I’ve read through the whole thread, and want to know if the OP is answered to the best ability of the thread now? Am I right in thinking that the actual closest answer is given by post #4 or so, and the rest is related but can get no closer to a resolution? Remember, here’s OP:
… Protestants have no absolute certainty that the canon of Scripture is correct, if there is no infallible Church to base it off of. However, he contends that it is also impossible for the Catholic to have absolute certainty, since we have no infallible source upon which to base our belief in an infallible Church. Instead, both groups rely on probable, rather than absolute, certainty in the truth of the Scriptures. He sums it up like this:
Catholic Position: Fallible Person -->(Fallible Belief in) -->Infallible Church -->(Infallible Declaration about) -->Infallible Scripture
Protestant Position: Fallible Person -->(Fallible Belief in) -->Infallible Scripture
This seems problematic to our “spiral argument” that historical evidence leads to infallible Church which leads to infallible Scripture. If the basis of our knowledge is fallible, then how can the consequence of it be infallible? As Catholics, how might we respond to these arguments? I feel like there’s some counterpoint I can’t quite grasp.(color added)
And here is the most direct answer that I can see, subsequently developed by other posters:
bmullins:
Forgive me if I am following the man’s logic wrong, but it seems like he is declaring that both churches rely on the scriptures for their formation? The problem I see there is it assumes that our Church came out of our scriptures. Whereas that Logic does indeed decimate the Protestant notion that the scriptures are infallible since they have no source of infallibility to declare them so, it does nothing to the Catholic notion. It boils down to Apostolic authority. Our Church existed and was being formed long before the New Testament scriptures were being written. The Statement that Peter was the rock and had the authority to bind and loosen was made before a single word was recorded. He began to exercise that authority as early as the first council of Jerusalem.
We as Catholics have to be careful to remember that our Church was not formed BY the scriptures, it FORMED the scriptures. Our infallible source then comes from heaven itself, via the Paraclete. Either we believe that the Holy Spirit has the ability to work through those gathered in his name to guide our church, and that the See of Peter has the ability to make those declarations to the entire body of Christ or we have to reject scripture entirely.(colors added)
To summarize: Protestants stand on Scripture. Catholics stand on the Church. Both positions are positions finally held by faith (rather than proved by knowledge).
So Protestantism says, your basis is no more and no less certain than our basis. For us both it is a matter of faith not, finally, of knowledge.
And Catholicism says, true, it is a matter finally of faith.
But the foundation for your faith is shaky because the foundation doesn’t fit with reasons that are outside faith, like those coming from logic, human nature and history. The Protestant way of understanding scripture is subjective, not objective. Protestantism has no way to read the objective Scripture such that one’s own subjectivity does not reduce faith to feelings, desires, appetites, bias and personal opinion.
The Catholic way can be seen to be more logical, more fitting, more integrated and continuous with God’s customary way of being with His people.
The gift of our faith is to hold that the Paraclete personally inspires authority on earth to teach the Word to men. This Word is first of all the Person Jesus Christ. This teaching is first of all oral. Had there been no writing at all,
no written scriptures, the Faith would still have been held, taught, defended, died for and spread worldwide. Without the written scriptures the Word was spread in the early Church. (Those were not bible- carrying Baptists in the catacombs).
So: What guarantees the teaching of the teachers? That is the question to ask. (Not, what guarantees Scripture)
That God made an earthly Teacher–the Catholic idea–fits with all of salvation history, it fits with the nature of man and how he knows and wills; and it is what is logically required to raise faith above subjectivity to certainty.
Absent this essential boost Protestantism cannot be certain, and wanders in the wasteland of subjective opinion rather than in the certainty of the True Faith.
