Protestant authority principles are almost as self-contradictory as Romanist claims for Papal Infallibility. A council entirely under the control of the Pope, Vatican I, a totally non-ecumenical council, called by an all-powerful Pope, declares that the Pope is infallible. Yup, no conflict of interest of self-contradiction there.
Nice try though Dave.
So you're saying the interpretation in this instance strictly comes from yourself?
Unless you have an authoritative interpretive / theological tradition backing you up, there is no more reason to accept the validity of your interpretation (or mine), than the man in the moon's. So do you not appeal to any authority outside of yourself?
Where is it written in the canonical Scriptures, that there must be an unbroken chain of historical correct interpretation in order for an interpretation to be valid/true/correct for the future and for every period in the future ?
Thank you Rev. McCain -- you are right!
The pictures of the dogs are hilarious --
I have busted a gut laughing --
but your church is guilty of the same thing you are accusing me of and that even more because your church said in 1870 that it was according to the unanimous consent of the fathers, as did Trent in its dogmas and decisions, and neither was true -- there was not a unanimous consent on these issues at all. Almost 2 millenia after Jesus and his words in Matthew 16:13-18, you come back and claim that that 1870 was what he was talking about 2 thousand years earlier and with not much historical backup on that either. Cyprian condemns you in 250-258 AD. Dollinger was right.
Glad you liked the humor.
Where is it written in the canonical Scriptures, that there must be an unbroken chain of historical correct interpretation in order for an interpretation to be valid/true/correct for the future and for every period in the future ?
Thats switching the topic back to our epistemology and authority structures again. I won't play that game. Nice try. I am asking YOU about YOUR first principles. Please answer the question (I'll give you free paperback copies of my future books on Mary and the Papacy if you do, plus some Rosary beads thrown in for no extra charge). Thanks.
Once we get through this elementary discussion, there is plenty of time in the future for you to grill us. But one thing at a time or we'll never get anywhere and will be (and look) more ridiculous than the dog with two tails in the picture above.
Dave,
If I ever answer your question to your satisfaction, --
Don't waste your time giving me rosary beads,
(I would probably just throw them away, and you would not like that; so don't sent those things, because I don't like to unnecessarily hurt people's feelings about their religious objects.)
but I would gladly accept free books. I will try and answer you question in the next post(s).
Was just a joke, Ken.
Dave wrote:
“Thats switching the topic back to our epistemology and authority structures again. I won't play that game.”
This took 9 pages, so I hope I am close in your opinion of answering your questions.
So you are refusing to examine your own presuppositions. My presupposition is that God is infallible, (and sinless and impeccable) therefore His word is infallible. (and sinless and impeccable) (John 17:17, 2 Timothy 3:16) You agree with that, but add more. You say that some humans, the leadership of the RCC can give infallible interpretations, even though they be sinners. But Humans are not infallible. Yours is that there is a human structure on this earth that can give infallible interpretations; we assume that there is not a human infallibility, because only God is perfect, without error. His infallibility is based on His impeccability – that is, He does not make mistakes because He cannot sin. (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18.)
You cannot have a human infallible interpreter, because that would also inherently have to be based on sinless ness and impeccability, and you and your RCC admits that the Popes and human interpreters were not perfect and sinful. You admit some Popes were very wicked and sinful (and may be in hell), but that God protected His church in history even through them in matters of doctrine only, not in their personal lives. You say this is OK, because Solomon and David and Moses and Paul and Peter were all sinners and therefore sinful (not impeccable) and yet God used them to write Scripture, therefore God can use others in subsequent history to give infallible interpretations. That analogy does not work because writing God-breathed Scripture is a different category than giving the human un-inspired but allegedly infallible interpretations in history. You cannot have infallibility without inspiration. The infallibility quality of the Scriptures is based on the inspiration from God quality; that it is God-breathed. ( 2 Timothy 3:16)
It is not really switching the subject, but rather questioning your basic premise upon which you base your question to me. You assume something that is not proven. You assume that one must have an authoritative interpretive tradition all through history in an unbroken chain (which you don’t have either!).
"Unless you have an authoritative interpretive / theological tradition backing you up, there is no more reason to accept the validity of your interpretation (or mine), than the man in the moon's."
Your point is that you are claiming that Sola Scriptura was not taught by the early church fathers, so we don’t have authoritative theological tradition backing that up, and the same for Sola Fide, which is even less written about in history beyond the canonical Scriptures, especially Romans and Galatians.
Our first principle is that if it is taught in Scripture, which was also given in history (NT - 49-96 AD, OT 1400 -430 BC)
we don’t need a long history of clear and unbroken interpretation that proves that is what the church believed, because Protestantism by nature is a recovery of that which was lost, a reformation; and admits that the early church began early after the writings were written to neglect important aspects of justification by faith in Galatians and Romans and John, for example, and allowed those principles to be lost by teaching salvation through baptism and visiting sites and relics and prayers to dead saints, ceremonies, going to church, ritual, the priest’s words, and physically eating and drinking the Lord’s supper in the mass. These physical and human rituals took precedence over the spiritual and internal truths and faith, and eventually replaced the gospel of grace and faith alone for a gospel by ritual and human works, climaxing in the clash and controversies over indulgences, priests, authority, and treasure of Merit of the 14-16th Century. (Wycliffe, Hus, Luther, Calvin)
For the sake of argument, we will stick to the NT for now, even though we have Jerome and others on our side on the apocrypha. There, by the way, is an example of interpretive history for our side.)
