Sola Scriptura & Epistemology

[wk11]

I’ve been reading Protestant defenses of Sola Scriptura, trying to better understand their perspective to explain and point to the one true Church. Until recently, this has been frustrating because I’ve been unable to find any logical basis for Sola Scriptura, and its adherents I’ve talked to have held to a logically untenable position.

However, a recent essay by C. Michael Patton presented the first potentially reasonable argument I’ve seen. In his case (page 19-22 of this document: reclaimingthemind.org/content/Parchmentandpen/In-Defense-of-Sola-Scriptura.pdf), he admits that 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.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I’ve been reading Protestant defenses of Sola Scriptura, trying to better understand their perspective to explain and point to the one true Church. Until recently, this has been frustrating because I’ve been unable to find any logical basis for Sola Scriptura, and its adherents I’ve talked to have held to a logically untenable position.

However, a recent essay by C. Michael Patton presented the first potentially reasonable argument I’ve seen. In his case (page 19-22 of this document: reclaimingthemind.org/content/Parchmentandpen/In-Defense-of-Sola-Scriptura.pdf), he admits that 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.

Let me put an example: An individual “A” doesn’t know algebra; but he attends a course with an expert on the subject. “A” can make mistakes as he is learning, but he will have the chance to be corrected by “B”. If he persists and stays with “B” during enough time, his knowledge will become more and more similar to “B”. The ignorance and fallibility of “A” is not an invincible obstacle for him to learn from “B”.

We Catholics belong to a community and share its life. If we persist within it, our life will become more and more similar to what it is expected from us.

 

[epostle]

"…since we have no infallible source upon which to base our belief in an infallible Church.

**Wrong. **
The Body is one, and so the episcopate is one, and the unity of the episcopate is achieved through solidarity with the prime source of Episcopal power, the Bishop of Rome. In the Catholic vision the pope teaches in the name of the episcopate and the episcopate teaches in the name of the Church and the Church teaches in the name of Christ, and Christ teaches in the name of God.

http://s5.postimg.org/nr4jw5fnr/sola_scriptura.png

 

[wk11]

Let me put an example: An individual “A” doesn’t know algebra; but he attends a course with an expert on the subject. “A” can make mistakes as he is learning, but he will have the chance to be corrected by “B”. If he persists and stays with “B” during enough time, his knowledge will become more and more similar to “B”. The ignorance and fallibility of “A” is not an invincible obstacle for him to learn from “B”.

We Catholics belong to a community and share its life. If we persist within it, our life will become more and more similar to what it is expected from us.

Couldn’t the Protestant simply reply that they agree with this, just with the scriptures being the teacher, or “B”?

 

[inocente]

Catholic Position: Fallible Person -->(Fallible Belief in) -->Infallible Church -->(Infallible Declaration about) -->Infallible Scripture

Protestant Position: Fallible Person -->(Fallible Belief in) -->Infallible Scripture

No one can prove (or disprove) the existence of God, therefore no one can prove they exclusively have the ear of God. Only a fanatic will tell you he can prove that all Jews and Muslims and Hindus are wrong, and that everyone who doesn’t walk into his building on Sunday is wrong because he alone knows the One True Religion™.

It’s good that you’re looking to unite, but I suggest rather than looking at differences you’d do better to concentrate on what religions have in common, along the lines of these papers from your Church:

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html

 

[MT1926]

I’ve been reading Protestant defenses of Sola Scriptura, trying to better understand their perspective to explain and point to the one true Church. Until recently, this has been frustrating because I’ve been unable to find any logical basis for Sola Scriptura, and its adherents I’ve talked to have held to a logically untenable position.

However, a recent essay by C. Michael Patton presented the first potentially reasonable argument I’ve seen. In his case (page 19-22 of this document: reclaimingthemind.org/content/Parchmentandpen/In-Defense-of-Sola-Scriptura.pdf), he admits that 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.

I don’t really see a problem here. The author is ignoring the historical evidence to be able to come to his conclusion. How can he say “Protestants have no absolute certainty that the canon of Scripture is correct, if there is no infallible Church to base it off of.” Which he concludes from historical evidence, then ignores any other historical evidence the church provides on the interpretation of scripture.

Maybe someone can clear this up for me, but I have never been able to understand how someone can say the “Catholic church is wrong on their interpretation”. I could understand someone saying they don’t agree with the Churches interpretation. But in my mind if you could say she is wrong on her interpretation of a verse why would you ever believe she compiled the correct books to begin with?

So basically, just like we shouldn’t cherry pick verses of scripture, to fit our theology, we also shouldn’t cherry pick history. It’s an all of none in my book.

 

[Billy_Buescher]

I went and looked at the link. The first think I noticed it that they believe, or at least it was written that the Bible is infallible.

