LOGIC AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF PROTESTANTISM

I had had some firsthand experience with several denominations (Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist) and was far from certain as to which of them (if any) had an overall advantage over the others. So I began to think, study, search, and pray. Was there a true Church? If so, how was one to decide which?

The more I studied, the more perplexed I became. At one stage my elder sister, a very committed evangelical with somewhat flexible denominational affiliations, chided me with becoming "obsessed" with trying to find a "true Church." "Does it really matter?" she would ask. Well, yes it did. It was all very well for a lay Protestant to relegate the denominational issue to a fairly low priority amongst religious questions: lay people can go to one Protestant Church one week and another the next week and nobody really worries too much. But an ordained minister obviously cannot do that. He must make a very serious commitment to a definite Church community, and under normal circumstances that commitment will be expected to last a lifetime. So clearly that choice had to be made with a deep sense of responsibility; and the time to make it was before, not after, ordination.

As matters turned out, my search lasted several years, and eventually led me to where I never suspected it would at first. I shall not attempt to relate the full story, but will focus on just one aspect of the question as it developed for me—an aspect which seems quite fundamental.

As I groped and prayed my way towards a decision, I came close to despair and agnosticism at times, as I contemplated the mountains of erudition, the vast labyrinth of conflicting interpretations of Christianity (not to mention other faiths) which lined the shelves of religious bookshops and libraries. If all the "experts" on Truth—the great theologians, historians, philosophers—disagreed interminably with each other, then how did God, if He was really there, expect me, an ordinary Joe Blow, to work out what was true?

The more I became enmeshed in specific questions of Biblical interpretation—of who had the right understanding of justification, of the Eucharist, Baptism, grace, Christology, Church government and discipline, and so on—the more I came to feel that this whole-line of approach was a hopeless quest, a blind alley. These were all questions that required a great deal of erudition, learning, competence in Biblical exegesis, patristics, history, metaphysics, ancient languages—in short, scholarly research. But was it really credible (I began to ask myself) that God, if He were to reveal the truth about these disputed questions at all, would make this truth so inaccessible that only a small scholarly elite had even the faintest chance of reaching it? Wasn’t that a kind of gnosticism? Where did it leave the nonscholarly bulk of the human race? It didn’t seem to make sense. If, as they say, war is too important to be left to the generals, then revealed truth seemed too important to be left to the Biblical scholars. It was no use saying that perhaps God simply expected the non-scholars to trust the scholars. How were they to know which scholars to trust, given that the scholars all contradicted each other?

Therefore, in my efforts to break out of the dense exegetical undergrowth where I could not see the wood for the trees, I shifted towards a new emphasis in my truth-seeking criteria: I tried to get beyond the bewildering mass of contingent historical and linguistic data upon which the rival exegetes and theologians constructed their doctrinal castles, in order to concentrate on those elemental, necessary principles of human thought which are accessible to all of us, learned and unlearned alike. In a word, I began to suspect that an emphasis on logic, rather than on research, might expedite an answer to my prayers for guidance.

The advantage was that you don’t need to be learned to be logical. You need not have spent years amassing mountains of information in libraries in order to apply the first principles of reason. You can apply them from the comfort of your armchair, so to speak, in order to test the claims of any body of doctrine, on any subject whatsoever, that comes claiming your acceptance. Moreover logic, like mathematics, yields firm certitude, not mere changeable opinions and provisional hypotheses. Logic is the first natural "beacon of light" with which God has provided us as intelligent beings living in a world darkened by the confusion of countless conflicting attitudes, doctrines and world-views, all telling us how to live our lives during this brief time that is given to us here on earth.

Logic of course has its limits. Pure "armchair" reasoning alone will never be able to tell you the meaning of your life and how you should live it. But as far as it goes, logic is an indispensable tool, and I even suspect that you sin against God, the first Truth, if you knowingly flout or ignore it in your thinking. "Thou shalt not contradict thyself" seems to me an important precept of the natural moral law. Be that as it may, I found that the main use of logic, in my quest for religious truth, turned out to be in deciding not what was true, but what was false. If someone presents you with a system of ideas or doctrines which logical analysis reveals to be coherent—that is, free from internal contradictions and meaningless absurdities—then you can conclude, "This set of ideas may be true. It has at least passed the first test of truth—the coherence test." To find out if it actually is true you will then have to leave your logician’s armchair and seek further information. But if it fails this most elementary test of truth, it can safely be eliminated without further ado from the ideological competition, no matter how many impressive-looking volumes of erudition may have been written in support of it, and no matter how attractive and appealing many of its features (or many of its proponents) may appear.

