This quote is found at comment 468 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/#comment-58593
Those are fair issues to raise, though I have addressed them more than once before (presumably when you were not involved). I’ll try to present my responses as succinctly as possible.
You ask:
Can you speak more to your philosophy of evidence? Are you suggesting that all the evidence for/against RCC is theory-laden? For that matter, are all facts and evidence theory-laden?
A body of knowledge about some subject-matter what the Greeks called episteme. That is distinct from, albeit related in certain ways to, knowledge by direct experience–for which the word gnosis is typically used. When the subject-matter is not purely formal–as it is in logic and mathematics–but is at least partly empirical, all “evidence” is “theory-laden.” (Some philosophers of science argue that even the purely formal disciplines are theory-laden, but that’s not a topic that need concern us.) That is to say, what we count as evidence is determined in part by the theory with which we organize empirical observations and facts into an explanatory and thus intelligible whole. E.g., astronomers count the “red-shift” recorded when observing distant galaxies over time as evidence that those galaxies are receding from us at a rate which increases with their distance from us. Counting red shift as such evidence assumes the validity of general relativity as a theory; in that sense, the evidence is theory-laden. Theory-ladenness becomes even more evident in less rigorous disciplines such as history, where the significance of various bits of documentary and archeological evidence depends in part on the explanatory narrative or theory into which the historian is trying to fit them.
Now astronomy, history, and every other “discipline” save theology are purely human disciplines. They explore subjects about which we can acquire episteme by human reason alone. Theology, however, takes special divine revelation (SDR) as its primary subject-matter. SDR consists precisely in that which cannot be discovered by human reason alone, but which God must show and tell us if we are to know its content at all. Hence, we can know it only on divine authority. A fortunate few, such as the OT “prophets” and the Apostles, have received SDR by direct experience; they had gnosis of it. But most of us can have only episteme of it. And theology, above all “epistemic” disciplines, is “theory-laden.”
That’s because one cannot determine the theological significance of various historical and other facts without a principled means of distinguishing SDR as such from human opinions about the vehicles or “sources” by which SDR is allegedly transmitted to us. Without such a means, theology is incapable of achieving its most important purpose, which is to deepen our understanding of SDR as such, not just developing opinions about where it is to be found and how to interpret it. So the data relevant to theology are “theory-laden” in the sense that, to do theology at all, one must bring some IP to the data studied, thus assigning some theological significance to them, rather than extract one’s theology logically or scientifically from the data.
I get the sense that the historical claims ground the CIP (esp. AS), but then it seems that criticisms of the historical claims are rejected as question-begging because (it is alleged that) the CIP is being rejected. But then that seems to mean that the claims of RCC are not in principle defeasible, because the historical grounds the CIP but one cannot assess the historical claims unless one first adopts CIP. But if one is not using the CIP, then one’s criticisms are dismissed as question-begging.
That’s a misunderstanding I’ve encountered before. Often, it’s motivated by the assumption that theologically significant doctrines can be either read directly off, or logically inferred from, the data afforded us by “the sources” and other, associated historical data. That assumption is characteristic of the PIP, but I argue that it does not provide a principled means of distinguishing between divine revelation as such and human opinions about the data, and thus is inherently question-begging. That doesn’t mean, though, that “history” and “the sources” are simply irrelevant to theology. Since Christianity is, among other things, a historical religion, it means that such things are indeed theologically significant. But the particular theological significance one gives them is determined by the theological IP one brings to them. And there are of course different, mutually incompatible IPs, such as the CIP and the PIP. Then the question becomes: “Very well: Which IP? Which ‘theory’–i.e., which theological IP–is the most reasonable one to bring to the historical data, given that all theology is “theory-laden” in that sense?”
To answer that, one must do two things, in the following order: (1) Determine which IPs afford a “principled means” of doing what I said; (2) Determine which IP, among those that do what’s called for by (1), makes the most overall sense of the data. My argument is that the PIP fails at stage (1). But that doesn’t automatically leave Catholicism as the only option. Other religious traditions–such as the Eastern-Orthodox and the Mormon–contain IPs with such “principled means” too. They just differ, to this-or-that degree, from the CIP. That’s when we move on to stage (2), and that’s where historical considerations become directly and even more relevant–though not of course solely relevant.
