What’s Wrong with the World

I absolutely agree and have preached this sermon many times. It is why I am a subscriber to and volunteer for Touchstone Magazine whose philosophy is exactly what you have written.

Well said, Lydia.

Tahnk you, Lydia, thank you. This is exactly the sort of sensible, intelligent set of comments that we have come to expect of you.

I am amused at Protestants who think that the gulf between Catholics and Protestants is so inherently unbridgeable and vastly wider than any kind of "go along for limited objectives" approach possibly can bridge. Because, as far as I can tell, there are plenty of conservative Protestants who are much, MUCH closer to Catholicism than they are to certain of their Protestant brothers. Yet they don't seem to take that "stay away" attitude with said Protestants who are much further away doctrinally. So, it would appear that this insistence on separation is driven not specifically by a recognition of a difference in doctrine, but something else. Something (as Lydia hints) sinister. Something that, maybe, would RATHER find people to be separated from than to celebrate a commonality with even if imperfectly so. Perhaps someone might ask: Why are you offended at the mote in your neighbor's eye, across the street, when you rest comfortably with the beam in your brother's eye across the table?

It leads me to wonder whether the kind of not very lively ecumenism Lydia refers to stems from something I have seen a tiny bit of. It is one thing to undertake to bear with your heretic neighbor by NEVER TALKING about religion with them. That's kind of the modern American way. It is another thing entirely to bear with your heretic neighbor while undertaking to discuss your differences with him, (knowing full well that you will repeatedly come out at loggerheads on this or that issue), because you think unity is so worthwhile it is worth trying for even if unlikely to successfully arrive at a resolution. I don't even remotely say all Protestants do this (or that Catholics don't), but by and large Catholics who are interested in their faith tend toward believing that a unity of faith and doctrine is exactly in keeping with Jesus's prayer at the Last Supper ("that they be one"). Some strains of Protestants are much more comfortable with a plurality of doctrinal teachings being the "normal" state of affairs. Which, again, makes it sort of humorous when you see them straining at THESE difference (the ones with Catholics) but not at THOSE differences.

There I have to be fair (if "fair" is quite the word) to the Pyros and say that they, at least, fight with everybody, including their brother Protestants. I mean, every which way. They are extremely quarrelsome. One might say "equal opportunity separationists." Just to take one example, a _big_ target of theirs is what is known as continuationism--briefly and inadequately, the idea that God is still sending messages and revelations personally to people, that the spiritual gifts of the New Testament such as healing and prophecy still continue. The Pyros are avid cessationists, which is the opposite of continuationism. They're always urging people to separate from other people who believe that God sends private messages, who believe in on-going healing miracles, and the like. They think all that Pentecostalism is dangerous stuff; they may even spill more e-ink over that than over the Catholic-Protestant divide.

Similarly, the really old-fashioned, avidly anti-Catholic fundamentalists of the sort I was raised by (fundamentalist independent Baptists) separate from pretty much all other Protestants as well.

I gotta admit, that's quite a "defense" of the Pyros. :-)

Lydia,
I highly recommend reading the philosopher Leibniz's 'System of Theology' (available online at archive.org) to see how prayers to saints can be shown to be compatible with Protestant principles. (The relevant passage begins at around pg. 70.)

If you haven't read it, the work in its entirety is--like Leibniz's Theodicy-- brilliant, and should be required reading for ecumenically-minded Catholics and Protestants.

Heh, Tony. 'Fraid so. The thing is, scrapping and arguing is pretty much inevitable on the Internet. The Internet encourages it, probably to an extent that isn't good (as I've remarked before). And one is always looking for blog fodder, which is often provided by the fact that one disagrees with someone else! As a real scrapper myself, I don't want to be missing the beam in my own eye. But a really big problem arises, beyond just being argumentative, when one is _separating_ over everything as well as _debating_.

That tradition goes back to many decades before the Internet and is, as I hinted, not unique to the Pyros. The phrase "secondary separation," which I used in the post, had currency and was debated in the Baptist circles in which I grew up, long before the Internet. (Though the phrase "secondary separation anxiety" is a pun of my own recent coinage.) The question was earnestly discussed whether we should separate from working with evangelicals (as opposed to fundamentalists) given that the evangelicals did not separate themselves sufficiently from the apostate mainline Protestant denominations. Now, I actually think most of the mainline Protestant denominations _were_ apostate by then, and still are. More now even than then, what with the homosexual issue and everything. But of course it doesn't follow that one should separate from everyone who doesn't separate from mainline Protestants. Separation from working with Catholics was taken for granted.

It would be interesting to do some sort of study of what influence the pro-life movement since Roe has had in these _very_ insular, self-consciously separated denominations. For example, in 2014 do we now find any independent Baptist pastors announcing 40 Days for Life and encouraging members to join, despite the fact that they will be working with Catholics?

Martel, I can show how invoking the saints _can_ be compatible with Protestant principles. That part is easy.

It's a little bit like the difference between the logical problem of evil and the evidential problem of evil. The logical problem of evil can be blown out of the water. The evidential POE is much more slippery.

Similarly, since my objections to prayers to the saints are vague and more matters of "concern" and "real danger," etc., rather than strictly stating that they are flat wrong and heretical, the whole thing is more complex. But I think that I and my Catholic interlocutors did well at having a respectful and fruitful debate on the subject at the two links I gave in the main post.

I will second that: Lydia's own post on praying to the saints was extremely fruitful and entirely respectful, I thought. I didn't convince her to start praying to the saints, and she didn't persuade me to stop, but it was still a fruitful debate.

Achieved, I might add, because Lydia charitably has not separated herself from working with (and debating respectfully with) Catholics and others who don't see eye to eye with each other on every topic.

I suppose that everyone is going to have to judge for themselves on where to draw the line at cooperating with "those heretics" (to be said in jovial form when you choose not to separate, and to be said in reproving terms when you decide to separate). But the underlying issue isn't one of taste, it is capable of more solidity than that. Obviously cooperating with people who don't agree with you about every important facet of doctrine has some potential for danger to your faith and morals, and that of your family. On the other hand, given a plural society you simply cannot function without associating with people who don't share your entire set of doctrines. You cannot LIVE in America if you categorically won't associate in ANY form with people whom you know don't hold your beliefs. So "associating in some degree" with those with other beliefs is unavoidable. Everyone has to do some of it. So, of necessity then, you have to ALSO build up your own tool box of methods, tools, and techniques for keeping the danger to a minimum, to the point where it is an acceptable risk. And then, of necessity (once you admittedly have such a tool box) you cannot go around claiming of every single person who holds a heretical thought "I must stop associating with him because he is a [too much of a] danger" - because not everyone is, given techniques to limit the risk. All of which means that secondary separation anxiety is a moral illness of those who don't recognize their own tool box of methods of "dealing" with risk, or don't trust the Holy Spirit to give them the appropriate help when they turn to Him for support. Secondary separation is a kind of spiritual paranoia.

Lydia,

I just read two of Kreeft's Socrates books recently and thought they were excellent (the one with Freud is really a classic of Christian apologetics). Sad to find out that he is such a flake, but that won't suddenly diminish my respect for what he did in those books!

