How has Higher Criticism effected your faith in scripture?

[Contarini]

That problem would seem to be endemic to some, for the lack of knowledge evinced encompasses not only knowing nothing about Fr Brown (he was a priest), but also not knowing anything about the many outstanding academics and scholars who have written on the Bible; not knowing what the Church actually teaches on the Bible, and the fact that none of these scholars who critique Fr Brown’s fantasies are “hostile to academic study” – in fact they are the ones rooted in the reality of fact over fiction as any serious examination of their critiques will reveal.

Once again we have Contarini pontificating that “I find prevarication all over these forums when it comes to Biblical scholarship, in the form of the intellectually dishonest ‘spiral argument’ which people trot out regularly”, which merely signifies his incapacity to understand the futility of his supposition, as clearly explained by Karl Keating in Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Ignatius, 1988, p 125-127, presented in post # 218 in the thread: question for “liberal Catholics” who disagree with certain church teachings in Apologetics/Moral Theology.

“What we really have is a spiral argument. On the first level we argue to the reliability of the Bible as history. From that we conclude an infallible Church was founded. Then we take the word of that infallible Church that the Bible is inspired. It reduces to the proposition that, without the existence of the Church, we could not tell if the Bible were inspired. As Augustine said, ‘I would not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.’ ”

So it emphatically is not circular. “We are not basing the inspiration of the Bible on the Church’s infallibility and the Church’s infallibility on the word of an inspired Bible. That indeed would be a circular argument.” [p 126].

“As Sir Arnold Lunn put it in a 1932 letter to C.E.M. Joad:
‘The Catholic claims to prove by pure reason that Christ was God, that Christ founded an infallible Church, and that the Roman Catholic Church is the Church in question. Having traveled thus far by reason unaided by authority it is not irrational to trust the authority, whose credentials have been proved by reason, to interpret difficult passages in the Bible.’ ”[p 126].

The spiral argument is not Church teaching. It is a popular apologetics approach. And it is patently bogus.

All your posts show that you are terrified of Fr. Brown’s scholarship and want to have it ruled out by mere authority.

I am not contradicting any teaching of the Church. I am contradicting an approach to the Bible which was indeed popular a century ago but has now been rightly discredited except in certain ultra-conservative circles.

And yes, this is the same language Fr. Brown used. It’s hard to avoid, because it describes the situation accurately.

You want to have your cake and eat it too. You want to ensure from the get-go that scholarship can never challenge the doctrines of the Church ,but you don’t want to admit that you are using the doctrines of the Church to limit scholarship, so you want to pretend that “good” scholarship, in some neutral sense, will always arrive at the right conclusions.

If you want to appeal to scholarship without relying on an appeal to Church authority, then you must appeal to scholarship freely and fairly, drawing on the entire spectrum of scholarship rather than cherry-picking those scholars who agree with a very conservative interpretation of Catholicism.

Fr. Brown was never condemned by the Church. He was honored by two different popes, one of them a saint. He was praised by Pope Emeritus Benedict.

You can’t get around these facts.

Edwin

 

[abucs]

Saying that Abu is scared of Father Brown’s views contradicting the church is as silly as saying that you are scared that Abu is pointing out the Catholic criticism of his scholarship.

It is equally silly to say or suggest that Abu is criticising scholarship as a field when it is obvious he is criticising the scholarship of very controversial figure.

Any writings of the late Father Brown should be argued on its merits.

That being said, those of us who have been in highly anti-Catholic heretical environments where Father Brown was considered a saint as justification for anti-Catholic heresy will applaud Abu’s very sensible warning - to proceed with the utmost caution when it comes to the scholarship of Father Brown.

That is a completely fair and balanced position and Abu is justified to provide such a warning without being derided as some sort of conservative anti-intellectual hick.

 

[Abu]

Contarini #101
The spiral argument is not Church teaching. It is a popular apologetics approach. And it is patently bogus.

Totally unable to refute the outstanding Catholic apologist Karl Keating’s logic, all that can be trumped up is the above fallacy, totally unwarranted again, naturally.

The reality is that:
Fact 1: There was a man called Jesus.
Fact 2: He claimed to be a messenger sent from God.
Fact 3: He did enough to prove that He was such a messenger.
Fact 4: Crowds followed Jesus and He had an inner circle to whom he spoke much more.
Fact 5: He commissioned His followers to continue His teaching and founded His Church.
Fact 6: Jesus affirmed that God would protect that teaching.

The writings of these facts—the Gospels – are comparable with other ancient documents from writers such as Caesar, Tacitus, Thucydides and others, they are all reliable as history.

Historically, they prove that the messenger sent from God worked many miracles to support His mission and teaching to the extent of forgiving sins. God as Truth cannot provide such power to prove falsehood, so the claims of Jesus are true, culminating in the fact of His resurrection from the dead.

So from the reliability of the Gospels as history, we now know that:

1. An infallible Church was founded by the Son of God
2. That infallible Church teaches that the Bible, as She has given us, is the inspired Word of God.

I am not contradicting any teaching of the Church. I am contradicting an approach to the Bible which was indeed popular a century ago but has now been rightly discredited except in certain ultra-conservative circles.

