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Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Turning to Catholicism-5

This is the fifth and final installment in my review of Faith and Reason: Philosophers Explain Their Turn to Catholicism. Before commenting on excerpts, I'll make some general observations:

1. The format of the book is conversion testimonies. I assume the reason for the format is to make it more sales-worthy. Personal interest stories have popular appeal. But the format is a weakness:

i) You can plug anything into that format. Conversion from Christianity to atheism or atheism to Christianity or Islam to Christianity or Christianity to Islam or Calvinism to Arminianism or Arminianism to Calvinism, and so on and so forth. The convert comes to see the light, regardless of where he began or where he ended. So there's something relativistic about the format.

ii) Having for work through an autobiographical narrative is inefficient. Cut to the chase. I just want to hear their reasons for why they are Catholic. Cut the dead wood. 

iii) But the greatest weakness of that format, given the philosophical slant of the book, is that what matters is the quality of their justification for Roman Catholicism: not the reasons they had for becoming Catholic but the reasons they have for being Catholic. The reasons that trigger conversion may not reflect a more mature assessment. Over the years, you may retain your position, but improve on or replace your initial reasons. 

iv) Perhaps, though, their current reasons are identical with the reasons they had for converting. But that's a problem if you bill yourself as a philosopher. It's like the teenage atheist who, based on his vast research, concludes that Christianity is bunk, and maintains that position for the rest of his life based on that juvenile understaning. 

There are converts who engage in critical self-reflection up to the moment of conversion, but once they convert they don't cease critical self-reflection. They don't engage in ongoing critical self-reflection That's more understandable for the average layman, although many layman would benefit from being more reflective, but it's inexcusable for trained philosophers. 

2. An unintended takeaway of the book is that having a doctorate in philosophy doesn't make you a smart person. The amount of intellectual flabbiness on display in this book is startling. 

Before philosophy became a profession, the only qualification to be a philosopher was an analytical mind, a high capacity for abstract reason. Now it's about credentials. Degree programs. Buttering up mentors. Checking all the boxes for the philosophical fads du jour. 

In general, the most gifted thinkers in any discipline are intellectual mavericks who have difficulty fitting in because they buck the system. They challenge the received wisdom. Ironically, that makes them poor students. They think outside the textbook. By the same token they tend to be poor teachers because they operate on their own wavelength. 

The difference between a philosopher and a philosophy prof. is like the difference between a physicist and a physics prof. Most physics profs. aren't physicists. They simply teach physics. They lack the probing, creative intelligence required to push the boundaries. 

3. The way contributors to this book discount historical evidence that runs counter to Catholic claims parallels atheists who filter reported miracles through methodological naturalism. The Catholic contributors ultimately fall back on their a priori argument for Catholicism. God must have done it our way because the alternative has untoward consequences. It stands to reason that this is how God did it. Like methodological atheists, they install a screen so that counterevidence is never allowed to get through. 

4. Because, with the partial exception of Bryan Cross's Kuhnian argument, the book repeats the same dogeared, flashcard arguments for Catholicism that Catholic apologists always use, I don't really need to comment on the specifics. I've been over this ground many times before. But to give people who haven't read the book a sample, I'll comment on some representative statements. In addition, I sometimes find something new to say even when commenting on a familiar issue. 


I saw the logic of natural law arguments against contraception and was convinced by the historical arguments that Christianity had indeed condemned contraception from the beginning…By the end of the century, Protestants had essentially caved in completely on this issue, and the Eastern Orthodox were increasingly wobbly (51). 

i) Many Catholic philosophers and theologians find the natural law arguments against contraception decidedly illogical. 

ii) In addition, Feser's statement is confused. Prescientific objections to contraception were bundled with objections to abortion because, before developments in 20C medical science, contraception and abortion were inseparable in principle and practice. So while prescientific Christian opposition to contraception was commendable, that's been overtaken by science. We can be more discriminating than our Christian forebears were. 

Yet as we went on, we discovered that Anglicanism was dying and all but dead (72).

i) That's misleading. In context, Budziszewski is referring to the ECUSA in particular rather than Anglicanism in general. 

ii) Actually, Anglicanism is self-renewing. That's true of Protestant theological packages in general (e.g. Baptist, Anabaptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian). There's a distinction between Protestant denominations and the faith-traditions they exemplify. Denominations come and go, but the next generation continues the tradition. Denominations are just vehicles for the faith-traditions they embody. Denominations die out, but the faith-traditions live on by hopping on to a new vehicle. In that regard, the Protestant faith is constantly self-renewing. That's fundamentally different from Catholicism, where there's just one vehicle, even if the wheels are falling off. 