I mean this is a bit O.T. but related to the message you convey about "secondary separation" -- there are all sort of great writers and artists who may have been bad people in their personal life -- does that mean we have to shun their works if we find out about these sins?

Anyway, wonderful post and thanks to Tony for his insightful comments.

Peter Kreeft isn't a 'flake' anymore on the Islam question. He admitted at the end of a debate with Robert Spencer that 'the only good Muslim is a bad Muslim.'

Lydia,

You remind me of a book by F. LaGard Smith, "Who Is My Brother?" He begins with an inter-religious group into which he was invited (by M. Scott Peck, I think). Their meeting happened to be in New Orleans at Mardi Gras time. As the group of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and others wandered out into the streets, they found themselves surrounded by every manner of decadence and celebrated immorality. Smith, at that moment, recognized a certain "fellowship" shared among their diversity and in stark contrast to the surrounding "culture". I see this as quite similar to your pro-life "fellowship" with Catholics (an experience which I share with you).

However, Smith was forced to differentiate himself from the others on the basis of religious truth-claims and the authenticity of one's claims to salvation. All would claim to be with God. But are they? And, in this regard, is scrutiny and withheld fellowship any less an issue between Catholics and Protestants?

And as much as I hate to be the one to say no to overtures of fellowship, the Scriptures seem to be quite at variance with both Catholics and Protestants precisely where each and both make confident claims to connections to Jesus, to Spirit, to God. I so urgently want fellowship wide and inclusive, but if God be allowed to set the terms through Scripture, we had all better get back to the Book rather than trusting tradition.

Thanks, Lydia, for the way you write and the way you think on such matters.

John

John,
Since 'tradition' as a matter of historical fact determined the canon of scripture, and since scripture nowhere claims to be the exclusive source wherein God 'sets the terms', and since no Christian really understood scripture in the way Protestants understand it for at least 1300 years after Christ (when John Wycliffe came along)--your plea to 'get back to the Book' to find common ground is hopelessly wed to the Protestant paradigm, which is completely at odds with historical Christianity.

As for Lydia, she reminds me of the unfortunate case of Leibniz. Like him, she is a philosopher, apologist, and ecumenist fond of hobnobbing with Catholics. Like him, she's fully aware of the Church's teaching that joining the external communion of Rome is incumbent upon those who recognize it to be the true Church. Like him, she values her own theological opinions over the authority of that Institution which has the strongest claim to be the visible Church.

As Leibniz preferred the comfortably latitudinarian Lutheranism in which he was raised to the strictures of Catholic dogma, Lydia seems to have a similar soft-spot for the cuius regio cuius religio of the Protestant South.

I doubt, though, that she would make Leibniz's telling admission-- that if he were raised Catholic, he would have stayed Catholic.

I do not mean to be rude in writing any of this. In fact, I think Lydia probably agrees with my assessment of her, which is pretty fair.

I do not mean to be rude in writing any of this. In fact, I think Lydia probably agrees with my assessment of her, which is pretty fair.

You don't consider this:

Like him, she values her own theological opinions over the authority of that Institution which has the strongest claim to be the visible Church.

...Rude?

Because it sure reads to me like you just told Lydia that the reason she's not a Catholic is that she's too arrogant. Which seems rude.

That a Protestant adheres to the principle of 'Private Judgment' does not make her arrogant, because, per Protestantism, private judgment--the Holy Spirit directing the interpretive conclusions of the individual's scripture reading-- trumps any putatively authoritative claim by the external Church. Witness William Lane Craig's acceptance of Monothelitism and consequent rejection of the Sixth General Council on the grounds that even ecumenical councils must answer to the 'tribunal of scripture'--by which he means of course his own interpretation of scripture.

At any rate, that Lydia, as a Protestant, subscribes to the principle of private judgment was all I was saying. (If I'm distorting Lydia's views on this point, she is welcome to correct me.)

'Sokay, MarcAnthony, I do in fact think private judgement is inevitable. It's a common trope in Protestant-Catholic debates for that to be implied to be, in a sense, arrogant by Catholics. I disagree, and in fact as I've said I think that any responsible person _has_ to use private judgement, that it's literally impossible to do without, even for a responsible Catholic. So I think that argument is a red herring. But I don't want to go to the mat with Martel about that here and now. It's a sufficiently common accusation that I don't take offense at it, and after all, in a sense it is fair since I do indeed rely upon my own judgement of what is true--in my opinion, because at the end of the day, that is what anyone has to rely on. (Even if what he decides, via his own judgement, is that someone else is an authority to be heeded.)

The one thing that does baffle me a bit in Martel's characterization is the reference to the south, by which I take him to mean the American south.

I'm a northerner born and bred. I spent only four years in the south--when my husband was in graduate school. I have quite a few dear southern friends, and it was in Nashville that I moved to Anglicanism. But in fact I'm not a southerner at all. I now live in Michigan. I was raised in the independent Baptist tradition--specifically in the GARBC, which was historically a spinoff from the Northern Baptist Convention. I'm now a member of the Anglican Catholic Church, a "continuing Anglican" denomination with both northern and southern congregations.

Here is a summary of one incarnation of that Kreeft-Spencer debate, and I'm sorry, but Kreeft still sounds like a flake.

http://www.thomasmorecollege.edu/blog/2010/11/08/peter-kreeft-and-robert-spencer-engage-in-lively-debate-on-islam/

In honesty, if one is non-flaky on this issue, one shouldn't be debating with Robert Spencer. One should just agree with Robert Spencer. Sorry to sound so dogmatic. (Mind you, my big disappointment about Spencer in the last couple of years is his flirting with the utterly absurd historical notion that maybe Mohammad didn't exist! I fear that it will discredit other things he has said about what Islam really is, essentially. But logically, those are fortunately separable.)

John,

You wonder,

And, in this regard, is scrutiny and withheld fellowship any less an issue between Catholics and Protestants?

Yes, I really think it is, and for roughly the reasons that Warren (to my pleased surprise) gave in his two-minute spiel: Trinitarianism, the resurrection, salvation through Jesus Christ. There is bound to be more fellowship between right-thinking Catholics and Protestants than between Christians and Buddhists because Protestants and Catholics really are both Christians. We are really brothers in Christ.

So in that sense, it _has_ to be less of an issue, because we have much more common ground.

Of course, it depends on what sort of fellowship is in view. For example, I don't expect Catholics to allow Protestants to receive Catholic Communion. But one could even engage in specifically _religious_ opposition to abortion. There could be prayers that could be offered together for an end to abortion at some sort of banquet, benefit concert, etc. Whereas we and Buddhists or Hindus do not pray to the same God, so that would not be possible with them.

I dunno, Martel. Is this post about what divides Protestants and Catholics doctrinally, or about separationism and second hand separation anxiety? Seems to me that suggesting that you are not in the cross-hairs for the charge of being s paranoic separationist, and then suggesting that you are willing to not call a Protestant self-willed (or other disparaging terms) just as soon as they give up their own principles and adopt the Catholic Church's principles is a bit odd. Or did I mistake your point, are you claiming (with John Krivak) that extreme separationism is the right pathway here?

we had all better get back to the Book rather than trusting tradition.

