So how exactly is he “not nearly as insistent”? His tone is no doubt different because he’s engaging in a work of scholarship, and I’m engaged in an online argument. If you look at how I have responded to Catholics who overstate the evidence for their position, I think you’ll find that my overall tone isn’t as “insistent” as it appears in this context.
this is quite the spin. Please remember that this is supposed to be a miraculous chain of succession
I don’t think it’s strictly miraculous. Providential and sacramentally grace-filled, rather.
that extends from Christ and the apostles through to the current bishops including the Pope. One doesn’t judge the quality of a chain based on how shiny and sound the last few links are.
No, indeed. But as you admit, on the Catholic hypothesis the “chain” doesn’t depend on the “shininess” of the links.
At the Reformation many people concluded that the chain was broken, not simply because of the immorality of the Popes but because of their apparent corruption of the Gospel. Bear in mind that the chain in question is the preservation of the Gospel. 500 years later it now appears that
a. Many of the “essential” elements of the Gospel claimed by the Reformers are just particular, culturally shaped readings of the Gospel with plenty of flaws of their own;
b. Protestant churches have been subject to plenty of “corruption” of their own, so that in many ways Rome often functions, even by Protestant standards, as a measuring rod that helps call us back to greater faithfulness (the former was certainly envisioned by the Reformers, but I really don’t think the latter was, in any serious way); and
c. Catholic doctrine has “developed” in such a way that ideas that appeared indefensible at the time now just seem to have been formulated in some flawed, overly legalistic ways, with the basic principles turning out not just to be salvageable but actually far superior to the Protestant principle that criticized them. More precisely, in many cases Protestants turned out to accept some of the basic flaws of the Catholic doctrines they criticized, and writing those flaws more fundamentally into their doctrine than was case in the original Catholic doctrine. An obvious case is the idea of imputation in the doctrine of justification, which is basically taken from the doctrine of indulgences–where indulgences say that Christ’s merits and those of the saints may be “transferred” for the remission of temporal punishment based on devotional acts, sola fide says that Christ’s merits alone are transferred, on the basis of faith alone, for the purpose of remission of all the guilt and penalty of all one’s sins, past, present, and future. The idea of a “transfer of merit,” which is the fundamental flaw in late medieval indulgence theology in the first place, has been put on a sounder basis but in so doing has been expanded and given a far more fundamental place in Christian theology. Thus, Catholicism can simply say “well, the whole ‘transfer of merit’ business is too financial/legalistic–let’s find another way of expressing the truth that the communion of the saints contributes to our sanctification through use of the means of grace.” Classical Protestants, on the other hand, have committed themselves to the idea that imputation is the heart of the Gospel.
The proclamation of the Gospel by recent Popes (not just their general integrity and holiness–obviously that’s a witness too, but not the most relevant point to which I was appealing) is a dramatic summary of the preceding reasoning. In other words, the Reformation was justified because Rome had hopelessly corrupted the Gospel. It turns out that some of the “reforming” moves actually embedded problematic late medieval theology even
more deeply into the structure of Protestantism than had been the case in medieval Catholicism (kind of like the warnings they give you about removing ear wax with a cotton-wool probe), and that Catholicism was quite capable, given time, of figuring out that some bits of its heritage needed tweaking and that the Protestants made some very good points if rightly understood in relation to previous tradition.
On the Protestant hypothesis, that seems unlikely. So to put it simply: I think Catholicism explains Protestantism better than vice versa.
Men of integrity are exactly what the pastorals specified….they should be the norm and not a thing that contrasts so dramatically with corrupted links of the past that one is awed by the change.
