Responding to Some Declarations of Brian Tierney:
(Part II of III)

The previous installment of this thread can be read HERE.

In this installment I will deal with the subjects of persecuting heretics and judicial torture. (After all, the most extreme form of persecution is killing and that trumps even minor bagatelles as judicial torture.)

The first and most obvious point is that infallibility applies only to the universal church either explicitly or tacitly,{1} not to particular churches or to individuals. Hence, while one pope could commend judicial torture of a heretic and another might not, this hardly constitutes any problem whatsoever for anyone who makes the distinction between doctrine and discipline which is so vital here.

Nonetheless, in this post I will deal with the notion that Lateran IV and Vatican II contradict on the handling of heretics. The following text is from a discussion list entry circa February 2, 2003. The subjects were (Reformed Baptist apologist) James White, Lateran IV, and Vatican II on the treatment of heretics. My words will be in dark hard azure font and the person I was corresponding with in magenta with my sources in obscure dark blue font:

White brought this up in one article with Dave Armstrong:

IV LATERAN COUNCIL

Convicted heretics shall be handed over for due punishment to their secular superiors, or the latter's agents. . . Catholics who assume the cross and devote themselves to the extermination of heretics shall enjoy the same indulgence and privilege as those who go to the Holy Land.

Which he claims contradicts the whole thing on ecumenism and Vatican II's declarations. Of course it doesn't do that at all, and it could be argued that this IS a simple disciplinary rule (a rather strong one at that), but isn't it a bit harsh (unless this is seriously out of context.

First rule of thumb with James White, Eric Svendsen, Jason Engwer, Bill Webster, and their ilk XXXX: at least 60% of the time the quotes they put forward are taken seriously out of context. (The rest of the time they are presented either absent some key context or without additional information that properly establishes the sitz im leben.) Sometimes it takes time to track down the resources to refute an error - and no one can possibly address all of their errors of course - but there are very few charges that these guys make that have any real potential merit to them at all.

One would think that "extermination" implies killing, but if it simply means "eradication"...)?

Let us go with the worst-case example and presume that it means killing. Do public heretics in a Catholic nation have any right to propagate their errors??? No they do not. There is nothing in Lateran IV that is opposed to the divine law whatsoever which (simply stated) is "error has no rights". And while we would recognize that people in error have certain rights, one of those rights is not the public propagation of heresy. Of course we do not have any Catholic countries anymore so this is a moot point but White is concerned that if we were to have Catholic nations again that his ilk would be in deep kimchee. And [viz. the propagation of heresy] he would be right about that.

As far as Lateran IV goes, I would argue that the only canons that are strictly doctrinal from Lateran IV are the first two: the profession of faith and the condemnation of the errors of Abbot Jochiam of Fiore. There are some dogmatic principles in the one about heretics as well as the one on the Greeks and Latins but for the most part the part about heretics and how they were to be handled (not to mention how to approach the Greeks) falls under the realm of pastoral discipline.

Further still, the Church tended to hand people over to the secular authorities for punishment. White seems to forget about Romans xiii,1-4 where the state is recognized as bearing the sword against those who do evil. And the public proselytizing of heresy is one such evil which the sword could be used for - particularly if the person convicted has prior convictions in this regard.{2}

Dave's reply was:

I noted above that I don't have the (technical) materials to delve into this obsession you have with Lateran IV and persecution of heretics. But even if I did, I would not answer until you dealt with the same type of persecution within Protestantism, and what it does to your lofty claims of spiritual superiority to us (see enclosed tract on that).

This is a good veteran reverse. I too like to make these kinds of people do a good amount of the work because we Catholics spend too much time doing the work that they then shrug off with ignorant rhetorical flourishes. I am sure Dave feels the same way and I know Art does. Giving these guys "prerequisites" before discussing a subject with them is not only fair but it is also necessary. (For example, I have recently made my treatise - in the new version - a "pre-requisite" for anyone who wants to discuss the intricacies of "traditionalist" views with me.) Any idiot can sit there and deny things all day. At the very least if they are going to deny something, it should be a reasonably informed denial and not a lazy uninformed or misinformed denial borne out of crass ignorance.

In the eyes of God, ignorance even of a vincible nature is less blameworthy than crass ignorance. And these high-profile so-called "Christian" apologists like White and his ilk are too often guilty of the latter IMHO. I pray that my perception of their culpability is in error but with people such as White I am honestly not optimistic.

For I believe that any honest assessment of history would eventually move someone towards either Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or (perhaps) some High Church Anglicanism or Lutheranism. (The latter one is a bit of a stretch but it is still somewhat feasible.) Anything else is to run contrary to Church history in too many significant parameters to be a serious option for any reasonably informed person.

At [this link], it seems that the outline of the council was for the period of the crusades and such, where heresy was rampant. Since I do not have the original texts of the councils, I do not know if it was a "kill all heretics" decree that White would lead us to think it was, but is such a declaration of a council in line with proper Catholic spirit? Wouldn't it perhaps be better for a papal bull to put down the exact conditions of such things, rather than a council? I was just wondering if anyone had any info on this, lest some other nut case keep bringing this up in the future to prove a "council infallability refutation."

If infallibility (i) pertains only to matters of doctrine or morals and (ii) only the first two canons were directly touching on these issues than (iii) infallibility would not be enjoined on the bulk of the remaining seventy-odd canons of the council which were almost purely administrative. (Arguments may be made for the canon on heretics and the one on approaching the Greeks but for the most part they are directives on how to deal with heretics/schismatics. Even if they were in error, I cannot see how such canons would in their substance involve council infallibility.)

James White though probably has a neo-ultramontaine notion that Lateran IV was infallible in all of its parameters. Frankly he should recognize that these issues are not as simplistic as he wants them to be. But he has a caricatured view of Lateran IV as demanding that all heretics be killed and Vatican II as demanding that all heretics be treated nicely. In both regards he is sadly in serious error IMHO and I will explain why here.

I would argue - and have in addressing this point with both White and his lackeys{3} - that Lateran IV was right. From the standpoint of divine law, no one who perniciously propagates heresy has a right to do so. And in a Catholic country, such a person is an objective threat to the common good of society: part of which would involve protection from the scourge of proseltyzing heretics. (And as such would not fall under the notion of "public order" as defined by Vatican II: a distinction reserved for those who are not disrupting the order of society.) So of course this is a major burr in White's saddle because his livelihood would be snuffed out in a Catholic country and his sophistries not tolerated.

For even under Vatican II's Declaration Dignitatis Humanae, a Catholic country would have the civil right to suppress proseltyzing heretics who would represent a threat to the common good as well as society's public order. Hence DH taught that:

This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others within due limits.[DH §2]

These "due limits" were defined later on in the text:

The right to religious freedom is exercised in human society: hence its exercise is subject to certain regulatory norms. In the use of all freedoms the moral principle of personal and social responsibility is to be observed. In the exercise of their rights, individual men and social groups are bound by the moral law to have respect both for the rights of others and for their own duties toward others and for the common welfare of all. Men are to deal with their fellows in justice and civility.

Furthermore, society has the right to defend itself against possible abuses committed on the pretext of freedom of religion. It is the special duty of government to provide this protection. However, government is not to act in an arbitrary fashion or in an unfair spirit of partisanship. Its action is to be controlled by juridical norms which are in conformity with the objective moral order. These norms arise out of the need for the effective safeguard of the rights of all citizens and for the peaceful settlement of conflicts of rights, also out of the need for an adequate care of genuine public peace, which comes about when men live together in good order and in true justice, and finally out of the need for a proper guardianship of public morality.

These matters constitute the basic component of the common welfare: they are what is meant by public order. For the rest, the usages of society are to be the usages of freedom in their full range: that is, the freedom of man is to be respected as far as possible and is not to be curtailed except when and insofar as necessary. [DH §7]

James of course deliberately omits the latter parts - as well as the "within due limits" clause of his reference to DH §2 because if he has to admit that there are "due limits" to DH, that may force him to actually think about the subject rather than just react and prooftext. (Not to mention DH specifically referring to certain regulatory norms for governments to deal with religious profession.)

In short, there are safeguards in DH which do not allow for coercion non-Catholics unless they are being menaces to society in accordance with objective criteria. So far from contradicting Lateran IV, Vatican II also allows for the state to suppress those who undermine a society. This would not apply to the average Protestant of course. But it would apply to agitators like White.

Having noted that, I want to point out that I am not advocating anyone's persecution or death but only pointing out what a public and unrepentant heretic objectively deserves in a Catholic country. This does not mean that because they would objectively deserve such a fate that they have to be executed of course. Our Lord forgave the adulterous woman who according to the Law was to be stoned. Did Jesus therefore "contradict the Law"???

The principle is the same here as while heretics who disrupt a Catholic society objectively deserve death if they do not repent of this crime, at the same time we are not obligated to have them killed. But notice the words "convicted heretics" in the Lateran IV decree. This means someone who has been tried for heresy and convicted of it. Notice here the text that White ellipses out from Lateran IV's canon on heretics (the parts he cited will be in bold font):

We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy raising itself up against this holy, orthodox and catholic faith which we have expounded above. We condemn all heretics, whatever names they may go under. They have different faces indeed but their tails are tied together inasmuch as they are alike in their pride. Let those condemned be handed over to the secular authorities present, or to their bailiffs, for due punishment. Clerics are first to be degraded from their orders. The goods of the condemned are to be confiscated, if they are lay persons, and if clerics they are to be applied to the churches from which they received their stipends. Those who are only found suspect of heresy are to be struck with the sword of anathema, unless they prove their innocence by an appropriate purgation, having regard to the reasons for suspicion and the character of the person. Let such persons be avoided by all until they have made adequate satisfaction. If they persist in the excommunication for a year, they are to be condemned as heretics.

