Being Catholic starts and ends with a person who says, "You know, I could be wrong." Chesterton said something like that. A huge part of that is to surrender one of the hallmarks of the Reformation: The primacy of individual interpretive authority. To have been a Protestant who comes home adds a special edge to everything I do as a Catholic. Every act of charity (few as they probably are) comes with an unspoken apology: "I was wrong; I'm sorry." To be Catholic is not to say that the Reformers said or did nothing true. It is definitely not to say that the Catholic Church in all times and places is free from sin. Ha! In fact, I gratefully acknowledge that Protestants of various stripes are doing and believing large parts of the apostolic faith better and truer than her putative sons and daughters, oftentimes.
But it is to say that no instance of sin in the 16th century fundamentally changes what the Church is, and had been: The visible hierarchical supernatural society headed on Earth by the successor of Peter. There is no necessary and obvious connection between the wickedness of the leadership of that time, and the alleged falsity of the claim. That is, the claim is either true or false; if false, then always so. If true, then always true. I had no skin in the game at the beginning; some say my father's tragic death plays a role in what I did. I say false. I would remain thankful to Catholics as Christians who committed my father's body to the ground in the hope of resurrection, even if I believed their claims were false. Some say "smells and bells." I say false. I largely had smells and bells as a liturgical sacramental Presbyterian. Nor did I read Scripture and decide that the Catholic Church was truer to it.
I simply asked the question, "Where is the Church?" What is the faith she professes? Its precise content? I had to do something with McGrath's "theological novum" that was the Reformation. What is the explanation for changing the way truth is found? If separating from the visible hierarchy that was the Catholic Church was and is not schism, then what would be? The whole hermeneutical method proposed besides, rather than leave us with one body of doctrine, dogmatic truth that can be trusted, left us with myriad opinions as to the content of that Truth, and no way to adjudicate it. And an invisible "Church" as vague as the minimalism of our alleged common faith. This in itself did not make me Catholic. No; the thread I clung to was the person of Jesus Christ. If the Christological definitions I knew to be true and in fact relied upon were so, then it bore investigating how and why it was so. Otherwise, it was completely pointless to hold these determinations as the standard of orthodoxy when, reading the Scripture and relying upon the Holy Spirit, I knew a person could reach opposite conclusions, and, holding Scripture to be the final arbiter, I would not be bound by any historical impositions of authority. And to the extent that the Reformers agreed with those conclusions, I was and remain glad. But it is totally ad hoc. That's the real point behind Cross and Judisch's critique of Mathison: the distinction between Sola Scriptura and "solo Scriptura" (held by fundamentalists with whom Mathison disagrees) is not a real one. I don't say that as a Catholic, because I said it beforehand. If the individual retains interpretive authority, then he retains it, and the principled results of that are manifest. Derivative authority is a fig leaf. At least the heretical individualists are applying their principle consistently. That's not why I'm Catholic.
I'm Catholic because I saw that this common patrimony of Christological orthodoxy did in fact emerge from the determinations of a Spirit-guided, protected, infallible Church still in existence today. The theological novum in terms of soteriology and ecclesiology must be wrong. There was no way to find Christianity without this Church, and its members, whom God used to define that very Christianity, knew and believed they had His protection in the very act of being the Church. That is, by the very means the Reformers had cast aside as corrupt had the truth been made known. What could I do? What would you do?
Peter Leithart is ten times the intellect that I am. Maybe more. And he's taken a lot of flak for being willing to challenge other Reformed people when their versions of how that tradition should be practiced have become untenable, and unmoored from Christian history as a whole. I'd much rather live in his world than many others, doctrinally, liturgically, and otherwise. But he doesn't fundamentally change the Protestant paradigm, with the individual as the final interpreter of divine truth. I believe that he wants Christian unity, but I also believe his doctrine and method prevent this from happening. At bottom, it's not different from the radical fundamentalists. It's prettier, but it's the same hermeneutic, same ecclesiology.
But it is to say that no instance of sin in the 16th century fundamentally changes what the Church is, and had been: The visible hierarchical supernatural society headed on Earth by the successor of Peter. There is no necessary and obvious connection between the wickedness of the leadership of that time, and the alleged falsity of the claim. That is, the claim is either true or false; if false, then always so. If true, then always true. I had no skin in the game at the beginning; some say my father's tragic death plays a role in what I did. I say false. I would remain thankful to Catholics as Christians who committed my father's body to the ground in the hope of resurrection, even if I believed their claims were false. Some say "smells and bells." I say false. I largely had smells and bells as a liturgical sacramental Presbyterian. Nor did I read Scripture and decide that the Catholic Church was truer to it.
I simply asked the question, "Where is the Church?" What is the faith she professes? Its precise content? I had to do something with McGrath's "theological novum" that was the Reformation. What is the explanation for changing the way truth is found? If separating from the visible hierarchy that was the Catholic Church was and is not schism, then what would be? The whole hermeneutical method proposed besides, rather than leave us with one body of doctrine, dogmatic truth that can be trusted, left us with myriad opinions as to the content of that Truth, and no way to adjudicate it. And an invisible "Church" as vague as the minimalism of our alleged common faith. This in itself did not make me Catholic. No; the thread I clung to was the person of Jesus Christ. If the Christological definitions I knew to be true and in fact relied upon were so, then it bore investigating how and why it was so. Otherwise, it was completely pointless to hold these determinations as the standard of orthodoxy when, reading the Scripture and relying upon the Holy Spirit, I knew a person could reach opposite conclusions, and, holding Scripture to be the final arbiter, I would not be bound by any historical impositions of authority. And to the extent that the Reformers agreed with those conclusions, I was and remain glad. But it is totally ad hoc. That's the real point behind Cross and Judisch's critique of Mathison: the distinction between Sola Scriptura and "solo Scriptura" (held by fundamentalists with whom Mathison disagrees) is not a real one. I don't say that as a Catholic, because I said it beforehand. If the individual retains interpretive authority, then he retains it, and the principled results of that are manifest. Derivative authority is a fig leaf. At least the heretical individualists are applying their principle consistently. That's not why I'm Catholic.
I'm Catholic because I saw that this common patrimony of Christological orthodoxy did in fact emerge from the determinations of a Spirit-guided, protected, infallible Church still in existence today. The theological novum in terms of soteriology and ecclesiology must be wrong. There was no way to find Christianity without this Church, and its members, whom God used to define that very Christianity, knew and believed they had His protection in the very act of being the Church. That is, by the very means the Reformers had cast aside as corrupt had the truth been made known. What could I do? What would you do?
Peter Leithart is ten times the intellect that I am. Maybe more. And he's taken a lot of flak for being willing to challenge other Reformed people when their versions of how that tradition should be practiced have become untenable, and unmoored from Christian history as a whole. I'd much rather live in his world than many others, doctrinally, liturgically, and otherwise. But he doesn't fundamentally change the Protestant paradigm, with the individual as the final interpreter of divine truth. I believe that he wants Christian unity, but I also believe his doctrine and method prevent this from happening. At bottom, it's not different from the radical fundamentalists. It's prettier, but it's the same hermeneutic, same ecclesiology.
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