Art Sippo instructs James White on the Christian religion. A number of topics are discussed including ecclesiology, the papacy, justification, Scripture. Art's comments are in blue. White comments are in purple.
I am responding to your long response to my previous posting. I have addressed whatever I thought was relevant. I hope it is enlightening for you.
You noted a number of areas of differences amongst Protestants, seemingly asserting that 1) Catholics have no such differences (you do, and on just as important things, such as the issue of election and predestination), and 2) that these differences show an epistemological flaw in Protestant thinking.
Indeed, James, as I have tried to explain to you before, there are many different theological schools in the Catholic Church. We do not pride ourselves on uniformity but on unity-in-diversity. That is precisely what “Catholic” means. Theology is a feeble attempt on our part to understand the ineffable things of God. Some matters are to complex to be reduced to simple formulas at this time. Like a jewel with many facets, there are several different ways of looking at theological questions that appear different when viewed from different aspects. The Protestant tendency towards reductionism to the “correctness” of a single theological school is not only poor methodology, it is an act of hubris. The One True Church founded by Jesus is humble enough to know that this side of the eschaton, there maybe diversity in our theological speculations within the family of God's people.
But the Catholic Church does set limits to speculation that are derived not from the opinions of individual scholars or schools of thought but rather by the Hierarchy under the protection of the Holy Spirit. The truth of the Gospel is what we have received, not that which we invent for ourselves out of academic speculation. I have my own ideas on some matters of exegesis that disagree with those of my close friends and brethren in the faith. We all know it, but we still hold to the same central tenets of the faith, are in agreement in the doctrines that have been solemnly defined and are committed to fellowship in the One True Church that Jesus founded. So we may argue together, but it is always an intramural discussion among members of the same family.
I am afraid that our differences with you and your differences with other Protestants are not in the same league as that. Those are extra mural battles taking place outside the Church with no boundaries or limits set by common loyalties to Christ's Mystical Body. You have set up alternative “churches” in an attempt to usurp the Church that Christ himself founded. This is the crux of the problem. Unless you want to be a member of the Church Jesus founded, our debates can never be family matters but must necessarily be conflicts outside the household of faith.
In the Protestant world, the differences of opinion extend to formal contradiction of central matters and to the breaking of communion as a result. There can be no common fellowship of worship or confession among you. The differences between the Reformed and the Lutherans are so great that they are as far from each other as they are from Historic Catholic Christianity. We Catholics have a way of settling our internal disputes. The Protestant world does not. For this reason, you have degenerated into thousands of warring and contradictory sects. You do not and cannot speak with one voice and your witness to the world is of necessity compromised. We on the other hand have our focus of unity in the Pope and the Hierarchy and their historic faithfulness to the Christian message. When necessary, we can and do speak with one voice.
In some cases you may have confused nominal “Catholics” who hold heterodox opinions with true Catholics. One is only a true Catholic if he adheres both explicitly and implicitly to the disciplines of the Catholic Church. I am sorry to disappoint you, but we do not break fellowship with each other with every new wind of doctrinal speculation as you Protestants do. I personally abhor the opinions of these erring Catholic brethren, but in brutal frankness we must all suffer the vagaries of less-than-orthodox members in our churches. You have them as well. We at least have published standards for our beliefs that any intelligent person can understand. These individuals have no excuse for not knowing what they should believe. Ultimately, they will have to choose submission to the truth to their own opinion. They will be held accountable before God for what they choose. To persevere in their errors they will have to leave the Church sooner or later. In your case, there is nothing stopping the heterodox from going out and starting their own “church.” Many of them do because your system allows this and is in fact based upon the legitimacy of doing so. If Catholics do this, though, they are no longer “catholic” in any meaningful sense.
I do not find anywhere in these passages any Christian being told, “Hold firmly to the successors of Peter as the bishops of Rome so that you will not be led astray.”
Sure you do. This was the second Papal Encyclical of Pope St. Peter and you have neglected what he said earlier in the same letter:
2Peter1: 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," 18 we heard this voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 And we have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
{Note the emphasis added.} Pope St. Peter is saying that he has the prophetic word “made more sure.” Why? Because he is a man moved by the Holy Spirit to speak for God. That is exactly what happened in Matthew 16:16ff as Jesus had promised in Matthew 10:19-20.
Besides we have the words of St. Paul:
2Tim 3: 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Once again, there is an appeal to authority in the teaching Church. These are just a sampling of the relevant texts, but they show that the Bible does agree with the Catholic view.
You can speak all you wish of the Spirit of God: but if it does not translate into kindness, meekness, gentleness, and true love, it means nothing.
I could not agree more. But your comment surprises me. In your system you are saved by faith alone. Luther in particular said that a saving faith must not be formed by charity. Any alleged “good” works are to arise spontaneously without the explicit intention of pleasing God. What you say here seems to contradict sola fides. Can you elucidate?
