Why Protestantism has no “visible catholic Church”
Sep 16th, 2009 | By Bryan Cross | Category: Blog PostsPart of the content of the Christian faith is the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church,” because that is one article of the Church’s Creed. Concerning the Church, the Westminster Confession of Faith reads:
The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.1
But, as I show below, Protestantism itself has no visible catholic Church. It has only denominations, congregations, believers and their children. Within Protestantism there is not some one additional entity to which the term “visible catholic Church” refers, consisting of these denominations, congregations, believers and their children.
St. Peter (c. 1708-13)
Pierre Etienne Monnot
San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome
What allowed the authors of the Westminster Confession to believe sincerely that there was a “visible catholic Church” other than the Catholic Church headed by the Pope, was a philosophical error. This was the error of assuming that unity of type is sufficient for unity of composition. In actuality, things of the same type do not by that very fact compose a unified whole. For example, all the crosses that presently exist all have something in common; they are each the same type of thing, i.e. a cross. But they do not form a unified whole composed of each individual cross around the world. This crucifix, for example, in the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica, is not a part of a unified whole consisting of all the crucifixes in the world. All crucifixes are things of the same specific type, but that does not in itself make them parts that compose a unified whole spread out around the world. Similarly, all the apples in the world have something in common — each one is an apple. They each have the same nature or type. But they do not compose a unified whole of which each apple is a part. And other examples can be multiplied ad infinitum.
One way to determine whether something is an actual whole or merely a plurality of things having something in common, is to determine whether everything could be exactly the same, including all the alleged ‘parts,’ except without the alleged ‘whole.’ If the ‘whole’ can be removed without changing anything about its ‘parts’ and without changing anything else in the world, then there is no actual whole, only a mere plurality. If there is merely a plurality of things having something in common, and not an actual whole, then we can remove the alleged ‘whole’ without needing to change anything in the world. But if there is an actual whole, then in order to remove the whole and leave the parts, we would need to change the world.
For example, in order to remove me and leave all my parts, you would have to change the world, by reconfiguring my parts such that I was dead. But in the case of the alleged entity composed of all the apples in the world, we can take away this whole without needing to change anything about the location, arrangement or motion of any apple in the world. And this shows that in actuality there is no such entity, that is, there is no whole composed of all the apples in the world. If someone used the word ‘Panapple’ to refer to “the entity consisting of all the apples in the world,” then by this test we would know that the term ‘Panapple’ does not refer to an actual unified entity consisting of all apples. Instead, we would know that the term refers to what is in actuality merely a plurality of things, each sharing unity of type.
We can apply this same test to the term “visible catholic Church” in the Westminster Confession to see whether it refers to an actual entity or only to a mere plurality. The “visible catholic Church” is defined by the Confession as consisting of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, and of their children. If there were no actual visible catholic Church, but only the term ‘visible catholic Church,’ the Protestant denominations, the Protestant congregations, and the individual Protestant believers and their children, nothing in Protestantism would be any different. All the denominations, congregations, individual believers and their children would be exactly as they are, if there were not, in addition, this entity referred to by the term “the visible catholic Church.” This shows that the term ‘visible catholic Church’ does not refer to an actual unified entity (i.e. the visible catholic Church), but is merely a name used to refer to what is in actuality a plurality of things having something in common, just as “Panapple” could be used to refer to all apples, even though in actuality there is not one thing consisting of all apples.
When we apply this test to the Catholic Church, by contrast, we find that in order to remove the whole and leave the parts, we have to change the world. This is because the Catholic Church’s hierarchical unity changes and orders the activity of her members.2 And this is also true of a society, on account of its singular government.3 But what allows the removal of the “visible catholic Church” from Protestant ecclesiology, without changing anything else, is that Protestantism mistakenly denies the necessity of hierarchical unity for visible unity at the universal (i.e. catholic) level. Reformed Protestantism recognizes that local churches, in order to be visible, must be hierarchical. No one would say that the fact of there being believers in a city ipso facto constitutes a local visible church. But, this fact is arbitrarily set aside in Reformed ecclesiology’s conception of the visible catholic Church, through its denial that the “visible catholic Church” need be hierarchical. If the local church must be hierarchical in order to be visible, then Reformed Protestants must either form a worldwide hierarchy if they wish to affirm a “visible catholic Church,” or drop the claim that there is a “visible catholic Church” to which they belong.
What are the implications of Protestantism having no visible catholic Church? If Protestantism has no visible catholic Catholic, then given Protestantism, the catholic Church is only invisible. This entails that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church is the set of all the elect. This is the route of those Protestants who deny that Christ founded a visible Church. But this position runs contrary to Scripture, because we know from Scripture that there will be tares within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, until the angels remove them at the end. And yet by definition there can be no tares within the set of the elect (i.e. elect-to-glory). Likewise, when Matthew records Jesus saying to Peter in Matthew 16:18, “upon this rock I will build My Church”, and then saying, in Matthew 18:17, “tell it to the Church”, and “listen to the Church”, the most natural way of understanding these passages is that the term ‘ekklesia’ (‘Church’) is being used in the same way in all three places. And it is clear in the Matthew 18 passages that ‘ekklesia’ there refers to the visible Church, not a merely spiritual entity. Matters of discipline cannot be brought before the set of all the elect. This shows us that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of which Christ speaks in Matthew 16 is not a mere set; Jesus was not meaning “upon this Rock I will build my set.”
Since, as I have shown above, Protestant ecclesiology has no visible catholic Church, and yet since from Scripture we see that the one catholic Church that Christ founded is visible, Protestantism must either give up the word ‘catholic’ in the Creed (as some Lutherans have done, replacing it with the word ‘Christian’), or seek reconciliation with the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that Christ founded, the Catholic Church from which Protestants separated in the sixteenth century.
- WCF XXV.2 [↩]
- Catholic ecclesiology is not subject to this elimination of the “visible Catholic Church” because the Catholic Church is a hierarchically organized institution. Reductionism (as applied to living organisms) is the opposite error of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, which is exemplified in treating a plural-referring term as if it referred to an additional singular entity that in some sense includes all the other singular entities within itself. While misplaced concreteness treats mere pluralities as if they are actual wholes and thus mistakenly inflates the account of ontology, reductionism treats actual wholes as mere pluralities of smaller simples, and in this way fails to account fully for the being and activity of actual wholes. (See Leon Kass’s “The Permanent Limitations of Biology.”) Because the Catholic Church has hierarchical unity, as do organisms, it is not subject to eliminative reductionism, for the same reason they too are not subject to eliminative reductionism. To try to explain the activities of Catholics without referring to the institution to which they belong would necessarily leave out a significant part of the full explanation. It would be like trying to explain the daily life of a human being solely in terms of the movements of the particles of which he is composed. But a complete explanation of the activities of Protestants as such need not refer to some world-encompassing entity, “the visible catholic Church,” over and above the influence of other believers, their local congregation and denomination. [↩]
- The human race is not a whole; all humans have unity of type, but do not compose a whole. [↩]
Bryan,
Well done.
Another alternative would be to posit visibility on some sort of state-chuches-with-fraternal-relations model, much like the Orthodox. So the English and Scottish Presbyterians would be united with the Dutch Reformed Church, with the Swiss, etc. In this case, unity would have a certain hierarchical element and would have common faith and (I suppose) common sacraments. I think about how at the Synod of Dordt, there were Calvinist divines present from other nations, like delegates from the Anglican church.
This would have to meet the composition test twice: first at the national level of each church (e.g., the congregations are united by a general assembly, discipline recognized by all other congregations, admission to sacraments in all other congregations for members, etc.) and then again at the international level. I think the second would be more difficult. An analogy could be drawn to the UN or the modern WCC, which unifies nations and denominations respectively. However, each of these are voluntary organizations.
Even if some argument could pass the composition test at the international level, there would be a problem in accepting non-Reformed “visible churches” such as the Lutherans. LCMS churches practice closed communion. In order to have a real visible church, Protestants would have to go back to closed communion days. Because so many in the PCA (and the PCUSA, for that matter) pride themselves on open communion, I doubt this would ever happen.
Thoughts? Do you see any way that Reformed denominations could pass the composition test at the international level? I’m struggling at the moment.
Pax,
“3. The human race is not a whole; all humans have unity of type, but do not compose a whole. ”
This may be a minor point, but it’s one I’m curious about. Frank Sheed writes in Theology and Sanity at some length about the unity of the human race in a way that seems to go beyond a unity of type: “[There is] a failure to grasp the
organic solidarity of the human race. We are not isolated units, but even in the natural order members of one thing” (p. 167, emph. added). He’s responding to complaints against the doctrine of Original Sin at that point in the book. I don’t think this affects your thesis, but I thought I should bring it up. Do you think Sheed’s wrong on this point, or are you talking about different things?
Barrett,
Great question — exactly what needs to be asked. Can “fraternal relations” between denominations (or between state churches) be sufficient for there to be a visible catholic Church? The answer is no. That’s because the denominations and their interelations are sufficient to explain their behavior. There is no need to posit some additional entity “the visible catholic Church” that is directing the activities of these denominations. The alleged ‘whole’ can be removed without changing anything about its ‘parts.’ What is necessary to make the denominations compose a whole is a single shared government. Only in this way can a plurality of institutions become (or form) a single institution. Mere cooperation or collaboration of denominations is compatible with there being only a plurality of institutions, not a single whole. In order for their activity to be an operation, and not merely a co-operation, there needs to be a unified government, i.e. the hierarchy must be unified at its highest level, so that it is not merely a plurality of hierarchies related horizontally, but a single hierarchy unified vertically under a unified head.
NAPARC, for example, is an organized collaboration of participating Presbyterian and Reformed denominations. NAPARC is not a church, nor is it the government of the participating demominations. For good reason no one claims that NAPARC is the visible catholic Church, or that it is the Church that Christ founded, and of which He speaks in Matthew 16. To be visible, the Church must be hierarchically unified, and to be catholic, it must not be provincial, but universal, something like this:
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:20)
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
“For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall” (Ephesians 2:14)
“Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” (Revelation 5:9)
“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands.” (Revelation 7:9)
And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.” (Revelation 14:6)
So to be the “visible catholic Church”, it must be both hierarchically unified and universal, not limited to a region, province, ethnicity, etc.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
St. Gimp,
Good point. What Sheed is saying, and what I am saying are not incompatible. Unity of type can be had either by organic derivation or by direct creation. Angels and humans are both rational. But this is not something derived from the other species. We did not receive rationality from the angels, nor did they receive it from us. In both cases this was given to us directly by God. But corporeal living things are so made by God that descendants receive their type from their progenitors. In this way, the members of an animate species are united not only by unity of type (one form), but also through lines of descent to one original body (one matter). But this does not make all members of a species into a whole of which these members are parts. Material unity by generational derivation is another kind of unity; it is not compositional unity. But derivational unity is not sufficient to make the visible catholic Church one, because every heresy and schism of history could likewise claim derivational unity from the Catholic Church, as something tracing its roots back to the Catholic Church — see here. So Sheed is right, but that doesn’t conflict with what I’m saying here about compositional unity. I hope that sheds some light on your question.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Bryan,
This is all so very closely related to the moderate realism vs. nominalism debate. Nominalism seems to get traction from the fact that we do sometimes mistakenly assign names to types of things as if there is a whole above and beyond the individual entities which are an example of that type, as with the ‘panapples’ example or the ‘visible catholic church’ from some sects of Protestantism, where, in fact, there is no unity of composition, but only a unity of type.
Speaking of the type, we sometimes assign a term to it and use it as a noun, making the mistake of objectifying that which exists, but not as an object, or reifying that which does not exist at all, except in the mind of the knower as a universal, recognzing unity of type or form. Moderate realists sometimes make such errors, though this is not an argument against moderate realism itself, only against errors made in its context and we must recall, of course, that abuse does not nullify proper use, just as an error made classifying x within a set of categories does not nullify the categories themselves. But nominalists want to treat, it seems, far too many things as merely names, as merely nominal, denying the reality of real objects- in the most extreme cases-, real relations between objects, real commonality between things, real classes of things, real groups of things, real membership, and perhaps even real types of unity, be they compositional, derivational, material, or formal, though more work would need to be done here.
And so it seems that puzzles like ‘Is this philosophy *class* a real thing or merely a name given to refer to a plurality of things in shorthand notation, with their being nothing more than the plurality of individual things?’ and other such puzzles has relevance to the Protestant-Catholic controversy as well.
The class is not a unity of composition. It is not a separate entity apart from all of the individuals who meet. The nominalists are right about that. But it is not a mere name, without any reality at all, as the nominalists might have it, for there seems to be some organization of purpose and some sort of reality to it such that when we refer to it we are not merely referring to nothing.
Similarly, ‘Protestantism’ has a reality. It is not just a name. There is a unity of type, but there is not a unity of composition to which the term ‘Protestantism’ refers. There is not an object to which the term refers that is separate from all members of the type. If all Protestants got together and called themselves a ‘church’, the unity of composition would still be lacking. If would be something, like the class, and not a mere name or unreality with a name attached to it. But, without a deeper unity and a deeper structure, it does not rise above the panapples example, whereas the Catholic Church claims a unity of composition and heirarchy such that there is something more than just the common belief of the members.
We might think of a group of people in a given area living amongst one another without an organized government, all having similar ideas about freedom. Still, that is not a government organized around the same concept in a specific way, passing authority through the generations through tradition.
And so it is that the P-C controversy has something to do with that older moderate realism-nominalism debate, though I would not want to say that one side represents the moderate realist position and the other the nominalist position, for people can error when trying to be moderate realists otherwise, sometimes thinking that something is not real when it is, real when it is not, or, less crudely, real in a certain way that does not apply or not real in a certain way that really does apply, i.e., is actually the case. Protestants, then, have failed to appreciate the way in which the Catholic Church is real and why that is significant. They have also failed to appreciate the way in which they are not, as a ‘Church’, real, thinking that the way they, as a ‘Church’, are real is enough to make the Reformation acceptable, despite the fact that with the Reformation they sacrificed the realness that had existed prior to the Reformation for nearly 1500 years, discoverable in the Church Fathers, the Bible, and Church Doctors, cutting themselves from the realness created by Christ and limiting themselves to a more limited form of realness, i.e., ‘pan-appleness’.
But with the Catholic Church Christians were already Christians by type and had that in common. Protestants added nothing in that regard. Rather, Protestantism is a reduction, a subtraction, subtracting out greater realities and, in fact, a unified reality, and then trying to take this or that part, as if the part can survive in true, authentic form without being a part of the whole to which it belongs.
Bryan, no doubt, can clarify or correct or modify any errors I have made here, as needed.
