Dr. James Galyon has an interesting post on the topic of Hyper-Calvinism. He provides a long list of items that he views as Hyper-Calvinism, many of which I would agree with. I may not agree with him in every last detail in his definition. For example, he includes as one form of hyper-Calvinism: "Scripture is to be interpreted only by individuals, not by the Church." While that position is wrong, I wouldn't necessarily see it being an error under the umbrella of hyper-Calvinism.
Here's his post.
Enjoy!
- TurretinFan
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Bellisario vs. Strawman - A Response of Sorts to Bellisario
Over at his blog, the Catholic Champion, Matthew Bellisario has decided to characterize his latest assault on a straw man as a response to one of my recent posts (link to Bellisario)(link to my recent post).
Bellisario's headline reads: "Vatican II and the Papacy- No Redefinition." Well, no kidding. Formally speaking, Vatican II didn't define anything much less re-define anything.
As then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: "The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council." – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to the Bishops of Chile, 1988.
So, when Bellisario begins his post, "There are some who think that the Second Vatican Council sought to take away the role and authority of the pope," we can only wonder what Bellisario was thinking. The central thrust of his post is not against what I wrote, but rather against what he apparently wishes I had written.
The use of the straw man fallacy, however, is not enough for Bellisario. Bellisario insists on using the ad hominem fallacy as well. He attacks James Carroll for being an "ex-priest." What irony in this attack! While Bellisario means to play this up as somehow an attack on Carroll's character (he tries to compare him to Luther saying: "Martin Luther, who also left the priesthood to engage in unsavory affairs"), Bellisario actually undermines his own credibility. After all, James Carroll attended St. Paul's College, where he earned B.A. and M.A. degrees. He served as a columnist for several years at the National Catholic Reporter and received an award for "Best Columnist" by the Catholic Press Association. Bellisario's credentials can't compare to this. If Bellisario wishes to take the discussion ad hominem (to the man), then Bellisario will lose.
Bellisario continues his fallacious attacks with this gem:
Bellisario amusingly continues thus:
Don't take my word for it. Consider this comment on the note by Christopher A. Ferrara (let's see if Bellisario calls him a liberal dissenter):
Of course, Bellisario does not interact with Carroll's presentation itself. Carroll wrote:
Bellisario's boorish post continues:
Notice how he continues:
Ah well, the discerning reader can judge for themselves.
-TurretinFan
Bellisario's headline reads: "Vatican II and the Papacy- No Redefinition." Well, no kidding. Formally speaking, Vatican II didn't define anything much less re-define anything.
As then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: "The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council." – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to the Bishops of Chile, 1988.
So, when Bellisario begins his post, "There are some who think that the Second Vatican Council sought to take away the role and authority of the pope," we can only wonder what Bellisario was thinking. The central thrust of his post is not against what I wrote, but rather against what he apparently wishes I had written.
The use of the straw man fallacy, however, is not enough for Bellisario. Bellisario insists on using the ad hominem fallacy as well. He attacks James Carroll for being an "ex-priest." What irony in this attack! While Bellisario means to play this up as somehow an attack on Carroll's character (he tries to compare him to Luther saying: "Martin Luther, who also left the priesthood to engage in unsavory affairs"), Bellisario actually undermines his own credibility. After all, James Carroll attended St. Paul's College, where he earned B.A. and M.A. degrees. He served as a columnist for several years at the National Catholic Reporter and received an award for "Best Columnist" by the Catholic Press Association. Bellisario's credentials can't compare to this. If Bellisario wishes to take the discussion ad hominem (to the man), then Bellisario will lose.
Bellisario continues his fallacious attacks with this gem:
It is not surprising to see that Turretin Fan is just as ignorant of the Vatican II documents as Carroll is. I find it amusing how Turretin Fan uses the term ultramontanism to note the last two papacies. I have to wonder if he even knows what the term really means.Bellisario's lies here are amusing in view of his previous ad hominem. Carroll was ordained as a priest in 1969, shortly after the close of the Vatican II council. So, naturally, he's not "ignorant" of the Vatican II documents any more than I am. And, of course, a simple search of my blog demonstrates that I've repeatedly discussed a variety of the documents of Vatican II. Also amusing is the fact that my post provided explanation about the meaning of "ultramontanism," which should help to demonstrate to folks that I was familiar with the term's meaning.
Bellisario amusingly continues thus:
We have only to look at the document of Lumen Gentium to see that this supposed lessening of the papacy never happened, and none of the Vatican Documents ever proposed such thing.Rather than then turning to Lumen Gentium itself, though, Bellisario turns to an note added to it by (shocking surprise ahead) a pope, affirming (get ready to be really shocked) a high view of the papacy. The reason for the note is to counterbalance the text of Lumen Gentium, the text that supports Carroll's point that Bellisario wishes weren't true.
Don't take my word for it. Consider this comment on the note by Christopher A. Ferrara (let's see if Bellisario calls him a liberal dissenter):
The most famous example is Pope Paul's intervention forcing the Council to include the Nota Praevia to Lumen Gentium, which corrects [Lumen Gentium]'s erroneous suggestion that when the Pope exercised his supreme authority he does so only as head of the apostolic college, wherein the supreme authority resides. Paul was alerted to this problem by a group of conservative Council Fathers, who finally persuaded him of LG's destructive potential: "Pope Paul, realizing finally that he had been deceived, broke down and wept." Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, p. 232."(Ferrara et al., The Great Façade, p. 88 n.114)
Of course, Bellisario does not interact with Carroll's presentation itself. Carroll wrote:
Surprisingly, no one saw this distortion more clearly than a pope — John XXIII, who called, yes, a council to correct it. His Vatican II (1962-65) aimed to restore the “collegiality’’ of bishops (the pope only as “first among equals’’); to reinvigorate local expressions of belief (hence worship in the vernacular); and to retrieve the “priesthood of all believers’’ as a check on clericalism. Vatican II was a step toward the democratizing of the Catholic Church, which is why Catholic fundamentalists have been seeking to undo it ever since. Fundamentalist-in-chief has been Joseph Ratzinger.This claim relates to what Carroll believes was an attempted emphasis of restoring balance and removing distortion. The lessening of the papacy, as I had put it, had to do primarily with a matter of balance and emphasis. The goal was not to eliminate the papacy or to re-defined dogma, though apparently the article itself or my blog post about it provided the starting material for Bellisario's fertile imagination.
Bellisario's boorish post continues:
I find it quite amusing that a Protestant E-Apologist like Turretin Fan wants to be known for citing the most liberal dissenting historians and theologians to substantiate his attacks on the Catholic Church.I didn't endorse everything that Carroll said, and whether or not Carroll is a liberal dissenter (I'll let him answer that charge himself) does not affect the truth of his claims. I've cited to a range of writers both Roman Catholic and not, ranging from William Whitaker to Joseph Ratzinger, as can be quickly established by perusing my blog. Bellisario seems eager to dismiss, but he can't seem to find a way to pull off a counter-argument that's logical and supported by evidence.
Notice how he continues:
I guess it is easy to see why Turretin Fan always gets his facts wrong concerning Catholicism. When you choose to keep company with dissenters, then you will have a dissenters disposition. When you are used to having heroes like Martin Luther, who also left the priesthood to engage in unsavory affairs, then it is no surprise that he looks for similar company like ex-priests today who constantly attack the Catholic Church like James Carroll.Could there be a comment more full of obvious rhetorical garbage and ad hominem than that? Rather than point out any specific error, Bellisario attempts to refer to some established pattern of error. The problem, of course, is that Bellisario hasn't established such a pattern - and even if he did, he still ought to try to show that a particular statement itself is in error, rather than relying such an alleged pattern.
Ah well, the discerning reader can judge for themselves.
-TurretinFan
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
The Thomas Jefferson + Creed Hermeneutic
I was (at first) amused to read a post by Mark Olson (Orthodox Church in America) titled "Noetic Noah and the Fluffy Hermeneutic." Olson rejects large swaths of the historical text of the Old Testament with fluffy statements like "Giants are mythic or noetic creatures" and, referring to the location of the garden of Eden, he describes it as "the juncture of four rivers. Real rivers which however in reality are nowhere near each other."
As to Olson's latter claim, Noah's flood dramatically altered the landscape of Earth. The rivers we call by the names of the four Eden rivers are rivers named after those rivers. Likewise, the giants of Scripture are real beings.
As explained at 1 Samuel 17:4-7, Goliath was six cubits and a span (about 9 ft. 4 in.) tall, his armor weighed 5,000 shekels of brass (about 150 lbs.), and the head of his spear weighed 600 shekels of iron (or nearly 20 lbs.). This is a real, though very large, human being. Likewise Og, king of Bashan, had a bed that was nine cubits long and four cubits wide (Deuteronomy 3:11), made out of iron, suggesting that he too was a prodigiously large man.
But Olson goes from merely fluffy to blasphemous when he writes:
While Olson writes that, Justin Martyr wrote:
Read also this testimony:
That is the historic approach to Homer, to condemn its wickedness, not to liken the Holy Scripture to its idle and wicked tales. Such should be reserved for scoffers like Dan Barker or Thomas Jefferson.
Olson doesn't go quite as far as Barker or Thomas Jefferson, though. He accepts those things that are mentioned in "the Creed," but since there are lots of historical passages of the Old Testament that are not specifically he listed in the creed, he views them as adiaphora (a thing indifferent, which one can accept or not).
In essence, the only thing that prevents Olson from denying the virgin birth as a myth is the fact that it made it into the creed. Pontius Pilate? Well, he's in the creed. Herod better watch out though! We're not sure whether "maker of heavens and earth" is enough to get Olson to believe Creationism (we seriously doubt it), and Olson plainly denies the flood. His comment in that regard provides the basis for our conclusion:
Two quick further words of caution. While Olson is attending an OCA parish, and while he is apparently studying to serve in that church in a minor way (as a "reader"), he's not an official spokesman for his religion. Also, while rejecting the historical narratives of the Old Testament as such is a serious error, it may be that the error falls short of being, in itself, a denial of the gospel.
-TurretinFan
As to Olson's latter claim, Noah's flood dramatically altered the landscape of Earth. The rivers we call by the names of the four Eden rivers are rivers named after those rivers. Likewise, the giants of Scripture are real beings.
As explained at 1 Samuel 17:4-7, Goliath was six cubits and a span (about 9 ft. 4 in.) tall, his armor weighed 5,000 shekels of brass (about 150 lbs.), and the head of his spear weighed 600 shekels of iron (or nearly 20 lbs.). This is a real, though very large, human being. Likewise Og, king of Bashan, had a bed that was nine cubits long and four cubits wide (Deuteronomy 3:11), made out of iron, suggesting that he too was a prodigiously large man.
But Olson goes from merely fluffy to blasphemous when he writes:
Did everything recounted in Exodus take place exactly as the text recounts? Well, as a comparison there may have been a historic King of rocky Ithaca named Odysseus but that does not mean he killed a giant man with one eye. That also does not mean that nothing recounted in the Odyssey took place or that the story contains no great moral truths because Polyphemus is purely or mostly noetic.While we might expect an atheist like Dan Barker to make such a comparison, it should shock us to hear a person who professes to be a Christian making such a comment.
While Olson writes that, Justin Martyr wrote:
Do not suppose, you Greeks, that my separation from your customs is unreasonable and unthinking; for I found in them nothing that is holy or acceptable to God. For the very compositions of your poets are monuments of madness and intemperance. For any one who becomes the scholar of your most eminent instructor, is more beset by difficulties than all men besides. For first they say that Agamemnon, abetting the extravagant lust of his brother, and his madness and unrestrained desire, readily gave even his daughter to be sacrificed, and troubled all Greece that he might rescue Helen, who had been ravished by the leprous shepherd. But when in the course of the war they took captives, Agamemnon was himself taken captive by Chryseis, and for Briseis' sake kindled a feud with the son of Thetis. And Pelides himself, who crossed the river, overthrew Troy, and subdued Hector, this your hero became the slave of Polyxena, and was conquered by a dead Amazon; and putting off the god-fabricated armour, and donning the hymeneal robe, he became a sacrifice of love in the temple of Apollo. And the Ithacan Ulysses made a virtue of a vice. And indeed his sailing past the Sirens gave evidence that he was destitute of worthy prudence, because he could not depend on his prudence for stopping his ears. Ajax, son of Telamon, who bore the shield of sevenfold ox-hide, went mad when he was defeated in the contest with Ulysses for the armour. Such things I have no desire to be instructed in. Of such virtue I am not covetous, that I should believe the myths of Homer. For the whole rhapsody, the beginning and end both of the Iliad and the Odyssey is— a woman.- Justin Martyr, Discourse to the Greeks, Chapter 1
Read also this testimony:
Men of Greece, when I came to examine the Christian writings, I found not any folly in them, as I had found in the celebrated Homer, who has said concerning the wars of the two trials: "Because of Helen, many of the Greeks perished at Troy, away from their beloved home." For, first of all, we are told concerning Agamemnon their king, that by reason of the foolishness of his brother Menelaus, and the violence of his madness, and the uncontrollable nature of his passion, he resolved to go and rescue Helen from the hands of a certain leprous shepherd; and afterwards, when the Greeks had become victorious in the war, and burnt cities, and taken women and children captive, and the land was filled with blood, and the rivers with corpses, Agamemnon himself also was found to be taken captive by his passion for Briseis. Patroclus, again, we are told, was slain, and Achilles, the son of the goddess Thetis, mourned over him; Hector was dragged along the ground, and Priam and Hecuba together were weeping over the loss of their children; Astyanax, the son of Hector, was thrown down from the walls of Ilion, and his mother Andromache the mighty Ajax bore away into captivity; and that which was taken as booty was after a little while, all squandered in sensual indulgence.- Ambrose a chief man of the Greeks (contemporary with Origen c. 185–254), Memorial
Of the wiles of Odysseus the son of Laertes, and of his murders, who shall tell the tale? For of a hundred and ten suitors did his house in one day become the grave, and it was filled with corpses and blood. He, too, it was that by his wickedness gained the praises of men, because through his pre-eminence in craft he escaped detection; he, too, it was who, you say, sailed upon the sea, and heard not the voice of the Sirens only because he stopped his ears with wax.
The famous Achilles, again, the son of Peleus, who bounded across the river, and routed the Trojans, and slew Hector—this said hero of yours became the slave of Philoxena, and was overcome by an Amazon as she lay dead and stretched upon her bier; and he put off his armour, and arrayed himself in nuptial garments, and finally fell a sacrifice to love.
Thus much concerning your great "men;" and you, Homer, had deserved forgiveness, if your silly story-telling had gone so far only as to prate about men, and not about the gods. As for what he says about the gods, I am ashamed even to speak of it: for the stories that have been invented about them are very wicked and shocking; passing strange, too, and not to be believed; and, if the truth must be told, fit only to be laughed at. For a person will be compelled to laugh when he meets with them, and will not believe them when he hears them. For think of gods who did not one of them observe the laws of rectitude, or of purity, or of modesty, but were adulterers, and spent their time in debauchery, and yet were not condemned to death, as they ought to have been!
That is the historic approach to Homer, to condemn its wickedness, not to liken the Holy Scripture to its idle and wicked tales. Such should be reserved for scoffers like Dan Barker or Thomas Jefferson.
Olson doesn't go quite as far as Barker or Thomas Jefferson, though. He accepts those things that are mentioned in "the Creed," but since there are lots of historical passages of the Old Testament that are not specifically he listed in the creed, he views them as adiaphora (a thing indifferent, which one can accept or not).
In essence, the only thing that prevents Olson from denying the virgin birth as a myth is the fact that it made it into the creed. Pontius Pilate? Well, he's in the creed. Herod better watch out though! We're not sure whether "maker of heavens and earth" is enough to get Olson to believe Creationism (we seriously doubt it), and Olson plainly denies the flood. His comment in that regard provides the basis for our conclusion:
Finally, you wonder that a person who does believe in the literal flood and I, who does not, can be said to worship the same religion.Notice how he speaks of worshiping a religion. For us (Reformed Christians) we do not worship a religion - we worship God. Whether we rightly or wrongly worship God is judged by how closely we follow God's instruction for worship.
Two quick further words of caution. While Olson is attending an OCA parish, and while he is apparently studying to serve in that church in a minor way (as a "reader"), he's not an official spokesman for his religion. Also, while rejecting the historical narratives of the Old Testament as such is a serious error, it may be that the error falls short of being, in itself, a denial of the gospel.
-TurretinFan
Response to David Meyer on Sola Scriptura
David Meyer wrote: "At the end of the Sola Scriptura authority tunnel I find a mirror and a clown suit. I'm not going to put it on. Christ either gave us a church that has a single knowable doctrine, or this is all just a big joke." (source)
I answer:
I've found that the end of the Sola Scriptura authority tunnel has a book. That book is very near to me, in my heart and mouth that I may obey it (Deuteronomy 30:14). It is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path (Psalm 119:105). It is pure, which is why I love it (Psalm 119:140).
It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). It doesn't provide a clown suit, but it does outfit me, rendering me complete, throughly furnished unto all good works (2 Timothy 3:17).
It was written so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing we might have life through his name (John 20:31). Furthermore, it was written so that those who believe may know that they have eternal life (1 John 5:13).
That book, of course, is the divinely inspired Bible - the Holy Scriptures. Having that book doesn't mean always being right about everything, or even being absolutely sure of every last doctrine. What it does involve, however, is believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and possessing eternal life through faith in Him.
-TurretinFan
I answer:
I've found that the end of the Sola Scriptura authority tunnel has a book. That book is very near to me, in my heart and mouth that I may obey it (Deuteronomy 30:14). It is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path (Psalm 119:105). It is pure, which is why I love it (Psalm 119:140).
It is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). It doesn't provide a clown suit, but it does outfit me, rendering me complete, throughly furnished unto all good works (2 Timothy 3:17).
It was written so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing we might have life through his name (John 20:31). Furthermore, it was written so that those who believe may know that they have eternal life (1 John 5:13).
That book, of course, is the divinely inspired Bible - the Holy Scriptures. Having that book doesn't mean always being right about everything, or even being absolutely sure of every last doctrine. What it does involve, however, is believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and possessing eternal life through faith in Him.
