Fallible Books: Interaction with The Janitor

This is supposed to correspond to the Protestant canon. But that’s not analogous to the Protestant situation because it doesn’t follow from the fact that we may be wrong in our assessment of the canon that we are wrong in our assessment of the canon. And it certainly doesn’t follow that we are “never able to have” a canon.

Again, this is a question of internals. Let’s harken back to Sproul, “[T]he collection itself is a fallible collection of infallible books.” I’ll join you, fallibly, into this prescription for a moment. From inside the theological walls we can see the ontological claims Protestants are making about the Bible. The collection IS fallible and the books of the collection ARE NOT fallible. In my automobile analogy, the “automobile” is an infallible canon — perhaps the analogy would’ve been more clear if I said an automobile with all the necessary parts. Since the collection is, in essence, an educated guess, and there is no standard to test whether it is an “automobile with all the necessary parts,” then there is an issue of travelling from point A (not knowing what God has to say) to point B (knowing what God has to say). THIS IS AN INTERNAL ISSUE. There is nothing objectively stopping myself from considering James as not ontologically infallible, or considering Wisdom as ontologically infallible, while you may hold to the opposite. As a Protestant, it’s up to me to fallibly place ontological status on whatever books I see fit. I can make up my own fallible collection (a big collection of words) and call the books in my collection infallible. There’s also nothing in place to stop me from digging into each book, which is itself a collection of words, and select the most cogent collection of words based on what I believed to be the infallible God-given ones as opposed to the ones first and second century fallible copyists, trying to use inspired texts as a proto-orthodox apologetic, handed down. So, the sole infallible authority is Sacred Scripture, and my Sacred Scripture is contradictory to your Sacred Scripture. There is no recourse, and, by internal definition, cannot be recourse.

The prescribed ontological status of the collection has significant epistemic ramifications on the supposed infallible books it is in relationship to. Calvin knew this, and his answer to the obvious dilemma has that lovely tinge of post-modern flare: subjective religious experience. “[T]hose whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and Scripture indeed is self-authenticated.” 500 years and thousands of denominations later… Calvin’s subjective principle continues.

This is supposed to correspond to the magisterium and tradition (assuming these things aren’t collapsed into one thing). But it only pushes your startling conclusion back a step: why was no one walking or being carried from point A to point B on essential doctrines like the bodily assumption of Mary until just recently (last 60 years or so)?

The bodily assumption of Mary is not a doctrine out of whole cloth. It’s ancient, and has been held to by Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants over the centuries. John Henry Newman has provided a helpful way to think about how doctrine develops over time. Barron exposits it well here:

Essential is a word I think we should define before proceeding. I would be curious to know how you go about demarcating what is and what isn’t essential Christian doctrine.

I do think it’s a good comparison because you’re talking about the Catholic church having greater prior probability before we bother to look at the facts of history etc., correct?

So suppose an atheist, Thurston, is out sailing one day when he gets caught in a storm and ends up shipwrecked on an island. Thurston finds that the island is only inhabited by two people: Skipper and Gilligan. Skipper tells Thurston that he has found a survival guide on the island that he has good reason to think it is infallible. Gilligan tells Thurston that he guarantees that the survival guide, plus his guide to island cuisine, is infallible because he is, himself, infallible.

Why do you think Gilligan has the more plausible claim, prior to any investigation by Thurston?

The analogy you use to show your comparison works reveals the comparison as apples to oranges in terms of prior probability. Here’s a more appropriate version of the comparative analogy:

Skipper (Protestant) gives Thurston a survival guide with tons of confusingly written contradictory information all throughout it, and says, “My opinion is the stuff written in green is correct, but only sections one, five, nine, and ten.” Thurston asks, “How do you know it’s the green writing and only those specific sections?” “I don’t,” Skipper replies, “but I’ve done my best to scope out as many of the other options I could make out from the skribble, and I feel inward confidence about my conclusion.” Gilligan (Catholic) gives Thurston a survival guide with clearly written and non-contradictory information all throughout it. He sees that much of the same information is shared between the Skipper’s and Gilligan’s guides, so the two seem to be talking about the same island. Then, Gilligan points Thurston to whom he received the survival guide from and says, “If you have any questions along the way, as this island presents a mysterious journey, they can be of assistance, since they were the ones through whom the survival guide was written by one who successfully survived.”

No doubt, Thurston is still stuck making a fallible decision of which survival guide to take on this perilous journey, a journey without second chances and where eternal conscious torment is a possibility. A lot is at stake. Both survival guides could be wrong and Thurston could be working with bad information. And yes, Thurston could possibly cobble together the right information amidst the confusion, if all the right information is there, and survive. Is it? Assuming it is, why Skipper’s deciphering and ordering of the scribble compared to the rest of the scribble? He claims to be unsure any of it, including his confident guess, is right.

