Flying solo

A friend ask me to comment on some recent posts by Perry Robinson regarding sola scripture and private judgment:

https://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/are-you-flying-solo/

https://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2017/09/20/the-wizard-of-straw/

That is, the argument is not over epistemological issues (how can we know the correct interpretation of scripture?) but rather normative issues (what interpretation of scripture is binding or obligatory?)

Is Perry saying a normative (binding/obligatory) interpretation of Scripture is something over and above a merely correct interpretation of Scripture? If so, why should anyone accept that dichotomy? Why isn't a correct interpretation of Scripture obligatory? 

Perry defines the right of private judgment thusly:

Any Christian individual is ultimately obligated to adhere to belief X, if and only if they judge (determine, assess, etc.) that belief X is scriptural.

I disagree. We are obligated to believe a true interpretation of Scripture, whether or not we perceive it to be true. For instance, Mary Baker Eddy had her own hermeneutical filter based on homespun idealism. But her private judgment was unwarranted because it was dead wrong. We can't eliminate truth, or the relationship between truth and epistemic justification. 

On the Protestant thesis of Sola Scriptura by contrast, I form a judgement in such a way that whatever the church determines, it can only obligate or bind me to believe it, if and only if, I agree with that judgement.

It's not the church that obligates belief, but truth. Of course, the church can be an important vehicle when it comes to teaching the truth. 

Informally, my argument goes like this.  Defenders of Sola Scriptura contend that that position doesn’t imply that the conscience of the individual having greater authority than the whole church. That is, it is not the case, they contend, that Sola Scriptura implies or entails that everyone is their own pope. This is so, they say, because they admit of subordinate or secondary authorities. But on the contrary, on Sola Scriptura by virtue of its essential constituent, the Doctrine of the Right of Private Judgment, none of the secondary authorities are superior to and can bind the conscience of the individual. They are authoritative if and only if that person assents to them, and not, if they don’t. Hence ecclesial authorities, regardless of the number are subordinated to the conscience of the individual. This is just to say that the conscience of the individual is normatively superior to the normative judgements of the church. Hence, there is no substantial difference between Sola Scriptura and Solo Scriptura.

Now if the judgments produced by an individual is normatively superior than those produced by the church, relative to that individual, then there is no substantial difference between Sola and Solo Scriptura. This is because any subordinate authorities on Sola Scriptura are in the end, subordinated to the normative judgment of the individual. That means, that the authority of the church stops at the doorstep of the individual and is only applicable to that individual if the individual agrees to be so bound and not if they don’t.

i) I agree with Perry that the attempted distinction between sola scripture and solo scripture is unstable. I said that years ago. 

ii) I don't know how Perry defines "the church" in this context. Is he using that a synonym for bishops in the seven ecumenical councils acknowledged by Eastern Orthodox theologians? 

iii) A problem with casting the issue in terms of authority is how you ever get started. Suppose Perry uses ecumenical councils as his benchmark. If so, doesn't that just push the question back a step? By what authority does Perry determine which candidates for ecumenical councils are legitimate? 

iv) This also goes to the question of whether Eastern Orthodoxy has formal criteria. Is there an identifiable, failsafe mechanism for determining the locus of normative authority? As I recall, John Meyerdorff denies that. He appeaal to "living tradition". A kind of spiritual instinct. 

v) What is meant by "the whole church"? All Christians, past, present, and future, in union with Jesus and the Holy Spirit? But that can't be the benchmark since we can't submit a questionnaire to all Christians, past, present, and future. 

vi) I disagree with how Perry frames the issue. It's not in the first instance a question of authority but truth and evidence. We have a duty to believe revealed truth, and the evidence for some interpretations is better than others. 

vii) Apropos (vi), it's meaningless to say, in the abstract, that an individual has more authority than the church or vice versa. Those are empty generalities. They can't be true or false because it depends on the specifics. Sometimes individuals are right while collectives are wrong. Sometimes collectives are right while individuals are wrong. There's no fact-free principle that's true in general. Rather, it depends on specific claims and supporting evidence. 

It's enough to be right. You don't need a right to be right. To get it right is self-warranting. 

viii) Perhaps Perry thinks you need some ecclesiastical authority source to be right or to be justifiably confident that you are right. If so, that becomes a question of how he verifies his authority source–which reverts to private judgment. 

ix) In addition, individual responsibility is person-variable. Some Christians are held to a higher standard because they have greater aptitude and opportunities. There's such a thing as innocent error. Doing the best you can with what you've got. To be faithful to the situation God put you in. That varies from one individual to another. Richard Bauckham, F. F. Bruce, Alvin Plantinga, and Peter van Inwagen are held to a higher standard than the average layman. 

x) It's God's intention that Christians often hold some erroneous beliefs. Christians in general are fallible. That's only unacceptable if it's supposed to be otherwise. But since I don't think God has given us an infallible church, I'm content with the relative uncertainties of our situation, since that's the situation God has put us in. I disagree with high-church traditions that erect an artificial bar that Christians must jump over, then require us to use their stepladder. That's not a Christian duty. That's a man-made a priori stipulation. Our responsibility is to be individually faithful to the circumstances that God has providentially put us in. 

Does not this come from that unpublished and secret teaching which our fathers guarded in a silence out of the reach of curious meddling and inquisitive investigation?  Well had they learnt the lesson that the awful dignity of the mysteries is best preserved by silence.  What the uninitiated are not even allowed to look at was hardly likely to be publicly paraded about in written documents ( Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, 27:66ff.).

Is Perry appealing to an unpublished, secret tradition? If so, why should Christians be answerable to that?