Thank you for your reply. When you ask me to “prove” the comformability of Catholicism with Scripture, two questions come to my mind. What exactly about Catholicism do you think does not conform to Scripture? And what exactly would constitute “proof”? That is exactly what that quotation from Tertullian [linked here] reveals. The issue of magisterial authority rightly comes before debates about the interpretation of Scripture. Underlying your request that I “prove” to you the conformability of Catholicism with Scripture is an assumption that by the power of your own reason, you can determine for yourself the correct interpretation of Scripture, and thereby judge the Catholic Church to be right or wrong. So your request that I prove the conformability of Catholicism with Scripture carries with it a loaded assumption, the very assumption at the heart of Protestantism. It is precisely this assumption that I called into question in my previous post, by referring to the quotations from Tertullian and St. Vincent.

You seem to recognize the danger of this assumption when you state that you reject the authority of the “individual interpreter”, and when you affirm the role of the “Church”, the “shepherds of the Church”, and the “rule of faith” in the interpretation of Scripture. You affirm that “The Scriptures were given to the Church and can only be properly interpreted within the Church” and that you have a “high doctrine of the Church”. But that raises the following five questions:

(1.) Whose determination of who belongs to “the Church” (and in what capacity they belong) should we follow?

(2.) Whose determination of who possesses magisterial authority (and how much they possess) should we follow?

(3.) Whose determination of how much authority the successor of Peter actually has should we follow?

(4.) Whose determination of the “rule of faith” should we follow?

(5.) Whose determination of who speaks for the Church should we follow?

If the answer to these five questions is “no one” or “each individual”, then we are left in the darkness, chaos, perpetual fragmentation and confusion of the individualism and egalitarianism that promotes equal authority and autonomy for all. But if your answer to these five questions is “the pastors of my denomination”, then if your pastors have this universal authority, why do you (I presume) simultaneously deny that all Christians should belong to your denomination and become subject to the pastors of your denomination? You seem to want to avoid both individualism and universal magisterial authority. But there is no middle ground. If there is no concrete individual (or group) whom we should all follow and who speaks for the Church, then we are left with the individualism of each man doing what is right in his own eyes. But if there is some individual (or group) whom we should all follow and who speaks for the Church, then catholicism (small ‘c’) is false.

And if there is a group that we all should follow and who speaks for the Church, then whom do we follow when the members of that group disagree with each other or when they split, and on what grounds should we follow one over the other? If the grounds are one’s own interpretation of Scripture, then this positition is still fundamentally individualistic in essence. But if the grounds are the sacramental primacy of one member of the group, then on what grounds does this individual have sacramental primacy?

(Happy birthday, by the way!)

- Bryan

The tradition is far from perfect. It is far more opaque than Scripture and contains many contrary voices. If we need a magesterium to interpret the Scripture we need an even more powerful one to help us to navigate the mazes of the tradition. When it actually comes down to it, tradition seldom clarifies the text as much as people claim that it does. Most theological positions have some degree of claim to the tradition and those who act as if the tradition entire were on their side are simply being very selective.

The ‘individual interpretation’ argument is familiar, but unpersuasive. I may not accept your understanding of magisterial authority in interpretation, but this does not mean that I have any time for the interpretative anarchy that is frequently presented as the only real alternative. I firmly believe in the authority of Scripture and believe that the authority of God speaking in the Scriptures must stand over the authority of the individual interpreter. The Church’s role in interpretation is very important in ensuring that this is the case. Through faithful interpretation of the Scriptures in conversation with each other and the tradition, the shepherds of the Church ensure that the people of God remain under the rule of the Word of God. The Church’s rule of faith excludes certain readings of the text from the outset. In the Church we are part of a community of interpretation, holding each other accountable to the voice of God speaking in the Scriptures. God’s Word, not man’s, always has the final word, but we ought to submit to the authority of the Church in interpretation.

Tertullian is right to point out that those who do not submit to the Church’s rule of faith have no right to interpret the Scriptures in the first place. The Scriptures were given to the Church and can only be properly interpreted within the Church. The Church is the only divinely-established interpretative community of the biblical text. In the sacramental life of the Church we experience the reality of which the Scriptures speak, something which helps us to read the Scriptures faithfully.

