Rescindentes verbum Dei per traditionem vestram
The Paleocrat, my good friend, brother in Christ,
and godfather of my youngest daughter, has been doing a series of posts on a
highly revered twentieth century Protestant apologist, Cornelius van Til. You
can find those posts on his website. For my many years as a Protestant, I
always greatly respected Cornelius van Til and found him to have discovered
some of the greatest defences of Christianity. Indeed, I still argue for the
Christian faith based on the general principles that he formulated.
But one aspect of van Til’s apologetic to which I
was never exposed was his specific set of arguments for Protestantism, over and
against the Catholic Church. I did not know anything about these at all until
my aforementioned acquaintance began doing a series on his discussions of the
Catholic faith. It was then that my opinion of him dropped considerably. Not
only was van Til’s scholarship incredibly poor, but what became apparent to me
so clearly was his absolute inability to articulate the teachings of the
Catholic faith in any intelligible way. It was as if he heard what Catholics
believed from B. B. Warfield, who learnt about Catholicism from C. H. Spurgeon,
who learnt about the Roman Church from Ellen G. White, &c.
I was somewhat disappointed. I used to think of van
Til as a confused, but honest Christian apologist. Now, I hardly can consider
him anything other than yet another example of Protestantism’s endless supply
of ignorant revolutionaries. And amidst all his blunders about Catholicism,
comes this massive whopper of a statement that the Catholic Church “knows of no
absolute authority such as Protestantism has in its doctrine of Scripture.”
What?
It is so incredibly laughable that a Protestant like
van Til could be so ignorant as to utter such nonsense. Has he never heard of
the infallibility of the Church? The immutability of Catholic dogma? The
universal jurisdiction of the Pope? The necessity of accepting the Church’s
dogmatic definitions under the pain of mortal sin and the loss of eternal
salvation? Has he seriously never encountered the authoritative statements
coming from the Magisterium of the Holy Roman Church?
But suppose that maybe he was only trying to make a
rhetorical statement. Maybe he is making a deeper statement about the
unchangeable nature of Scripture and its unbending rule in contradistinction to
his understanding of Catholic dogma which appears to him to be capricious and
based on the whims of men – subject to all forms of change depending on all
manner of circumstances. Indeed, maybe that is his point. But if we were to
press this issue, what would we find?
Well, for one, we would see that giving Scripture
alone this much authority does nothing to establish any sort of objective
system of morality or dogma. As if this even needed to be stated, one man’s
heresy is another man’s dogma, and they could both be looking at the exact same
texts when coming to their conclusions.
In the beginning of any apologetic discussion, the
more hard core Reformed Protestants will always try strongly to impress their
opponent regarding the absolute authority of the Scriptures and how expansive
and demanding it is. But at the end of a long discussion when the problems with
this model are pressed, he usually ends up making the ridiculous claim that
“the Church” is actually comprised of so many thousands of Protestant sects,
and that none of them actually have the full truth regarding the teachings of
Holy Writ. Indeed, when one accepts that none of these thousands of sects that
all supposedly comprise the Church agree on what the Scriptures principally
teach, he must then admit that one need not even interpret the Scriptures
correctly for salvation.
Some great authority indeed! “The Scriptures are the
only infallible rule!” the revolutionary shouts.
But at the end of the day, nobody cares about this
infallible rule, because it does not matter what anybody thinks the Scriptures
teach. Take the doctrine of Holy Baptism, which the Bible says is a basic,
rudimentary doctrine of the Christian faith (cf. Hebrews VI:ii). Do you believe
that you should baptise babies? Think they should wait until they are adults?
Should you use the Trinitarian formula? Use only the name of the Lord Jesus?
Should baptism be done by immersion or by sprinkling? Does baptism regenerate?
Should you confess your sins committed before baptism? Is baptism necessary for
salvation? Who can baptise validly, a minister only or a layman as well? What
is the function of baptism in the life and salvation of a soul?
The kicker to this is that the answer to any of
these questions could be whatever you want them to be and a Protestant will
say, “No big deal.” So the Scriptures are the only infallible rule, but it does
not matter what you think they actually say or mean. The only thing that
matters is if you believe that the Scriptures are the only authority. This is
tantamount to Parliament saying that every man may do whatever he wants as long
as he believes his actions have been warranted by British law.
* * *
defendant i stands before the bench
between the officers of the court.
judge: Sir, you have
been accused of robbing a pub at gunpoint. The law condemns such actions with
severe penalties.
defendant i: I did no such
thing. And I care not what penalties the law may have. I’m innocent of all such
accusations. Besides, the law is just a human construct anyway.
judge: The court will
hear the testimonies of th– What have you said about the law?
defendant i: I only was
making a statement in passing, your Worship. I am innocent of the charges that
have been brought against me. judge: Your questioning of the law shall not go unpunished. At this
point, I no longer care about the paltry robbery charges. If you were guilty,
you would have to pay a stiff fine, but a denial of the absolute authority of
the law is a capital offence. defendant i: But I’ve
committed no crime!
judge: Your rejection
of the law as the only absolute authority is your crime. Off with his head!
defendant i is escorted out by the
officers of the court. defendant ii
approaches the bench.
judge: Sir, you freely
admitted to a constable that you murdered a man in cold blood.
defendant ii: Yes, your
Worship, I did. But I believe that the law allows me to do so with immunity.
judge: Ah, yes. Well,
you’ve a point, sire; I previously thought, based on your actions, that you
rejected the law altogether. It seems that you do in fact affirm the authority
of the law after all. You are free to go, good man.
defendant ii: God save the
Queen.
* * *
It has always been somewhat of a stumper for me. The
Protestant will say that he is not a Catholic and believes the Catholic Church
to be a false Church because she teaches error, but then will go on tolerating
the most absurd errors in the world from every Protestant sect not his own (and
sometimes from his own as well) on the grounds that doctrines do not matter
anyway, provided that they believe the Bible is the sole authority. Some
authority indeed. The Word of God is nullified by their traditions. | 
