A megapost on sola scriptura and other beliefs

Although I make no secret of my Catholicism on this blog, my primary focus is not on apologetics. Still, my friend Gary and I just wrapped up what by our standards is an epic argument that involved multiple comments by each of us over the last eight days.

This five-round discussion happened on Gary's blog and was sparked by the passing of John Paul II, but it quickly became a rehashing of the arguments for and against "sola scriptura."

While neither of us said anything that professional theologians would find startlingly new, I think a summary of our discussion, together with a few of the comments made by other people, is worth posting. This is my take on the highlights, and I won't pretend to be fair.

Round One: Making too much of the pope?

Gary: From the vantage point of my beliefs it is evidence of the Church's decline that the greatest demonstration of sentiment by the Church I can remember is on behalf of the passing of a pope. What if the Church spent a week publicly and in a unified manner praising our God and Redeemer Jesus Christ?

Bill: The church publicly and in a unified manner does praise God every day. "In fact, when looking across the entire planet, it's done practically every minute of every hour of every day. It's called the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There, God is being praised and worshipped in a manner that He Himself designed."

Gary: Surely the Church praises God every week. But when it comes to big events, like this one, God is at best a supporting player. The star was John Paul II.

Bill: I guess I don't understand why it's so hard for some to grasp the "language" of liturgy. Did you actually watch the requiem? Immerse yourself in it, and you'll know that God is ALWAYS first and foremost. There's nothing wrong with earthly ritual if it's put in the service of God -- if it elevates people spiritually, to think outside of themselves and the distractions of the world.

Patrick: I agree with Bill. It is precisely because the late pope put Christ at the center of his life that so many people admired his example, and, yes, came to Christ.

Berkeley: My faith is in Christ... the person of Christ, not an institution. "I'm not religious, I just love the Lord." It’s a trite saying, but I like it. It serves as a dividing line between pretenders and the faithful. Through the ceremony [JPII's funeral Mass], the Catholic Church showed its best side. Tragic? From my perspective, that side did not include a living, life-changing Christ.

Round Two: Religion vs. faith

Gary: I DO sometimes long for a more liturgical experience. The modern music, cheeky humor and relentless pragmatism of evangelical Christianity can become a bit watery. But at the same time that makes Christ himself quite distinctive. You KNOW when he's there because when he's not there's not much else to keep you there. Not so with Catholicism.

Patrick: Jesus never trashed religion, or condemned it as an "alternative" to a genuine relationship with God. Anyone who lets it become that misunderstands religion, or has been suckered by snake oil salesmen drawing artificial lines between head and heart. When you're born again, you don't lose your mind. Per Matthew 23:2, the Pharisees (about whom Jesus could be scathing, as you well know) nevertheless succeeded Moses and occupied his seat. Per Matthew 18:17-18, it is the church -- alleged keeper of that bogeyman, religion -- that is the final authority.

Berkeley: I don’t object, necessarily, to any specific church. I object to any organized religion which, on purpose or through accidental drift, puts itself above man or (worse) between man and God. That includes most of the large, organized Christian religions. And I say "religions" on purpose, meaning an institution where the system has outgrown the individuals. When a conclave has to assemble to discuss whether or not to ignore overt sin in its leaders’ lives, it’s too late...

Gary: Religion can be defined as trying to do something for God without Christ. Or, put differently, doing something for God without the living presence of the Holy Spirit... Very little Jesus did in his ministry had to do with establishing new practices or forms. The vast majority of what he did was traveling with his disciples and allowing them to get to know him. In fact, Jesus went out of his way to offend the religious sensibilities of the time--healing on the Sabbath, drinking wine, eating with sinners--to show the Jews they had gotten way off the mark with their religion and to show the rest of us what can happen when we replace God with religion.

Patrick: I think you mistake Jesus' criticism of some of his fellow Jews for trashing of their religion. He did one but not the other. Remember, per Matthew, "not the smallest letter of the Law shall pass away" until everything is accomplished-- which Jesus would not have said if he were one to ignore religion. Rather than downplay religion, Jesus put it into perspective. I agree with you that dead religion eventually opposes the living Christ, but as a safeguard against that we have Christ's assurance that he protects the church and sends the Holy Spirit to guide us.

