“Divine Revelation” Part 3: Methodological Considerations When Discussing “the Church” and “the mind of the Church”

http://reformation500.com/2014/02/24/divine-revelation-part-3-methodological-considerations-when-discussing-the-church-and-the-mind-of-the-church/:

I believe here that we are really close to being able to identify the heart of the issues between Roman Catholics and Protestants....

In your initial comments, you reference a Ratzinger phrase, “the living organism of the faith of all ages”, and you also somewhere reference “the mind of the Church”, failing to take into account a critical portion of thinking.

It’s not true to say that the New Testament writers were “somewhat confused”. I will grant that some patristic writers of the first three centuries were very much confused. Writers especially of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions just simply ignore this confusion – the thinking holds something like “these early writers were closer to the time of the Apostles, therefore they must have had the best understanding” – however, this does not follow at all. In the link that I provided here in this paragraph, I’ve cited many instances of this “confusion”, and many others could be provided....

“Roman” Catholicism is an aberration from Christianity and has been rejected throughout every phase of church history

I’m reproducing some responses I made to Andrew Preslar here, again on the broad topic of "divine revelation":

Defining “Divine Revelation” in Roman Catholic and Protestant Polemical Discussions, Part 2: what it is not

http://reformation500.com/2014/02/19/divine-revelation-in-roman-catholic-and-protestant-polemical-discussions-part-2/

Now, while a lack of mention of King David did not “disprove” his existence, this archaeological find certainly provides strong confirmation for the truth of the accounts given in the Bible. (I would consider archaeology to be a component of “historical criticism”. In the same way that “grammar” and “other historical sources” lend credibility to an account and help us to understand “what the text actually says” and “what it meant for the writer and the original audience”, so too does this kind of archaeological confirmation provide key information for us as we seek to understand how “divine revelation” works).

But on the other hand, “historical critical” methods can work to oppose an account as well. I’ve written in several places about both sides of this coin. While “historical criticism” as a methodology over the last 200 years has failed to exclude the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they have on the other hand greatly strengthened the veracity of the New Testament accounts.

These same kinds of methods, however, have not only worked to exclude things like an “early papacy” (especially the kind of “early papacy” that I grew up believing in, and which was prevalent in Roman Catholicism for hundreds and hundreds of years), but it is also enabling us to reconstruct what the actual early church was like in its beliefs, worship, leadership structure, and more. That is the whole point behind Brandon Addison’s excellent article outlining Peter Lampe’s work.

While this phenomenon does not in and of itself confirm or deny “divine revelation”, it certainly comports with how most normal people, with a good understanding of how the world around them works, would tend to view things.

Defining “Divine Revelation” in Roman Catholic and Protestant Polemical Discussions, Part 1

Over at my Reformation500 blog, I’ve been having a slow and informal discussion with Andrew Preslar (in some comments following an article that WSCal Grad Brandon Addison posted there some weeks ago, entitled “Extended Review of Peter Lampe’s “From Paul to Valentinus””).

This morning I posted what I hope to be the beginning of a discussion concerning “what exactly is ‘divine revelation’ in each of the two systems?”. Here’s the link to Part 1:

“Divine Revelation” in Roman Catholic and Protestant Polemical Discussions, Part 1.

Here is a snippet:

The “living organism” of “the faith of all ages”?

I’ve posted a new comment in the discussion I’m having with Andrew Preslar. I have some hope that this will continue and bring us to what some of the more fundamental issues are in these kinds of debates.

One selling point is that the Roman Catholic position is not the default position – it must be argued for – and he has said he’d like to try to do that. I’ve already outlined some of the core of my disagreement with him. And he seems interested in hanging in and having an honest discussion. I’m not going to make any promises, but he seems to have found “some common ground”, and so I’m willing to go with it.

So please, if you’re inclined, feel free to take a look and offer any questions you might have as things go forward.

“Talking past one another”? Or is it being evasive?