I believe that the role of authoritative teaching is passed on in the Church. My problem with your argument is that you are trying to get me to revert to a position of the authority of individual interpretation. You haven’t given up on the authority of individual interpretation at all, you have just limited such interpretation to the pope. I am all for an authoritative role of the Church in interpretation, I just don’t believe that all of this authority is focused on one individual within the Church.

The pope is, at best, the primus inter pares in the Church. He never ceases to be accountable to the rest of the Church in his teaching. The Church is an authoritative community and this authority is not a purely centralized authority. It is an authority akin to that of OT Israel, where each tribe had a degree of autonomy. Rome has authority in the Church, but the pope is not the only one with authority and it is not the case that all others are necessarily bound to submit to him. The pope is accountable to the Church in general and is not purely autonomous. Your doctrine of the Church is one in which the authority that belongs to the Church in general is arrogated to the pope. I have a high doctrine of the Church where you have a high doctrine of the pope and so I find your position quite unpersuasive.

This is not about individual autonomy in interpretation. It is rather a recognition that the Church is not defined by the pope and that the Church continues to exist, even when it is not in fellowship with the pope. We all make some sort of individual decision in submitting to the pope or to other leaders within the Church, and in our reading of the tradition (which is far from univocal on such issues) so there is no absence of individual decision here. I have no time for pure individualism. In claiming that the pope is not faithful to Scripture, I am not speaking on my own authority, but speaking as one who belongs to a part of the one true Church in succession from the apostles, which stands opposed to the pretensions of the papacy to an authority that does not belong to it. I interpret the Scriptures in accordance with the apostolic rule of the Church as articulated in the ecumenical creeds and as one under the rule of ordained Church leaders, who participates in the gathered worship of the people of God.

I find the arguments from tradition unpersuasive regarding the monarchical role of the pope in the Church. I am quite happy to ackonwledge the pope as having the position of primus inter pares. The pope, however, does not have a higher power of jurisdiction. The NT supports the position that this was Peter’s role among the other apostles. The earliest tradition also demonstrates this position in various ways and a significant number of your quotes are consistent with such a position. You quote Cyprian, whose later actions are quite revealing in showing that Rome still wasn’t regarded by many as having a higher power of jurisdiction. The development of the papacy into an office with jurisdiction over the rest of the Church is a later development that much of the Church still resists.

Such matters will not be resolved merely by weighing up authority. When Peter was wrong in Antioch and rebuked by Paul the situation was not going to be settled by weighing up each apostle’s authority against the other. Peter was wrong and Paul was right to resist him, despite Peter’s authority. Neither side has authority of themselves. The question that must be answered in such cases is that of who has the authority of God on their side. The authority of God is chiefly exercised through Scripture and so the party that can demonstrate that the Scripture is on their side is in the right.

My argument concerning bishops and presbyters is that they are not, strictly speaking, two distinct offices. The bishop plays a distinct role, but he occupies the same office. This argument is found throughout Church history, even among Roman Catholic authors. The episcopacy developed in history and the development of an episcopal order is both natural and biblical. I have no problem with episcopacy; my concern is with the character of the primacy of the bishop. My conviction is that the bishop is like the chief priest in the Temple: he doesn’t exercise a distinct office from the regular priest, but plays a supervising role. Limiting the performance of ordination to the episcopate makes sense, just as limiting the performance of Baptism to ordained priests does. However, neither are absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, I won’t have much access to a computer over the next week and so this will probably have to be my last response for some time. Thanks once again for the interaction.

One more thing. I’m not sure if it is just my eyes, but the hyperlinks in my posts do not show up very well against the colored background. I wonder if you could tweak the color of your hyperlinks. Thanks!

- Bryan

Again, thank you for your reply. I think we are getting a bit closer to the fundamental cause of our disagreement. You write, “However, when someone cannot demonstrate the accordance of their tradition with Scripture [...] there is a problem.”

