Private judgment as the final authority versus the teaching authority of the Church: which one of these mutually exclusive approaches is biblical...

[joe370]

Private judgment as the final authority versus the teaching authority of the Church: which one of these mutually exclusive approaches is biblical? Please provide scriptural proof? Thanks.

 

[Portrait]

Private judgment as the final authority versus the teaching authority of the Church: which one of these mutually exclusive approaches is biblical? Please provide scriptural proof? Thanks.

Dear Joe,

Cordial greetings.

Let me say at the outset, before I respond specifically to your question, that the substitution of private judgement for a living infallible teaching authority is the root-error of Protestantism. Its destructive force is to be seen, not only in its pathological tendency to divide, thus engendering a multiplicity of denominations and interpretations, but in the denial of the Divinity of our Saviour, the inspiration of Sacred Scripture, and other cardinal verities, actually regarded by the early Reformers as fundamental.

There can be no obligation upon every man to search for and ascertain divine truth for himself in the bible, for the following reasons:

1/ Our Lord never said that the ability to read was essential for salvation and niether did He enjoin us to discover by our own reading of the bible what one should believe. Moreover, such a command would have been a grevious hardship at a time when there were no printed books, when MSS were prohibitively expensive and when the vast majority of people were illiterate. After all, mass literacy is a phenomenom only of the post-Renaisance age.

2/ As every biblical scholar knows perfectly well, there is no book in the world more difficult than the bible. Thus it is surely sheer absurdity to assert that ordinary people, with no knowledge of the original tongues, archaeology, ancient history or the writings of the early Fathers, are competent to interpret it (if proof were required of this then the existence of myriads of denominations provide such proof). Indeed, the bible itself refers to its own obscurity; St. Peter himself declares that in the epistles of St. Paul there are “some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do other scriptures” (II Pet. 3: 16) and the writer to the Hebrews says, “we have much to say which is hard to explain” (Heb. 5: 11).

3/ St. Peter also rules out private judgement when he states that “no prophecy of the Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but…from God” (II Pet. 1: 20).

4/ St. Philip likewise did not encourage private judgement, for when the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8: 31 said, “How can I (undestand the prophet Isaiah), unless someone guides me?”, St. Philip did not cousel him, as a good Protestant would have, “The Holy Spirit will enlighten you, scripture is ‘perspicuous’, keep on reading my good man” - but in accordance with the need for an official and correct interpretation, St Philip, the official expounder of Scripture, began to instruct him in the true meaning of this prophecy and preached Jesus to him, after which this convert was duly regenerated by Holy Baptism.

Joe, I cannot emphasize enough that the practical proof of the insufficiency of the bible as the sole rule of faith is the diversity of belief among the Protestants, every wild extravagance of doctrine being supposedly based on some man’s (and nowadays, possibly some woman’s) interpetation of the sacred text, plus no agreed authority to settle disputes over even cardinal doctrines or morals. Now our own common sense should tell us that something is seriously amiss, for what we have here is nothing more than a subjective quagmire of competing opinions, i.e. doctrinal bedlam. Is this really what Christ intended for His Church? Did he not pray passionately for its unity? BTW, if every sincere interpretation is to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit, then this can only denote that God the Holy Spirit inspires wholly irreconcilable and contradictory understandings - an inthinkable absurdity.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Big_Dummy]

Joe, you are using Private judgment when you choose to believe or obey your church – your argument breaks down at that point.

 

[Portrait]

Joe, you are using Private judgment when you choose to believe or obey your church – your argument breaks down at that point.

Dear Big Dummy,

Cordial greetings.

What is pivitol is not so much the question of having to ascertain where the truth is to be found, in some Protestant grouping or the Catholic Church, but crucially the strength of the evidence on which that truth is purportedly based.

