Which Came First? - Scripture
and the Necessity of the Church
An excerpt from Challenging Catholics by Dwight
Longenecker and John Martin.
Dwight: You have given
a good explanation of the evangelical view of Scripture.
There’s much there that the
Catholic Church would agree with. From the beginning the
Catholic Church has venerated The Bible as the supernatural
Word of God. The Catechism says, ‘In Sacred Scripture the
Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength,
for she welcomes it not as a human word, but as what it really
is, the word of God.’ (CCC, 104) Furthermore, the Catholic
Church teaches the divine inspiration of Scripture: ‘God
inspired the human authors of the sacred books…God chose
certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task,
made full use of their own faculties and powers so that,
though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors
that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written
and no more.’ (CCC, 106)
Like you, the Catholic Church
recognises in the Scriptures the living and powerful word
of God and so encourages us
to read and study the Scriptures: ‘Such is the force and
power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as
her support and vigour; and the children of the Church as
strength for their faith, food for the soul and a pure and
lasting fountain of spiritual life.’ (CCC,131) ‘The Church
forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful
to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ (Phil.
3.8) by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures.’(CCC,133)
and Saint Jerome, that great Biblical scholar and translator
from the fourth century, reminds us that ‘Ignorance of the
Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’
So far so good, but I’m afraid I can’t buy your idea of
the perspicuity of Scripture. There are two problems: First
of all, if the Bible is so easy and clear to understand why
do we have over 20,000 different Protestant denominations?
When I asked this question years ago my evangelical Bible
teacher said that the differences were only minor, and that
we all really agreed on the basics. But the different groups
don’t disagree only about minor things like whether women
should wear hats to church or whether you should be sprinkled,
dipped or dunked for baptism. They disagree about major questions—is
baptism necessary for salvation? How does a person get saved?
Can you lose your salvation or not? Do good works matter?
What is a sacrament? It’s easy to say that the Scriptures
are essentially clear, but experience doesn’t bear it out
because all the different Christian groups and individuals
appeal to the same Scriptures to make their conflicting points.
Its been this way from the beginning. In the second century
some Christians said Jesus was God incarnate, others said
he was not, and the problem was—folks on both sides were
good Christians and both argued their case powerfully from
Scripture.
The second clear problem is
what you do when Scripture doesn’t present a clear teaching on some matter of crucial
importance. This is especially important in our day since
so many important moral questions are products of the modern
age. The Bible simply doesn’t discuss things like in vitro fertilization,
human cloning, atomic warfare or global warming. When there
are disagreements and when the Bible doesn’t speak clearly
who decides? In other words, who interprets the Bible for
our needs? It is either up to you and me or some authority
greater than both of us.
John: I’m flattered that you seem to speak of perspicuity as my
idea. You may not have meant it quite that way. But let me assure you,
when I try to explain or represent my heritage of faith, I have an overwhelming
feeling that I’m a pygmy who possesses a field of vision only because I
sit on the shoulders of the giants of faith who have gone before. Having
agreed with my quote from Calvin, I suspect you’ll now want to claim that
here’s another Catholic position I’m taking!
Dwight: Well, its certainly
a Catholic idea that we look to the faith of our fathers
for guidance. Now that
I’m Catholic I just find it rather arbitrary that Protestants
look faithfully to the Christian giants from five hundred
years ago, while being fairly neglectful of all the Christian
giants from the first fifteen hundred years of Church history.
John: Let me take up your point about the multiplication
of denominations. I think it's simplistic to suggest that
the existence of some 20,000 different non-Catholic denominations
results from inability to agree about how the Bible is to
be interpreted. Certainly it was one of the elements at stake
in the sixteenth century reformation but even there it's
not the entire story. The emergence of nationalism and the
politics of northern Europe and England certainly played
their part in fuelling the split with Rome. Then there are
black churches around where I live that exist in no small
measure because their people didn't feel welcome in predominately
white churches.
There are others, like the
Adventists, Baptists, the Holiness Churches or Kimbanguists
(from Central Africa) who exist
a result of what they believe to be a special revelation.
Others are convinced that their community is called to witness
to a some particular emphasis that has been lost sight of
in the Christian mainstream. There is the effect of differing
God-given personality types that prefer one kind of worship
over another.
My view, for what it's worth, is that the real source of
the differences is that there are a pre-existing theological
systems or emphases and these affect how a group reads the
Bible and marks them off from other Christians. Take the
Catholic Church. It's great doctors, men like St Thomas Aquinas,
created a theological system by bringing together the Hebraic
and Classical thought worlds. This system has given it tools
for resolving theological questions, but others may not view
its basic theological methodology as entirely valid.