Some readers may wonder why I am laboring the point about logic. Isn’t all this perfectly obvious? Well, it ought to be obvious to everyone, and is indeed obvious to many, including those who have had the good fortune of receiving a classical Catholic education. Catholicism, as I came to discover, has a quite positive approach to our natural reasoning powers, and traditionally has its future priests study philosophy for years before they even begin theology. But I came from a religious milieu where this outlook was not encouraged, and was often even discouraged. The Protestant Reformers taught that original sin has so weakened the human intellect that we must be extremely cautious about the claims of "proud reason." Luther called reason the "devil’s whore"—a siren which seduced men into grievous error. "Don’t trust your reason, just bow humbly before God’s truth revealed to you in His holy Word, the Bible!"—this was pretty much the message that came through to me from the Calvinist and Lutheran circles that influenced me most in the first few years after I made my "decision for Christ" at the age of 18. The Reformers themselves were forced to employ reason even while denouncing it, in their efforts to rebut the Biblical arguments of their "Papist" foes. And that, it seemed to me, was rather illogical on their part.

Thus, with my awakening interest in logical analysis as a test of religious truth, I was naturally led to ask whether this illogicality in the practice of the Reformers was, perhaps, accompanied by illogicality at the more fundamental level of their theory. As a good Protestant I had been brought up to hold as sacred the basic methodological principle of the Reformation: that the Bible alone contains all the truth that God has revealed for our salvation. Churches that held to that principle were at least "respectable," one was given to understand, even though they might differ considerably from each other in regard to the interpretation of Scripture. But as for Roman Catholicism and other Churches which unashamedly added their own traditions to the Word of God—were they not self-evidently outside the pale? Were they not condemned out of their own mouths?

But when I got down to making a serious attempt to explore the implications of this rock-bottom dogma of the Reformers, I could not avoid the conclusion that it was rationally indefensible. This is demonstrated in the following eight steps, which embody nothing more than simple, commonsense logic, and a couple of indisputable, empirically observable facts about the Bible:

1. The Reformers asserted Proposition A: "All revealed truth is to be found in the inspired Scriptures." However, this is quite useless unless we know which books are meant by the "inspired Scriptures." After all, many different sects and religions have many different books, which they call "inspired Scriptures."

2. The theory we are considering, when it talks of "inspired Scriptures," means in fact those 66 books, which are bound and published in Protestant Bibles. For convenience we shall refer to them from now on simply as "the 66 books."

3. The precise statement of the theory we are examining thus becomes Proposition B: "All revealed truth is to be found in the 66 books."

4. It is a fact that nowhere in the 66 books themselves can we find any statements telling us which books make up the entire corpus of inspired Scripture. There is no complete list of inspired books anywhere within their own pages, nor can such a list be compiled by putting isolated verses together. (This would be the case: (a) if you could find verses like "Esther is the Word of God," "This Gospel is inspired by God," "The Second Letter of Peter is inspired Scripture," etc., for all of the 66 books; and (b) if you could also find a Biblical passage stating that no books other than these 66 were to be held as inspired. Obviously, nobody could even pretend to find all this information about the canon of Scripture in the Bible itself.)

5. It follows that Proposition B—the very foundation of all Protestant Christianity—is neither found in Scripture nor can be deduced from Scripture in any way. Since the 66 books are not even identified in Scripture, much less can any further information about them (e.g., that all revealed truth is contained in them) be found there. In short, we must affirm Proposition C: "Proposition B is an addition to the 66 books. "

6. It follows immediately from the truth of Proposition C that Proposition B cannot itself be revealed truth. To assert that it is would involve a self-contradictory statement: "All revealed truth is to be found in the 66 books, but this revealed truth itself is not found there."

7. Could it be the case that Proposition B is true, but is not revealed truth? If that is the case, then it must be either something which can be deduced from revealed truth or something which natural human reason alone can discover, without any help from revelation. The first possibility is ruled out because, as we saw in steps 4 and 5, B cannot be deduced from Scripture, and to postulate some other revealed extra-Scriptural premise from which B might be deduced would contradict B itself. The second possibility involves no self-contradiction, but it is factually preposterous, and I doubt whether any Protestant has seriously tried to defend it—least of all those traditional Protestants who strongly emphasize the corruption of man’s natural intellectual powers as a result of the Fall. Human reason might well be able to conclude prudently and responsibly that an authority which itself claimed to possess the totality of revealed truth was in fact justified in making that claim, provided that this authority backed up the claim by some very striking evidence. (Catholics, in fact, believe that their Church is precisely such an authority.) But how could reason alone reach that same well-founded certitude about a collection of 66 books which do not even lay claim to what is attributed to them? (The point is reinforced when we remember that those who attribute the totality of revealed truth to the 66 books, namely Protestant Church members, are very ready to acknowledge their own fallibility—whether individually or collectively—in matters of religious doctrine. All Protestant Churches deny their own infallibility as much as they deny the Pope’s.)