Let secular authorities, whatever offices they may be discharging, be advised and urged and if necessary be compelled by ecclesiastical censure, if they wish to be reputed and held to be faithful, to take publicly an oath for the defence of the faith to the effect that they will seek, in so far as they can, to expel from the lands subject to their jurisdiction all heretics designated by the church in good faith. Thus whenever anyone is promoted to spiritual or temporal authority, he shall be obliged to confirm this article with an oath. If however a temporal lord, required and instructed by the church, neglects to cleanse his territory of this heretical filth, he shall be bound with the bond of excommunication by the metropolitan and other bishops of the province. If he refuses to give satisfaction within a year, this shall be reported to the supreme pontiff so that he may then declare his vassals absolved from their fealty to him and make the land available for occupation by Catholics so that these may, after they have expelled the heretics, possess it unopposed and preserve it in the purity of the faith -- saving the right of the suzerain provided that he makes no difficulty in the matter and puts no impediment in the way. The same law is to be observed no less as regards those who do not have a suzerain.

Catholics who take the cross and gird themselves up for the expulsion of heretics shall enjoy the same indulgence, and be strengthened by the same holy privilege, as is granted to those who go to the aid of the holy Land. Moreover, we determine to subject to excommunication believers who receive, defend or support heretics. We strictly ordain that if any such person, after he has been designated as excommunicated, refuses to render satisfaction within a year, then by the law itself he shall be branded as infamous and not be admitted to public offices or councils or to elect others to the same or to give testimony. He shall be intestable, that is he shall not have the freedom to make a will nor shall succeed to an inheritance. Moreover nobody shall be compelled to answer to him on any business whatever, but he may be compelled to answer to them. If he is a judge sentences pronounced by him shall have no force and cases may not be brought before him; if an advocate, he may not be allowed to defend anyone; if a notary, documents drawn up by him shall be worthless and condemned along with their condemned author; and in similar matters we order the same to be observed. If however he is a cleric, let him be deposed from every office and benefice, so that the greater the fault the greater be the punishment. If any refuse to avoid such persons after they have been pointed out by the church, let them be punished with the sentence of excommunication until they make suitable satisfaction.

Clerics should not, of course, give the sacraments of the church to such pestilent people nor give them a christian burial nor accept alms or offerings from them; if they do, let them be deprived of their office and not restored to it without a special indult of the apostolic see. Similarly with regulars, let them be punished with losing their privileges in the diocese in which they presume to commit such excesses. [Lateran IV: Canon 3 on Heretics]

As usual, there is plenty which White does not want to focus on because his position is in jeopardy in the process. This is probably one of the last areas he would overcome if ever he was to move towards becoming a Catholic.

To be Continued...

Notes:

{1} Notice that I have not committed the profound error of confining infallibility only to ex cathedra definitions of dogma de fide as many Catholics erroneously do -even those who think they are reasonably informed on this subject.

{2} I wrote the rest of this response last night but literally at the last moment (my mouse pointer was on "send", finger on the button) I thought to check Msr. Hughes History of the Councils on Lateran IV. It pointed to something I had forgotten and which really puts the decrees of Lateran IV into proper context. I will note it briefly here and supply some links I reviewed this morning for those who want to look at this with greater detail.

At the time of Lateran IV, the particular heresy that was most problematical was the poisonous Albigensian heresy - arguably the worst heresy in Church history. I am glad that I thought to quickly check Msr. Hughes' History of the Councils before sending this email because I completely forgot that it was them whom the Council was primarily convoked to address with regards to repressing heresy.(Abbot Jochiam and his followers were not a threat and the abbot submitted to the judgment of the Council.) Here is Msr. Hughes' outline of Lateran IV. And here is the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Albigensens. Hopefully they will help fill in any additional details.

{3} Of course James ignored it and continues to propagate this lie.

Responding to Some Declarations of Brian Tierney:
(Part I of III)

Though not a part of this thread, the previous two part response to Tim Enloe can be read HERE. This thread while not intended to be part of the aforementioned one nonetheless will supplement it by dealing with some of Brian Tierney's statements in one of his books.

Before getting to the subject of this thread, I only want to note up front that I do not want this thread to distract from the previous one. I believe the previous thread covers points more conducive to Tim and I outlining the differences in our respective weltanschauungs. This one is only to point out why I do not worry about people such as Brian Tierney and why Tim should take anything he says with a saltshaker when it comes to matters of theology.{1}

We can deal with Tierney's historical stuff later on perhaps but since it ties into theology to some extent -and since Tierney has made some bold pronouncements on these matters in works that Tim has lauded publicly- let us look at what Tierney believes are areas where the magisterium has erred or where the claim of papal infallibility is considered (by him) to be falsified.

To defend religious liberty would be "insane" and to persecute heretics commendable. Judicial torture would be licit and the taking of interest on loans a mortal sin. The pope would rule by divine right "not only the universal church but the whole world." Unbaptized babies would be punished in Hell for all eternity. Maybe the sun would still be going round the earth.

Before dealing with these points one by one, it is important to note some key distinctions that are required in theology to properly assess the theological weight of a given magisterial pronouncement. For this I quote the late Fr. William G. Most:

[W]e must carefully distinguish and keep separate three areas: (1) The teachings of the Church (doctrine); (2) the rules or commands of the Church (legislation); (3) the question of how prudently the Church has acted in a given case.

As to the first, namely teaching, we saw that Christ, the Divine Messenger, promised to protect that teaching; so we believe. As to the second, that is legislation or commands, Christ gave authority to rule to the Church; so we obey. But the third is different: There are no promises by Christ that the Church would always act prudently, and would do things in the best way. It is one thing to teach truth or give binding laws and another to act in the best, most prudent way. On this third point, prudence, there are no promises of Christ nor any commission from Christ. So the Church does not now claim, and never has claimed, assurance of prudence.

The distinguishing between teaching and directives alone is not made by those who lazily sluff off supposed "errors" by the bucketload. But it is an important distinction to make. I have no respect whatsoever for those who pontificate authoritatively on these matters and cannot make this simple distinction. And the reader can judge based on what will now be covered if this indictment by your weblog host does or does not apply to Brian Tierney. This particular post will deal with the following summary of points:

---religious liberty.

---persecution of heretics was commendable and now no longer is.

---the licitness of judicial torture.

---taking interest on loans is a mortal sin.

---the pope would rule by divine right "not only the universal church but the whole world."

---unbaptized babies punished in hell for all eternity.

---the sun revolving around the earth (i.e. the "Galileo thing").

There is a lot of material to cover in one post so I will briefly dispatch with each. To start with, the matter of unbaptized babies being punished in hell was never at any time a matter of Catholic doctrine. This language is so ridiculously sloppy theologically that I am tempted to throw the entire paragraph out of court. But I will relent for your sake Tim since you like Tierney and wonder why I dismiss him as I do.

With regards to limbus infantium, there were various schools of thought on the matter but the existence of such a place was never a matter of Catholic doctrine. Indeed, there is only one single magisterial document (from the eighteenth century) which mentions "the children's limbo" at all and its viability as a theological speculation or a "pious belief" if you will was upheld in that document. Upholding the viability of a speculation hardly constitutes "teaching."

With regards to the unbaptized babies being punished in hell, this was actually a rather novel notion of St. Augustine. Prior to his time, the Fathers held varying views on the matter but the consensus was that the only "punishment" if you will was exclusion from the beatific vision. But even this view was not unanimous as there were Fathers who did not take this view but judged that infants were innocent and that original sin was an inclination towards evil and not guilt in the strictest sense. But regardless of the position taken, there was no suffering involved in the equation whatsoever in any of these scenarios. And there was no magisterial teaching on the matter -it instead remaining open to speculation.

Though he initially agreed with the earlier more prevalent view that only exclusion from beatific vision was the fate of unbaptized infants; nonetheless, St. Augustine later on began the school of thought that held that unbaptized babies suffered. Though he took this view before the Pelagian controversy one could just as easily see him trying with this view to stake the strongest polemic possible against the Pelagian notion that people could by their own efforts earn their salvation.

In the context of the latter heresy, Augustine even sought to procure from the 418 Council of Carthage a dogma of faith on this subject which the Council seems to have approved of but which Pope Zosimus did not confirm.{2} Nonetheless, the theology of the ninth canon held sway for a while -due to the tremendous influence of Augustine- before being challenged and eventually overcome by later theologians. This began happening noticeably with the theology of St. Anselm. Nonetheless, there was no magisterial teaching on this matter whatsoever so Tierney's assertion here fails.

With regard to the claim that the pope would rule by divine right "not only the universal church but the whole world, this is almost certainly a reference to Unam Sanctum and Pope Boniface VIII's teaching that salvation is contingent upon submission to the Roman pontiff.{3}

I have gone over the subject of extra ecclesia nulla salus elsewhere and the attempts by magisterial fundamentalists to put concepts in Pope Boniface VIII's statement which were never stated will not fly with anyone remotely concerned about the truth on that issue. However, there are two more issues in that regard: the "two swords" theology and the idea that the spiritual exceeding the temporal made the king the pope's subject. As Fr. William Most noted years ago, the best interpreter of Boniface's intention on this point is Boniface himself:

The best explanation of the point about the two swords comes from Boniface VIII himself. In a consistory of June 24, 1302, before legates from France, he complained that he had been falsely accused, as if "we had ordered the king to acknowledge his royal power was from us. For forty years we have been a legal specialist, and we know that there are two powers ordained by God. Can or should anyone believe, then, that there is such folly in our head? We say that in no way have we desired to usurp the jurisdiction of the king, and thus our brother Portuensis said. The king cannot deny, nor can any other one of the faithful, that he is subject to us in regard to sin."

