If you rest the authority of the Church on the Scriptures (1 Timothy 3:15) to say that the Scriptures must be interpreted by the Church, then you have a circular tautology. It's not logical. If, on the other hand, you begin the question of authority with Scriptures and they say to listen to the interpretation of the Church, it's okay, because that sets the authority of the Church in second place. You can't have two authorities in first place. Church authority needs the backing of Scripture, but the Scriptures can stand alone, because a believer can come up with a valid interpretation just by cross-referencing the Scriptures with each other. You might get it wrong sometimes, but so does the Church. The Scriptures are never wrong.
The most unattractive aspect of the Catholic Church is its smug self-assurance and presumption of authority and claims to infallible teaching. Pride is nothing other than a lack of humility, and that is the real problem here. The Catholic Church is not humble enough to admit that they should not be the boss of everyone. "First among equals" does not make them the final arbiter who gets to decide everything. The rest of the Church, as the Body of Christ, also gets a say and can choose how they understand things, so long as they don't contradict the Scriptures.
"First among equals" means that everyone has to listen to their opinions and consider them. It does not mean they have to adopt them. If you want an authority other than Scripture that we all have to adopt, you need a world-wide ecumenical council to come to a consensus decision. But why do that unless you have a major problem with heresy?
The foundation that Jesus built his Church on was the declaration of faith. "I say you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!" He was not founding the Church on the man Simon bar Jonah, who 15 minutes later tried to contradict Him and was told, "Get thee behind me, Satan, you are thinking as Man does, not as God does." The faithful recognition and proclamation of the Gospel is the foundation of the Church. Nothing, and no one else. And, just in case you haven't noticed, foundation and authority are not the same thing.
If you want to bring up the question of the "keys of the kingdom" and the authority to "bind and loose," those were given to all of the Apostles. Once they went out to preach the Gospel to the ends of the Earth, on the Great Commission, they would have had full independence from centralized authority. Having one or two Apostles in any place is enough authority to found a Church. If they had needed consultation with Peter, they would have been ineffective. Any corrections they might have needed would have had to wait for epistles in any case.
I recognize that there isn't quite as firm a foundation for Sola Scriptura as I would like. The Church did manage to muddle along until they solidified their choices of which writings to include or exclude. But lacking a Canon left them wide open to heresy, until they could point to written authority to counter it. Later, with the Scriptures in place, they set an irrefutable standard. The only question comes with interpreting some points that seem obscure. Yet, the obligation to base all doctrines firmly on Scriptures has a salutary effect to keep the accumulation of unnecessary doctrines at bay.
Once we have a Canon, the authorities of the Church should feel the need to obey it, and not claim a right to use it as they wish. The Scriptures are our Constitution, and the Church's leadership has no more authority than the royal house under a Constitutional Monarchy. The Pope can't declare a chapter of the Gospels to be no longer valid, and he can't add another chapter to the book of Revelations. The claim to Infallibility, and the additions to dogma, do exactly that, add and subtract to the content of belief. I can't go along with that. So, while I hear the useful argument that the Canon was at first dependent on the Church, I insist today that the Church must be dependent on the Canon. We should no longer have to debate what is the core of true belief.
I truly believe what the Church teaches in every case where there is consensus. Yet, I balk at the claims to dogmatic authority and the accretions. It would be so much better to just make it "recommended piety" and not obligated obedience. There is a necessary core, of course, and some heresies to avoid, but let's not build fortresses on hills that we don't need to die on.
No comments:
Post a Comment