If you look pained, and close your eyes more
tightly, are you any closer to knowing what the
early church was like?

I’ve responded to Andrew Preslar at some length about the early church and “arguments from silence”.

Andrew –

First off, I appreciate the opportunity to comment on your blog. Thank you

If you are truly grateful, I would appreciate it if you would make some attempt to honestly respond to my questions below.

Regarding arguments from silence, I think that we might be talking past one another. You are referring to times when the extant record is silent on points which you believe would have been explicitly mentioned in those records at those times, if the papacy were something willed by Christ. Responding to such arguments from silence, as Catholics have often done, does not constitute arguing from silence.

Of course we are talking past each other. I am not just referring to something that “may have been willed by Christ”. Or let me ask you, how can you know what is “willed by Christ”?

The Roman Catholic reliance on anachronism

Andrew Preslar said:

You did not address Sobrino’s main criticism of Brown, Sullivan, Duffy, et al, which is their anachronistic definition of the term “bishop,” which confuses that which is accidental to the office with that which is essential, so to conclude that there were no bishops in the first century church.

Your use of the word "anachronism" would be funny if I didn't know how seriously you take all this. I certainly did address it, in the grammatical-historical way.

Aside from that, how in the world do you know what was "essential" to the office of bishop in the first century? I sincerely want to hear it from you. Because you can't know this except for two things: 1. a study of the history and linguistics, or 2. a ride in Bryan's magic phone booth. I'm convinced that for you, it's the latter.

And of course, you are here in all seriousness, reporting your fiction as if it were 100% historical fact.

This is a cautionary warning for any Reformed folks who may not be aware of this type of anachronistic usage among Andrew and his friends. Roman Catholics generally, but CTC folks particularly, are guilty of using contemporary concepts [for example, "that which is essential" to the bishop's office], and simply assuming that today's meaning of the word in Roman dogma was "in essence" the same as it was in the first century.

And here is the secret to their success: gullible people believe them.

It could have been that Peter was known to be away from Rome at the time that Paul wrote the Epistle. George Edmundson argues to that effect in The Church in Rome in the First Century, where he also argues that Peter was the first bishop of Rome.

Edmundson wrote in 1913; imagine going to a medical doctor who's most recent training was in 1913. He may get a few things right, but he's not going to be able to give you an x-ray or do a modern lab test. He has no antibiotics to prescribe.

It is remarkable that you would call Ignatius to witness while arguing against the Catholic understanding of the episcopacy.

I can do this because Ignatius doesn't mean the same thing by the word that you do; I am able to study this and know this and as a result, I do not have to be afraid of a single moment of history in the church. I do not need to look for reasons why contractictions may be "apparent" instead of "actual". I don't need to obediently submit my intellect to nonsensical, non-historical, non-Biblical dogmas like the Assumption of Mary.

I may embrace all of church history as my own.

Given Ignatius’ ecclesiology as expressed in these statements, he could not plausibly have written to a “church” in Rome that did not have episcopal leadership.

Given the unsettled leadership in Rome during those years, (evidence provided from Clement and Hermas, above, which you ignored), it doesn't surprise me at all that Ignatius didn't know who to write to over there.

Tim Troutman goes into more detail on the distinction between Orders in his article, “Holy Orders and the Sacrificial Priesthood.”

I go into more detail on the distinction between various orders in my article, Roman Bait-And-Switch on Orders.

The “Spigot Paradigm” vs the “Ephesians Paradigm”

Lately it has become fashionable not to actually argue for a position. As Bryan Cross said, in order to avoid “question-begging arguments” as we “approach the task of Catholic-Protestant reconciliation, we have to step back, in a way, from in-house arguments, and attempt to understand the disagreement as paradigmatic in nature. This requires that we attempt, insofar as possible, to compare the paradigms themselves, and seek to avoid trading arguments that presuppose one paradigm or the other”.

With that said, I have a helpful paradigm for Zrim, as he seeks to have a discussion with Andrew Presslar on the topic of “why be Roman Catholic, when I can be saved as a Protestant.