At the heart of the Christian religion is defeasibility: find the bones of Jesus and it’s all over. That is, there is a fact of the matter that is in principle defeasible, irrespective of paradigms. Would you agree or not? If you do agree, what does it look like in the case of AS? Is AS defeasible?
Christianity is “defeasible” in principle, but not in practice. Here’s what I mean.
St. Paul asserted: “If Christ be not risen, then our faith is vain.” That is true. So if Jesus did not rise bodily from the grave, to a form of corporeal existence for which we know no precedent, then Christianity is false. But that doesn’t mean we could discover some set of bones to be that of Jesus–even if Jesus’ bones were actually lying around somewhere. How would we know they are Jesus’ bones? We simply lack the means to establish such a thing at this historical distance–and that distance was probably too great anyhow by the time the Apostle John died, toward the end of the 1st century AD.
The same goes for apostolic succession (which is what I presume you mean by ‘AS’). In principle, if we had a much richer data-set from the first century or so of the Church’s life than we do, we could learn that the succession of leadership in what came, during the 2nd century, to be called the “catholic church” does not satisfy the Church’s criteria for valid AS. But we don’t have that rich a dataset. And even if the dataset we have got richer over time, thanks to archaeological discoveries, it’s hard to imagine it settling any question of theological significance. We would just find ourselves debating whether the new data really do show that the Church’s criteria for valid AS weren’t satisfied. And that debate would, of course, hinge on which IPs are brought to the data.
I keep trying to get some people to see that we need to be discussing stage (1) above before we get to stage (2). You can observe the results yourself in this thread. I find them frustrating sometimes.
and here also here from comment 294 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/05/the-tu-quoque/#comment-40058--below
and
"Presuppositionalism is a school of Christian apologetics that believes the Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought. It presupposes that the Bible is divine revelation and attempts to expose flaws in other worldviews. It claims that apart from presuppositions, one could not make sense of any human experience, and there can be no set of neutral assumptions from which to reason with a non-Christian.[1] Presuppositionalists claim that a Christian cannot consistently declare his belief in the necessary existence of the God of the Bible and simultaneously argue on the basis of a different set of assumptions that God may not exist and Biblical revelation may not be true. Presuppositionalism is the predominant apologetic of contemporary conservative Calvinist and Reformed churches.[2][not in citation given] Two schools of presuppositionalism exist, based on the different teachings of Cornelius Van Til and Gordon Haddon Clark. Presuppositionalism contrasts with classical apologetics and evidential apologetics."
and
But I spent the first 30 years of my life in Protestant circles, and am perfectly aware that there is plenty of doctrinal obstinacy and ignorance circulating among the troops. Both Catholics and Protestants share that kind of authority crisis, and I would be the last to go wagering bets as to which camp has the worst of it in that respect. But, it is, to my mind, a distinct disadvantage to be in a camp which has bothan obstinacy/ignorance authority crisis and an authority crisis seated at the root of its theological principles; as opposed to a camp which only suffers from one of those two evils. So yes, Catholics share some serious authority problems with Protestants. But there are also some serious authority problems unique to Protestant approaches to theology which Catholicism (so the argument which you reject goes) resolves. I think it is this later sort of authority problem which CTC and CCC are focused upon.
As I see it, the fundamental issue in this debate is whether there is a principled way, as opposed to anad hoc way, of distinguishing between the assent of divine faith and that of human opinion. That is what became clear to me in the debate a few years ago with “Kepha” and his friends. The clam that Bryan, I, and others at CTC makes is that the Catholic interpretive paradigm (CIP) does provide such a principled way and that the conservative-Protestant IP (CPIP) does not. I believe your comment confirms that.
On the CPIP, the best that inquirers can do is examine the scriptural, patristic, and historical evidence for themselves and reach theological conclusions that must be provisional because they are rightly professed to be fallible. That, in effect, is what you have affirmed and what Kepha has done. And if there is no living authority to infallibly distinguish theological opinions from propositions truly conveying divine revelation, that is the best we can do. But that, I argue, yields merely the assent of opinion, not of divine faith. The assent of divine faith entails assenting to truths revealed by God and doing so on divine authority. That in turn entails recognizing certain secondary authorities as infallibly setting forth what God would have us believe, and believing it unreservedly, not provisionally, because it bears the stamp of divine authority. On the CPIP, that secondary authority is the Bible and the Bible alone. But if, as the CPIP would have it, all our acts of assent are fallible, then the conviction that the Bible contains such-and-such books and is divinely inspired is itself fallible and thus provisional. That makes it an opinion, not an an assent of divine faith. On the other hand, the assent of the Catholic to the tripartite authority of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium is an act of divine faith, not a provisionally formed and held opinion. That is because, on the CIP, there is a living authority, the Magisterium, which is divinely protected from error under certain conditions, and thus bears the stamp of divine authority when it rules that Scripture and Tradition have such-and-such content and are to be interpreted in such-and-such a way rather than others.
