Sola Historia?

His by Grace ^ | 2/9/2015 | Timothy G. Enloe

[RnMomof7]

Rebutting the "Historical" Argument for the Roman Catholic Church

By Timothy G. Enloe

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     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up front that it is not going to treat the Scriptures as if they are divinely inspired, but merely as legitimate historical documents.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.

[Iscool]

Where did Christ say his Church would be based on a book?

In a few hundred places in the scriptures...That why people who actually read the scriptures know that's the truth...

[CynicalBear]

>>Show me, from Scripture, where Christ told anyone to write Philemon. Why is Philemon in the Bible?<<

When did God stop telling His apostles and prophets to NOT write down what He said? I showed how many times it's recorded in scripture that He told them to write what He told them. All the way through Revelation. Prove He stopped at some point.

>>Show me, from Scripture, why the heretical Protestants removed Maccabees from Scripture,<<

They never did remove it. It was never in there in the first place. Paul said the oracles of God were entrusted to the Jews, not the Catholics.

Romans 3:2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

The Jews never had it as scripture. It was Catholics who added it. Stop playing those silly games with that "Catholics wrote the Bible" nonsense. It's absolutely contrary to God's word.

>>And please use Scripture to support your answers.<<

You do recognize Romans as scripture right?

[metmom]

If it’s good enough for sola Scriptura......

[CynicalBear]

Catholics, Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses! There’s a trend there it seems.

[MamaB]

Mary was a sinner just like everyone else. The Bible says, “All have sinned.”. It does not say except Mary. Even she admitted she needed a Savior. She s not a path to heaven. She is dead. Jesus is the answer.

[MamaB]

That has been answered on here. Look it up.

[Mark17]

It appears to me that you like watching OTHER people smash into one another now!!

Affirmative sir. I just watch hockey on TV, and I like to watch others smash into each other, the way I used to do. I never played football though. Too rough and violent and dangerous 😄

Skaters gotta skate

Affirmative again sir, and haters gotta hate. All Christians are haters, cuz they tell the truth. A lot of people don't want to hear the truth, so they call you a hater and heretic. 😇 Keep telling the truth bro. 🆒

[FatherofFive]

In a few hundred places in the scriptures...That why people who actually read the scriptures know that's the truth...

Except that Scripture says the CHURCH is the pillar and foundation of Truth.

“But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” 1Tim 3:15

Show me where the Bible says the Bible is the pillar and foundation of Truth.

[FatherofFive]

That has been answered on here. Look it up.

Post it

[RnMomof7]

>>The angel Gabriel gave Mary the title of "full of grace."<<

To Catholics grace is like gas..you fill your tank, use it up and then "fill er up"

So they can say with a strait face Mary was FULL of Grace ...the truth of course is that is not what the scripture says or implies

gen183">And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”fn

© Info

NLT		Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!fn” © Info
NIV		The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” © Info
ESV		And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”fn © Info
HCSB		And the angel came to her and said, “Rejoice, favored woman! The Lord is with you.”fn © Info
RVR60		Y entrando el ángel en donde ella estaba, dijo: ¡Salve, muy favorecida! El Señor es contigo; bendita tú entre las mujeres. © Info
NASB		And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, fnfavored one! The Lord fnis with you.” © Info
RSV		And he came to her and said, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" © Info
ASV		And he came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee. © Info
YLT		And the messenger having come in unto her, said, 'Hail, favoured one, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women;' © Info
DBY		And the angel came in to her, and said, Hail, thou favoured one! the Lord is with thee: blessed art *thou* amongst women. © Info
WEB		And the angel came to her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. © Info
HNV		Having come in, the angel said to her, "Rejoice, you highly favored one! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women!" © Info
VUL		et ingressus angelus ad eam dixit have gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus © Info
MGNT		καὶ εἰσελθὼν πρὸς αὐτὴν εἶπεν χαῖρε κεχαριτωμένη ὁ κύριος μετὰ σοῦ © Info ---------------------------------------------------------------Every Bible translator uses the term as favored charitoō Pronunciation khä-rē-to'-ō (Key) Part of Speech verb Root Word (Etymology) From χάρις (G5485) TDNT Reference: 9:372,1298 Outline of Biblical Usage to make graceful charming, lovely, agreeable to persue with grace, compass with favour to honour with blessings KJV Translation Count — Total: 2x The KJV translates Strongs G5487 in the following manner: be highly favoured (1x), make accepted (1x). This word is : Tense: Perfect Voice: Passive Mood: Participle Mary was MOST FAVORED ..not because of anything SHE WAS OR DID..but she was a passive receiver of Gods favor

[CynicalBear]

>>Post it<<

See here

Now, how about you answer the question in that post? Primarily "who ever said it was based on a book"? Surely you have the proof that someone said it was right?

[imardmd1]

Sola hysteria, mom. The Romanists simply do not wish to recognize God and His Word as the supreme authority.

[RnMomof7]

Yep

[CynicalBear]

Directly from the Greek.

1 Timothy 3:15 if moreover I should delay that you might know how it behoves one in the household of God to conduct oneself which is the ekklesia of God the living pillar and base of truth.

Who is the pillar and base of truth?

[FatherofFive]

Primarily "who ever said it was based on a book"? Surely you have the proof that someone said it was right?

Christ established a Church, not a book.

“But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” 1Tim 3:15

I really don't know what you are saying. Where did Christ establish a book?

[FatherofFive]

Who is the pillar and base of truth?

The Church. Not a book.

[Iscool]

Catholics, Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses! There’s a trend there it seems.

It must be tuff for some people which one to chose...

[FatherofFive]

Why is Philemon in your Scripture and Maccabees is not in your Scripture??

[Iscool]

Except that Scripture says the CHURCH is the pillar and foundation of Truth.

Actually it says God is the pillar and ground of the truth...

New Christians come into the churches knowing nothing...They have teachers in the churches...God teaches the teachers...God is the pillar and ground of the truth...

Besides, God describes the churches in the scriptures and not a single one of them resembles your religion...So where did your Church come from???

[hockeyCEO]

Really? What if she said no.