Dereliction of duty

Benedict XVI has released what amounts to an informal encyclical: 

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-church-and-the-scandal-of-sexual-abuse

He confirms the sodomite establishment in Catholic clerical circles. More damning evidence from an insider who occupied the highest echelons of the Catholic church. 

Yet the problem with his lament is that he writes like a spectator witnessing an accident scene, while first responders intervene. But in addition to his admittedly brief pontificate, he was Prefect for the CDF from 1982-2005. He was JP2's righthand man. So where was the church discipline from the top down? Why does he act like a helpless bystander? 

The tail wagging the God

On response to a question on Bavarian TV in 1997, Cardinal Ratzinger said:

“I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope. . . . I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined. . . . There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!”

That poses a dilemma. On the one hand it relieves Catholic apologists and theologians from the daunting task of having to defend weird or awful popes as God's pick. 

On the other hand, it binds God in the service of a pope he didn't choose. If the Catholic church is indefectible, and what makes it indefectible is (in large part) that God is committed to uphold the papacy, yet God doesn't choose who will be pope, then God is in the subordinate position of rubber-stamping whatever candidate the conclave chooses, even if he's a royal stinker. So the tail is wagging the God. It chains God to the results of a process he didn't control. God must play the hand the conclave dealt it. "Here's the pope, now make it work!" 

Killing Pope Ratzinger

The title of this blog article, “Killing Pope Ratzinger”, is to provide a kind of a sequel to my earlier piece, “Killing Pope Francis”. First Things journal has wanted to be rid of “Pope Francis” almost from the beginning.

Of course, Triablogue readers have known that Bergoglio (“Pope Francis”) would be “Opposing Ratzinger” from a blog article of that same title early in the papacy.

Joseph Ratzinger, the former (and perhaps “emeritus”) “Pope Benedict” is in the news right now.

“First Things”, in an article entitled “Benedict in Silence”, is lamenting that the former Prefect for “John Paul the Great” did not speak out doctrinally on the conflicts over the “interpretation” of “Amoris Laetitia” (and other Bergoglioan papal initiatives):

What it means to be “Roman” but “not catholic”

As part of my ongoing series discussing the work “Roman but Not Catholic” by Jerry Walls and Ken Collins, I’d like to comment on the word “Catholic” and “catholic” with a small “c”. (I’ve discussed the word “Roman” here).

I’m on record as having said that I don’t like the word “catholic” (and its variations “catholicism”, etc.), especially not as it applies, for example, in the phrase “Reformed Catholicism” etc. There are too many different definitions of the word, and there is too much opportunity for confusion. Roman Catholicism, for sure, hangs onto that title “Catholic” – equivocating from when it was used in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed (“one holy, catholic, and apostolic church”) until its use after the Council of Trent. It is supposed to represent “early beliefs”, but the weight of evidence is showing that even those beliefs and practices had changed from the second to the fourth century, much less the 16th century.

Ratzinger: “Barque of Peter is leaking, on the verge of capsizing”

In a funeral message yesterday, former pope Joseph Ratzinger suggested that the Roman Catholic Church “has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing”. The message was related at the funeral of Cardinal Meisner, who was one of the dubia cardinals, (asking “Pope Francis” if his statement Amoris Laetitia had actually contradicted “church teaching”).

July 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Benedict XVI sent a sobering message at the funeral of Cardinal Joachim Meisner today, saying he was moved at the dubia cardinal's ability to "live out of a deep conviction that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even when the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing."

The Church "stands in particularly pressing need of convincing shepherds who can resist the dictatorship of the spirit of the age and who live and think the faith with determination," Pope Benedict said in a message read by Archbishop Georg Gänswein, his personal secretary and head of the papal household. Because of this "pressing need," Meisner "found it difficult to leave his post."

"What moved me all the more was that, in this last period of his life, he learned to let go and to live out of a deep conviction that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even when the boat has taken on so much water as to be on the verge of capsizing," the pope emeritus concluded.

Meisner, who was 83, was one of the four cardinals who sent Pope Francis a dubia asking if Amoris Laetitia is aligned with Catholic morality. He died still awaiting the pope's response. Although Pope Francis hasn't answered the dubia, he has given his approval to interpretations of the controversial exhortation that say those living in adulterous unions may receive Holy Communion.

Canon lawyer Kurt Martens said Pope Benedict's message was an "amazing yet diplomatic form of support for [the] dubia Cardinals."

“Pope Francis” vs “Pope John Paul II”: Opposing “Veritatis Splendor”

The Roman Catholic journalist Sandro Magister has fretted now that the dismissal of Cardinal Gerhard Müller was really “an attack on ‘Veritatis Splendor’”, which he called “the most important doctrinal encyclical” of “Pope John Paul II”, and further, that this “attack” was accompanied by an affirmation of this encyclical, “by fate or divine providence” in “all the Catholic churches of the Roman rite” in the regularly scheduled prayers in last Sunday’s Mass:

“O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth. Through our Lord...

The first line of that encyclical re-states the Roman Catholic distinction vs Protestantism:

Called to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, "the true light that enlightens everyone" (Jn 1:9), people become "light in the Lord" and "children of light" (Eph 5:8), and are made holy by "obedience to the truth" (1 Pet 1:22).

“Obedience” makes people “holy”. This precisely mirrors the error that Augustine made, which led to the medieval misunderstanding of justification, which in turn was contested by Luther and the Reformers. The Council of Trent later codified the error as “infallible dogma”.

But there is a second error espoused by “Pope Francis” and “Amoris Laetitia”, and it was articulated by Joseph Ratzinger. Pope Ratzinger, who had been Prefect of the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (CDF) prior to Müller, and who “contributed in a substantial way to the writing of that encyclical”, had this to say about it in a recent chapter in “a book in honor of John Paul II”:

Killing Pope Francis

“Killing Pope Francis” (or at least, killing his agenda) is the unstated theme in a similarly named article in First Things, the self-annointed America’s Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life, “Burying Benedict”. Of course, in today’s terror-soaked world, no one in his right mind would suggest killing a pope in public. Or would they? But now, Matthew Schmitz, “literary editor of First Things”, is certainly implying that “Pope Francis” wants to kill off “Pope Benedict”. Or at least to kill off his agenda:

Though Benedict is still living, Francis is trying to bury him. Upon his election in 2013, Francis began to pursue an agenda that Joseph Ratzinger had opposed throughout his career. A stress on the pastoral over against the doctrinal, a promotion of diverse disciplinary and doctrinal approaches in local churches, the opening of communion to the divorced and remarried—all these proposals were weighed and rejected by Ratzinger more than ten years ago in a heated debate with Walter Kasper. For better or worse, Francis now seeks to reverse Ratzinger.