Now the main reason for acknowledging such an authority is not that its existence can reasonably be inferred from the scriptural, patristic, and historical dataset–though such an inference can be upheld as a reasonable opinion, and should be so upheld by the Catholic–but that, absent such authority, there is no principled way to distinguish the assent of divine faith from that of human opinion. Adherents of the CPIP will of course affirm that the Bible is the sole inerrant rule of faith, and in so doing might imagine they’ve got such a principled distinction. But they do not. They accept the Bible–or at least the bulk thereof–for what it is in fact, but they have no way to explain why that acceptance is anything more than an opinion. The Catholic does. Of course that does not by itself show that Catholicism is true. What it does show, however, is that the CIP has something necessary for the assent of faith, and that the CPIP lacks it.
I realize that Kepha, you, and many others believe that the Magisterium’s claims for itself can be shown to be false by an honest examination of the historical record. That is not an unreasonable opinion, though I believe it to be less cogent than the opposite opinion. My real objection to that approach is that it assumes the validity of the CPIP rather than demonstrating it. It assumes, in other words, that the Magisterium’s claim to have the sort of authority I say is necessary can be adequately assessed by somebody with a more reliable understanding of the deposit of faith than the Magisterium itself has. But that is simply to assume the validity of the CPIP and the invalidity of the CIP. Thus it begs the question.
Given as much, and given also that the CIP has something necessary that the CPIP lacks, I conclude that Kepha and friends have not only failed to make their case, but cannot do so even in principle. Their position leaves us only with opinion, not faith. I’ve noticed that you and many others are willing to bite that bullet, but I hardly think that it allows for what Jesus Christ would consider faith.
from 127 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/08/why-evangelicals-are-getting-high-a-response-to-rebecca-vandoodewaard/#comment-58605
However, if we want to have certainty in our act of faith in divine revelation, it is necessary that our rule of faith possess divine authority. Would you deny this? The teaching office of the Church (expressed in Scripture, oral tradition, and magisterial authority) happens to be the rule of faith that possesses that divine authority such that we can assent to supernatural divine revelation with certainty.
The problem (one problem) with SS is that Scripture does not have divine authority precisely AS THE RULE OF FAITH. (Its authority is of a different nature. Inspired, yes, but not the Rule of faith.) No divine authority has authorized us to use Scripture in this way.
The focus of our discussion is the question whether a case for one’s religion can be made without“presupposing” the truth of one’s religion. Well, answering that question calls for disambiguating the term. If by ‘presupposing’ one means starting by actually asserting the truth of one’s religion, then the answer is pretty clearly yes–regardless of which religion one is making the case for. That’s because such an approach is inherently question-begging. Begging the question is a fallacy; fallacies are unpersuasive; and the apologist is looking to persuade. So if he starts by begging the question, he defeats his own purpose. But if by ‘presupposing’ one means treating one’s key religious beliefs assuppositions just for argument’s sake, rather than as assertions to be accepted without argument, then the answer is no. Indeed, the only sensible approach is to show that, supposing certain religious beliefs are true, one can develop a comprehensive account of reality that makes more sense overall than alternatives which deny one or more of those beliefs. That’s what I see Reformed “presuppositional” apologetics trying to do, and that’s how I see the Catholic apologetic based on MOCs.
Notice, however, that the procedure I recommend is essentially that of formulating and deploying an interpretive paradigm. The apologist needs to show that “supposing,” for argument’s sake, some set of religious beliefs R, a very wide range of facts is better interpreted and explained by adopting R as a conjoint set of truths than by rejecting one or more of R’s elements. That describes how I argue for adopting the CIP, and I take it that’s essentially how you would argue for your adopting your IP. Given, however, that a combox is not the place for exhibiting that “wide range of facts” in detail, our efforts are best devoted to the starting point: inquiring about what the distinctive purpose of a theological IP is and how, in principle, a theological IP can achieve the distinctive purpose of such IPs.
