition, commentary, natural life of reason, etc,etc - are implied), maintains his place on the same boat because he is continually subject to the corrective that he might discover in his private interpretation of Scripture. This, of course, would explain how my former Protestant minister starter off as a ultra-dispensationalists who protested baptism as strictly for Jews, to a Dallas Theological Seminary fundamentalist pre-trib dispensationalist , to a moderate Norman Geisler/Demarest 4-point Calvinist , to then eventually leading a congregation which is 5-point Calvinist open to historic premillennialism. In and through each stage was the threat of anathema to all dissidents.

Hays

But Roman Catholicism doesn't avoid individualism. Rather, Roman Catholicism privileges the outlook of select individuals, viz. popes, bishops in ecumenical councils, Latin Fathers, church Doctors.

Moreover, there's a zigzag trajectory to Catholic teaching. Take the current crisis precipitated by Francis. Bishops and cardinals are accusing him of changing dogma by green-lighting the admission of divorced and remarried Catholics to communion.

Or take opposition to capital punishment by recent popes. Or salvation outside the church. Or how the anti-modernist positions of the Leonine PBC have been mothballed. And so on and so forth. So the faithful end up following the erratic peregrinations of the papacy.

Rick

Now, unless you are prepared to say that the self is infallible in addressing what is divine revelation, you would have to be committed to believing that your criteria of sufficiency is opined. But since opinion would not encompass what is needed for knowing what God revealed as his revelation 2,000 years ago in places and atmosphere outside of your first-hand witness, you are left on a totally different boat epistemically.

Hays

There's a problem with positing inhuman standards of certainty. An artificial standard that humans can't attain. Everyone loses out when you set the bar that high. 

In addition, each of us is ultimately at the mercy of divine providence for what we believe. It's ultimately up to God whether your particular aptitude and experience guide you into truth. 

Rick

But the difference is herein - I am willing to attribute a principled means of infallibility by divine law in whatever it is I have invested, whereas the Protestant still clutches to no-principled infallibility either in the self or the respective protestant communions.

Hays

Yet that's deceptive. At best, that only follows given the Magisterium, but how does one establish the given? It still bottoms out at the level of private judgment. If there is a Magisterium, perhaps it could provide a higher level of certainty, but the underlying conditional remains uncertain.

Moreover, that's a hypothetical ideal which is belied by the messiness of how the Magisterium actually operates in the course of church history. We can see the groping, the compromises, the reversals.

Rick

I can see that you have not taken a basic course in the Catholic magisterium. Last I check, even R.C. Sproul was one of the better teachers on our beliefs. Consult him if not an authentic Catholic source.

Hays

Among other things, I've read Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith by Cardinal Dulles.

Rick

Ecumenical Councils, Popes, the consensus of Church Fathers, the sensus fidelium, are not individuated by private judgement. Our principled entail that the exercise of Council, Papal decree, Patristic consensus, and the sensus fidelium are all divinely assisted in a way which is divine and supernatural, and thus far from the realm of opinion. So these are not just individuals in quantities different than the self.

Hays

The question at issue is not the claim but whether the claim is true. Sure, you deny that's an exercise of private judgment, but that's the very issue in dispute. 

Rick

As for the accusations of Pope Francis - name a single prelate who is accusing him of heresy?

Hays

Are you really unaware of his prelatial critics? 

Rick

We hold to a moral certainty based on the principles we have invested [in] faith.

Hays

A euphemism for private judgment.

Rick

I believe that the Catholic can show, while standing on your own epistemic boat, that there is the motive of credibility over all other claimants to 'Church', and would then take the leap of faith into the paradigm wherein we have no foot in that epistemic boat.

Hays

So your position boils down to indemonstrable hypothetical certainty. If the Magisterium is what it claims to be, then it can furnish certainty on particular issues. But your confidence in the claims of the Magisterium are probabilistic. Hence, you haven't escaped the finality of private judgment. You're position is only as good as your private judgment. That remains the ultimate arbiter. The Magisterium is only right if you're right about the Magisterium. But if you're wrong about the Magisterium…

Rick

And the subject of magisterium is forbidden by God from leading the Church into the shipwreck of faith by the imposition of obliged heresy.

Hays

Which, once again, assumes the very question at issue.

Rick

"Hold fast to what is in epistle or by word", etc,etc (as 2 of many examples). We don't have an expected expiration of this modus operandi, for Paul gives the same charge to St. Timothy, who in turn can pass the charge to others.