We have some interpretive history for both Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide, but you just don't accept it as valid or true. You think your right in your analysis and your papers on the subject. Protestants believe you are wrong. You say the interpretive tradition of Sola Scriptura is only for material sufficiency at most, and you say that Sola Fide was a complete "theological novum" (using McGrath's statement without the rest of what he said -- see James Swan's great articles on the subject); and you accept Geisler's statement that imputed righteousness or forensic justification was "scarcely" taught after the apostles to the Reformation (p. 502, Agreements and Disagreements); even though Geisler himself believes that imputed justification is true and Biblical. His point, when read carefully, was that people were saved in history by faith in Christ alone, before Trent, but they did not necessarily have to have conscious knowledge of what "justification by faith alone" is, or have been able to articulate it.
I understanding what you are getting at and what you are assuming. Protestantism’s first principles are basically presuppositions about God and truth, Christ, and the canonical Scriptures, which we come to know by the Scriptures themselves. The assumptions and presuppositions are not “out of thin air”, but are also based on the evidence of the Scriptures and confirmed by historical testimony also. We assume God is true and infallible and that His word is true and infallible. (Psalm 19, 119, Romans 3:4, John 17:8; 17:17) We also do not assume, as you do, that the church is the infallible interpreter of the Bible. We appreciate history and know that we cannot have learned and known these things unless other humans struggled and wrote and taught things in history. We, living in 2007, can only know about the past relevant to our discussion by documentation, inscripturation and confirming historical artifacts – things being written down.
We believe the canon (rule, standard, criterion) existed already at the time it was written, and at that time it was a process, from say 49 to 96 AD, but most all were written from 49-69 AD for sure.
Humans are fallible, only God and His word is infallible. We assume all things necessary for our salvation and spiritual growth and moral practice are written in the Canonical Scriptures. We assume the canon was inherently canon when it was written, not when it was later all collected under one book cover and shown to us in a list by Athansius in 367 AD. We assume those books were written by the apostles and/or by a close associate of an apostle and that assumption is based on John 17:8 and 17:17 that the very words that Jesus received from the Father are the same words He gives to the disciples to carry on His mission, and on Jesus’ promise of the Spirit to lead them into all the truth, (John 16:13), good historical evidence, and in the nature of the writings themselves. We assume that Peter wrote 2 Peter before his death in 64-67 AD, even though not many other early church writers mentioned it in later history until Origen and Athanasius. (Geisler and Nix say that Clement and Pseudo-Barnabas allude to things in 2 Peter, which are very early, and that Origen (185-254 AD) mentions it, and that Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386) cites it as authentic. (p. 294, A General Introduction to the Bible) We assume Paul wrote his letters we have, and the church got it right when it examined the evidence. We assume the canon is true and closed and that Athansius was right in 367 AD, even though we cannot find Clement or Polycarp or the Didache or Justin Martry or even Irenaeus or Tertullian listing and quoting all the same 27 books in 96 AD, 150, 200 or 220 AD.
Because the church got it right on the NT, does not mean that they got it right on “baptism regeneration” and the early interpretations of John 3:5 and Titus 3:5. It does not follow that because they got one thing right (the canon), that everything else they said must be right also. And just because our knowledge of these books comes to us through the process of history, does not mean that other ‘traditions” in history are God-breathed and infallible.
The First Principles of Protestantism . . . let’s see . . .
We assume that God exists, that He is Spirit, eternal, creator, real, and He is perfect, infallible, and inerrant, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, and sovereign, and revealed Himself in creation and in Christ and gave His final revelation to His apostles. We can assume this because the Scriptures tell us these things. And I think we are pretty much agreed on those issues. This is pretty much what Geisler does in his first section of his book; showing the things Evangelicals and RCs agree on. (Genesis 1:1ff, John 4:23-24, Titus 1:2, Psalm 115, Psalm 139, Hebrews 1:1-2, John 1:1-5, 14, John chapters 14-17, 2 Timothy 3;15-17, 2 Peter 1:20-21; 3:16)
The Second principle would be, Sola Scriptura, which you know all about, and which has plenty of good historical interpretative tradition behind it. I know you disagree with that statement, and don’t like Webster and King’s 3 Volume Holy Scripture: The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith, and their other books, like Webster’s The Church of Rome at the Bar of History, or James White’s Scripture Alone, or The Roman Catholic Controversy, but they all show a rich historical precedent for Sola Scriptura; even though you disagree with their conclusions. Just because the early said other things also about other issues, in other contexts, does not negate those things in their context.
Your question assumes that Christian history has to have someone at all times who would infallibly interpret the canonical Scriptures after the apostles died. Yes, I am questioning your first principles. Yours is focused on some inherent power in the externals, the buildings, the statues, the mass, the mysterious ambiance of the rituals, the human leaders and structures on earth and physical things. Our first principles put the Spiritual things and truths first, yours puts physical and human things first.
Protestant Emphasis: God, Christ, Scripture, the Spirit, Faith. The Internal. (But not rejecting the external completely, fully believing that externals are symbols of a real reality, like baptism and the Lord’s supper.) We say we “get in touch” with God by faith alone, by hearing the message and trusting in Christ. “so, faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of Christ.” (Romans 1:17) Preaching and the human leaders in the churches are the channels through which the message is heard, but there is no inherent “ex opera operato” power to forgive sin or give grace. It is only when the person has internal faith that reality is born inside of them, and that was produced by the grace of God in a mysterious way as they heard the gospel. Ephesians 1:13-14
Roman Catholic Emphasis: Church, the human leaders in the church (priests, popes, cardinals, etc), rituals, ceremonies, baptism, relics, prayers to Mary, statues, Transubstantiation Eucharistic sacrifice, physical human things that are said to get us in touch with the Spiritual secondly.
We arrived at Sola Scriptura, by studying and believing the Scriptures themselves. Living at the time in which we live, we have to study history also. We accept Luther and Calvin’s understanding based on going back to the canonical Scriptures themselves and seeing if these things are so. (Acts 17:11) – not just because they said it.