That clarifying note happens to precede the Apostolic Letter Unam Sanctum in the Denzinger compendium. So far from "hermeneutical gymnastics" I simply used Boniface to clarify Boniface. But I am sure Tierney would accuse me of "Cheshire Cat Theology" or crap of that sort anyway because that is what arrogant self-styled "all-knowing" types like him tend to do when their pontifications are shot down. Two down and five to go.

As far as the geocentrism thing and the subject of taking interest, I kill these two canards with one post at this link where I also touch on EENS and slavery as well. (Two more shibboleths of the self-styled "progressivists.") I am sure that again the fact that the decision of the Holy Office itself only called Galileo's view "suspect of heresy" - which is a theological and not doctrinal judgment- and that Pope Urban VIII{4} did not confirm the decision{5} are of course just more "excuse-making" on my part though right??? (After all, every syllable of a pope in *any* capacity constitutes binding doctrine under pain of sin seemingly in the world of people such as Tierney.)

The long and short of it is that the Galileo red herring does not match up either. And I am not even going to play the "it is not ex cathedra" card which I have noted before is an approach that grates on me. Instead, I will simply note that it is not magisterial since no document which is not confirmed by the pope is rightfully understood to be magisterial. This is pretty basic stuff but of course dissidents like Tierney do not tend to inform themselves on these small but significant matters.

The subject of the licitness of judicial torture is of course laughable since it can hardly fall under the realm of doctrine. But I will deal with it, the "killing of heretics" one and the religious liberty subject in the next installments.

To be Continued...

Notes:

{1} Of course Tierney himself has already poisoned the waters here by insinuating that any attempt to explain what he sees as "obvious" errors as anything but what he claims they are is some kind of "chicanery":

The difficulty in this position is that the pronouncements of popes, even of modern popes, sometimes contradict one another (notably, for example, in the matter of religious toleration).

This is standard fundamentalist methodology here: each pronouncement carries the same weight regardless of what the intention of the teacher happens to be. But there is more...

Some theologians therefore have upheld the infallibility of contemporary decrees without giving serious consideration to the possibility of their conflicting with preceding ones. In effect, they are content to pretend that the past did not happen. There is at least a beguiling innocence in this approach. Other theologians, more reprehensibly (from a historian's point of view), have devised hermeneutical principles so ingenious that the documents of the past can never embarrass them.

This is soooo typical of the agenda-driven self-infallible sorts like Tierney. *Obviously* it cannot be thatTierney simply does not have the theological astuteness to make certain key theological distinctions on these matters. Nope, to him all magisterial statements -whatever their intended weight or intention- carry the same qualification and "any milkmaid, nay a child of nine" can understand them. This is why anyone who tries to explain such statements in context has *got* to be dishonest at worst or naive at best with people like him. But there is more...

By applying such principles, they can reinterpret any doctrinal pronouncement, regardless of its actual content, to mean whatever the modern theologian thinks that its framers ought to have meant.

Imagine that: theology is actually not a simple science for any idiot plowboy or milkmaid (or child of nine) to effortlessly grasp. This "regardless of its actual content" is rather disingenuous since Tierney's agenda depends on taking everything in the most literal matter possible and not distinguishing between teachings and directives. (To say nothing about the difference between teaching and opinions.)

The infallible doctrine of the past remains infallible but it is deprived of all objective content. This procedure seems based on a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland logic.

Who says that the doctrine lacks objective content??? The fact that the Church has utilized certain axiomatic statements over the centuries which have always had more nuance to them than the casual reader might presume is something that simply grates on people such as Tierney. It really does not do justice to their agenda which is precisely why they must dismiss them and ridicule anyone who asserts them against the fundamentalist hermeneutic of Mr. Tierney.

One is reminded of the Cheshire Cat?the body of a past pronouncement disappears but its grin of infallibility persists.

This is absurd. I have already pointed to certain elements of one of these infallible pronouncements which nuances its understanding -and used the words of the very pope who promulgated the teaching to do it. I suppose the pope who promulgated the teaching does not know his own manifested intention but we must rely on people like Tierney to "explain" it to us all??? Hardly.

The general principle underlying this second major approach to the problem of infallibility might be summarized in the formula, "All infallible pronouncements are irreformable?until it becomes convenient to change them."

Of course since no infallible pronouncements have been changed in their doctrine, this assertion is ridiculous. I will not deny that the application of certain teachings has changed in light of certain underlying variables on which said teachings were based changing. (An example of this are the subjects of slavery and usuary.) But that is too complicated a subject to discuss with someone whose hermeneutic theologically is one of such obvious fundamentalism as Tierney's is.

It seems only fair to add that most Catholic theologians have continued to opt for some version of the relatively simple and straightforward Pickwickian position.

Other then the fact that his theological acumen is weak, it is this kind of "keister covering" on his part which makes him of little use to anyone serious about matters of theology.

{2} This is the ninth canon that appears in some codices.

{3} This is clear by the context of the Apostolic Letter a restatement of the dogma from Lateran IV as Unam Sanctum opens with the following words:

Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles proclaims: 'One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,' and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

As far as the historical events impacting the audience of this letter, see my essay on salvation outside the Church for details. Nonetheless, the claim that the popes claimed to "rule the world" or that Boniface VIII with Unam Sanctum sought to usurp the jurisdiction of the king is effectively confuted.

{4} Pope Urban VIII was a good friend of Galileo in case you did not know.

{5} Without papal confirmation, no text can be properly understood as magisterial -let alone infallible.

"The Enloe Files" Dept.
(Part II --Addressing Other Points in Brief)

The first part of this thread can be read HERE.

Shawn cites Cardinal Newman's Faith and Private Judgment to buttress his own viewpoint:

I decided at this point to snip the citation as Tim quoted it and extend it out a bit. The added text will be in purple font:

Now, in the first place, what is faith? it is assenting to a doctrine as true, which we do not see, which we cannot prove, because God says it is true, who cannot lie. And further than this, since God says it is true, not with His own voice, but by the voice of His messengers, it is assenting to what man says, not simply viewed as a man, but to what he is commissioned to declare, as a messenger, prophet, or ambassador from God.

In the ordinary course of this world we account things true either because we see them, or because we can perceive that they follow and are deducible from what we do see; that is, we gain truth by sight or by reason, not by faith. You will say indeed, that we accept a number of things which we cannot prove or see, on the word of others; certainly, but then we accept what they say only as the word of man; and we have not commonly that absolute and unreserved confidence in them, which nothing can shake.

We know that man is open to mistake, and we are always glad to find some confirmation of what he says, from other quarters, in any important matter; or we receive his information with negligence and unconcern, as something of little consequence, as a matter of opinion; or, if we act upon it, it is as a matter of prudence, thinking it best and safest to do so. We take his word for what it is worth, and we use it either according to our necessity, or its probability. We keep the decision in our own hands, and reserve to ourselves the right of reopening the question whenever we please. This is very different from Divine faith; he who believes that God is true, and that this is His word, which He has committed to man, has no doubt at all. He is as certain that the doctrine taught is true, as that God is true; and he is certain, because God is true, because God has spoken, not because he sees its truth or can prove its truth.

That is, faith has two peculiarities;—it is most certain, decided, positive, immovable in its assent, and it gives this assent not because it sees with eye, or sees with the reason, but because it receives the tidings from one who comes from God.

This is what faith was in the time of the Apostles, as no one can deny; and what it was then, it must be now, else it ceases to be the same thing. I say, it certainly was this in the Apostles' time, for you know they preached to the world that Christ was the Son of God, that He was born of a Virgin, that He had ascended on high, that He would come again to judge all, the living and the dead. Could the world see all this? could it prove it? how then were men to receive it? why did so many embrace it? on the word of the Apostles, who were, as their powers showed, messengers from God.

Men were told to submit their reason to a living authority. Moreover, whatever an Apostle said, his converts were bound to believe; when they entered the Church, they entered it in order to learn. The Church was their teacher; they did not come to argue, to examine, to pick and choose, but to accept whatever was put before them. No one doubts, no one can doubt this, of those primitive times. A Christian was bound to take without doubting all that the Apostles declared to be revealed; if the Apostles spoke, he had to yield an internal assent of his mind; it would not be enough to keep silence, it would not be enough not to oppose: it was not allowable to credit in a measure; it was not allowable to doubt.

No; if a convert had his own private thoughts of what was said, and only kept them to himself, if he made some secret opposition to the teaching, if he waited for further proof before he believed it, this would be a proof that he did not think the Apostles were sent from God to reveal His will; it would be a proof that he did not in any true sense believe at all. Immediate, implicit submission of the mind was, in the lifetime of the Apostles, the only, the necessary token of faith; then there was no room whatever for what is now called private judgment. No one could say: "I will choose my religion for myself, I will believe this, I will not believe that; I will pledge myself to nothing; I will believe just as long as I please, and no longer; what I believe today I will reject tomorrow, if I choose. I will believe what the Apostles have as yet said, but I will not believe what they shall say in time to come." No; either the Apostles were from God, or they were not; if they were, everything that they preached was to be believed by their hearers; if they were not, there was nothing for their hearers to believe.