John, your feeble attempt to distinguish the Protestant from the Catholic approach by an appeal to "the Book" is as flat as a pancake. Scott Hahn as a Protestant tried and tried, twisted and turned and worked and strove mightily to prove that Catholicism doesn't adhere to the Bible. There is a word for someone who tries so hard to push the issue to its utter end: a Catholic. For he found it impossible to prove Protestantism more adheres to the Bible than Catholicism.

In any case, the Bible doesn't spell out the particulars of what one must do in terms of separating when you find that someone does not align with you in all matters of doctrine. Even the passage of Matthew 18:15 in in the context of a brother "who sins against you", not simply a brother who believes a false doctrine. And even the injuction used in v17 to "treat them as a pagan or a tax collector" is not, precisely, a directive to separate from them and shun them: Jesus did not shun pagans and tax collectors, he at dinner with them and preached to them, for the he came to call sinners, not the righteous. St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 says "If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience." Doesn't sound like shunning either.

Tony misses my point. I am not approaching Protestant and Catholic relations in terms of when it is, or is not, appropriate to "separate." The issue is who can and who cannot make a legitimate claim to being an authentic Christian. The Scriptures do indeed have a thing or two to say in that regard, and my point is that large swaths of Catholics and Protestants have set that aside in order to fall back on their time-tested traditions. And good luck on your attempts to make a happy marriage of those disparate traditions. The only common ground open is Scripture. The issue is one of recognizing spiritual kinship, or lack thereof, as a prerequisite to fellowship.

The confidence achieved through compliance to such traditions is faulty and illusory. Better to toss them and seize the words of Life. When Catholics and Protestants get to the end and answer for their responses to the Lord's Cross-work, how will they answer?
--"In response, Lord, I said the rosary with amazing regularity."
--"In response, Lord, I said the Sinner's Prayer and invited you into my heart."
Jesus never asked for either response, and the response He requires has gone lacking.

You also miss my point by suggesting that I must suppose Jesus died to be an opinion leader, so that what He requires demands uniformity in any and all details of Scripture. The Bible teaches that Jesus died to draw people into a saving relationship with God, and this relationship specifically is a "covenant"--the "New" covenant to be precise. Our discussion would be much more fruitful if we ditched the red herrings with the worthless traditions and focused instead on who, among Protestants and Catholics, have answered that call to relationship?

When you get the answer, Tony, you will find my brothers and sisters in fellowship.

Servant of Jesus,
John

John, at the risk of sounding hokey, I will say this: I think that I can, at least to some degree, tell when a person I'm talking with knows the Lord and is committed to Him. I'm not talking about some spooky sixth sense here. I realize that conversation is necessary, conversation with content. But especially in in-person conversation, there is such a thing as being able to detect sincerity in commitment to Jesus Christ. And I find this both in devout Catholics and in devout Baptists, Lutherans, Anglicans, and other denominations. This "sense" I'm talking about is not infallible. It can register both false positives--e.g., thinking someone is a sincere believer when he's a fake--and false negatives--e.g., thinking someone is a stuffed shirt with no real relationship with Jesus when in fact he's only shy or doesn't use enough lingo that I recognize. But I do think that Catholics and Protestants can recognize in each other that genuineness of commitment, and that is a link between those who have that experience of recognition.

The issue is who can and who cannot make a legitimate claim to being an authentic Christian.

Why? That is certainly a critical question for SOME things, but it is not the critical question for EVERY thing. Lydia's thesis is about Catholic - Protestant co-belligerance and ecumenism. Surely it is possible to ecumenically study the Bible without deciding "who is an authentic Christian, you or me?" Or to decide to work with some other group to overturn bad law without deciding whether they are authentic Christians. I can make (partial) common cause with a Mormon in putting an end to gay "marriage" even though I know Mormon's don't believe in the Trinity properly speaking.
In doing so, I don't have to spout off continually "but this here Mormon is not authentic an Christian."

The only common ground open is Scripture.

Thank God that we have the Scripture. But of course, on Pentecost Sunday, the 3000 new Christians didn't have a single document of the New Testament, and yet they were "authentic Christians." Christ told the Apostles "he who hears you hears me", so surely Scripture isn't the ONLY thing that Christians had for common ground. And, notice, he said it to _all_ of the Apostles, so even when St. Andrew went off to the north and west, and St. Thomas went off to the east, the Christians they converted still had in common the common teaching of the Apostles by word of mouth (and neither of these wrote a book of the Bible).

I have no problem relying on Scripture for everything God wants us to rely on it for. But discerning whether someone is an "authentic Christian" doesn't seem to be much of what the Bible tells us to do. (The only passage I recall about actually doing something about people who are not in "fellowship" with you is 2 Corinthians 6:14, and that talks rather about "unbelievers", not about those who believe in Christ but are not authentic followers of His full word.)

It is normal, in any endeavor with others, to start from a point of common ground: in a political debate, we try to locate agreed political premises. In a philosophy discussion, we will search for agreed philosophy premises. That's how all concerted effort works, not just that of Christians working together. So the fact that Protestants and Catholics have most (but not all) of the Bible in common makes that a normal part of the beginning point - if they can set aside the differences of their Bibles for long enough. But between Byzantine rite Catholics and Roman rite Catholics, they have more than the Bible in common, and they can fruitfully draw off that greater agreement - for studying doctrine. But if their endeavor together isn't about studying doctrine, and is rather learning Chinese so they can fend off industrial espionage, they don't need to discern either that "hey, that other guy is an authentic Christian" or that "that other guy has the same doctrines I do about the Holy Spirit."

Lydia,
No need to overcomplicate things. Do you accept the teachings of the Council of Nicaea, because according to your own scriptural interpretation you judge its teachings to be true; or do you accept its teachings based on its authority as a general council? If both, would you still accept the council's teachings if by your own scriptural interpretation you became convinced that the council had erred?

Oh, definitely, the "private judgement" side of both of those, Martel. But I'm not overcomplicating. After all, I accept the authority of Scripture for teaching doctrine, so it's not like I don't accept authority. And you, presumably, believe in the authority of the council and the church because you believe that they _really are_ authoritative, not just because you have some kind of a-rational, kneejerk, arbitrary inclination to accept _that_ authority rather than some other. So at some level, you are relying on your private judgement about which authority to accept.

So it's not true that Protestants rely on private judgement but not authority and Catholics rely on authority but not private judgement. Both rely on both, just in different ways.

Where the real dividing line falls is on whether one accepts the visible Catholic Church, specifically, *as* an authority and as an authority which has an on-going teaching function. So the argument is about which authority to accept and also about whether there is a God-ordained, living authority now visible on earth with an on-going teaching office.

I think that thinking of it that way is clarifying without answering the question, per se, about who is right on that question. (Though my own position is already known.)

Tony's comment raises the very interesting question: In what sense is co-belligerence on life issues between Catholics and Protestants different (or not different) from co-belligerence between either of those groups and some completely different group, such as Mormons? Following from that, does it make any difference if we are making common cause with other Christians or not?

Those are very interesting questions. On the life issues, one certainly _can_ make common cause with non-Christians--with Mormons, Buddhists, or even atheists. And I am willing to do so. (Though I think there are special reasons for being wary of doing so with Muslims, specifically, given current events.)

