Protestant vs. Catholic Debate

In my high school apologetics class (in a Catholic school), one of the things I do is have a dialogue and debate in class between two fictional characters—a Catholic (George Stewart) and a Presbyterian (Norman McTavish)—over a Protestant (Sola Scriptura) vs. a Catholic (Scripture/Tradition/Magisterium) epistemology, both of whom try to convince students of their position.  Both of my characters have written up cases for their position as well, which I have posted below. Enjoy!


Norman McTavish

I am a Protestant.  More particularly, I am a Presbyterian.  Our theology is summed up in the Westminster Confession of Faith (here is the version from my particular denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church). 

George Stewart and I have far more that we agree upon than we disagree over.  We both advocate historic Christianity, in terms of central, core doctrines like the existence of God, the Trinity, the Fall of man, the Incarnation of Christ, etc.  However, we do have some areas of significant disagreement which I would like to address. 

Sola Scriptura 

One of our most fundamental areas of disagreement is in the area of epistemology—that is, in how we gain knowledge.  Particularly, our disagreement has to do with the question of the sources of divine revelation and the proper way to interpret divine revelation.  George’s Catholic view holds that there is a three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium, and that all three are protected from error by the Holy Spirit.  Scripture refers to the Bible, the Old and New Testaments.  This is the revelation of God written down in inspired writings.  Tradition refers to the revelation of God as it has been passed down and expounded upon in other ways—in the teaching, preaching, practice, and worship of the Church—over the centuries.  The Magisterium is the teaching office and authority of the Church, consisting of the college of bishops in union with the Pope (it can refer to the teaching of all the bishops together along with the Pope, or the teaching of the Pope as he represents all the bishops as the head bishop of the Church).  Since these three legs of the three-legged stool are held to be protected from error by the Holy Spirit, and they all come stamped with the authority of Christ himself, they are all to be accepted together as parts of a package deal.  They must be read in light of each other and no leg can be pitted in opposition against any of the other legs.  In practice, this means that Scripture will be interpreted in the light of the Tradition of the Church, and the authorized version and interpretation of Tradition is that of the Magisterium of the Church. 

By contrast, as a Protestant, I hold to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.  Basically, this doctrine teaches that God’s revelation is found with ultimate authority and with infallibility only in Scripture.  Of course, the content of that revelation can be communicated in different ways, such as through the teaching, preaching, practice, and worship of the Church—what Catholics call Tradition—but we Protestants maintain that Tradition is not infallible.  It is not protected from error the way Scripture is.  This is because the Church is not infallible in her teaching.  Certainly, God guides the Church and helps her understand the Scripture.  Certainly, the Church’s history and Tradition are extremely helpful to us as we seek to understand, interpret, and apply the Scripture.  Tradition, history, learned scholarship, and many other things are extremely useful guides to us as we attempt to interpret and apply Scripture, and we ignore them at our peril, but they are not infallible.  We can learn a lot from them, and we must have great deference towards them, but we must not put the kind of implicit trust in them that we put in the Scriptures.  In practice, this means that when, after diligent study, prayer, and listening to the counsel of others (especially those well-versed in the relevant scholarship and the great historic teachers and teachings of the faith through the centuries), it is apparent to us that Scripture disagrees with any other opinion—no matter how old or respected that opinion might be—we must follow Scripture. 

The Westminster Confession of Faith defines Sola Scriptura well in Chapter 1, particularly in section 6 and section 10: 

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 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.

 

X. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture. 

So why do I believe in Sola Scriptura?  I think it’s best to start with history. 

A Brief Look at History 

Christianity is a revelation from God.  Although it is consistent with reason, and some of its teachings can be learned from reason, yet it surpasses reason, in that it contains many teachings that cannot be attained to by reason alone.  The only ordinary way we can have access to this revelation in its entirety is to receive it as it is handed down to us in history.  God gave this revelation over a long period of time, culminating in the teaching passed on to the world through Christ and his apostles.  The apostles transmitted this teaching to the people of God (the early Christian Church), and they appointed elders/bishops to safeguard that teaching after they were gone.  This historic Christian Church continued to pass this teaching down through time, until we reach our own day.  So we have received the revelation of God that is the Christian religion through a process of historical succession. 

If we want to know what this revelation says, then, we must look at what history has handed down to us.  We must look at the historical record as we have access to it.  And we can be confident that a careful look at that historical record will lead us to a correct understanding of God’s revelation, for if God has given us a revelation, it follows that he wants us to actually be able to know what it says.  The only way we can do that is if we can trust the historical record to communicate and transmit that revelation to us accurately.  If we have reason to believe that Christianity is indeed a divine revelation, then, we have reason to believe that God has protected the historical transmission of that revelation so that we can have access to it in an accurate and reliable way. 

So what do we see when we look at the historical record of the transmission of Christianity from its beginnings down to our own day?  There are different streams in the Christian tradition as we go back to the earliest records.  There is a mainstream, “catholic” tradition (as it called itself); and there are streams that were labeled “heretical” by the mainstream tradition.  The mainstream, catholic group held to the traditional Christian doctrines we associate with Christianity today, and which I would argue (as George has in his debate with Robert Merryweather) that we have good reason to believe to be true.  The heretical groups frequently disagreed with the catholic tradition on some of these doctrines.  The catholic group was, by far, the largest and best-established group historically.  They could trace themselves back to the apostles in a well-established line.  The heretical groups were divided into many sects and did not possess the same sort of historical pedigree as the catholic group did, and also their doctrines were frequently out of accord with the mainstream Christian tradition (and with reason).  For example, the heretic Marcion, in the second century A.D., didn’t like the Jewish elements in Christianity, and so he accepted only the New Testament, and only portions of it--namely, the “less Jewish” portions.  He accepted the letters of Paul, part of the Gospel of Luke (with the more “Jewish” portions excised), etc.  His position clearly is based on an alteration of an earlier tradition.  Many of the Gnostic heretical sects produced gospels that were not known by the Christian churches of the time, and which were frequently full of esoteric philosophy and metaphysics that were markedly different from the Jewish atmosphere of the traditional canonical New Testament (and, of course, the Old Testament).  Early catholic Fathers like Irenaeus (writing towards the end of the 2^nd century, only a hundred years after the time of the apostles) well argued that, if we want the authentic teachings of Christ, it makes sense to receive the teachings that he handed down to his own hand-picked apostles, and which those apostles handed on to their own hand-picked bishops/elders, in a clear line of succession to the present day (that is, to the time of Irenaeus).  It makes no sense to receive as authoritative teachings and alleged Scriptural writings that other sects produced out of nowhere, with no historical pedigree, un-heard-of in the earlier Christian tradition. 

In conclusion, then, since the catholic tradition holds the best historical pedigree, as far as we can tell, and its doctrines are the doctrines of historic Christianity (which has the mark of divine revelation, as George well established in his debate with Robert Merryweather), while many of the teachings of the heretical sects are not, it makes sense to assume that the catholic tradition maintained the most reliable passing-down of the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. 

So what did the historic Church have to say about where the revelation of God is to be found?  The catholic church, and most of the heretical groups I mentioned above, accepted that God has provided revelation to his people in the form of authoritative Scriptures.  Such an idea was already established, of course, in the Judaism that preceded the Christian era, and the vast majority of Christians accepted the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament) as the Word of God (though there was some dispute over the status of some books, primarily what has come to be known as the Apocrypha, that were included in the famous Greek Septuagint translation of the Jewish Scriptures).  Very early on, there is evidence that Christians had another body of literature that was on par with the Jewish Scriptures, a body of literature that would later be called the “New Testament.”  Both catholics and heretics tended to accept such a body of literature.  Since the catholic tradition holds the best historical pedigree, it makes sense to view their ideas about which books constitute the canonical Scriptures as far more reliable than the canons put forward by various heretical sects, especially when we consider in addition that most of the canonical books accepted by the catholic tradition were accepted by many of the heretical sects as well, but not vice versa.  There was dispute in the catholic tradition about the authority of some of the traditional books, but these disputes were temporary and were eventually resolved into a pretty much universal consensus.  Thus, historical investigation, combined with a reasonable confidence that God has preserved his revelation to us so that we can know what it is, leads us to look to the traditional catholic canon as delineating the books we should look to as the true Scriptures.  There are no other writings that we have good reason to accept besides the traditional canonical books which we have come to think of as “the Bible.”  The Gnostic gospels, for instance, are of doubtful historical pedigree, being accepted only by certain relatively small sects and universally rejected by the catholic tradition.  There were some books, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, which were looked at in an authoritative manner by some in the catholic tradition, but only by limited groups and only temporarily.  Any claimed work of Scripture coming from within the Christian tradition in more recent times, such as the revelations of Joseph Smith (the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), do not have any clear evidence supporting their being divine revelations, and usually they have internal evidence against them, as they contradict the canonical Scriptures as well as reason.  Smith’s revelations, for example, teach that God was once a man, and that God did not create the basic elements of the universe.  This teaching is clearly out of accord with the Bible as well as with the sort of sound reasoning George exhibited in his earlier debate.  The mainstream, catholic tradition has never claimed to produce any further Scripture.  Therefore, it makes sense to accept the traditional Bible as the only Scripture we have from God. 

(Let me just briefly illustrate what I’ve said above with regard to one book of the Bible, the Book of Jude.  How do we know this book belongs in the canon of Scripture?  We didn't make that decision; it was made long before we were born.  This decision was made by the leaders of the early Christian Church.  How do we know they got it right?  We can go back and look at their reasons and try to see if we think they made a good choice.  But this will only take us so far, unless we are also willing to trust in God's providential guidance of the preservation of his Word through history.  Even if, through historical investigation, we can show that the Book of Jude is probably a very early book, very likely written close to the times of the apostles, even if we can show that it has doctrine that agrees with the rest of the Bible, etc., how do we really know that it belongs in the Bible?  There are lots of good books that no one thinks belong in the Bible.  How do we know that Jude was not written very early, perhaps during the times of the apostles, perhaps even by Jude himself, but that God did not intend it to be inspired Scripture?  Perhaps the Church really liked the book, and very quickly it became common belief that it is one of those books that should be in the canon.  [Actually, the entire Church did not agree that the Book of Jude should be in the Bible until a few hundred years after the time of the apostles—it was always a well-respected book, and many thought it belonged in the Bible, but this was disputed among the churches in the earliest days of the Church.]  How can we go back and figure out, by purely historical research, whether or not Jude should be in the Bible?  We can't.  The only way we can know that it's supposed to be there is by trusting that God guided the Church to make the right decision.  We must trust God's providential handing down of his Word through history.  We all recognize that it would be foolish and sinful to throw the Book of Jude out of the Bible simply because we can't provide our own independent proof that it should be there.  We would be arbitrarily altering the faith as it has been handed down to us.  We have no more ability to decide by ourselves that Jude should not be in the Bible than we have to decide that it should be there.  Either choice, made solely on our own independent judgment, would be arbitrary and without reason.  Therefore, since in order to follow God's Word we must know what it is, the reasonable thing is for us to trust that God has handed down his faith to us in the way he wanted us to receive it.  Our job is to receive it humbly and live by it, not to arbitrarily alter it.) 

Thus far, I think George would agree with my analysis.  Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants can all agree with everything I’ve been saying above in this section.  We all agree that the historical record (which we have reason to believe has been guided and protected by the providence of God) points to the catholic tradition as the true custodian of the faith as Jesus handed it down to his apostles, and that the catholic tradition has always pointed to the Bible as an authoritative locus of the divine revelation.  But now we come to a point of divergence, for Catholics and Orthodox claim that, in addition to the Bible, we have an infallible Tradition as an additional locus of divine revelation, and that we have an infallible Church Magisterium to interpret God’s revelation for us.  Protestants, on the other hand, claim that only Scripture is infallible. 

So what does the historical record have to say that could help us resolve this dispute?  Well, when we look back to the tradition of the early Church, we find that while the early Christians were quite clear on Scripture as the locus of divine revelation, they were not clear in their support of anything else claiming to function as such a locus, nor of anything outside of Scripture constituting an infallible interpreter of divine revelation.  In short, the position of the Fathers, overall, is closer to the Protestant position than to the Catholic or the Orthodox position.  I’ll grant that the early Fathers were not as clear on Sola Scriptura as Protestants later would be, but that is the direction they pointed in.  Let me provide a few examples to illustrate this. 

Cyril of Jerusalem was the Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem in the mid-300s.  In the context of his catechetical lectures which he would use to teach those who were preparing to be baptized into the Christian Church, he had this to say about the uniqueness of Scripture:

 

For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell you these things, give not absolute credence, unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures.  (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 4, section 17, translated by Edwin Hamilton Gifford.  From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 7.  Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace.  [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894.]  Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310104.htm>.)

 

“Don’t believe anything,” says Cyril, “unless it can shown to you from Scripture!  Scripture alone is the foundation of our faith!”  It doesn’t get much clearer than that. 

One of the greatest Christian teachers of all time was Augustine of Hippo, a bishop from North Africa who lived in the 4^th and 5^th centuries.  Here is what he had to say about the uniqueness of the Scriptures:

 

But who can fail to be aware that the sacred canon of Scripture, both of the Old and New Testament, is confined within its own limits, and that it stands so absolutely in a superior position to all later letters of the bishops, that about it we can hold no manner of doubt or disputation whether what is confessedly contained in it is right and true; but that all the letters of bishops which have been written, or are being written, since the closing of the canon, are liable to be refuted if there be anything contained in them which strays from the truth, either by the discourse of some one who happens to be wiser in the matter than themselves, or by the weightier authority and more learned experience of other bishops, by the authority of Councils; and further, that the Councils themselves, which are held in the several districts and provinces, must yield, beyond all possibility of doubt, to the authority of plenary Councils which are formed for the whole Christian world; and that even of the plenary Councils, the earlier are often corrected by those which follow them, when, by some actual experiment, things are brought to light which were before concealed, and that is known which previously lay hid, and this without any whirlwind of sacrilegious pride, without any puffing of the neck through arrogance, without any strife of envious hatred, simply with holy humility, catholic peace, and Christian charity?  (On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book 2, Chapter 3, ca. AD 400)

 

Here is the great Bishop Augustine telling us plainly that Scripture alone is infallible and is the ultimate rule of our faith.  Nothing said later by bishops or church councils has that same degree of infallible authority.  Everyone can be wrong but the Scriptures.  Therefore, in them alone we find the sure locus of divine revelation.  Augustine’s words would later be echoed by none other than Martin Luther, as the latter explained to his persecutors in the Roman Catholic Church why he must stick with Scripture alone even against the teachings of popes and councils:

 

Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen. (Retrieved from http://www.luther.de/en/worms.html)

 

In such a short piece as this, I can’t provide a whole lot more evidence without it becoming overwhelming, but let me refer you to a couple of articles (here and here) by Protestant apologist William Webster which lay out a lot more evidence for what I’m saying here. 

Catholics claim that the Pope, as the Successor of St. Peter, has been in particular granted infallible authority from God to expound God’s revelation.  In the Catholic view, the Pope has the same authority by himself that all the bishops (including him) have put together.  But this view cannot be sustained from Church history any more than the Catholic view of Tradition and Magisterial authority in general can.  It does seem that the Roman bishops began fairly early to make extravagant claims about their own authority, but they are frequently challenged by others in the early Church with regard to these claims.  In the 3^rd century, the great bishop Cyprian of Carthage famously disagreed with Pope Stephen over whether the baptism of heretics was valid.  A century earlier, when Pope Victor tried to excommunicate all the churches of Asia over a disagreement regarding the date of Easter, he was rebuked by other bishops, including the great Irenaeus.  Bishops and church councils often disagreed with or refused to go along with the decrees and commands of the bishops of Rome.  At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the council famously passed a canon making Constantinople the second highest church after the Church of Rome over the protests of Leo, Bishop of Rome.  At the Third Council of Constantinople (680-681), Pope Honorius was actually excommunicated by the council for teaching heresy!  So much for the supreme authority and infallibility of the Pope!  Again, in a short piece such as this, I can only barely touch on the evidence, but see another article from William Webster well documenting the early Church’s view of papal power and authority.  In the early Church, the Bishops of Rome were very well-respected and the Church of Rome had a high place, but the universal Church never accepted the doctrine of the supremacy and infallibility of the Pope that modern Roman Catholics believe in. 