Why do you think that is a problem? (I’m assuming that by “accordance of their tradition with Scripture” you mean something like “derivability of their tradition from Scripture”, not mere compatibility of their tradition with Scripture, since the Catholic position regarding the role of Peter’s successors is compatible with Scripture.) I tried to explain why I think we should not expect more detail from Scripture on this subject. But you seem to believe that there is a problem [for the Catholic position] if the role of Peter’s successors is not made explicit in Scripture. I would like to know why you think that.

Another point of disagreement between us, apparently, has to do with the relation of magisterial authority to the interpretation of Scripture. St. Vincent of Lerins shows us that the heretics constantly attempted to prove themselves right by appealing to Scripture. Apart from sacramental magisterial authority, people interpret Scripture as seems right in their own eyes, and there are as a result practically as many interpretations as there are individual interpreters. In my opinion, this is the fundamental reason why there are so many denominations. Tertullian explains that only those to whom the Scriptures were entrusted (i.e. the bishops in sacramental succession from the Apostles) have the authority to provide the authoritative interpretation of Scripture. (I would add also that they alone have the authority to provide the authoritative canon of Scripture.)

So this awareness of our need for magisterial authority in our interpretation of Scripture requires that we determine who genuinely has magisterial authority. In our time, one not uncommon way of determining who has magisterial authority is finding those who interpret the Scriptures in a way that (at least mostly) agrees with one’s own interpretation. I think that is merely a more subtle form of the individualism revealed in the two quotations above, as I have argued here. I think the way to determine who has magisterial authority now, without begging the question, is first to examine carefully how the fathers understood magisterial authority. It seems clear to me that the fathers held magisterial authority to be essentially sacramental. This is why the Church determined Donatism to be a heresy. Luther and Calvin denied that magisterial authority is essentially sacramental; for them, magisterial authority is based essentially on teaching [what they believed to be] Apostolic doctrine, as I have argued here; in doing so, I think they made the mistake referred to in the Tertullian and St. Vincent quotations.

If we agree that magisterial authority is essentially sacramental, by Apostolic succession, then we need to determine who in fact has sacramental Apostolic succession. For the fathers, the recipients of magisterial authority from the Apostles were the bishops. The notion that there is no sacramental distinction between bishops and presbyters is based on a sola scriptura methodology. But I have explained in the previous two paragraphs what is wrong with the sola scriptura methodology. Individualism is built into the sola scriptura methodology through its implicit rejection of the essentially sacramental nature of magisterial authority. (See, for example, my response to Keith Mathison’s “Solo Scriptura” article.) We can see a very clear distinction between the authority of bishops and presbyters as early as the epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch (107 AD). Those who use the sola scriptura methodology to deny the sacramental distinction between bishops and presbyters then appeal to St. Jerome’s description of the early practice of the Alexandrian Church. But that was more likely a college of bishop-presbyters, not mere presbyters. (The terminology for these offices was not universally uniform for a while.) The consensus of the sacramental magisterial authorities, at least by 325 AD, was that only bishops could ordain. (See the fourth canon of the first Council of Nicea.) This position was not based on canon law, but on a sacramental distinction; the bishop sacramentally receives the power to ordain; the presbyter does not sacramentally receive the power to ordain. The error of the Presbyterians on this point, in my view, is again on account of their sola scriptura methodology, and their implicit ‘ecclesial deism’.

What do these early bishops, these possessors of sacramental magisterial authority, say about the role of Peter’s successors? I have pointed you to a collection of some of their relevant writings on that subject here. They seem clearly to recognize that Jesus’s statement to Peter did not apply only to Peter but also to Peter’s successors.

Fair enough, you say, but ‘I will not submit to him until he is faithful to Scripture’. Such a claim presumes that he is not being faithful to Scripture. The Pope, however, claims to be faithfully teaching and following Scripture (though not sola scriptura). So your claim that he is not being faithful to Scripture assumes either that Scripture does not need interpretation, or that the Pope should submit to your own interpretation of Scripture. Neither of those assumptions, in my opinion, is self-evident or capable of standing without support. If the successor of Peter is the principium unitatis, then his interpretation of Scripture cannot be dictated by individual believers. There are many conflicting opinions among believers concerning the proper interpretation of Scripture; he cannot possibly conform himself to them all. On the contrary, for there to be true unity the conformity must work the other way around; we must conform our interpretation to his.