Or kill him and bury him.

This article reminded me of something that Jason Engwer first posted some years ago. It was bad news being a pope in the 900’s. Eamon Duffy, writing in his History of the Popes, “Saints and Sinners”, describes one of the most sordid periods in papal history:

Deprived of the support of empire (of Charlemagne), the papacy became the possession of the great Roman families, a ticket to local dominance for which men were prepared to rape, murder and steal. A third of the popes elected between 872 and 1012 died in suspicious circumstances – John VII (872–82) bludgeoned to death by his own entourage, Stephen VI (896–7) strangled, Leo V (903) murdered by his successor Sergius III (904–11), John X (914–28) suffocated, Stephen VIII horribly mutilated, a fate shared by the Greek antipope John XVI (997–8) who, unfortunately for him, did not die from the removal of his eyes, nose, lips, tongue, and hands (Saints and Sinners, Second Edition, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, © 1997, 2001, and likely others, pg 104).

At least the succession remained unbroken. The world needs a “Successor of Peter” to be a visible sign of unity in the church.

And Schmitz is now noticing that same theme – yes, popes are in the habit of killing off other popes – and Schmitz himself seems to want to kill off Bergoglio the Kasper fan (and by extension, the evil thug Hans Küng, of whom Kasper is a student). He does not say that outright, but the intention is there.

By the way, this opposition between Bergoglio and Ratzinger is something that I detailed in the blog article I entitled “Bergoglio’s Gig, Part 3: Opposing Ratzinger”. Yours truly was saying just four days after Bergoglio was named pope that he was “Opposing Ratzinger” and supporting Kasper. It has taken Schmitz some four years to get up to speed.

I, at least, did not posit that one pope would be killing another one.

Regarding Duffy, I have an older version, and so if you have or purchase a newer version, the pagination may be different. Duffy has continued to update the work as new popes come and go. Perhaps if Schmitz gets his way, Duffy will have to update yet again.

"A sure norm for teaching the faith"

According to the late John-Paul II:

In 1986, I entrusted a commission of twelve Cardinals and Bishops, chaired by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, with the task of preparing a draft of the catechism requested by the Synod Fathers. An editorial committee of seven diocesan Bishops, experts in theology and catechesis, assisted the commission in its work. 

The commission, charged with giving directives and with overseeing the course of the work, attentively followed all the stages in editing the nine subsequent drafts. The editorial committee, for its part, assumed responsibility for writing the text, making the emendations requested by the commission and examining the observations of numerous theologians, exegetes and catechists, and above all, of the Bishops of the whole world, in order to produce a better text.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium. I declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion.

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/aposcons.htm

So that's a thoroughly vetted text. But it turns out that it wasn't all that reliable after all: 

The Catechism says succinctly: "Lying consists in saying what is false with the intention of deceiving one's neighbor" (no. 2508). Despite this simple statement, there is a long historical debate about the actual meaning of the term.

Catholic moral theologian Germain Grisez has observed: "Although most Catholic theologians have considered the prohibition of lying a moral absolute, there is a lesser but significant school of thought holding that lying sometimes can be justified, particularly when it is a question of lying to an enemy, who has no right to the truth, in order to protect the innocent from harm" ("The Way of the Lord Jesus,"vol. 2, Franciscan Press, 1993).

These two ways of thinking are reflected in the editorial process of the Catechism, which was revised for the book's second edition. The earlier edition (1994) stated that to lie is "to speak or act against the truth in order to lead into error someone who has a right to know the truth" (no. 2483, emphasis added). This definition, reflecting what Grisez calls the "lesser but significant school of thought," stems from the teaching of the 17th-century Protestant writer Hugo Grotius.

After the publication of the Catechism, many Catholic scholars wrote to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) about this paragraph. They asked for rectification of the text, which had abandoned centuries of Catholic teaching by accepting the position of Grotius. Fortunately, the paragraph was revised; the 1997 edition eliminates the words "who has a right to know the truth" (see also no. 2484).

https://www.osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/ByIssue/Article/TabId/735/ArtMID/13636/ArticleID/495/A-Legitimate-Way-to-Lie.aspx

So, despite the fact that the project was overseen by the Prefect for the Faith (Cardinal Ratzinger), despite the fact that it went through ten drafts, despite the fact that Pope John-Paul pronounced it to be a "sure norm" for teaching the faith, the original paragraph on the morality of lying had to be rewritten after the Catechism was published. And not due to a typographical blunder, but because it promoted an unethical position on lying. Yet this is supposed to be the church that has a divine teaching office. The church that God protects from ethical or theological error in its official teaching. 

Machen, “Pope Francis”, and “the hermeneutic of rupture” -- or as it is now known, “the hermeneutic of mercy”

J. Gresham Machen’s work, “Christianity and Liberalism” (1923) is one of those rare theological works that helps to define what Reformed Christianity is even in our day. It stakes out an orthodox position, and it contrasts it with a line of thinking that was very prevalent in Machen’s day, “naturalistic liberalism”. It’s on the list of books that every Christian (especially those in authority) should read every once in a while, just to keep focused on what is and isn’t genuine Christianity.

Reading Machen is wise and admirable and even necessary. But what should conservative Reformed Protestants think of this quote by Machen?

What is it that these people have bought into? “You will be fused into God”

In fact, to quote more precisely, “you will be God”.

Convinced Movie Trailer from Don Johnson on Vimeo.

Protestants are not prepared to deal with this sort of thing. But it’s coming, and we had better get ready for it. At the conclusion of his “Brief Catechism on Nature & Grace”, Henri De Lubac writes,

(citing Ratzinger) Let us conclude that “a Christianity which offers man something less than making him God is too modest …. In the struggle for man which we are engaged, such an answer is insufficient.” All along, Christianity has shown perhaps a somewhat less cheerful face; it reminds us with more realism of our condition as sinners, and it does not allow us to forget the prayer given to us by our Lord: “Forgive us our trespasses … deliver us from evil”; but at the same time it opens before us the gates of life in the bosom of the Blessed Trinity.

The promise is not “to become God without God” (as he compares the goal of some in our age). The promise rather, is from God, “you will share in divine life. You will become God”.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but De Lubac says “without the perspective that Christian faith opens of a ‘way out’, leading to divine transcendence and a personalizing union with God in Christ, humanity will not only always remain far from the goal it seeks, it will condemn itself to despair.”