Gary: There are two sides to the Law. The moral side and the ritualistic side. The moral side is unchanging because it reflects God's nature. That will never pass away. The ritualistic side is done away with because Christ himself and his work replaces it completely. In both cases Christ himself is the "end of the Law" to those who believe. Romans 10:4.

Patrick: I agree with your interpretation of Paul, but think you're applying it where it doesn't fit, on the presumption that much of Catholic ritual in Word and Sacrament is man-made. That's where our dispute lies, because I believe that the Catholic Mass is a participation in heaven's own eternal banquet. God's rules, not ours. You won't find the Order of Mass spelled out in scriptural verses, but you will find that a) nothing in it contradicts scripture; b) most of it makes use of scripture; c) All of it is ancient.

Round Three: The nature of authority

Gary: Well, all I know is that the only rituals clearly spelled out in the New Testament are baptism and communion. You can also add laying on of hands and foot washing, but these are clearly more minor. As to communion. I have no problem with the Catholic way, except that when I was a kid I was taught "the priest changes the bread into Christ's body" but I doubt that's what is really taught. There are all kinds of ways to have the Lord's Supper. There are very formal ways and more informal ways. There is the Catholic way and various Protestant ways. None is "better" than the other.

Berkeley: In that "nothing contradicts scripture" in the rituals, I have always been baffled by (a nice way of saying that I don’t agree with) many items during the mass. The bread and wine literally becomes the body and blood? It’s frankly pretty creepy. I take communion in "remembrance" of Him...Should we ask for forgiveness from a Priest, and not from the Father directly? The curtain was torn! This practice tells me that the church wishes to keep the real power close. If the parishioners found out they could have a one-on-one relationship with the living God, and speak to him directly, they might not need the church...That "all of it is ancient" and that it takes a Catholic-type hierarchy to manage such a large organization isn’t proof of anything, except age and size.

Patrick: With respect to confession, we Catholics don't ask forgiveness from a priest; we ask it from God just as you do. But we believe that God's forgiveness comes through the priest, per the commissioning that Jesus gave Peter, and "whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven." You're right that age of a ritual doesn't prove anything, but it can suggest chronological proximity to the practice of the early church, and that ought to count for something. For example, Ignatius of Antioch wrote the following in the year 110, and to me it sounds a lot like modern Catholic belief: "For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of penance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ" (Letter to the Philadelphians 3).

You mentioned that the only rituals clearly spelled out in the New Testament are baptism and communion. Those are, indeed, the sacraments that leap first to mind, because more ink is devoted to them than to others, but there is scriptural warrant for the Catholic view of seven sacraments (those two plus five more), to wit:

Confirmation (Acts 8:14-17) Marriage (Mark 10:1-12; 1 Cor 7:10-11) Holy Orders (Romans 15:15-16; 2 Timothy 1:6-7) Annointing of the Sick (James 5:14-15) Confession (John 20:22-23)

As to the real rather than merely symbolic presence of Jesus in the eucharist, see John 6:51-57. That people were incredulous at this teaching is shown by John 6:61 and 6:67. Jesus never bothered to correct their misunderstanding because, in fact, they had understood him (and not figuratively, as with other descriptors of Jesus as door, vine, lamb, etc.).

Gary: Jesus is now in the Spirit (1 Cor 15:45; 2 Cor 3:17). That's how we experience him. We know him no longer according to the flesh (2 Cor 5:16) so any experience of his flesh and blood is a spiritual one.

Patrick: If "deep communion" were symbolic only, it wouldn't have offended so many disciples when Jesus talked about it.

Berkeley: As far as the commission given to Peter is concerned, the power to forgive that Priests hold still appears to be a power-play. That's crude, but to the point. I read that passage in the same two-fold way I apply it. I can free others, and others can free me. It’s an encouragement to me to be bold when dealing with a new believer who is bound by some sort of destructive, habitual behavior. It’s also an encouragement for fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to fight for each other when we’re bound by sin.