The fantasy of conservative and liberal idly sidesteps the reality of truth in religion and discredits the teaching of the Church as, in reality, Vatican II emphatically teaches:
“Therefore since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error the truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wanted put into the sacred writings. Therefore all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind." Dei Verbum, 11].

But of course the Contarini scenario has been set by Brown: ‘His favorite terms for the critics of his theories were the following: “ultra-right,” “fundamentalist,” “ultra-conservative,” “right-wing vigilantes,” and “extremists.” Their opinions, he insisted, had “no scholarly respectability.” Labeling like this, which in our society creates impressions not necessarily true or valid, raised doubts in many Catholic quarters about traditional religious formulas.’
A Wayward Turn in Biblical Theory, Msgr George A Kelly]
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8154

For the interested:
rtforum.org/lt/lt75.html
NEO-PATRISTIC EXEGESIS: ITS APPROACH AND METHOD
by Msgr. John F. McCarthy
The neo-Patristic approach is rooted in a radical and pervasive distinction between the literal and the spiritual sense of the inspired text and it proceeds by the use of an explicit framework of the traditional four senses, namely, the literal sense, the allegorical sense, the tropological, or moral, sense, and the anagogical, or eschatological, sense of the sacred text.25 The neo-Patristic method makes use of the insights of the Fathers of the Church, and of other early ecclesiastical writers, as well as the insights of medieval, modern, and contemporary exegetes and theologians, in the construction and use of a scientific framework of thought that is deemed adequate both on the level of faith and on the level of reason. [My emphasis].
Note:
25. There is an abundant literature of medieval writings regarding the four senses. See, e.g., H. de Lubac, *Exégèse medievale. Les quatre sens de l’Ecriture *(Paris: Aubier, 1959). This work is notable especially for the copiousness of the sources cited.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

“What we really have is a spiral argument. On the first level we argue to the reliability of the Bible as history. From that we conclude an infallible Church was founded. Then we take the word of that infallible Church that the Bible is inspired. It reduces to the proposition that, without the existence of the Church, we could not tell if the Bible were inspired. As Augustine said, ‘I would not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.’ ”

So it emphatically is not circular. “We are not basing the inspiration of the Bible on the Church’s infallibility and the Church’s infallibility on the word of an inspired Bible. That indeed would be a circular argument.” [p 126].

“As Sir Arnold Lunn put it in a 1932 letter to C.E.M. Joad:
‘The Catholic claims to prove by pure reason that Christ was God, that Christ founded an infallible Church, and that the Roman Catholic Church is the Church in question. Having traveled thus far by reason unaided by authority it is not irrational to trust the authority, whose credentials have been proved by reason, to interpret difficult passages in the Bible.’ ”[p 126].

You didn’t answer my question about the goal of a scholar, Abu. See above.

The reality is that:
Fact 1: There was a man called Jesus.
Fact 2: He claimed to be a messenger sent from God.
Fact 3: He did enough to prove that He was such a messenger.
Fact 4: Crowds followed Jesus and He had an inner circle to whom he spoke much more.
Fact 5: He commissioned His followers to continue His teaching and founded His Church.
Fact 6: Jesus affirmed that God would protect that teaching.

The writings of these facts—the Gospels – are comparable with other ancient documents from writers such as Caesar, Tacitus, Thucydides and others, they are all reliable as history.

Fact 3 is the centerpiece. But in order to believe Fact 3, you already have to believe that the Bible is true. Fact 3 cannot be supported adequately unless we bring in other evidence, like the blood of the martyrs and the resonance that Jesus’s teaching has on a “heart level”.

Sure, the Gospels have detail like Tacitus – but when Tacitus says things that are apparently impossible, historians doubt him. The same with the Gospels.

 

[Abu]

Prodigal_Son #104
Fact 3 cannot be supported adequately unless we bring in other evidence, like the blood of the martyrs and the resonance that Jesus’s teaching has on a “heart level”.
Sure, the Gospels have detail like Tacitus – but when Tacitus says things that are apparently impossible, historians doubt him. The same with the Gospels

[Fact 3: He did enough to prove that He was such a messenger.]

The evidence for the value of Christ’s miracles rests on the reality that Jesus Himself often referenced those miracles as proof of His mission and His teaching (a few examples: Mt 11:2-5; Lk 7:20-22; Mk 2:9-11). Since God is the source of this miraculous power, and being Truth cannot provide this power to prove a falsehood, the claims of Jesus are proved true. No vague suppositions can call out a man dead for four days – Lazarus. The miracles at Lourdes are another fact attested by science.

“Historians doubt”? That is useless as a statement, as historians come in all and no beliefs and intentions. Even the rationalist historian William Lecky wrote of Jesus “that it may be truly said that the simple record three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the exhortations of moralists.” History of European Morals, George Braziller, New York 1955, Vol. II, P 8-9; Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Archbishop Michael Sheehan, revised by Fr Peter Joseph, The Saint Austin Press, 2001, p 123].

 

[abucs]

… the rationalist historian William Lecky wrote of Jesus “that it may be truly said that the simple record three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the exhortations of moralists.” History of European Morals, George Braziller, New York 1955, Vol. II, P 8-9; Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Archbishop Michael Sheehan, revised by Fr Peter Joseph, The Saint Austin Press, 2001, p 123].

Great quote Abu. Thankyou.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

[Fact 3: He did enough to prove that He was such a messenger.]

