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Napsack
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Oh my gosh, not this again.
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Non_Serviam
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Let’s unpack this analogy:
I agree that Shakespeare has the authority to interpret his works-I’m no postmodernist.
So if we are talking about the Word of God-that would make God equivalent to Shakespeare in this analogy. I fully agree that God can interpret His Word-and so does the Catechism.
This puts the Catholic Magisterium in the role of one of the Elizabethan scholars. A scholar who claims that Shakespeare only shared with him the meaning of his writings. And then proceeds to interpret the writings in such a way as to “prove” this. Using one’s “authority” to prove one’s “authority” is circular reasoning-much like Ali proclaiming “I am the greatest.”
The Mormon church makes a similar claim to authority on the basis of different evidence. Both claims exclude the other by definition. Both claim to have reasons why I should give their claim special consideration and reject the other out of hand. Mormons tend to give their arguments for possessing authority l ess than intense scrutiny and some Catholics do the same.
Personally, I prefer historical-critical evidence for authority. There is some evidence for the Catholic church in this respect, but it makes leaps at more than a few places and stirs up dust in others. When that is pointed out, the circular “authority” argument is frequently brandished.
Jesus did indeed bestow authority on the Apostles-but standing here now, pointing back in time and saying “they chose us as their successors” doesn’t prove that they did.
My grandfather is no longer alive to testify that I am his grandson, but I can assemble an overwhelming amount of evidence to prove that the claim is true-legal documents, photos, declarations from other relatives, etc. Lacking direct testimony, proof can be assembled. I expect the same for Catholic claims-saying “Jesus said so” isn’t enough until you’ve proven you speak for Jesus by His authority.
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Peter_J
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Non Serviam,
I haven’t been trying to ignore you; I just haven’t been on this thread in a couple days.
Put it this way: If I said “This is a white piece of paper. The color of this piece of paper is white.” then is that circular reasoning? No, it’s just stating a claim.
On the other hand, if you asked me to prove that the paper is white, and I responded “I know the color of the paper is white because it is a white piece of paper, and I know it’s a white piece of paper because the color of the paper is white.” then that would be circular reasoning.
), and then were told that’s not allowed; would you respond with “Well, if I’m not allowed to quote what he said, then he shouldn’t have said it in the first place.”?
I haven’t been trying to ignore you; I just haven’t been on this thread in a couple days.
Exactly. Whereas you, in post #2, quoted a personal friend of yours identified only by a screenname. If this were a school assignment, don’t you think I would get a better grade than you?
I can understand the fact that that claim bothers you. But I don’t think it’s correct to call it circular reasoning.
Put it this way: If I said “This is a white piece of paper. The color of this piece of paper is white.” then is that circular reasoning? No, it’s just stating a claim.
On the other hand, if you asked me to prove that the paper is white, and I responded “I know the color of the paper is white because it is a white piece of paper, and I know it’s a white piece of paper because the color of the paper is white.” then that would be circular reasoning.
Let me ask you this: suppose you cited a friend of yours for a school project (not that I’m obsessed with school or anythingWhat I find interesting is that a number of Catholics on this forum don’t follow these points-rather than quoting authoritative interpretations from Bishops they offer their own words to us Non-Catholics (you appear to have done the right thing here). Your Catechism makes it very clear that this is a no-no. Next time one of them does it, I’ll point them toward the part about docile acceptance of “pastoral teachings and directives.”
), and then were told that’s not allowed; would you respond with “Well, if I’m not allowed to quote what he said, then he shouldn’t have said it in the first place.”?
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Non_Serviam
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Peter,Non Serviam,
I haven’t been trying to ignore you; I just haven’t been on this thread in a couple days.
Exactly. Whereas you, in post #2, quoted a personal friend of yours identified only by a screenname. If this were a school assignment, don’t you think I would get a better grade than you?
I can understand the fact that that claim bothers you. But I don’t think it’s correct to call it circular reasoning.
Put it this way: If I said “This is a white piece of paper. The color of this piece of paper is white.” then is that circular reasoning? No, it’s just stating a claim.
On the other hand, if you asked me to prove that the paper is white, and I responded “I know the color of the paper is white because it is a white piece of paper, and I know it’s a white piece of paper because the color of the paper is white.” then that would be circular reasoning.
Let me ask you this: suppose you cited a friend of yours for a school project (not that I’m obsessed with school or anything
That’s for taking the time to comment-I understand well having time constraints.
Going back to post #2 I was reporting on a response I’d been given by a Catholic on this forum (you’d have to ask him or her if they consider me a friend-we haven’t spoken outside of the threads).