It is there at the beginning, I think, that our disagreement really lies. I hold that the distinctive purpose of theological IPs is to afford a principled distinction between divine revelation and human opinion, so that divine revelation as such can be reliably identified and its content stated as the “suppositions” one is adopting. That’s the distinctive purpose because, unless one achieves it, one does not have the right sort of starting point from which to draw logical consequences. My main argument for the CIP is that the CIP is fit to achieve that purpose while the PIP is not.
end of quote.
It is good to go to these comments at the site for the entire discussion. Here is another excerpt from a comment 477 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/
in the OT, divine revelation was still in the process of unfolding and “pointing” toward that definitive form –i.e. the “Christ-event”– which had not yet been reached, and about which anybody could actually be infallible, by virtue of inheriting Christ’s teaching authority. Accordingly, I don’t need to posit an IP for the OT Jews that would involve infallibility. When the OT Jews were morally culpable for not living by what God was giving them, that was not because their leaders were infallible, so that they should all have known better, but because their collective experience included both what was in fact a developing divine revelation and enough evidence thereof to make living by the Torah more reasonable than not
and
The CIP is not “grounded” in the “historical claim of an unbroken chain of apostolic succession,” if by that you mean that making such a claim is needed as the CIP’s logical starting point. The CIP is “grounded” in such a chain only insofar as the historical existence of such a chain is one of the necessary conditions for the truth of Catholicism. But that is a separate question from that of the relative utility of the CIP for doing what theological IPs are supposed to do. The utility of the CIP for that purpose is that the CIP, unlike the PIP, affords a principled distinction between divine revelation and human opinion. If Catholicism, which necessarily contains and deploys the CIP, is also true, then there has indeed been “an unbroken chain of apostolic succession” in the Church. But the existence of that chain does not need to be established first in order to exhibit the epistemic utility of the CIP. Rather, the epistemic utility of the CIP, as I’ve described it, is one good reason to believe that Catholicism is true, and thus one good reason to believe that there is indeed such a chain. Independent historical evidence for that chain is an additional sort of evidence for the truth of Catholicism, and it’s also needed.
For reasons I’ve already explained, though, I don’t think that issue is in any way decisive. There’s enough evidence for such a chain to make belief in its existence reasonable enough, but by no means enough to prove it or, of course, to disprove it. In general, that’s all a case for making an assent of faith in some “historical” religion can do. So the fact that the existence of an “unbroken chain of apostolic succession” cannot be proven purely by the methods of historical inquiry is not a weakness either of the CIP in particular or of Catholicism more broadly considered.
and
You write:
So, the Protestant can do at least two things. (1) He can reject that the “principled means” is either not a necessary or not a sufficient condition for knowledge of what is divine revelation and what is mere human opinion or (2) He can put forth a de jure case of his IP. Would you agree?
Assuming that by ‘reject’ you mean ‘argue’, I would agree only with qualifications.
As to (1), nobody argues that a given IP’s containing a “principled means” of the sort in question is a “sufficient” condition for adopting that IP. It is only a “necessary” condition. If a given Protestant wants to argue that it’s not even a necessary condition, then he’s committed to saying that the Christian religion is essentially a matter of opinion, inasmuch as we cannot distinguish in a principled way between expressions of divine revelation and human theological opinions. I have seen plenty of Protestants recognize and accept that consequence. To my mind, that’s pretty devastating for their position. For it’s tantamount to saying that faith, as distinct from opinion, is impossible. Good luck with that.
As to (2), the only way I’ve seen Protestants as such making the sort of case you envision is their arguing that the truth of their brand of Protestantism–whatever that may be in a given case–can be understood and affirmed not merely by faith but actually as knowledge. I think that’s a bridge too far, and would be even for Catholics trying to argue similarly for Catholicism. It’s a form of rationalism that not even most Protestants accept, and Catholics certainly should not accept.
way of determining when the Church teaches with her full authority.