If 2 Timothy 3:15-17 is true, then it teaches Sola Scriptura. For if the OT is referred to in verse 15, then Paul expands it to the NT in verse 16 by “all Scripture is God breathed”, because he himself says in I Timothy 5:18 that both Luke and Matthew and Deuteronomy are Scripture, therefore he extends the principle from the OT to the NT; and Peter around the same time, before he is martyred called “all of Paul’s writings Scripture (2 Peter 3:16), then it is enough and sufficient to show that all of the NT is Scripture and God-breathed, therefore “canon” or “standard” and “rule” and “criterion” when it was written.
That the human history does not have all of them under one book cover until Athansius in 367 AD does not matter; because if Peter wrote 2 Peter, and he was martyred around 64-67 AD and Paul also around the same time, then we can safely assume that Peter himself wrote 2 Peter.
To go against this leads to liberalism or at best, what “Pontificator” said at his web site a while back, (Al Kimel); but he wrote something to the effect of “the church by its inherent authority, proclaims 2 Peter to be canonical, even though someone else other than Peter probably wrote it in 150 or 200 AD.” (? – not an exact quote mind you). And he implied the same principle for proclaiming that Matthew and Mark and Luke and John are canonical because the “kata” (according to) “matthion” (Matthew), or “Markon”(Mark) or “Lukan” or “Iwannan” (John) titles of the books were not there originally. He and others, say the church authoritatively decides this. This kind of thinking brings the charge against the RCC that is seems to sometime teach that the church “creates” canon by its own authority. “Whatever we say is true because we have proclaimed it”. The Protestant says that no, only God is infallible, and His word, and the Church is not infallible, and must always “devote themselves to the apostles teaching and doctrine” (Acts 2:42), the once for all delivered to the saints faith (Jude 3). The church is to teach and uphold and defend, and proclaim the truth, but it itself is not the truth. (I Timothy 3:15)
Our assumption or first principles are that God and His word are perfect and infallible, and since written down, there is no more “God –breathed” word or unwritten oral tradition that was not written down and also meant for us to have or need in order to have all of God’s truth (we assume the canonical written Scriptures are sufficient for learning and salvation and practice) and yet authoritative, and later comes out centuries later in the life and worship and piety of the church. Irenaeus was very clear that this was wrong, (Against Heresies, 1:8:1; and 3:2:1)
They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; ( Against Heresies, Book 1:8:1)
When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but vivâ voce: ( Against Heresies, 3:2:1)
and it was what the Gnostics did, and it is what the RCC of today does – assumes that “many other things that Jesus did which were not written” are the things like Mary’s perpetual virginity, sinlessness and immaculate conception and papal infallibility and indulgences and purgatory and sacerdotalism and transubstantiation, and baptismal regeneration. Your RCC assumes that 2 Thess. 2:15 about “traditions” by oral teaching, not written down were there from the beginning, from the apostles, as part of the apostolic deposit, but were not written down, and only appeared in the late 4th century, 5th century, and once they caught on, they became part of the historical interpretive tradition.
As for the “canon”, it does not matter if there was debate over Hebrews and James and Revelation and Jude by some for a while, or that all the churches did not know all the 27 books of the NT all at the same time from day one of 71 AD or 96 AD; or that we don’t have a whole lot of extant mentioning of 2 Peter until Origen and Athanasius, etc.
I know you disagree with that, but that is the assumption for how to look at all subsequent history. We assume the early church got it right on the canon, (367 Ad and beyond) as an external, historical confirmation of what was already in existence at the time of the apostles. (49-69 AD or for John’s writings and Jude maybe 80-96 AD) But, personally, I believe Revelation and John’s writings were written before 70 AD, and that Irenaeus’s statements are that the apostle was alive at the time of Trajan, not that the vision was given to him at that time.
The fathers also taught a form of Sola Scriptura, shown by Webster and King and White, and understood in their context and point in time, it makes sense for Luther and Calvin to also say that they were seeking to return to the catholic church of the first 4-5 Centuries. They understood the first four ecumenical councils as rightly interpreting the Scriptures on the issues of the Deity of Christ, and eternality of the Son of God against Arianism, and the two natures of Christ against Nestorianism and Eutycianism and Monophysites; and the Diety of the Holy Spirit against Apollinarianism and Athanasius’ teaching on these things against the Arians and the tropici.
For Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, Calvin and others noticed that the Roman Catholic Church had drifted from the Scriptures and had neglected the gospel messages of salvation by grace alone, (though officially proclaiming it, yet it was lost in the way it preached a legalism of rituals and indulgences and relics and the slavery of those “elemental principles” that the RCC had gone back to (Acts 15ff, Galatians, 4:3, 4:9-11, Colossians 2:8, 16, 20); and neglected justification by faith alone, they went back to those first elemental worldly human principles of rituals, merit, Pelagianism, and semi-Pelagianism.
One of the earliest corruptions in the early church was when the Didache, otherwise mostly a great document, added a legalism, an external thing, contrary to the gospel, that because the hypocrites fasted on Monday and Thursdays, then your fasts have to be on Wednesdays and Fridays. (Didache, 8.)
The Early church, by making the external rites and ceremonies in the church, the main thing, and neglecting the teachings of Galatians and Romans and justification by faith, exalted the external rite of baptism over what the canonical scriptures intended baptism to be. By making Christian baptism equal in every way to circumcision in the OT, they went back and actually did exactly what Paul rebuked the Galatians for doing, and what the early church meet over in Acts 15 and showed, that no, one does not have to add circumcision or ceremonial law or obedience to the law of God, in order for one to be saved. By adding baptism to faith in order for a person to be saved, and by calling it the “bath of regeneration”, they corrupted the gospel, and mis-interpreted John 3:5 and Acts 2:38 and I Peter 3:21. Later, infant baptism was added, and it became a tradition, but it is a “tradition of man”, “according to elemental principles of the world” (Galatians 4:3, 9-11, Col. 2:8, 16, 20-23) it was an addition, a corrupting addition; and combined with sacerdotalism and ex opera operato beliefs and baptismal regeneration, this is perhaps the earliest corruption that affected the church’s understanding of what is necessary for a person to be saved.
Protestantism by nature, in emphasizing that one go back to the canonical Scriptures and study them, shows that the centuries after the canonical Scriptures -- that is the centuries of interpretation began to acquire barnacles of corruption and bad interpretation. Protestantism assumes the canon is already there by 70 AD or 96 AD, so baptismal regeneration in Justin Martyr in 150 AD is not something before the canon existence, only before it’s external confirmation in 367 AD. Your point, it seems, is that baptismal regernation and some other things that Evangelicals disagree with are there in 150 or 200 or 250 or 350, and because it was there before the canon was discovered or put all together in a list under one cover, then that makes the earlier mention of something else right. You say, if you accept Athanasius’ view of the canon in 367 AD, the you must accept his and Justin Martyr’s view of baptismal regeneration.
Evangelical Protestants say we do not inherently or necessarily have to accept those things like ‘baptismal regeneration” just because we accept that Athanasius got it right on the canon in 367 AD.
The third principle is Sola Fide, that I mentioned in the course of this about Sola Scriptura. James Swan did a great job of quoting from Joseph Fitzmeyer, a Roman Catholic Scholar, that “faith alone” was around before Luther, and McGrath even points to this also. Besides the bare phrase, “faith alone”, the concept of is is basically there in Clement, and Diognetus and Ambrosiaster, who also uses the phrase, “faith alone” 3 or 4 times in his commentary.
From James Swan’s web-site:
http://beggarsallreformation.blo...romans-
328.html
“Furthermore, I am not the only one, nor the first, to say that faith alone makes one righteous. There was Ambrose, Augustine and many others who said it before me.”[quoting Luther]
Now here comes the fun part in this discussion.
The Roman Catholic writer Joseph A. Fitzmeyer points out that Luther was not the only one to translate Romans 3:28 with the word “alone.”
At 3:28 Luther introduced the adv. “only” into his translation of Romans (1522), “alleyn durch den Glauben” (WAusg 7.3
; cf. Aus der Bibel 1546, “alleine durch den Glauben” (WAusg, DB 7.39); also 7.3-27 (Pref. to the Epistle). See further his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, of 8 Sept. 1530 (WAusg 30.2 [1909], 627-49; “On Translating: An Open Letter” [LuthW 35.175-202]). Although “alleyn/alleine” finds no corresponding adverb in the Greek text, two of the points that Luther made in his defense of the added adverb were that it was demanded by the context and that sola was used in the theological tradition before him.
Robert Bellarmine listed eight earlier authors who used sola (Disputatio de controversiis: De justificatione 1.25 [Naples: G. Giuliano, 1856], 4.501-3):
Origen, Commentarius in Ep. ad Romanos, cap. 3 (PG 14.952).
Hilary, Commentarius in Matthaeum 8:6 (PL 9.961).
Basil, Hom. de humilitate 20.3 (PG 31.529C).
Ambrosiaster, In Ep. ad Romanos 3.24 (CSEL 81.1.119): “sola fide justificati sunt dono Dei,” through faith alone they have been justified by a gift of God; 4.5 (CSEL 81.1.130).
John Chrysostom, Hom. in Ep. ad Titum 3.3 (PG 62.679 [not in Greek text]).
Cyril of Alexandria, In Joannis Evangelium 10.15.7 (PG 74.368 [but alludes to Jas 2:19]).
Bernard, In Canticum serm. 22.8 (PL 183.881): “solam justificatur per fidem,” is justified by faith alone.
Theophylact, Expositio in ep. ad Galatas 3.12-13 (PG 124.98.
To these eight Lyonnet added two others (Quaestiones, 114-1:
Theodoret, Affectionum curatio 7 (PG 93.100; ed. J. Raeder [Teubner], 189.20-24).
Thomas Aquinas, Expositio in Ep. I ad Timotheum cap. 1, lect. 3 (Parma ed., 13.58: “Non est ergo in eis [moralibus et caeremonialibus legis] spes iustificationis, sed in sola fide, Rom. 3:28: Arbitramur justificari hominem per fidem, sine operibus legis” (Therefore the hope of justification is not found in them [the moral and ceremonial requirements of the law], but in faith alone, Rom 3:28: We consider a human being to be justified by faith, without the works of the law). Cf. In ep. ad Romanos 4.1 (Parma ed., 13.42a): “reputabitur fides eius, scilicet sola sine operibus exterioribus, ad iustitiam”; In ep. ad Galatas 2.4 (Parma ed., 13.397b): “solum ex fide Christi” [Opera 20.437, b41]).
See further:
Theodore of Mopsuestia, In ep. ad Galatas (ed. H. B. Swete), 1.31.15.
Marius Victorinus (ep. Pauli ad Galatas (ed. A. Locher), ad 2.15-16: “Ipsa enim fides sola iustificationem dat-et sanctificationem” (For faith itself alone gives justification and sanctification); In ep. Pauli Ephesios (ed. A. Locher), ad 2.15: “Sed sola fides in Christum nobis salus est” (But only faith in Christ is salvation for us).
Augustine, De fide et operibus, 22.40 (CSEL 41.84-85): “licet recte dici possit ad solam fidem pertinere dei mandata, si non mortua, sed viva illa intellegatur fides, quae per dilectionem operatur” (Although it can be said that God’s commandments pertain to faith alone, if it is not dead [faith], but rather understood as that live faith, which works through love”). Migne Latin Text: Venire quippe debet etiam illud in mentem, quod scriptum est, In hoc cognoscimus eum, si mandata ejus servemus. Qui dicit, Quia cognovi eum, et mandata ejus non servat, mendax est, et in hoc veritas non est (I Joan. II, 3, 4). Et ne quisquam existimet mandata ejus ad solam fidem pertinere: quanquam dicere hoc nullus est ausus, praesertim quia mandata dixit, quae ne multitudine cogitationem spargerent [Note: [Col. 0223] Sic Mss. Editi vero, cogitationes parerent.], In illis duobus tota Lex pendet et Prophetae (Matth. XXII, 40): licet recte dici possit ad solam fidem pertinere Dei mandata, si non mortua, sed viva illa intelligatur fides, quae per dilectionem operatur; tamen postea Joannes ipse aperuit quid diceret, cum ait: Hoc est mandatum ejus, ut credamus nomini Filii ejus Jesu Christi, et diligamns invicem (I Joan. III, 23) See De fide et operibus, Cap. XXII, §40, PL 40:223.
Source: Joseph A. Fitzmyer Romans, A New Translation with introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Bible Series (New York: Doubleday, 1993) 360-361.
I guess this is enough at this point. Did I answer your question, that at least we have some interpretive theological historical tradition?
You may not agree with the interpretations themselves, but you cannot say that we have nothing at all in history for our point of view. And I answered your question also by pointing out that Evangelicals believe, just as the Galatians had “deserted the true gospel” so quickly, in a matter of weeks, after the apostle left them (Galatians 1:6-9); then the early church without the apostles are even more susceptible to “deserting the true gospel”. This does not contradict Matthew 16:16-18 at all, because it does not say “the gates of hell will never overcome the church at all at any period of history on any point of doctrine for a time”, but that “the gates of hell will not overcome it.” The catholic church of the early centuries was still God’s true church on earth, and even the Medieval church and until the Reformation it was the only Orthodox church, although corrupted in many ways (along with the Greek Orthodox), but it anathematized itself at Trent, by formally cursing the gospel of grace, that we are saved and justified by faith alone in Christ and His work alone. Also, they had many things were right, The doctrines of the Deity of Christ, the incarnation, the Trinity, etc. so, it was not completely overcome by the gates of hell, but some areas of teaching were corrupted, but because people could subjectively exercise faith by hearing the Scriptures read, many were and are true Christians.
So you are refusing to examine your own presuppositions.
No, not at all, as I've explained to you 1000 times, till I am blue in the face. You think I haven't done that on this topic a dozen times, with my 1600 papers online?
What I am refusing is to discuss two completely different things simultaneously, because it doesn't accomplish anything (and it is a way for you to "get off the hook" -- whether you are consciously doing that or not). If you could just answer simple questions, maybe we could get somewhere, but you insist on writing War and Peace and changing the topic whenever I try to get you to restrict yourself to a simple, precise answer.
Hence, I have had to ask this question now four or five times, and even now I have to wade through a dissertation on Protestant authority (that I am already quite familiar with anyway, having believed the same thing in the past, so it is nothing new).
But hey, you're a preacher! What else would we expect? 
I guess this is enough at this point. Did I answer your question, that at least we have some interpretive theological historical tradition?
I don't know. Are you capable of doing it in the same number of words as my question, or less?
I know you are saying that no one is infallible in the Protestant understanding, but I already knew that, so it was completely unnecessary to "preach" it to me.
What I asked was very simple. Here it is again:
"So you're saying the interpretation in this instance strictly comes from yourself? That gets back to the authority question again. Unless you have an authoritative interpretive / theological tradition backing you up, there is no more reason to accept the validity of your interpretation (or mine), than the man in the moon's. So do you not appeal to any authority outside of yourself?"
You recount the usual Protestant justifications. I'm not discussing sola fide (which is strictly theological and soteriology) or even infallibility, but rather, the relationship between you as an individual interpreting the Bible, to other Christians who do so, and contradict you.
You say you are relying on some semblance of Protestant tradition, but it is fallible, so in the end (as I have always stressed) you do indeed end up relying on yourself, since if all this other past stuff is entirely fallible, someone has to decide which is right and which is wrong, and that always comes down to you yourself. But since you are fallible along with all the others, that is ultimately meaningless to arrive at truth.
So what we come to at that point is one of two things:
1) Ken Temple is pope (one of 400 million) -- albeit fallible like everyone else -- because he has made himself the final arbiter of what is true and false in theology.
or:
2) We should not care any more for your final decisions on any given theological or biblical issue than for anyone else's, because it is a relativistic system, with each individual deciding on their own (in the final analysis) what is true or false.
Either way is absurd. It always breaks down to absurdity in Protestantism when closely examined like this, because it is viciously self-defeating or circular.
A) If you rely on no one else (ultimately) and claim the right to judge all of them (a la Luther at Worms) then one must obviously ask you what gives you the notion that you have all that discernment and authority resting on yourself? It's not only absurd; it is arguably spiritually arrogant in the extreme, for you (like Luther) to think that you have the ability to (non-infallibly) discern all truth in your own fallible little head.
B) Then, of course, the question always is, in Protestantism: what do you do when you disagree with each other?
i) You can adopt theological relativism on many points, as lots of Protestants do these days (it's very fashionable, and the latest rage). This is postmodernism, and caving into secular notions that religion cannot ever give us religious certainty in its opinions, because of so much internal dissension.
(cont.)
