Cardinal Newman, Miracle Worker

"Absurd" Attack on Newman Miracle Condemned

Article Falsely Portrays Cardinal as Liberal Dissident

BIRMINGHAM, England, MAY 11, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The Birmingham Oratory is condemning recent accusations that a miraculous healing attributed to the intercession of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who will be beatified in September, was a fake.

In a press release today, the oratory stated that the accusatory article, written by John Cornwell and published two days ago by the Sunday Times, is "seriously flawed."

The miracle that was approved last July by Benedict XVI as a step in the cause of Cardinal Newman's canonization was the 2001 healing of Deacon Jack Sullivan of the Boston, Massachusetts, area.

Sullivan had a debilitating back injury that interrupted his diaconal studies and threatened to leave him paralyzed. After praying for the intercession of Cardinal Newman, he experienced an immediate healing from the pain, and doctors stated that there was no medical explanation.

In Sunday's article, Cornwell attempted to demonstrate that the healing was not miraculous, but rather medically explicable due to surgical treatment that Sullivan received.

He suggested that Benedict XVI and the Congregation for Saints' Causes "conspired to suppress the truth about Sullivan's healing to portray it as medically inexplicable," the oratory communique noted.

"The suggestion is absurd," it added. "The Church's procedures have been faithfully adhered to and everything is in the public domain."

Misleading

The communiqué asserted that Cornwell's arguments, quoting "experts" in order to claim that "improvements in Sullivan's underlying condition can flow from purely natural influences," are "very misleading."

Members of the Birmingham Oratory, which was Cardinal Newman's community, underlined the "instantaneous, complete and lasting" cure of Sullivan after his prayer six days after his surgery.

"Nothing in the expert testimonies adduced by Cornwell show that such a recovery, in such a time period, can be attributed to surgery, or natural causes in general," it added.

In fact, the communiqué noted that Cornwell clearly states his agenda: "discrediting Pope Benedict XVI and Papal teaching, to promote a 'progressive' view of Cardinal Newman as a 'dissident,' above all concerning individual conscience in relation to the teaching of the Catholic Church in faith and morals."

It added, "The Pope however is the leading authentic interpreter of Newman's teaching on conscience, which Cornwell and other 'progressive' Catholics misunderstand and misrepresent."

Members of the oratory warned that this attack "is not only unfounded, but another attempt to recruit Newman to the factional cause of 'liberal' Catholicism."

They affirmed, "Newman's doctrine of conscience, in fact his lifelong contribution to Christianity as both an Anglican and a Catholic, are in opposition to the rejection of authority in faith and morals which 'liberal' Catholics are determined to promote."

The oratory stated its plans to publish another article later this week in order to give more details about the "failings of Cornwell's arguments."

Apostolic Succession In Perspective: Review and Introduction

Before I start back into some of the historical processes regarding the Synagogue and teachings and elders, I’d like to stop and take stock of what I’ve written, and put it into the perspective of the overall discussion.

Here’s a key statement from the Keith Mathison piece; which may be found in Bryan Cross’s extended dialogue with Michael Horton:

Of course the inquirer has to determine whether there is a succession of authority from the Apostles to the bishops of the present day, and whether Christ gave to St. Peter and his successors the primacy. But just as our discovery of Christ does not entail that the basis or ground of His authority is our judgment that He is the Son of God, and just as a first century Roman citizen’s discovery of the Apostles would not entail that the basis or ground of their authority is his judgment that they were sent by Christ, so the contemporary inquirer’s discovery of the Catholic Magisterium extending down through the centuries by an unbroken succession from the Apostles to the present day does not entail that the basis or ground of this Magisterium’s authority is the inquirer’s judgment that it is the divinely authorized teaching authority of the Church Christ founded. The reasons by which he grasps its authority are not the ground of its authority, whereas without apostolic succession the only ground for the authority of any confession or pastor is its or his general agreement with one’s own interpretation of Scripture.

It is said that “it all comes down to authority,” and this, in many ways, is the focal point of Roman Catholic claims to authority. Let’s take a look at the authority claim that Bryan is making (which I believe to be consonant with what Rome has taught in the past, although, I would say, Rome is in some ways “re-calibrating” this “story” in our lifetimes):

The Inquirer has to determine:

1. Whether there is a succession of authority from the Apostles to the bishops of the present day

2. Whether Christ gave to St. Peter and his successors “the primacy”.

Of course, the answer to both of these is “no”.


There are three things, according to Cross, the authority of which are not dependent on [“not entailed by”] the enquirer’s “discovery” of them:

1. Christ is the son of God

2. The Apostles’ authority during the first century

3. The Catholic Magisterium extending down through the centuries by an unbroken succession from the Apostles to the present day.

He says, “without apostolic succession the only ground for the authority of any confession or pastor is its or his general agreement with one’s own interpretation of Scripture,” but that is a meaningless philosophical construct that doesn’t matter, because if “apostolic succession” is not historically viable understanding of “church authority,” then it is not, and the “philosophical necessity” posited by Bryan is just simply meaningless.

It’s at point 3 where Protestants can and do and must understand and draw the line that this item #3 was not “from the beginning” – this point #3 was a development that occurred, took place in the second part of the second century in the forges of what Oscar Cullmann called the “post-Apostolic” period, the period of the Apostolic Fathers. The early generations of the church relied on an “oral tradition” to carry through the Apostles’ teaching (δόγματα –see Papias, for example); but this oral tradition failed to stem the tide of [mostly local Roman] heresies in the turbulent capital of the Roman world, which itself was the site of the comings and goings of people and religions from all over the world. Names like Carpocrates and Basilides and Valentinus and probably a dozen others all claimed to draw upon Christianity in some way, according to Everett Ferguson, “Church History Volume 1: From Christ to Pre-Reformation” (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan 2005). It was during this time that “the early church adopted strategies that with varying degrees of effectiveness continued to be employed in subsequent centuries (pg 105).

The orthodox church, the church which relied on the (δόγματα) of the Apostles at first relied upon an “oral tradition” to defend and distinguish itself from this “gnostic soup,” but that attempt could not provide the defense that was needed. And I’ve described it in the past. It is at this point we see the emergence of other defense mechanisms that were more successful, and which seemed to have been solidified in the subsequent centuries:

1. The fixing of a canon of the New Testament as a doctrinal norm

2. The standardization of an office of monarchical bishop, present in some areas of the east but not in the west

3. The notion of “succession”

These “developments” gave shape to the church that Irenaeus knew in the late second century, and which writers like Tertullian and Hippolytus wrote about early in the third century.

The short “short summary” of the result of this process is provided by Francis A. Sullivan, “From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church” (New York: The Newman Press ©2001 by the Society of Jesus [“Jesuits”] of New England). Sullivan says:

While most Catholic scholars agree that the episcopate is the fruit of a post-New Testament development, they maintain that this development was so evidently guided by the Holy Spirit that it must be recognized as corresponding to God’s plan for the structure of his Church (pg 230).

Sullivan is among those theologians who are sort of at the forefront of the “recalibration” that I noted above. Even though this represents a tremendous concession (and the Bryan Crosses of the world resist it with all the wishful thinking they can muster), it is still not going far enough. It is at this point, around these historically-verifiable elements of church history, where Protestants must (and will, I believe) take issue with Roman Catholics: while there is no question that God enabled “the one true church” to survive this period, the resultant “structure” was merely an expedient of the time, crafted by the individuals of the time, and not some sort of divinely-mandated “structure” that God intended for all time. (Here is the point at which to understand the method of God in his response to Paul’s plea: “My grace is sufficient for you.” What worked in the past will be a disaster for the future. Do not rely on “the structure,” God says. “Rely on me.”)

