Oxymoron means “sharp dullness.” It describes a figure of speech in which two words that are contradictory are put together. For example, “accurate rumors” is an oxymoron. Why? Because by definition, a rumor is not yet deemed to be accurate. Other examples could include: “insane logic,” “public secret,” “instant classic,” or my favorite, “government intelligence.” However, over the years I have come to believe that “Roman Catholic scholarship” is an oxymoron. I don’t believe one can be a Roman Catholic and a scholar at the same time. Well, let me put it another way: I don’t believe one can be a true Roman Catholic and a scholar at the same time. Why? Because being a Roman Catholic militates against what makes someone a scholar in my opinion.
I know, I know. I don’t ever write this . . . this . . . well, this polemical. It seems as if I am discrediting Roman Catholic scholarship with a heavy hand by an ad hom fiat. Please know this is not what I mean to do. There are going to be plenty of people thrown under the bus with this one. In fact, let me start by saying there are many Roman Catholics whom I deeply respect. I am not anti-Catholic. As well, there are many Roman Catholics whom I believe qualify as scholars. However, once they become a scholar (and I am talking about theology here), as I will explain, they have to depart to some degree from Rome. I am not saying that they actually depart from their core Catholic beliefs. I am simply saying that they must suspend their commitment to Rome in order to meet what I believe to be an essential characteristic of scholarship.
Most of you would not think of yourself as scholars. I understand that. I don’t think of myself as such either. However, I would assume that you attempt to be good students. Namely, you attempt to be students of truth.
Let me back up a bit.
Rene Descartes and Doubt
Rene Descartes is often thought of as the father of modernity. He gets a bad rap these days, especially by our postmodern and emerging friends. I think some of the bad rap is justified, particularly his quest for indubitability (How’s that for a word? Don’t try to say it out loud at home). Indubitability means absolute and perfect certainty. Rene Descartes (and many of his modernistic buddies) wanted their beliefs to be beyond the ability to be wrong. Like 1 plus 1 equals 2, Descartes wanted all matters of faith to share such comforting certainty (indubitably). I can’t get into all the fallacies here, but let’s just say that this quest was not only impossible, but unnecessary. Our beliefs do not have to be infallible before we are justified in possessing them. However, Descartes’ methodology had many redeeming elements that provide benchmarks of inquiry, learning, and knowledge. The first and most important thing Descartes taught was that we are to doubt. Doubt everything!
Doubt gets a hard rap in religious circles. In fact, we are often told that the opposite of faith is doubt. For many, doubt is only what unbelievers do. It is true that doubt can be a bad thing, but it largely depends on the context and how you understand it. Doubt can be, and very often is, healthy. In fact, I argue that doubt is a necessary first step to true conviction, understanding, and real faith. Let me explain.
The Essence of Scholarship
In order to learn, one must be willing to change. I don’t mean that they must be willing to merely go from the lesser to the greater, but also from the greater to the lesser, or even from the greater to the none. If we are to be true learners, we must be able to suspend our convictions to some degree. Of course, all knowledge requires some basic foundational assumptions, as Descartes began to articulate, but all knowledge must be challenged in order to graduate to true faith. We must be willing to set aside our preconceptions, passions, and emotional attachments in order to enter a learning environment. We must be willing to doubt everything, even our doubts.
Scholarship is based on the assumption that the best, most accurate, and trustworthy information is being sought. Scholarship is not based on the assumption that we are attempting to prove what we already know or believe. I learned a dictum early in my seminary career from my friend and co-blogger, Dan Wallace: “We are in pursuit of the truth, not prejudice.” In other words, we must do our best to approach our studies with the intent to follow the evidence no matter where it leads. This is a hard thing to do, as we all have our prejudices. We all have a “home team” for which we root. This is why being true students is very hard. We don’t like to be challenged, only confirmed. However, if we are to be true students – true scholars – we must be willing to suspend, to the best of our ability, our prejudices.
