The Medieval Biblical Canon Revisited

Protestants are frequently treated to the unworthy accusation that their “interpretive paradigm” (“IP”) produces “merely human opinion” whereas the Roman Catholic “IP” actually provides [the mere possibility] of providing a hard, clean line between “mere human opinion” and “divine revelation”.

For example:

the Protestant has no way, other than fallible arguments, to secure his account of what belongs in the canon, which account, in the case of the OT, runs counter to what the older traditions of Catholicism and Orthodoxy eventually concluded. Therefore, he has no way, other than the use of fallible arguments, to show how the canon should be identified. And if he doesn’t have more than that, then he has no way of making certain that the way he identifies the norma normans for the other secondary authorities is correct.

[For Roman Catholics] there is a principled as opposed to an ad hoc way to distinguish the formal, proximate object of faith from fallible human opinions about how to identify it in the sources. And that is the way in which the Catholic can distinguish the assent of faith from that of opinion.

Well, the Medievals, it seems, were in the same boat as the post-Tridentine Protestants, because the “infallible Church” with the “unbroken succession” during those centuries really hadn’t ruled authoritatively what the “infallible canon” was to be. In fact, the claim was, they didn’t need one.

So the “Catholics” of that day had the same problems that the Protestants had. As Richard Muller relates:

Past Popes vs “Called to Communion”

Paul Bassett takes on the Called to Communion gang, showing how past popes contradicted the “Catholic Interpretive Paradigm” (CIP) that they are advocating.

Here is how their claim works:

“The person becoming Catholic, by contrast, is seeking out the Church that Christ founded. He does this not by finding that group of persons who share his interpretation of Scripture. Rather, he locates in history those whom the Apostles appointed and authorized, observes what they say and do viz-a-viz the transmission of teaching and interpretive authority, traces that line of successive authorizations down through history to the present day to a living Magisterium, and then submits to what this present-day Magisterium is teaching. By finding the Magisterium, he finds something that has the divine authority to bind the conscience.”

Paul summarizes the mechanics of that quote here:

The superiority of the Roman Catholic IP consists in the claims that:

1.) it can be located in history,
2.) it has divine authorization, and
3.) it is consistent “through history”

As it turns out, history has given us a laboratory in which to test those claims:

If we were to test this IP we would look for a laboratory that contained only those items needed by the IP but was free from any contaminants not needed by it. And fortunately for us, history provides just such a laboratory – the Papal States. The Papal States was a European country entirely under the control of the Roman church and its hierarchy. It existed for 700 years until 1870 and was at its peak during the 16th century. The Vatican exercised complete and total control over every aspect of life within those borders and therefore qualifies as the perfect laboratory to test the IP.

Therefore, “the Catholic IP” must have flourished there, right? Wrong, actually:

The boys at C2C want us to believe that the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church is the only God-given instrument whereby Scriptures can be properly and authentically interpreted. And yet in a place and time where the Roman Catholic Church reigned supreme not only did they not exercise their alleged responsibility, but they used their temporal power to eliminate the Scripture to the greatest extent possible.

Read the whole piece here.

Paradigms, Tradition, and the Lexicon, Part 2

Or, Jason Stellman’s “already-existing apostolic tradition”

In his article The Tradition and the Lexicon, Bryan Cross says:

In general, Protestants think differently about how to go about interpreting Scripture than do Catholics. When trying to understand the meaning of a passage in Scripture, Catholics have always looked to the Tradition; we seek to determine how the Church has understood and explained the passage over the past two millennia. We look up what the Church Fathers and Church Doctors have said about the passage. By contrast, Protestants typically do not turn first to the Church Fathers when seeking to understand the meaning of a passage or term in Scripture that is unclear. Protestants generally turn to contemporary lexicons and commentaries written by contemporary biblical scholars whom they trust. Only rarely, and perhaps as a final step, do they turn to the Church Fathers. The common form of the Protestant mind is ready to believe that the Fathers often got Scripture wrong, and to use their own interpretation of Scripture to ‘correct’ or critically evaluate the Fathers.

Where does this “tradition” come from? Where does “the Church” first begin to “understand and explain” certain things?

Liccione Quixote

Erick wrote, in response to Paul Bassett:

The problem remains however that the universal church for 15 centuries did not understand the last word on any issue, doctrinal or disciplinary, to be in one’s individual interpretation of Scripture, or even a collective interpretation by a huge community in schism (Presbyterian, Baptist, etc). Obviously, reading the Scripture is very important to Catholics, and many Catholics are willing to go toe to toe with protestants in exegesis; however the solutions that are written down for the problems going on in the NT era are not always applicable since, as time goes on, there arises new problems which are not addressed by the NT.

The Papacy is not an ever-present over-lord on the whole Church, it is a referee there needed for sacerdotal unity. If you read the opening words of certain councils, there are pronouncements that the Bishop of Rome is the occupant of a chair wherein the rock of Church remains. And this went uncontested for a very long time.

But even if you were to show how this was contested, what group, besides your own community of theological thought, even agrees with your positive application of how to do Church and worship, despite their agreement with you on the negative towards the Papacy?

The problem with your comment, Erick, is that “the universal church” did not ever “understand” anything at all with one voice. There never was “a last word” from “the universal church” on anything – not even the Council of Chalcedon [which was “reinterpreted” by later councils].

The quest to find such a thing is a meaningless one. A Quixotic one. There is no “there” there.

To provide just one [fairly big] example: In the fifth century, the Alexandrians (Monophysites) as followers of Cyril, and the Antiochians (Nestorians) as followers of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, both, with their “successions of bishops”, both split with the Greeks and Romans [“the Orthdox”] over the issue of whether Mary was Theotokos or Christotokos. This was the heart and soul of the Nestorian heresy, at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD.

