Posted on 02/09/2015 12:47:13 PM PST by RnMomof7
Perhaps the most important aspect of the continuing controversies between Protestants and Catholics is the area of epistemology, or how we human beings know things--in this case, how we know divine truth. The question "How do you know?" is central to the Catholic polemic as it is presented to Protestants by some of the former's ablest contemporary defenders. 1 Unfortunately, these apologists not only commit a fundamental error in the target they direct this attack against, but they also miss a fatal flaw in their own logic.
The first mistake lies in the confusion of modern "evangelical" Christianity--almost universally identified by Catholic apologists as "fundamentalism"--with the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Many Catholic apologists have honed to near perfection the technique of blasting to smithereens the anti-creedal, anti-historical, anti-intellectual positions of "Bible-Only" fundamentalists. By focusing their attention on the "no creed but Christ" foolishness of the latter and wrongly equating it with the classical Protestant formal principle of Sola Scriptura, they attempt to expose what they believe to be a glaring inconsistency in something they rather generically call "the Protestant view". 2
After discarding this caricature as hopelessly false, the defenders of Rome then attempt to establish the authority of their Church by building a step-by-step inductive argument, or more simply stated, by gratuitously piling up "historical" facts as if such can stand on their own outside of their basic interpretive framework. In so doing, they ironically end up exposing a basic inconsistency in their own apologetic! This inconsistency appears when the Catholic principle of how humans know divine truth meets its Protestant opponent on the field of historical battle. Let us try to follow their reasoning.
The Bible--"Just Another Ancient Book"?
The argument usually begins by admitting up front that it is not going to treat the Scriptures as if they are divinely inspired, but merely as legitimate historical documents. It then proceeds to build a chain of "purely" historical evidence--passages of Scripture, quotations from early Christians and Councils, etc--which is supposed to show that Christ instituted a Church with certain properties, properties which are today found only in the Roman ecclesiastical hierarchy.
In a debate on Sola Scriptura with Patrick Madrid (then of Catholic Answers), James White asked Madrid how he could know that the Roman Church is the one true Church. Madrid responded as follows:
This is how I know, Mr. White. I can look independent of what I see in Scripture. In fact, I'm not going to even treat Scripture as an inspired document for the moment, just for the sake of argument. I'm going to look at whether or not a man named Jesus Christ lived. Can I prove that historically? Yes. Can I prove that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead and appeared to many people who as eyewitnesses claimed that He died and rose from the dead? I can prove that. In two minutes I can't prove it for your satisfaction, but I think we would all agree that those things are true. I can demonstrate through non-Christian, unbiased sources, in fact sometimes actually biased against the Christian position, that Jesus Christ instituted a church. We can look at the writings of these early Christians, not only the apostles but also the men and women in the post-apostolic era. I can look at the Scripture and see what, independent of whether or not I believe it is inspired, I can look and see a description of the church that Jesus established. All of you know the verse in Matthew 16 verse 18, "On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." Mr. White and I would argue all night long over what the rock is, but the fact is Jesus established a church. The next point is that as I look at Scripture I see that the church is described as having certain functions, certain attributes, certain characteristics, certain jobs that it has to perform, and I can compare and find out, well, historically, yes, I can show that that was done, through the writing of the Scriptures. So if I believe that Jesus is God, and I believe that His promise is true that He founded a church, then I have to say, this is the next step, I have to say, does that church, is there a church today which fits that description which is doing all the things that Jesus said. If that's true, if I can find that, and I have, by the way, it's the Catholic Church, then I know that what is described here in this book is the same church that I see today. So when that church tells me, Jesus said in Luke 10:16, "He who listens to you listens to Me, he who refuses to hear you refuses to hear Me," when I hear that Church speak I know that it is Jesus speaking through the church.