Eric
Or, Protestants may look all of this squarely in the face and say that unity of hierarchy and tradition and, if applicable, composition, though intended by Christ and though perhaps important throughout history, even today, should not be placed over and above a true interpretation of Scripture. That is, if a unity, no matter how great and superior, is wrong in its interpretations of Christ’s intentions and message, the unity has to be put aside so that the truth can survive. I think this may also be how a great many Protestants see the matter, though I doubt most have adequately considered the importance of Christian unity, especially the deeper forms that the Catholic Church claims to offer, presently and historically.
Bryan,
Excellent post. Your conclusion made me think of the Reformed Churches which continue to say the Apostles Creed, always with the asterisk at the bottom redefining the word “Catholic”.
You write, “What are the implications of Protestantism having no visible catholic Church? If Protestantism has no visible Catholic Church, then given Protestantism, the catholic Church is only invisible.”
In my discussion with friends at RTS, the doctrine of the invisible Church is always used to justify the disunity of the visible churches.
Hey again, I didn’t mean to submit that yet. Anyway, my Reformed friends make the argument that the Churches referred to in the book of Revelation are distinct and resemble the Protestant scene today (different Churches with unique issues). They argue that there is no hierarchical Catholic Church which unifies the local Churches which Jesus addresses.
In regards to this specific argument, what do you see in the book of Revelation and the Churches addressed there, that would affirm the hierarchical unity of the Church?
.
I see the St. John the Apostle having the authority to write to all of them.
Eric, thanks very much for your comments.
Jeremy, we need to keep in mind the distinction between a “particular Church” and the “universal Church”. Jesus said to Peter, “upon this rock I will build my Church”. Notice the singular. The Church is the Bride of Christ; Jesus is not a polygamist. He has only one Bride. This is why singularity is one of the four *marks* of the Church: “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” taught in the Creed. But there was the Church at Jerusalem, the Church at Antioch, the Church in Rome, the Church in Corinth, the Church at Ephesus, etc. So, do we now have a contradiction: one Church, and yet many Churches? No, there is no contradiction. Those are particular Churches, each a member of the one universal (catholic) Church. And the Churches referred to in chapters 2-3 of Revelation are likewise particular Churches.
They argue that there is no hierarchical Catholic Church which unifies the local Churches which Jesus addresses.
I’d like to see that argument. (I can’t evaluate it, without seeing it.) Around AD 50, or so, the Church held its first Council in Jerusalem. This is recorded for us in Acts 15. The conclusion of that Council was binding on all particular Churches. This shows that the particular Churches were bound under the authority of the universal [catholic] Church. It was not the case that each particular Church was autonomous. That authority of the catholic Church over the particular Churches did not cease at the death of the last Apostle. That’s why as soon as the situation permitted, after the persecution ceased, the Church was able to hold an ecumenical council in AD 325, and its decisions were recognized to be binding on all particular Churches. It would be strange, don’t you think, if all particular Churches understood themselves to be autonomous, for them suddenly and without protest to treat the decisions of an ecumenical council as binding. Surely, there would have been outrage, protest and dissent throughout the entire Christian world, not so much because of the doctrinal decision at Nicea, but simply because of the audacious, presumptuous, arrogation to itself of the council’s claim to a universal ecclesial authority which had hitherto been denied (or at least unknown) by all particular Churches. “Get your universal laws off our particular body” might have been the preferred bumper sticker on Christians’ chariots around that time. But while the decision at Nicea was controversial, it wasn’t because the authority of the council was disputed, but because so many people were sympathetic to Arianism.
But even before this, we can see that while St. John was still alive, St. Clement was writing (around 96 AD) an authoritative command to the Church at Corinth to get their act together. This is the letter of 1 Clement. St. Clement appears to be exercising a shepherding authority from the particular Church where St. Peter and St. Paul had labored and spilled their blood, and handed on their mantle. If each particular Church were autonomous, then St. Clement would have had no right to do what he did, or say things like this:
If St. Clement, writing while the Apostle John was still alive, believed that all particular Churches were autonomous, he could not have written such a statement. So, either St. Clement had already fallen off the cliff of ecclesial deism into the megalomaniacal lust for power, even while St. John still lived in Ephesus, or, it is not true that each particular Church was autonomous.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Bryan’s answer was slightly more thorough and had better grammar.
Chad, awesome point. Wow. That’s should have been more obvious to me. Your grammar is fine too (I teach HS english and this is the one place I never worry about grammar!)
Bryan, your point about St. Clement is very helpful. I will certainly use this quote. I think it will prove valuable, even to somebody who denegrates the Church Fathers out of their committment to sola scriptura.
So…given the clear record of the early Church and the clarity of Scripture regarding Christ’s promise of one Church, how can a Protestant say that the Catholic Church ceased to be a Church at Trent (as they always do)? Does not such a statement require extra-biblical revelation? Even if my Protestant friend is right, when he argues, “The Catholic Church cannot be considered a Church in any sense”, wouldn’t such knowledge require a violation of sola scriptura? This friend (who is a PCA Pastor) makes the specific point that “the only thing that justifies our existence is that the Catholic Church ceased to be a Church at Trent”. I’m seeing from what your’e saying though and to me, it makes clear that from a Reformed perspective, and from the role of tradition in the “orthodox” reformed camp, the reformed doctrine of the Church is indefensible.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
That didn’t make much sense, I was trying to say that on its own terms (Reformed theology), the Reformed Doctrine of the Church as given in the WCF is untenable.
Bryan:
I don’t know if you realise it or not but the fact is Rome had no Monarchial Bishop until the end of the 2cnd Century. The “Clement” that is cited so often to “prove” that he was the Bishop of Rome and “Pope” who governed the Catholic Church is untenable based on the facts of history. “Clement” was one of many co-equal “Presbyters” who governed the Church in Rome. Each “Presbyter” was delegated certain responsibilities and “Clement” was like a sort of “Secretary of external affairs” whose responsibility was to communicate with Churches outside of Rome. Also the whole idea of a single “Monarchial Bishop” who was in charge of a city or certain geographical area gradually developed over time as the Church gained converts. I suggest you read “Christians At Rome In The First Two Centuries: From Paul To Valentinus”, this is an exhaustive study of the Church in Rome from St. Paul to the end of the 2cnd Century and thoroughly refutes the idea of a central Papacy and Bishop who governed the entire Church done by Peter Lampe.
Neither does the Roman Catholic Church have one visible catholic church … if you mean by “catholic,” uniting all churches. Since it is too narrow to admit Protestants.
Jeremy, (re: #12)
A week ago, Sean posted “Which Lens is the Proper Lens?” In it he quoted from something I had written at Green Baggins, to Protestant pastor Lane Keister. I’ll paste my comment here:
So, in answer to your question: “how can a Protestant say that the Catholic Church ceased to be a Church at Trent (as they always do)?”, they do so by redefining the marks of the Church, such that one of the new marks is “the gospel”, and then “the gospel” is defined according to their own interpretation of Scripture as faith-not-informed-by-agape; see my post titled, “Does the Bible Teach Sola Fide?” There I show that there is not a good case that the Bible defines the gospel as faith-not-informed-by-agape. And as soon as Protestants see that, and given that “the only thing that justifies [Protestantism's] existence is that the Catholic Church ceased to be a Church at Trent,” it follows that not only did the Catholic Church not cease to be the Church at Trent, but Protestants are not (and have never been) justified in being separated from the Catholic Church.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
JohnW,
I’ve read Lampe’s book. Can you name one piece of historical evidence that meets two conditions: (1) it shows that there was no monarchical bishop in Rome until the second half of the second century, and (2) it is stronger evidence than is the list of St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies III.3.3)? (Please show why it is stronger evidence than is St. Irenaeus’ list.) If you can do that, then your assertion will be something more than a mere assertion.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Joe, (re: #15),
Neither does the Roman Catholic Church have one visible catholic church … if you mean by “catholic,” uniting all churches. Since it is too narrow to admit Protestants.
The fact of there being persons in schism from the Church does not refute the visible unity of the Church. To assume that Protestants are not in schism from the Church, or to assume that if there were a visible catholic Church it would necessarily include Protestants, and to use either assumption as evidence against the visible unity of the Catholic Church, is to assume the falsity of Catholicism at the outset, i.e. to beg the question.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Yeah, that was a great article, although I got lost for a moment in all the “whole” and “world” statements! But I got the point.
#10 was extremely interesting to me in your responses Bryan. I never before thought of what you mentioned about the councils. If they were binding, that is indicative of authority and hierarchy. It would seem that, such a council and it’s binding decisions didn’t cause an uproar of people shouting “Who do these guys think they are?!?!”… instead we do see issues arise for the reason you mentioned. That is a wild thought. This was the case from the start with the first council as you mentioned. Very intriguing! Where do you come up with this stuff? :D
Anyway, thanks for stimulating the gray matter!
In the peace of Christ,
-g-
Dear John W,
I’ve written a number of comments regarding the “evidence” that there were no bishops in Rome until the late second century. You can see them in the Ecclesial Deism thread. As you review the evidence, I recommend distinguishing between five types of evidence:
(1) Positive, detailed evidence from people who we have good reasons to believe were honest.
(2) Positive evidence without many details, from people who may or may not have been honest.
(3) Silence that is damning (i.e., silence in areas where you would have strongly expected positive evidence).
(4) Silence that is ambiguous
(5) Silence that is innocent (i.e., silence in areas where you would never have expected positive evidence anyway).
As far as I can tell from the books that I have read, the evidence for the claim that there were no bishops in Rome until the late second century is entirely in categories (4) and (5), which are the weakest forms of evidence (I hesitate to call them evidence at all). For example, people point out that some early Church documents that I see no reason to believe would have complete descriptions of church hierarchies don’t explicitly mention bishops (some do, but some don’t). This is sloppy evidence. The evidence for the claim that there were Bishops in Rome, on the other hand, is in category (1).
The fact that you have lots of ambiguous and innocent silences to bolster your claim is really irrelevant. In fields that depend on analysis of data, one or two really solid observations are inestimably more valuable than one hundred sloppy and biased observations. A case in point is the famous debate over the effect of class size on student achievement. One properly run experiment is much more valuable for determining this effect than one hundred non-experimental surveys — because there are so many biases in these surveys, and because multiplying bad evidence times one hundred still leaves us with. . . bad evidence!
I know of sloppy economists who make the same argument about the class size data as sloppy protestants make about early church history (and these sloppy economists are not exactly well-respected in the centers of the field). But in spite of the fact that careless people in all fields sometimes fall for this falsehood, the same truth holds everywhere: multiplying sloppy and biased evidence times one hundred still leaves you with sloppy and biased evidence.
Sincerely,
K. Doran
Hey all,
I would love help with something somewhat unrelated. Last night I had a fairly intense debate on the phone with one of my RTS Professors. He insisted that Rome “formally” teaches the insufficiency of Scripture and that the Roman formula for doctrinal authority is (Bible + sacred tradition) as two separate authorities. I argued (I don’t know if I understand this right), that these authorities are not two seperate authorites at all, but two aspects of the same authority, both established by God. Rather than the Bible and the Church as two independant authorities, I argued that Rome teaches the formula (in my own words)”BIBLE- AS INTERPRETED BY THE CHURCH”. I know this is a simplification, but is this a fair understanding of the relationship between these two authorities?
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
hey Jeremy,
Henri de Lubac’s work entitled “L’écriture dans la tradition” was first published in English under the title “The Sources of Revelation,” and here’s what he says about that translation:
“You can’t imagine my shock when I read The Sources of Revelation (1968) on the cover! And I was the one who had battled against the famous theory of ‘the two sources’!” [pxv of introduction of his book, ISBN No. 0824518713]
i’ve been reading that book and his Medieval Exegesis series [ISBN No. 056708634] and both reflect exactly what you’re saying, that Catholicism does not teach a strict separation of Scripture | Tradition. i see Catholic authors refer to them as “Scripture and Tradition” in all kinds of contexts, which could easily lead people to believe in a “theory of two sources,” but i suspect that’s just an effect of the coordinating conjunction.
i’d also say your professor’s explanation as you’ve described it directly contradicts the teaching of then Cardinal Ratzinger that can be found in God’s Word [ISBN No. 9781586171797]. you’re about to get much more (and better) feedback than this from others, but for what it’s worth, there’s three sources that have had a deep impact on my thinking.
Cheers,
w
Thanks Wilkens,
Both of us were insisting that we were accurately representing what Rome teaches, so that’s basically how our conversation ended. I will certaintly look at Ratzinger’s article. Do you have a link to it?
– Jeremy
Jeremy,
if you Google in quotation marks ["primacy, episcopate, and successio apostolica"] you’ll see that the introduction to the Cardinal Ratzinger book is available online, but i don’t think there’s on online full-text version (Google Books has a limited preview copy: just type “God’s Word” into the Google Books search box and it will be the first book that pops up, I believe).
what do you think your professor would accept as ‘smoking gun’ evidence of an official Church position? did he offer any clues in that regard?
paragraph 80, p31 of the Catechism has the very bold title line, “One common source…” [and i recommend CCC as primary resource, btw], but my fall-back position (as a happy Protestant) was something like, “Well, yeah, maybe that’s what this catechism says today, but for 1900 years the Catholic Church has been about Tradition only.” in other words, i wouldnot have accepted the CCC as a true testimony of Church teaching.
what have you read that led you to the conclusion you articulated to your professor?
Best,
w
Hey W,
My conclusion is from the language of the catechism which speaks of the magisterium as the servant of Scripture. I argued that the two are in complete agreement, with the magisterium fleshing the original apostolic deposit for various contexts. He argued that doctrines such as the assumption of Mary, immaculate conception, ect, are not hinted at in Scripture and therefore, the two authorities are not “one common source”, but two different sources.