The evidence for the value of Christ’s miracles rests on the reality that Jesus Himself often referenced those miracles as proof of His mission and His teaching (a few examples: Mt 11:2-5; Lk 7:20-22; Mk 2:9-11). Since God is the source of this miraculous power, and being Truth cannot provide this power to prove a falsehood, the claims of Jesus are proved true. No vague suppositions can call out a man dead for four days – Lazarus. The miracles at Lourdes are another fact attested by science…

I didn’t ask for evidence that Christ’s miracles matter. I asked for evidence they actually happened. Is this evidence, in your view, purely based upon the fact that the Church says they happened?

Also, you *still *haven’t answered my question. Let me ask it again:

What is the duty of a scholar? Is it to follow the evidence wherever it leads, with prayerful humility and diligence? Or is it to accept the Church’s position and try to defend it using whatever evidence is at hand?

 

[Contarini]

The reality is that:
Fact 1: There was a man called Jesus.

Even this isn’t proven beyond any shadow of a doubt, but it is extremely likely from a historical point of view, and may reasonably be taken as a given as long as one isn’t using the “spiral argument” in a way that requires absolute certainty. (For instance, many people try to use it to get around the problem of resting infallibility on fallible conclusions.)

Fact 2: He claimed to be a messenger sent from God.

Again, by normal historical standards this is pretty clear thought certainly more open to question than the first proposition. There are scholars who think that Jesus was more of a wise man along the lines of the Cynic philosophers, but this is a minority position and I think the evidence to support it is sadly lacking.

Fact 3: He did enough to prove that He was such a messenger.

Extremely vague in the first place, and in the second place it’s not at all clear that this is a historical fact. It’s certainly highly likely that people believed Jesus to be a miracle worker. But Apollonius of Tyana and other ancient people, pagan and Jewish, had reputations as miracle workers. The solid evidence that people in a position to know thought Jesus worked miracles is an important support for Christian faith, but it doesn’t prove beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus was a messenger from God.

Fact 4: Crowds followed Jesus and He had an inner circle to whom he spoke much more.

The “inner circle” claim, by its very nature, can’t be proven. By normal historical methods, whenever we find a claim that there was an “inner circle” that got special teaching, we become very suspicious, because it’s more likely than not that this claim is being made to cover up a lack of evidence.

Note that I’m not saying that’s the case here. I’m saying that by normal historical methods this would be an option one would consider very seriously.

Fact 5: He commissioned His followers to continue His teaching and founded His Church.

You can say this is a fact all day long, if you want to, but the actual fact is that the language about “founding a Church” is in only one Gospel (Matthew), even though the same incident (without the “founding a Church” language) is found in what is probably an earlier Gospel (i.e., Mark). That’s extremely weak evidence by normal historical standards.

Fact 6: Jesus affirmed that God would protect that teaching.

This is the most dubious of all, because it rests on an interpretation of a saying in the above passage which can be quite plausibly interpreted in an entirely different manner (offensively rather than defensively).

The writings of these facts—the Gospels – are comparable with other ancient documents from writers such as Caesar, Tacitus, Thucydides and others, they are all reliable as history.

Comparable how?

The only evidence I’ve seen for their “comparability” in previous discussions is the manuscript evidence. Which of course has nothing to do with whether the texts were reliable in the first place, only with whether we can be reasonably confident that the texts as we have them are authentic. For instance, there are people (way out there in terms of consensus opinion, to be sure–more or less equivalent to the people who deny that Jesus existed) who think that the writings of Tacitus are a Renaissance forgery, because they were unknown for centuries and I believe can all be traced to a single Renaissance manuscript. Clearly that isn’t the case for the Gospels. But once we accept that both the Gospels and Tacitus were really written in more or less their present form in ancient times, we haven’t solved the question of which, if any, of them is historically reliable.

Furthermore, you seem to be assuming that historians accept everything in the pagan authors you mention as historically accurate. Which would be nonsense. Caesar’s Commentaries, for instance, are essentially equivalent to our debased genre of “campaign biography.” They are very well written and tell us a lot of things about ancient warfare and culture, but no one assumes that because Caesar says something happened therefore it must have happened. That isn’t how historians work, and it especially isn’t how historians work when dealing with writings that have an obvious political or ideological ax to grind.

Tacitus and Thucydides are usually seen as pretty reliable, but even they aren’t to be taken uncritically. Both of them have a moralistic agenda (i.e., both of them see their respective societies as in serious moral crisis and are writing history to support that point) and no sane historian would rule out the possibility that at times they have elaborated on some incidents, suppressed others, or even perhaps made things up outright.

Historians are a suspicious lot. If you want to talk about what can be proven historically, you have to play by the rules. The “spiral argument” blatantly cheats by claiming to support its point historically and then ignoring all the normal rules of historical evidence.

 

[Contarini]

The fantasy of conservative and liberal idly sidesteps the reality of truth in religion and discredits the teaching of the Church as, in reality, Vatican II emphatically teaches:
“Therefore since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error the truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wanted put into the sacred writings. Therefore all Scripture is divinely inspired and has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind." Dei Verbum, 11].

Leaving aside the question of whether your interpretation of Dei Verbum is the only possible one, you are now talking about what is accepted on the basis of faith, not what can be historically proven.

