Sola Scriptura ; Solo Traditio ; Sola Papa - Three Bad Answers to Some Good Questions

"so I send this commentary to your reverence, not because I think it due and worthy, but because I remember you asked for it and I promised to send it. Whatever your holiness finds half-baked or crude in its pages, please forgive it all the more quickly" - Pope St. Gregory the Great , teaching infallibly on matters of faith and morals ;)

The more of the Church Fathers I read, the less I feel bound to their authority. They seem adamant on telling us NOT to trust them on their own basis. The notion that they had some kind of hidden wisdom apart from Scripture, or were a part of the Word of God, as Papa Benny 16 likes to say, would probably seem blasphemous to them. Certainly the doctrine of justification by faith alone would seem blasphemous to a writer like St. Gregory (though not Chrysostom), but what seems always clear to me is how off course the Western Tradition went after St. Augustine. The Orthodox (I think at the moment) are quite accurate in their assertions that the Latin Tradition of theology is very different from the patristic consensus. If the Protestant Reformation went off course, then it had long precedence from the See of Rome, which changed many things, to the point that the generally acknowledged first tradition of the Church (The Sign of the Cross) was changed by Papal decree by Pope Innocent III. St. Augustine of Canterbury, St. Benedict, St. Patrick, all did it the 'wrong' Orthodox way.

This is where you'd normally expect to see me talking about visiting my local Antiochan parish, but no, I don't find the Orthodox way convincing to the point of necessary conversion. I think in a contest of Tradition they'd beat the Romans, but the discrepancies between the two seem to only further my Latin/Catholic notions that Tradition -while important- should not have the last say in matters of faith and morals.

After all, if in the Sacred Tradition of the Church, the Pope tells us not to trust his dogmatic writing if it is in error, then what are we to use as the standard? Answering that question is fraught with problems, however I've chosen Sacred Scripture, and used a hearty textual realism to defend myself from the textual relativist claims of Rome. Everyone must make a choice though, and thus everyone must become a heretic (one who chooses). Though the heresies of today are not like those of Old. To be a Baptist is heretical, true enough, but even Baptists can sign the formula of Chalcedon, and assent to the Council of Ephesus (451) which in a sense makes them more 'Traditional', 'Catholic', and 'Orthodox' than the Coptic Church and all its bishops. It seems to be a realm where 'you pay your money and you take your chance' as an old pastor used to say.

You could 'pan' any of the Fathers for 'Confessional gold' and come up with some argument in your favour. So perhaps the Orthodox would use the initial quotation to attack Papal Supremacy and show the equality of bishops. Roman Catholics might look use this passage: "[Job's friends] speak to Job as if on the Lord's behalf, but they are not approved by the Lord; for all heretics struggle to defend God but really offend him." to show how Orthodox and Protestant heretics/Christians are in wanton disobedience to the papacy. Finally, Protestants who look for a self-verifying canon of Scripture against Catholic-Orthodox apologetics could read: "The authority of this book is made clear from the unshakeable sacred page itself." and shout Aha! Our Bible has been vindicated against the traditions of men.

To end things very Lutheran-ly, I'd say all of these modes are theologies of glory. There are many mysterious things which we do not perceive while we 'see through a glass darkly', but the fundamental character and substance of God remains apparent to Christians. Faith, Hope, and Charity are found in every communion, and in these, as in Christ we are to abide. For my part, I look at myself knowing that like Job's sons 'perhaps I have sinned in my heart'. I know I am a sinner, but I trust in the fact that Christ has christened, confirmed, confessed, and communed me Himself. That all my sins are his and all his righteousness is mine. I glory not in my own theological and historical polemics but in my Saviour and his cross.

I found most illuminating, a passage of St. Gregory's on the typology of Jobs daughters as weaker Christians (which is a horribly misogynistic spiritual reading perhaps, but still useful).

"And three daughters were born to him. (1.2)
"What shall we take the daughters for, if not the flock of less-gifted faithful? Even if they do not stay the course for the perfection of good works by strength and virtue, they cling tenaciously to the faith they know in the trinity." XIV. 20



May the Holy Spirit, the only author of faith, who proceeds from the Father, through the Son, make us all tenaciously cling to whatever faith has been graciously given us, and trust in the Holy Trinity in every trouble.

Not Really Theology But...

I finished my last history paper of the semester. It was on English newspaper coverage of Anti-Clericalism in the Spanish Civil War, and about how reports of anti-clerical violence were used to smear Communism by Fascists, but also how Christian Socialists perceived the Spanish Roman Catholic Church's siding with the Nationalists as in a sense anti-clerical in that it attacked the laity who were in one sense a royal priesthood.

It's been a good 5 years writing essays on Catholics, and that was my last one. From now on I guess I'll write about Protestants, which is awkward because I really haven't dealt with them in a while... Or I could just continue writing about Catholics. Apparently there are Lutheran and Protestant historians of (Roman) Catholicism. Leopold von Ranke and J.N.D. Kelly I can think of from the top of my head.

We'll see...

Good Shepherd Iconography

Roman Catholic Jesus (The Good Shepherd)

My commentary here seems to be the way that Western Christian art de-masculinizes Jesus. Sometimes to the extreme. For instance, the Western mystics speak about Christ nursing them at times. (St. Bernard claimed to have nursed from the Blessed Virgin, but I'm not touching that issue). I sometimes enjoy these portrayals of Christ, and I think they were produced to show the approachability(?) of Christ, and his meekness. I like this image a lot, and after spending enough time in the RCC, I have come to identify with it's once foreign iconography and art. It's a very kind Jesus.


East Orthodox Jesus (The Good Shepherd)

There's no one quite like Orthodox Jesus. Half Putin, half Goliath. That sheep is being dragged with Him whether it likes it or not (paradoxically contradictory to the EO view of predestination, but I guess sometimes lex orandi lex credendi non est). Sometimes I feel like I'm looking at Vlad the Impaler, rather that our blessed Lord, but other times I'm impressed by the authority and power of Christ. This icon reminds me of his strong words: "[m]y sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me". If I heard this man shouting at me (with a heavy Russian accent?) I would certainly stop what I was doing, and listen.



Synthesis / Protestant(?) Jesus


This image is a nice rapproachment between the East & West. It's an image from a Lutheran church in my province. I won't say it's the best because of it's denominational affiliation, after all, it might've just been a public domain image that they slapped on their website. However, I think it does a good job of capturing the humanity of Christ (while keeping him masculine), and also the sheep over his shoulders is quite significant to me, and is more reminiscent of Lk 15:5 "when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing."

Christ is my Good Shepherd, who leaves the 99 to find me, a wayward sheep, one which doesn't heed his voice, and wanders my own way, but whom the Lord graciously picks up and carries home himself.

Why Protestantism? (or rather, why the Lutheran Church-Canada)

Devin Rose - a friend who has helped me in so many ways over the years, asked me a fair question.

If Roman Catholicism is not the true religion, how do you know your 'brand' of Protestantism is correct?

1. Rationalist Assumptions of Roman Catholicism

Like every argument for Roman Catholicism, this one begins with pure reason (which Kant despised so much). It assumes that divine revelation devolves naturally to arguments about divine revelation. It assumes that Aristotle's account of logic is the only account of logic, and that human nature is essentially Aristotelian.

What if Aristotle was wrong (as the Church Fathers thought he was)?

How would you disprove Roman Catholicism in a way that was satisfactory to them? Admittedly, you'd have to use Aristotelian logic.

For instance, Kant and (Lord) Russell, both ripped apart the 5 'proofs' for God's existence using empirical epistemology / analytic philosophy. What is RC's reply? Wrong logic. You started with the wrong rules. I might ask, who says we have to start with your rules?

So what I did, and what the Church Fathers did, was use the logic of a system against itself. With my concupiscence/consubstantiation argument, I used Thomism to show the why Trent was wrong.

Were I to then come up with a system based on the same epistemology, I'd have contradicted myself! Because the Roman Catholic claim is circular reasoning: logic is what we say it is, and this is logically demonstrable.

Protestantism says something quite different in it's epistemology.

Protestantism begins with God. God (as St. Anselm and Descartes understood him) was: that Being, a greater than which, cannot be conceived.

So we are presented with the Revelation of God's Word to Moses, through Jesus. How do we decide if this Word is true or not? If we require a rational argument to demonstrate it's truth (which Aristotelianism would have us do), then we aren't actually saying there is truth inherent in the Word. It's just a really good human philosophy, using allegedly divine sources.

