I don't know Peter Green that well; he was a TA in my Covenant Theology class when I was a student at The Old School. He's smart, and he was always friendly to me. So let me say that before anything else. Let me also add that we enthusiastically resisted together any attempts to burn Peter Leithart at the stake in those days, though sooner or later, Peter is going to have to give a good answer to the Catholic challenge. Say this for the Anglicans: their conceit of believing they are still (physically) part of the church catholic has a surface plausibility more convincing than anything he's offered. I digress.
Peter Green, meanwhile, hasn't been pleased since I became Catholic. I've been pretty vocal about it, to be sure. As actually one should expect any real Catholic to be.* But I'm not polemically the gentlest sort, and I know that. If there is fault, I'll take it.
I've got to wonder out loud, though: Doesn't Peter Green have a vested, personal interest in sowing as much doubt about whether there is in fact one Catholic position on anything? After all, if there isn't one, he can go on his merry way, believing what he will, and he can chuckle at the "real Catholics," who actually believe all that One True Church stuff. It's only when the Catholic Church has the ability to distinguish dogma from opinion, and dissent from faith, that one comes to realize that one is truly being stalked by the Hound of Heaven, and he's wearing the successor of Peter's funny hat while he does it.
Why wouldn't they tell us that the Roman Catholic Church, the home of about a billion Christians, who, oh, by the way, believes it is the Church Christ founded, believes Mark's Gospel ends after v. 20, and the case is closed? Isn't that at least relevant, before telling us the reason we believe it should have ended after v. 8? Then again, we didn't have a super-great answer as to why we weren't Catholic. It was essentially, "Sola Scriptura...because Borgia popes." If you're too intellectually honest about it all, you become Catholic. I hate it when that happens.
If the lack of an ancient (of a certain age) manuscript containing verses 9-20 is enough to override the presumption that the sacred text we had received is the one God wanted us to have, it seems to me we have allowed rationalism to stand in judgment of revealed truth. That's a heck of a lot more alarming than the prospect of becoming Catholic, for certain.
*real Catholic: someone who believes the Catholic Church is the one Christ founded, and accepts all that she teaches without exception, because it has been revealed by God.
Peter Green, meanwhile, hasn't been pleased since I became Catholic. I've been pretty vocal about it, to be sure. As actually one should expect any real Catholic to be.* But I'm not polemically the gentlest sort, and I know that. If there is fault, I'll take it.
I've got to wonder out loud, though: Doesn't Peter Green have a vested, personal interest in sowing as much doubt about whether there is in fact one Catholic position on anything? After all, if there isn't one, he can go on his merry way, believing what he will, and he can chuckle at the "real Catholics," who actually believe all that One True Church stuff. It's only when the Catholic Church has the ability to distinguish dogma from opinion, and dissent from faith, that one comes to realize that one is truly being stalked by the Hound of Heaven, and he's wearing the successor of Peter's funny hat while he does it.
Why wouldn't they tell us that the Roman Catholic Church, the home of about a billion Christians, who, oh, by the way, believes it is the Church Christ founded, believes Mark's Gospel ends after v. 20, and the case is closed? Isn't that at least relevant, before telling us the reason we believe it should have ended after v. 8? Then again, we didn't have a super-great answer as to why we weren't Catholic. It was essentially, "Sola Scriptura...because Borgia popes." If you're too intellectually honest about it all, you become Catholic. I hate it when that happens.
If the lack of an ancient (of a certain age) manuscript containing verses 9-20 is enough to override the presumption that the sacred text we had received is the one God wanted us to have, it seems to me we have allowed rationalism to stand in judgment of revealed truth. That's a heck of a lot more alarming than the prospect of becoming Catholic, for certain.
*real Catholic: someone who believes the Catholic Church is the one Christ founded, and accepts all that she teaches without exception, because it has been revealed by God.
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