The Catholic Church has a relatively clear, consistent, and authoritative way of doing that. It’s been usefully set forth in such relatively recent magisterial documents as Lumen Gentium (§25) and Ratzinger’s Doctrinal Commentary, to both of which I linked in #466. It doesn’t work automatically like software, but it has produced a large body of settled results, and provides a reliable template for resolving disputed questions as they arise. In Eastern Orthodoxy, however, I have found no similarly clear, consistent, and authoritative way of determining when “the Church” teaches with her full authority. To be sure, EOs agree that seven “ecumenical councils” of the first millennium taught infallibly and thus, as instances of the Church teaching with her full authority, bind all her members accordingly. But there’s no clear, consistent, and authoritative account in Orthodoxy as to the necessary and sufficient conditions for treating a given council as thus binding on the whole Church. One gets several different answers depending on which Orthodox clerics and theologians one asks. Nor do EOs see any particular bishopric, patriarchate, or synod as ever infallible. So I have concluded that Catholicism has a “principled” means of making the necessary determination, while Orthodoxy has only ad hoc means of doing so.
from 485
What seems to lie at root in so many of these debates concerning the motives of credibility, the nature of faith, reason, and revelation – in short, theological first principles in general – is an implicit rejection of epistemological realism; which, of course, is part and parcel of the modern background intellectual ambiance. I think you are certainly correct in noting that the resort to presuppositionalism among many Reformed Christians arises from a lack of familiarity with the epistemological foundations of the philosophia perennis and its (successful) critique of modern tendencies toward epistemological skepticism, whether in their continental-Kantian or English-American analytical varieties.
[end of quote. Explaning terms. First from Wilipedia
and
"Epistemological realism is a philosophical position, a subcategory of objectivism, holding that what you know about an object exists independently of your mind. It opposesepistemological idealism.
Epistemological realism is related directly to the correspondence theory of truth, which claims that the world exists independently and innately to our perceptions of it. Our sensory data then reflect or correspond to the innate world."
Definition of PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS
: a group of universal philosophical problems, principles, and ideas (as concepts of God, freedom, and immortality) that perennially constitutes the primary subject matter of philosophical thought : the foundations of Roman Catholic Christian principles esp. as philosophically formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas and Neothomists <some Philosophia Perenniswhich would be agreed on in advance as a sort of intellectual base of operations — H.D.Aiken>
The philosophia perennis or Perennial Philosophy affirms that a direct insight into the nature of Reality is a universally human possibility -- whether it be gained after practice of spiritual disciplines and study of scriptures or through a wholly unanticipated illuminating experience of union with God or the Ultimate. A result of such awareness is the confidence that we have devolved from a single Source and the process of spiritual development is completed and perfected in our return to that One.
To call this perennial is to say that such an insight reappears in diverse times and places, not limited to any particular culture, class, or community. In more formal words, this philosophy has been described as
"the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality behind the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in [one] something identical with divine Reality and the ethic that places [one's] final end in the knowledge of the Immanent and Transcendent Ground of all things."In other words, the term philosophia perennis is intended to describe a philosophy that has been formulated by those who have experienced direct communion with God or the Ultimate. However brief the experience, it transforms the thinking mind of the experiencer, so that they are never the same again. Such revelatory experience, captured however dimly in symbols supplied by human language or by whatever artistic expression, however often repeated through the ages by people of all races, genders, cultures and religious beliefs, open onto the Perennial Philosophy.
from comment 501 on the Stellman post:
Firstly, the point (as I understand it) of Mike’s insistence upon first attending to paradigms before attending to evidence flows directly from the nature of the subject matter. That subject matter is not, in the first place, the truth or falsity of Catholicism; but, rather, the very nature of divine revelation per se; and the means by which men might conceivably come to know the content of divine revelation in light of its defined nature. The question certainly does concern epistemology, but not an “epistemology-of-disagreement”. The question involves epistemological issues which are more fundamental.
The crucial part of the definition of divine revelation which drives the insistence upon paradigm considerations first, followed by evidential considerations second, is the notion that truths or dogmas which have been “divinely revealed” cannot – in principle – be known as such through unaided use of the native capacities of the human intellect (else why the need that they be divinely revealed in the first place). Nothing about the unaided human intellect and its relation to the world of external secondary causes can provide the intellect with notions about that which is beyond detection within the natural network of secondary causes. Examples – all articles of faith – would be doctrines such as the Trinitarian nature of God, the hypostatic union of Christ, the reality of the states of heaven and hell (or purgatory), the efficacy of sacraments, the inspired quality of a codex of 66 (73) books, etc. All such notions pertain to the content of divine revelation and are traditionally understood to flow from God’s transcendent knowledge as the result of a positive act of divine self-disclosure. Hence, if men are to assent to such notions as being divinely revealed (as opposed to being mere human opinions or plausible theological constructs), while simultaneously seeking to avoid the charge of unmitigated fideism, men must necessarily either receive such notions personally and directly (intuition, ecstasy, Sprit-induced illumination, etc.), or else they must assent to such notions on the basis of some external proximate authority which promulgates such notions as being revealed by God.
