AUTHORITY
The Christian's source of Authority is the Bible. Someone has stated that Christians have a Book from Heaven. That means we have a Bible that is adequately able to do everything it is intended to do. Any tool that accomplishes its job is said to be adequate. An axe is an adequate tool for the lumberjack, and, for the Christian, the Bible is sufficient - it adequately does the job for which it is intended.
The record of the Bible that tells us about and assures us of salvation in Christ. 1 John 5:11-13 tells us about God's gift of salvation in Christ and the accompanying assurance. In John 14:6, Jesus tells us He is the only way to Heaven, a truth that was repeated by Peter in Acts 4:12. Even though, in our sinful state, we were rebellious toward God. Paul writes in Romans 5:1, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We find God's Word is also sufficient for all the questions we have in our Christian life. We are told about the qualifications for deacons and pastors - that word is translated bishops, but they are not like the bishops of the Catholic Church. Biblical bishops had to be married, and they were strictly warned not be dictators over God's people. They were humble pastors of New Testament Churches.
The Bible also instructs about all things pertaining to the private and church life of a believer. We read about Believers' Baptism, about giving, about the Lord's Supper and about disciplining church members. In fact, we are told in Psalm 119:105 that God's Word is a lamp unto to my feet and a light unto my path.
It is the scriptures that teach us to be separate from this world system and false religion, and to be honest, humble and trustworthy. We are told how to have joy and contentment; we are given wonderful promises of prayer; in fact, there is nothing we need in our daily living that is not covered by the Word of God.
The Bible is truly a wonderful Book, for the simple reason that it is divinely inspired. There are 1,189 chapters in 66 books, written by more than 40 men over a period of 16 centuries. Most of these men were unacquainted with one another, but the words they wrote all have one central theme and are never contradictory. This, plus the fact that God clearly speaks of its inspiration cause us to believe that the Bible is, indeed, a unique book that God has given us. It didn't come down from Heaven in a leather binding, but it is most assuredly God's Word to us.
In 2 Peter 1:19-21 we read, "We have a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts; Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."
By private interpretation Peter means to interpret something by yourself. No minister, priest or pope can interpret scripture. It is only the Holy Spirit, the author of the Bible, Who can interpret the Bible. We are told in 1 John 2:27, that the Holy Spirit who indwells every Christian gives us the anointing to understand His Word.
We can never understand everything that is in the Bible, but we can understand all that we need to understand to bring glory to God.
There are many who disbelieve the Word of God, but it comes right down to an important point - do we place our trust in what fallible men are saying or about what God Himself says?
The whole of Christian belief in the integrity of the Word of God is understood when we turn to Psalm 119:89, "Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in Heaven." The entire truth of the Word of God was settled before man was created. Since God knew man could not read His writing in Heaven, He moved upon or inspired certain men to write these truths so that man could understand. Those writing under His inspiration, or breathed upon by Him, could not write a word that was not in God's heart from eternity past. Although they used their style of writing, God superintended the work so that what we have today is God's Word when it is faithfully translated from original languages.
Charles Spurgeon signed a statement of faith, saying, "We avow our firmest belief in the verbal inspiration of all Holy Scripture as it was originally given." Dwight Moody, R.A. Torrey, John Wesley and Billy Sunday all have stated their belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible.
We have examples of verbal inspiration in the Bible. We can look at Exodus 20: verse 1 says, "And God spake all these words" and verse 22 says, "Ye see that I have talked with you from Heaven." We also have the statement "This saith the Lord" thousands of times in the Old Testament. And in Hebrews 1 we read that God spoke in times past to the prophets and hath in these last days spoken to us by His Son.
Once God even used a donkey to speak. Certainly we believe that God would use the prophets He had authorized. Yes, and we find God saying to Isaiah, "I have put my words in thy mouth" and the same thing to Jeremiah This is recorded in Isaiah 51:16 and Jeremiah 1:9.
