Replies

“Nonsense. Protestants accept plenty of doctrine from the Catholic church and the priests and bishops therein.”

Your statement is fraught with fatal ambiguity. We “accept” as binding only those doctrines which can be confirmed from Scripture. All that means is that two readers of the Scripture, one Catholic, and one Protestant, can arrive at the same conclusions regarding the text. The Bible teaches the Trinity. It does not teach transubstantiation, not as Aquinas formulated it and not as Trent anathematized the rejection of it.

Therefore, all such “acceptances” need to be specifically qualified. Was it there in the Bible, from the moment it was penned? Or was it invented at a later time and anachronistically read back into the text without actual justification in the text? We do not “accept” the latter, though in non-controversial matters that do no harm to Biblical truth we are willing to consider any reasonable insights. But extra-Biblical speculations are not binding on the conscience of the Christian, and are to be rejected by the Christian when they clearly run counter to the sense of the Biblical text.

You see, part of the problem is something you cited way back at the beginning. People in these debates often bring in preconceived notions of what the other side believes, and these are often convenient oversimplifications, mere foils to be attacked. It’s human nature to oversimplify. It’s even a good thing in many cases.

But here it is doing harm to the cause of understanding. Sola Scriptura is like a campaign slogan. It is a Reformation sound bite, designed to quickly convey a major difference with the competition, but NOT intended to convey the entire, full-orbed sense of the Protestant approach to divine revelation. Protestants do not exclude the idea that we can learn from the patristics, or from secular historians, or science. We do not exclude the prerogative of Christ to set up teachers with a special gift for illuminating and communicating His word to His people.

But we do set the Scripture first in line in deciding what that truth is. You mentioned earlier the analogy to the US Constitution and how precedent law has developed from it. I agree the analogy is instructive, but not for the reasons you suggest. I have studied more than my fair share of federal case law, and I can tell you with confidence that in a number of areas, the authorial intent of the writers of our Constitution has been utterly lost to the whims of modernity, and that loss has occurred due to giving more weight to recent precedent than to the plain sense of the original text.

The Commerce Clause is a good case in point. The Founders never intended it to become a blank check by which to insert federal control over nearly every private transaction. Being mere mortals, they never imagined how cleverly our political class would, over a long period of time, use precedent law to exploit the gray areas and enhance their own authority until they could basically rewrite the clear Constitutional doctrines into whatever muddle they desired.

Do you agree with Roe v Wade? You no doubt want it overturned, as do I. But its existence is an argument AGAINST precedent as binding over against the plain sense of the Constitutional text, which invests in mere mortals no such power to destroy innocent human life.

This is why the Reformers and all good Christians who came before them navigate to the north star of Scripture. In a galaxy of fluctuating and fallible human opinion, it remains ever true, ever constant. And it was so from the first moments after the ink began drying, even during those earliest days when it had not all been collected into one place for universal distribution. The patristic writers relied upon it so heavily that nearly the entire New Testament can be reproduced from their writings.

And who were these early Christians feeding so intensely on God’s word. A single assembly in Rome? No, it was happening all over, wherever God was making Christians, the apostolic message was close at hand. There are even physical fragments of the Gospels that date to within the first generation of believers. Those believers were a people of the Book from day one.

The assertion that all things Christian issued from a particular First Century Roman assembly, identifiable by modern Roman dogma, including claims of infallibility and universal jurisdiction, is ahistorical nonsense, a bizarre reversal of history, reading uniquely modern Roman dogma back into a primordial period where it cannot be shown to exist at all. These First Century believers in Jesus were the Proto-Christians, the universal stem cell from which all other believers are spiritually descended, and they had and used their Proto-Bible as the preeminent source of divine truth, just as all their modern descendants do.

Any thoughts on Honorius yet?

BTW, I have another question for you. Which of these two statements is true, in your fallible opinion?:

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1) From Vatican I, Session 3, Canons 2.4:

“If anyone does not receive as sacred and canonical the complete books of Sacred Scripture with all their parts, as the holy Council of Trent listed them, or denies that they were divinely inspired : let him be anathema.” Available at http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V1.HTM#6.

2) From Vatican II, Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, Proclaimed by his Holiness Pope Paul VI, on October 28, 1965, Section 3:

“The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth,(5) who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

“Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.” Available at http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

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While I can’t be infallibly certain, I’m pretty sure the Islamists don’t follow the Christian canon. So are they anathema, or are they “esteemed?” Can you be both? What then would “anathema” really mean? And do the writers really mean to say the Allah of pagan origin is the same God as the Christian God? The Distant and Unknowable Kismet versus the Father Who proclaims of Jesus, “This is My Son?” The same God? Really?

Well, while you’re pondering that, you might also wish to consider these two statements. Which of these is true?:

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1) From Vatican I, Session 4, Chapter 2.5:

“Therefore, if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the lord himself (that is to say, by divine law) that blessed Peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole Church; or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy: let him be anathema.” Available at http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V1.HTM#6.

2) From Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen, Gentium, Solemnly Promulgated by His Holiness Pope Paul VI, on November 21, 1964

15. The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. (14*) For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. (15*) They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical communities. Many of them rejoice in the episcopate, celebrate the Holy Eucharist and cultivate devotion toward the Virgin Mother of God.(16*) They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits. Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood. In all of Christ’s disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, in the manner determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pursue this end. (17*) Mother Church never ceases to pray, hope and work that this may come about. She exhorts her children to purification and renewal so that the sign of Christ may shine more brightly over the face of the earth.

Available at http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

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So what are we then, who deny Perpetual Petrine Supremacy? Anathema? Or “United with Christ?” I think even Aquinas’ Aristotle might have trouble with that, being a clear violation of the law of non-contradiction.

Peace,