To believe a little, to believe more or less, was impossible; it contradicted the very notion of believing: if one part was to be believed, every part was to be believed; it was an absurdity to believe one thing and not another; for the word of the Apostles, which made the one true, made the other true too; they were nothing in themselves, they were all things, they were an infallible authority, as coming from God. The world had either to become Christian, or to let it alone; there was no room for private tastes and fancies, no room for private judgment.

Now surely this is quite clear from the nature of the case; but is also clear from the words of Scripture. "We give thanks to God," says St. Paul, "without ceasing, because when ye had received from us the word of hearing, which is of God, ye received it, not as the word of men, but (as it is indeed) the Word of God." Here you see St. Paul expresses what I have said above; that the Word comes from God, that it is spoken by men, that it must be received, not as man's word, but as God's word. So in another place he says: "He who despiseth these things, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given in us His Holy Spirit".

Our Saviour had made a like declaration already: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me". Accordingly, St. Peter on the day of Pentecost said: "Men of Israel, hear these words, God hath raised up this Jesus, whereof we are witnesses. Let all the house of Israel know most certainly that God hath made this Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ." At another time he said: "We ought to obey God, rather than man; we are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God has given to all who obey Him". And again: "He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He (Jesus) who hath been appointed by God to be the Judge of the living and of the dead". And you know that the persistent declaration of the first preachers was: "Believe and thou shalt be saved": they do not say, "prove our doctrine by your own reason," nor "wait till you see before you believe"; but, "believe without seeing and without proving, because our word is not our own, but God's word".

Men might indeed use their reason in inquiring into the pretensions of the Apostles; they might inquire whether or not they did miracles; they might inquire whether they were predicted in the Old Testament as coming from God; but when they had ascertained this fairly in whatever way, they were to take all the Apostles said for granted without proof; they were to exercise their faith, they were to be saved by hearing. Hence, as you perhaps observed, St. Paul significantly calls the revealed doctrine "the word of hearing," in the passage I quoted; men came to hear, to accept, to obey, not to criticise what was said; and in accordance with this he asks elsewhere: "How shall they believe Him, whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ."

Now, my dear brethren, consider, are not these two states or acts of mind quite distinct from each other;—to believe simply what a living authority tells you, and to take a book, such as Scripture, and to use it as you please, to master it, that is, to make yourself the master of it, to interpret it for yourself, and to admit just what you choose to see in it, and nothing more? Are not these two procedures distinct in this, that in the former you submit, in the latter you judge? At this moment I am not asking you which is the better, I am not asking whether this or that is practicable now, but are they not two ways of taking up a doctrine, and not one? is not submission quite contrary to judging?

Now, is it not certain that faith in the time of the Apostles consisted in submitting? and is it not certain that it did not consist in judging for one's self. It is in vain to say that the man who judges from the Apostles' writings, does submit to those writings in the first instance, and therefore has faith in them; else why should he refer to them at all? There is, I repeat, an essential difference between the act of submitting to a living oracle, and to his written words; in the former case there is no appeal from the speaker, in the latter the final decision remains with the reader.

I could quote more but the above is needed to highlight the difference between the approaches that Tim and I take on this matter.

Now certainly all Christians believe that "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen", for this is what Holy Scripture teaches us. And it is true that no Christian should immediately feel that if something he believes the Christian religion teaches does not appear to be "verifiable" on criteria that are acceptable to skeptics (here "skeptics" does not particularly refer to unbelievers, but generically to anyone who doubts something someone else says) then he is not warranted in believing it to be true.

So far so good.

As Pascal taught us, it is entirely appropriate to hold that "The heart has reasons which the reason knows not", and as the contemporary "Reformed Epistemology" movement has insightfully observed, many of the beliefs that all human beings constantly and unreflectively operate upon (e.g., the reality of the world outside the individual mind, the reality of the existence of other minds) are simply not "proveable" in any sort of "objective" manner, and yet we are still warranted in holding that they are true.

This is to some degree an act of faith but human faith only. It also smacks of some degree of conceptualism which is an impotent via media between realist and nominalist outlooks.

The opposite sort of thinking--expressed in the words of the 19th century philospher W.K. Clifford, that "It is everywhere and always wrong for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence" is indeed a pernicious error, and it has, it must be admitted, invaded the broad sphere of Christian apologetics at many levels.

This is true; however there is a caveat to be noted and it is this: one person's "insufficient evidence" is not necessarily another person's. In this sense, the grounds of credibility in a given proposition are not the same for each individual and contain a degree of subjectivism to them. This is not to say that the given proposition itself is subjective, only that the outlook of different people towards the given proposition (or their ability to comprehend correctly said proposition) varies.

Many Protestants and Catholics alike do succumb to an "evidentialist" mode of apologetics, acting as if every item of Christian Faith is fully verifiable by epistemically "neutral" standards of proof--an approach that usually results in piling up every scrap of "evidence" one can find and then refracting it all through an allegedly "common sense" analysis to arrive at "the face value" interpretation, which is then touted as "Objective Truth" and its opposite as "bias" and "taking the sources out of context".

If you are claiming that many rely too much on such an approach then you will get no disagreement from me. But if you want to avoid forms of fideism or "burning in the bosom" epistemology then you have to recognize some value in evidentialist approaches. Evidential approaches have their valid usages and dismissing them wholesale is hardly going to convince anyone that you are not arguing like the Gnostics of old with their "secret knowledge."

Against this naive, Enlightenment-driven epistemological folly it is entirely appropriate for a Christian to make a truth claim that he cannot provide "scientific" or "objective" evidence for.

Everyone does to some extent. Unless they are a walking encyclopedia, there are areas where they make claims that they cannot verify based in part on what they can verify.

I will go farther and say that it is entirely appropriate for a Christian to make a truth claim upon the authority of someone else--say, the community of saints to whom he is covenantally bound.

This is a good admission. But of course the question of why someone was covenantally bound to any profession at all comes to mind here. And if they are so bound, then there is the question of whether this body has any actual authority to bind them to it.

St. Paul warned his spiritual son the Bishop Timothy that "there will come a time when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but having itching ears, will heap up to themselves teachers according to their lusts" (2 Tim iv,3). And for those who have a lust for learning, it will be those who scratch their rational itch to whom they will heap up to themselves.

So it is not enough to refer to someone being covenatally bound since the very statement presupposes that the community in question actually has the authority to bind people to certain teachings or precepts. Whatever one thinks of the Catholic Church, she does claim to have this authority and always has made this claim. And yes, I can say "always" here as this is one of those "2000 years of Christian history" assertions that is actually not an exaggeration.{1}

Nevertheless, this is not what most Catholics who talk about history seem to do. They are not content to say "My community teaches this and I am loyal to my community." Rather, they say "My community teaches this and this is the verifiable historic faith of the Church." After which they promptly retreat from the "historical"part of their statement and rely upon invocations of "faith."

Again Tim, we walk a fine line on this matter and not always do we keep from going too far one way or the other. Church doctrine cannot be proven from historical evidence nor can it be disproven. The best that history can do is witness to varying degrees towards a proof but never is it conclusive in and of itself. History you might say provides many grounds of credibility for the reader to assent to the claims of the Catholic Church. Not all such grounds of credibility are as significant to one person as they are to another.

As Newman noted on history in reponse to the Duke of Norfolk:

Historical evidence reaches a certain way, more or less, towards a proof of the Catholic doctrines; often nearly the whole way: sometimes it goes only so far as to point in their direction; sometimes there is only an absence of evidence for a conclusion contrary to them; nay, sometimes there is an apparent leaning of the evidence to a contrary conclusion, which has to be explained -- in all cases, there is a margin left for the exercise of faith in the word of the Church." [Letter to the Duke of Norfolk in Difficulties of Anglicans (c. 1874)]

Now you probably find it interesting that an admission is made that on some doctrines (though papal primacy is not among them) there are apparent leanings to a contrary conclusion. The reason of course is that it is impossible to reason from history all Catholic doctrines and someone who was able to do so would not have the most fundamental ingredient to authentic divine faith: belief on the authority of God through His appointed messengers.

The very essence that the early Christians had in the days of the Apostles is what we must have today if we are to consider ourselves their posterity -though the precise application of this is not necessarily the same of course.{2} When Newman said that "[h]e who believes the dogmas of the Church only because he has reasoned them out of History, is scarcely a Catholic", this is hardly a detraction from the value that history has in the inquiry process. It is simply recognition that one cannot be a Catholic without the virtue of divine faith and that is not possible in the person who only believes what he can verify.

In my long experience with Roman Catholics of many varieties, all of them ultimately refer everything they believe solely to the logic "The infallible Church has said it; therefore it is true and nothing can possibly count against it".

You are essentially saying that they have faith in the Church as speaking with the authority of God much as Our Lord claimed (Matt. x,20,40; Luke x,16, John xiii,20). I will agree that the application of this principle can be abused -indeed it often is. However, in this endeavour, it is always better to err on the side of caution if one must err at all. For what is important is to have faith and that requires certain constituent elements to be genuine. As usual, Newman explained this concept adequately so I reference him here:

Either say that faith is not necessary now at all, or take it to be what the Apostles meant by it, but do not say that you have it, and then show me something quite different, which you have put in the place of it. In the Apostles' days the peculiarity of faith was submission to a living authority; this is what made it so distinctive; this is what made it an act of submission at all; this is what destroyed private judgment in matters of religion. If you will not look out for a living authority, and will bargain for private judgment, then say at once that you have not Apostolic faith. [Faith and Private Judgment (c. 1849)]

Essentially Tim, you are bumping right up against this concept but are seemingly not realizing it. Maybe I should ask what the concept of a revealed religion means to you -maybe then we can not talk past one another here.