By contrast God's Word is a pre-rational revelation that is necessarily self-referential, and circular. God says it, and it's authoritative because God says it. It can only be accepted or rejected. In any case, there's no way to falsify the claims of God about Himself, we can't know. We either trust, or reason.

In short: the epistemological authority of God's Word is greater than the epistemological authority of any argument about his Word.

2. Only Two Traditions

Again, retaining their rationalism, Roman Catholicism asserts that there are 22 000 Christian 'churches' all claiming to have 'the true religion', let alone Islam and Hinduism. Without reason, how can we judge which claims are best.

First of all, when we're judging claims outside of Christianity, we can certainly use philosophy and reason to undermine these things. (That's why Tertullian used Stoic philosophy to undermine the Stoics, but didn't adopt it in his theology.)

Secondly, there are hardly 22 or 25 k denominations. Likewise, Protestantism follows none of the rules Roman Catholicism does, regarding a communion. For RCs, a church is a communion. For Protestants a church is a confession. There are only really two confessions or Traditions in what I would identify historically as 'catholic Protestantism'. These are Reformed Theology and Lutheran Theology.

Also, it's important to note that both of these confessions acknowledge that the other teaches the saving gospel of justification by faith alone, which in the end is -at least existentially/salvifically- all that matters. So it's not even a necessary issue of 'which is right' (without being too latitudinarian), as any Christian who trusts in God's grace will be saved.

Furthermore as we've seen via Protestant epistemology, the only way to 'internally undermine' things (as I did for Roman Catholicism), as by making Scriptural arguments against them.

In the same way that Roman Catholics are fine having the Pope alone know the true interpretation of Scripture, they seem quite upset that Protestant confessions ultimately confess that their church has the most correct doctrine.

It must also be remembered the numbers have nothing to do with who has 'the true church', as at many times (Noah, Judah, St. Paul, St. Athanasius) the true church was a minority faction.

3. Inherently Humanist Implications in the Question

Next the RC apologist would revert to their argument that God didn't reveal himself properly in his Word, as it's easy if not obligatory to misunderstand it without the Pope (Magisterium and Church can easily be conflated to the Petrine office).

In the same way we saw Papal Infallibility as a de facto denial of the Inspiration of Scripture, we see here the de facto denial of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in two ways. First, it denies that the individual can actually be inspired by the Holy Spirit to be led into the truth. Secondly it denies that there is truly any difference which the Holy Spirit makes when reading the bible. (This is the rationalistic and pelagian understanding, coupled with an intellectually centred faith, that rejects grace alone or even de facto grace in the believer operating at all)

The individual Christian reading God's revelation with the illumination of the Holy Spirit and the rest of scripture to compare a passage to? Rubbish they say.

Conclusion:
How do I know that the Lutheran Church-Canada is either: the, or a, true church? First of all, it doesn't matter, because ecclesiastical membership is not a salvific issue. Salvation is the work of the regenerating Spirit of Christ, not church bodies. Secondly, when I accept God's Revelation as true (because he could swear by no one greater than himself Hb. 6:13), and am illuminated by the Holy Spirit, I conclude that the gospel of the Augsburg Confession, was the gospel of Christ.


In short, to require any extra-revelatory verification of either God's existence or the validity of his Revelation would be blasphemy.

*note* This is the primary reasoning and epistemological defense of Protestantism/Confessional Lutheranism. There are other arguments in its defense, such as an argument from Patristics or Church History, but these are not what establishes the fundamental truth. They are secondary arguments in both the general apologetic discourse, and importance generally.

How The Roman Church Masters the Scriptures

As a previous commenter jcrng (I think I know who this is, my old Deli co-worker) made the point, any Catholic (*read Roman Catholic) would agree that Scripture is inspired and authoritative in and of itself without the Church's approval.

Here's how that breaks down in practice if not in theory.

Let's look at St. Paul's famous exposition of the struggle of the Christian life in Romans 7:20 "Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me."

How should this be interpretted?

Well in Tradition, both St. Jerome (letter 2) and St. Augustine (Nature and Grace) agree in many places that the will of the baptized Christian is not free to do good. It is free to sin or not to sin, but any good work is directly attributable to the Holy Spirit. This is because, as any plain reading of the text will tell you, St. Paul says: "sin ... dwells within me". Not concupiscence or the opportunity to sin (as the Scholastics will say), but sin. Aquinas argues in III. Q. 75, A. 2, that to use a proper noun is to signify it substantially (this is how he 'proves' transubstantiation). If this interpretive principle is applied to Rom. 7:20, this means that (Original) Sin, formally and substantially, dwells in the baptized Christian.

Simple enough, this interpretation, popular enough before Trent, suddenly leads Martin Luther et al, to say that the Christian is simul iust et peccator / at the same time righteous and a sinner.

This utterly undermines the entire system of Purgatory, Indulgences, etc., and St. Peter's still has to be built. Enter the 22 Spanish and Portugeuse bishops who somehow equal an ecumenical/universl Church council, and the Roman Church declares in Trent that: even though the apostle saith sin, the Church has never understood it to be sin proper, but concupiscence (material original sin/opportunity to sin).

...

So you have Scripture and Tradition in unity on the matter, and the Magisterium saying "wrong".

How is this justified.

First of all, the interpretation of the Bible is made impossible. The Church denies (in a logically circle argument referencing St. Peter's epistle) that Scripture is clear for the laity to understand. Likewise tradition (which had always been public tradition, ie. knowable and written down) suddenly becomes secret unwritten tradition passed on esoterically through the Church. In the end, the only person who can infallibly judge the matter is the Pope.

So Scripture (and less importantly Tradition) are both declared to be fundamentally incomprehensible, and only knowable through the Pope.

This means in practice that it is not the text or Scripture, or the proclaimed message it records, which holds the Truth, but the Papacy. God's revelation is thus only understandable by a secret (gnostic?) special revelation made clear by the Magisterium (presumably Magisterial pronouncements are clear and comprehensible?).

In the end this amounts to saying de facto, that Scripture is not inspired. It also amounts to saying that Tradition is not a valid way of interpretting Scripture either, because this can be confusing, and not all the sources are public or written down, some are secret - knowable and interpretable only by the Pope. In the end, this amounts to something like the inspiration of the Papacy, rather than the inspiration of Scripture, or even a reliance on Scripture interpretted by Tradition.

The Distinction Between The Word Proclaimed and the Word Recorded

"While the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the pillar and ground of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life" - St. Irenaeus of Lyons (I stole this quote from Jared's blog)

"For in the first place the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God." - Romans 3:2

The central argument that Roman Catholicism (hereafter referred to simply as RC) bases its epistemology upon is the claim that Sola Scriptura cannot be true because the Church wrote the Bible. Thus, where the Reformers (and as aforequoted, St. Irenaeus) said that the Gospel made the Church, Tridentine RC taught the opposite. After all, how could we know the gospel if we didn't even have the New Testament canon?

1. Ontological Pre-eminance of the Word
The problem with this state of affairs is that it immediately assumes. First of all, the New Testament is a record of the teachings of Christ, his proclaimed word, through his apostles and messengers. The epistemological point must be stressed that the written record of Scripture is true and authoritative, because it faithfully represents objective events. In other words, the authority of the scriptural passage "whoever believes and is baptized will be saved" (Mk.16:16) rests upon the fact that Christ historically and objectively said this in history first, and that the Bible records it secondly. It is not St. Mark's authority that we trust in when we read this, it is the authority of Christ. It is not the case that St. Mark wrote these words and authored these ideas, it is the fact that they are Christ's words and ideas. In modern terms, if St. Mark wrote this phrase in an essay submitted to me, he would have had to cite it, because it wasn't his idea (and he'd better do it Chicago Style!)

This is summed up nicely in the Belgic Confession, which states: "the preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God". I.E. Even if no one wrote it down, the preaching of the apostles was the Word of God in oral form. In the same way that I can hum Bach's music without reading a music note, the Gospel was known in the Church even before the canon was decided, Nay! even before the Scripture was written.

This argument may sound familiar as it was used in a different form by St. Paul against the judaizers: "the law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise." (Gal. 3:17). The "promise" or the gospel which Abraham believed in, justified him (Rm 4) and existed long before a New Testament, which leads us to the next point.