I’ll check out Ratzinger, Jeremy
Wilkins,
I think you did a fine job of answering. Jeremy/Wilkins: here is Dei Verbum:
And…
So it is not the teaching of the Church that Scripture is insufficient but that Scripture removed from the context of Sacred Tradition is insufficient. It is not demeaning to a fish to say it belongs in water. He fails to appreciate the nature of a fish who says the fish is useful outside of water!
hey Jeremy,
there’s something odd about that objection… if ‘tradition’ must mirror Scripture, then isn’t the only possible source Scripture? [on the other hand, it seems like an objection to specifically Catholic dogma (which is, in fact, reflected in Scripture) is unhelpfully conflated with the question of Scripture's relationship to tradition; ack! it's quite a knot you're pulling on]
= : )
i suspect this book (God’s Word:Scripture, Tradition, Office) is going to make a very big contribution to your discussion. i’m just flipping through my copy: page 51 is point of departure for ‘Theses on the Relation between Revelation and Tradition’:
“The fact that there is ‘tradition’ rests first of all on the incongruence between the two entities ‘revelation’ and ‘Scripture’. For revelation signifies all God’s acts and utterances directed to man; it signifies a reality of which Scripture gives us information but that is not simply Scripture itself. Revelation goes beyond Scripture, then, to the same extent as reality goes beyond information about it. We could also say that Scripture is the material principle of Revelation (perhaps the only one, perhaps one of a number—we may leave that point open for the moment) but is not that revelation itself… you cannot put revelation in your pocket like a book you carry around with you. It is a living reality that requires a living person as the locus of its presence.”
and p56,
“The reality that comes to be in Christian revelation is nothing and no one other than Christ himsef. He is revelation inthe proper sense: ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father’, Christ says in John (14:9)… on this basis, light is thrown of its own accord on the question of the sufficiency of Scripture in terms of content, which has so dominated the discussion since Geiselmann’s work. We would nevertheless have to ask here: ‘What can “sufficiency in terms of content” mean at all, speaking in Christian terms? Only the reality of Christ is ‘sufficient’.”
the whole thing is like a kick in the solar plexus, this book. it’s entirely too good.
On second thought, fish are useful outside of water; namely for eating. :) He fails to appreciate the nature of a fish who says the fish can live outside of water. That’s better.
hey Tim,
“He fails to appreciate the nature of a fish…” is perfect, both iterations! (lol)
W,
That’s good stuff. It seems to lend itself, and has, I’m sure, to a connection with the Thomistic/Aristotelian epistemology wherein the knower goes beyond storing and perceiving data about known things and actually becomes them (without losing self).
To treat Scripture as formally sufficient for salvation fails to appreciate what salvation requires (which is beyond what Scripture, per se, can provide).
Furthermore, as stated, the record of revelation is not the revelation itself anymore than a photograph of a mountain is the mountain.
Thank you guys both a ton. C2C is a goldmine. This is incredibly helpful. – Peace in Christ, Jeremy
W,
To answer your question from earlier, no, my Professor does not believe that the CCC accurately represents the true teaching of Rome precisely because he believes the magisterium teaches other doctrine contrary to scripture. For him, Dei Verbum and the teachings of the CCC, actually make the sin of Rome more severe because they claim to be doing the exact opposite of what Protestants accuse them of. So…the conversation tends to become a big unfruitful circle.
I really can’t tell you how helpful your explation of this has been. I had read excerpts from Dei Verbum before, but I’m a pretty simple guy and Tim’s simple explanation of the fish in water makes all the sense in the world to me.
Thanks again, Jeremy
thanks, Jeremy,
and you’re right about this place—i’ve learned a lot from the articles, podcasts and comment reading.
and i totally respect your professor’s concern; he’s articulating what my parents and friends believe—what good, and decent, and often very brilliant people taught me (and you, all of us) for many years.
i think it’s good to be simple. i happen to be unusually slow about ‘getting’ things. much of the crucial reading (like the suggested Cardinal Ratzinger book) is difficult—and untranslated Latin sometimes makes me curse. we need each other in forums like this. I don’t know Tim or any of the others but their explanations and questions have really helped a lot of my reading gel up and make sense.
Pax Christi,
w
“But this position runs contrary to Scripture, because we know from Scripture that there will be tares within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, until the angels remove them at the end. And yet by definition there can be no tares within the set of the elect (i.e. elect-to-glory).”
Bryan, you seem to be reading scripture through a Catholic lens, or “begging the question” as you sometimes put it. Nowhere in that passage in Matthew 13 does it mention the “one holy, catholic, apostolic church”. Instead, Jesus uses the term “kingdom of heaven” and then goes on to tell the parable. And in fact, rather than a description of the church, later in Matthew 13:37 – 43 Jesus tells us exactly what he meant – the field is the world – not the church. He is describing believers and unbelievers living together until the time of the judgment, not believers and unbeliever residing together in a visible church.
Matthew 13 has a number of these parables about the “kingdom of heaven” and it does not look to me like many of them are describing the church. The kingdom is variously described as field of wheat and tares, mustad seed, yeast, a hidden treasure, a valuable pearl, and a great net. Again, these are parable about the “kingdom of heaven” which I don’t think can be equated easily to the institutional hierarchical Catholic church.
So while you may yet be able to disprove from scripture the position of some Protestants whether the church is visible or invisible, I don’t think you done it here.
“Likewise, when Matthew records Jesus saying to Peter in Matthew 16:18, “upon this rock I will build My Church”, and then saying, in Matthew 18:17, “tell it to the Church”, and “listen to the Church”, the most natural way of understanding these passages is that the term ‘ekklesia’ (’Church’) is being used in the same way in all three places. And it is clear in the Matthew 18 passages that ‘ekklesia’ there refers to the visible Church, not a merely spiritual entity. Matters of discipline cannot be brought before the set of all the elect. This shows us that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of which Christ speaks in Matthew 16 is not a mere set; Jesus was not meaning “upon this Rock I will build my set.”
I disagree that the natural reading of “ekklesia” is the same in all three places. In Matthew 18 it would appear to me that he is talking of the local church or “assembly”, not the “catholic” church or “church as a whole” or whatever term you wish to use. How could you even do that? Indeed the emphasis on going yourself, then taking 2 or 3 brothers, then taking the unrepentant sinner to the “church” as a whole being the local “assembly” makes much more sense to me as a natural progression of steps.
I don’t find the most natural meaning to be the one you are applying. Again, I don’t think you’ve proven anything at this point. The scripture examples you’ve used to prove a “visible” church seem to fall short to me.
Steve, (re: #34)
You’re right that the passage doesn’t say “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church”. But I’m following the Church fathers, in understanding the Church to be the Kingdom, in its present stage. Otherwise Jesus would have two entities to which He is joined: His Church (i.e. His Bride), and His Kingdom. But when He gave Peter the keys of the Kingdom, He wasn’t giving him keys only to be used in the eschaton; He was giving him keys to be used in the Church. See also the section titled “The Church and the Kingdom” in the article by Tom Brown and myself titled “Christ Founded a Visible Church.” But, my argument does not hang on that prooftext. Matthew 18 shows that the Church Christ founded (referred to in Matt 16) is visible, for the reasons I explained in the body of my post. Presbyterians and Reformed Christians have explicitly rejected the claim that there is no visible catholic Church. So, I don’t need to establish that the Church is visible, because the persons to whom I am writing already agree with me that the Church isn’t just the set of all the elect. This is precisely why the Westminster Confession makes a distinction between the invisible Church and the visible Church, and affirms both.
So, my argument shows that Protestant ecclesiology does not have a visible catholic Church. And that means that Presbyterians and Reformed Christians can either embrace the notion that Christ founded only an invisible Church (i.e. the set of all the elect), or they can be reconciled with the visible catholic Church from which they separated almost five hundred years ago. We hope and pray that they will choose reconciliation.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Bryan,
The concept of the invisible church is just a reflection of God’s knowledge of the Church vs. ours. We don’t know all of God’s Church. For instance, there are all sorts of folks in the far corners of the earth who are beloved by God even though He has not revealed Himself to them. They are not part of the visible Church right now, but they are part of the invisible Church. God knows them even if we do not know them.
What Christ ordained when He came to earth was visible. There is a description of what the Church ought to be doing in the Scriptures and a description of characteristics of the officers of the Church. These are the foundational documents of the Church. The question of the invisible Church does not enter in here that I can see. Christ set up a visible Church. The question as I see it concerning Rome is whether or not the visible Church that Christ ordained is the same as what Rome proclaimed at the Reformation. If it is not then Catholics should not claim that Rome is faithful because they can claim direct their bishops were descended from the earliest bishops. This is the same error that the Jews of the Apostles time fell into when they claimed that they were the spiritual children of Abraham because they could draw a straight line of descendency from them to Abraham (which of course they could).
Andrew,
My purpose in this post is to lay out an argument for a thesis. That thesis is that Protestantism has no visible catholic Church. None of what you say in #37, no matter how true, addresses or refutes my argument. So, if you want to argue that the Catholic Church presently headed by Pope Benedict is not a visible Church, or has been unfaithful in some respect, that would be an argument for a different post. My argument shows that the WCF’s statement about the “catholic visible Church” is incorrect, at least within Protestantism. That means that, besides the Catholic Church headed by the successor of Peter, and besides the Orthodox Churches (which are not catholic, for the same reason given in the argument of my post), the only catholic Church Protestants are left with is the invisible Church, i.e. the set of all the elect. And that implication runs into exegetical problems, as I pointed out in the post. Jesus was not saying to Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my set.” Nor was He teaching them in Matt 18 to take matters of discipline to the invisible set.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Andrew,
If Protestantism had a visible Church what would it look like? (e.g. same sacramental theology, same doctrine on government etc…). In short, if I wanted to find this Protestant visible Church how would I know that I have found it, what should I look for?
None of what you say in #37, no matter how true, addresses or refutes my argument.
Bryan – What I’m trying to suggest is that you are barking up the wrong tree. What I say does not address your argument because your argument does not have resonance with the Reformed Protestants. You speak of the infallible church and try to connect it with what Christ established. But the concept of the invisible church has no relevance in this context, at least none that I can see. The invisible church is what God ordained from all eternity, not what Christ established when He came to the earth as a man. The concept is just looking at God’s covenant people from the perspective of God as we hear Him speak. He knows His people even if we don’t. It’s about His eternal covenant, not about the specifics of the NT church.
OK, so we agree that Christ did not establish an invisible Church because this had already been established from all eternity in the plan of God. Now you say in #36 that either we embrace the notion that Christ established an invisible Church or we return to Rome. But I think this is a tad premature. First we have to define what we are talking about when we use the term “visible church.” This is what I was trying to do in #37. You responded that you thought this was a different question for a different post, but I disagree. What we mean by the visible church is central to the matter. We read of the elements of the visible Church that are in the original documents of our faith. We see that there are elders/bishops/deacons established. We see that there are certain tasks to be performed by the Church (preach the gospel, care of the poor, etc). And then we see these practices continued in the Sub-apostolic era. So at the center of the matter is whether, at the Reformation, Rome still held to a conception of the visible church that was compatible with these early teachings on and expressions of the visible church. Rome felt she was the expression of the true church but were her actions compatible with those of the earliest centuries of the visible church? Either they were or they were not. And then of course either the Reformed churches did or did not bring reformation to reestablish the elements of the visible church as we read about them in the documents of Scripture and the Sub-apostolic era.
If Protestantism had a visible Church what would it look like? (e.g. same sacramental theology, same doctrine on government etc…). In short, if I wanted to find this Protestant visible Church how would I know that I have found it, what should I look for?
Tom,
The Evangelical churches generally don’t dwell on such matters. But generally see each other as faithful expressions of Christ’s Church even though we may disagree on some of the non-fundamentals. So the local Baptist church near me is a true expression of the visible Church. Of this I have no doubt. Now perhaps you are wanting an exact definition of where the boundaries of the visible Church are so that you can match this up with Rome?
Andrew,
If in fact there were no visible catholic Church, but only denominations, congregations, believers, and their children, what exactly would be different?
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Dear Andrew M.,
You said: “The question as I see it concerning Rome is whether or not the visible Church that Christ ordained is the same as what Rome proclaimed at the Reformation. If it is not then Catholics should not claim that Rome is faithful because they can claim direct their bishops were descended from the earliest bishops. This is the same error that the Jews of the Apostles time fell into when they claimed that they were the spiritual children of Abraham because they could draw a straight line of descendency from them to Abraham (which of course they could).”
I think you’re right that it does matter whether or not the visible Church that Christ ordained is the same Church that the bishops united with the Pope proclaimed during the Reformation — in fact it matters during every era. But I think you’re wrong when you say that claiming faithfulness on the grounds that our Bishops were directly descended from the earliest Bishops is the same error as the Jews who claimed to be spiritual children of Abraham at the apostle’s time. There was something that happened at the apostle’s time that did not happen at the time of the reformation. Namely, a new revelation was sent by God. And the one who brought that new revelation had three important things: (1) he was, in a sense, in the line of King David; (2) he had great holiness; and (3) he performed mighty miracles.
None of these marks were present with the leaders of the Reformation: Martin Luther and John Calvin. They didn’t have the right spiritual descent (they weren’t bishops); they were not spectacularly holy; and they did not perform miracles. Without these marks, the Jews would have been wrong to accept a messiah. And without such a new revelation, there is no leaving the legitimate priesthood of the existing revelation.
Sincerely,
K. Doran
Bryan
I still see a whole lot of problems:
1) Whatever Jesus means by the kingdom of God in this passage, he doesn’t mean the church in this case. He specifically says it is the world, not the church. You can’t get around that. Kingdom does not necessarily mean the church. It appears here to me that the kingdom in these parables means in some sort of sense, God’ reign on earth, while the church is God’s people on earth.
2) Even if he did mean the church, you’re still begging the question. You argument depends upon this being the “one, holy, apostolic catholic church” as being the Catholic Church that we know of today. You still haven’t proven that. Again, you’re reading this through your Catholic lens.
3) Again, Matthew 18 which you refer to does not prove your argument. You say Matthew 18 is the same church in Matthew 13, which again, I disagree with. You haven’t proven to me that they are the same as you have not addressed what I said that I can tell.
You don’t see to me to be addressing my points directly. You say that some Protestants believe in an invisible church. You then use two scripture passages in your next to last paragrah to show that the Protestant position is “contrary to scripture”. Yet, I have just shown that in the first example, you’ve ignored the plain words of Jesus, and in the second you’re not proven that the most natural reading (your assertion) is that what is meant by the word “church” in Matthew 16 and 18 are the same thing.
So while you may be causing problems for those Protestants that believe in a visible church, your two scripture passages don’t seem to refute those Protestants that don’t believe in a visible church. That is your claim in that paragraph, and that is the claim that I fail to see as proven.
Andrew,
I understand what you are saying about the local baptist congregation and the disagreement on non-fundamentals. And it is precisely in my understanding that I can say that Protestantism does not have a visible catholic Church. If the Church is the Church then to think that there can be a variety of teachings about baptism, the presence of Christ in the Supper, the assurance of a believer’s salvation, the nature and authority of government, says, regardless of what the Bishop of Rome would have to say, that Protestantism has no visible catholic Church.
Steve,
I’m not intending to establish here (in this particular post) that the Church Christ founded is a visible Church. Tom Brown and I did that already in our previous article this summer, titled, “Christ Founded a Visible Church.” If you want to discuss the evidence and argumentation regarding whether Christ founded a visible Church, I recommend directing your comments to that article.
My argument here, in this post runs like this:
(1) Presbyterians and Reformed Christians claim that there is a visible catholic Church.
(2) Unity of type is not sufficient for unity of composition.
