Re the Bible,
Infallibility & the Church
A NOTE TO THE READER:
Last summer I sent a letter to my maternal family, including my
parents, challenging them to take Catholicism seriously and examine my website.
The text of this epistle can be found in the Letters & Admonishments
section under the title Re Myself & Conversion to the Catholic Church (for my
Maternal Family). Along with copies of this letter for my parents I sent
them each short handwritten notes explaining to them the reason all social
contact had ended between us & them. Due to the complexity of our debate in
2007 (as chronicled in the book, The
Dogma of Baptism Upheld & the Lie of ‘Faith Alone’ Cast Down)
& their disdain for the Catholic Church, not to mention our great distance
from them while we were in New Mexico, I was not entirely certain they
understood why. I also wanted them to know that I would help them if they were
in dire need and it was possible for me to do so. This, then, apparently led
to, or accelerated, their lengthy rebuttal against another of my books, Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, a couple of
months later. Which, in turn, upon the occasion of my father’s birthday,
led me to send a card pointing out to him what everything between they & I
boils down to, religiously speaking:
Infallibility.
To wit, are they
personally infallible, or is God’s Roman Catholic Church infallible? Can
they, personally, never be wrong when interpreting the Bible about things that
really matter, or is Jesus’ Roman Catholic Body the Only One that can
guide us into comprehending what God means to say in Sacred Scripture without
any possibility of being wrong?
This is the bottom line. And if a pagan, heretic or other kind of worldling shows himself to be viciously obstinate when it
comes to acknowledging all of the historical, scriptural & rational
evidence on behalf of Catholicism, then this alone is where, humanly speaking,
you have a real crack at persuading him. You as a real Catholic may have to rebut
his attacks elsewhere sometimes, and even though it may not get through to
him… but only this issue --- the
matter of infallibility --- is where you’re going to be able
to crash through his defenses and so bring total logical annihilation to
his antagonistic position.
In short, the viciously obstinate worldling
has nothing to stand upon. He
may not want to admit that the Catholic Church is infallible… but if he’s
not infallible, then never can he
prove with absolute certainty that God’s Roman Catholic Church is not,
either!
The words in the two letters which follow are exactly as I wrote them, with only a few
stylistic tweaks in the textual font.
+ + + 1. Letter of 5 November 2008 + + +
My Dear Father,
As I write these words, you are about to begin the 70th
year of your existence, which is the general length of life now allotted Man
upon the Earth by our Creator. I do not know how much longer I shall have your
physical presence in this world, but I thank you for giving us your latest home
address.
Meanwhile, your hatred of the Catholic Faith is so great that you
cannot --- leastwise, Mother cannot --- refrain from attacking Jesus’
Holy Roman Church in my sight. This is why we never see one another anymore.
Yet this hatred could not survive if you did not think yourself
‘infallible’; or, to be really exact, if you did not insist that
you cannot ever be
wrong in understanding those
things in your bibles that must be gotten
right. As a result, if you can’t be wrong, then Catholicism has to be terribly wrong,
hasn’t it?
Dear Father, several times the two of you have assured me that you
don’t pretend to be infallible. You only say that the Bible is
infallible. But the Bible isn’t a person, is it? It is simply words
strung together. And those words are often about things which are “hard
to be understood,” as St. Peter informs us in 2 Peter 3:15-17. (DRC)
Consequently, it is mere men who must interpret these words so as to understand
the Mind of God correctly. How, then, do you & Mother know that you always interpret them correctly
when you personally don’t even claim to be infallible?
Please think it through. What man doesn’t want to think that
he interprets the Bible correctly? Yet if always correct about the things in
the Bible that truly matter, then either he, or someone he’s relying
upon, is infallible when it comes to interpreting the
Bible… isn’t he? But you & Mother rely on no one except
yourselves to interpret the Bible, while at the same time you will not
admit that you could ever be wrong interpreting the Bible when
it comes to something that really matters. Ergo --- and whether you
realize it or not --- you claim to be infallible.