Another important testimony against the Roman view of papal power and authority comes from the Eastern Orthodox churches.  Papal power grew very strong in the Western part of the Church over the centuries of the First Millennium, but it was not accepted in the same way in the Eastern part of the Church, and the Easterners eventually broke with Rome over their refusal to accept Rome’s increasingly-aggressive claims of universal jurisdiction over the whole Church.  The Eastern Orthodox also, historically, have objected to a number of Roman innovations in doctrine.  As her power grew, the Roman bishops tried more and more to alter the faith according to their desires and beliefs, but the Easterners resisted this.  This document, to provide one example, is a letter from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, written in 1895 in response to a letter from Pope Leo XIII calling the Eastern Orthodox churches to unify with Rome by submitting to papal authority.  In it, we find a typical list of doctrinal innovations of the Roman church objected to by the Easterns, including such things as adding words to the historic Nicene Creed, changing the traditional forms of celebrating the Lord’s Supper, withholding the cup from the laity during communion (I’ll come back to this one a little later), and teaching new doctrines such as purgatory and the Immaculate Conception. 

Historical Contradictions 

Another argument against the infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church arises from the observation that the Roman church has contradicted herself in her teachings many times throughout her history.  I’ll content myself with two examples for the present—religious freedom and the salvation of non-Catholics.  If the Church has contradicted herself in her own teachings over the years, she has shown herself not to be an infallibly reliable interpreter of the divine revelation, as she claims herself to be.  Rather, since contradictory claims exclude each other and thus cannot all be true, it must be that she has taught error and led her people astray at various times in her history.  And Protestants, therefore, were right to refuse to accept her supposedly infallible authority over the proper interpretation of Scripture. 

The Roman Catholic Church has contradicted herself over the centuries with regard to religious liberty.  I will content myself to illustrate this by means of two quotations, one from the encyclical Quanta Cura, written in 1864 by Pope Pius IX, and the other from Dignitatis Humanae, a document from the Second Vatican Council published in 1965:

 

From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an “insanity,” viz., that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.”  (Quanta Cura, footnote removed)

 

This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.

 

The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.  (Dignitatis Humanae, footnote removed)

 

As you can see, what 19^th century (and earlier) Popes called an “insanity”, an “erroneous opinion,” “most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls”, has by the 20^th century, become a “right”, founded in the “very dignity of the human person.”  In the 19^th century, it was an “insanity” that liberty of conscience “ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society,” but in the 20^th century, “religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.”  Pretty much the exact opposite in every way! 

The Roman Catholic Church has also contradicted herself with regard to whether or not non-Catholics can be saved.  I will illustrate this by quoting from two Ecumenical councils—the Council of Florence in the 15^th century, and the Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium) in the 20^th century.

 

[The Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the catholic church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the catholic church before the end of their lives; that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only for those who abide in it do the church's sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia produce eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed his blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and the unity of the catholic church.  (Council of Florence)

 

Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life. But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator. Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, "Preach the Gospel to every creature", the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.  (Vatican II, footnotes removed)

 

So in the 15^th century, you can’t be saved unless you are joined to the Roman Catholic Church before you die and remain in her; but in the 20^th century, non-Catholics and even non-Christians, and even atheists (“those who . . . have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God”), can be saved!  Pretty important point of doctrine for the Church to have misled her people on at one time or another! 

Scriptural Evidence 

When we look at the Bible itself, we find that it gives no support to the claims and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.  The Bible is very clear that Scripture is the locus of divine revelation, and is fully sufficient for all our doctrinal needs.

 

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.  (2 Timothy 2:16-17)

 

But the Bible never points to any other infallible locus of divine revelation.  In sharp contrast to Roman Catholic teaching, it warns us away from the idea of “tradition” as an additional locus of divine revelation.

 

Then came together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem. And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, “Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?” He answered and said unto them, “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.” And he said unto them, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’; and, ‘Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death’: But ye say, ‘If a man shall say to his father or mother, “It is Corban”, that is to say, a gift, “by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me”; he shall be free.’ And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.”  (Mark 7:1-13)

 

The official teachers of the people of God in Old Testament times were clearly not infallible, since we see that they could err.  The most dramatic example of their error is their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah.  And there is no evidence that the official teachers of the people of God in New Testament or Christian times will be infallible either.  In fact, the apostles warn of errors being taught by some of the elders of the church (3 John 9-10; Acts 20:29-31).  Even the apostles themselves can be in error.  Paul had to rebuke Peter at one point for allowing his actions to speak against the inclusion of the Gentiles in the people of God (Galatians 2:11-14). 

In short, there is no evidence in Scripture for the existence of any locus of revelation or infallible authority outside of Scripture.  This fits with what we saw from Church history as well. 

Not only this, but Roman Catholic doctrine contradicts the Bible in many places.  For example, in the institution of the Lord’s Supper, we find Jesus saying to his disciples regarding the cup containing the wine representing his blood, “Drink ye all of it” (Matthew 26:27).  And every time the Lord’s Supper is mentioned in Scripture the cup is included alongside the bread (such as in 1 Corinthians 10:16).  In John 6, in a passage Catholics rightly recognize as alluding to the practice of communion, Jesus says this:

 

Then Jesus said unto them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.”  (John 6:53-56)

 

And yet the Roman Catholic Church withheld the cup from the laity for hundreds of years, from sometime in the high Middle Ages until after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.  Even now, the cup is sometimes withheld from the laity, in clear contradiction to the commands of Christ recorded in Scripture.  It might be said with equal force what Jesus said to the Pharisees:  “Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.  For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men. . . .  Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition!” 

Another example is Catholic teaching regarding the sinlessness of Mary.  The Bible clearly teaches that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).  “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).  And yet the Roman church teaches that Mary was without sin.  Again, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition!” 

The Bible forbids images of God to be made and used in worship.  “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them” (Exodus 20:4-5).  “Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:  Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, the likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth” (Deuteronomy 4:15-18).  And yet Roman Catholic churches are full of images of God. 

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that we are justified by our own righteousness (albeit a righteousness we attain to with the help of God’s grace).  But Scripture teaches that we are justified not by our own righteousness but by the righteousness of Christ alone imputed to us, or credited to our account.

 

For what saith the scripture? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”  (Romans 4:3-8)

 

I could go on and on.  The Roman church has added many doctrines that are not found in Scripture, such as the doctrine of purgatory, the doctrine of the intercession of the saints and praying to saints, the papacy, indulgences, and many other things, “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”  (Protestants have historically had great difficulties with all of these doctrines.  I won’t go into those difficulties here, but I will refer you here and here to a couple more articles by William Webster which well address many of the issues.) 

In conclusion, then, I submit that the evidence from Church history and from Scripture support the Protestant position over against the Roman Catholic position.  As I said at the start, there is a great deal Protestants and Catholics agree on.  But where we diverge, it is the Protestant view which has the 
support of the evidence. 

George Stewart

I am a Catholic.  A handy compendium of the teachings of the Catholic Church can be found in the authoritative Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

I agree with Norman that Protestants (especially historic, mainstream Protestants like Norman) and Catholics have a great deal in common.  I would say we share the same fundamental worldview overall, and our teachings overlap extensively.  But I also agree that there are significant differences, and I agree that one of the biggest areas of divergence is in our epistemology.  I think that Norman has well summarized the Catholic view of the three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium, as well as the contrasting Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura.  I would like to defend the Catholic position. 

The Catholic Church as the Custodian of the Divine Revelation 

I agree with Norman’s fundamental approach to investigating the epistemological claims of Catholicism vs. Protestantism.  Christianity is indeed a historical revelation, and we receive it as it is passed down to us through history.  Therefore, if we are to find the authentic version of Christianity, we must look at the historical record of Christian history with confidence that God has preserved his revelation in that record so that we can find it. 

I also agree with Norman that the historical record points us to the Catholic Church and to the Catholic tradition of the early Church Fathers as the authentic successor to Christ and his apostles.  As Norman has well observed, the Catholic tradition has by far the best historical pedigree.  We must look, then, to the Catholic Church as the authorized custodian of the revelation of God in the early days of Christianity.  Norman observed how the Catholic Church was able to trace its historical succession from the apostles, whereas competing sects, like the Gnostics, sprang out of nowhere with no historical pedigree.  Norman mentioned the great Church Father St. Irenaeus of Lyons of the 2^nd century and his famous arguments in this regard.  I would like to augment Norman’s argument at this point by providing an extended quotation from St. Irenaeus.  Around the year 180, less than one hundred years after the death of the Apostle John, Irenaeus, bishop of the Church of Lyons in Gaul (now France), wrote a document entitled Against Heresies in which he combatted a group of heretics known as the Gnostics.  These Gnostics were various teachers who arose at the end of the first century and during the second century and tried to subvert the teaching of the Church by claiming to have new knowledge, secretly given to them by the apostles but not known to the churches the apostles founded.  Irenaeus combatted these Gnostics by pointing to the teachings given publicly to the Church by the apostles.  He pointed out the absurdity of accepting these later claims of secret teachings.  Why should we trust some new teacher who rises up and tries to sell us doctrine before unheard-of, unsupported by any evidence, when we have the teaching of the apostles already handed down to their successors in the very churches they founded?  Here are the words of Irenaeus himself:

           

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; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to "the perfect" apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves. For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.

Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] 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 pre-eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.

The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing [in his ears], and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone [in this], for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome despatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles, proclaiming the one God, omnipotent, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Creator of man, who brought on the deluge, and called Abraham, who led the people from the land of Egypt, spake with Moses, set forth the law, sent the prophets, and who has prepared fire for the devil and his angels. From this document, whosoever chooses to do so, may learn that He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches, and may also understand the apostolical tradition of the Church, since this Epistle is of older date than these men who are now propagating falsehood, and who conjure into existence another god beyond the Creator and the Maker of all existing things. To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telesphorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Soter having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.

But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time,--a man who was of much greater weight, and a more stedfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles,--that, namely, which is handed down by the Church. There are also those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, "Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within." And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Dost thou know me?" "I do know thee, the first-born of Satan." Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, "A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself." There is also a very powerful Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who choose to do so, and are anxious about their salvation, can learn the character of his faith, and the preaching of the truth. Then, again, the Church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles.  (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 3, taken from the plain text version at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library [https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01] but also found on the New Advent website at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htm.)

 

St. Irenaeus, here, articulates what would later be called the doctrine of "apostolic succession"--that the Church's authority is rooted in the organic succession of bishops from the apostles.  This is still the claim of the Catholic Church today.  It is a powerful claim.  Just as Irenaeus argued in response to the Gnostics, so ever since then it has continued to be true that any group which claims to represent the authentic teaching of Christianity but which wishes to establish this in opposition to the teachings of the Catholic Church has the burden of proof to show why we should abandon the very Church handed down from Christ and his apostles themselves in order to follow them. 

(Note also Irenaeus's appeal to the Church of Rome in particular, founded by Peter and Paul, as having "pre-eminent authority".  "It is a matter of necessity," he says, "that every Church should agree with this Church."  So our touchstone for unity and orthodoxy is the apostolic succession of the bishops in general, and this touchstone is made even more tangible by the special succession of the bishops of Rome, who, in a special way, function as guarantors of unity and orthodoxy for the entire Church.  But I’ll come back to this later.) 

Sola Scriptura or Three-Legged Stool? 

So Norman and I agree that we must look to the history of Christianity to determine where the locus of divine revelation is to be found and to learn how we are to interpret and apply that revelation.  We agree that the historical record indicates that Jesus handed on his authority and his teaching to his apostles, who handed it on to the bishops of the Catholic Church, and that therefore the Catholic Church is the authoritative custodian of the divine revelation.  So what has the Catholic Church handed down to us?  Has she handed down Catholicism or Protestantism? 

I agree with Norman that the early Catholic Church—and the Catholic Church ever since—taught that Scripture—consisting of the Old and New Testaments—is the locus of divine revelation.  It is the inspired and infallible Word of God.  But, as Norman indicates, at this point there is a divergence between our positions.  Norman tries to make a historical case that the early Catholic Church held to, or at least pointed to, Sola Scriptura—the doctrine that Scripture alone is infallible and there is no infallible Tradition or infallible Church.  To someone not-so-well-versed in Church history, he makes some arguments that might sound persuasive.  But his arguments fundamentally misrepresent the evidence we have from the early Church.  With regard to the early Church’s view of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium, he provides quotations that show well the enthusiasm the early Fathers had for Scripture.  They did indeed accept Scripture as the inspired, infallible Word of God.  But he represents the Fathers as, at best, unclear in their support for the infallible reliability of Tradition and the Magisterium.  Yet this is a false representation, for the Fathers were very clear in their support for these things.  They were just as clear in their support for Tradition and the Magisterium as they were in their support for Scripture.  In a moment, I’ll provide some quotations to illustrate this.  But first, I want to make an important point. 

Even if we were to grant that the early Church Fathers were, at best, unclear with regard to Sola Scriptura, as Norman claims, this would not justify Norman’s conclusion that Sola Scriptura is actually true.  Norman points out that the only way we can know what the locus of divine revelation is is to follow the historical passing-down of the faith in the providence of God, and that the historical evidence points to the Catholic Church and her Tradition (at least in the days of the early Church) as what we must follow to receive what God has passed down.  We cannot arbitrarily break from the continuity of the faith as it has been handed down within the Tradition and communion of the Catholic Church.  He illustrated this point well with regard to the Book of Jude.  We cannot go back and purely independently figure out if Jude should be in the Bible.  We have to trust what the Church and her Tradition have handed down.  But here’s the thing:  We can’t go back and independently establish Sola Scriptura either, for there is no clear basis in the Scriptural or the historical evidence to determine that Sola Scriptura is true (as I will illustrate by further argumentation below).  So if the early Church was unclear about Sola Scriptura, then, if we had lived at that time, we would have had no basis to conclusively affirm Sola Scriptura.  We would have had no choice but to wait for the Church to decide for or against it, just as had to happen with the canonicity of the Book of Jude as well.  Norman’s view basically amounts to this:  We must trust the Tradition of the Catholic Church in order to find out whether or not Sola Scriptura is true.  Note that Norman, then, says we start with basically the Catholic epistemology of the three-legged stool—Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium—at the beginning, for we must look to the Church and her Tradition just as much as to Scripture as our highest authority.  Eventually, if the Church were to decide in favor of Sola Scriptura, we would then have a basis to accept it and start acting like a Protestant—being ready, in principle, if necessary, to pit Scripture against the rest of the Church’s teaching and Tradition.  But at that time before the Church sided with Sola Scriptura, we would have had no basis to know for sure whether or not it was true.  We could not simply conclude, as Norman erroneously does, that Sola Scriptura is true merely on the grounds that the early Church was unclear or unsure about it—in other words, that she had not yet settled the question.  So Norman’s conclusion that Sola Scriptura is true, even granting his own view that the early Church was unclear about it, is unwarranted. 

But it gets worse for Norman, for even he must and would grant that the Church, at least eventually, sided not with Sola Scriptura but against it, for certainly by the time of the Protestant Reformation (and, of course, much earlier) she had clearly rejected Sola Scriptura and embraced the three-legged stool idea.  At the very least, when the Protestants proposed the idea of Sola Scriptura, the Catholic Church emphatically and definitively rejected it.  So, again, even if the earlier Church was unclear on Sola Scriptura, the later Church clearly rejected it, so this should be the position Christians should adopt, just as we should accept the Book of Jude as being in the Scriptural canon because the Church eventually universally and conclusively accepted it even though, in the earliest centuries, as a whole she had been unsure about it. 

So Sola Scriptura loses to the Catholic epistemology even if the early Church was unclear about it.  But, in fact, the early Church was not unclear about it.  She never hovered between the three-legged stool idea and Sola Scriptura.  So far as we can tell from the evidence, she always embraced the three-legged stool view.  Let me illustrate this with some quotations. 

