according to warren, what is the fatal flaw of the traditional anti-abortion argument?

This is a guest post by Michael Liccione, who is well known to regular readers of Called To Communion. Michael earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. in philosophy and religion at Columbia University. He has taught at a number of institutions, including UPenn, St. Francis College, the Catholic University of America, and the University of St. Thomas in Houston. He currently teaches critical thinking at Bryant & Stratton College in Syracuse, NY, where he moved final year to be closer to his family of origin. His previous chore was assistant to the editor at First Things, for which he is preparing a feature commodity on the development of doctrine.

Sacra Conversazione
Fra Angelico (c. 1443)
Fresco, Convento di San Marco, Florence

In November 2009, two of this site'due south co-authors, Bryan Cross and Neal Judisch, posted what has get its best-known contribution to Cosmic-Protestant dialogue: the article "Solo Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Say-so." It was devoted mostly to a critique of Keith Mathison'south argument, in his book The Shape of Sola Scriptura, that in that location is a principled divergence between solo scriptura (henceforth 'solo') and sola scriptura (henceforth 'sola') as means of upholding the primacy of the Bible and interpreting it and so as to expound the true doctrinal content of the "faith once given to the saints." Since and so, the commodity's combox has run to well over i,200 entries conducting debates nigh both the central issue and the numerous ones related to information technology. In defense force of the article's main thesis, I gladly contributed to those debates. But much of it had the feel of a busy conference hall awaiting a speaker's inflow. For it was over a year ago that Mathison promised a considered reply. Now that he has delivered that reply (see here for the links), I shall deliver a critique of my own. My folio references will be to the PDF version of Mathison's paper.

The primary thesis of the Cross-Judisch article is that, pace Mathison, at that place is no "principled deviation" between solo and sola, inasmuch as the latter requires as much as the former that the individual's interpretation of Scripture be the ultimate interpretive authority. Mathison of class denies that and, in his reply, backs his denial with many arguments. Now my aim is not to speak for Cantankerous and Judisch — who are quite capable of defending themselves, and doubtless volition — just to focus attention on what I believe to be the central issues needing to be addressed straight. Those issues are philosophical, and so far take not been seen or addressed as such. Largely for that reason, I shall not discuss in detail most of the subsidiary arguments Mathison makes in a paper that runs to over 50 pages of double-spaced text. They are quite uneven in quality, ranging from the historically well-informed to the downright fallacious. Many who follow this site are well able to assess most of Mathison's arguments piecemeal; if they do, I recollect they will verify for themselves what I take just said about those arguments. Instead I shall frame the broader context of debate, summarize and criticize Mathison's main argument, and point upwards how it illustrates the radical difference of interpretive paradigm (henceforth 'IP') between Catholicism and conservative Protestantism (Reformed or otherwise) quite mostly. At the end, I shall explain what is involved in assessing those paradigms confronting each other and so that the uncommitted inquirer may determine which is the more reasonable. The unavoidable need to make up one's mind which IP is the more reasonable is the most of import philosophical issue in the fence.

I.

I say "conservative" Protestantism because, dissimilar liberal Protestantism, it shares 2 basic assumptions with Catholicism that allow us to specify a clear context of debate. First, the divine revelation in and through Jesus Christ is public, definitive, one time-for-all, consistently and authoritatively identifiable through time, and expressible equally the doctrinal content of the "eolith of faith." 2d, the ultimate "material" object of faith is God. That is to say, what we have organized religion in when nosotros make the assent of faith is ultimately a who: God, as revealed in and through Jesus Christ. It is ultimately on divine authority that nosotros must believe what we practice as belonging to the deposit of faith "given once for all to the holy ones." The main difference between Catholicism and bourgeois Protestantism as a whole is not about that, but about the proximate, "formal" object of faith. In other words, the two represent different answers to the question: Merely which ensemble of secondary authorities must we trust, and in what human relationship with each other, in order to reliably identify all and only what the primary object of religion wants us to believe, namely the deposit of faith? At present every bit a theologian of the Reformed tradition, Mathison is committed to a way of answering that question that not all conservative Protestants would have. Merely the points I shall brand at the end, afterward I have addressed his main arguments straight, apply to conservative Protestantism more often than not.

A conservative Protestant would say that inspired Scripture is the highest authority, the say-so-beyond-appeal, in what I take chosen the "ensemble of secondary authorities." Of class some Protestants deny that at that place is whatever other secondary dominance, but that should not exist taken at face value. Protestants as well as Catholics rely to some extent on other secondary authorities such as tradition, churches, pastors, scholars, and the experience of believers. Protestants disagree among themselves nearly the weight such authorities take relative to each other and to Scripture, and we volition need to consider one aspect of Mathison's agreement of that relation. For now, though, note that Catholicism too acknowledges the primacy of Scripture in a certain sense.

