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

I Guess I'm Back.

The Situation:

Well. Rev. Jay has caused enough existential crisis for me to come crawling back to issues I would've preferred to forget for the rest of my life, locked up in my Thomist castle.

Since I've started this blog I've been Baptist, Mennonite, Presbyterian, Reformed, Anglican, and Roman Catholic. Again, unlike it seems every other Christian, the only leading I get from God is what my co-religionists tell me his leading is.

I've learned alot about human nature. It never fails to amaze me how little Christians genuinely care about souls. For example, most of my friends were connected through Religion to me, and when I went CofE they began turning their heads, and when I went RC, I was cut off. My family was horrified enough at Reformed, let alone RC. I've realized that for most people Religion is a matter of who we hate, and who we are better than. The only communion I've ever been in that has refused triumphalism is the Church of England. The Anglicans know humility if they know nothing else.

I guess I should outline the reason I'm coming back to polemics / controversial theology. Only now did a Protestant inform me that philosophically/epistemologically, Papal Supremacy and Sola Scriptura are equal in rationality. Both are "essentially perspicuous and self-authenticating" to quote the aforementioned Calvinist. The scary thing is he's right. Both are 'developments', and a posteriori methods of determining what is valid in scripture and tradition.

Now here's the thing, like I said, they're equal. This doesn't mean Protestantism has "won" by any means, but it means that Rome has likewise not "won".

The Obvious Question:

As a child of the Billy Graham era, and in the Western Christian / Augustinian world we live in, many would ask me: What does your heart tell you? or how do you 'feel'.

I've already said that I don't feel any emotional attachment really to any set of doctrines. Sure I have Catholics, Protestants, and Anglicans I love and I miss them, but as for beliefs and spirituality I'd say my only preference has ever been Anglicanism. There's something about the CofE, there's a way they have both the best of Catholicism and Protestantism. But of course, with new gay liturgies on one side, and crazy african bishops on the other, one might say the glory days of Canterbury are over (if there ever were any). Plus, one is tempted to argue that replacing the Bishop of Rome with the Supreme Governess, her Majesty, wouldn't change much.

So I've re-shaped my life now to fit into Catholicism, I'm discerning for the Jesuits for crying out loud. It's not a fun place to be. I hate uncertainty, and I'm not gonna convert to anything any time soon. I'm done with that stuff.

Conclusion:

In the end, every theology has its own problems and difficulties, one must pick whatever seems best to themself, and the premises one assumes will then judge other systems. Throughout the whole journey, suprisingly little has changed in my Christian 'walk'. I'm still a porn addict, I'm still morbidly obese, I still read my bible, I still go to church every week, I still fight with my parents about theology almost weekly. I guess the only thing that has changed is that I pray the rosary almost daily, and I try to go to confession once a week. I've also learned alot about theology and philosophy.

I really wish God would just tell me what to do, every day without word from him is like another nail in the coffin of Theism. Gibbon and Bolingbroke would simply tell me that God is there, but he just doesn't want to get involved.

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).