“Personal union with God” means, to the Roman Catholic (with his grand synthesis of neo-Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysic), a literal “fusion of existences” with God, as noted by Herr Ratzinger in his work “Called to Communion”:

Hence, Communion [capital in original] means the fusion of existences. Just as in the taking of nourishment the body assimilates foreign matter to itself, and is thereby enabled to live, in the same way my “I” is “assimilated” to that of Jesus, it is made similar to him in an exchange that increasingly breaks through the lines of division. This same event takes place in the case of all who communicate; they are all assimilated to this “bread” and thus are made one among themselves--one body (36).

Rome’s “justification”, its “sacramental treadmill”, its emphasis on earning “inherent righteousness”, all leads to this.

Of course, the devil tempted Eve, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, ...” Do we want to take the word of the “infallible church” that not only being “like God”, but being “fused into God” is a good thing now, when it wasn’t a good thing then? “The Church” is “the universal sacrament of salvation”. It is this very concept which is its mission to “communicate”, to “bring the fullness of” to people, through the “grace” of its “sacraments”.

That is what these folks have bought into. This will have an appeal in our opra-fied culture, where people all think they're God anyway.

1 Peter 1:13: “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”.

Bergoglio’s Gig: Distancing Himself from the Old Nag

Sandro Magister reports that there is a new book out about the life of “Pope Emeritus” Joseph Ratzinger a.k.a. “Pope Benedict XVI”.

It wasn’t long ago that Hans Küng was suggesting he would be a “shadow pope”:

Ratzinger: “for every statement advanced in one direction, the text offers one supporting the other side”

A week ago, I cited Protestant theologian David Wells describing Rome’s Divided Mind. The gist of what he was saying was this:

[Vatican II] actually endorsed two very different theologies and sometimes the differences could not be hidden. Neither side would accept ambiguity nor allow compromise. As a result, on some points the documents speak with two voices—one conservative and one progressive …

When neither side would back down and both insisted on having their views adopted, the Council searched for a reconciling statement which would be ambiguous enough to accommodate both schools of thought. When the Council was successful, both viewpoints were represented in one statement which obviously meant different things to different people …

There were times, however, when no reconciling statement could be found, and attempts to induce a surrender by one side or the other failed. In those cases, the Council would only endorse both positions with professional aplomb as if their mutual incompatibility were not longer glaringly obvious.

One kind of interpretive problem, then, which an analyst of the documents faces concerns the existence of those passages which are so brilliantly ambiguous as to be capable of serving the interests of both parties …

While reading Ratzinger’s work “Theological Highlights of Vatican II”, a work recently re-published touting Ratzinger as now Pope Benedict XVI, it seems as if the good Herr has confirmed the essential correctness of Wells’s analysis of Roman methodology.

Discussing “The So-Called ‘Explanatory Note’” tacked on to the end of the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, which sought to clarify the relationship of “bishops acting in conjunction with their head” with “bishops acting independently of the Pope”, Ratzinger says:

A detailed analysis of this very intricate text would take us here too far afield. The end result, which is what we are concerned with, would be the realization it did not create any substantially new situation. Without doubt the scales here were further tipped in favor of papal primacy as opposed to collegiality. But for every statement advanced in one direction the text offers one supporting the other side, and this restores the balance, leaving interpretations open in both directions. We can see the text as either “primatialist” or collegial. Thus we can speak of a certain ambivalence in the text of the “explanatory note,” reflecting the ambivalent attitude of those who worked on the text and tried to reconcile the conflicting tendencies. The consequent ambiguity is a sign that complete harmony of views was neither achieved nor even possible (Ratzinger, “Theological Highlights of Vatican II”, first published by Paulist Press, 1966, by special arrangement with Verlag J.P Bachem in Köln. English translation ©1966 by The Missionary Society of St Paul the Apostle in the State of New York; Introduction Copyright ©2009 by Thomas P. Rausch, SJ, pg s 170-171)

It should seem clear, even to the staunchest Roman Catholics now, that Wells was correct in his assessment, as it has been verified in print by Herr Ratzinger that official Roman documents “leave interpretations open in both directions”.

Now, this is a convenient state of affairs if you simultaneously (a) want to claim infallibility on a statement and (b) want to claim plausible deniability on a statement.

In the past, I have used phrases such as “what Rome gives with one fork of its tongue, it takes away with the other”

Speaking of “forked tongues” is not at all off the mark here. For in the light of Ratzinger’s statement, where, do we imagine, that Jesus’s statement fits into this official Roman methodology?

let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

Bergoglio’s Gig, Part 3: Opposing Ratzinger

In one of his first major public addresses as pope, at St. Peter’s Square, Sunday, March 17, 2013, “Pope Francis” specifically cited Cardinal Walter Kasper’s book “On Mercy”:

In the past few days I have been reading a book by a Cardinal — Cardinal Kasper, a clever theologian, a good theologian — on mercy. And that book did me a lot of good, but do not think I am promoting my cardinals’ books! Not at all! Yet it has done me so much good, so much good... Cardinal Kasper said that feeling mercy, that this word changes everything. This is the best thing we can feel: it changes the world. A little mercy makes the world less cold and more just. We need to understand properly this mercy of God, this merciful Father who is so patient.... Let us remember the Prophet Isaiah who says that even if our sins were scarlet, God’s love would make them white as snow.

Now, who has made the world “cold” in the first place? Could it be anyone from the previous generation of popes? In what way did the world seem “less just”? Who is it, really, who has been working so hard for “social justice” in the world? I’m just askin’.

I remember the days when the Soviet Union was still a world power, and “Kremlinologists” would study posed photos of the leadership, to see who was standing closest to Breshnev. It was a way of understanding who was “in” and what the policy directions of the Soviet Union might be. It wasn’t perfect, but it was one of the better methods for understanding that regime at the time.


Cardinal Walter Kasper says that “Pope Francis” is going to bring new life” to Vatican II, the same “spirit of Vatican II” that Hans Küng says is needed, and that the two previous popes sought to suppress. He says that Bergoglio has “inaugurated a new phase” of Vatican II.


For those who don’t know, Kasper is a former Assistant to Küng; he was “removed in 1999 by John Paul II as the Bishop of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart”. He was transferred to Rome, where until 2010 he was the President of the Pontifical Council on Promoting Christian Unity.

