Crimson Catholic

Saturday, April 28, 2007

My interaction with anti-Catholics

Friday, April 27, 2007

Sola solipsista

In all seriousness, I am becoming convinced that anti-Catholics are starting to take pride in ignorance. I'm not talking even about having a culture that doesn't value intellectual achievement. Anti-intellectualism, a general distaste for certain forms of endeavor, is not the same thing as actively using ignorance as a kind of currency for credibility. It's as if the less these people know about Catholicism, the more spiritually pure their knowledge is, and thus, the more respected they should be. It is, of course, a form of solipsism, because it denies knowledge about reality, and this seems to be a major way of which the anti-Catholic community cultivates its insularity and identity. The behavior appears cult-like to me, particularly given that it tends to gravitate around certain strong personalities. Historically, the only similar profile I have seen as Gnosticism, which emphasized a kind of spiritual "knowledge" that amounted to an ignorance of the phsyical world ("knowledge falsely so called" as Irenaeus described it). And while the make-whatever-you-want-of-revelation attitude of many Protestants is Gnostic in character, it still seems odd to me that the quasi-mystical social patterns would still have traction.

I started pondering this phenomenon in a comment on Dave Armstrong's blog. A commenter named Peter was discussing a comment by the anti-Catholic David T. King, in which King had made what appears to be an insane comment in response to David Waltz: "We disagree again on both Ratzinger and [Raymond] Brown. I don’t care what they said in other contexts. I know what they said in the statements I gave."

Peter noted:
King’s comments regarding context illuminates this man’s attitude towards the truth. I no longer take him seriously and I consider him untrustworthy.

I replied as follows:
>> BEGIN QUOTE
You know, I am really starting to come around to the idea that it is NOT reflective of his attitude to the truth but rather his ability to perceive logical connections. Quite honestly, I'm starting to think that the problem is that they literally can't grasp the conceptual structure involved. In the case you cited, for example, it's not so much that the statement is out of context (though it is), but that he doesn't understand the concepts implicit in the argument enough even to understand what the context would be.

I first remarked on the problem here:http://crimsoncatholic.blogspot....ing-

I admit that I didn't see how it could possibly be that what I said would just go over someone's head. But then I read this:http:// beggarsallreformation.blo...calvinists.html

Seeing Swan call this "one of the best epistomological questions I've heard in a long time" was another one of those jaw-dropping moments. This is, of course, the very same epistemological question is posed by almost every historical argument against sola scriptura that I have heard (viz., how does one explain the Fathers, or anyone else, making major mistakes if they were faithful Christians?), and I was stunned that Swan could have missed this.

And then came the real clincher: this comment.
http://beggarsallreformation.blo...crypha-

The impression I got from this was "Let's have a discussion on the Catholic doctrine of the canon, but let's not talk about the Catholic view of what the canon is." Same problem here:http://www.aomin.org/index.php?i...php?

I know, it seems like an improbable hypothesis at this point, but the evidence is there. For Swan to say what he did and for King to respond to David Waltz as he did just doesn't make sense unless they honestly don't get the conceptual framework of Catholicism. I know it's difficult to be charitable to people who have been that nasty, but we have to confront the fact that "what we have here is a failure to communicate." I don't know how to fix it, but maybe rather than being in hostile rebuttal mode, we ought to work on being more positive and trying to find some helpful illustrations or analogies to give some kind of handle on the concepts.
>>END QUOTE

Dave A. proposed an alternative explanation:
They won't accept any such instruction, of course. For the anti-Catholic, a Catholic supposedly teaching them anything about theology is, in their mind, sort of like an infant teaching Einstein about nuclear physics.

That gets back to both the personal element and the presuppositions. For them, we aren't even Christians, and an unregenerate mind can't grasp the things of God at all, so how could we possible teach them anything?

But while I resolved to think on that possibility, that didn't strike me as particularly satisfying either. It wasn't even personal disdain I was perceiving as simply a systematic disregard of the content of what was being said. It's as if conveying one's lack of awareness of what was being said was, in some bizarre way, a testament of one's understanding.

The discussion continued at Dave's blog, with Dave remarking
Swan is a strange bird. He's not the only anti-Catholic who does this "method", of course (White, King, Svendsen, all do the same thing, and William Webster has utterly ignored two lengthy critiques of mine too; even Jason Engwer eventually fled for the hills after being repeatedly refuted), but his is a particularly dense and obtuse case.

He's not stupid, yet he acts like he is profoundly unaware of folks' answers to his materials (almost like a deaf person to a symphony or a blind person to a spotlight). After four years of this, I have pretty much concluded that he is simply an intellectual lightweight and a mere annoyance as regards serious discussion. To put it in the mildest way I can think of: he just doesn't get it.

One wonders if these guys consciously adopt a strategy of deliberate propaganda and suppression of opposing views. It's fascinating to observe how they act, from a psychological perspective. They must feel that it is working. If you can mock and ridicule and caricature and belittle a theological opponent long enough, then your fan club will believe anything you write about them, no matter how irrelevant, long since refuted, or ridiculous.

That's all I can figure out. White's been doing this for 12 years now, and Swan, as a member of his fan club, has adopted the same cowardly, idiotic "strategy".

That's when it occurred to me that demonstrating one's ignorance about Catholicism was actually a form of social currency. They're not even trying to understand, for the public demonstration that one does not understand is evidence that one is "regenerate" in one's thinking. When it clicked into place that this was the social function being performed by these exercises, this behavior started to make sense. And it turns out that I even had a test case that I had been mulling over on which to test this hypothesis: Eric Svendsen's attack on Timothy George.

For those who don't know, Timothy George is a well-regarded Baptist scholar and professor of church history. Despite being a Calvinist himself (albeit with some caveats about human limits to knowledge in this area), he committed the ultimate sin of actually involving himself in Catholic/Protestant ecumenism, including the Evangelicals and Catholics Together initiative. If my theory of intentional solipsism were correct, then the fact that George himself was Evangelical ought not prevent him from being deliberately misunderstood as a demonstration of Svendsen's ignorance of Catholicism (and therefore, perversely, his regenerate knowledge), just as he did in the case of Denver Seminary.

Suffice it to say that the application of the hypothesis in this instance gave me tremendous confidence in its accuracy. I note from the introduction:

The article (Evangelicals and the Mother of God) is by Timothy George, a man for whom long ago I had some respect. It is sad when formerly sound-thinking theologians, blinded by the draw of ecumenism, go down this path. As one whose doctoral thesis was on this very issue, I can say with confidence that the depth of George's knowledge of this issue rivals the depth of Jon Meacham's paltry knowledge of Christianity whenever he attempts an article about Jesus in TIME magazine.

So this establishes the neo-Gnostic mindset, contrasting Svendsen's spiritual knowledge ("one whose doctoral thesis was on this very issue") with George's lack thereof ("blinded by the draw of ecumenism"). Svendsen is the insider; George is the outsider ("formerly sound-thinking," "for whom long ago I had some respect").

When one begins an article with "It is time for evangelicals to recover a fully biblical appreciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary," it fast becomes clear where he is headed. George proceeds from there to make every exegetical error that characterizes Rome's view of Mary, even inexplicably conceding the Roman Catholic distinction between latria and hyperdulia--on what basis, we are never told.

Here we move into the detachment from reality. It is wrong even to accurately describe the Catholic concepts; spiritual knowledge is equated with not even knowing them. Note that George's remark itself was innocuous, not claiming belief in the Roman distinction, merely remarking that it exists and even evincing outright skepticism as to how coherently it is applied ("Good Catholics know, of course, that Mary is not the object of worship or the kind of adoration given only to God (latria), but rather of veneration (doulia), albeit of a special kind (hyperdoulia). But this distinction often seems to get lost at the local level."). But in this neo-Gnostic, even conceding the Catholic categories for purposes of accurate description is too much; George is an "outsider."

George goes on to engage in the very same symbolic reading of supposedly Marian-centric OT passages that even Roman Catholic scholars have abandoned these days. In other words, George is clearly a novice in this area, and has not yet discovered that the supposedly biblical defense he gives for an exalted Mary has long ago been rejected as time-worn nonsense by his more informed Roman Catholic counterparts. Only RC polemists use these kinds of arguments anymore. But if that's the case, what business does a supposed evangelical have in resurrecting them?

This turns out to be a drastic misrepresentation of George's position, but it fits the pattern perfectly. In fact, George doesn't even claim belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary, but simply saying that "there is nothing theologically difficult about affirming Mary’s perpetual virginity" is enough to end up on the bad list. This is too much understanding, and understanding of Catholic positions is bad. We may continue...

