Foundation or Support?

My Roman Catholic proselytiser friend, whom I told you about yesterday, was quick to respond to my letter with a series of statements not from the Bible but from the Catechism. I won’t weary you with them all but if you think the the differences between the Church of Rome and biblical Christianity are marginal, the following will be helpful to you. Emphases are mine:

80 “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.

“Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own "always, to the close of the age”.

81 “Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.”

“And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching.”

82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.”

85 “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.”

This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

86 “Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.”

87 Mindful of Christ's words to his apostles: “He who hears you, hears me”, the faithful receive with docility the teachings and directives that their pastors give them in different forms.

To which I replied:

I’m grateful to you for copying and pasting what the Roman Catholic Church says about itself but you can’t really expect someone who believes in the principle of “Scripture alone” to be persuaded by the claims of an organisation that sees itself as being above Scripture.

The NIV translation of 1 Timothy 3:15 is, for the reasons I outlined, inaccurate. The Church is the support of truth, not the foundation.

This elicited the following response:

The church answers the very canard that you make of the Church being above Scripture. Read the extract.

86 “Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.”

87 Mindful of Christ's words to his apostles: "He who hears you, hears me", the faithful receive with docility the teachings and directives that their pastors give them in different forms.

Foundation is a legitimate translation and can be found in several Protestant versions.

Hedraioma: “a stay, prop, support”. Is not a foundation a support? This is semantics and prejudiced choice of words I fear.

I replied:

Although article 86 states the “Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant”, in practice it does not act as though it is the servant of the Word of God.

In the booklet you gave me, Joel Peters states categorically: “The Catholic Church readily acknowledges the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. But the Catholic doctrine is that the immediate rule of faith for the Christian is the teaching authority of the Church.” (Scripture Alone? p.19, my emphasis)

If that statement does not put the Church above Scripture, I don’t know what does!
In this respect, Roman Catholicism is remarkably like Judaism: Jacob Neusner: in Jews & Christians: The Myth of a Common Tradition says that Christianity is “the religion of the Bible”. Judaism is “the religion of the Talmud”. Likewise, Christianity is “the religion of the Bible”; Roman Catholicism is evidently “the religion of the Magisterium”.

The very fact that Peters (and you) see the Church as the “foundation” (ibid p.16) of the truth indicates that in his (and your) view, truth is built on the church, not vice-versa!

The foundation is the most important part of a building.

You accuse me of “semantics and prejudiced choice of words” when you ask the rhetorical question: “Is not a foundation a support?” Yes it is but the distinction between hedraioma and themelios is not mere semantics. As for “prejudiced choice of words”, that criticism is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways.

Of course a “foundation” is a “support” but it is a particular type of support, one on which the entire edifice rests. That is why Christ is the only “foundation” (themelios not hedraioma) on which we build (1 Cor 3:11).

You can see what a difference if would make if 1 Cor 3:11-14 read like this: “No other support (hedraioma) can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this support (hedraioma) with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.”

Hedraioma is never used in the New Testament for a foundation. The Greek word for foundation is themelios.

When we first met many years ago I told you there was one overwhelming reason why I could never accept Roman Catholicism. When you were an evangelical, you would have spent all your energies trying to lead people to Jesus; now those energies are spent trying to lead people who follow Jesus to “the Church”. If you were truly a Christian all those years ago, I have no doubt that Jesus would have been everything to you; now “the Church” is everything. Put up all the reasons for that polar shift as you might, the fact remains that for you “the Church” is now more important to you than Jesus.

And now for something completely different!

On a subject I've not blogged about, my wife and I were talking to visitors at a Christian conference yesterday, when I suddenly saw a familiar face in the crowd. It was my old friend Robert.

Many years ago, Robert had an evangelical conversion but because of divisions in the evangelical world he became a Roman Catholic and now sees his mission as one of bringing the light of the one true Church to his separated brethren.

There he was, merrily mingling with the crowd, distributing photocopied articles about the evils of birth control and a booklet on the error of the doctrine of “Scripture alone”. I immediately headed him off at the pass and we talked for while. He gave me the article on contraception and the booklet Scripture Alone? by RC theologian and apologist Joel Peters. I read the booklet late last night and responded to Robert. You might find the letter interesting and perhaps helpful.

Dear Robert,

It was a very pleasant surprise to meet you at the Conference yesterday.

Thank you for the essay on birth control and Joel Peters’ booklet Scripture Alone?I don’t have the time to deal with it at length but I will say the booklet is well written and has some helpful and challenging points to make. In places he powerfully challenges Protestant assumptions about the meaning of familiar biblical passages and anything that challenges our sloppy thinking is to be welcomed. Having said that, although the booklet appears to be well-reasoned, it is deeply flawed.