Probably the most important evidence of the inspiration and sufficiency of scripture is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He constantly appealed to the Bible as the final authority. He often used the term "it is written." In His confrontation with Satan in the Wilderness, he used that phrase three times as a final authority, and He also referred to the scriptures in His dealing with the religious leaders of the day. In Mt 22:29, He told the Sadducees that they erred because they did not know the scriptures. And on the Road to Emmaus, he opened the scriptures to the fearful disciples.
Everyone who is truly saved acknowledges the great part the Scriptures had in his salvation.
The Scriptures also play a specific function in evangelism. We know that the only Person Who administers salvation is the Holy Spirit, for by one Spirit we are baptized into the Body of Christ. And we know the Bible only speaks of one weapon which the Holy Spirit has; Ephesians 6:17 tells us the Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. He is the expert with Whom we work in this great evangelistic outreach. So it is only logical we use the same weapon that He does.
And there is good reason for this. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that Satan has blinded the minds of those who believe not. Now if a person is blind, he cannot see anything. They can't see insignificant things, and they cannot see anything spectacular. Blind people do not need something more spectacular to look at; they need sight with which they can see. And God's Word says in Psalm 119:130 that the entrance of God's Words give light. So it all works together. The blinded sinner needs God's Light, which can only be given by the Word of God, which is the weapon the Holy Spirit uses.
That encourages those who trust His power to use God's Word in evangelism. But if someone is trying to evangelize by being brilliant, or by being spectacular, while the lost person may get excited, he can never be saved because the only Person Who accomplished biblical regeneration is the Holy Spirit.
We know that biblical regeneration cannot be accomplished by baptism or any act of man, but as the Holy Spirit applies the Word of God to the heart of man. God tells us plainly that it is in the heart that man believes unto salvation, and while we can proclaim the Gospel from our mouth to a sinner's ear, only the Holy Spirit can drive God's truth into his heart.
In John 18:38, Pilate asked the question, "What is truth" The Lord Jesus had already given the answer in John 17:17, "Thy word is truth"
Catholics burned Bibles for many centuries. They will say it was because those Bibles were Protestant versions that did not have the truth. Yet we know the plain teachings of salvation can be found in Catholic or Protestant Bibles. It is basically because, as so many ex-Catholics have proved, the Roman Catholic religion cannot be substantiated by the Bible. Catholics have said that the Catholic Church is the Mother of the Bible. They like to point to ancient local councils and say they gave the world the Bible. But if the Catholic Church is the Mother of the Bible, we have a classic example of child-abuse, for the Church has never been friendly to the free reading and understanding of scripture.
To find the Catholic view of authority, we will go to Dr. Ludwig Ott, a very conservative theologian who wrote Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Dr. Ott wrote: "Theology, like faith, accepts as the source of its knowledge Holy Writ and Tradition. These are remote rules of faith. It also accepts the doctrinal assertions of the Church, which is the proximate rule of faith. This is the day by day teaching ministry of the church through the pope and bishops united with the pope. It is designed to take things from scripture and tradition and apply them in a living way, hence its being called the proximate rule of faith."
By scripture being a remote rule of faith, he meant that it was out there, objectively true, but the Roman Catholic cannot access it unless he hears the teaching authority of the Church, so that means that a Roman Catholic cannot by himself understand the plain teachings of the Bible.
For the Christian, the Bible is also a remote rule of faith. The Bible is objective Truth, but we need the Holy Spirit to make its words plain to us. Instead of the Holy Spirit interpreting the Bible for the Roman Catholic, he looks to the teaching ministry of his church to interpret the Bible.
No man, no matter however spiritual or brilliant he is, can interpret the Bible without the ministry of the Holy Spirit, Who teaches us God's Word. Because every Christian and only Christians have the indwelling Holy Spirit, those outside of Christ cannot understand the Bible.