But consider the Common Christological Declaration that JPII signed with the “Assyrian Church of the East” in 1994 – which you may have otherwise known as the “Nestorian” church. This declaration says The controversies of the past led to anathemas, bearing on persons and on formulas. The Lord's Spirit permits us to understand better today that the divisions brought about in this way were due in large part to misunderstandings.

This is a “misunderstanding” that directly relates to a “doctrinal” issue:

the Assyrian Church of the East is praying the Virgin Mary as "the Mother of Christ our God and Saviour". In the light of this same faith the Catholic tradition addresses the Virgin Mary as "the Mother of God" and also as "the Mother of Christ". We both recognize the legitimacy and rightness of these expressions of the same faith and we both respect the preference of each Church in her liturgical life and piety.

This is the Theotokos vs Christotokos issue that was the very reason for “the Council of Ephesus” (431 AD). It was Cyril’s condemnation of Nestorius for this very issue.

Note the following OLTV video in which the Orthodox bishop Timothy "Kallistos" Ware just comes right out and says "Nestorius was not guilty of the Nestorian heresy". You can see the video here:

http://www.oltv.tv/id553.html (Look at "Plenary 1", Clip 1, beginning approximately 2:20)…

…and read more about the dispute here:

http://www.puritanboard.com/f18/nestorius-council-ephesus-53817/

Your premise that “the universal church” did anything at all for 15 centuries is a false one. The “Nestorian” church never was not part of the universal church. Even though it had “bishops” in “succession”. The universal church had a mixed voice on this issue.

And it was mixed because of misunderstanding. Yes, doctrinal misunderstanding.

…the last word on any issue, doctrinal or disciplinary, to be in one’s individual interpretation of Scripture, or even a collective interpretation by a huge community in schism (Presbyterian, Baptist, etc)….

There never has been a “last word”. So the question “whose interpretation” really provides an answer that is far more convoluted than the answer you will receive at CTC. The very quest for alast word is a Quixotic one. Do you not see this?

Liccione’s “IP” which he finds “preferable” – because it offers a “a principled as opposed to an ad hoc way to distinguish the formal, proximate object of faith from fallible human opinions”, has no correspondence whatsoever with the actual course of church history. The universal church, not anywhere, ever, has identified [except by Roman fiat] this “formal, proximate object of faith” for which you are seeking. Even by his own standard of “papal ratifications of dogmatic canons issued by general councils meant to bind the whole Church”, you have, in the words of JPII, “a misunderstanding” which led to “anathemas” and schism.

This is an issue that is far older than Protestantism.

The Fictional Beginnings of Papal Infallibility, Part 1

It is no stretch at all to call this fictional. The concept of “papal infallibility”, the foundation of the Roman Catholic IP, the epistemological foundation of certitude for a narrow band of Roman Catholics, never existed for the first 1200 years of church history.

Michael Liccione wrote of “papal ratifications of dogmatic canons issued by general councils meant to bind the whole Church”. Of these he says:

Whether purely papal or conciliar, such definitions are exercises of the “extraordinary magisterium” of the Church, and thus require the assent of faith from all believers. All are set forth infallibly.

Of course, it’s not like “popes” had called these councils, or were leading these councils, or even present at these councils, or were even afterthoughts at these councils. In some cases, they didn’t even know about them until after-the-fact.

Of course, “Pope Sylvester” was not present at the First Ecumenical Council (Nicea 325AD). Only two priests from Rome were present (among the 300+ Eastern bishops at the council) and he is neither mentioned by, or even apparently though of at this council. At the Second Ecumenical Council, Constantinople (381AD), from which we have “the Nicene Creed” in its present form, “Pope Damasus” (366–384) didn’t even know it was occurring, and only received reports about the council later.

What was “the papacy” like at this time? This is from Hans Küng: “Infallibility, an Inquiry”:

[the murderer] Bishop Damasus was the first to claim the title of Sedes Apostolica (“Apostolic See”) exclusively for the Roman See; Bishop Siricius (contemporary of the far more important Ambrose, Bishop of Milan), was the first to call himself “pope,” began peremptorily to call his own statutes “apostolic,” adopted the official imperial style, and energetically extended his official powers on all sides; Bishop Innocent I wanted to have every important matter, after it had been been discussed at a synod, put before the Roman pontiff for a decision, and tried to establish liturgical centralization with the aid of historical fictions, and so on.

The historian Eamon Duffy writes of this “official imperial style”:

They [bishops of Rome] set about [creating a Christian Rome] by building churches, converting the modest tituli (community church centres) into something grander, and creating new and more public foundations, though to begin with nothing that rivaled the great basilicas at the Lateran and St. Peter’s. Over the next hundred years their churches advanced into the city – Pope Mark’s (336) San Marco within a stone’s throw of the Capitol, Pope Liberius’ massive basilica on the Esquiline (now Santa Maria Maggiore), Pope Damasus’ Santa Anastasia at the foot of the Palatine, Pope Julius’ foundation on the site of the present Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santa Pudenziana near the Baths of Diocletian under Pope Anastasius (399-401), Santa Sabina among the patrician villas on the Aventine under Pope Celestine (422-32).

These churches were a mark of the upbeat confidence of post-Constantinian Christianity in Rome. The popes were potentates, and began to behave like it. Damasus perfectly embodied this growing grandeur. An urbane career cleric like his predecessor Liberius, at home in the wealthy salons of the city, he was also a ruthless power-broker, and he did not he did not hesitate to mobilize both the city police and [a hired mob of gravediggers with pickaxes] to back up his rule… (Duffy, 37:38).