Roughly from 1999 to 2002, Kasper and Ratzinger had a “dialog” – Kasper is called a “conciliarist”, which in Medieval days, was the impulse that arose from the ashes of the “Great Schism” (when there were two and even three popes), and which opposed the imperial papacy. Conciliarism held rather (similar to the Eastern Orthodox) that councils and their doctrinal pronouncements are the highest “law of the land” in the church.

For the Eastern Orthodox, Ecumenical Councils are “extraordinary synods of bishops which primarily decide upon dogmatic formulations, especially in the face of heresy. Secondarily, they also issue canonical legislation which governs the administration of the Church.”

Kasper and then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger disagreed vehemently on a point of ecclesiology. You can find that disagreement summarized here:

James White and Pope Benedict XVI Agree!

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (2002), now Pope Benedict XVI

The Eucharist does not grant any quasi-magical assurance of salvation. It always demands and involves our freedom. And therefore the risk of losing our salvation always remains; our gaze remains fixed on the judgment to come. (From “Eucharist and Mission”, in “Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion”, San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press ©2005, German Original Title, “Weg Gemeinschaft des Glaubens: Kirche als Communio” ©2002by Sankd Ulrich Verglag GmbH, Augsburg, pgs 104-105).

James White

The contrast could not be stated in any stronger terms. The high priest offered sacrifices that could “never take away sins” (Hebrews 8:10-14). He stood in the Holy Place, never sitting down, never resting, because his work was never completed. The offerings he made were inadequate to perfect those for whom he made them. But Christ’s sacrifice accomplishes its goal. He does not stand, repeatedly offering His work. His work of atonement is completed. Instead, He is seated, His work finished, the one offering needed to perfect for all time. There is no need for repetition or for “re-presentation,” as the writer points out in verse 18: “Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.” If an offering is still being made, forgiveness remains incomplete. If the offerings cease, forgiveness is a reality.

The relevance of this passage to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Mass as a “propitiatory sacrifice” is clear. Rome insists that the Mass is the very same sacrifice as that of Calvary, differing only in manner (bloody versus unbloody). Yet it is admitted that the effect of the Mass is limited, and that a person can draw near to the Mass over and over again and still die “impure.” According to their doctrine, it is quite possible for a person to attend Mass every day of his life, commit a mortal sin the hour before his death, and be lost for eternity, despite having approached the Mass as a sacrifice thousands of times. The Roman Catholic response would be that such a person is unlikely to commit such a serious sin because so much grace had already been given him through attendance at so many Masses. The fact remains that God’s grace is said to be channeled through the Sacraments, especially through the Mass. Yet that grace cannot accomplish its goal outside of the cooperation of the person drawing near to worship, and so the possibility of being lost for eternity remains (“The Roman Catholic Controversy”, Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, ©1996, pg 179).

“God needs our help”

I’d like to take off on something that Joshua Lim said, and the hope is that it will have some value in showing what some of the differences are here.

Only what the Catholic Church teaches as binding is binding. The Church is fairly clear as to what is binding and what is not binding. If you have a particular issue in mind it might be better to speak of it specifically rather than in generalities. A Protestant confession or teaching authority has no authority to say what is binding--the only authority a pastor has is to say that he (or she) thinks that Scripture teaches that such-and-such a thing is binding, but going back to the first question, it is not always clear from Scripture whether certain things are binding or not and it ultimately comes back down to the issue of who has the authority to interpret Scripture…

This phrase caught my eye: Only what the Catholic Church teaches as binding is binding. The Church is fairly clear as to what is binding and what is not binding.

Consider this scenario, which I offer as a summary:

1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.


2. God created merely by speaking things into existence. God said “Let there be…” and there was.

a. What God says has power; it actually accomplishes things.

b. This is the point at which the Roman Catholic insistence on “interpretation” presses itself, saying “God’s word is insufficient; therefore, you need an infallible interpreter”.

c. Protestants accept (a), and resist (b).


3. “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). I suppose you would say “this is a verse that requires interpretation”.

a. An exegetical understanding of this verse is given in John Currid, (“A Study Commentary on Genesis”, Volume 1, Genesis 1:1-25:18, Darlington, UK an Webster, NY: Evangelical Press ©2003). “And he pronounces a verdict: ‘Behold it was very good.’ The term ‘Behold…’ [Hebrew hinneh] often serves to call special attention to a declarative statement. And when the word for ‘very’ [Hebrew meod] occurs after an adjective it is an absolute superlative. Therefore, the writer is describing God’s judgement of his own creation with great emphasis – it is perfect in every detail, even down to the very intricacies of its being.” (Currid, pg 89).

b. Creation being “very good”, language also is “very good”.

c. Man, as created, was also “very good”.

i. Roman Catholic Church holds that man was somewhat less “very good” than God says he was, and introduces a “ donum superadditum”, some kind of “superadded gift” of grace an “ontic” (or “ontological” gift) that “elevates” man into supernatural fellowship with God.

ii. Protestants, however, accept that Man was “very good” and reject the notion of a “superadded gift” of grace. Man, in the condition in which God created him to be, was lacking nothing “ontologically” necessary to be in “fellowship” with God, and was already in a “very good” [“perfect in every detail”] fellowship with God.


4. Man fell

a. Roman Catholics hold that sinful man is only “wounded” in his nature – only having lost this “superadded gift” in the fall. The result of this is: “original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called ‘concupiscence’”.

b. Protestants hold that sinful man is far worse than wounded:

i. WCF: By this sin [our original parents] fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

ii. They being the root of mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by original generation.


5. God’s remedy:

a. in Roman Catholicism: “Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.” God’s “grace” comes through an “infusion” [“ontological”] and man must “co-operate” with this “grace”.

i. An imperfect metaphor of this is that “grace” is a kind of “oil” that provides for a kind of “healing”; it “enables” the parts to get moving again. But it is imperfect, of course.

ii. Eschatologically, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger looks at the “ontological” meaning and asserts: “we are inserted into Christ and united with him as a single subject” (“Called to Communion” Herder and Ignatius ©1991, 1996, pg 25), a “fusion of existences”; just as in the taking of nourishment the body assimilates foreign matter to itself … in the same way my “I” is assimilated to that of Jesus”.