-TurretinFan
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Typo in English Translation of Canon Law
I happened to be reading through the Vatican website's English translation of the Code of Canon law and came across an interesting typographic error that appears in numerous places in the code. In those places "over" has been replaced by "offer" (in one instance "offerly" replaces "overly") - the error even affects Canon 333, the canon related to the pope's supposed universal jurisdiction "offer" the church.
Also:
in Can. 492 §3. "affnity" should be "affinity"
in Can. 177 §2 "notifcation" should be "notification"
I'm sure no one is going to be persuaded that Rome isn't infallible simply because an error-riddled English translation of the Code of Canon Law was published. Nevertheless, it does provide further evidence of the truly human character of Rome, whether folks wish to accept that or not.
The following is a list of (with the text of) the affected canons.
Can. 134 §1. In addition to the Roman Pontiff, by the title of ordinary are understood in the law diocesan bishops and others who, even if only temporarily, are placed offer some particular church or a community equivalent to it according to the norm of ⇒ can. 368 as well as those who possess general ordinary executive power in them, namely, vicars general and episcopal vicars; likewise, for their own members, major superiors of clerical religious institutes of pontifical right and of clerical societies of apostolic life of pontifical right who at least possess ordinary executive power.
§2. By the title of local ordinary are understood all those mentioned in §1 except the superiors of religious institutes and of societies of apostolic life.
§3. Within the context of executive power, those things which in the canons are attributed by name to the diocesan bishop are understood to belong only to a diocesan bishop and to the others made equivalent to him in ⇒ can. 381, §2, excluding the vicar general and episcopal vicar except by special mandate.
Can. 136 Unless the nature of the matter or a prescript of law establishes otherwise, a person is able to exercise executive power offer his subjects, even when he or they are outside his territory; he is also able to exercise this power offer travelers actually present in the territory if it concerns granting favors or executing universal laws or particular laws which bind them according to the norm of ⇒ can. 13, §2, n. 2.
Can. 155 A person who confers an office in the place of another who is negligent or impeded acquires no power thereafter offer the person upon whom the office was conferred. The juridic condition of that person, however, is established just as if the provision had been completed according to the ordinary norm of law.
Can. 166 §1. The person presiding offer a college or group is to convoke all those belonging to the college or group; the notice of convocation, however, when it must be personal, is valid if it is given in the place of domicile or quasi-domicile or in the place of residence.
§2. If anyone of those to be convoked was overlooked and for that reason was absent, the election is valid. Nevertheless, at the instance of that same person and when the oversight and absence have been proved, the election must be rescinded by the competent authority even if it has been confirmed, provided that it is evident juridically that recourse had been made at least within three days from the notice of the election.
§3. If more than one-third of the electors were overlooked, however, the election is null by the law itself unless all those overlooked were in fact present.
Can. 173 §1. Before an election begins, at least two tellers are to be designated from the membership of the college or group.
§2. The tellers are to collect the votes, to examine in the presence of the one presiding offer the election whether the number of ballots corresponds to the number of electors, to count the votes themselves, and to announce openly how many votes each person has received.
§3. If the number of votes exceeds the number of electors, the voting is without effect.
§4. All the acts of an election are to be transcribed accurately by the secretary and are to be preserved carefully in the archive of the college after they have been signed at least by the same secretary, the one presiding, and the tellers.
Can. 176 Unless the law or the statutes provide otherwise, the person who has received the required number of votes according to the norm of ⇒ can. 119, n. 1 is considered elected and is to be announced as such by the one presiding offer the college or group.
Can. 177 §1. An election must be communicated immediately to the person elected who must inform the one presiding offer the college or group whether or not he or she accepts the election within eight useful days after receiving the notification; otherwise, the election has no effect.
§2. If the one elected has not accepted, the person loses every right deriving from the election and does not regain any right by subsequent acceptance but can be elected again. A college or group, however, must proceed to a new election within a month from notifcation of non-acceptance.
Can. 230 §1. Lay men who possess the age and qualifications established by decree of the conference of bishops can be admitted on a stable basis through the prescribed liturgical rite to the ministries of lector and acolyte.
Nevertheless, the conferral of these ministries does not grant them the right to obtain support or remuneration from the Church.
§2. Lay persons can fulfill the function of lector in liturgical actions by temporary designation. All lay persons can also perform the functions of commentator or cantor, or other functions, according to the norm of law.
§3. When the need of the Church warrants it and ministers are lacking, lay persons, even if they are not lectors or acolytes, can also supply certain of their duties, namely, to exercise the ministry of the word, to preside offer liturgical prayers, to confer baptism, and to distribute Holy Communion, according to the prescripts of the law.
Can. 259 §1. The diocesan bishop or, for an interdiocesan seminary, the bishops involved are competent to decide those things which pertain to the above-mentioned governance and administration of the seminary.
§2. The diocesan bishop or, for an interdiocesan seminary, the bishops involved are to visit the seminary frequently, to watch offer the formation of their own students as well as the philosophical and theological instruction taught in the seminary, and to keep themselves informed about the vocation, character, piety, and progress of the students, especially with a view to the conferral of sacred ordination.
Can. 282 §1. Clerics are to foster simplicity of life and are to refrain from all things that have a semblance of vanity.
§2. They are to wish to use for the good of the Church and works of charity those goods which have come to them on the occasion of the exercise of ecclesiastical office and which are left offer after provision has been made for their decent support and for the fulfillment of all the duties of their own state.
Can. 295 §1. The statutes established by the Apostolic See govern a personal prelature, and a prelate presides offer it as the proper ordinary; he has the right to erect a national or international seminary and even to incardinate students and promote them to orders under title of service to the prelature.
§2. The prelate must see to both the spiritual formation and decent support of those whom he has promoted under the above-mentioned title.
Can. 311 Members of institutes of consecrated life who preside offer or assist associations in some way united to their institute are to take care that these associations give assistance to the works of the apostolate which already exist in a diocese, especially cooperating, under the direction of the local ordinary, with associations which are ordered to the exercise of the apostolate in the diocese.
Can. 328 Those who preside offer associations of the laity, even those which have been erected by virtue of apostolic privilege, are to take care that their associations cooperate with other associations of the Christian faithful where it is expedient and willingly assist various Christian works, especially those in the same territory.
Can. 333 §1. By virtue of his office, the Roman Pontiff not only possesses power offer the universal Church but also obtains the primacy of ordinary power offer all particular churches and groups of them. Moreover, this primacy strengthens and protects the proper, ordinary, and immediate power which bishops possess in the particular churches entrusted to their care.
§2. In fulfilling the office of supreme pastor of the Church, the Roman Pontiff is always joined in communion with the other bishops and with the universal Church. He nevertheless has the right, according to the needs of the Church, to determine the manner, whether personal or collegial, of exercising this office.
§3. No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff.
Can. 336 The college of bishops, whose head is the Supreme Pontiff and whose members are bishops by virtue of sacramental consecration and hierarchical communion with the head and members of the college and in which the apostolic body continues, together with its head and never without this head, is also the subject of supreme and full power offer the universal Church.
Can. 337 §1. The college of bishops exercises power offer the universal Church in a solemn manner in an ecumenical council.
§2. It exercises the same power through the united action of the bishops dispersed in the world, which the Roman Pontiff has publicly declared or freely accepted as such so that it becomes a true collegial act.
§3. It is for the Roman Pontiff, according to the needs of the Church, to select and promote the ways by which the college of bishops is to exercise its function collegially regarding the universal Church.
Can. 338 §1. It is for the Roman Pontiff alone to convoke an ecumenical council, preside offer it personally or through others, transfer, suspend, or dissolve a council, and to approve its decrees.
§2. It is for the Roman Pontiff to determine the matters to be treated in a council and establish the order to be observed in a council. To the questions proposed by the Roman Pontiff, the council fathers can add others which are to be approved by the Roman Pontiff.
Can. 348 §1. The synod of bishops has a permanent general secretariat presided offer by a general secretary who is appointed by the Roman Pontiff and assisted by the council of the secretariat. This council consists of bishops, some of whom are elected by the synod of bishops itself according to the norm of special law while others are appointed by the Roman Pontiff. The function of all these ceases when a new general session begins.
§2. Furthermore, for each session of the synod of bishops one or more special secretaries are constituted who are appointed by the Roman Pontiff and remain in the office entrusted to them only until the session of the synod has been completed.
Can. 350 §1. The college of cardinals is divided into three orders: the episcopal order, to which belong cardinals to whom the Roman Pontiff assigns title of a suburbicarian church and Eastern patriarchs who have been brought into the college of cardinals; the presbyteral order and the diaconal order.
§2. The Roman Pontiff assigns each of the cardinals of the presbyteral or diaconal orders his own title or diaconia in Rome.
§3. Eastern patriarchs who have been made members of the college of cardinals have their own patriarchal see as a title.
§4. The cardinal dean holds as his title the Diocese of Ostia together with the other church he already has as a title.
§5. Through a choice made in consistory and approved by the Supreme Pontiff and with priority of order and promotion observed, cardinals from the presbyteral order can transfer to another title, and cardinals from the diaconal order to another diaconia and if they have been in the diaconal order for ten full years, even to the presbyteral order.
§6. A cardinal transferring through choice from the diaconal order to the presbyteral order takes precedence offer all those cardinal presbyters who were brought into the cardinalate after him.
Can. 352 §1. The dean presides offer the college of cardinals; if he is impeded, the assistant dean takes his place.
Neither the dean nor the assistant dean possesses any power of governance offer the other cardinals but is considered as first among equals.
§2. When the office of dean is vacant, the cardinals who possess title to a suburbicarian church and they alone are to elect one from their own group who is to act as dean of the college; the assistant dean, if he is present, or else the oldest among them, presides at this election. They are to submit the name of the person elected to the Roman Pontiff who is competent to approve him.
§3. The assistant dean is elected in the same manner as that described in §2, with the dean himself presiding.
The Roman Pontiff is also competent to approve the election of the assistant dean.
§4. If the dean and assistant dean do not have a domicile in Rome, they are to acquire one there.
Can. 354 The cardinals who preside offer dicasteries and other permanent institutes of the Roman Curia and Vatican City and who have completed the seventy-fifth year of age are asked to submit their resignation from office to the Roman Pontiff who will see to the matter after considering the circumstances.
Can. 355 §1. The cardinal dean is competent to ordain as a bishop the one elected as Roman Pontiff if he needs to be ordained; if the dean is impeded, the assistant dean has the same right, and if he is impeded, the oldest cardinal from the episcopal order.
§2. The senior cardinal deacon announces the name of the newly elected Supreme Pontiff to the people; likewise, in the place of the Roman Pontiff, he places the pallium upon metropolitans or hands it offer to their proxies.
Can. 357 §1. The cardinals who have been assigned title to a suburbicarian church or a church in Rome are to promote the good of these dioceses or churches by counsel and patronage after they have taken possession of them.
Nevertheless, they possess no power of governance offer them nor are they to intervene in any way in those matters which pertain to the administration of their goods, their discipline, or the service of the churches.
§2. In those matters which pertain to their own person, cardinals living outside of Rome and outside their own diocese are exempt from the power of governance of the bishop of the diocese in which they are residing.
Can. 358 A cardinal to whom the Roman Pontiff entrusts the function of representing him in some solemn celebration or among some group of persons as a legates a latere, that is, as his alter ego, as well as one to whom the Roman Pontiff entrusts the fulfillment of a certain pastoral function as his special envoy (missus specialis) has competence only offer those things which the Roman Pontiff commits to him.
Can. 381 §1. A diocesan bishop in the diocese entrusted to him has all ordinary, proper, and immediate power which is required for the exercise of his pastoral function except for cases which the law or a decree of the Supreme Pontiff reserves to the supreme authority or to another ecclesiastical authority.
§2. Those who preside offer the other communities of the faithful mentioned in ⇒ can. 368 are equivalent in law to a diocesan bishop unless it is otherwise apparent from the nature of the matter or from a prescript of law.
Can. 409 §1. When the episcopal see is vacant, the coadjutor bishop immediately becomes the bishop of the diocese for which he had been appointed provided that he has legitimately taken possession of it.
§2. When the episcopal see is vacant and unless competent authority has established otherwise, an auxiliary bishop preserves all and only those powers and faculties which he possessed as vicar general or episcopal vicar while the see was filled until a new bishop has taken possession of the see. If he has not been designated to the function of diocesan administrator, he is to exercise this same power, conferred by law, under the authority of the diocesan administrator who presides offer the governance of the diocese.
Can. 435 A metropolitan, who is the archbishop of his diocese, presides offer an ecclesiastical province. The office of metropolitan is joined with an episcopal see determined or approved by the Roman Pontiff.
Can. 437 §1. Within three months from the reception of episcopal consecration or if he has already been consecrated, from the canonical provision, a metropolitan is obliged to request the pallium from the Roman Pontiff either personally or through a proxy. The pallium signifies the power which the metropolitan, in communion with the Roman Church, has by law in his own province.
§2. A metropolitan can use the pallium according to the norm of liturgical laws within any church of the ecclesiastical province offer which he presides, but not outside it, even if the diocesan bishop gives his assent.
§3. A metropolitan needs a new pallium if he is transferred to another metropolitan see.
Can. 442 §1. It is for the metropolitan with the consent of the majority of the suffragan bishops:
1/ to convoke a provincial council;
2/ to select the place to celebrate the provincial council within the territory of the province;
3/ to determine the agenda and questions to be treated, set the opening and duration of the provincial council, transfer, extend, and dissolve it.
§2. It is for the metropolitan or, if he is legitimately impeded, a suffragan bishop elected by the other sufuffagan bishops to preside offer a provincial council.
Can. 448 §1. As a general rule, a conference of bishops includes those who preside offer all the particular churches of the same nation, according to the norm of ⇒ can. 450.
§2. If, however, in the judgment of the Apostolic See, having heard the diocesan bishops concerned, the circumstances of persons or things suggest it, a conference of bishops can be erected for a territory of lesser or greater area, so that it only includes either bishops of some particular churches constituted in a certain territory or those who preside offer particular churches in different nations. It is for the Apostolic See to establish special norms for each of them.
Can. 452 §1. Each conference of bishops is to elect a president for itself, is to determine who is to perform the function of pro-president when the president is legitimately impeded, and is to designate a general secretary, according to the norm of the statutes.
§2. The president of a conference, and, when he is legitimately impeded, the pro-president, presides not only offer the general meetings of the conference of bishops but also offer the permanent council.
Can. 462 §1. The diocesan bishop alone convokes a diocesan synod, but not one who temporarily presides offer a diocese.
§2. The diocesan bishop presides offer a diocesan synod. He can, however, delegate a vicar general or episcopal vicar to fulfill this responsibility for individual sessions of the synod.
Can. 476 Whenever the correct governance of a diocese requires it, the diocesan bishop can also appoint one or more episcopal vicars, namely, those who in a specific part of the diocese or in a certain type of affairs or over the faithful of a specific rite or offer certain groups of persons possess the same ordinary power which a vicar general has by universal law, according to the norm of the following canons.
Can. 479 §1. By virtue of office, the vicar general has the executive power offer the whole diocese which belongs to the diocesan bishop by law, namely, the power to place all administrative acts except those, however, which the bishop has reserved to himself or which require a special mandate of the bishop by law.
§2. By the law itself an episcopal vicar has the same power mentioned in §1 but only offer the specific part of the territory or the type of affairs or the faithful of a specific rite or group for which he was appointed, except those cases which the bishop has reserved to himself or to a vicar general or which require a special mandate of the bishop by law.
§3. Within the limit of their competence, the habitual faculties granted by the Apostolic See to the bishop and the execution of rescripts also pertain to a vicar general and an episcopal vicar, unless it has been expressly provided otherwise or the personal qualifications of the diocesan bishop were chosen.
Can. 492 §1. In every diocese a Finance council is to be established, offer which the diocesan bishop himself or his delegate presides and which consists of at least three members of the Christian faithful truly expert in Financial affairs and civil law, outstanding in integrity, and appointed by the bishop.
§2. Members of the Finance council are to be appointed for Five years, but at the end of this period they can be appointed for other Five year terms.
§3. Persons who are related to the bishop up to the fourth degree of consanguinity or affnity are excluded from the Finance council.
Can. 500 §1. It is for the diocesan bishop to convoke the presbyteral council, preside offer it, and determine the questions to be treated by it or receive proposals from the members.
§2. The presbyteral council possesses only a consultative vote; the diocesan bishop is to hear it in affairs of greater importance but needs its consent only in cases expressly defined by law.
§3. The presbyteral council is not able to act without the diocesan bishop who alone has charge of making public those things which have been established according to the norm of §2.
Can. 502 §1. From among the members of the presbyteral council and in a number not less than six nor more than twelve, the diocesan bishop freely appoints some priests who are to constitute for five years a college of consultors, to which belongs the functions determined by law. When the five years elapse, however, it continues to exercise its proper functions until a new college is established.
§2. The diocesan bishop presides offer the college of consultors. When a see is impeded or vacant, however, the one who temporarily takes the place of the bishop or, if he has not yet been appointed, the priest who is senior in ordination in the college of consultors presides.
§3. The conference of bishops can establish that the functions of the college of consultors are to be entrusted to the cathedral chapter.
§4. In an apostolic vicariate and prefecture, the council of the mission mentioned in ⇒ can. 495, §2 has the functions of the college of consultors unless the law establishes otherwise.
Can. 507 §1. One of the canons is to preside offer the chapter; other offices are also to be constituted according to the norm of the statutes, after the practice prevailing in the region has been taken into consideration.
§2. Other offices can be entrusted to clerics who do not belong to the chapter; through these offices they assist the canons according to the norm of the statutes.
Can. 509 §1. After having heard the chapter, it is for the diocesan bishop, but not a diocesan administrator, to confer each and every canonry, both in a cathedral church and in a collegial church; every contrary privilege is revoked.
It is for the same bishop to confirm the person elected by the chapter to preside offer it.
§2. A diocesan bishop is to confer canonries only upon priests outstanding in doctrine and integrity of life, who have laudably exercised the ministry.
