Beggars All: Reformation And Apologetics

Hi Carrie, I think that you have a grave misapprehension of the authority of the Magisterium.

Actually, I'm simply tired of Roman Catholic double standards, and I'm sure my co-bloggers are as well.

Roman Catholics chastise Protestants continually for using "private interpretation" and having disagreements. They've got all their apologetics books, like Madrid's "Where's That in the Bible?" in which he states, "I as a Catholic look not just to Scripture alone...but also to the Church and its living Tradition" and also in coversation with a Protestant, he tells them they, "can't just assume we have the correct understanding of Scripture" (pp. 10-11). No, Madrid's got the right interpretation!

So, OK, show the beef. Show us a unified Roman Catholicism. Show us your certainty. Show us the infallible interpretation of Scripture. Show us unified historical “Tradition.” Show us how your theologians and apologists have a collective agreement down the line.

But Wait! There's small print (Mr. Hoffer, your job requires you to scrutinize the small print).

The small print tells us Roman Catholics have a wide range of freedom to interpret things however they want to, as long as it does not contradict official teaching. The small print tell us very little of the Bible has an infallible interpretation, thus giving Roman Catholics the freedom of interpretation on 99.9% of the Bible. The small print tell us even with infallibly defined dogma, those dogmas are open to interpretation. Even verses allegedly infallibly defined can still be open to interpretation.

This just stinks. I will continue to point out this double standard as long as there is breath in my body. You guys have got to admit your double standard. We’re going to continue to embarrass you.

Both DA & Sungenis should be going to their local bishop, and that bishop should be going to the authority above him and so on, until it gets back to your infallible Magisterium. Let your infallible authority tell us which of the Rock ‘Em Sock “Em Robots is right.

If you guys can’t do this, then, I suggest you Mr. Hoffer, start a movement within Catholic apologetics called “Let’s Cease The Double Standards Against Protestants” (LCTDSAP), in fact, we’ll help you over here. You appear to be reasonable person. All we need is a few reasonable Catholic apologists to face the music and admit the Catholic apologetic community has been out of tune with their argumentation for 500 years. You could be….a Catholic apologetics Reformer! You could be the guy who finally says, "enough is enough!" "We have to try a different approach here... we can't keep using a standard that we ourselves don't keep."

And then, simply argue honestly and point out that Roman Catholics want everyone to accept their authority paradigm as a beginning presupposition. That is, you guys want us to make a leap of faith and accept your unproven beginning faith claim. Sure, you can argue your church is old, and that you have all sorts of cool rituals, and the like. But these arguments that somehow Rome is unified have to stop. They're making you guys look very silly.