Round Four: Church as a help or hindrance

Gary: I think there is something wrong, unhealthy, when one Christian man (or woman) receives the level of notoriety and laud that the pope achieves. I just think it is against the principle of the Body of Christ, and is a sign of a certain lack of health, lack of the proper functioning of the members, of the Body of Christ. Because, by and large, it is the Body of Christ which should be getting the honor, not individual members...

Patrick: Your reading of Paul is well-taken, but you've forgotten that any pope is, by definition, the servant of the servants of God. Paul also says that the laborer is worthy of his wage, and no one doubts that the late pope labored all his life in the vineyards of the Lord. What you decry in defending the "little people" in the Body of Christ is what we Catholics call "clericalism." Many of us decry it, too. It is not something of which the late pope can creditably be accused.

Gary: I think many, many perhaps most Christians think it's the job of church leaders "to be spiritual for them" and they just get to be common folk. "Gee, I don't understand any of that bible stuff. That's for the (priest, pastor, rabbi, etc)." THAT'S the clergy-laity system, and that's why the Lord said he hates it... As for the "descendents of the apostles," well now, you just might be one of those, too. Don't sell yourself, or God, short. Look what he did with those uneducated fishermen. And you're educated and don't smell like fish.

Patrick: In fact the Catholic liturgy, by creating "sacred space," enables those of us who partake in it to concentrate our minds on the Lord. In other words, Pomp and Circumstance has a place in the kingdom, too. We do, after all, acclaim Jesus as the King of Kings...As to selling myself short, worry not. I believe (with the church) in the priesthood of all believers. But both the Old and the New Testaments indicate that that kind of priesthood is not the same as an ordained priesthood.

Gary: we need to be able to tell the difference between our forms and rituals and the Holy Spirit, because there is a difference.

John: The Saints shoulders are what we try to stand on to get a little closer to understanding God's will in our life. JPII did that for many of us, and for that he deserves our respect.

Gary: Yes, God gives us spiritual leaders to follow. Yes, he gives us teachers. But I don't believe, since the apostlolic age, that anyone has had the authority of a Paul, Peter or John. Those men penned scripture. They had a special dispensation. And if you read Paul's spirit in his writing you see that even he did not flaunt his authority. He wanted Christians to decide of their own free will to do what is right. He did not like "ordering" the churches around. That's the way I see it. I see no ground in the scripture to extend the authority of the apostles to subsequent men.

John: In Acts, the apostles laid hands on Stephen (Acts 6:5-8) who did great works. Christ selected 12 apostles, 11 apostles got together to select 1 more. Then the apostles continued to select others who did great signs and were filled with the spirit. There were apostles of apostles that became bishops that can be found by reading the Church fathers. Isn't this the hierarchy of the church? Also read Acts 15. There were apostles, presbyters (priests, essentially) and they decided together whether or not that Gentiles had to be circumcised.

Round Five: Sola Scriptura

Gary: The truth was delivered once to the believers. It is contained in the Holy Bible. The Bible is closed. Nothing can be added or taken away from it. Anyone can go back to the Bible and find out what it actually says. That's the beauty of Sola Scriptura. The teaching of church fathers is largely helpful, but it's not scripture. And some of it is hogwash. Once you start elevating tradition and the "teaching of the Church" to the same level as scripture you have closed the door to returning to the original pure Word and have opened the door perpetually to layer after layer of stuff being added to the original revelation...

Patrick: The nut of the sola scriptura argument: "The teaching of church fathers is largely helpful, but it's not scripture." Well, now, let's unpack that. The early teaching isn't itself scripture, but since the church fathers were apostles and students of apostles, we Catholics give them appropriate weight. And scripture didn't fall from the sky-- it came to us from the same church fathers. It came through the church.

John: Sola Scriptura is also NOT in the Bible, it is a tradition; no one, not one of the Church fathers or apostles taught that all you needed was the bible. Sola Scriptura is a tradition that started with the Reformation.

Gary: As to Sola Scriptura, something either is the Word of God or isn't. And no one can tell me that any instruction carries more weight or as much weight as the Word of God. Not tradition. Not church edicts. Saying Sola Scriptura is a tradition is just a sort of ontological anti-argument. It's meaningless.
The point is that Jesus honored the Scriptures above all other instruction.