Andrew Preslar said to Zrim:

If there were a greater means of participation in that life (greater than you currently make use of), and if it were ordinarily necessary for all Christians to make use of these means, and if you found that to be not enough incentive…, then you have chosen some created thing over God, and cannot be saved, so long as you persist in that choice. Additionally, for that and any other mortal sin committed after Baptism, you do not have recourse to the sacramental means appointed for forgiveness and reconciliation, which places you and all Protestants in a very dangerous situation, re eternal salvation.

From a Protestant point of view, it may be helpful to consider two different paradigms here regarding what it means to receive grace from God. Call one the spigot paradigm, and call the other the Ephesians paradigm.

Under the spigot paradigm, the Roman Catholic Church has authority over the Sacraments, which means you can only get God’s grace when an authorized official of the Roman Catholic Church opens the spigot and lets dribs and drabs of grace out. This is evidenced in the source and summit of God’s Grace in the Holy Eucharist, (to which Andrew helpfully has pointed us). However, as James White has noted, “the effect of the Mass is limited, and … a person can draw near to the Mass over and over again” and still die in mortal sin. And yet, this ineffective “re-presentation” of supposedly the “source and summit” of Christ’s grace is enough for the less-than-totally-committed Roman Catholic to have to constantly be worrying for his or her salvation.

Under the Ephesians paradigm, God, is far more generous with his grace. “He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us….”

So, from Zrim’s point of view, if his goal is to receive God’s grace, he’s definitely in a better position adhering to the Ephesians paradigm than the Spigot paradigm.

“Direct evidence” and “Keys of the Kingdom” in Context

My interlocutors at Called to Communion have been challenging me on “direct evidence”, suggesting that their “interpretations” of Matthew 16:19, for example, are exactly what Matthew meant, and that the things I am suggesting represent merely “fallible human opinion”.

In this comment, my intention is to show that the situation they present is not what it appears to be, and is, in fact, precisely the opposite of what they say it is.

Andrew Presslar (#442):

while the two of you appear to be in agreement on his central point; i.e., that the Protestant IP yields only interpretive opinions, not conclusions for which the assent of faith is warranted, you are not agreed on the significance of this point.

First off, some folks here use the phrase “binding and loosing” as if Christ, at Matthew 16 and 18, gave “the Roman Catholic Church” some power to “bind consciences” in the form of “dogma”. But this is not the slam-dunk you think it is, and in fact, in the spirit of “words mean things”, let’s look at the words.

It should be noted that, temporally, the events described in Acts and in Paul’s letters occurred [in time], that is, before Matthew wrote his gospel. And so if we assume Matthew is the Apostle Matthew (and I’m not going to argue against that assumption), we can assume at least that Matthew was (a) present for Jesus’s teaching, (b) aware of the intervening history, and (c) addressing some present audience in some situation (in the 60’s AD).

He is writing his Gospel. As a person who is literate and who is going to write, he is aware of other “biographies” that are written about other founding figures of philosophical schools, “something like a charter document which can provide definition for the movement involved and provide a point of entry for those who might wish to align themselves with the movement” (Nolland Commentary on Matthew, 19). Given the technology involved (i.e., quills and parchments”), he knows this is a major undertaking. He has done some research to know, for example, the genealogy he recounts at the beginning of the Gospel. He is aware of Jesus’s preaching about the Kingdom of heaven. He himself became a follower. He experienced Jesus’s teaching first-hand. He saw the events in Jerusalem; he may have seen the crucifixion. He definitely saw the Risen Lord. He was present at Pentecost. He was an eyewitness to Peter’s first sermon, and likely the events at least through Acts 8:1. He likely, too, was around for the conversion of Cornelius (Acts 10), Peter’s arrest and release in Acts 12.

We know he was very careful in the writing of his Gospel. Nolland notes, “the complexity of the patterns of cross reference within the Gospel itself reveal themselves only to those who give patient and repeated attention to the text. Matthew seems to have understood himself to be creating a foundational text to which people would feel the need to return again and again”.

