“Called To Communion” Proves Our Point For Us

The website Called to Communion, which I have addressed before, is at it again. Apparently, a student from Westminster Escondido has converted to Traditionalist Roman Catholicism. Again, it is the same old, worn out, postmodern arguments that have been refuted again and again.

This time, Dr. James White has gotten involved, and has actually challenged these folks to debate the Bodily Assumption. I doubt that will happen, but, what concerns me is the fact that there are Reformed and Presbyterian ministers who are buying into these arguments. In fact, Dr. White noted that a fairly well known Presbyterian minister and scholar whom he has met with is thinking of converting to Traditionalist Catholicism largely through the influence of the Called to Communion folks.

Now, Dr. White is right; these folks don’t have anything but attacks on Sola Scriptura. Their main argument is, without the “infallible” Roman Catholic magisterium, one is left in relativism. The reason is that scripture cannot be the norm, because there are many different interpretations, and we are fallible. How do we know which interpretation is correct, given that all we will be left with is our fallible decision? What Dr. White pointed out is that you also have to make a decision as to which church is going to be your infallible authority. The problem is, because you are fallible, how do you know which church is the infallible authority? There are many that claim it, and therefore, all you are left with is your own fallible decision as to which church is infallible.

Bryan Cross, who is a philosophy student at St. Louis University, the same school that a philosopher friend of mine from Trinity now goes to, tried to answer it, but only proved our point for us:

I agree with what Andrew said above, and would like to add to it. White’s claim (i.e. that the authority of the Catholic Church can never be greater than one’s fallible decision to submit to the Church) would entail that the authority of God could never be greater than one’s fallible decision to submit to God, which would mean that God’s authority could never be greater than one’s own authority. But that conclusion is obviously false. We choose to submit to God, and yet we are under God’s authority. Therefore it is not true that the authority of the Catholic Church can never be greater than one’s fallible decision to submit to the Church. The external authority which one discovers can be greater than the internal authority by which one judges. That was explained in more detail in “The Tu Quoque.”

The notion that the authority one discovers can never be greater than oneself or greater than one’s own authority is a form of atheism, because it rules out a priori, even if only methodologically, the possibility that a being having greater authority than oneself exists. This is the error of rationalism, i.e. the notion that one’s own reason is the highest authority.

Of course, what Bryan Cross forgets is that it was the CTC folks who brought this argument up in the first place! How ironic that he is now arguing against his own argument that we cannot know what scripture says because of our own fallibility. If we can choose to follow the right church, in spite of our own fallibility, then why can we not choose to follow the correct interpretation in spite of our own fallibility? More to the point of what Bryan has said, if fallibly choosing the right church does not make the authority of the church subject to our own fallibility, why does fallibly choosing the correct meaning of the text make the authority of the meaning of the text subject to our own fallibility? The problem is that Bryan Cross confuses a tu quoque fallacy with a reductio ad absurdum. Dr. White was performing a reductio on Bryan’s argument. What he is saying is, if fallibility means we cannot know which interpretation is correct, and therefore, the ultimate authority is our own fallible interpretations, then, you might as well say that you cannot know which church is correct, because you must fallibly interpret the history of the church to come to that conclusion. As Dr. White said, Rome is not the only game in town.

It is amazing to see a man trained in philosophy making this basic mistake. Every word he said in this post is a word against his own argument. When Bryan Cross says, “That would prove something absurd,” he is admitting the validity of Dr. White’s reductio without even seemingly being aware of it! Yes, these arguments are atheistic. That’s where the “amen”s go up from the Protestant apologists. The problem is Bryan Cross and CTC are willing to use atheistic arguments when it comes to the meaning of scripture, but they refuse to use the same argument when it comes to the Catholic Church, or even, as Bryan Cross has pointed out, to the authority of God himself. Yes, it is the kind of thinking in the arguments of CTC that lead, eventually, to the rationalism of the enlightenment. If there is no objective word from God, and if it is all a matter of your own fallibility, that does lead to rationalistic thought, and eventually, as I have pointed out, it leads to postmodernism. Given that each person is fallible and finite, that must mean that their background and community [such as the Roman Catholic communion] shape what truth is, and thus, there is no objective truth. On such a base, there is no way to prove that the Roman Catholic Church is an ultimate authority rather than a mere local authority. It is all a matter of one’s own interpretation as to which church is right, and thus, it leads to utter relativism.

In fact, history has shown us this very thing. Not only did these very kinds of arguments from Roman Catholics at the time of the Reformation lead to the enlightenment, but such thinking has lead to the utter and complete postmodernism that exists in the Roman Catholic Church today. Most Roman Catholic priests worldwide are universalists, a direct result of the very arguments that CTC uses today. That is why you have people like Raymond Brown and Joseph Fitzmayer who are very liberal, humanistic, and rationalistic in their theology, and yet are still in communion with Rome.

This is why I have said many times that CTC’s argument that you must submit to the authority of Rome or be left in a sea of relativism is totally bunk. Just the opposite is true. History shows that, when you submit to the alleged “ultimate” authority of a limited finite, limited church, it cannot provide the foundation and base for meaning and truth, and ultimately, will reduce down to relativism and liberalism. That is why it concerns me that all of these Presbyterian ministers think they are avoiding postmodernism by converting to Rome. Traditionalist Roman Catholicism is the Benedict Arnold that will hand them over to the very thing they are trying to avoid.