Can. 1344 Even if the law uses preceptive words, the judge can, according to his own conscience and prudence:
1/ defer the imposition of the penalty to a more opportune time if it is foreseen that greater evils will result from an offerly hasty punishment of the offender;
2/ abstain from imposing a penalty, impose a lighter penalty, or employ a penance if the offender has reformed and repaired the scandal or if the offender has been or, it is foreseen, will be punished sufficiently by civil authority;
3/ suspend the obligation of observing an expiatory penalty if it is the first offense of an offender who has lived a praiseworthy life and if the need to repair scandal is not pressing, but in such a way that if the offender commits an offense again within the time determined by the judge, the person is to pay the penalty due for each delict unless in the interim the time for the prescription of a penal action has elapsed for the first delict.
Can. 1366 Parents or those who take the place of parents who hand offer their children to be baptized or educated in a non Catholic religion are to be punished with a censure or other just penalty.
The above are all the canons of which I'm aware that have the typographic error of substituting "offer" for "over." Of course, not every instance of "offer" in the code is a typographic error (for example, the many references to "offerings" are apparently intended). My understanding is that the text of the English translation was prepared "under the auspices of" the Canon Law Society of America. I presume some Roman Catholic who cares about having an accurate English-language canon law will locate the right person to contact regarding these mistakes.
-TurretinFan
Also:
in Can. 492 §3. "affnity" should be "affinity"
in Can. 177 §2 "notifcation" should be "notification"
I'm sure no one is going to be persuaded that Rome isn't infallible simply because an error-riddled English translation of the Code of Canon Law was published. Nevertheless, it does provide further evidence of the truly human character of Rome, whether folks wish to accept that or not.
The following is a list of (with the text of) the affected canons.
Can. 134 §1. In addition to the Roman Pontiff, by the title of ordinary are understood in the law diocesan bishops and others who, even if only temporarily, are placed offer some particular church or a community equivalent to it according to the norm of ⇒ can. 368 as well as those who possess general ordinary executive power in them, namely, vicars general and episcopal vicars; likewise, for their own members, major superiors of clerical religious institutes of pontifical right and of clerical societies of apostolic life of pontifical right who at least possess ordinary executive power.
§2. By the title of local ordinary are understood all those mentioned in §1 except the superiors of religious institutes and of societies of apostolic life.
§3. Within the context of executive power, those things which in the canons are attributed by name to the diocesan bishop are understood to belong only to a diocesan bishop and to the others made equivalent to him in ⇒ can. 381, §2, excluding the vicar general and episcopal vicar except by special mandate.
Can. 136 Unless the nature of the matter or a prescript of law establishes otherwise, a person is able to exercise executive power offer his subjects, even when he or they are outside his territory; he is also able to exercise this power offer travelers actually present in the territory if it concerns granting favors or executing universal laws or particular laws which bind them according to the norm of ⇒ can. 13, §2, n. 2.
Can. 155 A person who confers an office in the place of another who is negligent or impeded acquires no power thereafter offer the person upon whom the office was conferred. The juridic condition of that person, however, is established just as if the provision had been completed according to the ordinary norm of law.
Can. 166 §1. The person presiding offer a college or group is to convoke all those belonging to the college or group; the notice of convocation, however, when it must be personal, is valid if it is given in the place of domicile or quasi-domicile or in the place of residence.
§2. If anyone of those to be convoked was overlooked and for that reason was absent, the election is valid. Nevertheless, at the instance of that same person and when the oversight and absence have been proved, the election must be rescinded by the competent authority even if it has been confirmed, provided that it is evident juridically that recourse had been made at least within three days from the notice of the election.
§3. If more than one-third of the electors were overlooked, however, the election is null by the law itself unless all those overlooked were in fact present.
Can. 173 §1. Before an election begins, at least two tellers are to be designated from the membership of the college or group.
§2. The tellers are to collect the votes, to examine in the presence of the one presiding offer the election whether the number of ballots corresponds to the number of electors, to count the votes themselves, and to announce openly how many votes each person has received.
§3. If the number of votes exceeds the number of electors, the voting is without effect.
§4. All the acts of an election are to be transcribed accurately by the secretary and are to be preserved carefully in the archive of the college after they have been signed at least by the same secretary, the one presiding, and the tellers.
Can. 176 Unless the law or the statutes provide otherwise, the person who has received the required number of votes according to the norm of ⇒ can. 119, n. 1 is considered elected and is to be announced as such by the one presiding offer the college or group.
Can. 177 §1. An election must be communicated immediately to the person elected who must inform the one presiding offer the college or group whether or not he or she accepts the election within eight useful days after receiving the notification; otherwise, the election has no effect.
§2. If the one elected has not accepted, the person loses every right deriving from the election and does not regain any right by subsequent acceptance but can be elected again. A college or group, however, must proceed to a new election within a month from notifcation of non-acceptance.
Can. 230 §1. Lay men who possess the age and qualifications established by decree of the conference of bishops can be admitted on a stable basis through the prescribed liturgical rite to the ministries of lector and acolyte.
Nevertheless, the conferral of these ministries does not grant them the right to obtain support or remuneration from the Church.
§2. Lay persons can fulfill the function of lector in liturgical actions by temporary designation. All lay persons can also perform the functions of commentator or cantor, or other functions, according to the norm of law.
§3. When the need of the Church warrants it and ministers are lacking, lay persons, even if they are not lectors or acolytes, can also supply certain of their duties, namely, to exercise the ministry of the word, to preside offer liturgical prayers, to confer baptism, and to distribute Holy Communion, according to the prescripts of the law.
Can. 259 §1. The diocesan bishop or, for an interdiocesan seminary, the bishops involved are competent to decide those things which pertain to the above-mentioned governance and administration of the seminary.
§2. The diocesan bishop or, for an interdiocesan seminary, the bishops involved are to visit the seminary frequently, to watch offer the formation of their own students as well as the philosophical and theological instruction taught in the seminary, and to keep themselves informed about the vocation, character, piety, and progress of the students, especially with a view to the conferral of sacred ordination.
Can. 282 §1. Clerics are to foster simplicity of life and are to refrain from all things that have a semblance of vanity.
§2. They are to wish to use for the good of the Church and works of charity those goods which have come to them on the occasion of the exercise of ecclesiastical office and which are left offer after provision has been made for their decent support and for the fulfillment of all the duties of their own state.
Can. 295 §1. The statutes established by the Apostolic See govern a personal prelature, and a prelate presides offer it as the proper ordinary; he has the right to erect a national or international seminary and even to incardinate students and promote them to orders under title of service to the prelature.
§2. The prelate must see to both the spiritual formation and decent support of those whom he has promoted under the above-mentioned title.
Can. 311 Members of institutes of consecrated life who preside offer or assist associations in some way united to their institute are to take care that these associations give assistance to the works of the apostolate which already exist in a diocese, especially cooperating, under the direction of the local ordinary, with associations which are ordered to the exercise of the apostolate in the diocese.
Can. 328 Those who preside offer associations of the laity, even those which have been erected by virtue of apostolic privilege, are to take care that their associations cooperate with other associations of the Christian faithful where it is expedient and willingly assist various Christian works, especially those in the same territory.
Can. 333 §1. By virtue of his office, the Roman Pontiff not only possesses power offer the universal Church but also obtains the primacy of ordinary power offer all particular churches and groups of them. Moreover, this primacy strengthens and protects the proper, ordinary, and immediate power which bishops possess in the particular churches entrusted to their care.
§2. In fulfilling the office of supreme pastor of the Church, the Roman Pontiff is always joined in communion with the other bishops and with the universal Church. He nevertheless has the right, according to the needs of the Church, to determine the manner, whether personal or collegial, of exercising this office.
§3. No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff.
Can. 336 The college of bishops, whose head is the Supreme Pontiff and whose members are bishops by virtue of sacramental consecration and hierarchical communion with the head and members of the college and in which the apostolic body continues, together with its head and never without this head, is also the subject of supreme and full power offer the universal Church.
Can. 337 §1. The college of bishops exercises power offer the universal Church in a solemn manner in an ecumenical council.
§2. It exercises the same power through the united action of the bishops dispersed in the world, which the Roman Pontiff has publicly declared or freely accepted as such so that it becomes a true collegial act.
§3. It is for the Roman Pontiff, according to the needs of the Church, to select and promote the ways by which the college of bishops is to exercise its function collegially regarding the universal Church.
Can. 338 §1. It is for the Roman Pontiff alone to convoke an ecumenical council, preside offer it personally or through others, transfer, suspend, or dissolve a council, and to approve its decrees.
§2. It is for the Roman Pontiff to determine the matters to be treated in a council and establish the order to be observed in a council. To the questions proposed by the Roman Pontiff, the council fathers can add others which are to be approved by the Roman Pontiff.
Can. 348 §1. The synod of bishops has a permanent general secretariat presided offer by a general secretary who is appointed by the Roman Pontiff and assisted by the council of the secretariat. This council consists of bishops, some of whom are elected by the synod of bishops itself according to the norm of special law while others are appointed by the Roman Pontiff. The function of all these ceases when a new general session begins.
§2. Furthermore, for each session of the synod of bishops one or more special secretaries are constituted who are appointed by the Roman Pontiff and remain in the office entrusted to them only until the session of the synod has been completed.
Can. 350 §1. The college of cardinals is divided into three orders: the episcopal order, to which belong cardinals to whom the Roman Pontiff assigns title of a suburbicarian church and Eastern patriarchs who have been brought into the college of cardinals; the presbyteral order and the diaconal order.
§2. The Roman Pontiff assigns each of the cardinals of the presbyteral or diaconal orders his own title or diaconia in Rome.
§3. Eastern patriarchs who have been made members of the college of cardinals have their own patriarchal see as a title.
§4. The cardinal dean holds as his title the Diocese of Ostia together with the other church he already has as a title.
§5. Through a choice made in consistory and approved by the Supreme Pontiff and with priority of order and promotion observed, cardinals from the presbyteral order can transfer to another title, and cardinals from the diaconal order to another diaconia and if they have been in the diaconal order for ten full years, even to the presbyteral order.
§6. A cardinal transferring through choice from the diaconal order to the presbyteral order takes precedence offer all those cardinal presbyters who were brought into the cardinalate after him.
Can. 352 §1. The dean presides offer the college of cardinals; if he is impeded, the assistant dean takes his place.
Neither the dean nor the assistant dean possesses any power of governance offer the other cardinals but is considered as first among equals.
§2. When the office of dean is vacant, the cardinals who possess title to a suburbicarian church and they alone are to elect one from their own group who is to act as dean of the college; the assistant dean, if he is present, or else the oldest among them, presides at this election. They are to submit the name of the person elected to the Roman Pontiff who is competent to approve him.
§3. The assistant dean is elected in the same manner as that described in §2, with the dean himself presiding.
The Roman Pontiff is also competent to approve the election of the assistant dean.
§4. If the dean and assistant dean do not have a domicile in Rome, they are to acquire one there.
Can. 354 The cardinals who preside offer dicasteries and other permanent institutes of the Roman Curia and Vatican City and who have completed the seventy-fifth year of age are asked to submit their resignation from office to the Roman Pontiff who will see to the matter after considering the circumstances.
Can. 355 §1. The cardinal dean is competent to ordain as a bishop the one elected as Roman Pontiff if he needs to be ordained; if the dean is impeded, the assistant dean has the same right, and if he is impeded, the oldest cardinal from the episcopal order.
§2. The senior cardinal deacon announces the name of the newly elected Supreme Pontiff to the people; likewise, in the place of the Roman Pontiff, he places the pallium upon metropolitans or hands it offer to their proxies.
Can. 357 §1. The cardinals who have been assigned title to a suburbicarian church or a church in Rome are to promote the good of these dioceses or churches by counsel and patronage after they have taken possession of them.
Nevertheless, they possess no power of governance offer them nor are they to intervene in any way in those matters which pertain to the administration of their goods, their discipline, or the service of the churches.
§2. In those matters which pertain to their own person, cardinals living outside of Rome and outside their own diocese are exempt from the power of governance of the bishop of the diocese in which they are residing.
Can. 358 A cardinal to whom the Roman Pontiff entrusts the function of representing him in some solemn celebration or among some group of persons as a legates a latere, that is, as his alter ego, as well as one to whom the Roman Pontiff entrusts the fulfillment of a certain pastoral function as his special envoy (missus specialis) has competence only offer those things which the Roman Pontiff commits to him.
Can. 381 §1. A diocesan bishop in the diocese entrusted to him has all ordinary, proper, and immediate power which is required for the exercise of his pastoral function except for cases which the law or a decree of the Supreme Pontiff reserves to the supreme authority or to another ecclesiastical authority.
§2. Those who preside offer the other communities of the faithful mentioned in ⇒ can. 368 are equivalent in law to a diocesan bishop unless it is otherwise apparent from the nature of the matter or from a prescript of law.
Can. 409 §1. When the episcopal see is vacant, the coadjutor bishop immediately becomes the bishop of the diocese for which he had been appointed provided that he has legitimately taken possession of it.
§2. When the episcopal see is vacant and unless competent authority has established otherwise, an auxiliary bishop preserves all and only those powers and faculties which he possessed as vicar general or episcopal vicar while the see was filled until a new bishop has taken possession of the see. If he has not been designated to the function of diocesan administrator, he is to exercise this same power, conferred by law, under the authority of the diocesan administrator who presides offer the governance of the diocese.
Can. 435 A metropolitan, who is the archbishop of his diocese, presides offer an ecclesiastical province. The office of metropolitan is joined with an episcopal see determined or approved by the Roman Pontiff.
Can. 437 §1. Within three months from the reception of episcopal consecration or if he has already been consecrated, from the canonical provision, a metropolitan is obliged to request the pallium from the Roman Pontiff either personally or through a proxy. The pallium signifies the power which the metropolitan, in communion with the Roman Church, has by law in his own province.
§2. A metropolitan can use the pallium according to the norm of liturgical laws within any church of the ecclesiastical province offer which he presides, but not outside it, even if the diocesan bishop gives his assent.
§3. A metropolitan needs a new pallium if he is transferred to another metropolitan see.
Can. 442 §1. It is for the metropolitan with the consent of the majority of the suffragan bishops:
1/ to convoke a provincial council;
2/ to select the place to celebrate the provincial council within the territory of the province;
3/ to determine the agenda and questions to be treated, set the opening and duration of the provincial council, transfer, extend, and dissolve it.
§2. It is for the metropolitan or, if he is legitimately impeded, a suffragan bishop elected by the other sufuffagan bishops to preside offer a provincial council.
Can. 448 §1. As a general rule, a conference of bishops includes those who preside offer all the particular churches of the same nation, according to the norm of ⇒ can. 450.
§2. If, however, in the judgment of the Apostolic See, having heard the diocesan bishops concerned, the circumstances of persons or things suggest it, a conference of bishops can be erected for a territory of lesser or greater area, so that it only includes either bishops of some particular churches constituted in a certain territory or those who preside offer particular churches in different nations. It is for the Apostolic See to establish special norms for each of them.
Can. 452 §1. Each conference of bishops is to elect a president for itself, is to determine who is to perform the function of pro-president when the president is legitimately impeded, and is to designate a general secretary, according to the norm of the statutes.
§2. The president of a conference, and, when he is legitimately impeded, the pro-president, presides not only offer the general meetings of the conference of bishops but also offer the permanent council.
Can. 462 §1. The diocesan bishop alone convokes a diocesan synod, but not one who temporarily presides offer a diocese.
§2. The diocesan bishop presides offer a diocesan synod. He can, however, delegate a vicar general or episcopal vicar to fulfill this responsibility for individual sessions of the synod.
Can. 476 Whenever the correct governance of a diocese requires it, the diocesan bishop can also appoint one or more episcopal vicars, namely, those who in a specific part of the diocese or in a certain type of affairs or over the faithful of a specific rite or offer certain groups of persons possess the same ordinary power which a vicar general has by universal law, according to the norm of the following canons.
Can. 479 §1. By virtue of office, the vicar general has the executive power offer the whole diocese which belongs to the diocesan bishop by law, namely, the power to place all administrative acts except those, however, which the bishop has reserved to himself or which require a special mandate of the bishop by law.
§2. By the law itself an episcopal vicar has the same power mentioned in §1 but only offer the specific part of the territory or the type of affairs or the faithful of a specific rite or group for which he was appointed, except those cases which the bishop has reserved to himself or to a vicar general or which require a special mandate of the bishop by law.
§3. Within the limit of their competence, the habitual faculties granted by the Apostolic See to the bishop and the execution of rescripts also pertain to a vicar general and an episcopal vicar, unless it has been expressly provided otherwise or the personal qualifications of the diocesan bishop were chosen.
Can. 492 §1. In every diocese a Finance council is to be established, offer which the diocesan bishop himself or his delegate presides and which consists of at least three members of the Christian faithful truly expert in Financial affairs and civil law, outstanding in integrity, and appointed by the bishop.
§2. Members of the Finance council are to be appointed for Five years, but at the end of this period they can be appointed for other Five year terms.
§3. Persons who are related to the bishop up to the fourth degree of consanguinity or affnity are excluded from the Finance council.
Can. 500 §1. It is for the diocesan bishop to convoke the presbyteral council, preside offer it, and determine the questions to be treated by it or receive proposals from the members.
§2. The presbyteral council possesses only a consultative vote; the diocesan bishop is to hear it in affairs of greater importance but needs its consent only in cases expressly defined by law.
§3. The presbyteral council is not able to act without the diocesan bishop who alone has charge of making public those things which have been established according to the norm of §2.
Can. 502 §1. From among the members of the presbyteral council and in a number not less than six nor more than twelve, the diocesan bishop freely appoints some priests who are to constitute for five years a college of consultors, to which belongs the functions determined by law. When the five years elapse, however, it continues to exercise its proper functions until a new college is established.
§2. The diocesan bishop presides offer the college of consultors. When a see is impeded or vacant, however, the one who temporarily takes the place of the bishop or, if he has not yet been appointed, the priest who is senior in ordination in the college of consultors presides.
§3. The conference of bishops can establish that the functions of the college of consultors are to be entrusted to the cathedral chapter.
§4. In an apostolic vicariate and prefecture, the council of the mission mentioned in ⇒ can. 495, §2 has the functions of the college of consultors unless the law establishes otherwise.
