
This will be the first of a string of posts reflecting on my conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism. If you’re a friend and you care about this part of my life and didn’t know about my conversion, sorry. Please message if you’d like to talk about it.
The format of these posts will be less a review of how and why, and more a rehearsal of the specific arguments which convinced me. The process has been surprisingly overwhelming and personal. I am just now—after about three years—gaining some degree of objectivity. These posts are a way of identifying some of the steps I took along the way.
This post is about how I came to think that Protestant ways of identifying doctrine were unworkable. This problem is usually framed as a take down of Sola Scriptura. For the uninitiated, Sola Scriptura means by scripture alone, and it's the hermeneutical principle that the scriptures, in some way—depending on the denomination—are the sole grounds of the content of Christian doctrine.
But I don’t like that frame because, though Sola Scriptura is central to any Protestant theology, there are many definitions of it. So my comments will be more focused, appealing to an aspect of Sola Scriptura that most versions could affirm. In my thinking, this aspect is a least common denominator, which, if false, would disallow any version of the claim. The argument runs like this.
Most versions of Christianity claim to possess truths which can’t be otherwise. These are irreformable truths, unchangeable and immutable. Jesus Christ rose from the dead, original sin, the institution of a Church are all such claims. Upon these the veracity of the faith hangs its hat. If they are not true, the whole thing falls apart.
Catholicism and Protestantism differ in how the Church comes to know these truths. For its part, Protestantism has various takes on the question, all of which give the Bible a foundational or primal role. There are, roughly, three options.
Some denominations are explicit in their appeal to the Scriptures. These groups believe only what the Bible says of a subject if the Bible comments on it. This imperious view takes the content of doctrine to be only what is in the Bible, no more no less. These tend to be small and fractious communities.
Still, other denominations see the Bible as a regulator of doctrine. This modest approach takes the content of doctrine to come from many sources—Natural Law, reason, tradition, creeds—all the while limiting the conclusions one can draw from those other sources with the statements of Scripture. These tend to be magisterial and liturgical communities.
Lastly, other denominations take the imperious view and yet, in an effort to regulate what can be taken from the Bible, summarize its content with a creed or collection of standards. Thus, when the inevitable question arises of whether or not the Bible comments on a given subject, recourse can be made to a creed to settle the score. These tend to be Reformed and middle sized communities. This used to be my community.
In reality, these three options are mixed and matched. There are debates raging now interdenominationally of which approach to take. I am not interested in quarreling with any one of them. Rather, I’m interested in a common feature of each, the belief that
A. a doctrine is irreformably true if and only if it is proved by the scriptures.
The justification for this essential feature of classic Protestant thought is commonsensical. If God exists, he is supremely knowledgeable and supremely good. Therefore, we can trust the intent and content of that speech. Protestants have historically identified His speech in the 66 Books of their canon; and its this identification which commits those who hold to (A) to another commonsensical statement,
B. (A) is true by virtue of God’s word being the 66 books of the Protestant canon, such that if God’s word is not the 66 books of the Protestant canon, (A) is not true.
If, for example, an archeologist was able to prove that the 66 book canon was forged by time traveling anarchists, it would not be true that God’s word was the 66 book canon. Therefore, no doctrine would be irreformably true because there would be no scriptures to prove them by.
(A) and (B) should be fairly straightforward for most classic Protestants. Indeed, it is for the logical relation of (A) and (B) that many protestant martyrs died during the Reformation. But from this relation some unexpected conclusions can be drawn.
C. The truth of (B) cannot be tested by (A) because the truth of (B) is a condition for (A) being true, therefore, that (B) is true cannot be an irreformable doctrine.
This insight is not unknown in the Protestant community—at least among its intellectuals and apologists. Indeed, it is often stated that statements like (A) are merely the conceptual frame, or starting point, from which Protestant’s reason. But what is discussed less is a necessary conclusion which stems from that admission. Namely,
D. The irreformability of any doctrine requires as a condition the truth of B.
Which is to say that any irreformable doctrine which is proved by (A), take the virgin birth for instance, is true, in part, because the word of God is the 66 book Protestant canon. This is a conditional, necessary relation. However, it is this very relation which requires any irreformable doctrine to have as a condition, a reformable belief, namely, that the 66 book Protestant canon is the word of God.
Therefore, under the conditions of (A), any doctrine is reformable in so far as it relies on a doctrine which is itself reformable. There is no logical ground making a doctrine proved by (A) irreformably true.
Therefore, every Protestant doctrinal statement comes with a condition: if God’s word is the 66 book Protestant canon, then and only then, is the doctrine irreformably true. But of course, the question then becomes: is (B) true? A protestant may come to a private judgment that it is. However, they will never know it as a matter of doctrine, as a matter of Christian faith.
It’s in this way that (A) fails as a test for irreformable truth. If that’s the case, then classic Protestant theology cannot posit irreformable doctrines. If it is a broadly Christian claim that Christianity posits irreformable doctrines, then classic Protestant theology does not have the epistemological tools to posit doctrine at all.
This is one reason I lost faith in Protestant religion.
Here is a syllogism that may make it clearer.
An irreformable doctrine is a doctrine that is unchangeable or immutable.
Classical protestants believe Christianity claims to posit irreformable doctrine.
Sola Scriptura, R, is the essential classic Protestant doctrine stating that any doctrine, D, is irreformably true iff it is proved by R.
R is true by virtue of God’s word being the 66 books of the Protestant canon, B, such that if God’s word is not B, R is not true
B cannot be tested by R because the truth of B is a condition for R being true.
That B is true is not an irreformable doctrine.
The irreformability of any D requires as a condition the truth of B.
The irreformability of any D has as a condition a reformable doctrine (see 4).
Any D is therefore reformable.
R fails as a test of irreformable truth.
Thus, classic protestant theology cannot logically posit irreformable doctrines.
Therefore, for classical protestants, classic protestant theology cannot posit Christian doctrine.
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