It was Siricius (384-399), who was the successor of Damasus, who “self-consciously … began to model their actions and style as Christian leaders on the procedures of the Roman state. … [Siricius responded to an inquiry from a neighboring bishop in Spain] in the form of a decretal, modeled directly on an imperial rescript, and like the rescripts, providing authoritative rulings which were designed to establish legal precedents on the issues concerned. Siricius commended the [inquiring] Bishop for consulting Rome ‘as to the head of your body’, and instructed to him to pass on ‘the salutary ordinances we have made’ to the bishops of all the surrounding provinces, for ‘no priest of the Lord is free to be ignorant of the statutes of the Apostolic See’” (Duffy 40)

Regarding the way that “historical fictions” worked their way into papal consolidation of their power, Roger Collins, Keeper of the Keys (New York, NY: Basic Books (Perseus Books Group), ©2009) writes:

In 416 Pope Innocent I (401–417) declared ‘in all of Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Sicily and the isles that lie between them no churches have been established other than by those ordained bishop by the venerable Apostle Peter or his successors”…. (58)

This was totally historically inaccurate, although it wasn’t the only such incident giving sanction to historical inaccuracy.

The purpose of such “novelties”, according to Collins, was “always the” invention “maintenance of tradition” (59).

Later, Collins writes about the “Symmachan forgeries”:

This was the first occasion on which the Roman church had revisited its own history, in particular the third and fourth centuries, in search of precedents…. Some of the periods in question, such as the pontificates of Sylvester (314–355) and Liberius (352–366), were already being seen more through the prism of legend than that of history, and in the Middle Ages texts were often forged because their authors were convinced of the truth of what they contained. Their faked documents provided tangible evidence of what was already believed true.

The Symmachan forgeries reinterpreted some of the more embarrassing episodes in papal history, both real and imaginary. … How convincing these forged texts seemed in the early sixth century is unknown, but when rediscovered in later centuries, they were regarded as authentic records with unequivocal legal authority. … (Collins, 80–82).

This is how Rome does “interpretation”. The reliance of these bishops of Rome on fictions and forgeries to expand their realm is truly staggering. Collins says “It is no coincidence that the first systematic works of papal history appear at the very time the Roman church’s past was being reinvented for polemical purposes.” We have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

* * *

There was a representative of a pope present at the third Ecumenical council. History records a speech from “Philip the Roman Legate” at the Council of Ephesus (431 AD). It is important to note that this was at the third session – after all of the major issues had been decided, “after the conclusion of the whole matter”, after many of the important players had left. Philip stood up in front of an almost-empty room and said:

No one doubts, but rather it has been known to all generations, that the holy and most blessed Peter, chief and head of the Apostles, the pillar of the faith, the foundation stone of the Catholic church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ the Savior and Redeemer of the human race, an that the power of binding and loosing sins was given to him, who up to this moment and always lives in his successors, and judges (D. 112).

For Roman Catholics, this counts as “papal ratification” of a council.

In reality, this speech of Philip’s was a novelty, a burp after a meal, a “don’t-forget-about-me” moment” which wasn’t on anybody’s mind at the time (except for those at Rome), and at Vatican I, we see here the real-life practice of what I’ve been calling “The Roman Catholic Hermeneutic”, returning “to the sources of divine revelation” – interesting how this afterthought of a speech turns into “a source of divine revelation” for the great and certain Roman Catholic IP, that fountain of all epistemological certainty.

This unimportant speech was cited at Vatican I (D. 1824), as precedent for and evidence of “the Perpetuity of the Primacy of Blessed Peter among the Roman Pontiffs.”

(The “D.” stands for Denzinger’s “Sources of Catholic Dogma”).

Straining at a gnat, while swallowing the camel of centuries’-worth of ‘distinctively Roman accretions’

Continuing with my very long discussion with Michael Liccione at Called to Communion:

Mike 286:

That remark is as good a place as any to start for the sake of explaining what’s wrong with your approach at the most fundamental, philosophical level.

There is nothing wrong with my approach at any level, much less “the most fundamental, philosophical level”. As I’ve explained repeatedly, the “fundamental, philosophical level” that you want to bring up has been necessitated by the fact that you need to explain away some things (very many things) and account for the addition of very many other things.

In your writings, you often quote one or more English translations of the Bible. Precisely as translations, they are interpretations of critical editions of the Bible in the original languages. Those critical editions, in turn, are interpretations of what’s written on the pages of the all the oldest codices that survive. And “what the Bible says,” to the extent we know it, is what’s written on those pages. So, what you quote is not “what the Bible says.” What you quote are interpretations of interpretations of what the Bible says.

You use the word “interpretations” very loosely. It’s true that there is some need for judgment, on some issues, but very, very infrequently is there a need to make an “interpretation” that changes anything at all that is significant.

Blue Men on Mars

I am addressing Michael Liccione, and in what follows, I’ll be responding to comment 231 here, but I’ll likely be ranging to other places to take into account some of the other things you’ve said, such as when you refer me to Sections IV and V in the main article which this comment follows.

I’m pleased to see you trying to address what I take to be the basic epistemological issue between Catholicism and Protestantism. In my opinion, understanding and addressing that issue accurately is the only way for the uncommitted inquirer to decide between them without begging the question.

I’ve been responding to these issues all along, although I’ve not been doing it in the same words that you are using. What you are doing is clouding the primary epistemological issue in a more formal-sounding language, which tends to give some “intellectual grounding” where there is none.

What you call “begging the question” here with remarkable ease, is in reality, taking the Apostles at their own words. As Paul says to the Roman Governor Festus, in his trial defense before King Agrippa (Acts 26:26), “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words. For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner.”

“Low-information” Roman Catholic apologetics

In the recent Presidential election, we’ve seen the rise of what’s been called the “low-information” voter, who was perhaps characterized by the “Obama Phone” lady.

Now the Roman Catholic apologist K. Doran gives us a sample of “low-information” Roman Catholic apologetics in the following exchange:

Another writer had said this:

“The Church worldwide in the first 4 centuries hardly was conscious of Papal Infallibility (something one can only subscribe to with an accept despite the vagueness of the development of doctrine theories).”

To which K. Doran responded:

Michael Liccione finds ‘the Lutheran IP’ ‘utterly unsatisfactory’

I thought this was funny:

NathanRinne is a Lutheran writer, and Lutherans are quite fond of holding out to Reformed folks that there are things that God just consigns to mystery, and we are  best not to inquire about them. [Reformed theologians go with the things which “by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture”, but that is a no-no for Lutherans, as I understand it].

So here we have a Lutheran, who is more than willing to have those “rough edges” at the border of the “formal proximate object of faith”, in a discussion with a Roman Catholic, who blows right beyond “good and necessary” deductions and resides squarely in the infallible certitude “of a principled, rather than an <i>ad hoc</i>” way of arriving at the boundaries of “the formal proximate object of faith”. A “principled” way of determining the content of “divine revelation” as opposed to what is merely “human opinion”.

I hope these two men continue the discussion.

A Challenge to Michael Liccione

Michael Liccione said in a comment to me:

it is incumbent on anyone debating said question to argue, on grounds independent of the particular biblical interpretations he adopts, that his IP [“interpretive paradigm”, or hermeneutic] has a principled distinction between divine revelation and human theological opinion, so that by deploying it, he at least has an argument that his particular interpretations are reliable expressions of divine revelation, not just opinions. But if you deny that you or anybody else enjoys the gift of infallibility, and thus admit that you could be wrong, you have no way of making that argument.

In this comment, he further challenged:

For several years now, I’ve been waiting for you to engage the essentially philosophical issue I’ve posed for you. If and when you do, our discussions might move forward.

These “philosophical issues” are outlined this article, in sections IV and V. What follows is my direct response to his “philosophical issues”. Stay tuned.

Michael Liccione (372), you wrote this in another comment thread:

I'm saying: "The reason why you have no [basis for making a principled distinction between divine revelation and human opinion] is that you see [certain churchs' claim to be divinely commissioned through apostolic succession] as merely as one more opinion on an epistemic par with others."

I’ve added the [square brackets] there to set off the nature of your claim.

There are all kinds of things balled up here, and no doubt they are clarified in other places. I just haven’t had the opportunity to look at them all in one place. If some of my questions below get answered some place, I'll be happy to look in other places.

You have challenged me to respond to the philosophical questions you have, and so here I am.

The first thing to ask is the question, What is “divine revelation”? I’m going to assume for the sake of discussion that we believe in the same God, and so proving “who” God is shouldn’t be much of an issue. Although, we may disagree on “what God would do, or how he would do things in any given situation”.

In that way, we certainly differ even on what is “divine revelation”. In this respect, your citation of Dei Verbum should be analyzed.

Also, we need to look at the definition of the word “church”. We need to arrive at an adequate definition of “church”.

What is “a church”? What is “the church”?

What specifically was this “divine commission?” How do you know specifically what it was? When did it occur? If it was an “epistemologically superior” claim, how is it that certain individuals walked away from that claim without a full and complete understanding of it? After all, Christ is God. Did he just leave them with “hints” that they forgot to pass along? Or the promise that (John 16:13) that the Holy Spirit would come in and “fill in the gaps” later?


Then, Here is what we are dealing with when we say “epistemology”. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources?

How is it that the mere “claim to be divinely commissioned” entails “epistemological superiority”? What are the limits of that?


Mike, according to your account, the specific claim, by some churches “to be divinely commissioned through apostolic succession” is a claim that’s epistemologically superior to the claim that other churches make.

You say in this article,

“if said claims are true, then there is a principled as opposed to an ad hoc way to distinguish the formal, proximate object of faith from fallible human opinions about how to identify it in the sources. And that is the way in which the Catholic can distinguish the assent of faith from that of opinion.”

But so what? The claim itself does not bear the kind of entailment that is placed on it. Where is the entailment that “there is a principle as opposed to an ad hoc way” to “distinguish the formal, proximate object of faith from fallible human opinions”.

There is, in fact, no entailment that there be “a formal proximate object of faith”. There may well be instances in which “faith” and “human opinion” not only coincide, but coincide in a fairly co-extensive way.

As I asked, when you call the Liccione kids off the street, “get out of the traffic or your could get hurt”, there is no entailment that you define “the formal proximate object” of your entire family set of rules, in order to make that particular command authoritative.

And second, if you say, “come to your own Birthday Party”, there is similarly no entailment for a “formal proximate object” to make “the good news” of a Birthday Party any less clear in the child’s mind.

I say these things in defense of the “Protestant IP”. If God can speak to Adam, and if Eve can misunderstand, and God permits this [there is no entailment for a “formal, proximate object of faith”], then God can speak through a larger Scripture, and still, there is no entailment for a “formal proximate object of faith” in the church age, either.

Neither you nor your colleagues has done an adequate job of explaining this [and in fact, I think you go beyond what Roman Catholicism actually claims in this; your own claims do not fully coincide with official Roman Catholic claims].

Here, too, are areas where I think that neither you nor any of your colleagues here has done an adequate job of explaining things:

1. If the Roman Catholic Church makes some claim to “divine institution”, then, it assumes upon itself a burden of proof to show clearly and explicitly where this “divine institution” occurred, how it applies to (a) Rome and (b) the papacy, and again, it must do so explicitly, and show why anyone might be thus bound by it. Not to do so clearly and explicitly is grounds for rejection of the claim.

Note that this “burden of proof” is not fulfilled by showing, as you seem to do, that the Roman Catholic claim is neater, tidier, than “the Protestant IP”. That may make it seem more secure for those who are seeking epistemological security. But God does not seem to supply such security.

If He does, I don’t see it, and you need to show it to me.

2. This particular burden of proof, on the part of the Roman Catholic Church, means that Keith Mathison’s very long article examining (and rejecting) those claimswas a worthwhile exercise.

If the Roman Catholic explanations in support of this “divine institution” do not hold up to scrutiny [of the Scriptural kind or the historical kind, or in fact, of any kind of scrutiny that we can place upon it], then no amount of perceived confusion in the Protestant world can fix those claims to authority. And yet, the shape of the argument coming from this side is “Protestantism is in a disarray, therefore Roman Catholic claims are correct”.

What you seem to do in this article is to put the “epistemological claims” of Protestants and [some subset of Roman Catholics, but not the official Roman Catholic Church] on the table, side-by-side. Such a side-by-side comparison may constitute an apparent act of “fairness”. But this is no way to prove the validity of Roman Catholic claims.

3. The claim here is that the mere “claim to be divinely commissioned through apostolic succession” is somehow epistemologically superior to other claims.

But I’ve seen this “claim” in practice. And the “practice” is that, when there is an “apparent contradiction” in Roman claims, the “apparent contradiction” exists only in my mind; it does not exist in reality”. Thus, there is always an explanation [or an excuse] offered. The Roman Magisterium is always right in everything it says.

I refuse to engage in this kind of make-believe, in defense of an institution that has so clearly been corrupt in the history of its existence, at every level. Christ’s claim “you can tell a tree by its fruit” is a guarantee of a kind of epistemological “test” that can be made against a “tree”. It is no accident that Newman’s comparison (and Bryan’s comparison) involves a “tree” with “branches”.

We can understand the “Roman Catholic” tree by the “fruit” that it produces – as evidence of corruption.

This whole “interpretive paradigm” thing is not much more than a fancy, “grown-up” way of saying “I’m taking my marbles and going home”.

Michael Liccione, ‘Interpretive Paradigms’ (‘IPs’) and Real Life

In response to Michael Liccione 343 (and others indirectly), I ask:

Who wants their faith to be formed around a legend? I certainly don’t. But that is the legacy of hundreds of years-worth of papal “history”.

This certainly is a question to ask. There certainly is a desire to rest one’s faith on something certain, that’s not going to give way when push comes to shove. I’m sure this sort of thing is behind your desire to “distinguish between divine revelation and human theological opinion”.

My response is simply that God does not provide the kind of “infallible certainty” that you posit. Nor does he demand the need that you have “infallible certainty”. You may want such a thing – but “Divine revelation” itself neither posits it nor provides an answer for it. So it is sufficient to me to rest in God’s word.

In the blog post I mentioned above, I’m talking about “papal history” from the first four centuries of the church. I’ve termed this “the nonexistent early papacy”, although you may or may not claim with Newman that this “papacy” “remained a mere letter” for four centuries. That’s another way of saying “nobody could see it.”

God is not some kind of loon

In response to my comment here, Michael Liccione said:

What you’ve done is interpret some biblical texts and present that as evidence that the Bible supports your interpretive paradigm (IP) over against the Catholic. Now I could reply by offering my own, Catholic interpretation of the texts you select. But I can find no good reason to so. For when the very question at issue is which IP, the conservative-Protestant or the Catholic, supplies a principled way to distinguish divine revelation from human theological opinion, neither of us can answer the question just by offering our own favored interpretation of selected biblical texts. You have interpreted, and I would be interpreting, the texts already in terms of our own respective IPs, which begs the question and gets us nowhere. So it is incumbent on anyone debating said question to argue, on grounds independent of the particular biblical interpretations he adopts, that his IP has a principled distinction between divine revelation and human theological opinion, so that by deploying it, he at least has an argument that his particular interpretations are reliable expressions of divine revelation, not just opinions. But if you deny that you or anybody else enjoys the gift of infallibility, and thus admit that you could be wrong, you have no way of making that argument.

For several years now, I’ve been waiting for you to engage the essentially philosophical issue I’ve posed for you. If and when you do, our discussions might move forward.

I responded:

Your appeal to “philosophical issues” is an evasion, and your concept of “interpretive paradigm” is a subterfuge.

Here’s why.

Consider the world of math. Math has rules, and you can, if you make up your mind that you are going to be as honest as possible in your understanding of math, it won’t take you long to understand that 2+2=4. With a bit more work, you’ll find out that 9x9=81, and with not too much more difficulty, you can go to a smart guy and understand that a2xb2=c2 and someone may even be able to figure out the square root of a number like 5,237.

This is because we are talking about numbers, and numbers have properties that are constant, and they can be learned.

Keep in mind that God is a God who created math, with its properties unique to math.

Knowing what I do about math, it is very hard for me to imagine an “interpretive paradigm” (IP) in the universe that is going to make 2+2=5 a true statement. If there is one, it is going to be something very twisted and counterintuitive.

Even such concepts as “relativity”, as complicated as they are, are merely extensions of the “paradigm” that causes 2+2=4 to be true.

That’s the problem with the Roman Catholic “IP”.

If you consider, too, that God has properties, he tells us what these properties are, [we know them because he reveals them], and that he honest with us and is not some kind of loon, then understanding God’s revelation to us is not too different from understanding math.