But as I’ll relate below, this is a misunderstanding of the eschatological end that God has in store for us.

b. Michael Horton, in “Covenant and Salvation” (Louisville, KY and London, UK: Westminster John Knox Press ©2007), [summarizing Reformed theologians] posits that what really happened to man in the fall was not “ontic” – no “loss” of “superadded grace”, but rather, it is an “estrangement”, a broken fellowship based on a judgment of “guilty”.

i. Man, being created “very good”, did not change ontologically in the fall; hence, God’s solution, “forensic justification”, re-enables the koinonia, or “fellowship”, that man lost with God.

ii. This restored fellowship manifests itself not in a “fusion of existences”, but rather, a restoring of the original fellowship [again, rejecting the need for some “superadded grace”]. The “unity” of fellowship is rather a gathering together by God, and his everlasting covenant:

This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and [I] will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.

This is very simple, I admit, again, it is only an outline, and it only contains the emphases I’d like to make here.

The Protestant theologian Herman Bavinck (“Reformed Dogmatics”, Vol 1, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, trans. John Vriend, ©2003, pg. 359) speaks of this:

The doctrine of a supernatural end … is integral to the entire Catholic system, which is constructed, not on the religious antithesis between sin and grace, but on the graduated scale of the good, on the ranking of creatures and virtues, on hierarchy both in a physical and an ethical sense.

The Reformation, by contrast, had but one idea, one conception of human beings, that is, of human beings as the image bearers of God, and this was true for all human beings.

The question comes down to, “what is God doing?” And in this, we need to be very careful to understand what he is doing, and not to “read into” what he is doing, things that he is not doing. (See Deuteronomy, as I have cited it above, says: “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you … Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.”

Bryan qualified this to say “another possible interpretation of those verses is that they are prohibiting adding to or subtracting from divine commands. And the existence of a divinely authorized oral Tradition and Magisterium is fully compatible with that interpretation of these passages.”

Nevertheless, I would rather rely on an exegesis of the text, using a hermeneutic that seeks to understand the original meaning of the text – what the writer wrote, in the cultural context, with an eye toward understanding it as the original readers would have understood it.

In this context, the “donum superadditum” is something that is “added” by the Magisterium; if you’re Roman Catholic, you accept it, and if you are a Protestant, it is just one more reason to ask, “how infallible is the Magisterium if it’s adding such things all the way through the Scriptures?”

Just how “binding” should something like this be?

[This notion of a “donum superadditum” has an element, too, that touches on the idea of “special revelation”; it is the notion that “God’s revelation is not sufficient” – in the Genesis 1 sense. What the Roman Catholic Church adds to this is something like the notion that its own “interpretation” is required as a kind of “superadded gift” because God’s own word is somehow not able to be understood properly by God’s own creation. I’ll talk more about this at some future point, Lord willing.]

Apostolic Origins of the New Testament Canon

In a way, I’ve been like a kid in a candy shop, working through Michael Kruger’s Canon Revisited. Not only is the work itself just an incredibly rich source of information about the Apostolic period and the early and late second centuries, but it ties together so many other things as well.

And of course, key for me is the opportunity to tell Roman Catholics that yes, the New Testament Scriptures came first, and then the idea of “apostolic succession” was much later and not foundational to “the church that Christ founded”. That the notion of “a succession of bishops” was later and secondary to the “succession” of the message. That Apostles held a unique, foundational, non-repeatable (and “non-succeedable” role) in earliest Christianity. That they were more concerned that “the Apostolic message”, the “Apostolic paradosis”, whether spoken or written, be the thing that is focused on. Any concept of “a succession of bishops” was later than, and secondary to the content of this new message that the Apostles preached.

Kruger’s chapter, “The Apostolic Origins of the Canon” is such a rich source of details about this that I’m going to continue to spend some time in this area. All the while, though, keep in mind that what Kruger is saying comes far earlier (in the 50’s AD, vs the 150’s AD) about what’s truly important in the church.

* * *

Kruger’s first purpose, however, seems to be to address the generations of critical scholars who caused so much confusion and difficulty in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. And he does an exceptional job of this:

For many scholars, particularly from the historical-critical model, the idea of a canon arose well after the books of the New Testament were written—and thus was retroactively imposed upon books originally composed for another purpose. Thus, it is argued, the existence of a New Testament canon could not have been anticipated or expected ahead of time, but finds its roots squarely in the theological and political machinations of later Christian groups. Koester argues that “the impelling force for the formation of the canon” was the second-century heretic Marcion. In order to counter Marcion, the “New Testament canon of Holy Scripture … was thus essentially created by Irenaeus.” For reasons such as this, McDonald argues that “no conscious or clear effort was made by these [New Testament] authors to produce Christian Scriptures,” and Gamble contends that “nothing dictated that there should be a NT at all.” Barr is even more direct: “The idea of a Christian faith governed by Christian written holy Scriptures was not an essential part of the foundation plan of Christianity” (Kruger 160-161).

Of course, this is precisely the argument that Joseph Ratzinger made in 1961, which was repeated in the 1994 CCC, and re-issued as (and in fact, trumpeted as) a book written by “Pope Benedict XVI”, who relied on these very historical-critical arguments, all the while decrying the “historical-critical” method as a proper hermeneutic for Roman Catholics.

Kruger instantly focuses on what is wrong with this line of thinking:

But are we to really think that “the impelling force for the formation of the canon” goes no further back than the second century? We shall argue that the historical-critical model has been myopically focused on the time after the writing of the New Testament books and, as a result, has overlooked the critical time before and during the writing of these books, particularly the significance of the redemptive-historical epoch from which they came. In short, it has been preoccupied with the corporate reception of these books and has neglected their apostolic origins. It is here, then, that we come to the second of our three attributes of canonicity. The apostolic character of these books reminds us that their authority—indeed their very existence—does not depend on the actions of the later church but is rooted in the foundational role played by the apostles as “ministers of the new covenant” (2 Cor 3:6). They are not regarded as canon because the church receives them; the church receives them because they are already canon by virtue of their apostolic authority (161).

Here, now, is a key to Kruger’s method. (Keep in mind, he has, by this point, already addressed the “divine qualities” of the New Testament canon – the fact that “God breathed” these scriptures into existence. Here, in this chapter, he will speak of the many different facets of “Apostolic origins” of these writings, before delving into some of the messy details about “corporate reception” of the canon by the early church.

