The Roman Catholic Controversy: Catholic Epistemology

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

This is the seventh post in my series on James R. White’s The Roman Catholic Controversy. This post is the second part of my review of Chapter 6, “The Thousand Traditions.” Part One.

I should thank James White for introducing me to a new concept in the understanding of Catholicism, of which before I was unaware. His intentions in pointing it out, of course, were to expose a weakness in the foundations of the Catholic Church; but his demonstration has only served to further prove how solid that foundation is. He also alerted me to a position that opponents of the faith attempt to exploit, that to the unlearned might appear to be a weakness.

White challenges that there are two major positions Catholics hold with regard to the “nature, extent, and authority of tradition,” that are logically “completely at odds with each other” and “mutually exclusive.” In fact, the question relates to none of these things; rather, he admits, it pertains to the “sufficiency or insufficiency of Scripture.” At issue is Catholic epistemology: How Catholics know what we know. White does not call it thus here, but I believe he does in other places, and it is an appropriate term for the questions he asks and the charges he makes.

The question is relevant to White, because from his perspective, if Catholics can’t adequately explain the sources and transmission of their revelation, then they must not have any good reason for believing what they believe. But he misrepresents the nature of the disagreement among Catholics. Both positions accept the authority of both Scripture and Tradition. Both positions hold that both Scripture and Tradition are real, finite bodies of received knowledge. Both positions hold that both Scripture and Tradition are essential elements of divine revelation on which Catholic dogma is founded. The disagreement does not call the “nature, extent, [or] authority” of Tradition into question; rather, it has everything to do with the “nature, extent, and authority” of Scripture. The underlying question is how we know what we know. There is no doubt that we know it.

The matter is only this: Does divine revelation exist partly in Scripture, and partly in Tradition?—that is, some Catholic doctrines are found in only Tradition that are not found at all in Scripture—or does the fullness of divine revelation exist both in Scripture and Tradition?—that is, all Catholic doctrines can be found in Scripture, even if only implicitly. The former view, which White calls the partim-partim view (Latin for partly … partly), holds that Scripture is materially insufficient—that it lacks essential material to present a full picture of God’s revelation. The latter view, which White calls the material sufficiency view, holds that Scripture is in fact materially sufficient—that it contains the full material of God’s revelation, even if some of it is only represented implicitly—but that Tradition is still necessary to discover and interpret the revelation in Scripture. Both views hold that we have received our doctrine from Scripture and Tradition. The only real difference is these positions’ view of Scripture; and White’s only real dispute with either of them is that neither holds Scripture to be solely sufficient. I will discuss these views in greater detail below [i.e. in the next post].

First I want to examine White’s charge that these views are “mutually exclusive,” that they create doctrinal confusion, and that they result in statements that are “often more liable . . . to various interpretations” than even the disparate interpretations of Protestants under sola scriptura. I fail to see how any point of this charge can be sustained—and in fact, White doesn’t sustain it; he does not mention this charge again after his introduction. These two views of Scripture are not “mutually exclusive” doctrinal positions that Catholics are expected to hold; they amount to only a minor theological question that in no way affects the outcome of Catholic doctrine. Whether one believes that Scripture supports all doctrine or not, all Catholics agree that between Scripture and Tradition, our doctrine is supported—and more important, proponents of either position can demonstrate this support in texts. There is no doctrinal confusion, since all doctrine is pronounced by the Magisterium, and the Magisterium speaks with one voice, regardless of the views of its individual members. The charge that this difference of opinion results in ambiguous statements that are open to various interpretations is empty, since the only authoritative interpretation is that of the Magisterium. If there is any ambiguity in interpretation, the Magisterium speaks again to clarify.

White attempts to make much of the point that the Tridentine Fathers—the Fathers of the Council of Trent—had a disagreement regarding these points. The original draft of the Decree concerning the Canonical Scriptures (which White never properly cites—I had to track it down myself) reads that revelation is passed on “partly in written books, partly in unwritten traditions,” supporting the partim-partim view. Upon debate, this was changed in the final draft to state that revelation is “contained in the written books and unwritten traditions”—allowing for the support of proponents of the material sufficiency view. This point is insignificant, and the fact that it was disputed is entirely irrelevant. The important fact is that the Magisterium reached an agreement and spoke with one voice to pronounce and clarify Catholic doctrine.

The Magisterium has agreed on Catholic doctrine and pronounced it with authority. Certainly if White means to charge that this doctrine is invalid because of a difference in theological opinion among the Magisterium’s members regarding the means of revelation, then Protestant doctrine suffers from an even greater problem, since the many disparate Protestant groups cannot agree on the content of doctrine let alone its means of revelation. This disagreement is analogous to the legal philosophies of strict constructionism versus loose constructionism among the members of the United States Supreme Court—that is, should the Constitution be interpreted strictly and literally by its letter, or should it be interpreted more loosely by the intent of its framers in the context of evolving legal and political situations? Regardless of what philosophy the individual justices of the court hold, once the court reaches a decision, its ruling is legally binding: when the court speaks, that is the law. Likewise, when the Magisterium speaks, that is doctrine.

The Catholic and Protestant authority paradigms compared

Posted on July 15, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

The Magisterium of Church, assembled at the Council of Trent.

In line with my recent posts discussing Protestant and Catholic conceptions of authority, here is a really splendid post on Called to Communion, exploring the topic in more depth and greater theological and philosophical acuity than I could hope to: “The Catholic and Protestant Authority Paradigms Compared.” It’s piercing, astute, and thought-provoking, as Called to Communion always is. My blog is the little kid that wants to grow up to someday be like Called to Communion.

The bottom line is that by placing a book, rather than a divinely authorized living authority, at the center of his epistemic paradigm, the Protestant not only must use his fallible human reason to arrive at the locus of divine authority and to ask clarifying questions regarding the content of divine revelation, as the Catholic also must do. He must continue the use of fallible reason to construct the clarifying answers to the questions he asks. But as I explained above, fallible human reason has neither the authority, nor the competency to supply such answers.

The Roman Catholic Controversy: Sola Scriptura

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

The fifth post in my series on James R. White’s The Roman Catholic Controversy.

I said in beginning this review that I was prepared to give praise where it was due. It is due here: James White has constructed a really splendid and solid case in favor of the doctrine of sola scriptura — “by Scripture alone,” the cry of the Reformers, which White calls the formal principle of the Reformation. His argument is finely honed and well oiled, almost as a mathematical proof, and snaps shut like a steel trap. I must confess, it left me rather stunned.

I will, however, point out a few assumptions on which White rests his argument that I believe weaken it. But I was asking yesterday how any reasonable Christian could read the same sources from the Early Church that I am reading and maintain a Reformed system of belief. This is how: with arguments like this. I see no adequate way to refute this, assuming the premises that White assumes; so I can therefore only question the premises, which to me are indeed questionable.

What Sola scriptura is not

White begins by presenting six points of what sola scriptura is not — none of which I thought it was:

Sola scriptura is not a claim that the Bible contains all knowledge (e.g. scientific, historical, political).
Sola scriptura is not a claim that the Bible is an exhaustive catalog of all religious knowledge. (It’s not a catechism or compendium, as I’ve pointed out before — but, according to sola scriptura, it has everything the believer needs.)
Sola scriptura is not a denial of the Church’s authority to teach God’s truth.
Sola scriptura is not a denial that God’s Word has, at times, been spoken (e.g. the preaching of the prophets and Apostles).
Sola scriptura is not a rejection of every kind or use of tradition (only the ones that can’t be supported by Scripture are not binding).
Sola scriptura is not a denial of the role of the Holy Spirit in guiding the Church.

Regarding the third point: White explains that there is “a vast difference between recognizing and confessing the Church as the pillar and support of truth (1 Timothy 3:15), and confessing the Church to be the final arbiter of truth itself.” “The Church, as the body of Christ, presents and upholds the truth, but she remains subservient to it.” Catholics too agree that the Church remains subservient to the truth — that is, she serves Christ and His truth and the divine revelation of God — but the Catholic Church believes that part of her service to the truth, her responsibility, is to properly interpret that truth and teach it to her people. This is as much the Church’s God-given duty and mission as it is her authority. White charges that “Rome has gone far beyond the biblical parameters regarding the roles and functions of the Church.” He needs to define, and expound from Scripture, what he believes these biblical roles and functions to be. “The Apostles established local churches. They chose elders and deacons” — and bishops too (1 Timothy 3:1-7), I must again add, if he is in fact teaching the biblical organization of the Church — “and entrusted to these the task of teaching and preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Indeed they did; and invested them with the authority to teach. As any teacher knows, the truth — even Scripture — involves interpretation, breaking down ideas and conveying them to the student in an understandable way. I don’t know what White thinks “teaching” is, if not this. The “truth” he teaches in his church, too, is an interpretation. White misunderstands what the Catholic Church believes her role to be. He assumes, despite his statement to the contrary, that the Christian Church in fact has no inherent authority to teach the truth.

What Sola scriptura is

White next approaches a definition of what sola scriptura is.

Scripture is the sole, infallible rule of faith (regula fidei); Scripture, and Scripture alone, is sufficient to function as such.
All that one must believe to be a Christian is contained in Scripture.
That which is not found in Scripture — either directly or by necessary implication — is not binding upon the Christian.
Scripture reveals those things necessary for salvation.
All traditions are subject to the higher authority of Scripture.

“The doctrine of sola scriptura, simply stated,” says White, “is that the Scriptures alone are sufficient to function as the regula fidei, the infallible rule of faith for the Church.” Proceeding from the very nature of Scripture as “God-breathed” (θεόπνευστος, theopneustos) revelation, Scripture is infallible and sufficient for salvation.

The Catholic Church fully agrees and affirms that Scripture is divinely inspired, inerrant, and authoritative:

Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation. Therefore “all Scripture is divinely inspired [θεόπνευστος] and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind” [2 Tim. 3:16-17, Greek text] (Second Vatican Council, Dei verbum III.11).

White’s argument that Scripture’s authority and sufficiency proceed from the very nature of Scripture itself strikes a chord with my argument from yesterday about the “actual authority” inherent in historical sources by virtue of what they are. Scripture too has this actual, historical authority, even aside from its divine inspiration.

White asserts that Scripture’s sole, infallible authority is not dependent on any man, church, or council, but proceeds from the nature of Scripture itself — for indeed Scripture attests to its own inspiration by God (2 Timothy 3:14-17), and everything God says must be authoritative and infallible. This argument does have one limitation, however: for it was the Church, by Tradition, that established the canon of Scripture, over several successive generations. It is only by the Church’s actions of collecting, preserving, and transmitting Scripture that we have an authoritative collection of Scriptures at all. It was through the discernment of the Church Fathers, guided by the Holy Spirit, that the canon of the New Testament was formed: the truly inspired books selected, and others excluded. Otherwise, we would not have a New Testament to be our “sole rule of faith.” I presume this is an issue which White will address later in the book.