That is not correct, the Bible is the ** inheren**t word of God meaning it is without error. You need some one of some thing to find the infallible or correct interpretation of the Bible to know the truth, I would believe that the truth would be close to the people who gave the Bible to us and who were closest to the Apostles, who new what the traditions that were past on by word, before they were written down. We do not know if all were written down, as Paul said:

2Th 2:15 (2:14) Therefore, brethren, stand fast: and hold the traditions, which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle.

 

[ChurchSoldier]

I believe the discussion needs to involve discussion of the role of the Holy Spirit as well. Particularly the HS guiding the Magisterium as a whole to a unified message even though individual Bishops may disagree. In the Protestant side, the (supposed) guidance of the HS has guided many opposing views from the same Scriptural passages.

 

[MT1926]

I went and looked at the link. The first think I noticed it that they believe, or at least it was written that the Bible is infallible.

That is not correct, the Bible is the ** inheren**t word of God meaning it is without error. You need some one of some thing to find the infallible or correct interpretation of the Bible to know the truth, I would believe that the truth would be close to the people who gave the Bible to us and who were closest to the Apostles, who new what the traditions that were past on by word, before they were written down. We do not know if all were written down, as Paul said:

2Th 2:15 (2:14) Therefore, brethren, stand fast: and hold the traditions, which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle.

Nice catch and great point. This was what I was trying to get at. Infallible means incapable of making mistakes or being wrong. If you have many different interpretations of scripture than how can the Bible be incapable of making a mistake when it requires us fallible humans to do the interpreting.

 

[carefullytread]

Hi wk,

That was a very interesting article, thank you for posting it!

One thing that has always occurred to me is that if you want epistemological certainty, you have to be Catholic. If you read the Scripture carefully, you start to notice things that seem to contradict each other all over the place. How do you resolve those problems? Even if they weren’t there, do you really understand ancient Greek (for the NT, I guess Hebrew for the OT) well enough to understand the subtleties of meaning? And even if you accept tradition in guiding the eventual formation of Canon, can you expect to have a good understand of what the Church Fathers thought when they assembled it? And how do you translate those ideas into the actual doctrines that guide your moral decisions?

If you want to know what the Scripture means with certainty, you need another authority to do so. The task of finding that certainty is impossible for the Protestant. Now, you will find some unthoughtful ones who ignore the evidence that there are thousands of Protestant denominations and think they and theirs have it right exactly, but a humble and reflective Protestant will agree with the conclusion Patton reaches at the end. And it is a deep and thoughtful conclusion.

He says, of course I think all my positions are right, but I know I might be and probably am wrong on many things, and more over I think God values the diversity of opinions and that diversity is a positive good. I think this is an inescapable conclusion of thoughtful Protestantism and sola scriptura in general, but note that Patton wouldn’t say it is a bad one. In fact, it is a deep, even evolutionary thought to say that the diversity of ideas battling with each other is the best way to keep discovering deeper truth.

Which brings up an interesting point. Where do you allow the epistemic uncertainty to be? Is it a simple yes or no question about whether to accept the Church or does the uncertainly creep into a thousand different places with a dynamically changing Christianity? And I think this is the fundamental question of whether to be Catholic or Protestant.

 

[carefullytread]

One more point is to observe what results from the differences in Protestant and Catholic epistemology.

Take, for example, the theory of indulgences. If you meet certain requirements, then saying certain prayers can get you ‘x’ number of years off of your time in purgatory. (Note that I believe the Church doesn’t preach that ‘year’ means to calendar year, but rather is just a unit of measurement. If your grandmother is like mine, that’s not what she thinks! Regardless, there is a defined ‘unit’ in which to measure amount of purging).

Look at how far that theory is removed from Scripture. You need to develop a theory of Purgatory first, more ideas about what it means, how it’s measured, how it’s ameliorated. It’s very intricate. Now, the Church will point to various passages in Scripture to support the idea of Purgatory and then, over the centuries, it reasons about these things.

The Church says A → B → C → D → E … and if you think the Church is infallible, you will accept that Z is true.

If you start to explain indulgences to your Protestant friends, they will look at you like you are crazy. For them, you just can’t reliably reason far enough away from Scripture to get to indulgences.

And so, for a Catholic, you can have thousands of years of traditional evaluating the Scripture and Tradition to produce the Catechism. Just look at it on your shelf - it’s huge! It’s so much elaborate than any Protestant faith could ever hope to be.

A Catholic looks at that as a triumph of the Faith guided by the Holy Spirit uncovering truth; a Protestant sees centuries of errors compounding on themselves to end up with indulgences. Your epistemology results in big differences in the sort of faith you can develop.