The purpose of this chapter, then, is to explore the apostolic origins of these books in greater detail (while addressing a potential “defeater” to apostolic origins along the way. But we cannot begin there. The foundational role of the apostles must be understood within its proper context. Thus, we first want to examine the historical and theological matrix of the first century that gave birth to these books. Was this an environment in which canonical books would have naturally sprouted? Were the theological and historical conditions favorable for a new scriptural deposit to emerge? What do we know about early Christian beliefs, and how would they have affected their expectation of a new revelation from God? Although there are many ways to address these questions, we shall argue that there were two key factors in the historical context: (1) there was a structural framework for canon already in place [in the form of Christ’s naming of a New Covenant and a related expectation for “covenant documents]; (2) and there was a clear and powerful rationale for canon: redemption. After this historical context has been established, we will address the role of the apostles as the “agents” of the canon. When these three factors (covenant, redemption, and apostolicity) are viewed together, it will become clear that the idea of a canon was not an after-the-fact development with roots in church history, but rather a natural, early, and inevitable development with roots in redemptive history (162).

And in the process of bringing out these ideas, I’m going to continue to focus on notions of different kinds of “tradition”, the primary role of the Apostles and the lateness of the idea of “succession”, and more. 

Kruger vs Ratzinger: The Show So Far

In my last several posts, I’ve noted a few things, which I’d like to summarize and clarify here. I’ve noted that the Roman Catholic concept of “Apostolic Succession” was not present as a “tradition” “from the beginning”. Rather, Hans Von Campenhausen has also established that in formulating the principle of “apostolic succession”, the 2^nd century church at Rome relied on, actually borrowed, a Gnostic concept which had been in place in the “philosophical schools of thought” for some time.

I’ve also noted that this account is not disputed by Ratzinger. In fact, he affirms it. He says, “We see quite clearly here how in fact succession is equal to tradition: succession is holding fast to the apostolic word, just as tradition means the continuing existence of authorized witnesses”

But Ratzinger here relies on a “bait-and-switch”. Ratzinger speaks of the word διαδοχἡ, which signified both “tradition” and “succession”. And he builds his case upon this word. However, this word is not found in the New Testament. The New Testament concept, found in Paul’s teaching on the “content” of the “apostolic tradition” (“παράδοσιν”, 2 Thess 3:6, for example), is frequently simply “switched” with the same concept.

So now, whereas for Paul, the “tradition” referred to “the content” of the teaching, by the middle of the second century, the concept of “‘who’ was handing along the content” rather came to the forefront. And it is this second century concept upon which Rome bases its current “authority”. Paul’s first century concept, that the actual message was what was most important.

Here, Ratzinger says, while von Campenhausen may have been correct about διαδοχἡ (successio/traditio) being a 2^nd century concept, he is in “error” if he thinks that “a later and thus secondary theology of successio/traditio” was “preceded by a biblical theology” (25). In Ratzinger’s argument, this plays itself out in his statement:

This open situation of the existence of recognized New Testament writings without the existence of any New Testament principle of Scripture or any clear notion of the canon lasted until well in the second century—right into the middle of the period of the conflict with Gnosticism. Before the idea of a “canon” of New Testament Scripture had been formulated, the Church had already developed a different concept of what was canonical; she had as her Scripture the Old Testament but this Scripture needed a canon of New Testament interpretation, which the Church saw as existing in the traditio guaranteed by the successio (Ratzinger, 25-26).

That was from his 1961 article, which, conceptually, was reproduced in the 1994 “Catechism of the Catholic Church”:

83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition [emphasis added].

In the heavily footnoted CCC, this paragraph, interestingly, has no footnote, and as best as I can tell, this language comes right from Ratzinger.

In my next couple of blog posts, I’d like to spend some time clarifying some of these definitions further – the concept of an oral, “apostolic tradition” which was written down in the New Testament, as well as the development of “ecclesiastical traditions”, which, like Ratzinger’s concept of διαδοχἡ, which was added later, in the 2^nd century.

* * *

This concept of whether “a biblical theology” came prior to this second century concept of “successio/traditio”, of course, is clarified, with a great deal of evidence, by Michael Kruger in his work Canon Revisited. But this isn’t the only element that’s in place. What Rome offers in place of “a written New Testament” is “the process of living Tradition”, which, in today’s language, means “the Magisterium du jour” gets to make up things as it goes. That is a concept that is far, far away from even what was meant by successio/traditio in the second century.

I’ll get into this in greater detail next time. 

Kruger vs Ratzinger 2: “Apostolic Succession” is the adoption of a Second Century Gnostic Concept

 Go now, write it on a tablet for them,
    inscribe it on a scroll,
that for the days to come
    it may be an everlasting witness. (Isaiah 30:8)

Michael Kruger notes, “the movement toward a written text” (in the shift from authority in “oral tradition” to authority in written texts “would have been driven by the very function of the apostolic office as the foundation for the ongoing ministry of the church (Eph. 2:20)” (Canon Revisited, 180).

I’ll have more of this in a future blog post, Lord willing. But this is precisely the opposite of what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. Referring to my previous article, which provided the CCC’s treatment on the topic of the transmission of Divine Revelation, (Scripture, Tradition, “Apostolic tradition” and “ecclesial tradition”, etc), I’d like to break some of these out further, because in conversations I’ve seen about these with Roman Catholics, there is a general lack of understanding on both sides.

In that section, I reproduced, to some degree, what the Roman Catholic official teaching is regarding the relationship between Scripture and Tradition:

The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition [emphasis added].

What we’ll see below, however, is that, while “the content” of “the teaching” (the Apostolic teaching) was paramount in the mind of Paul and the Apostles, in the second century, what became more important was the “who” of the persons doing the transmission of the teaching. And further, this concept was not an Apostolic concept; rather, it was a wholesale adoption of a Gnostic practice by “the church” which set the concept of “apostolic succession” in place.   

For Roman Catholicism, the interactions among “apostolic tradition”, “ecclesial tradition”, “apostolic succession”, and the New Testament writings, are detailed by [none other than] Joseph Ratzinger, in a 1961 essay entitled “Primacy, Episcopacy, and Successio Apostolica”. This essay was reproduced in the recent publication  of the work “God’s Word: Scripture-Tradition-Office” (San Francisco: Ignatius Press ©2008; Libreria Editrice Vaticana edition ©2005).

In it, Ratzinger notes the following:

The concept of succession was clearly formulated, as von Campenhausen has impressively demonstrated, in the anti-Gnostic polemics of the second century; its purpose was to contrast the true apostolic tradition of the Church with the pseudo-apostolic traditions of Gnosis. It is therefore, from the outset, closely connected with the question of what is truly apostolic; in particular, it is clear that successio and traditio were originally neighboring terms; the two concepts were at first practically synonymous (Ratzinger, 22-23).