This is, again, a blatant example of “cheating.” You keep trying to import the conclusions of faith (as you interpret them) to determine what scholars may and may not say, and yet at the same time you claim with a straight face that your conclusions are proven by historical methods.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too in this way.

For the interested:
rtforum.org/lt/lt75.html
NEO-PATRISTIC EXEGESIS: ITS APPROACH AND METHOD
by Msgr. John F. McCarthy
The neo-Patristic approach is rooted in a radical and pervasive distinction between the literal and the spiritual sense of the inspired text and it proceeds by the use of an explicit framework of the traditional four senses, namely, the literal sense, the allegorical sense, the tropological, or moral, sense, and the anagogical, or eschatological, sense of the sacred text.25 The neo-Patristic method makes use of the insights of the Fathers of the Church, and of other early ecclesiastical writers, as well as the insights of medieval, modern, and contemporary exegetes and theologians, in the construction and use of a scientific framework of thought that is deemed adequate both on the level of faith and on the level of reason. [My emphasis].
Note:
25. There is an abundant literature of medieval writings regarding the four senses. See, e.g., H. de Lubac, *Exégèse medievale. Les quatre sens de l’Ecriture *(Paris: Aubier, 1959). This work is notable especially for the copiousness of the sources cited.

I have no idea what this has to do with what we’re talking about. I am very much in support of this “neo-patristic” approach to Scripture, and I entirely agree that Fr. Brown’s methods are highly limited. Where I don’t agree is in the claim that they are contrary to the Faith or unworthy of respect and careful study.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Saying that Abu is scared of Father Brown’s views contradicting the church is as silly as saying that you are scared that Abu is pointing out the Catholic criticism of his scholarship.

But Abu has entirely failed to show that Fr. Brown’s views contradict the Church.

The Church never condemned Fr. Brown.

So why are Abu and others so worried about Fr. Brown?

I think the answer has something to do with the way conservative Christians (and yes, “conservative” is the right word here) try to rely on history to prove the faith while simultaneously rigging the game to make sure that historians don’t say anything that will question the faith. In the case of Catholicism, this takes the form of the entirely untenable “spiral argument.”

It is equally silly to say or suggest that Abu is criticising scholarship as a field when it is obvious he is criticising the scholarship of very controversial figure.

He’s controversial on this forum, and within very conservative Catholic circles. Insofar as he’s controversial in mainstream scholarly circles, it’s because some people think he was too conservative and too concerned about being faithful to Catholic doctrine.

So yes, when you or Abu call him “highly controversial” you absolutely are criticizing the discipline as a whole. You are saying that someone who stands in a moderately conservative position with respect to the discipline as a whole is “highly controversial” and dangerous to the Faith. That has obvious implications for the entire field.

I myself am quite willing to criticize Biblical scholarship as a whole. I think that modern Biblical scholarship is to a great extent myopic and reductionistic, and that Fr. Brown shared some of those faults, although to a more moderate degree than many precisely because of his strong and sincere attachment to orthodox Catholicism.

Any writings of the late Father Brown should be argued on its merits.

Which is precisely what Abu has conspicuously refused to do, over and over again.

Instead, he has relied on “name-dropping,” listing one conservative scholar or theologian after another instead of actually making an argument or citing official Church teaching.

All he’s established is that quite a few priests and scholars, and one bishop, had serious concerns about the implications of Fr. Brown’s scholarship, and that Fr. Brown dismissed these people as “ultra-conservative.” That tells us nothing about the merits of the case. Perhaps Fr. Brown was right. People can be “too conservative,” in the sense that they can be too nervous about new ways of interpreting the Faith and can falsely assume that these new ways contradict the Faith (as in the people who thought that St. Thomas Aquinas was corrupting the Faith through Aristotelian philosophy, or the people who criticized Blessed John Henry Newman for being “too Anglican,” or Fr. Leonard Feeney, who resisted the increasingly generous way in which Catholic theologians were interpreting “extra ecclesiam nulla salus”). The fact that Fr. Brown dismissed these folks as “ultra-conservative” doesn’t make him right either. In fact, his tone obviously was snooty and obnoxious, and I deplore it. But that doesn’t make him a heretic. Again, what needs to be done (and what Abu seems to have no interest in doing) is precisely to discuss the actual merits of Fr. Brown’s work and of Catholic historical-critical scholarship as a whole.

Edwin

 

[Abu]

Contarini #110
But Abu has entirely failed to show that Fr. Brown’s views contradict the Church.

The repetitive chant blissfully ignores the facts presented – it is only the blind that will not to see the facts presented by so many eminent scholars of the errors and intransigence of Fr Brown.

The Church never condemned Fr. Brown.

Those errors espoused by him have been declared false as Fr Echert has confirmed.

It is a fact that not being censured by name from Rome for errors does not mean necessarily that the person has not spread errors. Several examples come to mind, which explode the simpleton’s view.

Rahner, with some others, concocted the notion of a “fundamental option” of a type which denied the doctrine on mortal sin taught by the Council of Trent An Introduction to Moral Theology, Wiiliam E May, p 154-155]. Jesuit Fr Karl Rahner, was one of the signatories of a document dissenting from *Humanae Vitae *actually circulated world-wide by its authors so as to get support for it. [Refer *Christian Order, Aug-Sep 92, Jorge Molinero - Recent History of Theological Dissent (20 years of Parallel Magisterium), p 432]. No named censure from Rome, but we know that both errors have been censured by the Holy Father – in Veritatis Splendour (# 65-70) and in Evangelium Vitae, however.