The first is from the great Church Father St. Basil of Caesaria (4^th century), speaking of the importance of the unwritten Tradition of the Church:

 

Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined which are preserved in the Church some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have received delivered to us "in a mystery" by the tradition of the apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force. And these no one will gainsay—no one, at all events, who is even moderately versed in the institutions of the Church. For were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they possess is small, we should unintentionally injure the Gospel in its very vitals; or, rather, should make our public definition a mere phrase and nothing more. For instance, to take the first and most general example, who is thence who has taught us in writing to sign with the sign of the cross those who have trusted in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? What writing has taught us to turn to the East at the prayer? Which of the saints has left us in writing the words of the invocation at the displaying of the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing? For we are not, as is well known, content with what the apostle or the Gospel has recorded, but both in preface and conclusion we add other words as being of great importance to the validity of the ministry, and these we derive from unwritten teaching. Moreover we bless the water of baptism and the oil of the chrism, and besides this the catechumen who is being baptized. On what written authority do we do this? Is not our authority silent and mystical tradition? Nay, by what written word is the anointing of oil itself taught? And whence comes the custom of baptizing thrice? And as to the other customs of baptism from what Scripture do we derive the renunciation of Satan and his angels? Does not this come from that unpublished and secret teaching which our fathers guarded in a silence out of the reach of curious meddling and inquisitive investigation?  (St. Basil, On the Holy Spirit, section 66. Translated by Blomfield Jackson, from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 8, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895], revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Retrieved from the New Advent website [embedded links removed] at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3203.htm at 2:46 PM on 2/19/18.)

 

The second quotation is from St. Vincent of Lerins, another Father from the 5^th century, who articulates why we must interpret Scripture not against but always in accordance with the official interpretations of the Church:

 

But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church's interpretation? For this reason—because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.  (St. Vincent of Lerins, Commonitory, section 5. Translated by C.A. Heurtley, from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 11, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894], revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Retrieved from the New Advent website [embedded links removed] at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3506.htm at 2:53 PM on 2/19/18.)

 

So according to these Fathers—and they are representative of what we find in general among all the Fathers of the Catholic Church in these early days and throughout Church history—we do not look to Scripture alone as our locus of divine revelation, nor do we consider Scripture alone to be infallible.  Scripture, Tradition, and the Church’s teaching authority function as a three-legged stool.  They are a package deal, and we cannot pit one against the others.  This, of course, is the Catholic view, and it completely contradicts Sola Scriptura. 

Norman provided some quotations from a few Fathers which he alleged to be teaching Sola Scriptura.  Particularly, he quoted St. Cyril of Jerusalem and St. Augustine of Hippo.  But his use of these quotations is misleading.  If you read the quotations carefully, you’ll see that, while they certainly give Scripture high praise and a high position of authority in the Church, they fall short of teaching Sola Scriptura.  I’ll grant that, without any further context, these quotations could be read in a way that supports Sola Scriptura.  But they don’t actually teach that doctrine.  St. Cyril’s quotation makes it clear that Scripture is the locus of divine revelation and the foundation of the faith.  He points out that Scripture is the fount from which the Church derives her doctrines.  He points out that he himself is not infallible, and he exhorts his hearers to check what he is saying against the Scriptures rather than to just trust him as if he were an infallible oracle.  And all of this is quite true.  Catholics do not disagree with any of it.  But he does not say that Scripture is to be read and interpreted apart from the authoritative interpretations of the Church and her Magisterium.  Although he affirms that Scripture is the fount of the doctrines of the Church, he does not say that there is not important information handed down in the Church’s Tradition that is necessary to properly understand and interpret what the Scriptures are saying.  He simply doesn’t address these questions at all in the quotation Norman has provided.  Norman has read Protestant ideas into what Cyril has said, but Cyril himself falls short of teaching them.  But if we read more of Cyril’s writings, we will find that he looks to the Church’s Tradition as authoritative along with the Scripture.  For example, listen to how he puts forward the importance of the name “Catholic” for recognizing the true Church in this quote from another place in the same book:

 

But since the word Ecclesia is applied to different things (as also it is written of the multitude in the theatre of the Ephesians, And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the Assembly), and since one might properly and truly say that there is a Church of evil doers, I mean the meetings of the heretics, the Marcionists and Manichees, and the rest, for this cause the Faith has securely delivered to thee now the Article, "And in one Holy Catholic Church;" that thou mayest avoid their wretched meetings, and ever abide with the Holy Church Catholic in which thou wast regenerated. And if ever thou art sojourning in cities, inquire not simply where the Lord's House is (for the other sects of the profane also attempt to call their own dens houses of the Lord), nor merely where the Church is, but where is the Catholic Church. For this is the peculiar name of this Holy Church, the mother of us all, which is the spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God (for it is written, As Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it, and all the rest,) and is a figure and copy of Jerusalem which is above, which is free, and the mother of us all; which before was barren, but now has many children.  (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 18:26, taken from the plain text version at the website of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library [https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207], but also found on the New Advent website at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3101.htm)

 

Cyril teaches here that if his hearers want to be sure that they are worshiping with a true church rather than a false one, they should look not just for the word “church” but for the name “Catholic”.  This, he says, is the proper name of the true Church.  And how do we know this?  Because “the Faith has securely delivered to thee now the Article, ‘And in one Holy Catholic Church.’”  Where has the Faith securely delivered this?  It is a quotation from the creed of the Church (the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, or some other related early creed).  The creeds of the Church, which are a part of the Church’s Tradition outside of Scripture, are authoritative and foundational for recognizing a true Church from a false one.  This does not sound like Sola Scriptura.  (And, by the way, this is why I capitalize the name “Catholic”.  It is the proper name for the true Church and has been such since nearly the beginning of the Church.) 

Norman has also distorted the teaching of St. Augustine.  He provided a quotation from St. Augustine which he alleged to teach Sola Scriptura.  But, again, if we look at that quotation, we can see that, while there is high praise and a high place of authority for Scripture, Augustine falls short of teaching Sola Scriptura.  He points out that Scripture is infallible, but that the later writings of bishops are not.  That is true.  Catholics do not hold that individual bishops in general are infallible.  Augustine also points out that church councils are not infallible.  That is true.  Local and regional councils can err and often have erred.  Even plenary councils (that is, councils representing the whole Church) can and have erred.  (They cannot err when all the bishops together, including the Bishop of Rome, teach a doctrine in a definitive way, but they can make mistakes when they are teaching non-definitively or provisionally, in light of some current level of knowledge that might change in the future.)  In contrast to these, Scripture has a unique infallibility.  But Augustine does not say that there is no infallible Tradition possessed by the Church.  He does not say that a truly ecumenical council, truly representing the whole Church as she exercises the highest capacity of her teaching office, can err.  I grant that Augustine’s words in the above quotation could be taken to imply these things.  But I deny that his words clearly or necessarily imply these things.  Sola Scriptura is simply not there in his words.  Norman has read it into those words.  And if we look at other things Augustine has said, it becomes abundantly clear that St. Augustine was no believer in Sola Scriptura.  I will give you a few snippets to illustrate this:

 

"The apostles," indeed, "gave no injunctions on the point;" but the custom, which is opposed to Cyprian, may be supposed to have had its origin in apostolic tradition, just as there are many things which are observed by the whole Church, and therefore are fairly held to have been enjoined by the apostles, which yet are not mentioned in their writings.  (On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book 5, Chapter 23, ca. AD 400)

 

As to those other things which we hold on the authority, not of Scripture, but of tradition, and which are observed throughout the whole world, it may be understood that they are held as approved and instituted either by the apostles themselves, or by plenary Councils, whose authority in the Church is most useful, e.g. the annual commemoration, by special solemnities, of the Lord's passion, resurrection, and ascension, and of the descent of the Holy Spirit from heaven, and whatever else is in like manner observed by the whole Church wherever it has been established.  (Letter to Januarius, AD 400) 

 

To be sure, although on this matter, we cannot quote a clear example taken from the canonical Scriptures, at any rate, on this question, we are following the true thought of Scriptures when we observe what has appeared good to the universal Church which the authority of these same Scriptures recommends to you; thus, since Holy Scripture cannot be mistaken, anyone fearing to be misled by the obscurity of this question has only to consult on this same subject this very Church which the Holy Scriptures point out without ambiguity.  (Against Cresconius, found here, taken from Robert B. Eno, Teaching Authority in the Early Church [Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1984], p. 134)

 

On the question of baptism, then, I think that I have argued at sufficient length; and since this is a most manifest schism which is called by the name of the Donatists, it only remains that on the subject of baptism we should believe with pious faith what the universal Church maintains, apart from the sacrilege of schism. And yet, if within the Church different men still held different opinions on the point, without meanwhile violating peace, then till some one clear and simple decree should have been passed by an universal Council, it would have been right for the charity which seeks for unity to throw a veil over the error of human infirmity, as it is written "For charity shall cover the multitude of sins." . . .  There are great proofs of this existing on the part of the blessed martyr Cyprian, in his letters . . .  For at that time, before the consent of the whole Church had declared authoritatively, by the decree of a plenary Council, what practice should be followed in this matter, it seemed to him, in common with about eighty of his fellow bishops of the African churches, that every man who had been baptized outside the communion of the Catholic Church should, on joining the Church, be baptized anew. . . .  For when a bishop of so important a Church, himself a man of so great merit and virtue, endowed with such excellence of heart and power of eloquence, entertained an opinion about baptism different from that which was to be confirmed by a more diligent searching into the truth; though many of his colleagues held what was not yet made manifest by authority, but was sanctioned by the past custom of the Church, and afterwards embraced by the whole Catholic world; yet under these circumstances he did not sever himself, by refusal of communion, from the others who thought differently, and indeed never ceased to urge on the others that they should "forbear one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."  (On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Book 1, Chapter 18, AD 400)

 

In these quotations, we see St. Augustine teaching the authoritative reliability of the Church herself and her Tradition, against the Protestant idea of Sola Scriptura.  Before I finish with Augustine, though, I would like to add one more quotation.  In this selection, St. Augustine is writing to (and against) the Manichaeans, a heretical sect which he himself had been a part of before he joined the Catholic Church.  Listen carefully to his argument:

 

Let us see then what Manichæus teaches me; and particularly let us examine that treatise which he calls the Fundamental Epistle, in which almost all that you believe is contained. For in that unhappy time when we read it we were in your opinion enlightened. The epistle begins thus:--"Manichæus, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the providence of God the Father. These are wholesome words from the perennial and living fountain." Now, if you please, patiently give heed to my inquiry. I do not believe Manichæus to be an apostle of Christ. Do not, I beg of you, be enraged and begin to curse. For you know that it is my rule to believe none of your statements without consideration. Therefore I ask, who is this Manichæus? You will reply, An apostle of Christ. I do not believe it. Now you are at a loss what to say or do; for you promised to give knowledge of the truth, and here you are forcing me to believe what I have no knowledge of. Perhaps you will read the gospel to me, and will attempt to find there a testimony to Manichæus. But should you meet with a person not yet believing the gospel, how would you reply to him were he to say, I do not believe? For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manichæus, how can I but consent? Take your choice. If you say, Believe the Catholics: their advice to me is to put no faith in you; so that, believing them, I am precluded from believing you;--If you say, Do not believe the Catholics: you cannot fairly use the gospel in bringing me to faith in Manichæus; for it was at the command of the Catholics that I believed the gospel;--Again, if you say, You were right in believing the Catholics when they praised the gospel, but wrong in believing their vituperation of Manichæus: do you think me such a fool as to believe or not to believe as you like or dislike, without any reason? It is therefore fairer and safer by far for me, having in one instance put faith in the Catholics, not to go over to you, till, instead of bidding me believe, you make me understand something in the clearest and most open manner. To convince me, then, you must put aside the gospel. If you keep to the gospel, I will keep to those who commanded me to believe the gospel; and, in obedience to them, I will not believe you at all. But if haply you should succeed in finding in the gospel an incontrovertible testimony to the apostleship of Manichæus, you will weaken my regard for the authority of the Catholics who bid me not to believe you; and the effect of that will be, that I shall no longer be able to believe the gospel either, for it was through the Catholics that I got my faith in it; and so, whatever you bring from the gospel will no longer have any weight with me. Wherefore, if no clear proof of the apostleship of Manichæus is found in the gospel, I will believe the Catholics rather than you. But if you read thence some passage clearly in favor of Manichæus, I will believe neither them nor you: not them, for they lied to me about you; nor you, for you quote to me that Scripture which I had believed on the authority of those liars. But far be it that I should not believe the gospel; for believing it, I find no way of believing you too. For the names of the apostles, as there recorded, do not include the name of Manichæus. And who the successor of Christ's betrayer was we read in the Acts of the Apostles; which book I must needs believe if I believe the gospel, since both writings alike Catholic authority commends to me. The same book contains the well-known narrative of the calling and apostleship of Paul. Read me now, if you can, in the gospel where Manichæus is called an apostle, or in any other book in which I have professed to believe. Will you read the passage where the Lord promised the Holy Spirit as a Paraclete, to the apostles? Concerning which passage, behold how many and how great are the things that restrain and deter me from believing in Manichæus. (St. Augustine, Against the Epistle of Manichæus Called Fundamental, Chapter 5, text from here)

 

The argument goes basically like this:  "You claim that the books of the gospels support Manichaeus (the prophet of Manicheanism). But the Catholic Church rejects Manichaeus. If I accept that the gospels support Manichaeus, I will no longer have any basis to believe in the gospels, because my reason for believing those books to be divine is because the Catholic Church teaches me so. But that same Catholic Church teaches me that you are wrong. So if I believe the Catholic Church about the gospels, I will have to also believe that you are wrong. But if I believe you are right because the gospels support you, then I lose my reason for believing the gospels, for I can no longer trust the Catholic Church, which is the authority behind why I believe in the gospels."

What Augustine is saying is that the only way we know that the gospel books are from God is because this is taught by the Catholic Church.  If we trust the Catholic Church on that point, logically we have to trust them on all other points as well.  So if the Catholic Church tells us that the Manichean heresy is wrong, we have to believe that.  If the Manichean heresy is not wrong, then the Catholic Church is wrong, and so we would have no basis to believe the gospel books to be from God.  For Augustine, our trust in the gospels is part and parcel of our confidence that the Tradition of the Catholic Church in general is divinely guided and so authoritative and reliable.  It is therefore inconsistent to accept that Tradition regarding the status of the gospels but to reject other things that Tradition teaches.  So much for Sola Scriptura! 

Norman, like many Protestant apologists, argues his case from the Church Fathers by making selective use of quotations in which the Fathers praise the Scriptures or give them a high place, reading into these quotations Protestant ideas which are not actually there, while not providing adequate context to see all the positive things the Fathers have to say about Tradition and Magisterial authority.  Once we’ve got a clearer and more complete picture of what the Fathers actually held and taught, we can see that the consensus picture from the early Church is thoroughly Catholic and not Protestant at all.  Of course, as Norman said, it is impossible to do full justice to all of the evidence in such a short piece as this.  So I’ll refer you to some additional sources.  Here is a short piece, and here and here are a couple of larger ones.  I’ll end this section with a couple of quotations from one of the great modern scholars of Church history, well-respected by all sides, the great Protestant (Anglican) scholar J. N. D. Kelly, as he sums up the evidence from the period of the Church Fathers:

 

It should be unnecessary to accumulate further evidence. Throughout the whole period Scripture and tradition ranked as complementary authorities, media different in form but coincident in content. To inquire which counted as superior or more ultimate is to pose the question in misleading terms. If Scripture was abundantly sufficient in principle, tradition was recognized as the surest clue to its interpretation, for in tradition the Church retained, as a legacy from the apostles which was embedded in all the organs of her institutional life, an unerring grasp of the real purport and meaning of the revelation to which Scripture and tradition alike bore witness.  (J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 5th ed., 1978], 47-48) 

 

Thus in the end the Christian must, like Timothy, ‘guard the deposit’, i.e., the revelation enshrined in its completeness in Holy Scripture and correctly interpreted in the Church’s unerring tradition. (Ibid., 50-51)

 

The Papacy in the Early Church 

Norman argued that the early Church did not hold a Catholic view of papal authority and infallibility.  His arguments here function by a similar method to his historical arguments for Sola Scriptura.  He makes some references and mentions some events from Church history, but puts them forward in an incomplete and misleading way.  The more one knows Church history, the more one sees how universal and strong was the early Church’s belief in papal supremacy and infallibility.  I’ll provide a few illustrations to show this. 