This is why it’s useless for me to debate you any further
regarding Catholicism. Until you admit that
you are not infallible when interpreting the Bible, then you will continue
to blaspheme God’s Catholic Religion since I, a real Catholic, dare to
tell you that you are not. The best we could hope for, short of this
admission on your part, is that you would keep your lips silent concerning the
Catholic Faith in my hearing, allowing us to communicate in relative peace
about mundane topics.
Yet time runs out again for you & I.
For it looks like my family will be moving to eastern
-your
son, Paul
A 2ND NOTE TO THE READER:
My father then responded with a rather polite letter (my
parents’ tone in the rebuttal against Extra
Ecclesiam Nulla Salus had moderated since their more belligerent
attacks during 2007, and my father tends to be a soft-spoken man), but he
ducked the main point and key issue entirely. I therefore called him on it,
driving the point home further. This, too, dear reader, can be your wake-up
call. Because if you’re a heretic or other kind of worldling, then upon what do you base your
condemnatory judgment of the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings? Simply that you don’t like them?
Yet how do you know that they’re wrong?
This is a fundamental question of epistemology --- of how anyone
can be sure of knowing what he thinks that he knows. And this is why infallibility is so crucial. There are a
lot of things that are easy to know and that no one bothers to doubt. There are
also a lot of things that are controverted, but aren’t really that
important. Yet what about the things that do matter, that are contested,
and that are absolutely imperative to get right? Ah, well, then,
we had better have a way of getting these
things correct… and without any possibility of being wrong.
+ + + 2. Letter of 27 November 2008 + + +
My Dear
Father,
You have
proven my point:
You will not
admit that you could be mistaken about things in the Bible that must be
gotten right.
Yet if not
infallible about what God means the Bible to say, then why should anyone
trust your opinion in the matter? You could be misinterpreting the
scriptures --- you could be wrong!
Father, this
is the bottom line. It doesn’t get any nittier
or grittier than this. You can’t afford to admit that you might be
wrong when it comes to interpreting the Bible on things that are truly
crucial… like, say, about how to get into Heaven. Because to do so is the
same as admitting that Roman Catholicism might be right.
After all, if
you can be wrong, then it’s entirely possible the Catholic Church
is right --- isn’t it?
Dearest
Father, God must enable someone to be infallible about matters of
salvation or else no one can be sure about anything in this life when it
comes to Heaven & Hell. You & Mother refuse to admit that you could be
wrong while interpreting your bibles in things that are critical to get right.
Therefore, the two of you are pretending to be that infallible
someone. Others do likewise.
The problem
is, who are we to believe when those who oppose the Church of Rome can
never agree, down through the centuries and across the wide world, about
what God intends His Bible to say on the things that are truly important?
You
can’t all be right when everyone contradicts!
My dear
father, it doesn’t matter that I’m not infallible. I’ve never
claimed that I was. All I’ve ever dared to say is that Jesus makes His Catholic
Body infallible --- “which is the church of the living God, the
pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15b KJV) --- and that
I’ve got the rock hard facts to back it up.
Now, you
please tell me… how can a “pillar and ground of the truth” be
fallible? How can something that holds things up and keeps them from
falling or collapsing --- which is what pillars or the
ground do! --- let truth fall into a ruin of falsehoods?
Yet this is
what your ‘born again christianity’ requires. You won’t come
straight out and say you’re infallible. Hence, you could be
mistaken & your spiritual beliefs based on lies. There’s no
way for you to be sure this can’t be the case since you aren’t
infallible.
Nevertheless,
you act like you’re infallible by pretending that you
couldn’t possibly be wrong when interpreting your bibles in things
that really matter. All so-called ‘christians’ do
the same. So, then, the question which must be answered becomes:
How can every
one of you be ‘infallible’ and call each other ‘christians’ when none of you, down through the centuries
and across the wide world, can wholly agree about the things that are truly
important?