The Reformation had led to tens of thousands of "denominations"…most of them drifting like the wrack of gale-struck ships. According to the Protestant idea, all of them together are the Church. But St. Paul called the Church the  Body of Christ. A bloody arm here, a severed leg there, a torso floating in the river–no matter how many such things were added into the total, they could never make up his Body (73-74).

i) One issue is what Paul meant his metaphor to illustrate. You can't just seize a Bible writer's metaphor and redeploy it to illustrate your own theology. Was Paul using that in contrast to "schism"? Or was he using that to make the point that different Christians have different roles to play in the life of the church, all of which are important? 

ii) In addition, the metaphor isn't simply a metaphor for unity but a metaphor for diversity as well. A body is both one and many. One head, many body parts and organs. So Budziszewski's appeal is arbitrarily lopsided. Paul doesn't prioritize unity over diversity, but holds these in balance. 

…I thought it was clearly desirable to belong, in a substantial and meaningful way, to the historical Church. Somewhat more specifically, I thought that Christian practice should take place within a body that is reasonably continuous with the church of the apostles. The Catholic Church stands in clearly continuity with the church of the apostles in a way that no Protestant communion does (94).

What kind of "continuity"? Historical continuity or continuity in faith? Suppose a castaway is stranded on a desert island. Ransacking the derelict ship for anything useful, he finds a Bible. He never read the Bible before. He has no Christian background. He's a blank slate. But he has nothing else to read, nothing else to pass the time, so he constantly reads that Bible. He becomes a Christian by reading the Bible. He has no historical continuity with the apostolic church, but he shares the faith of the apostolic church. That's what they have in common. 

Historical continuity is a mummified corpse. What's essential is continuity in faith. That transcends time and space. 
  
…I was convinced that there is an urgent practical necessity for a magisterium, for a living teaching authority to resolve disputes that threaten the unity of the church. (We can look to the history of mainline Protestantism over the past few decades for an illustration of this practical necessity) [95].

If that's "an urgent practical necessity," why hasn't God provided compelling evidence? God could make that more convincing by making that more explicit.  

The biblical case against Arianism, for example, is not cut-and-dried, nor is the biblical case in favor of Trinitarian dogma or the Chalcedonian definition of Christ's person (95). 

If that's why you think, why the prior commitment to these dogmas? If they aren't revealed truths, why take them for granted? 

I felt at the time that being a non-Catholic Christian would mean that nearly every theological question would be up for grabs, and that in practice this would mean I would just make  up my own theology from scratch (95-96).

That's dumb. We have 2000 years of historical theology. Begin by considering the theological paradigms already on the table. 

There are of course many visible, this-worldly institutions called "churches", but the Church writ large is an invisible entity made up exclusively of individuals who have a personal relationship with the Lord…a kind of Gnostic ecclesiology (105).

Catholics have a schizoid ecclesiology. They bifurcate "the Church" into two divergent churches: on the one hand is the church that does all the bad stuff. The church with all the corruption, contradictions, and blunders. On the other hand is the spotless Bride of Christ. The pure, indefectible, infallible church.  

They knew that in his High Priestly Prayer Christ's dying wish (as it were) was for the Church to be one as he and the Father were one, so that the world might see their unity as a sign of divine legitimacy and come also to believe (Jn 17). So they took schism deadly seriously, in marked contrast to the apathetic, unruffled attitude displayed by most Evangelical Calvinism (106).

i) Is the kind of unity in the church of Rome the kind of unity Jesus was talking about? 

ii) How does the church of Rome even remotely resemble the unity between the Father and the Son? That's a very damaging comparison if you think about it. 

iii) Is that what the world actually perceives when it views the church of Rome?

I came to realize (gradually) that I was a heretic–that "I'm not religious but I'm spiritual" was Gnosticism, the oldest and most harmful heresy in Christian history. God never told us to be "spiritual"; he told us to be "holy" (132).

That's pretty rich coming from a sect with the dogma of Mary's perpetual virginity, including her in partu virginity. Not to mention the whole ascetic tradition. A body-denigrating, world-denigrating piety. As a noted art historian observed:

The symbols by which early mediaeval art acknowledged the existence of natural objects bore unusually little relation to their actual appearance. But they satisfied the mediaeval mind. To some extent they were the outcome of mediaeval Christian philosophy. If our earthly life is no more than a brief and squalid interlude, then the surroundings in which it is lived need not absorb our attention. If ideas are Godlike and sensations debased, then our rendering of appearances must as far as possible be symbolic, and nature, which we perceive through our senses, becomes positively sinful. St. Anselm, writing at the beginning of the twelfth century, maintained that things were harmful in proportion to the number of senses which they delighted, and therefore rated it dangerous to sit in a garden where there are roses to satisfy the senses of sight and smell, and songs and stories to please the ears. Kenneth Clark, Landscape Into Art (Harper and Row 1986), 3.