George's treatment of Mary's perpetual virginity and title of theotokos is lamentable. He somehow thinks that upholding the virgin birth is equivalent to upholding continued virginity after that birth, shamelessly evoking J. Gresham Machen as someone who would support his thesis

In fact, George said this in the context of the title "Virgin Mother," not "Ever-Virgin," which he discusses later. But again, pointing out any degree of commonality or understanding with Catholics, even one that Machen himself realized, is too much. Note that Machen, who is revered as a true Gnostic, could not have possibly shared George's beliefs (even though it is evident in this case that he did), and this becomes part of the detachment from reality.

George's woeful ignorance on what constitutes agreement with Rome is simply stunning. Because Machen was a staunch defender of the virgin birth--something that is explicitly biblical--he somehow implicitly agreed with Rome's doctrine of Perpetual Virginity--something that is demonstrably unbiblical?

Of course, George wasn't even discussing the perpetual virginity, but again, because George is ecumenical, he must be convicted of "woeful ignorance." Again, this is the tactic of knowledge by contrast; George's actual knowledge (which includes knowledge of Catholic belief) must be condemned in contrast with Svendsen's spiritual knowledge.

Then Svendsen moves on to a topic that should be well-known to readers of this blog: Nestorianism. As with me, Svendsen attacks Chalcedonian Christology, which he associated with Catholicism and excessive veneration of the Virgin. And as he did with me, he cites Nestorius as orthodox. But let us take heed of the neo-Gnostic tactics:

But George's ignorance does not stop there. Note well what he thinks about the Christological controversy:
The Church was right to reject Nestorius’ preferred title for Mary, Christotokos, “mother of Christ,” as an inadequate description of Mary’s role in the mystery of the Incarnation. We are not at liberty to construct a merely human Christ, cut off from the reality of his entire person.

Nestorius' alternative title, Christotokos, did not "construct a merely human Christ"; quite the opposite. The title "Christ" accounts for both the human and divine in Jesus, whereas "mother of God" does not. That George does not know this is just stunning.

This is probably the most concrete example we have of the tactic of contrasting real knowledge with spiritual knowledge. George's real knowledge of the subject matter is cast as ignorance, because real knowledge of Rome is evil, as contrasted with Svendsen's spiritual knowledge. And when I say "real knowledge," I mean real knowledge demonstrable by any criterion of reasonable certainty one might want to choose. Thus, for example, George is well-recognized as a knowledgable church historian, having reviewed the work of Daniel H. Williams (whose scholarly credentials are beyond question) and being known for being generally aware of scholarly works in the area. Svendsen is someone who by his own admission has "never claimed to have training in patristics," making his claim to convict George of ignorance completely unbelievable. (N.B., One might also note the same neo-Gnostic tactics regarding my "ignorance" and "delusion" being used against me in the linked article.) But even if the claim of ignorance were not prima facie unreal, it would be obviously disproved by the evidence of George's own words:

Some forty years ago, Heiko A. Oberman published an important article, using the research of Bishop Paulus Rusch of Innsbruck, in which he argued that the negative Nestorian reaction to Theotokos was initially a response to heretical groups who claimed that Mary was the mother of God not only according to the humanity of Christ but also according to the divinity of Christ, in the same way as there are mothers of gods in pagan religions. Epiphanius of Salamis attested the existence of such heretical groups, one of which he located in Palestine: a community of women who made circular cakes and offered them to the Virgin Mary, whom they had come to look upon as a deity. (This group was called the Collyridians, after the shape of the cakes in their ritual.)

Thus, according to Oberman and Rusch, in rightly opposing an exaggerated, heretical Mariolotry, Nestorius himself unwittingly fell into Christological heresy. This may be a more charitable reading of Nestorius than the facts warrant, but it points to a continuing concern of Protestants: Granted the legitimacy of doctrinal development, including the Christological clarification that led to the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, where are the checks against exalting the Virgin so high that her son is obscured?

So George is clearly familiar with Oberman's scholarship (which is essentially the line of argument to which Svendsen refers) and more contemporary scholarship to boot, as the reference to this characterization being "a more charitable reading of Nestorius than the facts warrant" (which is exactly what I pointed out to Svendsen as being the overwhelming scholarly view today). So the charge against George is obviously unreal (indeed, if anything, George is conceding the legitimacy of the risk of excessive veneration), but again, the neo-Gnostic operation is about showing one's spiritual knowledge by denial of real knowledge. Moving to the conclusion...

George's focus in this article is on all the typical Roman Catholic polemical points (with which he substantially agrees), and he somehow ignores all the exegetical points regarding Mary's staus in the NT. Yet it remains a well known fact that whenever Jesus and Mary appear together in the NT, Jesus is at pains to distance himself from her and to put down any supposed privileges she might assume based on biological ties--indeed, going so far as to sever biological ties with her. George seems oblivious to this, which disqualifies him from speaking on the issue in the first place.

This is a nice tight summary of the neo-Gnostic mindset. George is accused of agreeing with "all the typical Roman Catholic polemical points," when in fact, all George did was accurately describe them, often for the express purpose of critiquing them. There's the charge of ignorance of the spiritual knowledge of Scripture, a bread-and-butter Gnostic claim. And note the Gnostic reading of Scripture in exactly the same way; the truth of Scripture is framed exactly as a negation of the knowledge that the Gnostic considers profane. And finally, of course, there is the charge that George is "oblivious" to the spiritual knowledge, which "disqualifies him from speaking on the issue." This is vintage Gnosticism; it could have been quoted verbatim in the second century.

The real lesson in all this is exactly the one George raises:
Beyond the theological constraints of a biblical religion, however, there was also what might be called an ecclesiological hardening of the arteries within the Protestant and evangelical traditions. To be an evangelical meant not to be a Roman Catholic. To worship Jesus meant not to honor Mary, even if such honor were biblically grounded and liturgically chaste.
...
Perhaps we should ask what Catholics, without ceasing to be Catholics, can learn from evangelicals about Mary. Certainly we should ask what evangelicals, without ceasing to be evangelicals, can learn from Catholics about Mary. If Catholics need to be called away from the excesses of Marian devotion to a stricter fidelity to the biblical witness, evangelicals should reexamine their negative attitudes toward Mary, many of which derive from anti-Catholic bias rather than sound biblical theology. They need to ask themselves, as the Groupe des Dombes suggested, “whether their too frequent silences about Mary are not prejudicial to their relationship with Jesus Christ.”

It seems undeniable that the anti-Catholics have fled to the tactics of Gnosticism in order to cling to these same biases in the face of a reality that directly contradicts them. Consequently, when confronted by what are patently unreal responses, we should remember that this is the purpose of neo-Gnostic methodology (viz., to establish credibility through denial of reality), and we should cling to the wisdom of St. Irenaeus, who patiently demonstrated the contradictions between the Gnostics and reality so that no sincere truth-seeker could follow them, even by mistake.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Theme for the Week: Touching My Past

I don't know if it's the thirty-deuce birthday coming up or what, but for some reason, reminders of the past are cropping up all over the place. It started (after a bit of foreshadowing) when I got the welcome surprise of an email out of the blue from someone I knew in high school but hadn't heard from in a very long time. And then the parents of my godchild ran into another friend of mine at a wedding, and that friendship goes all the way back to 6th grade! So it already seemed like the past was being made a bit more palpable than usual, in that good way that rediscovery of old friends always makes what was old new again.

So it just seemed to fit with the theme that I would happen across this blog entry. For those who don't know why this might be curious, Lake Charles is my hometown, where my parents live and where my sister got married a couple of months ago. Dallas, of course, was my last place of residence. In fact, I received the Sacrament of Confirmation almost exactly 5 years ago at St. Thomas Aquinas (hmm, maybe that explains why I've been obsessed with metaphysics ever since...). To have an occasion of joy like the reception of a new shepherd for the Diocese in not one but two places dear to me "gladdened my heart" (in King James parlance).

I'm not sure if there is any message here, but I am thankful for God's little reminders of people and places that helped me to become who I am today. These experiences didn't make me wistful or nostalgic for something missing, as encounters from the past are liable to do. Instead, they made me feel a little more whole.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Musings on the collective quality of being human

We reached the 50-comment limit on this Catholic/Orthodox discussion on original sin, but Perry Robinson asked me a good question that I ought to answer.

Perry said:
God could still have Mary as the Theotokos and have prevented everyone else from inheriting original sin.Why not both? This I think shows the inadequacy of appealing to her unique vocation to address the underlying worry about the problem of evil.

I replied:
I could have prevented the possibility of either of my children committing actual sin by slaughtering them after they were baptized. Why didn’t I do that? This I think shows the inadequacy of your underlying worry about the problem of evil.

There is a purpose in people being allowed to be subject to evil, even if that purpose is necessarily inscrutable to reason. I will let my children possibly be damned to Hell, not because I hate them, but because I love them. I suspect it is the same with God.

