Matching Tracksuits

I’m reading a book D sent me called Letters Between a Catholic and an Evangelical. It’s interesting, but the two guys seem to be talking at each other at times.

Much of it seems to reduce down to a question of whether or not to interpret a passage literally. When Jesus says, “Call no man ‘Father,’” McCarthy, the evangelical, wants to take that at face value (i.e., literally) and Waiss, the priest, offers possible explanations (99). Hyperbole, he says, citing Jesus’ eye-plucking-out comment. Another possible interpretation deals with whom we regard as the source of our faith. But why the Catholic Church doesn’t apply the same rigorous interpretation as it does to John 6 is a notable inconsistency.

This cuts both ways—McCarthy wants to interpret this literally, but not John 6; Waiss wants to interpret this figuratively (even as hyperbole) but not John 6. Literal and figurative—take your pick.

Regarding this broader question of interpretation, Wais argues,

We carry all sorts of historical, cultural baggage that affects our interpretation. Tradition allows us to transcend our particular cultural and historical situation to understand God’s Word in the context in which it was written and first interpreted (65).

Fine and good. But Catholic, capital “T” Tradition doesn’t stop in the first century when the apostles and disciples lived. So he’s right when he says that trust in Tradition is a question of faith. He argues it’s a question of faith in the Holy Spirit; I think McCarthy more correctly argues it’s a faith in fellow man.

Earlier, McCarthy states that the burden of proof is on Waiss:

Now, in a court of law, the burden of proof lies with the one who asserts a particular point, not the one who denies it. It appears, then, that it is you who must prove the claim for Tradition, rather than I who mush show that Scripture is the sole rule of faith, as you have insisted in your letters (44).

Is McCarthy blind here?! Doesn’t he realize that he’s “assert[ing] a particular position?!” Further, given the fact that the Catholic Church existed long before the Protestant movement, it seems that the burden of proof lies on the Protestant side.

Discussing the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, McCarthy makes a terrible logical blunder, which Waiss makes little use of: the argument from silence. McCarthy says that because “Pope” doesn’t appear in the Bible, it’s not Christian. Three words: Trinity, Christmas, and Easter.

Concerning Tradition, McCarthy writes,

What then prevents the gradual introduction of new doctrines? Could not a pious comment by a Pope in one century—say about Mary of the power of the papacy—spread and become widely known in the next century, a generally held belief in the third, and a dogma in the fourth or fifth? With no written record of what is contained in Tradition, who’s to say what’s in and what’s not (69)?

He goes on to point out that this is exactly what happened with the Catholic doctrines of the Immaculate Conception (proclaimed by Pius IV in 1859) and the Assumption of Mary (Pius XII, 1950). He ends this asking, “Today an international campaign is being waged to petition the Pope to proclaim as dogma that Mary is the Co-Redeemer of the human race. Whether it is successful or not, I still must ask: What’s next” (69)?

There seem to be indeed no check on the Pope in that regard. Of course, Popes have only formally invoked Papal Infallibility a couple of times (or maybe even once) to date. But what’s to stop them from making, say, Paul a Co-Redeemer? Or Peter?

Protestants like to quote 2 Timothy 3.15-17 as proof of sola scriptura, and McCarthy doesn’t let us down:

and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

Something I never realized until now, though, concerns the question of what these “scared writings” might be. Why, none other than the Old Testament. The New Testament didn’t exist yet, obviously enough. So sola scriptura should be more like one of the early heresies: sola Old Testament.