If I’m Thurston, should I really think the initial probability for each scenario is 50/50? No. In the absence of counter evidence, we are forced to retreat to epistemically prior principles of what makes something a “better” theory (i.e., explanatory scope, elegance and simplicity, etc.). Those principles are evidence, of the philosophical sort, which raises the prior probability of Gilligan’s guide above 50. We can argue over how much, but 51/49 is all that is needed.

Unless you’ve already committed yourself to Roman Catholicism as an axiom, this assumption rests not only on your fallible grasp of the canon, but on your fallible interpretation of that passage. (I assume you’re referring to Matt. 16:19, which mentions nothing about infallibly guiding the church through successive apostles or traditions.)

How will you make the startling leap?

To restate the assumption: I assume we, as Christians, would be able to do better than opinions.

You’re quite right. This is a fallible assumption. Is it unreasonable based on a prior theistic belief (including attributes like omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence), accompanied by a belief in the crucifixion and unique resurrection of Jesus (not having to accept the documents as divinely inspired a priori), along with the relevant and perfectly defensible, yet fallible (from an external perspective), interpretation from Matthew 16, which if correct has far reaching implications? No. It’s quite reasonable to think the God who resurrected Jesus, and obviously did so for some particular reason since resurrections like his aren’t happening all the time or within the same religio-historical context (that I am aware of), could and would provide the means for more than subjective opinion when proclaiming such an important aspect of reality.

It’s a warranted leap, but a leap to be sure. Notice the assumptive, and “startling”, leap being referring to is of the external sort though. As I’ve said previously, “startling” is a system asserting a prescriptive axiom which has no internal means to define what it says other than subjective and contrary divine experiences.

Wouldn’t this line of reasoning also make the argument that “tradition” simply means whatever the Roman Catholic church says and Scripture simply means whatever the Roman Catholic church says?

I see no reason to think this argument makes such a sweeping claim about Rome, unless you think the crux of the matter boils down to sola scriptura or Rome (can’t imagine you’d so easily concede such a dilemma). It’s claims are quite modest if the antecedent is affirmed: either the individual interpreter is the final and authoritative norm of doctrine and practice, or Scripture itself is not the final and authoritative norm of doctrine and practice. Who or by what criteria is the final and authoritative norm of doctrine and practice is beyond the scope of this argument.

You’re trading ‘my interpretation of Scripture and church history’ for ‘The magisterium’s interpretation of Scripture and church history’. But you’re still fallibly passing the buck. You don’t escape the need for interpretation. It’s your opinion of Roman Catholicism. You still have to interpret the magisterium. So if you’re argument is the death cycle of Protestantism you won’t be escaping it unless you find some way for God to bypass your need to interpret. … Every time you read a papal bull or the Catholic catechism you need to interpret that. Every time you listen to your priest give a lecture or sermon, you need to interpret that. All your appeals to what the Roman Catholic church teaches are appeals to your interpretation of what the Roman Catholic church teaches.

Again, per the context of this argument, I do not think each individual interpreter is the final and authoritative norm of doctrine and practice. Therefore, I think Scripture alone is not the final and authoritative norm of doctrine and practice. If Scripture alone is not the final and authoritative norm of doctrine and practice, then it must be a conjunction of Scripture and something else. You keep saying Catholicism like it is the only other option. While I think it is the best option for a number of reasons, what about other groups who deny sola Scriptura? Maybe the conjunction is Scripture and Anglo-catholic or Eastern Orthodox succession. Maybe the Antiochian, or Armenian, or Chinese Orthodox lines are potential options. Perhaps a conjunction of one or more of those is the final and authoritative norm. It’s irrelevant to the argument.

I think you wrongly conflate interpretive submission within a sola Scriptura context (which isn’t too ressemblent of submission at all since it’s actually internal submission to oneself) and interpretive submission within a non-sola Scriptura context, which leads to your notion of a universal regress of interpretation in every framework. Maybe another analogy can be helpful.

Tim and his family are left a letter from God. The letter is not self-explanatory as to what it means on a number a major and minor points. Tim, believing the letter to be from God, submits to the letter and faithfully works to interpret the letter as best he can. Bobby, Tim’s brother, does the same but comes to substantially different conclusions about what the letter means. Many other family members come to varying conclusions as well. They try and sit down to hash out all the differences, all agreeing that family unity was a clearly taught feature of the letter, but the meeting fails because each believed the letter taught problems were to be solved in different ways. There is nothing in the letter to deal with such a predicament. Plus, Tim, Bobby, and the other family members all claim God has shown them the true meaning in a dream. With their sole submission to the letter, and therefore their interpretation of the letter, in place, the family splits. Something so clearly taught by the letter, unity, couldn’t even be had because the structure for interpretive dialogue was disunifying (individualistic) in nature.