Because of this I find it hard to escape the conclusion that the bottom line regarding men like Brian Tierney is essentially that they make "conservative" Catholics feel very uncomfortable by poointing out the serious blind spots that exist in the commonplace Catholic way of construing "Faith".

Tierney does not make me uncomfortable Tim. Thus far I have read nothing of his that I cannot interact with adequately if I had more time to do so. Nor do I anticipate in the future running into anything from him that is problematical. I realize you find this shocking but I have already given you so much of what you are asserting and you have not remotely come close to interacting critically with the core thesis on papal primacy that I have advanced -and have advanced for about four years now.

In my posts with you on this theme I have alluded to it. In my essay on Christian Unity, I dealt explicitly with it. In my review of the vicissitudes of Church history, I have seen nothing that detracts from it whatsoever -and when one looks at some of the unsavory parts of Church history that is saying something because (as you know) it was hardly lacking in its abominations.{3}

All this talk about Gregory VII, the False Decretals, and the whole ball of wax completely misses the central point I have brought up time and time again in our dialogue. And as long as it is eluded, I will wonder if there is interest in grappling with it or merely in throwing out various tidbits that can make those not familiar with them uncomfortable.

That is, men like Tierney (another one who has been viciously maligned is Francis Oakley) actually "dare" to say that perhaps something the Church has said has not been said in a historically honest way or, (gasp!) has actually relied (unintentionally) upon historical falsehoods and thus (unintentionally) distorted the truth.

Considering that I have made similar claims myself on certain matters, in that respect is not where I have a problem with what I have read of Tierney.{4} However, that is neither here nor there. The problem with Tierney that I have is that he seems to tie so much of his outlook to elements which are not essential to the Roman claims. He then leans on these elements and seeks to use them to foster an agenda against the Church for some reason that is not clearly discernable.

Usually such people have some serious bone of contention to pick with the Church and this is why they do it. Sometimes it is simply an honest inquiry but I tend to find that those in the latter category (amongst those who claim to be Catholics) to be in a very small minority.

If necessary, I can cite Brian Tierney (and Oakley) stating unequivocally that the Roman Catholic expression of the Christian Faith-- including many of the traditional claims of the Roman See--is true and that they have no wish to undermine these.

One can have all the best intentions in the world -indeed the old dictum that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" comes to mind here. I have no doubt that you could cite Tierney or Oakley striving to give with the right hand what they inexorably take away with the left. I see this same approach taken with self-styled "traditionalists" every bit as much as with those you refer to who tend to fall under the category of the self-styled "progressivists."{5}

The "problem" is that unlike "conservative" Catholics (who are forever reacting against the spectral bogeyman of "liberalism", and thus often missing the forest for the trees) men like Tierney do not posit that "faith" is a simple synonym for "whatever the Church says" and so they do not feel obligated to invoke "faith" as the "one size fits all" answer to many things that the historical record says which simply do not comport with the Church's present-day claims.

Here are a few examples of why I do not take Tierney seriously Tim. These are from his book Origins of Papal Infallibility:

If the popes have always been infallible in any meaningful sense of the word—if their official pronouncements as heads of the church on matters of faith and morals have always been unerring and so irreformable - then all kinds of dubious consequences ensue. Most obviously, twentieth century popes would be bound by a whole array of past papal decrees reflecting the responses of the Roman church to the religious and moral problems of former ages...

To Tierney's credit, he at least lists a few examples:

To defend religious liberty would be "insane" and to persecute heretics commendable. Judicial torture would be licit and the taking of interest on loans a mortal sin. The pope would rule by divine right "not only the universal church but the whole world." Unbaptized babies would be punished in Hell for all eternity. Maybe the sun would still be going round the earth.

I have dealt in detail with every one of these pathetic objections over the years and none of them hold water. And I have done this with the texts taken at face value following the general norms of theological interpretation. And I can honestly say that I have never once run across any errors even in the ordinary magisterium when the subjects are compared on an apples-apples basis. But of course people like Tierney who have agendas to promote are not interested in such things -instead preferring to resort to insult and ridicule when they cannot make their case in the arena of ideas.

Ironically, I would say that such men understand the true meaning of "faith" far better than the "conservatives" who oppose them, for the former believe that God protects the Church's continuity and guarantees the ultimate success of her mission in spite of her theological errors (the classical Christian doctrine of the indefectability of the Church) while the former are driven to say that the Church has never made any significant errors from which protection was necessary.

I would presume that you meant "latter" with the last statement. Of course the problem with your formulary is that it is purely subjective in import. Who is to judge if a "significant error" has or has not been made??? As far as those which I noted of Tierney earlier, I will briefly dispatch with every one of them in another installment of this thread using previous work of mine where feasible to do. Maybe then you will not be so quick to laud the "genius" of Tierney or others like him who make a lot of pronouncements that do not survive valid scrutiny. But I digress.

Shawn readily confesses that he has not read much of Tierney's corpus, so it is understandable that he is probably not acquainted with Tierney's exchange with Father Stickler (from which I have cited on this blog) in which the two men debated the relationship of "faith" and "history" in light of the historical claims Tierney had made about the historical setting of the doctrine of papal infallibility. Interestingly, both men claimed that the disciplines of theology and history have their own respective rules and that the rules proper to one may not be able to be applied to the other without distorting its material and conclusions, but both men applied this principle differently.

That does not surprise me at all. Cardinal Stickler has a doctorate in canon law and is reasonably familiar with theological norms of interpretation. Tierney quite clearly is not and this will be exposed in the next installment of this thread. As you make more mistakes in enunciating the manner whereby Catholics understand the role of the Magisterium in subsequent parts, I will cut this section short at this time and proceed to deal with the paltry objections of Tierney in a separate thread. Stay tuned for details on that one.


Notes:

{1} I agree that this apologetical tactic is often used when it is not warranted but this is among the few times where it is not inapplicable.

{2} I do not have time to go into this at the moment.

{3} Though some periods were bleaker than others of course.

{4} I have read nothing from Oakley so I do not comment on him for that reason.

{5} I have tended to find the so-called "progressivists" to be arrogant and boastful of their so-called "superior knowledge" until someone like me pops their little hubris balloons. Then they tend to become even more insulting - all of which proves to me that they are not interested in the truth but in advancing an agenda and damn anyone who does not accept their blather with the same kind of uncritical acquiescence that they bristle at the idea of themselves having to render to anyone else.

"The Enloe Files" Dept.
(Part I --Recapitulation of Dialogue Themes)

As I will not be responding to Tim's entire post for the sake of brevity, the link to his recent response to my last post to him can be located HERE. In this response, Tim's words will be in light red font. My words will be in regular font.  

A Few Words on "Faith and History", Ecclesiology, And The Nature of "Christian Truth" in Response to Shawn McElhinney

I wanted to say a few things about "faith and history" in response to Shawn's most recent reply to me on that subject.

I'll begin with the concept of "Catholic" historians and work from there. I have finally decided that it is fruitless to argue with Roman Catholics about the "Catholic" status of this or that historian (in this case, Brian Tierney).

So that the readers are clear on this, my intention is not to make for fruitless dialogue with Tim. Instead, it is to point to the questionable classification of some of his sources. As I noted earlier, if he wanted to simply refer to Brian Tierney as a "historian" then I have no objections whatsoever.

Shawn has repeatedly complained that I call Tierney a "Catholic" even though Tierney has serious doubts about the historical origins and contemporary definition / application of the dogma of papal infallibility.

Obviously I cannot have problems with the application of the dogma since I have already conceded to Tim one point of his on this matter: that the form which the papal primacy took subsequent to Gregory VII was in some respects novel and that much of those applications could easily be set aside without in any way impairing the essence of the dogma in question.

As far as infallibility goes, it is a derivative of the dogma of papal primacy and I am hesitant to discuss it because too many Catholics do not properly understand it. I do not therefore expect Protestants like Tim to properly understand it either -and not because Tim is lacking in intelligence. (Far from it in fact.) It is simply my desire to focus on primary doctrines and not derivative ones whenever possible.

Shawn likens my calling Tierney a "Catholic" to Shawn calling the strange folks at Outside the Camp "Reformed", and says I shouldn't do the former if I don't want him to the latter.

And the parallel is not without warrant here. I would never refer to the "Outside the Camp" guys as "Reformed" because that would be an insult to Tim and his religious tradition. Likewise, whatever Tim thinks of Catholic conventions, I do not believe it is unreasonable to expect the same approach in return.

Other Roman Catholics who have seen me mention Tierney's name in connection with historical pursuits have also strenuously objected. But it has been instructive to note what these Catholic object to as much as it is how they object.

Considering the fact that Brian Tierney's works comprise less than 10% of my thesis bibliography, and I cite from numerous other historians far more than I do from Tierney, it does seem very strange that the mere name "Tierney" has been enough for several Catholics I've spoken with about the historical issues to explode into vigorous defenses of their theological concerns, drawing all sorts of nefarious connections between what (they say) Tierney does and what (they say) "liberals" like Hans Kung and the Jesus Seminar do.