2. The Gospel According To Abraham.
The Old Testament, which St. Paul reminds us, was intrusted to the Jews, is the story of Israel. Christians since the 1st century argued after St. Paul, that the Christian Church, was the True Israel. The Old Testament was a Christian book, as the apostle reminds us that all scripture speaks of Him (Christ). Isaiah 53 is a clear example of the gospel in the Old Testament. Genesis 18 was a proof-text for the Trinity.

The idea that Christians needed the Magesterium to know the Gospel or that they needed the New Testament to know the Gospel, flies in the face of all this.

Conclusion:

For these reasons, it is wrong to say that the Church makes the Gospel. The fact that Pope Damasus oversaw a Council in Rome (382) which declared the canon of scripture, no more creates the Scripture/Gospel, than me telling my friend what I read in class, creates the book I read. It's a subversive argument that makes man the master of God's Word. The Church is ministerial, it is the servant of the Gospel, not magisterial, the master of the Gospel.

Peter Kreeft's Thoughts on Justification

"The gift of God's love is ours for the taking. I am a Roman Catholic. But the most liberating idea I have ever heard I first learned from Martin Luther. Pope John Paul II told the German Lutheran bishops that Luther was profoundly right about this idea. He said that Catholic teaching affirms it just as strongly and that there was no contradiction between Protestant and Catholic theology on this terribly important point, which was the central issue of the Protestant Reformation. I speak, of course, about "justification by faith" and its consequence, which Luther called "Christian liberty" or "the liberty of a Christian" in his little gem of an essay by that name.

Let us be careful to approach the point in the right way. I think most misunderstandings begin at this very first step. Let's begin with a solid certainty: God is love. God is a lover, not a manager, businessman, accountant, owner, or puppet-master. What He wants from us first of all is not a technically correct performance but our heart. Protestants and Catholics alike need to relearn or reemphasize that simple, liberating truth... it liberated me just as it had the Catholic Augustinian monk Luther 450 years earlier. The crucial sentence for me was: "We may think God wants actions of a certain kind, but God wants people of a certain sort." (Mere Christianity)

The point is amazingly simple, which is why so many of us just don't get it. Heaven is free because love is free. It is ours for the taking. The taking is faith. "If you believe, you will be saved." It is really that simple. If I offer you a gift, you have it if and only if you have the faith to take it.

The primacy of faith does not discount or denigrate works but liberates them. Our good works can now also be free - free from the worry and slavery and performance anxiety of having to buy Heaven with them. Our good works can now flow from genuine love of neighbor, not fear of Hell. Nobody wants to be loved merely as a means to build up the lover's merit pile. That attempt is ridiculous logically as well as psychologically. How much does Heaven cost? A thousand good works? Would 999 not do, then? The very question shows its own absurdity. That absurdity comes from forgetting that God is love.

...

The whole point of justification by faith is God's scandalous, crazy, and wonderful gift of love." - Peter Kreeft "The God Who Loves You" p. 23-25

Not exactly an analytical take on the issue, but a good read nonetheless.

The Roman Catholic condemnations seem to be on the issue of faith being the sole basis of our justification. This leaves works at least some spot for our trust and assurance of salvation. BUT what Kreeft and others have done, for the sake of sanity, is really said that faith plus the habitus or innate regenerated inclination towards love are the ground of our justification. So as long as you can say 'I love God' and in some way whatsoever mean it, you can have a grounding in your faith, because it is faith formed by love. Thus the anathemas of Trent are just barely dodged, and one can be a Catholic of the Pascalian/Jansenist flavour and remain orthodox.

According to J.V. Fesko, this also has a similitude to some outliers in the Reformed Tradition, such as Jonathon Edwards, Albert Ritschl, and others in the early 20th century who emphasized mystical union and the Fatherly judgments of God / Congruent merit, rather than the juridicial / imputation doctrines. Or in other words, if you heap up the Congruent merit, and believe that every time God judges a believers work he is polishing the spots from it (to use Calvin's analogy), and you believe that he imputes perfection to the person's infused faith, hope and love, THEN you can have some sort of assurance. But again, this is just barely dodging Trent, and probably outside the mainstream of Roman Catholic theology.

Another Personal Rant: Melanchthon, Confession, and My Damnation

I read these things that Melanchthon said today and I could relate:

"The condition of Church affairs causes me anxiety which nothing can mitigate. Not a single day goes by on which I do not wish that my life was at an end."

"All the waters of the Elbe would not yield me tears sufficient to weep for the miseries caused by the Reformation."

He was not fully a Donatist, he cared about the unity of the Church (obviously not enough, but still). While others said that the Papacy was the Anti-Christ, Melanchthon said he would happily submit to it, if it only taught the doctrine of sola fide / the gospel as he understood it.

I also was re-reading the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. There were a few spots where I winced. This one especially to me seemed to be the entire Reformation summed up:

"when individuals voluntarily separate themselves from God, it is not enough to return to observing the commandments, for they must receive pardon and peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation"

This made me sad. It is this doctrine of Catholicism and Trent more than anything that frustrates me personally (though I understand the Church's defense of the doctrine, and it seems logical and scriptural and patristic enough for me). It is the idea that a person can cry out to God for salvation and not be received by him without the Church. The idea that God cannot save individuals, or rather that these individuals can have no assurance whatsoever of the efficacy of God's grace. Even the medievals said that to those who do what they can, God will not withhold his grace.

But let's make this really practical. Confession wasn't offered tonight (my only time off) and I was planning on going. As I've said before I COULD get up at 5 AM and go to confession at the scary Traditionalist parish. I theoretically could, just like theoretically I could get on a plane to Rome and find a priest there to give me reconciliation. But the reality is that it is not feasible, and that while I intend on confessing, it is not a practical possibility. For the last three weeks I have studied the bible and prayed and cried in repentance. But none of that matters. I am outside of God's grace. There is no assurance I can have. If my plane begins to crash on Thursday I can beg God to forgive me, but I can't know according to Rome.

None of this of course proves it isn't true, none of this removes Rome's claim to authority, etc. I am guilty, I freely admit it.

But there's just something that seems so wrong about it. So utterly unChristian. There is a complete revolting at this idea in my heart. It's the same thing Luther said in the 95 theses. Why doesn't the Pope empty purgatory? Why doesn't the church 'loose' the requirements for penance and declare the whole world saved, or at the very least, repentant Catholics who haven't received the sacrament yet.

This is the reason why I hate being Catholic. If this is Christ, bound in all the canon laws of the church, trapped by all the legal requirements. In the Lutheran confessions, the Eucharist makes the unworthy worthy, it remits sin, because it is Christ, and he loves and died for sinners. In the Roman Catholic confession, Christ is only offered to those who are worthy, those who have jumped through the sacramental hoops, it is a weapon to withhold from the politicians who disagree with the Church, or the remarried. It is a sacrifice where WE offer something to God, rather than receive something from him. It is a work first and foremost, and a blessing only after.

So while Catholicism might not teach that we are justified by the works of the Old Law, I hate that it teaches we are justified by the works of the New Law, or at least a work of the new law (confession). The whole purpose of confession is supposed to be that we are unworthy of God's grace, that Christ as highpriest has absolved us, not that if we do something, then God will forgive us.

I'm sorry this is a terrible rant.

I really like what Melanchthon wrote before he died:

"Thou shalt be delivered from sins, and be freed from the acrimony and fury of theologians" and "Thou shalt go to the light, see God, look upon his Son, learn those wonderful mysteries which thou hast not been able to understand in this life."



Lord have mercy on this confused Catholic trying not to be swept away on every wind of doctrine, but also to abide in your word.

More on the Faillure of Anglicanism

I want to enumerate more the reasons why Anglicanism failed in my eyes.

I could maneuver around the Caesaropapism if I tried hard enough. Surely a ruler choosing a bishop does not invalidate the sacrament of Episcopal Consecration.

The best defense I had of Anglicanism was my argument that a portion of the Church - validly ordained in apostolic succession - voted (even under duress it is still valid) to separate with Rome. Under the six articles of Henry VIII which were very Catholic, this could be defensible. It would be the same case the Eastern Orthodox made with Photius.

The problem arises not even with the Edwardian ordinal (making Anglican ordinations basically presbyterian ordinations of elders, rather than priests). Rome can argue all it wants about the invalidity of the liturgy, etc, but theoretically one could argue that Rome cannot change the catholic tradition of Episcopal Ordination and make requisite that "roman innovation" of the addition of "intent" to matter and form, for a sacrament.