Patrick: I can say that nothing rises to the level of Scripture but Scripture, and still believe that Scripture is not self-authenticating.

Gary: When Jesus was tempted by the devil he responded, "It is written..." not "it is passed down orally."

Patrick: Ever see the movie, "The Princess Bride"? Jesus saying "It is written" strikes me as the equivalent of this exchange between Inigo and the Masked Man as they fence with each other. I quote from memory:
"Why are you smiling?"
"Because I know something you don't know."
"And what is that?"
"I am not left-handed."
(whereupon Inigo passes his own blade to his right hand and begins pressing an advantage that the Masked Man had not expected him to have)

...In other words, Jesus quoted (Jewish) Scripture because the Devil had done so first. Our Lord was perfectly prepared to raise the stakes, as it were. The Devil had set the "rules of engagement" under which he was thwarted by our gracious Lord. None of that suggests that Jesus hard harsh words for sacred (as opposed to man-made, oppressive) tradition.

Gary: how do I tell the difference between "sacred" and non-sacred tradition? Let me guess. The Vatican tells us. I just don't like that level of dependency on men who are just as flawed and fallen as I am. I like the rock-solid dependency of Scripture.

Patrick: "Sacred Tradition and the Bible are not different or competing revelations. They are two ways that the Church hands on the gospel. Apostolic teachings such as the Trinity, infant baptism, the inerrancy of the Bible, purgatory, and Mary’s perpetual virginity have been most clearly taught through Tradition, although they are also implicitly present in (and not contrary to) the Bible. The Bible itself tells us to hold fast to Tradition, whether it comes to us in written or oral form (2 Thess. 2:15, 1 Cor. 11:2)." ..."Sacred Tradition should not be confused with customs and disciplines, such as the rosary, priestly celibacy, and not eating meat on Fridays in Lent. These are good and helpful things, but they are not doctrines. Sacred Tradition preserves doctrines first taught by Jesus to the apostles and later passed down to us through the apostles’ successors, the bishops."

In other words, we know the difference between sacred and man-made tradition because 1) sacred tradition never contradicts scripture; 2) sacred tradition is limited to doctrines first taught by Jesus to the apostles.
So...it's not a question of "what the Vatican tells us" -- the authoritative source is significantly higher; the Vatican merely confirms based on the "chain of custody" made possible by an unbroken succession from the apostles on down that a given tradition is rooted in the teaching of Christ.

Postscript: Ever wonder whether, if you *really* knew the difference between scripture and not-scripture, you might not hold fast to "sola scriptura" ? The Catholic position has historically been that sola scriptura is itself unscriptural. We say that based on 2 Pet. 1:20–21, and 3:15–16. See also Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians, wherein we find "Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours," and Acts 2:42, where Luke writes that the early Christians "devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers."

Gary: You mentioned the implicit recognition of tradition. Protestants believe the implicitly declared supremacy of Scripture in Scripture itself is much stronger than any implicit call to tradition in Scripture.
Oral tradition is much more nebulous and I think the more nebulous the commandment the more uncertain our faith tends to be. God is not the God of confusion.

Patrick: You missed part of my point. It's precisely to avoid the chaos on which games like "gossip" and "telephone" rely that the church makes a disctinction between sacred tradition and custom or discipline. Oral tradition can be nebulous, which is why it's always measured against what was done in the early church and what Jesus taught. You can fault Paul for not providing a laundry list, but Paul didn't operate in a vacuum...The idea of sacred tradition doesn't mean that we Catholics write blank checks to the church. Recall that there are criteria for establishing what's sacred and what's merely customary. In short, Catholics have as much of what you'd call "direct" access to God as Protestants do. More, I'd say, thanks to Catholic notions of what sacraments are -- notions which I've already shown have scriptural warrant.

BTW, there is no "implicitly declared supremacy of Scripture in Scripture." That's what we've been going around about. All Scripture is useful for teaching? Check. Nothing should be added or taken away? Check. But "sola scriptura" -- just not there, until sixteenth-century reformers angry with the depravity of non-doctrinal Catholic practice around them discovered it while throwing the baby out with the dirty bathwater.

