Scripture to interpret Scripture

[Contarini]

Two points:

1. If you are not willing to defend Sola Scriptura on what basis, then, do you defend the Reformation at all?

I’m not sure which posts of mine you have in mind. Depending on how you define the Reformation, I’m not sure I would defend it in the sense of justifying it (I believe that schism is wrong, period–the difference between me and you is that I find it hard not to see any separation from fellow-Christians as schism, so converting to Catholicism for me would be trying to cure schism by schism).

Mostly on this board I “defend” the Reformation in the sense of explaining it and making sure people who attack it are doing so accurately. That’s my job–I’m a church historian by training, specializing in the Reformation.

As I understand it, and obviously my understanding is very limited, but as I understand it SS was one of the pillars upon which the entire Reformation was based. Because even a corrupt Church, if it has valid Apostolic teaching authority, must be respected and looked to for doctrine. A corrupt Church must be refrormed and called to repentance to be sure (eg St. Benedict, St. Francis, ect.) but respected and listened to none the less. Therefore, if they were to legitamately break away from Holy Mother Church the Reformers had to undermine the very basis of the Church’s authority. Thus was born the notion that we didn’t need the Church to properly understand doctrine. We could rely solely on Scripture.

Well, that’s not how I see it. Quite the other way round, in fact. One of the things the Reformers had learned from the Catholic Church itself was that Scripture was the Word of God and was the norm for theology. Try reading what Aquinas or Scotus or any of the scholastics have to say about it. (The canon lawyers were a different ball of wax.) Given how badly things seemed to be going, and in particular given how divided the Church seemed and how confused questions of authority were, it made sense to these young theologians to conclude that the Church had gone astray from Scripture. Also, the study of Scripture as a literary text was just taking off, and they were confident (too confident IMHO) that they could recover the intentions of the Biblical authors. It was more complex than that, but that’s how I see it basically.

1. Surely, you will agree that it is better for the Body of Christ to be unified rather than to be divided.

Sure. And it’s better for the Church to have holy Popes than wicked ones, but there have been some wicked ones. You can’t start from a “best of all possible worlds” assumption. It won’t work. We have to deal with reality.

Surely you will agree with me that Christ intended to leave one unified Church with one unified understanding of doctrine rather than the mass of confusion and disunity that is modern Protestantism.

Certainly unity is Christ’s desire–but so is perfect holiness. No church–Catholic or Protestant–is made up of only perfectly holy people, is it? Don’t you think this falls short of what Christ wants from us?

If this is the case then Christ’s people here on Earth are simply destined to become more and more confused and more and more divided. Each day, it seems, we have debates and arguments among Christians that get more and more divisive. When does life begin? When may we withdraw life support? Do we marry gays and lesbians?

There’s actually a remarkable degree of agreement across confessional lines on these issues.

Do we ordain women?

That’s a tough one. But eventually it will become clear.

Did miracles and tounges cease after the Apostolic age?

The only people who say they did are old-fashioned Protestants who needed this to explain their own embarrassing lack of miracles (and who always tended to emphasize teaching over miracles).

Do we get involved in party politics? Are we pacifists?

Those are tough issues, but there are some fairly clear guidelines. Pacifism is a tiny minority position historically–it seems clear that it’s an ideal in a sense but can’t be enforced on all Christians.

Your own denomination is on the verge of splitting over some of these very issues.

That is a very tiny corner of Christendom.

Surely you don’t contend that Jesus left us no sure way to authoritatively resolve these disputes?

I know that Catholics argue over many of these same issues, so your argument doesn’t work. I don’t challenge the teaching authority of the Church. It may even be infallible on a narrow range of dogmatic issues–but souls die for lack of pastoral teaching far more often than for lack fo correct dogma. Dogma is important, but it isn’t everything.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[exiled]

A bit off topic, but I guess since I started the thread I can do that…
The abusive popes have made up less than 1% of the entire succession of popes, which is a much better number than the Apostles themselves.
The authority of the bishop of Rome is evident in the ECF’s, and the fact that the Reformation revolted against that RCC. If other churches had truly existed, why didn’t Luther, etc. just join up with them? The answer is quite simply, “because they didn’t exist”.
Now the abuse was wrong and needed to be corrected. So instead of assuming the worst, that Vatican Council I was a way to declare authority that was not there, why not try thinking that VI was the Church defining the proper limits on infallibility to prevent further abuse?