The problem arises when one looks at the theological history of Anglicanism. Under the former Presbyterian John Tillotson as ABC (Archbishop of Canterbury), transubstantiation was declared a horrifying and immoral error in accordance with the 39 articles. However, Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict XVI could substantially agree (pun intended) on the Eucharistic presence.

If the argument is made that a body of bishops in the historic episcopate of England are allowed to descent and remain catholic, and that I may submit to them, then that means I have to submit to them and commune with them. This is the problem. If I live in the era of Elizabethan Calvinism, I can't talk about infusion of righteousness, and likewise after 1930, I can't in the Anglican church declare contraception (and eventually homosexuality) to be disordered acts. If I follow the logic of my apologia of Anglo-dissent, it leads me to Liberalism, not to Confessional Protestantism. Perhaps in the days before Women-Bishops and gay clergy, in the 1928 and the glory days of Anglo-Catholicism I could make my case and proudly be Anglican. But the reality of the situation is that if I wanted to cross the Thames, I would not be in Nigeria with the Anglican Church in North America or the Reformed Episcopal Church, I would be with Desmond Tutu and Katharine Jefferts Schori.

It is as Cardinal Newman so wisely prophesied: there is only Rome and Liberalism, and Anglicanism is the half-way house.

As I've previously noted, if I was in search of the 'comforting doctrine', that is, justification by faith alone, which would free me from perpetual fear, guilt, and necessary auricular confession, then I would not be obliged to look for it in an apostolically successing episcopate. The Presbyterians or the Lutherans, or the Baptists would do. As I cannot conceive of a non-episcopal church as in any way catholic, and as I am unable to conceive of women in the presbyterate -much less the episcopate- as being in any way catholic, I am forced to deny both the Anglican communion, and the Protestant communions.

This - I think - is my killer argument against Anglicanism. That it was possible to be one pre-1967, but after that, not likely. Luckily my argument only grows stronger as time goes on, as the Anglo-American churches are slowly killing their apostolic succession by adding women into the mix, who cannot receive the sacrament.

The Faillure of Anglicanism: Papists & Puritans

I guess I didn't clarify my choice enough yesterday. Paradoxically, the RCs criticized me for denying Anglicanism, and the Protestants didn't reprimand me for 'mindlessly' lapsing into Romanism.

I went to the Anglican Church in North America (the conservative one) yesterday with the intent to communicate, to give up Rome (at least for the day), and to have my cake and eat it to (get married & be a priest). But while I was there, I heard a sermon on Church Unity. He argued that structural unity with heretics is sinful (which is why their church broke with the ACC and TEC), and that the church has an obligation to follow the bible.

The argument the former Jesuit and almost Cardinal (died 2 days before the red hat arrived) Hans Urs Von Balthasar made was fairly simple. He had alot of proofs from both Scripture and Patristics, but I will just lay down the steps in the argument:

1. The Church existed as a visible reality.
2. The Church is allowed to teach, and it is a Christian's duty to obey rather than make private judgments.
3. The Church as a communion must exist until the end of time in the same form it initially had. (apostolic succession)
4. The flock/communion is fed by Peter as Christ commanded (Petrine Supremacy)
5. All who deny to commune with Peter's successor and refuse to accept the teaching of the church are lapsed.

The quote I used from Thomas yesterday was showing how Petrine Supremacy is a biblical doctrine, and how if the Church is a succession, that doctrine must find it's place in the structure of the communion.

The issue I have with Anglicanism is that it has historically proposed two models for church reform which I find uncatholic.

-Erastianism / State Interference, even yesterday we prayed for the supreme governess the Queen. Caesar/Rome/Pagan State Power is the Anti-Christ, and Caesaropapism is a heresy. Many can claim that the Vatican IS a State and thus falls under the same condemnation, but there is a difference. The Roman Church is related to the state incidentally, the English Church is related to the state fundamentally. This is one reason why the Puritans could not conform to the Church of England, which makes the Presbyterians preferrable to the Anglicans.

-Protestantism / Sola Scriptura. It's in the 39 articles, and in the end, the question is begged: what is the point of being an Anglican if you want to be a Protestant. There is a line in the articles which says that the first 7 councils of the church catholic are only to be trusted in as much as they agree with Scripture. Depending on your interpretation that could mean: bishops are unnecessary, infant baptism is an innovation, images in worship are forbidden, etc. It sets up private judgment as the second principle on which reform is to be made.

IF Anglicanism had said: the English Church will reform itself (as Richard Hooker claimed it did), then it should have done it by the authority of the church and through councils. Instead, parliament legislated doctrine (BCP), the English Civil War occurred, parliament re-legislated doctrine (WCF), and eventually monarchy was restored and we have the BCP again.

There is no place for the teaching of the church. The bishops are chosen by the State, and so the church is not allowed to teach, and every one of the churches teachings is subject to the judgment of the individual Christian and Scripture.

In such a case, it would be as Johann Adam Mohler wrote: "Without a doubt, if the Church were a historical and antiquarian society, if she had no self-concept, no knowledge of her origin, of her essence and her mission...She would be like someone who, by researching documents he himself has written, tries to discover whether he really exists!"

You have to start with Tradition. This is why - I think - Jaroslav Pelikan chose Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy allows no 'new' exegesis. It is TRULY an antiquarian society. If you find a 'new' reading of scripture (like sola fide) which none of the Fathers found, then you're reading it wrong. Anglicanism doesn't work because it is neither Catholicism nor Orthodoxy, both have their own interior logic, whereas Anglicanism is a Reformed Protestant church that forgot that during the Oxford Movement (which was universally repudiated by it's teaching authorities / the English bishops), and then eventually decided to either enter the Roman Church, or exist on the fringes of the ecclesiastical realities.

To break communion to 'purify' the Church is to simply become MORE Protestant, not less. It is only proving that there is no principle of unity, no structure able to keep the Church "one" as the creed declares she must be. It is Donatism.

Likewise, even the Anglican Church in North America ordains women to the presbyterate, which is so obviously a heresy, that I need not bother to refute it. I love the Book of Common Prayer, I love many Anglican authors and churchmen, and alot of their mission and understanding. On most days I prefer their liturgy to the butchering of ours that occurs weekly in the Roman Communion in Canada. But if I just decided my preference was what made my religion, that it was built on nothing else, I couldn't look an atheist in the eye again. I couldn't claim to be a reasonable person, or truly be a Thomist/Christian Aristotelian.

As Our Lord teaches:

"Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practise what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them...You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?" - Matthew 23:1-4, 33

The teaching authority, Moses' seat, which in Roman Catholicism is replaced by St. Peter's Chair, and it is to be obeyed, even if the people sitting in it are corrupt. Dante wrote that many Popes will be in Hell, and this verse seems to be a worthy proof-text for such a belief. But this is the fundamental difference: Protestantism like the Early Modern Revolutionaries and Calvin's Geneva Bible commentary, argue that you can legitimately resist an authority if it is tyrannical. The problem with this is, that only authorities can authoritatively define what tyranny constitutes, which means there is a necessary regress to anarchy.

God-fearing Englishmen and Commonwealth citizens on the other hand (like us Canadians), submit to "the powers that be" (Rm. 13:1). Catholics are called to the same thing. When Pope Paul VI spoke to the World Council of Churches, he declared "I am Peter". If the Church is a succession through all time, and an apostolical succession, one must submit to the Bishop of Rome. If the Church is not a succession, but can fundamentally change in structure and teaching, and only exists as a pure spiritual reality and sometimes visible, or partially incarnate (as the WCF says it is), then one must fully embrace Protestantism and Sola Scriptura, and become a dissenter of some kind (whether Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, or Quaker).

And while Mr. Bennett has made an argument against it, I still contend, that Sola Scriptura of necessity leads to Liberalism/Socinianism/Unitarianism. As Adolf von Harnack said "A dogma without infallibility has no meaning". Dogmatics are based on interpretations of Scripture. Without the Protestant Confessions claiming their own infallibility, what use is the Westminster Confession? Although the swift excommunication of the Federal Vision & New Pauline Perspectivists from the Presbyterian fold makes their case a little stronger in empirical reality if not in philosophical abstraction.

Thus between Papists, Puritans, and Prelates, it seems the last category is untenable. Now I'll have to find an argument against Presbyterianism, though I don't know of any off the top of my head aside from lumping them with Donatism (though that kind of inaccuracy is the kind of thing they sink to when they call the Roman Confession 'Pelagian', so I might need to go elsewhere).

Aquinas and Balthasar ftw...