Certain beliefs propagated by Origen were condemned centuries after he died by several Ecumenical Councils.

Fr Richard McBrien, SJ, has confused many and denigrated the Magisterium – US Bishops have censured much contained in his most recent Catholicism as well as his earlier work, but nothing from Rome has publicly condemned him by name.

Thus, nothing is proved by fallaciously reasoning that because Raymond Brown has not been condemned by Rome to date, while condemning theories which he promoted, that Brown must be in very good standing. The false theories have been condemned by Rome, not only by his bishop who named him, and Contarini’s reasoning is fallacious because it involves a non sequitur. When bishops govern and teach faithfully, Rome seldom needs to act directly by naming, but in the final analysis Rome chooses when to include names.

 

[Contarini]

The repetitive chant blissfully ignores the facts presented – it is only the blind that will not to see the facts presented by so many eminent scholars of the errors and intransigence of Fr Brown.
Those errors espoused by him have been declared false as Fr Echert has confirmed.

It is a fact that not being censured by name from Rome for errors does not mean necessarily that the person has not spread errors. Several examples come to mind, which explode the simpleton’s view.

Rahner, with some others, concocted the notion of a “fundamental option” of a type which denied the doctrine on mortal sin taught by the Council of Trent An Introduction to Moral Theology, Wiiliam E May, p 154-155]. Jesuit Fr Karl Rahner, was one of the signatories of a document dissenting from *Humanae Vitae *actually circulated world-wide by its authors so as to get support for it. [Refer *Christian Order

, Aug-Sep 92, Jorge Molinero - Recent History of Theological Dissent (20 years of Parallel Magisterium), p 432]. No named censure from Rome, but we know that both errors have been censured by the Holy Father – in Veritatis Splendour (# 65-70) and in Evangelium Vitae, however.

Certain beliefs propagated by Origen were condemned centuries after he died by several Ecumenical Councils.

Fr Richard McBrien, SJ, has confused many and denigrated the Magisterium – US Bishops have censured much contained in his most recent Catholicism as well as his earlier work, but nothing from Rome has publicly condemned him by name.

Thus, nothing is proved by fallaciously reasoning that because Raymond Brown has not been condemned by Rome to date, while condemning theories which he promoted, that Brown must be in very good standing. The false theories have been condemned by Rome, not only by his bishop who named him, and Contarini’s reasoning is fallacious because it involves a non sequitur. When bishops govern and teach faithfully, Rome seldom needs to act directly by naming, but in the final analysis Rome chooses when to include names.

You are ignoring what I actually said. I have several times explicitly asked for a list of Fr. Brown’s errors with the official Church teaching that they contradict. I did not insist that Fr. Brown must have been condemned by name for you to be correct in questioning his orthodoxy.

The best you can do is cite PBC documents from a century ago. Is that what your case rests on, or can you give official teaching from the past few decades?

Of course when a number of theologians are putting forward an unorthodox view, the Vatican may condemn the view without naming each theologian. But the point I’m making is that Fr. Brown’s views are quite common among biblical scholars, and yet the Vatican has not only “failed” to condemn these views but has repeatedly honored scholars, including Fr. Brown, who hold such views.

You’re caricaturing my position and, yet again, failing to give me what I reasonably ask for: a list of Fr. Brown’s errors with the official Church documents saying that they are errors.

I do not believe that even Cardinal Shehan condemned Brown officially–I believe that he simply gave a lecture criticizing his views.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Answer by Fr. John Echert on 12-10-2001 (EWTN)
“I share some serious concerns with the late great Fr. William Most with regards to certain principles and conclusions of Fr. Brown. Among those concerns I note:

1. Fr. Brown was convinced of the ignorance of Christ with regard to at least some knowledge related to His identity and ministry.
2. Fr. Brown actually argued that Jesus was wrong about certain matters, including His knowledge of the Old Testament
3. Fr. Brown did not accept the absolute inerrancy of Sacred Scripture, including the Gospels
4. Fr. Brown may have been confused with regards to the relationship between Sacred Scripture and Tradition
5. Fr. Brown appears to have had trouble accepting some dogmas of the Church in light of the texts of the Bible”

This appears to be your closest approximation to the list I asked for. But it still lacks actual citations from Fr. Brown as well as from Church documents.

“May have been confused” is hardly a specific or incisive criticism.

Edwin

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Just because the Catholic church doesn’t specifically determine that a theologian’s views are filled with error does not mean that they aren’t indeed filled with error.

The Catholic Church lets a lot go without comment–it doesn’t have the time to comment on everything. Many theologians are wrong–that does not mean that the Catholic Church has taken the time to comment and say that they are wrong.

Here’s a question that I would like the answer to: do higher critics believe that the miracles of Jesus either actually did take place–or at least that it is possible that they took place?

If they don’t believe in them or don’t at least believe in the possibility of them them why listen to them?

In other words if they don’t believe in the actual historical factual reality of Jesus’ resurrection then they are simply wrong and should not be given any creedance.