Further, since we live in the universe that God created, and that he created us, it is no stretch at all to consider that he has made us with “receptors” to what he is “transmitting”. Turretin said it with a bit more precision:

…it is even most absurd that the rational creature as rational should not be subject to him [God] in the genus of morals and not be governed by him suitably to his nature (i.e., by moral means) by the establishment of a law. Hence it follows either that man ought to have been created independent by God (which is absurd) or that he has a natural law impressed upon him, in accordance with which he may be ruled by him

God is not going to make creatures that can’t hear and understand him. That’s the point of my comment 233 above.

Let’s look at this. God reveals something to Adam; Adam does something, and there is a consequence. God says more. Then he talks to different people – Noah, Abraham, Jacob. There is more history. We know the words, and we know the history.

If your “interpretive paradigm” is to be as honest with those statements, and with the history, as you can possibly be (and knowing that our understanding of both the languages of those statements, and the history, especially moving closer to our time), you are not going to have a difficult time understanding the basics.

The fact that many people aren’t good at math doesn’t make math untrue.

Now Mike, you want an “interpretive paradigm” that runs extremely counterintuitive to not only the “relativity” that has been calculated out, but counterintuitive to the 2+2=4 and the 9x9=81 statements.

Look at the other side of this: What kind of “interpretive paradigm” does the “infallible magisterium” use to come up with the things it comes up with.

The deliberations over the Trinity and Christology required no “infallibility”. It required [and Athanasius and others are clear about this] an honest look at Scripture. Athanasius Contra Arianus contains Athanasius’s “proof” of the Trinity.

We know too the sources of some of the uniquely “catholic” items and the uniquely “Roman” doctrines that you say are “materially present” “in the original deposit of faith” [and one might add, “somehow”, “implicitly”].

We know, for example, that there is no historical record for the Assumption of Mary. There are no numbers of any kind that add up to “Assumption of Mary”. Assumption of Mary is a 2+2=5 statement. Consider:

Tertullian can write a long treatise of sixty-three chapters On the Resurrection of the Dead, mentioning and discussing the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the raising of Lazarus, the translation without death of Enoch and of Elijah, the returning from the dead of Moses for the Transfiguration, and even the preservation from what was humanly speaking certain death of the three young men in the fiery furnace and of Jonah in the whale’s belly. He does not once even slightly mention, he does not once remotely and uncertainly hint at, the resurrection or corporeal assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Tertullian quite clearly, like all his contemporaries and predecessors, had never heard of this story (R.P.C. Hanson, “Tradition in the Early Church”, SCM Press, ©1962, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers edition, pgs 258–259).

Tertullian was one of the most well-informed of the writers of the early (late 2nd, early 3rd century) church. If anyone had the slightest hint in his day that it had happened, he would have known about it.

And yet, the “infallible Magisterium” of the 20th century knows enough about this non-event to include it within the “formal proximate object of faith”. There is now [for Roman Catholics] no question, it was a true event. Even though, as Hanson says, “this idea first made its appearance in the fifth-century Coptic Christianity under marked Gnostic influence.”

What kind of magic dust gives the “infallible Magisterium” the “authority” to make a non-event into a dogma? What kind of magic dust makes “2+2=5” into a true statement?

This is one event, and one of the most egregious, but it is standard operating procedure for the Roman “teaching authority”.

Do we start with simple math and work our way up to calculus? Or do we commit our lives and eternal destinies to the “interpretive paradigm” that makes 2+2=5?

Roman Catholic authority and the Soviet propagandistic “correct” understanding of things

Given that Fr Bryan thinks that the Roman Catholic hierarchy is able to “[ponder] the word of God in [its] heart and [hear] the voice of God accurately” in such a way that it can “proclaim the truth of the Gospel to the World”, I asked him, How do you account for something like this?

In the link provided, I note that “Augustine's understanding/translation of iustitificare, a Latin term which he held to mean “to make righteous” was “a permissible interpretation of the Latin word”, was “unacceptable as an interpretation of the Hebrew concept which underlies it” – and that this mistranslation became the foundation for the whole Roman Catholic teaching on “justification”.

That is, Augustine missed quite thoroughly the concept of what the Old Testament meant when it said that God was going to “justify” Israel and bring salvation.

I noted further, “This isn’t the only case in which a mistranslation gets made into [Roman Catholic] dogma”.

Fr Bryan did not respond, but this exchanged followed:

Someone named Dennis said:

John,

Regarding #957, your argument goes under the assumption that McGrath is correct and Augustine is wrong. So, it all depends on whom you take as your authority. You implicitly trust McGrath more than Augustine. I disagree. As a matter of fact, I think most people would trust Augustine much more than they would trust McGrath.

I replied:

Dennis, your appeal to authority is very revealing.

There’s no assumption at all, in the whole piece. We know that words have actual meanings, and we know what those meanings are, and that Augustine didn’t now Hebrew. We know where his understanding of iustitificare came from, and how, precisely, things went wrong. There’s not an assumption in the whole piece.

Dennis replied:

What I’m saying is we all have an authority. Mine is the Church who has decided on this. Yours is your understanding of McGrath. I think your reading of McGrath is biased on your understanding of Scripture and your disposition on the Catholic Church.

My authority, Dennis, happens to be “what’s true”. What’s really going on there. Your appeal to “authority” to decide a translation issue reminds me of something that Václav Havel wrote in The Power of the Powerless, when he was locked in the deepest bowels of the Soviet system of propaganda:

For even though our dictatorship has long since alienated itself completely from the social movements that give birth to it, the authenticity of these movements (and I am thinking of the proletarian and socialist movements of the nineteenth century) gives it undeniable historicity. These origins provided a solid foundation of sorts on which it could build until it became the utterly new social and political reality it is today, which has become so inextricably a part of the structure of the modern world. A feature of those historical origins was the “correct” understanding of social conflicts in the period from which those original movements emerged. The fact that at the very core of this “correct” understanding there was a genetic disposition toward the monstrous alienation characteristic of its subsequence development is not essential here.