Catholic theologians mostly empathise Scripture as the divinely inspired norma normans for other secondary authorities, including the Church. That means that, once the biblical canon was formed, whatever was admitted from other authorities had to suit to and cohere with Scripture. No authority may introduce anything as de fide that is logically incompatible with Scripture or otherwise fails to cohere with it. Other government are thus norma normata: they are "normed" by Scripture rather than vice-versa. Many Catholic theologians, including St. Thomas Aquinas, accept also held that Scripture is "materially sufficient," in the sense that information technology somehow contains, either explicitly or implicitly, all the doctrinal content assent to which is necessary for salvation. Only given that information technology's not a definitive instruction of the Cosmic Magisterium, the fabric sufficiency of Scripture is considered but an acceptable stance among Catholics rather than a doctrine bounden on the conscience of believers. On the fabric-sufficiency view, even though the Church affirms extra-scriptural Tradition every bit another "source," older than and concurrent with Scripture, from which we receive the Discussion of God, Tradition does not convey any revealed truth that is not "somehow" independent in Scripture. Of course many conservative Protestants would go further and merits that the canon is formally as well as materially sufficient, thus obviating unwritten Tradition equally a source of knowledge of revealed truth. Merely that too is but an opinion, one which I regard equally at best conceptually dislocated and at worst as actually self-refuting, depending on how it's formulated. And of form, Protestantism diverges from Catholicism and Orthodoxy in property that just the Masoretic canon of the Old Testament, rather than the larger Septuagint canon, is truly inspired. That difference will also exist important later in my own argument. For at present, the main bespeak to continue in listen is that both parties to the debate accept some version of the biblical catechism equally the norma normans amongst secondary authorities, in virtue of its existence the inspired, inerrant Discussion of God in stock-still, written class.

Accordingly, the main focus of disagreement between Catholicism and bourgeois Protestantism is less about the importance of Scripture as a secondary authority — both receive it every bit the norma normans in some sense — than about the importance of other secondary authorities relative to it and to each other. This is where Mathison'southward distinctively "confessional" conservative Protestantism — in his case, the Reformed tradition — becomes relevant. Co-ordinate to confessional Protestantism of whatever brand, ecclesial creeds and confessions are very important secondary regime for identifying the deposit of organized religion every bit the proximate object of the assent of faith. The authority of the churches that produce them is correspondingly important. Ecclesial authorisation is seen as scripturally justified, fifty-fifty necessitated; and as Catholics, Cross, Judisch, and I would agree. And here is where we observe the chief departure between solo and sola within Protestantism itself. Let us at present consider Mathison'due south own view of that.

Two.

Mathison agrees with Cross and Judisch that all reading of Scripture, like "communication"" generally, "requires estimation." But the questions naturally arise: Whose interpretation of Scripture is authoritative for Christians, and to what degree? Whatever answer to those questions will identify a secondary authority in add-on to, but not opposed to, Scripture. And in a paragraph that Mathison does not gainsay, Cross and Judisch wrote:

[Mathison] is arguing that solo scriptura undermines legitimate ecclesial authorization established by Christ. It does so by denying the "authoritative teaching office" in the Church, and the "hermeneutical authority" of those holding that office. How does it do that? Mathison is explicit: "the individual measures his teacher's interpretation of Scripture against his ain interpretation of Scripture." For Mathison, God did not establish the Church equally a republic; rather, He gave specific gifts to men to teach and govern His Church.

For Mathison, so, what'southward wrong with solo is that "the individual measures his teacher'due south interpretation of Scripture against his own interpretation of Scripture." If it'south the private being taught who is the interpreter-across-appeal, that is only an ersatz authority, since the individual cannot claim say-so greater than, or even as much authority every bit, that of something called "the Church," understood equally the "assembly" (ecclesia) of God's people as a whole. Solo is thus untenable. It amounts to proverb "I submit to the Church only when I agree," which is no submission at all. We must rather adhere, in good confessional-Protestant fashion, to sola. We must indeed assert that Scripture is the sole inerrant rule of faith, considering unlike the deliverances of any other secondary authority such every bit ecclesial creeds and confessions, Scripture is divinely inspired and thus inerrant; just Scripture cannot be authoritatively interpreted by individuals. The administrative estimation of Scripture belongs to something called "the Church building." On that score besides, Cross and Judisch concur with Mathison.

This suggests, correctly, that getting the true identity of "the Church building" right is pivotal for estimation of Scripture that is truly authoritative, not just personal opinion, no matter how many people may share a given interpretive stance at whatsoever given time. And then on one level, it would seem that the disagreement is just near which body now constitutes "the Church" that Christ founded and to which he gave authority. And indeed there is precipitous disagreement about that. But it is at just this indicate that I find Mathison's argumentative strategy so curious.

He does not fence that his Reformed denomination, or indeed whatsoever particular church body today, is "the Church building" that Christ founded. Instead, Mathison takes up more than the starting time half of his paper with a sprawling, surprisingly strident argument that the Catholic Church is non that Church. In due course, I shall review and criticize his most important subsidiary arguments confronting Catholicism; but equally we shall see, the involvement of that is primarily what information technology reveals about the general quality of Mathison's arguments, not how it contributes to fence about the immediate point at issue. Next, he briefly summarizes his book's argument — confronting the Cross-Judisch interpretation of it — as to how to identify "the Church." He begins with the assertion: "I divers the church in terms of the rule of faith, and I as an private did non make up one's mind the content of the rule of religion" (p. 36). He goes on to explain both what that means and how it can be supported by historical inquiry. On that account, the "rule of faith" in terms of which "the Church building" is to be "defined" is embodied in the creeds that adult progressively out of the early church building's baptismal formulas and confessions of faith, culminating in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed of 381. I see no reason to dubiousness that Mathison'southward business relationship of early creedal development is substantially correct.