A Word About Apologetics
I love apologetics, don’t get me wrong. But what I am about to say will offend many apologists out there. Nine times out of ten, I don’t think apologists make good scholars. “Apologetics” is defined most broadly in Christian circles as defending the faith. This means when there is something – an idea, event, book, or person – presenting challenges to the faith, the apologist will come to the rescue.
While there are Christian apologists out there, there are also apologists for particular areas. For example, there are apologists for young earth creationism, evolutionary theism, inerrancy, premillenialism, and counter-cults. There are also apologists for the individual traditions in the Christian faith, such as Protestant apologists and Roman Catholic apologists. Of course, apologetics is not limited to the Christian faith, as there are apologists for atheism, Mormonism, and Islam.
While I think apologetics is a necessary and much-needed discipline, and while I believe there are some very good and honest apologists out there (such as my friends Rob Bowman, Paul Copan, and Mike Licona, to name a few), most of the time the discipline falls into the trap of being a perpetual exercise in defending presuppositions. Anytime there is a preset conclusion to which your data and interpretation of the data must point, apologetics turns bad. It is no longer a scholarly pursuit, since it has a predetermined outcome.
In our studies, we must be free to question, search, deny, confirm, doubt, and change. As hard as it is, we must allow ourselves this liberty. If we come to a subject with what we believe to be infallible or indubitable certainty, all of the data, no matter what it says, will be bent, shaped, and manipulated to fit this preset conclusion. Even our most vital and basic beliefs must be open to question. Why? We are fallible. Our ideas could be wrong. Our prejudices can be ill-founded. In short, we must question ourselves because we are not God.
What God Thinks of Doubt
When it comes to our faith in God, this is not less important, but more important. In order for our faith to be strong, our ability to test our faith must be valid. Paul admonishes the Corinthians to test the the sincerity of their faith (2 Cor 13:5). Without doubt, our faith can never really be tested. For to even take a test there must be some suspension of our presumption of perfection. Paul tells the Thessalonians to test or examine all things carefully, and only hold fast to that which is worthy of our faith (1 Thess 5:21). This is the basic idea of discernment, which requires a critical methodology. The Psalmist asks the Lord to test his mind and his heart (Psalm 26:2). God tests us all the time. The purpose of his testing is not to leave us in doubt, but that our doubt would progressively turn to assurance. In order for conviction to arise in our beliefs, tests must be conducted.
In the end, when we test our faith, when we doubt, when we discern, when we critically examine our most fundamental beliefs (remember, Paul says test all things) under the microscope and they survive, they are much stronger than they were before the test. Doubt is a necessary precondition to faith. Discernment is a necessary precondition to following God.
I don’t think Christians should have any fear in testing their faith. We should not fear the doubt that leads to assurance of truth. Not only does God not mind our aspirations to such scholarship, he beckons us to such.
Why “Roman Catholic scholarship” is an oxymoron
What does this have to do with Roman Catholicism? Well, as you can see, this post is about much more than just the viability of Roman Catholic scholarship. While what I have described above is very difficult for anyone with deep commitments, it is most difficult, in Christianity, for those who exist under authoritative human leadership. Christian traditions do not get much more authoritative than Roman Catholicism. To be fair, there are unspoken authoritative structures in many Christian traditions that, while not claiming infallibility, do share the same fundamental guidelines. Outside the Christian faith, it is not much different. I find atheists have the least ability to question their atheism, but this has more to do with personal emotional fundamentalistic commitments than any human authority. This is why atheism boasts of being the most objective, but this boast is, most of the time, very empty.
Roman Catholicism, however, exists under a official umbrella of authoritative – indeed infallible – dogmatic assertions. Again, while no one is completely objective in their studies, Roman Catholics, when it comes to their defined dogma, cannot really study objectively. Why? Because their conclusions are already laid out. For example, if a Roman Catholic is interpreting the Scriptures, he must come to conclusions that are in line with what Rome has already said about the subject. He doesn’t have the freedom to disagree. He doesn’t have the freedom to doubt, if the doubt implies an actual possibility that Rome is wrong.