I have never said that proper grammar and syntax is all that you need. I said that consistent use of these things will demonstrate the consistency of Scripture, to be true, and that to twist and distort the Scriptures, you must twist and distort those things. I likewise said that the Scriptures, being inspired, sufficient, and consistent with themselves, will not yield inconsistent teachings.
James, look at all of the tacit assumptions you are making: there is a collection of books called the Scriptures, that are inspired by God, logically consistent, sufficient in themselves, and that reveal their meaning through the application of simple grammar and vocabulary. Where did you get all of these ideas? From the Bible? No! You received them through tradition! This is my objection. You act as if grammar and vocabulary stand on their own. They are only a minor part of the larger context of the proper understanding of the Christian religion. There is a series of methodological assumptions that you take for granted. You can make no use of the Bible unless you know it to be the Word of God beforehand. Protestants have never acknowledged the debt they owe the Catholic Church for providing them with not only the Biblical texts but also the means by which to recognize, understand, interpret, and expound them.
You see, the “literal meaning” for these passages seems to be dictated by your ultimate epistemological authority (the Magisterium), not by the consistent application of sound hermeneutical or exegetical principles.
Quite the contrary. I take the texts at face value. It just so happens that the literal meaning of the texts in question -- taken without evasion -- conforms to what we Catholics actually believe. In fact, the literal meanings of these texts are the SOURCE for the Catholic position. It is your dissembling to deny the simple literal meaning of these texts that is dominated by prejudice and inconsistency in hermeneutics. Your Protestantism is your ultimate epistemological authority. You use the Bible only to rubber-stamp conclusions you had previously derived from Luther, Calvin, et al. You need to admit this to yourself.
Matthew 16, literally read, is about the identity of the Messiah, not about successors to the bishop of Rome in the Papacy. In the same way, no one listening to Jesus’ words in John 6, and following the context literally, would think He was talking about transubstantiation in the Mass, either. Such requires the insertion of the authority of a much later Magisterium as well. I am not sure what you mean by Matthew 25, unless you speak only of whether one takes such things prescriptively or descriptively.
Let's do some hermeneutics, shall we? I will promise not to quote from any Magisterial documents and just let the texts reveal themselves.
Matthew 16:16ff establishes that Simon would be known as the Rock upon whom Christ would build his Church and that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. Christ acknowledged that Simon received direct assistance from God in speaking for the disciples on who Jesus was. It is this assistance that Jesus had previously promised in Matthew 10:19-20.
On the basis of this special assistance, Jesus gave St. Peter the authority of the keys and the powers of binding and loosing so that St. Peter could fulfill the requirements of this ministry. The verb forms used for “binding and loosing” are interesting. They are perfect passive participles. In this context, they are best translated into English as the future perfect passive. The best translation of Matt 16:19 would be:
Matt 16:19 “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.”
The implication is obvious. St. Peter was not to have the power to actually make new doctrine. But instead whatever he would teach would already have been true in heaven before he said it. Aside form the obvious providence/predestination implications, this means that the power St. Peter would exercise in the Church would not be his own, but rather an extension of a divine prerogative. As Jesus had said:
Matt. 10:20 It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Please note the above quotation was made to the Apostles, not to the crowds. It represented part of the authority that Christ gave to the ministers of his Church. The pronoun “you” in the above quotation is plural in Greek, so the promise was not merely made to any one man but to the Church. St. Peter participated in this prerogative with the primacy given to him by Jesus, but it was never restricted to him personally. It extended beyond him for the whole Church. Logically, it would extend both to the Twelve Apostles as a group and to the persons who would succeed them, especially those in the Petrine ministry.
The word “Petros” applied to Peter is not a name. It is a title. We know this because in several places in the NT St. Peter is known as “Simon Peter” analogous to the way that Jesus is known as “Jesus Christ.” Jesus’ surname is not “Christ.” The conjunction “Jesus Christ” means “Jesus who is the Christ.” Well “Simon Peter” means “Simon who is the Rock.” Please note also that throughout the Scriptures, names are generally transliterated while titles are translated. We know that Jesus really called him “Shimon Kephas” (John 1:42). When it was rendered into into Greek, the name “Shimon” was transliterated while the title “Kephas” was translated into “Petros.” [The meaning of the word “shimon” in Hebrew means “hear.” Literally then, the appellation “Shimon Kephas” means “Hear the Rock.” This pun cannot be accidental. It was literally God's way of emphasizing that Simon was someone to whom people should listen since his teaching would be foundational to the Church. Isn't it amazing what a little grammar and vocabulary can reveal about a text!)
