Argument from Not Buying My Arguments
Another Unorganized Argument
Presumably, you think I am a good-faith actor. I’m reasonably well-read, though more of a theological jack-of-all-trades than a master of one. I’m deeply dedicated to God’s Word. I pray and have attended some form of church my whole life. In short: I’m a candidate for representing what can reasonably be hoped for from someone with an interest in theology who hasn’t spent a lifetime studying it. My years in debate have also helped me become a competent communicator. I know how to craft an argument and consider objections.
So if all the obvious reasons to dismiss me out of hand fall through, what explains the deep disagreement between me and my Protestant brothers and sisters? From my position, it is relatively simple to say that, as a result of historical tragedies beyond their control, they’ve found themselves outside the bounds of the institution Christ established, which means they lack certain resources needed for establishing the fullness of Christian doctrine. But what can they say about me? If they don’t find my arguments compelling, how do they explain a serious, dedicated, well-educated Christian coming to such divergent conclusions from their own? I press the Stupid/Wicked Dilemma hard in the Main Essay, so I’ll give it a rest here. Instead I want to emphasize this:
If you and I, two reasonable people open to God’s direction and attentive to God’s Word, can’t come to an agreement on basic aspects of Christian teaching like Baptism, Communion, the afterlife, the Church, and more, something has gone very wrong.
If you have read enough Reformation Catholicism to understand my ethos and take me seriously, what will dissolve our division? Is everyone really abandoned to private judgment? Conclude, instead, that the very intractability of our disagreement implies that we’ve taken the tools of private judgment as far as they can go, and come up short. And we ought not to settle for interminable bickering. Christ said that in His going He would send His Spirit, the Advocate, to “lead us into all truth.” Scripture is materially sufficient, meaning that it contains all the fullness of Christian doctrine, but it is not formally sufficient, meaning it does not explicitly tell us everything we need to know in plain terms. If this sounds blasphemous, recall that roughly half of Christians were Arians in 325 AD; that is, roughly half of Christians thought Jesus was not God but simply the highest creation of the Father. It was not an especially convincing exegesis or a particularly spiritual Bible study that convinced them otherwise: it was the Church, assembled at Nicea under the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, absolutely and irrevocably defining the basic doctrine of the Trinity (a word not itself found in the Bible).
So, if you are not convinced by my arguments, you generate a new problem for yourself: how will your theological framework make sense of our disagreement? Am I dumb? Do I fail to earnestly seek the Lord? Maybe, but I think not. Whoever seeks shall find, and you shall find Him when you seek Him with all your heart. Is it possible that, like St. Augustine, you have been looking for Him outside, when He is right here, passing through the midst of us, even dwelling in the Tabernacle at the local Catholic parish you’ve driven by a thousand times?
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