White claims that Scripture is “self-consistent, self-interpreting, and self-authenticating” — and doesn’t really expound on these assertions. With these claims on their face, I have a serious problem. Nothing is “self-interpreting.” Language, by its very nature, has to be received and understood and processed mentally. As Dei verbum states, “Since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words” (III.12).

This is not even to mention that the Scriptures are written in ancient languages that are the native tongues of no one living today. Even English translations of the Scriptures must be interpreted; but to even create the English translations from the original languages requires a great deal of interpretation, in many cases when the meaning of the Greek or Hebrew words themselves is unclear or obscure, let alone the syntax and grammar. Translation is a monumental task of interpretation. To say that Scripture is “self-interpreting” undermines the hard work of both translators and teachers, and implies that the interpretation of the one making the statement is the only obvious and possible one.

Likewise, among the extant early manuscripts of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, there are thousands of textual variants — cases in which letters, words, or whole verses were left out, added, changed, transposed, misspelled, miscopied, or otherwise corrupted in the course of textual transmission. It is only by the arduous work of textual critics and paleographers that we have the authoritative, critical texts of the Scriptures on which grounds sola scriptura is even possible. To say that Scripture is “self-authenticating” undermines their labors.

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) writes of the doctrine of sola scriptura:

VI. The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word; and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and the government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

The claim that doctrines that are not themselves in Scripture, but “by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture,” and still meet the demands of sola scriptura, troubles me. This statement seems a catch-all for any doctrine that Protestants want to work out from Scripture, “by good and necessary consequence.” As I have pointed out before, the five solas are themselves found nowhere in Scripture, but proceed only “by good and necessary consequence” of a certain interpretation of Scripture. Likewise, the tenets of Calvinism — total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, et al. — are not written on the face of Scripture at all, but were worked out by Calvin and his followers through a considerable amount of interpretation and exegesis; they are nonetheless, to a Calvinist, a “good and necessary consequence” of Scripture. Other Protestants whom White, I presume, would accept as orthodox, may not find these doctrines to be “good and necessary consequences” of Scripture at all. For something that is “perspicuous” and “self-interpreting,” there is a considerable degree of interpretation and even disagreement as to its meaning.

White admits that “some measure of effort must be expended in reading and understanding the Scriptures” — but apparently, this effort does not involve “interpretation.” He notes, however, because of this required “effort,” “surely many of the disagreements people have over the meaning of the Scriptures are due not to any lack of clarity in them, but to unwillingness of people to make use of ‘ordinary means.’” We Catholics could not agree more. If Protestants would only use the “ordinary means” that would put the Scriptures into the proper historical, theological, and ecclesial context — that is, Tradition — then we could resolve our disagreements.

The Steel Trap

White’s biblical proof for sola scriptura hangs almost entirely on the interpretation of a single passage — 2 Timothy 3:14-17 (this is White’s translation):

¹⁴ But you remain in what you have learned and have become convinced of, knowing from whom you learned it, ¹⁵ and that from your childhood you knew the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation by faith which is in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction, for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ in order that the man of God might be complete, fully equipped for every good work.

White seems to know his Greek (he likes to show it off; I guess I do too), but one thing I would point out, that doesn’t particularly affect the sense of the passage, is that the main verb in the first verse, μένε (mene) is imperative — it’s a command, not an indicative statement. Most published translations read “But you, remain in what you have learned . . . ” Also, the word he translates “Scriptures” in verse 15 and the word he translates “Scripture” in verse 16 are two different words — the former being γράμμα (gramma), which can be any kind of writing (the ESV translates this phrase “holy writings”), and the latter being γραφή (graphē), which in the New Testament is only used of Scripture. In any case, the translation of this verse, so far as the words themselves, is clear.

White’s proof follows like so (I am simplifying it and presenting it as a logical proof; White does not):

The Scriptures, by their very nature as God-breathed, are able to make one wise unto salvation. Scripture in itself is sufficient for salvation.
The Scriptures, being God-breathed, i.e. breathed by God, have their origin in God, and therefore as the Word of God have God’s authority.
The Church, in Scripture, has and hears God’s Word, which has God’s authority. Therefore the authority of the Church to teach, rebuke, and instruct is derived from Scripture itself; the Church has no authority that does not derive from Scripture (“despite Roman Catholic claims to the contrary”).
Because Scripture is God’s voice, it is “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction, for training in righteousness, in order that the man of God might be complete, fully equipped for every good work.”
Therefore the man of God can be both saved and made complete with Scripture alone. Nothing else is necessary, or Paul would have mentioned it.
Therefore Scripture alone is sufficient to make the man of God complete for “every good work.” No man of God needs anything else for the purpose of ministry.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches doctrines that are not found in Scripture, either directly or by any logical deduction of implication — for example, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (the belief that the Virgin Mary was bodily assumed into Heaven at the end of her earthly life).
If these doctrines were true, it would be a “good work” to teach them.
Since Scripture equips the man of God to be complete for every “good work,” and Scripture does not equip the man of God to teach the Assumption, then it follows that teaching the Assumption is not a “good work.”
Therefore, the doctrine of the Assumption, and other non-biblical doctrines taught by the Catholic Church, are not necessary to be taught, or Scripture would equip the man of God to teach it. These doctrines are not necessary for salvation, or Scripture, being able to make one wise unto salvation, would teach them.

And the trap clangs shut.

“Hence,” says White triumphantly, “the Protestant says the doctrine is not binding upon the Christian; the Roman Catholic, having accepted the doctrine on the authority of the Roman Church, is forced to conclude the Bible is insufficient as a source of all divine truth.”

But wait. White isn’t done there. He proceeds to another leg of his argument, based on Matthew 15:1-9:

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

“‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for following the tradition of the elders — which the Pharisees believed to be God-given and authoritative, though it was not written in the Law — even though it broke the commandments of God, what was given as the Law, and were written in Scripture. Therefore all “tradition of the elders” is subject to Scripture, and it is to be tested against the known standard of Scripture.

White assumes that Sacred Tradition is contrary to or contradicts Scripture — but it isn’t and doesn’t. I assume, though, I will hear more about this later.

Assumptions

These are the questions I have with White’s argument.

The Nature of Scripture – The Old Testament

First, when Paul was writing to Timothy, the Holy Scriptures he was referring to were only the Old Testament; the New Testament had neither been written nor collected. White acknowledges this much. “No one would wish to say that the Old Testament is wholly adequate and the New Testament is superfluous and unnecessary,” he admits. “The thrust of the passage is the origin and resultant nature of Scripture and its abilities, not the extent of Scripture (i.e. the canon),” argues White. “That which is God-breathed is able, by its very nature, to give us the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (‘all things necessary for man’s salvation’) and to fully equip the man of God for the work of the ministry (‘all things necessary for . . . faith and life).'”

White continues to press this argument. Even acknowledging that Timothy would have heard and been brought to faith by the Gospel through hearing oral preaching, not through Scripture at all, he asserts that “the content of the teaching Timothy has received is identical with, not separate from, that found in the Word of God.” White insists that this oral preaching of the Gospel is the same content Timothy would received in the Holy Scriptures which he “had known from childhood.” “The message he has received in the Gospel is to be found in the Sacred Scriptures themselves” — in the Old Testament. Really?

Does White really mean to say that all Scripture, being God-breathed, is sufficient and able by its very nature to bring one to salvation in Christ Jesus? Is, say, the Book of Leviticus? What about Esther, which doesn’t even refer directly to God? Every book in the Old Testament, it’s true, is laced with metaphors and types and prophecies pointing to Christ — but are these prophecies, these precursors, sufficient in themselves to bring one to faith in Jesus? How could they be, if they don’t even mention Him? I’ve never heard of someone (other than Paul himself) “getting saved” reading only the Old Testament, with no other knowledge of Christ. Doesn’t faith in Christ necessitate knowledge of Christ? For “how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?” (Romans 10:14).

If Paul, referring to the Old Testament Scriptures, said “all Scripture is God-breathed” and “able to make wise for salvation in Christ Jesus” — and yet the Old Testament Scriptures aren’t able to bring one to faith in Christ Jesus — then it follows that Paul meant something else other than the way White and Protestants have interpreted this statement.

The Nature of Salvation

This raises another important point: The Scriptures are able to make Timothy wise unto salvation. According to the Protestant view, isn’t Timothy already “saved”? Isn’t justification by faith a once and for all experience, a done deal? Does this passage not suggest the Catholic view, that salvation is a process? Reading the Scriptures, then — any Scriptures, including the Old Testament (even including Leviticus, which I found illuminating) — would make the believer, who already has faith in Jesus and is already on that road, “wise for salvation.” They would add wisdom and foster spiritual growth and further him along the path — and we believe they do.

Oral Preaching and Tradition

No, in fact Timothy wasn’t brought to faith in Christ by Scripture at all, but by oral preaching. That preaching was sufficient to bring him to faith, along with every other believer during the Apostolic Age and before the New Testament was canonized. They didn’t have Scripture pertaining to Jesus. The preaching and teaching of the Apostles was transmitted orally by tradition for at least the first several generations of Christians; it was that tradition that brought the earliest believers to faith in Christ, not Scripture. And if that tradition continued — as we in the Catholic Church believe it did — would it not remain sufficient to “make wise for salvation”?

White stated earlier that “the content of the teaching Timothy has received is identical with, not separate from, that found in the Word of God.” He made this argument for the Old Testament Scriptures, to which Timothy had access, and this seems to fail on its face. But suppose White were arguing instead that the content that would be contained in the New Testament was identical with the message Timothy heard — which seems to be more logical and consistent with his thesis; that God breathed all that was sufficient for man to be saved into Scripture, and so the message Timothy heard is what God would have caused to be written. This argument, too, seems to make an unreasonable assumption. White acknowledges that God’s Word, at times, was spoken rather than written. How does White know — how can he assume — that there was no more to the message God spoke through the Apostles orally, that was not later written into the New Testament, the Sacred Tradition that the Catholic Church teaches? White assumes, by sola scriptura, that Scripture is all there is; but he cannot prove sola scriptura using sola scriptura. Scripture itself attests that not everything that was taught by spoken word was written (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

According to Protestants, Scripture contains all the Word of God that’s necessary to bring one to faith in Christ. The rest, according to their view — the other doctrines in Tradition that aren’t in Scripture — aren’t necessary. Even supposing that were true, it doesn’t necessarily follow, though, that because they are not necessary, they are not good, or are necessarily false, or should be discarded. God is a God of overabundance, not just “enough.” Why would I want only what was sufficient for salvation? Our Catholic faith is overflowing in its fullness — and every bit of it is good and worthy and “makes us wise unto salvation” — by my definition above, of furthering us along that path.

“All Good Work”

Okay, I changed my mind. I would like to take exception to one point in White’s interpretation of the Greek of the 2 Timothy 3 passage. For the Greek phrase he translates “every good work” — πᾶν ἔργον (pan ergon) — another possible reading is “all kinds of good work.” In fact, this is the reading preferred for this verse by the BDAG, the premier, most authoritative lexicon of New Testament Greek, which White himself calls to support his translation of another word. πᾶν ἔργον could, instead of every, mean every kind of or all sorts of.

