Protestant objectors like to implicitly or explicitly make this argument that the two ideas are interchangeable. The next claim is that the Catholic apologist believes the Bible cannot be understood or read with profit in any sense. They say the Catholic sows doubt at the same time he promises dogmatic certainty in his own paradigm. This is of course nonsense, but it's not immediately obvious why this is so.
The very reason for asserting the perspicuity (full clarity) of Scripture had been the occasion of asserting that the Magisterium (teaching office; pope and bishops in communion with him) of the Church was incorrect in many of its dogmatic pronouncements. If you dispute the very organ at the heart of the Christian's method of knowing divine truth, it stands to reason you'd leave something in its place. The protestors were not atheists, after all. So, if you said the Scriptures were sufficiently clear to establish what the Christian is to believe de fide, you are by necessity denying the ecclesiastical authority at the heart of the older method. You could argue therefore that the Catholic Church's authority is unnecessary, and even harmful. The Scriptures are clear, and anyone can access them, they said. It's amazing how little has changed since this challenge was made to its greatest effect, in the 16th century. There had always been someone to claim the Church was wrong, and he or she was correct instead, with favorite Scriptures in tow. But never the perfect storm that was the Protestant "Reformation."
In any case, we can also agree that these leading figures among the protestors didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as it were, to varying degrees and effects, depending on the group and its leader(s). The doctrines across the divide are not wholly dissimilar, and even in methodology, searching the Scriptures is an important part of knowing God, for both groups.
Yet if you argue that Church authority was unnecessary and even harmful to the true knowledge of God, does it matter if you keep the hierarchy in a functional capacity only? As the more radical (and principled) elements in the movement might have said, "If the Pope is a usurper of Christ, there is no merit in feigned submission." We can almost hear St. Robert Bellarmine say of incrementalists like Luther, "They have a form of godliness, but deny its power." Titular authority without jurisdiction is a bit like the modern British figurehead monarchy. Would the method of governance really change if they went away? Conversely, could the reformers claim that little has changed, when the reigning king has been robbed of his scepter?
Moreover, the Catholic apologist doesn't claim any defect in the Scriptures, or in God who reveals. It's the methodology he disputes. Here's the juicy part: If the objectors say that man is depraved in every part of his being, such that he cannot do anything to move toward God, he can't search the Scriptures with profit unto salvation; even after his conversion, he cannot have any ground to prefer one interpretation over another, whether in reference to another similar community, or to the Catholic Church. He's cutting off the very hermeneutical branch he's standing on. The positivist faces the strict theological version of the Noltie Conundrum: if man's inability is asserted via total depravity, the only person left in the system to account for the obvious remaining ambiguity in dogmatic truth is the Holy Spirit. (This should be an obvious impossibility, since He is God.) On the other end, the "I don't need certainty" camp not only can't account for the divine origin of a particular set of assertions, they can't account for the similarity between us! It's impossible to posit a saving, incarnational consensus of dogma that was formed somewhere in the past if man cannot, and need not, be certain. The various dissenters from it could simply say, "Well, nothing is certain; you could be wrong." To say nothing of the ad hoc nature of identifying it! Whatever that consensus is could be as varied as the competing interpretations of Scripture!
I agree that there is a saving, incarnational consensus of dogmatic truth, in the Catholic Church. The Scriptures are God-breathed, and inerrant. Now what?
The very reason for asserting the perspicuity (full clarity) of Scripture had been the occasion of asserting that the Magisterium (teaching office; pope and bishops in communion with him) of the Church was incorrect in many of its dogmatic pronouncements. If you dispute the very organ at the heart of the Christian's method of knowing divine truth, it stands to reason you'd leave something in its place. The protestors were not atheists, after all. So, if you said the Scriptures were sufficiently clear to establish what the Christian is to believe de fide, you are by necessity denying the ecclesiastical authority at the heart of the older method. You could argue therefore that the Catholic Church's authority is unnecessary, and even harmful. The Scriptures are clear, and anyone can access them, they said. It's amazing how little has changed since this challenge was made to its greatest effect, in the 16th century. There had always been someone to claim the Church was wrong, and he or she was correct instead, with favorite Scriptures in tow. But never the perfect storm that was the Protestant "Reformation."
In any case, we can also agree that these leading figures among the protestors didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as it were, to varying degrees and effects, depending on the group and its leader(s). The doctrines across the divide are not wholly dissimilar, and even in methodology, searching the Scriptures is an important part of knowing God, for both groups.
Yet if you argue that Church authority was unnecessary and even harmful to the true knowledge of God, does it matter if you keep the hierarchy in a functional capacity only? As the more radical (and principled) elements in the movement might have said, "If the Pope is a usurper of Christ, there is no merit in feigned submission." We can almost hear St. Robert Bellarmine say of incrementalists like Luther, "They have a form of godliness, but deny its power." Titular authority without jurisdiction is a bit like the modern British figurehead monarchy. Would the method of governance really change if they went away? Conversely, could the reformers claim that little has changed, when the reigning king has been robbed of his scepter?
Moreover, the Catholic apologist doesn't claim any defect in the Scriptures, or in God who reveals. It's the methodology he disputes. Here's the juicy part: If the objectors say that man is depraved in every part of his being, such that he cannot do anything to move toward God, he can't search the Scriptures with profit unto salvation; even after his conversion, he cannot have any ground to prefer one interpretation over another, whether in reference to another similar community, or to the Catholic Church. He's cutting off the very hermeneutical branch he's standing on. The positivist faces the strict theological version of the Noltie Conundrum: if man's inability is asserted via total depravity, the only person left in the system to account for the obvious remaining ambiguity in dogmatic truth is the Holy Spirit. (This should be an obvious impossibility, since He is God.) On the other end, the "I don't need certainty" camp not only can't account for the divine origin of a particular set of assertions, they can't account for the similarity between us! It's impossible to posit a saving, incarnational consensus of dogma that was formed somewhere in the past if man cannot, and need not, be certain. The various dissenters from it could simply say, "Well, nothing is certain; you could be wrong." To say nothing of the ad hoc nature of identifying it! Whatever that consensus is could be as varied as the competing interpretations of Scripture!
I agree that there is a saving, incarnational consensus of dogmatic truth, in the Catholic Church. The Scriptures are God-breathed, and inerrant. Now what?
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