Natural theology

Here are Jonathan Prejean’s latest pearls of wisdom on sola Scriptura:

“It's hardly a coincidence that Mormons view Jewish anthropomorphism as philosophically normative; that appears to be what sola scriptura entails.”

http://crimsoncatholic.blogspot.com/2007/08/principles-of-catholic-apologetics.html#comments

i) This is a category mistake, since sola Scriptura doesn’t entail any particular interpretation of Scripture. Sola Scriptura is a rule of faith, not a hermeneutical prediction.

ii) Jews themselves don’t construe “Jewish anthropomorphism” as philosophically normative in the Mormon sense of taking these anthropomorphic passages literally. Simply put, Jewish theism is a world apart from Mormon theism.

iii) The Bible itself, in certain programmatic statements, distinguishes between a divine and human viewpoint (e.g. Num 23:19; 1 Sam 15:29). Therefore, since Scripture itself internalizes a distinction between literal and anthropomorphic depictions of the divine, one doesn’t need to ransack natural theology to draw this distinction—for Scripture already differentiates and prioritizes those alternating perspectives.

“I can't say that I see much merit in the more general suggestion of how Catholics should argue with Protestants. The primary refutation of sola scriptura is that it is absurd as a matter of natural theology and that its conclusions deny certain conclusions of natural theology.”

i) So he doesn’t even entertain the self-witness of Scripture as a relevant consideration.

ii) How does he identify natural theology? Strictly speaking, there’s no such thing as natural theology. What we have, rather, is a bewildering variety of natural theologies.

Outside of Christianity, there are different versions of natural theology in Greek philosophy, Indian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, process theology, and so on.

There are heretical forms of natural theology, like Erigena’s synthesis.

Within Catholicism, there are different versions of natural theology in Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Scotus, and so on.

There are also varieties of Thomism, such as Neothomism, transcendental Thomism, existential Thomism, analytical Thomism, &c.

So, before Prejean can deploy natural theology as an interpretive grid through which to filter and validate the propositions of Scripture, he needs to isolate, identify, and defend the one true version of natural theology he is using. We look forward to his detailed argument.

“That is a good and sufficient reason for presuming that ANY form of divine revelation also includes the appointment of definite individuals with the power to resolve these matters.”

This is a purely a priori postulate. And one problem with this stipulation is that we find no precedent for his armchair postulate in the life of the old covenant community. God did not endow a definite set of individuals with the power to resolve doctrinal disputes. So why should we take Prejean’s dicta seriously?

“My argument was essentially that, for anything to function as a binding authority, it must actually be able to bindingly resolve every dispute coming under the auspices of the formal system. That means, ultimately, that if any interpretation of any material authority can be disputed, there has to be some human authority that has the power to finally resolve it, even if that power isn't exercised. Otherwise, in the end, all you have is persuasive authority, and the hope that there is actually an answer to be had if reasonable people simply exercise their God-given reason.”

i) Once again, since no such authority existed in God’s constitution of the old covenant community, why should we intuit the necessity of such an institution in the life of the new covenant community?

ii) And it won’t do to invoke a dispensational disjunction along the lines of Isa 54:13, Jer 31:33, Ezk 36:27, for—at most—that would signal a decentralization of religious authority rather than a concentration of authority in a single individual or subset of elite individuals.

“The problem I see with sola scriptura in that regard is that there is no good cause for granting authority to Scripture in the first place, so there is never more than merely probable and rebuttable warrant for any particular conclusion drawn.”

Well, I suppose we should at least commend Jonathan for his candid infidelity. For him, the Word of God has no intrinsic authority. For him, the Word of God has no inherent credibility. Whatever authority we credit to Scripture is a purely secondary and derivative authority which is conferred on Scripture by some extrinsic locus of authority.

How is Prejean’s view of Scripture any different than 18C Deism, a la Collins, Toland, Tindal, et al.?

“And unlike the case of science, there's no good cause for thinking that exegesis of Scripture produces knowledge in the first place, because unlike science, its normative standards aren't justified by first principles.”

So when the OT prophets interpret the Pentateuch, this exercise doesn’t yield knowledge. And when Jesus or the Apostles interpret the OT, this exercise doesn’t yield knowledge.

Likewise, when the church fathers or Aquinas exegete Scripture, this exercise doesn’t yield knowledge.

“I don't see any reason to think that Scripture can function even as a persuasive authority.”

Once again, I deeply appreciate Prejean’s frank admission that Catholicism and infidelity are synonymous.

“One can do what conservative Evangelicals do, which is a bare, unjustified assertion of properties like inerrancy, wholeness, etc., of Scripture, which is effectively to conjure a normative authority out of nowhere.”

Yes, to agree with God’s self-estimate regarding the divine authority of his word is “effectively to conjure a normative authority out of nowhere.”

“Every allegedly divinely revealed conclusion is only as good as its weakest normative link, and there is not even a coherent way of defining what the normative principles are. Unless God has invested some definite class of people with formal divine authority (and there might be legitimate disputes of judgment as to who those people are, but one has to at least think that there are such people), the situation for arriving at theological truth outside of natural theology is hopeless.”

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that “God has invested some definite class of people with formal divine authority,” are there no weak links in the chain of transmission? Isn’t the dissemination of Catholic dogma a trickle down process?

Even if the chain of transmission is hooked into the extraordinary Magisterium at one end, as soon as the chain of transmission drops below the extraordinary Magisterium, then we’re back to a series of weak links. So, by Prejean’s own yardstick, the case for Catholic dogma is hopeless.