White takes a very narrow, strict, legalistic reading of the word πᾶν — but Paul was not constructing a legal or logical argument here, but exhorting Timothy about doing good works. Just as we would say in English, “The Bible is useful for all kinds of things,” without meaning that the Bible is literally useful for all, each and every kind of thing, the same sense of the word πᾶν was common in Greek. While White does attempt to limit the scope of Paul’s “every good thing” to only those good things that pertained to Christian ministry, this sense isn’t at all clear from Paul’s language. But suppose for a moment that’s what Paul meant. “Scripture fully equips you for all kinds of good work in ministry.” White is very careful to make clear that the word complete (ἄρτιος, artios) is to be understood in the sense of “fitted, complete; capable, proficient; able to meet all demands.” Does Scripture literally make one fully equipped, “able to meet all demands” of “all kinds of good work” in ministry? Does it, say, teach you to preach a rhetorically good sermon? Does it provide you with a workable geography of Asia Minor? Does it teach, in plain terms, the Trinity, or the hypostatic union of Christ, or the five solas, or even its own canon? So, not quite “all kinds of things.” Paul is speaking as a rhetorician, not a logician.

Also, can Scripture be used for anything besides “good work” in ministry? Certainly. It can even be used for evil, such as justifying slavery or rape or genocide. So clearly Paul’s statement here is not meant to be taken as a legalistic, limiting, exclusive statement that “Scripture equips you for all, each and every good work you will ever need to do in ministry — and nothing else that would possibly be not so good.”

The Sufficiency of Scripture

Even if we were to accept White’s interpretation that Scripture in itself is sufficient to “make one wise unto salvation” — Scripture nowhere states, nor is it clear, that Scripture is the only thing that is sufficient to bring one to faith in Christ. In fact, as I have pointed out above, it is clear that the oral preaching of the Apostles — and its oral tradition, the passing of the apostolic teachings from one generation of Christians to the next — was sufficient to bring hearers to faith in Christ, before the New Testament was written, canonized, and disseminated.

That is not even to mention the oral preaching of preachers to this day — which also is sufficient to bring hearers to faith. White would argue that preachers today are preaching Scripture, that they are using the words of Scripture and the content of Scripture — but, since the oral teaching of the Apostles and their successors was also sufficient, it is clear that this Tradition also contained content that is sufficient for salvation.

White makes another unreasonable assumption about Scripture’s sufficiency. Paul says that Scripture is able to “equip the man of God for every good work.” According to White, if any other authority were necessary, Paul would have told Timothy. But we only have two surviving letters of Paul to Timothy. How do we know there weren’t other letters in which Paul gave Timothy other essential information? How do we know Paul didn’t impart other essential teachings to Timothy orally? We don’t have proof that he did (beyond the reception, through Tradition, of doctrines not in Scripture), but we don’t have proof that he didn’t. White assumes, because he believes Scripture is sufficient, that if anything else were necessary, Paul would have said so in Scripture. Because he didn’t, it must be true that Scripture is sufficient. White assumes his conclusion. It narrows to a tautology: Scripture is sufficient because it is sufficient.

The Authority of the Church

White denies repeatedly that the Church has inherent authority beyond the the authority of Scripture itself. “The authority of the Church is one: God’s authority,” states White. The Catholic Church agrees — the Church’s authority is God’s authority which Christ imparted to the Apostles. But White argues that the only authority God imparted was that contained in Scripture, His authoritative voice speaking to the Church and through the Church. “The divine authority of the Church, then, in teaching and rebuking and instructing, is derived from Scripture itself, despite Roman Catholic claims to the contrary.”

But Scripture itself very clearly presents a different picture. On numerous occasions, Christ Himself imparted authority to the Apostles, and charged them with a divine mission, and promised them power to fulfill it: to Peter, the authority to “bind and loose,” and the “keys of the kingdom” (Matthew 16:17-19); to the rest of the Apostles, the authority to “bind and loose” (Matthew 18:18); the authority to forgive sins or withhold forgiveness (John 20:22-23); the promise that the Holy Spirit will guide the Apostles into all truth (John 16:13-15); the Great Commission (Mark 16:15-18); and the promise of power from the Spirit (Luke 24:49). This is not an exhaustive list by any means. The Catholic Church believes that by apostolic succession, the authority of the Apostles descends to today’s pope and bishops. The authority of the Catholic Church derives from the authority of the Apostles, which was imparted to them by Christ. To the Church, its exercise of authority over Scripture and Tradition is God’s own authority.

The Magisterium of the Church has the authority to interpret Scripture definitively. White asserts that Scripture is the “higher authority” of Protestants, and that the individual believer has the authority to interpret Scripture for himself or herself. White asserts that Scripture is “self-interpreting,” and yet acknowledges that individual believers may come to different conclusions. Above it all, there seems to be a “correct” interpretation — the “self-interpreting” one — to which White is appealing. To what authority is he appealing? By what authority can White claim that his interpretation is right and the Catholic one is wrong?

Conclusions

As I said in the beginning, my arguments here do very little to argue against sola scriptura; they merely undermine White’s defense of it. There are no doubt other defenses, and even deeper, heartfelt convictions, that maintain Protestants in the belief.

This question begins, and ultimately ends, with authority. What do we believe our authority is? If we trust in the authority of the Church, her claims to authority rest on Scripture, history, and the writings of the Church Fathers. If we trust in sola scriptura, then we trust in the Protestant Reformers — whose interpretations of Scripture and doctrines ring just as true now as they did 500 years ago.

It is incumbent upon Protestants to prove that the Early Church ever believed or taught sola scriptura, that Scripture was ever their sole rule of faith. In my opinion as an historian, there is no evidence to suggest that anyone before the Reformers ever did. Even if Scripture seems to support a system of belief built upon sola scriptura, it cannot be true if no one in the Early Church ever held it. We have a sufficient store of writing from the first generations of Christians that this question — whether they adhered to sola scriptura, or also founded their beliefs on oral tradition — is answerable.

If it wasn’t held by the Early Church, then it wasn’t taught by the Apostles, and it wasn’t taught by Christ. It seems, in my historical opinion, an unlikely doctrine to have ever been taught. If it had been, the Apostles would have been much more concerned with writing, and the Early Church would have been much more concerned with preserving the apostolic letters that were no doubt written but no longer survive.

The Apostles taught by spoken word, and their spoken word was passed on to the next generations of Christians by oral tradition. The Christian faith was transmitted in such a way for several generations. Even after Scripture was canonized, the Church would not have abandoned the tradition of apostolic teachings. Over time these were written down by the Church Fathers.

The objection by educated Protestants — as it will no doubt be of James White — is that the Early Church almost immediately fell away from the true doctrine taught by the Apostles of sola scriptura. As diligent and faithful as the Early Church was, this seems unlikely; and it presumes a position of ecclesial deism.

In the end, the question comes down to whose authority we trust more: the Church Fathers, who attest to the beliefs of the Early Church, or the Reformers, who posit that the Early Church held doctrines that cannot be attested.

The Roman Catholic Controversy: Claims of Authority

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

The fourth post in my series on James R. White’s The Roman Catholic Controversy.

Come on, y’all. I am actively courting controversy here. And I’m not doing it just to talk to myself. I know there are readers out there who disagree with me and with my critiques. Please don’t be shy about challenging me. This is supposed to be a discussion, not a soliloquy.

I am getting into the meaty matter of The Roman Catholic Controversy‘s charges. In Chapter 4, “Who Defines the Gospel?,” James White brings some preliminary scrutiny to bear on the Roman Catholic Church’s claims of authority. This is leading into his discussion of the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, but first he wanted to present the claims of Rome as a contrast. He raises some important questions that every believer needs to consider, regarding authority, history, and Scripture. His own answers to those questions, however, are problematic.

The Interpretation of Scripture

The Roman Catholic Church claims the ultimate (final) authority in interpreting Scripture, by her teaching authority, the Magisterium of the Church (Magisterium from Latin magister, teacher; the adjective magisterial refers to this teaching authority). The Magisterium is made up of all the Church’s bishops in communion with the pope, and the pronouncements of the ecumenical councils of the Church, drawing from the sum of the ages of Church Tradition. White, however, misunderstands both the sources of the Church’s claims to authority and that authority’s implications.

According to White, the Church “maintains that only she can properly interpret the Scriptures.” This is not quite true, and neither of the council documents which he quotes out of context (from Trent and from Vatican II) indicates this. The Church fully acknowledges that believers are capable of reading and interpreting Scripture; but the Church, through the Magisterium, is a guide, a teacher, in the interpretation of Scripture and Tradition. The Church neither excludes nor discourages individual exegetes, so long as they operate in concert with the Church. To the contrary, learned exegetes contribute to the Church’s understanding. From Dei Verbum, the same Vatican II document that White quotes:

But, since Holy Scripture must be read and interpreted in the sacred spirit in which it was written, no less serious attention must be given to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture if the meaning of the sacred texts is to be correctly worked out. The living tradition of the whole Church must be taken into account along with the harmony which exists between elements of the faith. It is the task of exegetes to work according to these rules toward a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture, so that through preparatory study the judgment of the Church may mature. For all of what has been said about the way of interpreting Scripture is subject finally to the judgment of the Church, which carries out the divine commission and ministry of guarding and interpreting the word of God. (Dei Verbum, III.12)

The bride of the incarnate Word, the Church taught by the Holy Spirit, is concerned to move ahead toward a deeper understanding of the Sacred Scriptures so that she may increasingly feed her sons with the divine words. Therefore, she also encourages the study of the holy Fathers of both East and West and of sacred liturgies. Catholic exegetes then and other students of sacred theology, working diligently together and using appropriate means, should devote their energies, under the watchful care of the sacred teaching office of the Church, to an exploration and exposition of the divine writings. This should be so done that as many ministers of the divine word as possible will be able effectively to provide the nourishment of the Scriptures for the people of God, to enlighten their minds, strengthen their wills, and set men’s hearts on fire with the love of God. The sacred synod encourages the sons of the Church and Biblical scholars to continue energetically, following the mind of the Church, with the work they have so well begun, with a constant renewal of vigor (Dei Verbum, VI.23).

The Magisterium is a teacher, not a tyrant — a guide and a guardian, to protect the believer from falling into error, as much as to protect the integrity of the faith and the unity of the Church. It is the final authority for the interpretation of passages of Scripture that are open to dispute, that might, and have, led to schism. But the Church does not arbitrarily and dictatorally make such magisterial judgments with the aim of shoring up its own doctrine, as White implies. Every decision of the Magisterium is made in consideration of exhaustive exegesis of Scripture and Tradition, and is made transparently. Read any document of the popes and councils and you will find it abounding with citations to Scripture, popes, councils, theologians, and the Fathers.

