The Church's Authority — Circular Reasoning? - Page 3

VeritasLuxMea · #31 May 15, '12, 9:03 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by ignatius777

If you recognize the apostles had teaching authority then the reasoning cant be "circular". Clearly no one imagined the apostles would live forever correct?

No, but the end was supposed to be imminent, so no one was going to live much longer. Some were supposed to "not taste death" until it had happened.

fhansen · #32 May 15, '12, 10:01 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by CutlerB

Dear friends,

I have pondered the question of the authority of the Church today, and I feel stuck with something that sounds like circular reasoning. I'd like to outline the thoughts I had and hope that you can comment on them.

1. The Bible tells us of the Apostles who had teaching authority.
2. The Canon was compiled in the fourth century by the Catholic Church, which is said to have been guided by the Holy Spirit, which again is part of the documents in question.

So my problem is this: Couldn't, on this basis, the Catholic Church have assembled the Canon of Scripture to lead to the teaching authority? I'm struggling to get this into proper words. It seems circular to say the basis of authority is in documents which were later compiled into one volume by the same institution mentioned in those documents.

Is this really a circular argument, or am I missing something or getting something wrong?

I'd be glad, if you could untangle this.

You'll run into the same circular argument problem with scripture-how do you prove it's the Word of God? Art some point you have to decide whether or not God is meaning to make His will known- and by what avenue(s).

**po18guy** · #33 May 15, '12, 11:29 pm

Read the prologue to Luke, verses 1-4. In just four sentences, we see that Theophilus learned zero, zip nada from Luke's Gospel. Luke wrote the Gospel only to confirm what Theophilus had already learned authoritatively via the Church's oral Apostolic Tradition. Luke's Gospel reflects, in written form, the authority of the oral paradosis that Christ gave to His Church.

The Bereans (Acts 17:11) are often used as evidence for sola scriptura. However, Evangelical convert to Catholicism Mark Shea notes in his book By What Authority? that the Bereans would never have determined that Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited Messiah without hearing Paul's authoritative oral teaching. Only after hearing Paul's authoritative teaching did the Bereans go back and search the Old Testament scriptures to confirm that Paul's teaching was correct.

In both cases, scripture served to confirm that which was already authoritatively taught via the oral Tradition.

CutlerB · #34 May 16, '12, 12:42 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by po18guy

Let us leave the bible out of this, since our Lord did at the founding of His Church. The reasoning is linear, not circular. But, you must believe that authority both originated at some point, then moved on in an observable fashion from that origin. What we believe is that God is all authority over what exists. He gave all authority in heaven and on earth to His Son, who in turn gave that same authority to the Apostles. They laid hands on and passed that authority to others. The process repeats, in linear fashion, to today. We do not have a circle of Popes, but a line. This reflects Jesus, Who is from the house and line of David.

...

As well, since your current communion has, as its genesis, the Catholic Church, were else will you go?

Indeed, that's a good explanation. And by the way, the reason I am looking at the Catholic Church is simply because of history. That's what got me interested initially.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidFilmer

).

BTW, speaking as a former Anglican myself, I'm happy to tell you that you are headed in the right direction!

Thank you!

Quote:

Originally Posted by po18guy

Read the prologue to Luke, verses 1-4. In just four sentences, we see that Theophilus learned zero, zip nada from Luke's Gospel. Luke wrote the Gospel only to confirm what Theophilus had already learned authoritatively via the Church's oral Apostolic Tradition. Luke's Gospel reflects, in written form, the authority of the oral paradosis that Christ gave to His Church.

The Bereans (Acts 17:11) are often used as evidence for sola scriptura. However, Evangelical convert to Catholicism Mark Shea notes in his book By What Authority? that the Bereans would never have determined that Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited Messiah without hearing Paul's authoritative oral teaching. Only after hearing Paul's authoritative teaching did the Bereans go back and search the Old Testament scriptures to confirm that Paul's teaching was correct.

In both cases, scripture served to confirm that which was already authoritatively taught via the oral Tradition.

I never saw that before! Good job you pointed that out.

**po18guy** · #35 May 16, '12, 12:48 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qoeleth

Not necessarily. A book may be given authority, other than for the reason that it asserts its own authority.

For example, I would believe a physics text book. Its authority does not depend upon its own assertion of its authority.

Many people read the Bible and have a 'sense' of its authority, without caring much about what the Church teaches about it. A lot of people believe in the Church, because of the Bible. Some people may believe in the Bible, because of the Church.

As to where the 'sense' of the Bible's authority comes from- I would call it Divine inspiration.

I think you missed my point. Bible soloists maintain that the bible is, by itself, the "supreme authority." Aside from sounding idolatrous, it alleges that the bible is authoritative simply because someone is alleging that it is. Now that is circular. Nowhere in the bible does it claim that the exact collection of 73 (or 66) books is inspired. Thus, the bible cannot be a supreme authority - based on its own words or lack thereof. Jesus says that the scriptures cannot be broken, and Paul says that scripture is inspired, but neither of them (or the bible itself) define what scripture is, or which writings are scripture and which are not.

**po18guy** · #36 May 16, '12, 12:52 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by CutlerB

Indeed, that's a good explanation. And by the way, the reason I am looking at the Catholic Church is simply because of history. That's what got me interested initially. I never saw that before! Good job you pointed that out.