But, first of all, it must be noted that even if the early Church was unclear about the papacy, this would not warrant Norman’s conclusion that the Catholic view of the papacy is false.  This is very much like the question of Sola Scriptura we looked at earlier.  We have to look to the Tradition of the Church to determine how we should view the papacy, just as we had to for the canonicity of the Book of Jude and for Sola Scriptura.  If the early Church was unclear about the papacy, if we had lived at that time, we would have had to have waited to see what the Church would eventually decide.  We could not simply decide against the papacy on our own authority, for that would have been an arbitrary decision based on nothing.  So, if we want to reject the papacy, unless there is conclusive and non-question-begging evidence against it from some source—Scripture, history, or whatever—we will have to show that the Church eventually rejected it.  But we can’t show that.  The Catholic Church, at least eventually, clearly accepted it, since we see that she accepts it today (and did at the time of the Reformation, obviously, and much earlier).  And if we look at groups that separated from the Roman Catholic Church at some point, like the Eastern Orthodox (or Protestants), we find that they did not have any non-question-begging basis for their own position or their separation.  Their break from the Catholic Church, therefore, was unwarranted and arbitrary, and so they should not be followed in it.  (I’ve already been proving that above with regard to Protestants, and I will continue to do so below.  I will also discuss Eastern Orthodoxy below.)  So, even granting that the early Church did not clearly support the papacy, we will not have a basis to reject it but will have to accept it, unless we will depart arbitrarily from what God has handed down. 

But, in fact, I don’t think the early Church was all that unclear on the doctrine of the papacy.  The evidence points to the conclusion that this doctrine was well-established very early in the history of the Church.  Let me illustrate this with some quotations. 

The great Church Father St. Jerome, writing in the year 393, articulated the central importance of Peter among the apostles as a remedy for schism:

 

[T]he Church was founded upon Peter: although elsewhere the same is attributed to all the Apostles, and they all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the strength of the Church depends upon them all alike, yet one among the twelve is chosen so that when a head has been appointed, there may be no occasion for schism.  (St. Jerome, Against Jovinianus [Book I], section 26. Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley, from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893], revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Retrieved from the New Advent website at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/30091.htm at 10:55 PM on 2/19/18.)

 

When there were rival contenders for the position of Patriarch of Antioch, St. Jerome wrote to Rome to find a resolution to the conflict, at least with regard to the position he himself should take.  His comments regarding the authority of the Bishop of Rome are very revealing.  He is writing in the year 376 or 377.

 

Yet, though your greatness terrifies me, your kindness attracts me. From the priest I demand the safe-keeping of the victim, from the shepherd the protection due to the sheep. Away with all that is overweening; let the state of Roman majesty withdraw. My words are spoken to the successor of the fisherman, to the disciple of the cross. As I follow no leader save Christ, so I communicate with none but your blessedness, that is with the chair of Peter. For this, I know, is the rock on which the church is built! This is the house where alone the paschal lamb can be rightly eaten. This is the ark of Noah, and he who is not found in it shall perish when the flood prevails.  (St. Jerome, Letter 15, section 2. Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley, from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6, edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace [Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893], revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Retrieved from the New Advent website [added biblical references and hyperlinks removed] at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001015.htm at 11:01 PM on 2/19/18.)

 

Since Norman made the claim that the Eastern Fathers in particular did not hold as high a view of the papacy, let me quote St. Maximus the Confessor, one of the greatest of the Eastern Church Fathers, revered as a saint and as a theologian by both Catholics and Orthodox to this day, who had some interesting things to say about the Church of Rome, writing in the 7th century:

 

All the ends of the inhabited world, and those who anywhere on earth confess the Lord with a pure and orthodox faith, look directly to the most holy Church of the Romans and her confession and faith as to a sun of eternal light, receiving from her the radiant beam of the patristic and holy doctrines, just as the holy six synods, inspired and sacred, purely and with all devotion set them forth, uttering most clearly the symbol of faith. For, from the time of the descent to us of the incarnate Word of God, all the Churches of the Christians everywhere have held and possess this most great Church as the sole base and foundation, since, according to the very promise of the Saviour, it will never be overpowered by the gates of hell, but rather has the keys of the orthodox faith and confession in him, and to those who approach it with reverence it opens the genuine and unique piety, but shuts and stops every heretical mouth that speaks utter wickedness.  (St. Maximus the Confessor, taken from Andrew Louth, "The Ecclesiology of St. Maximos the Confessor," published in the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, Vol. 4, No. 2, July 2004, p. 116.)

 

Between the years of 484 and 519, the Church of Rome (along with the rest of the Western churches) were out of communion with the Eastern churches during what was later called the “Acacian schism.”  The short of it is that the Eastern churches had signed on to a formula that compromised a clear commitment to the earlier-affirmed Council of Chalcedon.  Rome, in defense of Chalcedon, therefore broke communion with those churches until the issue could be resolved.  The issue was finally resolved as the Eastern churches (led by the Byzantine Emperor Justin I) eventually rejected the ambiguous formula, reaffirmed Chalcedon, and returned to communion with Rome and the West.  But Rome would not receive the Eastern churches back into communion until they signed a statement Pope Hormisdas had written up for that purpose.  The Eastern churches signed the statement and thus returned to communion with Rome.  Here is the pertinent portion of the statement they signed:

 

     The first condition of salvation is to keep the norm of the true faith and in no way to deviate from the established doctrine of the Fathers.  For it is impossible that the words of our Lord Jesus Christ who said, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church" (Matt. 16:18), should not be verified.  And their truth has been proved by the course of history, for in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been kept unsullied.  From this hope and faith we by no means desire to be separated and, following the doctrine of the Fathers, we declare anathema all heresies . . .

     Following, as we have said before, the Apostolic See in all things and proclaiming all its decisions, we endorse and approve all the letters which Pope St. Leo wrote concerning the Christian religion.  And so I hope I may deserve to be associated with you in the one communion which the Apostolic See proclaims, in which the whole, true, and perfect security of the Christian religion resides.  I promise that from now on those who are separated from the communion of the Catholic Church, that is, who are not in agreement with the Apostolic See, will not have their names read during the sacred mysteries.  But if I attempt even the least deviation from my profession, I admit that, according to my own declaration, I am an accomplice to those whom I have condemned.  I have signed this my profession with my own hand and have directed it to you, Hormisdas, the holy and venerable pope of Rome.  (Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Mary's, Kansas, The Church Teaches: Documents of the Church in English Translation, tr. John F. Clarkson, et al. [Tan, 2009].)

 

It is very interesting that although there was some haggling by some Eastern leaders over aspects of the formula that was agreed upon, not a single soul (so far as we have any record of) voiced the least hint of disagreement regarding the claims in the statement about the authority and centrality of “the Apostolic See” (a common name used in both East and West in the early Church for the See of Rome).  Nor was the formula protested against or rescinded for centuries afterwards.  It was again signed by the Eastern and Western Fathers in the year 869 at the Fourth Council of Constantinople.  For those who do not know the history of early Church views of the papacy, the fact that the Eastern Churches could sign such a statement without protest multiple times probably seems very surprising, but those who are more familiar with this history know that a high view of the papacy was common in both East and West throughout the days of the early Church and that this formula of Pope Hormisdas did not spring out of nowhere. 

Of course, the study of views of the papacy in the early Church is vast.  For those who wish to go further, here, here, and here are a few more resources. 

Norman referred to some incidents in the early Church where there was conflict between Popes and others.  Since he only alluded to these briefly, I will give a very brief response.  In the 2^nd century, Pope Victor excommunicated the churches of Asia for refusing to accept the Church’s decree on the date of Easter.  Norman mentions that several bishops argued with him about this, including St. Irenaeus.  That is true.  They advised and exhorted him not to do it.  Interestingly, however, we have no record of anyone saying he did not have the authority to do it.  So there is no challenge here to the Catholic doctrine of papal authority or infallibility.  In fact, the incident supports the Catholic claim.  We can see that Victor, the Bishop of Rome, believed himself to have authority over the churches of Asia, including the power to excommunicate them.  We don’t see anyone arguing against that claim or disputing it.  Indeed, the fact that the bishops feel a need to exhort him not to do it suggests rather that they accepted that he had the authority.  They did not refute his authority, but argued with him as to how he should best use that authority.  (We should note that the Catholic Church teaches that while Popes are protected by the Holy Spirit so that their teaching will not lead the Church into error, they are not protected from falling into personal sin, acting foolishly, making imprudent decisions, etc., nor is it against Catholic teaching for other people, especially brother bishops, to respectfully call the Pope out for such behavior if the occasion calls for it.) 

In the third century, St. Cyprian of Carthage and some others disputed with Pope St. Stephen about the validity of baptism by heretics.  In the Catholic view, this dispute should probably never have taken place.  Indeed, eventually the whole Church came to agree with Pope Stephen, and Cyprian’s position was seen as a blot on his otherwise saintly career (see Augustine discussing this in one of my quotations from him above).  We can see from elsewhere in Cyprian’s writings that he had a very high view of papal authority, but it seems that his zeal in this case led him to act inconsistently with his general attitude.  Is this a problem for the Catholic view?  No, not unless it is Catholic teaching that Catholics never act inconsistently with Catholic teaching.  But, of course, there is no such teaching.  Church history is replete with lay Catholics, bishops, and even saints at times acting wrongly, including disobeying papal authority.  There are plenty of Catholics today who chafe against certain teachings of Pope Francis.  The fact that such things happen does not disprove Catholic claims regarding the papacy. 

Norman mentions that the Council of Chalcedon passed a decree concerning the Church of Constantinople that Pope Leo disagreed with.  What he doesn’t mention is that this decree is deferred by the council for Pope Leo’s confirmation, that the Patriarch of Constantinople basically apologizes to the Pope about the matter in a later letter, and several other nuances of the incident.  (All of these incidents, by the way, are discussed in this very helpful book in great detail, with primary source quotations, if you want to look into them further.)  Again, it is quite true that sometimes in Church history people in the Church act out of accord with the Pope’s wishes.  But this proves nothing to the point and certainly does not provide any serious evidence for the Protestant position. 

Norman mentions that the Third Council of Constantinople excommunicated Pope Honorius for heresy.  This is a fascinating incident, and I will refer you here for a detailed look at it, and you will see how far short it comes from disproving Catholic claims.  It seems to me that the closer one examines the alleged evidence from Church history for Protestant or other anti-Catholic views, the more one comes to appreciate how rich the evidence for the Catholic claims is throughout that very history. 

Eastern Orthodoxy 

Norman alleges that the history and tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy provides some significant ammunition against the Catholic position.  He claims that the Eastern Fathers did not hold a high view of the papacy.  In refutation of that, I would point to what I have already quoted above from St. Maximus the Confessor and from the Formula of Hormisdas, and the other resources I have linked to, and I would refer you to this collection of sayings from Eastern Fathers regarding the papacy. 

It is interesting that ever since the Eastern Orthodox broke off from the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, they have never been able to replace the essential role played by the Chair of St. Peter in the authority and epistemology of the Church.  The Church has always taught that St. Peter and his successors in the bishops of Rome have the headship of the Church and the keys of the kingdom in a unique way in order to guarantee the unity and orthodoxy of the Church.  Just as the universal episcopate (the whole body of bishops) provides the authoritative voice of doctrine for the whole Church, so the Bishops of Rome function as a voice of authority when there is dissention among bishops.  The Bishop of Rome functions as a sure guide to know where to go in doctrinal disputes and divisions.  Since the Eastern Orthodox cut themselves off from Rome, they have never been able to replace this function, and the result is that they have no clear answer as to how one should resolve divisions and disputes in the Church.  They believe in the infallibility of Scripture, Tradition, and the Church, but they do not have any official or universal view on how to access the infallibility of Tradition or of the Church.  I’ll let one of the great Eastern Orthodox bishops of modern times, Bishop Kallistos Ware, describe this problem himself:

 

    But councils of bishops can err and be deceived.  How then can one be certain that a particular gathering is truly an Ecumenical Council and therefore that its decrees are infallible?  Many councils have considered themselves ecumenical and have claimed to speak in the name of the whole Church, and yet the Church has rejected them as heretical: Ephesus in 449, for example, or the Iconoclast Council of Hieria in 754, or Florence in 1438-9.  Yet these councils seem in no way different in outward appearance from the Ecumenical Councils.  What, then, is the criterion for determining whether a council is ecumenical?
     This is a more difficult question to answer than might at first appear, and though it has been much discussed by Orthodox during the past hundred years, it cannot be said that the solutions suggested are entirely satisfactory.  All Orthodox know which are the seven councils that their Church accepts as ecumenical, but precisely what it is that makes a council ecumenical is not so clear.  There are, so it must be admitted, certain points in the Orthodox theology of councils which remain obscure and which call for further thinking on the part of theologians.  (Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church [London: Penguin Books, 1997], pp. 251-252).

 

The Orthodox sometimes argue against the Catholic Church by pointing out areas where Catholic doctrine has changed since the earlier days of the Church.  Now, if they could show a clear contradiction between the definitive teachings of the Church in earlier times and the definitive teachings of the Church in later times, this would be a powerful argument.  But it is not enough to simply show that Church teachings have grown or developed over time.  It is part of the Catholic faith that doctrine develops.  In Christ, and through his teaching and the teaching of his apostles, the revelation of God has been brought to completion.  The Church has received from her beginning the fullness of the Word which God has desired to reveal.  However, we are creatures of time and space, and God's interaction with us takes the form of a story.  The Church possesses the fullness of the divine revelation, but her recognition, gathering, preserving, understanding, interpreting, and applying of divine revelation takes place, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit who "guides her into all truth," over her entire history.  Thus, the Tradition of the Church grows, not by things being added from without, but by an unpacking from within, as the Church grows in her understanding and application of divine revelation and all its implications over time in light of the new circumstances she faces in her experience--external events, new cultural situations, heresies, newly-encountered philosophical ideas, dialogue with the world, etc.  The Church's growth is analogous in many ways to the growth of individuals as we gain wisdom to understand the nuances of things through our experience gained as we go through life.  St. Vincent of Lerins, from whom I quoted earlier, provides the classic description from the early Church of this process of doctrinal development.  Note (in the quotation below) the two things he emphasizes:  The Church's doctrine grows through time, analogous to the growth of an embryo into an adult, but that growth is a logical growth--not mere arbitrary mutation, like a cancer, but a flowering into maturity of what was there at least in seed form from the beginning.  There can be great growth in recognizing nuances, in seeing patterns and implications previously unnoticed, in articulating the specificities and depths of what God has revealed, and all of this can greatly alter in some ways the "shape and form" of the Church's doctrine, but there cannot be contradiction.  The Church's later doctrine will not turn around and attack what she had previously established, or the divine revelation that is at the foundation of all her teaching.

The growth of religion in the soul must be analogous to the growth of the body, which, though in process of years it is developed and attains its full size, yet remains still the same. There is a wide difference between the flower of youth and the maturity of age; yet they who were once young are still the same now that they have become old, insomuch that though the stature and outward form of the individual are changed, yet his nature is one and the same, his person is one and the same. An infant's limbs are small, a young man's large, yet the infant and the young man are the same. Men when full grown have the same number of joints that they had when children; and if there be any to which maturer age has given birth these were already present in embryo, so that nothing new is produced in them when old which was not already latent in them when children. This, then, is undoubtedly the true and legitimate rule of progress, this the established and most beautiful order of growth, that mature age ever develops in the man those parts and forms which the wisdom of the Creator had already framed beforehand in the infant. Whereas, if the human form were changed into some shape belonging to another kind, or at any rate, if the number of its limbs were increased or diminished, the result would be that the whole body would become either a wreck or a monster, or, at the least, would be impaired and enfeebled. 

