Peace unto you, brother. Just one thing, because I think it’s important.
I don’t look down on people. If I did, I wouldn’t read what they write as carefully and meticulously as I do, sometimes spending literal hours researching their arguments so I can address them properly.
If I looked down on people, I would do things like:
- Not read what they write, or not read it in full.
- Read it superficially and then draw conclusions that completely misrepresent what they actually said.
Or I would do something I consider even more poisonous to a serious discussion: use circular reasoning.
For example: “Show me an instance of the kind of thing you claim actually happening historically.”
Then, once the evidence is produced: “Well, that doesn’t count, because the Reformers rejected it 500 years ago.”
That also opens at least two very large Pandora’s boxes.
First, if we accept the idea that Christians were fundamentally mistaken for centuries about how doctrinal authority worked (namely that Scripture was to be received within apostolic Tradition and authoritatively interpreted within the Church ) then why on God’s green earth should we assume that the Reformers, appearing roughly 1,500 years after the apostles, finally got the structure of Christian authority right?
I can’t help but quoting the Protestant Adolf von Harnack In History of Dogma, vol. III, “Tradition,” p. 207: “but the revolution which was characterised by the isolation of the Bible, its deliverance from the authority of ecclesiastical tradition, and the annihilation of the latter, only took place in the sixteenth century, and even then it was, we know, not completely successful“.
The same Von Harnack who immediately contrasts this with antiquity: “In ecclesiastical antiquity, on the contrary, the bond was by no means severed which connected Scripture with the maternal organism of the Church”.
He then goes even further than merely saying that Scripture was not isolated from Tradition, because History of Dogma, vol. III, section “2. Tradition,” p. 210, he writes “You might not believe the contents of the Symbol unless you could convince yourself of their truth from Scripture; but on the other hand, your interpretation of Scripture had to be regulated by the creed laid down in the Symbol.”
He then states “The Church alone furnished the gubernaculum interpretationis.”
Gubernaculum interpretationis literally means “the helm of interpretation” that is, the guide by which interpretation is directed (and if the Protestant historian Von Harnack is wrong about this, it should be shown with actual evidence, especially because what he says fits with the writings of the fathers)
How does it make sense to argue that the Fathers closest to the apostolic age, and the Church for centuries afterward, misunderstood the relationship between Scripture, Tradition, and ecclesial authority, while people living more than a millennium later recovered the correct model?
And if the Church could be wrong on something this fundamental for so many centuries, why should I have greater confidence in the Reformers’ judgment?
Second, why did this supposed recovery of the correct rule of faith produce such extraordinary doctrinal fragmentation (let alone actual wars)? If sola Scriptura was the corrective that Christianity had been missing, why did its adoption result in competing Protestant traditions disagreeing not merely on minor details, but on baptism, the Eucharist, predestination, perseverance, church government, ordination, the role of tradition, and even which doctrines should be considered essential? Christ explicitly prayed for the unity of His followers: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” ( John 17:21).
And Paul tells Christians: “that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” ( 1 Corinthians 1:10)
He then treats factionalism among Christians as evidence not of spiritual maturity, but of carnality: “For whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” ( 1 Corinthians 3:3)
Galatians is even more explicit. Among the works of the flesh Paul lists stuff like variance, seditions and heresies (Galatians 5:20–23).
And Paul also commands Christians: “mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.” (Romans 16:17)
Jesus Himself in Matthew 12:25–26 says very clearly: “every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.
So biblically, division, factionalism, rivalry, and separation are not presented as characteristic fruits of the Holy Spirit. Quite the opposite: the Spirit is associated with unity, peace, and truth, while faction and division are repeatedly condemned.
The question, then, is this: how can something that produced so much division be described as the work of the Holy Spirit?
And how can lasting unity be maintained without some central authority capable of giving a correct and binding interpretation on fundamental matters of faith and morals (and no, I am obviously not talking about whether churches should use pipe organs or guitars. I am talking about matters such as the Eucharist, predestination, the respective roles of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium in forming the rule of faith, and serious moral questions involving the protection of innocent life, the permanence of a valid marriage, and that kind of stuff)?
Feel free to take your time answering those questions. Hell, feel free not to answer them at all. By all means, do whatever you want.
But they are serious questions.