Gary: what exactly are the "Sacred Traditions" specifically? Where and how are they recorded? How far back do the documents verifying them date? How reliable are those documents? Can you get copies of the documentation to study yourself?

Patrick: Paul himself gives a quotation from Jesus that was handed down orally to him: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). This saying is not recorded in the Gospels and must have been passed on to Paul. Indeed, even the Gospels themselves are oral tradition which has been written down (Luke 1:1–4). What’s more, Paul does not quote Jesus only. He also quotes from early Christian hymns, as in Ephesians 5:14.

So...How do we separate the wheat from the chaff? Through the teaching authority of the church.
How do we know how far back a Sacred Tradition goes? Through the study of Patristics (neither the pope nor anyone else can make stuff up and call it "sacred" to shield it from scrutiny).

What are examples of Sacred Tradition? The Immaculate Conception of Mary, the concept of Trinity as three-in-one, the all-male ordained priesthood, and the division of the angels into nine separate choirs.

How reliable are these documents (your words)? Gotta watch phraseology on that one-- sacred tradition is oral until written down, which means the primary source of it is preaching, not writing. But again, the criterion is "does this go back to the apostles?" and "has the church consistently believed this?" If yes, you're good to go. If no, whatever you're looking at isn't sacred tradition.

You're right that Paul was confident in his commission, and no respecter of reputation, but so were the other apostles, post-Pentecost. And when Paul argued with Peter, he paid him the compliment of doing so to his face rather than behind his back precisely because knew that Peter had been commissioned in a special way by Christ himself.

If you claim that Catholics have been adding to or subtracting from the canon of Scripture, and I then show by quoting the church fathers that distinctively Catholic beliefs go back to the early church, you can't dismiss the evidence by pooh-poohing it as "just an opinion," as though the timeline involved were immaterial. Berkeley tried that, too, via "all you've proved is that belief x is old." Well, yeah, but if it's old enough, it would have been accepted or rejected by people in position to know whether it conformed to what the Lord had said just one or two generations back.

Big difference between that kind of implied, rigorously-historical-even-by-secular-standards apostolic validation and Joseph Smith, for example, acting on an alleged hot tip from the angel Moroni in Palmyra, NY, in 1829.

Gary: You say Protestants threw out the baby with the bath water. But the other side of that is we see the oral traditions as a fudge factor to add doctrines some wish were in the Bible but aren't and for which they have no supportive documentation. Again, how do you know those traditions have a apostolic source? Saying "the Church" told you isn't good enough. Where is the historic record on that? First you need that and second you need to convince people that they indeed need to elevate those traditions to the level of Scripture. So far I have not heard a convincing argument to do so.

Patrick: The reliable, well-supported "document" that supports Sacred Tradition is --- cue the trumpets -- ***scripture itself.***

Gary: Here we go again. Scripture bears much more witness to the supremacy of itself (God's word) than it does to tradition. And when it does mention tradtion we don't know which tradition it is talking about...If it ain't in the Scripture, I don't have to believe it. That's my standard. And the few verses in the Bible about tradition aren't enough to convince me otherwise.

Patrick: I'll be shorter this time, as we seem to be entrenched in our respective positions:

1. Your opener concedes that scripture mentions tradition; you just say "only a little," and wish it was more specific about what tradition.
2. That Jesus didn't himself write anything down would suggest He valued tradition quite a lot, as He specifically charged his apostles with preaching the good news that they'd heard.
3. Of course God's words will never pass away. That doesn't prove scriptural supremacy. What I've been arguing is that what's in the canon of scripture isn't the only thing God ever said to us. He did, after all, send his son to us, and that son did commission apostles to spread his message.
4. Every sacred tradition does have support in scripture. You disagree with what we Catholics say about Mary, but that doesn't mean we have no warrant for saying it, e.g., the scriptural parallels between the (OT) ark of the convenant and the (NT) ark of the covenant.

That's my case. Logical. Faithful to the teaching authority of the church and to history.

(Gary graciously allowed me the last word, though we still disagree with each other)