Again, you misunderstand my point. And I think you have a far more optimistic view of the church in general than I do. If you live within a church context that allows you to demand integrity and holiness of your pastors (on condition of leaving the church and finding a better one) without falling into a destructive pattern of arrogance and lack of charity, then I applaud you. I myself lived within a radically Protestant context for 20+ years. I was shaped by it and knew many of its diverse corners. And I found, consistently, that “Donatist” principles lead exactly where St. Augustine said they lead–to endless division and to a subversion of the principle of charity. The tragic commitment of Catholics to a deeply corrupted church doesn’t appeal to shiny American optimism. But I see no alternative to it if we are going to live the lives of charity and humility that we are called to live as Christians, and if we are going to take Jesus’ call to unity seriously.
Plausibility points are not gained by now having what should have always been.
It depends on what the “plausibility” is. If the debate is whether the Gospel has been corrupted in a way that can’t be reformed without the RCC ceasing to exist as we know it, then the proclamation of the Gospel by recent Popes does gain quite a few “plausibility” points. You’re talking about something quite different than what I’m talking about.
Further, one should note the modern media’s coverage of the Pope’s election and his actions in office and also the freedom of Catholics to now go elsewhere. Given that coverage and freedom, is it even reasonable to expect that the modern Popes could be anything but shiny links?
Sure it is. I note the distinct lack of shininess of many Catholic and Protestant clergy in spite of said coverage and freedom!
But again, you mistake the specific point I’m making about the Gospel for something much vaguer.
and then I note that the qualities of an apostles that could be less subjectively measured (as in the mark of an apostle to do miracles and the possession of an impeccability/fruits of the HS of an astounding level so as to be consistent with the unique presence of the HS that is claimed for the office and its gift) are exactly the things that the Catholics say weren’t passed on…. seems just a little too convenient.
I think that the things you say could be measured are actually fairly difficult to measure. I mean, it’s easy to say that the Renaissance Popes weren’t impeccable or even remarkably holy, so sure, on that level. . . . but obviously we could argue over whether JPII exhibited remarkable fruit of the Spirit or was just a charismatic person in the secular sense of the word. (I certainly think the former, but I wouldn’t claim that it’s “objective.” Indeed, I don’t put much stock in the idea of “objectivity”!) And similarly, whether certain Renaissance Popes were as depraved as legend has it or just flawed people trying to do a difficult job is a matter of some dispute.
But certainly you put your finger on the parallel difficulty in Catholicism to the difficulty I’ve been pointing out in Protestantism. In other words, Catholics say that God preserves the Church from formal doctrinal error while allowing all kinds of moral corruption and failure in properly articulating and proclaiming the Gospel. This is a serious difficulty in Catholicism, and if you were to engage in the unenviable task of reading my posts consistently you’d see that I’ve argued this point with Catholics over and over. They tend to be way too blind to the difficulty.
However, in the final analysis I think the Catholic position is more reasonable. Largely I conclude this based on my own experience, mentioned above, with Donatist or quasi-Donatist forms of Protestantism. When I discovered St. Augustine’s anti-Donatist arguments as a teenager, they were spiritually life-saving, because I realized that my discontent both with the sectarian ecclesiology of many of my fundamentalist friends and neighbors and with the radical spiritualism of my family (an “invisible Church” ecclesiology taken very far indeed) resonated with the teaching of this great theologian of the early Church, and that the issues I dealt with had been faced by the early Church.
If you find some kind of Donatist ecclesiology to “work,” in terms of allowing the building of a Christian community committed to unity with other Christians and fostering charity and humility among its members, then by all means go for it. I’ll do my best to foster unity as I believe God guides me to do, and you do it as God guides you to do it, and hopefully some day in glory we’ll find out which of us was right–or we’ll joyfully acknowledge that we were both more wrong than we could have imagined!
But based on my own experience and my reading of Scripture and the Christian tradition, I stand by my conclusion that Donatist ecclesiology is radically destructive.
Edwin
I can go exegetically with those verse by verse
.
!!! Next Tuesday evening at our left-handed-men-who-wear-glasses service, I plan to confront my pastor as to how he, being infallible, could have forgotten to tell me that the true Church was underground!!! ( Right after I eat some of Mrs. Hilda’s tuna casserole, which is really good. )