At present those creeds were clearly backed by the authority of something calling itself fifty-fifty at the time "the cosmic church" (I use the lower-example 'c' intentionally). So i might think that, given the importance Mathison attaches to getting right the identity of "the Church" as a secondary dominance, he would argue that such creeds were truthful and authoritative regulae fidei because they were propounded with the authorisation of a body identifiable as "the catholic church." Merely that is not quite what he argues. And on reflection, that is understandable, because Mathison's actual position forbids him to debate it.

He argues instead that such rules of faith were authoritative inasmuch as they were, and were regarded past the self-described catholic church as, "uninspired summaries" of the patently teaching of inspired Scripture. But they were only thought necessary considering some people, for any flimsy reasons, didn't "get" the plain sense of Scripture. In other words, the rules of faith could exist known to exist authoritative less considering the-Church-every bit-secondary-authorisation propounded them than because they patently were correct interpretations of Scripture, which is why they were regarded equally such past the early "cosmic church." So "the Church building" as secondary authority is to be identified as that body of believers whose rules of faith conformed to Scripture, by virtue of clearly summarizing and correctly interpreting Scripture in her rules of faith, and doing and so in a way that can be validated even without invoking her authority. Accordingly, it'south not equally though we have to get the identity of "the Church" right earlier we tin can know the right interpretation of Scripture. We must outset get the plain sense of Scripture, so that we can go on to identify "the Church" as that body of believers whose rules of faith clearly reverberate it. Only then do we take reason plenty for saying that "the Church" is administrative every bit interpreter. That is how Mathison "defines" the Church, and the dominance of the Church on the sola view.

Frankly, how Mathison could suppose that that argument rebuts the Cantankerous-Judisch thesis is beyond me. He is in fact doing precisely what they criticize him for doing in his volume. He has not managed to depict "the Church" — exist it the post-apostolic, "catholic" church building or any church today — as an indispensable measure out of any item person's interpretation of Scripture, which is what his version of sola would require. Rather, he holds that a sure interpretation of Scripture, embodied in the Creed of 381, is plainly correct, and supports that view by arguing that the early church took information technology that way likewise. Citing the creeds and the attitude of the early church building is supposed to reinforce the betoken that the correct interpretation is plain, without thereby suggesting that its being plain logically depends on its being endorsed past the say-so of the church building. And so if the early church was administrative in the sought-afterwards sense, that is only because her relative closeness to the fourth dimension of the apostolic tradition'due south "inscripturation" in the canon makes it likely that she got the interpretation of Scripture right — not that said interpretation can exist known to be correct only if she says information technology is. And so, for the purpose of identifying the doctrinal content of the deposit of faith, the dominance of "the Church" as interpreter is dispensable in principle, even though in practice it is always needed for the disciplinary purpose of calling out the errant and recalcitrant.

Thus it would seem that sola reduces to solo after all. For as individuals, nosotros are to identify "the Church building" every bit that body of people whose leadership has got Scripture essentially correct. Nosotros needn't and shouldn't say that the true identity of "the Church" Christ founded must be known earlier we can identify the correct interpretation of Scripture as such; indeed, on Mathison'due south account, any attempt to approach the matter that way would get it backwards. Rather, the inquirer into these matters must larn the identity of "the Church building" past means of exegetical and historical arguments that the early on "cosmic church building" got Scripture right in her summary rules of faith. "The Church" today is thus identifiable as whatever collection of people attends church and adheres to such rules as the correct interpretations of Scripture. Merely of course, no visible body today is co-extensive with that drove; therefore, no set of authorities inside whatsoever such trunk can be identified tout court as the authorities of "the Church." The Church, such as information technology is, has authority because it is correct about Scripture; appropriately, the private churchgoer cannot know that "the Church" has interpretive authority without his already knowing the correct interpretation of Scripture. But that destroys any principled deviation between solo and sola. Which, of course, is just the Cross-Judisch thesis.

And then much for the second half of Mathison'due south principal argument. Its offset and far lengthier half, which concludes that the Catholic Church is not the Church, fares no better. But before getting to the substance of that case, we need to consider why Mathison finds information technology necessary to make such an argument.

He finds information technology necessary because, according to him, the "difference" between solo and sola "becomes invisible only when one begins past assuming the definiteness of the Roman Cosmic doctrine of the church" (p. 1), then that it'southward necessary to demolish such an "assumption" in order to uphold the difference. But in Mathison'south paper, I can detect no explanation why Cross and Judisch must assume, for purposes of their ain argument, that the Catholic Church today is the Church building, or even an argument that they actually do so. The closest they come to doing so is in this statement: "Our point is to show that implicit within the claim by proponents of sola scriptura to exist submitting to the Church, is always a prior judgment concerning which body of persons count every bit the Church, and a theological assumption about how that judgment is to be made." That, of form, is true of anybody who would appeal to something called "the Church" for the sake of authoritatively interpreting the "sources" by which divine revelation is transmitted to us. For if an appeal to the living authorisation of something called "the Church" over biblical interpretation is to be anything merely round, we demand an extra-biblical reason for saying which church is…well, the Church. The extra-biblical reason Mathison gives for his definition of 'the Church' is his interpretive opinion, which is by no means shared by all in the fourth century or today, that the Creed of 381 promulgated past the church of the fourth dimension was just conveying the patently sense of Scripture. That is non the same as saying something that Cross and Judisch would hold with, namely that said creed'southward was the correct interpretation of Scripture. For his purpose, Mathison must prefer such an extra-biblical premise, considering to argue that nosotros don't need anything beyond statements of the Bible to identify which church has the authority of "the church building" mentioned in the Bible would be justified just by the sort of reasoning that would make the church dispensable for the purpose of authoritatively interpreting the Bible quite generally. The philosophical problem for Mathison is that, although he needs and wants to avert that result, it is exactly the issue his belligerent strategy yields.