In my posts citing F.F. Bruce and Roger Beckwith on the synagogue structure that was in place during New Testament times (and which I hope to continue to work with), the following statement from Sullivan is evident:

This structure was in development during the New Testament era, but even at the close of that period the Church did not yet have a structure adequate to meet the challenges it would face during the second century. Catholics see no reason to think that the Holy Spirit, who guided the Church during the period of the New Testament, would have ceased to guide it during the development of the basic structure necessary for its long-term survival (230).

And of course, upon this, again, it turns. It is mere assumption that this is some sort of “divinely mandated structure.” In a comment the other day, PeaceByJesus reminded us of the meaninglessness of claims to “unbroken succession” from that time till the Reformation.

The history of this entire period and of course, the leadership structure of Medieval church history, scream mightily that this is the point at which Protestants can and do and should draw the line, and say, “we reject this so-called authority, the rotting fruit of which is evident throughout history, and the supposed cleaning-up of which [at Trent] was merely cosmetic. Roman dogma had permitted a creeping rot to infest itself, and from Trent onward effectively anathematized the Gospel, the kerygma, “the precepts or the teachings (δόγματα) of the Apostles”.


John Calvin went into tremendous detail about much of this in his Institutes. Without having the historical perspective that we have today, Calvin wrote a summary of this process that someone like Francis Sullivan is only now catching up to.

I’ll stop here for now, with a reminder. Viisaus noted in a recent comment, “Or in other words, the Reformers pointed out that it was more important to be successors of apostles in SPIRIT rather than (to claim) to be their successor in FLESH.” I would extend that remark – not only successors of the Apostles in Spirit, but in the very teachings (δόγματα) of the Apostles, which, in our day, can be found only in the Scriptures.

"Objection, Your [dis]Honor!"

I owe a few responses to Paul Hoffer -- he chimed in over at Called to Communion near the end of the thread.

Paul Hoffer in Comment 60: Hello all, since Mr. Bugay indicated in his comments to my article on his misuse of Rev. Lampe’s book that I should have directed my energies to interact with Chapter 41, I have had the opportunity to take up some time studying the thesis presented there.

This, by the way, fails to comply with the Called to Communion posting guidelines, which mandates that one address someone in the second person ("you") rather than in the third person voice.

PH: It seems to be founded on a notion that Rome’s titular churches (home-churches) were so fractionated that they could not have been overseen by a single bishop.

A mere "notion"?

Long before Lampe, there were scholars writing about the absence of a monarchical bishop in Rome. In the 40's and 50's, Oscar Cullmann ("advisor to three popes") was detailing significant shortcomings in the traditional Roman position; this was followed up by intensive studies by Daniel O'Connor ("Peter in Rome") Raymond Brown et. al ("Peter in the New Testament"), as well as others. Lampe's detailed work provided solid confirmation for what others had held based on things long understood in the history of that topic.

For example, Schaff has sections on "the Peter of History" and "The Peter of Fiction." Sorting out these two has been difficult, not least because "the Peter of Fiction" was a strong and mighty early pope. The reality of it is quite different, although Peter may in fact have died at Rome, it is highly questionable that he founded the church there, (it is certain that "Peter and Paul" did not "found" the church at Rome -- a testimony that is given by Irenaeus), it is highly questionable that he ever "commanded" anyone, given his role and status as one who traveled there as a missionary.

There are many other factors too that go into the "notion" that there was not a monarchical bishop at Rome. Ignatius, who was an aficionado of the word "bishop" does not seem to have been able to locate a bishop when he writes to Rome. True, this "could" have been an oversight, but for him to purposely have ignored such a person would have been a great affront.

In a completely separate piece of evidence, Hermas states clearly that the city was ruled by a plurality who "fought among themselves." You may want to say that "this doesn't explicitly deny" that there was a monarchical bishop. But both of these are far clearer statements than those upon which an early papacy has historically been founded; but even if there were a monarchical bishop in charge of Hermas's unruly bunch, that would speak volumes about the incompetence of such an individual's [lack of] leadership.

Lampe's work provides confirmation for many, many points of fact that other researchers had strongly suspected. That is the value of his work.

Further to this, you risk here committing the word fallacy of semantic anachronism, that is, using a word in a later manner that was not intended by the New Testament writers. You must be aware that this happens all the time, for example, whenever Catholic writers see the word "episkopos" and related -- they think it means what "bishop" means to day -- and worse, when Catholics see "Peter" they reflect "pope" back on that. Two worse fallacies could not be envisioned in this type of study.

What safeguards have you taken to assure yourself (much less, our readers here!) that you are not committing these fallacies?

PH: Reviewing the data that he sifts through does not actually show that the Roman churches were fractionated and is based on a more modern-view of what a mono-episcopal bishop was supposed to be. As pointed out by David Albert Jones, a professor from Oxford and Oswald Sobrino, such an argument is based on several false assumptions and is a poor argument.

Your mention of names here does not show how the arguments actually shape up. It does not surprise me that partisan Catholics would put forward their own takes on these things. Bryan Cross (to his credit) tried to provide an analysis of Lampe's own analysis of Hegesippus's "list". Unfortunately, the tone of this, as I noted in that thread, was very much a tone that said, "these things as I've written them are not 100% excluded, and therefore, given that they support the Roman tradition they must not only be potentially true but actually true." It is wishful thinking of the highest order.

PH: As pointed out by David Albert Jones, a professor from Oxford …

You mean the bioethicist, who is not a historian?

PH: … and Oswald Sobrino, such an argument is based on several false assumptions and is a poor argument.

Who is this guy anyway?

PH: Adrian Fortesque, Henri Daniel-Rops, Prof. Edward Weltin, … seem to concur based on the preliminary researches that I have started …

How could they "concur"? Fortescue (whose work I have outlined here) pre-dated all of these studies. But I would encourage you to keep reading. It will give you a good idea of just how far away from the truth of history someone like a Fortescue could get.

Henri Daniel-Rops also pre-dated this work and therefore could not have interacted with it. It does not seem as if Weltin published in this area. You must be in some arcane sources.

As far as Bernard Green, OSB, it does seem as if he's addressing Lampe's work. But again, he does so from the position of a partisan, and his "objections" seem to be along the lines of those raised by Bryan Cross.

What is your intention in throwing out these names? Are you intending to show that there is some sort of great groundswell of scholarship that is addressing and defeating the body of scholarship that I've presented? If so, you are hardly making a dent. In reality, your citation of these individuals shows your desperation in this matter -- the distances you must travel to find someone who holds a contrary opinion.

PH: Note too that Mr. Bugay does not address the fact that Schatz, Sullivan, Eno or even Raymond Brown whose views tend to mirror in some respects Lampe’s views, do not argue (Schatz and Sullivan especially) that this argument negates the validity of apostolic succession or the basis for the papacy.

I'm trying to take one thing at a time; Perhaps you could tell me how this comment is not a deflection from the main subject?