However, there is indeed something special about making common cause on those issues with fellow Christians. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, it's a good thing to be able to have a specifically religious pro-life event where someone leads in prayer for an end to abortion. Now, it's pretty important that if you are going to pray together, you all be praying to the same God. I would not agree that we should have a Buddhist or an imam leading prayer at a pro-life event. But Protestants and Catholics can have such an event and have a prayer that doesn't invoke any of the differences between them in which all join as Christians, and there is something special in that.

This is partly because the issues of abortion, marriage, etc., go pretty deep. They are, not to put too fine a point on it, culture war issues. And it's a great feeling to be, in some small respect, reviving Christendom to fight the culture war. One can't say that except when the group in question happens to be Christian.

So I'm certainly not going to exclude atheists from the March for Life or anything like that. But there are particular ways in which Catholics and Protestants can encourage each other in this fight and join together that don't apply to atheists or Hindus.

I'll be brief for now, since the only Internet I have at home is on my smart phone. I would like to respond to Lydia and Tony in full.

The Bible is not an authority in the same sense as a living or active authority. It's certainly not a demonstrably consistent formal system, such as the Principia's elementary logic of propositions section; nor is it even capable of formalization. Hence, it necessarily contains ambiguity, and is highly susceptible to ambiguous meta-statements.

Lawyers and judges have jobs for the simple reason that written documents are invariably not authoritative in themselves, but require human interpreters to determine correct and incorrect readings and settle ambiguities.

Hence, in claiming scripture as an authority that you accept, and in neglecting to point to an attendant third-party interpretive authority, you are essentially arrogating de facto authority to yourself.

So the distinction is, Catholics use private judgment as a ladder in order to accept an external ecclesial authority, but after that point kick away the ladder and cede the adjudicating power over doctrine to the authority of the Church, while Protestants, by a similar act of private judgment, accept the so-called authority of the Bible, but then proceed to assume authority over the Bible through a perpetual and essentially unchecked exercise of private judgment concerning its doctrines in the same sense that a one-person Supreme Court would assume authority over the Constitution.

So while both Catholics and Protestants practice private judgment, they do so to vastly different extents, and only Catholics accept authority in the fullest sense of the word.

Lydia,

I should add that the debate in which Kreeft, at the end, admitted that the only good Muslim is a bad Muslim, is precisely the debate which you linked to.

Hence, I suggest that his flakiness on Islam, while perhaps evident in the body of that debate, terminated upon its conclusion, and has not been manifested since.

Well argued Lydia. The Pyromaniacs objected strenuously to the Manhattan Declaration and to the Protestants who supported and signed it (of which I was one). I endured a lot of snark in particular from Frank Turk. If I recall correctly, Phil Johnson wrote in a comment to me that Catholicism was worse than abortion because Catholicism damned untold numbers of souls to Hell. When I brought up that Albert Mohler and some other well known Reform people or evangelicals had signed it, they were upset that I pointed out their written arguments.

P.S. Although I'm not Anglican, if I was one I'd chose to be a Continuer as well. TEc is apostate. CoE is ridiculous. ACNA annoys because of its compromise on WO. Of course the Continuers also have their share of schism as you well know, so your move to get away from secondary separation and whatnot hasn't been entirely successful.

Martel, there's probably some truth to the statement that Catholics and Protestants use private judgement to different extents, but even that is exaggerated. For example, I hang out on the Catholic blogosphere _way_ too much to be able in honesty to accept the "kicking away the ladder of private judgement" metaphor. My Catholic friends are _constantly_ debating among themselves about whether x or y is authoritative Church teaching, what it means, etc. It is, in fact, *exactly like* the debates my Protestant friends and I have about the meaning of Scripture passages, how they apply to present-day situations, and the like. The parallel is extremely strong. And these are very sincere, conservative Catholics, not dissenters or anything of that kind. Some of that sort of discussion has gone on at this very site.

And more power to 'em. I don't say this to be derogatory but merely to say that "private judgement" is inevitable and unavoidable and therefore is not actually the best way to understand the differences between Catholics and Protestants.

As for Kreeft, do you know if he has said anything subsequent to that debate in which he says that he has changed his mind or retracts his earlier statements (and several books) about the wonderfulness of Islam and Muslim-Christian ecumenism?

If I recall correctly, Phil Johnson wrote in a comment to me that Catholicism was worse than abortion because Catholicism damned untold numbers of souls to Hell.

If he said that, it's actually quite interesting from a theological perspective. It reminds me of the issue in soteriology that came up in my recent apologetics post. I would say that abortion sends untold numbers of souls to hell--the mothers, the boyfriends, the abortionists, many other people who are complicit! That is, if they are unrepentant. Why would one think otherwise?

I can think of one reason why one might think otherwise: If one's soteriology were such that committing a grave sin like abortion raised *no worries* that the person who committed it was damning his soul (or in the case of the mother, her soul) to hell! In other words, a soteriology in which *acts* are almost completely divorced from salvation and the state of one's soul.

Yeah, Martel, I'm reading that transcript, and I just don't see what you see. I see Kreeft making what he sees as a very _minor_ concession to Spencer in the last line of the debate, but he qualifies it a lot, and there is no sense in which he is making a major turnaround. He endorses Dinesh D'Souza (for crying out loud) on the matter of Islam in the course of the same Q & A!

Here is a transcript, for those (like me) who find it much faster to read printed text than watch a video:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/12/kreeftspencer-debate-transcript-is-the-only-good-muslim-a-bad-muslim

"If he said that, it's actually quite interesting from a theological perspective."

Yes Lydia, he did say that. On this particular point Phil Johnson wrote:

"As a matter of fact, Rome's denial of the gospel, together with her catalogue of extrabiblical superstitions and manmade doctrines that keep untold millions from trusting Christ alone, strike me as far grosser evils than abortion. That's not to minimize the evil of abortion; but hopefully it puts the wickedness of damning false religion in perspective." (Boldface in the original.)

His claim is that being a co-belligerent with Rome is abandoning our true spiritual warfare (against false damning religions) for the lesser cause of contending against abortion.

Phil Johnson doubled down when I was contending that Protestants can do "Both/And" when it comes to doing Gospel Work and working on behalf of the unborn.

It sounds rather like Scott Klusendorf's controversy with the Pyros:

http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/in-defense-of-bothand-my-reply-to-phil.html

"It sounds rather like Scott Klusendorf's controversy with the Pyros:"

LOL. Too funny. I click on your link and as I was reading, I thought, "Man, this is good stuff. Wish I knew this when I was debating Phil Johnson and Frank Turk. Then I get to the comment thread and I saw my comments there! Ha! And Scott Klusendorf thanking me for my comments.

Anyways, TeamPyro frequently has great material on their blog. It's just that when one of them goes off the deep end, they really stink up the joint bad. Just like any other regular redeemed sinner.

I think Piper's terrific, and his coming alongside of Rick Warren and Mark Driscoll to mentor them is a fine choice. While I don't share his enabling of charismaticism, I do appreciate so very much his doctrinal convictions and teaching.

Lydia,

You are as wrong on this authority discussion as I was regarding you being from the South (mea culpa, by the way).

For starters, ATSQ, i.e., please answer the second question I posed above regarding Nicaea. You answered the first, but then skirted the second, more difficult one.