We would like all our Catholic friends to read the Bible; probably the biggest problem is that many Catholics fear that, if they read the Bible, it will confuse them. They feel it is safer just to let the priest or the bishop explain the Bible to them.
That's why it is so important to use the Bible in our witness. In the book Far From Rome . . . Near to God it gives the testimonies of 50 ex-Roman Catholic priests. Most of them began the road to salvation when he read or heard the Word of God. The Bible's testimony of itself is true: It is alive and powerful.
The Council of Trent admitted the Bible was divinely inspired, but then they said it could only be interpreted according to the unanimous consent of the Church Fathers, but their favorite verse, Matthew 16:18, Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church, did not have a unanimous interpretation by the Church Fathers. There is no official interpretation of John 3:16.
The Contemporary Catholic Catechism written in 1973, eight years after the close of Vatican II, said, "Religious truth is presented in various ways in the Bible. . . historical fact, fictional stories and myths. All events in the Bible are not to be taken as literal reports. For example, Genesis 1 to 11 are not history. They don't think Adam was a real individual. Most of the progressive theologians think that the Garden of Eden story was a myth to symbolize the creation of the world but that it was not literally true. There are eight references to Adam in the New Testament, and five references to Noah. Even though our Catholic friends think the story of Noah and the Ark was just religious allegory, Jesus Himself knew that Noah was a real man who built a real ark to be saved from a real flood.
Scripture is mentioned very favorably in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994). Several paragraphs are written that tell about the scriptures being inspired by God. Yet the bottom line, as given in paragraph 119, "For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church."
Dr. Ott had said the scripture was a remote rule of faith which is made near, or proximate, to us through the Magisterium - the living teaching authority of the Church. We as Christians believe that the indwelling Holy Spirit makes the scriptures real and living to us.
There are a lot of things written down on paper that show the Roman Catholic estimation of the Bible, but the important thing is their practical action. The pope gave an indulgence to those who would read the Bible. Back in the days when they gave numerical value to partial indulgences, you could get 300 days indulgence if you read the Gospels for 15 minutes. That means they gave 20 days for each minute they read the Bible. In the forewords of the Confraternity Roman Catholic edition, they give you a prayer to the Holy Spirit that you can recite. That prayer takes less than a minute. The indulgence for saying this prayer is 5 years. That makes it over 90 times as powerful as Bible reading.
A lot of older Catholics were afraid to read the Bible because they were afraid they might interpret it wrongly. In 1229, in the Council of Toulouse, the Catholic Church said, "We prohibit the permitting of the laity to have the books of the Old and New Testament."
Priest John O'Brien, one of the foremost apologists of the Catholic religion has stated the Roman Catholic position on the Bible clearly. He wrote, "it must be abundantly clear that the Bible alone is not a safe and competent guide because it is not clear and intelligible to all and because it does not contain all the truth of Christian religion."
You could go through the 119th Psalm and find that almost every verse extolls the Word of God. The 119th Psalm is a great storehouse of the riches of God's Word. Verse 9, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word. Verse 18 says Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
Verse 89 says Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in Heaven. Verse 105 says Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
Since our Catholic friends don't really understand the unique position of the Bible, they go to the teaching of someone like Dr. Ludwig Ott. He gave three pillars upon which the Church stands. The Bible, Tradition and the Magisterium. We will look at this second pillar and find out what Tradition means to the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says. "Tradition is the teachings and practices handed down, whether in oral or written form. It includes the essential doctrines of the church, major writings and teachings of the Fathers, the liturgical life of the Church, customs, institutions and practices which express the Christian Faith."
If they had to get all the Tradition of the church in order to get a full understanding of Catholicism, they would need several trucks to carry all the books - and then it would be only the Tradition that has been written down.
For the average Catholic, Tradition is just something undefinable which is out there somewhere, and they trust the Church to take things from Tradition which, you will remember, is a remote rule of faith, and have it applied to them by the Bishops.