Notice that Madrid's argument follows the familiar evidentialist pattern of much of "evangelical" Protestantism, though it is used by him not to establish the authority of the Bible, but of the Roman Church 3 --a fact which reveals that there are two competing ultimate authorities in the debate: Sola Scriptura and the Catholic Magisterium. It is then marshalled against a caricature of the Protestant position--which, it is said, amounts to believing the Bible is inspired simply "because it says it is". 2 I quote Madrid again, from his essay "Sola Scriptura: A Blueprint for Anarchy":
Another problem for Sola Scriptura is the canon of the New Testament. "There's no inspired table of contents" in Scripture that tells us which books belong and which ones don't. That information comes to us from outside Scripture. Our knowledge of which books comprise the canon of the New Testament must be infallible; if not, there's no way to know for sure if the books we regard as inspired really are inspired. it must be binding; otherwise folks would be free to have their own customized canon containing those books they take a fancy to and lacking the ones they don't. And it must be a part of divine revelation; if it's not it's merely a tradition of men, and if that were so, Protestants would be forced into the intolerable position of championing a canon of purely human origin.
The Catholic doesn't have this problem, claim Madrid and the others, because he has an external authority--the Church--to tell him that the Bible is inspired and which books are contained in it. Madrid continues:
Sola Scriptura becomes "canon" fodder as soon as the Catholic asks the Protestant to explain how the books of the Bible got into the Bible. Under the Sola Scriptura rubric, Scripture exists in an absolute epistemological vaccuum, since it and the veracity of its contents "dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church." [quoting the Westminster Confession of Faith]. If that's true, how then can anyone know with certitude what belongs in Scripture in the first place? The answer is, you can't. Without recognizing the trustworthiness of the Magisterium, endowed with Christ's own teaching authority (c.f., Matt. 16:18-19; 18:18; Luke 10:16) guided by the Holy Spirit (John 14:25-26; 16:13), and the living apostolic Tradition of the Church (1 Cor. 11:1; 2 Thess. 2:15, 2 Timothy 2:2), there is no way to know for certain which books belong in Scripture and which do not. As soon as Protestants begin to appeal to the canons drawn up by this or that Father, or this or that council, they immediately concede defeat, since they are forced to appeal to the very "testimony of man and Church" that they claim not to need.
The problem with this line of reasoning should be manifestly obvious. Notice the numerous Scriptural references Madrid cites as part of his proof that we need the Church to tell us what the Scriptures are. Since he has already told us that no one (particularly Protestants, of course) can know the Scriptures apart from the witness of the Church, how then can he cite these passages of Scripture as part of his "proof" for how he knows those Scriptures in the first place?
The problem is particularly acute when we examine the central passage of Scripture Madrid cited--Matthew 16:18-19. These verses supposedly imply that the Church will be infallible (so that the gates of Hades will not prevail against it). But on the Catholic premise that the infallible witness of the institutional body of bishops is necessary in order for one to "know for sure" that the book of Matthew is legitimate while, say, the Gospel of Thomas is not, how can the book of Matthew be used as part of a "proof" of the existence of that infallible body of bishops? Thus, the Roman apologist uses Scripture to support his claims about the infallible Church and then inconsistently asserts that no one can know what Scripture is until the infallible Church tells him so!
These facts show us that despite the assertion that the authority of the Roman Church can be "proven" by the use of the New Testament records "merely" as legitimate historical records, exactly the opposite is occurring. Madrid and all Catholic apologists who use this type of argument are tacitly assuming from the get-go that they "know for sure" what books are trustworthy historical records, nay, even infallible historical records! On what basis do they reject the numerous heretical writings, many of which also claim to be presenting the "catholic" (universal) faith?
Those Marvelous, Unbiased, Infallible Catholic Historians
But the problems don't stop with this disingenous use of Scripture.4 Catholic apologists treat all of Church history with the same question-begging, "neutral" evidentialism. I will not even attempt to get into detailed refutations of Catholic historical points as historical points. Such is beyond the limited scope of this essay, and at any rate, has been done by others far better than I ever could. 5 My focus is on the inconsistent epistemology that is used by the Catholic apologists.