Next, it's simply false that Catholic disputes over doctrinal status are of the same character as Protestant disputes over Biblical interpretation; they are different in kind (in the Adlerian sense).

You can think of the Catholic system as an informal one in which axioms are added which more closely define the truths deducible from that system. Each of the early ecumenical councils, for instance, added axioms to the dogmatic system which limited the range of acceptable Catholic belief concerning the Person of Jesus Christ. Each passing council limited the disputes over correct doctrine by both defining the doctrine more precisely: positively, by describing the doctrine at issue more extensively, and negatively, by setting boundaries of permissible opinion via the anathemas.

To use a mathematical analogy, let's say one council defines the doctrinal truth as being a real number between 1 and 10, inclusive. In the wake of that council, if a Catholic were to say the truth is 11, anathema sit--no questions asked, no Biblical arguments to bear. The next council comes along and defines the doctrinal truth more narrowly as between 2 and 9, inclusive. Once that decision is made, it's possible that you become anathema even though you weren't after the first council (say, because you maintained that the truth was 10). (A real example of this is St Justin Martyr, whose Christology was within the bounds of orthodoxy during his lifetime, but after the later councils could certainly be considered to maintain positions outside the pale due to imprecise language within which heretical opinions could be nested.) The next council says the truth is an odd integer between 2 and 9 inclusive (which eliminates the even integers and the irrational and fractional numbers between 2 and 9); and the following council defines it as a prime number, which narrows it to 3, 5, or 7.

Notice how throughout this process a Catholic's ability to exercise private judgment is narrowed due its being forced into a smaller and smaller scope of acceptable doctrinal interpretation. What is clear is that private judgment is playing second fiddle; it's taking orders from authority. And if it strays...anathema sit.

How does private judgment being exercised under so-called Biblical authority differ? Certainly scripture sets certain constraints on some limited matters of basic doctrine-- e.g. that God exists, etc.--but on some very important questions, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation, it is astoundingly imprecise and ambiguous. So what authority gets invoked to clear up these matters? Cue private judgment. Cue William Lane Craig exercising his personal authority to toss out the Sixth Ecumenical Council and cue Isaac Newton throwing Nicaea to the wolves. So much for scriptural authority. Or were these two simply illogical (tough sell), or clumsy in Greek (Craig, for one, knows it pretty well)?

Scriptural authority is meaningless unless it can generate a modest number of incontestable doctrinal truths; it can't. Ecclesial authority can by its own fiat. And the proof's in the pudding: you've got Catholics using private judgment to dispute over whether Mary should be defined as 'Mediatrix of all graces' or whether Limbo is or is not a dogma, while you've got Protestants using private judgment to dispute over whether Jesus was God--(this still happens; look at Vox Day)--and whether to accept the Trinity (e.g. Oneness Pentecostals).

The Bible is insufficiently authoritative and it shows.

...and with regard to the two Catholic disputes cited above, a Pope or Council can authoritatively end them. On the other hand, scripture can't authoritatively end the disputes over Arianism and Antitrinitarianism among Protestants.

WRT Peter Kreeft. I think his concession at the end of the Thomas More debate was major; sure, he qualified the claim that the only good Muslim is a bad Muslim before agreeing to it, but the qualified claim basically matched what Robert Spencer claimed in the first place.

That said, I have not found any record of Dr. Kreeft retracting his former flaky opinions and writings on Islam, so you may be right that he continues to be a flake in this regard.

For starters, ATSQ, i.e., please answer the second question I posed above regarding Nicaea. You answered the first, but then skirted the second, more difficult one.

Please look back. I expressly agreed to the so-called "private judgement" side of _both_. I did not intend to be unclear, only brief.

I'm not going to keep going with you on this, but I would simply invite anyone interested actually to _read_ some sincere Catholics discussing the meaning of Church teaching on some matter--say, the death penalty, or the use of torture, or usury, or a great many other things, and then _compare_ it to what Protestants do when deciding what the Bible says about, say, the doctrine of election. I maintain that the resemblances and parallels are absolutely clear.

As for your implication that Scripture is unclear on the Trinity, that is a classic move, but it's a very bad one, and you do your cause no good by pushing it. I don't have the time to debate it with you on any level, but you're much more likely to undermine people's belief in the Trinity by such a move than to strengthen their desire to become Catholic. Considering, as well, that the Church's teaching is supposed to be explaining the deposit of faith, it's a really, really bad move for Catholics to go around preaching loudly and earnestly that the Bible doesn't clearly teach the Trinity. I cannot warn too strongly against it. It is illogical even from your own perspective, for multiple reasons. Nobody thinking logically is going to accept Catholicism to preserve his belief in the Trinity when you have just deliberately attacked that person's previous _independent_ reason for believing in the Trinity. That whole argument is just...dreadful. And its premise is also false. Indeed, if your own Catholic teachers were to explain where, in the deposit of faith, they find the Trinity, they would doubtless point to the same texts to which I would point. I implore you not to think you are helping your own cause in any way, shape, or form by going about deliberately attacking the clarity of Scripture on basic doctrinal questions. It's poor doctrine, poor theology, poor strategy, poor exegesis, and poor Catholicism.

But I think I had better stop there.

Here's the thing, though: I'm not saying any of this as an argument _against_Catholicism. In fact, that's not my purpose at all. I'm merely focusing the difference where I think it belongs--on the question of why the Catholic Church should indeed be regarded as an on-going authority. I'm well aware that Catholics have reasons and arguments for concluding as they do on that point. I expressly _don't_ intend to debate that question on this thread. After all, I'm all about making common cause with Catholics on this thread. I am simply setting aside the "You guys use private judgement and you shouldn't" swipe against Protestants as not really getting at the real divide. And, "The Bible doesn't clearly teach the Trinity" is an *incredibly* poor way to attack Protestantism. I would just invite you, Martel, to set aside those poor arguments. And in fact, I would invite you to set aside all attempts at anti-Protestant polemics here, since that's not really what this thread is about anyway.

I'll respond in full tomorrow, but for now I should say that I really do take issue with you ignoring the qualitative difference in how private judgment is exercised by Catholics and Protestants, as well as your accusation that I'm undermining people's faith in the Trinity. The Trinity, as defined according to the first two ecumenical councils, is not clearly deducible from Scripture. If it were, the councils would not have been called in the first place to settle the dispute over the definition-- a dispute which stemmed in large part from the inconclusiveness of the relevant scriptural texts.

I would suggest that the reason why most Protestants accept the orthodox conception of the Trinity today has more to do with Nicaean and Constantinopolitan inclusions in the first Protestant confessions (such as Augsburg) effecting powerful residual and prejudicial impressions upon the later breakaway churches and sub-sects, who in turn, after professing Bible-alone Protestantism, were amazed at how clearly the Bible taught orthodox Trinitarianism--than it has to do with the clarity of scripture on the question. In fact, it is probably because Newton resolved to completely eschew Anglican conciliar inheritances (e.g. Nicaea) and rely solely on the Bible that he made himself susceptible to Arianism.

Even if orthodox Trinitarianism emerges as highly supportable from scripture--which, all things considered, I believe it is--and consequently a rather probable comprehensive interpretation of the scriptural texts, it is not clearly deducible from scripture. Hence, it would not be clearly and certainly a doctrine of faith had the Church not decided definitively and authoritatively at Nicaea that it was. Again, the Bible is/was insufficient.