Perry, as is his usual habit, asked a good question:
I don’t think you have given the proper analogy. God could have prevented lots of moral evil, not by doing some evil to human agents but by doing some great good to them. If you could have given your child a proverbial pill to prevent them from not only sinning but ever dying or any serious suffering, wouldn’t you do so? Now, you may object that your ways aren’t the ways of God. Fair enough, but given the imago dei, it is also true that we have via reason, barring Calvinism and Jansenism, a genuine notion of goodness. I can’t see why it wouldn’t be good to give them the pill. Do you?

My point was exactly that it isn't at all clear to me that God could have prevented lots of moral evil by doing some great good to them. For example, protecting people from evil is unquestionably a good, but it isn't at all clear to me that protecting every person from all evil (which God could assuredly do) would be doing humankind a great good. The reason I would present is that the interconnectedness between human beings isn't such that what grace was given to one or another person in some particular situation could be equally given to all in all situations without substantially disrupting the entire arrangement and diluting the context in which people have experiences that make them unique. The reason Catholics appeal to the Blessed Virgin's vocation as Theotokos is that this role is special in history, so that special intervention in this case is more fitting and consonant with the role that she plays, even though it most assuredly would not be for everyone. If this were done indiscriminately, then it would wash out all of the differences between people, and it would compromise their individuality as humans. Part of what separates us from the angels is that we each live our own lives in a fundamental connection to one another. Thus, we have an ability to experience God that is both more profoundly individual and yet closer even than what the angels have.

Therefore, I think the analogy is apt. I can deprive my children of their opportunity to grow and to have their own experiences and to be their own people. But it would not be good of me to do so. Why would I think that it would be any different with God? Certainly, God might tolerate evils as between people that have the same effect, but He has also revealed to us that they are tolerated, not caused by Him in any sense (James 1:13-18), and even these are tolerated for the sake of allowing each individual, even the wicked, a measure of life and opportunity (Rom. 9:22, 2 Pet. 3:9). So God wishes to preserve the fullness of human experience wherever possible, and in only one person's life in all of human history would it have actually been consonant with her particular experience to experience His presence for her entire life: the one who would bear His Son. It doesn't seem to me that the gift of sanctifying grace "out of order" (so to speak) would be a great good for all human beings. It would undermine the entire form of Christian life, including particularly the Sacrament of Baptism and the Eucharist. On the contrary, I think that God values our individual existence as human beings, even with all the risk and vulnerability that it includes. Otherwise, He would have stopped creating with the angels.

And by the way, what counts as good in terms of God's allocation of graces and the circumstances that face us is thoroughly shrouded in mystery, and rather than speculating about the reason for these differences, we ought to admit the real impossibility for created intellect to know these things. Indeed, the entire rationale for imprecatory and intercessory prayer is that we do not and cannot know, coming to God and our brothers and sisters in the faith to pray for His mercy.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Dr. Prejean on the radio

My wife and I often listen to Dr. Laura, since she is one of the few people left on the radio who refuses to capitulate to the modern nonsense regarding the role of women and the family. This morning, Dr. Laura mentioned someone on the Today Show who legitimized the feeling of some women that they were "wasting their education" by staying home to mother their kids. Like Dr. Laura, my better half was having none of that! She fired off an email to Dr. Laura pointing out that it was foolish for educated women to fall into the trap of running around on a hamster wheel for eight hours a day in lieu of parenting. She noted that she had used her Ph.D. to create opportunities to work without leaving home by taking positions as an online professor, and she also observed that she had married a good man who provided for the family so that she could be flexible in the employment she took.

Dr. Laura liked the email so much that she made it the "Email of the Day" and read it on the air. Props to the missus for articulating a valuable lesson well enough to reach an audience of millions, and thanks for making me the good guy in the story! There are a lot of accomplishments of which one might be proud, but in my experience, nothing is better than the family saying "Ya done good!"

On not understanding the issues

The oddest thing that I have encountered in anti-Catholic apologists is a bizarre tendency not even to understand what the conflict between Protestants and Catholics is. Moreover, there is not only misunderstanding, but a stubborn adherence to the misunderstanding even in the face of correction on the point. I have no idea why there is such a stern insistence on creating conflict where there isn't one and ignoring conflict where there is. But that is clearly the pattern, which is why most Catholics have given up on even trying to deal with numerous anti-Catholics.

There have been two recent examples.

In the first, James White says the following (my words are in blue):

James Swan pointed out some very interesting quotes from Jonathan Prejean this morning. I thought this one was instructive enough to provide it:

"In my view, sola scriptura is the #1 problem (like Joseph said in a comment on my blog), and I WANT to be the guy who is doing theology outside of the "The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it!" mentality. The problem that I see is that Protestants have the idea that the way White does theology is the only way theology is done. I just want them to see that isn't the case, and that if something more appeals to them, there are other options out there. On the other hand, if people think that is the way to do theology, then I would go as far as to say that they *should* stay Protestant. I'm not out to steal sheep who aren't called to leave the flock. I'm content to wait on God's grace for that. I just provide the occasion for them to see how I live Catholicism, as the Spirit moves me. If it doesn't appeal to them, that's OK. If it needs to do so, it will."

If you will but press Rome's apologists they will eventually say things like this. Remember when Gerry Matatics, in response to my asserting that his choice to follow Rome was a fallible choice, replied that my choice to follow the Bible was likewise fallible? Excellent example. Here Prejean is admitting quite openly that the realm in which he "does theology" is not circumscribed by the Scriptures. It was obvious, from his phone call, that he is far more concerned about knowing obscure opinions of Cyril of Alexandria than knowing how John testifies of the deity of Christ or Paul presents the glory of God in salvation in the golden chain of redemption in Romans 8. He is not an exegete, and he knows it. He cannot stand in the realm of the Scriptures and defend his views, for his views have precious little connection to the divine revelation that Jesus said "could not be broken." He is more concerned about throwing about the accusation of "Nestorianism!" (what percentage of people have a clue what that means?) than he is discerning the mind of God in the Word. And so we definitely differ, fundamentally, and always will. But what seems painfully obvious to me is that God's grace never leads anyone to embrace Prejean's odd viewpoints. His blog presents his mission: "Sharing the Christian metaphysics of Xavier Zubiri and the fullness of Western Tradition under the patronage of St. Cyril of Alexandria and St. Bonaventure." Yes, that's what the grace of God and the Holy Spirit are doing in the world, leading folks to...that. Not to the Word, but to...Xavier Zubiri. There you go. If I had just read more Zubiri, and less Paul! Then I'd be up to taking on the likes of Prejean and I could laugh at the uniqueness of the incarnation and the outmoded law of God against the worship of images! That's where I missed the boat! It is all so clear now.

