August 12, 2023—Interacting with a Catholic notion of authority as it touches on the Bible
Casey Chalk wrote an article on Catholic.com.
I’d like to quote a large section of it. Then I’d like to quibble over words. Then I’d like to put the quibble’s feet on the ground and make it relevant.
Mr. Chalk states:
I spent a couple years of my life as a Protestant trying to identify what the Bible really teaches about justification and baptism. What I discovered is a proliferation of divergent Protestant opinions that grows—and becomes all the more esoteric (and by extension, unclear)—with each generation. I realized that in the end, it was up to me to decide which Protestant camp to which I would align myself. Even if I cited trusted pastors, theologians, and biblical scholars, I was the one deciding who those trusted authorities would be.
For those Protestants who still subscribe to sola scriptura (many don’t—another obvious problem), perspicuity has proved incapable of determining the Bible’s supposed “plain meaning.” Because they can’t agree on that “plain meaning,” they’re forced to make recourse to secondary authorities, but they disagree over which of those authorities are trustworthy. This is the reason Protestantism is so thoroughly individualist and subjective: every single Protestant can’t help but be his own authority when it comes to divine revelation and its meaning.
Granted, the earliest Reformers did not intend this. They believed that a corrupted and wicked Catholic Church had obscured what was clear. The Reformers’ self-defined mission was simply to get the Bible into the hands of individual people so that all persons of faith could divine its clear teachings. It didn’t play out that way—not even in their lifetime, as the debate between Luther and Zwingli over the Eucharist at the Marburg Colloquy demonstrated.
The Bible isn’t clear—at least not in the sense that Protestants claim. More than five hundred years of Protestant history should make that obvious. Christians require a different paradigm for interpreting the Bible, one that is coherent, that is historically and intellectually defensible, and that drives us to Christ rather than into ourselves. And that model exists in the Catholic Church.
His article is about the perspicuity of scripture. But I’d like to zoom in on the question of authority.
Who has the authority to decide what you believe?
He said he was trying to flee a particular “problem”:
Even if I cited trusted pastors, theologians, and biblical scholars, [as a Protestant] I was the one deciding who those trusted authorities would be.
The author said he was formerly a Protestant. Now he is writing as a Catholic. Logically, one cannot be both Protestant and Catholic at the same time. So for some amount of time between the two (perhaps a very brief time) he was neither Protestant nor Catholic. And it was in this time that he decided to be Catholic.
Let me reiterate that: he decided for himself who his individual trusted authority should be. Which is what he said he didn’t want to do.
So what exactly is his beef with an individual deciding who to trust?
Let me throw another question out there: how sure is Mr. Chalk about his decision? Does he know this infallibly? Because if he doesn’t know it infallibly then maybe he’s wrong about the Catholic Church. (Insert scary music here.)
To quote Karlo Broussard’s article (also on Catholic.com), these are supposedly the ways in which a person can have infallible knowledge of something:
We directly sense something. For example, when I see the tree outside, I have an immediate and direct sense experience of the tree and thereby infallibly know that the tree exists (a view known as direct realism).
A claim is reduced to a violation of a first principle, like the principle of non-contradiction (PNC)—that is, that something can’t both be and not be in the same respect at the same place and time. If a claim were to violate the PNC, we would infallibly know that the claim is false because the PNC cannot be denied without presupposing its validity. (See my new book The New Relativism: Unmasking the Philosophy of Today’s Woke Moralists.) When a principle can’t be denied like this, that’s a sure sign it’s true.
A claim about reality that is itself directly confirmed by a miracle (or miracles). Given that miracles require divine power, and God can’t confirm falsehood, miraculous confirmation would give us infallible knowledge that the prophet’s claim is backed by God and thereby true.
A claim is definitively made by someone who has been given authority to speak on behalf of God, either by God himself or by another whose authority is miraculously confirmed. Even though such a person might not have miraculous confirmation directly associated with his claim, there is a transfer of divine authority that’s been already established.
God reveals something to you or me directly.
For the record, I’m not agreeing with Mr. Broussard. But he sounds like an authority in Catholicism so let’s apply his approach to one of his fellows. Let’s now consider which of these Mr. Chalk might appeal to for having infallible knowledge as to the authority of the Catholic church.
Direct sense doesn’t apply here.
I struggle to see the connection to first principles. I’m assuming Mr. Chalk didn’t see a connection either.
Most Catholics I know aren’t Catholic because they witnessed a miracle. I’m assuming Mr. Chalk didn’t, either.
“Someone with authority made a clear claim” sounds relevant. I’ll explore this more.
Similar to #3, I’m assuming this wasn’t the case for Mr. Chalk.
But here’s the problem with #4. It’s question begging. Try this sentence on for size: “Mr. Chalk knows the Catholic Church is authoritative because it said so, and Mr. Chalk knows the Catholic Church is authoritative”. To make the question begging more clear, I’ll put that into a syllogism:
Mr. Chalk knows the Catholic Church has authority
The Catholic Church said it has authority
Therefore, Mr. Chalk knows the Catholic Church has authority
There’s nothing in the conclusion that is not already stated in a premise. Classic question begging.
And question begging is a violation of a first principle. Therefore, if the above is how a person arrives at infallible knowledge, then I know infallibly that Mr. Chalk does not have infallible knowledge about the Catholic Church’s authority.
I’ll say it again: he decided for himself who his individual trusted authority should be.
So what exactly is his beef with an individual deciding who to trust (even though he did it himself)?
He says it’s an issue of fissiparousness. To quote Mr. Chalk:
And that explains the fissiparous five-century history of Protestantism, making every self-identifying Christian into his own pope.
But how does Mr. Chalk know infallibly that fissiparousness doesn’t exist within his own walls of paradise? Because the Catholic Church says so? But we’ve already established that Mr. Chalk doesn’t really know that the Catholic Church is right, at least not with the same level of certainty that he requires Protestants to have of everything in scripture.
And we all know division has haunted even the Catholic Church. And even to this day.
So why does any of this even matter? Am I wasting my time writing this? Is this just a pointless argument? Are you wasting your time reading it?
I’d like to make a controversial claim.
So would I:
You can be forgiven of all your sins, past present and future. You can gain the inheritance of the saints in light. You can go directly to heaven when you die (without stopping in purgatory). All you have to do is ask Jesus to forgive you and trust that he has.
You won’t need a priest to absolve you. This can happen right now in the privacy of your own home.
You won’t need to wonder if you are in God’s grace. Your faith will produce undeniable fruit proving that you are.
You won’t need a weekly dose of sacraments to top up your splashing and spilling jar of grace. Your righteousness will be firmly seated in heaven at the right hand of the Father.
By what authority do I make these claims? By God’s authority. Because these things are clear in scripture, which is God’s word.
All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.
Do I know this infallibly? No of course not, but I’m certain enough to act on it. You should act on it, too.