8. Since Proposition B is not revealed truth, nor a truth which can be deduced from revelation, nor a naturally-knowable truth, it is not true at all. Therefore, the basic doctrine for which the Reformers fought is simply false.

How did the Reformers try to cope with this fundamental weakness in the logical structure of their own first principles? John Calvin, usually credited with being the most systematic and coherent thinker of the Reformation, tried to justify belief in the divine authorship of the 66 books by dogmatically postulating a direct communication of this knowledge from God to the individual believer. Calvin makes it clear that in saying Scripture is "self-authenticated," he does not mean to be taken literally and absolutely. He does not mean that some Bible text or other affirms that the 66 books, and they alone, are divinely inspired. As we observed in step 4 above, nobody ever could claim anything so patently false. Calvin simply means that no extra-Biblical human testimony, such as that of Church tradition, is needed in order for individuals to know that these books are inspired. We can summarize his view as Proposition D: "The Holy Spirit teaches Christians individually, by a direct inward testimony, that the 66 books are inspired by God. "

The trouble is that the Holy Spirit Himself is an extra-Biblical authority as much as a Pope or Council. The third Person of the Trinity is clearly not identical with the truths He has expressed, through human authors, in the Bible. It follows that even if Calvin’s Proposition D is true, it contradicts Proposition B, for "if all revealed truth is to be found in the 66 books," then that leaves no room for the Holy Spirit to reveal directly and non-verbally one truth which cannot be found in any passage of those books, namely, the fact that each one of them is inspired.

In any case, even if Calvin could somehow show that D did not itself contradict B, he would still not have succeeded in showing that B is true. Even if we were to accept the extremely implausible view represented by Proposition D, that would not prove that no other writings are inspired, and much less would it prove that there are no revealed truths that come to us through tradition rather than through inspired writings. In short, Calvin’s defense of Biblical inspiration in no way overthrows our eight-step disproof of the sola Scriptura principle. Indeed, it does not even attempt to establish that principle as a whole, but only one aspect of it—that is, which books are to be understood by the term "Scriptura."

The schizoid history of Protestantism itself bears witness to the original inner contradiction which marked its conception and birth. Conservative Protestants have maintained the original insistence on the Bible as the unique infallible source of revealed truth, at the price of logical incoherence. Liberals on the other hand have escaped the incoherence while maintaining the claim to "private interpretation" over against that of Popes and Councils, but at the price of abandoning the Reformers’ insistence on an infallible Bible. They thereby effectively replace revealed truth by human opinion, and faith by an autonomous reason. Thus, in the liberal/evangelical split within Protestantism since the 18th century, we see both sides teaching radically opposed doctrines, even while each claims to be the authentic heir of the Reformation. The irony is that both sides are right: their conflicting beliefs are simply the two horns of a dilemma, which has been tearing at the inner fabric of Protestantism ever since its turbulent beginnings.

Reflections such as these from a Catholic onlooker may seem a little hard or unyielding to some—ill-suited, perhaps, to a climate of ecumenical dialogue in which gentle suggestion, rather than blunt affirmation, is the preferred mode of discourse. But logic is of its very nature hard and unyielding; and insofar as truth and honesty are to be the hallmarks of true ecumenism, the claims of logic will have to be squarely faced, not politely avoided.

Fr. Brian Harrison is currently teaching at the Pontifical University of Puerto Rico in Ponce.

Then where is the mention of Korah whom i've referred to three times now?

I must say you had me baffled. I had to go back to post #15? for this one where you state: And the apostasy of Korah warned about by Peter was rebelling against authority by claiming all were equal.

Peter doesn't talk about the rebellion of Korah. Jude does.

Jud 1:11 Woe to them! For they went the way of Cain, and gave themselves up to the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah.

Had the people followed the word of God instead of the word of Korah, they would have been spared God's wrath.

I am still not following. What, exactly, do you think is abuse of word “all” and “invalid use of logic” by the author?

Here’s his claim in a nutshell: either the body of texts exists that has divine inspiration of every book and verse directly asserted in that body, or it does not. It so happens that the 66 books are not such body of texts (nor are 73 books of the complete Christian Canon). Therefore the claim of divine inspiration has to be based on some fact outside of these 66 books. Therefore, the contemplated scripture alone cannot contain all the truth necessary for salvation: an outside extrascriptural authority is necessary.