Sacred Tradition

What does the Church mean by “Tradition”? White seems to think it means “whatever the Church says it means.” He charges that the Church claims she alone is responsible for both defining what is “tradition” and for interpreting what it means; and that there is “no external means of checking [this] authority.” He seems to misunderstand the difference between tradition (little-t) and Tradition (big-T) — that is, Sacred Tradition. Tradition with a little-t is anything that is passed down from previous generations, whether it’s music, liturgy, art, habits, folk beliefs, and almost anything else. Little-t tradition holds no inherent authority. Sacred Tradition is the authoritative tradition that has been passed down from the Apostles and the Church’s Magisterium through the ages of the Church. It is visible, traceable, and transparent through the documents of the Church — and it is authoritative not just because the Magisterium says it is, but because it has actual authority.

Actual Authority

In discussions about the Apostolic Churches (Catholic and Orthodox), the word “authority” is thrown around a lot. Protestants, I’ve noticed, tend to assume this refers to the divine, infallible authority with which the Church was charged by Christ. But it doesn’t always. In considering the Church’s claims to authority, it is important to realize that the documents, Scripture, and Tradition on which these claims are based are not just authoritative because the Church says they are, but because they have actual authority.

White accuses the Church of basing its claim to authority on circular reasoning: that the Church claims authority because Scripture and Tradition give it authority, and that Scripture and Tradition have authority because the Church says they do. This charge fails to recognize the inherent, actual authority of these documents. This is analogous to the academic, historical use of the word “authority” — in fact, it’s through considering these documents as historical documents that we realize this actual authority.

Pretend for a moment that we know nothing about Jesus. The four Gospels can be conclusively and academically dated to within several decades of Jesus’s life and ministry. Based on their date alone, even regardless of any claims of divine inspiration or canonicity or even of their truth, the Gospels are authoritative historical documents attesting to what Jesus taught and to what the Early Church taught about him. This is actual authority, which these documents have inherently by nature of what they are, not authority that had to be declared or given to them externally. Likewise, the Epistles of Paul are authoritative historical documents to the teachings of the Apostle Paul and to the history, organization, and culture of the Early Church in each of the places to which he wrote.

The same goes for the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, the first generation of Christian writers after the Apostles, including men like Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, to early Christian apologists such as Justin Martyr, and to the works of the Church Fathers in every generation. These writings are authoritative historical documents in and of themselves. They reveal to us what the Church taught in specific locations at specific dates; they attest to the presence and prevalence of ideas and doctrines. Like all historical sources, of course, they are open to interpretation and historical criticism; but provided these documents are properly authenticated, their authority stands for itself.

This actual authority eliminates any possibility of “circular reasoning” in the Church’s claims to authority. The Church’s claims to authority are not based upon themselves, but are supported by the accumulated weight of documents that are authoritative in themselves. These documents, especially the writings of the Church Fathers, are also the foundation of the Church’s authoritative interpretations of Scripture: the Magisterium’s pronouncements about Scripture are not authoritative only because the Church says so, but because they rest on the actual authority of the Church Fathers, early councils, and learned exegetes and theologians.

So White’s charge that the Magisterium’s interpretation of Scripture ignores “what the actual text says” in favor of its “tradition” and “special empowerment” fundamentally misunderstands the purpose and function of the Magisterium. As the arbiter of Scripture and Tradition, the Magisterium considers all the accumulated evidence from Tradition and from its own learned scholars — not ignoring the text of Scripture, but rather making it paramount, as the excerpts above indicate. Tradition does not contradict or compete with Scripture in the Magisterium’s judgments: rather, it is a lamp for shedding light on Scripture and a lens for peering deeper into it. It is never a case of “Scripture versus Tradition,” but rather of “Scripture and Tradition” together forming a cogent whole. The actual authority of Tradition allows us to benefit from the insight into Scripture of the Early Church and Church Fathers, who received the authoritative tradition of the Apostles’ own teachings.

Ultimate Authority

White charges that Rome, as an “ultimate authority,” “cannot be examined by a higher standard because by definition none could possibly exist.” Once one accepts Rome as an authority, “testing of all claims must be suspended.” “Rome may condescend to offer a proof here or a supporting text there,” but how can this be meaningful evidence, he asks, when only Rome can interpret the evidence she offers? He is incorrect in the charge that one must stop testing Rome’s claims: every judgment and pronouncement of the Church is open and transparent to the examination of the believer. Rather than “a proof here or supporting text there,” the Magisterium meticulously and exhaustively documents the sources of its dogma, and publishes those very sources so that they are available for anyone, from the average lay believer to the highest scholastic theologian, to pursue them and study them. In this digital age, virtually all of these documents are available online.

White is correct, though, in the sense that the Church is the highest and final authority in matters of faith and doctrine, liturgy and practice, and interpretation of Scripture and Tradition. This authority is not founded only upon itself, as I have demonstrated above, but supported and attested to by actual, historical authority from the origins of Christianity. But the claim to ultimate authority is based even more significantly on what the Church is and claims to be: the one, holy, and apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ and the Apostles, invested with Christ’s own authority and guided by His promised Holy Spirit.

White charges that Rome’s adherents follow her blindly and idealistically into unscriptural, even unhistorical doctrines, directed only to “trust Rome” against all other contrary evidence. As I have demonstrated above, Rome never asks anyone to trust blindly, but always meticulously and carefully explains her reasoning and documents her sources, proving the truth of its judgments rather than simply claiming it. It is true, however, that Rome, our Lord’s Church, is the authority to which we as Catholic believers are called to submit. If we believe that the Church is who she says she is — and if we believe that Christ is who He says He is — then we choose to submit gladly.

A number of Scriptures — most notably Matthew 16:17–19, but also Matthew 18:18, John 20:22-23, John 16:13-15, Mark 16:15-18, Luke 24:49, Acts 1:8, and others — can only be interpreted be as Jesus explicitly granting authority to His Apostles. In Matthew 16:17-19, Jesus declared the foundation of His Church on the Apostle Peter, and invested Peter with the authority to “bind and loose” and the power of the “keys.” Historically and textually, the Gospel of Matthew originated in Judea and was neither written nor preserved nor canonized by partisans of the Church of Rome, but by the entire universal Church. If we as Christians believe the Bible at its Word, then we must believe that Jesus founded a Church, declared that it would stand against the gates of hell, invested it with His authority, and gave His Holy Spirit to guide it into all truth.

White charges that it is merely a “fallible” choice to follow the Church of Rome, no more certain than the decision to follow any other faith or sect. It is true that no one can be certain beyond rational doubt of the truth of Rome’s claims — but in the same way, no one can be certain beyond rational doubt that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, or any other truth we proclaim about Christianity. Faith in Christ is not “blind,” but supported by a wealth of testimonies, experiences, scientific, historical, and textual evidences — but in the end it is still accepted on faith, the gift of God’s grace. The claims of the Church of Rome, that it is the authoritative Church that Jesus founded, cannot be proven with absolute, scientific certainty, any more than the truth of Christ can. Rome’s authority must also, similarly, be taken on faith. But it is not a blind faith by any means. We know with a fair degree of certainty, both historical and archaeological, that Christ’s Apostles Peter and Paul were the foundation of the Church of Rome. Together with the historical evidence of the Gospels, the universal acknowledgement among early writers that Peter and Paul founded the Church, the Church Fathers’ deference to her authority, and the very fact that the Roman Church came to be preeminent, all attest to the truth of Rome’s claims.

What drew me to the Roman Catholic Church was her actual, historical authority, not her claims to infallible authority. My choice was a fallible one, it is true; I made it on faith; but I based my decision on the overwhelming weight of historical evidence. I accept Rome’s claims of infallible authority — I put my faith in the Church — not blindly or idealistically, but because all the evidence supports them.

The Church of Rome has a legitimate, historical, documentable claim to her origins and authority. Rather foolishly and provocatively, White claims that “the modern Roman Church is not the historical Roman Church.” Because she has changed and evolved over the centuries, and no longer resembles exactly the Church of the third, eighth, or eleventh centuries — because the early bishops of Rome would no longer recognize her as the Church they founded — she is not the same Church, says White. But by the same token, the Founding Fathers of the United States would no longer recognize the nation they founded. The modern Catholic Church is no less the Church that St. Peter founded than the modern United States is the nation that George Washington founded.

The Great Scandal

White also charges that believers choose to put their faith in the Catholic Church, or similarly the Orthodox Church — they choose to accept the claims of an infallible Church authority — because they fear taking “personal responsibility” for their faith and want a “higher authority” to do the work of interpreting Scripture for them, to make the hard decisions for them, to dictate their faith to them. Believers follow an authoritative Church because they desire the “infallible fuzzies,” “that comforting feeling of being ‘in’ with the ancient, unchanging, all-powerful, and infallible church.”

As I’ve written before, I wasn’t even looking for authority — or at least, I didn’t know that it was what I was missing — when I stumbled upon it and everything fell into place. Giving up personal responsibility was the last thing I was searching for — it was in fact my greatest fear about the Catholic Church. I neither desired nor expected the “infallible fuzzies” — and if I now have them, it’s only because Holy Mother Church is rightly sheltering me.

Rather, I was wandering to get away from the chaos and disorder of Protestantism — from the complete disarray and disagreement among Protestants about scriptural interpretation and doctrine; from the more than 50,000 distinct Protestant denominations and sects; from the intellectual inanity and emotionalism at one end, and the rigid, heartless dogmatism at the other. I blame all of this disorder on the very Reformation and its doctrines — on the Reformers’ severing of Christianity from any form of Authority or Tradition — most of all on sola scriptura.

Sola scriptura, a well-meaning doctrine that aims to set up Scripture itself as the ultimate authority, ultimately results in the setting up of each individual believer as his own ultimate authority. White admits as much. For it is each believer’s individual, personal responsibility to interpret Scripture for himself or herself, to arrive at correct doctrine, and make his own decisions about his faith. By the “individual priesthood of the believer,”* White declares, every believer is personally responsible for his own faith. “God holds us individually responsible for what we believe and why we believe it.” This, to White, is the “Great Scandal” of the Reformation.

* I’m not the Reformation scholar yet that I should be, but is White not grossly misinterpreting the doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers” — that is, the idea that all believers together are a priesthood, not each individual believer his own priest?

Of course God holds us personally responsible for our own decisions about our faith and beliefs. But that does not excuse us from submitting to the authorities that Christ established. In the Early Church, rejecting the authority and tradition of the Church to follow one’s own choices regarding belief was called heresy (αἵρεσις [hairesis], from αἱρέω, to choose for oneself). It is only by charity and a desire for reconciliation that most of us have stopped using that term of each other.

A little ironically, White steps back a moment to emphasize that this doctrine does not eliminate the need for the Church, and “does not do away with the biblically based authority of elders.” He seems to be selectively ignoring the biblically-based authority of bishops (ἐπίσκοποι) (1 Timothy 3:1-7). He declares that believers are to submit to the elders of the Church, and hold firm to the Apostles’ doctrines. So, believers are to submit to the authority of elders (πρεσβύτεροι, or presbyters — the origin of our priests) — but not a hierarchical, authoritative Church?