Is it such a big scandal that there are 20,000 different
denominations? A lot of people, many Catholics included,
view the multiplication of denominations as a mistake. I'm
not so convinced. I see this variety as part of the economy
of God. He glories in the sheer variety of people he's made.
Emergence of new denominations (in the Protestant world)
and new orders or movements (in the Catholic world) are part
of God's way of seeing that issues that are neglected by
the mainstream are championed. We will no doubt touch on
this issue again.
Dwight: I’m prepared to admit that God has used
the 20,000 different denominations to further his work in
the world, but He’s always in the business of pulling good
out of our human sinfulness. As you’ve hinted, the Catholic
church values diversity, but the Catholic model is not 20,000
different denominations existing as a law unto themselves.
Instead the diversity of emphasis, culture and theological
approach exist within the organic unity of the Catholic Church.
We have unity, but not uniformity. Sectarian religion expects
uniformity and only has internal unity because it has split
from everybody else.
John: Back to the Bible. I need to make a couple
of other points clear. One of the slogans of the Reformation
was sola Scriptura (‘scripture alone’). It was part
of a triplet, the other points being ‘by grace alone’ and ‘through
faith alone’. For a long time I believed that the brand of
Christianity I followed was genuinely based on them. But
what the experiences of my late teens and early twenties
made it clear was that plenty of Christians could assent
to these slogans but still come to different conclusions
than mine.
Dwight: That’s what
I mean. If Sola Scriptura is
fine and the Bible is perfectly clear, then why do all the
different Protestant groups come up with such different interpretations
that they have to split up all the time?
John: Let me finish.
One of the possible solutions, of course, would have been
joining a Church whose teaching
office or magisterium claimed to take away the problem of
multiple interpretations. The Catholic Church was the obvious
candidate, but I found that it, too, had feet of clay. Pope
Paul VI had just enunciated his teaching on contraception.
Reading Hans Kung’s critique of papal infallibility re-enforced
my inherited Protestant scepticism.
Dwight: We’ll talk about
Papal Infallibility later.
John: Okay, but the
problem is a real one and for much of my life there's been
a quest for a more thought-out
understanding of the place of Scripture and its authority.
The basic convictions stand. The Bible is God’s Book and
it is the Christian's final court of appeal. It will never
lead me into error in matters essential to Christian living
or my salvation. However, in contrast to my early days -
and here is the Anglican influence - alongside I would want
to affirm the place of reason (our God given wit), tradition
(the Creeds and the accumulated teachings of the Church over
two millennia) and experience (what we see around us of how
God works) as tools we bring to help us understanding the
Bible. There are two other considerations. First, biblical
interpretation poses the challenge to 'know thyself'. I need
to approach the enterprise with humility because I am apt
to read the Bible through lenses coloured by my own personality
type, my particular experiences, and a Western culture that
doesn't naturally understand the biblical world so that reads
it world-view into the Bible. Secondly, more positively -
and this is most important - I can be confident that the
Holy Spirit who inspired the Scripture and was promised in
order to lead the Church 'into all truth' will do just that.
Dwight: This is certainly
a stronger position than the extreme evangelical one which
says, ‘It’s just me and
my Bible.’ But I still want to press you on this because
the basic problem still stands. Okay, you want to include
reason and tradition to help interpret the Bible, but whose
reason and which tradition? Just as we can prove almost anything
from the Bible, so with our own agenda we can prove almost
anything through reason and tradition. The Catholic Church
insists that an objective, historical and universal interpretative
authority is still required in order to correctly ascertain
God’s truth.
I take your point that the
Holy Spirit is of vital importance for interpreting the
Bible, but I’m afraid my own basic point
still stands. We all claim the Holy Spirit’s guidance for
our own interpretations don’t we? No doubt all 20,000 Protestant
denominations all claim the Holy Spirit’s work, and yet they
all disagree. Was the Holy Spirit wrong? Did he lead some
of them into the truth, but mislead others? In fact the Holy
Spirit was given within the context of the community of faith.
It is primarily the Church which is the Spirit-filled body
of Christ according to the New Testament, and individuals
are filled with the Holy Spirit as the fruit of that. Therefore
the Catholic Church teaches that only through the Church
can the Holy Spirit work authentically and most fully. Therefore
it is only the Church which can most authentically interpret
Scripture.
John: You say that issues like in vitro fertilization,
human cloning, atomic warfare or global warming are not directly
addressed by the Bible. In one sense that's right. I would
argue, however, that they can be dealt with by application
of tradition, reason and experience to what the scholars
call the biblical 'meta narrative' - the broad sweep of the
biblical story and the doctrinal building blocks that underlie
it. The full story of God as creator, human beings made in
God's image, God's action in redeeming lost humanity, the
cross and resurrection, and all the rest combine to give
us guidance. But that's a subject for a book on its own.