Rome provides the “correct” understanding authoritatively, even if the underlying facts are all wrong. Just like the brutal Soviet regime.

Which came first, however? Which learned this tactic from the other?

It’s true, correlation is not causation. But if its “genetic disposition” looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, you have to ask yourself at some point, is it related?

“Seek and you will find; … the one who seeks finds…. If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him”

Michael Liccione (#432)

You're still missing the point. As I've often said before, both on this site and elsewhere, it belongs to the very concept of an interpretive paradigm that no IP can be secured simply on the basis of that which is to be interpreted.

And you are holding this concept above the Scriptures themselves. It is just special pleading. Scripture doesn’t say what you need it to say, so you impose a lens that gives you (and Rome) the answer that’s required. You are looking for (and Rome is illicitly providing) a kind of certainty that God does not offer.

An IP is something one brings to what's interpreted, rather than something one derives from it.

The paradigm that I hold is that God is powerful enough to have created human beings in such a way that he can communicate what he needs and intends to communicate directly through His word.

There is nothing in Scripture which can demonstrate, as a matter of rational necessity, that Scripture alone suffices to interpret Scripture.

There is nothing in Scripture that says that anything else is up to the task of “interpreting Scripture”. Scripture, in fact, portrays itself as “the interpretation” of the “acts”, so to speak, of God in history.

The character of God in the Old Testament (or in the New) gives no hint that He is insufficient in this way. Nor does the Scripture relate anywhere that God’s word is lacking in any property (including the ability to be sufficient in itself). Again, as I said above, God speaks and the world comes into existence. That is how God’s word works. For you to be claiming what you are claiming is to deny God the power that he has – in this case, the power to communicate.

Because such a thing is in fact impossible, nobody does it--not even you. Otherwise there would be no need for historical, linguistic, and other studies as aids to exegesis. You strive to conduct and use such means, and rightly so. It's necessary, albeit not sufficient, for identifying those doctrines which express divine revelation, and for understanding them to the extent that is given to us. The question is not whether we are to use extra-scriptural means for studying Scripture, but which ensemble of means are best suited for carrying out the ultimate purpose of studying Scripture.

The difference is “the due use of ordinary means”, or the pleading of some kind of special supernaturalism that is imposed that “always makes Roman doctrine correct, even when we perceive some kind of inconsistency”. If you are genuinely seeking the Lord, it is better to trust your own mind, -- and like-minded teachers (see WCF 31, and teachers who ministerially settle controversies), than the infallible Roman paradigm which denies God's ability to communicate with His people.

And here’s a challenge for you: when is the first time in history that some kind of need for an “interpretive paradigm” occurred? When did Christians (of any kind) first decide that they could not trust their eyes or their own reason to understand what God was saying? Somewhere between Loyola and his Spiritual Exercises, and Newman. Bossuet (“semper eadem”) was not aware of any such thing.

Nonetheless, I find it noteworthy that all your counter-examples to the Catholic IP are drawn from the Old Testament. That is just a thoroughly question-begging way of applying your own IP, rather than an apposite attempt to engage the Catholic IP.

No, using the OT is a way to establish both the character of God and how He works. There is plenty more from the NT. The “Catholic IP” is rigged after-the-fact. And the way to see this is to work to understand church history from the beginning – “what they knew, and when they knew it”.

Consider Luke 1:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled [acts of God in history] among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses [of the acts of God in history] and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught [i.e., the acts of God in history, and their significance].

Consider Peter in Acts 2:

God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

Consider Paul’s response to “leadership” (and this is one of his earliest letters, c. 50 A.D – if anyone had a first-hand view of “the Church that Christ Founded™, it would be Paul). Consider Paul’s “obedience of faith” in these two instances:

As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised,just as Peter had been to the circumcised….

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned….

Please don’t bring up the old canard about Peter not being “infallible” in matters not of the faith. Note the attitude toward any supposed “authority”. This is “Peter” the supposed “rock”, with “divine authority”.

I could go on and on with this sort of thing.

Yet, as I indicated a few years ago in my lengthy exchange with Prof. R. F. White, I agree that no OT authorities interpreted Scripture infallibly. The only infallibility exercised in the Old Testament was that secured by virtue of divine inspiration to write the Scriptures themselves. That's because divine revelation was not yet complete; it unfolded gradually, so that it was easy even for the most pious Jews to misinterpret the ultimate meaning of their Scriptures, which was their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

This again is special pleading. Note Paul’s response to Peter. Paul was in possession of “complete” revelation.

And that's why most Jewish scholars in Jesus' day didn't seem him as that fulfillment. Nobody could interpret the deposit of faith infallibly, even in principle, until it was given in its entirety through the "Christ-event."

This again is special pleading. Note Paul’s response to Peter. Paul was in possession of “complete” revelation.

That said, if there is still no living, visible authority on earth that Christ authorized to interpret said deposit infallibly in his name, then the question what belongs in the Bible, and how to interpret it, can only be answered with provisional opinions.

The Jews had only “provisional opinions”, and yet, Jesus as he lived and breathed had no qualms about holding them accountable for something more definite: “not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven”.

If you're content with that result, then all I can say is what I said in my article: your brand of conservative Protestantism is just "liberal Protestantism waiting to happen all over again."

This is just your opinion, and it in no way reflects the direction that conservative Protestant biblical scholarship is headed. The Bible has, over the last 200 years, undergone a far more strenuous rectal exam than anything that I’ve been saying about Roman Catholicism here; and yet, the work that conservative scholars is producing is shedding an incredible amount of light on that world and those times. Such things as Hurtado’s “Lord Jesus Christ” and Kruger’s “Canon Revisited” are shedding new light on the earliest church – the real, historical “church that Christ founded” – their beliefs and practices, the courses of their lives, the world they lived in. This is the most incredible time to be alive – seeing the first century world being brought to life.