The Gospel of Matthew is, in itself, a literary masterpiece of the ancient world.

The major issue of that time was the admission of the gentiles into the church, and how that was to be accomplished. Nolland writes:

Matthew tells the story of Jesus, but he writes for a situation in the early church which belongs after the death and resurrection that brought Jesus’ ministry to an end. The disciples of Matthew’s day do not live directly within the story of Jesus. There are, necessarily, adjustments involved in moving from the one situation to the other. For the new situation Matthew wants to emphasize that what was gained with the presence of Jesus is not lost. The Twelve are authorized and empowered to replicate Jesus’ preaching and therapeutic ministry. Peter as their leader will have in his hand the keys of the kingdom, and along with other disciples he will be in a position to bind and loose: to prohibit and command in a manner that is backed by God himself. Only in Matthew of the Gospels does Jesus directly anticipate the (postresurrection) formation of a church with its corporate life; otherwise only the structured life of the Twelve anticipates this future. And Jesus promises to continue to be with the disciples in their corporate life and in their mission to all nations (pg 43)

At this point in the life of the early church (and the apostles), the admission of the Gentiles into the church was a far more important issue than the creation of dogmas. Matthew does not introduce the concept of “binding and loosing” to be applied to the creation of dogmas many years down the road. “Binding and loosing” had a very specific meaning; “the kingdom of heaven” had a very specific meaning. It is a major event – the major event of the times – that the admission of the Gentiles to the very Jewish (at the time) church, is the breaching of a major barrier. Matthew is telling his largely Jewish audience that, in “the church that Christ founded”, Peter has the authority to let “the nations” (i.e. “the Gentiles”) into the Kingdom.

We know this is the issue that is going on at the time, because (as Scripture interprets Scripture), it is cross-referenced all through Acts and Paul’s letters. Consider Ephesians 2:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh) the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility [between Jews and Gentiles] (Eph 2:11-16).

In commenting on this text, Harold Hoehner writes:

“The prepositional phrase ‘in his flesh’ refers to the crucified Christ and is parallel with the phrase ‘”by the blood of Christ’ in verse 13 and ‘through the cross’ in verse 16…It was only in his flesh that the law was rendered inoperative. It shows the locale of this accomplishment.” (374)

“In the present context kainos (“new”, v. 15) is used to show that Christ has created a whole new person entirely different from the two former persons, namely, Jews and Gentiles. It is not that Gentiles become Jews as Gentile proselytes did in pre-NT times, nor that Jews become Gentiles, but both become “one new person” or “one new humanity,” a third entity” (378-379).

“The new corporate person, who is called “one body” in verse 16, refers to the church…Later in 4:13, Paul does picture the two groups, Jews and Gentiles, as a single individual of a mature person… [The phrase “the fullness of Christ” in this verse means “maturity,” a concept which is also found in other places in the New Testament, notably Hebrews 6.] This is a new body of Christians who make up the church. This creates unity among believers in the church, for they are in Christ. It is this community to which Jesus made reference when he said to Peter, “I will build my church” (Matt 16:18)” (379-380).

The “keys of the kingdom”, and the effect of “binding and loosing” referred to this phenomenon. They have a specific meaning at a specific time, for the accomplishing of specific events.

In the world of “direct evidence”, who here thinks that Matthew, writing these words, talking of Peter’s role, and Peter’s acts, has in mind the specific situation that is talked about here, in his lifetime? And who can imagine, when one has in mind the specific acts here, that some promise of some future authority to create dogmas is just mere speculation?

How can Matthew possibly have in mind the kinds of things you are talking about, as here:

Thus, Mike points out that (paraphrasing): without an interpretive authority that is protected from teaching error when definitively stating the locus and meaning of divine revelation, every definitive statement about the (complete) locus and (synthetic) meaning of divine revelation would be only an interpretive opinion.

