Brothers in Christ in Quarrel
One problem I had when I lost my atheism was deciding, now that I had seen God and believed in God, into which House of God to go on the Lord’s Day to worship and pray.
The decision was easier for me, as a complete outsider, than it would be for someone raised in the faith, pondering whether to switch one denomination for another.
How does an outsider choose?
The first thing to note is that this is not a quarrel between brothers. It is a quarrel between brothers, one of whom sides with his mother, and one of whom is against. Both spring from the same mother. One is a loyalist. The other is a reformer. In this case, the mother is the Mother Church.
This reduces the debate to a stark choice:
One either (1) joins the Church, and believes what she teaches; or (2) selects one denomination among many based on whatever teachings one prefers or invents for oneself.
Option two assumes one knows which teachings are correct before one is taught them, or has the right to challenge them afterward. The student knows more than the teacher. The baby knows more than the mother. Option two assumes one has a privileged source of information not open to the Church, with authority to overrule her.
But, of course, an outsider would have no preconceived notions nor ready answers to the question of which teachings are right, whose claim of authority is just, and what sources of information are trustworthy.
Nonetheless, a matter of logic, the privileged source of information used by the Reformer to overrule the Church cannot be the scriptures written and canonized by the Church, because the same authority that canonizes written scripture also canonized unwritten tradition. To reject one is to reject both. To accept one is to accept both.
Again, if Joseph Smith or Mohammed claim to be a prophet, and can display signs and wonders to confirm his claim, but his teaching is not in agreement with scripture and tradition, that scripture and tradition cannot affirm him to be a prophet.
If the reformer merely claims to have the authority to remove books from scripture or remove teachings from tradition, based on his own inspired insight and human reason, then he is appealing to the selfsame authority he is also at the same time rejecting.
Why listen to this reformer rather than to John the Apostle, who learned from Christ; or Polycarp, who learned from John; or Irenaeus, who learned from Polycarp?
And this reformer is not producing any signs and wonder proving that he speaks for God.
When I ceased being an atheist, and turned to find which denomination to join, what I found was a quarrel between brothers, but who would not turn to Mother Church or Father in Heaven to settle the matter.
Instead, some of the brothers took the books written by the Church, removed seven of them, and pointed to the book and said, “this is the only true Church!”
When I was asked, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” I asked in turn “How can I, except some man should guide me?” The brother Reformer answered, “Do not listen to the Irenaeus, Polycarp, or John. Do not listen to the Church that wrote these books and was given authority from Christ to interpret and teach them. I alone know the meaning of the books, and which books to remove. Do not take the WISDOM OF SOLOMON to be inerrant! That is Deuterocanonical.”
But when I ask, “On whose authority do you speak? In whose name do you reject the Wisdom of Solomon?” I am doubtfully answered.
My question is honest, but the answers are mirk. I am answered either by someone who says he does not care about the past, or by someone who says to learn Church teaching is a burden too heavy to bear.
I ask him whether he would prefer to burn in Hell rather than say Mary was born without sin. His opinion was that God would not demand the faithful to believe anything complex or confusing. Only clean and simple doctrines can be necessary for salvation. I did not ask him about the Trinity.
Again, I read Thomas Paine. In AGE OF REASON, he gives an argument to reject the authority of the scripture which was word for word the same as the Reformers’ argument to reject the authority of the Church. Paine says the Bible should not contain any material that would shock the conscience of a child: no reports of murder, rape, incest, or wrongdoing. Paine says nature and natural reason are sufficient to deduce the existence of a divine creator, whose wisdom and benevolence are self evident.
I seem to recall Calvin likewise saying that which books belong in scripture and which do not are likewise self evident, as obvious as whether a bitten fruit is sweet or sour in the mouth.
Or, when I ask my honest question of a Reformer, I am not answered at all, and the response is merely to change the topic to speak about some other matter, such as the opinion of Jerome, or the findings of Pharisees from the Tenth Century compiling Masoretic texts (which, as best history can tell, is not the scriptures as read and quoted by the disciples of Christ).
Such is the problem, at least, from my perspective as an outsider, coming in.
I hold no enmity to any side, but it is you and your brothers who quarreled, and, even though surrounded by enemies on all sides, have not mended your quarrels. Logic forces me to take up one side, regardless of my personal preferences: Here I stand. I can do not otherwise.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
