A Logical Appeal to Authority

In my daily musings, I often come up with brilliant ideas or thoughts or proofs for this or that with which I am generally quite pleased. However, upon further scrutiny, I often find that my "aha!" is loaded with problems, assertions that bear no weight, and fall apart after logical analysis. However, over the past few months, I've been having on-again, off-again discussions with two non-denominational Christians at work concerning this or that. They believe in Sola Scriptura sans Sacred Tradition, I believe in Sola Scriptura cum Tradition. They are non-denominational (actually, their rather large congregation is called Xenos and has a single recognized leader in the person of Dennis McCallum), I am Roman Catholic. The primary issue we have in regards to the truth we see in each others' religious tradition is over the interpretation of scripture. At the core of this difference in interpretation is the question of authority. I will now attempt to address this question.

My method will actually follow Mr. McCallum. I have recently read (most of) his book: "Satan and his Kingdom", and must say that apart from being a terrible writer, Mr. McCallum makes a lot of logical fallacies in his writing. I no longer possess a copy of this book, and so will be paraphrasing a bit. I will dutifully quote wherever I paraphrase, and will come back to this when I get my hands on another copy to edit in page numbers and properly cite his quotations. The reason I say I will be following Mr. McCallum's method is because his approach is in the old philosophical tradition of a strict appeal to reason and logic. He uses scant few outside resources, instead establishing his premise and building a logical argument upon it. I will be doing the same.

First, we must establish the core differences in this approach. The Catholic Church has, for 2,000 years (give or take ~30) held strong to the fact that when Christ said to Peter, "I name you Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it," that Christ was indeed establishing his one, holy, and apostolic Church upon Peter. To borrow a term used in the hermeneutics of Mr. McCallum's disciples, when this is harmonized with other passages such as "Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" we get a pretty decent understanding of the Church's beliefs concerning authority and where it comes from. Hint: we call it Apostolic Succession. As part of this authority, we look to the Church Fathers for their insight into what scripture means. Oft times, even non-denominational Christians will quote the Church Fathers. It is unfortunate because it denies their own position on Sola Scriptura, but facts are facts and there's nothing we can do about it.

Protestants base their theology upon the inventions of Martin Luther. When he read the Bible as a professor, his overly-zealous scrupulosity led him to take the fact that God's grace is freely given to mean that no intercession or authority outside of said grace was necessary. I will suffice it to say that this violates the story of Phillip the Ethiopian when he says "How will I know [what I am reading] unless someone explains it to me?" However, this one simple assertion amongst ninety-four others that make up the famous Theses has caused no end of trouble for the non-denominational attempting to convert Catholics and the Catholic attempting to convert non-denominational Christians or Protestants of any sort. Built upon this assertion is the addition of "Once Saved, Always Saved," an assertion that also led to the rejection of the real presence in the Eucharist (a topic for another day). However, it is the interpretation of sacred scripture outside of any other authority (personal interpretation) and the "sinning saved sinner" that leads to many of the misunderstandings between Catholics and non-liturgical Christians. A Protestant will assert that a saved person will have the guidance of the Holy Spirit to properly understand scripture, whereas Catholics will assert that any person will have the guidance, but why rely on intuition when Christ's Paraclete has already given us the true interpretation? Both sides have merit, and it is my intention to show that the latter has greater merit and therefore falls under the reasonable qualification that it must be preferable to the former.

We will begin by paraphrasing Mr. McCallum in his less-than-stellar work "Satan and His Kingdom." In it, when he is discussing scripture as authoritative in and of itself, he states that "having introduced an outside authority, one will always inevitably put that authority before the scripture" (sic). This assertion, one that I can't even categorize in my lengthy list of Latin arguments (such as Post hoc ad propter hoc, Argumentum ad hominem, etc. Fun to say, not advisable to use in debate), has two major problems. One, it asserts that all authority, not just any specifically biblical authority, is authoritative unto itself (ignoring concepts such as the Social Contract and democratic institutions in general). Secondly, it is self-defeating in that Mr. McCallum is a specific extra-biblical authority [i]commenting authoritatively on scripture.[/i] What he has just asserted is that his own authority is suspect by the very fact that it is authoritative. The problem, however, in the grander scheme of things, is that many Protestants and non-denominational Christians will read this and think that this assertion is sound. And, indeed, embedded in the rest of that section from which the quote was taken, it sounds reasonable. But having picked apart this assertion against extra-biblical authority, it is clear that even without biblical verses to disprove it, the assertion is without merit whatsoever.

One of the major issues with Sola Scriptura is that anybody who is evangelizing a Catholic or Orthodox Christian will inevitably ask "how is that biblical?" in response to such things as confession, the real presence, Marian devotion, etc. etc. It is primarily because Catholic and Orthodox teaching does not rest solely on scripture (though everything has a scriptural basis) that this question usually stumps the average lay person when dealing with these assertions. However, it is usually a good idea at some point to simply turn the debate around and ask a very simple but impossible to answer question:

"How is Sola Scriptura biblical?"

The response I get most often is in reference to 2 Timothy 3:16. I will link to the CARM website now, since that is where Xenos admittedly gets a lot of their apologetics, but I will be quoting the conclusion to show the major flaw in utilizing this passage. CARM explanation of 2 Timothy 3:16

Their conclusion states "God has given you the inspired Bible so that you will be able to accurately know that which is good, true, and holy. So that you might know the mind and will of God. So that you might teach, Correct, Rebuke, and Train in Righteousness...and this so that your work might be good in the sight of God." 

*cough* First of all, the Catholic Church compiled the Bible under the authority granted to them by Christ via Peter to know what is and is not inspired. Not wanting to sound polemical, I won't dwell on that little historical fact and instead point to a severely crippled assertion contained within their conclusion.

Timothy is an epistle. It is an explanation of the Gospel. It was written when the only "Bible" that was around was the Torah, what would eventually become the Christian Old Testament. When Timothy was written, the word "scripture" would have applied to this body of work alone. Not even the Gospels would have been considered inspired, as they would have been only reflections and recollections of what had transpired during Christ's time on earth. It's similar to writing a memoir, explaining that memoir to someone in the context of the Bible, referring to the Bible as it is today as inspired, and three hundred years from now discovering your memoir being added to the Biblical canon. An impossible scenario, I know, but it's the same thing that happened with the Gospels. When Timothy was written, the word "scripture" applied ONLY to what would become the Old Testament. Nothing else. To utilize this passage to claim that the entire Biblical canon is inspired, something that even Protestants didn't adhere to when they revised the Bible by removing many of the Old Testament books, is fallacious beyond reason. It not only ignores the fact that God inspired the Bible and then the Church compiled it, it ignores historical and cultural context of the time in which the very verse they're misinterpreting was written. Ignoring this context is the first step to misinterpreting scripture. For this reason, the assertion that Catholics were told "not to read the bible" has some basis in truth. The reality is that Catholics were told not to read it on their own for the very reason that the average person does not readily know the historical and cultural context of the various books of the bible. In short, the Church did not want the laity doing what the Protestants had been doing since the 1500's. 

And so we come to the Church Fathers. Who were they? What did they write? Some of the most famous and well-celebrated Fathers include St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Origen, St. Athanasius, and others. They were theologians, monks, scholars, converts, priests, Bishops, abbots, and simple laity that read the scripture, reflected upon it, wrote their sermons and their musings, and through the grace of God, communicated to the people what the scripture said. For a society in which the majority of people were illiterate, and did not speak many of the languages in which scripture was written, it would be important for these men to transmit the writings of the Apostles into languages everyone would know, as well as be able to adequately explain them. The difference between the Church Fathers and later post-reformation theologians is that when they were silenced (as in the case of St. Origen) for writing something heretical, they submitted to Church Authority instead of branching off and forming their own church. The importance of the Church Fathers is less in their willingness to submit and more in their proximity to the times, customs, and languages of Christ.

These men were not simply smart. They were bloody brilliant. They were schooled in Plato and Aristotle. They would have read Tacitus and Seutonius. They more than likely also studied Ptolemaic astronomy, Egyptian medicine, and read Cicero to learn the art of rhetoric. In short, these men were Renaissance men a thousand years before the Renaissance. They had an amazing grasp on logic and reason and knew how to debate. They knew how to present their arguments, expand upon them, and assert foolproof conclusions. For those that didn't have the formal schooling illustrated above, they were absolute geniuses. Most importantly, they lived in cultures that reflected the cultures present at the time of Christ. Their knowledge of the scriptural language was more than academic, it was a working knowledge. They, better than any historian or theologian today, could elucidate the masses as to the meaning of a Greek turn of phrase or an Aramaic anachronism. The same can not be said for anyone today, whether they be a Catholic monk, an Orthodox Metropolitan, a Protestant pastor, or an atheistic expert in anthropology and classical archeology. There is a reason the Church Fathers constitute an exclusive club whose roster has not grown. These men asserted not only that the institution of the Church was important, but that it was divinely commanded. So great was their devotion to the Church as founded by Christ that they submitted themselves to it wholly without knowing that the Church would one day raise them upon a pedestal of authoritative respect. In short, without the Church Fathers, the gates of hell would have prevailed against the Church and Christ would not have been Christ.

