| 3 Minute Apologetics: The Church is the Final Arbitar of Faith & Morals |
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| Written by Dan Wegner | ||
| Wednesday, 07 July 2010 | ||
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When Jesus commanded the disciples, "Write the Bible to establish the pillar of Truth..." Oh wait, Jesus never told his disciples to write the Scriptures, except for John, when he was given the vision that became the book of Revelation (The Apocalypse as it used to be known). The fact is that many of our separated brethren (the good ones) consider Holy Scriptures the final authority for faith and morals. I propose that Scriptures, while being the written Word of God, lack key characteristics to be a final authority - and that they were never intended to be one. Since I have only three minutes, I'll try to be concise. St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:15 that the Church is "The Pillar and Foundation of Truth". That is, that the Church is the place where the truth is firmly established. That's a far cry from the idea that the Church is an invisible society of true believers of every theological stripe. In that case the description would be something like "a lake in which the truth swims" or "a diamond of truth in the rough" - not a PILLAR and FOUNDATION of truth.Here St Paul has the same position when writing to Timothy that we see in Acts Chapter 15 when the believers in Antioch had heard two different ideas of what Christian should do regarding the ceremonial law of Moses. It was the Church, led by the Holy Spirit that definitively and authoritatively resolved the issue. Scripture doesn't tell us whether there were dissenters to the decision, but it does make clear that the Church's position was binding. Did not Jesus say "whatever you bind on earth will be bound on heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" first to Peter in Matthew 16:19 and then to the disciples in Matthew 18:18? I've heard a lot of weird teaching by non-Catholics about the terms "binding" and "loosing", but anyone of the time would understand that Jesus was conferring the ability to rule onto the Apostles and Peter (see Isaiah 22:20-23). While the Scripture are true and indeed "profitable... that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3:16-17), they do lack a few important characteristics necessary to claim Final Arbiter of Faith and Morals: 1) Scripture can't resolve new, uncited moral issues. We can't look to Scripture to resolve issues like cloning, in vitro fertilization, and whether you can smoke, cuss or chew or date girls that do (okay maybe cussin' is covered in the Bible under "course speech"). And if you think that because you can't find them in Scripture you're free to pick any position you want, you're quite mistaken. In Romans Chapter 1, St. Paul appeals to Natural Law as the reflection of God's nature and His will, which, like Scripture, also needs a final arbiter (official interpreter) to apply it correctly (see #2). 2) Scripture requires an interpreter. When a Non-Catholic says that his view on disputed verses of scripture is the right one, he is saying that his fellow Christians are wrong. Now that may work if it's a non-Catholic against Catholics (like stuff about the Pope), but it doesn't fly when non-Catholics disagree between themselves. The disagreement proves that Scripture can be misinterpreted. When this point is brought up there are two common responses: a) The person lacks the intelligence or internal virtue to either understand the verse or accept it with the appropriate docility to the Holy Spirit. Neither of these can be the case since a lack of adequate intelligence puts the less brilliant believer at the intellectual and spiritual mercy of any heretic with the powers of persuasion. And since docility to the Holy Spirit is a result of holiness it therefore cannot also be a prerequisite to holiness. It's basically saying that only good people get to hear the truth on how to be good. So how can we know with any level of certainty that we are on the right path. It cannot simply be based on an individual, subjective knowing. Mormonism is well-known for asking its potential converts to ask God for a "burning in the bosom" - a literal existential gut-check - to see if Mormonism is true. And while we are intimately involved with our own truth-seeking, we also need to have a reasonable amount of distrust of our own intellect and holiness. If we don't, spiritual pride has an open door and the result can be catastrophic. b) The second response I get when I talk about the disunity of doctrine among non-Catholics is "True Christians agree on the important theological issues." Really? Lutherans and Presbyterians believe in Infant baptism (like Catholics) which transforms the infant into a child of God while most others believe one CANNOT become a child of God without an act of the will after the age of accountability. Disciples of Christ and SDAs believe that works are required for salvation while Lutherans and many others believe that God imputes righteousness on the believer without any requirement of morality whatsoever. And there's a 50/50 split over the doctrine of Eternal Security. Half say that once one is saved he is always saved and no act of human will can change it - making every spiritual warning to Christians irrelevant, while the other half acknowledges the potential for the believer to walk away from God's gift (post-conversion). Christianity is a creedal religion - it is based on believing truths - and poo-pooing truth for unity's sake is simply a bad idea. Let's face it, something is either true or not. And the issues at stake are core to how and whether we are saved or not. These simply are not trivial disagreements. 3) The Scripture requires inclusion in the Canon of Scripture What I mean here is that someone - a human agent - was needed to decide what was or wasn't part of that which we now call the Bible. God did not drop the compiled Bible from heaven. In fact, whether you're a Protestant or Catholic, the books included in your Bible were finally and authoritatively declared in the 16th century (by the Council of Trent for Catholics and by the Reformers for Protestants). The books the Catholics read are the same as have been agreed upon since the fourth century. This would require a lot more explanation, but the fact remains that human agents decided what's in or out of the Bible and there simply is no self-evident test that can justify the inclusion of all the books. Consider the racy book of Song of Solomon or somewhat tedious book of Numbers. Those that claim that it's obvious are basing that decision on familiarity not fact. People, guided by the Spirit of God decided which books were in and which were out. The question is who. Your choices are these: 1) The ones who wanted to create a new version of Christianity or 2) the original group of Christians. It should be noted that the original group were not silent and secretive for 1500 years before the Reformation. You can actually look and see their beliefs, practices, methods and decisions. These methods look amazingly similar to Acts 15, where this authority wielding Church sent the message to Antioch, " For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit.." They also look amazingly like the Catholic Church. Does your church wield such authority? Only crazy cults and cult-like organizations dare claim such authority, except, that is, the Church founded by Jesus Christ on the foundation of the Apostles, with Peter as its head. I, of course, believe that the Catholic Church is that Church founded by Christ. You may disagree with my selection, but tell me what other group even comes close?
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