“The real problem with defining sola scriptura is that there is no one, single definition by which all adherents to sola scriptura accept.”
http://cathapol.blogspot.com/2010/01/sola-scriptura-self-refuting.html
In which case it’s incumbent on the Catholic opponent of sola Scriptura to identify which version he’s attempting to refute.
“In the example I cited above ‘If it's not in the Bible, don't believe it!’ then this objection fits!”
That’s a straw man definition of sola Scriptura. I believe the sun rose this morning, although I can’t find that in Scripture. Does my extrabiblical belief in the sunrise refute sola Scriptura? No, since that’s not how sola Scriptura is formulated.
“Sola scriptura is not taught in the Scriptures, the canon of Scripture is not taught BY Scripture, thus without Scripture telling us which books should be contained therein, by this standard sola scriptura is most definitely self-refuting.”
i) That overlooks the intratextual, intertextual, and paratextual evidence for the canon of Scripture in the canon of Scripture itself.
ii) Moreover, Scripture also has a doctrine of providence. It’s not unscriptural to consider external (as well as internal) lines of evidence.
“The problem with relying on implicit teaching is that reduces the definition to a matter of interpretation.”
i) Of course, one also has to interpret the church fathers, catechisms, papal encyclicals, conciliar canons and decrees, &c. So that objection either proves too much or too little.
ii) Moreover, Scott has strayed from the issue at hand. The question at issue is whether sola Scriptura generates an internal contradiction.
To say that if the Scriptural self-witness to sola Scriptura is implicit, this reduces the definition to a matter of interpretation is irrelevant to the claim that sola Scriptura is self-refuting. Those are two entirely different ideas.
“For example, many Protestant apologists will turn to 2 Timothy 3:16.”
Since that was no part of my argument, it’s beside the point.
“The problem we'd have with this logic is that while the BIPM may be a standard of measure it is not the sole standard of measure.”
And suppose the BIPM was the sole standard of metrics. Would that render it self-refuting? How?
“Again I would have to reiterate that when one hears ‘sola scriptura’ the next question has to be "which definition are you going by?’"
That’s a good question. And it’s a question that a Catholic apologist needs to answer for himself before he tries to attack sola Scriptura.
“The phrase alone is not self-explanatory or self-defining.”
That’s because “sola scriptura” is a slogan. One of the fallacies which Catholic apologists are prone to is to generate a contradiction on the verbal basis of a slogan. But the slogan “sola Scriptura” is not a definition of “sola Scriptura.” It’s just a label.
“The other definition, that from James White ‘Sola scriptura teaches that the Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith for the Church." Again, sola scriptura, alone, doesn't teach us anything beyond "Scripture Alone’ - White needs to add ‘infallible rule of faith for the Church’ to give some sort of definition to it. Now for that rule to be valid, we should expect that that rule exists within Scripture - and for that matter - how does one even KNOW what Scripture is?”
A disappointed “expectation” is hardly equivalent to a logical self-contradiction. Notice the inability of some Catholic apologists to even focus on the issue at hand.
“The teaching of sola scriptura does not exist in Scripture…”
Notice how Scott is building on tendentious premise.
“And to KNOW what Scripture is - we have to go with some OTHER SOURCE and if we don't trust that source to have infallibly declared the Canon of Sacred Scripture, then we don't really have infallible knowledge of exactly what constitutes Scripture!”
i) Of course, that only relocates the (alleged) problem. For we’d then need to have infallible knowledge of the one true church.
ii) Did OT, Intertestamental, and 2nd Temple Jews not know what Scripture was before Trent “infallibly” defined the canon in the 16C?
When Jesus, the apostles, and NT evangelists appeal to Scripture in their debates with 1C Jews, are they citing something of which 1C Jews were ignorant?
iii) Why does knowledge have to be infallible? What’s wrong with plain old knowledge?
iv) Most importantly, Scott has once again drifted from the issue at hand. Whether or not we have “infallible knowledge” of the canon is completely irrelevant to the question of whether sola Scriptura is self-refuting.
Notice how consistently illogical Catholic apologists like Scott show themselves to be.
That’s in large part because they rely on pat objections to the Protestant rule of faith. They are unable to adapt to any argument that doesn’t dovetail with their pat objections.
“So, if the canon is closed - who closed it?”
The Bible writer who wrote the last book of the Bible closed the canon–by writing the last book of the Bible.
“Does Scripture itself, anywhere, list all the books which should be contained therein?”
Of course, that’s a simple-minded objection. To begin with, there’s an elementary distinction between having a preexisting list, and having the raw materials to generate a list.
“The truth of the matter is that for the first four hundred years of the Church the canon was not set…”
i) Trobisch has argued on text-critical grounds that the NT canon was standardized in the mid-2C AD. For a useful summary and evaluation of his argument, see the discussion by Kellum, Quarles, and Kostenberger in their recent intro. to the NT.
ii) Freedman has argued that (except for Daniel), the OT was standardized c. 5C BC.
And Sailhamer has supplemented Freedman’s analysis by arguing for the pivotal role of Daniel in the canonization of the OT (in The Meaning of the Pentateuch).
iii) Scott is also confusing internal evidence for the canon with various forms of ecclesiastical recognition.
“And then when it was set that same authority which set the New Testament Canon set the Old Testament Canon with seven more books than the Protestant Bibles have.”
i) So from the time Moses wrote the Pentateuch until the Council of Trent in the 16C, the Jews were without a canon of Scripture.
ii) What is even worse for Scott, popes, Latin Fathers, and Roman Catholic bishops didn’t even know what Scripture is until the ink was dry on text of Trent.
“Logically speaking, if you're trusting THAT authority for the Christian New Testament, then why turn to a DIFFERENT authority for the Christian Old Testament?”
i) Needless to say, that disregards Jewish evidence for the Hebrew canon. A good place to start is Roger Beckwith’s standard monograph on the subject.
Observe the consistently anachronistic perspective which Catholic apologists take in relation to the canon.
ii) Moreover, the question of who or what we “trust” is irrelevant to whether or not sola Scripture is logically self-refuting. Scott keeps advertising the inability of Catholic apologists to focus on the issue under review.
“Ironically, the authority Protestants turn to for the Old Testament is that of those who had Jesus put to death as an imposter and false prophet.”
i) Well, you learn something new every day. I didn’t realize until now that Philo, Josephus, Ben Sira et al. were members of the Sanhedrin when Jesus was condemned to die.
Come to think of it, Freedman has argued that Ezra was instrumental in the canonization of the OT. It would be ironic if the authority that Protestants turn to for the OT is a Christ-killer like Ezra. Oh, well.
ii) It’s also revealing when Catholic apologists take refuge in Jew-baiting rhetoric as their last resort. But that’s consistent with the grand tradition of Catholic anti-semiticism.
“If though there were some disputes on the canon, St. Jerome for example argued for the deuterocanonicals to NOT be counted as canonical - however in HIS CANON, the Latin Vulgate, those books are indeed included. Why are they included? Because he yielded to due and proper authority.”
So when push comes to show, ignore the evidence and go with the papacy.
“Every authorized Bible from that time forward contains the deuterocanonicals.”
Authorized by the papacy? A nice, circular appeal.
“It would not be until the time of Protestantism in the 16th century that some translations would be published without them.”
i) A circular appeal to tradition to validate tradition.
ii) It also disregards dissention over the scope of the canon when Trent was convened.
“Even the initial King James Version includes the deuterocanonicals - without putting them in a separate appendix, that would come later - and then later still they would be left out entirely.”
Anglican editions of the Bible were subject to whatever royal policies prevailed at the time.
iii) Once again, this is all irrelevant to whether or not sola scriptura is self-contradictory.
“Hays here oversimplifies the ‘Catholic rule of faith’ and then makes it dependent upon the Protestant rule of faith for validity. His argument is flawed to the core. First off, the Catholic Faith (and thus rule) existed long before there ever was a Protestant rule of faith, and long before anyone ever heard of sola scriptura. Thus to begin with Hays assertion is wholly anachronistic. Secondly, Catholics do not base their acceptance of the authority of the Church based on the consequences of accepting the Protestant rule of faith. Catholics accept the authority of the Catholic Church because Jesus Christ established the Church Himself and even the book which Protestants hold so high affirms this truth! It must be noted as well, the Catholic Church does not receive this authority from Scripture, she received it directly from Jesus Christ - and Scripture just happens to record this granting and transfer of power.”
I could comment on the specifics, but it’s sufficient to point out that this is irrelevant to the issue at hand. I was responding to the aprioristic framework of Catholic apologists like Cardinal Newman and Michael Liccione. Once more, Scott is constitutionally unable to wrap his head around the actual state of the question.
“Well, first off, Hays is building upon the faulty premise we've already exposed here, but the fact of the matter is - the Catholic rule of faith IS self-referential!”
Even if we credit that tendentious claim for the sake of argument, it’s irrelevant to the issue at hand. The a priori argument we find in Newman and Liccione doesn’t require the Catholic rule of faith to be self-referential.
It would really behoove a Catholic apologist like Scott to acquire a modicum of mental discipline.
“Scripture is PART OF the Catholic Faith and Scripture records Jesus giving His Church this infallible authority (Matthew 16:18-19 and 18:18).”
i) I’m well-acquainted with Catholic spooftexting. I’ve responded to that on many occasions.
ii) I appreciate Scott’s tacit endorsement of the perspicuity of Scripture. Of course, that renders the Magisterium superfluous.
“Thus in Hays haste, he seems to overlook this fact which utterly destroys his comparison.”
My comparison was drawn from the a priori type of argument we find in Catholic apologists like Newman and Liccione. They don’t adduce verses from Matthew to make their case.
“Again, the Catholic argument is not simply axiomatic nor a priori, in fact Hays himself states that Catholicism bases her argument on the consequences of accepting the Protestant argument - which by default would make his argument for Catholicism an a posteriori argument! Neither is the Catholic argument axiomatic (self evident) for as we have seen, it is supported by Scripture - the source Protestants accept as authoritative!”
What is Scott’s problem, exactly? Is he just too dense to follow the argument, even when I explicitly identify the referent? I’m addressing the a priori type of argument for the Catholic rule of faith which we find in apologists like Newman and Liccione.
The whole point of an a priori argument is that it doesn’t require a posteriori supplementation. Rather, it has to stand or fall on its own terms.
“No Mr. Hays, it is not just because the Protestant rule of faith contains the word "only" and ours does not. Yes, that would be superficial and a foolish reason to base ones acceptance or rejection of a rule of faith. You present no Catholic making such an argument, you're merely inventing this argument and throwing it at the wall to see if it sticks - well, it doesn't. All you've done is establish a straw man and then proceed to knock it down.”
Really? Catholics don’t regard their own rule of faith as the only true rule of faith?
“Clearly Mr. Hays has not examined the Catholic objections objectively and the only muddleheaded verbal tricks we see are coming from his invented straw man arguments.”
Scott consistently misses the target because he keeps targeting a different target than I took aim at. I specified that I was discussing the issue according to the way in which Catholic apologists like Newman and Liccione chose to frame the issue. Scott can never keep his eye on that frame of reference, even though it’s Catholic apologists who supply that frame of reference.
“Dr. Beckwith, you have not gone wrong in your reasoning, but another thing to consider from the statement you quoted - they claim ‘the 66 books are the supreme authority on matters of belief...’ - that would be a definition of ‘suprema scriptura,’ not ‘sola scriptura.’ Saying something has supreme authority does not give it sole authority - I submit those writing that are not true sola scripturists, at least not if that is their credo.”
i) And how is that relevant to the actual terms of my post? It isn’t.
ii) Moreover, sola Scriptura doesn’t mean there can be no subordinate authorities. Scott is confusing a slogan with the position denoted by that label. In fact, the Westminster Confession, to cite one representative example, even says:
“The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture” (WCF 1:10).
“Supreme” authority is perfectly consonant with subordinate authorities.
Back to Scott:
“Perhaps the best objection to sola scriptura, outside of the fact that Scripture itself does not teach this rule, is that Scripture itself provides us with ANOTHER INFALLIBLE RULE! In both Matthew 16:18-19 and Matthew 18:18 Jesus states that His bishops have the authority to bind or loose whatsoever they choose and whatsoever they bind or loose on Earth is bound or loosed in Heaven.”
i) Scott needs to exegete the concept of the Roman episcopate from his prooftexts.
ii) He also needs to exegete the “binding and loosing” language.
iii) He also needs to demonstrate how the locus of infallibility in Catholicism corresponds to whatever “binding and loose” denote in Matthew. Where does Jesus refer to ecumenical councils or ex cathedra pronouncements by the pope? I must have missed that in the wording of his prooftexts.
iv) I do appreciate Scott’s straightforward appeal to the perspicuity of Scripture–but, of course, that negates the rationale for the Magisterium.
“So, given that typically all Christians accept that the Bible itself is God's infallible word - then if the Bible itself points to something other than itself as also infallible then there is no ‘sola.’”
It points to the Apostolate. The period of public revelation–which came to an end.
Scott’s next paragraph simply repeats something he already said, which I already addressed.
“I thank you for your time and appreciate your comments.”
We’ll see how appreciative he is.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Where Are "Apostolic Succession" And "Authoritative Tradition" In Papias?
Dave Armstrong has written a reply to my recent post on Papias. He writes:
"Catholics believe there was one rule of faith that consistently developed. It is what we call the 'three-legged stool': Scripture-Church-Tradition (as passed down by apostolic succession)."
When Papias spoke with the daughters of Philip (Eusebius, Church History, 3:39), for example, were they giving him information by means of "apostolic succession"? Dave hasn't given us any reason to think that Papias attained his oral tradition by that means. To the contrary, as Richard Bauckham documents in his book I cited earlier, Papias refers to the sort of investigation of early sources that was common in the historiography of his day, and we don't assume the involvement of apostolic succession when other ancient sources appeal to that concept.
Why should we even think that what Papias was addressing was a rule of faith? When he attained information about a resurrection or some other miracle that occurred, for example, why should we conclude that such oral tradition became part of Papias' rule of faith once he attained it? Some of his oral traditions would be part of his rule of faith, but not all of them. Dave is appealing to what Papias said about oral tradition in general, but Catholicism doesn't teach that all oral tradition within Papias' historiographic framework is part of the rule of faith. When Papias uses the historiographic language of his day to refer to oral tradition, including traditions that wouldn't be part of a Christian rule of faith and premillennial traditions, for example, it's misleading for Dave to cite Papias' comments as a reference to his rule of faith and claim that he agreed with Catholicism.
Dave writes:
"Therefore, Papias could indeed have lived by sola Scriptura as the rule of faith. There is no compelling reason to think that he could not have done so, simply due to his living in a very early period of Christian history."
The question is whether he should have, and I'm not aware of any reason why an adherent of sola scriptura ought to think so. Papias was at least a contemporary of the apostles, and, as I'll discuss in more depth below, most likely was a disciple of one of the apostles as well.
Dave writes:
"But Jason dissents from his colleagues and wants to play the game of having a relativistic rule of faith: not in play from the beginning of Christianity, but only set in motion later. This allows him to play the further game of denying that Papias' views are consistent with Catholic dogma and our rule of faith, while not having any responsibility of showing that it is consistent with a Protestant view."
Dave keeps accusing me of "playing games", being "relativistic", etc. without justifying those charges. The fact that my view allows me to point to inconsistencies between Papias and Catholicism without having to argue that Papias adhered to sola scriptura doesn't prove that my view is wrong.
I've given examples of other transitional phases in history, during which the rule of faith changed for individuals or groups. Dave said that he agreed with "many, if not all of these points", but then accused me of "relativism" and such when I applied the same sort of reasoning to Papias. Why?
Dave writes:
"What was in common was that all accepted 'the word of God' (both written and oral) as normative for the Christian faith, but not in the sense of sola Scriptura."
To say that everybody from Adam to Mary to Papias to Dave Armstrong followed the same rule of faith, defined vaguely as "the word of God", is to appeal to something different than the "Scripture-Church-Tradition (as passed down by apostolic succession)" that Dave referenced earlier. Adam and Eve didn't have scripture or a magisterium. Even under Dave's view, a change eventually occurred in which the word of God was communicated by a means not previously used. The sort of direct communication God had with Adam isn't part of the average Catholic's rule of faith today. A Protestant could say that the rule of faith has always been "the word of God", and thus claim consistency in the same sort of vague manner in which Dave is claiming it.
Dave writes:
"He seems to be trying (by repeated, almost mantra-like emphasis) to undermine a Catholic notion of oral tradition without saying so in so many words."
I don't know how familiar Dave is with Richard Bauckham and his work. Bauckham isn't interacting with Catholicism in the passage of his book that I cited. As far as I recall, he never even mentions Catholicism anywhere in the book, at least not in any significant way. Bauckham is a New Testament scholar interacting primarily with other New Testament scholars and scholars of other relevant fields.
