More Objections to Catholic Biblical Interpretation

Posted on February 19, 2018 by Joseph T. Richardson

Previously we examined the claim made by anti-Catholics that “Catholics cannot interpret Scripture for themselves.” I showed, by the teachings of Vatican II, that Catholics are not only able to read and interpret Scripture, but encouraged to. There are, however, other objections and other texts that I’ve seen raised to pursue this claim. I’d like to examine a few here.

“It is not ‘freedom’ to be ‘free’ to interpret ‘in accord with the Church'”

I have heard the objection that to say that “Catholics can interpret Scripture for themselves … but only in accord with the teachings of the Church” is a contradiction, a statement that Catholics have freedom while not being “free” at all. This is not so. For one thing, as I pointed out previously, it is only a small subset of Scripture that the Catholic magisterium has given official, authoritative interpretations of. The vast majority of the Bible, Christians must read, and are encouraged to read, for their own spiritual benefit. Catholics will, naturally, read and interpret Scripture through the lens of Catholic doctrine and theology. To say that Catholics must “interpret Scripture in accord with the teachings of the Church” is no more profound a requirement than the expectation that Protestants will read and interpret Scripture according to Reformation precepts. Protestant churches also require their members to read and teach Scripture according to their own standards.

Anti-Catholics, naturally, think the Catholic interpretation of Scripture is wrong, and that Catholics would surely discover “the truth” if they were but free to read and interpret Scripture for themselves. This claim is another way of dismissing Catholic theology and interpretation, claiming that no one would come to such interpretations if they were not imposed on the faithful by the Church and required to be believed — but truthfully, Catholic exegetes arrive at, believe, and defend the Catholic interpretation of Scripture with just as much faith and just as much integrity as Protestants.

There is a right answer

Herbert, John Rogers, RA (c. 1844), The Assertion of Liberty of Conscience by the Independents at the Westminster Assembly of Divines (Wikimedia).

One fallacy I often fell into as a Protestant — one I doubt that many anti-Catholics, at least, will be subject to — is the thinking that it is a denial of freedom for a church to subject its faithful to a single authoritative interpretation at all — my supposition being that everybody is free to come to their own interpretation. It is indeed true that everybody is free to come to their own interpretation, but being part of a church — any church — entails either agreeing with that church in one’s interpretation, or else subjecting one’s personal interpretation to that of a teacher. This is true no less for Protestants than for Catholics. Anti-Catholics object to the very idea of the Catholic Church claiming the authority to teach.

The truth is, there is one right answer to questions of biblical interpretation — because there is only one truth in Christ. It is true that in many cases, the senses of Scripture are deep and multi-layered — there is more than one sense of Scripture that is true. It is also true that in many cases, the meaning is not completely clear, and such passages are open to various interpretations. This is true for exegesis under the Catholic Church as it is for Protestants. The Church exhorts the Catholic faithful to biblical scholarship in order to gain a deeper understanding of Scripture. But in other cases, there is indeed a place for definitive answers. Protestant theology has its uncompromisable precepts as surely as does Catholicism, and Protestant churches and Protestant exegetes claim to teach the only true interpretation of Scripture as surely as does the Catholic Church. Protestant churches, too, require their faithful to submit to their understanding teaching of the truth — or else be asked to leave the church. What opponents object to is not that the Catholic Church claims to teach the truth of Scripture, but that she claims to speak with absolute authority about it.

The Council of Trent on Sacred Scripture

The Council of Trent.

One text I have often seen cited against the Church in connection with these claims is from the Council of Trent’s Decree concerning the Edition, and the Use, of the Sacred Books (Fourth Session, April 1546). Since the Council of Trent was called to address the crisis of the Protestant Reformation, these decrees are particularly relevant to addressing Protestant claims about the interpretation of Scripture. Related to this is the supposition that Catholics were forbidden to read, possess, or translate Scripture, which is an equally empty claim (there is a very long history of Catholic Bible translations, even in the Reformation era), but a claim to be examined another day. Regarding the interpretation of Scripture, Trent taught:

Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, [the Synod] decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,–in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, –wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,–whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,–hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers…

This does indeed, at first read, appear to teach that “no Christian can interpret Scripture for himself.” But there are several key phrases which make clear that this statement is entirely consistent with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council explicated previously. Trent does not in any way forbid Christians to read and interpret Scripture for themselves. Rather, it teaches that “No one shall … presume to interpret sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church … hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers” — in other words, in the way that Christians have understood and taught doctrine from the beginning of the faith. It bars contrary interpretations just as Protestant teaching bars Catholic interpretations — otherwise, there is no truth and everything is open to debate.

“No one [shall], relying on his own skill … wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses”: This does not speak against informed exegesis of the Word of Scripture made in good faith, but against those who would twist Scripture “to his own sense,” away from what it actually says, for one’s own purposes.
“in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine”: These are specifically the areas in which the Church, in teaching the faith, has authority to teach.
“contrary to that sense which holy mother Church … hath held and doth hold”: In passages where the Church has taught an official and authoritative interpretation of Scripture, it is the obligation of the faithful to hold according to that sense. As I have already written, there are many passages where no official interpretation has been offered, and the faithful are free to read and interpret for themselves. But even in those places, it is the obligation of the faithful to bear in mind the sense of the faithful, the way in which the Catholic Church reads and understands the doctrine of Scripture.
“or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers”: There are many ideas about which the Church Fathers are not in “unanimous consent.” But where they are, certainly, a reader of Scripture is on very thin ice indeed to offer an interpretation or a teaching that no one before, ever has found or arrived at before.

The intent of this passage is to guard the faithful against “petulant spirits” — those who would offer novel and sensational interpretations of Scripture with no support at all but their own interpretation. This has been and continues to be a problem in Protestantism. If no one before in all the history of reading or interpreting the Scriptures over twenty Christian centuries has come to your particular interpretation, and your interpretation is based on nothing more than your own opinion, then there is a good chance that what you are exercising is not “freedom,” but hubris.

“The laity is not competent or authorized to speak in the name of the Church”

One puzzling text that was recently raised to me in a conversation is a quotation from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article on “The Laity.” With regard to doctrine:

The body of the faithful is strictly speaking the Ecclesia docta (the Church taught), in contrast with the Ecclesia docens (the teaching Church), which consists of the pope and the bishops. When there is question, therefore, of the official teaching of religious doctrine, the laity is neither competent nor authorized to speak in the name of God and the Church (cap. xii et sq., lib. V, tit. vii, “de haereticis”).