I mention Tierney Tim because you brought him up in our discussion at one point. My focus is not on him for any other reason then that. His work of what I have read thus far does not impress me.

I had made the analogy to Shawn that the Roman Catholic system is a type of "theological geometry", beginning with infallible axioms and indubitably unfolding their logic, regardless of connections or lack thereof to the spacetime world, and thus that it is essentially "guilty of trying to get us all to believe that 2+2 actually equals 465, or that circles can be square, or that bachelors can be married men."

I am reminded of the dictum that those who know the best about how to raise children are those without children. Tim in the above analogy presents to me an analogy to Catholic methodology that I do not remotely recognize.{1} It is interesting that Tim does not stop to consider that maybe...just maybe the one not properly assimilating the information just *might* be Tim himself.

To this, Shawn replies "There is of course no agenda in Tierney's work I suppose. Or to state it differently: he is absolutely free from all possibility of interpreting evidences in a non-objective manner. Of course not. I fully admit that Tierney has an agenda. In fact, everyone regardless of their confessional position always has an "agenda." (Latin perfect passive participle: "a thing to be done"). No one ever "just" approaches Truth and no one ever achieves an "objective" understanding of it.

And I remind you Tim, I have made this point repeatedly in our dialogues over the years. If there is one point I have reiterated constantly it is what you note above.

This mentality is actually what is at issue between Shawn and myself, and not whether a given historian who presently communes within the Catholic Church and is presently not under the discipline of the Catholic Church is really a Catholic.

Again, you brought him up as a Catholic historian. I remind you of your statement from back in October. Though not the first time you mentioned Tierney to me, this example will work as well as any other so here goes:

Shawn quoted a Catholic historian in his favor, so I will likewise quote one in mine.

Writing against the view discussed above against a particularly dogmatic (in the bad sense) critic of his, the erudite Brian Tierney...

I have of course challenged the veracity of the assertion you made about Tierney's Catholicism. Need I remind you though that the Tierney thread is actually pretty minor compared to other points I have already gone over??? Here are parts from a two part response to you from September. Your words in the next two will be dark red italicized:

[I]f one is not already predisposed to a Realistic conception of reality (whether Platonic, Neoplatonic or Aristotelian is immaterial at this point in the argument) through which one is filtering ideas such as "apostolic succession" and "Petrine primacy", one isn't going to read somebody like Pseudo-Dionysius coining the word "hierarchy" (hierus + archus) and explaining how all power and authority in the world flows downward through a gradation of lesser powers from the Absolute One, who alone guarantees their legitimacy, and go, "Ooh, I bet this is the Apostolic Doctrine about the Papacy!"

And if one is predisposed to a particular form of nominalism, they essentially model a given concept on its external object and (as a result) consequently deny the existence of universal concepts and the notion that the intellect has the power of engendering them. (Essentially collective terms such as "animal, "tree", "house", "city", "nation", and even "hierarchy" have no objective real existence corresponding to them. Instead, they are mere words, names, terms, or vocal utterances and only particular individual things exist.)

Or, if one is predisposed to a particular form of conceptualism, they essentially admit the existence of universal concepts but professes a form of agnosticism as to whether said universals actually exist in reality to the extent that they can be framed in the abstract. (Essentially the concepts have value but whether that value transfers from the realm of the abstract into the realm of reality is either denied or simply held as unknown.)

It would seem clear to me that nominalism and conceptualism are the other "strands" you are referring to.{2} And as they have no solid foundation that I am aware of prior to the tenth century, I do not believe it can be held against those who refuse to admit them as having an equal weight as the various forms of realism which either predate them or were developed from core realist outlooks in response to them. Whatever abstract value they may have, they are hardly able to be applied in practice without disastrous results...[Rerum Novarum weblog entry On Papal Primacy and Church History Part I (circa 9/30/03)]

And again:

If one denies metaphysical realism, as some Medievals beginning in the 11th century began to do (with many more following them as the centuries progressed), and chooses to emphasize the other parts of the Western tradition over the "Pope as principatus" part, one is going to see in Church history far different things than the Roman Catholic sees.

Obviously if one denies there are universal concepts and claims that terms to explain them are mere words, names, terms, or vocal utterances and only particular individual things exist (nominalism) or if they admit of theoretical universals but deny any possible practical application of such (conceptualism), they will not view matters as a Catholic does - of this I have no disagreement with you whatsoever.

This shouldn't be a point that makes the Roman Catholic go, "Well, you're just a rebel playing games with history, because the essence of the history is obviously papalist."

Agreed. But at the same time one who wants to espouse a nominalist or conceptualist outlook should not be too critical of those who believe that (i) there is no contradiction between faith and reason properly understood and (ii) who admit of universals in reality as well as the abstract.

For without the existence in reality of universals, there is no way to meaningfully solve any problems that exist since either (i) one can deny that the solution applies by undermining the very concept of objective truth by denying the meanings applied to the concepts used (ala nominalism). Or, (ii) one can simply deny that there are universals in reality though recognizing that there are in the abstract (ala conceptualism). This is another way of achieving what nominalism achieves by a defacto subjectifying of everything. And as a result, it is another route towards intellectual anarchy. [Rerum Novarum weblog entry On Papal Primacy and Church History Part II (circa 9/30/03)]

You can talk about the stripping away of epistemological garb but of course all of it is meaningless if you affirm either a nominalist or a conceptualist outlook. And as you like to criticize realist outlooks, you need to take a stand one way or the other since those are your other two options. For someone striving to take history seriously, those are not options which strengthen your hand.

What I am concerned with is the manner in which the status of men such as Tierney as "Catholics" or not is used by many "True Catholics"™ to detract attention from the historical arguments that these men make.

But Tim, I am not trying to detract from his arguments at all in denying him the moniker of a Catholic historian. You can choose to believe otherwise if you want but I have no concern whatsoever about Tierney's arguments. I am not awed with what I have read of them and there is no need to try to "distract" from them. If you know one thing about me by now it is surely that while you may not agree with my positions that I nonetheless do not dodge arguments.

The interesting thing is that so many of these Catholics will easily and incessantly taunt Protestants with simplistic maxims such as Newman's "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant" only to themselves be found to avoid getting "deep in history" because what they really want to do is get "deep in theology" and pass off mere repetition of dogmatic axioms as "history."

Again, when have I run from arguments Tim??? You yourself noted back in September that I do not do this -and we have delved into history in our dialogues for years. I quote your own words from September:

I'm very glad to see a Catholic who can wade right in to a discussion on the papal monarchy of the later Middle Ages without batting an eyelash...

And I cannot ever recall being afraid of wading into discussions about Church history with you or anyone else.

I do not see any other way to express this point, which has been driven home to me time and time again by the manner in which Roman Catholics do their historical apologetics. They are all for discussing ‚"historical facts‚" such as "papal primacy" until you point out to them that "primacy" has always had multiple interpretations based on the cultural context of the Christians who talked about it, and that the complex of papal claims from their origin until at least the 16th century was buried deep within changing historical-social situations related to the cause of the (now dead) "Universal Empire of the Romans."

In my experience, Roman Catholics wish to talk about "history" until they realize the history isn't going to get them anywhere, at which time they retreat to invocations of "faith" and allege that what they are doing with regard to "the Church‚" is exactly what Protestants do with regard to "the Bible."

Three points:

1) I have made notations very similar to the ones that you have viz. primacy and its variegated applications many times in our dialogues. In fact, I was noting this to you before you began your study of the Medieval period so I am hardly one to shy away from that admission now.

2) I have pointed to things such as TULIP and the Westminster Confession because those are areas which as a Calvinist you accept on faith. To challenge whether or not they actually conform to Scripture would not be seen by you as a viable option. But in advancing this line of argumentation, it is *not* because I feel that the history isn't going to get [me] anywhere.

3) Your attempt to paint the applications of the term primacy as being solely based on the cultural context of the Christians who talked about it, and that the complex of papal claims from their origin until at least the 16th century was buried deep deep within changing historical-social situations related to the cause of the (now dead) "Universal Empire of the Romans" is a faint echo of the canard that the primacy was based on the "civic greatness" of Rome or some other cultural aspect.

Now I do not deny of course that cultural events shaped the manner whereby the principle was applied. However, the foundation of the principle was never viewed in this manner whatsoever. Indeed the popes themselves from as far back as we have records based their authority not on secular pretenses but on the promises of Christ to Peter. The Fathers themselves also in various ways recognized this principle. This is another subject I went over in previous essays so it will not be repeated here.

To be Continued...

Notes:

{1} And I have studied Catholic theology for quite some time.

{2} The footnote for this section read as follows:

This is based on your reference to a Realistic conception of reality (whether Platonic, Neoplatonic or Aristotelian is immaterial at this point in the argument). As nominalism is the opposite of realism -and conceptualism is a functionally impotent version of a via media between realism and nominalism- by deductive reasoning you must be referring to one of these two principles of interpretation. [Rerum Novarum weblog entry On Papal Primacy and Church History Part I, footnote 6 (circa 9/30/03)]

More on the Canon of Scripture:

I say "more" because I already blogged some brief comments on this subject back in September of this year. It is also one subject that I have gone over ad nausium over the years in message board formats and other mediums.

Now it is true that the subject is worth touching on occasionally because it is such a fundamental topic in the various Christian weltanschauungs particularly those who espouse some form of sola scriptura. But frankly your humble servant is pretty fed up with the way this subject is generally approached. This blog post will cover that a bit and unfortunately have to mention some names.