If we were to take the principle that such apologists apply exclusively against Sola Scriptura and make it into a general principle, it would be this: infallible external confirmation is a prerequisite for any claim to "know for sure" that a chosen ultimate authority is the correct one. Very well. If this principle is true, we should rightly expect Catholics to jump at the chance to show us such an infallible external proof for their Church, especially if they are going to parade through the town square proclaiming that Sola Scriptura is invalid because it has no infallible external proof. It seems obvious that if the identity and supreme authority of Scripture must be "proven" by means of an infallible external authority, then so must the identity and supreme authority of "the Catholic Church".
Oddly, this challenge goes unanswered. Though Catholic apologists often like to point out that even heretics quote the Bible in support of their errors, I have yet to find even one Catholic apologist who honestly attempts to grapple with the fact that many heretics (both past and present) also claim to be "the Catholic Church". 6 With tongue in cheek, I must ask these apologists how they can "know for sure" that the particular organization they are defending is the real "Catholic Church". How do they "know for sure" that the Protestant Reformers--or for that matter, the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses--weren't right after all?
Never ones to follow the supposedly Mormon-esque "I know its true because I feel it in my heart" tactic they wrongly attribute to classical Protestants, these heroically "objective" warriors tell us they have an answer to our query. They ask us to wait patiently while they zealously weld into place beam after beam of historical data, following a blueprint only they can see. Soon, they point proudly to the veritable skyscraper they have built, and note with triumph that its shadow overwhelms the pitiful shack of Protestant "novelties" that were seemingly spun from whole cloth barely five centuries ago.
Unfortunately for them, this massive edifice of historical trivia turns out to be utterly useless as a "proof". This is so because the very apologists who are compiling the evidence are not themselves infallible, and so, on their own criterion of knowledge, they cannot really "know for sure" that they are dealing with history fairly. How do they "know for sure" that they have not left some relevant historical facts out of the picture, or allowed their own peculiar biases to warp their reading of history, or perhaps even that the "historical" sources they are drawing upon are not clever frauds which have simply not been detected yet? 7
All these questions reveal that the use of historical evidences as a ground of faith in the trustworthiness of the Roman institution is a well-meaning, but nevertheless misguided tactic. Such evidences do have their place--as warrants, or supports, of the trust these Catholics already had in their Church (although they can still be challenged by Protestants). But if, as the Roman defenders tell us, the warrants for our faith must be infallible, these warrants can never serve as the foundations, since they, like the apologists who adduce them, are fallible.
If one still doubts the validity of my reasoning here, just ask why, if the historical skyscraper produced by Catholic apologists is really so incredible, really so "obvious", why does it not convince Protestants like James White, who is at least as well-informed about Church history as Patrick Madrid? And why can a James White or a William Webster produce similar skyscrapers that appear "obvious" to Protestants but not to Catholics? One begins to suspect that it is just not enough to say one's faith is true because it is "historical".
Conclusion
The claim that the identity and supreme authority of the Roman Catholic institutional Church can be established to be true solely by the use of non-inspired historical writings (which include those writings known as "the Bible") is false for two reasons.
First, it tacitly assumes the very thing that it is supposed to be proving. Both Catholics and Protestants take the Scriptures as reliable sources of information about God even if any given individuals in either camp cannot produce external supports for it. Protestants at least admit that this is what they are doing. Catholics, on the other hand (particularly the apologists), propose to treat Scripture "only as a historical document", which they then use to build up the authority of their Church. But in so doing, they ignore the fact that they are assuming that they "know" what books constitute "Scripture"--the very thing they deny that can be done apart from their Church!
Second, the claim that the identity and supreme authority of the Roman Catholic institutional Church can be established to be true solely by the use of non-inspired historical writings neglects to factor into its equation the fact that historical arguments are by their nature fallible, since they are constructed by fallible people who can never know all the facts and their inter-relationships with perfect clarity.