Of course, the potential convert cannot avoid an initial act of individual judgement if he considers that the claims of the Catholic Church are valid and then decides to submit himself to them, how could it be otherwise? However, at least he only has to make one decision concerning one Church, unlike the Protestant who is faced with a multitude of denominations, from which to choose from, each claiming to be true,

It is freely admitted that our reason is fallible - undoubtedly. Nevertheless, our fallible reason can lead to absolutely certain conclusions, as can be illustrated by an abundance of examples from daily life: the law courts, for instance, will supply us with many decisions which cannot be challenged by anyone who has examined the evidence closely and impartially; again, the symptoms of a patient enable the doctor to identify the precise nature of the illness. Now neither the law courts nor doctor’s claim infallibility, but at times they do claim certainty beyond reasonable doubt. Yet it would be impossible to find in secular human affairs any evidence so compelling as that by which we prove the divine origin of the Catholic Church with all its characteristics, including the claim to infallibility. The strength of the evidence leaves one no option - unless we regard as an alternative the supreme absurdity that the God of truth has deceived us. To the impartial mind the evidence is irresistible and gives a certainty impossible to unseat.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[joe370]

Joe, you are using Private judgment when you choose to believe or obey your church – your argument breaks down at that point.

Hey BD…

So, I should not obey the church to which I belong because that would make me guilty of private judgment which is a no - no, and this same reasoning should be applied to private judgment regarding the interpretation of the bible as well; is that what you are saying?

 

[joe370]

That makes perfect sense.

Dear Joe,

Cordial greetings.

Let me say at the outset, before I respond specifically to your question, that the substitution of private judgement for a living infallible teaching authority is the root-error of Protestantism. Its destructive force is to be seen, not only in its pathological tendency to divide, thus engendering a multiplicity of denominations and interpretations, but in the denial of the Divinity of our Saviour, the inspiration of Sacred Scripture, and other cardinal verities, actually regarded by the early Reformers as fundamental.

There can be no obligation upon every man to search for and ascertain divine truth for himself in the bible, for the following reasons:

1/ Our Lord never said that the ability to read was essential for salvation and niether did He enjoin us to discover by our own reading of the bible what one should believe. Moreover, such a command would have been a grevious hardship at a time when there were no printed books, when MSS were prohibitively expensive and when the vast majority of people were illiterate. After all, mass literacy is a phenomenom only of the post-Renaisance age.

2/ As every biblical scholar knows perfectly well, there is no book in the world more difficult than the bible. Thus it is surely sheer absurdity to assert that ordinary people, with no knowledge of the original tongues, archaeology, ancient history or the writings of the early Fathers, are competent to interpret it (if proof were required of this then the existence of myriads of denominations provide such proof). Indeed, the bible itself refers to its own obscurity; St. Peter himself declares that in the epistles of St. Paul there are “some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do other scriptures” (II Pet. 3: 16) and the writer to the Hebrews says, “we have much to say which is hard to explain” (Heb. 5: 11).

3/ St. Peter also rules out private judgement when he states that “no prophecy of the Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but…from God” (II Pet. 1: 20).

4/ St. Philip likewise did not encourage private judgement, for when the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8: 31 said, “How can I (undestand the prophet Isaiah), unless someone guides me?”, St. Philip did not cousel him, as a good Protestant would have, “The Holy Spirit will enlighten you, scripture is ‘perspicuous’, keep on reading my good man” - but in accordance with the need for an official and correct interpretation, St Philip, the official expounder of Scripture, began to instruct him in the true meaning of this prophecy and preached Jesus to him, after which this convert was duly regenerated by Holy Baptism.

Joe, I cannot emphasize enough that the practical proof of the insufficiency of the bible as the sole rule of faith is the diversity of belief among the Protestants, every wild extravagance of doctrine being supposedly based on some man’s (and nowadays, possibly some woman’s) interpetation of the sacred text, plus no agreed authority to settle disputes over even cardinal doctrines or morals. Now our own common sense should tell us that something is seriously amiss, for what we have here is nothing more than a subjective quagmire of competing opinions, i.e. doctrinal bedlam. Is this really what Christ intended for His Church? Did he not pray passionately for its unity? BTW, if every sincere interpretation is to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit, then this can only denote that God the Holy Spirit inspires wholly irreconcilable and contradictory understandings - an inthinkable absurdity.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax