*This may seem verbose, perhaps unorganized, and maybe even incoherent. As always, feel free to call me out, correct my grammar, and in the spirit of community and Truth correct errors you may see. I write many of these based on what comes to mind, and maybe one day I'll re-write them more organized and give my dad the academic paper he wants.*
As promised, I am going to continue telling the story/giving reason for my exit from Methodism/American Protestant Evangelicalism into Roman Catholicism - which should be just as evangelical. In this post I want to talk about the first troubling issue I ran across: authority.
I was trained as a debater in high school (NERD!), which is very similar to saying I was trained in logic, critical thinking, and argumentation. In debate formulas, you make a claim and you back it up with evidence. At times, you may decide that a brilliant tactic is to call your opponent out on their evidence, which you believe to be inauthentic or non-authoritative. If you can discredit their evidence, their thesis falls apart, and you win. It is with pride and sadness that I confess to having made an opponent or two cry with this tactic and while it was exhilarating, it should always be done with gentleness.
So, Evidence, Christianity, Authoritative: What? I have for a while fancied myself as somewhat of an apologician - which I'm not sure is even a word - but a person who can make a reasoned justification for why he believes what he believes (gee, that's kind of what this blog series is all about!).
1 Peter 3:15 gets involved in this idea -
"but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you"
I was using all of this Scripture from the Bible to back up all of this cool doctrinal beliefs that I grabbed onto via college ministry. It becomes sort of a mixed pot of Luther, Wesley, Moravians, Francis Chan, Thomas Aquinas, the Gospel Coalition, Augustine of Hyppo, Tim Keller, the Nicene Creed, et cetera in college where a bunch of faith traditions get together and college students, who are very much in formation still, start talking about and sharing ideas. Initially I latched onto the idea that "Sola Scriptura" - the belief that Scripture alone is authoritative - was correct. Luther said this in his reformation rebellion-palooza, which we like to forget, quickly turned into 35,000+ schismatic "denominations" and we like to forget that it opened the door for such blasphemies and heretical cults as Mormonism, Jehovah's witness, and Ted Haggard. Or if we wanted to avoid a tangent fight over those moral questions, we could just say - Luther argued for Sola Scriptura, then wanted to remove the Epistle of James, the Revelation of John, the Epistle of Jude, Hebrews, and Esther - as they did not reveal Christ to Luther himself. Luther also added the word "alone" to Romans 3:28 - which will be fun to look at in a future post.
... Alright I'll just show you all what it says and what Luther translated it as - I'll even use the ESV!
It really says - "
For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law."
Luther translated it -
"For we hold that one is justified by faith alone apart from works of the law."
You can see my confusion with how Luther thought of Sola Scriptura ... But less about Luther, volumes can and have been written picking apart that schismatic monk's theology and the crazy things he did in the 15th century - like forcing all celibate religious people to marry other celibate religious people... and more about Catholicism and me. (Tangent/Run-on)
I was using Scripture for all of these apologetic questions and getting into exegesis. But I was challenged one day by a simple question - Where does the Bible get its authority from?
We have all these "other" books that didn't make it into the canon, why not? We have complete and total faith that this Bible is the authoritative and, depending on your affiliation, inerrant word of God, but why do we believe that?! It was a plaguing question and one that I could simply answer, but not without, you guessed it, getting involved with a logic fallacy. Circular reasoning is great if you are trying to sell a car, so is the red herring, however, in matters of Truth (Capital "T"), you want your logic on firm ground. And you know what I found?
Scripture is to be relied upon as authoritative because it is given authority by the pillar and bulwark of truth, the household of God, which is the Church. - You can find this in 1 Tim 3:15. Fun, right?! We can trust the Bible as true because before Jesus died, he gave Peter the keys to the Kingdom and declared that on Peter's confession, his church would be built. Before he ascended he gave the apostles and authoritative commission. He said to go and make disciples - we here that same command today. Part of that going and making disciples was the compilation of the New Testament canon - which we have today, despite Luther, and thanks to the authority of the Catholic Church and the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Certainly, Scripture is the inspired word of God, along with the Tradition of the Church that comes to us in Scripture and outside of it. - - woah woah what?!
Paul himself gives testament to this, again, I'll use the ESV for you reformed folks,
"So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter." - 2 Thessalonians 2:15. The New Testament has 13 letters attributed to Paul in it. He spent years evangelizing the entire Mediterranean region. Not all of that teaching made it into those 13 letters. Are we to say that his oral teaching was not authoritative, but that his written teaching was? That seems silly, but the Church, which has been entrusted to be a reflection of the Kingdom, holds these Traditions, taught by the apostles, the first bishops, and their followers as authoritative. It is the same way the Church in its duty, created the canon as authoritative. We can know the Truth because of the Church, not the other way around. There is one Church, not over 35,000. I know that is offensive, but I worship a God who
"is not a God of confusion, but of peace."
At the end of the day, I needed authority. I needed my Bible to be the word of God, not because it says it is, but because the Church that was founded by Jesus says it is.
For more on the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, check out
http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/download - John Martignoni is a brilliant apologician and probably more organized than I am here.
So, in closing, the Church needs to have authority that comes not from any man or book, but from Christ alone - hey, there's something Luther and I agreed upon. I want to leave you with a quote. St. Augustine of Hyppo, that favorite Doctor of the Church for many Protestants and Reformed folks, once wrote, "For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church."