I think it’s important to note, and I’m surprised the Protestants on this thread haven’t picked up on this, that what Father is speaking of is technically not “sola scriptura”, rather it’s “solO scriptura”.

That is, and I’m stating this to be fair since to be intellectually honest is the only way to get to truth via reason, sola scriptura states that there is a role for tradition, it’s simply lower than Scripture just like any other source of knowledge.

Thus, an historic Protestant would say, “Well, traditionally speaking, the 66 books of the Bible were always accepted as canonical, thus, Christian tradition tells us what books should be in the Bible”. A statement pretty close to the Catholic position really. Of course, we disagree what “tradition” states, vis a vis the canonical books (we say 72, they say 66).

The issue that really separates historical Protestants from Catholics is an issue of authority. Historic Protestants believe that since there was corruption in the Church (not universal corruption, but corruption of individuals) then that “tainted” the authority the “RCC” had before, and thus, they were justified to break away and form their own church(es). They also (obviously) don’t believe apostolic succession is of any great concern; indeed they must believe that or else they wouldn’t have any basis for leaving the Church.

Now, of course not all Protestants are “historical”; there are of course many today that hold to solO scriptura, and to those, Father’s argument makes sense. However, again, it doesn’t apply to historical Protestants (in a strict sense) as historical Protestants would answer Father’s questions as above.

Of course, as an aside, Father could ask the historical Protestants “on what basis did/do you believe you have the authority to leave the Church, and reject apostolic succession?” This line of questioning (IMO) would lead to constructive criticism of those churches which hold to solA scriptura.

Here’s his claim in a nutshell: either the body of texts exists that has divine inspiration of every book and verse directly asserted in that body, or it does not.

No, he makes claims of exclusivity. If I say I only trust the word of the president, and I get a note from the president saying to trust Roger, and it has all the hallmarks of being a legitimate note from the president (seal, signature, handwriting, diction, etc.), then I wouldn't say I'm not trusting Roger because I only trust the note to be true. That's an over-exclusivity that is lawyering rather than logic.

Therefore, the contemplated scripture alone cannot contain all the truth necessary for salvation: an outside extrascriptural authority is necessary.

Non-sequitur. If scripture is an authority, and claims to be the final authority before God Himself, above all people, then it either is not really an authority, or is what it claims to be. You cannot say that some priest is really the final authority before God, but have scripture say to reject priests who preach in violation of scripture.

Therefore the claim of divine inspiration has to be based on some fact outside of these 66 books. Therefore, the contemplated scripture alone cannot contain all the truth necessary for salvation: an outside extrascriptural authority is necessary.

I would disagree. The scriptures that we all consider canonical, that being those contained within the Protestant Bible (and to include our Jewish FRiends in the first Testament) are certainly inspired, and stand as proofs for and of each book the others- For the Word and Law and Prophecy are intertwined so fantastically that any student of the scriptures is bound to agree.

To show proof of the contrary, I will offer up the Koran and it's attached hadiths- Anyone having read them earnestly will soon come to the conclusion that their structure, the defiance of the words of the Bible (which they still try to lean upon), the clearly disruptive prophecies, and counteracting and always changing laws stand against the Bible, and have none of the subtle intricacies and intertwining as evidenced in those books that we call canon. To append the Koran onto the Bible, as Islam claims their case, is utterly unthinkable. It is counterfeit.

That is not to say that what we call canon is specifically all that can be called canon- It is sufficient, IMHO, but those having sculpted our canon(s) could have wrongly left some things out that later may be revealed as true.

To show an example, I will even go outside of the Apocrypha, and reach into the psuedepigrapha: The book of Enoch is arguably canonical, and was on the 'also ran' list. But an unblemished copy is not extant- those that are extant are known to have been added to. Yet many believe it bears much that is true, and it holds prophecy that can be proven true as well. IF an unblemished Hebrew text were found, I have some confidence that both the Judaic and the Christian canons might be added to. But the bare fact of canon is that any book must hold first to the structures and foundations laid out before it within the collected books, and cannot create a change in the Word. It can create an ascendancy, a revelation that increases our knowledge and reveals God's purpose (such is all of the New Testament), but it cannot go against that which already is.

But to the point of this thread then. Alleging that there might be some logic flaw in a premise that Martin Luther may of had, does not prove anything. The whole premise that Protestants must believe that "All revealed truth is to be found in the inspired Scriptures" is false. I am not even sure Martin Luther argued that point. Certainly, Luther believed that 'revealed truth is is found in the inspired Scriptures', but the word 'ALL' is the point this so-called proof relies upon. Luther argued that the Bible was the authoritative source of truth, not that there was not any revealed truth outside the Bible. For such a belief you would deny the existence of the Holy Spirit.