As a primary observation, I noted that throughout the booklet, Peters has to appeal to Scripture to prove the Church is above Scripture.

Joel Peters starts on page 1 by claiming the Roman Catholic Church has an “Oral Tradition”. In this sense, Roman Catholicism is identical to Rabbinic Judaism. In post-biblical Judaism, the rabbis claim to be the heirs to an “Oral Tradition”: The Jewish Pirke Avot begins by saying: “Moses received the [Oral] Torah from Sinai, and passed it on to Joshua; and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets; and the prophets passed it on to the men of the Great Assembly.
In Catholicism, it seems, Peter received the Gospel from Christ, Peter passed it on to the Popes, and the Popes…”

Also on page 1, Peters sets up a straw man by misrepresenting the Lutheran/Reformed position on Sola Scriptura. His definition of the doctrine is:

… the Bible – as interpreted by the individual believer – is the only source of religious authority and is the Christians sole rule of faith or criterion regarding what is the be believed. (Sola Scriptura? page. 1)

If that is the doctrine of “Scripture alone”, it is self-contradictory for, as Peters states it, the doctrine is in fact Scripture plus individual interpretation of Scripture.

The principle of Sola Scriptura is that the Bible is the only infallible and inerrant authority for Christian faith, and that it contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness. Interpretation by Church or Individual has never been part of that doctrine. Once individual interpretation is introduced to the definition, “Scripture alone” disappears.

If Peters’ definition of the principle of Sola Scriptura is correct, then he is right to conclude, as he does on page 53, that “Each Protestant thus becomes his own final authority—or, if you will, his own ‘pope’.” If the individual is the final authority you have spiritual anarchy but, by the same token, if the Church or Pope alone claims the right to interpret the Bible correctly, the result (as amply demonstrated by history) is spiritual fascism.

When the inspired apostle Paul preached in Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-3), “as was his custom”, he “reasoned from the Scriptures” to prove Jesus was the Messiah. He did not declare on the basis of his own infallible, apostolic authority that Jesus was the Messiah.

When he confronted the Roman governor Felix (Acts 24:25ff), he “reasoned about “righteousness, self-control and judgement to come”. In other words, Paul appealed to the minds of the Thessalonian Jews and the Roman governor Felix.

Nevertheless, he appealed to their reason on the basis of Scripture alone. All of us have the right and duty to check against Scripture, which is why the Berean Jews are commended in Acts 17.

The evidence for “Scripture alone” is to be found in places other than the traditional proof texts with which Joel Peters grapples. For example, throughout the book of Acts the apostles appeal to the reason of their hearers by quoting Scripture. Their message is to be believed because it is according to Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 15:1ff, Paul affirms the basis of his gospel preaching: “For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures: and that he was buried: and that he rose again according to the scriptures…” (Douay-Rheims Version)

In Acts 17, the Berean Jews were commended for searching those Scriptures daily to see if what the inspired apostle Paul taught was true. They did not simply accept his authority nor does it look as though he demanded that they believe him on the basis that he was Messiah’s chosen vessel.

Act 17:10f “But the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea. Who, when they were come thither, went into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, who received the word with all eagerness, daily searching the scriptures, whether these things were so.” (Douay-Rheims Version)

I think it would be helpful if 2 Timothy 3:16 was translated simply as “All God-breathed writing is profitable for teaching…” We have treated the word “scripture” as though it refers only to the Bible, when in fact the Greek word graphe just means “writing”. What separates the Bible from other writings is that the writings in it are God-breathed writings.

I was particularly interested to see the way Joel Peters interprets 1 Timothy 3:15 on page 15: “But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”

When Peters tackles 2 Timothy 3:16f, he refers to the Greek original throughout but when dealing with 1 Timothy 3:15, he studiously avoids the original language. He is quoting from the Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims Version but if he had examined the verse in the light of the original Greek it would have blown his argument out of the water.

According to Paul, in this verse, “the church of the living God” is “the bulwark and pillar of the truth”, not “the pillar and ground of the truth”, as translated in the Douay-Rheims Version. If the church was the ground of the truth, it would be the foundation of the truth, not the support of it.

In this crucial verse, Paul teaches that the Church is the hedraioma (bulwark/support) and the stulos (pillar) of the truth. He does not say the church is the themelios (foundation/ground) and the stulos of the truth. The Church is built on the truth and serves as the support of the Truth. If any organisation claims to be the foundation of the truth – the ground on which truth is built – by its own admission it has ceased to be the support of the truth. It has usurped the place of truth and therefore cannot be the Church.

I could go on but I have a lot of other work to get through.

I hope this is helpful to you.

Best wishes,