Nevertheless, I want to make you happy. To be sure, Schatz and Eno pretty much exclusively dealt with the papacy. Sullivan talked about the transition [and it was not a close transition] of "apostles to bishops". He does not try to "negate the validity of apostolic succession" but rather he does clearly state at the end of the work that he (like Brown) believes that the lengthy "process" by which "bishops" succeeded the Apostles was directed by God and therefore was of "divine institution." To quote him (as I have done in various places, "Although development of church structure reflects sociological necessity, in the Christian self-understanding the Holy Spirit given by the risen Christ guides the church in such a way that allows basic structural development to be seen as embodying Jesus Christ's will for his church."

If you want to cite Raymond Brown -- he is even more detailed with respect to the New Testament:

A more traditional Catholic explanation of why individual Christians are not specifically designated as priests in the NT is that the apostles who presided at the Eucharist were priests in everything but name, for the name was too closely associated with the Jewish priests of the temple. But this explanation is based on a serious oversimplification about apostles in the NT, as we shall see in Chapter Two, and suffers from the added difficulty of unwarrantedly supposing that in NT times the Eucharist was thought of as a sacrifice and therefore associated with priesthood.

Because of the origins of Christianity in Judaism we would really have to suppose just the opposite: animal sacrifice would be thought of in terms of blood and there was no visible blood in the Eucharist. True, there are sacrificial overtones in the traditional eucharistic words of Jesus (the mention of the shedding of blood, the covenant motif, the "for you" theme), but this coloring was understandable because Jesus spoke these words before his bloody death. There is no proof that the Cristian communities who broke the eucharistic bread after the resurrection would have thought that they were offering sacrifice.

In these observations I am not questioning the legitimacy of the development in later theology whereby the Church came to understand the Eucharist as a sacrifice; indeed, a recent study by a Calvinist argues that there was real continuity in such a development and that it is loyal to the implication s of the NT. I am simply pointing out that such a theology was a post-NT development, and so we have no basis for assuming that early Christians would have considered as a priest the one who presided at the eucharistic meal. (Brown, "Priest and Bishop," New York: Paulist Press, 1970, pg 16.)

The fact is that the connection of "authority" of "priestly succession" going back to the New Testament is a false one, and Rome's recent bombast that "the communities of the Reformation" don't have this succession is just a non-starter for many Protestants who do know and understand the roots of this "development" and reject it.

The fact is that all of Rome's supposed foundational connections to authority -- priests, bishops, popes -- are later developments that can easily be rejected on the basis of the New Testament. Lord willing I will get around to putting all of these pieces together.

PH: The whole notion is fractionation is sort of making a mountain out of molehill as all it shows is that the Catholic Church back in the day practiced setting parishes up based on geographical boundaries which we still do today.

If the papacy is claiming that it has authority that it never had, then it is not a molehill, it is an important topic to investigate. Your statement here about "geographic boundaries" is another red herring that ignores the whole area of what authority actually meant in the earliest church. Nobody denies that there was a practice of setting up parishes based on geographic boundaries. In fact, if you had read more closely, you would understand that Lampe uses this very practice to establish the picture he draws of house churches, by tracing the titular parishes of the fifth century, for whom we have names and signatures.

All this shows is that, as a lawyer, you are skilled in the art of obfuscation -- you throw out a lot of highfalutin words that seem to have some meaning, but when investigated more thoroughly, there is much to be desired.

How much better would it be for you to work for clarity in these matters? Doesn't your Catholicism bind you to honesty? Or does it rather bind you to blind partisanship?

“No coincidence that the first works of papal history are fictitious accounts written by the popes”

It seems as if it’s “let’s persuade Scott Windsor that he needs to re-think his avocation” week here at Beggars All. I’m continuing to respond to his brief defense of the papacy. (Earlier posts discussing his “Scriptural Defense” are here, here and here.) My hope is to return to these “scriptural defenses,” but he also threw out a historical citation that needs to be addressed as well.

In some recent posts, our motivations have been questioned. I’m sure we’ve responded to them adequately; but I want to go a bit further and state, as I’ve done before, that I’m interested in knowing “the truth.” You can think of me as an investigative reporter, and when I study the early papacy, [or the Reformation, or any other topic], I’m interested in knowing, with the greatest degree of certainty that our sources can provide, “what they knew, and when they knew it.” What actually happened.

This is vitally important with respect to the early papacy, because, in polemic discussions on this topic, someone like Scott, taking a literalist interpretation of Vatican 1, will say something like “Christ founded a visible church, Peter was the Rock of Matthew 16, Clement mentioned “worthy men,” and therefore, there was an unbroken chain of “popes” down through the centuries.”

In fact, this is a very dishonest summary of the history of those centuries. The Roman Catholic writer Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops (New York: The Newman Press), painstakingly works through all possible mentions of “succession” from the first three centuries, and concludes from that study not only that “the episcopate [development of bishops] is a the fruit of a post New Testament development], but he interacts with the notion that there is a single bishop in Rome through the middle of the second century, and he flatly dismisses it. [Sullivan, 221-222].

Klaus Schatz, in his Papal Primacy: From its Origins to the Present, not only acknowledges that in the case of the process of the development of “the historically developed papacy” the initial phases of this long process “extended well into the fifth century” (Schatz pg 36)
.
I concluded my last post with a discussion of the conditions in which bishops of Rome found themselves, and also a fairly lengthy selection about pope Damasus (366-382).

Another Catholic writer, Robert Eno, S.S. (“Order of the Sulpicians,” whose mission it is to teach Roman Catholic seminarians), notes, “From the time of Pope Damasus (366-384), the evidence for the Roman view of itself became abundant. … I might point out that this distinction between what Rome says about itself and what other, non-Roman sources say about Roman authority, is one that must be observed throughout this enquiry.” (“The Rise of the Papacy,” Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier Press, 1990, p 30).

As I’ve pointed out in the past, Roger Collins notes (in the spirit of Eno) that It is no coincidence that the first systematic works of papal history appear at the very time the Roman church’s past was being reinvented for polemical purposes.

Just sayin’. And I’m just sayin’ that, just as the non-existent early papacy was based on pious and not-so-pious fictions, the medieval papacy, too, rests on not-so-pious fictions.

Now is a good time to remind everyone of what Scott provides, in addition to his exegesis of Matt 16:18, as another “early evidence” for the papacy”:

Testimony from the Early Fathers:
In 517 the Eastern bishops assented to and signed the formula of Pope Hormisdas, which states in part: ‘The first condition of salvation is to keep the norm of the true faith and in no way deviate from the established doctrine of the Fathers. For it is impossible that the words of our Lord Jesus Christ who said, “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church” [Matt. 16:18], should not be verified. And their truth has been proved by the course of history, for in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been kept unsullied.’ (qtd in This Rock, October 1998).

Klaus Schatz explains a bit of this process, from an actual historical perspective:

In the five hundred years from the fifth to the tenth centuries the role of Rome was very different in the Byzantine “imperial Church” and in the West, which after the tribal migrations of the fifth century consisted of a group of independent Germanic kingdoms. Until the eight century, except for the period between 476 and 536 when it was ruled by Odoacer and the Ostrogoths, Rome belonged to the empire governed from Constantinople. The pope was a subject of the emperor, and from the sixth to the eight century the Roman bishop elected by the clergy and people of Rome had to be confirmed by the emperor in Constantinople before he could be consecrated. [And yes, it was the forged “Donation of Constantine” that enabled Rome to break free of this domination].

