“The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ he says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. And to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven . . . ’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep [John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was [i.e., apostles], but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. . . . If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?” (Cyprian of Carthage, A.D. 250).
A Rather Philosophical Argument for The Papacy
What follows is a rather philosophical argument for the Papacy building off what Rob Koons presents in his Lutheran’s Case for Roman Catholicism for the historic episcopacy, which reads:
- God wills that the Church be (visibly) one.
- If God wills an end for X, he must will some effective means that is appropriate for the nature of X.
- The only effective means for the visible unity of the Church that is appropriate to human nature is the historic episcopacy.
Step one, that God wills the Church to be visibly one (as opposed to merely spiritual, invisible) is supported by philosopher and Catholic convert Brian Cross here.
Step two is a metaphysical assumption based upon how a wise God governs his creatures: according to their mode of being.
Step three, then, concerns our being not just rational animals but social-political animals. Koons says, “The rationale for (3’) lies in the fact that human beings are essentially social or ‘political’ animals, as Aristotle argued. God could have preserved the visible unity of the Church by supernaturally guiding each individual Christian to the right theological standards, but such supernatural intervention at the level of the individual member would destroy the social character of the Church, a result deeply antithetical to human nature. As St. Thomas so often taught us, grace perfects and does not annihilate nature.”
So, given what human nature entails, IF God were to lead us to the right theological standards (grasping the essentials of revelation, etc), it is reasonable to expect God would do so through means harmonious to, or befitting of, our social-political nature. Or in other words, it is not reasonable to expect God would bypass, override, or ignore human nature by, say, implanting the right theological standards directly into every believing individual (which is also empirically false), because humans are not, by nature, radically individualistic. Such is why, on a practical level, even those committed to the austerest form of Sola Scriptura still frequently congregate in hierarchical organizations where there are various degrees of authority (pastors, elders, etc). It is simply in our nature to do so. Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.
Historically, there is overwhelming support for apostolic succession. All early Church fathers (Ignatius, Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, Cyprian, the list continues — see here.) teach apostolic succession and none deny it. In fact, apostolic succession is often assumed to support other arguments (for example, the LACK of apostolic lineage is a gauge for heresy, according to Irenaeus — see here.), rather than something which is argued to. It is seen in Scripture, affirmed in tradition.
Koons also says this, “It is certainly true that God’s Word is prior to and constitutive of the Church. The Church came into existence as a result of the apostles’ preaching of the gospel. However, it is an error to identify God’s Word with the Bible. God’s word includes the Bible, but isn’t limited to it. The Church is not constituted by the Bible, since the recognition of the Bible as the permanent, normative record of God’s word was an institutional fact (the formation of the canon), which presupposed a prior institutional fact: the existence of the Church as an enduring, trans-generational society. The church is not prior to God’s Word, but it is prior to the delineation of the Bible as the permanent source and standard of God’s Word.”
In other words, there is an obvious ontological and epistemological primacy to the institutional fact of the Church to the institutional fact of the formation of the Biblical Canon. In short, in trusting the authoritative, hierarchical Church, we can (reasonably/easily) trust the Biblical Canon, but if we cannot trust the Church, how can we (reasonably/easily) trust the Biblical Canon? It seems convoluted if not impossible that God would expect believers to have the requisite knowledge to discern what is legitimate Scripture from what isn’t, and Scripture itself cannot tell us without vicious circularity.
That is one of the well known problems of Sola Scriptura, that Scripture cannot tell us what should (and shouldn’t) be counted as Scripture. Other problems include the fact that Scripture does not interpret itself (no book, if we’re being honest, interprets itself, even God’s), nor does Scripture teach us how to apply its lessons in a modern context. Having a living authoritative Church alleviates these issues while still preserving the primacy of Scripture. In short, we can have the Church and the Bible, but not just the Bible. It’s a package deal.
Moving on.
Obviously, God does not directly implant the right theological standards/beliefs into every Christian, because then there would only be one Church, whereas there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Protestant denominations that disagree not only on minor issues, but essential issues, and even more worrisomely over what should be counted as essential to begin with (baptism, for example). Allotting some authority to tradition (as Protestants who acknowledge the issues of Sola Scriptura have become increasingly willing to do) doesn’t help either, since this too places an unrealistic burden on believers to work their way through Church councils, fathers, etc, to discern what accords with Scripture and what doesn’t (notice the implicit, or at least performative, assumption of Sola Scriptura on this view), and, practically speaking, such admission of authority frequently amounts to no more than Protestants picking out the parts of tradition that already affirm their Biblical or denominational presuppositions and ignoring or dismissing those that do not.
Clearly, when Christ was on earth His followers could ask Him for clarification on theological issues, but once Christ ascended, then what? One could ask His disciples, of course. But unless Christ’s disciples appointed their own successors to lead a Church guided and protected by the Holy Spirit from binding believers to theological error… well, apart from such an infallible interpreter, God’s attempt at revelation would be rendered ineffectual. But God’s attempts cannot be rendered ineffectual. Because God is God. Thus, it makes sense to expect God would have left us with an trans-generational, visible institution — namely, a hierarchical Church, which can consider, debate, and ultimately authoritatively settle theological disputes concerning essential matters of faith and morals.
Here is where The Papacy comes in, because to settle disputes, we often if not always require some final adjudicator — a chief executive, as Ed Feser argues — who can break deadlock. Unsurprisingly, this is precisely what arises — altogether naturally — in our social-political institutions, from the family unit on up to the president of the United States. For Christianity that chief executive (better, “prime minister”) would be The Pope.
My argument, then, modified from Koons, is this. If God is going to will that we believe true and important things about God and Christ (i.e. grasp the essentials of God’s revelation), we can expect God to will a means appropriate to human nature, and given that we are rational-social-political animals, and given that God has revealed Himself, then for such revelation to be effective requires a visible, hierarchical, successional, authoritative Church and Papacy. And so we can expect a visible, hierarchical, successional, authoritative Church and Papacy.
Thus, that we should expect (at least something like) apostolic succession and a papacy, and that we do in fact discover apostolic succession and a papacy — no less(!), an intuition that has lasted 2000 years while preserving Christian unity and doctrinal purity — is why everyone should become Catholic.
Because the Papacy is true.
– Pat
PS – The upshot of these philosophical considerations is this. If we already have reason to expect that some thing or event (x) might occur, that magnifies the evidence on the scene in favor that some such thing or event (x) has actually occurred. Example: If I expect that my grandfather is going to visit my house at 3pm to let my dog out (say, because my mother told me so) and if I already know that my grandfather enjoys cookies, and I come home at 5pm to discover a bunch of cookie crumbs, that on the scene evidence strongly confirms my prior expectation: that grandpa actually did visit my house. If, however, that prior expectation didn’t exist, the evidence of cookie crumbs wouldn’t carry as much weight for inferring that my grandfather visited my house. (It might still carry some weight, but surely not as much given the prior expectation.)
Notice how similar reasoning has been applied by various historians/philosophers/apologists to the incarnation-atonement-resurrection given our prior expectations stemming from God’s existence, goodness, and love in response to human sin. Just as the incarnation-atonement-resrruection makes sense or “fits” those prior (and quite reasonable) expectations, so does the Catholic Church make sense and “fit” with other prior, quite reasonable expectations, whereas Protestantism does not.
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