Bottom line: the Christian faith and the Catholic faith would qualify as fanatical and unsophisticated by some people who style themselves as higher critics.

All I can say is it is a fearful thing not to believe in the awesome power of God.

Always remember “the wisdom of man is foolishness to God”.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

In other words if they don’t believe in the actual historical factual reality of Jesus’ resurrection then they are simply wrong and should not be given any creedance.

But surely if we are trying to use historical criticism to make the truth of the Resurrection plausible, we can’t begin by silencing anyone who seriously entertains making a historical study of it.

(You can’t do scholarship if you don’t follow the truth where it leads.)

 

[Contarini]

Here’s a question that I would like the answer to: do higher critics believe that the miracles of Jesus either actually did take place–or at least that it is possible that they took place?

Some do, some don’t. Fr. Brown clearly did.

Edwin

 

[Abu]

Contarini #110
what needs to be done (and what Abu seems to have no interest in doing) is precisely to discuss the actual merits of Fr. Brown’s work and of Catholic historical-critical scholarship as a whole

That extant discussion has already revealed the demerits of Fr Brown’s multitudinous errors which have been clearly and factually identified by eminent scripture scholars in this thread.

Further:
**Regarding Father Raymond Brown’s form-critical approach to the Virginal Conception of Jesus **by Msgr John F. McCarthy, Jan 2008
rtforum.org/lt/lt133.html
[Brown’s *The Virginal Conception & Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (VCBR)

Excerpts:
‘He affirms that “the presence of the virginal conception in the infancy narratives of two Gospels carries no absolute guarantee of historicity” (VCBR, p. 32); that “modern Protestant and Catholic scholars are in surprising agreement on the generally figurative and non-historical character of the infancy narratives” (VCBR, p. 52).

‘The virginal conception of Jesus is a dogma of the Church (CCC 496, 510), based upon the conviction of the Church that its narration in the infancy narratives is historically true.

‘Catholic faith is an undoubting affirmation of the reality of the objects of faith, that is, of their historical truth, and it does not allow for a pluralism which negates the unity of truth or for a fideism that relegates the objects of faith to a non-real world of religious belief. This problem runs through the whole gamut of Catholic form-critical scholarship, in the sense that Catholic form-critics like Father Brown, while they do not deny the dogmas of faith, never address and resolve the deep undermining of the faith that is implicit in their form-critical reasoning, because they have not succeeded in establishing a truly Catholic form-critical approach. Father Brown doubts the historicity of the virginal conception reported by Matthew and Luke also on the ground that “we cannot be certain where they got their information” (VCBR, p. 31). But we can be certain where Brown got his presuppositions, and that is mainly from the writings of Rudolf Bultmann and others of the form-critical school.

‘Brown inserts conclusions into his exposition without sufficiently addressing the problems and conflicts that they raise from the viewpoint of Catholic exegetical tradition. The greatest scientific evidence that the virginal conception of Jesus is historically true is that it is guaranteed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and witnessed by the Angel Gabriel and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Actually, the burden of proof lies on those who question the historical truth of what these narratives say, but Brown shifts the burden of proof upon the evangelists and resorts to expressions like “modern scholars are in agreement,” or “many scholars are now convinced,” thus inviting his readers to give blind credence to the outrageous judgments that he and other form-critics make.

‘The lack of apologetic response characteristic of the pluralism of Catholic form-critics leaves by default the true objects of Catholic faith in the religious dream-world invented for the Gospels by liberal Protestant Scripture scholars. Certainly, the Gospels, as divinely inspired histories, have unique features that no merely human history could have. One such feature is the quality of inerrancy, while another is the spiritual depth that becomes evident in the light of the method of the Four Senses of Sacred Scripture. Unfortunately, Catholic form-critics have abandoned the precious insights of the Fathers of the Church in their somewhat unwitting use of the philosophy of the Enlightenment which so much inspires the method of form-criticism, a form of the wisdom of this world which can be flattering to the ego, but which leads nowhere.’ [My emphasis]

Hence the confusion and idea that “anything goes” – “you believe what you want and I do the same.” Convert Dr Paul Vitz describes this flattering to the ego, to egoism to self-worship, as selfism. Psychology as Religion –The Cult of Self-Worship, Eerdmans, 1994, p xi].

Brown downgrades the priestly order by alleging that the priesthood is not intended by Christ or found in the NT: “Cultic priesthood is never presented as a Christian institution in the New Testament.” Further, that the ordained priest is “commissioned by the whole Church, including the people.” (See Emmanuel, June 1980, pp 314-322).

Theologian Donald Keefe, S.J., rebutting this, on the Mass, points out: “the sacrificial office of the ordained priest, inseparable from the ancient Catholic understanding of the Church’s central act of worship, was the focal point of contention with the reformers, and is no less central today; only the dehistorization of the Church and its worship, through their subordination to some ideological nonhistorical abstraction, will suffice to displace this centre.”
[Cited in *The New Biblical Theorists Raymond E Brown and Beyond, Msgr George A Kelly, Servant Books 1983, p 94-96].

 

[Contarini]

That extant discussion has already revealed the demerits of Fr Brown’s multitudinous errors which have been clearly and factually identified by eminent scripture scholars in this thread.