 

In like manner, it behooves Christian doctrine to follow the same laws of progress, so as to be consolidated by years, enlarged by time, refined by age, and yet, withal, to continue uncorrupt and unadulterate, complete and perfect in all the measurement of its parts, and, so to speak, in all its proper members and senses, admitting no change, no waste of its distinctive property, no variation in its limits. 

 

For example: Our forefathers in the old time sowed wheat in the Church's field. It would be most unmeet and iniquitous if we, their descendants, instead of the genuine truth of grain, should reap the counterfeit error of tares. This rather should be the result—there should be no discrepancy between the first and the last. From doctrine which was sown as wheat, we should reap, in the increase, doctrine of the same kind— wheat also; so that when in process of time any of the original seed is developed, and now flourishes under cultivation, no change may ensue in the character of the plant. There may supervene shape, form, variation in outward appearance, but the nature of each kind must remain the same. God forbid that those rose-beds of Catholic interpretation should be converted into thorns and thistles. God forbid that in that spiritual paradise from plants of cinnamon and balsam, darnel and wolfsbane should of a sudden shoot forth.  (St. Vincent of Lerins, Ibid., section 55)

 

Some Eastern theologians suggest that we might judge the truth or falsity of doctrines by means of comparing modern doctrines to those held by the earlier, unified Church.  Some of them then argue that Catholics fail this test, because the Catholic Church has changed practices that the early Church kept and has added doctrines not believed by the early Church--such as the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist, or the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.  But this argument is question-begging, since it ignores the fact of doctrinal development.  Everyone must acknowledge that the Church has changed over the centuries.  She doesn't do everything today exactly as she did it in the first centuries of the Church.  Her doctrine has progressed, so that she is more aware of certain things today than she was in the past.  To justify a claim of inconsistency between the modern Catholic Church and the earlier Catholic Church it is necessary to do more than simply point out changes or differences; one must show that those differences are contradictions or illegitimate mutations and not legitimate examples of growth or adaptation or doctrinal development.  And since it is the Tradition of the Church, divinely-guided by the Holy Spirit, which must be the ultimate judge of which developments are legitimate and which are not (unless, of course, an unavoidable contradiction can be proved to reason), this poses a serious problem for the Eastern argument, since, again, they have no way of knowing how to determine what the Tradition of the Church is saying.  We must conclude, then, that the modern Eastern Orthodox position, where it diverges from that of Rome, is arbitrary and unwarranted, having no adequate grounding in the Tradition of the historic Church or in any other evidence. 

(While the Protestant and the Eastern Orthodox positions are self-refuting, unable to support their own positions using the evidence their own systems make available to them, the Catholic Church has a workable epistemology because of the doctrine of the papacy.  As I mentioned, the Catholic view is that God protects the Bishop of Rome from error so that he and his teaching can function as a rallying point for unity and orthodoxy in the Church.  Thus, the Catholic system can support its own claims in a way the other systems can’t, so that even if the Catholic view did not have a superior historical claim, it would still have a superior claim because it is the only system with a workable epistemology.  The Protestant and Orthodox epistemologies are self-refuting and thus dead-ends, while the Catholic epistemology is not.)

In addition to the Eastern Orthodox Church, there are two or three other bodies of Eastern churches that are not in communion with Rome (or with each other)—the Oriental Orthodox and the Churches of the East.  The Churches of the East broke with Rome and the other churches after the Council of Ephesus in the year 431.  The Oriental Orthodox separated after the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451.  These churches are in no better epistemological or historical position than the Eastern Orthodox.

For more on Eastern Orthodoxy, see here and here. 

Alleged Historical Contradictions 

Norman claims that the Catholic Church has contradicted herself in her teaching over the centuries.  He mentions two specific examples—religious liberty, and the salvation of non-Catholics.  He provides quotations that he says illustrate the contradictions clearly.  But a more careful look at these documents can, I think, clear up the alleged contradictions fairly quickly. 

The 19^th century encyclical Quanta Cura objects to a certain idea of “liberty of conscience”.  Here, specifically, is the idea it objects to:

 

[L]iberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.

 

So what is this idea?  That people have a right to an absolute liberty, restrained by no authority, to openly and publicly declare any of their ideas whatsoever, in any way.  Pope Pius IX, in this document, rejects this idea as false.  Norman claims that the Second Vatican Council, in Dignitatis Humanae, a century later, contradicted this document by affirming this idea of liberty of conscience.  But did they?  Here’s the idea Vatican II affirmed:

 

This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.

 

Is this the same idea as the one rejected in Quanta Cura?  I don’t think so.  There is a superficial similarity, but I think the two ideas are fundamentally different.  Quanta Cura rejected the idea of an “absolute” liberty to preach whatever one likes.  Dignitatis Humanae did not affirm such an absolute liberty, but a liberty of religious freedom “within due limits”.  So I don’t see a contradiction here.  We could put the teaching of both these documents together harmoniously in this way:  “People have a right to religious freedom within due limits, but not an absolute liberty to say and do whatever they like.”  So it appears the alleged contradiction is an illusion that fades away when one looks a little closer.  But I do grant that this is a complicated subject.  For those who would like to explore it further, here is another resource.  Also see here and here for some historical articles that look at this subject from a historical point of view. 

What about the alleged contradiction regarding the salvation of non-Catholics?  Again, I think we have a tempest in a teapot, as they say.  The Council of Florence said that no one can be saved outside of the Catholic Church.  Vatican II said that non-Catholics can be saved.  Is this a contradiction?  Only if we assume that the only way to be in the Catholic Church is to be fully, visibly, and formally a part of the external structure of the Church.  But why assume that?  This is not the Catholic view now, and it never has been.  Here is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church addresses this:

 

846 How are we to understand this affirmation [that outside the Church there is no salvation], often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

 

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

 

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

 

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

 

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."  (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #846-848, footnotes removed)

 

The statement in the Council of Florence, and similar statements, are intended to emphasize the necessity of Christ and the Church for salvation.  One cannot reject Christ or the Church and be saved, for salvation comes only through Christ and his Church.  But there are people who are not outwardly and formally members of the visible Catholic Church not because they have rejected her, but because they do not know about her or are unable to enter her for some other non-malicious reason.  Such people, if they are seeking God by his grace, are implicitly connected to Christ and to his Church by their desire to follow the truth and they receive saving grace through Christ and his Church.  So there is no contradiction here.  For more on this subject, see, again, the two history articles I linked to just above, found here and here.  And here is a very helpful article on this subject from the Shameless Popery blog. 

Biblical Arguments 

Norman attempts to argue for Sola Scriptura and the Protestant position from Scripture.  Before we even get to specifics, I want to say that my fundamental answer to Norman’s biblical arguments is that they are question-begging.  Begging the question is a fallacy where one simply assumes something that needs to be proved in order to establish an argument.  I say that Norman’s Scriptural arguments are question-begging because he is using the Bible in a Protestant sort of way.  That is, Norman is interpreting Scripture using Sola Scriptura as a method.  But he cannot do this, for Sola Scriptura is precisely what he is supposed to be proving.  It is illicit for Norman to use Sola Scriptura to interpret Scripture in order to make Scriptural arguments intending to prove Sola Scriptura.  Catholics, of course, don’t believe that Sola Scriptura is the right method to use in interpreting Scripture.  We believe that Scripture is rightly interpreted only in light of the Church’s authoritative Tradition under the guidance of her Magisterium.  So unless Norman can make a biblical argument so plain that it must be accepted no matter what interpretive framework is used to interpret it, he’s not going to be able to establish his position.  Let’s take a look briefly at what he’s come up with. 

Norman argues that there is no biblical evidence for an infallible Tradition and an infallible Church.  I don’t agree, but I will grant that I don’t think a conclusive argument could be made for the Catholic point of view on these points merely from the Bible alone, without any infallible interpretive framework.  But that’s not a problem from the Catholic point of view.  Catholics don’t believe that all doctrine must be proved solely from Scripture without the use of an infallible interpretive framework.  So this observation doesn’t help establish Norman’s position. 

Norman cites 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

 

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

 

Does this passage say that Scripture alone is infallible?  Does it say that Church Tradition is not infallible, or that the bishops of the Church are not infallible?  Does it say that Scripture is rightly used by being interpreted by individuals even sometimes in contradiction to the interpretations of the bishops of the Church or against the Tradition of the Church?  No, it doesn't say any of these things.  It simply says that Scripture is inspired and is from God, and that it is useful if we want to be able to do all that God commands us to do.  Both Catholics and Protestants agree with this.  This passage doesn't teach Sola Scriptura.  Rather, Protestants have to read this into the text. 

Norman appeals to Jesus’s controversy with the Pharisees in Mark 7, where Jesus reprimands the Pharisees for following their own man-made traditions in preference to the commands of God.  Does Jesus teach Sola Scriptura there in any plain way?  No.  He does teach that the Pharisees had added man-made traditions to the Word of God, and that this was a bad thing to do.  So we can infer from this that we shouldn't do anything like that, and that this is a danger we should watch out for.  But Catholics don't believe that we are adding man-made traditions to the Word of God.  By teaching Catholic Tradition, we are not teaching man-made traditions but divine Tradition.  Does Jesus anywhere say there is no such thing as divine Tradition, or that Tradition in any sense should never be put together with the written form of the Word of God?  No.  One can try to infer that idea, but it is not plainly there.  The Catholic view is not ruled out; it is not even addressed.  In 2 Thessalonians 2:15, St. Paul says, "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle."  There is an example of the idea of tradition used in a positive way.  St. Paul says, "Follow what you have been taught, both what is written and what has been handed down in other ways."  So clearly not all unwritten tradition is always bad.  Sometimes it is authoritative and reliable just like that which is written.  And if one want to say, "But you're misinterpreting St. Paul there!", well, I say it is you who are misinterpreting the Scriptures on this subject.  Again, I will grant that there is probably no way to decide between us merely on the basis of these kinds of biblical arguments alone, without an infallible interpreter.  But it is question-begging for Protestants to simply assume that we have no such interpreter and proceed to interpret these passages by themselves without one. 

Norman points out that the leaders of the people of God at the time of Christ erred in rejecting the Messiah.  He seems to infer from this that, perhaps, there was no infallibility granted to the leaders of the people of God in Old Testament times, and that there would be no authority granted to the leaders of the people of God in New Testament times either.  But these are unwarranted leaps.  Perhaps God gave infallible reliability to the leaders of the people before Christ came, but once Christ came and clearly established his identity, by not submitting to him those leaders lost this infallibility.  And even if we were to grant that the Old Testament leaders had no infallible authority, it would not follow from this that the official teachers of the Christian Church in Christian times would have no infallible authority.  (After all, Jesus’s parable of the tenants—Matthew 21:33-46—seems to imply that the Church would be kept from failing in ways Old Testament Israel was not.)  There is simply insufficient evidence here to warrant Norman’s specific conclusions.  [Ed. See this article for more on the question of Sola Scriptura in Old Testament times.]

Norman alleges several cases where he claims Scripture contradicts the teachings of the Catholic Church.  He mentions the withholding of the cup from laity at communion, the sinlessness of Mary, images of God in the Church, and the doctrine of justification.  But I submit, again, that all of his arguments here are question-begging, because he has reached his interpretive conclusions by means of using Sola Scriptura, which is a distinctly Protestant way of using the Bible.  Let’s look very briefly at the examples of contradictions he alleges. 

Jesus tells all the apostles to drink of the cup at the Last Supper, and in John 6 he tells the people that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood.  Is this contrary to Catholic teaching, which holds that the laity are not required, and can sometimes be forbidden, to drink of the cup?  No, it isn’t.  There are interpretations that are consistent with Catholic teaching.  At the Last Supper, Jesus was speaking to his apostles when he told them all to drink of it.  He wasn’t speaking to every Christian.  In John 6, Jesus is simply pointing out that all people are called to receive salvation by feeding on Christ in the Eucharist.  He mentions both body and blood because both of these are always involved at every Eucharist.  The priest always receives both.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that all Christians must always receive both by means of eating and drinking.  Perhaps Christians, by receiving at least one element, are participating in the whole.  Just as one does not have to eat every kind of food at a potluck supper in order to say that one has participated fully in the meal.  So which interpretation here is correct, Norman’s or mine?  Norman can make inferences, but the fact is that the Bible simply does not clearly address our question here or give us a clear answer.  Norman is going to infer as best he can using Sola Scriptura, and I am going to follow the interpretive guidance given by the Church’s Tradition and Magisterium.  Which way is correct?  It depends on whether Protestantism or Catholicism is true.  It is therefore question-begging for Norman to simply assume a Protestant method of answering this question in order to establish his argument intending to prove Protestantism.  It is just as illicit as if I were to cite the official Catholic interpretation on this point in order to prove Catholicism. 

What about the sinlessness of Mary?  The Bible says that all have sinned.  But is this statement meant to include Mary, or to say that everyone is subject to sin in exactly the same way?  What about Jesus?  Did he sin?  Norman would agree with me that he did not.  Well, what has become of the argument from the “all” in “all have sinned”?  “Jesus is an exception, of course!”  But the verses Norman quoted don’t mention him as an exception.  “Other passages of Scripture shed light on these verses by telling us that Jesus never sinned.”  Granted.  And I would say that Catholic Tradition sheds further light on these verses by telling us that Mary never sinned as well.  (Of course, Mary was saved from sin by her Son Jesus just as much as everyone else is.  It’s just that she was saved in an extraordinary way.  Whereas most of us are rescued by God’s grace from sin after we’ve fallen into it, Mary was preserved by grace from ever falling into it in the first place.  So Jesus is Mary’s Savior in an extraordinary way.)  Paul says that "all have sinned," but this is clearly not meant to be an exhaustive literal statement in the strictest sense because we both agree that Christ is exempted, even though St. Paul doesn't say so in the passage.  St. Paul is making a general comment about the fallenness of humanity and its need for salvation.  The issue of whether there might be any unique person out there who is saved from sin in a different way is simply beyond his purview in the passage.  Similarly, Paul makes the general comment elsewhere that "the wages of sin is death," but any reader of the Bible knows that some people—like Elijah—didn’t die like everyone else.  They were exempted in a unique way.  There is nothing in what St. Paul says that would preclude the possibility that, if he was asked specifically, he would have agreed that Mary was sinless:  "What is that?  Did Mary, the mother of Christ, commit sins personally?  Oh, well, no, I guess she did not.  I didn't bring that up here because I was focused on a different issue."  Granted that there is nothing in St. Paul's text to indicate that Mary was a unique exception, but his statement does not plainly take the opposite view either.  Again, Norman’s argument is question-begging.  Using Sola Scriptura, a Protestant method of interpreting Scripture, he answers a specific question the text of Scripture doesn’t address by reading into it what isn’t actually there, and then he uses his inference as an argument against the Catholic faith. 

If we were to use Norman’s method of proving contradictions between Scripture and Catholic teaching in other areas, we could prove contradictions between different passages of Scripture as well.  For example, in John 1:19-23, John the Baptist denies that he is the Elijah who was prophesied to come.  But in Matthew 17:10-13, Jesus says that John the Baptist was in fact the Elijah who was to come.  Is this a contradiction?  On the surface, it sounds like one.  But there is an easy solution.  John the Baptist was not literally Elijah, but he was the one to come in the spirit and power of Elijah as prophesied by Malachi 4:5-6.  So a contradiction cannot be proved here.  Norman would agree with me.  But then I would make the same kind of argument with regard to many attempts to prove contradictions between Scripture and Catholic teaching.  Again, on the surface, “all have sinned” sounds like it contradicts the doctrine of the sinlessness of Mary.  But it need not be understood as a contradiction, and one will only take it that way if one is already convinced that one need not understand Scripture and Catholic Tradition in harmony with each other. 

The same sorts of things could be said in response to the other alleged contradictions Norman brings up, so I’m not going to go into them any further, seeing that this document is long enough already.  (With regard to Protestant concerns about justification, penance, purgatory, indulgences, etc., I’ll refer you here, here, and here for more.) 