I’ve already noted this much. At this point, Ratzinger speaks of the word διαδοχἡ, which signified both “tradition” and “succession”. And he builds his case upon this word.

“Tradition” is indeed never a simple and anonymous handing on of teaching, but is linked to a person, is a living word, that has its concrete reality in faith (Ratzinger, 23).

This is the introduction of the concept of the “who” of the persons doing the transmission of the teaching. Von Campenhausen discusses this word at some length. He describes the very first known usage of this word in a technical theological sense:

The decisive step on the development of the concept of tradition was taken … about the middle of the second century. It is about this time that the ideas of “transmitting” and “receiving” tradition acquire new theological importance and a markedly technical meaning. The origins of this phenomenon are, however, not to be sought in the circles which elaborated the ecclesiology of the Great Church [a common name given to the orthodox Roman church of the second century]; instead they take us into the world of the gnosis and its cult of the free individual teacher. At any rate, within the Christian world it is the Gnostic Ptolemaeus who provides the earliest evidence known to us of this new, theologically oriented usage. In the Letter to Flora he speaks explicitly of the secret and apostolic tradition (παράδοσεις) which supplements the canonical collection of Jesus’s words, and which by being handed on through a succession (διαδοχἡ) of teachers and instructors has now come to “us”, that is, to him or to his community. Here the concept of “tradition” is plainly used in a technical sense, as is shown particularly by the collocation with the corresponding concept of “succession” (158).

Note this well. The first and only usage of the concept of “a succession (διαδοχἡ) of teachers and instructors” [within the context of Christianity] prior to Irenaeus is found in the Gnostic Letter to Flora of the Gnostic teacher Ptolemaeus (c. AD 90 – c. AD 168). Von Campenhausen notes in a footnote, “this is the only pre-Irenaean attestation of that conception of παράδοσεις [tradition being handed on] which from now on is the determinative one” (von Campenhausen, 158).

Von Campenhausen elaborates the concept within Gnostic writers of the second century:

To name the original witnesses, and even the intermediaries, by whom such secret traditions were disseminated, presents no problem. Basilides appeals to Glaucias, Peter’s interpreter, and through him to Peter himself; Valentinus is supposed to have been instructed by Theodas, a disciple of Paul; the Carpocratians appeal to Mariamne, Salome, or Martha, the Naasenians to Mariamne, to whom James, the Lord’s brother, “handed on” the teaching. All these inventions exhibit the same method, and have the same end in view: they justify the unfamiliar and exceptional features, which might make a particular teaching suspect as “innovation”, by deriving them from a definite tradition, and they validate the tradition itself by identifying witnesses and chains—at first still fairly short—of witnesses by name.

This, then, is where the concept of “apostolic succession” was developed. At the time of these writers, we are well within the middle of the second century. “The concept of tradition, of ‘handing on’ and ‘receiving’ a teaching from the distant past, was not of course something new invented by the Gnostics. It was not, however, Judaism which they took as their model, nor did they, at a century’s distance, resume the connection with Paul, who in any case used different terminology to refer to the concept.

This, too, is another Roman Catholic bait-and-switch. Paul’s teaching on “tradition” (“παράδοσιν”, 2 Thess 3:6, for example), is frequently lumped in with the same concept. But as von Campenhausen notes, Paul (like the rest of the New Testament) never speaks of διαδοχἡ (“diadoche” and “successio”) but rather of παρέλαβον (as in, the “content” of the teaching). Rather, it is this Hellenistic, Gnostic usage that makes its way into the early church’s concept of authority.

For centuries the concepts of paradosis and diadoche had figured in the philosophical education of antiquity in order to explain the, as it were, genealogical reproduction of traditional teaching from the original master in his disciples and the later heads of the school. For no more than the Church did ancient philosophy know of a communication of teaching without the idea of a community within which this could take place, or at least a personal contact between the earliest figure and his successors. Exactly in the later lists of bishops these philosophical diadochoi are, when the occasion requires, numbered by their “generations” from the founder of the school, and the term diadoche no longer signifies (as paradosis does) the content of the teaching, but instead the link created by the process of handing on and receiving, and so the philosophical school itself … (von Campenhausen, 160).

So, whereas for Paul, the “tradition” referred to “the content” of the teaching, by the middle of the second century, the concept of “who was handing along the content” rather came to the forefront.

Let’s just let this sink in for a while. 

Kruger vs Ratzinger

Setting the stage for the conflict

Before I move further with Michael Kruger’s work, Canon Revisited, I’d like to share the reason for the enthusiasm for this work. And it has to do with showing a contrast between the entire world and ethos of Protestantism, and the entire world and ethos of Roman Catholicism.

Regarding the latter, the following statement has been making its way around the Internet lately. It is more than a tacit admission that there are contradictions within the Roman Catholic system, and it discusses how Roman Catholics are required to deal with these contradictions. (Andy when I say “deal with”, I say it in the spirit with which Roman Catholics are literally commanded to accept these things fully and without question. They get to “receive with docility the teachings and directives that their pastors give them in different forms”. What follows is in the context of the teachings of the Vatican II council being “completely binding” on Roman Catholics, but the principle here applies much more broadly:

1. Whenever the Council teaches something about faith and morals, what it teaches is certainly true, either through the specific note of infallibility or from the religious submission of mind and will owed to the ordinary Magisterium.

2. If such a teaching on faith or morals appears to anyone to conflict with earlier teachings, the problem is not with the truth of the Council’s statement but with our understanding of the Church’s full teaching of which the Council’s statement is inescapably a part.

3. Proper method demands that an understanding of the matter in question be found that accepts the truth of all relevant statements. Later statements can be illuminated by earlier ones and earlier statements can be illuminated by later ones, until a more complete and precise understanding is formed.

4. Where the Council was not teaching on matters of faith and morals, such as where it was describing contemporary conditions or offering recommendations for renewal, its statements are to be received with respect and gratitude but are not necessarily flawless in either their factual accuracy or their prudential judgment.

5. It follows that any arguments which undermine this understanding, whether based upon the pastoral interests of the Council or any other factor, are specious.

(I am reminded of Loyola’s Thirteenth Rule: “To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it…” In other words, Rule #1 is: “Rome is right, and you are wrong”. And Rule #2 is, “when in doubt, see Rule #1”).

