Envoy for Christ (eBook)

25 Years as a Catholic Apologist

Patrick Madrid (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
390 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-63582-329-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Over the past twenty-five years, Patrick Madrid has explained and defended the Catholic faith worldwide. Envoy for Christ is a fascinating look inside Catholic apologetics from Madrid's vantage point on the frontlines. A collection of written material that spans the author's career, Catholic thought is applied to a variety of apologetic issues, and in addition, Madrid will look at how he has applied Catholic truth to circumstances in his own life. With some of his earlier works, he will also explain how his thinking has changed and developed over the years. This is a summary of the legacy of Patrick Madrid's far-reaching public ministry.

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Sola Scriptura: A Blueprint for Anarchy

LET’S SAY I’M AN EVANGELICAL. WHEN I find out you’re Catholic, I’m going to hammer you with Bible verses that I believe demonstrate that the Catholic Church’s teachings on issues such as purgatory, Mary, the papacy, and the Eucharist are unbiblical. “The Bible alone provides the totality of God’s revealed truth that’s necessary for the Church to have. Forget about all those manmade Catholic traditions (traditions which, by the way, are condemned by Christ in Matthew 15:3–9 and Mark 7:6–8). Just go by the Bible alone,” I’ll argue.

Let’s say you’re hip to this argument. You know that the Protestant principle of the Bible alone—sola Scriptura as the Reformers called it—is untrue. But you don’t know how to demonstrate that sola Scriptura is not what Christ taught, it’s not what the apostles and Church Fathers taught and, most ironically, it’s not what the Bible itself teaches.

Catholics need to realize just how untenable sola Scriptura is and simply ask that it be proven from the Bible. Instead of allowing himself to be put on the defensive when purgatory, the Real Presence, or some other Catholic doctrine is challenged by a demand that it be proven from Scripture, the Catholic should ask, “Where does the Bible teach sola Scriptura?” Scriptural evidence, whether explicit or implicit, can indeed be adduced for these Catholic teachings, but those apologetics discussions are not our focus here and must be left for other articles.

The Catholic case against sola Scriptura may be summarized by saying that sola Scriptura is unhistorical, unbiblical, and unworkable. This article will examine each of these points, without claiming to offer an exhaustive historical and biblical critique of the doctrine (there are a number of books and tape sets which do that). Nevertheless, I hope the essential elements of the Catholic case will be clear.

Sola Scriptura Is Unhistorical

First, let’s consider sola Scriptura from the vantage point of history. If the notion of the absolute sufficiency of Scripture were indeed part of “the faith that was once for all handed on to the saints” (Jude 3), we would expect to find it everywhere taught and practiced in the early Church. We would expect to see the ancient Christian liturgical life dominated and shaped by the rule of sola Scriptura. But we don’t see anything of the sort. The fact is, the writings of the Church Fathers and the councils, both regional and ecumenical, reveal that sola Scriptura was completely alien to the thought and life of the early Church. Mind you, the early Church placed an exceedingly great emphasis on the importance and authority of Scripture to guide and govern the life of the Church, and Scripture was employed constantly by the Fathers in their doctrinal treatises and pastoral directives. But Scripture was never regarded (or used) by the Church Fathers as something that stands alone, self-sufficient and entirely independent of Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium. In the distinct, formal sense that Protestants advocate, over against the Catholic position of the “material sufficiency” of Scripture, which will be discussed later in this article.

Sometimes Protestant apologists try to bolster their case for sola Scriptura by using highly selective quotes from Church Fathers such as Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine, and Basil of Caesarea. This is due, I believe, to the recent dramatic rise in apologetics works against sola Scriptura by Catholics. These quotes, isolated from the rest of what the Father in question wrote about church authority, Tradition and Scripture, can give the appearance that these Fathers were hard-core Evangelicals who promoted an unvarnished sola Scriptura principle that would have done John Calvin proud. But this is merely a chimera. In order for the selective “pro-sola Scriptura” quotes from the Fathers to be of value to a Protestant apologist, his audience must have little or no firsthand knowledge of what these Fathers wrote. By considering the patristic evidence on the subject of Scriptural authority in context, a very different picture emerges. A few examples will suffice to demonstrate what I mean.

Basil of Caesarea provides Evangelical polemicists with what they think is a “smoking gun” quote upholding sola Scriptura: “Therefore, let God-inspired Scripture decide between us; and on whichever side be found doctrines in harmony with the Word of God, in favor of that side will be cast the vote of truth” (Epistle ad Eustathius). This, they think, means that Basil would have been comfortable with the Calvinist notion that “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.”17 Yet if Basil’s quote is to be of any use to the Protestant apologist, the rest of Basil’s writings must be shown to be consistent and compatible with sola Scriptura. But watch what happens to Basil’s alleged position when we look at other statements of his:

Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or enjoined which are preserved in the Church, some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have delivered to us in a mystery by the apostles by the tradition of the apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force.18

In answer to the objection that the doxology in the form ‘with the Spirit’ has no written authority, we maintain that if there is not another instance of that which is unwritten, then this must not be received [as authoritative]. But if the great number of our mysteries are admitted into our constitution without [the] written authority [of Scripture], then, in company with many others, let us receive this one. For I hold it apostolic to abide by the unwritten traditions. “I praise you,” it is said [by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:1] “that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I handed them on to you,” and “Hold fast to the traditions that you were taught whether by an oral statement or by a letter of ours” [2 Thessalonians 2:15]. One of these traditions is the practice which is now before us [under consideration], which they who ordained from the beginning, rooted firmly in the churches, delivering it to their successors, and its use through long custom advances pace by pace with time.19

Such talk hardly fits with the principle that Scripture is formally sufficient for all matters of Christian doctrine. This type of appeal to a body of unwritten apostolic Tradition within the Church as being authoritative is frequent in Basil’s writings.

Protestant apologists often quote two particular passages from St. Athanasius: “The holy and inspired Scriptures are sufficient of themselves for the preaching of the truth”20 and “These books [of canonical Scripture] are the fountains of salvation, so that he who thirsts may be satisfied with the oracles contained in them. In these alone the school of piety preaches the Gospel. Let no man add to these or take away from them.”21 But in neither place is Athanasius teaching sola Scriptura.

First, in the case of the Festal Letter, he was instructing his churches as to what could and could not be read at Church as “Scripture.” The context of the epistle makes it clear that he was laying down a liturgical directive for his flock.

Second, as in the case of Basil and the other Fathers Protestants attempt to press into service, Athanasius’s writings show no signs of sola Scriptura, but rather of his staunchly orthodox Catholicism. Athanasius, for example, wrote:

The confession arrived at Nicaea was, we say more, sufficient and enough by itself for the subversion of all irreligious heresy and for the security and furtherance of the doctrine of the Church.22

And:

[T]he very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning was preached by the Apostles and preserved by the Fathers. On this the Church was founded; and if anyone departs from this, he neither is nor any longer ought to be called a Christian.23

And consider this quote from Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Lectures, a favorite among the nouveau Protestant apologists:

In regard to the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not the least part may be handed on without the Holy Scriptures. Do not be led astray by winning words and clever arguments. Even to me, who tell you these things, do not give ready belief, unless...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.1.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie
• ISBN-10: 1-63582-329-3 / 1635823293
• ISBN-13: 978-1-63582-329-5 / 9781635823295