The final assertion I will make is rather more polemic than the rest of this post. It is also rhetorical, as I have read every explanation and answer there is and none of them satisfy the question. I will reference Mr. McCallum again, a final time, when he says that "Hell is under siege, and the gates of Hell will not win." The scripture referenced here was written two thousand years before Mr. McCallum was even born, yet he sees his non-denominational approach as the [i]right[/i] approach and the only approach containing the fullness of truth. Yet Xenos did not start until Mr. McCallum created it. In all the discussions I've had with the members of Xenos, they expect crisp and clear interpretations of biblical passages. My final assertion is this: if the fullness of truth has been lacking for two thousand years, did Christ lie, forgetting to say that the gates of Hell will not prevail while the Apostles are still alive, then prevail, then fall back under siege two thousand years later? Or did he fully and completely tell the truth in stating that "Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it"? There is nothing clearer than that there was one Church instituted by Christ, and that Church was granted the authority to properly interpret and pass on scripture and tradition, and that this Church is the one Church that has been in existence for two thousand years constantly besieging the gates of Hell. Unfortunately there was a schism, but I would rather the authority of my interpretation to come from a Church that was invested with the very authority to interpret scripture than to rely on a self-proclaimed authority that has rejected a divinely appointed mandate.

Update

I seem to have accidentally started following my own blog when trying to follow someone else's. Whatever. No costumers have so far complained.

The Assumption is Coming!

My I seem to have abandoned the blog for a while. I promise, it will likely happen again. But I'll try not to abandon you, my loyal two. Heh. I made a rhyme. Anyhoo....

Next Sunday is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Hooray! 

The Assumption is that quintessential mystery of Mary, herself. It confirms all the other Marian dogmas. The Immaculate Conception--Catholics believe it dogmatically, the Eastern Churches do not, and many Protestant Churches deny it outright. The Annunciation--an angel can announce anything. This particularly does not make Mary who she is. But the Assumption confirms the Immaculate Conception and it confirms the singular importance of the Annunciation, for in her bodily assumption to heaven, she became the only person in the New Testament of human origin to show that sanctification is possible. Because she was born without the stain of original sin, Purgatory was not even a stopping point for her. Her Assumption not only causes a theological problem for those who deny the Immaculate Conception, it reaffirms it. Just as Christ's resurrection made him the Messiah, for without it, all the miracles he performed would have been parlor tricks, Mary's Assumption confirmed the rest of her life and her importance within the Church.

I like to reflect on this reality when praying the rosary. Especially when I come to those words: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners" or, as I ACTUALLY do (in Latin!): "Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus." She is not as the Saints in that they are spiritually fulfilled. Mary stands, body and soul, understanding human nature more than any other saint, and the potential of our good and the potential of our love for God. When we ask her to pray for us, she has God's ear all to her own. She can draw us to her bosom when we reach out in despair, and all this is possible because of her Assumption.

There's a reason this holy day is my favorite, and the one I would not miss for the world.

Our Lady of Lourdes

Our Lady of Lourdes. White on white with a blue sash and all the pretty scenery you can imagine. This is truly a photographer's wet dream. And she's looking dreamily off into the distance, which makes her perfect for modeling some sort of skin cream.

St. Bernadette Soubirous began seeing the vision of Our Lady in a cave just outside the town of Lourdes when she was fourteen. She was beaten for claiming to have seen the apparition, and continued to go to the grotto. She dug up a spring, drank the water, and became disheveled, but soon the water was being reported as miraculous when given to medical patients. On March 25, 1858, Bernadette was told "I am the Immaculate Conception." In 1860 the local Bishop finally approved the apparition. It is now one of the most frequented Marian shrines in the world.

Fabulous Marian Wardrobe Week Continues!

The Fabulous Marian Wardrobe Week continues with Our Lady of the Rosary. Pretty, no?