(3) A plurality having only unity of type can be shown to be so by the remove-the-whole-without-changing-the-parts test.
(4) Applying this test to the “visible catholic Church” shows it to have only unity of type.
(5) Applying this test to the Catholic Church shows it to have unity of composition.
(6) A plurality of things having only unity of type, and not unity of composition, is not an actual entity.
(7) The “visible catholic Church”, in Protestant ecclesiology, is not an actual entity.
(8) There is, within Protestantism, no “visible catholic Church”.
(9) If the catholic Church is not visible, then it is invisible, i.e. the set of all the elect.
(10) But the Church Christ founded, as presented in Scripture, is not the set of all the elect. (See our “Christ Founded a Visible Church” article, for substantiation of this premise.)
(11) Therefore, Presbyterian and Reformed Christians should either give up the word ‘catholic’ in referring to the visible catholic Church (and thus speak only of local visible churches), or seek reconciliation with the Catholic Church from which the first generation of Protestants separated in the sixteenth century.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
There was something that happened at the apostle’s time that did not happen at the time of the reformation. Namely, a new revelation was sent by God.
K. Doran,
I agree with you – there is no new revelation at the time of the Reformation. But my point is simpler. We as Protestants are often faced with the charge that our ecclesiastical officers have broken with the line of succession that can be traced back to the 1st century. And it’s an important discussion since in the RCC the validity of a given officer is contingent upon this succession and this succession alone. So part of our response is that this succession does not guarantee that the officer in question is valid in a biblical sense. When the Apostles spoke with the Jews in their time (and when we speak with Jews even today) there was a very similar sort of argument from the Jews that based the validity of their office upon the literal succession back to the original Patriarchs. And while we cannot deny that the Jews could claim such literal succession, they had to be reminded that this succession alone could not guarantee that the Jews’ officers were valid and faithful. We see Paul spending quite a bit of time arguing from the Scriptures that their confidence in their pedigree was misplaced.
If in fact there were no visible catholic Church, but only denominations, congregations, believers, and their children, what exactly would be different?
Bryan,
I’m not sure how to answer this one since as soon as someone starts talking about any physical manifestations of the Church on the earth, even a simple group of congregations, you have a visible church in some sense. So what is the visible church and how do we define it? In the Scriptures you have definitions for officers and functions for the various congregations. There are to be elders/bishops and deacons. They are to preach the gospel, administer the sacraments, etc. There is nothing invisible about this, these were distinctly visible elements of the visible church and they comprise the biblical concept of the visible church. Now it seems to me that in the RCC’s concept of the visible church there are vital elements which say something about 1) the connectivity of the congregations, 2) the hierarchical nature of this connectivity, and 3) the place that the Church at Rome had in this hierarchy. The Church of Rome holds that these elements of the visible Church are necessary and essential. But given the documents primarily of Scripture and secondarily of the Post-apostolic church, are they essential? I would definitely hold that by inference from the accounts in Acts that #1 ought to be present. But are #2 and #3 vital elements and how do we decide?
Cheers for now….
Dear Bryan,
This is, yet again, another example of you critiquing Protestantism from a Catholic set of presuppositions. It just won’t convince Protestants.
[1] When one looks at how the word “church” is used in the NT it is far from RCism.
[2] The “visible” church if the early centuries is so radically different from high medieval Catholicism. (Development of doctrine hardly explains this).
[3] RCism runs into its own problems with its doctrine of the visible church: this visible church has been involved in murder, sex abuse, etc. etc. This is only a problem for the RC doctrine of the visible church.
Cheers,
Marty.
Andrew,
Consider the story by Hans Christian Anderson “The Emperor’s New Clothes“. When the Emperor is walking naked down the street, the proper question is: If the Emperor were, in fact wearing no clothes, how would he appear any different? If the answer is, “we don’t know,” that can only be because he would look exactly the same if he were in fact naked. And if the answer is, “He would look exactly as he appears to us now,” then the proper follow-up question is, “Then why should we believe he has on invisible clothes?”
Similarly, if you don’t know how to answer the question, “If in fact there were no visible catholic Church, but only denominations, congregations, believers, and their children, what exactly would be different?,” that can only be because things would be exactly the same if there were no such thing as “the visible catholic Church.” And if things would be exactly the same if there were no such thing as “the visible catholic Church”, then there is (within Protestantism) no visible catholic Church. What is referred to as “the visible catholic Church” is merely a mental concept mistakenly treated as though it were an actual entity (e.g. “panapple”).
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Marty,
There are only two ways to refute a deductive argument: show one of the premises to be false, or show that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. If you wish to refute my argument, then you need to do one of those two things. In comment #46 I’ve summarized the argument of my post, to make it easier to see the syllogism. If you do not show one of the premises to be false, or show that the conclusion does not follow from the premises, then the argument remains unrefuted.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Dear Andrew M.,
You said: “When the Apostles spoke with the Jews in their time (and when we speak with Jews even today) there was a very similar sort of argument from the Jews that based the validity of their office upon the literal succession back to the original Patriarchs. And while we cannot deny that the Jews could claim such literal succession, they had to be reminded that this succession alone could not guarantee that the Jews’ officers were valid and faithful. We see Paul spending quite a bit of time arguing from the Scriptures that their confidence in their pedigree was misplaced.”
The reason that the Jewish succession alone could not guarantee that the Jew’s officers were valid was because there was a new revelation. To put it another way: how do you know that the reason was NOT because there was a new revelation. Do you have another example from the bible in which valid ministers are no longer valid even apart from a new revelation? If you don’t, then your example is what we would call in economics “unidentified.”
To be more precise, two things are happening at the same time: Jewish people are making an argument that is refuted by Christians (and Christ); and a new revelation has arrived. You want to say that the Jewish argument is false in general, even when used in other contexts in which no new revelation has arrived. But you don’t know whether it is false in general, because the only example you have of it being false is an example which occurs simultaneously with the arrival of a new revelation. Do you see what your biblical example is not sufficient for your argument?
If you don’t have another example, then you may be implicitly comparing the arrival of the Protestant reformers with the arrival of Christ. That is dangerous water.
Sincerely,
K. Doran
Similarly, if you don’t know how to answer the question, “If in fact there were no visible catholic Church….
Bryan,
Before any two people can have a discussion on a given entity they have to define the entitiy so they are sure they are speaking of the same thing. We have not agreed on the definition of “visible church” so how can I asnwer your question? I think it is likely that you are asking me about an aspect of the visible church that that reflects on its hierarchial and Roman nature. But you have not said this so I don’t know. For the Protestant we look at the visible church church from the perspective of a time before there was any obvious or explicit imvolvement of Rome and before there was any defined hierarchial structure to the visible church. We have this perspective because the foundational instructions concerning the visible church apply to individual congregations, not to the whatever entity might coordinate the relations between the congregations. But when RC’s speak of “visible church” they are generally referring to the hierarchial and Roman superstructure of which individual congregations are a part of. Philosophically you are speaking of the One while I am speaking of the Many. So our definitions are different and I can’t see that much progress can be made until we are are sure we are speaking of the same thing.
Andrew,
I’m using the definition of ‘visible catholic Church’ found in the WCF. See the first quotation in my post.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
You want to say that the Jewish argument is false in general, even when used in other contexts in which no new revelation has arrived.
K. Doran,
But take new revelation out of the picture entirely. Let’s say that we are speaking of a time well before there was any NT revelation. Did the Jew’s argument work then? Did their literal succession from Aaron and Abraham guarantee anything concerning their validity and fidelity?
And then even when there was new revelation, when Paul argued with the Jews in the synagogoue, he started not with the new revelation but he pointed them back to the old revelation, right?
Bryan,
OK then, so you agree that when we say “visible church,” we are speaking of an entity that has no Roman or hierarchial elements?
Andrew,
OK then, so you agree that when we say “visible church,” we are speaking of an entity that has no Roman or hierarchial elements?
Yes, exactly. My argument shows precisely that there is no such entity.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Andrew,
In St. Matthew, ch. 23 Christ says: “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.
In this passage Christ affirms the validity of the Jewish claim to successional authority (that of Moses). Therefore, authority properly derives from BOTH succession AND the Holy Spirit’s anointing. So though a Protestant minister may have a claim to righteous teaching and a heart that seeks God’s will, he may never claim succession. Whereas, though Catholics may (often) fail as individuals, they always have a valid claim to succession. And that’s the proper place for true reformation- from within the Apostolic line. It’s only within an ancient communion that one finds Apostolic Succession.
Marty,
You said that this kind of argumentation just “won’t convince Protestants.” I was a Protestant until I was 30. I’m 32 now. And my family of 7 is Catholic. Yes, I’ve got a lot of Protestantism in my blood. But it’s arguments like Bryan’s that overcame my Protestant heritage. Indeed, many Protestants find such argumentation thoroughly convincing. thanks! herbert
Yes, exactly. My argument shows precisely that there is no such entity.
OK, fair enough. Yes, there is nothing in the Protestant conception of the visible church which is Roman or hierarchial. At that is because there is nothing in the foundational documents (promarily Scriptre and secondarily the writings of Sub-aposotlic Church) that is Roman or hierarchial. The instuctions for the visible church applied to congregations, not to any sort of superstucture that coordinated the congregations. The administrative coordinating entity which evolved into what we know today as the RCC ecclesiaistical system was not part of the orginal visible church.
Andrew,
So do you reject WCF XXV.2′s teaching that there is a visible catholic Church?
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Dear Andrew M.,
Can’t you just cut to the chase and give me an example from the Bible in which an office of ministry that began as divinely ordained is later overthrown by men who don’t carry a new revelation? The only example I know of any divinely-begun office being overthrown is the ending of legitimate Jewish authorities and the establishment of the NT priesthood (which, I suppose, is meant to be called a fulfillment, rather than a contradiction of what had come before). And this took place with a new revelation. Is there another example that takes place without a new revelation? This is an honest question. I’m not trying to bait you. You know the old testament better than I do. There may be such an example. If there is, please share it.
Please tell me whether there was a “reformation,” so-to-speak, in the old testament. Was there a case in which men who neither performed miracles, nor were validly ordained to a ministry (nor were God incarnate) nevertheless utterly overthrew and abolished the office of a priesthood that had been in its origin divinely ordained? If this didn’t happen, then I don’t see your case that Catholics are making a biblical mistake by resting assured in the authority of their divinely-begun priesthood. I’m asking you real questions. Can you answer them without asking me more questions?
Regarding your questions, you asked: “But take new revelation out of the picture entirely. Let’s say that we are speaking of a time well before there was any NT revelation. Did the Jew’s argument work then? Did their literal succession from Aaron and Abraham guarantee anything concerning their validity and fidelity?” As Herbert mentioned in #58, it seems that Jesus felt that something, at least, was guaranteed by sitting in the chair of Moses. What exactly, I’m not sure, but it had something to do with their teaching. If there is something in the old testament that I don’ t know about that disagrees with this interpretation, please share it with the class.
You also asked: “And then even when there was new revelation, when Paul argued with the Jews in the synagogoue, he started not with the new revelation but he pointed them back to the old revelation, right?” I don’t know what you’re getting at. You need to just cut to the chase and say specifically how this has anything to do with the question of whether there is biblical precedent for overthrowing a divinely-begun priesthood.
But, if you’d be so kind, can you address my original question as restated in my first two paragraphs above before you spin off into responding to your questions about my responses to your questions about my questions, etc. . . ?
Sincerely,
K. Doran
Hey there, Andrew.
I’m always confused (honestly) by the parallel you wish (and have, as long as I’ve known you, tried) to draw between the genealogical succession from Abraham in the OT as understood by the NT Jews (whom Jesus rebukes) and apostolic succession of the NT priesthood.
For one thing, biological succession from Abraham was thought to be both necessary and sufficient for inclusion in the covenant community. Jesus shakes this up: it’s not sufficient after all (cf. Rom 9) and it isn’t necessary either, since God can raise up sons of Abraham from the stones of the earth.
How does anything very interesting about the priesthood follow from this? So far as I can see, nothing about the necessary (and sufficient) conditions for priesthood, as laid out by Moses, e.g., follows from the contention that Abrahamic biological succession is neither necessary nor sufficient for inclusion in the covenant community. You tend to treat these two issues as if they were just the same. But they’re not.
What I think you really want to say is this: Levitical biological succession is neither necessary nor sufficient for priesthood in the New Covenant.
Okay. That seems right. What of it? How does it follow that no form of succession whatever is either necessary or sufficient for priesthood in the NT?
We can stipulate that there is a real and important sense in which all believers possess a kind of priesthood in the New Covenant, in virtue of (i) the character of the New vis-à-vis the Old and (ii) the fact that members of the New Covenant community have all undergone the sacrament of baptism. Nothing in that conflicts with Catholic doctrine, and nothing in that conflicts with the claim that there is nevertheless a salient distinction between two types of priesthood – a distinction you yourself will be happy both to admit and to retain.
What you need, so far as I can see, is an argument to the effect that, since Jesus has come, there is no longer any sort of priestly succession whatever; or that, if there is one, priestly succession in the New Covenant is not in any sense better than Abrahamic biological succession in the New Covenant – just as “succession” in the Old is consistent with apostasy and grievous error, so too “succession” in the New is consistent with apostasy and grievous error. So present day Christians ought to throw off the constraining yoke of New Covenant priestly succession quite as happily and eagerly as they threw off the yoke of Old Covenant Levitical priestly succession, so long as they figure that the New Covenant priests have gone awry doctrinally.
But I’ve never seen you give an argument for either of these very interesting and controversial claims. All I’ve seen you do, so far, is point out the relatively pedestrian fact that, according to Jesus, biological descent from Abraham isn’t necessary or sufficient for New Covenant inclusion, and that just being a Levite doesn’t mean you’re right about everything, a point nobody (aside, perhaps, from some very confused and enthusiastic dispensationalists) wishes to controvert. You seemingly wish to use this as a premise, the repeated deployment of which is sufficient to demonstrate that there couldn’t be anything analogous to priestly succession in the New Testament. But there is nothing about your initial point (“Hey – biological descent from Abraham is neither necessary nor sufficient for salvation, nor for the claim that the Jewish priestly class had everything right!”) that entails the thesis that there is no such thing as priestly succession in the New Covenant, nor that the authorized priestly class of the New Covenant is in precisely the same boat as the Levitical priesthood, given the changes brought about by Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost. (To say nothing of the fact that “apostolic succession” doesn’t ential that any person with Orders must never themselves commit theological errors. I cannot say why you’d think any of these things.)
It isn’t news to anybody that Abrahamic succession isn’t necessary or sufficient for New Covenant membership, nor is it news to anybody that Levitical succession is neither necessary nor sufficient for doctrinal rectitude. These things are simply New Testament givens.