"...a Church cannot be a "branch" of a historical unity which no longer exists" - Hans Urs Von Balthasar (The Office of Peter) p. 91

""our Lord says: “There shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John 10:16).

But let one say that the one head and one shepherd is Christ, who is one spouse of one Church; his answer does not suffice. For, clearly, Christ Himself perfects all the sacraments of th Church: it is He who baptizes; it is He who forgives sins; it is He, the true priest, who offered Himself on the altar of the cross, and by whose power His body is daily consecrated on the altar—nevertheless, because He was not going to be with all the faithful in bodily presence, He chose ministers to dispense the things just mentioned to the faithful, as was said above. By the same reasoning, then, when He was going to withdraw His bodily presence from the Church, He had to commit it to one who would in His place have the care of the universal Church. Hence it is that He said to Peter before His ascension: “Feed My sheep” (John 21:17); and before His passion: “You being once converted confirm your brethren” (Luke 22:32); and to him alone did He promise: “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 16:19), in order to show that the power of the keys was to flow through him to others to preserve the unity of the Church.

But it cannot be said that, although He gave Peter this dignity, it does not flow on to others. For, clearly, Christ established the Church so that it was to endure to the end of the world; in the words of Isaiah (9:7): “He shall sit upon the throne of David and upon His kingdom to establish and strengthen it with judgment and with justice from henceforth and forever.” It is clear that He so established therein those who were then in the ministry that their power was to be passed on to others even to the end of time; especially so, since He Himself says: “Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world” (Mat. 28:20).

By this, of course, we exclude the presumptuous error of some who attempt to withdraw themselves from the obedience and the rule of Peter by not recognizing in his successor, the Roman Pontiff, the pastor of the universal Church." - St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Contra Gentiles 4, 76. http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles4.htm#76

ok. I submit, and reject Anglicanism and other expedients as attempts for me to escape the divine command of being converted, the painful reality of sanctification, and my need to repent. It's not that I like Catholicism, it's that there is nowhere else. Henceforth, I will continue trying to find a way to like it.

I'm sorry for disappointing everyone who reads this at some point, either today, or in the last few weeks.

Is Rome any better than Oxford in Discipline?

""Protestantism and Popery are real religions ... but the Via Media, viewed as an integral system, has scarcely had existence except on paper." I grant the objection, though I endeavour to lessen it:—"It still remains to be tried, whether what is called Anglo-Catholicism, the religion of Andrewes, Laud, Hammond, Butler, and Wilson, is capable of being professed, acted on, and maintained on a large sphere of action, or whether it be a mere modification or transition-state of either Romanism or popular Protestantism." I trusted that some day it would prove to be a substantive religion." - John Henry Cardinal Newman "Apologia"

"That there is no perfect equation between the ideal and the real, that actual Catholicism lags considerably behind its idea, that it has never yet appeared in history as a complete and perfect thing, but always as a thing in process of development and laborious growth: such is the testimony of ecclesiastical and social history, and it is unnecessary to establish these points in detail." - Karl Adam "The Spirit of Catholicism" Ch. XIII

The criticism Newman levelled at his own religion after he had abandoned it, that is the via media (Anglo-Catholicism), was that it was merely a paper religion. From my experience in the Roman Catholic Church, I often wonder if my own religion exists merely on paper. It seems like the Catechism and a few conservative theologians (Balthasar, Pope Benedict XVI, and popularizers like George Weigel) are the only places you'll find 'confessional' (if I can use the phrase) Roman Catholicism.

Two examples of this spring to mind:

The first is my recurring problem with Concupiscence and Original Sin. I've asked many priests and Roman Catholics about this issue, and EVERY one of them has given me the Lutheran answer to the issue. Every priest and layperson has in one way or another argued for 'simul iust et peccator' (at the same time just and a sinner, or more idiomatically: at the same time a saint and sinner). I've heard the former bishop of St. Catharines come so close to teaching the doctrine, as well as openly heard another priest in my parish teach it, that I wonder whether there is any realm in the Church where Trent is still "believed and confessed" to be the work of the Spirit. I've heard Anglicans pray to "our mother Jesus" (Julian of Norwich is such a troublemaker), but I've heard Catholics deny the doctrine of Original Sin, claim that they've never heard of Purgatory, much less believed in it, and held views on Justification at odds with those of the Council of Trent. Perhaps Protestants are right in rejoicing at how "Protestant" many Catholics are, and indeed how many -by the Reformers standards- are 'saved'.

The second thing I find ironic in our Communion is how contradictory our doctrine and practice are. Listen to Vatican II's theology of the Liturgy: "every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ... is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree" (Sacrosanctum Concilium 7). Furthermore the council declared "the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows." (Ibid 10).

It all sounds great on paper, but what is the liturgy actually like in the Roman Church? I went to St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal, probably the biggest Catholic location in our country, where a Canadian saint is to be canonized and celebrated later this year, and the abomination I experienced there, they dared to call a mass.

During the Liturgy, the priest invented random prayers, he added phrases and stories, he changed liturgical actions, he removed the Kyrie, he added another great Amen after the consecration and then continued to talk in a conversational matter about the acoustics of the room while holding the consecrated host. It was abysmal. The liturgy of the word was nothing more than: God is love, be nice to people, don't be bad. The thing I find ironic, is the claim that the Anglicans only have liberalism and moralism. If that is the case, then we have quickly surpassed them. Throughout all the heresy I've heard (by our own Magesterium's definition) from priests and Catholic teachers and theologians alike, from the disgusting liturgical abuses, I honestly ask this final question:

Is there any point in Roman Catholics retaining the argument that their religion is an empirical reality and that other confessions (specifically Anglo-Catholicism) are merely "paper religions"?

The Strongest Defense of Protestant (Reformed/Barthian/Lutheran) Theology I can come up with

Just out of interest I thought I would try to write the strongest argument in favour of Confessional Protestantism, and see if I couldn't knock it down later. It is not that I am tempted to believe it, I just want to lay it down for my own understanding.

Faith and Reason:

The great Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth argued that natural theology and the use of philosophy in Christian faith, was 'where things all went wrong'. As Luther sayeth, 'the Theologian must first put to death the philosopher (Aristotle)', before burning the Summa Theologiae in public. Barth cites the famous unfinished symphonies as examples, surely no one can listen to the first half, and then using natural reason, discover the remainder, given any amount of time. This he proposed is what Roman Catholics do when they enter theology. Genesis 3:15 says there would be enmity between 'the woman' (Virgin Mary) and Satan. Examine that long enough, and you start talking about the Immaculate Conception, humans as Barth noted are "idol factories", and any attempt to add to the word of God with human words, no matter what the phrasing is 'development', 'unwritten traditions', etc, is sin.

Soren Kierkegaard in "Fear and Trembling" describes the divine command for Abraham to kill his son. Nothing in natural reasoning could explain this as logical. God is not a Being to be reasoned about, he is a speaking God who is to be trusted or rejected.

The Canon:

Roman Catholics ask how Protestants know which Scriptures are valid and which are not, as the Bible did not come straight from Heaven. Granted Barth would agree, BUT as the second Helvetic Confession declares:

"The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God"

All throughout the book of Acts, it is the declaration of the Word (invisibly in preaching, visibly in the sacraments) that leads to salvation. As it is written, "faith cometh by hearing" (Rom 10:17). While the succession of Bishops may or may not be valid (Anglicanism v. Presbyterianism), the real succession of the Apostles was their preaching. The church is described as witnesses to the resurrection, to the Christ Event, to something that had happened and was now finished, all that was required now was the preaching of it to others. By this message which was preached since the apostles, did the council fathers know what was canonical and what was not. (I could then develop the argument that the new testament was clearly agreed on, Romans says 'to the Jews were entrusted the oracles of God' as the prooftext for the 39 book proto-canon).

In the same way that Luigi Giussani argued that people today can encounter Christ only through Christ's body as an objective historical reality, so would Barth argue that people today are faced to encounter the preaching of the gospel as an objective historical reality.

Furthermore, God has no need of an institution to tell people what the Word of God is, and what it isn't, for Christ is "the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." (Jn 1:9), and because the apostle says:

"When God made a promise to Abraham, because he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and multiply you.’ And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise. Human beings, of course, swear by someone greater than themselves, and an oath given as confirmation puts an end to all dispute. In the same way, when God desired to show even more clearly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it by an oath" -Hebrews 6:13-17

If God swears Scripture by the Church then he is swearing it by human beings. As God has always done - since Abraham - he swears his covenant by himself. The gospel, as Barth notes, is not modified or evaluated by man, it can only be responded to. It is a message which is preached, it is an existential experience and an encounter.