As to John 6:53, the Church Fathers are UNANIMOUS that it referred to the Eucharist. Even a modern minimalist like Rudolph Bultmann agrees with them and defends this in his commentary on the Gospel of John. It is only willful blindness that prevents you form seeing this. I defy you to find a single passage in the whole Bible in which Jesus speaks about eating his body and drinking his blood outside of John 6 and the institution narratives in the Synoptic Gospels. The episode in John 6 occurs immediately after Jesus feeds the multitude and John deliberately connects what Jesus has done with the Passover (John 6:4). And yet you can see no connection here to the Eucharist? Scripture must interpret Scripture. I fear that you fail to apply sound methods to interpreting this passage.
As to Matthew 25:31ff, “prescriptively or descriptively”? Get serious, James. The denial of any conditional statements with regard to the Scriptures is a Protestant innovation and has no foundation in previous Christian history. It is your commitment to Protestant systematic theology that makes you say such things, no a commitment to the literal meaning of the Biblical texts.
In Matthew 25, Jesus said, “If you don't do good works in my name you won't go to heaven.” He did not tell them that their fiduciary faith alone would save them. It had to be a “faith working through charity” (Gal 5:6). Many among the damned called upon Jesus as “Lord” and so they had to be believers. Back where I come from, we got the message. Catholics take the words of Jesus BOTH prescriptively and descriptively. We find no textual reason to import an alien concept of “faith righteousness” or a denial of the obvious conditional nature of Jesus’ teaching into this passage. In conformity with the standards in this section of the Gospel, we act out of loving obedience to our Father in order to please him, not out a sense of duty because we have been saved anyway. That was in fact the very point that Jesus was trying to make in the story. It was the believers whose faith stood alone and was unformed by charity who were damned.
Now, you may take exception to my interpretations, but all you can do is disagree with them. You have no absolute standard by which you can declare me to be wrong. That is the weakness of the Protestant system. It is built upon the opinions of mere men who have no authority from God to speak. As such, in your system, I am as entitled to my opinion as you are to yours. That is why I resent it when Protestants accuse Catholics of being wrong. You are being logically - and morally - inconsistent with your own religious system when you say anything other than that you disagree with us.
We Catholics on the other hand have an authority under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit which can give us sure guidance as the above biblical passages bear witness. If it came down to the point where we needed to know exactly what a particular passage of Scripture said, we would have access to an infallible teacher. In practical terms though it is not always necessary. My exegeses above are as good as anything you could put together and they derive their meaning from the literal sense of the text.
But I found most interesting your use of James 2. If you don't mind, I’d like to cite the passage from the Anchor Bible Commentary.
Actually I do mind. Once again you go calling on an academic authority as if that should impress me. I am only impressed by what the Word of God actually says. Johnson’s interpretation is cute but I don't agree with it. He assumes (contrary to most other scholars who have written on this passage) that James is not interacting with the text of Romans 1-4. As I have shown you before, this is an untenable hypothesis.
Evidence that St. James was trying to properly interpret Romans 1-4 is easy to find in the text of the epistle. James1:22 says that not the hearers of the law but the doers of the law will be justified (See Romans 2:13). James 2 starts out talking about the law and its fulfillment (Rom 2:17ff), and then states that justification is not by faith alone but by works (Rom 2:24). It also refers to Abraham to prove the point (Rom 4). The parallels to Romans 1-4 are so obvious that Johnson’s thesis cannot be taken seriously .
Johnson’s translation of James 2:24 is grammatically untenable. The Greek text does not say that a man is “shown to be justified” by works. It says that he IS justified by works. The verb is the indicative present passive third person singular. In Romans 3:28, the verb is in the present passive infinitive form (“we hold a man to be justified”). In both cases, the verb refers back to the subject and declares what the subject IS in the here & now and not how he appears. Fr. Fitzmeyer makes this very clear in his commentary on Romans.
Besides, the issue in James is not how a man looks before the community but: “What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?” (James 2:14) The answer St. James gives is a resounding “No.”
You may say that your interpretation is binding: however, to my knowledge, Rome has not infallibly defined the passage, so, from your viewpoint, you can’t infallibly say Johnson is in error, can you? I don’t believe you can.
The Magisterium does not need to pronounce judgment on every little passage in order for us to know what are the right and wrong ways to interpret them. Instead, our authoritative teachers have perused the text and over the centuries incorporated their infallible insights into theological exposition.
But I can and do say that I disagree with Johnson on the basis of sound exegetical methods with out the need for explicit papal confirmation. Johnson’s assumption is out of touch with mainline scholarship and with the obvious literal meaning of the text. More importantly, it is out of touch with the Catholic understanding of this passage which it self is based upon infallible teaching. Trent did deal with James 2:24 and did not agree with Johnson. Therefore from my perspective, the Holy Sprit has indeed declared that justification is not by faith alone both in St. James’ epistle and in the Council of Trent session 6, chapter 10. That is good enough for me.