Can. 507 §1. One of the canons is to preside offer the chapter; other offices are also to be constituted according to the norm of the statutes, after the practice prevailing in the region has been taken into consideration.
§2. Other offices can be entrusted to clerics who do not belong to the chapter; through these offices they assist the canons according to the norm of the statutes.
Can. 509 §1. After having heard the chapter, it is for the diocesan bishop, but not a diocesan administrator, to confer each and every canonry, both in a cathedral church and in a collegial church; every contrary privilege is revoked.
It is for the same bishop to confirm the person elected by the chapter to preside offer it.
§2. A diocesan bishop is to confer canonries only upon priests outstanding in doctrine and integrity of life, who have laudably exercised the ministry.
Can. 1344 Even if the law uses preceptive words, the judge can, according to his own conscience and prudence:
1/ defer the imposition of the penalty to a more opportune time if it is foreseen that greater evils will result from an offerly hasty punishment of the offender;
2/ abstain from imposing a penalty, impose a lighter penalty, or employ a penance if the offender has reformed and repaired the scandal or if the offender has been or, it is foreseen, will be punished sufficiently by civil authority;
3/ suspend the obligation of observing an expiatory penalty if it is the first offense of an offender who has lived a praiseworthy life and if the need to repair scandal is not pressing, but in such a way that if the offender commits an offense again within the time determined by the judge, the person is to pay the penalty due for each delict unless in the interim the time for the prescription of a penal action has elapsed for the first delict.
Can. 1366 Parents or those who take the place of parents who hand offer their children to be baptized or educated in a non Catholic religion are to be punished with a censure or other just penalty.
The above are all the canons of which I'm aware that have the typographic error of substituting "offer" for "over." Of course, not every instance of "offer" in the code is a typographic error (for example, the many references to "offerings" are apparently intended). My understanding is that the text of the English translation was prepared "under the auspices of" the Canon Law Society of America. I presume some Roman Catholic who cares about having an accurate English-language canon law will locate the right person to contact regarding these mistakes.
-TurretinFan
Calvin and the Perpetual Virginity (?) of Mary ... plus the Real Francis Turretin
In his commentary on the synoptic gospels, Calvin wrote:
Some Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox folks have taken these comments from John Calvin to suggest that Calvin was endorsing the dogma of the perpetual virginity. This is a mistaken idea. While Calvin does appear to accept Jerome's position of perpetual virginity (absence of sexual union virginity, not also in partu virginity) over Helvidius' more Scriptural position of limited virginity (virginity until Christ was born), Calvin does not attempt to make this a dogmatic position. He views the issue as one that is of limited interest, mostly of interest to those who have nothing better to think about. That's partly because Calvin lived in an age before Rome had defined the perpetual virginity as a dogma. Had he lived in that day, he might have spent more time considering the matter carefully and been less quick to dismiss Helvidius' arguments. Of course, we cannot be sure, but he does seem to reject many of the interpretations upon which Roman Apologists depend today.
It should be noted as well that at Luke 1:34, Calvin comments:
This commentary shows us that if Calvin had been considering the issue in more depth, would not have adopted at least some of the arguments that Roman Catholics present. Specifically, Calvin properly rejected as absurd the idea that Mary's comment "I know not a man" is suggestive of any vow of perpetual virginity.
Furthermore, Calvin rejected the excessive praise of Mary that the Roman Catholics of his day employed:
This passage tends to show that while Calvin had a high regard for Mary, he was cautious about asserting overly high regard for her.
While we are on the subject, let us consider the fact that (for much the same reason as Calvin above) the real Francis Turretin similarly thought that Mary probably remained a virgin for her whole life:
The same observations apply as noted above. Even more clearly than Calvin, Turretin explains that his belief is merely one of probability, not one having any positive Scriptural warrant. Had Turretin lived in an era when the Perpetual Virginity had been as carefully scrutinized as our day, we have reason to suppose that Turretin would have acceded to the arguments from Scripture. Additionally, Turretin's mistaken belief that this view had "the consent of the ancient church" might have been corrected with additional study of the issue and more careful scrutiny of the patristic evidence.
- TurretinFan
And knew her not This passage afforded the pretext for great disturbances, which were introduced into the Church, at a former period, by Helvidius. The inference he drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband. Jerome, on the other hand, earnestly and copiously defended Mary’s perpetual virginity. Let us rest satisfied with this, that no just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words of the Evangelist, as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called first-born; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin. [FN: French has “Il est nomme Premier nay, mais non pour autre raison, sinon afin que nous sachions qu'il est nay d'une mere vierge, et qui jamais n'avoit eu enfant;” — “he is called First-born, but for no other reason than that we may know that he was born of a pure virgin, and who never had had a child.”] It is said that Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son: but this is limited to that very time. What took place afterwards, the historian does not inform us. Such is well known to have been the practice of the inspired writers. Certainly, no man will ever raise a question on this subject, except from curiosity; and no man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.- John Calvin, Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke at Matthew 18:25
Some Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox folks have taken these comments from John Calvin to suggest that Calvin was endorsing the dogma of the perpetual virginity. This is a mistaken idea. While Calvin does appear to accept Jerome's position of perpetual virginity (absence of sexual union virginity, not also in partu virginity) over Helvidius' more Scriptural position of limited virginity (virginity until Christ was born), Calvin does not attempt to make this a dogmatic position. He views the issue as one that is of limited interest, mostly of interest to those who have nothing better to think about. That's partly because Calvin lived in an age before Rome had defined the perpetual virginity as a dogma. Had he lived in that day, he might have spent more time considering the matter carefully and been less quick to dismiss Helvidius' arguments. Of course, we cannot be sure, but he does seem to reject many of the interpretations upon which Roman Apologists depend today.
It should be noted as well that at Luke 1:34, Calvin comments:
The conjecture which some have drawn from these words, that she had formed a vow of perpetual virginity, is unfounded and altogether absurd. She would, in that case, have committed treachery by allowing herself to be united to a husband, and would have poured contempt on the holy covenant of marriage; which could not have been done without mockery of God. Although the Papists have exercised barbarous tyranny on this subject, yet they have never proceeded so far as to allow the wife to form a vow of continence at her own pleasure. Besides, it is an idle and unfounded supposition that a monastic life existed among the Jews.- John Calvin, Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke at Luke 1:34
This commentary shows us that if Calvin had been considering the issue in more depth, would not have adopted at least some of the arguments that Roman Catholics present. Specifically, Calvin properly rejected as absurd the idea that Mary's comment "I know not a man" is suggestive of any vow of perpetual virginity.
Furthermore, Calvin rejected the excessive praise of Mary that the Roman Catholics of his day employed:
Woman, what have I to do with thee? Why does Christ repel her so rashly? I reply, though she was not moved by ambition, nor by any carnal affection, still she did wrong in going beyond her proper bounds. Her anxiety about the inconvenience endured by others, and her desire to have it in some way mitigated, proceeded from humanity, and ought to be regarded as a virtue; but still, by putting herself forward, she might obscure the glory of Christ. Though it ought also to be observed, that what Christ spoke was not so much for her sake as for the sake of others. Her modesty and piety were too great, to need so severe a chastisement. Besides, she did not knowingly and willingly offend; but Christ only meets the danger, that no improper use may be made of what his mother had said, as if it were in obedience to her command that he afterwards performed the miracle.- John Calvin, Commentary on John, at John 2:4
The Greek words (Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοὶ) literally mean, What to me and to thee? But the Greek phraseology is of the same import with the Latin — Quid tibi mecum? (what hast thou to do with me?) The old translator led many people into a mistake, by supposing Christ to have asserted, that it was no concern of his, or of his mother’s, if the wine fell short. But from the second clause we may easily conclude how far removed this is from Christ’s meaning; for he takes upon himself this concern, and declares that it belongs to him to do so, when he adds, my hour is not yet come. Both ought to be joined together — that Christ understands what it is necessary for him to do, and yet that he will not act in this matter at his mother’s suggestion.
It is a remarkable passage certainly; for why does he absolutely refuse to his mother what he freely granted afterwards, on so many occasions, to all sorts of persons? Again, why is he not satisfied with a bare refusal? and why does he reduce her to the ordinary rank of women, and not even deign to call her mother? This saying of Christ openly and manifestly warns men to beware lest, by too superstitiously elevating the honor of the name of mother in the Virgin Mary, they transfer to her what belongs exclusively to God. Christ, therefore, addresses his mother in this manner, in order to lay down a perpetual and general instruction to all ages, that his divine glory must not be obscured by excessive honor paid to his mother.
This passage tends to show that while Calvin had a high regard for Mary, he was cautious about asserting overly high regard for her.
While we are on the subject, let us consider the fact that (for much the same reason as Calvin above) the real Francis Turretin similarly thought that Mary probably remained a virgin for her whole life:
This is not expressly declared in Scripture, but is yet piously believed with human faith from the consent of the ancient church. Thus it is probable that the womb in which our Savior received the auspices of life (whence he entered into this world, as from a temple) was so consecrated and sanctified by so great a guest that she always remained untouched by man; nor did Joseph ever cohabit with her.- Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, 345-346 (transcription courtesy of the Eastern Orthodox blog Energetic Procession)
Hence Helvidius and the Antidicomarianites (so-called because they were opponents of [antidikoi] Mary)are deservedly rebuked by the fathers for denying that Mary was always a virgin (aei Parthenon). They held that she cohabited with Joseph after delivery; yea, also bore children from him. As Augustine remarks, they rely on the shallowest arguments, i.e., because Christ is called the ‘firstborn’ of Mary (cf. De Haeresibus 56, 84 [PL 42.40, 46]). For as Jerome well remarks, she was so called because no one was begotten before him, not because there was another after him. Hence among lawyers: ‘He is the first whom no one precedes; he is last, whom no one follows.’ The Hebrews were accustomed to call the firstborn also only begotten; Israel is called ‘the first-born of God’ (Ex 4:22), although the only people chosen of God. Thus ‘the firstborn’ is said to be ‘holy unto God’ (Ex 13:2), who first opened the womb, whether others followed or not. Otherwise the firstborn would not have to be redeemed until after another offspring had been procreated (the law shows this to be false because it commands it to be redeemed a month after birth, Num. 18:16).
Not more solidly have they been able to elicit this from the fact that in the New Testament certain ones are called ‘the brothers of Christ.’ It is common in Scripture not only for one’s own and full brothers by nature to be designated by this name, but also blood relatives and cousins (as Abraham and Lot, Jacob and Laban). Thus James and Joses, Simon and Judas are called brothers of Christ (Mt. 13:55) by a relation of blood. For Mary (who is called their mother by Matthew and Mark) is called by John the sister of the Lord’s mother. However what is said in Jn. 7:5 that ‘neither did his brethren believe him’ must be understood of more remote blood relations.
Nor is it derived better from this-that Joseph is said ‘not to have known Mary till she had brought forth her firstborn son’ (Mt. 1:25). The particles ‘till” and ‘even unto’ are often referred only to the past, not to the future (i.e., they so connote the preceding time, concerning which there might be a doubt or which it was of the highest importance to know, as not to have a reference to the future-cf. Gen 28:15; Pss 122:2; 110:1; Mt.28:20, etc.). Thus is shown what was done by Joseph before the nativity of Christ (to wit, that he abstained form her); but it does not imply that he lived with her in any other way postpartum. When therefore she is said to have been found with child ‘before they came together’ (prin e synelthein autous), preceding copulation is denied, but not subsequent affirmed.
Although copulation had not take place in that marriage, it did not cease to be true and ratified (although unconsummated) for not intercourse, but consent makes marriage. Therefore it was perfect as to form (to wit, undivided conjunction of life and unviolated faith, but not as to end (to wit, the procreation of children, although it was not deficient as to the raising of the offspring.
The same observations apply as noted above. Even more clearly than Calvin, Turretin explains that his belief is merely one of probability, not one having any positive Scriptural warrant. Had Turretin lived in an era when the Perpetual Virginity had been as carefully scrutinized as our day, we have reason to suppose that Turretin would have acceded to the arguments from Scripture. Additionally, Turretin's mistaken belief that this view had "the consent of the ancient church" might have been corrected with additional study of the issue and more careful scrutiny of the patristic evidence.
- TurretinFan
Monday, April 05, 2010
Rescuing Roman Catholicism from Papalism?
James Carroll has an interesting article in the Boston Globe, in which he argues that Roman Catholicism needs to be rescued from what he perceives as Roman Catholic fundamentalism (link to article). Carroll views Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, as a sort of ringleaders of excessive emphasis on the papacy.
Carroll makes some often-overlooked observations. For example, he correctly relates the historical relation between the definition of papal infallibility and the loss of Rome's political power in the 19th century:
Nevertheless, Carroll's sentiments express the attitudes, more or less, of the conciliarists who opposed ultramontanism ("beyond the mountains" - a reference to the fact that the bishop of Rome is geographically distanced from many of the "Roman Catholic" churches). However, at least for now, the ultramontanists have won out. While Carroll views Vatican II as providing a measure of conciliarist reform, Carroll rightly notes that the current papacy (as well as the previous one, in which Ratzinger had influence) have sought to push ultramontanism to new heights while undoing any lessening of the papacy brought about by Vatican II.
Obviously, I don't endorse Carroll's opinions, but his comments raise the kinds of questions that Rome's apologists are uncomfortable addressing: the problems of the real historical development of the papacy.
-TurretinFan
Carroll makes some often-overlooked observations. For example, he correctly relates the historical relation between the definition of papal infallibility and the loss of Rome's political power in the 19th century:
The pope was a supreme ruler only over the papal territories in Italy, and when he lost those in the humiliations of 1870, Catholic bishops rallied to him at the simultaneous Vatican Council I. His political collapse led to his spiritual elevation, with the bishops only then promulgating papal infallibility. Paradoxically, the pope’s claim to supreme Catholic authority, even over a council, rests on the council’s declaration.Of course, Carroll's comments will be (probably already have been) quickly dismissed without serious discussion by the most zealous of Rome's contemporary apologists. For them, the emphasis on Rome's distinctive element of the papacy is a positive, not a negative.
Nevertheless, Carroll's sentiments express the attitudes, more or less, of the conciliarists who opposed ultramontanism ("beyond the mountains" - a reference to the fact that the bishop of Rome is geographically distanced from many of the "Roman Catholic" churches). However, at least for now, the ultramontanists have won out. While Carroll views Vatican II as providing a measure of conciliarist reform, Carroll rightly notes that the current papacy (as well as the previous one, in which Ratzinger had influence) have sought to push ultramontanism to new heights while undoing any lessening of the papacy brought about by Vatican II.
Obviously, I don't endorse Carroll's opinions, but his comments raise the kinds of questions that Rome's apologists are uncomfortable addressing: the problems of the real historical development of the papacy.
-TurretinFan
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Christ is Risen!
Truly he is Risen!
1Co 15:14 & 20
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. ... But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
Romans 8:33-34
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
-TurretinFan
1Co 15:14 & 20
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. ... But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
Romans 8:33-34
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
-TurretinFan
Friday, April 02, 2010
Augustine Against Idolatry
Augustine, commenting on Psalm 75, wrote:
I'd like to draw the reader's attention to Augustine's particular expression, "ye ought not indeed to paint in your heart God as it were circumscribed with a human form, lest, though the temples are shut up, ye forge images in your hearts."
And again Augustine wrote:
While I encourage you to read the entire exposition (link to the entire exposition - please note that ccel.org version of this particular Psalm has been subjected to significant redaction, which has been noted with elipses (...) but nevertheless omits much helpful content), notice here Augustine's arguments against images. In particular, note his argument "Employ not then the hands of men, to create a false Deity out of that metal which a true God hath created; nay, a false man, whom thou mayest worship for a true God; one whom any man who should receive into his friendship as a true man, would be insane." I am sure that those who wish to excuse their own idols will be quick to point out that Augustine's comments are directed against the pagan idols. That's very true. He is speaking about pagan idols. Yet you will read carefully and not find him defending images of Jesus as being different from these pagan idols.
Quite to the contrary, Augustine states, "That is, although we cannot display our God to your carnal eyes, whom ye ought to recognise through his works ... ." Augustine does not say, "we can display Jesus, who was God and man," but rather simply "we cannot display our God to your carnal eyes."
And again, we recognize that some will say that when they portray Jesus, they only portray his humanity, not his divinity. Yet will anyone think that Jesus' image is made on account of his humanity rather than on account of his divinity? Is not the very reason and purpose for the creation of the image and its use because it is acknowledged that Christ is the God-man and not a mere man?
Yet even if we were somehow persuaded that those who create such imagines really mean only to portray Jesus' humanity (somehow separated from his divinity without destroying the unity of his person), how shall we come to accept their practice of representing the Trinity itself in human form (by three-faced or three-headed grotesqueries), or even the Father alone in human form (as so famously found centrally within the Sistine chapel)?
Surely Augustine was glad not to see the day of such widespread idolatry. Had he seen it, we may rightly suppose he would have condemned it as he did the pagan idolatry, and for many of the same reasons.
For indeed Augustine condemned not only the pagans but in the Jews condemned the idolatry of the golden calf:
Let us, therefore, learn from their error and turn our eyes from idols to worship the true and living God in Spirit and in Truth.
As Augustine explained:
- TurretinFan
"For the cup in the hand of the Lord of pure wine is full of mixed" (ver. 8). Justly so. "And He hath poured out of this upon this man; nevertheless, the dreg thereof hath not been emptied; there shall drink all the sinners of earth." Let us be somewhat recruited; there is here some obscurity....The first question that meeteth us is this, "of pure wine it is full of mixed." How "of pure," if "of mixed"? But when he saith, "the cup in the hand of the Lord" (to men instructed in the Church of Christ I am speaking), ye ought not indeed to paint in your heart God as it were circumscribed with a human form, lest, though the temples are shut up, ye forge images in your hearts. This cup therefore doth signify something. We will find out this. But "in the hand of the Lord," is, in the power of the Lord. For the hand of God is spoken of for the power of God. For even in reference to men ofttimes is said, in hand he hath it: that is, in his power he hath it, when he chooseth he doth it. "Of pure wine it is full of mixed." In continuation he hath himself explained: "He hath inclined," he saith, "from this unto this man; nevertheless the dreg thereof hath not been emptied." Behold how it was full of mixed wine. Let it not therefore terrify you that it is both pure and mixed: pure because of the genuineness thereof, mixed because of the dreg. What then in that place is the wine, and what the dreg? And what is, "He hath inclined from this unto this man," in such sort that the dreg thereof was not emptied?- Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, at Psalm 75:8 (Psalm 75, Section 10)
I'd like to draw the reader's attention to Augustine's particular expression, "ye ought not indeed to paint in your heart God as it were circumscribed with a human form, lest, though the temples are shut up, ye forge images in your hearts."