Thus, the apologetic tactic used by many Roman Catholic apologists today actually undermines the very "certainty of faith" it is supposed to safeguard. The Catholic tells the Protestant that he cannot know that Scripture is trustworthy since he doesn't have an infallible Church to vouchsafe the canon to him--that he has only a "fallible collection of infallible books". But the Protestant need not be nervous about admitting the truth of the last phrase, for he is still in a better epistemological position! He can simply reverse the argument and point out that the Catholic cannot know that Rome is the true Church, since all he has is "a fallible collection of (possibly false) historical trivia".
Hence, like the fundamentalists they so vehemently oppose, the argument of today's Catholic apologists rests in what one of their number, Patrick Madrid, termed "an absolute epistemological vaccuum". The irony is too delicious to ignore.
where does the free will part come in??
How do you know they are not bothered by it? Have you met them all, and asked each one? No, you say, you haven't? I see, so you really don't know for sure, you just made a blanket statement, without really having a clue what you are talking about. That's ok, I expect that from you. I am a proud member of the 27th United Fellowship of the Navigators 3rd Division of the Headquarters of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Sleepy Green Meadows 1933 Version Church. Before they let me in, I had to say that backwards 10 times, without error. Being as I am a sharp guy, it only took me 5 minutes to learn. That's a long title, but we are all close to God. It's beautiful. We just returned from preaching the Gospel. Guess who we were preaching to?😄😃😇 That was beautiful too. I think I will do it again in a couple days😀😊🆒 You know how I love to preach🔊
Your interpretation has some problems. First of all Jesus used the phrase "my words are spirit" and "the flesh profiteth nothing" in the same conversation that they were talking about "eating His flesh". The focus at that point was His statement "eat my flesh". Why would you inject your statement "Flesh also means our carnal desires" into that conversation? The inference is not in that passage. Nor is it pertinent to that conversation.
>>The Protestant error is that here Jesus is discrediting the Eucharist as His body. This is not true because if Christ's flesh had profited us nothing, He would never have taken flesh for us nor died in the flesh for us.<<
Once again you inject an inference not found in the conversation. Jesus wasn't discrediting the "remembrance of Him". Throughout scripture we see that "eating the word" refers to learning and internalizing His word. Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and John were all told to "eat the scroll". They didn't physically eat the paper. Nor was Jesus talking about eating His physical flesh.
Nor the scroll itself. Did you or anyone you know hold up a Bible and say "this is God's word"? Did you mean the paper or the information it contained?
>>However, at the Last Supper, Jesus speaks very clearly and then eats the unleavened bread. He literally ate it.<<
He literally ate the bread. If He meant that bread was actually His flesh He would have been eating Himself. If He meant that wine was in reality His physical blood He would have been sinning against the law by doing so. He was still under the Old Testament laws as were the apostles and eating blood was a sin.
>>What flesh could Jesus be talking about? There are only five options: 1. His living flesh 2. His corpse 3. our flesh 4. metaphorically as in "sins of the flesh" 5. the flesh of animals<<
We can summarily dismiss 3,4, and 5. They were not the subject of the conversation.
>>Case 1. If we profit (i.e. gain) nothing from His flesh, the the Word made flesh profits us nothing. The death of His body on the cross profits us nothing. This is clearly wrong.<<
Whoa there. Why stray from the conversation and include anything other then what was being discussed at the time which was His statement eat my flesh"? Why would you include His death on the cross. It's not part of the conversation.
>>case 3. makes sense<<
Not to me. Where in the conversation was there anything mentioned about "our flesh"? Anything other then the topic which was being discussed which was His statement "eat my flesh" is injecting something that isn't there.
The topic of the conversation was His statement "eat my flesh". In His explanation to the disciples regarding that statement He said "my words are spirit the flesh profits nothing". The only logical inference can be that He was explaining that once again He was not talking about physical flesh but that He was talking spiritually. Spiritually we "eat the word" by taking in the information which is found in scripture just as Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and John.