I believe it is useful to contrast my ability to give an answer on such a passage as James 2:24 with the opposite situation: asking Roman Catholics to given an answer regarding, for example, the claim that the Bodily Assumption of Mary is an apostolic belief. This is the flip side of the epistemological issue: you have here a dogma that is binding, de fide Christian truth, according to Rome. Yet, not only can you not even begin to make a meaningful Scriptural defense, but not a single Christian during the first 500 years of the Church even mentioned the idea (outside of condemning the Transitus literature as heretical, that is).
James, Catholics can and do use the very same type of methods you do in interpreting Scripture and in theological speculation. We just have the extra advantage of Church authority to assist us in our work. On the other hand, you are merely fallible and have no way to confirm the correctness of your speculation. Ultimately, your own opinion is your own ultimate authority. That is why I reject your system as mere subjective self worship.
If we stick to central doctrines like the Petrine authority, the three-fold ministry, the perpetual virginity of Mary, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, baptismal regeneration, the biblical meaning of justification, etc. we have you on the ropes. Your interpretations are forced and do violence to the simple literal meaning of the text. Sooner than deal with foundational issues, you now want to vault into the very extreme areas of Catholic Dogma and try to argue about the apostolic origin of the teaching of the Assumption. This is a typical ploy on your part. When things are going badly over Sola Scriptura, you want to drag in irrelevant arguments about Mary, the Saints, statues, etc. I am afraid that the Assumption (in which both Luther and Calvin believed by the way) is strong meat and hard to understand for those who are weak in the faith. It is not the kind of thing that a carnal unbeliever such as you is equipped to discuss. We’d have to lay a bit of groundwork before we could discuss it intelligently. That is the reason you brought it up. You want to address the issue at an overly simplistic level without doing the necessary work for an honest discussion. It is much more fruitful to discuss the simple things upon which we have common ground before we scale the heights. As long as you keep in mind that this is a topic that needs serious prayer and spiritual insight to comprehend, we can deal with it.
I am not so dismissive of the Transitus literature as you are. There is good evidence that some of it comes from the 2nd Century. That would be close enough historically to establish the ancient pedigree for the Assumption. I am unimpressed with your “scholarly” dismissals of the Transitus material because the critics who make this claim use the exact same methods of analysis to prove that the NT was written in the 2nd and 3rd Century. You can’t reject these methods for the Bible and then praise them for their “scientific accuracy” when applied to other texts.
We should also note that there never were any traditions about Mary’s body being in a particular tomb. The absence of any such legends is interesting since every other major NT figure has such traditions associated with them including relics from their person. Mary doesn’t. This is what we would expect if the Assumption were an historic event.
There is also Revelation 12 that has sees the Blessed Virgin Mary in BODILY glory in the heavenly Temple. Many of the Church Fathers saw that as biblical evidence of the Assumption and I do too. In 1959, the Catholic Biblical Quarterly ran a 2 part article in which it gave examples of such Patristic exegesis.
Now, I know you are going to tell me that your views are so much more “scholarly” and reasonable than mine. I don’t agree. I think the evidence is good enough. The real proof of the Assumption is not historical but systematic anyway and these other evidences provide merely circumstantial support.
I see. So unless a papal pronouncement makes it into Denzinger, it is not a part of the Magisterium? Is it likewise your view that everything in Denzinger is representative of the Magisterium, and I will not find in that document any Scriptural interpretation that is wildly inaccurate?
Denzinger is not meant to be exhaustive but comprehensive. A document must meet certain criteria to be in Denzinger. It must be historically known, from a recognized Christian source, and acknowledged by the Papacy as proclaiming sound teaching to the universal Church. It includes material from General Councils, Papal pronouncements, and material from other sources (such as local councils) which have been promulgated as Magisterial by the Popes. Documents -- even from the Popes -- that do not meet such criteria (e.g., sermons, private publications, disciplinary decrees, treatises by the Church Fathers, decrees of local synods, etc.) are not Magisterial. Denzinger contains the relevant parts of the most important Magisterial documents. There are other authoritative documents that would meet the criteria for inclusion in Denzinger but which were not included for whatever reason (e.g., redundancy, reiteration of what was said better elsewhere, etc.). Not every papal document meets these criteria.
As to whether you will like the way in which the Magisterial documents handle Scripture, I leave that to you to find out. My friends who have left Protestantism and entered the Church have been impressed with the superior exegesis in the Magisterium. I have a feeling you too will be impressed.
There have been “errors and disputes,” even from your viewpoint, on hundreds of Scriptures, for hundreds of years. Rome says nothing. How can this be?
The Church has interpreted the Scriptures definitively all throughout history. Read Denzinger. You apparently want a “Super-Commentary” which gives univocal interpretations of every passage in Scripture, like a Talmud. This is not something that Catholics would want. The Scriptures themselves are the Word of God. There is no way that any commentary could exhaust the meaning of the Biblical text itself. If you write a “Super-Commentary,” you end up with a book that replaces sacred Scripture. We would prefer to study the text directly and mine its depths. There are disputes as to what some texts might mean but that is the concern of serious biblical scholarship that the Church supports whole-heartedly. It is only when the disputes touch on central matters of the Faith that an official interpretation is usually made.