Conclusion:

Christ says "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed" (Jn 8:31). For "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." (Mt. 24:35), and so by the direct command of God we must "destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Cor 10:5). Whatever we can discern through history or tradition must be subject to Christ, for he declares: "the scripture cannot be broken" (Jn 10:35). Scripture makes a clear dichotemy between the Word of God and the words of men, and such a dichotemy allows for tradition to be subjected.

Once they get sola scriptura/prima scriptura, they can then go on to quote Jer. 23:6 "The LORD is our righteousness" and make the imputation of Christ's righteousness argument, add Romans 4:5, and nail down Sola Fide.

Obvious Criticisms:

Philosophical Realism, Appeals to Church History, Claims of Anachronism, Attacks on Fideism, Appeals to Church Unity, etc. Standard Catholic attacks.

For instance, one could say this argument gives me no case against the Quran as the Word of God beyond: I don't feel that it is. It is basically just a fideist argument that defends irrational trust in a source based on the claim that it is from God. If it is from God (which cannot be determined except existentially/experientially) then it works as an argument, but if more than one faith claims true existential religious experience, then this has to be explained away somehow (usually be anti-Islamic attitudes or racism).

The fact that St. Paul also uses philosophy in the Areopagus in Athens to debate the pagans also destroys this nominalist/Lutheran division of faith and reason.

I'm reading a great book by Von Balthasar about the Petrine office, and he has some of the strongest biblical -and unique ones- arguments for the papacy, and once I'm done that book, I'll post the counter arguments to this thesis.

Even one of our Popes declared Karl Barth to be the most important theologians since St. Thomas Aquinas, so I figured I would set up the strongest argument for Reformed Protestantism using his emphasis.

Protestants reading this: let me know where it should be strengthened.

Catholics reading this: let me know problems with the argument.

Problem Solved: Three Responses to the Epistemic Challenge

This weekend I was discussing with a Presbyterian friend the issue of Epistemological certainty, and the comparison of Sola Scriptura with the Catholic understanding of Scripture, Tradition, and Magesterium. As I understood it, his challenge was that while Sola Scriptura is an after-the-fact method of discerning truth hierarchically, so is Papal Supremacy (which is necessarily the Roman position as our Church is defined as all those bishops, clergy, and laity in communion with Rome, which could reduce to Rome alone if it came down to it). This coupled with a wonderful service at an Anglo-Catholic church, and my own existential problems in Roman Catholicism, and obviously with my sin, combined altogether into one big crisis.

The First Response:

The first response I had from a friend who is likewise a convert was this: that the Pope is like the President in the American legislation, he is the executive and can veto bills which are difficult to overturn, he has majority support (at least when he enters), etc. But one would be incorrect to say that 'only' the President rules. A better example for a Canadian like me, focusing in British History, is the idea of King in Parliament. The ideal British view of government is to have a King-in-Parliament system whereby Parliament does their own thing, but is guided in rough times by the King. When the King becomes (or is perceived to become) to radical (Charles I), he gets beheaded and chaos breaks out. This reminds me of the Great Schism where 3 men claimed to be popes, until a council was called which shamed them into resignation one by one. This is the response to the Papacy alone argument - which in fairness, I don't think my Presbyterian friend was claiming, but merely an issue I had myself.

The Second Response:

I read on Called To Communion the articles on Sola Scriptura. The problem was, what we were discussing was more of a Scripture as supreme authority, rather than the only authority. This issue hasn't completely been resolved. The guys at Called To Communion argue that Sola Scriptura aways reduces to Solo Scriptura. To be honest I haven't read that post yet, so I will leave that as a contention for later discussion. Anyway I emailed the guys at the blog about this quandry and they responded thus (I hope they aren't pissed that I put their email up).

Dear Andrew,

Have you read Tom Brown's article on the canon? He shows why the Reformed position is deficient and it cannot be turned around on the Catholic position because we are under two entirely different frameworks. Since we Catholics do not claim sola scriptura, we are free to say that the Church infallibly selected the canon. But Protestants cannot do that because to do so would violate sola scriptura. Here is his article:

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/01/the-canon-question/

On the epistemic issue.. You asked if Catholicism was self authenticating like Protestantism. One thing to keep in mind is that Protestantism is not even self authenticating; it's self refuting. They teach sola scriptura but the scriptures do not. So there is nothing in the Protestant position that actually authenticates what
they say. Let's compare the situation to Jesus. How do we know Christianity is
right and Judaism is wrong? Well because Jesus is God. (i.e. because Christianity is right) :-) How do Jews know Judaism is right and Christianity is wrong? Well because Jesus is not God. (i.e. because Judaism is right)

Are these two positions equally self authenticating? No. There is external evidence that shows that Jesus is God - the Resurrection; His miracles, etc. So if Jesus can be shown to be God by external evidence, then it is not a self-authenticating position.

Now apply that to the Catholic-Protestant debate. There is plenty of external evidence that shows the Catholic Church IS the Church that Jesus (God in the flesh) founded. For this reason, the position is NOT self-authenticating. It is authenticated by objective external evidence. On the other hand, there is not external evidence that the Protestant position is correct. It begins with an arbitrary decision that only the Scriptures are infallible which is not taught by the
Scriptures themselves. For this reason, it's not even self-authenticating. In fact, the canon article above shows that it's self-refuting.

Hope this is helpful.

--
Tim Troutman

So that solved that.

Third Response:

I've committed agregious sins against Thomism in the last little while by studying all this existentialism, and flirting with Personalism. It at least gives you human responses rather than Medieval ones in categories that don't work in the world of Atomism (though that is only an existential argument against Thomism).

Luigi Giussani argues that there are 3 ways to approach Christianity, one is the Rationalistic which he labels as leading to liberal theology, the 'historical Jesus', etc. There is the mystical way, which he says leads to Protestantism as scripture is alleged to by personally self-authenticating and salvation can only be grasped through faith and so it becomes a mystical/spiritual experience rather than a corporeal one, and thus it always leads to subjectivism (I think this grossly underestimates the role of the sacraments in classical protestantism and Anglo-Catholicism and thus is only partially successful). Thirdly he says is the sort of 'realist' approach. The method he says is determined by outward realities (almost existence before essence methodology/phenomenology though I doubt he would say that metaphysically). In the third way Christ's incarnation is focused upon, the fact that he actually was a man, and his Church is his mystical body which is visible to us, and which we actually encounter. This is his argument for the church, that it is rational to actually live one's thoughts and encounter Christ's body (which he labels as the Orthodox-Catholic church), and that it is mystical to have the object of your rapture nearer to you physically and thus Catholicism has more mystics than Protestantism (though if every Protestant is a mystic...he contradicts himself). So that's his argument which if we want to stay objectivist we would have to accept. As always I would just add the warning: Anglo-Catholics and Orthodox can argue for their church too, and in the same manner.

Conclusion:

So I don't know if that solved the problems, I mean it certainly solves the challenges of non-episcopal, and non-sacramentally focused, a-historical, and anti-traditional Protestant churches (ecclesial communities), but still the high anglos with their newly 'purified' global south will continue to disquiet my soul, and I have this other problem where every time I read the bible I see the Reformers (I'm not saying it is objectively there, I'm just saying -personally- I see it). But I met with a good friend and the RC chaplain here, and he assured me to keep journeying and that we'd be friends even if I left "the Church". Which helped alot.

Personal Note:

As I'm reading Acts again, I am compelled by the amount of preaching that was done. Almost every account includes preaching, and I remembered the joys of preaching, and how much I love good preaching (which is sparse in the Roman Church). I am thinking that if I go into the religious life, perhaps I should be a Dominican, because if I feel called to anything, it is preaching and teaching the gospel. How ironic: a man discerning with the Jesuits is now considering the Dominicans. Welcome to my life.

The Authority Question (Again)

The Question:

What is the apostolic office?

The Problem:
We look back using reason at the early church, we see books that will eventually become Scripture, the Church Fathers, councils and synods. The problem is disunity in the accounts here. How do we know Origen was a heretic, or that Tertullian was wrong on Baptism, or that Pelagius was wrong on anthropology/Original Sin.