In conclusion, then, I submit that the evidence from Church history and from Scripture, and all the available evidence in general, supports the Catholic point of view rather than the Protestant point of view.

For more, see here and here.  On the question of the doctrine of justification, see here.

Sola Scriptura in the Old Testament?

Sola Scriptura in the Old Testament?

Sometimes Protestants will argue that the Old Testament presents, or at least implies, a Sola Scriptura epistemology.  We know that there were Scriptures in Old Testament times (like the Law of Moses), but we have no evidence, they say, of any infallible Tradition or infallible Magisterium.  When Jesus presented himself as the Messiah, and when the early Christians argued that Jesus was the Messiah, they appealed to the Old Testament Scriptures without any reference to any authoritative Tradition or Magisterium.  So it would seem, they say, that Sola Scriptura was the rule up to the time of Christ.

But this argument falls apart pretty quickly once we begin to look at it more closely.  For one thing, even if it were true that Sola Scriptura was the rule in Old Testament times, this would not prove that Sola Scriptura is meant to be the rule in Christian times.  There are many changes between the Old Testament and the New Testament dispensations.  This is an important observation because, usually, the argument that the OT practiced Sola Scriptura is meant as part of a larger argument trying to establish that Sola Scriptura is the practice we should have today rather than the Catholic three-legged stool view of Scripture/Tradition/Magisterium.  But even if the Sola Scripturist could prove his case regarding the entire subject of this article, this would fall short of establishing the Protestant epistemology vs. the Catholic epistemology as being correct.

But another problem with the argument is that there is simply no evidence that Sola Scriptura was the rule in OT times, and there is a good deal of significant evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion.  Old Testament Judaism existed a very long time ago, and there is a lot we don't know about it historically.  This can make it difficult to work out precisely how Scripture, Tradition, and authority worked in Old Testament times (or even in later times, such as during the days of Jesus).  Also, I am not an expert on ancient Judaism, so I have a lot to learn myself about what we do know about this subject.  But over the past few years, I have become impressed with some of the evidence pointing to a richer view of Tradition and Magisterium in ancient Judaism than I had ever thought about previously.  Perhaps one of the best ways to convey some of this is to construct a story illustrating a theory of authority from the earliest times of Judaism through the times of the early Church based on the evidence available (or at least the relevant evidence that I am aware of).  Some of this story seems pretty clear from the facts; other parts of it are a bit speculative and hypothetical, but plausible.  If someone wants to argue that Sola Scriptura was practiced in OT times, they will need to show that this rendition of events (as well as others which could be given) is not plausible or possible, and that they can construct a Sola-Scripturish account of OT epistemology that adequately accounts for all the facts.

So here's my narration:

Old Testament Times

In the earliest days of human history, judging from the early books of the Old Testament, there was no Scripture at all.  The laws of God, the truths of the faith, and the stories of God's interaction with the human race and with his people in history were passed down by means of unwritten Tradition.  This would apply to the whole period from the creation of the world, through the Fall, the Flood of Noah, the Tower of Babel, the lives of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob's sons, etc.) through the days of Moses and the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai.  The giving of the Law appears to be the earliest example of God's Word being given by means of Scripture.

The Law was written, but it required interpretation and application.  God appointed a Magisterium to authoritatively interpret and apply the Law.

If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; and thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment: And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee: According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.  (Deuteronomy 17:8-13; see also 31:9; 33:10; Jeremiah 18:18; Malachi 2:7; II Chronicles 19:8, 11; 31:4; etc.)

God appointed Moses, of course, as a prophet to teach his Word to the people.  And he also appointed regular interpreters and appliers of his Law to authoritatively interpret and apply it - a court made up of priests, Levites, and judges.  It is not up to the individual Israelite to interpret the Law for himself.  He must follow the authoritative Magisterium.  The rulings of the Magisterium will thus become a Tradition to be passed down alongside the written Law to provide an authoritative context for understanding and applying that Law.

God did not simply give his people in the Old Testament a single revelation at one time, but he continually sent new revelation to his people (Hebrews 1:1).  He did this through several means.  He gave Israel the Urim and the Thummim, which seem to have been some kind of supernatural means by which God would sometimes communicate with Israel (see here for more on this).  Especially, he sent prophets regularly who would give new revelation to his people.  Sometimes these prophets would add new information as to how Israel was to worship God.  (For example, David, as a prophet, revealed much about the plan for the Temple in Jerusalem and about the worship of the Temple, including lots of information about music that the Law of Moses said nothing about.)  These prophets seem to have been extraordinary, occasional messengers from God, in addition to the regular, ongoing interpreters of God's Law in the court of Levites, priests, and judges I mentioned earlier.  Israel was required to listen to both the ordinary and the extraordinary messengers of God.

I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.  (Deuteronomy 18:18-22)

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.  (Deuteronomy 13:1-5)

God will send prophets regularly.  If they are true prophets, they are authoritative and must be followed.  If they are false prophets--that is, they claim to be messengers from God but aren't--they should be rejected.  But how are the people of God to know whether or not someone is a true prophet or a false prophet?  There are two tests.  If the prophet gives some supernatural sign, like foretelling the future, and his sign is proven false, he's a false prophet.  However, even if his sign comes true, it does not necessarily follow that he is a true prophet.  He must also not lead people astray to false religion.  A false prophet can have deceptive signs, at least to some degree.  (cf. Exodus 7:11, 22, etc.; Matthew 24:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Revelation 13:11-15.)  But if a person comes, claiming to be a prophet, and he both has supernatural signs that are fulfilled and also encourages the people to continue in the true religion, that person is to be accepted and followed as a prophet.

So there is this interplay between the ordinary interpreters of God's law and the extraordinary messengers of God.  The Old Testament is replete with condemnations for Israelite ordinary leaders who would not listen to the words of the prophets.  Sometimes the people of God will await prophets to tell them things the ordinary leaders cannot tell them.  (See, for example, 1 Maccabees 4:44-46.)

New Testament Times and the Pharisaic Tradition

This state of affairs continues throughout Old Testament history, all the way up to the time of Christ.  It is well known that during the time of Christ, the Jews are split into a few competing traditions--Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, etc.  These disagreed with each other on a number of points, including authority.  Pharisees and Sadducees, for example, seem to have disagreed with each other concerning the canon of Scripture, the nature of the afterlife, the existence of angels, the resurrection, and apparently the authority of the Pharisaic Tradition.  The Pharisaic Tradition emphasized a three-legged stool of authority, including Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium.  They held that, in addition to the written Word of God, there was an unwritten Tradition that was passed down from Moses to their own time, consisting of some things from Moses's time, as well as elements of interpretation of the Law that had been added authoritatively by the later teachers of the Law.  This Tradition was equal in authority to the written Scripture, because it was authorized by God and guided by him.  As for who the official, authoritative Magisterium is, they looked to the court made up of priests, Levites, and judges we mentioned earlier.  After the return from the Babylonian Captivity, we see this court renewed in the tradition of the scribes and rabbis starting with Ezra, who was priest and scribe.  (We can see Ezra acting as official interpreter of the Law in Nehemiah 8.)  The Pharisees saw their own Tradition as faithfully maintaining this authoritative Magisterial tradition.  In their view, then, Scripture is infallible, but there is also an infallibility granted by God to the authoritative Magisterium as they interpret and apply the Word of God in the unwritten Tradition.

Jesus seems to have accepted the Pharisaic Tradition.  There are lots of reasons to think this is the case.  For one thing, he seems to say so pretty much straight out in Matthew 23:1-3:

Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, saying "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not."

The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses's seat.  That is, they are heirs of Moses's authority.  Therefore, the people of God are obliged to follow their teachings.  Their teaching is authoritative.  And we see that wherever the Pharisaic Tradition disagrees with, for example, the Sadducees, Jesus and the early Christians go with the Pharisaic Tradition.  They agree with that Tradition about the canon of Scripture, the resurrection and the afterlife, the existence of angels, etc.  St. Paul calls himself a Pharisee both before and after becoming an apostle of Christ (Philippians 3:5; Acts 23:6).  The early Christians seem to have accepted some of the unwritten traditions of Judaism handed down outside of Scripture, such as the tradition of the rock following the people of Israel in the desert, Jannes and Jambres as the names of two of the Egyptian magicians of Pharaoh, stories about Moses's death and burial, prophecies from Enoch, etc. (see, for example, John 4:5-6; Luke 11:47; 1 Corinthians 10:4; Jude 1:14-16; Jude 1:9; 2 Timothy 3:8).

A question might arise at this point:  How can Jesus and his disciples have arisen within the Pharisaic Tradition, when Jesus spent so much time criticizing, attacking, and arguing with the Pharisees?  They seem like "bad guys" in the gospels.  Well, in-family disputes can often be more intense than out-of-family disputes.  When groups are more closely-related, oftentimes their conflicts are intensified.  The Pharisaic Tradition seems to have been a somewhat large tradition that wasn't entirely monolithic.  There was agreement on some core things, but there were lots of disagreements as well and different Pharisaic schools of thought and practice.  After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, all forms of Judaism pretty much died out except for two--the Christians and the more mainstream Pharisaic Tradition, which evolved into Rabbinic Judaism, or historic Orthodox Judaism.  Within Rabbinic literature, which itself arose out of the Pharisaic Tradition, we see criticisms of certain groups of Pharisees.  There is a well-known passage in the Mishnah which describes a "plague of Pharisees" who help bring destruction to Israel.  (See here and here.)  The commentary on this passage in the Talmud talks about seven different groups of Pharisees.  There are a couple different lists of these seven, and in both of these lists all or all but a couple of the types of Pharisees are criticized.  The criticisms in some cases echo criticisms Jesus made in the gospels--like accusations of avoiding doing good deeds by making up an excuse that some other commandment needs to be done, and doing good deeds ostentatiously in order to be praised by men.  So it seems that criticism of "Pharisees" is not something uncommon in the Pharisaic Tradition.

But didn't Jesus specifically criticize the Pharisees for passing down "traditions of men" without authority by means of which they would undercut obedience to the genuine Word of God?  Doesn't this imply that he rejected the whole Pharisaic concept of an authoritative Tradition outside of Scripture?  No, it doesn't necessarily imply that.  For one thing, Jesus did not make an argument rejecting Tradition as such in his arguments with the Pharisees.  He only objected to "traditions of men" put in opposition to the Word of God.  This does not rule out the possibility that he accepted a more fundamental concept of "Tradition" as having authority for interpreting the written Word.  It should also be noted that, in the Pharisaic Tradition, it seems that not all traditions were of equal weight.  The Jewish Encyclopedia's article on the "Oral Law" (in the section entitled "Contents of Oral Law") lays out eight different categories of traditions in the "oral" (that is, the unwritten) Tradition.  The first five of these categories have authority equal to the written Law, but the last three do not.  And there were arguments among schools of rabbis about some of the traditions.  It is quite natural, then, to see Jesus as opposing some of the Pharisees who were inventing man-made traditions and using them to trump the Word of God.  In doing this, Jesus was doing only what others in the Pharisaic Tradition commonly did as well.  So there is no need to read any of this as implying that Jesus rejected the whole, fundamental idea of "Tradition" in the Pharisaic Tradition.  Well then, why didn't Jesus refer to that Tradition in his teaching?  Why did he quote only the written Word?  Well, why should he have quoted traditional sources?  The main purpose of the unwritten Tradition--and this is true both for traditional Judaism as well as for later Catholic Christianity--is not to provide a host of new doctrines not found in Scripture.  Its purpose is primarily interpretive in nature.  It is not intended so much to add to the Scriptures as to provide an authoritative interpretive context for them.  So, in later Catholic tradition (from the early Church up to the present day), we find Catholic theologians often appealing to Scripture to show the foundation of their doctrines, but they understand the Scripture to be properly interpreted in the context of the Church's Tradition (rather than by means of individuals interpreting it for themselves in opposition to the Church's Tradition).  This sometimes confuses Protestants reading the Church Fathers.  The Fathers will say things that sound, to Protestant ears, somewhat Sola-Scripturish.  Protestants read their own epistemology into these quotations from the Fathers, because they are not used to thinking about an appeal to Scripture involving a broader trust in an interpretative tradition surrounding and contextualizing the Scriptures.  The same can be said for why Protestants tend to read Jesus as affirming Sola Scriptura in his arguments with the Pharisees, even though Jesus never articulates such a position.  (And the same thing happens with other parts of the New Testament as well.  See here for more on this.)  And in telling the people to follow the teachings of the Pharisees (Matthew 23:1-3), Jesus was in fact telling them to follow the ordinary Magisterial authority and Tradition along with the Scriptures.  Also, Jesus seems to have wanted to make a point of speaking in such a way as to indicate that he himself had the highest authority to interpret the will and the Word of God, even above the ordinary teachers appointed by God.  He was not simply another scribe or rabbi, but the very Word of God himself.  (Matthew 7:28-29:  "And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.")  Therefore it is not surprising that he tended to use his own authority as his warrant for his teachings rather than appealing to the ordinary interpretive Magisterial authority.  He assumed the validity of that authority and explicitly commanded people to follow it, but he also emphasized his own transcendence of it.

The Transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament Dispensation

So, during the times of the Old Testament before Jesus came, there was an infallible Scripture (frequently being added to), and there was an infallible Tradition of interpretation and application of Scripture handed down by a God-guided and thus infallible Magisterium--the Levites, priests, judges, scribes, and rabbis, supplemented frequently by occasional prophets, rulings from the Urim and Thummim, etc.  The fundamental Tradition was infallible (and necessary to understand how to implement aspects of the written Law, how to understand various teachings, how to know which books were in the canon, etc.), but underneath that fundamental Tradition there were human traditions which were not infallible, and which could be erroneous and even contrary to the Word of God and which thus required opposition.

How do we understand the transition from this Old Testament system to the New Testament system of Jesus as the Messiah, head of the people of God, and under him apostles who represent him, who later appoint bishops to succeed them, headed by the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of St. Peter, etc.?  There is certainly a break that occurs here.  Jesus himself indicates a rough transition here in his Parable of the Tenants (Matthew 21:33-46).  If the Old Testament people of God had leaders with infallible Magisterial authority, how could the early Christians have been justified in breaking away from this Magisterium and forming a new Magisterium under Christ?  Perhaps the answer is built into the very Old Testament system itself.  We've seen that the Magisterium of the Old Testament had two components to it--an ordinary component consisting of the regular court of interpretation of the Law, and an extraordinary and occasional component consisting of God's occasional messages to individuals, especially to prophets who would then speak the Word of the Lord to the people.  Both components were authoritative, and neither had authority to negate the other.  A prophet who negated the Law would be rejected as a false prophet by the very criteria of the Law.  Priests, Levites, judges, scribes, etc., who would reject the word of a proven prophet are condemned as well.  Also, we remember that, according to the Pharisaic Tradition, there was full authoritativeness and infallibility only with regard to the fundamental Tradition of the oral law; there was not infallibility or full authoritativeness with regard to all the traditions of the different groups and schools.

When Jesus came, he fulfilled the Old Testament signs for being a true prophet and, indeed, the Messiah.  He gave supernatural signs which came true and which showed he had supernatural power, and his message did not lead to provably false religion (that is, to anything that could be proved to be contrary to the previously-given Word of God).  There were those who accused him of false teaching and of blasphemy, but they could not prove their charges by reference to the Old Testament or to the fundamental, unanimous Tradition of the people of God.  So Jesus comes, providing sufficient evidence to warrant acceptance of himself and his message.  Some follow him, some don't.  From this point on, the Jewish people are divided over Christ, and the Pharasaic Tradition itself is divided over him, for many among the Pharisees follow Christ, while many others don't.  The Sanhedrin--which seems to have been something like the Jewish Supreme Court--rejected Christ, condemning him to death as a blasphemer.  But the decision was not unanimous, even though a majority of the Jewish leaders rejected Christ.  Nor could they justify their rejection of him, considering the signs he had done to show himself a true messenger from God whom they were thus bound to accept and follow.  And this was before his death.  After his death and resurrection, more and more evidence for Jesus's claims continued to be added.  So the rejection of Jesus by the majority of Jewish leaders cannot be established as having had infallible and authoritative Magisterial authority, even by Old Testament or Pharisaic standards.  Therefore, he should have been followed as a true prophet and as the Messiah, and he was fully authorized as such to judge the Jewish leaders and transfer authority from the Synagogue to the Church.  Just as God had the authority to institute the Law and to add to it and change it from time to time by means of his messengers (during Old Testament times), so God had authority to make the overall transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament dispensation, with all that that entailed, by means of his Son and his Son's apostles.