Sola Scriptura

In light of this “Great Scandal” — which to me, seems every bit as scandalous as White means it to be ironic — White attempts a defense of sola scriptura and the private interpretation of Scripture. He establishes that we are rational, but fallible and limited creatures, and that God entrusted to us His inspired Word in the Scriptures — and then hits the point of individual authority. “Do you really think God is shocked that human beings end up disagreeing over what His Scriptures teach?” he asks. “No, not for a moment.”

But this view seems immediately contrary to the God revealed in the very Scriptures He gave. All throughout salvation history, God installed His authority in the lives of His people, to instruct them and guide them. In the Old Testament, there was the Law of Moses; after Moses and Joshua, there were judges; then there were kings and prophets. Always there was God’s authoritative voice and leadership in the midst of His people. Then in the New Testament, God Himself came down to teach and shepherd His people, to establish a New Covenant and to enact the Gospel. And then, He left them with — a book? Open for each individual believer to interpret? With no other guidance or authority? That seems rather anti-climactic. No, Jesus never mentioned anything about a book; the Gospels do not anticipate the New Testament or a sola scriptura dependence on Scripture, let alone the individual interpretation of it. Jesus does establish a Church in the Gospels, and promise that the Holy Spirit would guide it into all truth (John 16:13).

In fact, none of Scripture was written or directed to the individual believer. Every book of the Old Testament was intended for the entire people of Israel. The books of the New Testament were meant for the whole Church (the Gospels and Catholic Epistles), for local churches (most of the Pauline Epistles), or for specific individuals (the Pastoral Epistles). When Paul addresses the collective Church, he uses the plural; he does not anticipate individual believers interpreting Scripture on their own or being their own authority.

What is more, in the Early Church, and even up until the modern age, the individual believer couldn’t read and interpret Scripture for himself. Until fairly recently, the vast majority of people were illiterate. This is not even to mention the great time and expense involved in copying the Scriptures: Very few individual believers even had private access to the Scriptures until the printing press. The Scriptures were the domain of the local church: only an entire church body could afford a copy of the Scriptures. Only in the Church could the lay believer hear the Scriptures read publicly, or could a knowledgeable teacher instruct him in their meaning. This is exactly analogous to the Jewish tradition from which Christianity descended: only in the synagogue could faithful Jews hear and be instructed in the Scriptures. When Paul wrote to Timothy and instructed him to devote himself to the Scriptures, it was to the public reading of Scriptures, and to publicly teaching them to other believers (1 Timothy 4:13), not to private study and personal interpretation; Timothy certainly didn’t have his own private copy. There was never any thought of the private ownership, readership, or interpretation of the Scriptures among the lay faithful until the days of Wycliffe and Luther and Tyndale. In the Early Church, the “priesthood of the individual believer” was not a practical possibility.

This demands the question: Would Jesus grant to His Church as its sole authority a Book of Scriptures that few could read and fewer could afford to own? That wasn’t even all written until thirty to fifty years after His Ascension? That didn’t even exist as a canon until a century or two later? Did Christ expect individual believers to take “personal responsibility” for the interpretation of Scripture for the fifteen or sixteen centuries when they had no private access to it, and when there was no reasonable expectation that they would? Did He simply abandon the majority of His faithful to be sore out-of-luck until the glorious day of the Reformers? No, this does not sound like the Jesus I know. Scripture attests that Jesus established a Church and invested it with authority to teach and guide believers, to corporately be His Body and His Bride; not to foster individualism and private interpretation of Scripture and doctrine.

Tradition and Biblical Interpretation

Posted on June 14, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

A leaf from Codex Vaticanus, one of the earliest extant manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.

Tradition, I think, is a scary word for evangelical Protestants. But all it means on its letter is something handed down — from Latin trado: trans (over, across) + do (give) — something passed from one generation to the next, from one group to the next. As I’ve pointed out before, all Protestants, whether they admit it or not, adhere to some form of tradition. As Christians, everything we believe is by necessity traditional: it was not handed to us by God directly, but given to us by the Christians before us. Even the Bible is a collection of traditional writings: documents that were handed down to us from the Early Church. All Christians follow in the tradition of someone, whether it’s the Roman Magisterium, Martin Luther, John Calvin, or John Wesley. Ultimately, all Christians hope they are following in the tradition of the Apostles. If they are not — if they claim to be rejecting all tradition — then their Christianity must be seriously suspect.

Likewise, the way we interpret the Bible is traditional. Christians do not approach the biblical books as texts in a vacuum. Our readings are generally viewed in the light of the whole of Scripture. We read the Old Testament in the light of Christ’s fulfillment of it (with notable exceptions, such as the translations of the RSV and NRSV); we read the New Testament Epistles in the light of the Gospels and of each other. We approach Scripture with preconceptions of theology and doctrine. A prime example is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity: All orthodox Christians read the fullness of the doctrine of the Trinity in Scripture, but it is not at all written on Scripture’s face. We recognize the Trinity because the Church’s ancient theologians and exegetes have fleshed it out for us, hammered it out by generations of successive argument and refutation of heterodox views. Likewise is the doctrine of the fully human, fully divine nature of Christ and His hypostatic union. Even the canon of Scripture itself — what documents we accept as part of the Bible and what documents we reject — depends on the tradition of the Fathers of the Church in the first Christian centuries, arguing for and against the inclusion of various texts. Protestants read Scripture in the firm paradigms of their doctrinal traditions, whether Lutheran, Calvinist, Arminian, or so forth, appealing to the traditions and commentaries of great theologians of the past — with the result that despite their proclamation of sola scriptura, their understanding of Scripture is by necessity deeply rooted in tradition.

The Catholic Church reads Scripture in the same way — only with the whole of apostolic and patristic tradition behind its interpretations. As an historian (revisionists aside) builds his interpretations on those of his predecessors, the Catholic Church’s doctrinal framework is founded upon the traditions of popes, councils, great theologians and thinkers, all the way back to the Church Fathers, the first generations of Christians after the Apostles themselves. The Church proclaims its adherence to Apostolic Tradition, both that handed down orally and that written, and it is the early Fathers who attest to our traditions back to the hands of the Apostles.

As I have written before, the New Testament writings handed down to us are at best a fragmentary record of the teachings of the Apostles and Early Church; the Sacred Tradition handed down through the Church Fathers fills in the gaps and completes our image. But the Fathers also read and interpreted Scripture; and it is only in the light of their Tradition that we can properly understand the Bible. As for the historian, one of the crucial tasks in approaching a primary text, in understanding the thoughts and intentions of a writer, especially one of an ancient time and culture, is to understand how his words were received and understood by their primary recipients. The earliest Church Fathers, such as Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, are at most only thirty or forty years departed from the writing of the New Testament: they are the New Testament’s primary recipients, and within living memory of the Apostles. To separate the New Testament texts from the understanding of these early Christians, as a strict reliance on “sola scriptura” does — to read the New Testament in a presentist view, without the light of the interpretations of the Early Church — risks taking it out of context, or else grossly misinterpreting it.

Some Protestants do read the Church Fathers — but many are selective in their readings, reading the parts of Augustine especially, for example, that seem to support their Reformation theologies. Taking the Church Fathers, or any writer, out of their historical context in this way is as dangerous as it is with Scripture. For Augustine was a bishop of the Roman Church, operating in and upholding its traditions. His views must be interpreted against his position and his entire belief system; he would not have sanctioned his doctrines being used to support any theology that opposed the Catholic Church.

The fact of the multiplicity of Protestant readings and interpretations of Scripture — that there is less doctrinal agreement among Protestant churches than at any time prior — that there are more fragmented Protestant denominations than ever before (more than 33,000) — proclaims the utter failure of sola scriptura, and the danger of severing the interpretation of Scripture from tradition and authority. This is not a new phenomenon with Protestants: at the root of every heresy has been the decision to reject traditional doctrine and follow one’s own interpretation.

Before I began converting, the idea of giving up one’s personal, individualistic interpretation of Scripture to accept the teachings of a rigid and authoritative institution seemed to be an anti-intellectual subjugation of individual thought and will, and a recipe for abuse. For couldn’t the Church teach that Scripture said anything they wanted it to say, to justify their extrabiblical traditions? Wasn’t the freedom of the Christian to think and read the Bible for himself the only insurance he had against manipulation and deception? But I now see that the truth is just the opposite. The Christian who is “free” from authority is much more susceptible to being misled and exploited. It is the authority of the Church — the authority handed down from the Apostles — that protects us, that ensures the integrity and orthodoxy of our faith. And this protection is built into the system: Today’s prelates cannot abuse their authority, they cannot introduce inventions or radical reinterpretations, because the root of their authority and their interpretations is the Tradition of the Church — which is open, accessible, and visible for any Christian to investigate and in which to verify the truth.

By Scripture Alone; Alone with Scripture

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

(I am afraid this one gets a little preachy; possibly a little critical. As always, my heart is not to attack, but to rebuild.)

The Gutenberg Bible, the first printed Bible. (Wikipedia)

So continuing from my thoughts yesterday:

One of the most strident cries of the Protestant Reformation, and of Protestants to this day, is sola scriptura: by Scripture alone. Scripture, the Bible, was to be the sole rule and authority of faith and doctrine.

From an academic standpoint, I can respect this. It holds Christian doctrine and tradition to a very high, legalistic standard of proof. It demands that all belief and practice be absolutely attested to in inspired writing and stamped with divine approval. It demands written attestation by the Apostles — or by God Himself — before Christians put any element of faith into action. But is this a reasonable expectation?

As I wrote yesterday, nothing in our New Testament represents itself as a compendium or catechism of the Christian faith. No book claims to contain the sum of Christian truth. There is no demand or expectation in the New Testament that the New Testament writings alone should support, nourish, instruct, or guide the Church. At the time these documents were written, there wasn’t even any such collection as the New Testament. How could Paul, at the time he wrote his letters, have expected that his words, with those of a few others, would be the sole rule of the Church’s faith? Arguably, he and the other writers were aware that their writing was inspired by the Holy Spirit; but it is doubtful that they at the time would have understood their words to be Scripture — which to them referred to the Old Testament (though St. Peter in 2 Peter 3:15-16 apparently places St. Paul’s writings on the level with Scripture by the end of their lives, ca. A.D. 63–67).

It is evident throughout the New Testament that the Apostles’ primary mode of transmitting the teachings of Christ was through spoken preaching and teaching, not writing. Most of the Apostles were too busy doing other things, like evangelizing to the ends of the earth and dying martyrs for the faith, to write much. That Paul was such an effective writer as well as a tireless preacher surely had a lot to do with why Christ chose him. On every page of Paul’s epistles, he refers to what he taught to the churches in person, teachings that he does not repeat in writing. The Early Church, living prior to the New Testament being collected, received their Christian faith directly through the oral teaching of the Apostles and their successors, and could not have even comprehended an insistence on “Scripture alone.” It is a little ironic that a faith so focused on sermons and preaching should at the same time reject the oral tradition of the Apostles.