. . . ii) or you can pretend that your view has the most "authority" or biblical rationale that the others lack.
iii) if you opt for ii, then you have to explain why other Protestants, operating on your same (false and fallacious and unbiblical) principles arrive at different conclusions than you.
iv) and invariably the reason given for that is sinfulness, blindness, etc.
C) And so we are left with your bald claims of superiority to other Protestant interpreters. Calvin was brilliant (and you are a Calvinist), yet on something so fundamental as baptism he doesn't even understand that only believing adults can be baptized. How can he be so blind and stupid to the obvious biblical teaching here?
D) Luther is wonderful, having "discovered" sola Scriptura and sola fide, yet he believes that infant baptism regenerates and saves: an outrageous conclusion by your Baptist standards.
Bottom line is: any way you look at it, your view reduces to absurdity and chaos:
I. if you rely on yourself, you can give no cogent reason why Ken Temple is to be believed over someone like St. Augustine or St. Irenaeus, or John Calvin or Martin Luther, as the case may be. It always reduces to, in effect, "because I say so!" And if the person making that claim to authority and authoritative interpretation is Ken Temple or Dave Armstrong, that looks as ridiculous as anything imaginable (just as it does when Luther makes the same claims for himself, because he was simply one monk, who had not the slightest authority to overturn what the Church had been teaching for 1500 years.).
II. If you claim to rely on others, that also reduces to ludicrosity, because whoever you appeal to can easily be contradicted by another equally eminent Protestant. So if you appeal to Calvin on double predestination, I can appeal to John Wesley or St. Thomas Aquinas against double predestination.
If you appeal to some Baptist theologian against sacraments, I can appeal to Martin Luther and to a lesser extent John Calvin, in favor of them.
So who does the onlooker believe? You can't tell them without arbitrariness.
But the Catholic (precisely as the Fathers did) can tell them what to believe on most issues, based on not only the Bible, but an unbroken line of apostolic tradition going all the way back, and developing in the process of history, as all doctrines do. And that is because we believe that God guides His Church and protects apostolic Tradition (see, e.g., the Jerusalem Council).
It's not relying on mere men and their rinky-dink traditions, but upon God's providence and protection and the Holy Spirit leading the Church into all truth and fuller understanding of truth as time goes by (entirely biblical notions, so that it all fits together without internal contradiction and absurdity).
What I am refusing is to discuss two completely different things simultaneously, because it doesn't accomplish anything (and it is a way for you to "get off the hook" --
This is one of your key problems and tricky methods. This is your way of “getting yourself off the hook”, by sophistry; that is separating content from method (doctrine from epistemology) in demanding that I have to separate them; but you do not separate them in your argumentations against me. You are your own “pope” because you used your own mind to arrive at the conclusion that the RCC is the true biblical church that teaches and interprets infallibly.
You “leaned on your own understanding” to come to the conclusions that RCC is true and right and Newman was right, etc. You are your own “pope” because you leaned on yourself to come to the conclusion that the Pope is right.
You accuse me of being “my own pope” not primarily because of the content of what I believe, (you are trying to separate content of doctrine from method of epistemology (doctrine and examples of RCC teachings and rituals from the method of arriving at conclusions about how we as humans understand something, or know something); but your primary argument is against the method of using my own mind in order to get to that content.
You have a content (result) that happens to be “The RCC and Papal and infallible system of interpretation”, that you arrived at by the method of your own thinking. By demanding that I only talk about method and epistemology, (refusing to discuss two thing simultaneously) -- You are pitting that content against not my content of doctrine, (in your argumentation against me that I must stick to only “the method” of epistemology and not use RCC examples, and yet you use examples of baptism and Luther and Calvin and disunity in your argumentation against my position.)
So you only refuse to discuss two things simultaneously when it comes to combining method and content on your side; but in your criticism of Protestantism, you do indeed discuss both method and content at the same time. That is not an equitable method of argumentation.
You have a method of saying that my side must separating content of doctrine from method of thinking of who one should believe about the content, but you use the content of baptism disagreements ( you cite Luther and Calvin and how their views of baptism are different from my Baptist view) and Protestant disunity to argue for your method of arriving at proper content. So you want me to separate content from method of thinking from each other; but you do not do that when arguing against Protestantism – you discuss content (doctrine) and method of thinking (epistemology) together in order to argue your case.
I guess this is enough at this point. Did I answer your question, that at least we have some interpretive theological historical tradition?
I don't know.
It seems like you really did not read my paper. Why don’t you know?
Are you capable of doing it in the same number of words as my question, or less?
Probably not. I am not too smart, but "arrogant" according to you, but I admit I cannot write less on these deep epistemological and doctrinal issues.
I guess the discussion is over, then, huh Ken? You have shut it down by referring to my alleged "tricky methods" and "sophistry." In another comment you referred to Catholic eucharistic worship as "ridiculous" whereas, earlier, you urged me not to send you a Rosary (which was a mere comment in jest from me) because you didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings about their religious commitments.
That proves all the more that you have no cogent answer, if you must:
1) Call me names and digress into tortuous analyses of methods.
2) Switch the topic over to Catholics and Catholicism yet again.
3) Refuse to answer the direct questions once again.
4) Lose your cool and general amiability and resort to desperate complaints and tedious obscurantism of methodology and legalistic demands.
There are only so many ways a person can respond if he is cornered by the illogic and inconsistencies of his own first premises.
But you have at least gone further than almost any Protestant would, in this crucial discussion, and for that I commend you, despite the unsavory, completely unsatisfactory ending of the discussion.
It seems like you really did not read my paper. Why don’t you know?
I love this one: the accusation that the other didn't read one's paper. I did. So will you call me a liar now, too?