Conclusion

So there is no basis for claiming that a Sola Scriptura epistemology was operative in Old Testament times.  There is simply no evidence that requires such a position, and the existing evidence seems to point plausibly and with a significant degree of probability in the opposite direction.  There is also no basis for claiming that a Sola Scriptura epistemology was operative in New Testament times.  The New Testament never teaches Sola Scriptura, but instead presents a picture including authoritative Scripture, authoritative traditions passed down, and an authoritative Magisterium.  And the early as well as subsequent Christian (Catholic) Church after the time of the apostles did not teach Sola Scriptura either, but rather the same three-legged-stool epistemology of Scripture/Tradition/Magisterium.  (However, I cannot go into making further arguments for these things here, as it would take me beyond the scope of this particular article.  For some arguments relative to claims of Sola Scriptura in the New Testament, see here and here.  For relevant information having to do with the Church Fathers, see here, here, and here.  See here for a more general fictional debate between a Catholic and a Protestant on the merits of the two positions overall, involving a lot of discussion over the merits of the Catholic vs. the Protestant epistemology in Scripture and in Church history.  Also see here for a short, humorous, fictional dialogue showing what things would have been like if Sola Scriptura had been the practice of the Church during the time of the Book of Acts.)

For further reading (in addition to sites linked to in the midst of the article above), see here and here.

A Frog, a Prince, and the Doctrine of Justification

In my attempts to find good analogies for the doctrine of justification, I have sometimes made use of something akin to the classic story of the prince who was turned into a frog and then back into a prince.  The prince being turned into a frog is something analogous to the Fall which turned human beings into sinners.  As sinners, we have no righteousness with which to please God and meet the standards of his moral law, and we have no ability of ourselves to attain to a state of righteousness.  As St. Paul discusses in Romans 1-8, Christ saves us from this state by making a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, by means of which he procures a righteousness which he gives us as a free gift and which reconciles us to God and his moral law.  This would be analogous to the frog being turned back into a prince.

In the context of trying to compare the classic Protestant doctrine of justification (interpreted in an Anti-Augustinian way) with the Catholic and Augustinian doctrine, I thought it might be useful to paint pictures of each of these doctrines making use of the analogy of the frog-prince story.

Briefly, in the Catholic view, we are justified because Christ has given to us as a free gift his own righteousness in place of our lack of righteousness.  That righteousness is both imputed to us (made ours by God's decree) and infused into us, causing us to be transformed to become truly righteous.  The righteousness which God works in us by his Holy Spirit truly satisfies the demands of God's law and pleases God.  In the Protestant view, it is also true that we receive Christ's righteousness as a free gift in place of our own lack of righteousness, but this righteousness is only imputed to us and is not infused within us.  We thus become righteous solely and completely by imputation and not at all by an infusion of righteousness or any moral transformation.  Protestants believe that we do come to be morally transformed (in a process they usually call sanctification), but they hold that this is a completely different process from justification (being made acceptable to God's moral law), and that, although we are morally transformed and even, in the end, are made perfectly internally holy, yet the holiness of sanctification is and always will be polluted by our past sins so that it never meets the standards of God's law.  From the perspective of true justice, therefore, even the perfectly sanctified are no more satisfactory to God's moral law than the completely unsanctified.

So this would be the Catholic view of the frog-prince story:  The prince, having been turned into a frog, is, of course, in that state, completely unsuited to fulfill the qualifications to function as a prince.  Let's say his two main functions as prince would be to marry the princess and to rule the kingdom.  Obviously, a frog is suited to neither of these tasks.  So, according to the rules of the kingdom, the prince-turned-frog cannot meet the qualifications to be accepted in the role of prince of the kingdom.  However, another prince shows up--say, from a neighboring kingdom--and reveals that he has the power to turn the frog back into a prince.  He has the magical ability to bond with the frog-prince, and, when he does so, he will take upon himself the frog-curse.  But, because of unique properties in his blood, the frog-curse is incapable of gaining a firm hold on him, and so, after temporarily turning into a frog, he will very quickly turn permanently back into a prince.  Because of his bond with the frog-prince, when the neighbor-prince turns back into a prince, the frog-prince will also turn back into a prince and be able to remain in that condition.  The curse will be broken because the neighbor-prince will, in effect, pay the debt of the frog-prince's frog-curse as well as share with the frog-prince his own "princeness".  The neighboring prince makes this offer, and it is accepted.  The king declares the neighbor-prince and the frog-prince bonded, and he declares the curse to belong to the neighbor-prince and the neighbor-prince's "princeness" to belong to the frog-prince.  Once this declaration has been made, the bonding is complete, and, after a very brief time of the neighbor-prince being a frog, both he and the frog-prince turn back into princes.  The frog now being a prince again, he is declared worthy to take upon himself the role of prince by the rules of the kingdom.  He marries the princess, governs the kingdom well for many years, and they all live happily ever after.

This would be the Protestant version of the story:  The first part is the same.  The prince has been turned into a frog and thus cannot meet the kingdom's requirements for fulfilling the role of prince of the kingdom.  The neighboring prince comes over and offers to bond with the frog-prince, thus taking upon himself the curse and sharing with the frog-prince the cure for the curse and his own "princeness".  The offer is accepted, and the king declares the bond and the transaction complete.  But from here on out, things go a bit differently.  The neighbor-prince's magic does not produce any actual transformation that turns the frog back into a prince.  It works on a purely legal and declaratory (or forensic, if you will) level.  The neighbor-prince's "princeness" is declared to belong to the frog-prince and so he is now legally declared to be a prince while remaining a frog in terms of his actual condition.  He is simultaneously both frog and prince from that point on--a frog by actual condition and a prince by legal status.  The magic does have the effect of causing a little transformation on the side.  The frog turns into a slightly bigger frog and prince-clothing and a crown grow onto him.  But, for the most part, he remains just as frog-like as ever.  Looking only at his actual condition, he is still completely incapable of meeting the requirements of the rules of the kingdom for fulfilling the role of prince.  However, this is not a problem, because the legal declaration of his legal prince-ness is held to be completely sufficient.  On the basis of this legal declaration alone, the frog-prince is declared worthy of being the prince of the kingdom.  He marries the princess and rules the kingdom for many years--though whether or not he rules it well, and whether or not he and the princess enjoy a fulfilling married life, I shall leave to your imagination.

If you can see the problems with this second version of the frog-prince story, you will perhaps be in a position to understand some of the things that Catholics find problematic about the Protestant doctrine of justification.

For more, see here and here.

Published on the Fourth Sunday of Easter

Is the Catholic Doctrine of Justification a Form of "Justification by Works"?

Catholics believe that we are justified entirely by the righteousness of Christ and not by our own righteousness, but they believe that we receive this righteousness not only by means of its being imputed to us but also by means of its being infused within us and actually transforming us.  Protestants often complain that this destroys the gracious character of justification and amounts to a form of "justification by works".  Catholics are often baffled by this characterization, for reasons well articulated by Francis Patrick Kenrick, the Bishop of Arath and Coadjutor of the Bishop of Philadelphia, back in 1841, in this selection from his book, The Catholic Doctrine of Justification: Explained and Vindicated:

I cannot persuade myself that those who appear horror-stricken at the idea of inherent justice, have an accurate conception of its meaning.  When they represent it as "a doctrine of merits in opposition to grace, of works in opposition to faith," when they brand it as "the abomination of desolation," they surely mistake altogether its nature and character.  It is loudly proclaimed by us to be the gift of God, not merited by any effort of man: we have nothing which we have not received.  To God essentially belongs the glory of his gift, the excellence whereof serves only to his greater praise.  It is his Spirit that dwelleth in us, and that pours forth his charity into our hearts.  He "hath blessed us with spiritual blessings in Christ, as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in charity.  Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself; according to the purpose of his will: unto the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he hath graced us (made us grateful and acceptable) in his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his grace, which hath super-abounded in us."  The soul in the state of grace is invested with a certain celestial beauty and dignity: the virtues which she exercises externally, but faintly reflect the internal splendor with which the sun of justice invests her: she is the spouse of Jesus Christ, whom he has loved, and for whom he has delivered himself: she has been washed from the stains of sin in his blood.  She is in reality, as she is styled, the beloved child of God.  What is there in this conception which detracts in the least degree from the divine glory, and from the merits of Jesus Christ?  Is it more glorious of God to cover sins, than to cancel them; to regard the sinner as just, than to make him so in reality?  Is the merit and efficacy of the price of our ransom less apparent when the stains of sin are washed away by the current of atoning blood, than when they are supposed to be merely passed over in reference to its effusion?  Shall we have a less sublime idea of this mystery of mercy, when we believe it to have merited for us the regeneration and sanctification of our souls, by an intimate operation of grace, a new creation, than in regarding it as leaving us in our original condition, and changing only our external relations?  If those who reject the idea of inherent justice would ponder well the force of the terms as used in the Church, they would, doubtless, find that the divine goodness in the wondrous work of human justification and sanctification is more admirably displayed, when conceived in the communication of actual justice and sanctity, than in any way merely extrinsic. . . .

    The Jews "not knowing the justice of God, and seeking to establish their own, have not submitted themselves to the justice of God; for the end of the law is Christ, unto justice to every one that believeth."  Their own justice is that which they sought to establish on account of their fidelity in ceremonial observances, whilst they rejected Christ, whom all the ancient types prefigured, and who was the end of the law.  Thus they forfeited that justice which is the peculiar privilege of believers.  How unjust is it to apply passages like these, which have an obvious reference to the unbelieving Jews, and to legal justice, to Catholics who believe in Christ, as the Lord and Redeemer of men, who rest on him all hopes of grace and salvation, and who claim no legal or natural justice, but ascribe wholly to the gift of God, and the merits of Christ, that supernatural justice, no otherwise ours, than as the alms belongs to the beggar who has received it from the bounty of a benefactor!  Bishop M'Ilvaine says that faith "holds out the empty hand of a poor, miserable, worthless beggar."  Catholics cannot object to this comparison; but does it not detract from Divine goodness to say, that the poor beggar receives nothing?  We consider the justified man as a beggar clothed with a robe of justice, which divine bounty has bestowed on him.  There is surely no room left for pride, "for who distinguisheth thee?  Or what has thou that thou hast not received?  And if thou has received; why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it!"  (Francis Patrick Kenrick, The Catholic Doctrine of Justification: Explained and Vindicated [Philadelphia: Eugene Cummiskey, 1841], 90-92, footnotes removed.)

For more, see here and here.

Published on the feast of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen

Why Did I Err in My Earlier Reasoning Regarding Sola Scriptura?

In the various accounts I have written up describing my conversion to Catholicism (see here and here, especially), I mention that I used to believe in Sola Scriptura--the doctrine that Scripture alone is infallible--because I took that doctrine to be the logical default position over and against the Catholic point of view that Scripture must be interpreted in the context of an infallible Tradition and an infallible Magisterium.  I describe here my prior Protestant reasoning as well as my recognition of my error and switchover to a Catholic position:

I came to see that I had some unquestioned assumptions at the foundation of my belief in Sola Scriptura.  Sola Scriptura had seemed like the "default" option to me, because I knew I had good reasons to think the Bible is the Word of God, and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox agreed with me on that, but I didn't think I had any good reason to trust the claims of the Orthodox or the Catholics to have an infallible tradition or an infallible teaching authority.  Since Scripture alone is all that we need, I thought, there is no good reason to accept such claims for further infallibility.  The fallacy here, of course, is that I was simply assuming that Scripture could function alone, without having the context of an infallible tradition or teaching authority.  But I had no basis for that assumption.  I had simply been used to using the Bible in that way as a Protestant, and it hadn't yet occurred to me that I needed to show that this was not misusing the Bible.  It may seem superficially to be safe to stick with Sola Scriptura, but what if God intends for Scripture to be interpreted and applied in the context of an authoritative and infallible tradition?  In that case, a person using the Bible in a Sola Scriptura fashion is likely to go very wrong.  He would be attempting to use the Bible in a way in which it is not supposed to be used, and ignoring crucial aids given to him for the purpose of enabling him to get it right.  Once I realized that I had been working on the basis of an unquestioned Protestant assumption about the sufficiency of Scripture, it became clear that the "default" is actually not with Sola Scriptura but with the "infallible tradition" paradigm held by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.  Christ founded a church, and he commanded his people to obey its shepherds and preserve its unity.  Therefore, our default should be obedience to the historic church and communion with her.  Not unless we can prove that we have a good reason to defy those leaders or rupture that unity should we do so.  But I saw that Sola Scriptura, and all other Protestant distinctives, could not actually be proved from Scripture or from reason or anything else, and so to embrace the Protestant views at the expense of obedience to and unity within the historic church would be inherently schismatic.

Since this time, I have often pondered the question, Why did I make this error in reasoning?  I go on in the account quoted from (and in most of my other accounts of my conversion) to note that my error stemmed ultimately from a lack of historical awareness.  But how did this work, exactly?  How did a lack of historical awareness lead me to make an error in reasoning regarding the sufficiency of Scripture?

Before 2012, I didn't have a great deal of interest in learning much about Church history.  My focus was more on abstract questions of theology, philosophy, Scriptural interpretation, etc.  In my theological thinking, I consulted Church history only mainly when it became involved in some other topic I was currently considering.  I didn't think of a deeper study of Church history as being terribly important per se in terms of analyzing the truth claims of Christianity or matters of Christian doctrine.  Because of this, I didn't know much about the doctrine of the early Church Fathers on matters regarding Scripture, Tradition, Magisterial authority, and the relationship between these.  The little history I did know had given me the impression that the early Church, at the very least, did not oppose the doctrine that Protestants would later call Sola Scriptura.

Due to this lack of historical awareness, when I came to consider the question of the Protestant position of Sola Scriptura vs. the Catholic or Orthodox position of Scripture/Tradition/Magisterium, I didn't consider this question from a historical point of view but rather more abstractly and logically.  I saw Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterial authority as independent elements that had to be independently evaluated.  Since Christianity is a divine revelation, I knew that it was important to ascertain what the locus of that revelation is.  That is, we must know where we should look to find the Christian revelation.  Protestants proposed Scripture alone.  Catholics and Orthodox proposed Scripture plus Tradition plus an infallible Magisterium to interpret Scripture and Tradition.  I knew enough Church history to see that Scripture had always been affirmed by pretty much all Christians to be at least one primary locus of Christian revelation.  Also, I knew that Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants all agree today that it is such a locus.  So I knew that if there was any locus at all--which there must be, if we are going to be able to follow the Christian revelation--Scripture must be at least one of them.  But I didn't know of any good reason to accept Tradition or the Magisterium as additional loci.  And I thought that, in order to accept these additional loci, I needed additional positive evidence to support them.

To understand my point of view at the time, consider this scenario:  You are a Christian.  You are trying to follow the Christian revelation.  You know you have the Scriptures as the Word of God and therefore as a locus of that revelation.  But then someone knocks on your door.  When you open it, the person at the door introduces himself as Bob and announces that he is an additional locus of divine revelation.  "What you need," he says, "is not just Scripture, but Scripture plus me."  Bob claims to have been given by God the gift of being an infallible interpreter of Scripture.  "You just can't get Scripture right without following my teaching," says Bob.  Now, why should you pay any attention to Bob?  You've never heard of him before.  He has just shown up at your door out of nowhere and made his claim.  What if you find that you can't directly prove Bob's claim wrong?  Bob argues that if you can't prove his claim wrong, you have no basis to reject his claim and rely on Scripture alone.  "After all," he says, "if Scripture really is meant to be interpreted in light of my teaching, as I claim, you are likely to go seriously wrong if you ignore me and try to interpret Scripture without me."

