7 Theological Quick Takes Friday (vol. 7)

-1-

I changed my picture for Quick Takes. The new theme will be: "Shooting holes in Protestant theories". That is entirely unoriginal.

-2-

Speaking of not unoriginal, Matt Swaim, producer of the Son Rise Morning Show (of which I was interviewed on Wednesday to discuss my post on the Development of Dogma), just started a new blog. It's "A Field Guide to Catholic Terminology". You can find it at catholicvocab.blogspot.com. In it's own words:

"These are not the definitions that your catechist will give you in RCIA class. These are the definitions he will give you after RCIA class, when he's had a bit to drink."

No doubt, the website will shoot more than a few holes in Protestant theories. Which leads me to...

-3-

...the canon. I'm not talking about:

this

or

this.

Instead, I'm talking about this:

Unabridged Version: see Protestantism for less details

-4-

Since I gave you pictures, I can get away with skipping right along to #4.

-5-

...and to #5. Huh? Yep, I'm skipping to #5 because this one is long. Recently in a combox, someone asked me about the canon of Scripture. I wrote:

This was a problem I had when trying to teach teenagers the Bible at a Protestant high school (I was then a Protestant). A sharp 17 year old will catch that it is a circular argument to say “the Bible is the Bible because the Bible tells me so” (option A). In a kindergarden classroom that might work, but not for someone who has started to question why they believe what they believe. So, we are either left with “the Bible we have is the Bible because Jesus said so explicitly in the Bible” (option B) or “some Church decided that the Bible we have is the Bible because Jesus gave them the authority to do so” (option C). Regarding option B, last time I checked, the table of contents in a Bible doesn’t read:

…from J.C.

Laughs aside, this put me in a real dilemma. If I acknowledged that Christ used the Church–authoritatively–to give us the canon of Scripture, it gave rise to other questions like “what else did Christ give them authority to do”? On what ground should I trust that Church? Which Church? If I’m to assume Christ gave them authority to do “x”, I better have some evidence that He gave them authority to begin with. What did I do? I kept trying to teach “self-attestation”, that those who put their faith in Christ “just know” that the Bible is the Bible. I tried a few other things I’m sure, but at the end of the school day I knew I was laying the ground work for their personal crisis of faith. I remember a few of my students asking, “Couldn’t any religion say that?”

…and they were right. Scary. Next subject.

In other words, there is nothing required of a religion if their book is merely the by product of self-attestation. The Bible is the Bible because the Bible tells me so, could be re-worded with the same credibility, “The Koran is the Bible because the Koran tells me so.” Both are grounded in the sentiment, the “bosom burning” of the believer. Mormons and JW’s, for example, use this line quite a bit.

What I wish I could have told those young people was:

1. God exists
2. He came in the flesh
3. He died for our sins
4. He founded a Church and gave His authority to Her until His return
5. She acts on his authority to define dogma
6. One such dogma is the canon of Scripture

That is credible, true and worthy of belief. It does not violate reason and is consonant with both Scripture, Tradition and history. That lesson, instead, would have laid a wall around their faith that would have fortified it through their coming college years.

Told you it was long.

-6-

So he responded:

"Would it be a circular argument if I opened a dictionary and the dictionary identifies itself as the dictionary? Of course not. The same would apply to the Bible would it not?"

So I responded (but it was never published):

Adding the name of a university to
the top does not make it a diploma

If you opened a book that wasn’t a dictionary, and it said it was a dictionary, would it still be a dictionary because it said it was a dictionary? Of course not. Any book claiming to be anything (dictionaries included) will identify itself as that which it claims to be. However, simply because a book claims to be a dictionary doesn’t make it a dictionary. You would need to know that someone or some group of people had the authority to give you the definitions in the book. Only on those grounds would you have warrant to trust that what you are holding is a dictionary. Otherwise, I could slap the word dictionary on a notebook, and inside you might find something like this:

cat: (noun) a thing you throw into the ocean

= not a dictionary

He went on to ask:

"Would you agree that if a person teaches something that contradicts what Christ taught [it] is false?"

So I wrote (again un-published):

Of course. I’m not sure why you would ask that question. What we are discussing here is how you or I decide what constitutes the “teaching of Christ”. You admit that Protestants have various views on what constitutes “the teaching of Christ”. Therefore, it is going to be hard to figure out in the Protestant world what constitutes a contradiction of the “teachings of Christ” if various Protestant sects believe contradicting things about the “teachings of Christ”. As I mentioned, neither the Old or New Testament is written like a catechism. If Christ gave his authority to teach to His apostles, gave them the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth both to remind them of what he said and to teach them of what is to come (John 16:13), and they–following our Lord’s model–passed off this authority by the laying on of hands, then we should ask like Peter, “Where can I go, you have the words of eternal life?” Jesus ascended and handed off his ministry to his Apostles. Those who depart and do not listen to the Apostles reject Christ. Those who reject the one’s who the Apostles send, reject the Apostles and reject Christ.

(FYI: Devin and I discussed the canon (minute 23) here.)

-7-

How do I feel about the Catholic Church?

For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up: and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.- Psalm 69:9

Thanks Jen for hosting!