For five hundred years [400-900] the role of Rome in the imperial Church was determined essentially by the relationships among three entities: the ecumenical councils, the patriarchates, and the imperial establishment. The essential features of this set of relationships developed in the middle of the fifth century, with the events of the years 449-451 the crucial turning point. …

For the ecumenical councils, as for all matters that had to be settled at the highest levels, the “patriarchates” came increasingly to be the most important entities. The terms “patriarch” and “patriarchate” emerged in the fifth century and became fixed usage in the sixth. They originated in the triad of principal churches at Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. The sixth canon of the Council of Nicea (325) explicitly confirmed the “ancient custom” that these three bishops were to have ecclesial jurisdiction (not specifically defined) over their own regions. (Schatz 41-42)

What follows are the years between 325 and 381, when Arianism is defeated and the doctrine of the Trinity defined; following the Council of Constantinople (381), which in which the Nicene Creed was finalized, and the murderer pope Damasus didn’t want to be bothered (except to assert that he was boss). From 381 then, until 451, came the Christological struggles and the council of Chalcedon.

Eamon Duffy notes:

In addition to its doctrinal work, the Council of Constantinople issued a series of disciplinary canons, which went straight to the heart of Roman claims to primacy over the whole Church. The Council decreed that appeals in the cases of bishops should be heard within the bishop’s own province – a direct rebuttal of Rome’s claim to be the final court of appeal in all such cases. It went on to stipulate that ‘the Bishop of Constantinople shall have the pre-eminence in honour after the Bishop of Rome, for Constantinople is new Rome’.

This last canon was totally unacceptable to Rome for two reasons. In the first place it capitulated to the imperial claim to control of the Church, since Constantinople had nothing but the secular status of the city to justify giving it this religious precedence. Worse, however, the wording implied that the primacy of Rome itself was derived not from its apostolic pedigree as the Church of Peter and Paul, but from the fact that it had once been the capital of the empire. Damasus and his successors refused to accept the canons… (Duffy 34-35).

So during the first two councils, Nicea (325) and Constantinople (381), while the eastern bishops were doing the heavy lifting, bishops of Rome were not present, they were an afterthought, and the pope's alleged "divine institution" was not recognized at all. By councils of bishops.

This is a bit lengthy, and there’s more of it, so I’ll finish it in another installment, Lord willing. But note here that the image of a “unified church under the pope” is far, far from reality.

How does an infallible Magisterium cause such quandaries for itself?

I intend to get back to David Waltz vs. Peter Lampe, Lord willing, I really I do, but I ran across this opportunity to provoke the kind of cognitive dissonance that only “The Catholic Champion” could deny without a thought, with just a wave of his mighty hand.

“Da Champ” has decided to comment on my recent blogpost, Vatican II vs Trent on “Holy Orders”. I had posted this from Kilmartin:

In Trent’s Decree on Holy Orders, Canon 6 states that there is in the Church “a hierarchy instituted by divine ordination, which consists of bishops, presbyters and ministers.” While this teaching conforms to the idea of existence of such offices from the beginning of the Church, it does not harmonize with the historical facts. The Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium [28] offers a more realistic view based on a more secure historical consciousness and exegesis of Scripture. Here we read “Thus the divinely instituted ecclesiastical ministry is exercised in different degrees by those who even from ancient times (ab antiquo) have been called bishops, priests, and deacons.” Hence in no way does Vatican II affirm that the priesthood was instituted at the Last Supper in the sense understood by Trent (pg 378).

Da poor Champ, he doesn’t like Kilmartin. He says:

Unfortunately the Church hierarchy has been rather lax in formally condemning individual theologians who have dissenting opinions, who then publish them all over the internet to be consumed by those seeking information on a particular theological subject. … Further down in the article Kilmartin also attacks the scholastic definition given by the Church at Trent concerning Transubstantiation.

Lord willing, I’ll get to that, too, Champ. Meanwhile, in discussing this work yesterday with Raymond, it came up that Vatican II had caused all kinds of problems for understanding Vatican I. I was recalling a work I had read some time ago: Michael J. Buckley, S.J., “Papal Primacy and the Episcopate: towards a relational understanding,” New York: Crossroad Herder, © 1998, from the “Ut Unum Sint” series. I’m wondering if Buckley is one of Da Champ’s favorites? Ratzinger certainly likes him. From the Acknowledgements:

As this book goes to press, its author should pause over the gratitude he owes to others, a debt he would gladly pay:

To Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for his gracious invitation to participate in the symposium sponsored by the Congregation on the “primacy of the successor of Peter”;

To Archbishop Tarcissio Bertone, S.D.B., secretary to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for his unfailing kindness and facilitation of the symposium in innumerable details;

To my colleagues in the department of theology at Boston College for their discussion of an earlier draft of the monograph that is now this small book;

To Joseph Komonochak, Peter Hunnermann, and Clifford Kossel, S.J., for their review of the several drafts of the document and their suggestions for its betterment.

To the members of the doctoral seminar at Boston College on primacy and episcopate for the analysis, interpretation, and arguments that occupied many hours of the Wednesday afternoons of the fall of 1996;

To Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., and Michael Himes for their insightful and collaborative direction of this doctrinal seminar that provided the context in which this book was written;

And above all, to my two generous research assistants, Joseph Curran and Brian Hughes, for their hours of scholarly digging in libraries together with their unflagging, competent help in the completion of this work.

I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “what, pray tell, is the fruit of this love-fest?”

Certainly you recognize some of the names. Ratzinger, Sullivan, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Yes, we’re all one big happy family.

Here’s what Buckley has said, what Ratzinger asked for, was improved upon by the colleagues at Boston College, and completed with the generous, unflagging, competent help of the research assistants.

The development from Pastor aeternus to Lumen Gentium, from speaking of the bishops as the episcopate to speaking of the bishops as “a college...or a college of bishops” (collegium ... seu corpus episcoporum), is far more considerable than a simple semantic shift. “Episcopate” is somewhat more abstract than “college of bishops,” and it fails to express the dynamic relationship of the bishops among themselves… (pg 77).

Just wait until you’ve got to take into account a millennium’s-worth of Orthodox (and Oriental) bishops who have been slighted.

By no means is that the only problem which the college of bishops initially poses. Lumen Gentium, no. 22, did not include in its description of the Episcopal college the local churches of which the bishops were shepherds and representatives. If one fails to place this section within the context of Lumen Gentium no. 23, one would have an understanding of the college of bishops without the simultaneous and explicit recognition of the communion of churches, indeed, without mention of local churches at all. The perspective would remain that of a universalist ecclesiology, and the college of bishops would read as if it were primarily a governing board of the whole Church (80).

Then there are the vital relationship between the bishop and the local church within which he is to represent the leadership and the sanctifying presence of Christ (81) … and the Apostolic Tradition which insists that the bishop is to be chosen by all of the people and that this selection is to be approved by the assembled [local] bishops and elders (86). Buckley writes, in summary:

Two questions arise in this context. Whether the present settlement actually detracts from the full vigor of the episcopate and whether papal restoration of ancient legislation on the selection of bishops and their stability within their sees could contribute significantly to the strengthening of the episcopate and the local churches today. Could the apostolic See further effectively its responsibilities simply by restoring what has been taken [or, what the papacy has usurped for itself] over the centuries? This would be to retrieve in a very different way that papal leadership whose bent was the strength and freedom of the local church. Neither problem is an easy one to resolve, but both merit serious study and each touches upon both components of this essay (94).