There are several points of interest:
1. It's misleading to imply that I needed to be "pressed" into the admission that I do not circumscribe theology by the Scriptures in the way that White means. I am not the least bit ashamed of that admission so that I would need to be pressed, and I have even go so far as to point out that such circumscribed exegetical techniques are no more relevant for Christian theology than the Qu'ran or the Book of Mormon. Scripture is a Christological document, and it must be read as one. If one restricts the interpretation of Scripture to authorial intent or other such mundane considerations, then one "breaks" the Scripture by removing its Christological unity. And as St. Irenaeus points out, once you do that, you can rearrange the image of the King into an image of a fox or whatever else you want to make of it. The rule of faith is a prerequisite to correct Christian exegesis.
2. In that regard, Cyril of Alexandria was probably the greatest Christological exegete in all of Christian history. He understood the rule of faith for interpretation of the Scriptures as well as any Christian ever did. Given the choice between Cyril's commentary on the Gospel of John and White's commentary on John, I'll take Cyril. Likewise for the patristic concept of the "glory of God" versus White's nominalist/legalist concept. I make no bones about that: guilty as charged. Moreover, there are even Baptists who recognize Cyril's exegetical mastery; see, e.g., Steven A. McKinion.
3. I am an exegete; I am not an exegete of Greek. But since inspiration isn't limited to the original autographs, it doesn't much matter whether I am or am not a Greek exegete.
4. Regarding standing in the realm of Scriptures, I simply view the realm of Scriptures more broadly than White does, and I consider White to have "broken" the Scriptures by taking such a myopic view of them. This is simply an obvious point of disagreement, but absent an argument for his view or against mine, the accusation itself accomplishes nothing.
5. The fact that such a small percentage of people know what Nestorianism is simply demonstrates that very few people have any sort of coherent concept of what it is to be both God and man. Nonetheless, the denial of Nestorianism is necessarily an implicit belief of anyone who actually believes that Christ is both God and man, so anyone who denies it, even implicitly, denies the Gospel. I would suspect that most people would not want to deny that.
6. Ultimately, the reason one reads someone like Zubiri, Cyril, or Bonaventure is to understand better what it is that the Scripture proclaims. What Zubiri, Cyril, and Bonaventure offer is exposition of the Scriptures; that is where all their work returns. To treat them as ends in themselves is to misunderstand their work. Moreover, to study them without also first knowing the Scriptures is to err as well, as would become apparent to anyone who began even a cursory study of their work. They aren't about bypassing the Scripture, but rather, they elevate and deepen the understanding of those who already know it. One can't bypass the milk for the meat.
7. I wouldn't suggest less Paul for White. I would suggest more Christ, which would actually mean getting more out of Paul, because White could perceive Paul's spiritual meaning, rather than merely the lower limit of the grammatical/historical method.
8. It certainly is laughable to think of someone who actually knows the risen Christ to consider His Incarnation as recapitulating less than the entire creation (John 6:38-39; Rom. 5:18; Eph. 1:9-10; 1 Cor. 15:20-28) or to assert that we ought to be limited by shadows like the prohibition on the use of graven images when the Incarnation has revealed the recapitulation of all creation in Christ. If the prohibition on idolatry were maintained after the Incarnation, then it would be idolatry to worship Christ, and this is obviously not the case. If Judaizers wish to impose the restrictions of the Law on Christians without Christological justification, they are condemned by the Apostle (Gal. 2:11-21), even if the one maintaining the view is such a one as St. Peter.
9. It is quite evident that we have fundamentally different beliefs, but White has yet to present any argument why his are to be preferred. Until he does offer some sort of objective reason to justify why his view of authority/revelation is preferable or why our view accurately presented is inconsistent on its own terms, we aren't obliged to make any demonstration as to why our version would be preferable to his. Note that White isn't the only one who doesn't carry his burden of persuasion in this regard. In response to an essay by Philip Blosser explaining why Catholics had numerous reasons NOT to believe in sola scriptura, Steve Hays wrote 200 pages demanding Philip Blosser to show why the Catholic account was preferable without once answering the original challenge: to provide objective reasons for any Catholic to listen to him. All sorts of people hold all sorts of unjustified opinions, but when you are demanding someone else to make a demonstration of theirs, you have to do better. Of course, neither White nor Hays understand basic principles of argumentation, so this isn't really surprising.
10. I think White would be unpleasantly surprised at the number of people who have inquired about my work. There are certainly more than none.

The next excerpt was from James Swan regarding a quote from St. John Chrysostom, but what intrigued me was David King's opinion:
Anyone who understands the distinction between the material and formal sufficiency of Holy Scripture can readily see that Chrysostom's quote here assumes the basic perspicuity (formal sufficiency) of Holy Scripture, as he urges his readers not to wait "for another to teach thee." His quote also assumes the availability of the NT scriptures for his audience, and its sufficiency to meet the needs of those who read them. Chrysostom here does not, as you suggest, treat Scripture as one would "vitamin supplements," but as utterly essential for he says that the ignorance of Holy Scripture "is the cause of all evils." The failure to take vitamin supplements is not the cause of all bad health in the physical realm. His analogy is clear for anyone to see, i.e., unless someone is determined not to see it.

It certainly isn't obvious to me, and while one might speculate wildly about my being "determined not to see it," I think the parsimonious explanation is that I simply know better than Pastor King what the term "formal sufficiency" means. If the Scriptures were formally sufficient, then Chrysostom is effectively advocating a self-contradiction: listen to my teaching that you shouldn't listen to me regarding the Scriptures. Such "don't even listen to me" statements would be self-referentially absurd along the lines of "this statement is not true," except in cases of obvious hyperbole (see, e.g., Gal. 1:8). Rather, Chrysostom's homily to his flock obviously presumes that they are listening to them, which assumes some existing formal competence (viz., the person's will and intellect is already properly formed in some respect).

I certainly consider it essential for Catholics with a well-formed faith to study Scripture to avoid making a shipwreck of their faith ("once saved always saved" not being a tenet of Catholic faith). But that is hardly the same thing as saying that one can form one's faith correctly from Scripture alone; by contrast, see, e.g., Luke 24:25-27 and Acts 8:27-35. That's precisely why I (as James Swan noted from my remark at Dave Armstrong's blog) consider it essential for people to form their faith correctly before studying Scripture, rather than expecting that studying Scripture will form their faith. There is no doubt that Catholics should study Scripture; that is presumed in everything I do. I wouldn't be pointing to people like Zubiri, Cyril, and Bonaventure if I didn't want people to take Scripture seriously. But it is equally true that if one relies on Scripture alone to form his faith, he will be led astray just as easily as if he never read it at all.

It would accordingly seem that anyone who knows the difference between formal and material sufficiency would know that King doesn't understand the distinction. The failure to grasp even basic logical distinctions makes it impossible for any Catholic Christian (or Orthodox Christian, as in the case of Stephen) to take Hays's, White's, King's, or Webster's position seriously. That in itself is presumably just reporting, as there shouldn't be any surprise that Catholics uniformly consider their charges against Catholicism to need no further answer. Until they stop misrepresenting the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism and start making arguments rather than merely asserting the differences themselves as if they prove something, the Catholic position will persist cheerfully unfazed by all this sound and fury.

UPDATE --

Uncanny! David King STILL doesn't get it:
There is a specimen example of someone who is determined not to see it. All things are clear and open that are in the divine Scriptures; the necessary things are all plain.

Plainness is a matter of formality; the necessary things are all plain to someone with a properly formed will and intellect.

Remember the eunuch of the queen of Ethiopia. Since therefore. while he had no man to guide him, he was thus reading; for this reason he quickly received an instructor. God knew his willingness, He acknowledged his zeal, and forthwith sent him a teacher.

If if the Scriptures were formally sufficient, he wouldn't have needed a teacher! This is incredible; King says exactly that willingness is not enough for understanding, which directly contradicts the formal sufficiency of Scripture. As I said, King has no idea what formal sufficiency even is.

But, you say, Philip is not present with us now. Still, the Spirit that moved Philip is present with us. Let us not, beloved, neglect our salvation!

Goodness, now King is admitting that we need spirit-led teachers to understand Scripture? Might as well just put up an advertisement for the Catholic Church!

Cyril of Alexandria (patriarch, 412-444): Such subtle and out-of-the-way problems do not require a doctrinal decision so much as a questioning and speculative investigation accompanied by a refusal to let the mind fall into improper views to be carried away from reasonableness. For it is written ‘seeking do thou seek and dwell with me.’ How can one clearly explain what holy writ has not stated clearly? For example it is written in the book of Genesis that in the beginning God made heaven and earth. Holy writ declared that he has made it and we accept this truth in faith. But meddlesome inquiry into the means, origin or method whereby heaven, earth and the rest of creation were brought into being has its harmful side, for there is no need to involve the mind in profundities. What divine Scripture does not state very clearly must remain unknown and be passed over in silence.

Again, clarity is a matter of formality, meaning that it depends on the formation of the will and the intellect. A well-formed intellect does not inquire into what cannot be explained, into mysteries that are impenetrable. What does King think judges what are and are not "improper views" in Cyril's mind? Scripture itself? Anyone familiar with Cyril would immediately perceive the absurdity of that assertion. But because King wants to read Cyril like a Protestant, he can't even exegete Cyril from a historical perspective, as evidenced by the fact that not one single Cyrillian specialist would take King's view here. Let King point to a Keating, a McKinion, a McGuckin, or a Russell who agrees with him. He can't, because his view is ridiculous.

By all accounts, I've heard that Pastor King is one of those human beings who would literally give you the shirt off his back (at least if you weren't a Catholic apologist). But being a good guy doesn't make you competent, and Pastor King is clearly not competent in this area.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

James White paws at my sleeve for more attention

James White continues his vain attempt to restore his relevance to Catholic discourse by rehashing decade-old debates. The most recent instance is White's response to my observation on the Envoy forum that Fr. Hugh Barbour's "Ancient Baptists and Other Myths" omitted White's name as a deliberate rebuke of White's "scholarship." (Edit -- White's original article, which I would have linked but for CRI pulling it down, is here.) White's response is yet another example of White's ongoing delusion of being competent to address patristics and Catholic theology. I, on the other hand, concur with his critic Fr. Barbour, an expert in both patristics and Catholic theology who is in an excellent position to judge White's competence in both fields. Let's see if White was really treated unfairly.

"Crimson Catholic," Jonathan Prejean, has actually attempted to offer an excuse for Hugh Barbour's refusal in the Envoy article to either name me directly, or even provide meaningful bibliographical references (i.e., so that his readers can do something more than just "trust him" and check things out for themselves). Now, let's remember that Barbour wrote his article in response to a footnote of an article that was on the topic of the Council of Nicea, an article fully referenced to standard works in the field.