I am not sure I understand the objection. This is basically a re-statement of what has already been said: the magisterium (Ecclesia docens) has the authority to teach doctrine, while the layperson does not. This is really no more profound a statement than saying that “the Supreme Court of the United States has the authority to give the official interpretation of U.S. law, while John Smith on the street is neither competent nor authorized to speak in the name of the United States government.” John Smith is not an official representative of the United States, nor a legislator, nor even a lawyer; so while he is free and possibly even competent to read the law and tell you what he thinks it means, he is not in a position to offer any kind of legally authoritative opinion. When he speaks, it may be a perfectly reasonable explanation, but it is not legally binding.

Likewise lay Catholics are perfectly able to read, interpret, and offer explanations of Catholic doctrine, Sacred Scripture, or Sacred Tradition, but they cannot speak for the Church or for God. Now, Protestants or anti-Catholics may object here on several grounds. First, they object to the idea that there is any real distinction between clergy (bishops, priests, and deacons) and laity (non-ordained laypeople) at all, arguing that the “priesthood of all believers” makes every Christian equal in authority. But the fact is that every institution has its leadership and its official representatives. What they may reject to, further, is the idea that the Church is an institution (even if, we say, it is an institution of Jesus Christ and the Apostles). Finally, I am sure they object to the idea that the officials of this institution have the authority to “speak in the name of God.” This is a tall claim, and is not the sort of language that is often used today, but, it’s true, the Catholic Church believes that Jesus imparted the authority to teach the truth of God to His Apostles and they to their successors the bishops.

Critics are free to object, but this passage only underscores the points already made: Just because a lay Catholic does not have the authority to make official, authentic pronouncements of Church doctrine does not mean that he cannot read and interpret Scripture and doctrine for himself, for his own benefit, and offer his own interpretation. To the claim that “Catholics cannot interpret Scripture for themselves,” this passage too falls flat.

“For themselves”?

Catholics are not just left “on their own.”

What does it ultimately mean, to suppose that Christians have the freedom to read and interpret Scripture “for themselves”? In the context of these anti-Catholic arguments, it means, I suppose, “without the Catholic Church telling them otherwise.” As I have pointed out elsewhere, no church, no denomination, no system of theology is free from the influence of somebody giving their opinion. A Protestant is free to interpret “for himself,” but only within the Protestant precepts of sola fide and all the rest — otherwise he ceases to be a Protestant, is labeled a heretic, or converts to another form of Christianity. A church naturally instructs its faithful in the truth as it understands it.

Does the Catholic Church teach her faithful the truth she has received? Absolutely, as she is required and charged to do, by the Lord and by Scripture (1 Timothy 4:11). Does she forbid her faithful from reading, interpreting, understanding, or exploring Scripture, to discover the truths of the Lord and the faith for themselves? Absolutely not. She instructs such believers in the proper way and the best way to read and understand Scripture, yes; she does not leave her children “on their own” or “to their own devices” in such understanding, to be tossed to and fro by all the diverse opinions of Protestantism and the world. In the end, the Catholic faithful have free will to believe and follow what they will; but they are never left without a teacher or a mother to show them the truth.

The Claim that Catholics “Cannot Interpret Scripture for Themselves”

Posted on February 18, 2018 by Joseph T. Richardson

A claim that I’ve often heard made by anti-Catholics is that “Catholics cannot intepret Scripture for themselves, but must submit to the Catholic magisterium.” The claim is that the Catholic faithful cannot, are not able, or especially are not allowed to read and interpret the Bible for themselves, but are bound and constrained in every way to submit to the magisterium of the Church, to give up their very free will and intellectual judgment — in other words, that “the Bible is still chained,” that Catholics do not enjoy the freedom that Protestants have in “sola scriptura” to read, interpret, believe, and base their faith on the Word of God contained in the written word of Scripture.

I’ve particularly heard this claim made by “former Catholics” who claim to be in the know, and it is usually presented with authoritative quotations from the teachings of various Church councils or statements of theologians, that appear, taken out of context and without a proper understanding of technical terms and distinctions, to forbid Catholics from reading and benefiting from Scripture on their own. This claim is specious and empty.

(Source: peachknee on Pixabay)

As I have written before, this claim, in substance, is the very same as the chief objection I myself had to the Catholic Church when I was a Protestant: that Catholics could not read and interpret Scripture for themselves, but must submit their understanding of Scripture to the magisterium of the Church. As a Protestant, I felt a closely-held prerogative to interpret Scripture for myself, in order to discern against false doctrines and false teachers, and even more, to engage in an intellectual communion with the Holy Spirit, the true interpreter of Scripture, through which God could lead me and guide me to the truth of His will, not only in matters of doctrine but in my everyday life. When I first heard the claims of the Catholic Church, that “the sole authentic interpreter of Scripture is the magisterium of the Church,” I felt viscerally threatened, that the Catholic Church sought to strip away and deprive me of my freedom as a Christian and a vital part of my relationship with God.

When I finally was faced with the truth of the Catholic Church, this was the first of my objections to fall. How that happened is a story I have told before. This post specifically examines the claim itself and the sources used to support it, why it is misleading, and why it is ultimately untrue.

The “Sole Authentic Interpreter”

The Second Vatican Council, assembled in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The first time I ever encountered the threatening idea that the magisterium of the Church was the only authentic interpreter of Scripture, it was no doubt a form of a quotation from the Second Vatican Council document Dei Verbum (quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church at CCC 85 and 100):

The task of authentically interpreting the Word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living magisterium of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ (Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum [November 18, 1965] 10.2).

The most threatening word of this statement is exclusively: all others, presumably, are excluded from the task of interpreting, including, naturally, lay Catholics.

But who or what is the magisterium? The Catechism at CCC 85 offers a slightly different translation of the statement, and includes by way of explanation:

“The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ” (DV 10 § 2). This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

So it’s the pope and bishops who have taken away my right to interpret the Word of God! I found this, if possible, even more threatening.

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

But the operative word of the whole statement is authentic or authentically. To untrained ears, this may sound to be a mere synonym to truthfully, really, genuinely — that is to say, only the magisterium of the Church can offer a legitimate interpretation, and all others are necessarily illegitimate — but here, authentic is actually a technical term. It means that only the teachings of the magisterium can be held, in a legal, dogmatic sense, to be authenticated; only they can be held, in matters of dispute, to be an absolutely verified and authoritative statement.