I suspect that phenomenologically the situation of believing oneself to have a better interpretation of Scripture than does one’s [sacramental] magisterial authority is the same whether one is correct or one is in the situation described by St. Vincent. The persons described in the St. Vincent quotation would have to undergo a kind of gestalt shift to see their actual condition. So I hope you will agree here at least that extreme caution is in order. If your claim that the Pope is not being faithful to Scripture is based on some magisterial authority (having sacramental succession from the Apostles), then which magisterial authority is it, and why do you think that this magisterial authority is equal or superior in authority to the successor of Peter?

- Bryan

I am quite happy to grant a form of the doctrine of apostolic succession. I believe that succession in the apostolic Church occurs in Baptism and in ordination to the presbyterate. The apostolic faith is not merely passed on in ordination to priesthood or to the episcopate, but in Baptism. Baptism is a priestly rite (cf. Exodus 40:11-13; Hebrews 10:19-22), setting every Christian apart as a priest in God’s new Temple and passing the apostolic faith on to them.

Apostolic succession through ordination to the presbyterate is something that I hold to as well. I am not persuaded that bishops hold a genuinely distinct office from that of presbyters, with distinct powers that other presbyters lack. However, I do not deny the important role of bishops within the Church.

I believe that these things are important for the bene esse and plene esse of the Church, but that it is possible to have a Church without such succession. There are exceptions, such as some Roman Catholic forms of emergency Baptism (where an unbaptized person is permitted to baptize), where succession in Baptism is not maintained. There are other places where the succession of ordination has been broken. This is not the best for the Church, but the Church doesn’t cease to exist.

Speaking for myself, I would be quite happy to submit to the primacy of the Roman See if the pope were faithful to Scripture. The authority of the Petrine office (if we are to speak of such a thing) is conditioned on the pope’s faithfulness to the apostolic faith. Where such faithfulness is lacking, even Peter himself found himself rebuked for his sectarianism.

The bishop of Rome may have authority as the first among equals, but his authority within the Church is limited. The pope is the Bishop of Rome, but his jurisdiction doesn’t extend further than his diocese. His role as the first among equals is primarily significant in the situation of ecumenical councils. He is to be accorded respect as the first among equals of Church leaders and his voice carries particular significance for this reason. However, he has no right to dabble in the affairs of other jurisdictions.

Other dioceses have authority in their own right. If they don’t submit to the primacy of Rome for doctrinal reasons they do not cease to be part of the Church for that reason. A situation in which much of the Church is not in fellowship with the Roman See is hardly the ideal way for things to be, but in such a situation those parts of the Church that are not in full fellowship with Rome are fully part of the Church nonetheless. The pretensions of the papacy are the problem here. Authority over the Church isn’t concentrated in Rome as Roman Catholics tend to suggest. One can quite consistently hold to the primacy of Peter, apostolic succession and the primacy of the bishop of Rome, without jumping to the rather extreme conclusions that Roman Catholics tend to jump to. The Church can enjoy an important degree of visible unity in fellowship with the bishop of Rome, but the essential unity of the Church is not founded on fellowship with Rome.

In this discussion so far I have alluded a number of times to the situation that existed in ancient Israel. I believe that it provides an important analogy here. Judah was clearly the primus inter pares and was set apart by God as the tribe that would lead the other tribes (Genesis 49:8-12; 1 Chronicles 5:2). The Davidic dynasty was established by God and the visible unity of the kingdom was closely identified with unity with the Davidic king. When God promises the reunification of the nation it is important that the reunited nation will be ruled by a Davidic ruler (Ezekiel 37:21-25).

However, having a Judahite ruler or a Davidic king is not absolutely essential to the unity of the Israelite nation. The people are still one people in a very important sense under the Levite Moses, or under the Benjamite Saul, or even when there is no united government during the period of the judges or following the split in the kingdom. Being under a Davidic king might be important for the bene esse and plene esse of Israel, but Israel never ceases to be Israel when it is not under such a king.