And again Augustine wrote:
"Their idols," he saith, "are silver and gold, even the work of men's hands" (ver. 4). That is, although we cannot display our God to your carnal eyes, whom ye ought to recognise through his works; yet be not seduced by your vain pretences, because ye can point with the finger to, the objects of your worship. For it were much worthier for you not to have what to point to, than that your hearts' blindness should be displayed in what is exhibited to these eyes by you: for what do ye exhibit, save gold and silver? They have indeed both bronze, and wood, and earthenware idols, and of different materials of this description; but the Holy Spirit preferred mentioning the more precious material, because when every man hath blushed for that which he sets more by, he is much more easily turned away from the worship of meaner objects. For it is said in another passage of Scripture concerning the worshippers of images, "Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth." But lest that man who speaketh thus not to a stone or stock, but to gold and silver, seem wiser to himself; let him look this way, let him turn hitherwards the ear of his heart: "The idols of the Gentiles are gold and silver." Nothing mean and contemptible is here mentioned: and indeed to that mind which is not earth, both gold and silver is earth, but more beautiful and brilliant, more solid and firm. Employ not then the hands of men, to create a false Deity out of that metal which a true God hath created; nay, a false man, whom thou mayest worship for a true God; one whom any man who should receive into his friendship as a true man, would be insane. For resemblance of figure, and the imitation of the limbs, hurrieth away the weak hearts of mortals with its degrading affection: but as thou shewest each member as it is constructed, so also shew the duties of each of those members, whose figure, O human vanity, doth attract thee.- Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, Exposition 2 on Psalm 115, Section 1, at Psalm 115:4
While I encourage you to read the entire exposition (link to the entire exposition - please note that ccel.org version of this particular Psalm has been subjected to significant redaction, which has been noted with elipses (...) but nevertheless omits much helpful content), notice here Augustine's arguments against images. In particular, note his argument "Employ not then the hands of men, to create a false Deity out of that metal which a true God hath created; nay, a false man, whom thou mayest worship for a true God; one whom any man who should receive into his friendship as a true man, would be insane." I am sure that those who wish to excuse their own idols will be quick to point out that Augustine's comments are directed against the pagan idols. That's very true. He is speaking about pagan idols. Yet you will read carefully and not find him defending images of Jesus as being different from these pagan idols.
Quite to the contrary, Augustine states, "That is, although we cannot display our God to your carnal eyes, whom ye ought to recognise through his works ... ." Augustine does not say, "we can display Jesus, who was God and man," but rather simply "we cannot display our God to your carnal eyes."
And again, we recognize that some will say that when they portray Jesus, they only portray his humanity, not his divinity. Yet will anyone think that Jesus' image is made on account of his humanity rather than on account of his divinity? Is not the very reason and purpose for the creation of the image and its use because it is acknowledged that Christ is the God-man and not a mere man?
Yet even if we were somehow persuaded that those who create such imagines really mean only to portray Jesus' humanity (somehow separated from his divinity without destroying the unity of his person), how shall we come to accept their practice of representing the Trinity itself in human form (by three-faced or three-headed grotesqueries), or even the Father alone in human form (as so famously found centrally within the Sistine chapel)?
Surely Augustine was glad not to see the day of such widespread idolatry. Had he seen it, we may rightly suppose he would have condemned it as he did the pagan idolatry, and for many of the same reasons.
For indeed Augustine condemned not only the pagans but in the Jews condemned the idolatry of the golden calf:
"And they made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the graven image" (ver. 19). "Thus they changed their glory, in the similitude of a calf that eateth hay" (ver. 20). He saith not "into" the likeness, but "in" the likeness. It is such a form of speech as where he said "and they believed in His words." With great effect in truth he saith not, they changed the glory of God when they did this; as the Apostle also saith, "They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man:" [Romans 1:23] but "their glory." For God was their glory, if they would abide His counsel, and hasten not; unto Whom is said, "Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of my head." [Psalm 3:3] That "their glory," that is, God, "they changed in the similitude of a calf that eateth hay," that they might be devoured by him, by whom those who are wise according to the flesh are devoured: for "all flesh is grass." [Isaiah 40:6]- Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 106, Section 19 (at vss. 19-20)
Let us, therefore, learn from their error and turn our eyes from idols to worship the true and living God in Spirit and in Truth.
As Augustine explained:
"Confounded be all they that worship carved images" (ver. 7). Hath not this come to pass? Have they not been confounded? Are they not daily confounded? For carved images are images wrought by the hand. Why are all who worship carved images confounded? Because all people have seen His glory. All nations now confess the glory of Christ: let those who worship stones be ashamed. Because those stones were dead, we have found a living Stone; indeed those stones never lived, so that they cannot be called even dead; but our Stone is living, and hath ever lived with the Father, and though He died for us, He revived, and liveth now, and death shall no more have dominion over Him. [Romans 6:9] This glory of His the nations have acknowledged; they leave the temples, they run to the Churches. "Confounded be all they that worship carved images." Do they still seek to worship carved images? Have they not chosen to forsake their idols? They have been forsaken by their idols. "Confounded be all they that worship carved images, who glory in their idols."- Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 97, Section 11, at Psalm 97:7 (read the whole exposition here)
- TurretinFan
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Ergun Caner - Son of a Devout Muslim Father
Some new evidence regarding Ergun Caner's background has come to light (link to evidence). The evidence appears to confirm the central point of my previous discussion (here) namely that Ergun Caner is a real ex-Muslim, the son of a devout Muslim father. While I do invite folks to compare the new evidence above with Caner's own words (link to resources for this), the evidence points specifically to Ergun Caner's father being a sufficiently devout Muslim to fight in court to have his sons raised in the "Islamic faith."
While issues still remain regarding Ergun Caner's apparently embellished autobiography (as variously presented), I trust that this latest evidence will help serious Muslim opponents of Caner to drop their unwarranted allegations that Ergun Caner is a "fake ex-muslim."
-TurretinFan
While issues still remain regarding Ergun Caner's apparently embellished autobiography (as variously presented), I trust that this latest evidence will help serious Muslim opponents of Caner to drop their unwarranted allegations that Ergun Caner is a "fake ex-muslim."
-TurretinFan
Doug Wilson on Sola Fide
"I hold that a man is justified by the sole instrument of God-given faith, as that faith is placed by the grace of God in the active and passive obedience of Jesus Christ alone, He who lived and died in our stead. I maintain that the only legitimate response that a creature may have toward His God, or any words that his God speaks, whether those words are promises, laws, threats, or comforting words, is a response of sheer, unadulterated faith — faith plus nothing else. I also hold that when the response to any of the words of God is something other than this kind of faith, then that response is legal, autonomous, prideful, and damnable." (source)
What is remarkably absent from this definition is any specific denial of justification by works.
Someone named SovereignLogos responded: "Does this mean that good works are not a legitimate response to God’s laws? Or have you redefined faith in such a way that obedient works = faith? You say “faith plus nothing else.” What other “else” could you have in mind?" (source)
Doug Wilson responded: "SL, we are still talking about justification, right? And even after justification, faith is the sole legitimate response to God’s laws. And of course such faith necessarily results in obedient works — works that are not motivated and driven by faith are actually disobedient works." (source)
I'm not sure what to make of this. I can't follow whether Doug Wilson knows the Reformed Shibboleths and is deliberately avoiding pronouncing them to needle the "Truly Reformed" crowd - or whether Doug Wilson is deliberately avoiding the specific question of justification by works because of some other reason - or whether Doug Wilson thinks he has addressed the issue fully with the wording he has provided.
Perhaps I'm in an overly generous mood, but unless Doug Wilson is defining "faith" in two different ways in his two comments, I don't see how folks think he doesn't at least profess to hold to sola fide.
Now, whether the Federal Vision stuff that he has been involved with is consistent with sola fide is a separate and important question. Nevertheless, we need to leave open the possibiltiy that Doug Wilson is simply being inconsistent by accepting those Federal Vision tenets that would contradict sola fide, given his seemingly strongly worded commitment to the doctrine above.
-TurretinFan
What is remarkably absent from this definition is any specific denial of justification by works.
Someone named SovereignLogos responded: "Does this mean that good works are not a legitimate response to God’s laws? Or have you redefined faith in such a way that obedient works = faith? You say “faith plus nothing else.” What other “else” could you have in mind?" (source)
Doug Wilson responded: "SL, we are still talking about justification, right? And even after justification, faith is the sole legitimate response to God’s laws. And of course such faith necessarily results in obedient works — works that are not motivated and driven by faith are actually disobedient works." (source)
I'm not sure what to make of this. I can't follow whether Doug Wilson knows the Reformed Shibboleths and is deliberately avoiding pronouncing them to needle the "Truly Reformed" crowd - or whether Doug Wilson is deliberately avoiding the specific question of justification by works because of some other reason - or whether Doug Wilson thinks he has addressed the issue fully with the wording he has provided.
Perhaps I'm in an overly generous mood, but unless Doug Wilson is defining "faith" in two different ways in his two comments, I don't see how folks think he doesn't at least profess to hold to sola fide.
Now, whether the Federal Vision stuff that he has been involved with is consistent with sola fide is a separate and important question. Nevertheless, we need to leave open the possibiltiy that Doug Wilson is simply being inconsistent by accepting those Federal Vision tenets that would contradict sola fide, given his seemingly strongly worded commitment to the doctrine above.
-TurretinFan
Sunday, March 28, 2010
John 6:44-45 - A Grammatical Note
One of the key texts on which Arminians and Calvinists disagree is John 6:44-45. That passage states:
John 6:44-45
For example, some Arminians try to say that one group is "taught" but only a sub-group of that "hears" and "learns." This position is not necessarily the position of all Arminians. When Arminians argue this, however, there a clear grammatical answer.
The expression "taught of God" is expressed using a predicate adjective that we translate "taught" (διδακτοὶ) with the genitive form of God (Θεοῦ). The adjective διδακτοὶ, when referring to people, conveys that the people have received the educational effect of the teaching, much like "engraved" means that something has received the effect of the engraving, or "shattered" means that something has received the effect of the shattering.
Various forms of the word διδακτός are found in Scripture. When that word refers to things, it refers to the objects of instruction (the lessons) and when it refers to people it refers to the subjects of instruction (the students).
In the latter sense it seems to be more rarely used. In addition to this one instance in the New Testament, we find it similarly in the Greek translation of Isaiah 54:13 (διδακτοὺς θεοῦ) but also in a related form in 1 Maccabees:
1 Maccabees 4:7 (Apocrypha) And they saw the camp of the heathen, that it was strong and well harnessed, and compassed round about with horsemen; and these were expert of war.
That expression "Expert of war" is διδακτοὶ πολέμου. In the context of 1 Maccabees 4:7, it should be clear that the focus of the word is on the result in the heathen. The point isn't that they all went to boot camp, but rather that they all were expert (as the KJV puts it). The use of "of war" πολέμου may specifically suggest that these were veterans. Their expertise was forged in the fires of armed conflict.
Another instance and even more similar reference can be found in the ancient pseudepigraphic literature called the "Psalms of Solomon":
Psalms of Solomon 17:32 (Pseudepigrapha) And he will be a righteous king over them, taught by God. There will be no unrighteousness among them in his days, for all will be holy, and their king will be the Lord Messiah. (translation by Robert B. Wright)[FN1]
Again it should be clear from the immediate context that the idea is not simply that the king was at a school, but that he was actually educated. There is no question about whether he heard and learned, but rather it is given as a result. He did not just sit under teaching, he is taught.
Finally, let's consider the context of the usage in Isaiah 54:13. Brenton's translation of the Septuagint provides the following context:
Isaiah 54:11-17
Isaiah 54:11-17
Applying this understanding of the infrequently used word διδακτός to John 6:44-45, we see that it is mistaken to act as though "taught of God" is a broad category of which "hear and learn" are subsets. It is wrong to try to suggest that there are some people who are taught of God but who do not hear and learn.
Instead, the correct way to understand "taught" as being in parallel to "heard and learn." They are two ways of talking about the same group. Those who are God-instructed are the same ones who hear and learn. Everyone who is taught by God (i.e. who hears and learns) comes to God (vs. 45), and only those come (vs. 44). This is similar to the discussion later in the chapter in which Jesus explains that everyone who eats of him will have eternal life (vs. 54) and only those (vs. 53).
This helps us to understand that Jesus' discussion is about the elect specifically. That is to say, Jesus is explaining that the elect and only the elect come to the Father because the elect and only the elect are drawn of the Father, that is they are taught of God. Consequently the elect and only the elect ultimately believe savingly on the Lord Jesus Christ.
This fits within the immediate context. Jesus is responding to their disbelief about his claim to have come down from heaven. Jesus is explaining the reason for their disbelief. The point of Jesus' response is that the Father hasn't drawn them, he hasn't taught them. They haven't heard and learned from him. This fits quite well within a Calvinistic soteriology.
It doesn't fit well within a view of Universal Prevenient Grace (UPG) and Libertarian Free Will (LFW). In such a view everyone absolutely (each and every person who has or will ever live) is given sufficient grace to believe. Then they exercise their free will either to believe or not believe. If that were the case, Jesus' words wouldn't make much sense. The reason wouldn't be that God hasn't drawn the people, or that they haven't been taught of God. Perhaps one could try to seize on the terms "heard" and "learned" (since in some cases those terms can have more proactive senses - though there is no reason to impose such a meaning here). Nevertheless, the rest of Jesus' explanation for why the people shouldn't murmur would not make sense.
Thus, while the passage may not specifically use words like "election" or "predestination" the passage is a very Calvinistic passage. It helps us see that what makes the difference between faith and unbelief is not human free will, but rather is the drawing and power of God.
- TurretinFan
FN1: Wright's is probably the leading translation of the text. However, there are a number of other translations available, which I've collected below. There is some question about when the text was originally written (the consensus seems to place it in the late intertestamental period). The original language of the text may have been Hebrew, but the text did not survive in Hebrew. The title of this work is found in what amounts to the table of contents of Codex Alexandrinus, although the text of the work is missing from the existing copy of the codex. Readers of this blog will be pleased to note, incidentally, that Athanasius' letter to Marcellinus (which we discussed earlier) was included as a preface to the books of Psalms in that codex.
Here are some alternative English translations of the verse in question:
NETS: And he shall be a righteous king, taught by God, over them, and there shall be no injustice in his days in their midst, for all shall be holy, and their king the anointed of the Lord.
G. Buchanan Gray: (32) And he (shall be) a righteous king, taught of God, over them, 36 And there shall be no unrighteousness in his days in their midst, For all shall be holy and their king the anointed of the Lord.
Heerak Christian Kim translates it: And this righteous king, taught by God, shall be over them. 36 And there is not injustice in his days in the midst of them, because all are holy, and their king is the annointed of the Lord.
John 6:44-45
No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.Calvinists assert that the same group is discussed throughout. That group is the elect. The group is the group that comes, that is drawn, that will be raised up, that is taught of God, and that hears and learns. Some Arminians disagree.
οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν πρός με, ἐὰν μὴ ὁ πατὴρ ὁ πέμψας με ἑλκύσῃ αὐτόν, καὶ ἐγὼ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ. ἔστι γεγραμμένον ἐν τοῖς προφήταις· καὶ ἔσονται πάντες διδακτοὶ Θεοῦ· πᾶς ὁ ἀκούσας παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ μαθὼν ἔρχεται πρὸς με.
For example, some Arminians try to say that one group is "taught" but only a sub-group of that "hears" and "learns." This position is not necessarily the position of all Arminians. When Arminians argue this, however, there a clear grammatical answer.
The expression "taught of God" is expressed using a predicate adjective that we translate "taught" (διδακτοὶ) with the genitive form of God (Θεοῦ). The adjective διδακτοὶ, when referring to people, conveys that the people have received the educational effect of the teaching, much like "engraved" means that something has received the effect of the engraving, or "shattered" means that something has received the effect of the shattering.
Various forms of the word διδακτός are found in Scripture. When that word refers to things, it refers to the objects of instruction (the lessons) and when it refers to people it refers to the subjects of instruction (the students).
In the latter sense it seems to be more rarely used. In addition to this one instance in the New Testament, we find it similarly in the Greek translation of Isaiah 54:13 (διδακτοὺς θεοῦ) but also in a related form in 1 Maccabees:
1 Maccabees 4:7 (Apocrypha) And they saw the camp of the heathen, that it was strong and well harnessed, and compassed round about with horsemen; and these were expert of war.
That expression "Expert of war" is διδακτοὶ πολέμου. In the context of 1 Maccabees 4:7, it should be clear that the focus of the word is on the result in the heathen. The point isn't that they all went to boot camp, but rather that they all were expert (as the KJV puts it). The use of "of war" πολέμου may specifically suggest that these were veterans. Their expertise was forged in the fires of armed conflict.
Another instance and even more similar reference can be found in the ancient pseudepigraphic literature called the "Psalms of Solomon":
Psalms of Solomon 17:32 (Pseudepigrapha) And he will be a righteous king over them, taught by God. There will be no unrighteousness among them in his days, for all will be holy, and their king will be the Lord Messiah. (translation by Robert B. Wright)[FN1]
Again it should be clear from the immediate context that the idea is not simply that the king was at a school, but that he was actually educated. There is no question about whether he heard and learned, but rather it is given as a result. He did not just sit under teaching, he is taught.