Hays

But there is an expected expiration date. Paul is telling people who have face-to-face knowledge of his teaching to hold fast to what they heard from his own mouth. You can't legitimately extrapolate from that to situations far removed from face-to-face knowledge, as if Paul is vouching for traditions in the indefinite future. 

Keep in mind that this occurs in correspondence where Paul warns about forgeries. That's why he signs his letters. So even at that stage there's a concern about spurious apostolic traditions.

Timothy was one of his handpicked deputies. Once again, you can't legitimately extrapolate from that to would-be successors centuries after the fact.

Rick

Yes, I can. St. Paul speaks of the charism transmitted unto the ordinand, and we find nothing of the reverse, i.e. Luther ordaining a new cult, or Calvin establishing a new authentic source of legitimacy. In truth, what the Reformed need is the habitual example of pointing to Scripture as the ground, but St. Paul does not do this. He points to the objective paradosis and the constituent charism to carry it via the presbyterium.

Hays

i) In the text [2 Thes 2:15] you initially cited, Paul points to his own teaching, and not some free-floating paradosis. 

ii) St. Paul mentions many different spiritual gifts in his letters. What makes you suppose the gift in 1 Tim 4:14 & 2 Tim 1:6-7 corresponds to the "charism" of the priesthood or episcopate? 

iii) A gift is not an office. 

iv) The legitimacy or illegitimacy of Calvinism depends on whether it is true. Calvin is not an authority-figure. He needn't be in succession to be correct in his interpretation of Scripture. Your objection is a category error. Ditto: Luther.

Rick

The magisterium does furnish certainty on the truths which are given by God and which save our souls.

Hays

It does so provided that it is, in fact, what it claims to be. But this reduces to your opinion of the Magisterium. In your fallible opinion, the Magisterium is what it claims to be. Assuming that the Magisterium is what it claims to be, the consequence might follow (although there are lots of ambiguities about ascertaining what the Magisterium officially teaches), but that superstructure is resting on the foundation of your fallible opinion regarding the claims of Rome. Newman's illative sense, while valuable in its own right, won't salvage your position.

Rick

Like I've said, I have happily conceded to the mode of private judgement in a part of this investigation. I do so again here. That, however, does not suffice to put Catholics in the same boat as you. For the reasons I've said and repeated, and will doe once more here. There is a dividing point where we invest a principled infallibility into the Catholic Church, whereas you maintain your commitment to the mode of private judgment in Scriptural interpretation. And, as I said way above in certain expectation of the charge "tu quoque" , the difference is that where Catholics unload their trust into a visible criteria for the deposit of God's truth, however false it may be, the protestant is always in test-mode leaving discovery of error always open, and which is principled by the self who interprets.

Hays

All you do is to impute a "principled infallibility" to the Magisterium–"however false it may be". 

That's no improvement over what you find deficient in Protestantism. To the contrary, that's far more hazardous position because you've put all your chips on that bet, even though, by your own admission, the gamble may not pay off. The Catholic alternative is a high-stakes poker game where you have everything to lose if you're wrong on that one point. By contrast, a Protestant can be mistaken about this or that without systematic error.

Just from a hypothetical standpoint, both Catholic and Protestant paradigms have tradeoffs. In the Catholic paradigm, if true, Catholics who know "official" teaching (whatever that is) are spared from making certain theological and ethical mistakes which some Protestants will make without that divine guidance. 

If false, Catholics will make certain theological and ethical mistakes which some Protestants will avoid because Protestants don't stop with the received answers but scrutinize them. If false, the Magisterium will in some cases unwittingly oblige heresy. By resigning their critical judgment to the illusory failsafe of the magisterium, Catholics will relinquish the ordinary checks which, while fallible, are more reliable than misplaced faith. Believing in the infallibility of a source which is in fact fallible removes screen by which we filter out certain errors when we must rely on reason and evidence. We suspend our critical faculties, which leaves us entirely at the mercy of the source.

Rick

Hypothetically = no end. 

Ultimately , I think the debate is far better on subjects of doctrine. The epistemic differences will remain as they are until we can show that one is credible over the other.

Hays 

Yes, there's something to be said for debating specific doctrines. However, since Catholics and Protestants have different rules of evidence, such debates are usually stalemated by the preliminary issue.