So, Champ, it appears that not only has the divinely instituted hierarchy “been rather lax in formally condemning individual theologians who have dissenting opinions,” in “stopping those modernists who recreate history to deny the definitive teachings of the Catholic Church,” of squelching those with “modernist opinions who contradict her at every turn.” It appears as if they are inviting them to write these things.

But Champ, I’ll make this easy for you. I’ll give you an exit, one that preserves the integrity of both hierarchy and theologians: blame it on the research assistants.

Luther: Your sin cannot cast you into hell

I was sent a link to a website "exposing" Calvinism because it contained a bunch of Luther quotes. Many of the quotes I've gone over already, but there were a few that I've never examined. Here's one in particular found in a pdf e-book (pictured left) from this site:

"Your sin can not cast you into hell."[12]

[12] http://www.nazarite.net/the-founders.html-- Martin Luther: August 1st, 1521 http://www.sullivan-county.com/identity/reformers.htm

Documentation
The link given for this quote goes over to a web page entitled, The Protestant Reformers Were Frauds (An Anabaptist speaks out). The web page states, "Martin Luther was not a great reformer like the history books teach, but he was a fraud! Here are some quotes from Luther which shows that he taught the heresy of Once Saved Always Saved," and thus follows a number of undocumented quotes from the Reformers. I did a basic search for "Your sin can not cast you into hell" across the Internet (with the spelling "can not") and came up with only one other relevant hit: some sort of Messianic Jewish web page: The Reformers (turn your computer's sound off for this page). This page likewise lacked meaningful documentation. One of these pages probably took the quote from the other.

This quote appears to come from Luther's Church Postil, "Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, Matthew 9:1-8 ( October 3, 1529). It can be found on this page.


Context
Luther begins by explaining that "external righteousness be urged both in admonitions and in threatenings, and not be considered as of no importance. For whosoever despises it, despises God and his Word." He explains that to live peacefully in this world with each other, we need to obey the ruling authorities and live honestly according to the second table of the Ten Commandments. If we don't, authorities have been set up to punish those who break the law. He then explains that the church of his day had set up false works said to be pleasing to God in order to obtain a right standing with him ("we tried all kinds of works, ran hither and thither, expended and wasted our energies, money and property; here we established masses and altars, there cloisters and brotherhoods, and every one was groping for the way in which he might serve God"). God though requires that whatever one does, however domestic and trivial it may seem, be done to His glory. All of this outward external righteous one engages in is because God commands it, not because one can earn righteousness or eternal salvation from it.

Luther then moves to discuss another kind of righteousness, the righteousness of faith in which one receives the grace of God and the forgiveness of sin. When God forgives your sin, you stand eternally righteous before him. Certainly though in this world Christians are still plagued by their sins. They accuse the believer that his sins are no longer forgiven. External good works do not assure a Christian that his sins are forgiven. Luther states:

15. Therefore this doctrine, that our piety before God consists entirely in the forgiveness of sins, must be rightly comprehended and firmly maintained. We must therefore get beyond ourselves and ascend higher than our reason, which keeps us in conflict with ourselves and which reminds us both of sin and good works; and we must soar so high as to see neither sin nor good works, but be rooted and grounded in this article and see and know nothing besides. Therefore let grace or forgiveness be pitted not only against sin, but also against good works, and let all human righteousness and holiness be excluded. Thus there are in man two conflicting powers: Externally in this life he is to be pious, do good works, and the like, But if he aims beyond this life and wishes to deal with God, he must know that here neither his sin nor his piety avails anything. And though he may feel his sins which disturb his conscience, and although the law demands good works, he will not listen nor give heed to them, but will boldly reply; If I have sin, Christ has forgiveness; yea, I am seated on a throne to which sin cannot attain.

16. Therefore we are to regard the kingdom of Christ as a large, beautiful arch or vault which is everywhere over us, and covers and protects us against the wrath of God; yea, as a great, extended firmament which pure grace and forgiveness illuminate and so fill the world and all things, that all sin will hardly appear as a spark in comparison with the great, extended sea of light; and although sin may oppress, it cannot injure, but must disappear and vanish before grace. They who understand this, may well be called masters, but we will all have to humble ourselves and not be ashamed to keep on learning this lesson as long as we live.

17. For wherever our nature succeeds in finding sin, it tries to make an unbearable burden of it. Satan fans the spark and blows up a great fire which fills heaven and earth. Here the leaf must be turned and we must firmly conclude: If the sin were ever so great or burdensome, this article of faith is nevertheless much higher, wider and greater, which has been recommended and established not by man's wisdom, but by him who has comprehended heaven and earth and holds them in the hollow of his hand. Is. 40, 12. My sin and piety must remain here on earth as far as they concern my life and conduct. But in heaven above I have another treasure, greater than either of these; there Christ is seated and holds me in his arms, covers me with his wings and overshadows me with his grace.

18. You may say: How is this, since I daily feel sin and my conscience condemns me and threatens me with God's wrath? I answer: For this reason, I say, one must understand that the righteousness of a Christian is nothing that can be named or imagined but the forgiveness of sin, that is, it is a kingdom of power which deals only with sin and with such abundant grace as takes away all wrath. It is called the forgiveness of sin for the reason that we are truly sinners before God; yes, everything in us is sin, even though we may have all human righteousness. For where God speaks of sin, there must be real and great sin; so also forgiveness is no jest, but real earnestness. When you, therefore, consider this article you have both. Sin takes away all your holiness, no matter how pious you are on earth; again, forgiveness takes away all sin and wrath. Therefore your sin cannot cast you into hell, nor can your piety elevate you into heaven.

19. Therefore, when the devil disturbs your conscience, and tries to bring despair to your heart by saying: "Have you not learned that one must be pious?" then answer courageously and say: Yes, you are right; I am a sinner, that I have known before; for this article, called the forgiveness of sins, has taught me this long ago. I am to be pious and do what I can before the world; but before God I am willing to be a sinner, and to be called nothing else, that this article may remain true, else there would not be forgiveness or grace; but it must needs be called a crown of righteousness and of merits. Therefore, although I feel nothing but many and great sins, yet they are no longer sins; for I have for them a precious panacea and drug which takes away the power and poison of sin and wholly destroys it. It is this word, "Forgiveness," before which sin disappears like stubbles before the fire. Without it no work, suffering, or martyrdom avails against the smallest sin. For without forgiveness sin is and remains pure sin, which condemns us.

20. Therefore only confess this article heartily and boldly and say: Before the world I may be pious and do everything that is required, but before God it is only sin according to this article. Therefore I am a sinner, but a sinner who now has forgiveness and who sits at the throne where grace rules supreme, Ps. 116. If this were not so I would be a sinner like Judas, who saw only his sin, but no forgiveness. But Christians, no matter how much sin they feel in themselves, in that word forgiveness see much more abundant grace presented to them, and poured out over them.  

Conclusion
Working through a quote like this is always a blessing, because it's nothing other than Luther expounding the Gospel and living the normal Christian life. If this was the context from which the quote comes from, it's sad that the websites which took it appear to have missed the Gospel which surrounds the quote. Luther says in the sermon, "...man's understanding cannot get beyond this external piety of works, and cannot comprehend the righteousness of faith." How true this is indeed.