The reason for the latter is because I am beyond tired of seeing the same bilge recycled again and again: the same confessional propaganda, the same faulty presuppositions, and the same fundamental errors. And since speaking on this subject without mentioning names seems to not have an effect, then it is necessary to mention names so that readers of this humble weblog can know whom not to rely on for accurate information on this subject.

There will be two threads interacted with below - two Catholics (caths) and words of a Protestant (prot) that one of the Catholics was responding to. The words of the prot will be in orange font. The words of the first cath (the one dialoguing with the prot) will be in lime font while the words of the second cath will be in purple font. My words will be in regular font with sources in darkblue where warranted.

Basically, if there is no infallible way to know the books that comprise your Bible right now are correct, then you can never be certain that the Scripture you are reading is infallible.

I suggest not to use the "infallible knowledge" argument. I think a better argument is "certainty". How can one be certain on the canon of Scriptures?

I concur with the second outlook. I will even take it a step further and say that it is a good rule in general to never invoke the subject of infallibility viz. the canon at all.

Now to his statements...

"Firstly, the emergence of the Cannon was a long process of evaluation by thousands of individual Christians and local churches.

The parties who made this evaluation were the bishops of the various churches, not individual Christians.

Given that the Holy Spirit is active in the Church, when the vast majority of Christians, over hundreds of years testify to a books authenticity as the inspired Word of God then this carries significant weight (although it does not make it absolutely certain, since it is still possible for millions of Christians to be wrong, eg we all used to believe that the Earth was flat!)."

This individual is confusing certainty with infallibility. It is precisely this tendency which is why infallibility should never be discussed when it comes to the canon of Scripture.

Actually, this doesn't make any sense.

#1 If it is possible for millions of Christians to be wrong, then I think he should re-think about his position that the Holy Spirit is active in the Church.

Or perhaps he needs to rethink the means whereby the Holy Spirit is active in the Church. This though should occur after he outlines what constitutes "the Church" and does so in a way that (i) excludes all previous heretics and schismatics while (ii) vindicating the so-called "reformers." Otherwise, the positions of the Apostolic Churches -and the recognition of binding Church authority in reality as opposed to the mere abstract- must be contended with head on and I doubt he wants to do that.

#2 The earth being flat is scientific, not theological.

Yes.

#3 If the Holy Spirit is active in the Church in producing the canon, then the canon must be infallible (not fallible). Since the Holy Spirit is infallible and He produced it, then it must be. If it is, then what you have is an infallible unwritten tradition outside the Bible and hence, Sola Scriptura is refuted.

What confutes sola scriptura is not infallibility -indeed the fact that most *Catholics* do not understand this principle is among the reasons why this is so. One of the "boilerplate" arguments that Greg Krehbiel and I shredded at the old Catholic Converts board a few years ago was Patrick Madrid's "canon fodder" argument from Not By Scripture Alone (NBSA).{1} Pat was not present to retract the argument and he continues to my knowledge to propagate it.

I note this not to pick on Pat whom I quite like but because he is among the major apologists who make this error. And he is hardly alone in this regard -indeed I could make quite a list but will settle for the following examples -the first also from NBSA.

If one reviews the comments of Robert Sungenis back in his orthodox days to the Madrid-Jones debate in NBSA, among the problematic epistemological points Bob made in his commentary includes the following one:

"that without some form of infallibility, Jones cannot be certain of virtually anything he propose" (NBSA pg. 574).

As that is the only one that is a direct confusion of infallibility with certainty in that section -though there are other more implied assertions- in other places of the book he makes the same error again in an explicit manner:

"If as the previous apologist claimed, the canon is revealed to 'the sheep who hear his voice,' are these sheep able to recognize his voice infallibly? If not then he must fully admit to his audience that he does not have an infallible canon; that, in fact, he cannot be sure at all which books actually constitute Scripture" (NBSA pg. 272).

And to show that this extends beyond Madrid and Sungenis, I include the following from Jeffrey Morrow who wrote three years ago an article on the canon for This Rock which included the following argument:

"you don't have a reliable Bible unless the Catholic Church's decision regarding the canon was infallible" (Jeffrey L. Morrow: In the Crosshairs of the Canon).

This is a fourth example from a third person to confuse certainty with infallibility. Here is a fifth example from a fourth source:

"The Old Testament Church was not infallible, folks. So how did you know for sure what was inspired? Because the Old Testament people of God regarded it as such . . . but you couldn't infallibly know what Scripture was. It was not until the Catholic Church defined the Canon that you could know." (Mario Derksen: Response to Gary De Mar on Sola Scriptura).

Yet again we have confusion of certainty with infallibility. I include Mario here because this was from his orthodox period and there is a clear Catholic Answers influence here. A sixth example from a fifth source can be noted here:

"If the Church was not infallible at this point [on deciding the canon -ISM], then the infallibility of the Word of God becomes suspect, because apart from the Church, how do we know what books should actually be in the Bible?" (Dean at KiwiCatholic: Response to an Anti-Catholic Letter).

I could list others but here we have three examples from two prominent Catholic apologists -in Bob's case from his NBSA days which preceded his schism by five years. There are also examples from Mario when he was still within the Church and an individual (Dean) who was clearly influenced in his argument from Catholic Answers whom he credits along with Dave Armstrong for helping him formulate his arguments in that rather multitopical letter of his.{2}

It should also be noted that I do not want this criticism to be understood as an indictment of Dean's entire letter by any means. This is more an example of Dean trusting in Catholic Answers (CA) to provide a solid argument on this point.{3}

"And Secondly, the majority of the cannon was accepted by all Christians from the beginning, and it was only a handful of books that were in dispute (I've got details of this in my Church History notes if you want me to dig them out). Thus the bulk of the Cannon is pretty much 100% sure (based on historical evidence, rather than an official decree of the Church) and there are only a few books that are slightly less certain than the rest."

As an aside, some argue from God's sovereignty, and His desire for all to know the truth, that He ensured that the Cannon was correctly recognised by the church (although personally, I’m not sure that this is safe to assume since God often doesn't make himself as clear as we would like. This is what I would’ve done if I was God, but God’s ways are mysterious, and often don't make sense to us).

"What’s stopping you from doing what Luther did and want to reject certain books of the Bible as Scripture just because they don’t match up with your interpretation?"

What's stopping this from happening is the weight of the two points I mentioned above. It would take an overwhelming amount of evidence for a good protestant Scholar to go against the weight of tradition on this matter.

So his position is that "the bulk of the cannon is 100% sure" but a few books are slightly less certain!? Does this mean that he is uncertain about the inspiration of Revelation and Hebrews? It seems to me that he is not certain about the canon, but only some or the majority of it. And if he is not certain that some books are scripture, then he cannot practice Sola Scriptura since "All Scripture is inspired...makes man fully-equipped". *All*, not "a bulk" makes man fully-equipped. Hence, he cannot practice Sola Scriptura unless he is certain that the whole canon is inspired.

I agree with the latter's view with one caveat: the person being referred to does not require infallibility to have certainty. (Not that XXXXXXXX is saying he does mind you; however the two are often confused by people.)

For example if Paul's missing letter to the Corinthians was found (We know that 2 Corinthians is actually his third letter to them) and in it Paul condemned the Epistle of James as heretical, then there would be a case for excluding James from the cannon. Of course this is extremely unlikely but I'm just trying to demonstrate the type of evidence required, to justify redefining the cannon. Luther was clearly wrong to reject James based on his individual interpretation.

I think my response above can refute this.

As a small aside, it is interesting that he picks the Romans/James example out of many which he could have chosen...

"Like Catholics, good Protestant Scholars give a lot of attention to the history of the Church, and the development of dogma, the difference is that the Protestant Scholar is able to conclude with the benefit of hindsight that the church erred in its teaching."

Of course how the prot scholar can do this is not explained. It is simply asserted that it happens. Well my friends, that is not good enough -not by a long shot. I would recommend to the first cath to reject this assertion and remand it back to the aforementioned prot to explain rather than merely assert.

Anyone can claim something without backing it up. The best way to do this is with some examples of where the church erred in its teaching. And of course no one should take such assertions at face value without attempting to scrutinize them as carefully and objectively as they can.

I think Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide are reductionism, not development, of dogma.

Agreed. It is the same species of arrested development that affects atheists when it comes to the ultimate question we all have about our existence. (Different animal, same species if you will.)

Also, it seems that your friend is an evidentialist and I don't think most Christians are evidentialists.

I have to agree with the latter point. However, I have been rather critical of the way most Catholics approach this subject so I will do what I can to supply an alternative approach -one that I have outlined in various ways over the years in various formats. Nonetheless, it seems appropriate to do it again here.

Hand in hand with this is a confusion of the subject of infallibility and its range. As Greg Krehbiel noted in his Protestant days, the common misconceptions that many Catholics parrot on this score can come back to bite them if they are not careful:

"When defending the notion of infallibility, the Catholic Answers crowd will retreat to the minimalist position: the pope is only infallible when he speaks on faith and morals as universal pastor, etc. etc., and this has only happened twice. So, when you point out the stupid things that were said by popes and papal defenders in the 11th to 14th centuries, they'll point out that those things aren't infallible.