Some Protestant sects take this rejection further than others. Especially some of the older groups, such as Lutherans and Anglicans, have retained many of the external trappings of the Church’s traditions. I speak only anecdotally, I confess — I have a lot of reading to do about these churches — but I often hear Anglicanism referred to as “Catholic lite.” Many more conservative and traditional Anglicans are making the journey back to the Mother Church by the parish. I’ve never been a part of a Lutheran church, but through following Ken Ranos and talking to my friend Heather (who attends an ELCA church in California), I’m frequently nodding in agreement at all the similarities and parallels between our traditions. They take the attitude, it seems, that many of the traditions of the Church are valuable and beautiful and praiseworthy, and ought not to be discarded as long as they don’t hinder the Gospel of Christ.

Other churches, especially those descending from the Calvinist tradition, take the rejection of tradition much further. Here I’m on much more familiar ground, having been a part of Baptist and Presbyterian churches. The iconoclasm of Reformation Calvinists toward religious images is well known. It is evident to anyone who has ever seen or set foot in an evangelical church the extent to which their sects have rejected the artistic, ornamental, and architectural aspects of tradition. In doctrine, to a further point than Lutherans or Anglicans, these churches reject anything that is not written explicitly on the face of Scripture. The Sacraments of Confession and Confirmation are completely absent, for example — if not the notion of sacramentality itself. The veneration of saints, the very idea of sainthood, is gone. The attitude here, as I’ve heard from many Protestants, is that the absence of a tradition from Scripture is reason in itself not to do it.

This can, and has, been taken to extremes. The Seventh-Day Adventists and their ilk reject Sunday worship — which has been practiced by the Church since the earliest days — because it is not commanded by Scripture. The Churches of Christ reject the use of musical instruments in worship because there is no evidence of it in the New Testament. I encountered a “new wave” church in Alabama that had no pastor but professed to practice a “New Testament model of church organization.” I am not quite sure what that means, since the New Testament never lays out a model of church organization; but presumably it included elders and deacons. It is common to hear of Protestant churches that try to reconstruct the New Testament Church — but the New Testament gives only glimpses of the faith and practice of the Early Church; most evangelicals reject the authorities that would shed the most light, the Church Fathers. Some churches are even rejecting the traditional doctrine of the Trinity, and returning to such ancient heresies as Sabellianism and Arianism. I’ve talked to Protestants who readily acknowledged that some of the traditions of the Church are good things to do and hold, and have value and merit — but that their churches nonetheless reject them because they can’t find them in Scripture.

This seems to me to be an awfully lonely and barren place to be. By their strictness in living by Scripture alone, these churches are left entirely alone with Scripture. They have shorn themselves of all of the beautiful and wonderful things that have clothed and ornamented the Church over the ages: all of the history, all of the scholarship, all of the art, all of the music. They have spurned the fellowship of the heroes and martyrs, the great cloud of witnesses, who are a part of our spiritual communion in Christ. Even more seriously, they have cast away elements of the faith — the Sacraments, Holy Orders, Apostolic Succession — that make the Gospel work, that guide and nourish the Church, that protect her teachings and sacraments, and that keep her in communion with the Holy Spirit.

Most tragically, with these nuts and bolts and hinges removed, the Church has lost her unity. Since the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, the breakaway Protestant sects have split, and split, and split again, until there are estimated to be upward of 33,000 distinct Protestant denominations (and this is a conservative estimate). There have been more new denominations formed in the past century than have ever existed in all the prior centuries combined. Many churches — the hundreds of thousands of independent or nondenominational churches — really are completely alone. Only the Catholic Church remains one and coherent in the face of this disintegration. The Protestant churches beyond are splintering.

But wasn’t the Reformation supposed to restore the Church? Wasn’t sola scriptura supposed to bring the Church back to the Gospel? Whatever may be said about the doctrine’s aims, without any kind of magisterial authority to guide the Church, disagreement about the interpretation of Scripture only multiplies. Sola scriptura is the linchpin of the whole Reformation, without which it would not have been possible to reject the Catholic Church, its hierarchy, or its Sacraments. It, more than any other doctrine, is the root of our continued disagreement, and our failure to reunite the Church. And it has fostered the individualistic, private interpretation of Scripture, which to this day has been more divisive than any other element in Christian spirituality.

Sola Scriptura and Sacred Tradition

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

This weekend I met with my friend Josh the Baptist, my oldest and dearest Christian friend. Over the years he has not been the most amenable to Catholicism — he once told me, years before either of us had any idea I would end up here, that he didn’t believe Catholicism was Christian. But he has nonetheless been very supportive of my faith and my journey. We picked at some doctrinal and theological points the other night. Both of us realized points where we needed to learn and firm up our arguments. Iron sharpens iron.

I realized talking to him, as I am realizing more and more talking to other Protestants, that one of the fundamental obstacles standing between Catholics and Protestants, if not the fundamental obstacle, is sola scriptura for Protestants and Sacred Tradition for Catholics. For Protestants, Scripture is the sole, exclusive authority for doctrine. Catholics found their doctrine on the union of Scripture and Tradition. Not only is this divergence an obstacle to agreement, it’s even an obstacle to understanding. Protestants are so fixed in the sola scriptura mindset that the very idea of rooting beliefs in Tradition is foreign and incomprehensible. Likewise for Catholics, the idea of rejecting Tradition because it’s not in Scripture seems absurd.

Because Scripture and Tradition are two different vessels for transmitting the deposit of faith — both that which was written down and that which was spoken (2 Thessalonians 2:15 ESV). It makes little sense to a Catholic to reject the oral tradition of the Apostles simply because it was oral tradition. The Gospels themselves were written from testimony that had persisted in oral tradition for at least thirty or forty years. Neither Christ nor the Apostles made any attempt to compose a formal, encyclopedic, or exhaustive compendium or catechism of the Christian faith. The writings that make up our New Testament never purport to be the whole, complete body of Christian Truth — in fact, they admit of themselves that they are not (John 21:25 ESV). The Law of the Old Testament was self-consciously the whole, written legal code of the Hebrews, given to govern their people and their relationship to God. But the New Testament is a scattered collection of various documents, comprised of selective narratives for specific audiences; epistles written to specific recipients to address specific concerns; and an apocalyptic prophecy. We should receive these writings for what they are, and not expect them to be something they are not.

The Protestant argument is that the Holy Spirit preserved for us the sum of what we needed in Scripture. The Catholic argument is that the Holy Spirit preserved for us the sum of what we needed — in Scripture and Tradition. Personally, I find the Catholic argument more palatable and reasonable. As an historian, I highly value primary sources written by the hand of people who experienced an event, but I don’t reject other sources that received information secondarily and then declare that the only knowledge I will accept as true comes from the primary documents. A fair portion of the New Testament documents are actually secondary sources, not written by Apostles (Mark, Luke, Acts, probably Hebrews) but by their followers, who wrote down the testimony and teachings of others as they were passed down to them. (That number is even more, if you consider that Matthew and Luke appear to have used Mark as a source.) Yes, the Holy Spirit guided and inspired the New Testament writers — but just so, we believe that the Holy Spirit guided and protected the passing down of apostolic teachings through Sacred Tradition.

The New Testament never claims to be the sole rule or source of faith. No one prior to Luther attempted to make it so, nor would early Christians have found sola scriptura in any way comprehensible. St. Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV) — but neither Paul nor anyone writes that Scripture alone is profitable or acceptable. In fact, just a chapter before, he had said otherwise (2 Timothy 2:1-2 ESV):

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

What Paul is describing is oral tradition, the passing down of sacred teachings from generation to generation by word of mouth. This is the beginning of apostolic succession. Men chosen and approved were ordained to receive the deposit of apostolic teaching; so that by the succession of consecrated bishops, whose lineages could be traced back to the Apostles themselves, the Christian faithful were assured of the integrity, orthodoxy, and wholeness of their faith. As Clement of Rome wrote in ca. 95-96, a mere generation after the Apostles, himself a successor of Peter (1 Clement 42, 44):

Through countryside and city [the Apostles] preached, and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty, for bishops and deacons had been written about a long time earlier. . . . Our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry.

And St. Irenaeus, a century later, in ca. 180 (Against Heresies, III.3.2):

[We confound the heretics] by indicating that tradition derived from the Apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops.

Most Protestants, whether they admit it or not, adhere to some form of extrascriptural tradition. It permeates the entire Church, in all that Christians do and how they do it. The basic order of worship, the singing of hymns following by the reading of Scripture and a sermon, is as old as the Church, but found nowhere in the Bible. The celebration of the Lord’s Day on Sunday, in commemoration of the Resurrection, rather than on the Jewish Sabbath, is a nearly universal Christian tradition (excepting Seventh-Day Adventists and the like), but found nowhere in Scripture. The bare bones of the Church’s liturgical calendar, Easter and Christmas, are observed by nearly all Christians and even most of the secular world, but not mandated by Scripture. Even the canon of Scripture itself, on which sola scriptura depends, cannot be derived from Scripture alone. The canon of the New Testament was hammered out through questioning and disputation by successive Church Fathers and councils over the course of the first three centuries. Likewise, the doctrine of the Trinity, taken for granted by most Christians today, is nowhere laid out plainly in Scripture. It took centuries of theological wrangling by the Fathers and councils, disputation with heretical sects and condemnation of numerous heterodox views, for the orthodox Trinitarian dogma to fully emerge.

More subtly and seriously, the schools of scriptural interpretation which shape the Protestant reading of the Bible, through sola scriptura, are firmly ensconced in tradition. Most Protestants raised up in a particular theological tradition — in Calvinism, or Armininianism, or Lutheranism, or Wesleyanism — tend to adhere to the interpretations that they are taught. They are likely to read and understand the Bible the same way their pastors do, and possibly the same way their fathers and grandfathers did. Protestants appeal to great theologians and exegetes of the past — to the tradition of biblical interpretation having been handed down — all while not recognizing that their Christian understanding is colored and supported by anything but sola scriptura.

Letting go of sola scriptura is probably a significant hurdle for many Catholic converts from Protestantism. It never was for me. I had been reading the Church Fathers for five or six years before I converted. I have admired the traditions of the Church for as long as I can remember. By intellectual training, I have learned to operate in a traditional paradigm, through history and historiography, citing authorities of the past as support for truth. A good year or two before I made any move toward the Church, I found that I had already given up sola scriptura.

Early Testimonies to St. Peter’s Ministry in Rome

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

Peter Paul Rubens. St. Peter. c. 1611. Oil on canvas.

So I’m realizing why the “tomb of st. peter” is such a popular search term. It seems the issue of St. Peter’s presence and ministry in Rome is one of the major points of contention between Catholics and many Protestants (especially those of an anti-Catholic bent). This is somewhat surprising to me. Even as a Protestant, there was never any question in my mind that Peter ministered and died in Rome — perhaps because I’m also an historian. The historical evidence for Peter being in Rome is not just solid; it’s unanimous. Every historical record that speaks to Peter’s later life and death attests that he died in Rome a martyr under the emperor Nero, ca. A.D. 67. No record places the end of his life anywhere else.

The fact that so many people are searching on Peter in Rome tells me that people are hearing conflicting statements and wondering, searching for the truth. The fact that so many Protestants deny it so vehemently, and refute it so absurdly, tells me that they, however basically, realize the power in our claim. They recognize and in effect acknowledge what we have maintained for many centuries: that having the chief of Apostles as our foundation gives the Roman Catholic Church legitimacy and primacy.

