More from Triablogue on High Church Arguments

Another great post responding to Romanists' arguments for their church's authority.

UPDATE: Steve continues to deal with Bryan Cross' bad philosophical arguments (i.e. what the Reformers called 'sophistry') for Roman Catholic authority here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. [The ecclesiolaters just don't know when to give up, do they?] More: Here and (hopefully) the capstone post here.

UPDATE II: I was wrong. Naive Catholic converts just don't know when to give up, do they? Anyway, David Waltz has been trying to respond to Steve. Steve and Gene's replies are here, here, here, and here.

Lastly, there are two reasons why I am linking to all of these posts. First, so that I can go back through them one day in order to write-up my own summary essay on this matter. Second, so that everyone else who reads this blog (however few that may be) will also be able to read them and come to the same conclusion.

Steve also pointed out an article by Cardinal Avery Dulles that notes that Benedict XVI (then Ratzinger) believed (and still does) that Vatican II taught heresy:

"At discussions of Gaudium et Spes in September 1965, Ratzinger voiced many of the criticisms that would later appear in his books and articles: The schema was too naturalistic and unhistorical, took insufficient notice of sin and its consequences, and was too optimistic about human progress."

"Instead of replacing dogmatic utterances with dialogue, Ratzinger contends, it would have been better to use the language of proclamation, appealing to the intrinsic authority of God’s truth. The constitution, drawing on the thought of Teilhard de Chardin, links Christian hope too closely to the modern idea of progress. Material progress is ambivalent because it can lead to degradation as well as to true humanization. The Cross teaches us that the world is not redeemed by technological advances but by sacrificial love. In the section on unification, Gaudium et Spes approaches the world too much from the viewpoint of function and utility rather than that of contemplation and wonder."

"Ratzinger’s commentary on the first chapter of Gaudium et Spes contains still other provocative comments. The treatment of conscience in article 16, in his view, raises many unsolved questions about how conscience can err and about the right to follow an erroneous conscience. The treatment of free will in article 17 is in his judgment “downright Pelagian.” It leaves aside, he complains, the whole complex of problems that Luther handled under the term “servum arbitrium,” although Luther’s position does not itself do justice to the New Testament."

"He is enthusiastic about the centrality of Christ and the Paschal mystery in article 22, and he finds in it a statement on the possibilities of salvation of the unevangelized far superior to the “extremely unsatisfactory” expressions of Lumen Gentium 16, which seemed to suggest that salvation is a human achievement rather than a divine gift."

Also, Gene Bridges posted a Fitzmeyer quote with regard to the "unanimous consent of the church fathers" that hits the nail on the head:

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J.: When one hears today the call for a return to a patristic interpretation of Scripture, there is often latent in it a recollection of Church documents that spoke at times of the ‘unanimous consent of the Fathers’ as the guide for biblical interpretation.But just what this would entail is far from clear. For, as already mentioned, there were Church Fathers who did use a form of the historical-critical method, suited to their own day, and advocated a literal interpretation of Scripture, not the allegorical. But not all did so. Yet there was no uniform or monolithic patristic interpretation, either in the Greek Church of the East, Alexandrian or Antiochene, or in the Latin Church of the West. No one can ever tell us where such a “unanimous consent of the fathers” is to be found, and Pius XII finally thought it pertinent to call attention to the fact that there are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, “nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the Holy Fathers is unanimous.” Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Scripture, The Soul of Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), p. 70.

Triablogue on the Catholic Magisterium

Yes, I've been gone for a while. Anyway, Steve over at Triablogue just posted a great review of Cardinal Dulles' book on the Magisterium. He also posted a reply to a Catholic commenter who threw out all the old Roman Catholic philosophical arguments for high-church authority. [My replies to those arguments are found here.]

UPDATE: Steve continues to review Dulles' book on the Magisterium. Here, he deals with the typical Roman Catholic spoof-texting to "prove" that the New Testament taught Roman Catholic ecclesiology.