This by
itself proves your lack of infallibility. It also proves that you can’t
be Christian. Because how could all of you be Christian and thus
following Christ when none of you can wholly agree on what Christ
taught His followers about truly important things?
Meanwhile,
the Catholic Church does dare to come straight out and say that She is infallible, and does dare to distinguish very
carefully about who is really a follower of Christ and who is not. Indeed, no
one else in the world does precisely the same. This alone is a
huge piece of evidence on Her behalf since God could not have sensibly put a
Church on earth that is “the pillar and ground of the truth” and
then hid this firmness of Her infallibility from sight, leaving men to
wonder in the darkness of their minds if any spiritual teaching or religious
belief can ever be truly certain.
That is to
say, God’s Church on earth must boldly proclaim Her
absolutely certain infallibility so that everyone can know that it exists
& see where to find it!
As Jesus
said:
“Ye are
the light of the world. A city that is set on an
hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and
put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth
light unto all that are in the house.” (Matthew 5:14-15
KJV, emphases added)
This candle
that “giveth light unto all that are in
the house” is the Catholic Faith, my dear father, being “the
truth” (John 14:6 KJV) that Jesus taught. And “the house”
filled with “light” is thus “the house of God, which is the
church” (1 Timothy 3:15b KJV), which, in turn, “…is his
body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” (Ephesians
1:23 KJV. All emphasis added in verses quoted.)
Nor is it a light
that only I can see. You can see it, too. That’s the point of light shining
in a house --- that the inhabitants of the house might see and hence know
where to walk. Your fallible ‘born again
christianity’ & biblical opinions that can be wrong cannot
do this, my dear father. Only a real Christianity can.
But, of
course, you must first enter the house in order to use this light
properly. Yet even before entering, a person can nonetheless clearly see
the light of this house shining like a city upon a hill. In other words, the
teachings of Jesus’ Catholic Church are simple & easy to understand
for those who take time to look and truly want to figure it out! And it begins
with the sureness of infallibility.
Father, we
ranged far & wide in our debate last year over the Catholic Religion, a
debate recorded in the book, The Dogma of Baptism Upheld & the Lie of
‘Faith Alone’ Cast Down. I have ranged even further in my other
compositions, such as Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, Catholic
Ritual Defended, The World Offended, and in Roman Catholic Church.
These are all on The Epistemologic Works website, the former in the Books &
Articles section and the last one in the Questions & Answers area. Still
other writings abound at the site, and yet more will arrive as Heaven grants me
time, strength & wisdom.
The point is,
I have considered as you bid me and found your
‘christianity’ to be terribly astray. I did this all the way back
in 1997. Notwithstanding, you disdain to take my evidence seriously since you
think it impossible for you to be wrong about the things in the Bible
that really matter. Yet herein lays the crux…
For who has
God made infallible? You, or His Church?
And can the continually changing fads, ever evolving doctrines & always
shifting opinions of ‘born again christians’ possibly be a
‘church’ that is infallible, His “pillar and ground
of the truth”?
This is what
lies at the bottom of everything. And until you admit that you’re not
infallible interpreting the Bible on things that are crucial, it is fruitless
debating anything else. I remain very sincerely your son with the love of
Christ’s Cross & Mary’s Immaculate Heart for your wayward soul,
-Paul
P.S.: We are moving to eastern
And please
remember, Father, that the separation between you & I is not total. I
cannot affiliate with you religiously, of course, as you already well know, and
social association is well nigh impossible due to Mother’s perpetual assaults
on the Catholic Faith, but should either one of you suffer serious misfortune
or grievous illness, then, provided that it is possible to do so, I will come
to your sides to offer whatever help that I can. And always,
come what may and given the Blessed Ever-Virgin Mary’s assistance, I will
be at your sides to usher your souls into the Catholic Church if ever you
relent in your rebellion against God’s Saving Truth.
+
+ +
Pilate’s
query met:
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© 2008 by
Paul Doughton.
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