But then you talk to them about the canon. They'll say, 'what good is an infallible Bible without an infallible canon.' And I respond, 'I don't know, why don't you ask any Roman Catholic who lived in the 11th century, since the canon wasn't infallibly defined until hundreds of years later.' And suddenly the minimalist position disappears. Infallibility no longer applies only to ecumenical councils and ex cathedra statements. Now it's very broad and applies to some kind of general consensus among theologians" (Greg Krehbiel: Countering Catholic Apologetics).

Now as Greg was a Protestant when he wrote those lines, his mistakes viz. infallibility and its application are of course excusable. My main point here is his primary argumentation thread which is correct. Most Catholics confuse ex cathedra pronouncements with dogmatic definitions of faith and that gets them into a lot of deep water when these issues are probed with any degree of detail.

For example, depending on the Catholic you ask who adheres to the minimalist error on infallibility, the canon was definitively settled either at Trent (Robert Sungenis) or Florence (Jeffrey Morrow). In either case, the problem is obvious: what about the previous fifteen hundred years??? The Church has never taught that infallibility pertains only to ex cathedra definitions of faith: indeed ex cathedra "definitions" can encompass not only what is "de fide" but also what is theologically certain and therefore must be "held." This is very clear from Vatican I's definition of infallibility and is clarified by the authoritative relatio from the Council on the subject of infallibility.{4}

Also, it was also made clear that certain derivative truths which were recognized as requiring of protection from error were not being defined at the Council but were to be held as they already were: as theologically certain.{5} In short, there is a lot more to this than casually appears. But back to the argument at hand here.

Whether you place the infallibility at Trent as Sungenis does, at Florence as Morrow does, or whether you do so at the 418/9 synod of Carthage as Dr. Art Sippo and your blog host (correctly) do, the problem remains the same: what about the previous period. Even if someone were to claim that the declarations of the canon at previous synods were definitive{6}, that still pushes the day of reckoning back to 382 which prompts the question: why was the lack of "infallibility" to the canon prior to that date not a problem??? In short, wherever the line is drawn, the subject eventually has to be addressed. That is, if the focus is on infallibility which I submit it should not be. And that leads inexorably to the subject of church authority.

It is best to attach the canon subject to the subject of church authority because that is what is really trenchant. Both testaments had books which were controverted as to their placement at one time. (Which I will refer to here as "deuterocanonical" or "deuters" despite the fact that there is some anachronism involved in doing that.)

The prot needs to explain why they accept the once "questionable" NT books and not the once "questionable" OT books and do so in a way that is (i) consistent and (ii) does not rely on the testimony of post-Second Temple anti-Christian rabbinical Judaism to do it.

The general approach taken by those who deny the inspiration of the OT Deuters is to point to several supposed "errors" in them which either (i) the Protocanon portions do not have or (ii) the NT Deuters do not have. I have yet to see one example with the OT Deuters supposedly "erring" where the same problems cannot be found somewhere in at least one of the OT Protocanon books. Hence the prot who uses this approach either has to (i) start chucking out Protocanon books for failing the same tests they strive to apply to the Deuters or (ii) admit that this approach of theirs for verifying the books of sacred Scripture is untenable.

Of course should they be honest and admit to the latter -which you may have to fight for them to do btw- then the table is set for discussing the presuppositions that govern their approach to the Scriptures in that way.

For when one can strip all of the varnished rhetorical flourishes down to those theses which contribute to major paradigmatical theories, then the possibility for someone eventually going through a seismic shift in how they view these issues is possible. For just as the eye that alters alters all things, the eye that is altered has a different view of all things.

With regards to the NT Deuters, the classic texts are Romans and James which appear to contradict if one accepts sola fide theory.{7} And of course the issue of what "sola fide" actually means then becomes a factor but I want to avoid that and focus on sola scriptura and the canon here briefly.

The subject of the canon should always devolve to the authority of the Church in setting forth in perpetuity the canon list which the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches have since accepted without equivocation.{8} On most of the books (39 OT, 17 NT) there was unanimity going as far back as we can ascertain. With a few others, there was a bit more ambiguity but still overwhelming enough affirmation to be included in the NT Protocanon.{9} Then there were seven books from each testament which were disputed by sections of the Church and other books which were at times held to be canonical which later were rejected. And this is the foundation from which we have to work.

For one fact that is beyond dispute is that from the very first Church statement on the canon (Council of Rome in 382) all the way to the present day is that whenever the Church has set forth the list of what is sacred Scripture, she has always set forth the same books. And in that list are the seven Deuters of the NT and seven from the OT.

Protestants accept the former and reject the latter. Therefore, since Christendom since 382 accepted all fourteen of the Deuters (seven in each testament), a consistent rationale must be set forth for why the OT Deuters are to be rejected and the ones from the NT are not to be. Catholics and Orthodox have a ready answer for that one: the Church made the judgment and it is binding.

Protestants cannot accept this rationale without completely unravelling sola scriptura because they would be accepting church authority to provide themselves the foundation to otherwise reject at their own whim the same church authority whenever it disagrees with them. And no appeal to history on their behalf can sustain them because (i) Church history in no way countenances the rejection of the OT Deuterocanons{10} and (ii) if the prots truly adhere to St. Paul's dictum that all Scripture is inspired and yet they are rejecting seven books of Scripture, then they are not even true to their own foundational theory.

Now it is true that truth is not a mere product of majority vote. However, at the same time, those who deviate from established consensus -in this case an eleven hundred plus year consensus of which books constituted sacred Scripture have the burden of proof on themselves to justify why they did this. That is the natural order of things after all: a respect for precedent while not being uncritically bound to the latter if you will.

This therefore is the manner whereby the Catholic should approach the canon subject. The fact that the Church did not have a fully fixed canon for three hundred and eighty odd years anno domini (and longer if we go back into the OT period) is not problematical for the Catholic or Orthodox positions. However, it is a *huge* problem for the Protestant positions which by their very nature depend on Scripture as the sole unimpeachable source of truth ala sola scriptura.

Again, what is needed is a non-contradictory rationale for why the prot rejects the OT Deuters while accepting the NT Deuters. And for those who pride themselves on appealing to history, the absolute lack of historical evidence for this theory{11} needs to be squarely faced up to. This is not to say that certainty cannot be had on the matter of course. However, rather than assert it, the dissidents need to establish the viability of their position.

The Catholic and the Orthodox apologists are correct in ascertaining the Sysphian task in doing this. However, by bringing into the equation the subject of "infallibility"{12} is to build regression into the argument. Avoid it and focus on authority and that is a good way to avoid the various regression arguments that are unfortunately common in these kinds of polemical interactions. And by focusing on authority and getting the prot to demonstrate a working certainty of what constitutes sacred Scripture apart from Church judgments on the matter -and do so in a non-contradictory or non-arbitrary manner- you will make a lot more productive strides in dialogue with our separated prot brethren on this vital issue than with the kind of flawed boilerplate argumentation which was forged in confessional polemics.

Notes:

{1} Pat put this argument forward in NBSA in the opening chapter. For the record, I gave this book five stars despite finding several problems with it -mostly of a minor nature. Pat's argument though was not in my view a minor one at all. (And I noted it in my review for that reason.)

{2} I am unaware of Dave actually making this error himself -though he probably at one time did make it as all people at some point do.

{3} This is not intended to denigrate Catholic Answers or its flagship publication This Rock. However, this particular subject is not one that they handle very well and that is the truth -however discomforting that it may be to some people.

{4} Where the point was made that infallibility in the form of "dogmatic judgments" or "definitions" did not rely on a set form. As the relator noted to those who sought to tie infallibility to a particular form of expression, this was not possible because (i) the subject being dealt with was no novelty and (ii) "thousands and thousands" of dogmatic judgments had been handed down without recognizable form to them - and there was not (and could not) be established any law which prescribed a set form to be observed in such judgments. These important points shoot in the head the minimalist understanding of infallibility.

{5} Vatican II eventually embodied this understanding into a Dogmatic Constitution which rendered it definitive and forbid any future speculation into the matter by theologians. (And by extension this applies to lay people as well.)

{6} Referring to 397 Carthage, 394 Carthage, 393 Hippo, or 382 Rome. The reason I point to Carthage is because that synod reiterated the canon in the context of a dogmatic dispute over a major heresy. The pope in promulgating the judgments of this synod as magisterial and requiring all churches to accept this synod -which they did- meets the qualifications for definitive status in a manner that the previous synods do not.

{7} Unless one explains away James so that it does not really say what it literally says.

{8} This is not to say that certain books were not viewed as "more authoritative" than others in doctrinal disputes of course. But that is another subject altogether.

{9} I refer here to the Pastoral Epistles of Paul (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus).

{10} For one of many historians who recognize the incongruency of the prot canon thesis with Church History is the Anglican Albert C. Sundberg who updated his influential 1957 doctoral thesis on The Old Testament Canon and the Early Church in this essay.

{11} For more on the canon, see this piece as well as this piece and also the link at footnote ten.

{12} In the case of the Orthodox, it is an appeal to "the Church" which they do not really have a working definition of. But I do not have the time or inclination to deal with this at the moment -indeed I already did so to some extent nearly three years ago in my essay Christian Unity and the Role of Authority. See my writings link for details on this.

Rerum Novarum Returns To Sheattle:

At some point I will elaborate more on the Puerto Vallarta (PV) trip which I returned from last night at 11:30pm.{1} Right now though, as I have a blister on the ball of my left foot the size of a half-dollar and am doing limited walking, it seems appropriate to blog a bit on other subjects so that is what I will do.

Note:

{1} I do intend to return to PV and perhaps live part of the year there in time. But that is a subject for another time perhaps.