The entire point of such silent rebukes is that anyone who knows the target will know the work. As to whether the article was "fully referenced to standard works in the field," it is clear that the footnote in question regarding Athanasius being a "true Protestant" of his day was not (Edit -- Turns out that this wasn't a "footnote" either; "Convinced that Scripture is 'sufficient above all things,' Athanasius acted as a true "Protestant" in his day" is in the body of the text. What footnote is White talking about?). The claim that "The council had no idea that they (sic), by their gathering together, possessed some kind of sacramental power of defining beliefs: they sought to clarify biblical truth, not to put themselves in the forefront and make themselves a second source of authority" was not (and offhand, I don't recall that statement being in a footnote. Edit -- I have confirmed this was a statement in the body of the article, not a footnote). Fr. Barbour's article simply pointed out that the particular statements he criticized were NOT "fully referenced to standard works in the field," because the standard works say no such thing.

Barbour did not even touch upon the actual article itself. He created a straw man and beat it senseless without giving his readers any opportunity of checking him out.

The ones who knew the target would have the opportunity to check it out. The ones who didn't would only have the straw man to consider, so it couldn't be misattributed to White, which is the only way a straw man could do any harm. Therefore, White has no cause for complaint.

I have yet to find a single Roman Catholic who has accurately addressed the situation and in a truthful, honest fashion admitted that Barbour's actions were reprehensible

If White thinks Fr. Barbour's actions were "reprehensible," then he has lost his sanity. There is no moral obligation or canon of scholarly ethics to identify the source of an argument being critiqued. Indeed, someone who produced a substandard argument might well wish that a critic save him the embarrassment. Of course, that would require a sense of shame and a respect for the discipline that White lacks.

nor have I found one who has taken issue with the substance of the article (they can't, since they would have to reject every major scholarly work on Nicea to do so).

Let it never be said that White overlooked an opportunity to overstate his qualifications. Note the implicit claim that he is familiar with every major scholarly work on Nicaea, and the implication that Fr. Barbour (who did indeed take issue with the portions of the article identified above) is not.

And keep in mind as well the fact that in my response, I noted numerous problems with Barbour's own scholarship, including gross misrepresentation of the article he is pretending to review (easy to do when you don't provide any references anyone can follow up on), the presentation of highly questionable theories regarding the role of Sylvester at Nicea, even noting that Barbour used sources that the Westminster Dictionary of Church History describe as "hardly trustworthy."

Let's see what those "problems" were.

Over and over again Barbour argues that it was my intention to turn the council of Nicea into an ancient convention of Baptists. He writes, "The article. . . actually claimed the Fathers of the Council were essentially Evangelical Protestants." But such is simply untrue.

I'm going to love to see how White spins the sentence "The council had no idea that they (sic), by their gathering together, possessed some kind of sacramental power of defining beliefs: they sought to clarify biblical truth, not to put themselves in the forefront and make themselves a second source of authority" as something other than an argument that the Nicene Fathers considered themselves subservient to Scripture a la sola scriptura. So go ahead. Explain it.

What I did say was that in the particular instance of Athanasius' well-known stand against the combined weight of councils (such as the one held at Sirmium, attended by 600 bishops), bishops (including Liberius, bishop of Rome), and Emperors was not something that you would identify with Roman Catholicism, but with Protestantism, especially since Athanasius defended his action via his fidelity to Scriptural truth. Just because his actions were more consistent with modern day Protestantism than with Roman Catholicism cannot logically mean that I was identifying him as a full-blown Protestant.

This is wrong several times over. First, Fr. Barbour responded to both the characterization of Athanasius AND the characterization of the Nicene Fathers. Second, the "essentially Evangelical Protestants" claim was directly responsive to White's claim that "the council had no idea that they (sic), by their gathering together, possessed some kind of sacramental power of defining beliefs: they sought to clarify biblical truth, not to put themselves in the forefront and make themselves a second source of authority." Third, White actually called Athanasius a "true Protestant," following (if I recall correctly) a characterization by one of his students, and so White must surely at least argue that Athanasius must have believed what is essential to being a Protestant. Fourth, and most importantly, White does here exactly what Fr. Barbour accused him of doing; he casts Athanasius as defending his action "via his fidelity to Scriptural truth," as if this made him more Protestant than Catholic, which is exactly the ridiculous, unsupported claim that Fr. Barbour answers in his article.

The early Fathers were neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic. They were who they were, and we badly misrepresent them, and end up engaging in errors of anachronistic interpretation, when we try to force them into our mold.

Apart from directly contradicting White's own claim that Athanasius was a "true Protestant," this is only significant in that the conclusion is based on a ridiculous caricature of what it means to be Catholic. By a reasonable definition of what Catholic means, Athanasius can reasonably be considered Catholic. But as usual, White makes up his own ridiculous definition of what Catholics supposedly believe:

As a Protestant, I can allow all the early Fathers to be themselves, not what I need them to be, simply because my faith is not based upon making claims about the alleged "universal" faith of the early Fathers. I can recognize both truth and error in the patristic sources, even within the same writer. I can appreciate Irenaeus' defense against the gnostics, while rejecting his erroneous view of the atonement, for example. I need not gloss over those places where early writers would have disagreed with me, for I make no claim that they were infallible or perfect in their beliefs, since no Christian today would fit into that category either.

Of course, a faithful Catholic can do all of these things as well, because the "alleged 'universal' faith" in question is material and not formal. As a result, there is doctrinal error all over the place in the Fathers, but never a denial of the material basis for the later doctrine.

But the Roman Catholic, if he or she is faithful to the statements of the Magisterium, does not have this luxury. This can be seen in striking fashion in the words of Satis Cognitum, a papal encyclical promulgated by Leo XIII in 1896, written to explain and defend the definition of Papal Infallibility put forward by the First Vatican Council:
Wherefore, in the decree of the Vatican Council as to the nature and authority of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, no newly conceived opinion is set forth, but the venerable and constant belief of every age.
The faithful Roman Catholic who seeks to defend the ultimate authority of the Roman magisterium is left with little choice than to believe that the Roman claims on the Papacy (and by extension, the entire Roman concept of authority) are the "venerable and constant belief of every age" (emphasis added).

This is, of course, sheer nonsense. I accept Satis Cognitum; I simply maintain the well-understood distinction between material and formal belief in interpreting "no newly conceived opinion" and "the venerable and constant belief of every age," not to mention similar phrases like "the unanimous consent of the Fathers" and "as it has always been understood by the Catholic Church." Even leaving aside the question of whether such historical judgments even fall under the definition of "faith and morals," I have exactly the luxury White says I do not have, and I consider myself a faithful Catholic in communion with the Holy See. It's the same nonsense Bill Webster and Jason Engwer have been peddling for some time about there being some sort of dogmatic injunction against development of doctrine. You know you're losing when you have to make up what your opponent believes in order to make an argument.

The largest portion of Barbour's article is devoted to skewering the straw-man idea that "the Council attendees were Protestant." I never made such a claim, nor would I. Unfortunately, the main point I did make regarding Athanasius' willingness to stand against the combined weight of bishops and councils was lost in the flourish of demonstrating what was not contested: that Athanasius wasn't a Baptist.

The portion of the article that White describes was a rebuttal to the notion that the Nicene Fathers accepted sola scriptura, not simply that Athanasius "wasn't a Baptist." The outrageous claim was that Athanasius and the Nicene Fathers believed sola scriptura. And as far as Athanasius's willingness to "stand against the combined weight of bishops and councils," Catholics are perfectly free to resist bishops and councils that are not proclaiming the rule of faith as taught in the Church. Fr. Barbour's point was that Athanasius appealed to that same rule to rebut the errant councils and bishops.

A wonderful opportunity was lost for this patristic scholar to explain why, if the members of the Nicene Council were Roman Catholics, they did not believe in the very doctrines that define the Roman communion over against others, doctrines such as an infallible Papacy, Marian dogmas such as the Bodily Assumption, the treasury of merit, indulgences, and devotion to reserved, consecrated hosts that would indicate that the patristic belief in "real presence" was in fact a belief in transubstantiation.[2] The fact is that the early Church was neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic. It was what it was. That's perfectly in line with the Protestant view, but is fundamentally contrary to the Roman Catholic concept.

A better question would be why any explanation is required, given that every Catholic believes in development of dogma. There are all sorts of beliefs that weren't formally held by the Fathers. That's not "fundamentally contrary to the Roman Catholic concept." It IS the Catholic concept. That's not to say that there weren't many Fathers who formally held these beliefs, but it isn't essential that all or even any of them explicitly held anything other than the material antecedent for these beliefs.