How to Avoid Purgatory

HOW TO AVOID PURGATORY
By Fr. Paul O'Sullivan
(excerpts)

"The idea that nearly all of us shall, notwithstanding, have to pass a period more or less long in the excruciating fires of Purgatory after death seems to be at variance with this all-merciful and all-loving plan of our Divine Lord…The object of this little book is to show how we can avoid Purgatory by using the means God has so generously offered us, and, secondly, to show that the use of these means is within the reach of every ordinary Christian…The means we suggest are easy, practical and within the reach of all. Moreover, far from being irksome, the use of these means will only serve to make our lives on this earth holier and happier and will take away the exaggerated fear of death which terrifies so many.

…The reason why we have to pass through Purgatory after death is that we have committed sins and have not made satisfaction for them. Every individual sin must be expiated--in this life or the next! Not even the slightest shadow of sin or evil can enter the all-holy presence of God. The graver, the more frequent the sins, the longer will be the period of expiation and the more intense the pain…Most Christians, with incomprehensible rashness, neglect these means and so have to pay their debts in the dreadful prison house of Purgatory.

…The Second Means of avoiding Purgatory is to satisfy for our sins in this life by doing penance. "Do penance or you shall all likewise perish" Do penance, or you will burn long years in Purgatory, is a fact that there is no getting away from.This is a terrifying thought and one that makes the bravest man shudder.Which of us does not tremble when he thinks of those who have been burnt to death in a slow fire? What fear would not be ours if we had to face a similar death? Yet their suffering was of relatively short duration. The incomparably fiercer fire of Purgatory, which we may have to face, may last 20, or 50 or 100 years!

…The easy road to Heaven of Saint Therese, the Little Flower, is to do many little things. God was infinitely pleased with the widow's mite; He will be equally pleased with our little penances…As a result of little mortifications, we can deliver ourselves from the awful fires of Purgatory and amass rich merits for Heaven. To go into the matter further, there is not much difficulty about mortification or penance, notwithstanding the absurd fear that people have of it.

…God promises us in the most solemn and deliberate way (and He cannot fail to do what He promises) that He will give us everything we ask in prayer,if it is good for us. Now two conditions, especially, make prayer infallible, namely perseverance and faith. God cannot refuse such a prayer. These Catholics we speak of pray expressly every day of their lives that God will free them from Purgatory. In every single prayer they say, in every Mass they hear, in every good act they perform, they have the express intention of asking God first of all and with all their hearts to deliver them from Purgatory. How? That is for God to decide. It is not easy to see how God can possibly refuse such constant, unceasing prayer. The fact that such prayers are said daily and many times in the day, for 20, 30, 50 years, shows that they are said with undoubting faith and magnificent perseverance. We exhort all our readers to adopt this practice. The more they know and think on Purgatory, the more fervently will they make this prayer.

…For one recitation of short ejaculatory prayers, He grants 100 or 300 or more days Indulgence. These we may say hundreds of times in the day. Those who say the little ejaculation: "Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place my trust in Thee" one hundred times a day gain 30,000 days Indulgence. Those who say it 1,000 times, as many do, gain 300,000 days Indulgence each day! Nothing can be easier than to acquire the habit of saying this little prayer all day long, countless times each day. Then, for each Hail Mary of the Rosary, one gains more than 2,000 days Indulgence!

…The Holy Souls whom we relieve or release by our Masses and good works pray for us with such indescribable fervour that God cannot refuse to hear their prayers. One of the principal graces they ask for their friends is that these shall have little or no Purgatory. No one knows better than they the awful intensity of the Purgatorial flames; no one, therefore, can pray for us as they do."

Cullmann on Kerygma, Gospel, Tradition and Apostolic Authority

And beginning with Moses an all prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And their eyes were opened and they knew him. They said to each other, Did not our hearts burn within us . . . while he opened to us the scriptures? (Luke 24:27, 31, 32).

Thus begins Cullmann’s account of “The Tradition,” from which I’ve cited several times now, and which, I have heard from someone reliable, is probably the best account of the relationship of “scripture and tradition”. As I work through this, of course, I’ll check Cullmann’s analysis against other writers on the topic, and of course, against the witness of Scripture.

Last time I cited Bryan Cross’s view of succession (in contrast to Sullivan’s). In the recent Catholic Answers thread that bore my name, some of the folks there were a bit saddened that I didn’t stay and answer all their questions. Of course, I answered a number of their questions, but there ended up being more than 400 comments and I just didn’t get to read all of them, much less respond to them. One of the writers there, Pete Holter, a (as I understand it) former Reformed believer, provided this account (somewhat abbreviated):

God the Father passed His authority on to Jesus (cf. Matthew 28:18), Who passed it on to the apostles (cf. Luke 10:16 and Matthew 28:19), who passed it on to their successors.

This “passing on,” in the Roman Catholic account, takes a similar flow as that given in shorthand form by many Roman Catholics. In many of these accounts, indeed, in the official account, the words “authority” and “tradition” and “succession” sort of get muddled together until, in the Roman Catholic mind, there is just one thing: and the Roman Catholic Church and its teachings and Magisterium have the very authority of God on earth. It’s been that way since the muddling, and that’s good enough for us!

I think Cullman’s “The Tradition” admirably isolates those threads – authority and tradition and succession – he defines them well, and he talks about what genuinely gets “handed on” from God, what just sort of gets picked up along the way, and what gets distorted.

My copy of this article is found within Cullmann’s 1956 collection of essays, “The Early Church” (London: SCM Press Ltd). In his own words:

Firstly, I shall try to prove that the New Testament regards the Lord exalted to the right hand of God as the direct author of the tradition of the apostles, because he himself is at work in the apostolic transmission of his words and deeds. Secondly, by examining the conception of the apostolate, I shall attempt to determine the connection between the apostolic tradition and the post-apostolic tradition, and the difference between them. Thirdly, I shall enquire whether this distinction is confirmed by the history of the early Church, and whether, in creating the canon, the Church itself deliberately separated apostolic from ecclesiastical tradition, so as to make the former the norm of the latter (pg. 59)

Over the next couple of posts, I'd like to follow Cullmann's account, bringing in other information as I go. Christ, of course, is the final and perfect Revelation of God. As the writer to the Hebrews begins by saying, “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me (John 14:8-11).

But God does not give an unclear view of himself in the Old Testament, and it is this God we see when we see Christ.

On the study of history, especially church history

I'm reproducing this post from some comments below, in case anybody missed it, and because I think some other folks who would like to discuss it. I think that sometimes we miss the "big picture" in the discussion of all the details that we tend to focus on.

My comments started here:

I would have loved to have attended college in the 50's or early 60's, when much of the older-style rigorous and classical kind of education was still part of the picture. By the time I got there in the 70's, basket weaving and women's studies were all the rage. I think technology over the last 30 years has changed things in ways that we still don't understand -- why might a computer science person need to understand German or Latin or Koine Greek? -- and of course, the economic gyrations of the 1999/2000 and the last few years have got people understandably nervous about just how to prepare themselves to make a living and maybe prepare for retirement.