The other situation, too, involves a letter sent from God that isn’t self explanatory. Yet, with the letter came a living messenger. Tim, Bobby, and the entire family soak up the letter and love its message. The same issue arises though. Different family members have different takes on what the letter means, while agreeing unity is really vitally important. Seeing them squabble, the living messenger calls for a family meeting where he would be present. Many mistakes made due to the letter’s vagueness are dispelled quickly, since the living messenger received and wrote the letter from God himself. Some questions were more difficult though, and needed more time to reflect. Whenever squabbling over important details would occur, another meeting would be called. During some of these meetings, there were times the living messenger had to do more than keep the peace. His special role and relationship to the source of the letter meant he had a unique responsibility to referee interpretive dialogue and, when needed, make a call. Tim and Bobby respected the living messenger’s role and submitted, not only to the letter, knowing such a submission would only be a submission to their own interpretation of the letter and therefore be the end unity; they submitted to the total of what God had sent them. The other family members were convinced their interpretations of the letter were correct, and that no one had the authority to tell them otherwise. So, they left in disunity.

These two examples are qualitatively different types of submission.

Barron is again helpful here regarding a “living messenger”:

As I pointed out above, you have to get there at the cost of baptizing your interpretations of Catholic axioms as infallible.

You’ve overlooked the external and internal distinction. Fallible assent of Catholic axioms is external. Once the ascent is made, the Catholic axioms have means of defining terms and relationships in such a way to be analytically infallible if necessary (internal). The same way 2+2=4. Whether those numbers/theological propositions correspond to reality in a deeper way than the axiom they sit within is a further philosophical question.

Right. Protestants typically don’t declare their doctrine to be infallible.

One would think the one thing Protestants claim to be infallible, the Bible (whatever the Bible is), would not be just a fallible collection of books compiled by a fallible group of men who used fallible manuscript traditions. Though, Calvin eliminated any problems with having fallible collection by declaring the Holy Spirit will clear everything up in the heart of each he touches. :)

In fact the Protestant system simply says that no one’s interpretation carries infallible authority and some carry no authority.

How do you determine what level of authority to give each individual? Why do some carry no authority at all in your scheme?

And we could somehow make this situation better by electing a Protestant Pope?

Nope. Such a move is completely ad hoc within a Protestant framework. The Protestant equivalent is only found in the mirror, unless Protestants drop sola Scriptura and assert another prescription as the final and authoritative norm of doctrine and practice. If that happens, which it won’t, the conversation would go in a different direction.

As though there is a Protestant system that a Protestant (and all Protestants) subscribes to that leads him into holding contradictory theological doctrines.

Protestantism is a network of subgroups which all share some understanding of sola Scriptura, a unique and differentiating feature from the rest of Christianity. So, within that controlling axiom, yes, all Protestants hold to contradictory theological doctrines. However big a group of agreeing Protestants is — by “group of agreeing Protestants” I’m referring to groups who have something like a catechism — they still are in direct contradiction with other groups within the network.

I agree one can have a theologically consistent set of doctrines within one of those subgroups, say whatever group adheres to Calvin’s system to your liking ;), but that is at least a layer deep into the network of Protestantism. I suppose one could redefine Protestantism, but that would just mean defining it in Presbyterian terms rather than Baptist terms, or trinitarian terms rather than unitarian terms, or infant baptism terms rather than believers baptism terms… you get the point.

As I said above, there is no Protestant who has the internal contradictions you’re suggesting, in virtue of being a Protestant. And there is no pixie dust which removes all internal contradictions from a person who becomes a Roman Catholic :) … I see that we are still potentially budding out beyond what is necessary… So in the future we may need to do some further pruning.

As I said above, it all depends on where you place the internal contradictions, which would require a fairly robust definition of Protestantism on your end.

We are hitting on very tricky topics; 500 year old topics with very intelligent people on either side.

Perhaps this leads to your wise call for pruning. I’ll start the pruning by asking some questions.

1. What is your definition of Protestantism?
2. How do you demarcate between essential and non-essential Christian doctrine? What are your guiding principles?
3. How do you differentiate between orthodox doctrine and essential doctrine, if in fact you do?
4. Is someone still a Christian if they hold contrary positions to what you classify as essential Christian doctrine?

There’s enough meat there to chew on for awhile. Any questions like these for me are welcome.