Nonetheless, what is of interest for the debate here is not the question which church today actually is the Church — on that, agreement will plain not be reached — but whether the identity of the Church today must exist established prior to determining whether sola does, in fact, collapse into solo. That's the sort of epistemological question philosophers love to consider. From that point of view, Mathison's main argument requires showing that sola does not collapse into solo because we tin reliably identify the early "catholic church building" as the Church, and thus as the authoritative interpreter of Scripture. But of course, Cross and Judisch would concur with the identification itself; they too believe that the church that promulgated the Creed of 381 is in fact the Church. So the question whether the church building then was in fact the Church is not the question we need to consider in order to get at the root of the disagreement. The root of the disagreement is about not whether the early on "cosmic church" was the Church building or even that she had interpretive authority, but about the method past which that church is to be so identified, a method which would also identify which church building is the Church even now. Cross and Judisch say that the right method is to notice which church building enjoys "apostolic succession," which is probably why Mathison says that they must assume, for purposes of their argument, that the Catholic Church building is the Church. But for the reasons I've already given, their commitment to that method equally Catholics is not needed as a premise for their statement against Mathison's thesis.

To exist sure, Mathison makes much of the fact that Catholics and Protestants today view history and Scripture through quite different lenses. That indeed has been a fact since the 16th century. But every bit I shall show later afterwards completing the review of Mathison'due south main argument, he doesn't get the difference of IP betwixt Catholicism and conservative Protestantism quite correct either. And that is a severe defect of his argument against Catholicism.

III.

Mathison makes his statement against Catholicism (or what he prefers to phone call 'Rome,' as if the Latin Church were all there is to the Catholic Church), on historical, exegetical, and logical grounds. Simply he takes well-nigh no business relationship of the fact that many highly intelligent and scholarly Catholics have disagreed and do disagree with him, using far more than thorough arguments of precisely those sorts — for example, Yves Congar and Joseph Ratzinger. With simply one exception I shall hash out below, Mathison'south foil is not thinkers of that quotient, but only unnamed Catholic "apologists" who aren't really scholars. And he concludes his statement with this bold claim: "…there is absolutely zero prove that the leadership of the local church building of Rome is uniquely protected and abundant biblical and historical evidence that information technology is not" (p. 22).

The question to raise hither is: "Protected from what?" If the reply is "sin," Catholics willingly grant that "the local church building of Rome" is by no ways protected, uniquely or otherwise, from sin. At sure points in its history, the papacy would take been grist for tabloid newspapers, had there been whatsoever. All one has to do is read Chaucer or Boccacio, and listen to weightier Catholics from the era who criticized the abuses but never left the Church building. The Reformation, whether itself justified or not, was in office a response to justified grievances, and near Catholics, including the present and the previous pope, have acknowledged as much. As far as I know, nobody claims that the members of any church, including popes, accept ever been protected from sin, even grave sin; indeed, the Apostles themselves, including Peter, were not so protected. What is at result is whether whatever church is e'er divinely protected from doctrinal mistake, non moral error, under certain conditions. In other words, is any church ever gifted past God with doctrinal infallibility, and if so under what weather? The Catholic Church claims that she is, and the claim is supremely relevant to a discussion of the nature of ecclesial authority to interpret any "sources" transmit divine revelation to us.

But even though Mathison is well aware of that claim, and its logical difference from whatsoever claim of impeccability that would be a mere straw homo, some of the prove he cites against that claim is moral. Thus he argues that, prior to the Reformation, the papacy and the bishops had "abased the flock," thereby and obviously forfeiting their merits to be successors of the Apostles. Only even assuming that the pope and the bishops were often poor pastors, that sort of pastoral judgment is irrelevant to the result at hand. The relevant question is: In what way is "the Church" necessary to reliably and authoritatively interpret the sources by which divine revelation is transmitted to u.s.a.? The question is not whether the rulers of the Church, at any given time, are otherwise ruling well. If it were manifest that the claims of the Cosmic Magisterium for itself are false for that or whatsoever other reason, than nearly Cosmic prelates and theologians for at least a millennium would have to be either poor scholars or willfully blind, and every faithful Catholic layman an illiterate or a willing dupe. Depicting ane's opponents as either incompetent or in bad religion, more often than not by ignoring the best among them, is non an constructive belligerent strategy.

To be off-white, I note that Mathison does adduce some relevant arguments against the Catholic Magisterium'southward claim to infallibility under certain conditions. I is the standard Protestant argument that some Catholic doctrines are contrary to Scripture — especially the papal claims themselves. But regardless of whatever particular example it may utilize, that sort of argument is radically question-begging. A good office of what is at issue here — indeed, the principal function — is the question how Scripture is to be interpreted authoritatively. To debate that Scripture interpreted authoritatively goes against Catholicism requires already premising one particular reply to the very question at issue — which of course is precisely what Mathison charges Cross and Judisch with doing for their own purpose. And so I shall ignore this sort of argument from Scripture against Catholicism.