Notice that in both cases, whether reception through direct personal illumination or promulgation by some proximate authority; given a definition of divinely revealed truths as truths which are beyond the reach of unaided human reason; whatever notions are to be assented to as divinely revealed must be understood as having originated with God, and as having been protected from error in their reception and/or promulgation. If such notions were said not to originate with God, they could in no wise be understood as divinely revealed. They would be – by the promulgator or receiver’s own admission – mere human theological opinions. But also, if such truth claims could be potentially errant in some way (on the side of the receiver/promulgator); then, although such notions might in fact have originated from God, there would remain no epistemic means by which an onlooker might distinguish between those notions which really are items of divine revelation, and those which are mere theological constructs or aberrations. In short, when considering the very nature of the content of divine revelation – de fide articles of faith – infallibility emerges as being – in some way, shape or form – of the essence. Without it, any potential noetic distinction between divine revelation as such, and mere human theological opinion, collapses.
Hence, the minimum necessary requirement for establishing that some set of doctrines are divinely revealed, is that the one who receives and/or promulgates such doctrines be understood to in some way participate God’s infallibility, at least with respect to the reception and/or promulgation of those particular doctrines. Otherwise, no one encountering said reception or promulgation would have any reason for thinking that the doctrines received or promulgated are divinely revealed as opposed to being mere theological opinions. In other words, any paradigmatic account of how men receive divine revelation as divine revelation; which, by its own stated principles, excludes the possibility of avoiding the epistemic collapse of divine revelation into mere human theological opinion, is ipso facto, incapable of enabling men to identify divine revelation as such.
As a result, the argument for assessing general paradigmatic structures prior to assessing particular evidentiary credibility for paradigms themselves, is that proceeding in this way has the efficiency advantage of ruling out multiple paradigmatic religious options prior to an assessment of the evidential motives for affirming whether – in fact – some purported paradigmatic source really does (or does not) participate God’s infallibility. In fact, epistemic efficiency is one principle reason given by Aristotle and others for always proceeding pedagogically from the general to the particular. In the case at hand, this method reduces the body of evidence which needs to be evaluated at the outset by directing the intellect’s attention to only those evidences which are said to support the revelatory claims of those paradigms whose working principles potentially allow for the maintenance of a real distinction between divine revelation and mere human theological opinion. Those paradigms which – in principle – do not afford the possibility of maintaining this distinction can be safely set aside without expending further evidentiary efforts.
Of course, necessity does not entail sufficiency. Therefore, in addition to merely establishing that some paradigm (supposing its claims could be evidentially substantiated) would be capable – on its stated principles – of maintaining a real distinction between divine revelation and human theological opinion; one must eventually turn to particular evidence in order to determine whether there are reasonable grounds for thinking that the paradigm in question does in fact enjoy some participation in God’s infallibility which would enables its principles to achieve their function. Nevertheless, assessing the paradigm first, to determine if its stated principles meet the minimum necessary condition for maintaining a real distinction between divine revelation and human theological opinion remains the most logical course. Protestantism – on its own paradigmatic principles – provides no means by which to maintain a real distinction between the content of divine revelation as such and mere human theological opinion (or so Mike, myself and many others, both Catholic and non-Catholic have argued). Catholicism, considered strictly as a paradigm (prescinding temporarily from an assessment of its evidential credibility) does potentially enable the maintenance of such a distinction (as do some other religious paradigms – considered strictly paradigmatically).
Accordingly, there is no point sifting through a mountain of “evidence” in “support of Protestantism” so long as the subject at hand involves understanding how men might recognize divine revelation as such. One already knows at the outset, through a strictly paradigmatic evaluation of Protestantism, that no matter what evidence may surface, the very principles of the paradigm, as stated by the paradigm’s own proponents, can never – in principle – deliver the goods. One is then free to concentrate on other paradigms (such as Catholicism or EO, etc) to assess their evidentiary credibility.