But the Bishops sometimes don't agree about some important point. Recently, Archbishop Weakland and Cardinal Ratzinger has a major disagreement about the Mass. Archbishop Weakland blamed the sad condition of the Catholic Church on the fact that the pope had authorized some Masses to be said again in Latin. He felt that was a betrayal of what Catholics call the spirit of Vatican II.
Cardinal Ratzinger's said the sad condition of the Catholic Church was because Popes Paul VI and John Paul II had allowed any Masses to be said in English. He still believes, as do many traditional Catholics, that Latin is the only proper liturgical language for Catholicism. The only thing they agreed on was that the Catholic Church is in sad shape.
Whenever you have a big building with a faulty foundation, you are asking for trouble. The authority foundation of Catholicism is almost non-existent and therefore the building is bound to topple.
There has never been an infallible statement by a pope about Tradition, but scholars agree that, wherever there has been no infallible statement, books like the Catholic Encyclopedia are valid.
In Volume XV, page 10 of this encyclopedia it says, "[the Church] succeeds in recognizing through the obscurities and inaccuracies of ancient formulas portions of traditional truth, even though they are mixed with error."
The Lord Jesus Christ said that God's Word is Truth - not just a portion of the truth that is mixed with error.
Volume VI, page 136 of the Catholic Encyclopedia says, "Substituting of false documents and tampering with genuine ones was quite a trade in the Middle Ages." Much of the authority claimed by the Papacy during the middle ages came from a document called The Donation of Constantine, where the emperor Constantine was supposed to have given lands and power to Pope Sylvester. That was proved by Catholic scholars to have been a forgery - but the power claimed by the pope because of this document was never relinquished.
That is what you might call building a house upon an unsure foundation. We have a more sure foundation - as the Apostle Peter said, "We also have a more sure word of prophecy."
One of the old Traditions that the Roman Catholic Church used to hold was that the Apostles Creed originated on the Day of Pentecost. That was included in the official catechism of the Council of Trent - and is rejected by all Catholic scholars today. So yesterday's Tradition might end up in tomorrow's waste paper basket.
In the Catholic Encyclopedia in Volume III, page 484 it says, "Writers of the 4th century were prone to describe many practices as of apostolic origin which certainly had no claim to be so regarded.
The Catholic Encyclopedia itself admits that, in their Tradition, there are obscurities, inaccuracies, errors, tampering and false claims - that should certainly cause a Catholic to wonder about basing anything on such a weak foundation, but many Catholics don't even think it through - they merely say that if it is not in the Bible, it must be in Tradition.
Jim McCarthy, who is a converted Irish Catholic has written, "After the reading the reader gestures toward the Bible and says, 'The Word of the Lord.' The people respond 'Thanks be to God.' We know that the Bible itself is not the sufficient Word of God for the Catholic. The Bible is only a small portion of God's Word. The Catholic Church teaches Tradition is also the Word of the Lord. The priest could not carry a copy of all their Tradition - unless he were Superman.
Their Tradition includes the manuscripts of the 88 Church Fathers. Hundreds of documents would be gathered from men like Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great and others. Then you need the manuscripts of the Church Doctors - Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Cardinal Bellarmine and Alphonsus Liguori. It would take a strong man just to carry all the writings of Thomas Aquinas, who wrote extensively.
As well as these, he would need ancient professions of faith, records of ancient liturgies, sacramental rites, prayers, hymns, chorals and a record of religious practices. He would need thousands of documents drawn from files going back 1700 years. He would also need the encyclicals, addresses, pastoral letters and sermons of over 200 popes; then the decrees of 21 ecumenical councils from 325 to 1965.
A copy of the Decrees of Vatican II and the pope's official statements from that Council has over 900 pages. Multiply that by 21 and you'll see a bit of the problem involved in assembling all of Roman Catholic Tradition. Most Catholics don't realize the extent of their Tradition.