This does not, in any way, bar anyone, Catholics or Protestants or secular scholars, from interpreting Scripture on their own, or from those interpretations being legitimate or true. The very text from which this quote is taken goes on demonstrate otherwise.

All Catholics are Taught and Exhorted to Read and Interpret Scripture

(Source: mnplatypus on Pixabay)

Dei Verbum goes on at length in the very next paragraphs to teach about how to interpret Scripture:

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. … 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. (Dei Verbum 11, 12, cf. CCC 109-114).

These words are written not to the pope and bishops (the magisterium talking to itself?), but to all Christians. No Catholic is barred from reading or interpreting Scripture, but all Christians are encouraged and expected to:

“And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor, and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting fount of spiritual life” (DV 21). Hence “access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful” (DV 22).

The Church “forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful… to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” (DV 25).
(CCC 131, 133)

Scott Hahn.

The fact that lay Catholics are able and encouraged to interpet Scripture, not only with the approval but with the praise of the Church, is plainly evident by the numerous Catholic books written by lay Catholics on Catholic biblical interpretation, commentary, theology, some of my favorite authors being Scott Hahn, one of the most respected biblical theologians in the Catholic Church today and a layperson, a convert from Presbyterianism; and Michael Barber and Brant Pitre, likewise eminent Catholic biblical scholars and professors and laypeople.

“Subject to the Judgment of the Church”

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

I know well the objections: If the magisterium of the Church is the only, “sole authentic interpreter” of Scripture, what does that even mean for lay Catholics? I’ve explained the technical sense of “authentic” here, but what else is there?

Yes, lay Catholics, and all Christians, can legitimately and even truly interpret Scripture on their own. Understanding Scripture correctly, of course, involves “carefully investigating the meaning,” considering the “content and unity of the whole of Scripture,” and all the rest — advice that even Protestant exegetes gladly accept and encourage. Even the Reformed Westminster Confession of Faith encourages, for example, the use of “ordinary means” in arriving at a sufficient understanding of Scripture (WCF 7).

But the section of Dei Verbum on interpretation, quoted above, includes the caveat:

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 (DV 12).

What does it mean for Scripture to be “subject finally to the judgment of the Church”? It means, basically, that in matters of dispute, there is a final arbiter of interpretation, the magisterium of the Church. It means that while for Protestants, there is ultimately no final authority higher than one’s individual intellect and conscience in personally interpreting Scripture, resulting in endless disputes over proper doctrine and eventually the fragmentation of churches and denominations, Catholics do have a final authority in interpreting Scripture, an authoritative answer to doctrinal disputes and questions. Protestants may reject the claims of the Catholic Church to have such an authority — and here is not the place to discuss these claims at length; I have written much about them elsewhere — but the fact is that scriptural interpretation being “subject to the judgment of the Church” does not mean that Catholics are forbidden to interpet Scripture for themselves, but merely that they have a teacher and guide in doing so.

Reading with the Magisterium

One argument I’ve heard before claims that any interpretation of Scripture by a Catholic layperson is by definition contrary to the Church — that because the magisterium claims the right of being “authentic interpreter,” the Catholic layperson has no rights to interpret Scripture for himself at all, but instead must punctiliously submit his every thought to the literal dictations of the magisterium — that there is supposedly a compendium of magisterial scriptural interpretations that every Catholic exegesis must be compared with and must agree with. In fact, no such compendium exists; the “authentic interpretations” of the magisterium are contained in Catholic doctrine itself, as taught by the ecumenical councils of the Church and by the popes.

Truthfully, these “authentic interpretations” of the magisterium speak specifically to only a subset of Scripture, specifically to those Scriptures that form the basis of doctrine taught by the Church and to those about which there has been substantial dispute. For all the rest of Scripture, the reader is left, allowed, and encouraged to read and interpret for himself, in accord with the mind and sense of the Church.

A Teacher, Not a Tyrant

The magisterium of the Church is a teacher, not a tyrant. That is in fact what magisterium means. The interpretations of the Scripture that the Church offers are not arbitrary dictations of doctrine, contrary to the word and sense of the text, but teachings supported by extensive scholarship both into the scriptural texts, and into the contexts in which they were written and received. They are upheld by the understandings and interpretations of the earliest Christians, demonstrated in the testimony of the Church Fathers. Nothing the Church teaches regarding Scripture is new or baseless, but all can be found, in one form or another, in the deposit of faith, the teaching received from Christ and the Apostles, from the very beginning.

To submit to the magisterium of the Church is not to give up one’s freedom as a Christian, but it is to embrace the humility of a student, to listen to the teachers whom Christ entrusted the authority to teach us (e.g. 1 Timothy 4:13, 5:17, Titus 2:1). We have perfect freedom, ability, and license to read and interpret Scripture for ourselves, so long as we do so in accord with the teachings of the Church. Truth be told, no person, Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise, is free from this constraint: being part of a communion of faith involves being “of the same mind and judgment” with those with which one is associated; if a Christian decides he has a different interpretation of Scripture than the teachings of his church, then he may choose to depart from that church. This is the very foundation of Protestantism and of denominationalism. Indeed, the only person who is truly “free” to read and interpret Scripture entirely on his own, apart from agreement with any other Christians, is the one who denies all fellowship with the Body of believers, and who is perhaps the founder of a new religion.

Grappling with Sola Scriptura, Part 3: An Authoritative Church

Posted on October 21, 2016 by Joseph T. Richardson

The third and last part of my reflections on grappling with sola scriptura as a Protestant journeying to the Catholic Church. Part 1. Part 2. Part of my ongoing conversion story. This part proved to be really long, but the pieces were so dependent on each other that I wanted to post the rest of it whole; please bear with me.

An authoritative Church

Rome from the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The idea that the scriptural interpretations of the Church could have inherent authority was an epiphany to me. It was the catalyst that started the chain reaction, the push that started the dominoes falling, that would ultimately bring down the last vestiges of my faith in sola scriptura. But it was perhaps not the biggest hurdle. Recognizing that the Church Fathers are authorities in interpreting Scripture does not translate to accepting that the Catholic Church is the authority in interpreting Scripture.