Dave writes:
"How in the world that is construed as somehow contrary to Catholic tradition is, I confess, beyond me."
Papias' position wouldn't have to be contrary to the Catholic position in order to be different than it. If Papias can take a transitional role under the Catholic view, in which he attains his rule of faith partly by means of the historical investigation he describes, then why can't he take a transitional role under a Protestant view?
Dave writes:
"We know that he collected eyewitness testimony. We don't know that he would say that was the only tradition that was legitimate."
I didn't claim that we know the latter. Remember, Dave is the one who claims that Papias was a Catholic, cited him in support of "oral tradition" (in a dispute with an Evangelical and without further qualification), etc.
Dave writes:
"His testimony was third-hand. He 'he received the doctrines of the faith from those who were their [the apostles'] friends.' What is that if not succession?"
Why should we define apostolic succession so vaguely as to include "the apostles' friends"? In the same passage of Eusebius Dave is citing, Papias is quoted referring to these people as "followers" of the apostles. Many people, including individuals outside of a church hierarchy, can be considered friends or followers of the apostles. And, as I said above, the historiographic concept Papias is appealing to doesn't limit itself to apostolic successors or an equivalent category in its normal usage. Why think, then, that the concept has such a meaning when Papias uses it?
Dave originally claimed that "we find an explicit espousal of apostolic succession" in Papias. He still hasn't documented that assertion.
Dave writes:
"Again, the trouble with this is that Eusebius specifically says (twice) that Papias only knew friends of the apostles: not they themselves. So one of [Bauckham's] key premises is unfactual."
Dave makes that point repeatedly in his article. But Richard Bauckham argues against Eusebius' position elsewhere in the book I've cited. I've argued against Eusebius' conclusion as well. See, for example, here.
Earlier, I cited an online collection of fragments by and about Papias. Eusebius' dubious argument that Papias wasn't a disciple of any of the apostles is contradicted by multiple other sources, including Irenaeus more than a century earlier (a man who had met Polycarp, another disciple of John). Some of the sources who commented on Papias when his writings were still extant said that he was even a (or the) secretary who wrote the fourth gospel at John's dictation. Eusebius wasn't even consistent with himself on the issue of whether Papias had been taught by John. See the citation from Eusebius' Chronicon on the web page linked above. The only source I'm aware of who denied Papias' status as a disciple of the apostles, Eusebius, wasn't even consistent on the issue. The evidence suggests that Papias was a disciple of the apostle John.
Dave writes:
"Bauckham appears to contradict himself...Which is it?: Eyewitnesses or those who knew eyewitnesses? Once one starts going down the chain to third-hand, fourth-hand or later generations of witnesses, one is squarely within oral tradition. It's something other than eyewitness testimony."
No, Bauckham explains, in the section of his book I cited, that though eyewitnesses were the primary source of interest, other early sources were involved as well. Even if you disagree with the historiographic standard in question, the fact remains that Papias was appealing to that standard. It involved witnesses who would quickly die out rather than going into the "fourth-hand or later generations" Dave refers to.
Even apart from that ancient historiographic standard, it makes sense to differentiate between a source who's one step removed and other sources who are five, twenty, or a thousand steps removed. We don't place all non-eyewitnesses in the same category without making any distinctions. Why are we today so focused on the writings of men like Tertullian and John Chrysostom rather than modern oral traditions about them?
Dave writes:
"In other words, the traditions that he [Ignatius] teaches are rejected, no matter how proximate they are to the apostles."
Like Dave's rejection of Papias' premillennial tradition, the soteriological tradition of Hermas (his belief in limited repentance), etc.?
Dave writes:
"St. Ignatius (c. 35 - c. 110) was born a generation earlier than Papias. He may possibly have known St. John, or known of him through St. Polycarp (c. 69 - c. 155). But does that impress Protestants? No; not if they are intent on rejecting any doctrine that has the slightest 'Catholic' flavor in it."
Ignatius' earliness is significant to me. I often cite him and often refer to the significance of his earliness. But I prefer the more accurate interpretation of Ignatius offered by an Ignatian scholar like Allen Brent to the interpretation of somebody like Dave Armstrong.
Dave writes:
"It's perfectly consistent with our notion, and we continue to think oral tradition is authoritative, whereas Protestants have ditched it: in direct contrast to what the fathers thought about such things."
Catholics "ditched" the approach of Papias long ago. They don't appeal to an oral tradition attained by means of historical investigation, without the mediation of the Catholic hierarchy acting in its infallible capacity, and they don't think that their oral tradition is soon going to die out, as Papias' "living and abiding voice" was about to.
Dave writes:
"My goal was to show that Papias is not a counter-example to Catholic tradition."
No, Dave went further than that. He said that we find in Papias "an explicit espousal of apostolic succession and authoritative tradition". He also refers to the fathers in general as Catholic, which presumably would include Papias.
Dave writes:
"I don't believe in that [premillannielism] (used to), but the Catholic Church has not proclaimed many eschatological beliefs as dogma. Our position is not to uncritically accept any given father's view on anything, but to look at the consensus."
If Dave doesn't accept Papias' premillennial oral traditions, and he's identifying Papias' oral traditions as part of the rule of faith followed by Papias, then it follows that Papias' rule of faith involved a doctrine that Dave rejects. Was premillennialism part of the rule of faith in Papias' generation, but not today? Did Papias follow a different rule of faith than others in his generation? Would that qualify as "relativism"?
If Dave wants to argue that he wasn't referring to Papias' rule of faith when he made comments about "authoritative tradition" and "oral tradition" in Papias, then what's the relevance of such fallible tradition that's outside of a rule of faith? As I said before, that sort of "authoritative tradition" and "oral tradition" isn't what people normally have in mind when Catholics and Evangelicals are having a discussion like the current one, so Dave's comments were at least misleading.
And Papias thought he got his premillennialism from the apostles. It was apostolic tradition to him. It's not to Dave.
How does one see a Catholic concept of apostolic succession in a phrase like "the apostles' friends" or a Catholic concept of oral tradition in a historiographic phrase like "living and abiding voice"? In much the same way one sees everything from papal infallibility to a bodily assumption of Mary in scripture and an acorn of Catholicism in the writings of the church fathers.
"Catholics believe there was one rule of faith that consistently developed. It is what we call the 'three-legged stool': Scripture-Church-Tradition (as passed down by apostolic succession)."
When Papias spoke with the daughters of Philip (Eusebius, Church History, 3:39), for example, were they giving him information by means of "apostolic succession"? Dave hasn't given us any reason to think that Papias attained his oral tradition by that means. To the contrary, as Richard Bauckham documents in his book I cited earlier, Papias refers to the sort of investigation of early sources that was common in the historiography of his day, and we don't assume the involvement of apostolic succession when other ancient sources appeal to that concept.
Why should we even think that what Papias was addressing was a rule of faith? When he attained information about a resurrection or some other miracle that occurred, for example, why should we conclude that such oral tradition became part of Papias' rule of faith once he attained it? Some of his oral traditions would be part of his rule of faith, but not all of them. Dave is appealing to what Papias said about oral tradition in general, but Catholicism doesn't teach that all oral tradition within Papias' historiographic framework is part of the rule of faith. When Papias uses the historiographic language of his day to refer to oral tradition, including traditions that wouldn't be part of a Christian rule of faith and premillennial traditions, for example, it's misleading for Dave to cite Papias' comments as a reference to his rule of faith and claim that he agreed with Catholicism.
Dave writes:
"Therefore, Papias could indeed have lived by sola Scriptura as the rule of faith. There is no compelling reason to think that he could not have done so, simply due to his living in a very early period of Christian history."
The question is whether he should have, and I'm not aware of any reason why an adherent of sola scriptura ought to think so. Papias was at least a contemporary of the apostles, and, as I'll discuss in more depth below, most likely was a disciple of one of the apostles as well.
Dave writes:
"But Jason dissents from his colleagues and wants to play the game of having a relativistic rule of faith: not in play from the beginning of Christianity, but only set in motion later. This allows him to play the further game of denying that Papias' views are consistent with Catholic dogma and our rule of faith, while not having any responsibility of showing that it is consistent with a Protestant view."
Dave keeps accusing me of "playing games", being "relativistic", etc. without justifying those charges. The fact that my view allows me to point to inconsistencies between Papias and Catholicism without having to argue that Papias adhered to sola scriptura doesn't prove that my view is wrong.
I've given examples of other transitional phases in history, during which the rule of faith changed for individuals or groups. Dave said that he agreed with "many, if not all of these points", but then accused me of "relativism" and such when I applied the same sort of reasoning to Papias. Why?
Dave writes:
"What was in common was that all accepted 'the word of God' (both written and oral) as normative for the Christian faith, but not in the sense of sola Scriptura."
To say that everybody from Adam to Mary to Papias to Dave Armstrong followed the same rule of faith, defined vaguely as "the word of God", is to appeal to something different than the "Scripture-Church-Tradition (as passed down by apostolic succession)" that Dave referenced earlier. Adam and Eve didn't have scripture or a magisterium. Even under Dave's view, a change eventually occurred in which the word of God was communicated by a means not previously used. The sort of direct communication God had with Adam isn't part of the average Catholic's rule of faith today. A Protestant could say that the rule of faith has always been "the word of God", and thus claim consistency in the same sort of vague manner in which Dave is claiming it.
Dave writes:
"He seems to be trying (by repeated, almost mantra-like emphasis) to undermine a Catholic notion of oral tradition without saying so in so many words."
I don't know how familiar Dave is with Richard Bauckham and his work. Bauckham isn't interacting with Catholicism in the passage of his book that I cited. As far as I recall, he never even mentions Catholicism anywhere in the book, at least not in any significant way. Bauckham is a New Testament scholar interacting primarily with other New Testament scholars and scholars of other relevant fields.
Dave writes:
"How in the world that is construed as somehow contrary to Catholic tradition is, I confess, beyond me."
Papias' position wouldn't have to be contrary to the Catholic position in order to be different than it. If Papias can take a transitional role under the Catholic view, in which he attains his rule of faith partly by means of the historical investigation he describes, then why can't he take a transitional role under a Protestant view?
Dave writes:
"We know that he collected eyewitness testimony. We don't know that he would say that was the only tradition that was legitimate."
I didn't claim that we know the latter. Remember, Dave is the one who claims that Papias was a Catholic, cited him in support of "oral tradition" (in a dispute with an Evangelical and without further qualification), etc.
Dave writes:
"His testimony was third-hand. He 'he received the doctrines of the faith from those who were their [the apostles'] friends.' What is that if not succession?"
Why should we define apostolic succession so vaguely as to include "the apostles' friends"? In the same passage of Eusebius Dave is citing, Papias is quoted referring to these people as "followers" of the apostles. Many people, including individuals outside of a church hierarchy, can be considered friends or followers of the apostles. And, as I said above, the historiographic concept Papias is appealing to doesn't limit itself to apostolic successors or an equivalent category in its normal usage. Why think, then, that the concept has such a meaning when Papias uses it?
Dave originally claimed that "we find an explicit espousal of apostolic succession" in Papias. He still hasn't documented that assertion.
Dave writes:
"Again, the trouble with this is that Eusebius specifically says (twice) that Papias only knew friends of the apostles: not they themselves. So one of [Bauckham's] key premises is unfactual."
Dave makes that point repeatedly in his article. But Richard Bauckham argues against Eusebius' position elsewhere in the book I've cited. I've argued against Eusebius' conclusion as well. See, for example, here.
Earlier, I cited an online collection of fragments by and about Papias. Eusebius' dubious argument that Papias wasn't a disciple of any of the apostles is contradicted by multiple other sources, including Irenaeus more than a century earlier (a man who had met Polycarp, another disciple of John). Some of the sources who commented on Papias when his writings were still extant said that he was even a (or the) secretary who wrote the fourth gospel at John's dictation. Eusebius wasn't even consistent with himself on the issue of whether Papias had been taught by John. See the citation from Eusebius' Chronicon on the web page linked above. The only source I'm aware of who denied Papias' status as a disciple of the apostles, Eusebius, wasn't even consistent on the issue. The evidence suggests that Papias was a disciple of the apostle John.
Dave writes:
"Bauckham appears to contradict himself...Which is it?: Eyewitnesses or those who knew eyewitnesses? Once one starts going down the chain to third-hand, fourth-hand or later generations of witnesses, one is squarely within oral tradition. It's something other than eyewitness testimony."
No, Bauckham explains, in the section of his book I cited, that though eyewitnesses were the primary source of interest, other early sources were involved as well. Even if you disagree with the historiographic standard in question, the fact remains that Papias was appealing to that standard. It involved witnesses who would quickly die out rather than going into the "fourth-hand or later generations" Dave refers to.
Even apart from that ancient historiographic standard, it makes sense to differentiate between a source who's one step removed and other sources who are five, twenty, or a thousand steps removed. We don't place all non-eyewitnesses in the same category without making any distinctions. Why are we today so focused on the writings of men like Tertullian and John Chrysostom rather than modern oral traditions about them?
Dave writes:
"In other words, the traditions that he [Ignatius] teaches are rejected, no matter how proximate they are to the apostles."
Like Dave's rejection of Papias' premillennial tradition, the soteriological tradition of Hermas (his belief in limited repentance), etc.?
Dave writes:
"St. Ignatius (c. 35 - c. 110) was born a generation earlier than Papias. He may possibly have known St. John, or known of him through St. Polycarp (c. 69 - c. 155). But does that impress Protestants? No; not if they are intent on rejecting any doctrine that has the slightest 'Catholic' flavor in it."
Ignatius' earliness is significant to me. I often cite him and often refer to the significance of his earliness. But I prefer the more accurate interpretation of Ignatius offered by an Ignatian scholar like Allen Brent to the interpretation of somebody like Dave Armstrong.
Dave writes:
"It's perfectly consistent with our notion, and we continue to think oral tradition is authoritative, whereas Protestants have ditched it: in direct contrast to what the fathers thought about such things."
Catholics "ditched" the approach of Papias long ago. They don't appeal to an oral tradition attained by means of historical investigation, without the mediation of the Catholic hierarchy acting in its infallible capacity, and they don't think that their oral tradition is soon going to die out, as Papias' "living and abiding voice" was about to.
Dave writes:
"My goal was to show that Papias is not a counter-example to Catholic tradition."
No, Dave went further than that. He said that we find in Papias "an explicit espousal of apostolic succession and authoritative tradition". He also refers to the fathers in general as Catholic, which presumably would include Papias.
Dave writes:
"I don't believe in that [premillannielism] (used to), but the Catholic Church has not proclaimed many eschatological beliefs as dogma. Our position is not to uncritically accept any given father's view on anything, but to look at the consensus."
If Dave doesn't accept Papias' premillennial oral traditions, and he's identifying Papias' oral traditions as part of the rule of faith followed by Papias, then it follows that Papias' rule of faith involved a doctrine that Dave rejects. Was premillennialism part of the rule of faith in Papias' generation, but not today? Did Papias follow a different rule of faith than others in his generation? Would that qualify as "relativism"?
If Dave wants to argue that he wasn't referring to Papias' rule of faith when he made comments about "authoritative tradition" and "oral tradition" in Papias, then what's the relevance of such fallible tradition that's outside of a rule of faith? As I said before, that sort of "authoritative tradition" and "oral tradition" isn't what people normally have in mind when Catholics and Evangelicals are having a discussion like the current one, so Dave's comments were at least misleading.
And Papias thought he got his premillennialism from the apostles. It was apostolic tradition to him. It's not to Dave.
How does one see a Catholic concept of apostolic succession in a phrase like "the apostles' friends" or a Catholic concept of oral tradition in a historiographic phrase like "living and abiding voice"? In much the same way one sees everything from papal infallibility to a bodily assumption of Mary in scripture and an acorn of Catholicism in the writings of the church fathers.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Feeling the heat
Dave Armstrong said...
“I freely grant that he has written a lot of other stuff about Catholicism. But all of his work in this regard suffers from the same fallacies and methodological flaws that I noted in the Introduction to my four-part series.”
i) Since there’s no evidence that Dave has even read Jason’s “other stuff,” he’d be in no position to venture that assessment. But why doesn’t he tell us what other stuff he’s read by Jason–on which he presumes to make that assessment?
ii) Likewise, it’s hardly impressive to claim that Jason’s “other stuff” suffers from “the same fallacies and methological flaws,” absent any effort on Dave’s part to actually document and substantiate that allegation.