While I strongly disagree with Barbour's attempt to turn Athanasius into a follower of the Papacy,[3] a different assertion in his article serves to illustrate best what happens when we view Church History in a partisan fashion. Barbour presents a highly questionable thesis regarding the role of the bishop of Rome, Sylvester, and the calling of the Council of Nicea. It is a well known fact that the bishops of Rome had little to do in the convocation of many of the early Councils. This presents a problem for the Roman apologist only because Rome has anachronistically claimed that she has always held that position. Modern Roman Catholic historians have abandoned this claim, preferring the less strident "development hypothesis," agreeing with Newman that in the early Church the Papacy was more of an "unfulfilled prophecy."[4] Barbour abandons sound historical procedures by pointing to the words of the Council of Constantinople, which met 355 years after Nicea, which claimed that both Constantine and Sylvester together called the council. R.P.C. Hanson, a noted historian, writes concerning this claim:
Religious partisanship has in the past led some scholars to suggest that Sylvester, bishop of Rome, convoked the council of Nicea, but modern Roman Catholic Scholars honourably dismiss this idea.[5]

It's all well and good that Hanson thinks so, but Fr. Barbour hasn't been the least bit dishonest in saying "There is some question as to whether the emperor acted on his own, or in concert with Pope Sylvester." White's accusation that Fr. Barbour "abandons sound historical procedures" badly misunderstands the development of canonical procedures for ecumenical councils and the reasons why the observation by Constantinople is likely indicative of continuity in procedure, an observation that more than one historian (see, e.g., Leo Donald Davis, Dvornik, Carroll) has considered significant.

Likewise, George Salmon describes as "less scrupulous" those who make Barbour's assertion, saying that there is "no foundation" for the claim.[6] Roman Catholic historian and Notre Dame professor Richard McBrien likewise notes that Sylvester "played no part" in the proceedings of the Council of Nicea, that he "did not convene the council," and that even Sylvester's representatives "were given no special status" at the assembly.[7]

Whoop-de-do. Historians disagree. Of course, most of the time one would cite somebody within the last century to show present scholarly disagreement (why is Salmon in this list?), but the fact of the disagreement is surely unremarkable.

Barbour goes on to make an even more questionable claim when he cites Gelasius of Cyzigus (without reference) as his sole basis for making Hosius, bishop of Cordova in Spain, the representative of Sylvester, so that he can then assert, "So the Council proceeded, led by a bishop officially representing the Church of Rome." Barbour, who begins his article by calling himself a "trained patristic scholar," well knows the character of the source he is citing, but how many of his readers do? Gelasius wrote 150 years after Nicea. Renowned church historian Philip Schaff, speaking of the Council of Nicea, said, "There afterwards arose a multitude of apocryphal orations and legends in glorification of it, of which Gelasius of Cyzicus in the fifth century collected a whole volume."[8] Hanson likewise makes mention of Gelasius' claim:
Gelasius alleges that Ossius presided as representing the bishop of Rome, but this is probably because an historian writing in the second half of the fifth century could not imagine that a bishop of as obscure a see as Cordova could have presided over a General Council unless he was a proxy for a much more important ecclesiastic.[9] And the Westminster Dictionary of Church History is very frank in describing the character of Gelasius' work: "Highly imaginative, it is hardly trustworthy."[10] Yet, this is the source Barbour cites to turn the Council of Nicea into a Roman Catholic entity. Such claims look good when the reader does not inquire into their true value. Such can be said as well for Envoy's attempted response.

Hanson is probably the most notorious skeptic of Ossius's connection with Rome. Leo Donald Davis follows Dvornik in assigning significance to Ossius's connection with Rome, while admitting that he was no legate and that his position as the Emperor's spiritual advisor was significant. Henry Chadwick notes Ossius's habitual deference to Rome. Warren Carroll, following De Clerq, believes Ossius probably represented Rome. The current state of scholarship ranges from skepticism to endorsement (with Hanson and Carroll representing the poles). A general description of Gelasius is completely irrelevant as to whether he is accurate on this particular point, and there is ample dispute over whether there is. What's most disturbing is that it has been pointed out to White specifically that there is scholarly dispute over this matter, and he still misrepresents Fr. Barbour as being off the deep end for giving credence to Gelasius's claim.

As usual, White evidently hasn't read even several of the "major scholarly works on Nicaea" sitting in my garage, much less enough to be forming authoritative opinions about the state of history. He reads one book of contemporary scholarship, another book by Richard McBrien (a flaming liberal who isn't even really a historian, much less a Nicene specialist), an irrelevant sentence from an encyclopedia entry, and two works more than a century out of date, and he thinks he can criticize a trained scholar. Ooookay. His response to me regarding Nestorianism on the Dividing Line was equally poor, which is why I just had to laugh in the end. I don't care whether he gives me fifteen minutes or fifteen years on his program; White still boasts on being able to give substantive answers without having either the knowledge or the qualifications to do so.

Back to the latest response:
Evidently, for this apologist, it is perfectly alright to avoid providing meaningful bibliographical material as long as you are truly mocking your target in the service of mother Church. So, if your response is completely over the top, filled with invective and straw-men, then it is perfectly acceptable to behave in this manner! Now, if Barbour had actually tried to provide a fair response that was directed to the actual topic of the article, and did not seek to simply mock me, I guess then he would have to have followed standard canons of scholarly exchange and review. But, for those in Rome, as long as you say the article was that bad, then, it was, ipse dixit.

It has nothing to do with "Rome" or "Mother Church." It has to do with White being a sorry historian and making a ridiculous claim that Athanasius and the Nicene Fathers believed in sola scriptura, claims to which Fr. Barbour directly responded with evidence demonstrating their absurdity. Scientists are just as ruthless against pseudo-science. Why wouldn't a historian be ruthless against pseudo-history? Personally, this is exactly how I think incompetence ought to be treated; it ought to be ridiculed. If people are going to claim competence when they are ignorant, this is what they should get.

Prejean says my replies "are no better," which means he could easily explain the issues in regards to Sylvester, etc. All of this rhetoric is very hopeful: that is, it is written in the hope that no one will track down the original article and realize just how guilty of gross misrepresentation and a cavalier handling of the truth Hugh Barbour, Patrick Madrid, and the Envoy Magazine staff, really are.

First of all, the issue with Sylvester and Ossius was completely a side issue, because whether Rome convoked the council or not is simply a supplemental observation to the main point, which is that the Nicene Fathers did not view themselves as applying sola scriptura, and neither did Athanasius. White should be concerning himself with answering for his outrageous and indefensible claim that "the council had no idea that they (sic), by their gathering together, possessed some kind of sacramental power of defining beliefs: they sought to clarify biblical truth, not to put themselves in the forefront and make themselves a second source of authority," not some cumulative piece of evidence that can be taken or left without impugning the main thrust of the argument. Second, White needs to actually know the material before making reckless and unfounded accusations about "gross misrepresentation" and "cavalier handling of the truth." Third, if anyone is misrepresenting the substance, it is White, who can't seem to deal with the fact that Fr. Barbour's article was directed at White's sola scriptura claims for both the Nicene Fathers and Athanasius and that White hasn't provided any answer on that point, spending his entire time worrying about this side issue of Sylvester and Hossius on which Fr. Barbour's position is entirely legitimate! Fourth, let's not forget that White has also once again raised this ridiculous caricature of Catholic belief as saying that we can't believe in development and that every Catholic belief must have been formally held in virtual unanimity by every Father before we can claim that they are Catholic. As I said, anyone who has to tell his opponents what to believe in order to make an argument probably has no good argument to make.

This is, in short, why White is no longer taken seriously by any Catholic apologist of my acquaintance. Apart from the personal irritation at seeing good men maligned by White, he would draw no more serious interest than Jack Chick.

UPDATE --

Like many of White's responses to Phil Porvaznik and Gary Michuta, White's response to me simply reinforces his lack of competence in the subject matter.

At least, that's what a Texas attorney who, to my knowledge anyway, has never taught a seminary class, never been published in book form, in a scholarly article, etc., never been chosen to an academic position of any type in the theological realm, and has never, to my knowledge, engaged in a public debate in defense of his position, has concluded.

The fact that White considers teaching a seminary class, being published in book or scholarly article form, being chosen to an academic position, and engaging in public debate as even relevant shows that he doesn't understand what my criticism is. The relevant qualifications would be doing these things in a way that obtains scholarly recognition. It's teaching in accredited schools and doing work that is peer-reviewed by the relevant scholarly community. What scholars have reviewed White's work? What Catholic theologians or patrologists have recognized White's work as a contribution to the state of the scholarship? If it's sauce for the goose, then it's sauce for the gander. Neither of us is a scholar in the area, so both of us should not offer opinions without either doing the work himself or relying on the published work of people who are so recognized.

Yes, the same man who struggled to answer if the Incarnation is a unique event has provided the epitaph to my entire apologetic career!