You are following Blessed John Henry Newman's footsteps, and for the same reason. I have every confidence that, given your seeking heart and thirst for the truth, you will find your way home.

CutlerB · #37 May 16, '12, 1:12 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by po18guy

You are following Blessed John Henry Newman's footsteps, and for the same reason. I have every confidence that, given your seeking heart and thirst for the truth, you will find your way home.

I hope so, that's why I'm so greatly looking forward to going to Rome with some friends (who could definitely benefit from the visit to the Vatican too) in the second week of June!

MarcoPolo · #38 May 16, '12, 7:11 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by CutlerB

That's what I was looking for! I'm not versed at all in Church history, so if there is a lot of testimony there, that indeed to me is convincing.

Research is a good thing. By the way, you may likely encounter skeptics' rebuttals like "so what if there were martyrs, Islam has martyrs." The testimony favoring Christianity is a package deal. So for an analogy, let's say you are a detective and you have nabbed a suspect that meets all 8 of some criteria you're looking for, height, weight, tattoo, opportunity, etc... You shouldn't release him on the basis that you found somebody else that has 1 of those attributes. In the same way, you shouldn't dismiss Christianity just because you can find some other person or group that had martyrs. Christianity has martyrs, testimony, spread, experience, miracles, prophecy, etc... all at once.

ignatius777 · #39 May 16, '12, 8:08 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

No, but the end was supposed to be imminent, so no one was going to live much longer. Some were supposed to "not taste death" until it had happened.

Agreed but that was a human concept and obviously as time progressed it became clear the "end" was not imminent so other steps hadto be taken

Aelred Minor · #40 May 16, '12, 2:47 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by CutlerB

Good question! The circle to me is not existent any longer, as MarcoPolo pointed out. There is the testimony of a "third party" which I find convincing.
Why I believe the Bible to be God's Word? I'm not fully aware myself. I find it fascinating, it changes people's hearts (as it has changed me), it's message and sheer depth give it a touch that makes me think of it as something from above.
Private interpretation? I wouldn't rely on that but I would rather seek explanation from qualified sources, instead of myself. After all, I am by no means a scholar!

This thread as gone on from where it was when I asked the question (and indeed this answer was already there when I asked it). Anyway, I agree that God is the break in the circle, though I'm not sure whether we are on the same page in terms of how and why.

The Church produced the Bible and defined it as inspired scripture, and the Bible supports the claims of the Church to authority. This can be seen as circular reasoning. Granting the God-given authority of either of the two breaks the circle and allows us to accept both. But on what basis can we accept that a claimed divine revelation or religious authority is authentic?

We can look at the effect of the purported revelation on history and on individual people's lives. We can observe what appears by our own lights to be beauty and goodness in the message itself. But these things are only motives for belief. They may make us want to believe in the revelation, or may prompt us to put a sort of partial faith in it, but the complete faith and trust that are called for by the revelation itself are not rationally possible on the basis of these kind of motives of credibility alone.

Likewise when it comes to interpretation, we have our own intelligence and that of "experts" to rely on, but neither of these is worthy of complete trust. So again, even if for the sake of argument the validity of a certain religious text were granted, our own interpretation of it would still be suspect and so our ultimate beliefs would still be built on sand.

What is the answer to this problem? The answer to the first part of it is easier: divine faith. By natural human faith alone neither the authority of the Bible nor that of the Church can be accepted in an absolute sense. Attempts to accept them in an absolute sense by one's own power would simply amount to contemptible self-deception, something which could only lead someone farther from the true God. It is only by the supernatural intervention of God that we can accept revelation with complete confidence without any self-deception. This we call "divine faith" to distinguish it from the ordinary natural "human" kind of faith which is necessarily always a partial, hesitant faith that holds off complete intellectual assent.

This answers the first issue of how one can accept the Bible and the Church. Or, rather, in answers how we can accept Scripture, Tradition, and the authority of the Magisterium all at once, not axiomatically accepting one of the three and deriving the authority of the other two from it, or worse using circular (or in this case, we might say "loopy") reasoning to accept each of the three on the basis of the other two.

That still leaves the question of interpretation. An objection could be raised, and is in fact sometimes raised, that a Catholic still must privately interpret the teachings of his own Church once they are heard. There is some truth to this. Perhaps, therefore, the idea of private interpretive guidance by the Holy Spirit should not be rejected as completely as it sometimes is by Catholics. However, there is at least this distinction: the Church, unlike the Bible, can respond to and reject misinterpretations of Her teachings and can clarify matters that many people find unclear. Thus the problem posed by private interpretation is at least lessened as much as it can be and there is far less excuse for bizarre interpretations.

mayb · #41 Jun 17, '12, 9:15 pm

the Catholic Church didn't just select at random, it's cannon- to build on their own theology. the body of believers, the people, had already long decided what was authoritative scripture. the "Catholic authority" - the tradition-affirms what we've already believed.

its like Jesus talking about the right hand can't hide in secret from the left hand. its one body. thats how scripture and tradition work. -always together

SPH1 · #42 Jun 18, '12, 1:06 am

The Church gets its authority from Christ, founder and builder of the Church. Along with the Holy Spirit. People were entering the Church, and the Church was authoratively teaching, before the canon was finally compiled.

Once one accepts Christ, one accepts His Church. It's not possible to accept Christ while rejecting His Church, for that would be to reject Christ - founder and builder of the Church.

Don't really need the Bible for this one, IMO.