Monday, September 10, 2007

Fallible Certainty: Answers to jswranch, Part 2

Continuing with jswranch’s comment on The Canon: Fallible Certainty post (part 1 here):

(Original post in italics, jswranch’s comment in bold, my reponse in regular type)

-It serves to make the Christian aware of the fact that she walks by faith, and not by sight... Are we shown doubt in the Bible? One of my favorite verses: [Mk9:23-24]
These throws me. I cannot be certain that the book of Mark belongs in scripture, however I can be certain of my salvation in Christ because the biblical book of Mark tells me so...??!! This seems to conflict. To answer, "Are we shown doubt in the Bible?" I say, no, but we cannot be certain Mark belongs, therefore we can doubt this verse belongs.

-Without doubt, we are sure. With surety, it is not faith....
Hebrews 11:1... Romans 8:24

If there is no room for doubt, it is not hope, and it is not faith.
?? Ok we can be certain of the correct status of our surety, faith, hope, and doubt based on books we cannot be sure are scripture. Heck, we do not even know who wrote Hebrews. Isn't this circular logic?


I am just going to lump these two comments together because the logic is the same. This is the basic Catholic argument of “how can I believe anything the scripture says if I can’t know infallibly that scripture really is from God”. This is probably the favorite Catholic argument to swing back around to no matter where the discussion started.

As I see it, Catholics cannot believe that the Bible is the Word of God unless an infallible, earthly organization tells them so. What I find so odd about this argument is that Catholics can believe the Catholic Church is the Church of God without an infallible, earthly organization to tell them so (except the RCC itself, but that is completely circular).

So without giving my own answer for how I can know that the Bible is the Word of God without an infallible Church to tell me so, I must ask of jswranch or any other Catholic, how can I know that the Catholic Church is the infallible Church of God without another infallible organization to tell me so? If I can't know that the Bible is true without an infallible organization to tell me so, how can you know that the RCC is true without an infallible organization to tell you so?

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