“It is best shown to be deficient when someone grapples with it line-by-line, in order to demonstrate how he tries to reason. But Jason's usual method in responding to me is to pick-and-choose and be highly selective as to what he will respond to, whereas everyone can see that when I responded to him, it was line-by-line, without ignoring anything.”
The fact that Dave merely said something about everything Jason wrote in one post hardly indicates that what Dave said was actually responsive. Indeed, as I said to Jason last Saturday:
For the time being I've now said what I intend to say in response to Armstrong. I'm of two minds about saying more. Much of the time he makes no serious effort to interact with your arguments. He will simply quote a sentence or two, then make a dismissive comment which is unresponsive to the substance of your claim.
He also acts as though your post was an evaluation of Cardinal Newman's theory of development, then faults you for allegedly misrepresenting Newman or failing to take into account something Newman said here or there. But, of course, that was never your framework. You were largely responding to an article by Lane, not Newman's essay on the theory of development.
As the series continues, Armstrong's replies, which weren't high-quality to begin with, further degenerate. He resorts to extensive padding. Long block quotes from other writers. Dismissive one-liners.
He clearly got tired. Ran out of steam. So it's just filler. Creating the misimpression that he offered a comprehensive rebuttal to your post when most of what he says consists of copy/paste filler and dodgy replies.
“Therefore, nothing is ever truly accomplished, in terms of dialogue, because both parties have to be willing to interact with the other's stuff comprehensively, not in a scattershot fashion.”
But by Dave’s own admission, he’s ignoring all of Jason’s supporting material. Therefore, Dave is also picking-and-choosing what “isolated tidbits” he wants to reply to–in “scattershot fashion.”
“So I'll wait to see if he will try to actually interact with my reasoning considered as a whole, rather than from isolated tidbits. I don't have unlimited time.”
As if Jason has unlimited time.
“Moreover, note that in this present response, if I actually wanted to pursue it, it opens up into almost all major areas of Catholic theology, so that it strays almost completely from the topic at hand. I don't play those games. One can't do everything at once. I can't simultaneously answer four people all answering me at once, and every paper that Jason has written about Catholicism. “
Looks like the poor little darling is feeling the heat. Maybe he should buy a tube of sun block so that his tender epidermis doesn’t turn bright red.
“It is Jason Engwer's paper that I critiqued. It is his responsibility to defend his own ideas.”
I take it that Dave will ban all sympathetic commenters at his blog, and retroactively delete their supportive remarks. After all, it’s his responsibility to defend his own ideas. As such, it would be irresponsible of him to allow any Catholic commenters to offer statements in his defense. By the same token, I also assume that he will delete all of the supportive comments he ever left at other Catholic blogs.
“I hope Jason is not relying on Ken Temple, TAO, and Steve Hays to do a comprehensive reply, because I will respond to him alone. When all this is done, I'll go back to my normative policy of ignoring anti-Catholics.”
His normative policy is to have no normative policy.
“I freely grant that he has written a lot of other stuff about Catholicism. But all of his work in this regard suffers from the same fallacies and methodological flaws that I noted in the Introduction to my four-part series.”
i) Since there’s no evidence that Dave has even read Jason’s “other stuff,” he’d be in no position to venture that assessment. But why doesn’t he tell us what other stuff he’s read by Jason–on which he presumes to make that assessment?
ii) Likewise, it’s hardly impressive to claim that Jason’s “other stuff” suffers from “the same fallacies and methological flaws,” absent any effort on Dave’s part to actually document and substantiate that allegation.
“It is best shown to be deficient when someone grapples with it line-by-line, in order to demonstrate how he tries to reason. But Jason's usual method in responding to me is to pick-and-choose and be highly selective as to what he will respond to, whereas everyone can see that when I responded to him, it was line-by-line, without ignoring anything.”
The fact that Dave merely said something about everything Jason wrote in one post hardly indicates that what Dave said was actually responsive. Indeed, as I said to Jason last Saturday:
For the time being I've now said what I intend to say in response to Armstrong. I'm of two minds about saying more. Much of the time he makes no serious effort to interact with your arguments. He will simply quote a sentence or two, then make a dismissive comment which is unresponsive to the substance of your claim.
He also acts as though your post was an evaluation of Cardinal Newman's theory of development, then faults you for allegedly misrepresenting Newman or failing to take into account something Newman said here or there. But, of course, that was never your framework. You were largely responding to an article by Lane, not Newman's essay on the theory of development.
As the series continues, Armstrong's replies, which weren't high-quality to begin with, further degenerate. He resorts to extensive padding. Long block quotes from other writers. Dismissive one-liners.
He clearly got tired. Ran out of steam. So it's just filler. Creating the misimpression that he offered a comprehensive rebuttal to your post when most of what he says consists of copy/paste filler and dodgy replies.
“Therefore, nothing is ever truly accomplished, in terms of dialogue, because both parties have to be willing to interact with the other's stuff comprehensively, not in a scattershot fashion.”
But by Dave’s own admission, he’s ignoring all of Jason’s supporting material. Therefore, Dave is also picking-and-choosing what “isolated tidbits” he wants to reply to–in “scattershot fashion.”
“So I'll wait to see if he will try to actually interact with my reasoning considered as a whole, rather than from isolated tidbits. I don't have unlimited time.”
As if Jason has unlimited time.
“Moreover, note that in this present response, if I actually wanted to pursue it, it opens up into almost all major areas of Catholic theology, so that it strays almost completely from the topic at hand. I don't play those games. One can't do everything at once. I can't simultaneously answer four people all answering me at once, and every paper that Jason has written about Catholicism. “
Looks like the poor little darling is feeling the heat. Maybe he should buy a tube of sun block so that his tender epidermis doesn’t turn bright red.
“It is Jason Engwer's paper that I critiqued. It is his responsibility to defend his own ideas.”
I take it that Dave will ban all sympathetic commenters at his blog, and retroactively delete their supportive remarks. After all, it’s his responsibility to defend his own ideas. As such, it would be irresponsible of him to allow any Catholic commenters to offer statements in his defense. By the same token, I also assume that he will delete all of the supportive comments he ever left at other Catholic blogs.
“I hope Jason is not relying on Ken Temple, TAO, and Steve Hays to do a comprehensive reply, because I will respond to him alone. When all this is done, I'll go back to my normative policy of ignoring anti-Catholics.”
His normative policy is to have no normative policy.
Pseudo-apostolic succession
I’m going to quote some passages from a standard monograph on Simon Magus. The following features caught my eye:
1.It’s striking to see the historical license which church fathers took in their accounts of Simon Magus and his “successors.” One church father introduces a narrative about Simon and subsequent developments, then other church fathers embroider the narrative. What we see here is a process of rampant legendary embellishment.
2.Beyond that general trend is something more specific: a concerted effort to contrive a symmetrical parallel between apostolic succession and pseudo-apostolic succession. In both cases, church fathers seem to be working with genealogical paradigm in which truth and error each has its own dynastic pedigree. You can trace truth and error back through their respective family trees to archetypal/prototypal figures–where the heresiarch is equivalent to the founding patriarch of a far-flung clan.
But the question this inevitably raises is that if church fathers took such historical liberties in forging nonexistent links in a chain-of-custody reaching back from miscellaneous heresies in their own time and place to Simon Magus, then it’s hard to put much stock in lines of apostolic succession. Why think the ostensible lineage connecting the episcopate to an apostolic see is any more credible than their fanciful efforts to fill in the gaps allegedly connecting Simon Magus to the heresy du jour?
“What is indisputable is that the Church Fathers and anonymous writers, with Irenaeus of Lyons as a major turning point, began adapting the canonical Simon Magus to fashion him in new creative ways. For example, he became the spiritual father of all the Gnostic sects, he became an unrepentant opponent of the apostle Peter and later of Paul as well, he had extraordinary powers, and he died violently in Rome during a climatic confrontation with Peter and Paul in the presence of the Emperor Nero and throngs of admirers, A. Ferreiro, Simon Magus in Patristic, Medieval, and Early Modern Traditions (Brill Academic Pub, 2005), 3.
“Chapter three brings together the most important testimony of the Church Fathers, from Justin Martyr to Vincent of Lerins who presented Simon Magus as the prototype heretic who founded all of the Gnostic sects through a pseudo-apostolic succession. The commentary is found within the attempt by the Fathers to establish the legitimate succession of the Catholic bishops founded upon the apostles,” ibid. 4.
“In the 133 Letter written to Ctesiphon, approximately in 415, Jerome launched an attack against Priscillianists in section four. Jerome utilized mainly typology to associate Priscillian with the previous major heresies going ultimately back to the ‘Father’ of Christian heresy, Simon Magus…Vincent, on the other hand, used the Gnostic ‘type’ in a more restrained manner than Jerome. Simon’s alleged successor Nicolas of Antioch, who supposedly founded the Nicolaitan sect, was accused mainly of sexual libertarianism…I decided to include this essay because Simon and Nicolas appear together in every heresiological list as the two foundational ‘fathers’ of Gnosticism and by extension of all Christian heresies,” ibid. 4-5.
“If there is one single area of research on Simon Magus that has solicited significant scholarly attention, it has been within the field of Gnostic studies. Irenaeus in his Against Heresies claimed that Simon Magus had not only founded the Gnostic sect of the Simonians, but was also the spiritual ‘father’ of all of Gnosticism in general. This claim by Irenaeus became the catalyst that moved modern scholars to embark upon the quest to confirm the ‘historical’ links between the Simon Magus in the Acts of the Apostles and the sect of the Simonians who allegedly continued to perpetuate his teachings. The belief by patristic writers that Simon Magus had established Gnosticism became widespread as evidenced by the detailed references in the writings of Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Hippolytus, Against all Heresies, the Constitutions of the Apostles, the Pseudo-Clementines, and the Panarion by Epiphanius of Salamis. Wayne Meeks, in a recent historiographical essay, has noted that the efforts by modern scholars to confirm the connections between the canonical Simon Magus and any form of Gnosticism, and specifically the Simonians has come to a dead end,” ibid. 10-12.
“Fortunately, not all scholarly inquiry has come to an end on this topic. There is another area of research regarding Simon Magus and Gnosticism that is deserving of attention. As patristic writers attempted to create typological bridges between the canonical Magus and Gnosticism they did not all create an identical ‘type.’” Ibid. 12.
“Simon Magus as founder of a pseudo-apostolic succession derives principally from the anti-Gnostic polemic and is once again another instance of a tradition wholly independent of the Acts of the Apostles and the apocryphal legends. The same anti-Gnostic writers who created the fascinating portraits of Simon Magus and Helena likewise engendered the idea of a false apostolic succession paralleling and in direct opposition to the legitimate one established by Simon Peter. This concept persisted very strongly in the fourth and fifth centuries and is expanded in the works of Jerome and Vincent of Lerins. I have demonstrated in previous studies how both Church Fathers elaborated the notion of a Simon Magus pseudo-succession that continued well beyond Gnostic successors. Jerome, in what is perhaps his most creative exegesis, suggested a female pseudo-succession stemming from Helena and paralleling the male line initiated by Simon Magus. Writers such as Augustine, Filastrius of Brescia, Isidore of Seville and others mediated various forms of this concept to the Middle Ages,” ibid. 19.
“The persistent attempt by the Church Fathers, especially Irenaeus and Clement, to establish the legitimacy of an apostolic succession was matched by their effort to demonstrate the existence of a parallel pseudo-apostolic succession among the Gnostics. Irenaeus was principally driven in his rigorous rebuke of Gnostics to argue that Simon Magus founded the sect from whom all other Gnostics derived their inspiration. He clamed that the Simonians of his day, founded by Simon Magus, in turn inspired the sect of Menander. In fact, Irenaeus precisely labeled Menander a ‘successor’ of Simon Magus. In this significant work of heresiology, which became the model for all future works in this genre, Irenaeus made a case for the legitimate succession of bishops form the apostles, in particular Simon Peter,” 43.
“Two major elements of the Simon Magus type were bequeathed by Irenaeus and Clement: the belief that Simon Magus inspired/founded the Gnostic sects and that he had a female collaborator named Helena. The Church Fathers who occupied themselves with the question of the origin of heresy adopted wholesale this tradition while introducing their own emendations here and there,” ibid. 44.
“The Greek and Latin Fathers of the fourth century and beyond expanded this tradition even more. Cyril of Jerusalem called Simon Magus ‘inventor of all heresy’–an echo of Irenaeus–and proceeded in generic fashion to mention the Gnostic sects…Gregory Nazianzus warned that many doctrines ‘sprang from them’–the Gnostics, Simon Magus included, implying a succession. Epiphanius of Salamis in Panarion represents the culmination of all this earlier teaching among the Greek Fathers of the fourth century…On the succession question, Epiphanius linked Simon Magus with the Menandrians, Saturnilians, and Basilidians, with the strong implication that this constituted an ongoing succession originating with Simon Magus. John of Damascus expanded the list of Gnostic groups directly linked to Simon Magus, to include the Basilidians…We gain a better perspective of how this tradition from the second to fourth centuries among the Greek Fathers influenced the Church and its thinking about apostolic succession in light of what Jerome and Vincent of Lerins received, adapted, and perpetuated in the fifth century as is shown below,” ibid. 45.
“Vincent provided the precise language to express the succession of heretics from Simon. Like Jerome, he extended the idea of pseudo-apostolic succession far beyond any of the earlier writers, such as Epiphanius of Salamis who limited the successors of Simon Magus to the Gnostics. The emphasis in this section by Vincent is the primacy and centrality of apostolic authority. In the concluding chapters Vincent accused heretics of opposing the Holy See at Rome, specifically the pontiffs of Sixtus and Celestine, the successors of St. Peter. To add an extra touch of authority Vincent mentioned the ‘blessed Apostle Paul’ (Comm. 33.1-4. 1.24. p194). Peter and Paul, together, formed an overwhelming source of authority that vindicated Petrine primacy and apostolic succession, respectively…A crucial element in Vincent’s thought was his reference to a ‘secret and continuous succession [Continua et occulta successione manauit [Comm. 24.10. 43-44 p181] of heretics,” ibid. 52.
1.It’s striking to see the historical license which church fathers took in their accounts of Simon Magus and his “successors.” One church father introduces a narrative about Simon and subsequent developments, then other church fathers embroider the narrative. What we see here is a process of rampant legendary embellishment.
2.Beyond that general trend is something more specific: a concerted effort to contrive a symmetrical parallel between apostolic succession and pseudo-apostolic succession. In both cases, church fathers seem to be working with genealogical paradigm in which truth and error each has its own dynastic pedigree. You can trace truth and error back through their respective family trees to archetypal/prototypal figures–where the heresiarch is equivalent to the founding patriarch of a far-flung clan.
But the question this inevitably raises is that if church fathers took such historical liberties in forging nonexistent links in a chain-of-custody reaching back from miscellaneous heresies in their own time and place to Simon Magus, then it’s hard to put much stock in lines of apostolic succession. Why think the ostensible lineage connecting the episcopate to an apostolic see is any more credible than their fanciful efforts to fill in the gaps allegedly connecting Simon Magus to the heresy du jour?
“What is indisputable is that the Church Fathers and anonymous writers, with Irenaeus of Lyons as a major turning point, began adapting the canonical Simon Magus to fashion him in new creative ways. For example, he became the spiritual father of all the Gnostic sects, he became an unrepentant opponent of the apostle Peter and later of Paul as well, he had extraordinary powers, and he died violently in Rome during a climatic confrontation with Peter and Paul in the presence of the Emperor Nero and throngs of admirers, A. Ferreiro, Simon Magus in Patristic, Medieval, and Early Modern Traditions (Brill Academic Pub, 2005), 3.
“Chapter three brings together the most important testimony of the Church Fathers, from Justin Martyr to Vincent of Lerins who presented Simon Magus as the prototype heretic who founded all of the Gnostic sects through a pseudo-apostolic succession. The commentary is found within the attempt by the Fathers to establish the legitimate succession of the Catholic bishops founded upon the apostles,” ibid. 4.
“In the 133 Letter written to Ctesiphon, approximately in 415, Jerome launched an attack against Priscillianists in section four. Jerome utilized mainly typology to associate Priscillian with the previous major heresies going ultimately back to the ‘Father’ of Christian heresy, Simon Magus…Vincent, on the other hand, used the Gnostic ‘type’ in a more restrained manner than Jerome. Simon’s alleged successor Nicolas of Antioch, who supposedly founded the Nicolaitan sect, was accused mainly of sexual libertarianism…I decided to include this essay because Simon and Nicolas appear together in every heresiological list as the two foundational ‘fathers’ of Gnosticism and by extension of all Christian heresies,” ibid. 4-5.