The Magisterium is not a source of new revealed truth. It is rather an infallible judge of what has been revealed. When it speaks, it does not make mistakes, but it does not pretend to know all of the answers. In some ways, the Magisterium is dependent on scholarship to help formulate dogmas. It then discerns which proposed are right and wrong. When it passes judgment on a scholarly opinion, it adds nothing to the opinion except its support or rejection.
I do good works because I am in Christ, you do them “to remain is [in] right relationship with him.” Do vs. done, completed verses incomplete. I wish I still had the comments you made in Toledo about “it is finished,” for as I recall, you very energetically said, “It is not finished, it is just begun!” Yes, a major, major difference.
A major difference indeed. You do not follow the teaching of Scripture on this point whereas we Catholics do. Bob Sungenis has done a brilliant job of showing this in his book “Not By Faith Alone.” The reception of sanctifying grace is indeed only the beginning. Re-read the beginning of 2Peter that I quoted during our debate. It instructs us to “work diligently” to supplement our faith with virtues culminating in supernatural charity in order to “make your election sure.” We Catholics take this literally.
Let me give you some exposition:
Matthew 6: 14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 18: 34 And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."
John 14: 15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
John 14: 21 “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
John 15: 10 “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.”
1Cor 7: 19 For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.
1Cor 9: 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. 24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; 27 but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
1 Thessalonians 4:1 Finally, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity; 4 that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God; 6 that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you. 7 For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness. 8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. 9 But concerning love of the brethren you have no need to have any one write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; 10 and indeed you do love all the brethren throughout Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, to do so more and more, 11 to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we charged you; 12 so that you may command the respect of outsiders, and be dependent on nobody.
2Pet 2: 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.
1John 2: 3 And by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 He who says "I know him" but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly love for God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him: 6 he who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
1John 3: 21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us.
Hebrews 6:7 For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed; its end is to be burned. 9 Though we speak thus, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation. 10 For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. 11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
These quotations all emphasize the necessity of persevering in good works to remain in right relationship with God. There is nothing here about good works being a mere spontaneous response to an already established salvation. The faithful are exhorted to strive more and more to please God and not to depend on mere spontaneity. Even St. Paul himself continued to “pommel” his body in order to remain in right relationship with God. How can you contradict his views in favor of the opinions of Luther, Calvin, et al?
And as for Romans 2, I believe Murray and Moo, both, did an excellent job on the section. I won’t reproduce them here.
Once again an appeal you appeal to the authority of some Protestant academic. Why do you think I would be impressed by their eisegesis? This is just more Protestant Pelagianism. Their commentaries are jokes. Neither of them could rise above their Protestant prejudices or face the literal meaning of the text because they were not revealing Christ but defending Luther and Calvin.. They also have not taken into account the best of modern scholarship on Romans. I prefer the commentaries of Dunn, Zeisler, Fitzmeyer, Schriener, and Schlatter.
St. Paul meant exactly what he said in Romans 2. He was not talking about a hypothetical impossibility but the actual standard by which God would judge the world. Let’s quote it so that everyone can see and judge for themselves who is taking St. Paul literally and who it is that is imposing his systematic prejudices upon the Word of God:
Romans 2: 1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgment upon him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who do such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 For he will render to every man according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in good works seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. 9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality. 12 All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Please note that God will render to every man according to his works not according to his faith. It says nothing about doing good works just because you are already saved. It makes salvation contingent upon patient pursuit of “glory, honor, and immortality” by good works. Sorry, James, but once again the literal words of Scripture contradict your false teachings. I defy you to show me one place in all of Scripture where it says that God will render judgment unto all men according to their faith alone without any reference to their good works.
I’m sorry, I don’t remember referring to any pagan Greek linguistics. I referred to the language inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. Do you deny that the Spirit inspired the words, indeed, the very grammatical forms, used in Scripture?
I am disappointed, James. I didn’t realize that you believed in the myth of “Holy Ghost Greek.” I am sorry, but the NT writers all wrote in Koine Greek about which there is nothing spiritual or holy. The Greek language that you make such a big deal about is a PAGAN language used by the common people of that area of the Roman empire as the lingua franca of that region. The grammar that you so rigidly enforce is PAGAN as well.
While the text may be inspired no competent scholar will support your superstitious notion that the grammar was too. There is no common literary style throughout the NT. Some books are written in exquisite Greek (e.g., Luke and Hebrews). Others use abysmal grammar (e.g., John and Revelation). In one case St. Paul started a convoluted sentence and never finished it grammatically. There was no superintendence of the rules of grammar of the biblical authors (basically because there are no “rules” only widely held conventions) and this has lead to some problems of interpretation. To pawn these problems off on the copyists while insisting that the autographs were grammatically clear is wishful thinking. I stand with the mass of NT Greek scholars who recognize a certain amount of colloquialism, fluidity and bad grammar as clearly present in the best NT texts.