That's because the Incarnation is not a unique event in terms of being isolated from universal applications. The fact that White considers it either/or (either completely unique or not) says more about White's Christological incompetence than any struggle on my part. This follows into White's motif of asking incompetent questions in cross-examination and then acting as if the answer or lack thereof to his incompetent question has relevance. That is a reflection of White's misunderstanding rather than any real substantive problem.

Of course, I have never wanted to be a force in whatever "anti-Catholic apologetics" is anyway. I'm a Reformed Baptist elder, professor, and apologist, and I'm quite fine staying busy, and active, in that realm.

This would be good if it were true. Unfortunately, this hasn't proved true, because he continues offering opinions in areas that he lacks competence. If he would stick to being a "Reformed Baptist elder, professor, and apologist," rather than opining on Catholic theology and patrology, about which he knows nothing, then everything would be fine. Frankly, if he can't build up his own case without trashing Catholicism, then he doesn't have one.

But while he is big on repeating how much of a dullard I am, I found it ironic that he would make the following statement:

Third, White actually called Athanasius a "true Protestant," following (if I recall correctly) a characterization by one of his students, and so White must surely at least argue that Athanasius must have believed what is essential to being a Protestant. Now, how good a reader is Prejean?

How careful is he? Let's find out. Here is the context from the original article. Note what it is actually saying:

During the course of the decades following Nicea, Athanasius, who had become bishop of Alexandria shortly after the council, was removed from his see five times, once by force of 5,000 soldiers coming in the front door while he escaped out the back! Hosius, now nearly 100 years old, was likewise forced by imperial threats to compromise and give place to Arian ideas. At the end of the sixth decade of the century, it looked as if Nicea would be defeated. Jerome would later describe this moment in history as the time when "the whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian."24 Yet, in the midst of this darkness, a lone voice remained strong. Arguing from Scripture, fearlessly reproaching error, writing from refuge in the desert, along the Nile, or in the crowded suburbs around Alexandria, Athanasius continued the fight. His unwillingness to give place---even when banished by the Emperor, disfellowshipped by the established church, and condemned by local councils and bishops alike---gave rise to the phrase, Athanasius contra mundum: "Athanasius against the world." Convinced that Scripture is "sufficient above all things,"25 Athanasius acted as a true "Protestant" in his day.26 Athanasius protested against the consensus opinion of the established church, and did so because he was compelled by scriptural authority. Athanasius would have understood, on some of those long, lonely days of exile, what Wycliffe meant a thousand years later: "If we had a hundred popes, and if all the friars were cardinals, to the law of the gospel we should bow, more than all this multitude."27 Movements that depend on political favor (rather than God's truth) eventually die, and this was true of Arianism. As soon as it looked as if the Arians had consolidated their hold on the Empire, they turned to internal fighting and quite literally destroyed each other. They had no one like a faithful Athanasius, and it was not long before the tide turned against them. By A.D. 381, the Council of Constantinople could meet and reaffirm, without hesitancy, the Nicene faith, complete with the homoousious clause. The full deity of Christ was affirmed, not because Nicea had said so, but because God had revealed it to be so. Nicea's authority rested upon the solid foundation of Scripture. A century after Nicea, we find the great bishop of Hippo, Augustine, writing to Maximin, an Arian, and saying: "I must not press the authority of Nicea against you, nor you that of Ariminum against me; I do not acknowledge the one, as you do not the other; but let us come to ground that is common to both---the testimony of the Holy Scriptures."28

24Jerome, Adversus Luciferianos, 19, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Series II, 6:329. 25Athanasius, De Synodis, 6, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Series II, 4:453. 26I credit one of my students, Michael Porter, with this phraseology. 27Robert Vaughn, The Life and Opinions of John de Wycliffe (London: Holdworth and Ball, 1831), 313. See 312-17 for a summary of Wycliffe's doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. 28Augustine, To Maximim the Arian, as cited by George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1959), 295

Now, please note what I was actually addressing. I was speaking of a fact that many do not understand today: Nicea had to fight for its teachings. The idea of "ecumenical councils" as understood by Rome today did not exist in that context. Nicea had to fight against Ariminum, Seleucia, and Sirmium. And for a number of years, things did not look good. Athanasius was banned and condemned by the vast majority of the existing church for lengthy periods of time. And it is just here that "Athanasius against the world" comes into view. Is that what Rome teaches its people today? To stand against the entire hierarchy of the established church for years, even decades, all because you are convinced that the Scriptures support you? Anyone with the slightest knowledge of Roman doctrine, practice, and history, knows otherwise.

Actually, anyone with the slightest knowledge of Roman doctrine, practice, and history knows that this is EXACTLY what Rome teaches, and this is EXACTLY what I was pointing out with respect to White. In defense of the rule of faith, you can stand up to the entire hierarchy of the established church for years, even decades, but not merely because you are convinced that the Scriptures support you, but because you are convinced that the Scriptures interpreted according to the rule of faith support you. White is asserting that there is some sort of essential difference between Protestants and Catholics, and that St. Athanasius is on the Protestant side of the divide. Thus, to claim that St. Athanasius is a "true" Protestant, he must have the characteristic White is asserting to be essential. The characteristic White is asserting to be essential to Protestantism is that one follows sola scriptura in resisting authority, but that wasn't what Athanasius did! What he did, as Fr. Barbour pointed out, was that he interpreted the Scriptures according to the rule of faith, which means that he did not consider the Scriptures themselves the rule of faith. This is so well-established historically that no serious scholar would even dream of asserting that Athanasius held the Scriptures themselves to be the rule of faith to the exclusion of the faith of the Church.

But note that aside from ignoring context, Prejean is not even accurate in his representation. The offensive phrase is, "Convinced that Scripture is 'sufficient above all things,' Athanasius acted as a true 'Protestant' in his day. Athanasius protested against the consensus opinion of the established church, and did so because he was compelled by scriptural authority." Notice that I put "Protestant" in quotes. It is an anachronistic term.

Yes, but that "anachronistic term" is being identified with "protest[ing] against the consensus opinion of the established church ... because he was compelled by scriptural authority," and that itself is the claim that is ridiculous, at least if "compelled by scriptural authority" is to be given some meaning that distinguished Protestant from Catholic. If the claim is that Athanasius was, in the face of unanimous Church authority, saying "Here I stand, I can do no other," then THAT CLAIM is ridiculous. That's what White doesn't seem to grasp. The very idea that Athanasius was rebelling against the rule of faith of the Church based on Scripture that White absurdly infers from Athanasius resisting the hierarchy is absurd. Catholics throughout history have rebelled against the hiearchy numerous times, but they have never rebelled against the hierarchy when the hierarchy reflects the formal rule of faith. That was the innovation of Tyndale, Wycliff, and Luther: to say that they could invent their own rule of faith and assert it against the faith of the Church based on Scripture. White may be claiming that the general term "Protestant" is anachronistic, but my point is that it is anachronistic (indeed absurdly so) in exactly the sense that he is saying it truly applies!

I was clearly, in context, referring solely to his insistence upon standing on Scripture even against the condemnations of councils and bishops. Prejean does not even seem to have bothered to read the original article! Or, if he has, he has dishonestly misrepresented it.

On the contrary, I am saying that it is ridiculous to call that very thing Protestant! White is the one who is not reading, because he is so bigoted that he actually thinks that Catholics are just mindless sheep who cannot resist the hierarchy when they err, even though historically, Catholics have done just that. Absent White's distorted and ridiculous view of Catholic intellectual freedom, what Athanasius did looks perfectly Catholic! I am not misrepresenting anything; I am saying that White's assertion "standing on Scripture even against the condemnations of councils and bishops" is Protestant is absolutely ridiculous. Only someone who didn't know the history of Nicaea, the Catholic Church, AND Protestantism would say that. This sounds like the ridiculously anachronistic conspiracy theories of Leonard Verduin, not serious history.

Note he writes, "White actually called Athanasius a 'true Protestant,' following (if I recall correctly) a characterization by one of his students, and so White must surely at least argue that Athanasius must have believed what is essential to being a Protestant." I said Athanasius acted as a true "Protestant" with reference to his refusal to give in to ecclesiastical censure and condemnation. Prejean does not even have a clue what I was actually talking about! But, facts not withstanding, he's certain I'm washed up anyway.

If you think that Catholics can't refuse to give in to ecclesiastical censure and condemnation, then you certainly aren't dealing with reality.

Well, once again, the bankruptcy of this entire spectrum of RC apologists has been seen and documented. Notice again how one side can cite references and provide links to both sides of the conversation, but, one side cannot.

I linked both articles, as did Dave Armstrong, so evidently, lying about the other side is acceptable in White's apologetics.

One side invites the other to call and prove their point, the other banishes people and removes links from web posts. I cannot help but think of the Index Prohibitorum of old, and express my thanks that we live in a day when Rome does not determine who gets to speak and what they get to say.