Answers:
Protestants take into account the fathers, the councils, and the books, and argue that by the very nature of Scripture (God-Breathed, Revelation, etc) it is superior to all other sources. This is an after-the-fact decision in an attempt to make up for difficulties and differences between Christian writers. Ultimate authority must be given to Scripture and it is thus assumed that Scripture is clear in its meaning. People cite inclarity between Protestant traditions as disproof, but one forgets that apostolically succeeding bishops disagree as well (Old Catholics, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Coptics).

Catholics argue that Papal Supremacy is the apostolic office (or Petrine office as they might say). That St. Peter's authority was passed on to his successors and that they exercise his role as supreme among the apostles. This argument is ironically based off of scripture and the nature of the church (Spirit-led) and thus epistemologically it is equal to the after-the-fact system of sola scriptura, as the transfer of Petrine authority is not clearly taught (just like sola scriptura).

There are (paradoxically) three different Catholic answers:

1. Two-Source Method: Some argued that revelation is stored partly in Scripture, partly in oral traditions. In this view St. Paul could have taught the church at Ephesus the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, or Indulgences. This to me seems a little ridiculous, but technically this is not a disproof of this view, it is merely my own incredulity. There are problems here in that many Catholic doctrines like indulgences, or certain Marian doctrines are not taught in the fathers. There might be 'seeds' but there is no fully defined doctrines as such.

2. Magesterium/Development Method: This was Cardinal Newman's solution, namely that as the church thought about these issues, over time, they managed to come up with new implications of each doctrine. I.E. Immaculate Conception from Genesis 3:15. Problematic to this opinion is that the Church declares revelation to be a finished process, this seems to add to the deposit of faith, which we have been told to guard (Jude 3) and presumably not to add to. Pelikan notes that the medievals stated that to add any doctrine was temerity, and so all doctrines must be proved to have been part of the deposit of faith.

3. Vatican II Method: Dei Verbum & Pope Benedict XVI seem to see Tradition as the bounds within which we are to read the bible. The Bible is the materially sufficient deposit of faith, and Tradition helps us interpret it.

Problematic is that each of these 3 views is on equal epistemological footing as Sola Scriptura. They're all after the fact ways of sorting out the problems of historical theology

Personal Difficulties

"Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt." - Cardinal John Henry Newman
(this will be the guiding quote for my new 'series')

I've been rethinking some things in light of personal experiences (I knew I shouldn't have taken that Existentialism course), and I feel obliged to wrestle with the concepts and issues at hand. Since -as the existentialists say- I am embodied, I have emotions and personal struggles as well as intellectual ones, and so I want to re-examine this in light of the whole person.

Personal:

I will explain by means of telling a story. In the last two days I heard two sermons. The first sermon was a Roman Catholic priest teaching the gospel. He taught that God grants us sanctifying grace in baptism and that as soon as we willfully sin we lose sanctifying grace, then we are obliged to go to confession to regain sanctifying grace, and that if we die without this, we are going to Hell. His pasage was St. Paul's discourse on our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. For him salvation simply meant, not sinning and receiving the sacraments. I felt guilty knowing that at that moment I was going to Hell, because I had lost my sanctifying grace on sunday, after having only gained it again the day previous. Despite all my pleading with God, I did not receive the grace again, and all the good things I did out of love for God had no merit, because I technically had no grace.

The second sermon was at an Anglican (network/southern cone) church (or ecclessial community if you like) and it was on the resurrection and lordship of Jesus Christ. (just to allay fears, I didn't break communion, though it was probably a mortal sin to even enter the church and pray with them). Anyway, the sermon was on the free gift of salvation God offers to those who believe and repent, it was about personally encountering God in prayer and supporting his (and/or the Queen's) church by being a witness to the resurrection. This sermon left me in tears, it 'cut me to the heart' to use the biblical phrase. But I knew I wasn't allowed to believe it, even though it was quite simply exposited from Holy Writ. I was very confused and the priest prayed with me afterwards and didn't counsel me to leave Rome or anything and encouraged me on my journey.

Now the problem is, there are two ways of attacking what I've written.

The Attacks:

One I know from my anti-Pentecostal training as a Baptist is that personal experience is 'null and void', any Mormon or Muslim can have spiritual experiences and that doesn't make it true. We are to follow duty and logic (as Kant would say) and that is to whatever view presents the most logical approach should be accepted.


The second argument is that when the Anglican was preaching it was appealing to some sort of psychological bias I have from all my years as an Evangelical, or much worse, it is Satanic heresy encouraging and appealing to my sinful desire by allowing for moral laxity.

The third argument is that there was a whole web of theological presuppositions to the Anglican sermon that were not mentioned, but merely assumed to be the 'biblical' theology (grace as favor Dei, justification as an event, etc).

The fourth argument is a sort of ad hominem mixed with Catholic guilt: The CofE (church of england) is full of homosexuals, women, and liberals and your duty is to submit to the Bishop of Rome whether you like it or not, or you'll go to Hell. Deal with it!

Response:

These are the kind of things I could argue - heck I could argue with myself fairly well - but at the end of the day I'm starting to think, maybe personal experience is more important than I've made it. Maybe there is some validity to what Jaroslav Pelikan would label as "The Theology of the Heart".

I am completely at a loss as to why I felt the real presence in the Anglican church in the city (when I don't feel it in the Baptist church for instance), or why the 'protestant' gospel still brings me to tears. Or on the reverse, why every time I hear Catholics preach it just sounds like either secular humanism or universalism.
I don't know what to do anymore.

The easy answer would just be to keep going along with Rome (which is what I'm doing as of now). But I long for Christ. I am told that any attempted dichotemy between Christ and Rome is a Protestant error, and that may be. But I just "feel" (again with all the warnings of why we can't trust feelings) that God loves me, that Christ's Spirit lives in me, even though I'm a sinner. Even though I've broken the rules, I don't believe God is condemning me (and I could be COMPLETELY wrong). But I just need some way of finding a coherent God. A God that doesn't love me on Saturday and hate me the rest of the week. I can't live that way anymore.

Perhaps the solution lays within folks like Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, and other Vatican 2 era theologians who promote a sort of pseudo-Protestant Catholicism. I just don't know... Soon to follow will be the intellectual/doctrinal difficulties that led me to question everything again.

Conclusion:

So in the end I've provided no reasoned arguments for Anglicanism, I've just simply said that in my "heart" (I've been told I understand this term wrongly, which is probably the case), I "feel" that its the truth. And who really cares what a stupid Canadian college student feels one day and not the other.

...

I need to pray some more. Thanks for reading.

Remaining Reformed-Roman Catholic Fights

So as I was examining the premises of both systems, I noticed that the Roman Catholic system is primarily based on an appeal to history and traditions as well as biblical arguments. It cannot argue on the basis of the bible alone, in the same way Reformed Theology cannot argue on the basis of tradition alone.

BUT the only way either group can argue, is by crossing over to the other's territory. So the only way Reformed Protestants will be able to grab Roman Catholic attention is by citing St. Augustine's doctrine on predestination perhaps, or the Council of Orange. Likewise, the only way Roman Catholics will ever get Reformed folks attention is by arguing about things like Federal Vision hermeneutics, Scott Hahn's arguments from scripture, and perhaps old issues like the biblical case for infusion rather than imputation.

I was making a list of prospective fights that could occur and this is what I've got so far (let me know if I'm missing a good one):

-supremacy of love / not sola fide / theological virtues
-obedience of faith / transformational righteousness/ infusion
-loss of justification/salvation?
-baptism

Two Puzzling Patristic Quotes

Every time I read the fathers I always try to see if they are teaching Catholic or Protestant doctrine. At the end of the day, the two main questions I think of the Reformation are: how serious is Original Sin/how free is Free Will, and the issue of Imputation. I like to think that I am still open to Protestantism if anyone can ever make the argument properly (though I wouldn't go beyond Canterbury, I've been spoiled with the beauties of High Church Christianity). Anyway, here are the quotes I found.

While reading patristic commentary on Romans for my Catholic bible study, I found this phrase on Romans 1:17: "he adds also righteousness; and righteousness, not thine own, but that of God; hinting also the abundance of it and the facility. For you do not achieve it by toilings and labors, but you receive it by a gift from above, contributing one thing only from your own store, "believing." Then since
his statement did not seem credible, if the adulterer and effeminate person, and robber of graves, and magician, is not only to be suddenly freed from punishment but to become just, and just too with the highest righteousness; he confirms his assertion from the Old Testament." - St. John Chrysostom (http://www.ewtn.com/library/PATRISTC/PNI11-6.TXT)

He seems to be teaching Imputation at the beginning, but later he says the person becomes righteous, which both Catholics and Protestants agree on, but it's that old question: are we judged on Christ's imputed righteousness or the righteousness which he makes our own in us through the Spirit? So depending on how you use this quote it could be manipulated both ways.