This is why all true Roman Catholics “scholars” are necessarily apologists who follow the prejudice of Rome, not the the data. Were they to doubt and come to conflicting opinions on something the Church has dogmatized, they are no longer, by definition, Roman Catholic.
In truth, most Roman Catholics don’t function in this way. In fact, the Roman Catholics whose scholarship I trust the most are a bit rebellious. They are not truly Roman Catholic. Apologists on the inside of Rome would call them “cafeteria Catholics,” since they pick and choose which beliefs they like best.
This is not to say that the trust they put in Rome is ill-founded. I don’t happen to think the magisterial authority of Rome is worthy of such trust, but that is not the subject of this post. Another time, maybe. This simply means that when it comes to biblical and theological studies, the designation “Roman Catholic scholar” is an oxymoron. Their conclusions, no matter how unlikely, must sing in harmony with Rome. However, it must be said, that if they are right and the Magisterial authority is infallible (which is the key meta-issue before all others between Protestants and Roman Catholics), then their methodology is secure to the degree that they can demonstrate this claim.
While Protestantism is certainly not perfect, there is freedom for true biblical and theological scholarship to exist. Protestants don’t have to be lawyers defending a client of tradition, but can instead be investigators of truth. We can be critical scholars. Whether or not we always practice this is a different matter, but the issue is one of allowance. Yes, the greater the allowance, the more the diversity. But the greater the allowance for diversity, the greater the possibility of true conviction to exist. Evangelicals can let the evidence take them wherever it leads, not simply to a predetermined destination. Therefore, I believe Protestant Evangelicals can practice true scholarship to a degree that other traditions, especially Roman Catholicism, cannot.
Finding Personal Conviction Through Embracing Doubt
However, this does get very personal. In the end, Christians, no matter what their tradition, need to increase their faith. This does not mean holding our hands against our ears, covering our eyes, and blindly following a predetermined route. Our conviction must be personal. It cannot be blindly outsourced. This was one of the many things that the Reformation brought back into focus: true conviction.
Martin Luther stood before a council ready to take on the prejudices of his day. Not without fear but full of courage, Luther, at the Council of Worms (in Wittenberg, Germany, 1517), gave his famous speech:
“Unless I am convinced by the testimony from scripture or by evident reason—for I confide neither in the Pope nor in a Council alone, since it is certain they have often erred and contradicted themselves—I am held fast by the scriptures adduced by me, and my conscience is held captive by God’s Word, and I neither can nor will revoke anything, seeing it is not safe or right to act against conscience. God help me. Amen.”
What was he doing? Doubting. Learning. Growing. Becoming more convicted. Adducing for himself. Did he believe that he could have been wrong about his previous commitments concerning the Catholic church? Yes. This is what set him on the reformation path. Did this produce fear? Affectung. This is the type of fear he describes. It is a German word that cannot easily be translated into English. It carries all the connotations of fear, with a much more paralyzing result. In short, Luther was doubting and scared. But he knew that this was the cost of true conviction and scholarship.
Sadly, many of us (Roman Catholic or otherwise) do not often follow this legacy. While it is easy to get caught up in defending our prejudice, let us take up this mantle of learning and be ready, for the sake of our Lord, to change when necessary. We recognize that the possibility of true conviction necessitates the possibility of error, but is this too great a price to pay? Embrace your doubts. Doubt your doubts. Test all things. Follow the evidence, not your presuppositions.