Matthew is talking about the specific events of his lifetime – the coming together of Jews and Gentiles in “the church that Christ founded”, and you are the one actually who is speculating about some future “interpretive authority that is protected from teaching error”.

As Nolland “fallibly” relates, “the present keys imagery has as its starting point the need for the gates of the kingdom of heaven to be opened if people are to find entry”. And of course, this is a leading Protestant interpretation. Peter used the keys to admit the Gentiles into the Kingdom of heaven.

Does it make sense to say that Matthew is working to solve some present conflict in the church (i.e., admitting the Gentiles for the first time)? How then do these words (as you’ve alluded) have anything at all to do with “the Magisterium”?

You do not dispute the point, but proceed to offer a bevy of interpretive opinions (often by proxy) about revealed matters, e.g., the nature of the Church, the nature of God.

What I’ve offered here, in this comment, is far more consonant with what the Scriptures say; and what Rome offers about these verses somehow bolstering its authority, is what’s speculative.

the reason that you are inclined, on occasion, to speak in that way is simple: The topic at hand is divine revelation, and to treat that revelation, as to its locus and meaning, as though it were a matter of mere human opinion would be at least as incongruous as an unauthorized, fallible interpreter setting himself up as the oracle of God to the Church. But that is precisely what you, the unauthorized, fallible interpreter, have to do in order to propound your interpretive opinions as something that calls for the assent of faith (“thus saith the Lord”), the latter being precisely the response that we know we should have to the doctrinal content of the word of God.

Look at the “method” that I have employed in this comment. The actual words that are used draw their meaning from the historical context in which they are written. Is there some medieval style “fourfold meaning” to the text? If there is, that “meaning” is totally disconnected from the historical context in which they are written. If there is some connection between what Matthew is writing and “the Magisterium”, it is merely allegorical interpretation. It cannot be exegeted from the text.

You are waxing lyrical about “the locus and meaning” of “divine revelation”, and my own supposed fallibility, but given all the emphasis that’s put on “direct evidence” who, really, is dealing more directly with the evidence in the text here?

Keep in mind the paradigm of Acts 2: we are (Peter is) reporting on events that you have seen with your own eyes. Scripture itself provides the interpretation of these acts of God in history.

Christ did not say to the earliest church, “I give you my authority”

Following up with my recent comments about Larry Hurtado’s work and in the context of what he’s called “earliest Christianity” (basically the first 100 years of Christianity), I want to mention a comment by K Doran, who provided the first comment in Andrew Preslar’s response to R. Scott Clark and Robert Godfrey had on “the Lure of Rome”. Doran is wrong in this comment:

One additional point is that the data of antiquity is sparse — it is almost certain that the vast majority of what was written has been lost, and that much of what was lived and believed was never written in the first place. In light of this sparseness, arguments that the data do not contain sufficiently explicit references to the precise definitions of transubstantiation, the papacy, etc before, say the late 300s, are completely useless arguments from silence. They tell us nothing either one way or another. Give me the same sample size from 30 A.D. to 330 A.D. that we have from 330AD through 630AD, and then we can talk clearly about development on subtle issues from the very early church to the church of late antiquity. But, with the data as it stands, all we can say is: (1) as soon as the data set gets rich in the late 300s, it looks quite obviously non-protestant even on subtle issues; (2) no one during that time complained that the obviously “Catholic” teachings were corruptions; (3) many people at the time did explicitly and implicitly state that these “Catholic” teachings had always been taught; and (4) the sparse data from the first 300 years do not by any means contradict what was so clearly taught in the late 300s and beyond (unless, again, one is to abuse the statistically impossible argument from silence in that sparse data).

                                                 

In light of the above, the protestant approach to the data of antiquity is very inadequate in comparison to the Catholic one. There is a deep sense in which the majority of the data is Catholic. There is a deeper sense in which the Catholic church has had the confidence to be intellectually honest about the sparse data, applying arguments from silence when and where the data itself permits it, and ignoring silly arguments from silence where the data itself do not. I think this intellectual maturity is what many converts notice, even if they can’t explain it in words; to compare the Catholic embrace of the “mean” of history with the Protestant attempt to find a tiny niche in antiquity to call its own, is an eye-opening experience.