It's odd as some Lutherans / Reformers I'd heard thought Chrysostom was semi-pelagian.

Weirder than Chrysostom possibly teaching imputation is the next quote from Augustine teaching that for mature Christians scripture isn't even necessary:

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/02/augustine-he-who-is-mature-in-faith-no-longer-needs-scripture/

This is where the Reformed will yell at me for reading the Church Fathers because they're all abominable for their manifest popery. The problem seems to be that I find Catholicism and Protestantism both to have biblical arguments, so it becomes then an issue of Tradition. So far I've only seen Anglicans touch patrology. In Newman's Apologia that I'm reading slowly, he has some strong patristic arguments for Anglo-Catholicism, and I'm waiting for him to prove them wrong.

Anyway, today I was at a faith fair with a really cool Lutheran trained, Anglo-Catholic priest and we had fun. I have great hope for Rome and Canterbury, so many good people in both.

Sanctus Augustinus Canterburae Ora Pro Nobis.
(I'm assuming Canterbury is a 1st conj. Fem. noun)

Are Catholic & Reformed Epistemologies Converging?

I'm reading Hans Urs Von Balthasar's "Love Alone is Credible" and Karl Rahner's treatment of the Trinity, as well as considering the theology of Karl Barth, as well as that of Confessional Reformed Protestantism. Add to that Jaroslav Pelikan's last volume of Church History (1700-Vatican II) and you'll see where I'm drawing this.

In "classic" / Reformational differences, one important divergence seems to be this:

Reformed thinkers argued for a view I think best reflected by Cornelius Van Til's presuppositionalism. ie. You must accept that God exists and that the Bible (66 books) are divinely inspired. Until you do, I will undermine your worldview over and over and over, ad infinitum, until we get to my worldview. So eventually, everyone will accept sola scriptura, and when they open the bible they'll see double predestination, accept Calvin, and be saved, and we'll all live happily ever after.

This debatably stems from William of Ockham's rejection of Scholastic Realism in favor of Nominalism and the denial of universals. Thus Revelation and Faith were placed in opposition to Reason and Metaphysics. (though some Reformed thinkers have actually used Alot of Aquinas and to their credit, have come up with some good philosophy)

Roman thinkers have oppositely argued that the divine image implies a use of reason and that by using 'faith seeking understanding' and philosophical theology, metaphysics, etc, everyone in the world will eventually give their life to Aristotle, and come up with the Summa if they just try hard enough. And we'll all live happily ever after. (Although the Augustinians and some others like Bernard of Clairvaux have always rejected this kind of thing, arguing much more like Pascal that 'the heart has it's reasons' which the mind can't know).

So:

The sticky situation remained unresolvable, until recently.

Karl Barth came up with a beautiful exposition of nonfoundationalist Protestantism (partially Lutheran, partially Reformed), that caught the eye of Hans Urs Von Balthasar who came up with a beautiful exposition of nonfoundationalist Protestantism. Both of them kind of gave in to Van Til's method - a bit, not completely, you must note well - and argued for the supremacy of Scripture and Christ to EVERYTHING. Yes, even to some of our beloved traditions. Henri de Lubac apparently did something similar. Dei Verbum - the dogmatic constitution on Scripture in Vatican II gave over the Catholic hypothesis of the 2 source theory (Scripture + Tradition) in favour of the East Orthodox (Scripture as Tradition) theory, thus moving us another inch closer to Protestantism.

Now, in the face of Emergent church craziness, and Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic threats, the Reformed folks have kicked into high gear by reviving the "Tradition" part of their Tradition. Jonathon Edwards, John Calvin, and Martin Luther's books have been selling like hotcakes (except unlike these - which I've never seen sold, they're actually selling). Reformed Theologians are appealing to their creeds rather than "the Bible only" and using things like Chalcedon to smite Mormons, Unitarians, and American Millenarian Evangelicals and finally noticing that they're using Tradition.

Thus it seems Reformed Theology has stepped closer to Rome.

Conclusion:

I'm highly uneducated, and have only been involved in theology for 2 years or so, but it seems to me, that all this nonfoundational epistemology could mean new ecumenical possibilities for these 2 Traditions.

In a slightly different context, I discussed this with a Reformed Philosopher at my university the other day, and just by changing the philosophical groundwork, we were able to come to an agreement on huge issues. In that friendly environment, he admitted that Reformed theology functions greatly out of Tradition and that Sola Scriptura in it's sharpest understanding holds them back from alot, and I admitted that Catholic theology functions on the principle of claiming infallible statements, but then re-interpretting/defining them to the point where they are unrecognizable anymore.

Thus saw I the great influence of philosophy in theology. It undergirds everything.

So perhaps, if we could ever reach this kind of honesty, away from the glorification of either the Reformation or the Great Catholic Tradition, and simply 'gather round the cross' as Spurgeon used to say, we could come a few steps closer to reunion, even if nothing greater than that gets resolved.

But that will never happen, inevitably polemics will continue, new papal decrees on formerly heretical titles for the Virgin will be promulgated (*cough assumption*), and new books by R.C. Sproul and Michael Horton will be published against N.T. Wright and anything that moves against Traditional Sola Fide. And our children's children will be forced to continue these debates till Christ returns and tells us the East Orthodox were right and that all of us Western Heretics will be making license plates next to Origen, Erigena, and Marx for eternity, while our enthusiastic Greek neighbours begin to cross themselves backwards... (but that's just a guess).

Barth and Von Balthasar

Today while I was supposed to be studying for my Latin exam, I came accross a limited preview on Google Books (always a disaster) of "The Theology of Karl Barth" by (Cardinal) Hans Urs Von Balthasar. It amazed me the way that they discussed the division between Protestantism and Catholicism and it seems like they proposed the only solution to our disagreements.

Now the Confessional Reformed folks that I know seemed to pronounce Barth's name as anathema or near enough, but as I read Balthasar's synthesis of him, he seemed to propose exactly what they dream of. No ecumenism without serious discussion about a unity of faith, and 'doctrinal maximalism' as one person termed it. But interestingly enough, Barth didn't see issues like the Papacy or Sola Fide as the key to understanding the Protestant - Catholic divide, he focused on the fundamental differences, and linked Liberal Protestantism with Roman Catholicism in their trust in human reason. In this he seems to cut away these two great enemies of the Reformed kirk. Barth summed up as THE doctrine of the Anti-Christ as analogia entis or 'the analogy of being', understood as us speaking of God through analogy using reason and revelation. Barth's counter to this was the 'analogy of faith' using only scripture and not reason (allegedly).

While I think Von Balthasar had a brilliant defense against lots of these claims (Barth gives us too much credit when he describes Catholic thought as essentially unified on the Analogy of Being), it's interesting that he has argued that Protestantism is centred on Jesus Christ and his revelation as the fundamental theology of their movement.

I found it interesting that this seems to be a claim post-Barth made alot by people like Peter Kreeft and Fr. Corapi, etc. Von Balthasar's treatment of Barth (in the part that I read at least) seemed to be brilliant and he accepted alot of his criticism, but sought to make his Catholic theology - like Barth's - nonfoundationalist philosophically and this I enjoyed greatly as in some ways I see this as the only way out of modernism and relativism (though it's kinda relativist but that's a long story).

Anyway, I also found it interesting how Balthasar used Yves Congar's contribution to Patristics and Church History to show how every church schism is a loss, and that in countering Protestantism, perhaps Trent and Post-Tridentine Catholicism focussed unhealthily on works and institutions. While Von Balthasar clearly believes in their divine origins and affirms all of Catholic dogma, he is brutally honest in our need to revisit these issues and try to come up with a 'fair and balanced' (gah Fox News) view of the whole truth, rather than just the emphasis of one side of the truth.

All this is what I'd been talking about since I started my whole ranting about 'emphasis in theology'. So yes, I'm indirectly claiming that all of (post)modern theology got it's ideas magically from my own thoughts decades after the events themselves.

No, I'm not really saying that.

But it seems to me that this book "The Theology of Karl Barth" (which I haven't got yet) as well as the work of Karl Rahner and Von Balthasar's "Love Alone is Credible" (which I'm getting for Christmas) will help me piece together a more contemporary picture of the situation, and allow for more fruitful dialogue from both sides of the Tiber.