Our Lady of the Rosary has a kind of haphazard origination. In the sixteenth century at the battle of Lepanto, the Holy League held back Muslim forces. This victory was attributed to the Virgin Mary as that very day a rosary procession had been offered in St. Mark's Square in Rome in her honor. There's no real standard in her depiction, except that most modern depictions have her dressed in all white with, of course, a rosary, and bearing the Immaculate Heart. One of my favorites, actually.

So, we have white on white with nice blue undertones. The Marian blue is a standard based in medieval art in which Cobalt, the most expensive mineral at the time, was used to adorn the Virgin as a means of honoring her above all other women. Prior to this you see a lot of red (cadmium) and darker tones. But now it's almost universal to have at least a portion of the Marian wardrobe done in blue. This particular image is nicely done as you can tell she's wearing the white of the Carmelite Order, but the blue undertones behind the incredibly saturated Immaculate Heart make the entire ensemble kick. A+!

As far as Our Lady of the Rosary giving us the Rosary, unfortunately, that's not true. Colloquial wisdom holds that Our Lady instructed St. Dominic in the rosary. A cursory search on Google provides us with the original story that Irish monks began praying the 150 psalms of David every day. Lay people responded with the Lord's Prayer after every Psalm, and began carrying around pebbles or beaded ropes when not in earshot of the monks. When the Irish monks began to evangelize in Europe, this devotion was brought with them. The Angelic Salutation (Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!) became the response to the psalms and eventually replaced them. Various other forms of devotions utilizing the 150 prayer model saw a standardization effort that combined the various forms and voila! The rosary as we have it today!

And just to show that I know my stuff, I'm going to provide you with the Hail Mary in Latin, just because I love you all. :)

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

Fabulous Marian Wardrobe Week!

Alright. To kick off the Fabulous Marian Wardrobe Week (I know....Wednesday.....but we'll have seven days of Mary in her finest!) I'm going to use the Patron Saint of the Americas: Our Lady of Guadalupe!
So....first things first.

Green on gold. Very fashionable, always classy. The star motif over a rather forward-thinking paisley marks her as a trend-setter. And the all-over halo? Come on, that's just classy is what that is. Why skimp when you can splurge? And being the Mother of God, I say she can't possibly splurge enough. However, if there's anything I'd change about her outfit, it's that the entire thing is saturated with that faded, Goodwill coloring. Brighten it up, sister! We as Catholics already feel the guilt of the world, give us some splash! Also, with the rise in popularity of electronic and techno music, she should be wearing day-glo instead of sandy Spanish Colonial. Washed out colors? Out. Neon? Totally in. And get some jelly bracelets or those new SillyBandz(c) (Totally a trademarked name....I might get sued! Yay!) and paint your nails! Oh....and give that angel a rest and get some real shoes. I know you didn't blow your whole wardrobe budget on that halo!

Ok. Now....on to the fun part of "Let's Learn About This Particular Vision!" This way I'm excommunicated for something OTHER than being blasphemous and disrespectful with a saint.

Our Lady of Guadalupe was not an actual visitation. This is a very different apparition than...say...Our Lady of Lourdes or Our Lady of Fatima in which Mary herself came down and physically appeared before somebody. Instead, the image above miraculously appeared before a peasant named Juan Diego near Mexico City on December 21, 1531. So important is this image to Mexican Catholics specifically and Catholics in general that the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the most visited Catholic shrine in the world. It was used by Miguel Hidalgo to inspire his troops during the War of Mexican Independence (successfully apparently) and continues to be used by those seeking the aide of the Ever Virgin Mother of Christ.

She holds the titles "Queen of Mexico," "Empress of the Americas," and "Patroness of the Americas," and, indeed, in 1961, Pope John XXIII named her "Mother of the Americas," making her the de-facto patron saint of the New World.

Of her miracles, the most marvelous is that the original apparition has remained intact despite several incidents including an ammonia spill said to have mended itself without outside help. Additionally, it is said that within her eyes it is possible to discern the images of all who were present when Juan Diego presented the apparition to the Bishop. What's intriguing about this particular miracle is that the image is seen in triplicate, a phenomenon known to occur in human eyes.

Here is the Prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe:

Our Lady of Guadalupe, mystical rose, intercede for the Church, protect the Holy Father, help all who invoke you in their necessities. Since you are the ever Virgin Mary and Mother of the true God, obtain for us from your most holy Son the Grace of a firm faith and sure hope amid the bitterness of life, as well as an ardent love and the precious gift of final perseverance. Amen.