There's always been this tension in Catholic theology. On the one hand the cult of virginity and the ascetic ideal. On the other hand, the sensuous riot of Baroque and Rococo churches and music. 

But then I confronted the historical fact that it was the Church (the apostles) that wrote the Bible (the NT), and I knew that there could not possibly be more in any effect than in its cause, so if they Church did not have infallibility, as Protestants maintained, then the Bible didn't either (134).

Ironic how Peter Kreeft commits the composition fallacy. Shouldn't a philosophy prof. be alert to such an elementary fallacy? 

And how could we be sure that the four Gospels we had were true and the many others (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas, or of Judas) were not (134)?

That's just so willfully obtuse. He doesn't even try to think through the issue. For starters, the Gospels of Thomas and Judas are necessarily spurious since they were written far too late to be authentic. Judas and Thomas had been dead for many decades. Does Kreeft bother to do the most rudimentary research? This is village atheist fare.  

The doctrine that blew me away the most was the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Not a single Christian denied it for one thousand years…How could the Holy Spirit have fallen asleep so badly for 1500 years that he let all Christians commit this ridiculous and egregious idolatry (145)? 

i) So we have polling data for what every single Christian believed for the first thousand years of church history. Where is that archived?

ii) Does the fact that Jews overwhelmingly reject Jesus mean the Holy Spirit has been napping? Does the fact that the real presence is widely rejected since the Reformation mean the Holy Spirit has been napping for the last 500 years?

In college, while already exploring things Catholic…I listened  to the sacred music of Palestrina for the first time…Clearly, this could only have come from angels, not mortals (I mean that literally.) It was the music of heaven…I loved the old Protestant hymns and still do; they are good water for thirsty souls, but this–this was great wine (140).

i) So heaven has Palestrina. Where does that leave Black Gospel music? In Purgatory or hell?

ii) How is it honest to compare Palestrina to Protestant hymnody? What about comparing Palestrina to Bach, Handel, and Mendelssohn–among others?  

A third Catholic surprise was reading my first Catholic saint. It was St. John of the Cross…I followed it up with the works by other Catholic saints: Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux; and Therese, the "little Flower"; as well as the classic Catholic works by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection…Why don't we have saints and believers like that?(140-41).

So the standard for saintliness are monks and nuns. Not devout fathers and mothers, husbands and wives. Isn't that a "Gnostic" ideal of piety? 

If the Catholics are wrong, then they've invented the most idiotic idolatry in history, worshipping wine and bowing down to bread as if it was God. That's an either-or as stark as Christ's claim to divinity: if it is false, it's fantastically false, and if it's true, it's terribly true. It's also like the Church's claim about herself: a tremendous truth if it's true and blatantly blasphemous if it's false. No other Christian church claims the infallibility and authority she does…The Catholic dogma about the Eucharist fit the same pattern (145-46).

That's a good way of putting it. 

I quickly learned that the disputed books were present in the Septuagint manuscript tradition…This shocked me, since I knew the Septuagint was the OT of the apostles and early Christians… (160-61).

i) That's like saying the Bible of a missionary is the translation he uses. 

ii) He commits a classic blunder by equating the books in a codex with the canon. For one corrective: 


In a bootstrapping maneuver, many Christians claim that the Bible establishes its own canon (164).

How about the bootstrapping maneuver Catholics apologists use to establish "the Church"? 

They can't use anything outside the canon itself lest they imply that it has authority over the canon (thus violating sola scriptura). [166]

When the disciples used their senses to recognize the Risen Lord, did that imply that sensory perception has authority over Jesus? 

Jesus left us an institution–people filling offices with derived authority–rather than a book (166).

How does he know that. Did he read it somewhere? Which book would that be?

The Church teaches that Christ gave to the apostles an office that had powers that include the power to make Christ truly present in the Eucharist (236).

That's what his sect teaches. That's not what the NT teaches. There's nothing in the NT about the bread and wine changing into the body and blood of Christ. 

