Dr. Chris Castaldo is lead pastor at
New Covenant Church in
Naperville, IL. I got to know Chris a
bit when I was living in Naperville. We
had coffee a few times and talked theology and life. I very much enjoyed getting to know Chris.
Besides being a Protestant Pastor, Dr. Castaldo is also a
former Catholic. He has a particular
interest in Catholic-Protestant dialog, and has even written a book,
Talkingwith Catholics about the Gospel: A Guide for Evangelicals. Dr. Castaldo is also an academic theologian. I have witnessed the great care he takes in
accurately portraying what the Catholic Church actually teaches. No one could accuse him of being uninformed
about Catholicism; he knows Catholicism better than most Catholics.
He begins:
I am often asked, “What is the fundamental difference
between Catholic and Protestant belief?”
He concludes his article by answering:
...the issue of Church authority is the fulcrum that
separates Catholics from Protestants.
On that Chris and I agree fully. All other issues that divide Catholics and
Protestant - including important ones like justification, the nature of grace,
the sacramental economy, the role of Mary and the Saints - all of these can be
traced back to the question of authority.
When it comes to authentically interpreting the Sacred Scriptures, who
gets the final say? If Church
"X" teaches that baptism for spiritual regeneration is necessary for
salvation and should be conferred on infants, and Church "Y" teaches
a believers' baptism with no interior effects, and both churches appeal to the
same scriptures, how is the Christian to adjudicate this important
difference? The Protestant answer is
that the believer, like churches "X" and "Y" is left with
the scriptures alone that she can and must
interpret for herself. The Catholic
answer is that Jesus founded a Church to make provision for this very thing,
and entrusted that Church with a certain authority to authentically interpret
the deposit of faith. So on the basic
thesis of Dr. Castaldo's article, I agree.
Sola Scriptura was the formal principle of the Protestant Reformation
and remains at the heart of what separates Catholics and Protestants.
I think a few words are in order, though, on the rhetorical
device by which Dr. Castaldo illustrates his point, and perhaps a challenge at
the end to his position.
To illustrate the concept of apostolic succession and the
authority of the bishop, Dr. Castlado gives the example of a bishop offering a
dispensation to eat meat on a Friday in Lent at a gathering for wealthy
donors. He concludes:
My eyes turned toward old Joe Sedlak who sat beside me
thinking that if he had choked on his steak and died apart from the bishop’s
blessing, he might have been roasted. But now, after the bishop’s prayer, he
could feast in peace.
From a Protestant point of view, clerical authority of this
kind stretches incredulity to the breaking point. Even so, the Bishop’s
announcement makes sense in the context of Catholic theology. If authority is
vested in the Bishops to the extent that they mediate forgiveness and
sanctifying grace, then such priestly action follows logically.
Dr. Castaldo presents
a kind of reductio ad absurdum.
Dispensation granted? Eat your steak in peace of conscience. No dispensation from the bishop: the fires of
hell! Certainly this shows the folly of
the Catholic position.
But notice what the article does in a brilliant use of
rhetoric. It takes the most seemingly
absurd, mundane, insignificant example in order to criticize the
principle. No doubt an evangelical
audience would already have no esteem for the particular practice of required
abstinence from meat on Lenten Fridays.
Add to that that this was - choke - a fundraiser (!). This is theologically low-hanging fruit.
But it serves the purpose for a popular presentation. A real test of the principle of the authority
of the Church in the person of the bishop through apostolic succession may be
not a steak at a fundraiser, but the Council of Nicaea. Before we can ask if a bishop has the
authority to bind and loose regarding an ecclesiastical discipline, let's ask
if the Fathers of the Council of Nicaea had the authority to bind the Christian
faithful to a Creed that used non-biblical terms. Did those bishops have the authority to
anathematize those who denied the Creed they promulgated? That, it seems to me, is the better test case
for the principle in question. If
apostolic succession carries an authority strong enough to bind the Church to
the homoousios, then certainly a fortiori, it can impose and lift ecclesial
disciplines regarding fasting.
Finally, Dr. Castldo ends by saying:
Do you recognize authority to be found in the Bishops by
means of apostolic succession? If so, you are a Catholic. If instead you see
ultimate authority to be in Scripture alone, you are a Protestant.
Three points.