And an indirect intercession:

O God of power and mercy, You blessed the Americas at Tepeyac with the presence of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe. May her prayers help all men and women to accept each other as brothers and sisters. Through Your justice present in our hearts, may Your peace reign in the world.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever. +Amen.

On that note, I leave you with Our Lady of Guadalupe. Oh, for those who don't know, in a prayer, when there is a "+" sign, it's a reminder to cross yourself at that point.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to go out on a limb and utilize one of the less-universally-accepted apparitions. Or I'll just plaster the web with images of the Virgin. SEE YOU THEN!

Body image for men. Why is no one upset?

Ok, so my roommate (the loving and wonderful Amanda, without whom I probably would have starved to death long ago) spends a lot of time ranting about the media's and social pressure on female body image. This is a good thing to rant about and I give her kudos.

But, just as importantly, if not more so because it applies to me, is the almost Nazi-era devotion to the perfectly sculpted male in the media and society. Everywhere you look any picture of a man modeling clothes, a product of some kind, or even just appearing in an advertisement for insurance is a tall, sculpted Adonis reminiscent of the idealized masculine of early 20th century fascist ideologues. He has to have that chiseled jaw line, a full head of hair, ZERO body fat (this is more demanding than what the media wants out of women, mind you), and be absolutely ripped. Not overly so, but definite musculature must show through. Can I tell you a secret? Unless you are at the gym every day or at least four or five times a week for a couple hours, you'll never have that Adonis like body. These people have devoted their lives to beauty and being physically perfect. And strangely, quite often, especially in car ads and investment ads, physical perfection in men is equivalent to financial success. And now, thanks to Braun, it also equals sexual prowess.

http://www.braun.com/us/bodygroomers/bodycruzer-with-gillette-fusion-technology.html?gclid=CMiXnprM_aECFRCfnAodogoJFw

This handy little gadget will trim, shape, shave, slice, dice, masticate, and even fraternize with your body hair. And it has a handy little attachment for "sensitive" areas (the ad shows arm pits. We ALL know what sensitive area it's discussing). The model is trim, not too bad looking (I'd like to go on a date with him), well dressed, and apparently the most successful thing to hit the meat market since...well, meat. He even turns all of those easily-objectifiable women into minxes who are all over him.

There is nothing in this ad to suggest that he even has a job (except that he just bought the new Bodycruzer by Braun), let alone a personality. He just walks around looking dopey as all get out and suddenly is covered in women who WANT him. And the website says that body hair is out and that men must buy their product to be beautiful. Well...I don't know about you, but I don't go around the street with my shirt off or even open. Unless you're picking up guys at the gym or going out and sleeping with everyone, I can't imagine what activity this product is designed to enhance. Oh. Right. Remember that "sensitive areas" attachment?

MEN! Without this product, you will never get laid ever again. Ever.

As a gay man, I am especially sensitive to overly promoted standards of beauty. The sheer level of shallowness within the gay community would make the stereotypical 1950's greaser look like a desperate puppy. You're in a relationship? Oh, that's fine. Seven minutes later you'll be single because a hotter piece of ass just walked by and your boyfriend went off with him, instead. Stable relationships are rare in the gay community and usually reserved for the newly outed who are two young for the club scene or the older gentlemen who have had their fill of the shallow assholes that fill the bars and clubs. This product is a god-send for those who have bought into this mythicized standard of masculine beauty because, as gay men, in order to be happy, they have to be hotter than everything else. And, unfortunately, I think this mindset is much more pervasive and much more accurate than the similar mindset cultivated for women. Gay men have been condititioned to believe that love is sexual, not emotional, so physical attraction trumps anything else. Body grooming products, while their ads may be predominantly heterotic, are designed to entice the homosexual crowd. For once, the virtues and attributes of a product trump the visual. Oh. Wait. The man was mostly naked for most of the ad and the women's faces were pretty much all you saw of them. Yeah. This ad is totally geared for the homosexual crowd.

Anyway, at the end of the day, I have to ask myself: why are people so eager to buy into the mythicized masculine ideal while at the same time shouting from the mountain top about how women need to be shown there are alternatives to Barbie? Why is Axe allowed to come up with ridiculous stunts as the "Double-pits to Chestie" that ALWAYS show a ripped young man (usually between 18 and 25 by his appearance) tearing his shirt off and performing a rather difficult physical feat successfully and earning the admiration of all the girls?

My question is: Why is NO ONE up in arms about male body image?