Our Episcopal church in Waco used leavened bread for communion. One day, the bread was particularly dry, and so it was crumbling as people were receiving communion with crumbs falling on the ground. People ignored the crumbs that were accumulating on the ground; some crumbs may have even been walked on by people. The crumbs remained there until the end of the service. After the service, Lindsay, a friend of ours, and I went up and picked up the crumbs. We weren't sure if Christ was really present in the full sense at that point, but we thought that if he was, then just leaving him on the ground to be walked on was irreverent. From this experience, I could see that the Anglican and Episcopal lack of clarity on the nature of the eucharist had important practical ramifications. I was, for that reason, attracted to the Catholic Church's claim that God has provided a clear teaching on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and a corresponding clear standard for how the Eucharist should be treated (237). 

I commented on this before:


Now I'd like to make a different point: the practical ramifications of transubstantiation include all the Jews who were murdered on charges of Host desecration. 

16 comments:

  1. //I quickly learned that the disputed books were present in the Septuagint manuscript tradition…This shocked me, since I knew the Septuagint was the OT of the apostles and early Christians… (160-61).//

    There's so much wrong here I don't know where to begin. Just saying the word "Septuagint" doesn't give you a particular canon.

    //When the disciples used their senses to recognize the Risen Lord, did that imply that sensory perception has authority over Jesus? //

    Excellent point.

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  2. //We weren't sure if Christ was really present in the full sense at that point, but we thought that if he was, then just leaving him on the ground to be walked on was irreverent. //

    What he found as a reason to believe in transubstantiation, Protestants like myself find as a reason to reject transubstantiation. The crumbs can be stepped on. Eaten by mice and rats. Stolen and "desecrated" by unbelievers. The wine spilled on the floor and onto garments. People can still get drunk on allegedly transubstantiated wine. The bread and wine continue to show signs of aging and deterioration. Like mold growing on the bread and the wine continuing to ferment. The sharing of the cup can still spread diseases like the cold or flu (etc.) when one would think diseases would be killed by coming in contact with Jesus like lepers or the woman with the issue of blood in the Gospels.

    //They can't use anything outside the canon itself lest they imply that it has authority over the canon (thus violating sola scriptura). [166]//

    Another instance of a Catholic misrepresenting what Sola Scriptura teaches and entails. SS doesn't deny the reality and usefulness of extra-Scriptural evidence to come to reasoned conclusions. It merely affirms that Scripture is the highest authority because it alone is a sure and unquestionable source of inspired and infallible revelation in the possession of the church.

    //Why don't we have saints and believers like that?(140-41).//

    As a Calvinistic continuationist I have plenty of "heros" in the faith who were very godly. Not all of them were involved in apparent miracles, but some of them did. For example:

    Luther exorcised a demon out of a girl. He also successfully prayed for the healing of Philip Melanchthon of a serious illness and Frederick Myconius from the last stages of tuberculosis.

    Charles Spurgeon apparently operated at times in the gifts of the Spirit with the gift of the word of knowledge or word of wisdom.

    Other Calvinists seemed to have operated in the gifts of the Spirit.

    The charismatic covenanters
    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-charismatic-covenanters.html

    John Knox 1514-1572

    Robert Fleming 1630 -1694

    George Wishart 1513-1546

    A Reformation Discussion of Extraordinary Predictive Prophecy Subsequent to the Closing of the Canon of Scripture by the Session of the PRCE
    http://www.reformedpresbytery.org/books/prophecy/prophecy.htm

    Extraordinary Gifts and Church Officers
    http://www.swrb.com/newslett/actualNLs/PGET_ch3.htm

    John Calvin Apparently Received a Word of Knowledge from God
    http://charismatamatters.blogspot.com/2013/08/john-calvin-apparently-received-word-of.html

    CONTINUED

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    Replies
    1. Hi Annoyed Pinoy,

      Sorry, off-topic, but I sent you a message via Facebook.

      Delete
    2. I saw your post to my Trinity Notes blog, but not on facebook. As far as I know, we're not facebook friends. Maybe you contacted someone else.

      If you deem it off topic I'll accept that. My point was that Catholics like to point to their allegedly superior saints and the miracles associated with them to validate their claims to be the one true church. I was attempting to counter that with the fact that Protestants and those in the "Protestant" stream also have folks who were godly, did great works of charity AND some even operated in the supernatural just as alleged Catholic saints did. Some even more miraculously than the Catholic ones. One only needs to have two miracles associated with them (sometimes only indirectly) to be eligible to be canonized as a Catholic saint. Yet, there are "Protestants" (in the broadest sense of the word) who had far more miracles associated with them than Catholic "saints".

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    3. For a while I thought the second half of my comment was accidentally not being posted because of a website glitch. I appreciate your explanation. Otherwise I would have continued to attempt posting it for a few more hours.