Of course, one way to avoid the force of the argument here (the argument that a paradigmatic assessment should be made prior to an evidential assessment), is to deny that the distinction between something called divine revelation and mere human theological opinion is a religious distinction worth worrying about in the first place. Some interlocutors here seem willing to bite that bullet. To me, that option seems only a hop-skip-and jump away from denying that religion is worth worrying about.
from comment 506
Theological disagreement, both across religions in general and within the three main traditions of Christianity in particular–Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism–just does involve interpreting the same set of known data in mutually incompatible ways. That’s what I mean by differences of “interpretive paradigms.” Such IP differences cannot be rationally assessed in terms of premises or theses characteristic of one or more of the clashing IPs but not of all of them. For doing that would just beg the questions. Clashing IPs can be rationally assessed, without begging questions, only in terms of what is common to all of them, or at least acceptable in terms of all. But in order to make such an assessment, we must also reach agreement on what the purpose of theological IPs, precisely astheological, should be. Only then can we deploy rational criteria, common to all, for determining whether a given IP achieves that purpose, and if it does, how well.
Among Christians, reaching agreement on the distinctive purpose of theological IPs, and assessing them in view of that purpose, requires premising that (a) God has definitively revealed himself in Jesus Christ; (b) what God has thereby revealed is expressible as the doctrinal content of the deposit of faith; (c) we can identify the means by which said deposit is transmitted to us who have not received it directly from the source, so that (d) we can render the assent of faith, as opposed to that of opinion, to what has been revealed and transmitted on the divine authority of the source. If not all of (a)-(d) are acceptable to you, then there isn’t much for us to talk about–at least not in the present context. But if they are all acceptable, then we can and should agree that the distinctive purpose of a theological IP is how well it enables us to do (c) for the sake of (d), granted that (a) and (b) are true.
Now I hold that we need a “principled” means, as opposed to an ad hoc means, of doing (c) for the sake of (d), because without such a means, there would no way to do it that is both reliable and non-arbitrary, so that rational assessment of IPs against each other would be impossible. If there were no such way, then the distinctive purpose of theological IPs would be unattainable, and theology would be nothing more than the retailing of more-or-less plausible opinions–which is not the same thing as knowing the content of divine revelation and deepening our understanding of it. To be sure, I have encountered many Protestants who are perfectly content with that consequence. I do not know whether you are one of them. But whether you are or not, such a stance is tantamount to admitting that faith, as distinct from opinion, is impossible, and that we should learn to live with that. To my mind, that’s a pretty devastating consequence. But if you’re cool with it, we probably have nothing more to say to each other about IPs and their purposes.
All the same, if you’re willing to grant that the distinctive purpose of theological IPs, as I’ve described it, somehow is attainable, then we need to carry out what we’ve been calling “stage 1,” before we move on to stage 2. That’s because, from the standpoint of stage-2 evaluation alone, more than one Christian IP (not the Mormon) is rationally plausible, so that none can demonstrably prove itself over against the others, and the only way to adjudicate among them would be to move beyond the plausible but self-serving historical narratives to more theoretical considerations. Given as much, we should first evaluate the clashing IPs in stage-1 terms, so as to determine which is fit to achieve the distinctive purpose of theological IPs. If a given IP turns out to be unfit to achieve its purpose, then no matter how plausible some may otherwise find its associated historical narrative, it fails precisely as theology. With that understood, my main argument is that the PIP fails utterly at stage (1), and that the CIP emerges better than the EOIP from a stage-(1) evaluation– even though Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy can each cite rationally plausible historical narratives in their own support and in their own terms, so that if all we considered is stage (2), each can come up looking pretty good.
As I see it, then, you could argue against my two-stage approach in one of two ways. First, you could argue that we need no “principled distinction” of the sort I talk about, because what I characterize as the distinctive purpose of theological IPs is unattainable and therefore unnecessary. If so, then stage (1) should simply be dropped, and we should focus simply on stage 2. That, as I’ve already implied, is a fairly common Protestant response, with the consequence I’ve indicated. Or, secondly, you could agree that a stage-(1) evaluation of IPs is needed roughly for the reasons I give, but disagree with me about how the CIP, PIP, and EOIP emerge from such an evaluation. Either way, I suspect, you’ll have some bullet-biting to do–if you want to continue this discussion at all, and move the ball. But your first option, I should think, would be a more useful one to pursue.
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