Another of Mathison'southward arguments is that there's no evidence of mono-episcopacy in Rome until the late 2d century, and that some Catholic scholars hold with that judgment, which indeed they do. That requires arguing, as he does, that St. Irenaeus and one of his sources, Hegisippus, misstated the evidence from the post-apostolic Church of Rome, even though Irenaeus himself had been to Rome and known St. Polycarp of Smyrna personally, who in plough had been to Rome and had himself known the Apostle John personally. Such an argument would have us believe that, roughly 1,900 years afterwards the fact, nosotros can understand the meaning and reliability of the late get-go-century sources better than people who had lived less than two generations afterwards the fact and had known eyewitnesses to information technology. That dubious sort of motion is rather common among liberal scripture and patristic scholars; it'southward just special pleading when made by a conservative theologian who would often notice liberal scholarship dubious on simply such grounds. The argument in question, which is adequately common, as well trades on an ambiguity in the apply of the word 'presbyteros' in the early Church building. And it has been vigorously contested on that and other grounds past Catholic scholars whom Mathison simply ignores. The selective use of secondary scholarly sources is not a reputable course of argument. So Mathison'due south nowadays argument doesn't merit more attention here either.

Needless to say, Mathison has many other arguments. Indeed, he seems to have thrown almost all the tomatoes at the target, hoping some will stick. I shall focus on the almost important, which alas are not made with the care they crave.

One is that the course of Cosmic doctrinal development (henceforth 'DD') has yielded significant internal inconsistencies, which could non obtain if the Magisterium'due south claim to infallibility under certain weather condition were truthful. Just that argument isn't enough for Mathison's purpose. For no party to the debate denies that some Catholic teachings take changed, yet information technology doesn't follow that that poses an insurmountable logical problem for the Magisterium. Doctrinal change would be an insurmountable, internal logical difficulty for the Magisterium merely if at least ane of the changes involved negating a doctrine which the Magisterium had deemed irreformable, i.e., infallibly ready forth, by its own criteria. But Mathison makes no argument to that outcome — at least none that I can find.

Some other argument from Mathison on this score is, in effect, that the very notion of DD is a deceptive proper noun for unwarranted additions to or corruptions of the deposit of faith: substantially, a con task. I've heard that a lot in my time. Of grade DD would be exposed a con chore if Mathison had shown what I take just said he's fabricated no argument to show. But pretty much all he has to offering is the following sick-considered remark centering on John Henry Newman, the primary advocate of DD in the 19th-century Catholic Church:

…the Roman Magisterium has lost and corrupted and changed her theological and moral teachings over fourth dimension. Information technology takes the genius and ingenuity of a Cardinal Newman to blind one to this fact. The doctrine of papal infallibility itself is one of the most obvious examples of an invented doctrine that was never believed e'er, everywhere, and by all, but more on this below. (p. 22, emphasis added.)

Then according to Mathison, Fundamental Newman used his admitted "genius" to bullheaded not only himself, just a host of afterward Catholic scholars, to an obvious truth that he, Mathison, has by no means made obvious. Res ipsa loquitur. The only good part is that one real Cosmic theologian is actually cited, and acknowledged equally a genius. But of course, the genius does non begin or cease with Newman.

Mathison also cites against the Cosmic Church what's known as "the Vincentian Canon," stated in the fifth century by St. Vincent of Lerins: "At present in the Catholic Church itself we accept the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, e'er and by all." Thus:

…Rome'southward version of apostolic succession ultimately led her to replace the Vincentian catechism with the "magisterium of the moment." Instead of that which has been believed everywhere, always, and past all, the Roman standard is whatever Rome happens to be educational activity today. If she teaches it now, it must have been taught past the apostles and the early church, fifty-fifty if there is no evidence of that in Scripture or the history of the church. The Vincentian Canon is an inductive principle based on the evaluation of bear witness. The Roman standard is a deductive principle based on a bare assertion. (p. l)

That argument also is sloppy. For 1 thing, Rome does not claim that "whatever" she now teaches was actually taught by the Apostles. She claims just that what she teaches as de fide, and thus as irreformable, belongs to the churchly deposit of faith, whether or not we happen to know, on independent grounds and in every case, that the Apostles themselves would have said the aforementioned. Of form, every bit a Protestant Mathison would reject that claim too, merely it is a much narrower claim than the 1 he formulates, and arguing confronting it requires much more care than he devotes.

Notice as well that the Vincentian Canon is not true without careful contextual qualification. It is not true, without qualification, that every doctrine St. Vincent professed as a Catholic had been held "always, everywhere, and by all," even if nosotros accept the 'all' to be quantifying only over people who had been baptized equally Catholics. As I argued hither on textual grounds, to empathize and apply the VC as St. Vincent did, one must already know what the phrase 'the Catholic Church' refers to, and even then limit the VC's apply to those with some sort of authority in said church — which must in plow exist weighed by the statements of the highest ecclesial government. Acccordingly, citing the VC against the Catholic Church building today just begs the question.

I could go on and would enjoy doing so in such a target-rich environs, merely I've said enough to paint a fair picture of the quality of Mathison's case against Catholicism — a case which he needn't make anyhow, because for the reasons I've given, one needn't assume that Catholicism is true in order to evidence why the solo-sola stardom ultimately collapses. Rather than dwell on the disservice Mathison had done himself, I now plough to the deepest root of the debate.

Four.