Lydia,
And if you're taking the private judgment side of both of the questions I asked you, that means you admit that, if in the course of your own Bible reading you were to determine that Nicaea got it wrong, you would reject Nicaea, trusting in your own private judgment over the ostensible authority of the council?

Such an admission is surely a prime example that the relationship between authority and private judgment isn't an issue; it is THE central issue.

Martel, there's probably some truth to the statement that Catholics and Protestants use private judgement to different extents, but even that is exaggerated.

Say, rather, with different alignment of qualifying parameters. Both sets use the Bible as the touchstone of authentic doctrine, but Catholics also use Tradition as certain a guide.

It is inevitable, though, that all Christians use private judgment, for all Christians (indeed every adult human) must use their own mind to grasp what God is revealing. And when they do so, that truth resides in their mind, not in their neighbor's. When a Catholic adheres to a doctrine simply and solely because the Church teaches, and has taught it, definitively, immemorially and universally, he perforce uses his own mind to discern "the Church teaches this definitively, immemorially, and universally." That discernment must be his own mental work, except for the remarkably few doctrines that have been the subject of the Church herself stating, explicitly: "we hereby affirm definitively and universally, in accordance with our immemorial teaching, that X is true". Such a solemn definition is rare and the sum of them does not encompass all of Church teaching. And even so, such a solemn definition leaves open to individual judgment when this or that act fall into the category defined, and it leaves open the meaning of peripheral concepts that must be further explored. And these, naturally, are debated vigorously. They can even debate vigorously on the precise foundation of the truth so taught.

When, however, Catholics debate on the validity of a Church teaching made immemorially, universally, and definitively, they do so in bad faith as Catholics. Which, sad to say, happens all the time.

You are as wrong on this authority discussion as I was regarding you being from the South (mea culpa, by the way).

Martel, are you trying to be rude? Is it really necessary to descend into such expressions in order to make your point? Is your point really on the topic of this posting?

Say, rather, with different alignment of qualifying parameters. Both sets use the Bible as the touchstone of authentic doctrine, but Catholics also use Tradition as certain a guide.

It is inevitable, though, that all Christians use private judgment, for all Christians (indeed every adult human) must use their own mind to grasp what God is revealing. And when they do so, that truth resides in their mind, not in their neighbor's. When a Catholic adheres to a doctrine simply and solely because the Church teaches, and has taught it, definitively, immemorially and universally, he perforce uses his own mind to discern "the Church teaches this definitively, immemorially, and universally." That discernment must be his own mental work, except for the remarkably few doctrines that have been the subject of the Church herself stating, explicitly: "we hereby affirm definitively and universally, in accordance with our immemorial teaching, that X is true". Such a solemn definition is rare and the sum of them does not encompass all of Church teaching. And even so, such a solemn definition leaves open to individual judgment when this or that act fall into the category defined, and it leaves open the meaning of peripheral concepts that must be further explored.

Thank you, Tony. That's pretty much what I'm saying. It's pretty much all I'm saying on that point. And I don't think saying it constitutes an _attack_ on Catholicism, merely a clarification.

I don't think Martel was trying to be rude in the comment about my being wrong about authority. He just feels strongly about the centrality of the question.

Martel,

Such an admission is surely a prime example that the relationship between authority and private judgment isn't an issue; it is THE central issue.

No, I don't think so, for the reasons Tony gives. That is, it just illustrates _where_ private judgement is used (in my case as a Protestant) rather than _whether_ it is used.

On the Trinity, I don't quite agree that there is a sharp distinction between "deducible" and "highly supportable." As a real advocate of probability, I tend to think that those lie on a continuum rather than being different in kind. At least, when we are talking about a text and the interpretation thereof.

As for the silly things that people say, e.g., about the Bible's not teaching x or y when the Bible clearly does teach it, that tells us nothing about whether *in fact* Scripture is clear on x or y. As you know yourself, and as Tony notes, there are Catholics (or perhaps one should say "Catholics") who do that kind of thing concerning the clearest Catholic Church teaching all the time. If the clarity of teaching is to be judged by whether some clever person can squirrel around it, then _nothing_ is clear and we shall need a never-ending regress of interpreters, each of them subject (unfortunately) to the same all-too-human squirreling.

It is inevitable, though, that all Christians use private judgment, for all Christians (indeed every adult human) must use their own mind to grasp what God is revealing. And when they do so, that truth resides in their mind, not in their neighbor's. When a Catholic adheres to a doctrine simply and solely because the Church teaches, and has taught it, definitively, immemorially and universally, he perforce uses his own mind to discern "the Church teaches this definitively, immemorially, and universally." That discernment must be his own mental work, except for the remarkably few doctrines that have been the subject of the Church herself stating, explicitly: "we hereby affirm definitively and universally, in accordance with our immemorial teaching, that X is true". Such a solemn definition is rare and the sum of them does not encompass all of Church teaching. And even so, such a solemn definition leaves open to individual judgment when this or that act fall into the category defined, and it leaves open the meaning of peripheral concepts that must be further explored. And these, naturally, are debated vigorously. They can even debate vigorously on the precise foundation of the truth so taught.

Yes, of course a Catholic must use his own mind when accepting a Catholic doctrine which falls within the purview of infallible dogma. However, this act is not an act of 'private judgment', but rather 'imposed judgment', i.e. judgment which is bound to accept a particular conclusion based on its authoritative origin. According to the Protestant model, the believer uses his own mind to form a 'private judgment' concerning which doctrines Scripture actually teaches. So there is one difference.

But the more apparent difference between the Catholic and Protestant approach has to do with the feedback loop for correcting judgment. The Catholic model has a workable method of correction: If a Catholic suspects he believes wrongly on some doctrinal matter, and he is anxious to know whether his belief is within the bounds of orthodoxy, he can submit his case to Rome, which can in turn judge the rightness or wrongness of the belief (i.e. whether or not it is conformable to Catholic dogma). In the extreme case, a dubious belief becomes so widespread and controversial that Rome calls a council or the Pope makes a pronouncement which provides a definitive and infallible judgment concerning the belief's orthodoxy. In such a case, Catholic are bound to accept Rome's judgment and are forbidden to maintain a theological opinion contrary to its judgment.

Protestantism provides nothing similar to this 'Catholic feedback', which imposes itself on a believer's judgment and limits its scope of operation. In Protestantism there is no feedback which the believer is bound to accept as definitive and authoritative.

When I wrote that Lydia's statement regarding Nicaea exemplified the centrality of the relationship between authority and private judgment, she replied:

No, I don't think so, for the reasons Tony gives. That is, it just illustrates _where_ private judgement [sic] is used (in my case as a Protestant) rather than _whether_ it is used.

Yes, and gun control advocates don't really want to overthrow the right to bear arms, they simply want to limit where they are used and carried to the confines of one's own domicile. At any rate, Lydia, your statement is just not true. On the Protestant view, private judgment is exercised without any limits except those imposed on the believer himself through his own reading of the Bible; hence, private judgment provides the corrective feedback for private judgment. On the Catholic view, private judgment is delimited and can be corrected by the authority of the Church. Of course, the Catholic is free to reject that authority, but he ipso facto becomes a non-Catholic by making such a rejection.