Do you deny that the Scriptures were written in the language of the day, so that the person in the street could understand them?
This is a different issue. I think the biblical authors wrote in order to be understood by the people of their day. I don’t think they “dumbed it down” for the common man. Some parts of Scripture are more accessible than others. The Gospels and Acts are the clearest of all to understand. St. Paul is notoriously cryptic because he is a very deep thinker. Revelation is also hard to follow because it is apocalyptic literature.
In pursuit of clarity, did the NT authors pursue exacting and correct grammar? Of course not! That is an affectation of pseudo-intellectuals who think that style takes precedence over content. I am a reasonably good public speaker but a mediocre writer. That is because I can communicate ideas well by speech and gestures. My speeches don’t read well, but they are very well received when I present them to an audience.
The rigid application of grammar rules or vocabulary is not something that a popularizer would do. He might take liberties with the language for a variety of reasons. That is why I am leery of your almost Gnostic approach to the language of the NT. You are not allowing the Spirit to “breathe where he wills.” I agree with you that there has to be some adherence to rules, but you can also make similar points with equivocation, double entendre, alliteration, analogy, metaphor, meter, rhythm, and rhyme. Technically, there is no “right” way to write in Greek. The “right way” is the way that allows you to be best understood. In the different dialects of the Greek language, there were different usages and the rules of grammar were sometimes more fluid in these dialects. The style of fluidity might even vary from one writer to another in the same dialect. Writing is an art form, not a computer program. Compared to the canvas that is language, grammar is just a series of conventions that may get in the way of real revelation. ;-)
Now, it is fascinating that you would say “the simplest way to refute such silly arguments is to refer to the consistent (sic) teaching of the Magistierum (sic) throughout history.” Why didn’t they do that when Arius was troubling the churches? And when the majority of recent councils stood against Athanasius and for Arianism, would the same concept hold true then as well? In the year after Sirmium, which had twice the number of bishops present as at Nicea, would it have been “right” to refer to the “consistent teaching” of the Magisterium at that point as well?
Actually, the Church did appeal to Tradition against Arius. It was Arius who appealed to Scripture against Tradition! He was refuted by a combination of Scripture and Tradition under the guidance of the Magisterium. The problem with the aftermath of Nicea was much more complicated than most people think. The vast majority of Catholic Bishops who had reservations about the Nicene formula were thoroughly orthodox. The problem was that homoousios had been a heretical symbol used by the Sabean heretics of the 3rd Century who had equated the Father and the Son in a modalistic way. Some of them thought that the Nicene symbol went too far and did not protect the proper distinction between the Father and the Son.
As to St. Athanasius, he was an interesting character. He was very rigid and intolerant of opposition of any kind. He roughly treated his opponents but was somewhat uncritical of his supporters. For example one of his staunchest supporters during his exile was Bishop Apollonarius who eventually (in a bid to be more Nicene than Nicea) went to the opposite extreme and was the founder of the Apollonarian heresy. Scholarship over the last 150 years has seen St. Athanasius as being not quite the hero we ahd previously believed. He was still a great Saint and a defender of orthodoxy, but he probably deserved censure for some of the things that he did.
The bottom line is that when the dust settled, the Magisterium was vindicated and all the orthodox parties adopted the solution that the Magisterium had presented at Nicea for the Arian heresy. It remains the norm today. It was these individual bishops trying to come up with better solutions than that proposed by the Magisterium which caused all the havoc.
I would like to point out, Dr. Sippo, that your answer is another clear example of sola ecclesia.
The Church stands on a triad of three standards that mutually support each other: Scripture (first and foremost), Tradition, and the Magisterium. It is inappropriate to use the term “sola ecclesia” since it is not a symbol that we use about ourselves and it implies that we depend solely on the Magisterium for everything. That is not true. When I argue with you, I usually stick primarily to the Biblical text because I find to be perspicuously Catholic. I understand that as an unbeliever, you cannot fully understand the text because you are not in a state of grace. Nevertheless, you can at least understand our reasoning and that suffices to make the point that our position is at least rational if not altogether convincing to you.
The “sola” game is a Protestant gambit. We are happy to recognize the evidence of history, archaeology, science, math, theology, philosophy and any other academic discipline in helping to explicate the world God has created. We do not restrict our selves to “only this” or “only that.” Once man has sanctifying grace, it moves to heal over the wounds of original sin and makes our minds more accessible to the revelation of God in nature itself. That is why we are open to ideas like “natural theology” which many Protestants reject.