78 replies to "Embracing Doubt or Why ‘Roman Catholic Scholarship’ is an Oxymoron"
[…] it was no coincidence that Michael Patton posted on Roman Catholic scholars being incapable of critical scholarship the same weekend I completed a critical reading of […]
[…] My post this weekend about embracing doubt has stirred up quite a few people. The truth is that the post started and ended as an encouragement for us not to approach our studies with the intent of confirming our prejudice. In order for true learning to take place we have to be willing to change. So far so good? […]
I created a follow up blog on why I hate Catholics. 🙂
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/08/why-i-hate-roman-catholicism-part-2/
[…] a friend of mine brought this article to my attention. The title told me that I would likely disagree with the article. While I land […]
to Werner: That is why I put “defrocked” in quotations and suggested it may not be the ideal word. I was going from memory instead of relying on a source–my mistake. And, you are correct, Wikipedia is among the many sources that are not infallible (double meaning intended). One of the Thomson-Gale (also not infallible) catalogs says this:
“Kung’s views on such traditional doctrine as the divinity of Christ, papal infallibility, and the dogma of the Virgin Mary helped to bring about his censorship by the Vatican in 1979. He was banned from teaching as a Catholic theologian, which provoked international controversy. An agreement of sorts was reached in 1980 that allows Kung to continue teaching at Tubingen under secular rather than Catholic auspices. He is now professor emeritus of Tubingen University.” (may be outdated somewhat)
Kung may have remained a priest but he ran afoul of the authority structure and was officially censored by the Vatican (probably censured as well). His position at Tubingen was threatened and he suffered loss because of his scholarship. Kung’s history supports my earlier statement that Kung is not a good example in defense of Roman Catholic scholarship in opposition to Michael’s post, not because he is not a legitimate scholar but because his scholarship brought him into conflict with the authority structure. I think his case supports, at least partially, Michael’s post.
I want to make it clear that I am neither endorsing Kung nor all of Michael’s points. Just trying to keep the conversation on a straight course.
[…] Roman Catholic brothers and sisters that leaves evangelicalism indefensible. First, he wrote “Embracing Doubt or Why ‘Roman Catholic Scholarship’ is an Oxymoron” wherein he attempted (and failed) to show that evangelicals have substantially more intellectual […]
Constantine,
Regarding this “direct, infallible contradiction[] between Pius IV and Pius IX and between Trent and Vatican I,” on the one hand you acknowledge that there was no unanimous patristic consensus on this passage, claiming that were five different interpretations of the passage, and on the other hand, you claim that by defining papal infallibility, Pope Pius IX violated Trent by violating a unanimous patristic consensus.
If there is no unanimous patristic consensus on the interpretation of this passage, then it couldn’t have been violated. So there is no contradiction between Trent and Vatican I.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
[…] of being drawn in to make responses in regard to Michael Patton’s recent controversial blog posts relating to the Catholic […]
@John Metz,
Whether or not Hans Küng was a controversial Roman Catholic “scholar,” or not, seems beside the point; my point is that he is still a Roman Catholic and a scholar. But no matter, there are plenty of other examples like Hans Urs von Balthasar, Hebert McCabe et al who stand in as excellent illustrations of Roman Catholic scholars who think in very constructive, and thus “scholarly” ways.
As far as Michael Patton’s lock-step with 5 point Calvinism, or not; again, the point I am making doesn’t require that he be lock-step. My point is that we “all” are governed by interpretive magesterium; that is, anything we have committed to a priori by way of a theological tradition (whether that be Arminianism, Calvinism, Barthianism, Torranceanism, etc etc.). This is why the premise of Patton’s thoughts are circular. W/o a proper theory of revelation in place, we all must succumb to an authority other than Christ.
I simply disagree that we ‘as Christians’ have the right to appeal to autonomous human reason as our ultimate presupposition (epistemic norm), whether that be to acquiesce to the pragmatic demands of the unregenerate in apologetic encounter, to appease the principled demands of secular academia, or to concede for the sake of dialogue to the pretentious claims of every person who sees fit to ‘swim the Tiber.’
”Any theory of knowledge must specify the ultimate standard or criterion for determining truth and falsity. The Christian’s ultimate standard is God’s word in Scripture; the unbeliever’s ultimate standard must be located elsewhere” (John Frame – Apologetics to the Glory of God, 10)
@ Bobby Grow.
