The Sola Scriptura and the Infallible Authority of the Church -Bro. Carlos Antonio Palad's Response to Rodimus of The Bereans

The Divine Master teaching in the Synagogue

THE LETTER OF THE PROTESTANT PASTOR RODIMUS IS GIVEN IN BLACK WHILE THE RESPONSE OF CATHOLIC APOLOGIST CARLOS ANTONIO PALAD IS IN RED:

Hi Henry!

Please accept my sincere apologies for not replying to your email immediately. I have been busy with work lately that I am barely moderating our forums and checking my emails. I only read yours yesterday.

As to your question, I have seen it a million times. It is one of the many questions Catholic apologists ask to the advocates of sola scriptura. The Bible does not have a table of contents, so how would we know which NT book is inspired? How could sola scriptura account for the books in the Bible?

Permit me to say something before giving my answer. Unpleasant it may seem, you'll be trapped in a circular reasoning if the question was returned to you. I have no doubt that your position is: Without an infallible church, no one would know for certain what the Scripture is. Deny it or not, this is where you're going. Let me discuss this first.

There is no denying this, for this is doubtless the Catholic position: without an infallible Church, there is no saying what Scripture is. However, since you claim that this is somehow circular, the burden of proof is upon you to show why it is circular. Do you understand what circular means? I will return to this later.

I could note two problems with that position and I suggest that you ponder it for a while:

1. How do you know that your church is indeed the true church? There are so many churches today claiming to be of God's. Many churches claim to be biblical and historical. You can cite your basis, but remember they too have their basis. You want to quote history? The Eastern Orthodox is one of your rivals.

Frankly, this objection does not make sense. So what if there is a rival to the Catholic claim that it is the true Church, on the basis of history? Is the mere fact that a rivalry exists, incontrovertible proof that there is no way to resolve the rivalry? If I will take your line of reasoning, then all “choose the correct answer” questions can never be resolved, for the simple reason that different choices exist. Of course, in such questions, the correct answer is discerned from among the different choices by means of evaluating which choice makes more sense!

If two Churches claim to be the true Church on the basis of history, then let history itself be the criterion, and let historians measure which of these two Churches has the greater evidence and testimony of history on its side. (Hint: the Church Fathers make numerous references to the primacy of Rome.)

For that matter, your own argument leaves you with no recourse against us. You say that the multitude of churches claiming to be true, makes our claim to be the true Church incapable of being resolved. In that case, what makes you capable of telling us that we are wrong?

You want to quote the Bible? The cults are your rivals.

Are you saying that we can no longer discern who is quoting the Bible the right or wrong way? Just because many people quote the Bible does not mean that there is no way of distinguishing from among them who is right or wrong in quoting Scripture. The devil quoted Scripture and Christ refuted him nevertheless. In the same way, the true Church can refute the cavils of the cults and the objections of the Protestants.

You want to give a standard for determining which church is true? You have to make the other churches accept your standard.

Naturally. That is the point of apologetics. And it is the very nature of truth that mutually contradictory claims cannot all be true.

Bottomline: you can't simply say you are true and they are not.

Said like a true relativist! Is everything a matter of mere opinion? If you believe that there are standards of right and wrong, then it IS possible to say what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is not, on the basis of the evidence.

The Divine Master Ordains and Gave Authority to His Aposltes

3. How did the Jews who were born 50 years before Christ know that Isaiah is inspired? Remember, there was no Catholic church 50 years before Christ.

The Church is the heir of Israel, which had the benefit of the Chair of Moses even before Christ came. The teachers of Israel who sat on this Chair – to whom Christ Himself told us to listen – were one in accepting that Isaiah was a prophet. However, Christ gave the keys to Peter and the power to bind and loose to all the apostles, thus granting to the nascent Church – not to the Temple priesthood that was about to be scattered to the four winds by Roman might, and not to the Synagogue -- the continuation of the teaching office.

In any case, the Church does not accept the inspiration of the OT books simply because the Jews said – and say -- so, but because the Church has confirmed which of the OT books are indeed inspired, and which ones are not. Thus the differences between the current Jewish canon from the Catholic canon.

Therefore, there is no infallible magisterium to tell those Jews, who were born 50 years before Christ, that the book of Isaiah is inspired.

They did, at that time, have a “magisterium” – the Chair of Moses. Today, the Chair of Peter has taken its place. You may not believe it, but the fact that you do not believe it does not prove it to be self-contradictory or wrong.

By the way, the council of Jamnia was not formed 50 years before Christ.

And, pray tell me, who said that? Of course it wasn’t formed before Christ, because it came decades after Christ had ascended to heaven.

Also, don't say that the OT doesn't concern you because you're not Jewish because the OT Books came from God.