As well as writings, we need to bring along the inscriptions from the catacomb walls and Roman Catholic statues - anything which could testify to what Christians might have believed and practiced from the beginning of the Church would qualify as Tradition. If the priest could point to that huge pile and say 'This is the Word of the Lord,' I doubt that there would be many who would respond 'Thanks be to God.'"
Some modern catechisms grasped this problem. The Church's Confession of Faith, published in 1987 says on page 6, "Of course, not every one of these manifold figures and witnesses to Tradition can be equally important. Too many differences become apparent as soon as one occupies oneself with them in greater detail. The question about which criteria to use for grasping the one Tradition in the multiplicity of traditions must still be asked."
In other words, this mountain of Tradition is all good, but some is more relevant than others, but we have a hard time knowing what is important.
We have a set of volumes on Tradition which give 200 traditional teachings by a variety of Catholic scholars. They will give us a good synopsis of what Tradition is supposed to contain.
They cover the Savior, Scripture, the Church, Spirituality, Social Thought, Personal Ethics and Mass and the Sacraments.
One of the writers about Tradition was Origen , who wrote extensively. The article that was printed in the book of Catholic Tradition was about the Bible, and Origen can definitely be seen to hold two views - one was that current philosophies could help us to understand the Bible and the other was that scripture interprets scripture. The notable thing that is lacking is that Origen did not uphold the Magisterium of the Church as the source from which Bible interpretation flows - a far cry from what Dr. Ott has claimed for Rome's Magisterium. He did not even mention the possibility of another avenue of inspiration - rather, while not having correct interpretation, he felt the Bible was obscure, but inerrant, so that means we could say that we have Roman Catholic Tradition that denies the necessity of Tradition.
The early writers did not have the precise definition of authority as has been supplied by Dr. Ott. The whole question of papal infallibility was not yet settled, and some Church Councils held themselves to be infallible. The whole teaching on authority was a bit unsure until the Council of Trent.
This Council is often looked upon as the first instance that true Roman Catholicism emerged in a tangible and authoritative form. As we will learn, there are many matters upon which the Council spoke authoritatively. One of these was their insistence upon Biblical inerrancy.
If they believed in an infallible Bible, they seem to be closer to the Christian belief about the Word of God.
But they also formally elevated Tradition to be on a par with the Bible, and, of course, when you have two sources of teaching, it is necessary for someone to interpret exactly what each of them means, which leads us to the Magisterium.
This is the most important part of Catholic authority, because the very word Magisterium comes from a Latin word meaning authority, and I believe we will see here the very basis of Catholic authority. We will remember how Dr. Ludwig Ott called the Magisterium the proximate rule of faith - that it took from the Bible and Tradition and made their teachings relate to individual Catholics.
That is why we say that for the Roman Catholic it doesn't matter as much what the Bible and Tradition say - it is how the Magisterium interprets the Bible and Tradition.
We will quote from Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Encyclopedia. This was edited by Priest Peter Stavinskas who is a very solid and conservative contemporary scholar.
On page 615 it says that the purpose of the Magisterium is to safeguard the substance of faith in Jesus Christ and to prevent the individual from being left entirely on his own.
The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us that with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the Church takes the teachings of Christ and the Apostles and "calls upon all to place their faith in these teachings."
But the Bible teaches that salvation comes by placing your faith in an individual, not in any teaching. It was Jesus Christ Himself Who died for us, and whosoever trusts Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
The Catholic Encyclopedia says that the Apostles taught as a unified body under Peter, and from this they get the idea of the bishops under the pope teaching the Church.
For biblical proof they go to the two occasions when different Catholics will point to as a time when Peter became pope and took over the teaching of the Church. The first of course is Matthew 16:18 when Jesus said, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. The other is in John 20 when Jesus said to Peter, "Feed my lambs and my sheep."
But look at the very next thing Peter said. In verse 21, he questioned Jesus about what the Apostle John was going to do, But the pope is supposed to have full authority over all the clergy of the church. Apparently Peter didn't. So trying to prove the Magisterium by these two verses is hopeless.