See Michael’s followup post. I raised the issue of Kung because his scholarship brought him antagonism from the RCC power structure. I simply contended that Kung is not a good example to use to argue against Michael’s point. He remained a Catholic, but not one in the favor of the power structure.
@John Metz,
Point granted. I recant my usage of Kung, and refer to Balthasar, McCabe, Molnar, et al.
[…] caused me to think a bit more about the language he used regarding epistemology. In his first post “Embracing Doubt or Why ‘Roman Catholic Scholarship’ is an Oxymoron” he spoke positively of Rene Descartes’ starting point in doubting everything. Also, in a […]
I think that the central point of this post is fairly good, that we should test our presuppositions. But I think that you should take this advice to heart, because there are several presuppositions here that you should test.
The first is that you have actually defined a good scholar. At the most basic level, a good scholar must be able to recognize his first principles as first principles. But beyond that, a good scholar must have the ability to set aside any of his premises and presuppositions (whether they be first principles or not) while engaging his study. His inquiry must be able to allow that a premise is flawed, his inquiry must be able to proceed completely neglecting a premise. The ability to doubt your presuppositions is really a poor replacement for this ability. A good scholar must be able to set aside any of his premises, no matter how fervently or absolutely held, not just the ones he doubts.
There is no reason that a Roman Catholic cannot do this. It is a basic intellectual exercise. Of course, any scholar of faith runs a risk here, that they may come to a conclusion that forces them to jettison a premise that was an article of faith for them. For the Catholic, the stakes may just be a little higher. The loss of any infallibly defined belief is the loss of the infallible character of them all, and the loss of the belief that the Catholic Church is who and what she says she is.
Doubt still plays a useful role, but much in the manner that fear plays a useful role. Doubt makes us keenly aware of problems in our intellectual framework, prompts us to pay attention to a possible problem with an aspect of a belief or, just as likely, a possible problem with the ourself the believer. But just like fear, it can cripple and harm us.
The other presupposition that I think you should test is the notion that “bad Catholic” is a term of any real use. Most Catholics are bad Catholics. We take Jesus seriously when He says that He desires that we be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect. Few living Catholics, if any, meet this high standard. Sure we are called to adhere to all that is definitively taught by the Church, but this isn’t expecting much when you consider that Jesus desires us to be perfect. I know a lot of Christians would be shocked at the idea, but orthodoxy is a pretty low standard for Christians. The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for saints .. a hospital chock full of bad Catholics. It is actually one of the defining elements of the Catholic Church, that she embraces her fallen and falling members, that although she accepts the bar that Jesus sets, she doesn’t kick people out when they fail to meet it.
Having read through this and thought about it more, I think I would revise my position due to some very good conversation that you all have provided.
I would say this: 1) All scholarship is affected by the amount of presuppositions we bring to the table. To the degree that they see dogma as a presupposition, Roman Catholics will have a more difficult time in scholarship due to the amount of dogma to which Roman Catholics are required adhere. 2) Submission to Catholicism requires ultimate trust to be placed in the magisterial authority of the Church. When this authority conflicts with modern understanding, science, and scholarship, the Church trumps the scholarship. 3) Since Roman Catholic dogma is much more extensive than that of other Christian traditions, they are going to be more affected when it comes to being open to alternative interpretations of the data more often than other Christian traditions. 4) But this is only to the degree that they wish to stay faithful to Rome.
[…] Parchment and Pen blog, C. Michael Patton published an entry under the rather intriguing title of ‘Embracing Doubt’ or Why ‘Roman Catholic scholarship‘ is an Oxymoron.’ Mr. Patton’s position, developed and corroborated in numerous other entries, is that one cannot […]
[…] smart people who will answer my e-mails. Thus, when I saw the brouhaha about Michael Patton’s post calling ‘Roman Catholic scholarship’ an oxymoron, I remembered immediately that I have just contracted Dr. Robert LaRochelle to write a book […]
I notice that a few people have brought up that Protestants treat the Bible in the same way that Catholics treat the Church, namely that once we have come to the conclusion that it is the inerrant word of God, all our conclusions must neccesarily support that “dogma.” Could you address this?