These directives, it is noted in the First Things article where they are (among other places) found, carefully follow “the principals [sic] laid out by Pope Benedict in his address to the Curia about ‘the hermeneutic of reform, of renewal within continuity.’” The foundation of these ideas come from Pope John XXIII’s opening speech of the council:

                                                                                                                                                                  

Here I shall cite only John XXIII's well-known words, which unequivocally express this hermeneutic when he says that the Council wishes "to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion". And he continues:  "Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us...". It is necessary that "adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness..." be presented in "faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another...", retaining the same meaning and message (The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., p. 715).

“Faith Alone”, Roman Catholic Style

Thus, Roman Catholics are bound to “receive with docility” the notion that “If … a teaching on faith or morals appears to anyone to conflict with earlier teachings, the problem is not with the truth of the [Church’s] statement but with our understanding of the Church’s full teaching ….”

This is almost the very definition of fideism: an “exclusive or basic reliance upon faith alone, accompanied by a consequent disparagement of reason and utilized especially in the pursuit of philosophical or religious truth”. At best, it is an example of the statement, “I don’t know what the explanation is, but the truth is definitely “out there”, somewhere. Now, some Roman Catholics will take issue that this is an example of “faith alone”, as Plantinga defined it. It is “faith alone in the [‘Roman Catholic Church’s full teaching’] alone”.

Pope and Theologian-in-Chief Joseph Ratzinger

For 20-odd years, he was the #2 man in the Vatican. Every Roman Catholic’s favorite theologian these days (those few Roman Catholics who are interested in theology) has to be Joseph Ratzinger. The “brilliant” young theologian Ratzinger was a peritus, or chief theological advisor to [the Liberal] Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne, Germany. Avery Dulles summarized Ratzinger’s theological achievements at Vatican II:

Benedict XVI was present at all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965. Whereas Karol Wojtyla took part as a bishop, the young Joseph Ratzinger did so as a theological expert. During and after the council he taught successively at the universities of Bonn (1959-1963), Münster (1963-1966), Tübingen (1966-1969), and Regensburg, until he was appointed Archbishop of Munich in 1977. In 1981 he became prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a post he held until the death of John Paul II in April 2005.

In the post Vatican II period, “John Paul the Great” may have been pope, but the pope was a philosopher, and Joseph Ratzinger was “the pope’s theologian”. When John Paul II died, in the conclave that followed, no other figure on the horizon had the kind of notability and stature that Ratzinger had.

So, for any given statement on “apostolic succession”, whatever Ratzinger, pope-and-theologian-in-chief, provides the clearest shape of the Roman Catholic argument for authority via apostolic succession.

Why this question is so important in our day

As I’ve noted in the past, Ratzinger points this out in the clearest terms in his 1962 essay “Primacy, Episcopacy, and Successio Apostolica” in the work “God’s Word: Scripture-Tradition-Office  (San Francisco: Ignatius Press ©2008; Libreria Editrice Vaticana edition ©2005). He says “The concept of [apostolic] succession was clearly formulated, as von Campenhausen has impressively demonstrated, in the anti-Gnostic polemics of the second century; [and not, as some Roman Catholic writers assert, in the first century] its purpose was to contrast the true apostolic tradition of the Church with the pseudo-apostolic tradition of Gnosis” (pgs 22-23).

In that thread, one commenter noted Ratzinger’s objection to what von Campenhausen was saying.

If, however, von Campenhausen meant to say here that a later and thus secondary theology of succesio/traditio was preceded by a biblical theology, then this would have to be called an error (Ratzinger, 25).

This is precisely what von Campenhausen was saying. Von Campenhausen suggests precisely that “biblical theology” certainly preceded the concept of “apostolic succession” held by the later (second century) church.

Roman claims to authority, therefore, are dependent upon the fact that the New Testament canon came some time after this formulation of “apostolic succession”.

This is clarified as Ratzinger continues:

For the understanding of the New Testament [writings] as “scripture”, and thus any possible formulation of a New Testament biblical principle, is no earlier than the determination of the principle of succession/tradito, and moreover, it is, to an even greater extent than this latter, determined by Gnosticism through Marcion (Ratzinger, 25).

Look at what Ratzinger is saying: The impetus for the canon of the New Testament is “determined by Gnosticism through Marcion”. But just to be sure everyone gets this idea, Ratzinger drives his point home:

We should not deceive ourselves: the existence of New Testament writings, recognized as being “apostolic”, does not yet imply the existence of a “New Testament” as “Scripture”—there is a long way from the writings to Scripture. It is well known, and should not be overlooked, that the New Testament does not anywhere understand itself as “Scripture”; “Scripture” is, for the New Testament, simply the Old Testament, while the message about Christ is precisely “spirit”, which teaches us how to understand Scripture.” The idea of a “New Testament” as “Scripture” is still quite inconceivable at this point—even when “office”, as the form of the paradosis, is already clearly taking shape” (Ratzinger ,25).

This is where the rubber meets the road. This is Rome’s strongest and most desperate argument for its own authority. Ratzinger dredges up the old “the Church precedes the Scripture” canard. The reason they hold so strongly to this point is because their entire claim to authority is based on this one falsehood. If the New Testament message has greater authority than “the Church”, then all of Rome’s claims to authority may rightly be flushed down the toilet.

                        

[Given that the papacy was a development that began in the third century and saw its full flowering only in the fifth century, the Roman Catholic Church needs something upon which to hang a line between Peter, who, without question, was a great Apostle, and the fifth century. It needs the concept of “Apostolic Succession”, however nebulous that may be, to bridge that gap.]

Here is Ratzinger pressing home his case:

This open situation of the existence of recognized New Testament writings without the existence of any New Testament principle of Scripture or any clear notion of the canon lasted until well in the second century—right into the middle of the period of the conflict with Gnosticism. Before the idea of a “canon” of New Testament Scripture had been formulated, the Church had already developed a different concept of what was canonical; she had as her Scripture the Old Testament but this Scripture needed a canon of New Testament interpretation, which the Church saw as existing in the traditio guaranteed by the succession (Ratzinger, 25-26).

Rome thus hangs its hat upon the lateness of the canon of the New Testament. If the Roman Catholic version of the lateness of the New Testament can be shown to have some dependence on “tradition”, then somehow, Rome’s version of its own claim to authority might ring true. On the other hand, if the writings of the New Testament had authority to shape orthodox belief (as Kruger argues), then the Reformation is precisely correct in its “throwing off” of Roman authority in favor of a Scriptural-based rule of faith.

It’s not hard to see where this is going. Lord willing, I’ll pick up more of this next time.