Apparently, White's side doesn't even have to prove its point. Rather, it can simply resort to bigoted stereotypes as if they reflected the truth of the matter, and that is adequate justification. Unfortunately, I didn't get my bishop's approval for this message, and since White's stereotypes are reality, I guess that means I didn't publish it or that I am now in rebellion! This is what happens when you confuse conspiracy theories with reality. It reminds me of White's completely looney-tune post on the Secret Vatican Archives, as if the guards at the library were trying to hide the truth from the public. It's proof; being indoctrinated in hatred of people's views rots your brain.

P.S., One more thing: EVERYBODY knows that Athanasius contra mundum and the world "groaning to find itself Arian" aren't literally true. White seems to have this bizarre idea that Athanasius was literally the only orthodox bishops and that all other bishops were against him. That was never actually the case; there were always a significant number of bishops (and the majority of the laity to boot) that resisted the authority of the heretical Arian bishops being imposed on them. And as Catholics, they had ever right to do so.

Monday, March 19, 2007

What is not individual is common

William B. of Neochalcedonian reprises a mainstay of the anti-Western argument on the Envoy forum. Coming as this reply does following the plea for charity from Mike Liccione and Brandon Watson regarding this very same topic, I am hoping that it will be taken in a good spirit, despite being a mite critical of one of one of the great Eastern Fathers.

William reproduces an argument from a soon-to-be-ex-Byzantine Catholic (I'm guessing Todd Kaster) that could have come straight from St. Basil the Great:

Spiriation is either a personal attribute (specific to one Person of the Holy Trinity), or an attribute common to all three Persons. If both the Father and the Son spirate the Spirit, then the Spirit must spirate as well, and then there would be endless spirations and endless Persons of the Trinity. You can't say that two Persons spirate, but the third Person doesn't

It's the same argument advanced by St. Basil, and alas, it relies on the same false dichotomy that his did. Ever wonder why St. Athanasius wasn't swayed by St. Basil's plea to condemn Marcellus ("do not despise the hypostases")? I think it's because St. Athanasius knew St. Basil's formulation was inessential, so that it wasn't a good basis for condemning anyone. That's not to say that Athanasius would have followed Marcellus in equating the manifestation of a reality with the reality itself (indeed, it is fair to say that he certainly would not have), but he appeared to have considered Basil's requirements insufficient to justify the condemnation.

So why doesn't it follow from homoousion that whatever is not individual is common? This idea that it does results from the premise that individuals are realizations of natures, which in turn results from the equation of being with form (and non-being with formlessness). Thus, for example, the eidos of an individual is the combination of body and soul, which together form a single logos. There is not composition of existence and essence, but rather, there are commonalities between many logoi (natures) and individuality that distinguishes them. Activity is explained in that each nature (logos) has a characteristic activity (dynamis) that is exercised according to an individual mode of use (tropos, see also divine persons as tropos hyparxeos = "mode of existence"), viz., the possibility of activity is referred to nature while the actuality is referred to person. In general, and particularly with regard to deification, the entire distinction between created and uncreated becomes the One-Many problem writ large: how does the Creator unite all things in Himself so that the existence of multiple things does not disrupt his unity?

St. Maximus deployed various aspects of Neoplatonism in offering a solution of this problem, rebutting the belief that "distinction is opposition" and the notion that distinction inevitably required fragmentation. His Christological and Triadological solutions were applications of this method, and it appears to be that, pace Eric Perl, he did not derive his solution from neo-Chalcedonian Christology. Rather, like his predecessors (including the famous Leontioi), he deployed Neoplatonic concepts in his explanation. See Melchisedec Toronen, Union and Distinction in the Thought of St. Maximus the Confessor.

That more or less suffices for the East, but why was the West different? I think that it starts with having a Stoic (Tertullian) as a magisterial figure in Triadology. The reason I think this is the case is that it introduced room for a tertium quid. Remember that in the Stoic picture, there is an immanent energy (fire, reason, providence, or most aptly, pneuma) that shapes matter, so there is a feeling that everything is the same "stuff" (matter) except as to the extent that it is active in some particular. Essentially, a thing is its doing; what it does constitutes what it is. Tertullian is extremely materialistic in his understanding of this idea; he thinks of the immanent principle as immanent "stuff" (which he calls "spiritus") that is the principle of material activity. If you look at what he says in Against Praxeas 2-3, it becomes pretty clear that he thinks of the Son and the Spirit as having been given this power in their entirety, despite being separate in operation, while lesser spiritual beings (angels) receive this power to a lesser degree, with humans (as material but ensouled) trailing just behind that. Thus, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit differ in degree, form, and aspect (gradus, forma, species), but not in condition, substance or power (status, substantia, potestas). That turns out to be the key point in the Homoian controversy; non-identical activities (viz., different acts of manifestation) can show the same power.

What this has done, although it isn't apparent except by comparison, is that it has introduced conceptual space (a diastema, even) between the individual form and outward (non-exhaustive) activity. The significance of that gap has been grossly underestimated; as far as I can tell, it is cataclysmic. Recall: the Eastern view localizes the difference between essence and activity in the gap between what would in Aristotelian parlance be first substance (individuality) and second substance (essence). That's why it is so crucial to locate the source of personal existence and personal activity in an individual and to separate what is common from what is individual. In the Western view, on the other hand, the only necessary distinction was exhaustive/non-exhaustive. This bears no coincidental resemblance to the relationship between infinity and finitude, with the Trinitarian life being actually infinite and the finite forms of communication being divisible into the truly finite and the potentially infinite (viz. deification; see also Clement of Alexandria on Christ's "magnitude"). The fact that each Person could truly reveal the divine in different ways (and indeed, the divine power entailing the freedom to do so, as Dr. Liccione points out) opened up the possibility that the terminus of an internally exhaustive transfer could manifest itself in the Economy in entirely different ways (which acts of manifestation Marcellus unfortunately confuses with the persons themselves). And the concept of matter/potency as a real delimitation of the composite provides an excellent metaphysical complement to the distinction between the infinite and finite, between exhaustive act (actus purus) and created acts.

The Incarnational question was then to understand how the same subject brought these two modes of action into one reality, which led to two-form Christology (Phil. 2:5-11). The Triadological question was to explain how, in light of the affirmation of the Son and the Spirit (which existence would otherwise be opaque from the activities alone), that the intra-Trinitarian relationships were exhaustive. Augustine came up with his famous "psychological analogy," which oughtn't be taken too literally, as it is only intended to show the conceivability of a relationship that is exhaustive in terms of creating identity. Anselm's argument can quickly be used to demonstrate that, if there is more than one Person, there can be exactly and only three based on the bipolarity of the relations, and Photius's reductio doesn't work on it (the relations are exhaustive, ergo non-separating by the infinite/finite distinction). That distinction was adopted quite comfortably in the West, providing a rather convenient answer to the Homoian Arians as to how different economic activities of the persons did not show different natures and to how begottenness/spiration does not imply subordination. Consequently, it ain't exactly surprising that the author of the Tome to Flavian has no qualms about using the filioque in defending orthodox Triadology. While it's understandable that this might have looked a bit curious even to sympathetic Greeks (like St. Cyril), it seems to me that it is a self-consistent explanation of the data of revelation, even if it departs in some respects from points of Cappadocian theology. To really see the underlying contrast up close and personal, it is useful to compare the difference between St. Augustine and St. Gregory Nazianzen on the subject of schesis or to compare Nicholas of Cusa's view of the Neoplatonic infinite sphere (building on Eckhart's description of God as a sphere whose "center is everywhere and radius is nowhere") with St. Maximus's account, as recounted by Toronen (see above). Cusanus is clearly dealing with the act of existing (as distinct from essence) while St. Maximus is dealing with the one/many problem of logoi.

I don't say this to trash St. Basil or St. Maximus relative to St. Thomas or Cusanus. I confess that I find the Western account makes more intuitive sense to me, because I've been immersed in Western physical science practically from birth, meaning that Aristotelianism is ingrained at this point. But the Western account is vulnerable to misreads at the point of divine causation, so if you're looking for a clear affirmation of libertarian free will (which is necessarily mysterious in the Western account, meaning that you have to punt on how God and humans are free), Maximus is probably better. The Western view is more abstract regarding sin but more concrete regarding the centrality of the Lord's Passion. But the overarching point I would make is that they aren't in conflict, unless they are forced to be.

Brandon Watson gives some sage advice in this regard about the issue at stake in simplicity being wholly different between Thomas and Palamas. There have been enough attempts to try to beat the other side into an incompatible metaphysical framework in order to cast the opponent as a long-despised enemy. This problem is not going to go away until we realize that some ideas aren't portable between the sides but that this is not a good basis for charging the other side with hopeless inconsistency.