I think that you will find that this post speaks in a round about way to inerrancy and scholarship:
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/11/frustrations-from-the-front-the-myth-of-theological-liberalism/
Replace Catholic Dogma with “Faith Alone” and “Bible Alone” and take that where it leads – Protestants can’t be scholars. The fallacy in this argument is that there can be TRUTH and that TRUTH can be known. Read some of Pope Benedict XVI writings on Moral Relativism and you can see the fruit of this thinking.
The word you need is sensibility. We know by the senses. The Catholic theory of knowledge uses several terms of art and two key rules. Knowing is being, so that you can only know what you are; and God is being, so knows everything at once in making it be. God knows spiritually. We are material AND spiritual, so know spiritually but via the senses, via “Thomistic prime matter”. Matter is entirely passive. Contact between the material sense and the sensed material object, which is matter and a form, causes sensation of the object.
The human souls sees some aspect of itself in what is sensed if it looks honestly, by grasping the form of the object. “In a certain way, the soul is everything.” It only knows, however, what it is holding in its imagination as a sensed image of the material object. This gives our knowing a “one at a time” quality but it is reliable.
I define faith as an idea (story) that reminds us of this theory.
So, Jesus is one who makes the blind man see and says to Lazarus “be opened”. God is already here in all our acts of knowledge. Christians who seek further proof, by confusing faith and knowledge, obscure God.
All Christians exist under an umbrella if infallible authority. If that’s the criteria for not being a scholar, then there are no Christian scholars.
John is correct (assuming “if” means “of), and may be agreeing with my statement that the senses are reliable. Aquinas says we must assume this or else can know nothing. Yet there is no knowledge if we do not want to know.
The theme of this thread (the initial statement and all these comments is a thread?) has been treated in a movie, called “Doubt”. The movie is a polemic against gratitude for doubt, calling that position a Satanic dabbling in sexual exploitation of others. That sounds quite lurid, but Meryl Streep was the lead player. She made it quite believable. It was a movie about sex abuse in the Catholic church. Yet the precise theme was that the wrong-doer wallowed in and was proud of doubt. Perhaps that was to suggest that they did not merely doubt, but actively rejected God, but dressed it as doubt to draw in others.
John’s mention comes just as I recast Rahner’s philosophy as it requires, as itself occurring in the imagination. This leaves us all in Bishop Berkeley’s armchair by the fireside. Are we actually here or is this my dream in a doze? The answer is that, if the illusion is perfect, I must accept it as reality and respond accordingly: “do what is indicated” (Thomas Merton).
This need to acknowledge what must be so can result in “signs”, coincidences so striking that I must deem them special messages from God (yet which do not destroy the economy of salvation otherwise by introducing an arbitrary element into grace:…
there can be no whimsical grace.
A rather amusing little treatise, I suggest.
At the outset, given that the Catholic Church established the very first universities for scholarly study across a range of fields (and continues to maintain these) I find your own explanations rather incoherent.
Any study of Catholicism must commence with fundamental premises about God and ourselves. An omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and omnibenevolent being and us as created in God’s image but prone to sin through our very created nature and free will. Premises which God has Himself revealed via scripture. Before Abraham was ‘I am’ etc.
The thing is the Catholics have beaten you to it. The first 300 odd years of the early church were taken up with deeply philosophical argument about God and humans and the ensuing relationship following the creation of man. It involved the return to first principles and pulling to pieces accepted premises about the human condition and how God can be known.
The various councils attended by Jerome, Augustine, Clement, Cyprian, Tertullian and the other early church doctors, along with the regular correspondence, professions and declarations made, are replete with this profound and complex philosophical examinations and debate. It is trite to say otherwise once you have read them.
The CC holds that sacred tradition is of equal weight with scripture. Indeed the formulation of scripture into what we now recognise as the bible, finalised circa 382 AD at Hippo, is the direct result of sacred tradition in action, which existed from before Jesus ascension and still continues. i.e tradition actually preceded the bible.