“If there is one single area of research on Simon Magus that has solicited significant scholarly attention, it has been within the field of Gnostic studies. Irenaeus in his Against Heresies claimed that Simon Magus had not only founded the Gnostic sect of the Simonians, but was also the spiritual ‘father’ of all of Gnosticism in general. This claim by Irenaeus became the catalyst that moved modern scholars to embark upon the quest to confirm the ‘historical’ links between the Simon Magus in the Acts of the Apostles and the sect of the Simonians who allegedly continued to perpetuate his teachings. The belief by patristic writers that Simon Magus had established Gnosticism became widespread as evidenced by the detailed references in the writings of Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Hippolytus, Against all Heresies, the Constitutions of the Apostles, the Pseudo-Clementines, and the Panarion by Epiphanius of Salamis. Wayne Meeks, in a recent historiographical essay, has noted that the efforts by modern scholars to confirm the connections between the canonical Simon Magus and any form of Gnosticism, and specifically the Simonians has come to a dead end,” ibid. 10-12.
“Fortunately, not all scholarly inquiry has come to an end on this topic. There is another area of research regarding Simon Magus and Gnosticism that is deserving of attention. As patristic writers attempted to create typological bridges between the canonical Magus and Gnosticism they did not all create an identical ‘type.’” Ibid. 12.
“Simon Magus as founder of a pseudo-apostolic succession derives principally from the anti-Gnostic polemic and is once again another instance of a tradition wholly independent of the Acts of the Apostles and the apocryphal legends. The same anti-Gnostic writers who created the fascinating portraits of Simon Magus and Helena likewise engendered the idea of a false apostolic succession paralleling and in direct opposition to the legitimate one established by Simon Peter. This concept persisted very strongly in the fourth and fifth centuries and is expanded in the works of Jerome and Vincent of Lerins. I have demonstrated in previous studies how both Church Fathers elaborated the notion of a Simon Magus pseudo-succession that continued well beyond Gnostic successors. Jerome, in what is perhaps his most creative exegesis, suggested a female pseudo-succession stemming from Helena and paralleling the male line initiated by Simon Magus. Writers such as Augustine, Filastrius of Brescia, Isidore of Seville and others mediated various forms of this concept to the Middle Ages,” ibid. 19.
“The persistent attempt by the Church Fathers, especially Irenaeus and Clement, to establish the legitimacy of an apostolic succession was matched by their effort to demonstrate the existence of a parallel pseudo-apostolic succession among the Gnostics. Irenaeus was principally driven in his rigorous rebuke of Gnostics to argue that Simon Magus founded the sect from whom all other Gnostics derived their inspiration. He clamed that the Simonians of his day, founded by Simon Magus, in turn inspired the sect of Menander. In fact, Irenaeus precisely labeled Menander a ‘successor’ of Simon Magus. In this significant work of heresiology, which became the model for all future works in this genre, Irenaeus made a case for the legitimate succession of bishops form the apostles, in particular Simon Peter,” 43.
“Two major elements of the Simon Magus type were bequeathed by Irenaeus and Clement: the belief that Simon Magus inspired/founded the Gnostic sects and that he had a female collaborator named Helena. The Church Fathers who occupied themselves with the question of the origin of heresy adopted wholesale this tradition while introducing their own emendations here and there,” ibid. 44.
“The Greek and Latin Fathers of the fourth century and beyond expanded this tradition even more. Cyril of Jerusalem called Simon Magus ‘inventor of all heresy’–an echo of Irenaeus–and proceeded in generic fashion to mention the Gnostic sects…Gregory Nazianzus warned that many doctrines ‘sprang from them’–the Gnostics, Simon Magus included, implying a succession. Epiphanius of Salamis in Panarion represents the culmination of all this earlier teaching among the Greek Fathers of the fourth century…On the succession question, Epiphanius linked Simon Magus with the Menandrians, Saturnilians, and Basilidians, with the strong implication that this constituted an ongoing succession originating with Simon Magus. John of Damascus expanded the list of Gnostic groups directly linked to Simon Magus, to include the Basilidians…We gain a better perspective of how this tradition from the second to fourth centuries among the Greek Fathers influenced the Church and its thinking about apostolic succession in light of what Jerome and Vincent of Lerins received, adapted, and perpetuated in the fifth century as is shown below,” ibid. 45.
“Vincent provided the precise language to express the succession of heretics from Simon. Like Jerome, he extended the idea of pseudo-apostolic succession far beyond any of the earlier writers, such as Epiphanius of Salamis who limited the successors of Simon Magus to the Gnostics. The emphasis in this section by Vincent is the primacy and centrality of apostolic authority. In the concluding chapters Vincent accused heretics of opposing the Holy See at Rome, specifically the pontiffs of Sixtus and Celestine, the successors of St. Peter. To add an extra touch of authority Vincent mentioned the ‘blessed Apostle Paul’ (Comm. 33.1-4. 1.24. p194). Peter and Paul, together, formed an overwhelming source of authority that vindicated Petrine primacy and apostolic succession, respectively…A crucial element in Vincent’s thought was his reference to a ‘secret and continuous succession [Continua et occulta successione manauit [Comm. 24.10. 43-44 p181] of heretics,” ibid. 52.
UNCG Outreach Report 1-19-2010
Dear Brothers and Sisters,I am pleased to report that God granted us much grace as I preached the gospel open-air today at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). Hundreds of people heard the gospel of grace from our lips. To God alone be the Glory!
The Report: I preached for over three hours with only one or two short breaks in between (yes, I was dog tired. :-). We had several hecklers that grappled with the truth claims of Jesus Christ and many of them were laid naked and open to the law of Christ and shown to be without excuse. We heard the usual objections about the reliability of the Bible, atheistic materialistic objections, statements like "I need 'proof' that the God of the Bible exists!", objections based upon Neo-Darwinian theory, pagan monistic ideas, etc. I capitalized on their sin of intellectual autonomy and then preached grace in light of their sin and gave them the hope that can only be found through Christ. We had several folks from our church who were able to interact one-on-one with several unbelievers in the crowd who heard my preaching. Thank you for showing up and preaching the truth! There was also a Campus Crusade for Christ worker that stood around for over an hour while I was preaching who thanked us so much for being there after we finished.
Our time was coming to a close at 12 noon when a sinless perfectionist heretic showed up. These types of people are like modern-day Pharisees and they have done much harm to the church both historically and recently. As I was wrapping up my preaching, he asked me if I still considered myself to be a "sinner". I've been down this road with these heretics several times. I said "not in the sense of a lost sinner; the pattern of my life is that of holiness, righteousness, and godliness and not that of sin" and he said, "but that's not the question; I asked you if you are still sinning" and I said, "I have sinned since becoming a believer and like James 3:2 says, I 'stumble in many ways', but sin is not the overall pattern of my life . . . I repent when I sin and receive forgiveness from Christ", then he asked me if I believed that a professing Christian could rape a woman and still die and go to heaven and I said, "I have no reason to think that a man who does that was ever truly saved to begin with."
This man then turned to the crowd and told them that I was preaching a false gospel. I told him that he was self deceived and did not have the truth because 1st John 1:8 says, "If we say that we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us", to which he had no answer. I repeated the verse several times to him and the crowd. He then asked me how Job is described in Job 1 and I said, "As an upright and blameless man" and then he said, "See, Job was perfect, just like Jesus commands us to be in Matthew 5:48!" I responded "Then why did Job have to repent in dust and ashes in Job chapter 42?" to which many Christians in the crowd groaned, feeling the point. He then started preaching that I was a false teacher and at that time I pointed my finger at him and said to the crowd, "Folks, this man is a self-deceived heretic that does not have the truth according to his own Bible." I then stepped down off my stool retrieved my belongings and left him to preach his false message. After he preached for about 3 minutes the crowd that I was preaching to grew hostile and an angry professing Christian got up in his face, ripped one of the buttons off of his sport coat and yelled right in his face something to the effect, "How dare you tell these people that they have to be perfect in and of themselves to go to heaven?" The UNCG police showed up almost immediately and after we spoke to several appreciative Christian students and the Campus Crusade worker, we then left.
I preached for three hours with the friendly cooperation of the police with no problems. There was a tense yet generally respectful give and take between myself and the hecklers while I was preaching because I encouraged them to ask questions and not to interrupt each other but to wait patiently for their question. They appreciated that and it made things much smoother. However, I interrupted them several times; something I need to stop doing! (Cf. Proverbs 18:13) This is just further evidence that the Bible is true, for I truly "stumble in many ways." (James 3:2)
What I learned and was reminded of:
- Focus on Christ and His gospel, for only the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16).
- Remember that you are dealing with spiritually dead people that cannot love or receive the truth lest the Holy Spirit opens their hearts to respond to the gospel (Acts 16:14).
- Answer questions succintly with the Bible presupposing the Bible to defend the truth of the Bible (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10; Colossians 2:3; Hebrews 6:13). If people want more detailed and specific answers that are evidential in nature, direct them to the Creation Ministries International website or give them some of our CMI booklets that address their question.
- Don't interrupt hecklers when they are asking a question even though you have a pretty good idea of what their objection/question is going to be. This is because "He who gives an answer before he hears it is folly and shame to him" (Proverbs 18:13).
- If you get the same question again from the same person, ask them, "I just answered that question for you, did you not understand my explanation the first time?" If they say "no I didn't understand" then patiently explain it again using gobs of Scripture and be patient with them (2 Timothy 2:23-26). If they refuse to hear your answer again, then continue preaching to the crowd at large.
- Don't get into arguments with hell-bound heretics or anybody else (Matthew 7:6). All the lost world will see is two people arguing over religion and the gospel will not be preached. If a heretic shows up while preaching and the heretic wants to argue about it and steal your preaching time; identify the error quickly, then either move to another location or stop preaching altogether for that day and return another day. Christ said that wrangling with people that have rejected the truth and made shipwreck of their faith is a waste of time since they are rejecting the very truth that they have been exposed to many times (Titus 3:10-11). "But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels." (2 Timothy 2:23)
Do Scholars See Catholicism's Acorn In Early Church History?
In one of his recent responses to me, Dave Armstrong wrote:
"What we assume is what scholars of these issues tell us was the case. We can cite them a million times, but Protestants like Jason will ignore what they say, and the evidence they set forth."
Dave makes many appeals to scholarship in his series, and he repeatedly criticizes me for allegedly neglecting it. As I noted earlier, that criticism ignores a large amount of argumentation and documentation I've provided outside of the article Dave was responding to.
In my earlier response to Dave, I linked to a series of articles on this blog on the subject of Roman Catholicism, most of them written by me. In those articles, I cite many patristic scholars, historians, and other scholars with relevant credentials, including some of the same scholars Dave has cited. I cite them not only referring to the widespread absence of some of Catholicism's beliefs in early church history, but also referring to the widespread contradiction of much of what's taught by Catholicism.
I put together that collection of articles in 2008, the same year I wrote the article Dave recently responded to. Since then, I've read many other articles and books written by scholars who reach similar conclusions.
For example, I'm in the process of reading Joseph Kelly's The Ecumenical Councils Of The Catholic Church (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2009). Kelly is a Roman Catholic historian and a professor of religious studies at John Carroll University. He refers to other Catholic scholars who helped him in the process of researching and editing the book (p. xi). He contrasts the role of the Popes in ecumenical councils today with their involvement in the past (pp. 2, 5), noting, for example, that "The second ecumenical council, Constantinople I, was called in 381, met, decided the issues, and adjourned without informing the pope, Damasus I (366-384), that a council was being held." (p. 5) He contrasts Cardinal Newman's view of doctrinal development with popular belief about that subject in previous generations (p. 3). He refers to a more spiritual view of Jesus' eucharistic presence in early theologians, contrasting it with the views of later theologians who had "a more material understanding of the real presence" (p. 5). He refers to rejection of the papacy during the patristic era in North Africa (pp. 16, 31). In the later patristic centuries, Spanish and Gallic bishops "usually" accepted papal authority (p. 31). Even some bishops in Italy as late as the sixth century "went into schism and were not reconciled to Rome until the seventh century" (p. 54). He interprets canon 6 of Nicaea as a reference to Rome's regional authority in the West (pp. 23-24). Referring to the time of Nicaea, Kelly writes, "Then, as now with the Orthodox churches, the Eastern bishops did not acknowledge any Roman jurisdictional authority over their churches." (p. 24) He refers to the earliest Christians' opposition to the veneration of images (p. 61). Etc.
I don't agree with Kelly on every point. I would sometimes choose my words differently or add qualifications he doesn't include. But views like his are common in modern scholarship, even at Roman Catholic universities.
On some issues, what modern scholarship sees in early church history isn't an acorn that would later develop into the oak of modern Catholicism, but rather something like an apple or mustard seed. Sometimes Catholic beliefs aren't just widely absent in early church history, but even widely contradicted. Even when something like Mary's bodily assumption is absent without being contradicted, nothing in that period of its absence would naturally grow into a belief in her assumption as an acorn naturally grows into an oak. If we continue with the thought of Catholicism as an oak tree, modern scholarship doesn't see early church history as an acorn. And I don't think the evidence suggests it's an acorn either. For more about that scholarship and my own assessment of the evidence, see the collection of articles on Catholicism that I linked earlier.
"What we assume is what scholars of these issues tell us was the case. We can cite them a million times, but Protestants like Jason will ignore what they say, and the evidence they set forth."
Dave makes many appeals to scholarship in his series, and he repeatedly criticizes me for allegedly neglecting it. As I noted earlier, that criticism ignores a large amount of argumentation and documentation I've provided outside of the article Dave was responding to.
In my earlier response to Dave, I linked to a series of articles on this blog on the subject of Roman Catholicism, most of them written by me. In those articles, I cite many patristic scholars, historians, and other scholars with relevant credentials, including some of the same scholars Dave has cited. I cite them not only referring to the widespread absence of some of Catholicism's beliefs in early church history, but also referring to the widespread contradiction of much of what's taught by Catholicism.
I put together that collection of articles in 2008, the same year I wrote the article Dave recently responded to. Since then, I've read many other articles and books written by scholars who reach similar conclusions.
For example, I'm in the process of reading Joseph Kelly's The Ecumenical Councils Of The Catholic Church (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2009). Kelly is a Roman Catholic historian and a professor of religious studies at John Carroll University. He refers to other Catholic scholars who helped him in the process of researching and editing the book (p. xi). He contrasts the role of the Popes in ecumenical councils today with their involvement in the past (pp. 2, 5), noting, for example, that "The second ecumenical council, Constantinople I, was called in 381, met, decided the issues, and adjourned without informing the pope, Damasus I (366-384), that a council was being held." (p. 5) He contrasts Cardinal Newman's view of doctrinal development with popular belief about that subject in previous generations (p. 3). He refers to a more spiritual view of Jesus' eucharistic presence in early theologians, contrasting it with the views of later theologians who had "a more material understanding of the real presence" (p. 5). He refers to rejection of the papacy during the patristic era in North Africa (pp. 16, 31). In the later patristic centuries, Spanish and Gallic bishops "usually" accepted papal authority (p. 31). Even some bishops in Italy as late as the sixth century "went into schism and were not reconciled to Rome until the seventh century" (p. 54). He interprets canon 6 of Nicaea as a reference to Rome's regional authority in the West (pp. 23-24). Referring to the time of Nicaea, Kelly writes, "Then, as now with the Orthodox churches, the Eastern bishops did not acknowledge any Roman jurisdictional authority over their churches." (p. 24) He refers to the earliest Christians' opposition to the veneration of images (p. 61). Etc.
I don't agree with Kelly on every point. I would sometimes choose my words differently or add qualifications he doesn't include. But views like his are common in modern scholarship, even at Roman Catholic universities.
On some issues, what modern scholarship sees in early church history isn't an acorn that would later develop into the oak of modern Catholicism, but rather something like an apple or mustard seed. Sometimes Catholic beliefs aren't just widely absent in early church history, but even widely contradicted. Even when something like Mary's bodily assumption is absent without being contradicted, nothing in that period of its absence would naturally grow into a belief in her assumption as an acorn naturally grows into an oak. If we continue with the thought of Catholicism as an oak tree, modern scholarship doesn't see early church history as an acorn. And I don't think the evidence suggests it's an acorn either. For more about that scholarship and my own assessment of the evidence, see the collection of articles on Catholicism that I linked earlier.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Against Armstrong!
"Now it would be refreshing to see Ken condemn the mountain of potshots taken at me at all the big anti-Catholic sites."
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2010/01/reply-to-protestant-apologist-jason.html?showComment=1263748912788#c8817222006920843514
It's admittedly true that anti-Catholics like Shawn McElhinney, Kevin Tierney, and Greg Mockeridge have taken many potshots at poor old Dave.
On second thought, aren't Tierney, McElhinney, and Mockeridge fellow Catholics? I guess you don't have to be anti-Catholic to hold dear old Dave in low esteem.