 

[Billy_Buescher]

Nice catch and great point. This was what I was trying to get at. Infallible means incapable of making mistakes or being wrong. If you have many different interpretations of scripture than how can the Bible be incapable of making a mistake when it requires us fallible humans to do the interpreting.

If you would search the Bible to find out where one does go to find the truth and/or the correct truthful interpretations. you would were what Paul told Timothy to look:

(1Ti 3:15 KJV) But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, **the pillar and ground of the truth.
**

I would believe that if scripture alone would be the pillar and ground of the truth Paul would have told us.

 

[MT1926]

If you would search the Bible to find out where one does go to find the truth and/or the correct truthful interpretations. you would were what Paul told Timothy to look:

(1Ti 3:15 KJV) But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, **the pillar and ground of the truth.
**

I would believe that if scripture alone would be the pillar and ground of the truth Paul would have told us.

Yep, no arguments here.

That’s where I go.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Couldn’t the Protestant simply reply that they agree with this, just with the scriptures being the teacher, or “B”?

Of course. If I were a Protestant I would say that too. “B” could have written a book on algebra and perhaps I would be happy reading it on my own. Being I a rational being, just as “B” is, surely I would benefit with the reading.

Let’s suppose now that one day “B” learns that I am studying his book, and he approaches me to invite me to attend to his class. I would immediately say “Yes, thank you”, thinking how faster and deeper I would learn from the author of the book, and how he would straighten my interpretations, or confirm them if they were correct and complete.

In the case of Christianity though, the matter is not just a kind of theoretical approach to something; it is a life within a community. The church is not just a kind of university where you go to learn the correct theology, do your homework, write your thesis and graduate. For a Christian, the truth is not a theory.

Once, I participated in a discussion where an old man, who was a Protestant, was criticizing Catholics because we love the Virgin Mary, pray the rosary and…, you know. I remember I told him we were just repeating some of the biblical words that he accepted as the word of God; and I also added this biblical words that were pronounced by Mary: “…for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed”, telling him that my children and I belonged to those generations. He reflected…, I think because he was a good man; and he knew the scriptures by heart! What prevented him from realizing such simple thing during all his years as a Protestant? The answer must be complex and I don’t know it. But I do know that it is much better if I attend the algebra class imparted by the man who wrote the algebra book I am trying to understand.

 

[ericc]

I’ve been reading Protestant defenses of Sola Scriptura, trying to better understand their perspective to explain and point to the one true Church. Until recently, this has been frustrating because I’ve been unable to find any logical basis for Sola Scriptura, and its adherents I’ve talked to have held to a logically untenable position.

However, a recent essay by C. Michael Patton presented the first potentially reasonable argument I’ve seen. In his case (page 19-22 of this document: reclaimingthemind.org/content/Parchmentandpen/In-Defense-of-Sola-Scriptura.pdf), he admits that 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.

We have fallible persons (apostles) appointed by an infallible person (Jesus) who set up an infallible institution (Church) guaranteed by Him and together with the Holy Spirit that will teach them ALL truths and be with them forever. The fallibility is associated with men, not the institutional Church. It is not individual men that organized and came out with the Bible but the Church. It is the Church that after approx 400 years later filtered out the hundreds and thousands of teachings, sayings, letters, traditions handed down with recognizable and verifiable pedigree and declared to be divinely inspired. It is through traditions that these works can be identified and fit for inclusion into the Bible. The Church grew from oral preaching initially, later with scraps and pieces of written documents to aid those who have received these teachings. To argue for a Protestant Church in the absence of the Bible for 400 years is telling. There was no such Church.

In fact we don’t need the whole Bible to establish the credential of the infallible Church, just Matthew and Luke(Luke and Acts) are sufficient. As long as the Gospel of Matthew/Luke/Acts are accepted, whether there is a written Bible or not is of no consequence because the early Christians preached without a bible in their hands. But the Church was already in existence since Pentecost. This is backed by historical facts.

Where does the infallibility of the Church comes from then? The inescapable conclusion must be Apostolic Traditions which would initially be unwritten traditions. Passage of time would result in these traditions committed to writing. Without the apostles agreeing that Matthew/Luke/Acts are credible accounts, they explanation for the existence of the Church would be lacking. Hence, the sequence would be firstly Apostolic Oral Traditions from which the written Bible came from at a later stage.

 

[Billy_Buescher]

Some of my protestant friends believe that the church is invisible? I cannot see how they can believe that, I tried but to explain how that can not be, they seem to have a mental block.

I do not think that the persons, per say are infallible, it is the office that they hold that makes them infallible in faith and morals. Other wise how could Jesus say:

Luk 10:16 He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.

Joh 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.