The thread specifically addresses the actions of some Catholics who offer “proofs” of Catholicism’s authority that boil down to 1 of the 2 propositions I supplied and wonder why they aren’t accepted.
The quote you provided shows that the Catholic church claims its authority as the interpreter of the Apostles on the basis of its own authority-which is circular.
To pick up your analogy-the Catholic church is saying “I am the Apostles’ sole interpreter because I’ve interpreted the Apostles’ teaching to teach that”.
The paper is declaring itself white and everyone else colour blind.
That is circular reasoning-if no other basis of proof is brought forth it comes down to a very elaborate and formal “I am the authority because I said so”.
I don’t think that would get a passing grade in the Philosophy classes I took, Peter.
As I said in a previous post:
non serviam:
Lacking similar proof some Catholics would attempt to “prove” the relationship by humming a few bars of “I’m My Own Grandpa.”
Have a good day, Peter.
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Peter_J
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Where does the Church say that? Claiming A and B is different from claiming to prove A and B by saying “A because B, and B because A”.
Correct. If it did, there would be a lot of popes right now.
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Angels_Unaware
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No, the Magisterium isn’t proving its authority, it is exercizing its authority. They don’t need to prove their authority. They have been given it, (by Christ, and preserved by the Holy Spirit). Now, you can certainly ask, what is the corroborating evidence that they have in fact been given the authority? In that case, you would look to the internal consistency of the teachings and their enhancement rather than perversion of the truth revealed in Scripture, but those aren’t proofs. The Magisterium isn’t in the business of proving its authority. It claims it.Let’s unpack this analogy:
I agree that Shakespeare has the authority to interpret his works-I’m no postmodernist.
So if we are talking about the Word of God-that would make God equivalent to Shakespeare in this analogy. I fully agree that God can interpret His Word-and so does the Catechism.
This puts the Catholic Magisterium in the role of one of the Elizabethan scholars…
People who point to the Bible to prove their authority for a doctrine are analogous to the Elizabethan scholars.
Best not to re-invent the wheel. This is the best answer:
Just think about this for a little bit and try to understand what is being said here. It is not intuitive to imagine that it is actually the non-textual basis of authority which is logically consistent, while the textual basis of authority is not logically consistent, but that is the case.
And as has been said before, this all goes back to the very basis of authority for Scripture, which is the canon, and that without an infallible Magisterium we cannot have an infallible Scripture.
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Non_Serviam
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Well, the Mormon Church isn’t in the business of proving their authority either-they claim it as well. That’s why “claiming” doesn’t cut it for me. We see in Scripture that the Apostles showed how their message lined up with the Old Testament-they weren’t afraid of being evaluated. It often seems here that when some of the non-Catholics start to ask specific and pointed questions that the “it’s a mystery, just believe” or “this type of doubt hurts Jesus” comments begin-I’ve been grateful that you haven’t done that.
That’s where we part ways-I believe the authority for Scripture is God-He preserved Scripture, and while the analogy may be crude if He can speak through a donkey as He did in the OT and get His message across, He doesn’t need an infallible Magisterium to preserve His Word-he did it with believers, unbelievers and whatever else He needed to make it so.
Believers were recognizing those documents as inspired long before a council pronounced on them. As Catholics are fond of saying about their dogmas “just because it was proclaimed on such and such a date doesn’t mean it wasn’t believed before that-the council just formalized it”.
Such a big deal is made that non-Catholics consider the Canon a fallible list of infallible documents, and yet when it is pointed out to Catholics that there is no infallible list of infallible statements made by popes, they shrug this off saying it isn’t necessary.
That’s a double standard in my book-if you aren’t 100% sure what’s been said infallibly, then throwing stones at non-Catholics for the same thing isn’t kosher.
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Peter_J
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“claiming” doesn’t cut it for you? Well yeah, I would think that goes without saying.
Perhaps you should re-read what I said in post 85:
Or better yet, you should read Fides et Ratio by Pope John Paul II.
Be sure to let us know how many times he says “it’s a mystery, just believe”.
Reading this, my first reaction is “Such a bid deal is made … by whom?”
But my second reaction is to try to help you out by mentioning that I recall Dr. Scott Hahn saying something about “a fallible list of infallible documents” in his book Rome Sweet Home. But I would suggest you read the actual text, to see what exactly he said or didn’t say.
Then my third reaction is that I don’t have slightest clue what "non-Catholics consider … " etc. means. Do Hindus consider the Bible to be “a fallible list of infallible documents”? Or do you consider Hindus to be “Catholics”?