It is obscure to me exactly what mileage you think you are supposed to get, from a Protestant perspective, by pointing out these obvious things that no Catholic would think of disagreeing with. Can you please specify (here or in email to me) the argument running from the fact that Abrahamic succession doesn’t entail rectitude of doctrine to the conclusion that all of the New Covenant apostles and their successors must be in the same unenviable boat of theological uncertainty and inevitable error? And can you do it without flagrantly begging the question against those who believe that the New Covenant Church, invested as it is by the Holy Spirit, under the auspices of the promises of Christ, is at least marginally better off than the Levitical priesthood under the old covenant?
Best,
Neal
Dear Andrew M.,
Don’t feel obliged to answer my questions. I am more interested in your answers to Neal’s questions.
Sincerely,
K. Doran
Dear Andrew,
I hate to respond to myself, but here is perhaps another way to put the point I wish to raise with you.
Consider this argument schema:
(1) There is a reality of the New Covenant (call it ‘NC’).
(2) NC has an analogue or typological precursor in the Old Covenant (call it ‘OC’).
(3) NC has property P only if OC has property P.
So for instance, we may argue that New Covenant apostolic (priestly) succession has an analogue or typological precursor in Old Covenant levitical succession, or biological-Abrahamic succession. Since neither of the latter entail rectitude of doctrine, we infer that apostolic succession does not entail doctrinal fidelity.
That’s what it seems like you’re arguing (and have, repeatedly, argued here and elsewhere). But this is problematic. Here are some arguments that would by parity be valid if the argument schema above were valid:
Jesus is the High Priest of the New Covenant. Christ’s status as high priest has an analogue or type in the institution of high priest within the Old Covenant. Since high priests in the Old Covenant were not supernaturally protected from doctrinal or moral error (qua high priest), neither is Jesus. (From (1) and (2) and (3).)
No Protestant with their heads about them would be impressed with this argument.
Consider then another. Suppose a Zwinglian were to argue in this way: the New Covenant sacrament of baptism has an analogue or typological precursor in the institution of circumcision. Since circumcision does not confer supernatural grace, neither does baptism, the New Covenant antitype of circumcision. (I assume you wish to distance yourself both from the Catholic [/Lutheran/Anglican/Eastern] view of baptism, and also from the mere-symbolic-Anabaptist view of baptism.)
In both cases (1) and (2) above are true while (3) is false. It follows that the argument schema is invalid.
This doesn’t mean that particular instances of (1), (2) and (3) can’t all be true together. What it does mean is that a person cannot rely upon (1) and (2) in particular instances so as to establish that (3) holds in that instance, or to establish the conclusion generated by the conjunction of (1)-(3). But that is what you seem to want to do. You want to argue that, since in the Old Covenant neither Abrahamic nor Levitical succession ensured doctrinal fidelity, therefore in the New Covenant Apostolic succession (as understood by Catholics) carries no guarantee of doctrinal fidelity, or at any rate is irrelevant to the individual’s determination concerning magisterial authority for the Church. But the argument schema upon which you rely here is invalid.
You may wish to claim, in response, that you believe in apostolic succession, but that this is a spiritual matter rather than an historical/sacramental one, and that it depends wholly upon fidelity to the Scriptural “essentials” as you understand them to be.
Suppose it so. Then still, the argument schema above is invalid: for you are still supposing (I take it) that in the New Covenant Church fidelity is ensured by way of succession – it is just that “succession” has nothing to do with anything historical or sacramental, but rather concerns fidelity to whatever you (e.g.) believe to constitute faithfulness to the essential teaching of Scripture. In this case our disagreement isn’t over whether “apostolic succession” in the New Covenant is a cut above “priestly succession” in the old, it is just about the criteria for succession in the New Covenant.
So that is the real issue: what are the criteria for Apostolic Succession in the New Covenant? If you disagree with what the Catholic says on this score, well and good: lay out the considerations and we can evaluate them together. But pointing out that “succession” didn’t “really matter” in the Old Covenant when it came to rectitude of doctrine, then, even supposing that that is true, and even allowing that the criteria for succession and covenant membership are different in the New than they are in the Old, it doesn’t follow that no form of succession at all is relevant to rectitude of doctrine or to who has a magisterial authority in the New Covenant. That’s basically why I’ve never understood why you’ve made such heavy weather about the obvious fact that Abrahamic and Levitical succession has, in the New Covenant, given way to something else.
Best,
Neal
[NB: Lest anyone feel the need to point this out: Yes, I'm aware that (1)-(3) is strictly just a set of propositions and not an "argument schema;" it is however an invalid argument schema generator (premise (3) is the culprit). I assume readers will assume I know how to adjust the precision, and I assume readers will have understood what I was saying.]
[quote]Please tell me whether there was a “reformation,” so-to-speak, in the old testament. Was there a case in which men who neither performed miracles, nor were validly ordained to a ministry (nor were God incarnate) nevertheless utterly overthrew and abolished the office of a priesthood that had been in its origin divinely ordained?[/quote]
I think the rebellion of the Northern Kingdom bears a striking resemblance to the reformation. They thought they were doing the right thing by leaving Israel during the time of a bad king. They set up their own cult sites and ritual observances. Eventually they were worse idolaters than the ones they had left and they never made it back from Assyrian exile.
You want to argue that, since in the Old Covenant neither Abrahamic nor Levitical succession ensured doctrinal fidelity, therefore in the New Covenant Apostolic succession (as understood by Catholics) carries no guarantee of doctrinal fidelity, or at any rate is irrelevant to the individual’s determination concerning magisterial authority for the Church. But the argument schema upon which you rely here is invalid.
Hello Neal,
I’m really not trying to make a OT/NT connection or trying to argue from type to reality or anything so grand. Just consider the arguments the Jews made considering their succession to Abraham. They were convinced that this succession demonstrated God’s faithfulness to them. So why aren’t we impressed with this argument? And don’t think of it in necessarily in terms of OT or NT. And then if we reject this argument from the Jews, then what is the difference between that appeal to succession and the one by the RCC at the time of the Reformation?
I can’t say I have ever heard any other Protestant try to make a similar sort of argument but it seemed like it might be a helpful analogy. But maybe it isn’t. But even if it isn’t, what I always try to get at is what can we make of succession from something God instituted? Whether we are speaking of OT or NT, what does God’s establishment of an institution guarantee in general to the successors and inheritors of that institution? Now I would have thought that the case of the Jews both ecclesiastically and civilly might be an interesting case to look at, but maybe you think that’s not necessarily relevant. But what can we say about such succession? This is a big issue in Catholics/Protestant dialogues since so much of RCC ecclesiology rests on its conclusions. For someone like you who has come from the Protestant world, there must have been something that caused you to think that this is not just AN important issue in determining validity of the officers of the Church, it is in essence THE dominant issue.
So do you reject WCF XXV.2’s teaching that there is a visible catholic Church?
I’m not sure why would you ask this, Bryan. You say you are using the WCF standards for your definition, but now it seems like you are switching to the RCC as your definition. So again what do we mean by the visible church? Before the Apostles were on the scene there was no visible church in the NT sense. Then in the Apostolic writings we have the definitions of the elements of the visible church. These apply to the various congregations that are set up. There are to be elders/bishops and deacons. There is to be administration of the sacraments, preaching the gospel to the people, etc, etc. These are the characteristics of the visible church. There are no direct stipulations concerning how these congregations are suppose to interrelate either in the biblical texts or in the writings immediately following the Apostles. So yes the Reformed churches were part of the visible church by these standards.
I get the feeling that you are now switching to a Roman standard for concepts like “catholic” and visible church.” When you say “catholic” do you mean Roman Catholic? If so, you are going beyond the WCF/Reformed definition of “catholic” meaning universal. Maybe you need to define things a little tighter. Or maybe you need to explain why there is no real visible church given the WCF/Reformed standards without appealing to RCC concepts of the visible church.
And if you just want to say that the Reformed congregations fall short of the standards of what it means to have a visible church by RCC standards, then I agree. The Protestant congregations do fall short. So do the Apostolic and Sub-apostolic congregations.
Andrew,
You say you are using the WCF standards for your definition, but now it seems like you are switching to the RCC as your definition.
No, I’m not sure how to say it any more clearly: I’m using the term ‘catholic visible Church’ exactly as it is defined in WCF XXV.2. My question is essentially: do you affirm or deny WCF XXV.2?
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Andrew,
Or maybe you need to explain why there is no real visible church given the WCF/Reformed standards without appealing to RCC concepts of the visible church.
The assumption underlying this exhortation is incorrect. Bryan has not used a Catholic concept of the visible church to show that Protestants have no visible catholic Church. He has used the philosophical concepts “unity of type” and “unity of composition” together with a straightforward philosophical argument to the conclusion that the “visible catholic Church” posited by Protestants does not feature unity of composition and is, therefore, not an entity; i.e., something in reality.
Your task, if you want to engage this argument (and maybe you don’t), is not to ask if Protestant conceptions of the Church match up with the Catholic definition of the Church. Everyone knows that they do not. Your task is to demonstrate that the visible catholic Church posited by Protestants is in fact something in reality, an extra-mental entity, and not only an idea. If you can show this, then it will not matter, for the purposes of falsifying Bryan’s conclusion, whether or to what degree that entity is like the Catholic Church.
Dear Andrew M.,
You said: “And then if we reject this argument from the Jews, then what is the difference between that appeal to succession and the one by the RCC at the time of the Reformation?”
What is the difference? First, your comments referred primarily to a lack of fidelity in biological succession, not a lack of authority in succession to a teaching office (Jesus seems to allow for some kind of authority to those who succeed to the teaching office of the Chair of Moses, though not unlimited teaching authority — just like the Catholic church today!). Second, to the extent that your comments refer to authority at all, they refer to authority associated with a teaching office that was not personally established by Christ’s better promises, while he walked in the flesh on this earth.
We’ve pointed out these differences. Why are you still trying to use the lack of fidelity among those with a biological succession to a covenant established before Christ to say anything about lack of authority among those who succeed to an office established by Christ?
Let me outline the differences again, where != means “not necessarily equivalent to”:
biological succession != succession to an office
infidelity in personal behavior != infidelity in official teaching
old testament promises != new testament promises
Sincerely,
K. Doran
Andrew,
Thanks for the reply, and for the clarification. If I’m understanding you correctly, you are not trying to rely upon features (present or absent) of Abrahamic or Levitical succession in order to undermine the Catholic doctrine of Apostolic succession. If that’s correct, then we’re cool. You wondered aloud whether this was an unhelpful analogy or whether perhaps it is not relevant. I think I would say it is not really relevant and not really helpful, if for no other reason than that it may lead people to think that you are trying to mount an argument of some kind. Perhaps it is just an “illustration” of a kind of “succession” that does not entail doctrinal rectitude. But I don’t really think anyone is in need of an illustration of this. It would perhaps be helpful if a Catholic were to say: “Apostolic succession is a kind of succession; succession always entails doctrinal rectitude; therefore, Apostolic succession entails doctrinal rectitude.” But nobody I know argues this way. So I think it is ultimately unhelpful and potentially misleading to lean (apparently) heavily on this illustration in this context of discussion.
Best,
Neal
Your task, if you want to engage this argument (and maybe you don’t), is not to ask if Protestant conceptions of the Church match up with the Catholic definition of the Church. Everyone knows that they do not. Your task is to demonstrate that the visible catholic Church posited by Protestants is in fact something in reality, an extra-mental entity, and not only an idea. If you can show this, then it will not matter, for the purposes of falsifying Bryan’s conclusion, whether or to what degree that entity is like the Catholic Church.
Andrew P,
I hope you understand that I’m not trying to back away from the philosophical aspects of this discussion. The One/Many and Realist/Nominalist paradigms are the ever present philosophical backdrop of these sorts of discussions. They really do interest me because in so many cases I hear Protestant and Catholic talking past each other because they are thinking about concepts like “church” in different philosophical senses. But what I am trying to do is draw Bryan out with respect to the biblical and historical foundations for this debate. Is not this where we find the definitions for the visible church? The “unified whole” and “unity of composition” are nice philosophical constructs, but do they have anything to do with unity in the biblical sense? Bryan seems to assume so and I am challenging this. Fair enough?
I do understand some of the attraction towards having the tight well defined visible system that Rome does. But as I say this is not something that we are looking for. We don’t have any concerns about the limits of the visible church. I have all sorts of Christian friends from outside my denomination. We are all part of the same Church even if our congregations are not administratively unified. So then, how is it that our respective visible structures are “just an idea?” And more importantly how do the visible structures of our congregations differ from the elements of the visible church that we see in Scripture and then secondarily in the congregations immediately after this time?
No, I’m not sure how to say it any more clearly: I’m using the term ‘catholic visible Church’ exactly as it is defined in WCF XXV.2. My question is essentially: do you affirm or deny WCF XXV.2?
Yes Bryan, as long as we qualify this with the rest of the WCF and Reformed standards, particularly here XXV.3-6.
It would perhaps be helpful if a Catholic were to say: “Apostolic succession is a kind of succession; succession always entails doctrinal rectitude; therefore, Apostolic succession entails doctrinal rectitude.”
Neal,
When we point out how far so many of the bishops (including and most famously, the Bishops of Rome) of the RCC drifted from basic Christian principles at the Reformation era we are often pointed back to succession. And we are pointed to this as if nothing else matters. There you have it – Aposotlic succession! And our answer tends to me, “and your point would be what?”
So what does succession prove?
Andrew, (re: #73)
Now that we are agreed that you affirm that there is a “visible catholic Church,” we can return to the question I asked you in #42: If in fact there were no visible catholic Church, but only denominations, congregations, believers, and their children, what exactly would be different?
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Bryan,
If the congregations, people, etc comprise the visible church and then we suppose that there is no visible catholic church then we are left with nothing. The Church, both visible or invisible, vanish into a puff of rhetorical smoke.
I still wonder why you don’t want to go back to the biblical and historical roots for definitions of “visible church.”
Andrew,
My understanding is that there is not a single example of the word for Church, ἐκκλησία, being used to refer to a non-visible entity in the entire corpus of ancient Greek writings. This being the case, why would we assume the invisible Church to be the fullest manifestation of Christ’s promise in Matthew 16:18 and Ch. 18? In addition, Christ uses the word in the singular. So, as Protestants, we are left to assume that Jesus was merely referring to a small local congregation…or he was referring to something we don’t have.
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
Andrew, (re: #76)
If the congregations, people, etc comprise the visible church and then we suppose that there is no visible catholic church then we are left with nothing.
Right. But that’s exactly what we are trying to determine, whether in fact those denominations, congregations, believers and their children compose some one thing, or not. So your reply does not answer the question.