Some of the folks here have glommed onto the NPP and N.T. Wright. That’s foolish. Here is what Wright says about Roman Catholicism:

In particular, Trent gave the wrong answer, at a deep level, to the nature/grace question, which is what’s at the root of the Marian dogmas and devotions which, despite contrary claims, are in my view neither sacramental, transformational, communal nor eschatological. Nor biblical.

Meanwhile, Carson, O’Brien, and Siefrid, with their “Justification and Variegated Nomism” series, used Sanders’s method to go far beyond what he tried to do, and in doing so, they put him into perspective. Meanwhile, Dunn and Wright have both made key concessions (see Dunn’s comments in the “Justification: Five Views” volume.

Thus, when you say things like "....when we deal with the word of the Lord, we are dealing directly with the Lord," that God's "character" is "immutable," and that "God rolls" as you describe, you are in no position to explain why such assertions represent anything more than one set of opinions among the many others that circulate. I studied many of those others in college, and of course they've proliferated since.

What you are essentially saying here is that God does not, cannot, reveal himself adequately in Scripture. Lots of people have lots of views. But there is a substantially correct view, and those who prayerfully seek the face of the Lord in the Scriptures are promised that they will find Him.

‘Who knows?’

Michael Liccione won’t talk historical facts with me because I don’t have an “interpretive paradigm” that meets his standard.

In his most recent comment to me, he says:

The reason I decline to delve into the details with you–even though the details are amply provided by some Catholic and Anglican scholars–is that you are relying on your interpretive paradigm to sift the data, when the real question at issue is the prior philosophical question which IP is best suited to yielding propositions calling for the assent of faith as distinct from opinion. You cannot evade that question by continuing to march on the spot and criticize me for refusing to march with you.

Here is what he means by his “interpretive paradigm” (“IP”) thesis:

In many comments on this site as well as old posts on my own blog, I have argued that there is an irreconcilable difference between the respective “hermeneutical paradigms” of Catholicism and Protestantism, meaning conservative Protestantism.

But according to the Catholic IP, [the protestant “IP” that he described is] a methodology [that] is insufficient for reliably identifying the formal, proximate object of faith as distinct from human opinion. Though necessary, studying the early written sources and making inferences from them can only yield human interpretive opinions, unless validated by some clearly identifiable authority whose interpretation of the relevant data is divinely protected from error under certain conditions — a gift which, all sides would agree, is at least logically possible, given what and who God is.

It may be “logically possible” that God would “validate some clearly identifiable authority whose interpretation is divinely protected from error under certain conditions”.

But whether he has ever done so is open to question.

He had plenty of opportunity to do it – in the Old Testament, when he was dealing with one single nation, Israel, he did not do it. This concept (see comment #425) of “some clearly identifiable authority whose interpretation of the relevant data is divinely protected from error under certain conditions” does not come from Scripture, and in striving to provide some kind of certainty like this, you, humanly, work to outdo the Old Testament God and the God of the prophets.

Look at a couple of Old Testament examples of how God “identifies the formal, proximate object of faith in four different instances.

In his first sermon at Pentecost, Peter cites Joel 28:32:

“‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
…
And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.

This is part of a longer sermon from Joel, who first prophesies about “the day of the Lord”, saying “The Lord thunders at the head of his army; his forces are beyond number, and mighty is the army that obeys his command. The day of the Lord is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it?”

The earlier part of this prophecy is filled with darkness and gloom and blackness; a mighty arming coming; before them fire devours; behind them a flame blazes; nothing escapes them.

In the midst of this, the prophet offers this opportunity that the Lord may relent:

“Even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
Who knows? He may turn and relent
and leave behind a blessing—

Dealing with The LORD in the Old Testament was not a matter of certainty – even a recognized prophet here, while “declaring the word of the LORD”, could not and did not offer certainty on the “formal proximate object of faith” that was right in front of his audience. He said “do what’s right”, and “who knows? The Lord may relent”.

The Old Testament is full of other incidents, where not even the prophets who write the Scriptures offer the correct interpretation. They must leave “the formal proximate object of faith” in the hands of the Lord, and say they simply don’t know.

In the book of Jonah, the prophet promises destruction for the land of Nineveh.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me. … Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

The king of Nineveh, greatly distressed that a prophet of the Lord would say this, “rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust”. And he said:

Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

The passage continues, “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.”

Similarly Mordecai speaking to Esther said: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”

Even King David, when the child of Bathsheba was going to die (a prophecy he received from the lips of the prophet Nathan), in spite of this prophecy, proposed for belief by the lips of the prophet, even after the Lord had struck the child with illness, “and he became ill”, “David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them”.

Then the child dies. Note what happened next:

His attendants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”

He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

Even when specific prophecies came up in the Old Testament, with the LORD declaring that he would do something in the immediate future, there was no “infallible interpretation” of these prophesies.

It is said, “a book cannot guide you”. But when we deal with the word of the Lord, we are dealing directly with the Lord – a Lord who spoke, who promised destruction, and then who did or who didn’t keep that promise, according to the counsel of his own will.

God, whose character is immutable, does not feel bound by the human need to have a mouthpiece – any mouthpiece – Old Testament Prophets or New Testament church – that is “divinely protected from error”. That is just not how God rolls.

Even C.S. Lewis noted, “Aslan is not a tame lion”.

For you Roman Catholics who want to hide behind “some clearly identifiable authority whose interpretation of the relevant data is divinely protected from error under certain conditions”, well, you may just be setting yourself up for a big surprise.