what we do have is a mountain of evidence. The Catholic Church is a Church of witnesses. We believe in the divinity of Christ thanks to the witness of the earliest Christians, who were martyred for their faith. If we believe this witness (while not being actual “proof”) is sufficient to believe in the divinity of Christ as being an objective truth, then surely it is possible to believe in other things with as much confidence, so long as there is a sufficient witness to these other things. My claim (to be verified) is that there is sufficient witness to the infallibility of the Church of Rome.
Yet the differences between the two situations lie in the volume of support and the presence of contradiction. The divinity of Christ is attested by all of the Christians in the world, and has always been so, given that it is the basis for the definition of ‘Christian’. The infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church is believed by approximately half of those Christians, has only been official doctrine since 1869, and is contested by practically every Christian who is not a Catholic, and a few naughty ones who are. Still, I would argue against taking either degree of support as evidence, for the reasons mentioned below.
Do other Protestant Churches claim infallibility for their own Church? I thought they did not. I suppose your last sentence is somewhat true, but I would add that it is easy in most cases to demonstrate a false claim of this variety. To believe in Islam I would need to believe in a God that contradicts Himself. The same is true for most of Protestantism. As for Buddhism, well I just don’t know enough about it…
Sola Scriptura Protestants claim infallibility for the text, which does amount to their being able to provide the One True Source of Knowledge, i.e., the
Bible. Islam does the same with the
Qu’ran; as for contradictions in the text, they are usually dealt with in much the same way as the contradictions in the
Bible, i.e., by creative readings. Buddhism is based on the idea that all existence as we know it is actually an illusion caused by our adherence to fleshly desires, and that following the Truth of the Teaching will release us from the illusion, allowing us to escape this existence. All make the same claim about infallible provision of the Truth.
if we can demonstrate the first thing you mention - an unvarying continuity of belief - then this in itself is a fantastic witness for the Truth of such belief. It is not a logical proof, but it is a good witness. If the Catholic Church can maintain a continuity of belief for almost twenty centuries, despite such momentous upheavals as the Great Schism, the Reformation and the age of Enlightenment, then it is either the luckiest organisation in the world, or it is divinely protected. I know I haven’t argued very well here, sorry about that.
Unfortunately, continuity of belief better demonstrates the effectiveness of structures of reiteration than it does the validity of that belief. The Chinese have believed for more than four thousand years that theirs is the greatest nation on earth. Having lived there, I disagree, and I do not think that their mere numbers make them right, either.
More significantly, the danger of believing in something because it has been believed is that people frequently reiterate convenient falsehoods. Consider the nationalist jargon of most of the nations on earth, especially those of former greatness, such as Greece and Italy, and even, more recently, Britain. Consider all of the common Protestant myths about Catholicism, most of which have been repeated since the Reformation. All it takes is for one authority to proclaim something which they imagine to be true, and, true or not, it can then be repeated by a successor, and then another because two people said it, and then a fourth because three did, and, all too soon, you have a tradition built upon itself, without actually needing any other evidence to support it.
I’m worried that I’m going to mess up and force you further away from the Church. Please understand that I’m trying to do my best, but it’s unfortunately very possible that I’ll mess up at various places along the way! On the other hand, I have found this thread to be very challenging and very enjoyable
I have been enjoying it too, thank you, and we are both worried about damaging the other’s faith in the Catholic Church! You worry that you will not be persuasive enough, and I worry that I will be too persuasive, and tarnish your faith in your faith. I do not imagine that it is terribly likely, but I would not like to be responsible for such a thing.
Do not fear that you will force me away from the Church. To be brutally frank, I take your views as the views of a Catholic, whereas I take Canon Law, the Catechism, Vatican pronouncements, etc as the views of the Church. Howsoever much I might (dis)agree with you, my disagreements with them run rather deeper. I spent three years studying Catholicism to see whether I could become a Catholic, and the answer came back negative. There are a number of Catholic doctrines and practices with which I cannot agree, infallibility merely being the linch-pin because it is the one which is used to validate all the rest.
That said, I am not so far from the Catholic Church, because my Christianity is simple enough, and pluralistic enough, to allow me to love and respect many things Catholic without believing all of the doctrine.
I just realised that I missed your question about free will, which really goes with the discussion of God’s role in sin. As I imagine it, it works as follows: God allows us to choose to do what we do, possibly because God values freedom (but guessing divine motivation is always a doubtful exercise). We are responsible for our actions. God knows beforehand when we will sin. God is responsible for allowing us those actions. This in no way diminishes our culpability, in much the same way that my standing and watching the knife attack in the other post lessens the attacker’s responsibility for committing murder.