Of course, I've been caught up in all of that like many people. And having as many kids as I do, I wonder what's coming next down the pike," especially in an economic sense. The "American Dream" was such that there was a constant opportunity to improve yourself. In the early day, land was cheap, and almost there for the taking. As people moved further west, a whole economic structure developed to help people to get there. From the railroads, and the coal and oil and steel industries that grew up to support all that - then the auto industry, and the wars of the early 20th century and the recoveries from those -- expansions of the 50's and 60's and even the development of the whole new areas of technology over the last 30 years -- all of these things in their own eras were tremendous drivers of economic growth.

But aside from some of the technology refinements like cell phones and iPad types of gizmos, the normalization of streaming video, it doesn't seem like technology can go too much further. The internet has as much bandwidth as it will ever need. Corporate computer networks are in great shape; just needing maintenance and tweaks. All of our homes are both "wired" and "wireless" to the point that they're not going to need to change much at all. There's not a "revolutionary new thing" on the horizon, as I see it. There's not an internet-style transformation of communication "out there". What there's going to be is a slow equilibrium. There will be pockets of growth as some other countries modernize, but we've maxed out technology as an economic driver, and reached "diminishing returns."

Instead, I look at my own home town, Pittsburgh, where we've fared well, in things like education and technology and medicine. Where's the "growth opportunity" here? UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) is now the largest employer, and we've got an aging population. My kids are going into the medical arena, because that's where there's a need, but that's not a thing that's going to drive hope, growth, and opportunity in the future.

But I do think there is a strong need, now, in the human person. The need to "understand it all," to put life into perspective. Where did we come from, where are we going? Those question, now that all of our physical and entertainment needs can constantly be met, are still going to be there, where they always are. And that's where blogs (and other sources) like this one are going to fill a tremendous need.

My purpose here is to write to fellow Protestants -- to share the Protestant heritage as I understand it (and with as much honesty and accuracy as I can bring to it). There were some rough moments, but Schaff is correct: on balance, the Reformation was one of the greatest "moments" in church history, and in fact, in human history. There is a richness in the study of the Reformation that you can't really get from other forms of study. I think that Protestants of all stripes -- Lutherans, Reformed, Anglicans, Anabaptists, and all their descendants -- can gain a tremendous amount of perspective by just bringing these things to mind (much less, studying the period in detail). A rising tide will lift all boats.

Another, equally important goal of mine, though, is to specifically address the "buyer's remorse" that I know some of these "Catholic Converts" must be feeling. Some of them aren't dumb. So they have got to realize the "90% nonsense and self-deceiving foolishness" that they find themselves participating in. They're human like the rest of us.

Roman Catholicism has had a lot of great minds flow through its system [especially during the medieval years, when it was "the only game in town]. It has had much time to "get its story together." It promises a lot. As time goes on, people realize very many of its promises are false promises, based on untruths in many cases -- and when you're in search of answers to some of those basic questions that we all have, you don't want to have to admit that something foundational to you is an untruth. I'm sure that eats away at these guys, despite all the bravado that they lead with. Over time, the untruths will eat away at them like a cancer -- all of them, except for the most idiotic partisans. (I think this is why Steven Wedgeworth points to some of the more honest Catholic scholars -- individuals like Raymond Brown and Francis Sullivan an some of the others that he mentions. They're at least trying to look for ways to understand "the promise" of Catholicism in the light of the historical research that denies it.)

And as the internet facilitates the spread of knowledge and understanding, that process of cancerous untruth is going to come more and more into the light.

We may not have the largest numbers, in terms of conservative confessional Protestantism. But I believe this is where the truest of the "true truth" can be found. That's a body of knowledge that will continue to build, and it will be sought out by more and more people in a world that seems to have everything else but meaning.

In this regard, while I don't want to be uncritical of Protestantism, I'm less inclined to be critical of folks on the Protestant side even though I can see how all of this came about. I have this sort of unstated (now stated, I guess) version of Reagan's 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not say anything bad about a fellow Republican" (and in this case, a fellow Protestant).

There's not going to be any end to the "bad" types of Protestants out there -- the TBN types, the Socinians, the Remonstrants -- or those who will be misled to follow them -- but I do think that not only is "inoculation" possible, but that a grounding in the genuine history of the church will give Protestants a real sense of purpose and hope for the future.

It's a long road, and as Turretin noted, we must examine things point by point, doctrine by doctrine -- but such Biblical and foundational exercises have always been both necessary and fruitful.

The most fundamentally honest approach that I can imagine

Has anyone here read D.A. Carson and Douglas Moo's "Introduction to the New Testament"? New Testament scholarship has been, over the last 200 years, one of the most hotly contested areas that one can imagine. And yet, it is hard to imagine that there is a New Testament scholar whose work that Carson and Moo have not interacted with.

Who among us would accept the work of F.C. Baur, or Rudolph Bultmann in its totality? And yet, who would not say that their work had a major effect on the study (and our knowledge) of the New Testament?

There are four letters written by Paul that absolutely no one (who is a serious New Testament scholar) would contest. The most unfriendly kinds of critical scholars that we can imagine hold that, of Paul's letters, at a very minimum, Romans, Galatians, and 1 and 2 Corinthians are absolutely, unquestionably written by Paul. To one degree or another, others argue that some or all the rest are pseudepigraphical; usually they argue that they were written by someone in Paul's circle of disciples, in his name.

Yet a scholar like Thomas Schreiner (and with him, Carson and Moo) can not only say that they hold all 13 Pauline epistles as authentic (and the works of 1 and 2 Peter to be authentic as well, for example), they are able to say precisely what the theories are of the scholars who disagree with them, and in the process of stating these other theories as clearly as they can, they also argue strenuously for their own (conservative) positions.

This is the most intellectually honest approach that I can imagine, and it's one that I try to emulate. And as a result of their work, and contra someone like Mark Noll, it's possible to say that conservative, evangelical biblical scholarship is more well-respected in critical circles than it has ever been.

* * *

David Waltz stopped by last night to accuse me of intellectual inconsistency. It's funny, he's always so cheerful with me, who would have guessed that he harbored such doubts?

He said: I still cannot help but suspect that his anti-Roman Catholic bias has some negative ramifications on his research and beliefs.

David, you have got this precisely backwards.

I do not hide the fact that I dislike the Roman Catholic Church. I came out of that organization and religion after a long personal struggle, one that has occupied most of my life.

Briefly, I grew up as "a good Catholic boy" from the ethnic neighborhoods of Pittsburgh; I heard the Gospel® as a young man, and saw it lived out in the lives of some friends -- one good friend from my closest circle was a Baptist, (and yes, we argued religion), and others were from more Charismatic circles. I admired them for their adherence to their faith. I moved around back then (late 70's, early 80's) -- and I moved from Charismatic Catholic circles to Protestant Charismatics, and several years later I landed in a Reformed Baptist church with a pastor who has become a lifelong friend.

Some time later, other friends were starting up a fellowship for "completed Jews," Jewish believers who wished to express that Jesus was their messiah. Don't you know, that fellowship had some serious difficulties determining who was in charge -- who would set the theological theme for that body: the pastor, who had studied at a very fine southern seminary (and whom they brought in just because of that fact), or the church council, among them major donors, in whose homes the fellowship began, and whose large donations helped to secure the mortgage on the building that they purchased.

It was about that time that I went back to the Roman Catholic church, on the ground that "such disputes had been fought and settled in the early church."