Yes, an interpretation that is constructed from and founded on a sack full of authorities is generally going to be more authoritative than one based solely on one’s own unaided reasoning. A student who makes an argument from his own interpretation of a single primary source stands on shaky ground, while one who stands on the authority of learned men who have written on the matter in the past has a reasonable claim to credibility. As I have written before, this by itself gave me compelling reason to put stock in the claims and interpretations of the Catholic Church. Following those claims and the arguments made for them, I generally found the Church’s witness to be credible.

But accepting that the Church’s scriptural interpretations are authoritative and credible — a factual claim — is a far cry from accepting that the Catholic Church has the exclusive authority to interpret Scripture authentically — a doctrinal claim. My visceral inclination as a Protestant was to balk at such extravagance. But my willingness to consider and credit the scriptural, interpretive claims of the Church brought me, at least, to examine this one more closely.

What does it mean for the Church to claim “exclusive authority in interpreting Scripture“? What did the Church actually claim? And what was my objection? I had already admitted that the Church could authentically interpret Scripture. What I balked at, I realized, was the thesis that the Church could have authority at all — over believers, over me.

St. Ambrose, by Francisco de Zurbarán (c. 1627) (Wikimedia)

The truth is, I had never even encountered such an argument, that a church could have authority. It may be a commonplace for Protestants of more traditional denominations, but for me, steeped in such a free, independent, individualistic tradition, it seemed entirely foreign. The church, in my mind as a Protestant, was a voluntary social association. Our pastor was the man who preached every week at church, who had little or no personal involvement in our lives or faiths. Our deacons were little more than a board of directors for the corporation. The district council of our denomination, if we ever heard about it, seemed to exist mainly for cooperating in missions and youth activities. I don’t remember ever hearing of a national body (there actually is one). None of these bodies had any authority over our church; and I didn’t consider the church, or even the pastor, to have authority over me.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, claims to have authority. This was a novel and fairly stunning concept, one that had never even occurred to me. Was the Church something more than just the people? Were its leaders something more than just public speakers, something more than business administrators? The Catholic Church claims to have some authority over its faithful. In what way was I supposed to understand this? On the surface, once again, I balked, imagining a tyrant, standing over believers, telling them what they could believe and do.

The Magisterium

The Four Doctors of the Western Church: Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome.

When I first encountered the idea of the magisterium of the Catholic Church, I envisioned something like a formal council of robed and hoary bishops meeting weekly or daily, to which every interpretation of Scripture, every homily and every teaching, had to be submitted for approval. The magisterium, after all, claimed “exclusive authority of interpreting Scripture.” I supposed Catholics were forbidden from reading and interpreting Scripture on their own. Naturally, this conception was something to balk at.

But this isn’t, I soon discovered, what the Church was claiming at all. The magisterium of the Church refers to the Church’s teaching authority — her role as a teacher. The magisterium is not literally a formal body of men at all (although it can be said that the pope and the bishops in communion with him make it up); it does not meet (aside from the couple of dozen times over the whole history of the Church that all the bishops of the Church have met in ecumenical council); it does not stand over the scriptural interpretation of the faithful as any sort of regulatory authority. So what actually is being claimed?

The Good Shepherd, by Bernhard Plockhorst (19th century) (Wikimedia)

Scripture presents that God Himself appoints preachers and teachers (e.g. 1 Corinthians 12:28, Ephesians 4:11, 2 Timothy 1:11) in the person of the bishops (1 Timothy 3:2, 5:17, Titus 2:24), men charged with passing on the truth of the faith (2 Timothy 2:2, 4:2) and keeping watch over the souls of the faithful (Hebrews 13:17). A pastor is a shepherd, one with authority over God’s flock (1 Peter 5:1-5). If we accept these teachings of Scripture, that God gave pastors and bishops the authority to teach and to guide His flock, then the notion that the magisterium of the Church, made up of all the bishops, should have the authority to teach the truth is not so far fetched.

With just a little reading, I soon came to see that what the Church really means when she claims that the magisterium of the Church has the authority to give the authentic interpretation of Scripture is mostly this: that the whole body of bishops, giving the very interpretations over all the ages that I had already come to hold as authoritative, does in fact have the authority to give that interpretation. The Church is a teacher, not a tyrant. Like a teacher, the Church offers teaching, the authoritative interpretation of Scripture, for the benefit, edification, and guidance of the people of God.

Not a Tyrant

Augustus Caesar as Pontifex Maximus (Wikimedia).

One point I alluded to before is the misconception and fear I had that the Church could dictate whatever interpretations she pleased, no matter how contradictory they actually were to Scripture: that she could teach believers to believe Scripture meant something completely other than what it actually says. Well, the first thing that was clear to me, as I began to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the documents of the Second Vatican Council, even the Council of Trent, is that this hasn’t actually happened. When the Church speaks as a teacher, she bases her teachings on Scripture and on the interpretations of the past: each of these documents is rife with scriptural quotations and citations, quotations and citations from the Church Fathers, from prior councils and documents; a modern edition has footnotes. Each reflects the didactic method of a teacher and not the bald pronouncements of a dictator.

Jesus said that “the [leader of the faithful] must be as one who serves” (Luke 22:26). Peter taught that a pastor must shepherd the flock not by constraint but willingly, leading not by force but by example (1 Peter 5:2-3). This is the kind of authority that the Church offers as a teacher. In the very same statement as the one that I once took to be so troubling — the claim that the Church has “exclusive authority to interpret Scripture authentically” — she also says this:

But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office [magisterium] of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office [magisterium] is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed. (Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum [Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation] 10).

The Church cannot teach something that has not been handed down as truth. The Church does not “invent” teachings; she passes them on. It is plain for any student to see the truth of this, to see the support offered for every teaching, the foundations and precedents in traditional and time-honored interpretations of Scripture and in the teachings of the past. These teachings, these traditions, everything that makes up the deposit of faith — none of it is hidden, secret, or unknown, but all of it is available to be studied by the faithful.

Too Many Teachers

Martin Luther (1533), by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

And why is the Church’s authority exclusive? Does this imply that individual believers are not authorized to interpret Scripture for themselves? Or that no one other than a bishop is capable of interpreting the meaning of the Scriptures truthfully? Not at all. It means only that God gave His teaching authority to the office that came (by the end of the first century) to reside in the bishop alone. And why? As someone who has spent most of my life involved in education, I can attest that when everybody thinks they are the teacher, nobody learns anything. Scripture is very clear that God appointed shepherds over us with the authority to teach.