That's a really good point, and should not be overlooked. The Apocrypha is certainly honored among Protestants, even if it is not considered canon, and many, many Catholic writings are likewise referenced. It is perhaps a bit unjust to consider Protestants as rejecting the whole of Catholic tradition, because it simply isn't true. But it will never rise to the level of the Book, and those things not proven in the Book, in the Protestant mind, must be rejected.

I thought I was bringing that up. Maybe I'm a little late to the thread.

Of course, definitions of "Church" and "apostolic succession" would be a necessary starting point. Things like that tend to break down in view of the structure of the early church anyway.

A:***one has to live out the commandments in obedience of the Gospel, just like Christ told the rich young man***

G: And in your statement we see the fundamental error of Rome: the confusion of the law and the Gospel.

Amen!

Matt.7:21 Not everyone who says to Me,'Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.

What is the will of the Father?

John 6:29 Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom he sent."

It is not complicated and it is not a system of works it is belief.

1John 5:5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Any works follow justification they don't cause it, or maintain it.

There is a Catholic Church that I pass by ocassionally, that features a large banner posted on the building outside. It's message reads:

Obey the Ten Commandments for Everlasting Life

If that isn't "confusing the law and the Gospel", I don't know what is.

AMEN!

As Wmfights so often reminds us, some simply do not know what the Gospel is.

Over Easter we passed a large Catholic church named for a particular woman saint. Outside the front doors of the church there is a huge statue of this woman. On Easter morning, people were standing before this statue placing flowers at its cement feet.

This particular saint has nothing to do with Easter morning, and very little to do with anyone else's Christianity (except for her small circle of intimates.)

Yet there on Easter morning, the day when Christ rose from the dead to prove to all eyes that He was God Himself who had taken on our sins and paid for every one of them at Calvary, on this most important morning in Christendom, parishoners were paying tribute to a dead human woman!

Such is the myopia of the RCC.

"And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.
They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.
And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?
He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" -- Isaiah 44:17-20

WF: any Christian will find the NT was pretty well established way before any synods, or councils.

A:Yes. By whom was it established though? Luther?

I'm glad you are coming around to the truth.

It was established by Christians. You can't place the honor on any one group. The term Catholic was only beginning to be used AFTER the Scriptures had already been written. Also, when that term was used it did not refer to any one particular church, or groups of churches, it was used referring to the universal group of believers. The claims of exclusivity and power began in the second century. Prior to this Christians were just that Christians.

I attend fairly orthodox Missouri Synod Lutheran services 9 months out of the year and equally orthodox Roman Catholic services for about 3 months. The similarity in substance and liturgy is striking (and, most importantly, Christ is truly present in both churches).

Followers of the anti-christ are running wild across the face of the earth while conservative Christians argue about such minutia as proper capitalization of words in the Nicene Creed.

Thanks for keeping civil - I haven't caught up to this thread yet, but I am always thankful for people who keep their head and put some thought into their answers, rather than losing their cool.

In response to your post, I agree with the paraphrase. However, it recognizes two things - one, that there ARE leaders, and two, that those leaders are SERVANTS. Now, in the Church, our Priests are some of the greatest servants you will ever meet, IMHO. I'm not gonna bore you with my examples from my experience, but I can if you wish. The reality of life means that most people cannot delve into the depths of Scripture and deduce all Its teachings, because a) most people (i.e., the laity) are (historically) busy tending the land, their herds, sewing, cobbling, etc. and b) a lot of people aren't blessed with the intellect of many leaders of the Church (the Fathers, Aquinas, JPII, etc.). Now, you don't seem to be completely anti-Theology, but if you are, (b) may be an issue for you - I concede that, and can discuss further.

The fact that our Servant-Leaders (Clergy) spend so much time studying Scripture, Theology before they become Priests, and then continue to do so when not attending to their flocks enables them to teach the rest of us who are either (a) lacking in time and/or (b) lacking in ability to do the same. Classically, Teachers were Servants. In Antiquity, patrician Roman families would own learned Greek slaves, who taught their children Greek, poetry, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, etc. It was very much a Servant position.

In response to the "Nicolaitan heresy" you mentioned, I admit I know little about it. However, here I found some information about it. It doesn't seem to me that the heresy is what you think it is - please, if you have some other source, send it my way.

Lastly, I don't agree that different classes of believers is heresy. Jesus Himself selected the Twelve from all His disciples. He decided that they were "different" from the others who followed him around - not better, not greater, but different.

Again, thanks for an interesting discussion.

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