No. It hasn’t. It has revealed that some people think he has errors. You have not given any actual citations from his works but have relied solely on hostile secondary sources. Nor have you cited any actual Church teachings.

Excerpts:
‘He affirms that “the presence of the virginal conception in the infancy narratives of two Gospels carries no absolute guarantee of historicity” (VCBR, p. 32);

And that’s obviously true. That’s a statement that any decent historian would agree with. He is not saying that the virginal conception didn’t happen. He’s saying that the fact that it occurs in two independent sources (which is a criterion of historicity) doesn’t by itself establish historicity with 100% certainty.

Who would disagree with that?

that “modern Protestant and Catholic scholars are in surprising agreement on the generally figurative and non-historical character of the infancy narratives” (VCBR, p. 52)

That’s controversial, and does indeed commit the fallacy of excluding conservative scholars, I think. The question is whether in fact the Church’s clear teaching that the Gospels as a whole are historical necessarily applies to every section of the Gospels. Certainly Fr. Brown is here pushing the boundaries of the Church’s statement about the historicity of the Gospels. But arguably the Church’s affirmation that the Gospels describe truly what Jesus “said and did for our salvation” doesn’t apply as clearly to the infancy narratives. Brown is, I think, quite right in saying that these narratives have a different character and that it’s rather unclear where the material would have come from. (He criticizes the traditional view, to which I am inclined, that Luke preserves the Blessed Virgin’s perspective on events–I don’t remember the specifics of his arguments, but I remember finding them formidable at the time I read them.)

I think this is clearly one of the points where he’s most open to criticism. But it is important to note what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say that the virginal conception didn’t happen.

‘The virginal conception of Jesus is a dogma of the Church (CCC 496, 510), based upon the conviction of the Church that its narration in the infancy narratives is historically true.

You’re implying sola scriptura with that last phrase. Catholic dogmas do not rest on Scripture alone, and they certainly do not rest on Scripture alone as interpreted by historical methods.

‘Catholic faith is an undoubting affirmation of the reality of the objects of faith, that is, of their historical truth

That the pertinent events really happened, yes. But there is a difference between affirming by faith that something happened and claiming that it can be proved historically.

This is where the “spiral method,” again, is bogus. It claims to rest on historical evidence, but it refuses actually to judge the evidence by normal historical methods. When scholars like Fr. Brown use normal historical methods, you and other conservatives raise a hue and cry. Well, you have to choose: either you give up the attempt to support the faith by historical arguments or you respect the rules of historical inquiry.

and it does not allow for a pluralism which negates the unity of truth or for a fideism that relegates the objects of faith to a non-real world of religious belief.

Indeed. But the assumptions here are telling: that religious belief is non-real, because only what is historically provable is real. This is the cage that “conservatives” (for lack of a better term) have locked themselves into. You think that you have to prove everything historically, and so you wind up doing violence to the process of historical inquiry to assure that you get the right result. Hence you respond in shock to a pretty obvious claim like “independent attestation in two sources is not an absolute guarantee of historicity.”

When Fr. Brown says that he accepts the teachings of the Church by faith even if they can’t be proved historically, he is not relegating faith to the “non-real.” He is simply saying that we believe by faith things that cannot be proved with certainty by merely historical methods. Nothing heretical there at all.

This problem runs through the whole gamut of Catholic form-critical scholarship, in the sense that Catholic form-critics like Father Brown, while they do not deny the dogmas of faith

And there we are. That ought to settle the question of whether he’s a heretic right there!

never address and resolve the deep undermining of the faith that is implicit in their form-critical reasoning, because they have not succeeded in establishing a truly Catholic form-critical approach.

Father Brown doubts the historicity of the virginal conception reported by Matthew and Luke also on the ground that “we cannot be certain where they got their information” (VCBR, p. 31).

And what is the response to this?

 

[Contarini]

But we can be certain where Brown got his presuppositions, and that is mainly from the writings of Rudolf Bultmann and others of the form-critical school.

How does Msgr. McCarthy know this with such certainty?

Brown inserts conclusions into his exposition without sufficiently addressing the problems and conflicts that they raise from the viewpoint of Catholic exegetical tradition. The greatest scientific evidence that the virginal conception of Jesus is historically true is that it is guaranteed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and witnessed by the Angel Gabriel and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Of course, the first guarantee is only available to faith and not to historical inquiry, and is not denied by Brown. The second is questionable in purely historical terms. The Angel Gabriel has not left us his perspective. The Blessed Virgin may have. Brown gives reasons for thinking that this isn’t the right way to read the Lucan infancy narratives, and you could address these if you think they are wrong. (I’m not sure they are right, myself, though as I said I found them formidable at the time and would need to go back and refresh my memory before committing myself one way or the other). Certainly Luke is not a direct, first-hand account by the BVM, and her presence as a source is by no means provable historically.

Actually, the burden of proof lies on those who question the historical truth of what these narratives say

Why? That inverts all normal historical method.

The burden of proof is always on the one who asserts, not on the one who questions.

but Brown shifts the burden of proof upon the evangelists and resorts to expressions like “modern scholars are in agreement,” or “many scholars are now convinced,”

It’s hard to avoid this when summarizing scholarship, but I agree that he overuses this device.

‘The lack of apologetic response characteristic of the pluralism of Catholic form-critics

I don’t know (and so far have not been shown any reason to care) what Msgr. McCarthy means by “pluralism.”