On the Trinity, I don't quite agree that there is a sharp distinction between "deducible" and "highly supportable." As a real advocate of probability, I tend to think that those lie on a continuum rather than being different in kind. At least, when we are talking about a text and the interpretation thereof.

The Arian position is also supportable. That I believe the Trinitarian reading is highly supportable could only be an instance of confirmation bias. Also, there is no continuum in the matter of certainty. When Rome judges a doctrine concerning faith or morals--and judges using those means which She has authoritatively confirmed are sufficient to render her judgments infallible--the believer can be certain that she speaks authoritatively. From these first principles of belief--that Rome is infallible on those matters which are within her teaching competence and that She is infallible provided she meets the criteria of infallibility--it is deducible that if Rome makes a particular judgment on those matters and makes the judgment according to the criteria of infallibility, the believer can be certain that Rome is correct. There is no similar structure of certainty in Protestantism. Such 'certainty' can only come from the believer himself reading his own Bible and deciding that he is certain.

As for the silly things that people say, e.g., about the Bible's not teaching x or y when the Bible clearly does teach it, that tells us nothing about whether *in fact* Scripture is clear on x or y. As you know yourself, and as Tony notes, there are Catholics (or perhaps one should say "Catholics") who do that kind of thing concerning the clearest Catholic Church teaching all the time.

Yes, and the important point about those 'Catholics' is that they can be corrected by higher authority. By contrast, a Protestant judging that the Bible does not teach x or y cannot be corrected by higher authority. As for whether Scripture is 'clear' on a matter; per Protestant principles, that is entirely a matter of private judgment.

Martel, you've made a game effort here; and given the artwork we chose for our website, you can be sure that even the Protestants among us strongly admire Charles the Hammer.

But I don't think you representation of Protestantism really holds up. At times it simply degenerates into caricature. For instance, when you say

Such [Protestant] 'certainty' can only come from the believer himself reading his own Bible and deciding that he is certain

-- when you say this I suspect you are enjoying the pyrotechnics of burning a strawman rather excessively.

Except for some few extremists, all Protestant churches, instructing from Scripture, teach that when we are born again in Christ we are literally born into something new and marvelous -- the church, the Body of Christ, the Church Militant. We are not born into the private isolation implied by your rendering of the Protestant position.

It will not do to substitute late modern American individualism for the doctrines of bible-believing Protestants, even if we can all agree that pernicious aspects of individualism have infected the church (in all her denominations).

My late grandfather (a Catholic) once admitted to my father (also a Catholic) that he had never really enjoyed a true bible study. This was very late in life, after decades of regular mass attendance, much of it well before the Latin Mass was superseded. Of course he heard Scripture read multiple times at every mass, but as for careful cooperative study, he was impoverished by a church that (in part by way of reaction to American Protestantism) unwisely downplayed the importance of Scripture.

A polemical Protestant might jump on this sort of thing (which was, I fear, pervasive in mid-20th century American Catholicism) to denounce the mote in his Roman brother's eye; but a more charitable reading takes cognizance of the full depth of Catholic preservation and care for the Scriptural traditions of our shared Christian faith. A more charitable reading would acknowledge that innumerable Catholic parishes have massively improved on this head.

Moreover, a charitable Protestant might point to the fact that (say) St. Augustine, who cleaved to unmistakably "Roman" ideas in a great deal of doctrine, is venerated by Protestants too, and for good reason. Unless the hardline Calvinists (say) would have us banish the Hammer of the Donatists from our venerable ranks, they are going to have to acknowledge that many heroes and saints and doctors of the faith embraced Catholic dogma on key matters.

I hold to Lewis's vision of Mere Christianity precisely because I can see the greatness in the RCC; precisely because a careful historical study can demonstrate how, even in our division, we learn from one another; and precisely because we all share the hope that one day every knee will bow and tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Our union is under Christ's lordship.

(By the way, nothing in my ecumenical experience is more effective at melting the bitterness and suspicious of Catholics by Protestants than pointing out that 'round about twenty years ago the Pope in Rome set loose an enormous cavalcade of shock and astonishment when he issued a document entitled, "Jesus is Lord.")

Martel, I think the core of our difference lies in our definition of the term "private," as manifested by this response of yours to what Tony has said:

Yes, of course a Catholic must use his own mind when accepting a Catholic doctrine which falls within the purview of infallible dogma. However, this act is not an act of 'private judgment', but rather 'imposed judgment', i.e. judgment which is bound to accept a particular conclusion based on its authoritative origin. According to the Protestant model, the believer uses his own mind to form a 'private judgment' concerning which doctrines Scripture actually teaches. So there is one difference.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a definitional matter concerning the use of the term "private judgement." One uses his own mind to decide what the Bible teaches. The other uses his own mind to decide what the church teaches about what the Bible teaches. In practice, the two become very similar, as I have said, based upon my own observation of sincere and non-dissident Catholics discussing among themselves, using "chapter and verse," what the Church teaches on a variety of matters, whether x is church teaching, whether it is infallible or whether dissent is permitted, and the like, which is exactly similar to Protestants discussing what Scripture teaches, whether it is intended to apply in our own time, and the like. Since that is, in both cases, the kind of thing that I mean by the phrase "private judgement" but not what you mean by the phrase, there you have it. We're just using the phrase differently. If I understand you correctly, you do not use the phrase "private judgement" if the person intends to submit to an authority currently teaching here on earth.

(By the way, I adhere to the older/British spelling of "judgement" for reasons related to my interest in phonics and teaching reading to children. So "sic" is not needed.)

It is, in fact, not important to me to _convince_ you to use or sanction the use of the phrase "private judgement" in my sense, so I appreciate the respectful discussion, but at this point I'm quite happy to agree to disagree.

when you say this I suspect you are enjoying the pyrotechnics of burning a strawman rather excessively.

Paul, your prose is a wonderful thing. I wish I could command language like you do.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a definitional matter concerning the use of the term "private judgement."

I was beginning to come to the same conclusion, but I am not quite confident of that.

In practice, the two become very similar, as I have said, based upon my own observation of sincere and non-dissident Catholics discussing among themselves, using "chapter and verse," what the Church teaches on a variety of matters, whether x is church teaching, whether it is infallible or whether dissent is permitted, and the like, which is exactly similar to Protestants discussing what Scripture teaches, whether it is intended to apply in our own time, and the like.

Let me be the first to agree that there are indeed a lot of similarities. What I would like to explore is whether there are also such important differences that we should think of them distinctly.

Both Catholics and Protestants will read the Bible and think about a passage, worry at it, consider what it means, debate it, and come to what he thinks makes the most sense of it given all the other passages that do or might bear on it. Very similar.

At the same time, both will think that the Bible passage in question is authoritative - it is the Word of God. Very similar.

Both will look at what other people have said about the passage: friends, teachers, scholars, men of wisdom. Quite a bit of similarity.