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2010/01/reply-to-protestant-apologist-jason.html?showComment=1263748912788#c8817222006920843514
It's admittedly true that anti-Catholics like Shawn McElhinney, Kevin Tierney, and Greg Mockeridge have taken many potshots at poor old Dave.
On second thought, aren't Tierney, McElhinney, and Mockeridge fellow Catholics? I guess you don't have to be anti-Catholic to hold dear old Dave in low esteem.
Water seeks its own level
A friend of mine recently asked what, if any, impact the belief in causal determinism (or lack thereof) has in practical day-to-day living. Here’s my answer:
Well, one example to the contrary is this:
I never locked my doors.
This was because I believed that men had no free will and that not only were all things determined, but that they were causally and directly brought about by God. So that, if someone were to break into my house or steal my car, or even if I or someone I loved were to become ill, such an event or circumstance would be directly caused by God himself so that any interference would be bad and wrong.
As you know, this view didn’t serve me very well practically...My car was stolen, keys still in the ignition.
My hope is that my account would serve as a warning or at least a speed bump for pastors who teach these sorts of things. Ideas have consequences.
http://reasontostand.org/archives/2010/01/18/how-does-a-belief-in-causal-determinism-influence-how-one-lives#identifier_3_871
I suppose the most charitable construction we can place on this objection is that “Reason to Stand” is a hoax blog. Wes is really an undercover Calvinist, posing as a libertarian, to make freewill theism look as ridiculous as possible by raising transparently comical objections to Calvinism.
If, on the other hand he’s serious, then he may be in need of round-the-clock supervision. At the very least he should be patted down for matches lest he hurt himself.
i) Calvinism doesn’t take the position that all things are “directly” caused by God. That would be occasionalism, not Calvinism.
While it’s theoretically possible to be a Reformed occasionalist, that’s hardly an implication of Calvinism. Mainstream Calvinism has a robust doctrine of ordinary providence. Indeed, Calvinism is famous–or infamous, depending on your viewpoint–for its robust doctrine of ordinary providence.
As such, God ordinarily brings things to pass through natural agents and agencies. How could anyone with even a glancing knowledge of Calvinism not know that?
It sounds as though Wes got his notion of “causal determinism” from watching reruns of Final Destination 1.
ii) Not locking your doors is just as much of a choice as locking your doors. If he thinks that “causal determinism” prevents him from making choices (or “influencing the outcome”), then it would equally prevent him from not locking his doors.
After all, if it’s causally determined that he will lock his doors, then he can’t leave them unlocked. And if it’s causally determined that he will leave his doors unlocked, then he can’t lock them.
So why would his former belief in “causal determinism” bias him to leave his doors unlocked rather than locking them all the time, or locking them sometimes but not other times?
iii) Likewise, if “causal determinism” prevents him from influencing the outcome, then how could he “interfere” with the outcome even if he tried? Conversely, if he tried, then wouldn’t his attempt be causally determined? If he succeeded in locking his doors, then that would be causally determined–but if he failed to lock his doors, then that, too, would be causally determined.
Indeed, even if he merely toyed with the idea of locking his doors (or not), his idea would also be causally determined.
So why does he imagine that believing in causal determinism points him in any particular direction? How does such a belief bias his course of action or inaction?
iv) Also, as a friend of mine remarked (tongue-in-cheek), “I never locked my doors when I held to a view of causal indeterminism because I believed that events could occur randomly, without any sufficient reason, so there was no point locking the doors anyway.”
Atheism Feedback 1-18-10
Another response from our cordial atheist named Gerry follows below:*********************************************************
Dusman, despite your valiant efforts, I will remain “... in (my) intellectual autonomy, ..”; it can be no other way. When I stated that this exchange had reached a stalemate, I was correct.
With all due respect, you are not correct. This is nowhere near a stalemate. You have still missed the point as we'll see again below.
My view of natural selection does not, cannot, rest to any degree whatsoever on the notion that the “ ‘scientific method’ is impossible in the first place because God is the one who provides the things needed to correctly understand the world.”
Your reliance on the procedures of natural science to acquire a better understanding of the physical world relies completely on the existence of the God of the Bible, regardless of your statements to the contrary. This is because your view of reality (naturalistic materialism) contradicts itself since it denies in principle the very things it requires in practice. For example, the materialist scientist uses logical laws and other immaterial universals, concepts, and abstractions to do his job, even though he believes there are no immaterials. Thus, every time he argues against the existence of immaterial entities he uses them to make his case and in so doing contradicts himself. You are doing the same thing, you either don't realize it or don't want to admit it. Again, from whence comes abstract, immaterial concepts like logical laws, the general uniformity of nature, the reliability of the senses, etc., if all that exists is matter? Worse, why should I assume that that future instances of the uniformity of nature will continue the same way as it has in the past? As stated in my last two blog posts answering your objections, I noted that this is the classic "Problem of Induction"; a problem rooted in the logical fallacy known as begging the question. To assume that the future is going to be like the past based upon past instance of the future being like the past is to beg the question. Even former atheist turned deist Antony Flew recognized that atheism is unable to ground it's most basic assumptions. See his newest book here and an overview of Flew's general ideas in that book here.
With that being said, if you continue to reject the Creator God, you will continue to contradict yourself and be illogical (hence, irrational). Such are the sinful results of intellectual autonomy (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10). Regarding natural selection, it never has nor could it ever produce the macroevolutionary changes that Dawkins and the other "New Atheists" preach about. Such ideas constitute blind faith in a materialistic fairy tale. See Muddy Waters: Clarifying the confusion about natural selection.
Your evidence for a god-created universe is firmly rooted in the bible, a book that I studied as a youngster but put aside when the messages and meanings my religious teachers insisted were there never materialized.
My evidence for the God-created universe does not rest on special revelation alone (i.e., the Bible), but also includes natural revelation as evidence for the Creator (Romans 1:20). What follows are scads of articles that demonstrate the truth of Romans 1:20; namely, that the existence of creation necessitates a Creator: Design Features Questions and Answers.
In those days, I believed in God simply because, as a child, I had been taught to believe. And it wasn’t for the want of trying; I prayed fervently and waited for some kind of connection, but nothing ever clicked.
I'm not sure what you were looking for to validate the Bible nor am I aware of the specific situation you are referring to, so I cannot specifically comment on this. I would need more specific information about what you "prayed fervently" for and what you mean by "trying" and "wait[ing] for some connection, but nothing ever clicked."
However, I will make some general comments based upon my past experience in interacting with atheists. First, what were you expecting? In other words; lets say you were looking for some subjective experience or an answer to prayer to validate the truthfulness of the Bible. However, a lack of subjective experiences and unanswered prayers are not proofs for atheism; they are proof of a lack of subjective experiences and unanswered prayers. Just because a person never experiences what they think is necessary to "validate" the existence of the God of the Bible doesn't necessarily mean that He doesn't exist. Second, the Bible never tells people in the New Covenant era to determine truth solely by such methods. The manner of determining truth in this age is guided and determined by the mind of God as revealed in the word of God. Anything other than this inevitably leads to relativism.
No they didn't, you became irrational after becoming irreligious. Here's how (1) you rejected the very thing you needed to ground the preconditions for rationality when you rejected God [as mentioned briefly above and shown here and here] and (2) you inevitably do the very thing you chide Christians for: appealing to a type of mysticism in order to justify your rationality, the very thing you work so hard to avoid. See my detailed discussion of this in these articles: Dialectical Tensions and Dialectical Tensions II.
When I croak, which I expect will happen sometime in the next 10 to 15 years, my life, my existence, my time as a living creature will end. My brain will close down as will my existential relationship with my mind. I do not expect a spiritual existence after death. My bones will disintegrate into atoms which will be recycled through trees, birds, and rocks, and which will, in some five billion years, be blasted back into the universe from which they came. If I am wrong, I will be surprised.
You are wrong and have embraced a fairy tale. If you fail to repent and put your trust in Jesus Christ, you will be surprised (Hebrews 9:27). Physicalism is another self-refuting lie.
If I am wrong, you and I might then meet, chat, and have a cup of tea.
My friend, you are wrong, and if you don't repent, then this life is the best it gets for you. Should you fail to heed the command of Jesus to repent and believe the gospel, we will not be chatting, there will be no tea, and you will remember these conversations . . . forever (Matthew 25:46).
I on the other hand will be worshipping Jesus and you will be suffering your just penalty in Hell for the reasons mentioned in the previous articles. Listen, I am here to help you by (1) telling you the truth about the gospel of Christ and (2) showing you that your worldview contradicts itself, thus it can't be true.
If you want to be truly rational, then repent and believe the gospel of Christ (Proverbs 1:7).
Papias, Apostolic Succession, Oral Tradition, And "Relativism"
Yesterday, I posted some introductory remarks about a series of posts by Dave Armstrong that was written in response to an article I posted in 2008. What I want to do today is address some comments Dave made about one church father in particular, Papias. I do so for a few reasons. For one thing, it was in response to something I said about Papias that Dave issued some of his harshest criticism. And some of his other comments about Papias are relevant to his claims to "copiously document everything" and his objection that I'm not offering enough documentation for my own views. His comments on Papias also illustrate just how misleading it can be to use terms like "apostolic succession" and "oral tradition" to describe the views of a father.
In the course of his series of posts responding to me, Dave repeatedly accuses me of "relativism". I said that if I were in the position of somebody like Papias, I wouldn't adhere to sola scriptura. I went on to comment that "If sola scriptura had been widely or universally rejected early on, it wouldn't follow that it couldn't be appropriate later, under different circumstances." Dave responded:
"And he is employing the typical Protestant theological relativism or doctrinal minimalism....After having expended tons of energy and hours sophistically defending Protestantism and revising history to make it appear that it is not fatal to Protestant claims (which is a heroic feat: to engage at length in such a profoundly desperate cause), now, alas, Jason comes to his senses and jumps on the bandwagon of fashionable Protestant minimalism, relativism, and the fetish for uncertainty. He resides, after all, in the 'much different position' of the 21st century. He knows better than those old fuddy-duds 1500 years ago. What do they know, anyway?...Why are we having this discussion at all, then, if it doesn't matter a hill of beans what the fathers en masse thought?"
What Dave claims I "now" believe is what I had been saying for years, long before I wrote my article in 2008. And I didn't say or suggest that "it doesn't matter a hill of beans what the fathers en masse thought". Anybody who has read much of what I've written regarding the church fathers and other sources of the patristic era ought to know that I don't suggest that they're "old fuddy-duds" whose beliefs "don't matter a hill of beans".
My point with regard to Papias, which I've explained often, is that God provides His people with different modes of revelation at different times in history, and there are transitional phases between such periods. For example, Adam and Eve had a form of direct communication with God that most people in human history haven't had. When Jesus walked the earth, people would receive ongoing revelation from Him, and could ask Him questions, for example, in a manner not available to people who lived in earlier or later generations. When Joseph and Mary could speak with Jesus during His childhood and early adulthood, but the authority structure of the New Testament church didn't yet exist, a Catholic wouldn't expect Joseph and Mary to follow the same rule of faith they had followed prior to Jesus' incarnation or would be expected to follow after the establishment of the Catholic hierarchy. Catholicism doesn't claim to have preserved every word Jesus spoke or everything said by every apostle. A person living in the early second century, for example, could remember what he had heard the apostle John teach about eschatology and follow that teaching, even if it wasn't recorded in scripture or taught by means of papal infallibility, an ecumenical council, or some other such entity the average modern Catholic would look to. Because of the nature of historical revelation in Christianity (and in Judaism), there isn't any one rule of faith that's followed throughout history. And different individuals and groups will transition from one rule of faith to another at different times and in different ways.
These complexities can be made to seem less significant by making vague references to "oral tradition" or "the word of God", for example, but the fact remains that what such terms are describing changes to a large extent over time and from one individual or group to another. I could agree with the vague assertion that we're to always follow "the word of God" as our rule of faith, for instance, but that meant significantly different things for Adam than it did for David, for Mary than it did for Ignatius of Antioch, for Papias than it does for Dave Armstrong, etc.
To accuse me of "relativism", "minimalism", and such, because I've made distinctions like the ones outlined above, is unreasonable and highly misleading. The average reader of Dave's blog probably doesn't know much about me, and using terms like "relativism", "minimalism", and "fetish for uncertainty" doesn't leave people with an accurate impression of what a conservative Evangelical like me believes.
In some other comments about Papias, Dave writes:
"Jason will have to make his argument from Papias, whatever it is. J. N. D. Kelly says little about him, but what he does mention is no indication of sola Scriptura...When we go to Eusebius (III, 39) to see what exactly Papias stated, we find an explicit espousal of apostolic succession and authoritative tradition. He even contrasts oral tradition to written (as superior): 'I did not think that what was to be gotten from the books would profit me as much as what came from the living and abiding voice' (III, 39, 4)."
I didn't cite Papias as an advocate of sola scriptura. And we have much more information on Papias than what Eusebius provides. See here.
I referred to Richard Bauckham's treatment of Papias in Jesus And The Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006). See, particularly, pp. 21-38. Bauckham goes into far more depth than J.N.D. Kelly did in the work Dave is citing.
Contrary to what Dave claims, there is no "explicit espousal of apostolic succession" in Papias. And the "living and abiding voice" Papias refers to is a reference to proximate and early testimony that was soon going to die out. The theme Papias is referring to is taken from, among other sources, the historiography of his day. As Bauckham notes, Jerome's rendering of the passage in Papias indicates that he understood Papias as Bauckham does (pp. 27-28). Here are some of Bauckham's comments on the subject:
"Against a historiographic background, what Papias thinks preferable to books is not oral tradition as such but access, while they are still alive, to those who were direct participants in the historical events - in this case 'the disciples of the Lord.' He is portraying his inquiries on the model of those made by historians, appealing to historiographic 'best practice' (even if many historians actually made much more use of written sources than their theory professed)....What is most important for our purposes is that, when Papias speaks of 'a living and abiding voice,' he is not speaking metaphorically of the 'voice' of oral tradition, as many scholars have supposed. He speaks quite literally of the voice of an informant - someone who has personal memories of the words and deeds of Jesus and is still alive....Papias was clearly not interested in tapping the collective memory as such. He did not think, apparently, of recording the Gospel traditions as they were recited regularly in his own church community. Even in Hierapolis it was on his personal contact with the daughters of Philip that he set store. What mattered to Papias, as a collector and would-be recorder of Gospel traditions, was that there were eyewitnesses, some still around, and access to them through brief and verifiable channels of named informants." (pp. 24, 27, 34)
Bauckham goes into much more detail than what I've quoted above. He gives examples of Polybius, Josephus, Galen, and other sources using terminology and arguments similar to those of Papias. He emphasizes that Papias is appealing to something more evidentially valuable than, and distinct from, "cross-generational" tradition (p. 37). As he notes, the sources Papias was referring to were dying out and only available for a "brief" time. The historiography of Papias' day, from which he was drawing, was interested in early oral tradition, the sort we would call the testimony of eyewitnesses and contemporaries, not an oral tradition three hundred, a thousand, or two thousand years later. He got it from individuals and his own interpretation of their testimony, not mediated through an infallible church hierarchy centered in Rome. It wasn't the sort of oral tradition Roman Catholicism appeals to. Modern Catholics aren't hearing or interviewing the apostle John, Aristion, or the daughters of Philip and expecting such testimony to soon die out. That's not their notion of oral tradition.
And it won't be sufficient for Dave to say that he doesn't object to that other type of oral tradition that we find in Papias. He's accused me of "relativism" for making such distinctions. (It's not as though Papias would disregard what he learned about a teaching of Jesus or the apostle John, for example, until it was promulgated in the form of something like papal infallibility or an ecumenical council. Rather, the oral tradition Papias appeals to makes him the sort of transitional figure I referred to above. He didn't follow sola scriptura, but he didn't follow the Catholic rule of faith either.) And Dave's appeal to "oral tradition" in a dispute with an Evangelical is most naturally taken to refer to the common Catholic concept of oral tradition, not the form of it described by Bauckham. If Dave agreed all along that Papias' oral tradition was of the sort Bauckham describes, then why did he even bring up the subject? It's at least misleading to refer to Papias' view as "oral tradition" in such an unqualified way in a dispute with an Evangelical. How many of Papias' oral traditions, such as his premillennialism, does Dave agree with?
In response to my citation of Bauckham in my article in 2008, Dave wrote:
"I'm not gonna go read all that. I've spent enough time on this as it is. Whatever Jason's argument is involving Papias, can be presented anew, if he thinks it is worthwhile to consider."
Yet, in his articles responding to me he frequently links us to other articles he's written, without "presenting anew" what he said previously.