Two such books later added to the NT which I can immediately recall, make direct reference to the place of tradition in Christianity. Books, I might add, which talk about the oral and written traditions of early Christians BEFORE the canon of the bible was even accepted.
“So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught,…
Part 2
“So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.” (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
“I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you. “ (1 Cor 11:2).
Confession for example. The daily celebration of breaking bread or eucharist (now daily Mass).
There are also traditions which are not mentioned in the bible but nonetheless were still existent both before and after the death of Christ. Some we know of via scripture some come to us as pure tradition “But there are also many other things which Jesus did which, if they were written every one, the world itself. I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written.” (John 21:25).
So then, tradition is not meaningless or some kind of obstacle to scholasticism. It existed prior to the bible and was churned and sifted and dissected and analysed to the enth degree by the greatest scholars who ever lived, before gaining acceptance. But there’s more.
Peter, the Twelve and the outer disciples and successors – those early doctors of the church, were given personal guarantees by Jesus that their deliberations and final decisions would be guided by the Holy Spirit, and would thus carry the divine stamp even through the 21st Century.
“Teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, [even] to the end of the world”(Matt 20:28).
And… “Whatever you decide bound or loosed on earth is considered bound or loosed in Heaven. (Matt 16:19).
WHATEVER. You don’t get any broader an authority than that. To argue that the Church’s teachings are wrong/result from unscholarly thinking, is the same as saying that God is wrong, which is not possible if we accept the original premise that God is omniscient. He cannot be wrong and cannot make mistakes.
In fact, the Catholics have perfected theological. It is for others…
Part 2
“So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.” (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
“I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you. “ (1 Cor 11:2).
Confession for example. The daily celebration of breaking bread or eucharist (now daily Mass).
There are also traditions which are not mentioned in the bible but nonetheless were still existent both before and after the death of Christ. Some we know of via scripture some come to us as pure tradition “But there are also many other things which Jesus did which, if they were written every one, the world itself. I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written.” (John 21:25).
So then, tradition is not meaningless or some kind of obstacle to scholasticism. It existed prior to the bible and was churned and sifted and dissected and analysed to the enth degree by the greatest scholars who ever lived, before gaining acceptance. But there’s more.
Peter, the Twelve and the outer disciples and successors – those early doctors of the church, were given personal guarantees by Jesus that their deliberations and final decisions would be guided by the Holy Spirit, and would thus carry the divine stamp even through the 21st Century.
“Teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, [even] to the end of the world”(Matt 20:28).
And… “Whatever you decide bound or loosed on earth is considered bound or loosed in Heaven. (Matt 16:19).
WHATEVER. You don’t get any broader an authority than that. To argue that the Church’s teachings are wrong/result from unscholarly thinking, is the same as saying that God is wrong, which is not possible if we accept the original premise that God is omniscient. He cannot be wrong and cannot make mistakes.
In fact, the Catholics have perfected theological. It is for others…
Maybe Aristotle’s glasses need polishing.
The idea of tradition is certainly worth studying. It would seem to be more than someone claiming such and such as a tradition: not merely a juridical adjective, but something that had persuaded people by its own force.
Which people, you ask?
It seems unavoidable that most administrators in any organization are primarily concerned with their own perpetuation. So if a practice survives, it is not because of the leadership but despite the leadership. We might argue from that that Protestant churches, being less organized, can save and hand on more stuff.
But there is an ancient saying that the older some idea is, the true it is.
In this sense we can say that God makes sure the message gets through to us. A minor tenet like “the senses do not lie” is a minor example, one which recommends itself today because I suspect that every religious authority, including chaotic Protestant ones, would dispute or deny this claim.
If tradition takes care of itself, what is our role? To hold fast to that which we really like, not that which we deem ourselves forced to parrot. The going thing is usually on its way out of fashion even as we speak.
If this all calls for a mood of serenity, that may be the whole idea.