Both will read and ponder what the ancient Fathers, the saintly heroes of the early Church, said about it. Their take is somewhat similar, but not quite the same degree of similarity as before: the Protestant may do this with the assumption that God imbues him with the same mode and order of graces to read and perceive the Truth that He imbued every one of those teachers, scholars, and men of wisdom. The Catholic doesn't approach it quite that way. The Catholic thinks that the way the Fathers taught about the Biblical passage warrants a kind of discipleship, and a kind of humility: pushing on your mind to make extra efforts to see, understand, and even conform to it - as does a student in martial arts accepts the words of his instruction master, including the words he doesn't grasp yet or see the wisdom of yet. But only a KIND of discipleship, for it is not the kind of discipleship we have to the Lord: a Father of the Church could err, but the Bible cannot. I would submit that this is a note of difference between the Catholic and Protestant (at least most of the ones I have talked to), this taking someone (anyone other than Christ) as an instruction master to whom you submit yourself, wherein you are willing to put your personal judgement on hold and let the master lead you. And the putting your own judgement on hold isn't merely "while I am taking this class", or "while I am in school", as we do in college - it is more open ended and may last a lifetime. It represents, at the very least, a preferential presumption that if I don't understand what the Father is saying, the defect is more likely in me than in his interpretation of the passage. Or, to say it another way, a general unwillingness to rest at "he thought not-A where I think A, so I just don't accept him on this point." This unwillingness to rest there includes a determination "I will suspend judgement for A until I see why he would have said not-A, why he might have arrived at an error, and that others equally authoritative as he say A rather than not-A".

And then we come to the Church. The Catholic, after he has struggled with a passage's meaning and tentatively come to conclusion A about it, finds that the Church says "Not-A" about it. The Catholic gives up his personal take on it, and by will accepts what the Church says, not-A. How does he do this? The motive source of the act is in the will, (which is, after all, where the grace of faith acts), urging the intellect to assent not through understanding and apprehending the truth of not-A directly, but by faith in the teaching of the Church and faith in God who says "he who hears you hears Me". It is the same faith in God that Peter had when he said "you are the son of the living God", which he did not understand fully because clearly Christ was fully man as well. He did not understand why or how or anything, he just trusted. In doing so, the Catholic puts his privately arrived at judgment A into a box and says of it "I know why I thought A was true, and while I don't see now why A is false I accept THAT it is wrong and I suspend judgment about the why's and wherefores until some time when my understanding is greater. In the meantime I accept not-A as the truth." The Catholic's submission to the Church's teaching is an instance of his submission to Christ and his injunction "he who hears you hears me", and it is faith in Christ that is the root source of both acts of acceptance. As with all acts of faith, the person allows for a suspension of the judgement of the intellect on the basis of a stronger vehicle for apprehension than that of the natural light of the intellect: God's own revelation of and through Himself.

And so the difference includes at least this much: the Catholic is ready to suspend his own judgement on the testimony of certain others - not just the testimony of those others who wrote the Bible, but a group that goes forward through the history of the Church. And because of this, he is habituated to a sort of limitation on his use of his own judgement, he is prepared to credit (some) men with authority over his judgement.

sincere and non-dissident Catholics discussing among themselves, using "chapter and verse," what the Church teaches on a variety of matters, whether x is church teaching, whether it is infallible or whether dissent is permitted, and the like, which is exactly similar to Protestants

Let us admit that Catholics do in fact do a fair bit of debating whether the Church does teach x or whether that teaching is infallible. Yet all this debate is done with a backdrop: when the Church states in a definitive way, HONEST debate ceases. The true Catholic insists that there is a limit to debate, that there are times when issue has been closed, and to debate after that must be to debate in bad faith.

I hold to Lewis's vision of Mere Christianity

Paul, would it have been even possible for Lewis's Mere Christianity body of truths have become the general norm held by Christians without an authoritative single Church to formulate that body of teachings? Looking at the range of what various Protestants hold, it seems (to me, anyway) unlikely. Lewis's central concensus is built on the foundation of a single authoritative Church, he is feeding off the patrimony that could never have been built without Rome.

I will post a full reply in the coming week. (At the moment, I am extremely busy with work.)

For now, let me say that I appreciate the conversation so far, even if the topic is tangential to the OP.

My brief question for Lydia: How is this a definitional matter? The Bible doesn't respond to tell you whether you're interpreting it incorrectly. The Church does. Thus, in the former case, private judgment continues to be exercised in order to determine whether the interpretation is correct; in the latter, the Church tells you whether it is. In principle, if the incorrect interpretation gets public, the Church can excommunicate you from the sacraments. Can the Bible do anything similar? (This line of questioning is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I believe it gets at the key issue.)

The true Catholic insists that there is a limit to debate, that there are times when issue has been closed, and to debate after that must be to debate in bad faith.

I agree with that, Tony, but it's always been rather surprising to me to learn a) how limited those times are and b) how much ambiguity there is about whether the teaching on x is one of those times. E.g. What is the status of an encyclical? What about a statement from the USCCB? etc. I remember one time when I saw a very sincere Catholic literally get angry because someone used the phrase "the pope said" concerning a passage in an encyclical which, the sincere Catholic believed, was a passage where the pope was articulating a view on a prudential matter, so that Catholics therefore did not have to accept de fide what was being said in that passage. Now, there was no _question_ that what was being represented was in fact what the pope said in that passage. But he considered that locution to be misleading because, since the pope was speaking of a prudential matter, there was a sense in which (he thought) one should not take him to be speaking qua pope, and therefore, to say "the pope said" regarding that passage (which happened to be followed by disagreeing with it) counted as "misrepresentation." It was a most odd objection!

In any event, it's simple enough for me to point out that Protestants who accept the authority of Scripture (which they should) do the same when it comes to places where Scripture has taught absolutely and definitively. Take the wrongness of homosexual acts, for example. To debate whether Scripture really teaches that, while pretending to take seriously the authority of Scripture, is to debate in bad faith just as much as it is for Catholics to pretend to accept the authority of the Church while treating women's ordination as an open question.

You are quite right, Tony, that a crucial difference in the "oath of allegiance," as it were, which the two groups make to their respective authorities comes in the fact that the Catholic Church exists as an _ongoing_ teaching entity. I would not downplay the importance of this difference. Indeed, I think it very important and have discussed it often in private with various Catholic and Protestant friends.

The question then is just whether we nonetheless permit the phrase "private judgement" to be used concerning the faithful Catholic, in view of the various ways that, we have agreed, the Catholic must use his own judgement to decide a) that the Church is authoritative, b) what the Church teaches, and c) what level of assent he is required to give to some particular teaching from some particular document or body.

My own position is that the phrase "private judgement" is a just one in that context, but others may disagree with this usage.

Martel, I understand your reasons for barring the phrase. I think I've given pretty clearly my reasons for using it.

Btw, if, per impossible, I ever were a Catholic, I'd probably end up a rad trad. I wish the Church _would_ excommunicate more people, and I have been outraged at instances in which, for example, a priest has rightly protected the Sacrament from a lesbian making a photo op and has been let down by his bishop.

"Btw, if, per impossible, I ever were a Catholic, I'd probably end up a rad trad. I wish the Church _would_ excommunicate more people, and I have been outraged at instances in which, for example, a priest has rightly protected the Sacrament from a lesbian making a photo op and has been let down by his bishop.

Ditto. Furthermore, Vatican II is just simply hideous. And having read the background on Vatican I, that wasn't good either, lol.