What you are advocating is that we should throw away everything except the Scriptures and base our religion solely on an existential encounter with the biblical text in the light of current cultural and academic norms. These norms are not stable and change every few years. The Protestant “gospel” is very different today than it was in Luther’s time but lacking the perspective of history, you Protestants are unable to see that. This was the program that the Protestant “Reformers” tried to pull off in the 16th Century. They pretended that they were recovering “biblical religion.” In reality, they were using 16th Century philosophical, linguistic, social, and political ideas as their presuppositions for reading into the biblical text what they wanted to find there. They thus invented several 16th Century religions, none of which was truly biblical. The Magisterium rejected this program because it did not give precedence to the historic development of Christian culture and the promises of Christ that his Spirit would never abandon the Church. The end product of the “Reformation” disaster is the current super-secular autonomous state which acknowledges nothing other than it’s own power as the basis for culture.
Is it your assertion that we cannot know what God inspired in Scripture?
No. In the section of my letter to which you were referring, I was saying that the rules of grammar for Koine Greek as you have studied them are based on philological speculation and are not absolutely certain. A mere perusal of any competent text (such as Moulton or Crock) will show you that there is controversy as to how to precisely understand Koine usage. Then there is the problem of how a particular author uses the language, as well as regional variations. I am merely saying that the Greek language rules you use are descriptive, not prescriptive. There were no official grammar texts in NT times. And the vocabulary used by the NT authors was also not rigidly defined, especially with regard to theological concepts. The NT authors wrote without the benefit of your formal grammar texts and they were under no obligation to conform to the general rules that modern scholars have proposed.
Take a look at C. E. B. Cranfield’s 2 volume commentary on Romans. In it he gives -- on average - six different nuanced interpretations to each phrase in the original Greek text. In one particular verse, I counted 30 different interpretations. It became clear to me at that point that the rules of Greek grammar were much more fluid than certain and that the best way to approach the text was a manifest reading in context sooner than a strict linguistic analysis.
Please be more specific, or, at least cite a passage from a book. I have never said the aorist “represented a past completed action to which nothing further could be added.”
James, you said it in the Justification Debate with Father Pacwa and in our debate as well. In particular, you applied it in the above way to the verb “being justified” in Romans 5:1. You claimed that once justified we were at peace with God and there was no further obligation on our part to do anything to remain in his grace.
Dr. Sippo: But you can never be sure about the correctness of your position since it depends on the correctness of your understanding of your grammar books. Neither you nor they are infallible. Nor is 1) Rome, 2) your choice to view Rome as infallible, 3) your knowledge of Roman dogmatic teachings. I’m sorry, but what advantage do you have? I go directly to the text of Scripture; you have a myriad of canon laws, Denzinger citations, and Papal decrees to muddle through first. I would dearly love to see you attempt to debate Dr. Sabin with that kind of argument.
Don’t be absurd, James. The Magisterium has given clear guidance on the divinity of Christ, the nature of the atonement, the indissolubility of Marriage, the mode and eligibility for baptism, the effect of baptism, the nature of Church discipline, and a host of other topics. I don’t need to go through “myriads” of anything. As a scholar, I do in depth studies, but the teaching of the Church is easily accessible to everyone. One of the best sources for this is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but there are others. In fact, the papal encyclicals of JPII are a gold mine of sound teaching and biblical exposition.
You on the other hand have still not shown me how you know that the Bible is inerrant? Do you know where you got that from? CATHOLIC TRADITION. Even you depend upon it. I am reading Francois Wendel’s book on Calvin and even he admits that Calvin was self deceived when he refused to acknowledge his debt to the Catholic tradition. But you pick and choose which traditions you will follow on the opinion of men who admitted they were fallible. Your certainty is based on a naïve superstition about texts and their meaning.
We Catholics stand on the consistency of the Church’s historic witness. Indeed it is based upon a fallible decision on our part to believe what God has revealed through the Church. But that is where faith comes in. By reason we know that a Supreme Being exists who is uncaused, all powerful, and all-good. We don’t need special revelation for that. We find the same Supreme Being addressing us in the Scriptures under the name, “I am Who am.” The Necessary Being known through human reason is the same Being who reveals himself in Scripture. Based on human experience, the Bible teaches us transcendental truths about God that go beyond reason. Jesus then promised that his Spirit would remain with the Church forever to “teaches you all things.” He says nothing about writing a book to circumscribe his glory. The Spirit is handed down to each generation by the laying on of hands as a patrimony from spiritual fathers to spiritual sons (2Tim1:6).
Fascinating! Completely arbitrary! OK, well, if that’s the case, I say you just agreed with me. See, I choose to interpret (since rules of grammar are completely arbitrary) that what you were really saying is that it is “rubbish” to say that the rules of language are completely arbitrary. No, wait, you said that the rules of grammar are pure. I choose to interpret “purely” as not functioning adjectivally at all: they are “purely” rules, in any language. And I guess if rules of grammar are arbitrary, so are rules of lexical meanings, and “arbitrary” now means “decided according to strict and universal rules.” How is that?
