Welcome to Called To Communion. Thanks for your comment. You wrote:

While it MIGHT be the case that immersion in my own paradigm leaves me unconvinced by your arguments, it seems much more likely to me that your argument is wholly incomplete. Otherwise, you have just disproven the existence of my family. Namely, you say that Protestant theologians made “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. ” Using this logic, the people who are the same type — related to me biologically (and/oror by marriage) — do not by that very fact compose my family.

That conclusion would follow if what constitutes a family is only unity of type. But a family has visible unity, by way of a visible hierarchy, as St. Paul says: “For the husband is the head of the wife” (Eph 5:23), and the children are subordinate to the parents, as St. Paul says: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord” (Eph 6:1). So, my argument does not eliminate families.

Let me say it this way: The WCF notion of the visible catholic church is just that, a notion. It is a notional set — not a philosophical error.

What is a philosophical error is to consider a set (which is something merely notional — i.e. in the mind) a visible something in extramental reality, i.e. “the visible catholic Church.” When Jesus said in Matthew 16 “Upon this rock I will build My Church,” He wasn’t saying, “Upon this rock I will build My set.” Hence in Matt. 18 he gives disciplinary instructions in which people are to “tell it to the Church.” But it makes no sense to bring disciplinary concerns before a set. It makes sense to bring disciplinary issues before persons in an authorized hierarchy.

All of those who are part of the set are by definition part because they are of the same type — professing belief and/or through affiliation with, etc. etc. The major use of the visible church within the WCF is to denote that there are plenty of people in a variety of congregations around the world who are aligned with the teachings of Christ.

I agree that there are plenty of people who are aligned on many things. But the point I’m making here is that there being many people who believe in Christ and seek to follow Him does not bring into existence an entity, i.e. “the visible catholic Church.”

The notion on the visible church is to define the venn diagram circles associated with biblical teaching that some (invisibly) are ACTUALLY redeemed and some within the visible church are not.

The problem with that statement is that there is no such thing [given Protestantism] as “the visible [catholic] church.” It is like talking about unicorns and leprechauns as though they actually exist.

The very nature of the visible church is that it is what can be seen to APPEAR to be Christian.

The argument in my post shows why there is no such thing as “the visible [catholic] church.” You can find a summary of my argument in comment #46, and also in comment #97. So far the argument has not been refuted.

In other words, for example, the visible church includes all who can be counted as Christian, not those who reject the teachings of Christ. … As such, this catholic body is generally apparent, hence visible, even if you can’t actually “see” it.

Duncan, if there were no visible catholic Church, but only embodied believers in Christ (who accept His teachings), local congregations and denominations, what would be different? How would the present situation be any different? Your claim that it is visible even though you can’t actually see it, sounds very much like “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” So it is important in this case to be able to show that you’re not actually in an Emperor’s New Clothes situation. That’s why I am asking you this question (i.e. “if there were no visible catholic Church, …?”)

(Note: as an extreme example, Christians huddled in a basement in China are part of the visible church, even though nobody else sees them — they are visibly apparent to the naked eye as outwardly participating in the Christian religion. They are part of the same visible catholic church that I am.

If they were only part of the invisible Church, and there in fact were no actual “visible catholic Church,” what would be different? How would you know the difference?

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

Let me say it this way: The WCF notion of the visible catholic church is just that, a notion. It is a notional set — not a philosophical error. All of those who are part of the set are by definition part because they are of the same type — professing belief and/or through affiliation with, etc. etc. The major use of the visible church within the WCF is to denote that there are plenty of people in a variety of congregations around the world who are aligned with the teachings of Christ. Some hold His teachings more dear than they hold Him. Some show up on Sunday and roll their eyes. Some worship in a different building than they did last year because someone upset them. Some only worship in private. But they are all unified in their OUTWARD (hence “visible”) affiliation with the teachings of Christ. At least some of them worship Satan or Buddha or Oprah or themselves, because INTERNALLY they are not authentically part of the “invisible” church. The notion on the visible church is to define the venn diagram circles associated with biblical teaching that some (invisibly) are ACTUALLY redeemed and some within the visible church are not. The very nature of the visible church is that it is what can be seen to APPEAR to be Christian. The degree to which its constituent parts are unified under hierarchical authority is not germane — and certainly does not deny its existence. The “catholicity” of the visible church refers to the tautological aspect that the “true religion” defines who is part of the one body and therefore who is not. In other words, for example, the visible church includes all who can be counted as Christian, not those who reject the teachings of Christ. As such, for example, Latter Day Saints cannot reasonably be called “Christian” and are not appropriately part of the visible church. That said, there is no earthly authority determining the reasonable definition, so people might wrongly include or exclude, but the Lord Jesus has dominion over this kingdom, and He knows what His dominion is. As such, this catholic body is generally apparent, hence visible, even if you can’t actually “see” it. Bottomline, people can see who are participating in religion — only God knows who is authentically His.

(Note: as an extreme example, Christians huddled in a basement in China are part of the visible church, even though nobody else sees them — they are visibly apparent to the naked eye as outwardly participating in the Christian religion. They are part of the same visible catholic church that I am. I am united with them in upholding Christ as the Savior. Who knows? I might disagree with a lot of their doctrine and practices and preferences. Still, I pray that I could be united in the exact same way with even more people throughout China and Arab nations the and the US.)

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

“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?

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 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

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

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

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?

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.