The Church with authority over scriptural interpretation and doctrine is evidenced again and again in history. In Acts 15, when the controversy of the Judaizers arose, it was not individual believers, interpreting Scripture on their own, that decided the matter, but a council of Apostles and bishops. When the great heresies such as Arianism arose, the matter was not left to the consciences and private interpretations of individual believers, but the orthodox way was ultimately defined by a council of all the bishops through interpreting Scripture.

Sola scriptura presents the problem of “too many teachers” writ large. If every person’s interpretation is considered authoritative, if an individual believer’s opinion has just as much value as the whole teaching tradition of the Church, then we see in the history of Protestantism exactly what we should expect to see: thousands of separate churches. Everyone having authority ultimately means that no one has authority at all. And this is what I felt as a Protestant; this was the source of my paralysis.

And yes, it’s true, that Protestants insist that sola scriptura is not the giving of interpretive and doctrinal authority to every individual believer. They insist that the Church still has doctrinal authority, and to greater or lesser extents, some Protestants churches actually implement that. Some churches, such as the P.C.A., do enforce the orthodoxy of their confessions, and bring censure or even excommunication to those who depart from it. But then, if anyone disagrees with the confessions of the P.C.A., he is free to depart and start his own church, and feels the moral and doctrinal mandate to do so. Church authority is of no authority at all if the individual believer has the authority to challenge it. The church really does become a voluntary association. Sola scriptura, I argue, does necessarily result in the implication that every believer is his own teacher: even the most submissive Protestant can pick and choose what teachers he submits to; he can embrace the one whose teachings agree with his own private interpretation, and reject the one whose don’t. I think it is very telling, in comparing the history of the Catholic and Protestant churches, how comparatively rare real and substantial doctrinal schism — the actual breaking away of a significant number of believers to form their own churches, on account of some doctrinal dispute — is in the Catholic tradition, versus how commonplace splits of the local church or of whole denominations are in the Protestant world.

“Other Things”

Baptism.

Several times in the course of this series, I’ve alluded to my acceptance of other authorities, other sources such as historical documents, as instrumental in my eventual rejection of sola scriptura. I opened the series, provocatively, with the statement that “Protestants hold as authoritative the Bible alone, while Catholics deny this and add other things.” This was my understanding as a Protestant. It is not a very accurate statement of what Catholics believe.

First, do Catholics deny that Scripture is authoritative? That it is the Word of God? Absolutely not. For Catholics, just as well as for Protestants, Scripture is the highest, most eminent authority, the very and absolute Word of God in written form. Scripture cannot be denied, dismissed, or contradicted, by the magisterium of the Church, by the pope, or by anyone else. I very often hear the charges that “the Catholic Church makes her teachings equal with Scripture,” or places herself “above Scripture”: this is not true. The Church teaches about Scripture, from Scripture; she is not and cannot be above Scripture. Scripture is part of the deposit of faith and truth from which she teaches; she cannot add to, take away from, or alter that deposit.

What else is part of this deposit of faith? What “other things”? The other component of the deposit of faith is Sacred Tradition. No, this does not mean that the “traditions” of the Catholic Church are held to be authoritative, on the same level of Scripture. What does the Church mean by “Sacred Tradition”? Sacred Tradition is a technical term: it does not refer to “traditions” or to just any tradition in the Catholic Church, but very specifically to only one thing: to the oral teachings of Christ and the Apostles that have been handed down [traditae sunt] in the Church. If Christ spoke it, then it is the Word of God.

Juan de Juanes, Última Cena, c. A.D. 1562 (Wikipedia).

Protestants complain that this idea of “Sacred Tradition” is inherently amorphous and undefined, that at any point the Church can declare some novel doctrine on the basis that it is part of this unseen body of “Sacred Tradition.” Because it is not written down, it can be abused, or even invented whole cloth. But the “traditional” aspect of it is essential: every part of this “Sacred Tradition” has been handed down in the Church, and is visible, and practically, has been written down by the Church Fathers. The Church applies the same standard for Tradition that the most ancient Church applied: we know it is part of the deposit of faith, handed down from the Apostles, because it was taught in all the Churches (cf. Irenaeus, etc.).

So in the end, the statement that the Catholic Church adds “other things” to Scripture, that she believes “other things” in addition to the Word of God, is misleading. No, the Catholic Church does not indiscriminately hold “traditions” or “other things” to be divinely authoritative in addition to Scripture. Nothing the Church believes can contradict Scripture. Once I began to understand the truth of what the Church actually holds and teaches about Scripture and revelation, it seemed entirely reasonable and consistent with what I was was already coming to believe — and I readily let go of the notion of sola scriptura.

I have heard many Protestants, too, complain about the “tripod” of the Church’s teaching, with its three legs being Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the magisterium — which seems to imply that the Church considers all three to be equal. This is an analogy, it’s true, that some Catholics have used, and Vatican II itself stated that “sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the magisterium … are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others,” implying this image of the tripod. But the Church does not consider the three equal. The statement is only that “one [of the three] cannot stand without the others”; the illustration of the tripod, if it be drawn, is only meant to convey this interdependence, not the three components’ equality or even their relative positions. Neither Scripture nor Tradition interprets itself: a teacher is also necessary, but is a servant to the deposit of faith, not above it.

Conclusion

John Calvin, by Titian (16th century) (Wikimedia).

I had struggled for many years to arrive at some authoritative interpretation of Scripture. I believed, as a Protestant, that finding such an authoritative interpretation was my initiative; I was told that Scripture “perspicuous,” and such an authoritative interpretation should be plain, and that it was “self-interpreting,” that it ought to be findable without depending on my own understanding. Such plainly did not happen: The more I studied Scripture, the more paralyzed I became in coming to any sort of authoritative interpretation.

This was where I stood when I stumbled into the antechamber of the Catholic Church. I did not fully understand my problem — I could not have articulated what my paralysis was or what it stemmed from — and I had not even an inkling that the solution to it lay ahead. How could I move past my logjam? I needed a teacher. Protestants who espouse developed theology and doctrines point to “Scripture alone” as the origin of their teaching, but in truth they too are relying on an interpretive tradition, the fruit of teachers — the pastors, theologians, and Reformers who developed the doctrines that they hold. It is easy to point to a collection of doctrines already held and already exposited and claim they are clear on the face of Scripture, that Scripture can interpret itself, but in truth this is not historically and intellectually honest. Were these doctrines “perspicuous” and “self-interpreting” for the fifteen centuries before the Protestant Reformers developed and espoused them?

