“Scripture not only requires interpretation…So he can only conform himself to his own fallible interpretation or the fallible interpretation of leaders whose judgment he is willing, for whatever reason, to concede is superior to his own”

As Kevin pointed out, the teachings of the Magisterium itself require interpretation as to their meaning, their obligatory force, which are irreformable (indeed even what exact sentences/concepts/phrases within documents/statements are irreformable), etc. It is not some simple binary system (as contests between RC theologians, not just laymen, give witness). As Dulles writes in his recent book on the Magisterium, “Except for the definition of the Immaculate Conception, there is little clarity about which papal statements prior to Vatican I are irreformable. Most authors would agree on about half a dozen statements.” The catholic also conforms himself to his own fallible interpretation, or to his own fallible interpretation of theologians or academics (like Mike L) who he thinks makes a good case. For more on Dulles’ book from a Protestant perspective, Steve Hays from Triablogue makes some interesting points – http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/08/magisterial-cat-and-mouse-game.html

I’m not sure about the “de facto” infallibility. It may work as a Protestant consideration, but it would require more limits. Otherwise, apostolic succession (among other things) would be a requisite of the Church for Protestants, given its overwhelmingly broad acceptance by East and West for centuries. Thus, the limits on “de facto” infallibility would have to be something like “only when the Church is seeking scripture alone.” Of course, Catholics will (rightly) come back and say, “That just begs the question.”

What do you think of this passage from Calvin on 1 John 4:1?

But here a difficult question arises: If every one has the right and the liberty to judge, nothing can be settled as certain, but on the contrary the whole of religion will be uncertain. To this I answer, that there is a twofold trial of doctrine, private and public. The private trial is that by which every one settles his own faith, when he wholly acquiesces in that doctrine which he knows has come from God; for consciences will never find a safe and tranquil port otherwise than in God. Public trial refers to the common consent and polity of the Church; for as there is danger lest fanatics should rise up, who may presumptuously boast that they are endued with the Spirit of God, it is a necessary remedy, that the faithful meet together and seek a way by which they may agree in a holy and godly manner. But as the old proverb is too true, “So many heads, so many opinions,” it is doubtless a singular work of God, when he subdues our perverseness and makes us to think the same thing, and to agree in a holy unity of faith.

Previously I have thought about a potential distinction between de jure and de facto infallibility. Calvin’s approach positively (recognizing substantial agreement and consensus as the token of the work of the Holy Spirit) and the promise of indefectibility negatively have seemed to me possibly to suggest that although no organ of the church is de jure infallible in its pronouncements, in practice core parts of what the church has professed traditionally have enjoyed such universal acceptance and approval over the centuries that it is simply inconceivable that they could be in error, and thus are de facto infallible. That is, even though in principle everything may be reformable, in practice some things are so rooted in the church’s historical experience as to be, one might say, asymptotically irreformable. The main example I would give is belief in the Trinity, but more concretely I could see the Nicene Creed having a status like this, and perhaps also the canon (though the filioque would remain debatable, as would the question of the deuterocanonical books). If a position like this is viable (and it certainly isn’t as tidy as the RC position) it would affirm the limited form of tradition ( T1) in such a way as to make clear that not everything is up for grabs.

This distinction of de jure from de facto has also led me to think of the differences between civil law (historically Roman) and common law (historically English) systems. The analogy can get strained, but what I have in mind is that for a very long time in the Western tradition the thinking was that laws are discovered, not made. FA Hayek notably argued that the common law tradition excelled the civil law in fidelity to this principle. Common law allows for an evolution that constantly takes precedent into consideration but is not absolutely bound by precedent. For in theory all precedents are themselves only a reflection of the ideal of law that is external to man and to be uncovered by him through the rational faculties. If men reasoned incorrectly in the past, then the precedents they produced are diminished in cogency. But that in theory any precedent can be reconsidered does not make this so in practice. In practice certain precedents are so well established, so widely recognized, that it would be inconceivable for them to be wrong, i.e. to fail to correspond to the truth. The precedents condemning premeditated murder have a status that many precedents involving, say, the details of intellectual property do not. If we go a step further, even when the legal tradition with its precedents becomes summarized by a code of legal guidelines, the result is still in an important sense a kind of subordinate standard, something that is authoritative not so much in itself but rather is authoritative because it represents what is recognizable as belonging to the ideal of justice. And even if the state for expediency by statute should mandate its formal guidelines as all equally binding, still in principle some of the guidelines may be more authoritative than others. I wonder whether this might be applicable to the questions of tradition and church authority in a way like what I suggested above?

Sorry for the length of these musings…

John

As for Newman, if you read, “Faith and Private Judgment,” in his Mixed Congregations sermons, you’ll see that he rejects that Protestants can have any certitude — only opinion/doubt — about any article of faith. His argument is, basically, that if you accept the apostles as authoritative, they are authoritative for all time through their successors because it has to be a living authority. Only a living authority can subject one’s conscience and not be left in a mess of contradicting opinions and uncertainties. This is largely what you are saying as well. Scripture requires interpretation. True. So do the dogmas of the Catholic Church, as you very well know (e.g., extra ecclesiam nulla salus, or what the heck “transubstantiation” means). I guess I just don’t find this (argument from interpretation) very convincing. I think the fundamentals of the Christian faith are easily determined from scripture, that is, if they are interpreted according to the dogmatic necessities of our Redemption through an Atonement by an Incarnate Son. To those who have received the Gospel in a New Creation, scripture is unveiled to them. It is not such a large leap from a Billy Graham Crusade to Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. I learned exegesis from Professor James Tabor (author, The Jesus Dynasty) at the University of N. Carolina at Charlotte. It doesn’t get much more liberal than Dr. Tabor. I know my Strauss, Harnack, and Bultmann as well. Once one recognizes the anti-evangelical presuppositions that produce their variant renderings, he or she will actually gain a greater trust in scripture, and appreciation for its role as norm for the Church.