In many comments on this site too as old posts on my own weblog, I accept argued that in that location is an irreconcilable difference between the respective "hermeneutical paradigms" of Catholicism and Protestantism, meaning conservative Protestantism. Hither I shall call the difference one of 'interpretive paradigms' (IPs) so as to lighten the jargon. An IP is a systematic framework for interpreting the data that is "underdetermined" by the data, meaning that the information do not dictate information technology, but are themselves are interpreted by ways of it, and that more than 1 IP is logically consistent with the information. At present when the dataset is every bit large as that of theology, no interpretation of the data that's alleged to yield the doctrinal content of the deposit of faith tin can be made without bringing some IP to the information. In fact, given the size and complexity of the dataset, more than one IP can exist at least rationally plausible, even though no two such IPs are entirely consistent with each other. Now in my experience, no debate between Protestants and Catholics, including the one that's occasioned this contribution, makes any 18-carat progress without directly addressing what amounts to that divergence of IP. Then I shall now characterize the difference then that the debate tin can be fruitful, and the uncommitted inquirer appropriately better positioned to discern which is the more reasonable of the two.

I shall omit consideration of whatsoever liberal-Protestant IP for a reason I gave at the beginning: none share with Catholicism 2 crucial assumptions, which I set forth, that frame a articulate context of debate. In fact, I would argue that any "liberal" IP reduces organized religion straightaway to a thing of opinion, thereby making it impossible to identify anything as divine revelation rather than as mere homo opinion almost how to interpret sources that have been alleged to transmit divine revelation. Now co-ordinate to the conservative-Protestant IP, the only way to reliably place the formal, proximate object of faith — which means identifying the correct ensemble of secondary doctrinal authorities and their proper relationship to one another — is to report the written sources from early Christianity, mainly but not limited to Scripture, and make the correct inferences from them. Inconsistencies in such a body of inferences can only be resolved, when they tin be resolved, by appeal to inspired Scripture, which trumps annihilation to the opposite outcome in the other, bromidic sources. Hence the slogan ad fontes, a rallying cry of the Renaissance humanists who so influenced the early Reformers. On this arroyo, the doctrinal content of the deposit of religion consists in what is (a) explicitly asserted in Scripture and (b) what can be inferred from those assertions with valid deductive and inductive arguments, such as those made in the early "catholic church building" to yield Nicene orthodoxy. One time we've identified a prepare of such statements, nosotros've learned all nosotros need to know well-nigh which doctrines are revealed and apostolic, which in turn are all and merely the doctrines we must believe. Anything beyond that is homo opinion masquerading as divine revelation, and thus a deception. So much for DD as the Catholic Church building has come to empathise that thought.

Simply co-ordinate to the Catholic IP, such a methodology is insufficient for reliably identifying the formal, proximate object of faith as singled-out from man opinion. Though necessary, studying the early on written sources and making inferences from them can only yield human interpretive opinions, unless validated past some clearly identifiable dominance whose estimation of the relevant data is divinely protected from error under certain conditions — a gift which, all sides would agree, is at least logically possible, given what and who God is. That interpreter is, of course, understood to be the Magisterium of the Cosmic Church, which consists in the "college" of bishops in communion with the bishop of Rome. The Magisterium is not only the divinely appointed authority that distinguished which early on writings were divinely inspired from which were not, but is also the authoritative custodian and interpreter of the inspired books and all else that has been handed down from the Apostles, which includes extra-scriptural Tradition such equally the liturgy, creeds, and certain pious beliefs and practices. Those are taken to cohere with Scripture to form ane "deposit of faith," fifty-fifty though, in many cases, they are not inferable from Scripture by rules of logic alone. Hence, every bit Vatican II says:

Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred eolith of the word of God, committed to the Church. Belongings fast to this deposit the unabridged holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the didactics of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers, and then that holding to, practicing and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and faithful a single common endeavor.

But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authorisation is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not to a higher place the discussion of God, simply serves information technology, educational activity only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission; and with the help of the Holy Spirit, information technology draws from this one deposit of religion everything which it presents for belief every bit divinely revealed.

Information technology is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the education authority of the Church, in accord with God's almost wise blueprint, are and then linked and joined together that ane cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the activeness of the 1 Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls. (Dei Verbum §ten; references omitted, emphasis added).

The full general conditions on infallible teaching are described in another document of Vatican Ii, Lumen Gentium (§25 ff). Now equally a matter of history, only rarely does a pope infallibly teach unilaterally. A more common way in which infallibility is exercised is in the issuance of dogmatic every bit distinct from disciplinary "canons" of "ecumenical" councils. And normally, the higher of bishops as a whole teaches infallibly when "though dispersed throughout the world, they are in agreement that one position is to be definitively held." That was the situation for the entire time before the first ecumenical council, that of Nicaea in 325, and remains the situation in many cases of doctrine today.

At present there is a certain sense in which a "confessional" Protestant such every bit Mathison could take the formula: "Sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church building are so linked… that none can stand up without the others." That may exist seen in how Mathison argues for sola equally opposed to solo. Even though his argument is unsuccessful, he does consider all three secondary authorities — Scripture, Tradition, and the Church — severally indispensable and mutually interdependent, together forming the proximate, formal object of faith. The fundamental disagreement that confessional Protestants have with the Catholic Church building should thus exist seen as over (a) which trunk of people forms the church with the requisite teaching authority, and (b) how that church building is to be identified. The answer to (a), whatever that is, derives from the respond to (b), any that is. Unsatisfactory though information technology is, we've at to the lowest degree seen Mathison give an answer to (b), and appropriately to (a).