Dwight: I agree, and the Catholic Church turns to
these principles as well as competent medical and scientific
authorities to help her come up with the right decisions.
But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, my basic
point still stands. Even with all the professional consultation
and discussion in the world somebody still needs to make
the final decision. Who is best placed to make a decision
on global issues like this? Who is best placed to decide
the Christian position? I would argue that the best authority
to decide is the one which is oldest, biggest and most universal,
and therefore sees the biggest picture. In other words, the
Catholic Church.
We all turn to the Scriptures
for the answers, but what authority decides how the Scriptures
are to be interpreted?
Down through history that authority has been the Church.
The Scriptures were written by the Church, and used by the
Church in worship and teaching. Then it was the Church who
determined over a period of time what books were to go into
the Bible. The Church was first and the Bible came from the
Church—not the other way around. The Holy Spirit inspired
the Church first at Pentecost, and from the leaders of the
church and for the Church’s needs the Bible was written.
Therefore the Catholic Church still says that the Church
is the authentic authority to interpret the Bible today.
There’s another weakness with sola Scriptura. Let’s
put the circular logic objection to one side and allow that
the Bible might actually teach sola Scriptura. When
we begin to look for proof in the Bible it’s not there. We
can find many verses which show the permanence, the holiness
and the power of the Word of God, but none which say it is
the only or final authority on earth. The classic proof text
for sola Scriptura is 2 Timothy 3.16 which says, ‘All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness.’ This is a great
verse and Catholics would agree on the inspiration and usefulness
of Scripture; but the verse itself doesn’t actually say the only authority
is Scripture. So what is the foundational authority for our
knowledge of the Truth? The New Testament actually points
to the Church as that universal authority. You say the Bible
is the Christian’s final authority and court of appeal, but
St Paul says in Ephesians 3.10 that ‘through the Church the
manifold wisdom of God will be made known,’ and in I Timothy
3.15 he says it is the Church which is ‘the pillar
and foundation of the Truth.’
John: I suspect our
readers may be wondering why it was you, not me, who first
who cited 2 Timothy 3:16! You
will have seen I've been careful to root the argument elsewhere,
in the attitudes and example of Jesus. Even so, taken at
face value this verse makes enormous claims and I don't think
your circularising quite does it justice. If the Scriptures
are God-breathed then they come into a very special category
of literature which I must take with enormous seriousness
and leave no stone unturned in seeking to understand their
message. I find it helpful, too, that the text draws some
lines about what exactly the Scriptures are there for. There
are all sorts of issues and debates where I'm not obliged
by this verse to look to the Scriptures for guidance or an
authoritative word. I am encouraged here to look to them
for 'teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.’
I think our argument revolves around what comes first,
the Scriptures or the Church. Your position seems to be that
the Church is the primary factor, with the Church defining
the Canon of Scripture in the first place and offering its
accumulated wisdom as the authoritative interpreter. My position
is that the actions of God in history, in speaking and inspiring
human agents to write come first.
Over many years a broad consensus has emerged as to which
books and writings authentically bear a 'ring of truth' and
the a priori commitment of the Christians (from the
Pope downwards) should be to believe and obey what the Scriptures
contain and teach. I may, of course, resort to reason, tradition
and experience to assist me in the task.
Dwight: I’m not sure
your analysis of our disagreement is quite right. The
main question is not, ‘Which comes
first the Church or Scripture?’ We don’t believe either the
Scriptures or the Church come first. Instead Jesus comes
first. The primary revelation of God to mankind is in his
Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. The Bible is the secondary
revelation which bears witness to God’s work in Christ. The
Book of Hebrews puts it this way, ‘In many various ways God
spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these
last days he has spoken to us by a Son.’ (Heb.1.1-2) The
Catechism says, ‘the Christian faith is not a “religion of
the book.” Christianity is the religion of the Word of God.
Not a written and mute word, but incarnate and living. If
the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ the
eternal Word of the living God, must through the Holy Spirit
open our minds to understand the Scriptures.’ (CCC, 108)
So God’s work in and through real people’s
lives down through history is his primary revelation. This
story is told in the inspired Scriptures and his ultimate
revelation is through the Word of God incarnate—His Son Jesus
Christ. Jesus commanded and prophesied a Church which would
be his body on earth and that Church produced the Scriptures
which bear witness of him. That same Church used the Scriptures
for worship and teaching, and eventually they came to define
which books were to go into the New Testament.
Dwight Longenecker is a former Anglican priest. John
Martin is an Anglican Evangelical. Their debate, Challenging
Catholics is published by Paternoster Press. It is based
on the radio series by the same name broadcast on London’s
Premier Radio.