When I was a child, I asked my teachers why we used certain words to describe certain things. In many cases they told me that the words came form Latin or Greek. In some cases they said they didn’t know. I found this very disturbing. I wanted to know why this word was being used for this thing. Referring back to Latin and Greek didn’t help me because I wanted to know where they got those words. I finally gave up asking when it was evident that the teachers didn’t know how to answer my questions.
I finally came to the conclusion (at age 6) that the meaning of all words was arbitrary and that the meanings in dictionaries were mere conventions. I concluded the same thing about grammar and spelling as well.
There are no absolute rules in language. They are all made up. Even onomatopoeia has a strong cultural flavor to it. It doesn’t come out the same way in all languages. Because there are no absolute rules, people can stretch and bend language in many different ways. Nobody arrests you for breaking the laws of predication.
Communication therefore is a more complex process than mere translation. You cannot argue that all grammar rules are rigidly fixed as if they were the laws of physics. Furthermore, it is naïve to think that God would communicate with us in a manner that was grammatically rigid. As you said, God wrote the Bible for ordinary people to read. Ordinary people have terrible grammar! He would not have written above their heads but aimed into the midst of them. So I think some grammatical equivocation is to be expected. Now I think that applying good grammar rules is obligatory for the scholar reading the text, but I think some leeway is also obligatory to do justice to the vagaries of language as real people use it.
Well, you suggest in your missive today that I am, in fact, mentally disturbed, but is it not fascinating that here we again have you indicating that the text of Scripture can mean one thing when written, but another centuries later?
Well, James, since you brought it up, I do think you have spiritual and emotional problems. You never apologize or even acknowledge that what you say or do might be offensive to other people. You have never admitted a mistake or even acknowledged that you were capable of making one. You act high-handed in the debating arena and insist on having things your way even though what you ask for is inappropriate and contrary to fair debating practice. You publicly promise to provide proof for your positions but then renege later on in private once you are out of the public eye. You never forgive or forget any alleged wrong done towards yourself and always portray your opponents in the worst possible light, especially the ones who show you up. You never acknowledge the possibility that your opponents may have a point and portray us all as evil, vicious, and ignorant. You also abuse the clear words of Scripture and torture them to mean the exact opposite of what they actually say when it suits you. Frankly, James, I have my doubts about you, but I do not think you are stupid. Just seriously out of touch with reality. ;-)
There is no ONE MEANING to any Biblical text. The Bible is not a series of logical propositions. It is a multiform text that can be read on several levels. The Catholic interpretation of John 19 as referring to Mary’s spiritual motherhood and her typology as the personification of the Church is the correct interpretation in my opinion. I think it was the primary intent of the human author. The minimalist attempts of Protestants to dismiss this are forced and unconvincing but necessary because of their theological system. They are unable to accept the obvious meaning of the text because they come to the text with a prejudice against it.
White wrote: It's easy to attack the sufficiency of Scripture: but rarely do I find Roman controversialists who are willing to take the positive side and defend the infallibility of Rome's teachings over time.
Dr. Sippo: That is because you do not portray the real teaching of the Catholic Church. You dredge up curiosities form the past which are not relevant to the question and then claim that they are the teaching of the Church. What you practice is a fancy kind of lying with some calumny and slander mixed in. I stand on the Sacred Traditions as we have preserved them. The Magisterium is now and always was infallible whenever it taught the universal Church on faith and morals. If you had any integrity you would recognize that you are attacking a "strawman" Catholic Church of your own making because you cannot handle the truth.
I see. Again, a nice statement of faith, but hardly a cogent argument. I’d ask you to document your assertions, but, I think we know what that would get me.
It would get my challenge to you to face up to the real Catholic Church and not your phony caricature. The history of the Catholic Church and its teaching are a matter of public record. Denzinger contains all of the relevant texts dealing with defined dogmatic teaching. For the last 2 millennia, the Orthodox and we have been the only historic expressions of the Christian faith that has survived from Apostolic times. The Protestant sects are all man made inventions dating form no earlier than the 16th Century. They have no valid orders. They have few -- if any -- valid sacraments. They have not been faithful to the Gospel they had received from the Apostles and keep changing it with each new generation. They separate faith from charity and good works from religious obligation. They ignore Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels and prefer the teachings of Luther, Calvin, et al masquerading disingenuously as the “disciples” of St. Paul. The conclusions of all their speculation is tentative and has no authority yet they puff themselves up as the only true Christians. I personally think that it was the Protestant heresiarchs that Jesus had explicitly in mind when he said:
Matthew 7: 15 "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. 18 A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits. 21 "Not every one who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' 23 And then will I declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.' 24 "Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; 25 and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; 27 and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it."
At this point you reverted to your old obstreperous self and broke off communication. I am disappointed. It was turning into a good discussion that I would be interested in pursuing. If you are so inclined, drop me a line.
Art Sippo
The Catholic Legate