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Angels_Unaware
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The Magisterium is very different from the Mormon Church because its claim to authority is not derived from the private experience of Joseph Smith, but from the words of Jesus after His resurrection when He gave authority to Peter. Now, this claim of authority is meaningless to those who do not follow Jesus, but it should be very important for anyone who does follow Jesus. The Magisterium’s claim of authority is not based on private interpretation, and nothing that contradicts Scripture is taught. Some of the Magisterium’s teachings which are not explicitly stated in Scripture are implied by Scripture.
But it isn’t where we part ways. Catholics also believe the authority for Scripture is God. There is no difference in our belief for the basis of authority there. It is interesting you mention the OT. God wrote the Ten Commandments supernaturally on tablets, and spoke through a burning bush. That is NOT how the NT canon was formed. The bolded part of your statement is factually untrue. The NT canon was not formed by divination, or by supernatural writing, it was formed through debate over decades. Therefore, God did in fact work through men to produce an infallible canon. That’s very essential to Christianity, because it represents the evolution of revelation from the OT to the NT, and how in fact God’s word is contained in Man, rather than in law. Jesus is the Word incarnate. We no longer look to the letter of the law, but to the spirit.
That’s not relevant. What is relevant is that Christians were recognizing these were inspired because of the authority of the Church. How else would they determine those documents were infallible?
Why would we need a canon for the infallible teachings of the Pope? There are not contradicting infallible teachings of many Popes, are there? No. There is one Pope at any given time (speaking simply). So, what is it needed for? We have the historical teachings of the Magisterium, and the confidence that by the authority of the Pope, these proclamations were made. With Scripture, we have no such confidence without the canon. There were many writings, and it wasn’t clear what was inspired and what wasn’t.
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Angels_Unaware
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The discussion begins on page 74 of Rome Sweet Home, Our Journey to Catholicism, by Scott and Kimberly Hahn. The book was published by Ignatius press in 1993. The discussion ends on page 76.
I would write it out, but I don’t want to break any copyright laws. Instead, I will just quote a few sentences. Dr. Hahn is relating his discussion with prominent scholar Dr. John Gerstner.
Gerstner asks Hahn how he can be sure that Peter speaks infallibly as Pope. Hahn says we both agree Peter speaks infallibly in 1 and 2 Peter (my note: some scholars disagree on the authorship of 2 Peter), so we know he speaks infallibly sometimes. Hahn then asks, if Church councils are fallible, how do we know the Church was correct to declare the canon?
"I will never forget his response. ‘Scott, that simply means that all we can have is a fallible list of infallible documents’. Scott goes on to argue that is inadequate, because we no longer can be sure that any Scripture is infallible. He then says,
“Then it occurs to me Dr. Gerstner, that when it comes right down to it, it must be the Bible and the Church- both or neither!”
This book is written very simply, but the point is, of course, that the infallibility of Scripture derives its authority from the Church. Therefore, the Church, if it is fallible, cannot produce infallible decrees for anything, which includes the canon.
The “recognition” of some writings as being inspired before the canon was “recognition by the Church”. So, as you yourself point out, the infallibility of Scripture has always been determined by the Church, and the declaration of infallibility* depends *on the Church.
A fallible body cannot pronounce anything infallible, unless there is another corroborating infallible source that can be objectively referenced. And there is none. At least not on earth, anyway.
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Non_Serviam
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For you and Angels I think it does-I seem to need to keep repeating myself for others who like to pop in on other threads and strafe.“claiming” doesn’t cut it for you? Well yeah, I would think that goes without saying.
He gets off to a good start arguing for the importance of reason and then back tracks in the 3rd chapter, especially sections 32 and 33 . Likewise, he starts back on saying things about searching and using the tools available until we get to Ch 5:55 where he tosses in the point about needing the Magisterium and its interpretive office to make sense of things.Perhaps you should re-read what I said in post 85:
Or better yet, you should read Fides et Ratio by Pope John Paul II.
Be sure to let us know how many times he says “it’s a mystery, just believe”.
Quite honestly, that claim sounds similar to some of the old gnostic statements. There no example of Apostolic preaching in the New Testament where an Apostle tells his audience that they can’t reason and evaluate the apostolic message for themselves. JP2 gives with one hand and takes back with the other.
I’ve read Rome Sweet Home and reread what I believe to be the section you’re referring to (as well as Fides et Ratio in one night, so never let it be said I don’t make an effort) Hahn states that he isn’t comfortable with the idea of a fallible canon of infallible documents (inerrant would have been the better word for the documents-my apologies).