When Solomon sinned God split the kingdom, leaving Rehoboam with only Judah and Benjamin. The majority of the nation left Rehoboam and Rehoboam was left with hardly anything. God recognized the sovereign rights of the ten northern tribes. Even though the Davidic king was the first among all of the rulers of Israel, he was not the only one to have authority over the nation and, without the consent of his brethren, Judah had not right to force his will upon them.

I believe that this provides a very important perspective for the current situation in the Church. The pope only has authority within the wider Church with the consent of his brethren. At present he lacks such consent in many quarters of the Church. The unity of the Church is not erased. The pope may lead only a reduced part of the Church, but the Church remains the Church nonetheless. The unity of the Church, just like the unity of the people of God in the OT, does not ultimately depend on being under one divinely appointed leader. When idolatrous practices creep in, as it did with Solomon and the pre-Reformation Church, separation is perfectly in order.

Your quotes from the Church Fathers are all well and good, but we must remember that they were writing in a different situation. It is similar to applying statements made of the Davidic king under David or the early Solomon to Manasseh or one of the other unfaithful or wicked kings of Judah (or for that matter, to any of the kings of Judah after Solomon, unfaithful or not). Within a visibly united Church, as I said, I would be quite happy to acknowledge the primacy of the Roman See, but this primacy does not remove sovereignty and a degree of autocephalous autonomy from the rest of the Church. Times have changed, and such quotes of the Church Fathers have to be applied with considerably greater caution.

Thanks for your reply. Some of the things you write here suggest to me that you are approaching this question from a sola scriptura point of view. If so, then it will be harder (though perhaps not impossible) for us to come to agreement regarding the role of the successors of Peter. In other words, a disagreement at a deeper level (regarding sola scriptura) may be playing a significant role in our disagreement regarding the proper ecclesial role of Peter’s successors. I think that it is important to understand Scripture through the fathers. And I think the fathers have a clear belief in sacramental Apostolic succession. That includes the idea that the gifts and authority that Christ gave to the Apostles were conferred upon the bishops whom the Apostles appointed. I would call into question the assumption that Scripture should be more explicit about the nature of Apostolic succession. I think such an assumption expects the whole of the NT books to be something that they are not, i.e. something like an exhaustive theological and ecclesiological guide. If the NT is supposed to be a guide for the apostolic-to-episcopal transition [I mean the transition from rule of the Church by Apostles to rule of the Church by bishops], then the NT is woefully inadequate. I don’t even think the Apostles set out to write a “New Testament”. The Apostles’ instructions regarding the apostolic-to-episcopal transition are something they would be less likely to *write* about, both because this transition occurred at the end of the Apostles’ careers, and because they would have most likely communicated these instructions to the bishops in person, not in a letter from a distance. (This is suggested, for example, in verses like 3 John 1:13.)

The point is, I think your expectation for Scripture explicitly to support the *succession* of the Petrine office, or to support Apostolic *succession* in general, is based on an ungrounded assumption about the purpose and intent of the NT. It expects the NT to say more than it was intended to say.

That is a quick summary of why I think approaching this issue from the sola scriptura perspective is not justified. That is why I think looking passages like Matt 16:18 through the eyes of the fathers is a more helpful way of determining (more fully) what the Apostles taught about Apostolic succession in general, and how that applied to the role of Peter’s successors. I think Stephen Ray’s book Upon This Rock offers a very helpful look at the fathers on the subject of Peter’s successors. I have also collected some quotations from the fathers on this subject here.

- Bryan

You might appeal to Matthew 16:18. I will readily admit that Peter is there referred to as the rock on which the Church will be built. I believe that he is referred to in such a manner because he is the first among equals of the apostles (cf. Ephesians 2:20; Revelation 21:24). What I fail to see is any reference to a continuing Petrine office. It is the apostolic foundation of the Church that is here referred to, not a continuing office.

That said, in principal I see no reason why there is anything wrong with the Church recognizing one leading bishop who plays the role of first among equals in the worldwide church (whether he is in Rome or elsewhere).

When the Scriptures talk about the unity of the Church, the unity of the Church is seen in our common Lord, Spirit, body, faith, Baptism and God and Father (Ephesians 4:4-6). Elsewhere the identity of the Church as one body is seen as a reality resulting from the celebration of the sacraments (1 Corinthians 10:17; 12:13). Had the biblical text declared ‘one Lord, one pope, one baptism’ I wouldn’t be debating with you.