I am not too smart, but "arrogant" according to you,
My use of that word was in reference to one particular idea, not to you as a person:
"it is arguably spiritually arrogant in the extreme, for you (like Luther) to think that you have the ability to (non-infallibly) discern all truth in your own fallible little head."
I believe that. I don't think YOU are an arrogant person, but I think this is an arrogant idea; very much so. I won't take that back.
but I admit I cannot write less on these deep epistemological and doctrinal issues.
More evidence that the discussion is over. It always gets to this point on this issue, so this is nothing new.
As I have said 100 times, I's be happy to discuss any of these issues, as soon as we could do this initial discussion without your usual digressions and hundred-mile-long rabbit trails. If you would just restrain yourself and do the simple pre-analysis, and examination of key presuppositions, then we could move on to other things. But you refuse to, or are unable to do so, and now have lowered yourself to the usual insults, just as all the anti-Catholics you admire always do. I guess if you keep reading those guys, it is inevitable that you will start to act and argue like them. What a shame.
Sad . . .
How is that "calling you names" ?
I did not say "You are a sophist" as a person, or "You are always "tricky" or a deceptive person; rather I am saying the method of demanding the categories that I must stay in is unfair, because you do not use that same standard for yourself. (Maybe you sincerely don't see it.)
I am sincerely saying the "method" of demanding that I separate result (doctrine, content, examples) from method (epistemology) is "tricky" and "sophistry". I am calling your method that, not you as a person.
I am sincere and not trying to be "mean". I am talking about your method and demands, your actions, not you as a person.
You use examples of doctrine and content with me, but demand that I only speak in terms of epistemology.
And you cannot answer that charge -- that you also are your own pope in your method of using your mind to arrive at the doctrinal conclusion and result that the RCC is the truth and Newman was right and Protestantism is wrong.
You answered the charge of you calling me arrogant in the same way I am trying to tell you, that I am not being unsavory or "mean" or calling your names.
I am talking about the method of your arguments, you avoid admitting that you used your own mind to come the conclusion that the Pope is right, so you also are your own pope; because you are calling me "my own Pope" just because I use my mind to come to conclusions.
I's be happy to discuss any of these issues, as soon as we could do this initial discussion without your usual digressions and hundred-mile-long rabbit trails.
In your mind they are rabbit trails, but in my mind they are not; they are all completely on the subject.
If you would just restrain yourself and do the simple pre-analysis, and examination of key presuppositions,
I did that and you got upset and starting saying that the discussion is closed.
You must admit that your method of argumentation is wrong and too binding and confining, and also that you use your own mind to think, therefore you are also "your own pope".
you just don't see it.
then we could move on to other things. But you refuse to,
I felt I stuck to the issue and answered your question.
Fair enough. I'm not gonna keep arguing about method and legalistic-type issues. That's a sure sign that the discussion is dead, just as when couples are getting divorced, they no longer talk freely, but have to communicate through lawyers and "legal-speak".
You love Swan and white and all the other anti-Catholic luminaries. They love to criticize me for length of my papers. I showed (again recently) that they far outwrite me.
Now why is it that the same criticism doesn't apply to you? If I am guilty of writing rings around my opponents, then why is it that I am not allowed to make the same criticism of you?
James White, for example, stated once that I would probably write ten times more than his stuff in my reply, and he mocked that. But what did you do?
I asked a question (the ending of my post above) that was exactly 63 words long. Your reply to that was 4,487 words, or more than 71 times as long as my question (seven times longer than what James White was mocking in my case).
Now, imagine if I had done such a thing, what these clowns would say about me? They would have a field day mocking and ridiculing and chucking it up amongst themselves.
But when YOU do it, it is perfectly acceptable. I'm not supposed to complain, get frustrated or exasperated, or point out the lopsided, irrational impossible nature of the conversation, or point out the hypocrisy compared to what I am accused of by your buddies. I'm supposed to accept it the way it is and somehow figure out how to reply to a piece that is 71 times longer than mine?
I did not say "You are a sophist" as a person, or "You are always "tricky" or a deceptive person; rather I am saying the method of demanding the categories that I must stay in is unfair, because you do not use that same standard for yourself. (Maybe you sincerely don't see it.)
I am sincerely saying the "method" of demanding that I separate result (doctrine, content, examples) from method (epistemology) is "tricky" and "sophistry". I am calling your method that, not you as a person.
I am sincere and not trying to be "mean". I am talking about your method and demands, your actions, not you as a person.
You're right. I appreciate the clarification. Thanks. Of course, I disagree with the description, but that's another discussion.
Thanks for a good ending there.
It is true that my 10 page answer to your one paragraph question was much longer. I think though that you had more text than just than one paragraph, but that doesn't matter; I still wrote much more this time.
I don't have a beef with you on that issue of length,obviously, because I did indeed much more in trying to answer you; and I took many words to try and answer your question.
Most of your articles lately are getting better and shorter and to the point; (except for music stuff and thousands of links and anthology type articles of collecting all your old articles on one subject, or maybe I am just getting used to your web-site.
When I first stated reading them, (back in 2001 ?) though, most of them did seem long to me, and had too many breaks in the sentences referring the reader to another link and longer article. But now I think that is more to do with just me being overwhelmed with the subject matter. I am more confortable now and so the length doesn't bother me as much.
Some of the articles you did with Jason Enqwer were 30+ pages. ( I printed them out in order to study them and understand them)
they were quite long, but that is OK with me now.
I'm jumping into this very late, and maybe I shouldn't. Am I my own Pope? Since I don't believe the "Pope" is a valid office, I wouldn't presume to be my own Pope. Nor do I claim infallibility with regard to what I believe. So I'm not one of the 400 million "popes". : )
One of your common replies to Ken's comments is that PTs have done so well interpreting the Bible that we have hundreds of different denominations. Are we required to have unity on all issues? It's desired, but it's not required. Why else would Paul allow for differences in thinking? Rom 14:1-6 says, "Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God." This is how PTs can agree to disagree on issues that don't affect salvation.