The question is not about the meaning of the term “visible catholic Church”. The question is about whether the term “visible catholic Church’ has a referent, i.e. picks out an actual entity in reality, or only refers to a mere plurality of entities.
Imagine that there is someone who believes in the panapple. So, we ask him, “If there were in fact no panapple, but only apples, what would be different?” He replies, “If all the apples of the world comprise the panapple, then if you remove the panapple, there would no apples.” We reply, “If there is in fact such a thing as a panapple, and it is composed of all the apples in the world, then indeed, if the panapple were removed, there would be no apples. But, what we want to know is whether there is in fact a panapple, or whether there is only the term ‘panapple’ and all apples referred to by the term ‘panapple’, but not some additional entity composed of all apples. In order to determine which is the case, we have to examine whether, if there were only apples, and no panapple, anything would be different. If nothing would be different, then we know that there is no actual entity referred to by the term ‘panapple.’ ”
That’s exactly what’s going on in our conversation, except replace ‘panapple’ with ‘visible catholic Church’, and replace ‘apples’ with “denominations, congregations, believers and their children.” Here too we are not looking for the meaning of the term ‘visible catholic Church.’ We already know that. We are seeking to determine whether or not this term has an actual single referent in reality. And that question is not answered by noting that if the term ‘visible catholic Church’ means all denominations, congregations, believers and their children, then removing the visible catholic Church would require removing all believers and their children. Hence your reply does not answer the question. Does that help clarify the question?
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
The question is not about the meaning of the term “visible catholic Church”. The question is about whether the term “visible catholic Church’ has a referent, i.e. picks out an actual entity in reality, or only refers to a mere plurality of entities.
And this Bryan, is exactly why I wanted to bring the question back to the history of the Church. You say you are utilizing the definitions of the WCF, but I’m having trouble seeing that definition come through. But humor me. Let’s go back to the 1st century church. How would we have experienced the visible church in a given city and what were the elements of the visible church? Well, we would have come to homes where elder/bishops ruled, where deacons assisted, where the gospel was preached, where people were baptized after confessing something like what we now call the Apostles Creed. And so on. The church was not not a philosophical construct unlike some of the other religions of the time, it had real extension. So given what we have found of this actual entity in the 1st century, now when we use this standard for what a visible church is, where do the Reformed churches fail?
And then if we were to do the same with the RCC Churches at the time of the Reformation, how would they stack up against this 1st century standard for the visible church?
My understanding is that there is not a single example of the word for Church, ἐκκλησία, being used to refer to a non-visible entity in the entire corpus of ancient Greek writings. This being the case, why would we assume the invisible Church to be the fullest manifestation of Christ’s promise in Matthew 16:18 and Ch. 18? In addition, Christ uses the word in the singular.
Jeremy,
If you mean by “invisible church” to refer to all of God’s people from all time, then we would say that yes, all of God’s children gathered to Him would be the eschatological goal of the church on earth so it would be the fullness of what the Church is today. We as the Church long for God calling together all of His people. Ekklesia is used in Eph. 5:27 to speak of this. I don’t want to say that it is a non-visible entity since it speaks of real physical believers. Ekklesia is also used in Heb 12:23 to again refer to all of God’s Church. The referent here is not to the physical institution of the Church on earth, but to all believers throughout all time.
Andrew,
My post is not about local visible churches. If you wish to discuss the necessary “elements of a [local] visible church,” please wait for a thread on that subject. To do so here would be to change the subject, present a red herring, and avoid the question on the table: Is there a visible catholic Church, as the WCF states?
I’ve given an argument (in the body of my post) that in Protestantism there is no such thing as a visible catholic Church. I’ve laid out the argument in stepwise detail (see #46). So far, my argument remains unrefuted.
Here are your three options. You can try to refute my argument. Or you can say you need time to think about it. Or you can accept the conclusion of my argument. Anything else would be intellectual sloppiness at best. Genuine truth-seekers do not change the subject when they encounter an argument having a conclusion contrary to their own position. Wrestling with such an argument is precisely how they evaluate whether their own position is true. Ideologues, on the other hand, aren’t interested in the truth; they only wish to push the party-line, and so when presented with an opposing argument which they cannot refute, they create a diversion, or leave.
Wrestling with an opposing argument is the same sort of mental exercise as explained in my argument itself. We do so to answer this question: If I were wrong, how would I know? We are much less likely to come to discover which of our beliefs is false, if we flee from arguments that oppose our position, just as you won’t come to know whether there is a visible catholic Church, until you allow yourself to ask how you would know there is no visible catholic Church, if in fact there were no visible catholic Church, but only denominations, congregations, believers and their children. Those onlookers watching the Emperor walk down the street naked, need to be asking themselves this question: If in fact the Emperor is not wearing invisible clothes, how would I know?” Otherwise, they remain deceived.
Notice your line to Jeremy in #80:
That’s like saying that because apples are visible, therefore the panapple is a visible entity. That conclusion does not follow from the premise. Just because apples are visible, it does not follow that there is a visible entity composed of all apples. Nor does it follow that the set of all apples is visible. The visibility of members of a set does not make the set itself visible. Likewise, just because individual believers and their children are visible, it does not follow (1) that there is a catholic Church or (2) that it is visible.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Hi, Andrew,
If you take a look at the portion of what I wrote that you’ve quoted, you’ll notice that I didn’t say Apostolic succession did not entail doctrinal rectitude. The minor premise was that succession (of any kind — Abrahamic, levitical, whatever) entails doctrinal rectitude, and so because AS is a “form” of succession generally, therefore AS must ential doctrinal rectitude. That is the argument nobody (at least nobody here) would give for the Catholic doctrine of Apostolic succession.
I figured it was relevant to point this out, because you’ve repeatedly insisted that not all kinds of succession entail doctrinal rectitude, and you point to Abrahamic descent as an example. But the only reason this would be relevant is if I or the others you’re talking to here believed that whatever we can say about AS we must be able to say only because it is true of succession generally or any form of succession. Nobody believes that. That’s why I don’t see how the Abraham business is relevant or helpful.
Best,
Neal
Andrew,
I am not against the doctrine of the invisible Church (Hebrews 12:23 is a great proof text for it) and neither is the Catholic Church (I’m sure we would all agree that Augustine taught it long before the Reformers). The objection comes when Protestants want to redefine the visible Church or want to speak of a purely invisible Church. Augustine’s doctrine of the invisible Church did not damage the doctrine of the visible Church as Protestantism’s has. The cliché response when Catholics question Protestants about denominationalism is, “We believe there is only one Church too.” This response misuses the doctrine of the invisible Church because it is being used to justify the very things which Paul condemns in Galatians 5:19-21 as sin (divisions, factions, rivalries)
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
Bryan, please don’t preach at me about “truth seekers” and so on. If you don’t like the way I answer you, just tell me. From my standpoint I’m addressing your argument head on, you just don’t like the way I’m doing it. I could start preaching at you about evading the truth by refusing to define what I have asked you to define and refusing to start with the biblcial data, but I’m sure you have some sort of reason for this. Please give me the benefit of the doubt – I’m trying to address your points. Maybe you just don’t understand yet what I am doing.
You still have not defined what “viisble church” and “catholic” is from the standpoint of the WCF. You have stated that you are using the WCF definition, but it does not seems you understand. Why don’t you just state what the WCF/Reformed defintions of these words are rather than me trying to guess if you really know what you are talking about? And don’t just say you are using the WCF definition – state these definitions.
The visibility of members of a set does not make the set itself visible.
But there is a relationship between the members of a set and the set, right? And the relationship bears on this issue, at least from a Protestant standpoint. I am trying to start with the origins of the the visible church. There were congregations and there were connections between the congregations, right? So what were these relationships? The answer to this is important because you have to start with the definition of 1) the members of the set and 2) the set itself before you can establish the connections. But curiously in your first paragraph above, you say that raising the issue of the members of the set (the local visible churches) is a “red herring.” So you apparently want to discuss the set without the discussion of the members of the set. If you really want to discuss the visible church universal without discussing visible local churches, then fine. But then you are eliminating the possibility of meaningful interaction with Protestants on this issue.
I believe the striking irony of the subject statement in the WCF is what’s being alluded to by Bryan.
Whereas in the early church, you had local churches that submitted to the One, Holy, Catholic & Apostolic Church that submitted to a common theology and ecclesiology, amongst other things; thereby, separating what was genuinely Christian from what wasn’t.
In contrast, in Protestantism, you don’t have the same but instead a myriad of denominations that submit to varying theologies and ecclesiologies, that even contradict those of the other.
In the latter case, it would be very difficult to determine what exactly is heretical sect from what is actually a “church”, since there is not one defining, common theology and ecclesiology that all members submit to other than a membership of contradicting denominations that perhaps even other heretical sects could themselves be considered a legitimate part thereof.
Andrew,
This has nothing to with “my likes”. For you to take it in that direction is to resort to the implicit ad hominem; so is your speculation that perhaps I don’t understand what you are doing. I laid out my argument in #46. I explained in #51 the only two ways to refute a deductive argument. Your latest comment (#84) neither shows one premise of my argument to be false, nor shows the conclusion not to follow from the premises. Therefore, my argument remains unrefuted.
If you want to talk about other things, and not refute my argument, please wait for another thread addressing those things you wish to discuss.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Hey, Andrew.
I do hate to interject myself into a discussion you’re having with somebody else; but I think I’d do this even if we were on the same team, at least in this instance.
You say to Bryan: “You still have not defined what “viisble church” and “catholic” is from the standpoint of the WCF. You have stated that you are using the WCF definition, but it does not seems you understand. Why don’t you just state what the WCF/Reformed defintions of these words are rather than me trying to guess if you really know what you are talking about? And don’t just say you are using the WCF definition – state these definitions.”
But it’s totally weird that you’d say this to Bryan, isn’t it? I mean, one of your main complaints against us, and against all persons who reject Reformed theology in favor of something else, is that we (they) don’t really or never really did understand Reformed theology. And you wish that we’d not try simply to reconstruct Reformed theology by our own lights, but that we would, instead, go to reputable Reformed sources, and use those sources as our reference points as we discuss the ins-and-outs of Reformed theology.
And so Bryan, it appears to me, is simply conforming to your wishes. He’s going to the WCF, saying that what that confession says is going to provide the definition of the ‘visible church’ in his subsequent discussion with you, and then trying to have that subsequent discussion with you.
What could be objectionable about that? He’s using your own authoritative reference point, as you’ve asked us to do. If he’s misunderstanding what that authoritative reference point really says, well and good. Tell him how he’s misunderstood it, and supply for us the appropriate understanding. That would be an excellent and very useful contribution to the discussion. But notice: if you are to supply for us the appropriate understanding and explain to us why exactly our understanding of it is flawed, then you will of course have to “state these [properly understood] definitions” in the WCF for us. For how else are we supposed to be disabused of our misunderstandings?
It isn’t illegitimate for Bryan or for anyone else to rely upon the sources you’ve asked us to rely upon, nor to ask you to explain the content of the WCF definitions for us if we’ve (by your lights) misappropriated or misunderstood these definitions. It is inappropriate for you to ask to us to state our own understandings of the WCF formulae, if all we do is appeal to those particular formulae in acc0rdance with your wishes and you either cannot or will not explain to us why we’ve failed to understand what those formulae really say.
So your first point against Bryan seems inconsistent with the point you’ve typically tried to make here: that none of us really understands Reformed theology, that you yourself really do, and that you are in a position to disabuse us of our misunderstandings if we’d only but listen. But look: we’re listening. Bryan’s question is whether you accept the WCF definition of the visible church or no; if you do, but don’t think we’re getting what that definition really says, then lay out for us what that definition really says so we know exactly what it is you (and every informed Reformed person) accepts. But don’t think it’s illigitimate for any of us to ask you what the definition really says. That’s precisely what you’ve been wanting us to do. So I’ll ask you the same as you’ve asked Bryan: you state the definition, and you tell us why Bryan’s confused about it. That’s not a deck-stacking challenge or anything; it’s only fair; it’s only what you’ve been asking us to ask of you throughout.
Your other remarks to Bryan (about sets and elements of sets) also misfire, I think. You say Bryan wants to discuss the set members and the set itself without also saying anything about the relations between the set members that constitute the set. But why think that, from a Catholic perspective, there are no relations between set members and the set itself? Unless the set is an arbitrary or gerrymandered confabulation, then of course there will be relations between the set members justifying the inclusion of each set member within the set proper. No Catholic denies that there were local congregations and that all of these congregations were related by something that makes them part of the Church. What Catholic would deny this? What Catholic would fail to insist upon this? You and Bryan disagree about how local congregations are related in such a way as to constitute a unified (visible) Church, transcending but including the localized congregations that constitute it. But how does it follow from this that, according to Bryan, the relations between the “set elements” are totally irrelevant to the construction of “the set?”
Best,
Neal
Neal,
No, I think your interruption is good. Trying to communicate with Bryan is not going anywhere once again so I’m going to give up trying.
Anyway, I do think it’s good to go right to the sources when you are trying to represent a position. I like using the CCC or the CE or a direct quote from a bishop as a starting point for this reason. But there are times when I do this and I’m told that I have not understood what I’m quoting. Take all of the discussion around EENS when we quote from Unam Sanctam or Cantate Domino. Apparently we don’t understand what we are quoting or so say our RC friends. And maybe we don’t understand, but it’s still good to go to the relevant primary sources. Now with Bryan what I hoped he would do is try to restate the WCF and other relevant Reformed confessions in his own words. I think this would have helped him understand that he was just stating the obvious. Of course the concept of the visible church does not define an entity in the same sense that it does in the RCC understanding of things. Protestants don’t want the concept of the visible church understood in such a way. But the interesting question which I tried to push Bryan towards is how the respective concepts of visible church relate to the understanding of the visible church in the 1st century. There was no defined entity called the visible church in the RCC sense in the 1st century, but the visible church really did represent something.
Concerning sets and members of sets I’m sure that Catholics do believe there is some relationship. It would have been nice to find out. But Bryan told me in #81, that raising this issue was a red herring and this eliminated any discussion of the matter. For the Protestant the relationship does relate and must relate, but Bryan would not listen to this.
Whereas in the early church, you had local churches that submitted to the One, Holy, Catholic & Apostolic Church that submitted to a common theology and ecclesiology, amongst other things; thereby, separating what was genuinely Christian from what wasn’t.
Roma,
At the point of establishment of the visible church and immediately following, there was no hierarchical and Roman sense of the visible Church. There was a visible church and it really did represents something, but it did not represent the same thing that the RCC speaks of as the visible church in later centuries.
Andrew,
“At the point of establishment of the visible church and immediately following, there was no hierarchical and Roman sense of the visible Church.”