So your 5 options are not the only options. The other option is that He was saying internalize the word of God just as was the case for Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and John. Understand and internalize the truth and the meaning of my death and resurrection.
Not true. All churches I've been in preach against it........and remarriage even though we all recognize it as adultry...does your new 1933 sect O.K. that too???
Catholics weasel around that one with annulments.
It allows Catholics church sanctioned break up or a marriage, ie. DIVORCE.
Read His statement word by word "eat.......my.......flesh". That was the statement under discussion. Eating the flesh profits nothing. The flesh profits nothing if you actually eat it.Proverbs 4:20 My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. 21 Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. 22 For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.
John 4:34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
Jeremiah 15:16 Thy were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.
Hebrews 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. 14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
1 Corinthians 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
WHOA MR. I love to have no rules....I made no accusations whatsoever...my post was in the form of a question....Does your 1933 sect O.K. divorce after remarriage.....something against those "Catholic" rules????simple question....do they O.K. adultry or do they agree (for a change) with Catholicism??????
If He did eat Himself, yes, He would have sinned.
Consuming blood was strictly forbidden by God, well before the Law was given even.
Don't eat the blood, the life is in the blood
Genesis 9:4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life , that is, its blood.
Leviticus 3:17 It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwelling places, that you eat neither fat nor blood.”
Leviticus 7:26-27 Moreover, you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwelling places. Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.”
Leviticus 17:10-14 “If any one of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.
“Any one also of the people of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among them, who takes in hunting any beast or bird that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.
Leviticus 19:26 “You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes.
Deuteronomy 12:16 Only you shall not eat the blood ; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
Deuteronomy 12:23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life , and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.
Deuteronomy 15:23 Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.
Acts 15:12-29 And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,
“‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’
Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”
Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter:
“The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
Matthew 26:29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
Mark 14:25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Luke 22:18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
Are you saying that Jesus broke the very Law He handed down from Mt. Sinai, and that He said not the smallest jot or tittle would pass away from, the Law that He came to FULFILL?
That's the Law He broke when He ate Himself?
Say, is that official teaching of the Catholic church? Where in the Catechism of the Catholic church can that be found?
That wouldn't be YOPIOCCC now would it?
Before they let you in you had to denounce your true faith 10 times which is the same as repeating theirs backwards and because you just think that you're sharp....you did it....sad.
WOW...again you slept through religion class...to obtain an annulment in the Catholic church you must have grounds and show that a legitimate marriage did not take place. Was the bride your second cousin, was she married before, did she refuse to accept the possibility of bearing children, was she forced by circumstances to enter the marriage, was she qualified to recieve the sacrament of Matrimony, etc, etc, etc...it is not easy and in fact, right now, there is a gigantic effort in the Vatican to relook at the remarriage question.......(they won't)
Excuse me sir. Let me quote you again, in case you may have forgotten what you wrote. "Protestants aren't really bothered by divorce and remarriage even though we all recognize it as adultry...does your new 1933 sect O.K. that too???" Now sir, in catholic school, if there was one thing those nuns taught me to do, it was to read and write. I looked at your own post, which I have now quoted to you twice, and yet you still say you made no accusations whatsoever? If that isn't a clear case of catholic speak, then we need to bottle it and sell it, and make some good money.
I never said I disagree with 100% of what catholics say, only about 90%.
I never said I was a "no rules" kind of guy, only that I love to break catholic rules, like I never go to mass, I never go to a priest to confess my sins. I do not pray to the holy saints. I do not do the rosary, I don't pay attention to feast days. So, I do indeed break those man made rules. In order to get into my "church" as you call it, I needed to renounce my non faith and get true faith. It was not sad, it was wonderful. Well, I have to go now. I have people to preach to, most of whom belong to another religious persuasion, which will remain unnamed. 😄😇😃🆒
pretty blue eyes....gg
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