Rather, the New Testament provides for us an embarrassment of riches with respect to our knowledge of the earliest Church and antiquity. Roman Catholics like K Doran make a fundamental mistake in holding on to what Hurtado refers to the darkened pre-Constantinian centuries.

What’s really happening is that, in the first 100 years of church history, we see a picture of Christ-worship and an authority structure in the earliest church that is totally turned on its head, not by “subtle issues” as Doran says, but with true violence. Not all of it was intentional, but some of the Rome-ward and Pagan-ward drift was quite intentional.

There is no need for Protestants to make “arguments from silence” with respect either to “authority” or to what “the church that Christ founded” was really like. The Roman story – and even the Anglican story on “the episcopacy” has changed in recent years to reflect what’s now known about what he calls “the historical phenomenon” of both “Christ devotion” and the earliest church.

Both are now subtly fudging their account of how the episcopal structure came into being. It's important to note just how this fudge is being produced. 

Roman Catholics are fond of saying that the Roman Church is “The sole Church of Christ” that is, [the Church] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter’s pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (subsistit in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him…”

But as I noted last week, that’s a bait and switch. So too is the Anglican conception of “orders”. Some time ago, I cited Roger Beckwith in his work, “Elders in Every City: The Origin and Role of the Ordained Ministry” (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press ©2003). Beckwith [an Anglican] noted what he called “fuzzy language” in the preface to the Ordinal in the Book of Common Prayer to describe the existence of “Bishops, Priests, and Deacons” in the church:

“It is evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and the ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church” Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.”

Of this statement, Beckwith says:

This is a very carefully phrased statement which, through loose interpretation, has been misrepresented both by its defenders and by its critics.

For, in the first place, it does not say that this is evident to those “diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors’; in other words, it is evident from Scripture and the Fathers taken together, but not necessarily from one of the two taken singly. If we have difficulty finding the threefold ministry in the New Testament taken by itself, the preface does not say that we should be able to find it there.

In the second place, the preface does not say that “by the Apostles’ decision there have been those Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church” but from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church”; in other words, from the period before the last of the apostles died there have been three orders of ordained ministers; and the last of the apostles, St John, is stated by Irenaeus (Against Heresies 3:3;4) to have lived until the reign of Trajan, who did not become emperor till AD 98. Since the threefold ministry was [evident] when Ignatius of Antioch was writing his letters, about AD 110, it can hardly have arisen later than the beginning Trajan’s reign, in other words, later than the end of the apostolic age. So the preface to the Ordinal is stating the simple truth in saying that it dates from the apostle’s time. But how far the apostles were responsible for the development which took place is left an open question (Beckwith pgs 9-10).

Francis Sullivan, evidently in agreement with Beckwith and Kilmartin [whom I’ve cited earlier] and a raft of other modern scholarship on this topic of “authority in the earliest church”, concludes his work “From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church” (New York, Mahwah, NJ: The Newman Press, © 2001 by The Society of Jesus of New England [Jesuits]):

While most Catholic scholars agree that the episcopate is the fruit of a post-New Testament development, they maintain that this development was so evidently guided by the Holy Spirit that it must be recognized as corresponding to God’s plan for the structure of his Church (230).

On the contrary, the earliest history of the church shows a completely different “structure”, put into place by the Apostles and the earliest disciples. It was this “structure” that was cast aside in favor of an Episcopal structure that has its roots not in the authority structure that Christ left with his apostles, but rather, with the pagan and Roman world around them. As such, it is not a “divine institution” in any way, and the Reformers were clearly in the right to cast off the accretions.

Christ did not say to the earliest church, “I give you my authority”. He said, “go, and I will be with you”. There’s a big difference.