September 05, 2006

Every point of disagreement between the Catholic Church and the branch of Protestantism in which I grew up (I insert that qualification only because I did not grow up Anglican), ultimately comes down to one fundamental question: Are the apostolic writings and the writings of the Old Testament the only authority in the Church? If the answer to *this* question is "YES", then bishops and priests and deacons have no authority, nor do the teachings of the fathers; there is no Church hierarchy, no authoritative ecumenical councils, and no authoritative creeds (e.g. Apostle's Creed, Nicene Creed, etc.). Each individual gets to decide for him or herself which of the extant writings from the first century are authoritative, and what their meaning is. (Luther, for example, rejected the book of James as an "epistle of straw", and Protestants rejected certain books that the Catholic Church teaches are divinely inspired: e.g. Tobit, Maccabees, Judith, Baruch, etc.)

But, if the answer to *this* question is "NO", then those persons having ecclesiastical authority are the ones whose determination of which texts are authoritative is itself authoritative, and whose determination of what those texts teach is itself authoritative, and whose determination concerning the content of Christian dogma is itself authoritative.

So, how should we go about trying to find the correct answer to *this* question? It seems to me that the best way to determine the answer to this question is to determine what Christ and the Apostles taught about *this* question. And the best way to determine what Christ and the Apostles taught about *this* question is to see what Scripture and the Church fathers say about *this* question. And I think I have already shown that both the fathers and the New Testament teach that Christ gave to the Apostles the authority to teach in His name (i.e. the power to teach Christ's doctrine with *genuine* authority, as His delegates). The Apostles appointed bishops in the various cities and passed on to them through ordination with the laying on of hands ecclesiastical authority over the churches, with the intention and instruction that these bishops would in turn ordain successors having that same authority. So the Apostles transmitted their authority in three ways: (1) through appointing bishops, (2) through writing letters and books to the churches, and (3) through the oral tradition that they handed down to the bishops. (On the authority of the oral tradition, see 2 Thess 2:15; 1 Cor 11:2, 34; 2 John 12; 3 John 13).

The very notion that *only* the Bible is the Church's authority is something that is entirely unheard of throughout Church history, from the earliest Church fathers until the time of the Protestant Reformation (John Wycliff being perhaps a minor exception in the fourteenth century). The notion is an historical *novelty*. Not only is it entirely absent from Church history, but the Bible itself nowhere teaches or assumes that only the Bible is our authority. (That is what makes the notion self-referentially inconsistent; it does not even meet its own criterion.) In fact, the Bible commands us to obey the Apostles: "stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter" (2 Thess 2:15). The writings of the Apostles could not have more authority than the Apostles themselves. In both the Old and New Testaments, there are always ecclesiastical authorities. And in both Testaments the ecclesiastical authorities are always either those appointed by God Himself and publicly confirmed in their appointment by a miraculous ministry, or those appointed in legitimate and lawful succession by such authorities. In fact, without a living Magesterium (the authority of present-day bishops and priests), the Bible loses all authority, because as was once said by an early Protestant, "This is the book where everyone seeks his own proper opinion; This is the book where still everyone finds what he seeks", which is why there are over 20,000 Protestant denominations. If you don't agree with what you're hearing from the pulpit, you can just keep walking down Main Street until you come to a church that teaches just what you believe, and if you are *really* picky, you just start your own (thus nullifying Matt 18:17). Abandoning God's appointed authorities means that man becomes his own authority. Not only that, without the authority of the bishops, there could be no definitive canon concerning which books belong to the Bible. Each person would make his own canon, as some are now doing with the gnostic 'Gospels' and the recently discovered "Gospel of Judas". When each person has the authority to make his own canon, then the resulting book has no authority. If you don't like a particular passage in the Bible, you can just rip it out! If you don't like a book in the Bible, you can just rip it out! If you think a particular story from Chicken Soup for the Soul would make a great addition to your 'Bible', you can just stick it in. If bishops have no authority, then each person can include or exclude any passage or book from his self-customized 'Bible', for there is no one to tell him authoritatively what the canon is, i.e. which books belong to the Bible.

So, it seems to me that the Scripture and the fathers show clearly that the answer to *this* question is "NO".

And therefore, the authoritative answer on all the other issues (e.g. Mary, sacraments, purgatory, justification, etc.) is determined by what the Church Magesterium determines to be Church dogma. That is why there is just no point debating the other issues until one has determined the answer to *this* question: Are the apostolic writings and the writings of the Old Testament the only authority in the Church?