http://postedat.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/dispensationalists-it-seems-to-compensate-for-their-often-rejections/

Newman fully acknowledges the role of private judgment in deciding whether or not to be Catholic. His point is that, once one decides to be Catholic, one decides to submit one’s judgment to the Church’s, if the matter is one of faith or morals and the Church has taught thereon with her full authority; for the Church is seen as infallible under such conditions. That doesn’t mean all scope for theological opinion-making and private judgment is closed off; it means that one’s own judgment must and does give way if and when it conflicts with the Church’s definitive judgment. Newman walked that talk in the way he dealt with Vatican I.

According to him, though, the Protestant cannot do the same just by substituting “Scripture” for the Church. Scripture not only requires interpretation; the Protestant as such acknowledges no interpretive authority as infallible under any conditions. So he can only conform himself to his own fallible interpretation or the fallible interpretation of leaders whose judgment he is willing, for whatever reason, to concede is superior to his own. Thus even when his or their interpretation is true, so that he thereby holds what is truly of faith, he holds it only as opinion and thus not by faith. That argument is not original with Newman: Thomas Aquinas made essentially the same argument in answer to the question “Do those heretics who err in one article, have faith in others?” (ST IIA Q5 A3).

The pivot of all this is, of course, the question of the “interpretation” of the deposit of faith. According to Newman, that takes place in part through “development of doctrine” in and by the Church. I sense a bit of sleight-of-hand in your assertion that Forsyth “does recognize a tradition to which and of which the NT is the authoritative interpretation.” All you’re really saying is that, for him, tradition is that which is handed on, namely the revelation in Jesus Christ. It is not in dispute that the NT is an authoritative interpretation of “tradition” in that sense, which I shall call ‘T1′; what’s in dispute is whether tradition in the sense in which Vatican II uses the term, namely the handing-on of T1 to the post-apostolic Church, is something wider than Scripture, yet equally as authoritative. I shall call tradition in that sense ‘T2′. The question at issue can now be framed as that of whether there is a T2 which hands on T1 but does not consist solely in Scripture.

It is quite consistent with answering that question in the affirmative to say that Scripture is the most authoritative written record of both T1 and T2, such that once the canon is formed, it constitutes a norma normans for both T2 and the Magisterium. But it is not consistent with such an answer to say that Scripture, or at least the NT, is the sole authoritative record of T1. So which answer is better?

Let me start by observing that it is not because I’m Catholic that I came to hold that there is such a thing as T2. Rather, in college when all these questions were open for me, admitting T2 in addition to Scripture, as means of handing on T1, seemed to me to cohere far better with what actually happened in the post-apostolic and patristic Church than admitting only Scripture as such a means. This is why I was puzzled at first by your remark about the lack of any “epistemic superiority” on the part of one position over the other. It is now clear you did not mean that neither position enables one to learn more of the truth than the other. One could reasonably venture to say such a thing only from a prior epistemic standpoint on which T1 can be known well enough to judge which take on T2 is epistemically superior—i.e. from a prior standpoint epistemically superior, or thought to be epistemically superior, to either the Catholic or Protestant one. That’s not your style. So I think it more likely you mean that neither side can convince the other on the basis of premises both would accept. As you know, that is a phenomenon very familiar to me from the Catholic-Orthodox debates in which I have participated. So I’m prepared to grant that we might also be dealing with the same sort of paradigm-incommensurability between Protestants such as Forsyth and Catholics. But I would still point out that nothing follows about which paradigm enables one to know more of the relevant truth. All that follows is that, whichever paradigm enables one to know more of the truth, people in the grip of the opposite paradigm won’t be prepared to see that truth.

But before we confront that kind of problem, it’s important to get clear about precisely what the alternatives are. I have a very hard time doing that when dealing with Protestants. As I survey the vast array of Protestant denominations and theologies—who seem able to agree only in rejecting the Catholic Church’s claim to infallibility—I find many brands and flavors of sola scriptura. Hardly any stick consistently to the sola, for reasons I can understand but which are rarely admitted. So I’d rather limit myself to the task of ensuring that the position I myself defend is not unduly distorted.

Thus I am obliged to reject as question-begging your claim that by positing the “Tradition” as a continuing unveiling phenomenon, instead of closed and limited by Christ’s unique 1st century work of atonement, the Church becomes the ultimate authority, able to bind doctrine not taught by the Apostles, though it is claimed to be implicitly taught. That’s just a relatively radical version of the claim, which I have repeatedly confronted and rebutted in my debates with the Orthodox, that so-called “devleopment of doctrine” is actually an illicit attempt to add to the deposit of faith, or at least to deny that public revelation closed with the death of the last apostle. But the Catholic Church agrees that divine revelation in the primary sense, i.e. that of T1, closed with the death of the last apostle. She does not claim to add to the deposit of faith but only to make more explicit what’s already given. She doesn’t even claim to “posit” T2. She claims it’s already given too and that she’s only being guided by it. If those claims are true, then the Magisterium is not “the ultimate authority.” As Vatican II indicates, the Word of God is; the Magisterium is only the servant thereof, resolving for the rest of the Church interpretive issues that would otherwise remain in dispute. Accordingly, your characterization of the Catholic position is only true if her actual teaching about her authority is false. That’s why I’ve rejected your characterization as question-begging.

Best,
Mike