In the course of his series of posts responding to me, Dave repeatedly accuses me of "relativism". I said that if I were in the position of somebody like Papias, I wouldn't adhere to sola scriptura. I went on to comment that "If sola scriptura had been widely or universally rejected early on, it wouldn't follow that it couldn't be appropriate later, under different circumstances." Dave responded:
"And he is employing the typical Protestant theological relativism or doctrinal minimalism....After having expended tons of energy and hours sophistically defending Protestantism and revising history to make it appear that it is not fatal to Protestant claims (which is a heroic feat: to engage at length in such a profoundly desperate cause), now, alas, Jason comes to his senses and jumps on the bandwagon of fashionable Protestant minimalism, relativism, and the fetish for uncertainty. He resides, after all, in the 'much different position' of the 21st century. He knows better than those old fuddy-duds 1500 years ago. What do they know, anyway?...Why are we having this discussion at all, then, if it doesn't matter a hill of beans what the fathers en masse thought?"
What Dave claims I "now" believe is what I had been saying for years, long before I wrote my article in 2008. And I didn't say or suggest that "it doesn't matter a hill of beans what the fathers en masse thought". Anybody who has read much of what I've written regarding the church fathers and other sources of the patristic era ought to know that I don't suggest that they're "old fuddy-duds" whose beliefs "don't matter a hill of beans".
My point with regard to Papias, which I've explained often, is that God provides His people with different modes of revelation at different times in history, and there are transitional phases between such periods. For example, Adam and Eve had a form of direct communication with God that most people in human history haven't had. When Jesus walked the earth, people would receive ongoing revelation from Him, and could ask Him questions, for example, in a manner not available to people who lived in earlier or later generations. When Joseph and Mary could speak with Jesus during His childhood and early adulthood, but the authority structure of the New Testament church didn't yet exist, a Catholic wouldn't expect Joseph and Mary to follow the same rule of faith they had followed prior to Jesus' incarnation or would be expected to follow after the establishment of the Catholic hierarchy. Catholicism doesn't claim to have preserved every word Jesus spoke or everything said by every apostle. A person living in the early second century, for example, could remember what he had heard the apostle John teach about eschatology and follow that teaching, even if it wasn't recorded in scripture or taught by means of papal infallibility, an ecumenical council, or some other such entity the average modern Catholic would look to. Because of the nature of historical revelation in Christianity (and in Judaism), there isn't any one rule of faith that's followed throughout history. And different individuals and groups will transition from one rule of faith to another at different times and in different ways.
These complexities can be made to seem less significant by making vague references to "oral tradition" or "the word of God", for example, but the fact remains that what such terms are describing changes to a large extent over time and from one individual or group to another. I could agree with the vague assertion that we're to always follow "the word of God" as our rule of faith, for instance, but that meant significantly different things for Adam than it did for David, for Mary than it did for Ignatius of Antioch, for Papias than it does for Dave Armstrong, etc.
To accuse me of "relativism", "minimalism", and such, because I've made distinctions like the ones outlined above, is unreasonable and highly misleading. The average reader of Dave's blog probably doesn't know much about me, and using terms like "relativism", "minimalism", and "fetish for uncertainty" doesn't leave people with an accurate impression of what a conservative Evangelical like me believes.
In some other comments about Papias, Dave writes:
"Jason will have to make his argument from Papias, whatever it is. J. N. D. Kelly says little about him, but what he does mention is no indication of sola Scriptura...When we go to Eusebius (III, 39) to see what exactly Papias stated, we find an explicit espousal of apostolic succession and authoritative tradition. He even contrasts oral tradition to written (as superior): 'I did not think that what was to be gotten from the books would profit me as much as what came from the living and abiding voice' (III, 39, 4)."
I didn't cite Papias as an advocate of sola scriptura. And we have much more information on Papias than what Eusebius provides. See here.
I referred to Richard Bauckham's treatment of Papias in Jesus And The Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006). See, particularly, pp. 21-38. Bauckham goes into far more depth than J.N.D. Kelly did in the work Dave is citing.
Contrary to what Dave claims, there is no "explicit espousal of apostolic succession" in Papias. And the "living and abiding voice" Papias refers to is a reference to proximate and early testimony that was soon going to die out. The theme Papias is referring to is taken from, among other sources, the historiography of his day. As Bauckham notes, Jerome's rendering of the passage in Papias indicates that he understood Papias as Bauckham does (pp. 27-28). Here are some of Bauckham's comments on the subject:
"Against a historiographic background, what Papias thinks preferable to books is not oral tradition as such but access, while they are still alive, to those who were direct participants in the historical events - in this case 'the disciples of the Lord.' He is portraying his inquiries on the model of those made by historians, appealing to historiographic 'best practice' (even if many historians actually made much more use of written sources than their theory professed)....What is most important for our purposes is that, when Papias speaks of 'a living and abiding voice,' he is not speaking metaphorically of the 'voice' of oral tradition, as many scholars have supposed. He speaks quite literally of the voice of an informant - someone who has personal memories of the words and deeds of Jesus and is still alive....Papias was clearly not interested in tapping the collective memory as such. He did not think, apparently, of recording the Gospel traditions as they were recited regularly in his own church community. Even in Hierapolis it was on his personal contact with the daughters of Philip that he set store. What mattered to Papias, as a collector and would-be recorder of Gospel traditions, was that there were eyewitnesses, some still around, and access to them through brief and verifiable channels of named informants." (pp. 24, 27, 34)
Bauckham goes into much more detail than what I've quoted above. He gives examples of Polybius, Josephus, Galen, and other sources using terminology and arguments similar to those of Papias. He emphasizes that Papias is appealing to something more evidentially valuable than, and distinct from, "cross-generational" tradition (p. 37). As he notes, the sources Papias was referring to were dying out and only available for a "brief" time. The historiography of Papias' day, from which he was drawing, was interested in early oral tradition, the sort we would call the testimony of eyewitnesses and contemporaries, not an oral tradition three hundred, a thousand, or two thousand years later. He got it from individuals and his own interpretation of their testimony, not mediated through an infallible church hierarchy centered in Rome. It wasn't the sort of oral tradition Roman Catholicism appeals to. Modern Catholics aren't hearing or interviewing the apostle John, Aristion, or the daughters of Philip and expecting such testimony to soon die out. That's not their notion of oral tradition.
And it won't be sufficient for Dave to say that he doesn't object to that other type of oral tradition that we find in Papias. He's accused me of "relativism" for making such distinctions. (It's not as though Papias would disregard what he learned about a teaching of Jesus or the apostle John, for example, until it was promulgated in the form of something like papal infallibility or an ecumenical council. Rather, the oral tradition Papias appeals to makes him the sort of transitional figure I referred to above. He didn't follow sola scriptura, but he didn't follow the Catholic rule of faith either.) And Dave's appeal to "oral tradition" in a dispute with an Evangelical is most naturally taken to refer to the common Catholic concept of oral tradition, not the form of it described by Bauckham. If Dave agreed all along that Papias' oral tradition was of the sort Bauckham describes, then why did he even bring up the subject? It's at least misleading to refer to Papias' view as "oral tradition" in such an unqualified way in a dispute with an Evangelical. How many of Papias' oral traditions, such as his premillennialism, does Dave agree with?
In response to my citation of Bauckham in my article in 2008, Dave wrote:
"I'm not gonna go read all that. I've spent enough time on this as it is. Whatever Jason's argument is involving Papias, can be presented anew, if he thinks it is worthwhile to consider."
Yet, in his articles responding to me he frequently links us to other articles he's written, without "presenting anew" what he said previously.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Catholicity & perspicuity
On the one hand, Catholicism is adamantly opposed to the perspicuity of Scripture. Indeed, that’s fundamental to Catholic identity. For if the Bible is perspicuous, then the Magisterium is irrelevant.
On the other hand, Catholics apologists cite a number of stock prooftexts for various Catholic rites and dogmas. So that generates a dilemma: is Scripture perspicuous or not? However they answer, they lose.
Does Mt 16:18 perspicuously teach the papacy?
Does Lk 22:32 perspicuously teach the papacy?
Does Jn 21:17 perspicuously teach the papacy?
Does Jn 3:5 perspicuously teach baptismal regeneration?
Does Tit 3:5 perspicuously teach baptismal regeneration?
Does Acts 2:38 perspicuously teach baptismal justification?
Does Jn 6 perspicuously teach the Real Presence?
Does 1 Cor 11:24 perspicuously teach the Real Presence?
Does 1 Tim 3:15 perspicuously teach the infallibility of the church?
Does Jn 16:13 perspicuously teach the infallibility of the church?
Does Mt 16:18 perspicuously teach the indefectibility of the church?
Does 1 Tim 4:14 perspicuously teach apostolic succession?
Does 2 Thes 2:15 perspicuously teach Sacred Tradition?
Does Rev 11:19 perspicuously teach the Assumption of Mary?
Does Lk 1:28 perspicuously teach the Immaculate Conception?
Does Mt 5:25-26 perspicuously teach Purgatory?
Does Mt 3:8 perspicuously teach Penance?
Does Jas 5:16 teach auricular confession?
Does Jn 20:22 perspicuously teach clerical absolution?
Does Mt 19:12 perspicuously teach clerical celibacy?
Does Rev 5:8 perspicuously teach the intercession of the saints?
Does Jas 2:24 perspicuously rebut sola fide?
Does Gen 38:9-10 perspicuously forbid artificial contraception?
If a Catholic answers “yes” to most-all of these questions (and that’s just a sampling of Catholic prooftexts for various Catholic rites and dogmas), then you have to wonder at what point the Bible suddenly ceases to be perspicuous?
A Catholic can only have his prooftexts at the expense of tacitly affirming the perspicuity of Scripture.
It’s really quite amusing when evangelical converts to Rome try to prooftext Catholicism from the Bible while, out of the other side of their mouth, they point to “33,000” denominations to debunk the perspicuity of Scripture.
On the other hand, Catholics apologists cite a number of stock prooftexts for various Catholic rites and dogmas. So that generates a dilemma: is Scripture perspicuous or not? However they answer, they lose.
Does Mt 16:18 perspicuously teach the papacy?
Does Lk 22:32 perspicuously teach the papacy?
Does Jn 21:17 perspicuously teach the papacy?
Does Jn 3:5 perspicuously teach baptismal regeneration?
Does Tit 3:5 perspicuously teach baptismal regeneration?
Does Acts 2:38 perspicuously teach baptismal justification?
Does Jn 6 perspicuously teach the Real Presence?
Does 1 Cor 11:24 perspicuously teach the Real Presence?
Does 1 Tim 3:15 perspicuously teach the infallibility of the church?
Does Jn 16:13 perspicuously teach the infallibility of the church?
Does Mt 16:18 perspicuously teach the indefectibility of the church?
Does 1 Tim 4:14 perspicuously teach apostolic succession?
Does 2 Thes 2:15 perspicuously teach Sacred Tradition?
Does Rev 11:19 perspicuously teach the Assumption of Mary?
Does Lk 1:28 perspicuously teach the Immaculate Conception?
Does Mt 5:25-26 perspicuously teach Purgatory?
Does Mt 3:8 perspicuously teach Penance?
Does Jas 5:16 teach auricular confession?
Does Jn 20:22 perspicuously teach clerical absolution?
Does Mt 19:12 perspicuously teach clerical celibacy?
Does Rev 5:8 perspicuously teach the intercession of the saints?
Does Jas 2:24 perspicuously rebut sola fide?
Does Gen 38:9-10 perspicuously forbid artificial contraception?
If a Catholic answers “yes” to most-all of these questions (and that’s just a sampling of Catholic prooftexts for various Catholic rites and dogmas), then you have to wonder at what point the Bible suddenly ceases to be perspicuous?
A Catholic can only have his prooftexts at the expense of tacitly affirming the perspicuity of Scripture.
It’s really quite amusing when evangelical converts to Rome try to prooftext Catholicism from the Bible while, out of the other side of their mouth, they point to “33,000” denominations to debunk the perspicuity of Scripture.
A Response To Dave Armstrong
Dave Armstrong recently wrote four responses (here, here, here, and here) to an article I wrote in 2008. Others have already replied to Dave in the comments sections of those threads, and Steve Hays has written some responses here. I'll be adding some comments of my own in this post and in the coming days.
Dave replied to my article in light of some positive comments made about it by David Waltz, who recently announced his decision to leave Roman Catholicism. Dave opens his first response with some references to Cardinal Newman, and he accuses me of misrepresenting Newman's position on doctrinal development. But while David Waltz did make some comments about Newman and development of doctrine in the process of discussing his decision to leave Roman Catholicism, I didn't mention Newman in my 2008 article.
And Dave says that I "make an analogical argument with the canon issue" in that article, but, as I explain in the article's opening paragraph, I was responding to something I was asked about in an email. I wasn't addressing Newman or looking for "an analogical argument". The person who wrote me the email framed the issue in terms of the canon and church infallibility. As far as I recall, Newman never even came up in the discussion.
Furthermore, though I haven't read much from David Waltz regarding his decision to leave Catholicism, what I have read from him doesn't give me the impression that I had much to do with his decision. He did say some positive things about my article in 2008, but I'm not aware of any evidence that I had much of a role in his decision to leave Catholicism.
Dave repeatedly objects to a lack of documentation in my article, and he makes generalizations about how I don't support my arguments. Keep in mind, again, that I was posting portions of an email I had sent somebody. I wasn't writing in response to Dave or anybody else I was expecting to want the documentation Dave is now asking for. Let's say you're writing an email to a person who trusts your judgment on the matters being discussed. Or say you've already provided documentation in previous emails or previous posts, for example. You probably aren't going to provide documentation in anticipation of objections that will be raised by a third party who decides to enter the discussion more than a year later, a third party who enters the discussion without knowing much about the surrounding context. Dave doesn't know who I was corresponding with in my email. And he's ignoring other posts at the same blog, this one, in which I do argue for my positions and document them at length. I do sometimes summarize my positions without repeating the argumentation I've provided elsewhere, assume that my readers will share some of my beliefs going into the discussion, etc. But that's common practice, and Dave hasn't given us any reason to conclude that it's unacceptable.
In his second reply to me, Dave summarizes my approach and contrasts it with his:
"He has shown himself consistently shoddy with arguments and sources, as I have demonstrated time and again in my debates with him, and again now. The reader can see how I copiously document everything. I don't expect anyone to accept my bald word, as if I am any kind of expert, as Jason does."
And he made some other comments of a similar nature elsewhere in his posts. While Dave makes generalizations about how I don't support my arguments, I'd recommend that people consult my material on Roman Catholicism, the resurrection, or the infancy narratives, for example, and see if Dave's generalizations seem accurate. I would also recommend that people look at Dave's posts at his blog, here, and elsewhere and ask if it's true that he "copiously documents everything".
He also suggests that I've ignored issues that I don't address in the article he's responding to, even if the issues don't have much relevance or have been addressed by me elsewhere. For example, though my article begins with an explanation that I'm addressing "the Protestant New Testament canon", Dave writes in his second response to me:
"We also have a huge amount of patristic support for the Deuterocanon: the books that Protestants demoted from the Bible, but Jason conveniently omits that, because it doesn't fit with the playbook."
Or maybe I didn't address the subject because the person who emailed me didn't ask about it, but asked about the New Testament canon instead. I didn't choose what the emailer would ask me.
We have a large amount of material on the Old Testament canon in the archives here, including articles written by me. My series on the New Testament canon last year had an article that summarizes my position on the Old Testament, including what I think of patristic support for a larger canon.
But the point I'm focusing on here is that I was replying to an emailer. I'm not the one who framed the discussion, and I didn't intend my post to provide all of the documentation that any conceivable reader, like Dave Armstrong more than a year later, might want.
Though I think Dave's framing of the issues is misleading, I want to reply to what he goes on to argue in the remainder of his series. I'll be posting responses as I have time.
Dave replied to my article in light of some positive comments made about it by David Waltz, who recently announced his decision to leave Roman Catholicism. Dave opens his first response with some references to Cardinal Newman, and he accuses me of misrepresenting Newman's position on doctrinal development. But while David Waltz did make some comments about Newman and development of doctrine in the process of discussing his decision to leave Roman Catholicism, I didn't mention Newman in my 2008 article.
And Dave says that I "make an analogical argument with the canon issue" in that article, but, as I explain in the article's opening paragraph, I was responding to something I was asked about in an email. I wasn't addressing Newman or looking for "an analogical argument". The person who wrote me the email framed the issue in terms of the canon and church infallibility. As far as I recall, Newman never even came up in the discussion.
Furthermore, though I haven't read much from David Waltz regarding his decision to leave Catholicism, what I have read from him doesn't give me the impression that I had much to do with his decision. He did say some positive things about my article in 2008, but I'm not aware of any evidence that I had much of a role in his decision to leave Catholicism.