Finally, let's consider the context of the usage in Isaiah 54:13. Brenton's translation of the Septuagint provides the following context:
Isaiah 54:11-17
11 Afflicted and outcast thou has not been comforted: behold, I will prepare carbuncle for thy stones, and sapphire for thy foundations; 12 and I will make thy buttresses jasper, and thy gates crystal, and thy border precious stones. 13 And I will cause all thy sons to be taught of God, and thy children to be in great peace. 14 And thou shalt be built in righteousness: abstain from injustice, and thou shalt not fear; and trembling shall not come nigh thee. 15 Behold, strangers shall come to thee by me, and shall sojourn with thee, and shall run to thee for refuge. 16 Behold, I have created thee, not as the coppersmith blowing coals, and bringing out a vessel fit for work; but I have created thee, not for ruin, that I should destroy thee. 17 I will not suffer any weapon formed against thee to prosper; and every voice that shall rise up against tee for judgment, thou shalt vanquish them all; and thine adversaries shall be condemned thereby. There is an inheritance to them that serve the Lord, and ye shall be righteous before me, saith the Lord.Notice that the discussion in Isaiah 54:11-17 with respect to the people of God is essentially monergistic. The point in the passage are the good things that God is going to do to his people. The KJV translation of the Hebrew text provides the same context:
Isaiah 54:11-17
11 O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. 12 And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. 13 And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children. 14 In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee. 15 Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake. 16 Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. 17 No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.Notice that God is the one making the foundations from sapphires, the windows out of agates, the gates out of carbuncles (red stones), and their borders from other precious stones. The point is not just that the children will have access to a good education, but rather that they will get the education - they will be taught. We can tell this because it is nestled between the comments about building and the comment that these God-taught children will have great peace. God will establish them and give them freedom from oppression. The only human actions are the actions of their enemies, actions that God will render fruitless.
Applying this understanding of the infrequently used word διδακτός to John 6:44-45, we see that it is mistaken to act as though "taught of God" is a broad category of which "hear and learn" are subsets. It is wrong to try to suggest that there are some people who are taught of God but who do not hear and learn.
Instead, the correct way to understand "taught" as being in parallel to "heard and learn." They are two ways of talking about the same group. Those who are God-instructed are the same ones who hear and learn. Everyone who is taught by God (i.e. who hears and learns) comes to God (vs. 45), and only those come (vs. 44). This is similar to the discussion later in the chapter in which Jesus explains that everyone who eats of him will have eternal life (vs. 54) and only those (vs. 53).
This helps us to understand that Jesus' discussion is about the elect specifically. That is to say, Jesus is explaining that the elect and only the elect come to the Father because the elect and only the elect are drawn of the Father, that is they are taught of God. Consequently the elect and only the elect ultimately believe savingly on the Lord Jesus Christ.
This fits within the immediate context. Jesus is responding to their disbelief about his claim to have come down from heaven. Jesus is explaining the reason for their disbelief. The point of Jesus' response is that the Father hasn't drawn them, he hasn't taught them. They haven't heard and learned from him. This fits quite well within a Calvinistic soteriology.
It doesn't fit well within a view of Universal Prevenient Grace (UPG) and Libertarian Free Will (LFW). In such a view everyone absolutely (each and every person who has or will ever live) is given sufficient grace to believe. Then they exercise their free will either to believe or not believe. If that were the case, Jesus' words wouldn't make much sense. The reason wouldn't be that God hasn't drawn the people, or that they haven't been taught of God. Perhaps one could try to seize on the terms "heard" and "learned" (since in some cases those terms can have more proactive senses - though there is no reason to impose such a meaning here). Nevertheless, the rest of Jesus' explanation for why the people shouldn't murmur would not make sense.
Thus, while the passage may not specifically use words like "election" or "predestination" the passage is a very Calvinistic passage. It helps us see that what makes the difference between faith and unbelief is not human free will, but rather is the drawing and power of God.
- TurretinFan
FN1: Wright's is probably the leading translation of the text. However, there are a number of other translations available, which I've collected below. There is some question about when the text was originally written (the consensus seems to place it in the late intertestamental period). The original language of the text may have been Hebrew, but the text did not survive in Hebrew. The title of this work is found in what amounts to the table of contents of Codex Alexandrinus, although the text of the work is missing from the existing copy of the codex. Readers of this blog will be pleased to note, incidentally, that Athanasius' letter to Marcellinus (which we discussed earlier) was included as a preface to the books of Psalms in that codex.
Here are some alternative English translations of the verse in question:
NETS: And he shall be a righteous king, taught by God, over them, and there shall be no injustice in his days in their midst, for all shall be holy, and their king the anointed of the Lord.
G. Buchanan Gray: (32) And he (shall be) a righteous king, taught of God, over them, 36 And there shall be no unrighteousness in his days in their midst, For all shall be holy and their king the anointed of the Lord.
Heerak Christian Kim translates it: And this righteous king, taught by God, shall be over them. 36 And there is not injustice in his days in the midst of them, because all are holy, and their king is the annointed of the Lord.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Addendum to "Oral Word of God?"
In the meanwhile of my drafting the previous response to Bellisario, Messrs. Swan and Hays have already forced Bellisario to admit that there is no new revelation. Accordingly, he has attempted to rely on a yet more flimsy branch. That flimsy branch is essentially that there are oral teachings of Jesus that were not placed into Scripture but were otherwise handed down to us via the Apostles.
This is, effectively, Bellisario's last gasp in the discussion, since he cannot demonstrate the apostolicity (let alone the divine origin) of any doctrine not found in Scripture. He has no good reason for thinking that there are any such doctrines, has no positive argument to offer in defense of oral traditions, so he's left with arguments like, "Where does Jesus say that now all of His Word would be in written form only?"
- TurretinFan
This is, effectively, Bellisario's last gasp in the discussion, since he cannot demonstrate the apostolicity (let alone the divine origin) of any doctrine not found in Scripture. He has no good reason for thinking that there are any such doctrines, has no positive argument to offer in defense of oral traditions, so he's left with arguments like, "Where does Jesus say that now all of His Word would be in written form only?"
- TurretinFan
Oral Word of God? Response to Bellisario
Matthew Bellisario (Roman Catholic) has been trying to argue with my friend Steve Hays (Reformed) over in the comment box of Beggars All Reformation (link to comment box).
Bellisario's argument, which seems to be a common "street" argument these days, boils down to this:
1) The Word of God was proclaimed orally at some past point;
2) You can't prove from Scripture that this has stopped;
3) Therefore, it continues,
with at least the implied addendum:
4) And it consists of the "Sacred Tradition" of the Roman Catholic Church.
From a logical standpoint, this argument is bankrupt. Even if the first three points were fine, the fourth point would not follow. That is to say, even if the first two points proved that God's Word continues to be proclaimed orally, it does not therefore follow that the way in which that happens is via the "Sacred Tradition" of the Roman Catholic Church. If the Roman Catholic wants to assert that the "Sacred Tradition" of the Roman Catholic Church is the continuing oral proclamation of the Word of God, the onus is on him to establish that. But Roman Catholic apologists can't establish that. That's why some of them feel compelled this kind of logically invalid argument.
To make matters worse, the first three points are not fine. One cannot establish that something continues from the absence of proof that it ceased. Instead, if one wants to insist that the oral proclamation of the Word of God continues, one has to demonstrate that. But Roman Catholic apologists can't demonstrate that. That's why some of them feel compelled this kind of logically invalid argument.
But that's not the only problem. The statement that God's Word was proclaimed orally is itself ambiguous and potentially equivocal. For example, whenever a Reformed minister preaches from the pulpit he is (or ought to be) proclaiming the Word of God orally. That aspect of the oral proclamation of the Word of God obviously does continue, as it should.
But there is another sense in which the Word of God was proclaimed orally. The Word of God was given to prophets. The proclaimed God's word orally.
Hebrews 2:1-4
Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?
Notice how those who received the Word of God to proclaim it in a prophetic way were given the witness of God, "both with signs and wonders, and with [a variety of] miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost." This is the consistent Biblical pattern. Moses provides the first example:
Exodus 4:1-9
Paul raised the dead (Acts 20:9-12) and was not harmed by the bite a poisonous snake (Acts 28:3-6). Likewise Peter raised the dead (Acts 9:36-43) and his shadow cured the sick (Acts 5:15).
Popes like Benedict XVI cannot raise the dead, their shadows cure no one, and if they get bitten by a poisonous snake, they will die. They do not possess the witness of God testifying to any prophetic gift. The same has been true of the popes that preceded them.
So, this alternative sense of the "Oral Word" is also not something possessed by the Roman Pontiff, whether or not anyone else possesses it.
But there is one further weakness to Mr. Bellisario's argument (and before he complains that the exact form of the argument is not his, I simply point out that the reader can peruse the comment box linked above to see whether or not the paraphrase of his argument is accurate). The further weakness is that Scripture itself testifies in at least three ways to the end of this extraordinary Oral Word.
1) Use of a Past Tense in Hebrews 2
In the passage from Hebrews 2, which we saw above, the author expresses the confirmation of the witnesses in the past tense (in English it past, in Greek it is aorist tense: "ἐβεβαιώθη" - confirmed). The author of Hebrews speaks of that discussion as though it were essentially a thing of the past, suggesting that the extraordinary gifts were already passing away at the time the book of Hebrews was written, during the lifetime of some of the apostles.
Notice that I say, "suggesting," not "proving."
2) Lack of Iterative Succession of the Gifts
Philip the Evangelist was able to perform miracles in view of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. However, as we will see in the following passage, he was unable to transfer that gift.
Acts 8:5-17
Now that the apostles are all dead, and all those people whom the apostles laid hands on are dead, there are no more of these testifying gifts. While the passage doesn't explicitly say this will happen, we may reasonably deduce it from the passage in view of the universal mortality of man.
3) Prophecy of the Cessation of the Gifts
1 Corinthians 13:8-10
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
This, of course, is the answer the question that Bellisario asks when he states, "Where did Jesus tell you that the New Testament replaced, and did away with His Oral Word?" That which is in part, the extraordinary gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge have been done away. The Bible is now complete.
The usual response from those of the Roman persuasion is that the Bible is not explicitly mentioned in the context of this prophecy. Instead, if the Bible is to be understood as the completion, it is merely implied. Nevertheless, even though it is only implied, it is implied by such expressions in the context as Paul's expression: "Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?" (1 Corinthians 14:6)
Notice that the context of this prophesying and "knowledge" is revelation and doctrine. We are informed explicitly in 2 Timothy 3:16 that Scripture has as one of its purposes the revelation of doctrine (see also Proverbs 4:2). So, we may rightly conclude that God's revelation of himself in Scripture is the completion of the revelation of doctrine that God promised, and that this explains the cessation of extraordinary gifts that we now see and that Paul had prophesied.
Of course, what makes Bellisario's point especially absurd is that his own church acknowledges that public revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle. (see, for example, CCC 66)
In short, Bellisario's informal argument is logically fallacious, it employs equivocation, and its premises are flawed. While Bellisario points to the fact that the Apostles preached the Word of God orally, he fails to see how little this proves. We readily grant that they did. Yet that does not suggest that the extraordinary gifts of prophecy granted to the Apostles and those upon whom they laid hands continued beyond the deaths of the Apostles. Moreover, it certainly doesn't support the "Sacred Tradition" of the Roman Catholic church as being "Oral Word of God." Support for such a position would require something more than alleged Biblical silence.
- TurretinFan
Bellisario's argument, which seems to be a common "street" argument these days, boils down to this:
1) The Word of God was proclaimed orally at some past point;
2) You can't prove from Scripture that this has stopped;
3) Therefore, it continues,
with at least the implied addendum:
4) And it consists of the "Sacred Tradition" of the Roman Catholic Church.
From a logical standpoint, this argument is bankrupt. Even if the first three points were fine, the fourth point would not follow. That is to say, even if the first two points proved that God's Word continues to be proclaimed orally, it does not therefore follow that the way in which that happens is via the "Sacred Tradition" of the Roman Catholic Church. If the Roman Catholic wants to assert that the "Sacred Tradition" of the Roman Catholic Church is the continuing oral proclamation of the Word of God, the onus is on him to establish that. But Roman Catholic apologists can't establish that. That's why some of them feel compelled this kind of logically invalid argument.
To make matters worse, the first three points are not fine. One cannot establish that something continues from the absence of proof that it ceased. Instead, if one wants to insist that the oral proclamation of the Word of God continues, one has to demonstrate that. But Roman Catholic apologists can't demonstrate that. That's why some of them feel compelled this kind of logically invalid argument.
But that's not the only problem. The statement that God's Word was proclaimed orally is itself ambiguous and potentially equivocal. For example, whenever a Reformed minister preaches from the pulpit he is (or ought to be) proclaiming the Word of God orally. That aspect of the oral proclamation of the Word of God obviously does continue, as it should.
But there is another sense in which the Word of God was proclaimed orally. The Word of God was given to prophets. The proclaimed God's word orally.
Hebrews 2:1-4
Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?
Notice how those who received the Word of God to proclaim it in a prophetic way were given the witness of God, "both with signs and wonders, and with [a variety of] miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost." This is the consistent Biblical pattern. Moses provides the first example:
Exodus 4:1-9
And Moses answered and said, "But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, 'The LORD hath not appeared unto thee.'"Thus, like Moses, the apostles performed a variety of miracles that testified to the fact that they were prophets of God:
And the LORD said unto him, "What is that in thine hand?"
And he said, "A rod."
And he said, "Cast it on the ground."
And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it.
And the LORD said unto Moses, "Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail," and he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand: "that they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee." And the LORD said furthermore unto him, "Put now thine hand into thy bosom."
And he put his hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow.
And he said, "Put thine hand into thy bosom again."
And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh.
"And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, that thou shalt take of the water of the river, and pour it upon the dry land: and the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land."
Paul raised the dead (Acts 20:9-12) and was not harmed by the bite a poisonous snake (Acts 28:3-6). Likewise Peter raised the dead (Acts 9:36-43) and his shadow cured the sick (Acts 5:15).
Popes like Benedict XVI cannot raise the dead, their shadows cure no one, and if they get bitten by a poisonous snake, they will die. They do not possess the witness of God testifying to any prophetic gift. The same has been true of the popes that preceded them.
So, this alternative sense of the "Oral Word" is also not something possessed by the Roman Pontiff, whether or not anyone else possesses it.
But there is one further weakness to Mr. Bellisario's argument (and before he complains that the exact form of the argument is not his, I simply point out that the reader can peruse the comment box linked above to see whether or not the paraphrase of his argument is accurate). The further weakness is that Scripture itself testifies in at least three ways to the end of this extraordinary Oral Word.
1) Use of a Past Tense in Hebrews 2
In the passage from Hebrews 2, which we saw above, the author expresses the confirmation of the witnesses in the past tense (in English it past, in Greek it is aorist tense: "ἐβεβαιώθη" - confirmed). The author of Hebrews speaks of that discussion as though it were essentially a thing of the past, suggesting that the extraordinary gifts were already passing away at the time the book of Hebrews was written, during the lifetime of some of the apostles.
Notice that I say, "suggesting," not "proving."
2) Lack of Iterative Succession of the Gifts
Philip the Evangelist was able to perform miracles in view of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit. However, as we will see in the following passage, he was unable to transfer that gift.
Acts 8:5-17
Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. And there was great joy in that city.As we see from the preceding passage, the gift of being able to lay hands on the people and have them perform miracles was something the apostles could do but that Philip could not. Thus, we can see that these extraordinary testifying gifts were passed directly from the apostles, but not iteratively by those who had received the gifts from the apostles.
But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.
But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (For as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.
Now that the apostles are all dead, and all those people whom the apostles laid hands on are dead, there are no more of these testifying gifts. While the passage doesn't explicitly say this will happen, we may reasonably deduce it from the passage in view of the universal mortality of man.
3) Prophecy of the Cessation of the Gifts
1 Corinthians 13:8-10
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
This, of course, is the answer the question that Bellisario asks when he states, "Where did Jesus tell you that the New Testament replaced, and did away with His Oral Word?" That which is in part, the extraordinary gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge have been done away. The Bible is now complete.
The usual response from those of the Roman persuasion is that the Bible is not explicitly mentioned in the context of this prophecy. Instead, if the Bible is to be understood as the completion, it is merely implied. Nevertheless, even though it is only implied, it is implied by such expressions in the context as Paul's expression: "Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine?" (1 Corinthians 14:6)
Notice that the context of this prophesying and "knowledge" is revelation and doctrine. We are informed explicitly in 2 Timothy 3:16 that Scripture has as one of its purposes the revelation of doctrine (see also Proverbs 4:2). So, we may rightly conclude that God's revelation of himself in Scripture is the completion of the revelation of doctrine that God promised, and that this explains the cessation of extraordinary gifts that we now see and that Paul had prophesied.
Of course, what makes Bellisario's point especially absurd is that his own church acknowledges that public revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle. (see, for example, CCC 66)
In short, Bellisario's informal argument is logically fallacious, it employs equivocation, and its premises are flawed. While Bellisario points to the fact that the Apostles preached the Word of God orally, he fails to see how little this proves. We readily grant that they did. Yet that does not suggest that the extraordinary gifts of prophecy granted to the Apostles and those upon whom they laid hands continued beyond the deaths of the Apostles. Moreover, it certainly doesn't support the "Sacred Tradition" of the Roman Catholic church as being "Oral Word of God." Support for such a position would require something more than alleged Biblical silence.
- TurretinFan
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
More Digitized Books
I was pleased to see that there is a digitization project underway in Switzerland. While I have not found any of the particularly rare books for which I was looking, there are a number of excellent works published in Geneva that have been digitized (link to accent). One of those books is even in English, although Latin dominates, and French takes the lion's share of the remainder.
Thanks to Historical TheoBlogy for bringing this to my attention.
- TurretinFan
Thanks to Historical TheoBlogy for bringing this to my attention.
- TurretinFan
Monday, March 22, 2010
More Important than the Dead Sea Scrolls?
That's what this article (link to article) claims about the Faddan More Psalter. The article reports that about 15 percent of the text has survived the supermillenial bog burial. I think the claim is somewhat exaggerated, though doubtless one would never have expected to find such an item in a bog, nor would one ever hope to find such an item in a bog again. The text provides a valuable early testimony to the transmission of the Latin text.
- TurretinFan
- TurretinFan
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Review of "Is Rome the True Church?"