So what are you going to do?  It seems evident, doesn't it, that you will reject Bob's claim?  Sure, you can't directly prove him wrong, but it seems foolish to add Bob in as an additional locus of divine revelation merely because you can't prove him wrong.  You know that Scripture is the Word of God, but Bob has just come out of nowhere.  It makes more sense to stick to Scripture alone until Bob can provide some further positive evidence for his claim.  If you accept Bob's claim, you must do so arbitrarily.  Bob argues that if you reject his claim, you are also acting arbitrarily.  But you must go one way or the other.  At least for the present, until further evidence arises, you have to either accept or reject Bob's claim, for it makes an important difference in terms of how you should use the Scriptures.  But, given your options and the available information, surely it makes more sense to stick to the Scriptures alone, since you know that they are reliable, and not to add Bob on as an additional locus of revelation until he can provide further evidence for his position.

That was basically my reasoning for rejecting the Catholic point of view and embracing Sola Scriptura.  Of course, the analogy is not perfect.  I knew that the claims of Tradition and the Magisterium to be additional loci of divine revelation had a better historical pedigree than Bob's claim has in my imaginary scenario.  But I did not think they had enough of a better pedigree to give them the leverage needed to oust Sola Scriptura.  I knew that Scripture was God's Word.  But I could not verify the claims of Tradition and the Magisterium.  Therefore, it seemed to me to make the most sense to stick to Scripture alone rather than to randomly and arbitrarily admit the claims of Tradition and Magisterium and add them on as additional loci of revelation.  Without additional evidence, I wasn't just going to start trusting the Catholic Church implicitly to tell me how to interpret Scripture.  I would listen to what Catholics had to say, but I would evaluate it myself in light of what I could find in reason and in Scripture.  I would make use of what I knew until I was provided with evidence to add something else.

This position was overturned as I learned more Church history and eventually came to realize that the Catholic view was the view of the historic Church.  Protestants had to break from the Church's earlier established position in order to advocate for Sola Scriptura.  They had to break with the continuity of the faith as handed down through history, and they had to break the unity and defy the established authorities of Christ's Church.  As I've argued elsewhere, since Christianity is a divine revelation handed down to us in history, and since Christ established a community to which he gave leaders and which he commanded to preserve unity, we must default to the continuity, unity, and authority of the Christian faith and the Christian Church.  We cannot break from these without positive and conclusive justification.  So the default is actually on the other side from what I previously thought.  The question is not, "Do I have a justification to add Tradition and the Magisterium as loci of revelation additional to Scripture?"  The question is, "Do I have a justification to take Scripture out of its original context within the threefold package deal of Scripture/Tradition/Magisterium in order to establish Sola Scriptura?"  It wasn't a matter of adding Tradition and the Magisterium.  They were already there.  It was a matter of retaining or rejecting them.  To refer back to my earlier analogy, it is as if Bob did not come out of nowhere, but rather had been the original, official conveyer of the divine Scriptures to me in the first place, and from the beginning the Scriptures had been bound together with Bob's role as official interpreter.

For more, see here, here, and here.

Published on the feast of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen

The Difference Between Legitimate Disagreement and Illegitimate Dissent

It is clear in Catholic doctrine that Church teaching is authoritative, as it comes from Christ, and is reliable to lead to truth, as it is guided by the Holy Spirit, and that therefore Catholics are required to assent to it.  The Church can teach in both a definitive manner and a non-definitive manner.  When the Church teaches definitively, Catholics are obliged to accept the teaching definitively and absolutely.  When the Church teaches with less than full definitiveness, Catholics are obliged to accept the teaching to the degree and in the form required by the intention of the teacher.  The Church has spelled out this schema in many places, such as in the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) document Donum Veritatis (1990):

When the Magisterium of the Church makes an infallible pronouncement and solemnly declares that a teaching is found in Revelation, the assent called for is that of theological faith. This kind of adherence is to be given even to the teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium when it proposes for belief a teaching of faith as divinely revealed.

When the Magisterium proposes "in a definitive way" truths concerning faith and morals, which, even if not divinely revealed, are nevertheless strictly and intimately connected with Revelation, these must be firmly accepted and held.

When the Magisterium, not intending to act "definitively", teaches a doctrine to aid a better understanding of Revelation and make explicit its contents, or to recall how some teaching is in conformity with the truths of faith, or finally to guard against ideas that are incompatible with these truths, the response called for is that of the religious submission of will and intellect. This kind of response cannot be simply exterior or disciplinary but must be understood within the logic of faith and under the impulse of obedience to the faith.  (#23, footnotes removed)

The CDF, in its Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio fidei (1998), articulated that "teachings set forth by the authentic ordinary Magisterium in a non-definitive way . . . require degrees of adherence differentiated according to the mind and the will manifested; this is shown especially by the nature of the documents, by the frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or by the tenor of the verbal expression" (#11).  This language was echoing the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, #25, which said this:

Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.

In modern times, those who have wished to dissent from some of the authoritative teachings of the Church in defiance of the Church's authority have sometimes attempted to justify their defiance by redefining "submission of mind and will" into something like "respectful consideration."  In their view, one must consider seriously the Church's non-definitive teaching, but one must not trust it implicitly.  One must use one's own private judgment to evaluate that teaching, and then one is justified in rejecting that teaching if it fails that private investigation.  Thus, whereas, with definitive teaching, the rule of belief is the Church's teaching, the rule of belief with regard to non-definitive teaching is not the authority of the Church but the agreement of the Church's teaching with one's private, independent judgment and confirmation.

A classic example of this kind of dissent is seen in the attitude of the Society of St. Pius X, which was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to continue what Lefrebre regarded as "authentic" Catholic faith and practice in opposition to what he considered to be the errors and deviations of the modern Church after Vatican II.  Lefebvre and his followers wanted to reject portions of Vatican II on the grounds that the Council did not intend to affirm anything in the form of a solemn, definitive declaration, but only under the authority of the "ordinary" magisterium, which they held to be subject to their private judgment.  But that loophole had already been cut off by the Council itself, as well as by Pope St. Paul VI, such as in his General Hearing of January 12, 1966:

There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions engaging the infallibility of the ecclesiastical Magisterium. The answer is known by whoever remembers the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964: given the Council’s pastoral character, it avoided pronouncing, in an extraordinary manner, dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility.  But it has invested its teachings with the authority of the supreme ordinary magisterium, which ordinary magisterium is so obviously authentic that it must be accepted with docility and sincerity by all the faithful, according to the mind of the Council as expressed in the nature and aims of the individual documents.  (Pope St. Paul VI, General Hearing, Wednesday, January 12, 1966, following the translation found here by Dr. Jeff Mirus)

Pope St. Paul VI, in a letter to Archbishop Lefebvre in 1976, reminded him of this fact:

Again, you cannot appeal to the distinction between what is dogmatic and what is pastoral to accept certain texts of this Council and to refuse others.  Indeed, not everything in the Council requires an assent of the same nature: only what is affirmed by definitive acts as an object of faith or as a truth related to faith requires an assent of faith.  But the rest also forms part of the solemn magisterium of the Church to which each member of the faithful owes a confident acceptance and a sincere application.  ("Pope Paul VI's Letter to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre", found on the Word on Fire website)

Now, it is true that non-definitive magisterial teachings can contain in them elements of varying degrees of authority.  The less formal, more "casual" (for lack of a better word) nature of the format of these teachings allows for such a mix.  Sometimes there are elements of non-definitive teachings that are provisional in nature, tied to the circumstances of the times and therefore subject to change as circumstances change, and sometimes there are incidental observations that the mind and the will of the magisterial teacher does not intend to put forward as authoritative teachings binding the minds of the faithful.  The Church tells us to use common sense, combined with good reading and listening skills--as well as asking for clarification if necessary--when we listen to non-definitive teachings and decide what response they call forth from us.  Sometimes magisterial decisions, particularly practical or prudential decisions, involve elements that can even invite respectful criticism from the faithful.  When the "mind and the will manifested" of the magisterial teacher allows such respectful criticism, it is legitimate and not a form of dissent from or defiance of the authority of the Church.  The CDF made this point explicitly in Donum Veritatis: 

The willingness to submit loyally to the teaching of the Magisterium on matters per se not irreformable must be the rule. It can happen, however, that a theologian may, according to the case, raise questions regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the contents of magisterial interventions. Here the theologian will need, first of all, to assess accurately the authoritativeness of the interventions which becomes clear from the nature of the documents, the insistence with which a teaching is repeated, and the very way in which it is expressed.  (#24, footnote removed)

One must therefore take into account the proper character of every exercise of the Magisterium, considering the extent to which its authority is engaged. It is also to be borne in mind that all acts of the Magisterium derive from the same source, that is, from Christ who desires that His People walk in the entire truth.  (#17)

But there is a fine line between legitimate criticism, within the bounds the Church has allowed, and dissent from Church teaching that involves defiance of the Church's authority.  Sometimes that line can be hard to see, and certain forms of expression can have the effect of obscuring that line.  For example, in 1968, the Catholic bishops of the United States issued a pastoral letter entitled "Human Life in Our Day".  Part of the impetus for this document was to defend Pope St. Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae, which was very unpopular in "progressive" circles and was drawing a great deal of dissent.  But in the course of this pastoral letter, the US bishops tried to lay out some boundaries for legitimate dissent and criticism.  They said that professional theologians could, in limited circumstances, dissent from certain non-infallible magisterial teachings, provided they do so with great care and caution, respect for the consciences of others, in an appropriate manner, etc.

When there is question of theological dissent from non-infallible doctrine, we must recall that there is always a presumption in favor of the magisterium. Even non-infallible authentic doctrine, though it may admit of development or call for clarification or revision, remains binding and carries with it a moral certitude, especially when it is addressed to the universal Church, without ambiguity in response to urgent questions bound up with faith and crucial to morals. The expression of theological dissent from the magisterium is in order only if the reasons are serious and wellfounded, if the manner of the dissent does not question or impugn the teaching authority of the Church and is such as not to give scandal.  (Found here on the EWTN website, taken from L'Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, 12 December 1968, page 6 and 19 December 1968, page 5)

It has been observed that this last sentence is very ambiguous and could lend itself to being made use of by dissenters who wish to dissent from teaching the Church intends to bind them to, dissenters like Archbishop Lefebvre and his SSPX movement.  (Although, in the case of Humanae Vitae, the dissent was rather from the more liberal, "progressive" side of the Church.)  Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin discusses this in his book Teaching With Authority (El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers Press, 2018).  He provides an interesting commentary from Cardinal Avery Dulles on the apparent subjectivity of the US bishops' criteria for legitimate dissent:

Cardinal Avery Dulles remarked that these conditions "proved difficult to apply.  Who was to say whether the reasons were well-founded?  How could one establish that the authority of the Magisterium was not being impugned when its teaching was being denied?  How could scandal be avoided when theologians were openly saying that the pope's teaching was wrong?"  [The Dulles quote is from The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System, 2nd ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 113.]

"Human Life in Our Day" was issued in 1968.  Since that time, the Church has issued several documents clarifying further the assent required of non-definitive teachings, including the CDF document we've quoted from a few times now, Donum Veritatis, and also the CDF commentary on the Professio Fidei, also quoted from earlier.  Donum Veritatis in particular focuses a good deal of attention on the illicitness of "dissent", while at the same time distinguishing it from legitimate dialogue and even criticisms that can sometimes be made with regard to magisterial pronouncements.  The US bishops, in 1992, issued another document entitled The Teaching Ministry of the Diocesan Bishops: A Pastoral Reflection (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1992).  In this document, the bishops are much more careful to make clear that dissent to Church teaching is not acceptable and that the Catholic faithful are required to assent to the non-definitive teaching of the Church with "submission of will and intellect."  They distinguish various forms of refusal of assent to non-definitive teachings--non-acceptance, private dissent, and public dissent--and they make it clear that all three are unacceptable.

    Perhaps, a more common experience of nonacceptance in the Church today is the withholding of assent to what is identified as nondefinitive teaching. . . .  While these manifestations of nonacceptance may fall short of outright rejection, nevertheless they remain nonacceptance, the withholding of the religiosum voluntatis et intellectus obsequium [religious submission of mind and will] due to the ordinary magisterium of the Church. . . .

    Quite distinct from the withholding of assent is the private, individual judgment that conclusively rejects the ordinary, nondefinitive teaching of the Church.  Such a judgment constitutes private dissent and is not consistent with that religiosum voluntatis et intellectus obsequium due to church teaching.  Even though dissent of this kind remains private, nevertheless it is unacceptable. . . .

    Sometimes the nonacceptance of nondefinitive teaching passes beyond the nature of a "difficulty" and becomes a judgment that an authoritative teaching is false.  This, of course, is quite different from a critical judgment about the adequacy of expression or the conceptual limitations of a particular teaching. . . .

    Bishops cannot be indifferent to the public denial or the contradiction of church teaching, especially by those whose position confers public influence.  Public dissent, especially in the form of advocacy for alternative positions, seriously impairs the Church as a communion of faith and witness.  (Teaching Ministry, pp. 17-19, footnotes removed)

The document recognizes that the "ordinary, nondefinitive teaching of individual popes and bishops may contain assertions that fall short of the full truth of the gospel and may be in need of development and amplification.  Interventions in the prudential order may even be in need of correction" (p. 15).  "At times . . . professional theologians or other competent persons may conclude that the search has not been completed or that what has been asserted is still imperfect, and their acceptance will be qualified accordingly" (p. 15).  Scholars may discuss difficulties in professional journals, etc.  However, "[t]these considerations presume that theologians and scholars are willing to take the necessary steps to overcome their difficulties and abide by an authoritative intervention on the part of the magisterium should it consider one necessary" (p. 18).

    Finally, the disposition toward the teaching authority of the bishop on the part of those who are dissenting must be taken into consideration.  If an individual or group dissents, but retains the disposition to abide by a final judgment of the magisterium on an issue, the possibility of obsequium religiosum remains.  On the other hand, if dissent is expressed in absolute terms and there are no signs of docility toward the Church, that possibility may well be foreclosed.  In that case, the bishop may initiate the process leading to the possible imposition of a canonical penalty (cf. c. 1371.1).  (p. 19).

(I should mention that this document, as well as Donum Veritatis and many of the other documents I've mentioned, are rich with pastoral suggestions regarding how to deal with people who struggle with certain Church teachings, sometimes in good conscience.  I cannot do justice to this aspect of the documents, or other important nuances, as well as the significant amount of good practical wisdom these documents contain, in such a short article as this.)

In conclusion, as we said earlier, we can indeed, at times, criticize and even disagree with some of the things the bishops and the Pope say.  But the real question is, Who determines the degree and form of assent required in any particular case?  The erroneous dissenters make themselves and their own judgment the determining factor in deciding what they are required to assent to and to what degree they are required to assent.  But the Church teaches that it is the bishops and the Pope who make that determination.  This is the fundamental point and the fundamental difference between legitimate diversity and criticism and illegitimate dissent and defiance.  We don't get to subject the teachings of the bishops and the Pope to our own judgment and decide, even against their intentions and requirements, what we will agree with and what we will disagree with.  We must assent to their teaching according to their manifest mind and will.  We must accept even non-definitive magisterial teaching as inherently reliable, so that we will not subject it to our judgment and disagree with it if the "validity of the given teaching is not evident or upon the opinion that the opposite position would be the more probable" (Donum Veritatis, #28)  So while there can sometimes legitimately be disagreement with some things the Pope or bishops say, there can never be dissent from magisterial teaching, in the sense of refusal to accept magisterial teaching to the extent that it is intended as authoritative and binding.  Whenever and to the extent that the bishops and/or the Pope make use of their magisterial authority with the intention to give to the Church an authentic, official teaching, leading the people of God into truth or showing them how to stay faithful to the truth, that teaching must be assented to.

For more, see here, here, and here.