During the rest of the Gospel stories Peter said many things. In Matthew 17:4 on the mount of Transfiguration he showed that he had no spiritual understanding of what was really taking place.
He wanted to build three tabernacles there, but God was interested in manifesting His Son's Glory to His disciples.
Peter also displayed a lack of spiritual understanding when he asked, in Matthew 19:27, what the disciples were going to get out of all of their sacrifices. He was insistent that he would never deny Christ, yet he did deny him three times, even to the point of cursing and swearing. Now we don't say these things to condemn Peter - he was human as we all are - but we must maintain that the Bible does not in any way back up the Roman Catholic claim that Peter and the Apostles were authorized by Christ as a Magisterium. Although they are taught that the Magisterium is supposed to guide the Catholic into all truth, we can be thankful that Jesus Christ said of the Holy Spirit, He will guide you into all truth.
The Catholic Church teaches that the pope was authorized by Jesus Christ Himself to take His place on the earth - to be His true Vicar.
We see noticeable differences between the pope and the Holy Spirit. The pope is a human being; the Holy Spirit is God. Although the pope can make mistakes, the Holy Spirit never says anything that is incorrect. The pope's infallibility is very limited. He must speak something to the entire church, it must be about faith or morals, and must be couched in language that gives the understanding he means to speak infallibly. These conditions are rarely met.
The last statement that all Catholics must agree is infallible took place on November 1, 1950. That was when the pope defined the Assumption of Mary into Heaven. But even if the pope doesn't make it clear that he is speaking infallibly, some of the statements he makes can be thought by some Catholics to be infallible.
This happens more often than Catholics would like to admit. In one of his debates with me, Catholic apologist Karl Keating said there were parts of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae that were infallible, but he didn't say which parts were infallible. Here is the problem. The pope might make a statement, but different theologians can interpret it in different ways. Some might say parts of it are infallible, but others might choose other parts.
We had an example recently when the pope made a statement to the effect that there would never be women priests in the Catholic Church. The Wanderer, a very conservative weekly, actually stated that this was an infallible statement, but the liberals, or progressives did not agree.
Statements that everyone agrees are infallible are few and far between. Before the statement on Mary's Assumption in 1950, the pope, in 1854, said that Mary was immaculately conceived, and even though that statement was made before the 1870 dogma of papal infallibility, when the Vatican Council decreed papal infallibility, this was supposed to cover all the past popes too.
You would think that Catholics would be troubled that their pope speaks infallibly so seldom, but the Catholic apologist Karl Keating explained infallibility once, and he didn't seem to mind that the pope speaks seldom. He said that, for example, if the pope were infallible in trigonometry and his teacher gave him a trigonometry test of 100 questions, how many should he get right? Most people thought he should get all 100 correct, but Karl explained that he could get none of them right; he could in fact leave his paper blank. Although he didn't get any right, neither did he get any wrong.
Karl explained that infallibility is not the ability to say correct things; it is being divinely protected from saying incorrect things. The vast majority of the popes have not made any infallible decrees - they have, in actual fact, left their papers blank.
There is a great contrast. The pope speaks every 80 or 100 years. The Holy Spirit speaks to Christians daily. And many times when the pope speaks, no one is really sure if it is infallible. Another superiority the Holy Spirit has over the pope is that while the pope lives in Rome, the Holy Spirit lives in the heart of the believer. That makes God's Word accessible to all.
Of course, they say that the teaching of the bishops is also infallible. But it has to be unanimous, and since the pope is the Bishop of Rome, if he disagrees, what the other bishops say doesn't really matter, so the bottom line of Roman Catholic authority is the pope, who speaks about once every 100 years, Tradition of which they are not sure and the Word of God with which they are not familiar. This is vastly inferior to the plain declaration, "Thus saith the Lord!"