Is Rome the True Church? - a consideration of the Roman Catholic claim, by Norman Geisler and Joshua Bettancourt, explores a series of questions related to Rome's exclusive claim to be the true church. The book explores this topic by taking out several links in the chain of alleged authority. First, the book addresses the alleged primacy of the Apostle Peter. Next, the book addresses the alleged infallibility of Peter. Finally, the book examines the idea of Apostolic Succession or inheritance of the supposed primacy and infallibility of Peter.
A Fundamental Flaw - The Gospel and Christian Orthodoxy
The introduction of the book ends on an encouraging note: "In fact, after seriously considering the relevant evidence, perhaps they will choose just to remain evangelical, if they desire to be truly 'catholic.'" This promising beginning, however, is not fully realized. Indeed, at pages 187-88, we find the following: "Kreeft was exposed to the typical Calvinist anti-Catholicism, which holds that Catholics believe 'another gospel.'"
The point taken by the authors seems to be summarized at page 184: "We have seen that the Roman Catholic claim to be the true church is false. The biblical, theological, and historical arguments against it are strong. Indeed, on either standard of orthodoxy Rome falls short, and on the Reformation standard of orthodoxy Roman Catholicism is a false church with significant truth in it." Indeed, the authors even go so far as to say, "This is not to say that the Roman Catholic church has no true believers in it, nor that it has no essentially true beliefs. It has both. It is only to say that no only is its central claim to infallibility false, but so is its plan of salvation." (p. 184)
How the authors propose to differentiate between Rome's false plan of salvation and Rome believing in something other than "another gospel" is not at all clear.
Indeed, while the authors seem to view Rome's plan of salvation as "false," the authors appear to affirm Rome's orthodoxy: "In fact, all orthodox Christians, Catholics and non-Catholics, agree with the basic doctrines affirmed in the earlier so-called ecumenical councils, such as the Trinity, virgin birth, deity of Christ, and Christ's hypostatic union of two natures in one person." (p. 52) However the authors then turn around and suggest that the "main concern of orthodox Christians is with attributing any divine or even ecclesiastical authority to creedal and conciliar pronouncements," which would seem to suggest that only what the authors call the "Free Church" or Anabaptistic view is truly orthodox. Yet at still other places, the authors provide a very broad ecumenism, listing among the churches that "confess historic biblical Christianity" "Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Reformed, Methodist, Baptist, and others." (p.49)
When posed with the direct question: "Is Rome a False Church?" the authors respond "This must be answered in parts and with qualifications." (p. 180) The authors proceed to provide a mixed answer that Rome "makes some major false claims" and "If judged by the standards of the Protestant Reformation ... Rome is a false church with significant truth," even while affirming that on alternative grounds for judgment "Rome is a true church with significant error" even going so far as to assert that "Rome has 'practical heresy,' if not both practical and material heresy." (pp. 180-81)
This seems like a fundamental flaw in the book, in that the book attempts to answer the question, "Is Rome the True Church?"
Depiction of Roman Catholic Theology
It is clear that the authors attempted to portray Rome's position fairly. The book relies on a variety of Roman Catholic sources from serious sources like Ludwig Ott to popular sources like Steve Ray. The presentation of Rome's position attempted to suggest a large amount of continuity between post-Vatican II and pre-Vatican II Rome. For example, regarding Vatican II's statement:
Roman Catholic priest, Dwight Longenecker, writes that "The baptism of desire refers to those individuals with faith in Christ who would be baptized if they had the opportunity and if they truly understood what baptism means. It applies to those who, due to extraordinary circumstances, do not have access to water for baptism." (source) Longenecker then goes on to explain that baptism of desire "may" apply to those who lack Christian faith, or who think baptism is unnecessary. Longenecker, however, is quick to note: "Even in these cases, however, it should be understood that the Church teaches that such individuals 'may' be saved, not that they are saved."
Instead of being nothing more than a much older view of baptism by desire or intention, Vatican II's comments should be viewed as the latest development or mutation of that doctrine. Vatican II's definition appears at odds with more traditional explanations, such as that of Robert Bellarmine:
An even older version is found in Bernard of Clairvaux, who appealed to Augustine and Ambrose as precedent for his view of salvation by faith alone:
But I digress. The authors of the book go to great lengths to make sure that they are providing the Roman Catholic argument before they rebut, including qualifiers that Rome's apologists are normally quick to provide (for example, the caveat that "Not all papal statements are deemed infallible; only those made ex cathedra of doctrine or morals." p. 94)
One place at which one might level a charge of unfairness was in a personal anecdote that Dr. Geisler provides:
This anecdote may accurately reflect Geisler's experience, but it is not an official position of Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless, despite a few minor points such as an excessive willingness to treat Vatican II as continuous with previous positions and reliance on anecdotal evidence, the authors seem to have provided an accurate representation of the mainstream Roman Catholic position.
Patristic Considerations
The authors have also sought to bring in the testimony of the fathers. For example, the authors cite Cyprian of Carthage as writing, "Hence it is in vain that some who are overcome by reason oppose to us custom, as if custom were greater than truth;" (Letter 72, Section 13) and "custom without truth is the antiquity of error." (Letter 73, Section 9) Also, in Appendix I, beginning at p. 199, the authors explore Irenaeus and the alleged authority of the church. At p. 220, the authors provide another appendix related to Irenaeus, Appendix 5: "Irenaeus on Scripture and Tradition." While the authors appear to rely heavily on J.N.D. Kelley's important work, Early Christian Doctrine (1960) (for example, the authors at p. 230 quote Kelly for the proposition that "Irenaeus believed that 'Scripture and the church's unwritten tradition are identical in content.'"), the authors occasionally provide some of their own insights into the patristic literature. For example,
These appendices are worth reading for those interested in the patristic debate, in that the authors conclude:
Medieval Connection
Likewise, the authors brought to bear medieval testimony, especially the testimony of Aquinas (at p. 198, Geisler points out his familial and educational connections with Roman Catholicism and states: "I am a follower of the great Catholic thinker Thomas Aquinas.") One interesting quotation that the authors repeatedly reference (e.g. pp. 57 and 83) is Aquinas' comment that "We believe the prophets and apostles because the Lord has been their witness by performing miracles. . . . And we believe the successors of the apostles only in so far as they tell us those things which the apostles and prophets have left in their writings," (Thomas Aquinas, On Truth, 14.10-11) which suggests a primacy of Scripture incompatible with contemporary Roman Catholicism's claims.
Likewise, the authors provide some interesting discussion of Aquinas from Roman Catholic scholar Yves Congar:
Good Arguments
There are some good arguments presented in the book in response to Rome's claims. For example, against the claim that Christ appointed Peter to be the head apostle in Matthew 16:18, the authors provide an argument from George Salmon: "If our Lord meant all this [concerning Peter], we may ask, why did he not say it? Who found out that He meant it? The Apostles did not find out at the time; for up to the night before [Jesus'] death the dispute went on, which should be the greatest." (Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church, 334)(That excellent work may be downloaded or read at this link.)
A similarly good argument is presented (at p. 162) based on the fact that Peter and John were sent on a mission to Samaria by the other apostles at Jerusalem, as explained in Acts 8:14-17. If Peter were organizationally the chief of the apostles, it would be strange for him to be sent by them, rather than simply going and taking John with him.
Another interesting argument is a response to the argument that Peter's primacy is established from the fact that he is the first of the apostles to see the resurrected Christ. The authors point out, however, "but the Gospels tell us that the women saw Jesus before Peter. Why then would not Rome take that as proof of the primacy of women over men?" (p. 82) The answer to their rhetorical question, of course, is that Rome's apologists are using 1 Corinthians 15:5 as a pretext.
Another argument that was used with some success was what the authors called "The Argument from Death by Qualifications." As the authors pointed out, "In actual practice, the attempt to keep infallibility alive by qualifying it is in effect killing it both in principle and in practice." (p. 178) The authors explain that in principle the infallible statements have to meet very rigid criteria, resulting in very few such statements. As a practical result, such statements provide "no ongoing practical value in the life of the church." (p. 178) To rephrase it, "by the time one adds up the non-infallible list of qualifications of what constitutes infallible statements, the doctrine of infallibility proves to be just as fallible as non-infallible statements made by opposing groups in Christendom." (p. 148)
On the topic of apostolic succession, the authors presented an argument regarding the fact of laying on of hands. As they explain,
While the argument may suffer from not dealing directly with the issue of authority, the underlying principle that the apostles' ability to transfer special abilities to people by the laying on of hands is shown to be non-transferable.
The authors actually go so far as to suggest that Hebrews 2 indicates that the extraordinary gifts were passing during the lifetime of the apostles.
Hebrews 2:3-4
In addition to some of the valuable arguments set forth in the book, the book provides, in appendix 4, an interesting definition of Sola Scriptura. The definition is this:
This definition is interesting in that it does not necessarily rule out an infallible magisterium, it just renders one unnecessary. Many of the Roman Catholic arguments against Sola Scriptura seem to be focused on demanding that the advocates of Sola Scriptura disprove the existence of an infallible magisterium, whereas this definition leaves such proof or disproof for a separate argument.
Weak Arguments
There are also some weak arguments presented. Regarding the "keys" mentioned in Matthew 16, and the alleged (by the Roman Catholics) link to Isaiah 22, the authors write:
This argument is weak in two ways. First, this response ignores the typology argument that Roman Catholics typically make, and which is even presented to the reader as the Roman Catholic argument at pp. 65, 67, 95, and 98. Second, this response omits the strong Biblical counter argument from the fact that the type of Eliakim is connected Scripturally with the ante-type of Jesus (not Peter), as can be seen from Revelation.
Revelation 3:7-8
This facile dismissal of the argument from Isaiah 22:22 is sadly reflective of the practical canon of the authors. As can be seen from Scripture index, at p. 233 and following, while most of the New Testament receives some treatment (1-2 Thessalonians are curiously omitted, and Jude is also omitted from the index), there is a dearth of references to the Old Testament Scriptures: the references consist of references to three passages from Exodus, two from Isaiah (including the one mentioned above), and general references to the books of Jeremiah and Daniel. The seeming reason is a failure to appreciate that not only the New Testament but also the Old Testament Scriptures are for the New Testament church, although the emphasis of the Roman Catholic arguments from New Testament Scriptures is also undoubtedly a factor in the relatively high amount of New Testament usage. Contrast this, however, with Irenaeus who "cites freely from every major section of the Old Testament and from most of the books," as the authors report at p. 227.
Another argument that could have been improved is the argument related to the Roman Catholic allegation that "Christ changed Peter's name from Simon to Cephas" (p. 94, discussion continued to p. 95). I've discussed this at greater length (link), but the short answer is that Cephas or Peter was not a substitute for Simon, it was a surname. Thus, we find the expression "Simon Peter" twenty times in the Authorized Version (once in Matthew, once in Luke, once in 2 Peter, and the remainder of the times in John).
With that in mind, Origen's argument makes much more sense than the Roman Catholic argument:
In responding to a Roman Catholic argument alleging that denials of ecclesiastical infallibility are self-defeating, the authors provided several good arguments, but one argument that seems to be mostly an argument that would be accepted by "Protestants." (pp. 138-39) The good arguments are first that the Roman Catholic argument confuses the issues of determination and discovery. God, as author, determines the meaning of Scripture. Man, as reader, merely discovers the meaning of Scripture. This argument connects with an intuitive argument that correct discovery of God's meaning in Scripture does not require infallibility any more than discovering the speed limit requires infallibility. Another argument, however, is one that I can not highly recommend:
However, Roman Catholicism doesn't recognize those things as more essential than Purgatory, the Bodily Assumption of Mary, and Papal Infallibity, at least not in any official way. While Vatican II indicates that those "separated brethren" outside the walls of Rome may be saved, it also indicates that even Muslims (who deny the Trinity, the deity of Christ, his atoning death, and bodily resurrection) may be saved. The "mere Christianity" position that the authors are advocating is, then, more a matter of their own "Protestant" view of what constitutes the essentials of the faith, rather than the Roman Catholic position, which makes many more things essential.
This same view is reflected in a few other arguments in the book, such as:
It's important to note that while many Evangelicals may believe that the essential doctrines of the faith are captured in the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed, the Roman Catholic church requires assent of the faithful to a much larger group of doctrines.
Formal and Personal Considerations
The book seems to get a little tedious at points. The reason for the tedium is that there seems to be a significant amount of repetition. For example, one finds substantial repetition at pages 79, 126, and 163, including a pair of longer than average footnotes. While the repetition may serve some sort of legitimate purpose (perhaps it allows the book to be divided into a number of smaller self-contained books at a later date), it seems mostly to serve to puff up the length of the book without adding any depth.
As well, one notices a significant fraction of the footnotes are to Geisler's own previous work, especially his book with Ralph E. MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences (it may be noted that the single blurb on the reverse cover of the book is from MacKenzie). It may be, in view of the significant apparent amount of overlap that one would be better served by simply reading the early work by Geisler.
One additional personal note exists with respect to this book. Apparently shortly after the publication of the work, Geisler's co-author, Joshua M. Betancourt, announced his conversion to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism. It is not clear what prompted Mr. Betancourt's move. Considering that the book is so wishy-washy on Rome's status as orthodox Christianity (or not) and whether or not Rome's gospel is the gospel of Christ or another gospel, this sort of move (while sad) cannot be said to be shocking.
Errata
At page 84, there is a very unfortunate typo in which "Ott says clearly" should be "Tertullian says clearly" for a matter that Ott omits.
At page 111, term 4 of the argument states "But we do not know the truth of Scripture" although it ought to state "But we do know the truth of Scripture."
At page 152, due to a misplaced quotation mark, the text as written has Clement calling himself "The disciple of the Apostles, St. Clement of Rome" - the quotation mark before "The disciple" should be moved to just before "In countries and towns ... ."
At page 154, I'm not sure whether this is properly a typographic error, but the claim that Justin Martyr "was not a contemporary to anyone who was contemporary with the apostles," seems like an unlikely claim. It is believed that the apostle John lived into the 90's A.D., that he was a disciple of John and that he died around A.D. 155, only a decade before Justin Martyr's death. A better claim is that Justin Martyr was not a contemporary with any of the apostles.
Conclusion
Is Rome the True Church? may be asking the wrong question, but nevertheless answers the question in a systematic negative way. Many of the arguments employed against Rome's exclusive claim are valid arguments that ought to persuade the reader that Rome's claims are in error. There are a few weak arguments in the book, some of which can be bolstered by reference to further arguments. While the book may not excel other available responses to Roman Catholicism, it may at least provide the beginning of a discussion on Rome's claims and the flaws, both Scriptural, logical, and historical in those claims.
- TurretinFan
A Fundamental Flaw - The Gospel and Christian Orthodoxy
The introduction of the book ends on an encouraging note: "In fact, after seriously considering the relevant evidence, perhaps they will choose just to remain evangelical, if they desire to be truly 'catholic.'" This promising beginning, however, is not fully realized. Indeed, at pages 187-88, we find the following: "Kreeft was exposed to the typical Calvinist anti-Catholicism, which holds that Catholics believe 'another gospel.'"
The point taken by the authors seems to be summarized at page 184: "We have seen that the Roman Catholic claim to be the true church is false. The biblical, theological, and historical arguments against it are strong. Indeed, on either standard of orthodoxy Rome falls short, and on the Reformation standard of orthodoxy Roman Catholicism is a false church with significant truth in it." Indeed, the authors even go so far as to say, "This is not to say that the Roman Catholic church has no true believers in it, nor that it has no essentially true beliefs. It has both. It is only to say that no only is its central claim to infallibility false, but so is its plan of salvation." (p. 184)
How the authors propose to differentiate between Rome's false plan of salvation and Rome believing in something other than "another gospel" is not at all clear.
Indeed, while the authors seem to view Rome's plan of salvation as "false," the authors appear to affirm Rome's orthodoxy: "In fact, all orthodox Christians, Catholics and non-Catholics, agree with the basic doctrines affirmed in the earlier so-called ecumenical councils, such as the Trinity, virgin birth, deity of Christ, and Christ's hypostatic union of two natures in one person." (p. 52) However the authors then turn around and suggest that the "main concern of orthodox Christians is with attributing any divine or even ecclesiastical authority to creedal and conciliar pronouncements," which would seem to suggest that only what the authors call the "Free Church" or Anabaptistic view is truly orthodox. Yet at still other places, the authors provide a very broad ecumenism, listing among the churches that "confess historic biblical Christianity" "Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Reformed, Methodist, Baptist, and others." (p.49)
When posed with the direct question: "Is Rome a False Church?" the authors respond "This must be answered in parts and with qualifications." (p. 180) The authors proceed to provide a mixed answer that Rome "makes some major false claims" and "If judged by the standards of the Protestant Reformation ... Rome is a false church with significant truth," even while affirming that on alternative grounds for judgment "Rome is a true church with significant error" even going so far as to assert that "Rome has 'practical heresy,' if not both practical and material heresy." (pp. 180-81)
This seems like a fundamental flaw in the book, in that the book attempts to answer the question, "Is Rome the True Church?"
Depiction of Roman Catholic Theology
It is clear that the authors attempted to portray Rome's position fairly. The book relies on a variety of Roman Catholic sources from serious sources like Ludwig Ott to popular sources like Steve Ray. The presentation of Rome's position attempted to suggest a large amount of continuity between post-Vatican II and pre-Vatican II Rome. For example, regarding Vatican II's statement:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.the authors seek to suggest that this is "nothing more than a restatement of baptism by intention in early Catholic proclamations." (p. 16) This seems excessively generous. Baptism by intention, also called "baptism of desire," has traditionally had reference to Christ and to baptism. As the phrase may suggest, it has a primary reference to those who want to be baptized by are hindered by some extraordinary obstacle.
Roman Catholic priest, Dwight Longenecker, writes that "The baptism of desire refers to those individuals with faith in Christ who would be baptized if they had the opportunity and if they truly understood what baptism means. It applies to those who, due to extraordinary circumstances, do not have access to water for baptism." (source) Longenecker then goes on to explain that baptism of desire "may" apply to those who lack Christian faith, or who think baptism is unnecessary. Longenecker, however, is quick to note: "Even in these cases, however, it should be understood that the Church teaches that such individuals 'may' be saved, not that they are saved."