That is a strong statement. What evidence do you have that St. Ignatius was wrong calling the Church of Rome the Church that presides in love or St. Irenaeus was wrong in saying all the Churches of the world must agree with this most glorious Church established in Rome? Or of the early Fathers, especially St. Augustine, appealing to succession by ordination of Bishops for valid authority and rule?
Andrew,
Of course the concept of the visible church does not define an entity in the same sense that it does in the RCC understanding of things.
Once again, here is the Presbyterian concept of the visible catholic Church, which Bryan used as the starting point for his post:
This very section of the Confession defines the “visible catholic Church”, so there is no need for Bryan to do so. The question is, is the Presbyterian definition such that “visible catholic Church” denotes a single entity (“catholic Church”) that exists in extra-mental reality (“visible”)?
Since the Catholic “understanding of things” is that the visible catholic Church is a visible unified whole, its parts having unity of composition, and since you maintain that this is not the Presbyterian understanding of things, then it follows (granted your understanding) that the WCF does not affirm that that the visible catholic Church is a unified visible whole, its parts having unity of composition.
So it remains to those who subscribe to the WCF to account for the visibility of the “visible catholic Church” in a manner that does not involve unity of composition vis-a-vis the individual churches but still delivers a “visible catholic Church” the existence (or removal) of which makes some difference in extra-mental reality. If this cannot be done, then the WCF should be modified accordingly.
Would it be analagous to the difference between a nation and a nation state?
A nation, even if scattered throughout the world, has unity of type, but no visible unity. The Irish nation, in Ireland, America and elsewhere, has unity of type, but no visible unity or unity of composition.
Even if all the people of a single nation were put together on an island, there still would only be unity of type between them.
It is only when a state is formed, such as Ireland (Irish nation state), with a hierarchical and governmental structure, laws etc. that the unity of type extends to compositional unity.
Or consider the U.S. Without the president or the federal government, it would become a collection of states (like Protestant denominations) with unity of type and would cease to be the U.S.; it would rather become like South America; but the compositional unity that makes it the U.S. only comes about with the institution of the federal government, it’s laws etc.
It’s as if to say that Protestants are a nation of people with unity of type, but they have no nation state and therefore no visible unity.
Andrew M (re: #88)
Trying to communicate with Bryan is not going anywhere once again so I’m going to give up trying.
Recall the three options open to a truth-seeker in response to an opposing argument: (from #81)
Recall the only two ways to refute a deductive argument: (from #51)
Your choice of response, i.e. complaining to Neal that “Trying to communicate with Bryan is not going anywhere once again, so I’m going to give up trying” does not show which of the premises of my argument (#46) to be false, nor does it show how the conclusion does not follow from the premises. Therefore, it does not refute my argument. Nor does it ask for more time to think about my argument. Nor does it accept the conclusion of my argument. Therefore, you have not chosen one of the three options of a truth-seeker. Your response is therefore a case of running away from my argument. And this is precisely why your discussions with me do not “go anywhere,” as you have said to me before, because you choose to avoid the three options of the truth-seeker. If you want our conversations to “go somewhere”, you need to love truth more than you love “what I [Andrew] presently believe.”
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
If the visible church is all those who profess Christ around the world, then isn’t professing Christ the same as being part of the visible church? How would this definition exclude my friends in college who thought that formal churches gatherings were superfluous, didn’t go to worship on Sunday and administered communion to themselves in their dorms were, and how is it helpful, in a definition of the Church, to say that “outside being one of those around the world who profess Christ there is no ordinary possibility of salvation”?
Have you even ever read about the great ecumenical councils?
One can simply read the proceedings of the Council at Nicaea itself to see that those who gathered there then represented an ecclesiology that can only be found in the Catholic Church.
Indeed, one need only read the early fathers of the church themselves to see that none of the Protestant sects resemble the very practices and beliefs of the early church, which is only to be found historically in the Catholic Church.
Dear All,
Various protestants establish different times when the Church that called itself Catholic went astray. I don’t know if Kenny said this, but I believe that he (in a previous thread) said that he felt that councils and teachings post the great schism were invalid. I never responded to that as much as I wanted to, because I was arguing about other things. But Andrew M.’s historical claims brought it to my mind again. If there are any protestants who would like to see some of the evidence from 350 A.D. through 1000 AD of the general belief of the Church about, for example, papal jurisdiction and infallibility, please feel free to email me: KBDh02@yahoo.com
Andrew M., I don’ t know when you thought things went wrong in the Catholic Church, but in case you are swayed by evidence before the great schism but after Constantine, this offer goes to you too. Here’s a nice quote that expresses the view of some Eastern abbots writing to Pope Paschal around 800 AD. I like it not because it is the earliest example of its kind (for we can find numerous examples of such language in at least the 300′s AD if not considerably earlier) nor because its writer is of the highest authority (similar language can be found in saints and patriarchs) but because it’s well-written and emotionally moving:
“Hear, O apostolic head, divinely appointed Shepherd of Christ’s sheep, keybearer of the kingdom of heaven, rock of the faith, upon whom is built the Catholic Church. For Peter art thou, who adornest and governest the chair of Peter. . . Hither, then, from the West, imitator of Christ, arise and repel not for ever. To thee spake Christ our Lord: ‘And thou being one day converted, shalt strengthen thy brethren.’ Behold the hour and the place. Help us, thou that art set by God for this. Stretch forth thy hand so far as thou canst. Thou hast strength with God, through being the first of all.”
You can find a lot of examples that explicitly lay out the lack of a final appeal on doctrinal matters beyond the pope, the lack of validity of ecumenical councils that are overruled by the pope, and yes — even though the Easterns don’t like to admit this — universal jurisdiction of the Pope. All before the great schism, and including prominent voices from the East.
Sincerely,
K. Doran
My argument aims to show that given the WCF definition of “visible catholic Church,” there is no entity [given Protestant ecclesiology] to which that term refers, because [given Protestant ecclesiology] (1) there is no unity of composition among all Christians, such that all Christians compose a whole, and (2) sets are not actual [extra-mental] entities, nor are they visible entities. The notion that sets are actual [extra-mental] entities, would be a form of Platonism. (And we all know that we should see to it that no one takes us captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men – Col 2:8.)
The mind is capable of abstracting forms from particulars, by abstracting away [in the mind] the matter of each particular, and then noting that this same form type can be found in many different particulars, and in that sense that they have something in common. The type or form, as abstracted from matter, is immaterial, but the abstraction of matter is a mental act, and hence the abstracted form exists as such only in the mind, not extra-mentally in Platonic ‘heaven.’ (Of course it exists first in God’s mind.) For that reason, even if one concedes that the visible catholic Church is not a composed whole, but tries to claim that the visible catholic Church is a set [i.e. the set of all professing believers and their children], the problem is that the set exists only in the mind, not in extra-mental reality, even though the members of that set exist in extra-mental reality. In other words, claiming to believe in a visible catholic Church would be either claiming to believe only in an idea or concept, or it would be claiming to believe that all professing Christians and their children have something in common, namely, the property of either professing Christianity or being the child of one who does. The latter is a tautology, and is in that sense entirely uninformative. But the former doesn’t work either, because it wouldn’t be possible for a mere idea [i.e. the *set* of all those who profess the true religion, and their children] to be “given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints” (WCF XXV.3) A set cannot do anything; it cannot discipline or teach or gather or perfect the saint, because it is a mere concept/idea. That’s why the referent of Jesus’ words in Matthew 18 cannot be a set (whether of the elect, or of all professing Christians and their children). And that’s why the referent of St. Paul’s statement in 1 Tim 3:15 that the Church is “the pillar and ground of the truth” cannot be a set (whether of the elect, or of all professing Christians and their children). It needs to be a hierarchical unity, as Tom Brown and I explained in “Christ Founded a Visible Church.”
Bryan,
Excellent summary!
Ironic that the Protestant conception of “visible church” resemble a more Platonic one with respect to the Universals.
that the WCF does not affirm that that the visible catholic Church is a unified visible whole, its parts having unity of composition.
Andrew P,
If I were to ask a knowledgeable Catholic today to demonstrate for me the fact the RCC is a “unified visible whole,” what would he say? Well I imagine that he would point me to the very complex administration system of Rome – the popes and the archbishops and the cardinals and all of the personnel and organizational structure that comprise the visible church in the RCC understanding of it. If he knew his CCC he might say that the visible church is a “society structured with hierarchical organs.” And I would have to reply that yes, there is unmistakable evidence that the RCC today is administratively a “unified visible whole.” So you are correct that in this understanding, the WCF would not affirm that the visible church is a “unified visible whole.” And why is this? Because most of the elements of the RCC that define it as a “unified visible whole” were not present at the origins of the visible church in the NT. The things that distinguish Rome as an organized and unified entity were not present when the NT visible church was formed. And this is why it is so important to define the terms (such as “visible” and “catholic”) and understand the matter historically. The RCC did not invent the concept of visible church. The visible church was of Apostolic origins and we can read about the elements of these origins in the Scripture. And in the Scriptures there are descriptions of various elements of the visible church. And as I have detailed several times on this thread, these elements all relate to congregations, not to any organizational structure that unites the congregations. Now of course we can by inference from Acts 15 say that the congregations should speak with each other when a problem arises, but there is no definition as to how the congregations should interact and certainly nothing hierarchical about the interaction. And of course the church in Scriptures was generally unified by a common confession. But there are no bishops and popes and administrative mandates for any sort of superstructure over and beyond the congregations. So the visible church is a distinct concept in the Scriptures even though it does not define a distinct administrative entity as it does with the RCC. So both the Reformed as well as the Apostolic churches fall short of Rome’s definition of the visible church.
So for me and my EPC and SBC friends down the road, we are all part of the same visible church (although they might not use this term). We never have to worry about this too much unless we get queried about it from Catholics and Orthodox folks. And we do have a common confession for the most part. At least our respective confessions unite us much more than the RC’s down the road who are quite a blend of different thought systems form the very conservative to the very liberal.
Dear Andrew M.,
You said: “in the Scriptures there are descriptions of various elements of the visible church. And as I have detailed several times on this thread, these elements all relate to congregations, not to any organizational structure that unites the congregations. Now of course we can by inference from Acts 15 say that the congregations should speak with each other when a problem arises, but there is no definition as to how the congregations should interact and certainly nothing hierarchical about the interaction.”
Really? Saint John Chrysostom’s analysis of Acts 15 suggests that people in the early Church did definitely claim that there was something “hierarchical about the interaction.” Why don’t you read what he said and tell me if you agree?
You said: “And of course the church in Scriptures was generally unified by a common confession. But there are no bishops and popes and administrative mandates for any sort of superstructure over and beyond the congregations.”
Well, Andrew, I completely disagree. We’ve talked at length about why Clement was exercising jurisdictional authority. Presumably we can talk about why Ignatius’ letters suggest that Bishops were an important part of early church life, and why the mid second century lists of Bishops strongly suggest that the early “colleges of presbyters” also had “head presbyters” who were very important. If you’re going to claim that there were no bishops and popes with administrative mandates over and beyond congregations then you are making a very sloppy argument from silence. You are refusing to let the positive extra-scriptural witness of Clement, Ignatius, and the mid-second century gnostic controversy tell you anything about the correct interpretation of the scriptures. In fact, you are relying on ambiguous and innocent silences in scripture and in these extra scriptural sources to unreasonably ignore the positive evidence for hierarchy in these sources. If you want to argue this fully, there are a lot of people here who are happy to discuss the matter at length.
Do you really believe that your protestant arguments from silence are so very very strong that they ought to obviously outweigh the unbroken string of evidence for visible hierarchy stretching from the early second century to the present day?
Let me give you some advice about analyzing data: when the signal to noise ratio is bad, any story — and I mean any story — can be constructed to fit the “evidence.” Therefore, every heresy in the world claims the very early “scriptural” church of the first century as its precedent. It’s easy to see patterns in sparse noisy data that are just a result of the noise. But as soon as the data gets plentiful, your story of no hierarchy disappears. Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?
Sincerely,
K. Doran
Andrew,
If I could jump in; How is Petrine primacy not clear in Acts 15? Debate, debate, debate, and then Peter speaks and the matter is settled. This is after Scripture calls him first among the Apostles (Matt 10:2) and after Christ established him and his confession as the rock upon which the Church would be built. How is this not a hierarchy? As a Protestant I always assumed that the hierarchy developed from the bottom up, this is not so. It developed from the top down. I have not read all the posts, but I think that at least the seeds of the hierarchy you are asking for are clearly present.
Much love in Christ, Jeremy
Andrew,
So for me and my EPC and SBC friends down the road, we are all part of the same visible church….
Thus far you have agreed with Bryan that the “visible catholic Church” affirmed in WCF is not a visibly unified whole. You go on to assert that the NT Church was not a visibly unified whole. But you have not shown how a “visible catholic Church” (singular) that is not a visibly unified whole is possible. Unless you are prepared to show this, then it seems that the most consistent thing to do is to admit that reference to the “visible catholic Church” in the WCF is misplaced, since, in your opinion, the NT references to the (whole) Church do not refer to a Church that is a visibly unified whole.
Dear Andrew M.,
To back up what Jeremy was saying about Acts 15, I will quote from Chrysostom:
“This (James) was bishop, as they say, and therefore he speaks last, and herein is fulfilled that saying, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” Deuteronomy 17:6; Matthew 18:16 But observe the discretion shown by him also, in making his argument good from the prophets, both new and old. For he had no acts of his own to declare, as Peter had and Paul. And indeed it is wisely ordered that this (the active) part is assigned to those, as not intended to be locally fixed in Jerusalem, whereas (James) here, who performs the part of teacher, is no way responsible for what has been done, while however he is not divided from them in opinion.”
Thus, you will notice that while James does speak after Peter in Acts 15, a very good biblical scholar (and saint) affirms what Jeremy is saying: the scriptures attest to a role that is above and beyond a local bishop, and at the Council of Jerusalem that role is not held by the bishop of Jerusalem, but rather by the key saints and founders of the Church at Rome. Of course, Chrysostom believed that among Peter and Paul, Peter’s role was more important. But that is for another day to discuss. For now, we just want to show you that there is scriptural evidence for our position of extra congregational authority in Acts 15. I will trust Chrysostom’s exegesis over yours.
Sincerely,
K. Doran
p.s. Once again, I also recommend that when you make historical claims from scripture, you treat extra-scriptural sources as having a good deal of interpretive weight. This does not reduce the importance of scripture for our souls and our relationship with Christ. But it does place scripture in the proper light for historical argumentation.