Dave repeatedly objects to a lack of documentation in my article, and he makes generalizations about how I don't support my arguments. Keep in mind, again, that I was posting portions of an email I had sent somebody. I wasn't writing in response to Dave or anybody else I was expecting to want the documentation Dave is now asking for. Let's say you're writing an email to a person who trusts your judgment on the matters being discussed. Or say you've already provided documentation in previous emails or previous posts, for example. You probably aren't going to provide documentation in anticipation of objections that will be raised by a third party who decides to enter the discussion more than a year later, a third party who enters the discussion without knowing much about the surrounding context. Dave doesn't know who I was corresponding with in my email. And he's ignoring other posts at the same blog, this one, in which I do argue for my positions and document them at length. I do sometimes summarize my positions without repeating the argumentation I've provided elsewhere, assume that my readers will share some of my beliefs going into the discussion, etc. But that's common practice, and Dave hasn't given us any reason to conclude that it's unacceptable.
In his second reply to me, Dave summarizes my approach and contrasts it with his:
"He has shown himself consistently shoddy with arguments and sources, as I have demonstrated time and again in my debates with him, and again now. The reader can see how I copiously document everything. I don't expect anyone to accept my bald word, as if I am any kind of expert, as Jason does."
And he made some other comments of a similar nature elsewhere in his posts. While Dave makes generalizations about how I don't support my arguments, I'd recommend that people consult my material on Roman Catholicism, the resurrection, or the infancy narratives, for example, and see if Dave's generalizations seem accurate. I would also recommend that people look at Dave's posts at his blog, here, and elsewhere and ask if it's true that he "copiously documents everything".
He also suggests that I've ignored issues that I don't address in the article he's responding to, even if the issues don't have much relevance or have been addressed by me elsewhere. For example, though my article begins with an explanation that I'm addressing "the Protestant New Testament canon", Dave writes in his second response to me:
"We also have a huge amount of patristic support for the Deuterocanon: the books that Protestants demoted from the Bible, but Jason conveniently omits that, because it doesn't fit with the playbook."
Or maybe I didn't address the subject because the person who emailed me didn't ask about it, but asked about the New Testament canon instead. I didn't choose what the emailer would ask me.
We have a large amount of material on the Old Testament canon in the archives here, including articles written by me. My series on the New Testament canon last year had an article that summarizes my position on the Old Testament, including what I think of patristic support for a larger canon.
But the point I'm focusing on here is that I was replying to an emailer. I'm not the one who framed the discussion, and I didn't intend my post to provide all of the documentation that any conceivable reader, like Dave Armstrong more than a year later, might want.
Though I think Dave's framing of the issues is misleading, I want to reply to what he goes on to argue in the remainder of his series. I'll be posting responses as I have time.
Swan song?
James Swan's Beggars All blog has some recent postings that assert an oft-repeated contention, namely, that the all-too-obvious turmoil in the Catholic Church today is no different than the divisions within Protestantism.
There is a fundamental difference between the divisions that take place within Protestantism and the “dissent” that takes place in the Catholic Church. The divisions between Protestants take place because they cannot agree on what the Bible teaches on a host of issues. They continually claim that the Bible is clear and easy to understand, but their quarrels about the meaning of the Bible on all these issues undermine that claim. Their differences center fundamentally on how to understand their own central authority.
But the disagreements between orthodox Catholics and “dissenting” Catholics of various kinds are quite different. Dissenters agree with faithful Catholics that the Church does officially teach just what faithful Catholics insist it does—they just want that teaching to change. The question is never whether the Catholic Church officially teaches that contraception is wrong, or that homosexual acts are sinful, or that divorce and remarriage are not permitted, or that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood. Even between Catholics and Protestants the debate never centers on whether the Catholic Church really teaches transubstantiation, or veneration of the saints, or the Eucharist as a sacrifice, or the infallibility of the pope. All parties understand full well what the Church teaches on these and a multitude of other issues. They prove this by insisting not that the Church actually teaches something different, but rather that the Church is wrong and should change her teaching to conform to their own ideas. Groups such as “We Are Church” prove this by calling for the convocation of Vatican III in order to implement their agenda, thus admitting that their beliefs have never been part of the teaching of the Church, including Vatican II.
Thus, the Catholic Church has spoken with clarity throughout the centuries; even her enemies, whether within or from outside the Church, unwittingly admit this. And this clarity is indeed in stark contrast to the inability of Protestants to agree on even central doctrines.
http://thepalmhq.blogspot.com/2009/08/james-swans-beggars-all-blog-has-some.html
There are several things seriously wrong with Palm’s contention:
1. As he must surely know, his statement that “the divisions between Protestants take place because they cannot agree on what the Bible teaches on a host of issues.,” is a gross oversimplification.
i) That is one source of division, but not the only source, or even the only major source. There are also divisions within Protestantism because we have a liberal/conservative divide within Protestantism.
Liberal and conservative Protestants often agree on what the Bible teaches. Where they differ is on the authority of Biblical statements. Liberal Protestants simply don’t regard Biblical teaching as authoritative.
Now, for tactical reasons, some liberal Protestants couch their rejection of Biblical authority in terms of “interpretation.” That’s a more politically adroit way of advancing their theological agenda within Protestant institutions. If they were to outright deny the authority of Scripture, that would provoke more resistance.
But this is just a transparent ruse. And some outspoken liberals openly deny the authority of Scripture.
So this is directly parallel to the liberal/conservative divide within Catholicism.
ii) Moreover, disagreement can arise, not because the Bible is unclear in what it says, but because its silence on some issues leaves us with no clear direction. Some Christians are looking for more specific answers than the Bible was designed to provide.
That, however, isn’t due to a lack of clarity on those issues to which Scripture does speak. It isn’t Scripture that’s unclear. It’s just that we’re unclear in cases where God has chosen not to prescribe or proscribe a particular belief or practice. And that’s a point of liberty. The adiaphora.
iii) Furthermore, divisions within Protestantism don’t necessarily arise as a result of disagreement over the meaning of Scripture. In many cases they simply reflect different cultural, ethnic, or nationalistic legacies. For the church is both shaped by culture as well as a shaper of culture.
2. It’s also a deliberate, polemical caricature to say that Protestants “continually claim that the Bible is clear and easy to understand.” Consider, for example, the carefully qualified statement on perspicuity in the Westminster Confession:
“All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them” (WCF 1:7).
3. Also, the claim that “even between Catholics and Protestants the debate never centers on whether the Catholic Church really teaches transubstantiation, or veneration of the saints, or the Eucharist as a sacrifice, or the infallibility of the pope. All parties understand full well what the Church teaches on these and a multitude of other issues,” cuts both ways.
For Catholic apologists are pretty sure that they understand full well what Protestants “really teach” when they attack various Protestant positions.
4. Apropos (3), Palm’s claim would be more persuasive if it weren’t for the embarrassing fact, as Swan frequently documents, that Catholic epologists, all presuming to speak for the church of Rome, keep tripping over each other on what the church of Rome really teaches.
5. Finally, there is the question of Catholic clarity. I’ll be quoting two examples. After Vatican II, Rome found it necessary to issue a series of “clarifications” to correct “misunderstandings” or “misinterpretations” of Vatican II. For instance:
Bearing in mind the doctrinal, pastoral and ecumenical importance of the different aspects regarding the Church understood as Communion, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has considered it opportune, by means of this Letter, to recall briefly and to clarify, where necessary, some of the fundamental elements that are to be considered already settled also by those who undertake the hoped-for theological investigation.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_28051992_communionis-notio_en.html
The intention of the present Declaration, in reiterating and clarifying certain truths of the faith, has been to follow the example of the Apostle Paul, who wrote to the faithful of Corinth: “I handed on to you as of first importance what I myself received” (1 Cor 15:3). Faced with certain problematic and even erroneous propositions, theological reflection is called to reconfirm the Church's faith and to give reasons for her hope in a way that is convincing and effective.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
The Second Vatican Council, with its Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, and its Decrees on Ecumenism (Unitatis redintegratio) and the Oriental Churches (Orientalium Ecclesiarum), has contributed in a decisive way to the renewal of Catholic ecclesiology. The Supreme Pontiffs have also contributed to this renewal by offering their own insights and orientations for praxis: Paul VI in his Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam suam (1964) and John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter Ut unum sint (1995).
The consequent duty of theologians to expound with greater clarity the diverse aspects of ecclesiology has resulted in a flowering of writing in this field. In fact it has become evident that this theme is a most fruitful one which, however, has also at times required clarification by way of precise definition and correction, for instance in the declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), the Letter addressed to the Bishops of the Catholic Church Communionis notio (1992), and the declaration Dominus Iesus (2000), all published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The vastness of the subject matter and the novelty of many of the themes involved continue to provoke theological reflection. Among the many new contributions to the field, some are not immune from erroneous interpretation which in turn give rise to confusion and doubt. A number of these interpretations have been referred to the attention of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Given the universality of Catholic doctrine on the Church, the Congregation wishes to respond to these questions by clarifying the authentic meaning of some ecclesiological expressions used by the magisterium which are open to misunderstanding in the theological debate.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html
6. In addition, we have an even more dramatic case. John Paul II and Benedict XVI were both inside players at Vatican II. Both men collaborated closely for about 25 years. Both men assumed the papacy, one right after the other.
i) Yet they don’t agree with each other in their respective assessments of Vatican II.
ii) Benedict has spent much of his career correcting what he perceives to be misinterpretations of Vatican II by Catholic theologians.
iii) He himself has altered his interpretation of Vatican II at various points over the years.
iv) What is more, he thinks that, in some respects, Vatican II is theologically flawed. It isn’t just a question of defective interpretations, but defective formulations.
So we’re talking about divergent interpretations or evaluations of Magisterial teaching (Vatican II) by Magisterial teachers (two popes). The problem goes all the way to the top. For a few examples:
Like his predecessor John Paul 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.
In his many publications Ratzinger continued to debate questions that arose during the council and in some cases expressed dissatisfaction with the council's documents. In this respect he differs from Pope John Paul, who consistently praised the council and never (to my knowledge) criticized it.
All in all, we may say that Ratzinger belonged to the inner circle of theologians whose thinking prevailed at Vatican II. Still in his thirties, he as yet lacked the public standing of Congar, Rahner, and Gérard Philips. In the early sessions he collaborated very closely with Rahner and the German Jesuits in opposition to the Roman School, though he spoke with moderation. As the council progressed, Ratzinger became more independent. He made an original and important contribution to the document on missions and mounted a highly personal critique of the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, reflecting his preference for Augustine over Aquinas and his sensitivity to Lutheran concerns.
During the council and the first few years after its conclusion, Ratzinger wrote a number of commentaries on the conciliar documents. While making certain criticisms, they express his agreement with the general directions of Vatican II and his acceptance of the three objectives named by John XXIII: renewal of the Church, unity among Christians, and dialogue with the world of today.
In 1975 Ratzinger wrote an article, on the tenth anniversary of the close of Vatican II, in which he differed from the progressives who wanted to go beyond the council and from the conservatives who wanted to retreat behind the council. The only viable course, he contended, was to interpret Vatican II in strictest continuity with previous councils such as Trent and Vatican I, since all three councils are upheld by the same authority: that of the pope and the college of bishops in communion with him.
Some consider that the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, composed in the final phase, should be seen as the climax of the council, for which the other constitutions are preparatory. Ratzinger takes the opposite view. The pastoral constitution is subordinate to the two dogmatic constitutions — those on revelation and the Church — which orient the interpreter toward the source and center of the Christian life. The constitution on the liturgy, though not strictly dogmatic, was the most successful of the four constitutions; the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes was a tentative effort to apply Catholic doctrine to the current relation of the Church to the world.
The first document debated in the session of 1962 was on liturgy. In his early commentaries Ratzinger praises it highly. He applauds its efforts to overcome the isolation of the priest celebrant and to foster active participation by the congregation. He agrees with the constitution on the need to attach greater importance to the word of God in Scripture and in proclamation. He is pleased by the constitution's provision for Holy Communion to be distributed under both species and its encouragement of regional adaptations regulated by episcopal conferences, including the use of the vernacular. “The wall of Latinity,” he wrote, “had to be breached if the liturgy were again to function either as proclamation or as invitation to prayer.” He also approved of the council's call to recover the simplicity of the early liturgies and remove superfluous medieval accretions.
Ratzinger in several places laments the abruptness with which the Missal of Paul VI was imposed after the council, with its summary suppression of the so-called Tridentine Mass. This action contributed to the impression, all too widespread, that the council was a breach rather than a new stage in a continuous process of development. For his part, Ratzinger seems to have nothing against the celebration of Mass according to the missal that was in use before the council.
In his earliest comments on the constitution on divine revelation, the young Ratzinger spoke positively. The first sentence appealed to him because it placed the Church in a posture of reverently listening to the Word of God. He also welcomed the council's effort to overcome the neurotic anti-Modernism of the neoscholastics and to adopt the language of scripture and contemporary usage. He was pleased with the council's recognition of the process by which scripture grows out of the religious history of God's people.
In his chapters on Dei Verbum for the “Vorgrimler Commentary,” Ratzinger again praises the preface as opening the Church upward to the Word of God and for emphasizing the value of proclamation. While continuing to note the success of the first chapter in emphasizing revelation through history, he faults its survey of Old Testament history for excessive optimism and for overlooking the prevalence of sin. Some attention to the Lutheran theme of law and gospel, he remarks, would have enriched the text. The theology of faith in the constitution, in his estimation, is consonant with, yet richer than, that of Vatican I. Ratzinger's discussion of tradition in chapter 2 shows a keen appreciation of the difficulties raised by Protestant commentators. He interprets this chapter as giving a certain priority to scripture over tradition and praises it for subordinating the Church's teaching office to the Word of God. But he faults it for failing to recognize scripture as a norm for identifying unauthentic traditions that distort the gospel.
At Vatican II there was a division of opinion about whether or not to treat Mariology in a separate document. With the general body of German theologians, Ratzinger supported the inclusion of Mary in the constitution on the Church, as finally took place. Unlike Bishop Wojtyla, he was wary of Marian maximalism and apparently averse to new titles such as “Mother of the Church.” Moved partly by ecumenical considerations, he applauded the restraint of the council in its references to Mary as Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix.
The early Ratzinger attached great importance to the council's retrieval of the theology of the local church. Since 1992, however, he has contended that the universal Church has ontological and historical priority over the particular churches.
A similar shift is apparent in Ratzinger's view of episcopal conferences, which he had earlier characterized as collegial organs with a true theological basis. But by 1986 he says: “We must not forget that the episcopal conferences have no theological basis; they do not belong to the structure of the Church as willed by Christ, that cannot be eliminated; they have only a practical, concrete function.” It is difficult to deny that on episcopal conferences, as on the synod of bishops, the cardinal retracted his earlier positions.
He himself has overcome certain reservations about Marian titles that he had expressed at the time of the council. It is imperative to turn to Mary, he believes, in order to learn the truth about Jesus Christ that is to be proclaimed.
The pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes in final form was primarily the work of French theologians. The German group did not control the text. At the time of the council Ratzinger already noted many difficulties, beginning with the problem of language. In opting for the language of modernity the text inevitably places itself outside the world of the Bible, so that as a result the biblical citations come to be little more than ornamental.
Instead of replacing dogmatic utterances with dialogue, Ratzinger contends, it would have been better to use the language of proclamation, appealing to the intrinsic authority of God's truth. The constitution, drawing on the thought of Teilhard de Chardin, links Christian hope too closely to the modern idea of progress. Material progress is ambivalent because it can lead to degradation as well as to true humanization. The Cross teaches us that the world is not redeemed by technological advances but by sacrificial love. In the section on unification, Gaudium et Spes approaches the world too much from the viewpoint of function and utility rather than that of contemplation and wonder.
Ratzinger's commentary on the first chapter of Gaudium et Spes contains still other provocative comments. The treatment of conscience in article 16, in his view, raises many unsolved questions about how conscience can err and about the right to follow an erroneous conscience. The treatment of free will in article 17 is in his judgment “downright Pelagian.” It leaves aside, he complains, the whole complex of problems that Luther handled under the term “servum arbitrium,” although Luther's position does not itself do justice to the New Testament.
Ratzinger is not wholly negative in his judgment. He praises the discussion of atheism in articles 19-21 as “balanced and well-founded.” He is satisfied that the document, while “reprobating” atheism in all its forms, makes no specific mention of Marxist communism, as some cold warriors had desired. He is enthusiastic about the centrality of Christ and the Paschal mystery in article 22, and he finds in it a statement on the possibilities of salvation of the unevangelized far superior to the “extremely unsatisfactory” expressions of Lumen Gentium 16, which seemed to suggest that salvation is a human achievement rather than a divine gift.