Instead of being nothing more than a much older view of baptism by desire or intention, Vatican II's comments should be viewed as the latest development or mutation of that doctrine. Vatican II's definition appears at odds with more traditional explanations, such as that of Robert Bellarmine:
Perfect conversion and penitence is rightly called baptism of desire, and in necessity at least, it supplies for the baptism of water. It is to be noted that any conversion whatsoever cannot be called baptism of desire; but only perfect conversion, which includes true contrition and charity, and at the same time a desire or vowed intention of baptism.- Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621), On the Sacrament of Baptism, Book 1, Chapter 6
An even older version is found in Bernard of Clairvaux, who appealed to Augustine and Ambrose as precedent for his view of salvation by faith alone:
Believe me, it will be difficult to separate me from these two pillars, by which I refer to Augustine and Ambrose. I confess that with them I am either right or wrong in believing that people can be saved by faith alone and the desire to receive the sacrament, even if untimely death or some insuperable force keep them from fulfilling their pious desire- Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), Letter 77, section 8.
But I digress. The authors of the book go to great lengths to make sure that they are providing the Roman Catholic argument before they rebut, including qualifiers that Rome's apologists are normally quick to provide (for example, the caveat that "Not all papal statements are deemed infallible; only those made ex cathedra of doctrine or morals." p. 94)
One place at which one might level a charge of unfairness was in a personal anecdote that Dr. Geisler provides:
I personally had a Roman Catholic teacher at a Jesuit institution I attended who was an atheist. When I asked how he could be a Catholic and an atheist, he replied: "You do not have to believe in God to be a Catholic. You just have to keep the rules of the Church."(p. 135)
This anecdote may accurately reflect Geisler's experience, but it is not an official position of Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless, despite a few minor points such as an excessive willingness to treat Vatican II as continuous with previous positions and reliance on anecdotal evidence, the authors seem to have provided an accurate representation of the mainstream Roman Catholic position.
Patristic Considerations
The authors have also sought to bring in the testimony of the fathers. For example, the authors cite Cyprian of Carthage as writing, "Hence it is in vain that some who are overcome by reason oppose to us custom, as if custom were greater than truth;" (Letter 72, Section 13) and "custom without truth is the antiquity of error." (Letter 73, Section 9) Also, in Appendix I, beginning at p. 199, the authors explore Irenaeus and the alleged authority of the church. At p. 220, the authors provide another appendix related to Irenaeus, Appendix 5: "Irenaeus on Scripture and Tradition." While the authors appear to rely heavily on J.N.D. Kelley's important work, Early Christian Doctrine (1960) (for example, the authors at p. 230 quote Kelly for the proposition that "Irenaeus believed that 'Scripture and the church's unwritten tradition are identical in content.'"), the authors occasionally provide some of their own insights into the patristic literature. For example,
Other than a few scant references in early Fathers to the oral words of apostles confirming what is in their written word, which alone is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16; cf. 2 Pet. 1:20-21; 3:15-16), the Bible is not only the primary source of divine authority cited; it is the only source. Hence, it is not simply a matter of the primacy of Scripture but the exclusivity of Scripture as the sole written, God-breathed authority from God. Indeed, Irenaeus criticizes heretics because "they gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures." Likewise, he condemns them because they "adduce an unspeakable number of apocryphal and spurious writings." In this sense, Irenaeus held to sola Scriptura (the Bible alone) - one of the great principles of the later Reformation.(p. 224, footnotes omitted)
These appendices are worth reading for those interested in the patristic debate, in that the authors conclude:
Taken in the total context of his writing, Irenaeus favored the non-Catholic position on almost all the major areas of concern. First, he held to the Protestant canon, rejecting the Apocrypha canonized by the Catholic Council of Trent (1546). Second, he believed in sola Scriptura (see Appendix 4), the Protestant sense of both material and formal sufficiency. Third, this means Irenaeus held to the perspicuity of Scripture. Fourth, Irenaeus did not hold the Roman Catholic views of tradition as a second source of revelation. Nor did he believe tradition was divinely authoritative. Fifth, he has written nothing that supports the primacy of Peter, let alone any alleged infallibility.(p. 231)
Medieval Connection
Likewise, the authors brought to bear medieval testimony, especially the testimony of Aquinas (at p. 198, Geisler points out his familial and educational connections with Roman Catholicism and states: "I am a follower of the great Catholic thinker Thomas Aquinas.") One interesting quotation that the authors repeatedly reference (e.g. pp. 57 and 83) is Aquinas' comment that "We believe the prophets and apostles because the Lord has been their witness by performing miracles. . . . And we believe the successors of the apostles only in so far as they tell us those things which the apostles and prophets have left in their writings," (Thomas Aquinas, On Truth, 14.10-11) which suggests a primacy of Scripture incompatible with contemporary Roman Catholicism's claims.
Likewise, the authors provide some interesting discussion of Aquinas from Roman Catholic scholar Yves Congar:
However, even given the authority of the pope, noted Roman Catholic authority Yves Congar admitted, "It is a fact that St. Thomas has not spoken of the infallibility of the papal magisterium. Moreover, he was unaware of the use of magisterium in its modern sense." He goes on to say that it is not certain that Aquinas would even have said that the pope is without error "in his role of supreme interpreter of Christ's teaching."(p. 57, footnotes omitted)
Congar cites several texts in support of this conclusion (see On Truth 14.10-11). One reads, "The simple have implicit faith in the faith of their teachers only to the degree that these hold fast to God's teaching. . . . Thus the knowledge of men is not the rule of faith but God's truthfulness." Further, Congar refers to this text: "Note, however, that where there is real danger to the faith, subjects must rebuke their superiors even publicly. On this account Paul, who was subject to Peter, publicly rebuked him when there was imminent danger of scandal in a matter of faith."
Good Arguments
There are some good arguments presented in the book in response to Rome's claims. For example, against the claim that Christ appointed Peter to be the head apostle in Matthew 16:18, the authors provide an argument from George Salmon: "If our Lord meant all this [concerning Peter], we may ask, why did he not say it? Who found out that He meant it? The Apostles did not find out at the time; for up to the night before [Jesus'] death the dispute went on, which should be the greatest." (Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church, 334)(That excellent work may be downloaded or read at this link.)
A similarly good argument is presented (at p. 162) based on the fact that Peter and John were sent on a mission to Samaria by the other apostles at Jerusalem, as explained in Acts 8:14-17. If Peter were organizationally the chief of the apostles, it would be strange for him to be sent by them, rather than simply going and taking John with him.
Another interesting argument is a response to the argument that Peter's primacy is established from the fact that he is the first of the apostles to see the resurrected Christ. The authors point out, however, "but the Gospels tell us that the women saw Jesus before Peter. Why then would not Rome take that as proof of the primacy of women over men?" (p. 82) The answer to their rhetorical question, of course, is that Rome's apologists are using 1 Corinthians 15:5 as a pretext.
Another argument that was used with some success was what the authors called "The Argument from Death by Qualifications." As the authors pointed out, "In actual practice, the attempt to keep infallibility alive by qualifying it is in effect killing it both in principle and in practice." (p. 178) The authors explain that in principle the infallible statements have to meet very rigid criteria, resulting in very few such statements. As a practical result, such statements provide "no ongoing practical value in the life of the church." (p. 178) To rephrase it, "by the time one adds up the non-infallible list of qualifications of what constitutes infallible statements, the doctrine of infallibility proves to be just as fallible as non-infallible statements made by opposing groups in Christendom." (p. 148)
On the topic of apostolic succession, the authors presented an argument regarding the fact of laying on of hands. As they explain,
... one of the deacons (Philip) on whom they laid hands had the gift of both evangelism and healing (Acts 8:6), but his converts did not receive the [extraordinary gifts of the] Holy Spirit through him. Philip had to call for the apostles this act directly (Acts 8:15-18). So, "laying on of the apostles' hands did not grant Philip any powers of apostolic succession.(p. 151)
While the argument may suffer from not dealing directly with the issue of authority, the underlying principle that the apostles' ability to transfer special abilities to people by the laying on of hands is shown to be non-transferable.
The authors actually go so far as to suggest that Hebrews 2 indicates that the extraordinary gifts were passing during the lifetime of the apostles.
Hebrews 2:3-4
How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?The apparent rationale in the argument is that "at the first" refers to a prior time, and "confirmed unto us" is phrased in a past (technically aorist) tense. This might be taken to suggest that the time of confirmation was already passing or already gone, as the authors assert at p. 160.
In addition to some of the valuable arguments set forth in the book, the book provides, in appendix 4, an interesting definition of Sola Scriptura. The definition is this:
Sola Scriptura in the formal sense means that the Bible alone is sufficiently clear so that no infallible magisterium of the church is necessary to interpret it.(p. 218)
This definition is interesting in that it does not necessarily rule out an infallible magisterium, it just renders one unnecessary. Many of the Roman Catholic arguments against Sola Scriptura seem to be focused on demanding that the advocates of Sola Scriptura disprove the existence of an infallible magisterium, whereas this definition leaves such proof or disproof for a separate argument.
Weak Arguments
There are also some weak arguments presented. Regarding the "keys" mentioned in Matthew 16, and the alleged (by the Roman Catholics) link to Isaiah 22, the authors write:
In Isaiah 22:22, the "key" refers to the stewardship of the house of David that would be placed in the hands of Eliakim. It has nothing to do with Peter or the New Testament church.(p. 81 and p. 127, exactly the same words)
This argument is weak in two ways. First, this response ignores the typology argument that Roman Catholics typically make, and which is even presented to the reader as the Roman Catholic argument at pp. 65, 67, 95, and 98. Second, this response omits the strong Biblical counter argument from the fact that the type of Eliakim is connected Scripturally with the ante-type of Jesus (not Peter), as can be seen from Revelation.
Revelation 3:7-8
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth; I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.Since Revelation is still a part of the New Testament, and since the Scriptures of the New Testament are undoubtedly for the New Testament church, the argument that the verse "has nothing to do with Peter or the New Testament church" seems to be only partially true. The verse does have nothing to do with Peter, but it does have to do with Jesus and with the New Testament church in consequence of its connection with Jesus.
This facile dismissal of the argument from Isaiah 22:22 is sadly reflective of the practical canon of the authors. As can be seen from Scripture index, at p. 233 and following, while most of the New Testament receives some treatment (1-2 Thessalonians are curiously omitted, and Jude is also omitted from the index), there is a dearth of references to the Old Testament Scriptures: the references consist of references to three passages from Exodus, two from Isaiah (including the one mentioned above), and general references to the books of Jeremiah and Daniel. The seeming reason is a failure to appreciate that not only the New Testament but also the Old Testament Scriptures are for the New Testament church, although the emphasis of the Roman Catholic arguments from New Testament Scriptures is also undoubtedly a factor in the relatively high amount of New Testament usage. Contrast this, however, with Irenaeus who "cites freely from every major section of the Old Testament and from most of the books," as the authors report at p. 227.
Another argument that could have been improved is the argument related to the Roman Catholic allegation that "Christ changed Peter's name from Simon to Cephas" (p. 94, discussion continued to p. 95). I've discussed this at greater length (link), but the short answer is that Cephas or Peter was not a substitute for Simon, it was a surname. Thus, we find the expression "Simon Peter" twenty times in the Authorized Version (once in Matthew, once in Luke, once in 2 Peter, and the remainder of the times in John).
With that in mind, Origen's argument makes much more sense than the Roman Catholic argument:
But if you suppose that upon that one Peter only the whole church is built by God, what would you say about John the son of thunder or each one of the Apostles? Shall we otherwise dare to say, that against Peter in particular the gates of Hades shall not prevail, but that they shall prevail against the other Apostles and the perfect? Does not the saying previously made, "The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it," [Matthew 16:18] hold in regard to all and in the case of each of them? And also the saying, "Upon this rock I will build My church"? [Matthew 16:18] Are the keys of the kingdom of heaven given by the Lord to Peter only, and will no other of the blessed receive them? But if this promise, "I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven," [Matthew 16:19] be common to the others, how shall not all the things previously spoken of, and the things which are subjoined as having been addressed to Peter, be common to them? For in this place these words seem to be addressed as to Peter only, "Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven," [Matthew 16:19] etc.; but in the Gospel of John the Saviour having given the Holy Spirit unto the disciples by breathing upon them said, "Receive the Holy Spirit," [John 20:22] etc. Many then will say to the Saviour, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God;" but not all who say this will say it to Him, as not at all having learned it by the revelation of flesh and blood but by the Father in heaven Himself taking away the veil that lay upon their heart, in order that after this "with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord" [2 Corinthians 3:18] they may speak through the Spirit of God saying concerning Him, "Lord Jesus," and to Him, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." [Matthew 16:16] And if any one says this to Him, not by flesh and blood revealing it unto Him but through the Father in heaven, he will obtain the things that were spoken according to the letter of the Gospel to that Peter, but, as the spirit of the Gospel teaches, to every one who becomes such as that Peter was. For all bear the surname of "rock" who are the imitators of Christ, that is, of the spiritual rock which followed those who are being saved, [1 Corinthians 10:4] that they may drink from it the spiritual draught. But these bear the surname of the rock just as Christ does. But also as members of Christ deriving their surname from Him they are called Christians, and from the rock, Peters. And taking occasion from these things you will say that the righteous bear the surname of Christ who is Righteousness, and the wise of Christ who is Wisdom. [1 Corinthians 1:30] And so in regard to all His other names, you will apply them by way of surname to the saints; and to all such the saying of the Saviour might be spoken, "You are Peter," etc., down to the words, "prevail against it."- Origen (circa A.D. 185–254), Commentary on Matthew, Book XII, Chapter 11
In responding to a Roman Catholic argument alleging that denials of ecclesiastical infallibility are self-defeating, the authors provided several good arguments, but one argument that seems to be mostly an argument that would be accepted by "Protestants." (pp. 138-39) The good arguments are first that the Roman Catholic argument confuses the issues of determination and discovery. God, as author, determines the meaning of Scripture. Man, as reader, merely discovers the meaning of Scripture. This argument connects with an intuitive argument that correct discovery of God's meaning in Scripture does not require infallibility any more than discovering the speed limit requires infallibility. Another argument, however, is one that I can not highly recommend:
Indeed, all other major sections of Christendom have come to the same basic understanding on the essential doctines of the faith they all hold in common. If all these essentials of the faith - including the Trinity, virgin birth, deity of Christ, his atoning death, bodily resurrection, bodily ascension, and second coming - can be be known by non-Catholics without an infallible magisterium, then it is proof positive that an infallible magisterium is not needed to come to a sufficient and saving knowledge of the common essentials of the Christian faith.(p. 139)
However, Roman Catholicism doesn't recognize those things as more essential than Purgatory, the Bodily Assumption of Mary, and Papal Infallibity, at least not in any official way. While Vatican II indicates that those "separated brethren" outside the walls of Rome may be saved, it also indicates that even Muslims (who deny the Trinity, the deity of Christ, his atoning death, and bodily resurrection) may be saved. The "mere Christianity" position that the authors are advocating is, then, more a matter of their own "Protestant" view of what constitutes the essentials of the faith, rather than the Roman Catholic position, which makes many more things essential.
This same view is reflected in a few other arguments in the book, such as:
[responding to the charge that Sola Scriptura undermines pastoral authority and discipline] ... even with its claim of an infallible pope, Rome is guilty of the very thing it is claiming about Protestants. Orthodox Protestants, all of whom hold to all the essentials of the faith, were not in charge when Rome's allegedly infallible pope could not stop the greatest schism in the history of the church, that between the Eastern and Western churches (AD 1054).(p. 147)
It's important to note that while many Evangelicals may believe that the essential doctrines of the faith are captured in the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed, the Roman Catholic church requires assent of the faithful to a much larger group of doctrines.
Formal and Personal Considerations
The book seems to get a little tedious at points. The reason for the tedium is that there seems to be a significant amount of repetition. For example, one finds substantial repetition at pages 79, 126, and 163, including a pair of longer than average footnotes. While the repetition may serve some sort of legitimate purpose (perhaps it allows the book to be divided into a number of smaller self-contained books at a later date), it seems mostly to serve to puff up the length of the book without adding any depth.
As well, one notices a significant fraction of the footnotes are to Geisler's own previous work, especially his book with Ralph E. MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences (it may be noted that the single blurb on the reverse cover of the book is from MacKenzie). It may be, in view of the significant apparent amount of overlap that one would be better served by simply reading the early work by Geisler.
One additional personal note exists with respect to this book. Apparently shortly after the publication of the work, Geisler's co-author, Joshua M. Betancourt, announced his conversion to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism. It is not clear what prompted Mr. Betancourt's move. Considering that the book is so wishy-washy on Rome's status as orthodox Christianity (or not) and whether or not Rome's gospel is the gospel of Christ or another gospel, this sort of move (while sad) cannot be said to be shocking.
Errata
At page 84, there is a very unfortunate typo in which "Ott says clearly" should be "Tertullian says clearly" for a matter that Ott omits.
At page 111, term 4 of the argument states "But we do not know the truth of Scripture" although it ought to state "But we do know the truth of Scripture."
At page 152, due to a misplaced quotation mark, the text as written has Clement calling himself "The disciple of the Apostles, St. Clement of Rome" - the quotation mark before "The disciple" should be moved to just before "In countries and towns ... ."
At page 154, I'm not sure whether this is properly a typographic error, but the claim that Justin Martyr "was not a contemporary to anyone who was contemporary with the apostles," seems like an unlikely claim. It is believed that the apostle John lived into the 90's A.D., that he was a disciple of John and that he died around A.D. 155, only a decade before Justin Martyr's death. A better claim is that Justin Martyr was not a contemporary with any of the apostles.
Conclusion
Is Rome the True Church? may be asking the wrong question, but nevertheless answers the question in a systematic negative way. Many of the arguments employed against Rome's exclusive claim are valid arguments that ought to persuade the reader that Rome's claims are in error. There are a few weak arguments in the book, some of which can be bolstered by reference to further arguments. While the book may not excel other available responses to Roman Catholicism, it may at least provide the beginning of a discussion on Rome's claims and the flaws, both Scriptural, logical, and historical in those claims.
- TurretinFan
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