“Yes, but have you read [fill in the blank]?” It’s a common enough question in any debate, be it religious, political, or anything else.
All of us (or perhaps I should say, I hope all of us) come to serious conversations having read some number of sources that have informed our thinking on the topic we’re debating. More often than not, we’ve probably read sources that our interlocutors have not, which we believe they would benefit from reading. Nothing wrong with that, of course—it’s how every side of a debate engages with new ideas and refines opinions.
But there is another context in which the question is asked that is common in ecumenical debates. It seems, at face, a rhetorically effective tactic, though I would argue that is ultimately diversionary and purposeless. Catholics should be aware of it in order to point it out, and Protestants, if they are to argue in good faith, should be hesitant ever to employ it.
Typically, the exchange goes something like the following. You bring up a particular Protestant doctrine, perhaps articulated in a specific Reformation-era creedal document (e.g., the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Belgic Confession of Faith, or the Heidelberg Catechism) or by a specific famous Protestant thinker (e.g., Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, or Wesley). You offer an objection to that doctrine, maybe citing the internal incoherency of that doctrine. Or maybe you meet the Protestant on his own sola scriptura terms and argue that the doctrine isn’t biblical.
Perhaps the Protestant is prepared for that line of criticism and offers a retort. Or perhaps he doesn’t. Either way, there is a way before him to redirect the conversation away from any perceived failings in his own system: to ask you if you’re familiar with some other Protestant historical document or thinker. The less well known that source, the better, because it decreases the likelihood that you’ll have any familiarity with it. Your Protestant interlocutor doesn’t even necessarily need to formulate an extensive summary of that source—oftentimes it’s enough simply to cite it and argue something along the lines of “Well, you really need to consider that source in order to understand [fill in the blank].”
Granted, it would be unfair to impugn upon any Protestant doing what I’ve described above as intentionally committing the “sin” of manipulative distraction. The Protestant may not be conscientiously seeking to deflect (as if he knows he’s beat) in order to avoid admitting defeat. He may very well think the key to that debate is found in some source he’s encountered. Indeed, I’ve observed Protestants often doing this to one another, as I experienced firsthand when I was a Presbyterian seminary student fifteen years ago.
When I was a Reformed Protestant, I would sometimes have a question or concern about a particular point of Reformed theology (the system of thought that defines many Protestant churches, including Presbyterians) as articulated in some standard text—say, the Westminster Confession of Faith; Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion; or a popular, widely recommended systematic theology. The answer to my question would vary depending on whom I asked—pastor, seminary professor, elder—and, because of that, would lead me in a variety of often contradictory directions. If I raised a particular theologian or writer to contextualize my question or concern, I would often be met with a shake of the head or even a scoff. “No, no, no” they would tell me—that person is wrong or simplistic. “You must read so-and-so for the best defense of that doctrine.” For every fellow Protestant I asked, there would be a different answer as to what source would provide me the explanation to resolve my questions or concerns.
This seemed, upon reflection, a curious problem for a religious tradition founded, so the narrative went, to rescue Scripture from the obscurantism and esotericism to which it had been subjected by an insular, hierarchical Catholic Church. Isn’t Protestantism premised on a layman’s accessibility to the Bible, that it is clear on the essentials of the faith, or what is necessary for salvation—called the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture—so that one shouldn’t have to read a long list of secondary sources to understand, say, how one is saved, or how the church is to be organized? And what should I do, as I increasingly encountered, when the sources I was recommended by those I respected disagreed with one another? And on what grounds, ultimately, should I trust Calvin, Luther, Beza, Turretin, or Peter Martyr Vermigli?
The trouble, I realized, was that the only authority all Protestants—indeed, even all Reformed Protestants—agreed upon was the Bible. And appealing to the Bible amounted to little more than question-begging, because it was precisely the Bible over which everyone was forming differing, often contradictory opinions. Thus, every Protestant had to identify which creedal documents, theologians, and scholars he trusted to direct him to its proper meaning. Even then, according to Protestantism’s own internal modus essendi, the Protestant had to make up his own mind by evaluating those creeds, theologians, and scholars against his own personal interpretation of Scripture. In the end, every Protestant was his own magisterial authority.
For as much as Protestantism became to me increasingly complicated and abstruse, Catholicism presented itself straightforwardly. Want to know what the Catholic Church teaches? Consult the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which enjoys the formal approval of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Need more? Consult the various other magisterial documents of the Church. If you encounter Catholics rejecting the Church’s catechisms, creeds, or councils, they’re offering not an equally legitimate alternative interpretation of divine revelation, but heresy.
Now, to anticipate a Protestant retort, of course Catholics disagree over many finer points of theology or praxis that have not been definitely resolved by the Magisterium (our “liturgy wars” perhaps being the most current example). But those Catholics cannot disagree over what has been declared to be de fide doctrine. The Trinity? Settled. Seven sacraments? Settled. Mary’s immaculate conception and assumption? Settled. You may disagree with these doctrines or the evidence from Scripture or Tradition cited to defend them. But those doctrines—and how they are defended as legitimate—are universally, accessibly taught by the Church. Any priest, theologian, or layman determined to publicly reject them risks excommunication.
In the Catholic paradigm, no one needs to read St. Augustine, St. Thomas, or St. Robert Bellarmine to know the Church’s teachings on salvation, the sacraments, church polity, or human sexuality. Certainly, reading the Doctors of the Church, saints, and respected Catholic thinkers is helpful. But the Magisterium is itself sufficient to know what the Church teaches.
Protestants, in contrast, have no such magisterial authority. They can only contrive an ersatz one, built on the unsteady ground of creedal documents and theologians who, in the end, have no ultimate authority and thus can be picked up or taken off like a set of clothes.
Thus, the next time a Protestant tells you that your critique of his beliefs fails because you haven’t consulted a theologian or scholar you’ve never heard of, ask him why that person has any more authority than the ones you’ve read. No, you may not have read that. But it probably doesn’t matter.