Now I exercise not say that Mathison'southward argument for his answer to (b) is the only or the best that a confessional Protestant tin can give. But information technology is evident that, on the Protestant IP, the only way to reply (b) with annihilation more than provisional man opinions is to construct a rationally unassailable set of inferences from Scripture and from other early sources that enables the states to grasp what is, and can readily exist seen as, the plain sense of Scripture. "The Church," both then and now, is accordingly identifiable as whatsoever collection of people faithfully assents to what is thereby grasped. But nether no circumstances is she to exist considered infallible. Given equally much, the question adequately arises: How to explain the fact that many baptized, churchgoing people don't agree about what the plain sense of Scripture is, or fifty-fifty that it's always and necessarily inerrant even when agreed to be patently? If the proximate, formal object of faith can exist clearly identified by a rationally unassailable set of inferences from the pertinent early sources, the primary i of which is assumed to be inerrant, does that tell u.s. that those who don't notice that set rationally unassailable are either unlearned or willfully irrational? Remember: the "rationally unassailable" set of inferences is not itself inerrant, because nobody holding it tin can be considered an infallible interpreter, fifty-fifty if at to the lowest degree i of the sources is itself inerrant.

The historical and scholarly evidence, which I have no time to review in detail, would advise that the answer to the above question is no. Even during those intermittent periods over the last two millennia when there was relative consensus about what Christian orthodoxy is, there never has been a time when all dissenters could be fairly dismissed as either unlearned or willfully irrational. Wrong, yes; disobedient to what is, in fact, duly constituted ecclesial authority, yes; but non unlearned or willfully irrational. In these matters, some people just don't run into as "plain" what others do, and that is not always a vice, because revealed theology is not like mathematics or natural scientific discipline — where what is obvious in itself, but not obvious to many people, becomes obvious to the person who has been fully initiated into of the bailiwick. Yet unlearned or willfully irrational is how we would have to view dissenters, if the conservative-Protestant IP were itself the one most rational to prefer.

Forth that line, I am reminded of this:

The Reformers unequivocally rejected the teaching potency of the Roman Catholic Church. This left open the question of who should interpret Scripture. The Reformation was not a struggle for the right of private judgement. The Reformers feared private judgement almost as much as did the Catholics and were not ho-hum to assault it in its Anabaptist manifestation. The Reformation principle was not private judgement but the perspicuity of the Scriptures. Scripture was sui ipsius interpres and the simple principle of interpreting private passages by the whole was to pb to unanimity in understanding. This came close to creating anew the infallible church…It was this belief in the clarity of Scripture that made the early disputes betwixt Protestants so fierce. This theory seemed plausible while the majority of Protestants held to Lutheran or Calvinist orthodoxy, but the seventeenth century saw the beginning of the erosion of these monopolies. But even in 1530 Casper Schwenckfeld could cynically annotation that "the Papists damn the Lutherans; the Lutherans damn the Zwinglians; the Zwinglians damn the Anabaptists and the Anabaptists damn all others." Past the end of the seventeenth century many others saw that information technology was not possible on the basis of Scripture alone to build up a detailed orthodoxy commanding full general assent. (A.Due north.S. Lane, "Scripture, Tradition and Church: An Historical Survey," Phonation Evangelica, Volume Ix – 1975, pp. 44, 45; emphasis added).ane

I would add together that Schwenckfeld made his wry ascertainment thirteen years after Luther had nailed his theses to the door, and two years subsequently the ill-fated Colloquy of Marburg.

To see Protestant theological antagonists treating each other, every bit well as Catholics, that fashion is testify that the Protestant IP is not the most rational one to adopt. For treating all adamant opponents as either unlearned or willfully irrational is itself unreasonable — even when Catholics do it, as non a few have done in the by, including but not limited to the Arian controversy. Yet Mathison treats Catholicism as though Catholics would have to be unlearned or willfully irrational to believe it. If he doesn't care for all non-Reformed Protestants similarly, that might be considering, now that centuries have passed, Protestants tin find information technology in themselves to treat charitably any Christian who is not a Roman Catholic. The Catholic Church has got beyond the sometime, insultingly dismissive attitude toward Christians who practice non accept her claims; other Christians, especially the Reformed, would do well to reciprocate. Fortunately, some accept.

Nevertheless, information technology seems to me that Reformed Protestants accept what seems to them proficient reason for such hostility, which is why it'due south difficult to blame them for their attitude. That reason would be that the conservative-Protestant IP is itself, unlike the Cosmic, rationally unavoidable for anybody who share the two assumptions which I said, near the beginning, "frame a clear context for debate." And they have what qualifies equally an argument for that belief. I shall conclude by outlining that statement, which is at present common among Protestants, and showing why it fails.

V.

In various forms, the argument that the conservative-Protestant IP is itself rationally unavoidable (for anybody who shares the ii above-referenced assumptions) appears in what Cross has called the tu quoque objection to the Catholic Magisterium'southward claims for itself. Mathison himself uses a version of the tu quoque confronting Cross' advancement of apostolic succession equally the way to identify "the Church" as interpretive authority. But item examples are non important here, for the argument takes pretty much the same form regardless of which particular doctrine is at upshot, and its primary awarding is to the Cosmic Magisterium'due south claim to infallibility under certain conditions.