And Col 2:16-19 says, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow." Religious festivals, New Moon celebrations, and the Sabbath Day were huge issues in Paul's time, and yet he says don't let anyone judge you based on what you believe about them. You can agree to disagree on these issues. And note, the "Head" referred to here is Jesus, not the pope.
(cont'd...)
.
People have quoted Acts 17:11 before to support individuals reading and thinking for themselves. If I remember correctly, your response was that it was the elders and leaders, not the average layman, doing the examining. Even if that's true, PTs also submit to their local, regional, and national church. The church I attend is Southern Baptist, and it's required to submit to the Southern Baptist Association on many issues. If we start allowing actively homosexual members, female pastors, unbelievers to partake in the Lord's Supper, or things like that, we can be kicked out. When my pastor has an issue that isn't clear, he goes to the SBA to see what their interpretation is.
There's room for thinking differently on Biblical issues, and there's allowances for individual and denominational interpretation. Why else would Paul make the statements he did in Rom 14, Col 2, and Acts 17? PTs can act harmoniously and in unity even if we have different interpretations. And just because we interpret something doesn't mean we're trying to be our own "pope". I interpret stuff the live long day at work. It doesn't mean I think I'm infallible, that I'm right and others are wrong; but it also doesn't mean I'm wrong in my interpretation just because I disagree with an older programmer.
.
Whoops. I didn't read down to the bottom to see that you guys had concluded the conversation. : )
My bad.
Dave sincerely believes that I did not really answer his question to me, (probably still). I believe that I sincerely answered those issues to the best of my ability at the present time.
My answer in short (er) form is
A. It is possible to not be arrogant, but have humble confidence that one’s interpretation is right, and conflicts with the RCC and on other issues, deemed secondary by all Protestants, with other Protestants.
B. We have at least some authoritative interpretative history for our positions of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide and the priesthood of the believer.
C. There is no such thing, in the Biblical truth sense, as a pope in the first place, and an infallible pope as an infallible interpreter and one with jurisdictional authority over all churches in the world; in the Biblical sense of truth and right and wrong. (That is a RC development of history that started in some people’s understanding, by a wrong interpretation of Irenaeus, (and then adding back in the bishop issue of Ignatius and Clement, although they also do not teach any such thing) in the 200s, but more clearly much later than the first 400 years of Church history.)
D. The church can go astray in history, and did just as the Galatians did very quickly (Galatians 1:6-9) on some things for some periods of time, but God always has His elect people in various churches and nations who trust in Christ alone for their salvation from sin.
I also sincerely believe that he has not answered the questions of: (conscious or unconscious)
1. that one can interpret Scripture for himself and go against those 8-20 issues (depending on how you group them) that Protestantism has with RCC and yet still be confident and humble.
2. That he is confusing and mixing the method of knowing something is true (epistemology) with the end results (doctrine, content, theology) when he makes his arguments.
Epistemology – how we know that something is true; having to rely on our own mind in order to think about all these issues and decide in his own heart and mind which one is right.
Mixing Epistemology with the end results or contents or doctrine (RCC vs. Protestantism); in his argumentation with me, without seeing that he uses the same method of knowing something in order to arrive at the conclusion content or doctrine that the Pope is infallible and there is this inherent need for an infallible human interpreter on earth in history; this mixing and confusing the issues seems to hide the fact that he is using the same method in order to arrive at the doctrine that there is an infallible pope.
3. Also, in the intellectual sense, (not as a person all the time); he charges me with either being arrogant on the issue of being reasonably certain that I have the right interpretation, say on baptism (to think I can know the right interpretation of a certain passage) when it goes against RCC, and also when it may also go against some protestants; or if we say there are “secondary issues”, then he charges us with “relativism”, and yet Calvinstic Reformed Evangelicals are some of the most non-relativistic people in the world.! We believe in right and wrong and are zealous to defend doctrine in apologetics. Dave seeks to force the issue into either a. arrogance or b. relativism; and it just not follow reasonably or logically, understanding all the complicated things about exegesis and over 2000 years of church history, that one can boil every thing down to those 2 categories, which is basically what it seems that RC apologetics as against Protestantism does.
4. Also charge that I cannot use specific examples of bad interpretations or history or Scripture, etc. regarding the papacy or Mary or baptism or indulgences; in my argumentation, but he is fully able to use things like Protestant dis-unity over secondary issues, and something like baptism vs. infant baptism to make his case against Evangelical Protestantism as a whole.
Grubb points out some good things and prinicples on matters that Protestants deem as "secondary issues". But there is great unity between Calvinistic Baptists and Presbyterians and other Calvinists, independents and "Third wave Calvinists" (C. J. Mahaney and Wayne Grudem, for example)
See www.togetherforthegospel.org
or
http://www.t4g.org/
Al Mohler – Southern Baptist
Mark Dever – Independent Baptist
John Piper – Baptist, in the northern “Baptist General Conference” denomination.
John MacArthur - Independent Baptist
Ligon Duncan, R. C. Sproul – Presbyterians
C. J. Mahaney, John Piper, Wayne Grudem, Samuel Storms – they are all baptistic in their doctrine of baptism. They are also, “Third Wave” Calvinist (Meaning they believe in the ongoing spiritual gifts of prophecy and tongues, but they don’t define things or practice these things in the way the typical Charismatic or Pentecostal does; and they don’t hold to the Pentecostal doctrines of a second baptism in the Spirit subsequent to initial conversion.)
Since this thread is now gone into archives, I may repost on another thread earlier.
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