I refer you to Balaam-a prophet who blessed Israel in spite of an intention to curse them. God also spoke to Balaam using a donkey. God can use what He will to accomplish His will. Take note that God used the same Sanhedrin who conspired in the death of Jesus to help preserve the Old Testament for us today. Do you think they therefore possessed some authority because they did so for us?
The Epistles were addressed to specific individuals or the entire church-the Apostles never claimed that the faithful couldn’t understand these things with their own reason.
I notice that Catholics continue to dance over the point that they claim the Pope speaks infallibly some of the time and yet they don’t know when that is. What good is infallibility if one doesn’t know when it was exercised? Catholics will attack non-Catholics on that point with regard to the Canon and then shrug off the same argument for papal statements.
Likewise with the comments on Tradition in Ch 5:55 of Fides et Ratio. It’s well and good to say Tradition must be taken into account for proper understanding and yet the Church doesn’t clearly demarcate what is contained in this Tradition.
Handy and convenient when something needs to be reinterpreted at a future date-it can be called “doctrine” instead of “dogma” or a fuller understanding or “development of doctrine”. That’s why, for example, Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus could be “tweaked” as the church’s fortunes in the world change. If one reads Unum Sanctam the wiggle room that now exists in the CCC isn’t there. But since the Catholic Church declares neither document infallible, it can continue to say both are correct in spite of the contradictions between them.
That’s why non-Catholics ask to see which statements are infallible and what the Catholic church claims is Tradition-so like the Bereans we can compare it with Scripture and see if it lines up. With nothing clearly delineated, it becomes a sort of 3-card monte.
So we seem to be back where we started.
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Non_Serviam
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That’s the claim made by the Catholic Church-and in insisting on being the only one who can interpret the Scriptures, it guarantees that they will imply what the Magisterium wants them to imply. If we look at the Apostles in Acts, they allowed their hearers the freedom to interpret the Scriptures themselves and evaluate the Apostle’s message against that understanding.
Yes God wrote the 10 commandments on tablets, but the other parts were written by men and accepted by the Israelites as a whole-no Magisterium for them-and yet they preserved God’s Word. It was addressed to Israel as a whole and the people kept it-just as the Epistles were written to the Church and not just the leaders and the whole church, not the Magisterium bore witness to its inspiration.
And my bolded statement was indeed correct-the Sanhedrin preserved the OT writings for the church in spite of denying Jesus-God used unbelievers. God also used unbelievers to create the Greek and Latin alphabets and to develop the use of vellum. God was not limited in His efforts to deliver and preserve His Word.
That’s not relevant. What is relevant is that Christians were recognizing these were inspired because of the authority of the Church. How else would they determine those documents were infallible?
see my response to PeterJ for my thoughts on this-the character limits on posts-make it better to direct you there.
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Non_Serviam
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when I said the Church confirmed the writing I was referring to the entire body of believers to whom they were addressed and not a leadership caste-that’s another key difference in how we understand God working.
Agreed to a point about the fallible not producing something infallible-there is none on earth-that’s why Jesus promised the Spirit would lead and guide into Truth-no promise of infallibility, but rather that continued reliance on the Spirit would see that mistakes were corrected and the right path found.
Take the example of Peter and the Gentiles-Peter makes a mistake by not eating with them and Paul corrects him. Likewise Paul and Barnabas break fellowship over a dispute, but in time the error is corrected. Paul even states in an Epistle that it is his opinion that the time is short-he was mistaken about that.
Catholics have a very clear understanding of the progressive nature of salvation, so it puzzles me when they insist on an “instantaneous” view of the church’s infallibility. Jesus provided the Apostles with a core of teaching that is definitely correct and preserved in Scripture. Further understanding is possible and to be expected, with the understanding that there may be changes to make. Even Augustine understood this in his Retractions.
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Angels_Unaware
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It’s nothing like gnostic teaching at all. There is no comparsion.
You are really misunderstanding the Magisterium if you think they are teaching that people cannot reason and evaluate the message on their own. There would be no possibility of Christian sanctification if people were “not allowed” to understand the gospel. The Magisterium is the only teaching authority, with the authority to define dogma. That’s very, very, very different than saying people are not allowed to privately understand and respond to the gospel. Protestants try to re-create the role of the Magisterium all of the time with ministries like the Bible Answer Man.
Of course God can speak however he wants, but if you go back and read the point I made, He *did not *use any method He wanted, He used the Church to establish the canon. The Church has been God’s way of speaking on earth since Pentecost.