I had no teacher. I came from a background mostly bereft of concrete doctrine or theology or meaningful exegesis. I had not the benefit of an already exposed system of doctrine. I had the tools to exposit Scripture, but not the guidance. Thus, it gradually became clear to me over the years that the claims of sola scriptura were false: Scripture was not “perspicuous” in any meaningful way, apart from the barest outlines of the gospel. Scripture was not “self-interpreting.”

Scripture is a collection of texts. They do not “self-interpret.” Interpretation is the activity of a person, and Scripture is not a person. The Holy Spirit is a person, who can and does aid us in understanding the truth of Scripture — but His guidance is necessarily filtered through our own human perceptions; Scripture is necessarily understood through our own human interpretations. Over the years, developing in my consciousness as a Christian and as an academic, I had come to realize these things, more or less concretely, by the time I encountered the Church.

I needed a teacher; and where Protestants, especially the ones I was familiar with, tended to limit their interpretation of Scripture to their own understanding, or to teachers in the past who had done the same, the Catholic Church that I discovered strove to base her interpretation of Scripture on the whole context of Scripture and the whole body of received, authoritative tradition. I accepted this authority at first academically, but was troubled by the Church’s theological claims to have exclusive authority to interpret Scripture, perceiving them to be extravagant and somehow tyrannical. Over time, though, I came to see the truth: In interpreting Scripture, the Church is a teacher, not a tyrant. And I, at long last, had found my teacher.

Grappling with Sola Scriptura, Part 2: Sources of Authority

Posted on October 19, 2016 by Joseph T. Richardson

The second part of my account of how I, as an Evangelical Protestant journeying to the Catholic Church, grappled with sola scriptura. I decided to split the post into three, so there is still more to come! Part of my ongoing conversion story.

Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Roma (Wikimedia)

So this idea of authority — which I had never really thought much of as a Protestant — proved to be a critical one. Who has the authority to interpret Scripture? If anyone had asked me that as a Protestant, I would have answered that I did. I don’t think this is the right answer, understanding what I do now about about Protestant theology: “Scripture interprets itself” seems to be the appropriate response. Only it didn’t for me. As I read and studied Scripture on my own, praying for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, I strove to find my way to a correct understanding of biblical doctrine and theology — only I never made much headway. When faced with competing claims to truth from different denominational camps, based on different, apparently valid interpretations of the same scriptural passages, I struggled to come to any confident conclusion.

As a Protestant, I still very much felt that Scripture was the only authoritative source of divine truth — the only place we could go to find divine revelation. It is the Word of God. But as an academic, I was coming to understand the idea of authority in perhaps a different way than many of my Evangelical brethren.

An argument from history

Douay-Rheims New Testament (1582) (Wikimedia)

As I studied history in school, I came to think more about sources of authority. Obviously, in terms of the Christian faith, Scripture, the Holy Bible, was the primary source, the authoritative Word of God. But — at least in the Evangelical Protestant camps I grew up in — it was common to treat it as the only source: as if, if something is not detailed explicitly in Scripture, it cannot possibly be true. This was applied not only to matters pertaining to Christianity and the Church, but to all matters. It was, of course, applied unevenly, and used more as a cudgel to reject facts and evidence the believer happened not to care for than for any universal standard of truth.

As a budding historian, I was aggravated by this logic. Just as in history, there were secondary sources, of a different degree of authority but nonetheless valuable, there were numerous other sources — historical sources, the writings of the earliest Christians after the New Testament or even of secular authors; scientific sources, evidence scientists had observed and that we ourselves could observe from nature — that could add to our knowledge about our world and even about our faith. The Bible being the authoritative Word of God did not demand that it be the only source of truth.

The Bible was God’s Word to us; but it was also an historical document. The Bible could shed light on Christian history; but other, historical sources could also shed light on Christian history. The Bible, in terms of history, only gave a brief glimpse at the origins of Christianity; other sources could certainly tell the story of what happened next, where the Bible could not. When I journeyed to Rome as a student, I was fascinated by the claims that the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul were there. The truth of these claims could be supported from history and archaeology. But I encountered Christians who were prepared to reject such claims out of hand, on the simple grounds that “it wasn’t in the Bible.”

So already, years before I even approached Catholicism, I was discontent with the way some Evangelicals applied sola scriptura — in an unintellectual opposition to observable fact. I was similarly disgruntled with the literalistic reading of Scripture espoused by many Evangelicals, who sought to read the words of Scripture as statements of bald fact and not the literary forms — poetry, liturgy, allegory — that they certainly contain. I witnessed so many nasty and fruitless arguments quibbling over young-earth Creationism, the biblical Flood, points of historical or narrative accuracy — when none of these things had any bearing at all on the spiritual truths contained in Scripture. They only detracted from our understanding rather than adding to it, divided Christians rather than united them, and falsely pitted Christianity against science in a way that made people of faith a laughingstock to the secular world. There was no reason to use “sola scriptura” as a denial of the observable facts of history or science, of truth we could glean from other sources. God gave us Scripture to reveal His truth, not to blind our eyes to it.

Sources of authority

Pierre Mignard, The Muse Clio (1689) (Wikimedia)

The thing that still bothered me deeply about Catholic claims was the claim that the Church was the sole authentic interpreter of the Word of God — in other words, the Church could tell believers the right way to understand Scripture! As a Protestant, I felt a closely-held prerogative to interpret Scripture for myself. Looking back, I felt a liberty to read, interpret, and define the meaning of Scripture for myself that seems to contradict what Protestants actually teach about the perspicuity of Scripture — supposing that Scripture has one meaning that ought to become clear with effective study — but in truth seems to reflect the way many Protestants actually read Scripture — with the ultimate authority being one’s own individual interpretation.

How dare the Church insist on interpreting Scripture for me! Didn’t Luther’s focus on “Scripture alone” originate to combat the tyranny of the Church, and its imposition of “unbiblical” doctrines? What was to keep the Church today from dictating to believers that Scripture said something entirely different than what it actually said? This, coming from my Protestant formation, is exactly what I presumed she did. This, up until the time I discovered the Church for myself, was my foremost, most easily vocalized objection to the Catholic Church.

It was the single point I raised the fateful day I ran into my friend Audrey at the library. Her response was simple, clear, and disarming. She was perhaps the only person in my life who could have addressed this particular issue in this particular way — the way that made perfect sense to me and cut through all my defenses. It was the answer all the years of my journey had been preparing me for.