Why else would it be so important to refute that St. Peter was here? He was but a man who died nearly 2,000 years ago. If, as Protestants charge, the Catholic Church left its apostolic foundations long ago and drifted over the centuries into corruption, why should it be so significant what those foundations were? Why deny a well-attested historical fact unless it carries some continuing authority? Do they not realize that in attacking the Roman Church’s foundations, they are undermining their own — since we are their Mother Church, too?

The primary reason for this opposition, I suspect, is that in a fundamentalist view, all religious truth must come from Scripture, sola scriptura — and it is not self-evident from Scripture that St. Peter was ever in Rome. This is also the reason why few Protestants seem to dispute that St. Paul was in Rome: because he tells us he was, repeatedly, in his scriptural epistles. Most more thoughtful Protestants realize that there is a difference between religious truth and historical truth, however intertwined the two may sometimes be; and historical sources are valid authorities for historical truth. These tend to be, incidentally, the Protestants least inclined toward anti-Catholicism.

First Epistle of St. Peter

But the Bible can be an historical source, too. And there is actually a significant testimony in the Bible to Peter’s presence in Rome. In the valediction of Peter’s first epistle, he wrote (1 Peter 5:13 ESV):

She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.

Here the Greek grammar is clear: ἀσπάζεται ὑμᾶς (sends greetings to y’all) ἡ ἐν βαβυλῶνι (she who is in/at Babylon) συνεκλεκτὴ (she elected/chosen together) καὶ Μᾶρκος (and also Mark) ὁ υἱός μου (my son). Peter, writing the letter, and therefore sending the greetings, is obviously with “she who is at Babylon,” and also with Mark, “[his] son.” She elected is the Church, always personified as a woman; and Peter is with the Church. But the Church where? The ancient city of Babylon had been in ruins for centuries. Peter must have been speaking in a cryptic metaphor. The Babylon of the Bible was the capital of a vast, powerful empire, and stood at the height of sin and excess. Where else could that be in Peter’s day but Rome?

You don’t have to take my word for it. From the study notes of the well-respected, evangelical ESV Study Bible (which continues to be my personal Bible of choice):

1 Pet. 5:13 She who is at Babylon, who is … chosen almost certainly refers to the church in Rome, not a literal woman (cf. “elect lady,” 2 John 1, 13). Although the Babylon of the OT was in ruins, the reference resonates with the OT, where “Babylon” represents a center of earthly power opposed to God (cf. Isaiah 13–14; Jeremiah 50–51; see also Revelation 17–18), and in Peter’s day that city would be Rome. The language of “Babylon” and “chosen” forms an inclusio (a literary envelope) with the first verse of the book: the OT background to “Babylon” reminds believers that though they are exiles, they are “elect exiles” (1 Pet. 1:1) who will receive the promised inheritance. Mark is the same John Mark who traveled with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey (cf. Acts 12:25; 13:5, 13; 15:36–39). Though he left Paul and Barnabas, he was later restored to his former usefulness (Col. 4:10; 2 Tim. 4:11; Philem. 24). Peter would have known Mark from the earliest days, because the church met in his mother’s home (Acts 12:12). In addition, this verse shows a close relationship between Peter and Mark (my son) and is one indication of the validity of the early church tradition that Mark wrote his Gospel at Peter’s direction.

Writing under the emperor Nero, Peter would wisely have used discretion in revealing his whereabouts in writing, lest his letter be intercepted by Roman authorities. The symbolism that is transparent to Christians today would not have been so explicit to those not so steeped in the Old Testament or ancient Mesopotamian history.

St. Clement of Rome

Among the earliest surviving testimony outside the Bible is the first letter of Clement (1 Clement), which is usually dated to around 95 or 96 A.D. Clement of Rome, as evident from the letter, was a high official of the Church in Rome, writing in exhortation to the Church at Corinth to settle a division between the established elders and an upstart faction. The Roman Catholic Church today holds St. Clement to have been the third bishop of Rome (i.e. pope); early patristic writers varied in their listings, placing Clement anywhere from second to fourth. His letter is a clear early example of the bishop of Rome exerting authority over other churches.

Regarding St. Peter, St. Clement did not speak to the specifics of Peter’s fate, but wrote (1 Clement 5–6, trans. Kirsopp Lake, in The Apostolic Fathers, vol. I, Loeb Classical Library, London and New York: William Heinemann, 1919):

But, to cease from the examples of old time, let us come to those who contended in the days nearest to us; let us take the noble examples of our own generation. Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church were persecuted and contended unto death. Let us set before our eyes the good apostles: Peter, who because of unrighteous jealousy suffered not one or two but many trials, and having thus given his testimony (μαρτυρήσας) went to the glorious place which was his due. Through jealousy and strife Paul showed the way to the prize of endurance; seven times he was in bonds, he was exiled, he was stoned, he was a herald both in the East and in the West, he gained the noble fame of his faith, he taught righteousness to all the world, and when he had reached the limits of the West he gave his testimony (μαρτυρήσας) before the rulers, and thus passed from the world and was taken up into the Holy Place,―the greatest example of endurance. To these men with their holy lives was gathered a great multitude of the chosen, who were the victims of jealousy and offered among us (ἐν ἡμῖν) the fairest example in their endurance under many indignities and tortures.

Clement was the first writer to place Saints Peter and Paul as a pair, as they have always been in the Roman Church. He showed a clear and personal knowledge of the deaths of both Peter and Paul, and he assumed that his recipients also knew the stories. Most Christians accept that Paul was martyred in Rome; it is not a far stretch to assume from Clement’s pairing of the two Apostles that he also believed Peter to have died in Rome. In fact, his grammar is revealing: Peter and Paul offered their example—their martyrdom—“among us” (ἐν ἡμῖν)—that is, among the Romans. Clement was consistent throughout his letter in the use of the pronouns ὑμεῖς (you, i.e. Corinthians) and ἡμεῖς (we, us, i.e. Romans).

St. Ignatius of Antioch

St. Ignatius of Antioch, in his Epistle to the Romans, dated between 98 and 117, written en route to his martyrdom at Rome, referenced the Saints Peter and Paul (Epistle to the Romans IV):

I do not enjoin you in the manner of Peter and Paul. They were Apostles; I am a condemned man. They were free; I, until this moment, am a slave.

Again he placed Peter and Paul as a pair, and implied that the Romans have had personal contact with the Apostles, who enjoined them with authority.

St. Irenaeus of Lugdunum (Lyon)

St. Irenaeus, writing ca. 180, is the earliest extant writer I’ve found that stated directly that Peter ministered in Rome (Against Heresies III.1.1):

For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God. Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter.

And again (Against Heresies, III.3.1-2):

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; . . . [We refute the heretics] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.

Here we have, clearly stated, not only the statement that Saints Peter and Paul built the Church at Rome—not that they were the first Christian missionaries there, but that by their apostolic ministry they laid its foundations—but also, Irenaeus affirmed the doctrines of Apostolic succession and Petrine primacy, unequivocally and authoritatively, at a date earlier than many Protestants would like to recognize. What is more, St. Irenaeus was not a partisan of the Church at Rome, but the Greek-born bishop of Lugdunum (today the city of Lyon in France). In the face of the growing threat of Gnosticism, the unity of the Church and the authority of Rome were more important than ever.

Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria, who wrote between ca. 190 and 215, made several references to Peter’s ministry in Rome, especially as it pertained to the ministry of St. Mark, founder of the Church at Alexandria. Some of these references survive only in fragments. The first, from Clement’s Commentary on the First Epistle of Peter, which survives only in the Latin translation of Cassiodorus:

Mark, the follower of Peter, while Peter publicly preached the Gospel at Rome before some of Caesar’s equites, and adduced many testimonies to Christ, in order that thereby they might be able to commit to memory what was spoken, of what was spoken by Peter, wrote entirely what is called the Gospel according to Mark.

The Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, writing in the 290s, cited Clement’s lost Hypotyposes, as well as the testimony of Papias of Hierapolis, also otherwise lost, further attesting that Mark wrote his Gospel from the teachings of Peter at Rome (Church History II.15.2).

Tertullian

Tertullian, writing probably ca. 180-200, attested to Peter’s and Paul’s ministry and martyrdom in Rome in a passage from De praescriptionem haereticorum (Prescription against Heretics 36). Like Irenaeus, he appealed to the apostolic foundations of the orthodox churches:

Come now, you who would indulge a better curiosity, if you would apply it to the business of your salvation, run over the Apostolic churches, in which the very thrones of the Apostles are still pre-eminent in their places, in which their own authentic writings are read, uttering the voice and representing the face of each of them severally. . . . Since, moreover, you are close upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very authority [of Apostles themselves]. How happy is its church, on which Apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! Where Peter endures a passion like his Lord’s! Where Paul wins his crown in a death like John’s where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island-exile!

Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius, compiling his Church History in the 290s, firmly stated the well-established tradition of Peter’s martyrdom in Rome (Church History II.25.5):

Thus publicly announcing himself as the first among God’s chief enemies, [Nero] was led on to the slaughter of the apostles. It is, therefore, recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and that Peter likewise was crucified under Nero. This account of Peter and Paul is substantiated by the fact that their names are preserved in the cemeteries of that place even to the present day.

Eusebius cited as testimony earlier writers, and thus preserved a number of valuable fragments of works no longer extant. Among them is the previously discussed quotation which attests to the presence of Peter’s grave monument on Vatican Hill in ca. 210 (II.25.6–7):

It is confirmed likewise by Gaius, a member of the Church, who arose under Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome. He, in a published disputation with Proclus, the leader of the Phrygian heresy, speaks as follows concerning the places where the sacred corpses of the aforesaid apostles are laid: ‘But I can show the trophies of the Apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian way, you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this church.’

Finally, Eusebius preserved a document from Dionysius of Corinth, Bishop of Corinth in 171, attesting that both Peter and Paul had ministered in Corinth before going to Rome, and that they had died in Rome at the same time (i.e. under the same persecution) (II.25.8):

And that they both suffered martyrdom at the same time is stated by Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in his epistle to the Romans, in the following words: ‘You have thus by such an admonition bound together the planting of Peter and of Paul at Rome and Corinth. For both of them planted and likewise taught us in our Corinth. And they taught together in like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom at the same time.’ I have quoted these things in order that the truth of the history might be still more confirmed.

This carries the documentary record of the ministry and martyrdom of St. Peter in Rome to the end of the third century. His presence there is suggested even by the Apostle himself in 1 Peter. His martyrdom there is attested to arguably as early as 95 or 96 by St. Clement, within thirty years of Peter’s death. It certainly is strongly attested by St. Irenaeus in ca. 180, after only little more than a century. Voices from all around the Mediterranean world affirm Peter’s residence in Rome, as well as Rome’s primacy.