What are you talking about? The pope very clearly states when he is speaking ex-cathedra. Maybe you think they are dancing over it because that simply isn’t Catholic teaching and they don’t know what you are talking about.
What doctrine are you talking about?
You are just twisting the exact same process that the Church used to establish the canon into something sinister and dishonest. The Church discusses and explores and develops doctrine over time. It is only at certain clearly defined points when those discussions become decisions about infallible dogma. This is exactly what happened with the canon. Decades of writing, meeting, and discussions became the infallible declaration of the canon.
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Peter_J
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Alright. I take it my previous posts haven’t inspired a lot of confidence in my powers of … well, common sense for starters.For you and Angels I think it does-I seem to need to keep repeating myself for others who like to pop in on other threads and strafe.
BTW, I don’t know much about this Angels person to whom you referred, but you know the old saying “Any friend of yours is a friend of mine.”
One minor point I’d like to make here: Catholics do not yet agree on how many ex cathedra statements there have been. That doesn’t preclude the possibility that we will find agreement at some time in the future. (Keep in mind that it took a few centuries for Christians to agree that there are 27 books in the New Testament.)
Seems to me that the criticisms on that score are kind of like the “chicken and the egg”. Protestants criticize Catholics for not knowing how many ex cathedra statements there have been, Catholics criticize Protestants for believing in a fallible canon of infallible (or inerrant) documents. But the thing is that each side’s criticism is in some way a reaction to the other side’s criticism. And so we just go around and around.
Alright. I’m not too big a man to admit when I’m impressed.
Speaking of night, it’s getting a little late for me, so I think I respond to your Fides et Ratio comments tomorrow.
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Angels_Unaware
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If you say the Magisterium is not the body of believers that the Spirit leads into all truth,(and all truth means the fullest version) then you must conclude that the Spirit has contradicted Itself, because the Spirit is leading Protestants into deep divisions.
The people are not 100% infallible all of the time, the Church is infallible only in instances where the Holy Spirit has led it to declare itself infallible. Why should we be surprised to see that people are people?
Catholics believe authority was given instantaneously, when the keys of the kingdom were given to Peter, not that infallibility is instantaneous. This is quite a confusing statement. Once again, the proclamation of the canon was not instantaneous at all, it took decades.
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Napsack
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Peter_J
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This is something I wonder about.
The Eastern Orthodox talk about, e.g., the need for a council to be received by the Church as a whole in order to be called “an Ecumenical Council”; whereas Catholics like to talk about the Magisterium.
I’ve often wondered whether this is truly a disagreement, or merely a difference of emphasis.
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Angels_Unaware
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That was my quote. I don’t know if the thumbs up was supposed to go to another quote by Non Serviam or to that one, but given the great sparsity of mutual agreement I am accustomed to encountering within this forum, if it was intended for that quote, then I am claiming it.
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Non_Serviam
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Having been asked to read Fides et Ratio lets take a quote from there (Chapter 5:55):
and from the CCC:
Both state clearly that one must have the Magisterium-the Bible Answer Man (an oxymoron if ever there was one
) makes no such claim to being essential.It seems quite clear from these passages that an individual can’t “reason and evaluate the message on their own” if they come to a conclusion that differs from the Magisterium. The Magisterium has declared itself essential to the process of understanding Truth being the sole possessor of Tradition and correct Scriptural interpretation.
If the Popes have clearly indicated when they’ve spoken ex cathedra, why are there at least 3 threads on CAF where Catholics debate with one another which papal statements are in fact infallible? Because it hasn’t been clearly listed which statements are or aren’t-look at the debate among Catholics regarding ordinatio sacerdotalis as a recent example.
I’m not referring to “a” doctrine, but for the Magisterium to specifically delineate everything contained in the original Apostolic deposit-then people could identify what was Tradition and what developed over time-even the Catechism isn’t claimed to be that exposition of Tradition-no one in the Vatican has said Tradition is limited to what is in the CCC or some subset of it.
I believe it is intellectually dishonest to say there is no conflict between the text of Unum Sanctam and the relevant portions of the CCC. It requires extreme violence to the text of either or both to “reconcile” them and yet, in spite of Unum Sanctam not being considered infallible, the Magisterium won’t say that Boniface was mistaken and there is now greater clarity on the topic. That may not be sinister, but it does little to inspire confidence that the spirit of openness to correction we see among the Apostles is still a part of things.
Once again, the faithful knew the writings were inspired and responded to them during worship long before the episcopacy made any proclamations to that effect. Sensus fidelium is the preferred term I believe.
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