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    4. BTW, to the Catholics who will read this thread, the "Protestants" I listed and were going to list don't even have to have certainly operated in the supernatural by the power of God. Just the mere fact that they MAY have done so weakens Catholic claims to being the true church because of its alleged miracles. The RCC is not that unique. Moreover, even some Catholic charismatics acknowledge that there are times when demons are associated with the presence or use of some Catholic paraphernalia (e.g. statues of saints, etc.).

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    5. Hi Annoyed Piony,

      No, I wasn't deeming your comment off-topic, but mine.

      I sent it to your "true" Facebook account.

      Delete
    6. Huh? Now I'm confused. You didn't block/erase my post? Also, which of your comments did you deem off-topic and why would you need to tell me in this thread? Finally, what do you mean by my "true" facebook account? You're being too cryptic for me.

      Delete
    7. Oh, I think I get it now. You sent me an off-topic comment to my facebook. Well, it wasn't me you sent it to. I never received anything. And I'd rather not disclose my facebook identity in this forum.

      Does this mean you didn't block/erase the 2nd half of my comment? If so, then I'll try posting it again. Or maybe it was Steve or blocked/erased it. If so, then that makes sense since it's specifically his blogpost (part 5 of 5).

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    8. 1. No, I haven't blocked or erased anything you've written.

      2. I simply meant my statement about sending you a message on Facebook was off-topic because this post is about Catholicism but my comment was about sending you a message on Facebook.

      3. It might be easier if I simply email you. Do you have an email address?

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    9. You can post your email address if you like. ;) I don't know why you would need to contact me. I'm not important enough nor my opinions profound enough for you to want to message me. Especially since you're blogposts are much more profound than anything I could compose.

      Now I'm really curious why the 2nd half of my comment isn't posting. Maybe it has something to do with the html code I'm using.

      Delete
    10. Sure, triabloggers@gmail.com. :) It's more of a personal question if that's okay.

      Maybe your comments got flagged as spam somehow? I don't know.

      Delete
    11. Part 2 and continuation of my first comment above. For some reason I haven't been able to post the following comment. Possibly because of the html of the links. So, instead of posting their links, I'll just point out that links to every book I mention in this comment can be found somwhere at my blog Charismata Matters.

      The Suppressed Evidence: Or, Proofs of the Miraculous Faith and Experience of the Church of Christ In All Ages, From Authentic Records of the Fathers, Waldenses, Hussites, Reformers, United Brethren, &c. by Thomas Boys


      The Ministry of Healing: Miracles of Cure in All Ages by A.J. Gordon

      The Scots Worthies by John Howie

      Andrew Murray had a healing ministry and wrote a book on the topic titled Divine Healing.

      For me the list includes non-Calvinists.

      R.A. Torrey one of the early presidents of the cessationist Moody Bible Institute had a quiet healing ministry. He too wrote a book titled Divine Healing.


      George Mueller received many answers to prayers including prayers for provision and (sometimes) physical healing.

      A.B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination (in which the famous A.W. Tozer was a member) had a healing ministry and wrote books and articles on the topic. Simpson wrote the books: The Gospel of Healing, as well as the book The Lord for the Body.

      I could go on and on listing "Evangelical" (VERY broadly speaking) and/or Charismatics/Pentecostals who had supernatural ministries. I've included many of them in my blogs.

      For example, Dr. (MD) Lilian B. Yeomans, E.E. Byrum, J.W. Byers, O.L. Yerty, G.C. Bevington, F.F. Bosworth, Charles Cullis, John G. Lake, Smith Wigglesworth, Charles S. Price, et al.

      Operating in the supernatural is not a sure sign one is pleasing to God (Matt. 7:21-23). Nor is it even necessary to be greatly pleasing to God. But if Catholics will point to holiness and/or miracles as an indication that God's Spirit is in operation in their denomination, then non-Catholic Christian groups also qualify since there have been godly and even supernatural workers in Protestant groups, Holiness Movement groups, Pentecostal groups, and Charismatics groups.

      Delete
  3. "If the Catholics are wrong, then they've invented the most idiotic idolatry in history, worshipping wine and bowing down to bread as if it was God."

    Yes. Indeed. I wish I had said that.

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  4. On the question of Abortion, things aren't nearly as cut an dry historically speaking as some Catholics seem to think. The distinction between a foetus with a "vegetative soul" and "rational soul" being an example.
    This article by Christopolous was worth the read. Perhaps medieval RCism wasn't as strong on abortion as RCs today...

    https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/667257

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