Very good article by Chris Castaldo, summarized by Justin Taylor,
"Has the Roman Catholic Church modified the authoritative Councils of Trent?
Justin Taylor's summary of Castaldo's article:
"Castaldo thinks that “the Catholic method of re-appropriating its doctrine through a developmental hermeneutic is problematic on an ethical level.” The result is that “the Catholic Church has painted herself into a corner by investing magisterial conclusions with an immutable character such that she isn’t able to say, ‘We were wrong.’” But it also behooves us as evangelicals to point out this problem and to deal with where they are at today."
These are things many Reformed folks have been saying for a long time.
See the stimulating discussion in the com boxes between Reformed folks, Roman Catholics, and a Lutheran minister,
Lutheran minister:
Rev. Paul McCain
Reformed:
Steve Hays
John Bugay
Turretinfan
R. C. Sproul, Jr.
(Wouldn't it be cool for Dr. White and James Swan to make a comment?)
Roman Catholic
Bryan Cross
the others in the discussion, I don't know. (so far)
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/11/01/has-the-roman-catholic-church-modified-the-authoritative-councils-of-trent/?comments#comments
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3 comments:
The exchange is hilarious.
Rome never changes.
Rome has changed.
But no distinguishment at all between the fact that while Rome's lies have changed, she still remains a liar.
Wouldn't it be cool for Dr. White and James Swan to make a comment?
Thanks Ken for the compliment...
I had a chance to read through the comments. Thanks for the link. It's always a pleasure to see my heroes Tfan and Hays in action.
I have some rambling comments-
I'd like to compare two of the commenters:
Rev. McCain takes more or less takes the view that Trent must be understood the way Trent understood what they stated. Bryan Cross says, in essence,that changes in historical condition effect the way Trent is understood. It comes down to interpreters of the infallible interpreter, on the one hand. I've always enjoyed the fact that the infallible interpreter must needs be fallibly interpreted.
On the other hand, the basic underlying issue, is authority. Someone probably reading my above synopsis of McCain and Cross may reply: Isn't that the same problem with interpreting the Bible? Is it to be understood correctly based on it's original audience, or is it something that applies differently and is understood differently in later ages?
That of course, is a greatly debated question. Here though the underlying question is not how to interpret Rome correctly, or who interprets Rome correctly. The question is, is Rome really the infallible voice of God? That's what all these Roman Catholic issues come down to.
To join into the discussion would be to simply debate over secondary issues, and thus somewhat futile. Mr. Cross is simply arguing according to his basic presuppositions. In his worldview, it all works out. Mentioning Kung or arguing like Rev. McCain did probably won't dent the Romanist armor Mr. Cross has put on. For Mr. Cross, since Rome is the infallible voice of God, any sort of argument that she isn't will be subject to a counter-reply, because Rome is infallible. This reminds me of how Mr. Michuta argued that the blatant historical errors in the apocrypha weren't errors because the apocrypha is God's infallible word.
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