“I see it like authority for a historian,” she said. “We base our arguments on the authority of those who have written in the past. The closer a witness is to the event, the more valuable it is in understanding how that event was understood by contemporaries. And each generation builds on the authority of those who have written before, and as they reflect on those interpretations, they gain a deeper understanding of the truth. The Catholic Church has 2,000 years of authority behind her interpretations of Scripture — of trusted, respected, and authoritative voices who have spoken on the matter.“

St. Augustine (c. 1645-1650), Philippe de Champaigne.

And there it was. Of course the Catholic Church has an authoritative interpretation: By relying on the ancient witnesses of the past, according to a scholarly, historical method, the Church’s interpretations of Scripture become by default more authoritative than my personal, unaided interpretation alone. I know some Greek and a little Hebrew, but those are not languages that I understand natively. I was not personally acquainted with the Apostles or with their disciples or with the historical and theological context of the Early Church and the faith they received. The Church Fathers — whom I had respected for so long — were. It was on they that the authority of the Catholic Church’s interpretation of Scripture was, at least in part, based.

It is true that some Protestants do consult the Church Fathers when interpreting Scripture — but I had never encountered this as an Evangelical. In general, most Protestants I have read consider the Fathers to be merely another consulting opinion, of no more inherent value than their own private interpretation. They dismiss the idea that anyone other than themselves has inherent authority in interpreting Scripture. If the Fathers seem to agree with their foregone conclusions, they cite them — piecemeal and without context — for support. If the Fathers do not, they are quick to dismiss them as wrong or mistaken (but usually not as apostates or heretics). It is true, of course, that the Church Fathers can be wrong; but they certainly deserve a degree of respect and deference beyond what most Evangelicals give them, both on account of being closer to the original sources and of the high regard in which they have been held, both in their own times and over the centuries.

There is still more to come!

Grappling with Sola Scriptura, Part 1: Paralysis

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Joseph T. Richardson

In this post, I relate how, as a Protestant journeying to the Catholic Church, I came to terms with the doctrine of sola scriptura. I have been trying to write this post for months, and have started over from scratch several times — mostly because it rambled at too great length, or strayed into trite polemic. Catholic apologists tend to repeat and rehash the same complaints — “sola scriptura” isn’t scriptural! The Early Church functioned just fine for a period of decades before the New Testament was written and compiled! No Christian held to such a constraint prior to the Protestant Reformation! — and though I do think these arguments are persuasive now, I was not even aware of them then, and they played no role in my own convictions.

This post proved to be really long, so I split in into two. I will post the second half soon.

Part of my ongoing conversion story.

Approaching the Church

Pannini, Nave of St. Peter's Basilica (1731)

Giovanni Paolo Pannini, Nave of St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome (1731). (Wikimedia)

At last, I had stumbled my way into the Mass, and found in it something glorious and transcendent and compelling. I began to attend Sunday Mass on a weekly basis. All the fragments that had been circling around me my whole life seemed to be falling into place. I felt peace. But this is still not yet the end of the story. I had some final hurdles to overcome, confronting Catholic doctrine head-on as it came to bear on what I held as a Protestant.

I hadn’t been attending Mass very long at all, perhaps only about a month, before one day I happened to speak to Father Joe. I had not sought him out; Audrey and I had been standing there outside the church chatting, and he asked me what I thought so far. I blurted out that I liked it and was thinking about joining the RCIA class. I was alarmed to hear myself say it; I don’t think I had even articulated the thought before that. I understood that this didn’t mean I was making a commitment; that there was still plenty of time to learn and change my mind; but as I had at so many moments before, I felt a sinking feeling that I was approaching a point of no return.

This was still early in the year, about March. The next RCIA class would not begin until September. So over the next six months, I committed myself to reading and learning as much as I could, and to experiencing as much of the Mass and of the Church as I could. I began attending daily Mass also at every opportunity I could. At St. John’s they offered Mass every weekday, and being just on the edge of campus, I could run over almost anytime. My reading took on a new focus. Up to this point, I had still not read any “Catholic” book. I had not read any of the Catechism or any apologetic work. I had not read any of the great body of conversion literature, the writings of other Protestants like me who had made their way to the Catholic Church. Rather than the end of my journey, I was really only beginning my approach in earnest. I was just beginning to consider the Catholic Church with an open and discerning mind. I did not jump in head first. As it should have, my exploration of the Catholic Church soon came into confrontation with my convictions as a Protestant.

Sola Scriptura

(Source: peachknee on Pixabay)

I was no dummy. I understood that to embrace Catholic doctrine entailed a renunciation of what was has been called “the formal principle of the Protestant Reformation”: sola scriptura, the thesis that Scripture alone is to be the sole source of divine truth for the Church and for Christians. I knew well, as all Protestants know, that this is one of the fundamental disagreements between Catholics and Protestants: that Protestants hold as authoritative the Bible alone, while Catholics deny this and add other things.

But looking back, I don’t recall ever having much of a serious struggle with sola scriptura. On the contrary, it seems to have folded quite readily and early on in my final approach to the Church. Why? Could it be true, as some have charged, that I never had a firm commitment to Protestant principles in the first place? Or were there other forces at work in my life, under the surface and behind the scenes, preparing the way before me and making it straight to the Church? The truth is, whether I openly acknowledged it or not, that I had been struggling with sola scriptura for years. I can think of several factors underpinning the idea of sola scriptura that I had already been dealing with, and that had already weakened that foundation, long before this point.

A Flimsy Default

(Source: mnplatypus on Pixabay)

If I had ever been asked about the source of my Christian doctrine as a Protestant, I would simply have pointed to Scripture. Because what else was there? This was the default position, what Protestants did, the only thing I knew. Where else would one possibly look? But if I had been asked to explain why, I would have been a little dumbfounded. Because it’s the Word of God, God’s message to mankind? Obviously, when one is looking for source material about God and Christianity, the Bible is your source. This seemed to be a reasonable proposition at the time.

But why did I believe that? Why Scripture alone? How did I know? I would have been hard-pressed to defend it. The only thing I knew, the only thing I recall ever hearing, was that Martin Luther proclaimed sola scriptura in opposition to the “unscriptural doctrines” of the Catholic Church. Did the doctrine really only exist as a negative? Was there no positive reason for it to stand on its own? It is possible that some Protestant apologetics might have shored up the position for me, but generally I have found Protestant apologetics on this matter unsatisfactory. Every Protestant argument I have read in support of sola scriptura inevitably begins with or returns to the point that “the Catholic Church believes unscriptural doctrines.”