What he means by “apologetic response” is apparently an intellectually dishonest commitment to have one’s conclusion fixed in advance. He wants Catholic scholars not only to commit themselves to the truth of the Faith (which he agrees Fr. Brown did) but to do scholarship in such a way as to prove the doctrines of the Church historically. He is interested in the result, and not apparently in the integrity of the method. He questions Fr. Brown’s methods because they don’t arrive at the “right” result.

In fact, Fr. Brown’s methods provide a very solid foundation for apologetics–far more solid than the utterly untenable and shoddy “spiral method” endorsed unwisely by Mr. Keating. Fr. Brown’s method gives more modest results. But they are solid.

leaves by default the true objects of Catholic faith in the religious dream-world invented for the Gospels by liberal Protestant Scripture scholars.

Again, I note that apparently for Msgr. McCarthy anything that can’t be proven by strictly historical methods is in a “dream-world.”

Certainly, the Gospels, as divinely inspired histories, have unique features that no merely human history could have. One such feature is the quality of inerrancy,

Is he suggesting that inerrancy can be proven historically?

while another is the spiritual depth that becomes evident in the light of the method of the Four Senses of Sacred Scripture.

But the four senses are not a form of historical proof. You can’t prove that the four senses are “real.” They are a way of reading–by far the best way, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, Catholic form-critics have abandoned the precious insights of the Fathers of the Church in their somewhat unwitting use of the philosophy of the Enlightenment

I actually agree with this, and with Pope Benedict who has made this point (far better, and more moderately, than Msgr. McCarthy). Modern Biblical scholarship is too reductionistic. But it’s valuable as far as it goes–in determining the probable historical context for Scripture and in laying the groundwork for apologetics by distinguishing (just as St. Thomas Aquinas did in philosophy centuries ago) between what can be proven by methods accessible to all and what is dependent on the assent of faith. Msgr. McCarthy would have us believe that the latter is a “religious dream-world.” In this, Msgr. McCarthy is the one undermining the Faith. Similarly, all who use the “spiral argument” are undermining the Faith (which is why I attack that argument and will do so at every opportunity as long as I live, unless I succeed in destroying its credibility among Catholics).

Hence the confusion and idea that “anything goes” – “you believe what you want and I do the same.

This doesn’t make sense. Fr. Brown obviously doesn’t think anything goes, or he wouldn’t be so careful to establish what can and can’t be proven.

Brown downgrades the priestly order by alleging that the priesthood is not intended by Christ or found in the NT: “Cultic priesthood is never presented as a Christian institution in the New Testament.”

That quote seems pretty obviously true to me. If it is so presented, where is it presented?

It’s one of the basic objections to Catholicism. Catholics need to take it seriously instead of denying the validity of the question.

If Fr. Brown really says that the priesthood isn’t intended by Christ, then he’s going too far–but of course, again he’s speaking in historical terms.

Further, that the ordained priest is “commissioned by the whole Church, including the people.” (See Emmanuel

, June 1980, pp 314-322).

This I think needs to be unpacked more. What is his evidence for this, and how is it heretical?

Edwin

 

[Abu]

Further demerits identified.

Regarding Father Raymond Brown’s form-critical approach to the Virginal Conception of Jesus
by John F. McCarthy
No. 133, January 2008
Excerpts:
“11. The misleading character of Brown’s line of argument against the historicity of the infancy narratives is confirmed in his later book, The Birth of the Messiah (herein BM).11

“16. While Brown virtually admits that his and other form-critical speculations on earlier phases of the Gospels really don’t prove anything (BM, p. 119), he works hard at undermining the truth of the one text that we have. For instance, he claims that the idea for the fabrication of the pattern of false episodes narrated by Matthew from the virginal conception (Matt 1:18ff.) to the return of the Holy Family from Egypt (Matt 2:23) was basically suggested by adapting the story of Moses in Egypt as narrated in the Book of Exodus, with a couple of additional elements borrowed from the story of Joseph the Patriarch (BM, p. 138). The idea of Catholic exegetical tradition that these parallels between the Old Testament and the New Testament were made by the divine Author for typological and allegorical reasons gets no consideration at all in the form-critical thinking here. Brown has to follow the naturalistic presupposition of the form-critical method that these things could not really have happened, because, once one admits that they could really have happened, the whole form-critical method falls to pieces.”

“20. Summary and prospectus. Catholic form-criticism today is not independent of the naturalism of the Bultmannian School of Scriptural exegesis, as was eloquently pointed out by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1988 (no. 1 above). Father Raymond Brown’s observation that the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke are not “simply factual reporting” but are “documents of faith” (no. 3 above) seems to indicate a lack of scientifically precise definitions of terms as well as the absence of a developed idea of the proper relationship between reason and the objects of faith. As an example in point, his questioning whether the biological fact of the virginal conception of Jesus is really attested to by Matthew and Luke does not seem adequately to take into account either the important scientific distinction between the finis operis and the finis operantis of historical writings or even the precise nature of “scientifically controllable evidence” (nos. 4 and 19 above).
Notes:
11 Raymond Brown, *The Birth of the Messiah *(Garden City: Doubleday, 1977).
rtforum.org/lt/lt133.html