I don't mind to say that I was naive at that time. At that time I was devoted enough to have thought I wanted to study to become a priest. Over a several-year period of time, I considered both the diocesan and the religious priesthood -- and at one point I had applied for and was accepted into a local seminary program. Some time later, I married. My wife and I have six children. I attended Opus Dei "Evenings of Recollection" for about two years.

In my lifetime, I have earned the right to have a "bias" against the Roman Catholic Church. My "beliefs" have been shaped by a willingness to give the Roman church far, far more benefit of the doubt than it ever deserved. My "beliefs," far from being shaped by a bias, were forged in the process of having wholly abandoned myself and my life and my family's life into the bosom of "Mother Church," the much vaunted authority of which, the further in I got, seemed to be further and further contrived.

I won't go into details about the Seminarian friend (St. Mary's, Baltimore) who was a daily communicant at the same time I was, whose masses I attended after he was ordained, who put the homosexual moves on me. Nor will I go into details about the parish priest who married my wife and me, who baptized our children, who playfully licked my three-year-old son's face (pretending to be a puppy). I won't go into the details of how he was one of the "pedophile priests" who was at first moved, and only later de-frocked. There are some horrific details that go along with his name, and I could give you his name and you could Google him and find the news stories about him. (And in fact I have sent his name and some links to my friends and fellow bloggers here for corroboration).

* * *

But such issues genuinely are peripheral to the issue at hand. As James Swan often says, if you're going to tell a story, tell the story of Christ -- the Gospels of Jesus, and Paul's Gospel, and Peter's Gospel, and the truthfulness and the trustworthiness and the authority of Scripture.

As for my "research," I read everything that's available that I can get my hands on. I'm a 50-year-old man with a wife and a family -- and some of the folks here know some of the difficulties that my family has been through in recent years. I don't have access to a seminary library, and with it, the research journals that might put a finer and more current touch on some of what I've been reading. I am not a scholar, though I would like to be one. Still, that does not mean I am not taking the most fundamentally honest approach that I can take.

But there is nothing I'm writing, that I am aware of, that is being intellectually dishonest with the materials. If anything, what I am finding is that there is a flood-tide of scholarship that is coming to "anti-Catholic" conclusions -- including the work of such Catholic writers as Raymond Brown, Eamon Duffy, Robert Eno, Francis Sullivan, Klaus Schatz, and others.

One might go so far as to suggest that David Waltz does not understand what it is that he is reading -- the particular conclusions that make a scholar liberal or conservative, or how they arrive at those conclusions. What might be agreed with or disagreed with, and on what basis.

The name Raymond Brown comes up among some of the more traditionalist and devoted Catholic folks, as if Brown was somehow a traitor. But I have (briefly) studied Greek under an individual who knew Brown personally. Raymond Brown was, in my opinion, one of the best friends that some of these conservative Catholics could have. They don't know it, but Brown's method was (a) to study the critical sources and know them the best that he could, while (b) not moving beyond what positions that "the Magisterium" had staked out. In doing this, he was one individual (among others) who prevented Roman Catholicism in its traditional form from sliding completely into the hole that the ultramontanist, ultra-anti-modernist popes dug with their defiant cries of "I AM Tradition" and their anti-modernist oaths. Without scholars like Raymond Brown, the Roman hierarchy would have died the death of a complete laughingstock, drunk on its own imagined sense of authority.

And I'll give you an example of it. Near the end of the Brown/Meier work "Antioch and Rome", Brown was worried that his conclusions would be dismissed because he was too Roman Catholic.

"On both sides many scholars oversimplify the historical situation, agreeing only that for better or worse I Clement had remarkable success in shaping future church thought.

The discussion is not facilitated by the fact that the underlying motif is often a conflicting view of church organization today. The battle offer the unimpassioned pages of I Clement is often a surrogate for a battle between the impassioned descendants of the Reformers and of Trent; and since I am a Roman Catholic, I rather doubt I shall be judged objective about the issue. (pg 177, emphasis in original).

David Waltz said: For instance, John eagerly endorses the critical German scholar Lampe concerning the status of the Roman church/s during the 1st and 2nd centuries, and then thoroughly recommends Andreas Kostenberger and Michael Kruger's The Heresy of Orthodoxy which is at odds with some important conclusions of Lampe.

David, I would like for you to show me where you think I might disagree with Lampe, or where you think Kostenberger and Kruger might disagree with him. Perhaps you're willing to tell me just how the work of these individuals is at odds and then we can discuss the specifics of it, and only then you can genuinely begin to charge me with intellectual dishonesty. Or not.

But I'll do you one better. Kostenberger and Kruger approvingly can cite Baukham's "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses," even though Kostenberger also wrote a substantial (and substantially critical) article taking issue with Baukham's conclusion that someone other than the Apostle John wrote the Gospel of John.

Such a disagreement neither negates the validity of the rest of Baukham's highly significant work, nor does it make Kostenberger somehow "intellectually dishonest" for both (a) citing Baukham while (b) disagreeing with some of his conclusions. Kostenberger has shown that he is well prepared to talk about where he agrees and where he disagrees with Baukham, and he is well prepared to say exactly why. It is the very same method used by Carson, Moo, and Schreiner that I've alluded to in the opening section of this post.

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David Waltz: the fact that John, James White, and many other epologists are willing to solicit liberal, critical scholarship ONLY when it furthers their aggenda/s, whilst denying the same method to their opponents, is an all too common practice—that you do not discern commonality and/or inconsistency here is a bit troubling...

I've mentioned just recently that there is a confluence in the work of some of these scholars, and I'll give you one more such example, a blatant one at that:

http://reformation500.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/a-positive-view-of-christian-foundations/

Harvey Cox, who no conservative Christian would consider an ally, recently summarized the work of the Jesus Seminar: while setting out to disprove much about history, in the process they proved he was a first century Palestinian Jew who claimed to be God and who was crucified under Pontius Pilate; his disciples fanned out to the world with the story that he was raised from the dead. Cox said:

“Despite widespread discrepancies among the researchers, some things were not contested. All agreed that Jesus really had existed, and that he was a first-century Palestinian Jew living under the heel of a Roman occupation that – like many such occupations before and since – had split its captive people into feuding sects and warring factions. They also agreed that he was a rabbi who taught the imminent coming of the kingdom of God, and gained a following as a teacher and a healer in Galilee, especially among the landless and destitute, but that he aroused the ire of the nervous ruling religious circles and the tense Roman authorities. When he and some of his followers arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover holidays he caused a stir in the Temple, was arrested, interrogated, and executed by crucifixion, a form of death by torture reserved by the Romans for those suspected of subverting their imperial rule. But after his death, his followers insisted that he had appeared to them alive, and they continued to spread his message even in the face of harsh persecution.” (Harvey Cox, “When Jesus Came to Harvard,” ©2004, pgs 18-19).

Even “critical scholarship” is confirming the facts of the life and death of Jesus Christ. We have come a long way since the days when the someone like Bertrand Russell could say that Jesus didn’t even exist.

So yes, I've not failed to cite this aspect of Cox, a thoroughly liberal thinker -- but I am not the one straying into the liberal camp here. Rather, it is Cox who has been forced, by the facts and evidence, to admit such things that the vast majority of his liberal fellows can only cringe at.

This is a Harvey Cox conclusion that we can agree with. But we also know precisely where we would disagree with him. Such is the nature of the confluence of conservative and critical scholarship. And guess what? No one is being intellectually dishonest here.