First, I think the way this is phrased is a bit of
equivocation or false dichotomy. For the
Catholics, the ultimate authority in matter of faith is found in the Word of
God, which is transmitted by both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition
(another dividing issues between Catholics and Protestants to be sure). That is the unique authority of what God has
revealed. But that does not preclude
another kind of authority, an interpretive authority. The interpretive authority is not above the
revealed Word of God, but serves it. As
Dei Verbun, the Second Vatican Council's document on Divine Revelation says:
But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God,
whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living
teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of
Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it,
teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it
scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission
and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith
everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed (10).
Second, at perhaps a bit nitpicky, but if "you
recognize authority to be found int he Bishops by means of apostolic
succession," that does not necessarily make you Catholics. All of Eastern Orthodoxy is also quite
adamant on this point. This is simply to
say that the reality of apostolic succession is not a peculiarity of Catholics. If one wants to deny it, one has to deal with
a whole other realm of Christians who have no special interest in the doctrines
of Rome.
Finally, a bit of a challenge. If we are to take the above description of
Catholics and Protestants seriously, who was the first "Protestant"
after the apostolic age? Who was the
first Christian writer after the biblical canon who showed evidence of NOT
recognizing authority to be found in the Bishops by means of apostolic
succession, but instead saw ultimate authority in Scripture alone?
By this description, Ignatius of Antioch (d. 110 AD), a man
who knew the Apostles, was Catholic. He
wrote at length about the role of the Bishop in the Church:
“See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ
does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the
deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with
the Church without the bishop. […] Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let
the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there
is the Catholic Church. […] Whatsoever [the bishop] shall approve of, that is
also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.”
(St. Ignatius: Letter to the Smyrnaeans; Ch 8)
“It is becoming, therefore, that ye also should be obedient
to your bishop, and contradict him in nothing; for it is a fearful thing to
contradict any such person. For no one does [by such conduct] deceive him that
is visible, but does [in reality] seek to mock Him that is invisible, who,
however, cannot be mocked by any one. And every such act has respect not to
man, but to God.” (St. Ignatius: Letter to the Magnesians; Ch 3)
Irenaeus of Lyon, writing against the heretics of his day in
190 AD, specifically appealed to apostolic succession as a refutation of the
Gnostics he was reproving. Apparently
he, the disciple of a man who learned from the apostle John, was Catholic as
well:
"It is possible, then, for everyone in every church,
who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles
which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a
position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and
their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught
anything like what these heretics rave about" (Against Heresies 3:3:1
[A.D. 189]).
"But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a
volume as this the successions of all the churches, we shall confound all those
who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or
through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper,
by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most
ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most
glorious apostles, Peter and Paul—that church which has the tradition and the
faith with which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the
apostles. For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all churches
must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world. And it is in her that
the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition" (ibid.,
3:3:2).
"Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and
conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia,
appointed bishop of the church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth,
for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man,
gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having
always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the
Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the
Asiatic churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down
to the present time" (ibid., 3:3:4).
"Since therefore we have such proofs, it is not
necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the
Church; since the apostles, like a rich man [depositing his money] in a bank,
lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth, so that
every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the water of life. . . . For how
stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important
question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches
with which the apostles held constant conversation, and learn from them what is
certain and clear in regard to the present question?" (ibid., 3:4:1).
"[I]t is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in
the Church—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the
apostles; those who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have
received the infallible charism of truth, according to the good pleasure of the
Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold in suspicion others who depart from
the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place
whatsoever, either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up
and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre
and vainglory. For all these have fallen from the truth" (ibid., 4:26:2).
"The true knowledge is the doctrine of the apostles,
and the ancient organization of the Church throughout the whole world, and the
manifestation of the body of Christ according to the succession of bishops, by
which succession the bishops have handed down the Church which is found
everywhere" (ibid., 4:33:8).
These are but two early examples. It seems that if what makes one Catholics is
recognizing the authority to be found in the Bishops by means of apostolic
succession, rather than holding to sola scriptura, then every Christian for at
least the first millennium after Christ was Catholic! What this implies for the Protestant is the
need to admit a mass apostasy that happened 1) immediately after the apostolic
age, 2) universally in the Church with no cries of protest to the contrary, and
3) despite Christ's promise that the gates of Hell would not prevail over
His Church (Mt 16:18), which the Spirit would lead into all truth (John 16:13),
and which Paul called the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim 3:15).