That which Christ original founded on the apostolic foundation will never cease to exist. However, it will not always manifest the fullness of institutional unity. Its unity is not institutional in the way that you are suggesting. I would like to see you present an exegetical case for the position that you are advancing here.

The unity of the Church is certainly founded on Peter in the sense that if we are not founded on the apostolic foundation we are not part of the one Church of Christ. However, the whole idea of Peter representing the papacy as principium unitatis is quite absent from Scripture. Despite its long history, it strikes me as an ecclesiastical fairytale, rather than as something with any claim to our assent. Of course, I would love for you to prove me wrong here.

Let’s say that the institution of the Church that Christ founded had the pope as one of its principles of unity. Suppose that Christ did intend that one dimension of the unity of His Church was to be the unity found in the one Bishop of Rome, the first among equals. This does not mean that, after the split between the West and the East and the split at the Reformation the Roman Catholic church is the one true institution that Christ founded.

It either means that, or it means that the institution that Christ founded ceased to exist. The institution, so long as it exists, cannot fail to have its locus in its principium unitatis. The idea that the institution continued as something other than the Catholic Church but not as any particular institution, would reduce the institution to the aggregate of believers. In other words, it would conceptually eliminate the institution altogether by conceptually making the institution equivalent to the aggregate of believers.

And the notion that the institution continued on as some other particular institution would have to posit a different principium unitatis, someone other than the successor of Peter.

You might accept the idea that the institution ceased to exist. One problem for that position is that the future institution you envision would then not be the same one that Christ founded. It would not be a divine institution (i.e. one founded by Christ), but a manmade institution. The only way to have a divine institution in the future is for it to be the divine institution that Christ founded. And that means that the original institution cannot go out of existence.

But as I just showed, if the original institution did not go out of existence, then it would have had to continue as one of the concrete institutions, in 1054 as either the Catholic Church or one of the EOCs, and in the 16th century as either the Catholic Church or as one of the Protestant denominations. And, as I have tried to argue, the role of Peter as principium unitatis is good reason to believe that in any split, where goes Peter, there goes the institution that Christ founded.

- Bryan

It is also possible for the Church to cease to be united in some respects, but retain unity in many others. We see an example of this sort of thing in the case of Israel and Judah. The people of God did not cease to be unified in some respects. In other respects they were separated from each other by God’s purpose.

Let’s say that the institution of the Church that Christ founded had the pope as one of its principles of unity. Suppose that Christ did intend that one dimension of the unity of His Church was to be the unity found in the one Bishop of Rome, the first among equals. This does not mean that, after the split between the West and the East and the split at the Reformation the Roman Catholic church is the one true institution that Christ founded.

Biblical analogy is helpful here. In OT history God split the nation. He had established the Davidic dynasty and had made clear that His purposes would finally be fulfilled through this dynasty and that the people would only find the fullness of unity under a Davidic king. However, He did not so bind the unity of His people to the Davidic king that the people would cease to be one in the absence of such a king. God could punish Solomon and Rehoboam by splitting the kingdom. In so doing the northern kingdom was not merely left as stragglers from the fold, but God established them and recognized them as a sovereign people in their own right.

The institution of Israel was greater than the Davidic ruler. The king could have the kingdom taken from him. The institution of the Church, likewise, is greater than its leaders, even if they have been established by divine purpose. The institution of the Church is greater than the papacy. Parts of the Church can rebel against a corrupt papacy, just as God led many of His people to rebel against corrupt Davidic kings, and still retain sovereign rights. Much of the institution of the Church has been torn from the hands of the papacy, just as God tore the kingdom from the hands of Solomon and Rehoboam. This is simply the way that God works.

If we were to choose to stick with this analogy we could readily admit — if we were to choose to press the analogy in such a direction — that the pope has a special place in God’s purposes for the Church and that the final unity of the Church will have unity in the pope as one of its dimension, without in any way suggesting that the Roman Catholic church as it now exists is the one institution that Christ founded.