No other writer or record places the end of Peter’s life anywhere but Rome. The majority of the earliest testimonies to the Early Church attest to it, and for nearly 1500 years, Peter’s apostolic ministry in Rome was universally accepted and unquestioned throughout the Church. As the Catholic Encyclopedia announced confidently, “St. Peter’s residence and death in Rome are established beyond contention as historical facts.”

What was I before?

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Joseph T. Richardson

I’ve been doing some reading lately. Feeling slightly ashamed, I used to admit to my Catholic friends that I was reading a Protestant book, but I don’t anymore. No one has ever said anything. Whether a book is Catholic or Protestant has little bearing on its read-worthiness; both Catholics and Protestants have worthy things to say about God.

Belatedly (posthumously?), I’ve been boning up on my Protestant theology. When I was a Protestant, I had little understanding of theology, and little patience for its uncertainty — with all of the voices disagreeing, interpreting Scripture differently, how could I possibly find the truth in that muddle? But now that I’ve found an absolute certainty in the authority of the Church and Magisterium — now that I have a firm foundation on which to base what I believe — then I am better able to comprehend and consider the ideas of others. It’s ironic that the very cornerstone of the Reformation, sola scriptura, the Reformers’ very attempt to find a bedrock of authority, proved to be my greatest stumbling block.

My theological underpinning was never strong to begin with. Growing up, I never had any formal catechesis on Christian doctrine or theology. What I knew, I knew by osmosis, more from the culture around me than from any teaching or preaching: Jesus died to forgive our sins that we might have eternal life. Beyond that basic truth was muddiness. I had heard of Martin Luther as the heroic Reformer, and of John Calvin as “that guy who believed in predestination, and we don’t believe in that” — but we didn’t seem to be following in either of those traditions. Who were we? Where did we come from?

It wasn’t until late in high school, when we reading The Scarlet Letter, that I first learned the differences between Calvinism* and Arminianism. And I realized that we at Calvary were essentially Arminian, a term I had never heard before. Predestination (election), grace, and human nature just weren’t talked about at my church, ever. In my thinking, our salvation depended on us, on our choosing to follow God in faith. God wasn’t compelling us by His grace, snatching us up against our will, or damning others to the fires of hell. Neither was He denying that we had free will at all. And we could certainly backslide and walk away from God. I had this crude, misshapen conception of Reformed theology for years.

* Some of my Reformed friends have taken exception to the term “Calvinism,” preferring instead “Reformed” theology or even simply “doctrines of grace.” I use the term “Calvinism” both out of grammatical expediency and an aim for doctrinal clarity, to refer to those doctrines taught by, in line with, or in the tradition of John Calvin and his followers, and not to convey any negative connotation. Because there is more than one “Reformed” tradition, and more than one understanding of the “doctrines of grace.” I’m talking about the Calvinist one.

As I grew older and attempted to educate myself more, I became more and more frustrated by theological confusion and my lack of foundation. And I eventually decided that it didn’t really matter anyway, that God loved us all no matter what we believed about Him, that there was no way to find the truth in all the mess. It was a position of thoroughgoing ecumenism, or worse, doctrinal agnosticism. I have met so many Christians at this same point, eschewing labels and denominations and formal doctrine in favor of terms like “nondenominational Christian,” “mere Christian” (I preferred that one, after C.S. Lewis — but Lewis never intended in that book that anyone should remain a “mere Christian”), or “Jesus follower.”

But the more I read, the more I see that labels and denominations and doctrines do matter. In one sense I believe I was right, and still maintain, that all orthodox believers are followers of Christ and should strive to find our common ground rather than be continually divisive in our disunity. But in another, what we believe about God and about salvation profoundly affects how we view God and ourselves and our relationship to Him, how we view the world around us, how we view our neighbor and our mission as Christians on this earth. Just looking around to what different Christians do attests to this. Some emphasize world missions, devoting money and time to spreading the Gospel and ministering to the needs of regions of our world stricken with poverty, disease, and strife. Others are more focused on caring for the needy in their own back yard. Some are ardently evangelical, canvassing cities with tracts and distributing Bibles, warning of the immediacy of death apart from salvation. Others are more reflective and calculated in their evangelism and outreach, preferring their lives and their works to be their witnesses. Still others, perhaps the majority, don’t do anything at all. It’s not so much about labels as about lifestyle.

I never thought much until recently about the differences between how Christians view the Christian life and Christian piety. In my Pentecostal upbringing, as I’ve written, the focus was on the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, and on personal piety, Bible study and “quiet times” of private devotion. Other Christians around me just didn’t seem to care about that, and I must confess, I wondered, especially when I was younger, if they were “bad” Christians, if they didn’t care about God or their relationship to Him. But no — the book I’m reading pointed out that this understanding of a personal, private relationship with God is essentially an evangelical one — that some Christians, especially Reformed (as the book is treating), but just as well Catholics, see the heart of Christian life in public professions of faith, in liturgy and the Sacraments, and most of all in service. That doesn’t diminish the importance of personal piety and personal faith at all — but it’s what we do in the light that makes us Christians (John 3:19-21).

I’ve always struggled with the terms “evangelical” and “fundamentalist.” So do a lot of people; there have been whole books written on the difference. I am not convinced the distinction is really very helpful: most evangelical Christians believe the “fundamentals,” and most fundamentalists are evangelical in outlook or piety; the difference, especially to the secular world, often seems to be one of the degree of fervency or severity, and especially the latter label is often used pejoratively. It seems clear (I now realize fully for the first time) that Reformed (Calvinist) Christians are not evangelicals. And it also seems clear to me that I as a Protestant was an evangelical, because of the emphasis on a personal conversion experience and personal relationship with God, and a Charismatic and a Pentecostal (the latter is a subset of the former), because of the emphasis on miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. And, I would argue, because of the emphasis on personal, emotional experiences of God, on sensation and feeling over reason and doctrine.

A friend of mine, a convert to Orthodox Christianity, shared something while I was converting that I didn’t really understand until I reached this point. She wrote that her identity as an Orthodox Christian doesn’t erase or overwrite her identity as a Protestant or evangelical, but that deep down she will always have that and be that. I feel that about myself, too, as a Catholic. In converting, I didn’t cease to be something I was, but became something more. The butterfly still has the genes of the caterpillar. Though my feelings toward the faith of my youth are often ambivalent, I have taken many things from it that I will always carry with me as a Christian, that I believe are good things: devotion to private prayer and Bible study, a commitment to regular tithing of my income, and love for praise and worship music. So no, reflection on Protestant things is not “posthumous” at all or even retrospective. I am sure there are many other fruits of my Protestant identity that will continue to come to light.

Another Analogy for Church Authority

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Joseph T. Richardson

Here’s another brief analogy I thought of for the authority of the Church:

Take the United States Constitution. It’s a two hundred-year-old document that has been amended twenty-seven times, and has been subject to constant and continuous interpretation and reinterpretation throughout its history. Suppose, though, you hand it to the founders of a new republic, and ask them to re-create the American government from nothing but that document. They could probably come up with something — but it would be rough, lacking definition. The Constitution lays out the framework of government that needs to exist, but it conveys nothing of how to implement such a government. It conveys nothing of the historical context in which the document was produced. It conveys nothing of the specific interpretations and definitions that have been worked out by the courts over the years.

In the United States, we’ve inherited a rich and complex legal tradition, not just from the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, but from English common law, several centuries of statute law, and other precursors and precedents. Whatever your position on constitutional interpretation — whether you are a strict constructionist, believing that the Constitution means what it says, on its letter, and that we should follow the original intent of our Founding Fathers in writing it; or a loose constructionist, believing that the Constitution is a living document, constantly evolving with the nation’s views — our understanding of the Constitution is informed by our legal tradition. To understand the original intent of the Founders, we have to read what they wrote and understand what they believed. To understand the Constitution as a living document, we have to understand the definitions and interpretations that legal minds of the past have hammered out. To create a replica of the United States government, we would need not just the Constitution, but the web of statutes that Congress has woven to implement it.

The Supreme Court, by virtue of holding the entire, unbroken legal tradition of the United States in its hand, and of being made up of nine men and women held to be learned and capable legal minds, is the highest authority of law in our nation. It alone has the power to interpret the Constitution with binding effect. In making their decisions, the justices of the Supreme Court consider all of the resources at their disposal: case law, the past decisions of the Court, the writings of the Founding Fathers and other legal minds, just to mention a few. Those decisions and those thinkers haven’t all agreed with each other, it is true; but considering this entire body of law, the Court can arrive at the correct interpretation. The Supreme Court has the authority to interpret the Constitution because that is the authority it was given; that’s what it was created to do; that is its purpose.

The Delivery of the Keys (Perugino, Sistine Chapel, Rome)

Christ giving the keys to St. Peter.

Likewise, the Church, by virtue of holding the entire, unbroken tradition of the teachings of Christ and the Apostles in her hand, and of being made up of the body of bishops held to be learned and authoritative by their merits and their inheritance from the Apostles themselves, has the authority to interpret the Scripture and Tradition of the Church. In making her decisions, the Church considers all of the resources at her disposal: Scripture itself, the writings of the Church Fathers, the dictates of bishops and popes and councils over the ages, just to mention a few. Most of all, she prays and seeks the guidance and discernment of the Holy Spirit. The Church has the authority to interpret Scripture and Tradition because that is the authority she was given by Christ — the authority to bind and loose, to decide points of interpretation of the law with binding effect, given explicitly to St. Peter.

Handing the Constitution alone to founders of a new government, detached from its history and tradition, is like handing the Bible to a new religious sect and asking them to create a church, sola scriptura. This is essentially what many Protestant groups have done — sought to create a “pure,” “biblical” church, with Scripture alone as their guide, without any accretions of tradition. Some have taken it further than others. Most Protestants, whether they admit it to themselves or not, are as rapt followers of tradition as any Catholic: they follow, with little deviation, the traditions of Luther, or Calvin, or Cranmer, or Knox, or Wesley, or even of their own grandfathers or great-grandfathers. Tradition pervades the way they worship, the way they practice, and most of all the way they interpret Scripture. They adhere to a body of essential Christian tradition that not even Protestants have abandoned: Sunday worship; the shepherding of a Christian flock by a pastor; the liturgical practice of baptism and Communion; the celebration, according to an established liturgical calendar, of Easter and Christmas; the canon of Scripture itself. Take even a “contemporary,” “hip,” “non-denominational” evangelical “worship center.” A worship service will begin with songs, followed by a sermon, in a tradition of order as ancient as the Church, but found nowhere in the Bible. Typically such a church’s doctrine — whether it even admits it has doctrine — is loosely Reformed or loosely Arminian; relaxed but nonetheless exclusive of certain doctrines rejected by the Protestant tradition (“oh, we definitely don’t believe that“). If sola scriptura is followed as rigidly as some Protestants insist, then some practices and doctrines must be excluded because they are not explicitly described in the Bible — for example, the Churches of Christ’s insistence on no instrumental worship, or the Seventh-Day Adventists’ insistence on Saturday worship. A church that literally followed sola scriptura, with no inkling of tradition anywhere in it at all, would be a strange-looking beast indeed.

The Lonely Pilgrim

A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward

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