We venerate the ancient OT as Scripture, so much so that we have not dared cut seven books and a few chapters from it, unlike a certain group of Christians. Whence comes this ridiculous assertion that we Catholics think that the OT doesn’t concern us? This assertion (and the rest of your assertions!) only make me think that you do not really understand – nor have you tried to understand – what we Catholics are really saying. Unfortunately, we have come to expect this.

That being said, basing your beliefs in a supposedly infallible church, to determine the inspiration of the NT, has these problems.

You did not even show where the circularity lies. I must seriously ask you: do you know what a circular argument looks like? Here’s one.

If we Catholics argue to the effect that “the Catholic Church is the true Church because the Bible shows us to be the true Church, and there is a Bible because the Church said so” then you can rightly accuse us of circularity. But we do not argue this way, and indeed your enumeration of our arguments do not even touch this.

We base our belief in the truth of the Catholic Church not primarily upon Scripture – for Scripture itself needs to stand upon the truth of the Church – but upon history. First and foremost, Catholic apologetics makes the point that Jesus Christ indeed existed. Then, it shows that He indeed arose from the dead, on the basis of the empty tomb and the testimony of historians and the weight of auxiliary testimony and reasoning. On the point that Christ resurrected from the dead, we argue for His divinity. On the multitude of historical evidence, we show that this divine Christ who was resurrected did indeed found a Church. Having shown that the Church was founded by Christ, we then show that this Christ and His Church are indeed the ones witnessed to by Scripture, and that this Scripture is the heart of the Tradition of the Church.

Newman said that to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. Take note that he did not say that to be deep in Scripture is to cease to be Protestant, for to say that Scripture proves the truth of the Catholic Church for us would be simply wrong. Scripture confirms what the Church teaches and witnesses to what the Church says; it is the heart of the Tradition of the Church, but not its source. The source of the Tradition is Christ Himself. In the final analysis, the Resurrected Christ is the greatest proof for the true Church.

And now for your question. I will start by giving an illustration. Let's use the famous softdrink, Coca Cola. The factory will not give you a list of the softdrinks they made since they began operations so that you can verify if the Coke you bought is real. But if you have been drinking Coke for years, you would recognize it's taste. All you have to do is drink.

Softdrinks can be faked easily, and in any case, taste buds are fallible. In the final analysis, it is not enough to have good tastebuds; it is necessary that we define what is Coke and what is not on the basis of a standard recipe, regardless of what amateurish tasters think. Do you think that the manufacturers of Coke simply depend on their taste buds?

The Scriptures share a very improtant characteristic: they all were God-breathed (2nd Timothy 3:16). They were not made by men. They were never declared by men to be inspired. God did. God never threw a table of contents, He left a quality in the Scriptures so that His people (both Jews in the OT and Christians in the NT) can recognize His voice.

If only it were that easy! The fact remains that Christians fought over which books were God-breathed and which ones were not; which books resounded with His voice, and which ones did not. This took place over hundreds of years. In the end, the Church had to step in: hence the Councils of Hippo and Carthage, the Letter of Pope Innocent I to Exsuperius, the Festal Letter of St. Athanasius. These are concrete historical facts that you cannot deny. If it was so easy to discern which books had God’s voice, then why were there protracted discussions, why was there need for Councils on both Jewish and Christian sides to discern what books are inspired and what are not?

Your argument is but a variant of the “if-I-read-it- I’ll-know- it’s-God’s- word” argument. It is scarcely convincing, for the Mormons use the same for the Book of Mormon and the Muslims use the same when singing the Koran’s praises. Again and again, you fall into subjectivitism.

In any case, according to your own argument, the early Christians were able to recognize the voice of God. Where these Christians – the Church Fathers – Born Again Christians or Evangelicals? Please answer.

The See of Rome, The See of Peter

The early church (leaders and member alike) never needed a table of contents, they looked for the very important characteristic, theopneustos.

Hehehe. Didn’t you just say that the sacred books were “never declared by men to be inspired.” Now, you contradict yourself.

Precisely as you say, the Church decided which books had theopneustos! But they did it according to the hierarchical principle, not according to democratic means: hence the Councils.

Of course, the early church did her part to teach the generations about the Scriptures and thus, the table of contents.

Ouch. Self-contradiction alert!

But even if there is no table of contents, the characteristic remain.

So why did the early Church bother to come up with a table of contents, if there is no need for it anyway?

And for that matter, if you recognize that the early Church did indeed come up with the table of contents for Scripture, then why do you – as a Protestant – deny that table of contents, by choosing to follow a version of the Old Testament foreign to the one accepted by the early Church?

In my illustration, even if the Coke factory will not give me certification of authenticity, I can recognize it is Coke if I taste it.

I’d like to see you try.

The Jews who were born 50 years before Christ has recognized God's voice and knew for certain that the book of Isaiah is of God's.

Because, at that time, the Jews had the privilege of being the bearers of the Word.

"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." John 10:27

Best regards.

Gerald

Codex Vaticanus