With regard to this constitution, the later Ratzinger does not seem to have withdrawn his early objections, notwithstanding his exhortations to accept the entire teaching of Vatican II.
Undeniably there have been some shifts in Ratzinger's assessment of Vatican II. Still finding his own theological path, he was in the first years of the council unduly dependent on Karl Rahner as a mentor. Only gradually did he come to see that he and Rahner lived, theologically speaking, on different planets. Whereas Rahner found revelation and salvation primarily in the inward movements of the human spirit, Ratzinger finds them in historical events attested by scripture and the early church fathers.
Ratzinger's career appears to have affected his theology. As an archbishop and a cardinal he has had to take increasing responsibility for the public life of the Church and has gained a deeper realization of the need for universal sacramental structures to safeguard the unity of the Church and her fidelity to the gospel. He has also had to contend with interpretations of Vatican II that he and the council fathers never foresaw. His early hopes for new mechanisms such as episcopal conferences have been tempered by the course of events.
The contrast between Pope Benedict and his predecessor is striking. John Paul II was a social ethicist, anxious to involve the Church in shaping a world order of peace, justice, and fraternal love. Among the documents of Vatican II, John Paul's favorite was surely the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes. Benedict XVI, who looks upon Gaudium et Spes as the weakest of the four constitutions, shows a clear preference for the other three.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/08/from-ratzinger-to-benedict---17
There is a fundamental difference between the divisions that take place within Protestantism and the “dissent” that takes place in the Catholic Church. The divisions between Protestants take place because they cannot agree on what the Bible teaches on a host of issues. They continually claim that the Bible is clear and easy to understand, but their quarrels about the meaning of the Bible on all these issues undermine that claim. Their differences center fundamentally on how to understand their own central authority.
But the disagreements between orthodox Catholics and “dissenting” Catholics of various kinds are quite different. Dissenters agree with faithful Catholics that the Church does officially teach just what faithful Catholics insist it does—they just want that teaching to change. The question is never whether the Catholic Church officially teaches that contraception is wrong, or that homosexual acts are sinful, or that divorce and remarriage are not permitted, or that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood. Even between Catholics and Protestants the debate never centers on whether the Catholic Church really teaches transubstantiation, or veneration of the saints, or the Eucharist as a sacrifice, or the infallibility of the pope. All parties understand full well what the Church teaches on these and a multitude of other issues. They prove this by insisting not that the Church actually teaches something different, but rather that the Church is wrong and should change her teaching to conform to their own ideas. Groups such as “We Are Church” prove this by calling for the convocation of Vatican III in order to implement their agenda, thus admitting that their beliefs have never been part of the teaching of the Church, including Vatican II.
Thus, the Catholic Church has spoken with clarity throughout the centuries; even her enemies, whether within or from outside the Church, unwittingly admit this. And this clarity is indeed in stark contrast to the inability of Protestants to agree on even central doctrines.
http://thepalmhq.blogspot.com/2009/08/james-swans-beggars-all-blog-has-some.html
There are several things seriously wrong with Palm’s contention:
1. As he must surely know, his statement that “the divisions between Protestants take place because they cannot agree on what the Bible teaches on a host of issues.,” is a gross oversimplification.
i) That is one source of division, but not the only source, or even the only major source. There are also divisions within Protestantism because we have a liberal/conservative divide within Protestantism.
Liberal and conservative Protestants often agree on what the Bible teaches. Where they differ is on the authority of Biblical statements. Liberal Protestants simply don’t regard Biblical teaching as authoritative.
Now, for tactical reasons, some liberal Protestants couch their rejection of Biblical authority in terms of “interpretation.” That’s a more politically adroit way of advancing their theological agenda within Protestant institutions. If they were to outright deny the authority of Scripture, that would provoke more resistance.
But this is just a transparent ruse. And some outspoken liberals openly deny the authority of Scripture.
So this is directly parallel to the liberal/conservative divide within Catholicism.
ii) Moreover, disagreement can arise, not because the Bible is unclear in what it says, but because its silence on some issues leaves us with no clear direction. Some Christians are looking for more specific answers than the Bible was designed to provide.
That, however, isn’t due to a lack of clarity on those issues to which Scripture does speak. It isn’t Scripture that’s unclear. It’s just that we’re unclear in cases where God has chosen not to prescribe or proscribe a particular belief or practice. And that’s a point of liberty. The adiaphora.
iii) Furthermore, divisions within Protestantism don’t necessarily arise as a result of disagreement over the meaning of Scripture. In many cases they simply reflect different cultural, ethnic, or nationalistic legacies. For the church is both shaped by culture as well as a shaper of culture.
2. It’s also a deliberate, polemical caricature to say that Protestants “continually claim that the Bible is clear and easy to understand.” Consider, for example, the carefully qualified statement on perspicuity in the Westminster Confession:
“All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them” (WCF 1:7).
3. Also, the claim that “even between Catholics and Protestants the debate never centers on whether the Catholic Church really teaches transubstantiation, or veneration of the saints, or the Eucharist as a sacrifice, or the infallibility of the pope. All parties understand full well what the Church teaches on these and a multitude of other issues,” cuts both ways.
For Catholic apologists are pretty sure that they understand full well what Protestants “really teach” when they attack various Protestant positions.
4. Apropos (3), Palm’s claim would be more persuasive if it weren’t for the embarrassing fact, as Swan frequently documents, that Catholic epologists, all presuming to speak for the church of Rome, keep tripping over each other on what the church of Rome really teaches.
5. Finally, there is the question of Catholic clarity. I’ll be quoting two examples. After Vatican II, Rome found it necessary to issue a series of “clarifications” to correct “misunderstandings” or “misinterpretations” of Vatican II. For instance:
Bearing in mind the doctrinal, pastoral and ecumenical importance of the different aspects regarding the Church understood as Communion, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has considered it opportune, by means of this Letter, to recall briefly and to clarify, where necessary, some of the fundamental elements that are to be considered already settled also by those who undertake the hoped-for theological investigation.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_28051992_communionis-notio_en.html
The intention of the present Declaration, in reiterating and clarifying certain truths of the faith, has been to follow the example of the Apostle Paul, who wrote to the faithful of Corinth: “I handed on to you as of first importance what I myself received” (1 Cor 15:3). Faced with certain problematic and even erroneous propositions, theological reflection is called to reconfirm the Church's faith and to give reasons for her hope in a way that is convincing and effective.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
The Second Vatican Council, with its Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, and its Decrees on Ecumenism (Unitatis redintegratio) and the Oriental Churches (Orientalium Ecclesiarum), has contributed in a decisive way to the renewal of Catholic ecclesiology. The Supreme Pontiffs have also contributed to this renewal by offering their own insights and orientations for praxis: Paul VI in his Encyclical Letter Ecclesiam suam (1964) and John Paul II in his Encyclical Letter Ut unum sint (1995).
The consequent duty of theologians to expound with greater clarity the diverse aspects of ecclesiology has resulted in a flowering of writing in this field. In fact it has become evident that this theme is a most fruitful one which, however, has also at times required clarification by way of precise definition and correction, for instance in the declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973), the Letter addressed to the Bishops of the Catholic Church Communionis notio (1992), and the declaration Dominus Iesus (2000), all published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The vastness of the subject matter and the novelty of many of the themes involved continue to provoke theological reflection. Among the many new contributions to the field, some are not immune from erroneous interpretation which in turn give rise to confusion and doubt. A number of these interpretations have been referred to the attention of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Given the universality of Catholic doctrine on the Church, the Congregation wishes to respond to these questions by clarifying the authentic meaning of some ecclesiological expressions used by the magisterium which are open to misunderstanding in the theological debate.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html
6. In addition, we have an even more dramatic case. John Paul II and Benedict XVI were both inside players at Vatican II. Both men collaborated closely for about 25 years. Both men assumed the papacy, one right after the other.
i) Yet they don’t agree with each other in their respective assessments of Vatican II.
ii) Benedict has spent much of his career correcting what he perceives to be misinterpretations of Vatican II by Catholic theologians.
iii) He himself has altered his interpretation of Vatican II at various points over the years.
iv) What is more, he thinks that, in some respects, Vatican II is theologically flawed. It isn’t just a question of defective interpretations, but defective formulations.
So we’re talking about divergent interpretations or evaluations of Magisterial teaching (Vatican II) by Magisterial teachers (two popes). The problem goes all the way to the top. For a few examples:
Like his predecessor John Paul 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.
In his many publications Ratzinger continued to debate questions that arose during the council and in some cases expressed dissatisfaction with the council's documents. In this respect he differs from Pope John Paul, who consistently praised the council and never (to my knowledge) criticized it.
All in all, we may say that Ratzinger belonged to the inner circle of theologians whose thinking prevailed at Vatican II. Still in his thirties, he as yet lacked the public standing of Congar, Rahner, and Gérard Philips. In the early sessions he collaborated very closely with Rahner and the German Jesuits in opposition to the Roman School, though he spoke with moderation. As the council progressed, Ratzinger became more independent. He made an original and important contribution to the document on missions and mounted a highly personal critique of the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, reflecting his preference for Augustine over Aquinas and his sensitivity to Lutheran concerns.
During the council and the first few years after its conclusion, Ratzinger wrote a number of commentaries on the conciliar documents. While making certain criticisms, they express his agreement with the general directions of Vatican II and his acceptance of the three objectives named by John XXIII: renewal of the Church, unity among Christians, and dialogue with the world of today.
In 1975 Ratzinger wrote an article, on the tenth anniversary of the close of Vatican II, in which he differed from the progressives who wanted to go beyond the council and from the conservatives who wanted to retreat behind the council. The only viable course, he contended, was to interpret Vatican II in strictest continuity with previous councils such as Trent and Vatican I, since all three councils are upheld by the same authority: that of the pope and the college of bishops in communion with him.
Some consider that the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, composed in the final phase, should be seen as the climax of the council, for which the other constitutions are preparatory. Ratzinger takes the opposite view. The pastoral constitution is subordinate to the two dogmatic constitutions — those on revelation and the Church — which orient the interpreter toward the source and center of the Christian life. The constitution on the liturgy, though not strictly dogmatic, was the most successful of the four constitutions; the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes was a tentative effort to apply Catholic doctrine to the current relation of the Church to the world.
The first document debated in the session of 1962 was on liturgy. In his early commentaries Ratzinger praises it highly. He applauds its efforts to overcome the isolation of the priest celebrant and to foster active participation by the congregation. He agrees with the constitution on the need to attach greater importance to the word of God in Scripture and in proclamation. He is pleased by the constitution's provision for Holy Communion to be distributed under both species and its encouragement of regional adaptations regulated by episcopal conferences, including the use of the vernacular. “The wall of Latinity,” he wrote, “had to be breached if the liturgy were again to function either as proclamation or as invitation to prayer.” He also approved of the council's call to recover the simplicity of the early liturgies and remove superfluous medieval accretions.
Ratzinger in several places laments the abruptness with which the Missal of Paul VI was imposed after the council, with its summary suppression of the so-called Tridentine Mass. This action contributed to the impression, all too widespread, that the council was a breach rather than a new stage in a continuous process of development. For his part, Ratzinger seems to have nothing against the celebration of Mass according to the missal that was in use before the council.
In his earliest comments on the constitution on divine revelation, the young Ratzinger spoke positively. The first sentence appealed to him because it placed the Church in a posture of reverently listening to the Word of God. He also welcomed the council's effort to overcome the neurotic anti-Modernism of the neoscholastics and to adopt the language of scripture and contemporary usage. He was pleased with the council's recognition of the process by which scripture grows out of the religious history of God's people.
In his chapters on Dei Verbum for the “Vorgrimler Commentary,” Ratzinger again praises the preface as opening the Church upward to the Word of God and for emphasizing the value of proclamation. While continuing to note the success of the first chapter in emphasizing revelation through history, he faults its survey of Old Testament history for excessive optimism and for overlooking the prevalence of sin. Some attention to the Lutheran theme of law and gospel, he remarks, would have enriched the text. The theology of faith in the constitution, in his estimation, is consonant with, yet richer than, that of Vatican I. Ratzinger's discussion of tradition in chapter 2 shows a keen appreciation of the difficulties raised by Protestant commentators. He interprets this chapter as giving a certain priority to scripture over tradition and praises it for subordinating the Church's teaching office to the Word of God. But he faults it for failing to recognize scripture as a norm for identifying unauthentic traditions that distort the gospel.
At Vatican II there was a division of opinion about whether or not to treat Mariology in a separate document. With the general body of German theologians, Ratzinger supported the inclusion of Mary in the constitution on the Church, as finally took place. Unlike Bishop Wojtyla, he was wary of Marian maximalism and apparently averse to new titles such as “Mother of the Church.” Moved partly by ecumenical considerations, he applauded the restraint of the council in its references to Mary as Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix.
The early Ratzinger attached great importance to the council's retrieval of the theology of the local church. Since 1992, however, he has contended that the universal Church has ontological and historical priority over the particular churches.
A similar shift is apparent in Ratzinger's view of episcopal conferences, which he had earlier characterized as collegial organs with a true theological basis. But by 1986 he says: “We must not forget that the episcopal conferences have no theological basis; they do not belong to the structure of the Church as willed by Christ, that cannot be eliminated; they have only a practical, concrete function.” It is difficult to deny that on episcopal conferences, as on the synod of bishops, the cardinal retracted his earlier positions.
He himself has overcome certain reservations about Marian titles that he had expressed at the time of the council. It is imperative to turn to Mary, he believes, in order to learn the truth about Jesus Christ that is to be proclaimed.
The pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes in final form was primarily the work of French theologians. The German group did not control the text. At the time of the council Ratzinger already noted many difficulties, beginning with the problem of language. In opting for the language of modernity the text inevitably places itself outside the world of the Bible, so that as a result the biblical citations come to be little more than ornamental.
Instead of replacing dogmatic utterances with dialogue, Ratzinger contends, it would have been better to use the language of proclamation, appealing to the intrinsic authority of God's truth. The constitution, drawing on the thought of Teilhard de Chardin, links Christian hope too closely to the modern idea of progress. Material progress is ambivalent because it can lead to degradation as well as to true humanization. The Cross teaches us that the world is not redeemed by technological advances but by sacrificial love. In the section on unification, Gaudium et Spes approaches the world too much from the viewpoint of function and utility rather than that of contemplation and wonder.
Ratzinger's commentary on the first chapter of Gaudium et Spes contains still other provocative comments. The treatment of conscience in article 16, in his view, raises many unsolved questions about how conscience can err and about the right to follow an erroneous conscience. The treatment of free will in article 17 is in his judgment “downright Pelagian.” It leaves aside, he complains, the whole complex of problems that Luther handled under the term “servum arbitrium,” although Luther's position does not itself do justice to the New Testament.
Ratzinger is not wholly negative in his judgment. He praises the discussion of atheism in articles 19-21 as “balanced and well-founded.” He is satisfied that the document, while “reprobating” atheism in all its forms, makes no specific mention of Marxist communism, as some cold warriors had desired. He is enthusiastic about the centrality of Christ and the Paschal mystery in article 22, and he finds in it a statement on the possibilities of salvation of the unevangelized far superior to the “extremely unsatisfactory” expressions of Lumen Gentium 16, which seemed to suggest that salvation is a human achievement rather than a divine gift.
With regard to this constitution, the later Ratzinger does not seem to have withdrawn his early objections, notwithstanding his exhortations to accept the entire teaching of Vatican II.
Undeniably there have been some shifts in Ratzinger's assessment of Vatican II. Still finding his own theological path, he was in the first years of the council unduly dependent on Karl Rahner as a mentor. Only gradually did he come to see that he and Rahner lived, theologically speaking, on different planets. Whereas Rahner found revelation and salvation primarily in the inward movements of the human spirit, Ratzinger finds them in historical events attested by scripture and the early church fathers.
Ratzinger's career appears to have affected his theology. As an archbishop and a cardinal he has had to take increasing responsibility for the public life of the Church and has gained a deeper realization of the need for universal sacramental structures to safeguard the unity of the Church and her fidelity to the gospel. He has also had to contend with interpretations of Vatican II that he and the council fathers never foresaw. His early hopes for new mechanisms such as episcopal conferences have been tempered by the course of events.
The contrast between Pope Benedict and his predecessor is striking. John Paul II was a social ethicist, anxious to involve the Church in shaping a world order of peace, justice, and fraternal love. Among the documents of Vatican II, John Paul's favorite was surely the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes. Benedict XVI, who looks upon Gaudium et Spes as the weakest of the four constitutions, shows a clear preference for the other three.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/08/from-ratzinger-to-benedict---17
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