The argument is that, fifty-fifty if we suppose arguendo that some ecclesial potency is in fact infallible under certain weather, such an authorisation cannot be infallibly known to be infallible, so that infallibility cannot in any case supercede individual judgment, which of grade is fallible. In other words, supposing for reductio that the Catholic Magisterium can't be wrong under sure conditions, the only reasonable basis for believing every bit much would be an statement that can only be made fallibly, and is therefore non certain. If one argues that the Cosmic Magisterium, beingness infallible nether certain conditions, infallibly teaches nether those weather condition that it is infallible, one is but arguing in a circle. So 1 cannot rely on ecclesial infallibility to make the Magisterium's merits to infallibility credible — a conclusion I readily accept as a Catholic. At present according to the objector, 1 must argue instead, but of course fallibly, that a study of early Christian sources makes such an affirmation rationally unassailable as an inference from those sources. For absent infallible arguments, that's the but style to approach the requisite level of certainty. Yet such an affirmation is far from rationally unassailable, as the history of doctrine amply demonstrates. And then at that place is reason enough after all to believe not only that the Catholic IP is rationally avoidable, but that the conservative-Protestant IP is rationally unavoidable. For the Catholic himself must make use of its characteristic methodology to back up his own position, and that use is performatively absurd, because it commits the Catholic to making precisely the sort of judgment that the Cosmic Magisterium is supposed to obviate.

At present the authors of this site have produced their own responses to that sort of statement, and I do not want to criticize those responses here, considering I believe they are substantively correct. But to bring out more than conspicuously why the above argument fails, I shall frame the rebuttal a scrap differently.

Nobody disputes that "arguments" of whatever kind in theology can only be fabricated fallibly, even when they are made by councils or popes. Merely in view of that fact, consider 2 things. Offset, the proponent of the Catholic IP is not committed to claiming that his IP is rationally unavoidable, because he is not committed to claiming that the Magisterium's claims for itself, as part of the formal, proximate object of religion, are rationally unassailable given a study of the early "sources." He is committed to claiming only that, when interpreted in light of the Cosmic IP, the sources make the Magisteriium's claims for itself seem reasonable plenty, which is not in dispute. On the other mitt, the proponent of the conservative-Protestant IP is committed to claiming that his fashion of identifying the proximate, formal object of faith is rationally unassailable, given such a study. So the Protestant IP here entails making a stronger claim than the Catholic, and accordingly requires stronger support. But that support is not forthcoming, for if it were, then dissenters could just exist unlearned or willfully irrational — a dyspeptic determination that cannot exist justified on independent grounds that would approve information technology. And then the methodology to which the conservative-Protestant IP commits its user is not merely fallible, but also does non yield rationally unassailable conclusions.

For example, the Protestant has no fashion, other than fallible arguments, to secure his account of what belongs in the canon, which account, in the instance of the OT, runs counter to what the older traditions of Catholicism and Orthodoxy eventually concluded. Therefore, he has no fashion, other than the use of fallible arguments, to evidence how the catechism should exist identified. And if he doesn't have more than than that, then he has no way of making certain that the style he identifies the norma normans for the other secondary regime is right.

Second, there is a positive reason for property that the Catholic IP is the more reasonable i to adopt for somebody who shares the 2 bones assumptions framing the argue. That reason is that, if the Catholic Magisterium's claims for itself are true, then we have an authoritative interpreter whose judgments, though not unassailable from the standpoint of reason lonely, are even so secured by divine authorisation. Of course that by itself in no way shows that said claims are true. What it shows, in conjunction with the reason I've already cited against the conservative-Protestant IP, is that, if said claims are true, then at that place is a principled as opposed to an advertising hoc way to distinguish the formal, proximate object of religion from fallible human opinions almost how to identify it in the sources. And that is the way in which the Catholic can distinguish the assent of faith from that of stance. Eschewing any interpretive infallibility from any quarter, ecclesial or private, the abet of the conservative-Protestant IP has no principled way to make that distinction.

For the to a higher place ii reasons, the tu quoque objection fails. The Protestant IP is rationally avoidable because it cannot present the conclusions reachable by means of it as rationally unassailable. And the Catholic IP is rationally preferable, even though also rationally avoidable, because information technology offers a principled manner to make the distinction that the two basic assumptions framing the debate call for making. Past contrast, just as sola appears to exist simply solo waiting to evidence itself, conservative Protestantism appears to exist liberal Protestantism waiting to happen all once more. That is why the inquirer who shares said assumptions, but isn't sure whether to become Protestant or Cosmic, does amend to choose the latter.

Of course null I've said so far shows that that the Catholic IP is superior to the Eastern-Orthodox IP. Both are committed to ecclesial infallibility, and thus do not share the basic defect of any Protestant IP. Both are committed to churchly succession as a necessary condition for identifying "the Church building." And both are rationally defensible. In my opinion, answering the question which IP, the Cosmic or the EO, is the more reasonable depends on subtler considerations of the evolution of ecclesiological doctrine than I've broached hither. But that is a task for another fourth dimension and identify.

Feast of Blessed John of Fiesole (Fra Angelico)

1. I am indebted to David Waltz of Articuli Fidei for this quotation. [↩]

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Source: https://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/02/mathisons-reply-to-cross-and-judisch-a-largely-philosophical-critique/

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