By the way, David, good point in #65
it seems that the most consistent thing to do is to admit that reference to the “visible catholic Church” in the WCF is misplaced
That’s fine. As long as you will admit that referring to the Apostolic Church as the “visible Catholic Church” in the same sense as the RCC later claimed this, then I think we are on the same page. If the CCC is right that the church is a “society structured with hierarchical organs” and there are no such hierarchical entities, then there must be a contrast between the visible church as it was founded and the RCC which contained all of these elements that were not part of the Apostolic church. Now some of the others above have tried to point to some evidence of an inchoate hierarchy, and perhaps there is. But, there is no definable institution that we can call a hierarchy in the Apostolic and post-Apostolic churches. So the visible church of this time is evidenced by the characteristics of her congregations, not by the characteristics of any sort of institution that oversees the congregations (as is the case with the RCC today). Fair enough?
it seems that the most consistent thing to do is to admit that reference to the “visible catholic Church” in the WCF is misplaced
Andrew P.,
That’s fine. As long as you will admit that referring to the Apostolic Church as the “visible Catholic Church” in the same sense as the RCC later claimed this, then I think we are on the same page. If the CCC is right that the church is a “society structured with hierarchical organs” and there are no such hierarchical entities, then there must be a contrast between the visible church as it was founded and the RCC which contained all of these elements that were not part of the Apostolic church. Now some of the others above have tried to point to some evidence of an inchoate hierarchy, and perhaps there is. But, there is no definable institution that we can call a hierarchy in the Apostolic and post-Apostolic churches. So the visible church of this time is evidenced by the characteristics of her congregations, not by the characteristics of any sort of institution that oversees the congregations (as is the case with the RCC today). Fair enough?
If I could jump in; How is Petrine primacy not clear in Acts 15?
Jeremy,
Nobody would debate Peter’s authoritative role as the spokesperson of the Apostles. The difficulty lies in making the jump from an Apostle to a non-Apostle and trying to draw a straight line of authority in the manner which the RCC does. And the other issue is trying to establish Peter’s role in Rome to begin with.
So the visible church of this time is evidenced by the characteristics of her congregations, not by the characteristics of any sort of institution that oversees the congregations….
This will not hold up unless you can explain how the Church, at any time at which it is not a visibly unified whole, is “the visible church.” The “characteristics of her congregations” do not suffice for the visibility of the one Church, for reasons that Bryan has given in his post and subsequent comments.
Here is my perception of this discussion so far:
Everyone seems to agree that the Church (singular) is an actual entity. Thus far, we have only two options whereby to account for the catholic Church as an actual entity:
(1) We confess that the catholic Church is characterized by hierarchical unity of organization, wherein it resembles an organism, a living body. Baptized persons and local churches are related to one another and to the body as members of the body. This body is what “the catholic Church” refers to.
or
(2) We confess that the catholic Church does not resemble a living body; rather it resembles a set, the members of which are persons, local churches and denominations which are related to one another by sharing certain characteristics in common. Collectively, these set members are what “the catholic Church” refers to.
We all agree that the Catholic Church resembles (1). Andrew M. has argued that the Catholic Church does not, however, resemble the Church described in the New Testament. Others have argued that it does resemble the Church in the New Testament after all.
Granted that the New Testament posits that the Church is an actual entity, but not after the manner of (1), it follows that she is an actual entity in some other manner. The only other option I have seen is (2).
But that brings us back to the substance of the original post, which is that anything existing after the manner of (2) is not an actual entity.
These are the key premises at work here:
(a) The Church that Christ founded is an actual entity.
(b) “A plurality of things having only unity of type, and not unity of composition, is not an actual entity.”
The interesting thing is, after all of this discussion, I have yet to see anyone object to either premise. Am I missing something?
Dear Andrew M.,
You said: “Nobody would debate Peter’s authoritative role as the spokesperson of the Apostles. The difficulty lies in making the jump from an Apostle to a non-Apostle and trying to draw a straight line of authority in the manner which the RCC does. And the other issue is trying to establish Peter’s role in Rome to begin with.”
As far as I know, every early Church father who mentioned Peter’s geographical position at all, mentioned his geographical position in Rome. Tertullian mentioned that Peter baptized Christians in the Tiber River, for goodness’ sake! The history of Protestant denial of Peter’s presence in Rome is a complete embarrassment, and I stand amazed that you would mention that history without blushing. Here are some Father’s who mentioned Peter’s presence in Rome:
Ignatius of Antioch 107 AD
Dionysus of Corinth 166 AD / 174 AD
Irenaeus 180 AD
Gaius 198 AD / 217 AD
Tertullian
Clement of Alexandria
Origen of Alexandria
Porhyry of Tyre
Eusebius
Peter of Alexandria
Lactantius of Africa
Cyril of Jerusalem
Pope Damasus I
The list goes on, through Jerome and Augustine and so forth. As for making the jump from Peter’s primacy to his successor’s primacy. . . are you interested in discussing Clement and Ignatius in more detail? Because the jump looks clear to me.
Finally, you said: “But, there is no definable institution that we can call a hierarchy in the Apostolic and post-Apostolic churches.”
Andrew, have you read carefully the arguments that we’ve made about hierarchy in the apostolic Church? In what way is Peter’s primacy, and the apostle’s authority over others, and the deacon’s authority over still other matters not evidence for a definable institution that we can call a hierarchy? If that is not a hierarchy, then what is?
Sincerely,
K. Doran
Andrew M.,
One thing that I’ve noticed with your qualms about the Catholic Church is that they appear to be philosophical, but as your arguments progress your real concerns are historical. You seem to think there is undeniable historical evidence that the Early Church had features that are incompatible with the Catholic Church of today (i.e., that couldn’t at least be the seed of what we have today, but rather were something whose fundamental nature contradicts what we have today). Because of your firm belief in this supposedly undeniable evidence, you won’t even get deeply into the philosophical argument that Bryan and Andrew P. are trying to engage you with.
Other people have emailed me personally to ask for more discussion of historical matters. I think you should do so. Or you should at least read some of the historical sources that we’ve been pointing you to.
The thing that surprises me the most about your historical objections is that you think the early evidence is so clear at all. I don’t think its clear without using evidence from many sources over about 100 to 150 years of Christian history, as well as applying a good dose of uncommon common sense. Given that, in what way is early Christian history going to provide _clear_ testimony against the Catholic Church?
You are looking at the one place in the historical data set where the data is most sparse and fuzzy in order to construct an argument against the great mass of data from the second century onwards in which one clearly sees the “Catholic” things that you don’t like. I’ll say it again: don’t you find such a mode of argument suspicious? Not every heresy can claim the Church of 600 A.D. as part of its history — the evidence is too clear of what the Church was and what it believed. But every heresy under the sun claims the utopian Church of the first century as its predecessor. Maybe that’s because the data there is too sparse for totally unquestionable identification of key features of Christian life?
Let me pose this mathematically. If there are more parameters in your model then there are observations in your data set, then you can’t test your model against the data. Protestants have a complicated argument with many parameters to argue that the original Church did NOT have a hierarchy, and did NOT have a Pope and did NOT have apostolic successors and did NOT have a whole bunch of other things. But you’ve got too many parameters to test on the small data set of early Christian historical sources (including the scriptures). That’s why a bunch of models can “fit” the data, and why your claim of clear evidence from these sparse early sources that can be used to counteract the evidence from the much larger set of later sources is a bunch of baloney.
Sincerely,
K. Doran
One more point: the richness of scripture as a theological data set may well be infinite. But it is scripture as a historical data set that is lacking. Scripture is at least consistent with several different views of the history of the first 30 years of the Church (at least if one views scripture without the kind of philosophical nuance that the writers at CTC have, or without the help of another 50 to 100 years of historical data).
Andrew M., if you take these points to heart, then you are going to have a hard time convincing yourself or anyone else that scripture is actually INconsistent with a Catholic view of the first 30 years of Church history. You don’t have nearly enough evidence to prove your case. And without a firm case there, the supposed historical problems with the Catholic claims are really just wishful thinking on the part of sects and communities that don’t want to join the current manifestation of the historic Christian Church.
Sincerely,
K. Doran
As far as I know, every early Church father who mentioned Peter’s geographical position at all, mentioned his geographical position in Rome.
K. Doran – I did not mention the question of Peter’s presence in Rome, I spoke of his role. In the Scriptures we have no mention of Peter’s playing any part of the Church of Rome as an officer. Apart from his possible allusion to Rome (“Babylon”) in his epistle there is no evidence that he had any part of the church in this city. The church fathers you mention were likely repeating what they had learned from Clement, but exactly what Clement means by his brief reference to Peter and Paul in regards to Rome is a matter of considerable scholarly dispute. I think it could be something like Simon Magus – many of the Church Fathers had all sorts of stories about Simon which later turned out to be mostly untrue. One father picked up the previous father’s accounts, and so on.
have you read carefully the arguments that we’ve made about hierarchy in the apostolic Church
You have talked about people like Peter who had authority. But this is not a hierarchy. I am using hierarchy to say what the CCC references in the term “hierarchical organs.” In other words, hierarchical institutions, not just people in authority. It is these institutions which are what is visible in the RCC today and these institutions which do not seem to be present at the formation of the NT Church.
The thing that surprises me the most about your historical objections is that you think the early evidence is so clear at all. I don’t think its clear without using evidence from many sources over about 100 to 150 years of Christian history
No, like you, I think the evidence of from the early church is often very hazy. But if this is the area of history most likely to be knowledgeable about given events (i.e. Peter being the Bishop of Rome) and there is great uncertainty, then there ought to be unmistakable evidence to bolster the case of those who later come to a certain conclusion. Just the fact that there is consensus on a matter does not prove anything. The question ought to be whether evidence existed to conclude such consensus is justified. Let me give you one example. In the sixth century the writings of Dionysius became part of the corpus of Christian literature. Dionysius was very important because he was known to be a companion of Paul. For almost a millenium the theology of Dionysius was accepted as an important part of the Catholic heritage. No church father between the sixth century and the Renaissance doubted Dionysius’ authenticity. Aquinas quotes Dionysus almost as much as Augustine in the Summa. However in the 15th century the Humanist scholar Lorenzo Valla demonstrated that Dionysius could not have been Paul’s companion and was in fact a sixth century Neo-platonist. The RCC of course resisted such claims, but to make a long story short, eventually the RCC gave up and agreed that the Church had been wrong. He is now known as Pseudo-Dionysius. The point here is that even if there is 100% consensus concerning a matter in a given age it does not prove the belief is justified. If there is a period of haziness and uncertainty on a given question which is followed by a period of certainty over the question, it seems to me that the first question that should be asked is what evidence was brought forward to gain such clarity.
Andrew,
“I think it could be something like Simon Magus.” To equate Peter with Simon Magus as it concerns people knowing much about him, where he lived, went etc…is not real credible for this simple fact: the prominence of this man, Peter. This man, Peter, was not like Carmen San Diego :) for the early Church! If they say he was in Rome why would we think they got it wrong?
Dear Andrew,
At this point, it might be useful for yourself and others to recap your style of argument. I will use numbers below to denote the steps that typically ensue, and letters to refer to particular instances at each step.
STEP 1: Members of CTC write an article attempting to engage you and other Protestants on philosophical and theological grounds, with a bit of history thrown in.
STEP 2: You write a comment that dodges the main argument, refusing to refute it directly — often this comment includes a bold and unsupported historical claim, such as (my paraphrases):
(A) Trent was the first Council that Rome completely dominated; the earlier councils were conciliar, and Rome played little part in them!
(B) You can’t see evidence of hierarchy beyond local congregations in scripture
(C) Peter’s role at Rome is difficult to establish
STEP 3: Someone points out that your historical claim is untrue
(A) I wrote that several first millennium councils were either dominated by Rome or involved Rome as an extremely important player, including the famous council of Chalcedon.
(B) We pointed out that Acts 15 involves extra-congregational authority
(C) I pointed out that Peter’s geographic connection to Rome was completely obvious through the universal witness of antiquity, with evidence beginning nearly as soon as we have any evidence about the church of Rome at all. I also noted some of the evidence of his role there (baptizing in the Tiber)
STEP 4: You bring up small details or distant analogies to attempt to bolster your case.
(A) You wrote that only two papal legates were present at Chalcedon.
(C) You wrote that there is an example (pseudo-Dionysius) of universal patristic testimony needing to be revised in the face of superior later scholarship.
STEP 5: Someone points out why the small details and distant analogies that you use are irrelevant and misleading.
(A) The empress who convened the council specifically did so with the expressed wish for the Pope to be its head. The papal legates were the ecclesiastical presidents of the Council. Like many early Councils, the emperor’s chosen leader was expected to obtain a unanimous vote in favor of that leader’s theological view. It did, and the council specifically claimed that Peter had spoken through Leo. Do you see how misleading it was for you to say that only two papal legates were there?
(C) Now I will point out why the pseudo Dionysius episode is an irrelevant comparison. As Tom Riello pointed out: there were people alive who knew Peter when Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the Roman Church that Peter and Paul had instructed them. When Tertullian wrote that Peter baptized in the Tiber, he was only a few old men removed from those who knew Peter. This is a completely different case from the universal testimony of the authorship of pseudo-Dionysius, in which the consensus was formed at a time when no one could have been even close to having testimony from their own grandfather about who wrote the works in question. And furthermore, the number of liars necessary for the patristic testimony about Dionysius to be wrong was mainly one: the actual author of that work. Entire communities of early Christians would have had to have been liars for the stories about Peter’s deeds in Rome to be based on no teaching role of him there at all. You have both the closeness of the testimony and the type of testimony against you in this comparison.
STEP 6: You either say nothing in reply or change the subject
(A) I don’t believe you admitted publicly that you were dead wrong about Trent compared with Chalcedon. If you did, I missed it.
Regarding the points on how to analyze data, you said: “The point here is that even if there is 100% consensus concerning a matter in a given age it does not prove the belief is justified. If there is a period of haziness and uncertainty on a given question which is followed by a period of certainty over the question, it seems to me that the first question that should be asked is what evidence was brought forward to gain such clarity.”
You are wrong. In order to claim either development or corruption from the early Church in Acts and Clement to the hierarchical, petrine, sacramental, mystical Church of Augustine, you need to have clear evidence from the earlier period to compare with the clear evidence that we have from the later period. While we can’t follow up on WHY people in Augustine’s period believed the things they did about the early Church (if we could, we would have by definition clearer evidence from the earlier period!), their testimony of what the Church was like in their day, and their calm statements about how this was always how it had been, are the BEST EVIDENCE WE HAVE. You simply cannot refute the better later evidence without equally good evidence form the earlier period. That is why the people who attempt to do so each pick their own fairy tale about what the earlier period looked like: Morman, Presbyterian, Baptist, Jehovas Witnesses, etc. They would all pick the same fairy tail if the early evidence was of the same quality as the later.
Sincerely,
K. Doran