Catholic methodists and Protestant particularists

Roderick Chisolm drew a classic distinction between two different approaches to epistemology: "methodists" begin with criteria or paradigms, whereas "particularists" begin with concrete examples or experience.

Another way of putting this is that methodists have an a prior stating-point while particularists have an a posteriori starting-point. 

This is one way to compare and contrast Catholic and Protestant theological method. Traditionally, Catholic theologists and apologists are methodists. They begin with their theological paradigm. They take their a priori criteria as the frame of reference. 

Take examples like the principle that an infallible text requires an infallible interpreter. Hence, there must be a living teaching office. 

Take appeals to "unity" or "visibility". Therefore, the church must have whatever it takes to meet these conditions. 

Take "extra Ecclesiam nulla salus". Therefore, saving grace must be challenged through the sacraments, which must be channeled through the priesthood, which must be channelled through apostolic succession. A circuit-breaker anywhere in the transmission disrupts the current. Anything after the break is invalid. 

Or take the claim that Protestant churches can't be true churches because they lack historical continuity. To be a real church, you must have a historical genealogy extending back to the founding of the church in the 1C. 

What all these stipulative principles share in common is to begin with a preconceived idea of what must be the case; then adjust your theology accordingly. 

By contrast, Protestants take a more a posteriori approach. We don't intuit ecclesiology.  We don't resort to armchair postulates regarding God's design for the church; rather, we judge God's intentions in retrospect by observing what God actually does. 

Unlike Catholics, we don't presume to know in advance what reality is like. God's design for Christianity is something we discover, after the fact. We learn from Bible history and church history what God's intentions are. 

Unlike Catholics, we're not scandalized by the messiness of church history. 

In a sense, Protestants begin with experience. The experience of divine providence. The experience of Bible history. 

And one of the systemic problems with traditional Catholic theological method is the ever-widening chasm between the idea of Catholicism and the reality of Catholicism. The disconnect between the abstract paradigm and the facts on the ground. 

In practice, the paradigm eventually adapts to unforeseen historical developments. When the paradigm becomes overly-encumbered by too many epicycles, ad hoc adjustments are made to the paradigm. Ex post facto revisions to criteria. Take the sea-change in how tradition is defined. Instead of a historical witness to early Christian belief, it becomes "living tradition". Take reversals on "extra Ecclesiam nulla salus", the anti-modernist strictures of the Leonine PBC, the death penalty, admission of divorced/remarried Catholics to communion, &c. 

Catholic apologists are like lawyers who can argue both sides of any case, depending on whether their client is innocent or guilty. If Benedict XVI or John-Paul II is their client, they defend that position; if Francis is their client, they defend the opposite. Ironically, what started out as an idealistic paradigm has become totally destabilized. 

Both supporters and opponents of Francis resort to circular logic:

Supporters: If Rome reverses policy, then the status quo ante was never definitive, irreversible teaching in the first place.

Opponents: If a pope teaches heresy, then he was never a real pope in the first place. 

Problem for supporters: Catholics can never know what's definitive, irreversible teaching, since all they know is the past, not the future–which may abruptly reverse course.

Problem for opponents: Catholics must be able to independently interpret what's magisterial and what's heretical.