A caller asked how to respond to the claim that both Catholics and Protestants rely on fallible interpretations of scripture – Protestants on their personal interpretation of scripture and Catholics on theirs. John Martignoni lays out the key differences between Catholic and Protestant approaches to scripture interpretation.
Transcript:
Thank you for taking my call. I was listening to you earlier talk about asking Protestants how can you be sure you’re interpreting scripture correctly and I could easily see someone coming back and saying well You believe your church is infallible, but every time your magisterium comes out with a new, you know It document to clarify teaching. It’s a big controversy in the church about how to interpret this. What’s the meaning? Let’s pick apart the wording and the phrasing and get the context and they’ll say well, that’s exactly what we do with the scriptures So my question is how do we respond to a Protestant who comes back at us and says Well, I can only be just as sure that I’m interpreting the infallible scriptures correctly as you can be sure that you’re interpreting your infallible magisterium correctly
Okay, this is and this is a response you will get eventually because it’s the only response That makes even partial sense to the question of are you an infallible interpreter of scripture that a Catholic can and should always Ask each and every Protestant that they dialogue with but here’s the thing number one by saying that They’re basically conceding your point Okay, so just keep that in mind and that’s the first thing you can say you say well, so what you’re saying is
Your interpretations of scripture could be wrong because you’re not infallible But you’re saying we’re in the same position, but at least let’s start off by agreeing That you’re not an infallible interpreter of scripture. Okay, so make that point number two Make the point that well the difference between the two is that as a Catholic I Have people who can actually explain what it is. They’re saying as
a Protestant I read the Bible and the Bible cannot talk to me if I have a question What is the Bible saying, you know, what is Paul saying here in Romans 11 or Romans 9 or what? You know, I mean the Bible itself tells us there are parts of the Bible that are difficult to understand
So can I ask the Bible a question and have it answer me? No, I can’t so the Bible cannot explain itself
The Pope can explain himself The Pope when he issues a document we can look at it and like I said, there might be yeah, there might be controversy But the fact of the matter is is That there has been no doctrine, you know people are saying oh the Pope for example with the document about the blessing of same-sex couples
Well, yeah big controversy number one if you read the document Every blessing example in there is a blessing of an individual. So there’s that number two The document itself says this is a pastoral matter. It’s not doctrine So we have 2,000 years of history We’re not a single doctrine has been contradicted by a later teaching All the doctrines we have all fall in order so number one, so there’s that no contradictions in our doctrine over 2,000 years there may be contradictions in people’s Misunderstandings of this doctrine or that doctrine, but if there is what seems to be a contradiction Contradiction then someone is getting it wrong There’s a misunderstanding and you know misinterpreted and what do you do? Well, you look at the history What’s the history? Where’s the authority? But going back to the again the difference between Protestant and Catholic number one the Bible cannot respond to your questions Oh, yeah, you can look at a different verse here or there, but you still have to interpret that I Have a bishop a priest a pope who can and does respond to questions Secondly, you can’t say
We can’t be infallible in any of our knowledge I can infallibly teach that two plus two equals four I’m infallible in teaching that and if I go to math class and they tell me the derivative of X-squared is 2x
That’s infallibly taught
So there is knowledge we can have that is infallible knowledge we can teach it infallibly and The teachings of the doctrinal and moral teachings of the church fall under that yeah again People may contradict what we say. We may have Catholics who say well No, women should be priests or well a contraception should be acceptable You always go back to what the church actually teaches and has taught It’s easy to find easy to discern look into catechism looking at papal encyclical. So Huge difference between the two but at the end of it if that none of that convinces the Protestant Just tell them say okay So under your system
You’re saying Jesus left us
With the only way to decide Excuse me, the only way to decide What is true and false doctrine for Christians? even doctrine concerning our salvation
The only way to decide is your fallible opinion versus my fallible opinion and the one who makes the best argument Whether they’re right or not, but the best argument wins the day Is that how you think Jesus left us or did he leave us with an authoritative church to decide such matters?
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