“Unscriptural doctrines”

Juan de Juanes, Christ and the Eucharist (16th century) (Wikimedia)

The rote line of Protestant lore, what I recall hearing all my life, is that Martin Luther proclaimed sola scriptura in opposition to the “unscriptural doctrines” in the Catholic Church. It was often told, even in my mostly ahistorical corner of Protestantism, how Luther discovered the truth of God’s grace and salvation by faith alone by reading Scripture — the implication being that Catholics did not read Scripture, that the Catholic Church had entirely thrown the Bible out the window. I believed this because I knew nothing else.

But by the time I was in my thirties, having spent all my life as a Protestant, and for several years having exerted a lot of effort trying to attain a more academic grasp of Christian theology, starting from scratch, I had become inured to this charge of “unscriptural doctrines” — since the sad truth is, many Protestant sects accuse each other of believing “unscriptural doctrines,” even those who proclaim sola scriptura — the fact of the matter being not that these believers didn’t read Scripture, but that they read and interpreted Scripture differently. I had struggled mightily for years to sort out the truth among many such competing interpretations, ultimately concluding that in most cases, these couldn’t be called “unscriptural doctrines” at all, but the result of ambiguities in Scripture and good-faith differences of opinion.

And I came to realize that Catholicism was probably the same way. I knew, from studying the history of Christianity in school, that Catholics believed that the bread and wine in Communion actually became the Body and Blood of Christ — and reading Scripture for myself, I could see how that could be a defensible reading: Jesus did say, “This is my Body,” and it is only by assuming premises not in Scripture, that He was speaking symbolically or metaphorically, that one concludes otherwise. I came to expect that the same might be true for other supposedly “unscriptural” Catholic doctrines: what if they were only as “unscriptural” as what Protestants accused each other of? And if that was the case — what was the cry of “sola scriptura” really all about?

Paralysis

Protestant church divisions

Perhaps the strongest argument against sola scriptura, the reason that led to the doctrine’s downfall in my mind more than any other, was my growing conviction that sola scriptura just doesn’t work. I probably would not have put it in those terms as an Evangelical — such would have seemed heresy — but the fact of my experience is that I found myself completely unable to discern between the claims of competing denominational camps to have the exclusive, correct interpretation of Scripture. Sola scriptura — relying on Scripture alone — proved unable to bring me to any conviction of the truth, so far as any certainty or precision of doctrine or theology was concerned. Historically, it had proved unable either to unite the Protestant cause or to preserve any degree of unity at all in the Church. If anything, the doctrine of sola scriptura itself is the single most culpable culprit for the continued fragmentation and division of Protestant churches, both historically and contemporarily — since any believer with his own divergent interpretation of Scripture feels entitled to break away and found his own sect.

The Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Pentecostals, all came to different, sometimes radically different, interpretations of the very same passages of Scripture. And I found myself completely unable, in many cases, to choose one over another, to declare one right and another one wrong. And this was not on account of any ignorance or lack of preparation on my part (though a lack of indoctrination into a particular interpretive tradition, I suppose, could be credited): I had studied the original languages and trained in translating ancient texts; I had studied history and the historical contexts of the Early Church and the ancient cultures in which it dwelled. If anything, it was on account of that preparation that I had less confidence than some of my peers, who were able to affirm their churches’ particular interpretations with conviction. Such people and churches could make strong, valid arguments for their positions — but so could all the others.

I was forced to conclude that in many cases, Scripture was not “perspicuous” at all, but that in many locations the text was ambiguous enough to allow more than one valid interpretation. To weigh between multiple, valid interpretations of the words requires something more than the words themselves: it requires a consideration of the wider textual context, both in the same text and in other texts. It requires a consideration of the historical and cultural contexts, and an understanding of the way the text was received by its earliest recipients. And ultimately, it required having an opinion, and being willing to draw conclusions based on it — and though I did have opinions, they were neither strong enough nor certain enough for me to stake my eternal life or death on them with anything like security. I realized that scriptural exegesis is not an exact science, and the “right” interpretation is often not clear from the text at all, as the popular view of sola scriptura would lead me to believe: it ultimately, and inevitably, involved making my own understanding the final authority in interpreting Scripture.

There is a lot more to come! You can expect the next post in a day or two.

“He taught them as one having authority”

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Joseph T. Richardson

Hi, I’m back in school now and still trying to organize my time. I haven’t had much of a chance to sit down and write, especially not about any large subjects; but in today’s Mass readings, an idea hit me forcefully that I think I might be able to comment on quickly. This will be an exercise in brevity, both of length and time.

I’ve always been struck by today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1:21–28): “The people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority.” Jesus was something completely different, something no one had ever seen before. Not since Moses himself, the codifier of the Law, had anyone spoken with such authority on the Law and the mind of God toward human behavior.

He stood in vivid contrast to the so-called authorities of the day, the Pharisees and Sadducees, the scribes and scholars of the Law. The only authority they ever offered was their own, as they disputed endlessly on the interpretation and application of the Law. They had sola scriptura: Scripture alone, the divine and authoritative Word of God, in the Law and the Prophets — and yet they did not have authority. For all their scholastic eminence and merits, they could offer only disagreement and division. Jesus did not come to give God’s people more of the same: another holy book or another teacher or even another prophet. He came to give them something radically new and different.

Jesus spoke with authority, such that there was no question, dispute, or ambiguity about what He meant. And he gave that same authority to His Apostles (Matthew 10:1, 40; Luke 10:16), to speak and to teach with His voice. And the Apostles gave their successors, the bishops, that same authority to teach (1 Timothy 4:11, etc.). And this is the same authority with which the Magisterium of the Church teaches today.

By contrast, see the state of teaching in the Protestant churches. When a preacher stands up to teach, he may speak with self-assurance; he may speak from the divine, authoritative Word of God; but he gives an interpretation; he does not speak with authority. In the Protestant world, there are only endless disputes concerning doctrine and interpretation. Sola scriptura — “Scripture alone” — without prophets, without a Christ — is all the Jewish people had before Jesus came. And He came to deliver us from that chaos and confusion, as surely as He came to deliver us from sin and death. The Protestant proposition seeks to return the Church to that: to deny and reject the very authority that made Jesus Christ’s revelation so radical and so powerful a revolution.

The Lonely Pilgrim

A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward

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