The Bible and Tradition...and Authority...and Infallibility?

Let us examine the evidence from Scripture that Catholics use regarding the authority of the Church for interpreting Scripture:

Peter in Acts 2, in his sermon in the Upper Room, and in other recorded sermons, gave an authoritative New Covenant interpretation of salvation history--basically, the first time to summarize all the events, now in hindsight, culminating with Christ. It was binding before it became "inscripturated," because it was from an apostle.

The Church had binding authority in the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). Acts 15:28-29: "For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity." At what point did the Church lose this? As soon as the last apostle died (John?), then the Church lost its authority to bind men to interpretations and laws; to "bind and to loose" (Matt. 16:19; 18:18)? That doesn't really make sense, and this idea can't be found in Scripture itself. There's not indication in Scriptures that this profound authority would later be lessened and that the Bible would be the sole infallible rule of faith...
 

In the next chapter, Acts 16, we read that Paul, Timothy, and Silas were traveling around "through the cities," and Scripture says that "they delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem" (Acts 16:4). This is Church authority. They simply proclaimed the decree as true and binding.

Hmmm. This naturally leads one to question the notion of the infallibility of the Church (again, a domino effect of questions...). Evangelical Protestants already believe the Bible is infallible.  But not the Pope or the Church. Why not? If God can use sinners to write an inspired Bible, certainly He can use sinful men to proclaim infallible teachings in Tradition?  Should one conclude that either Scripture was a merely human tradition (not authoritative, inspired, etc.) or else God must have ordained some sort of revelation outside of Scripture as the means by which we could know what Scripture was?

In fact, the Papal/Church infallibility is a lesser claim that the claims we hold of the Bible--infallibility of the Church/Pope is merely a protection from error, not a positive quality of inspiration.  Hmm.  How can we as Protestants explain how a random individual (led by the Holy Spirit) can trump a received Tradition and the authority of the Church? How is that individual in modern society somehow more free from error than educated, vocational theologians on committee and councils with a collective expertise of all Christian writings and thought for 2000 centuries?  For if we discount the Church's binding authority because individual men leading the church are sinners, then we obviously have to discount every individual's interpretation, as each person is a sinner, too.  Ugh. Again, how can we know the true interpretation unless God provided an authoritative/inspired/infallible agent to accompany His Scripture? (Holy Spirit is a great answer, but the Holy Spirit speaking to whom?)

We Protestants give the authority ultimately to the individual to decide, by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, what is true and what isn't. Yet we deny it to the Church. This doesn't really make sense. And it's starting to appear to not be totally consistent with passages in the Bible (which one could argue suggests there is a binding, authoritative Tradition passed down and preserved in the Church).

I knew that one single Catholic dogma or interpretation of Scripture on its own, without the broader context, could seem so totally off in my Protestant lens growing up. However, I was starting to see that if one considers the assumptions of the Catholic church regarding Scripture and Tradition, one can see how one sort of naturally and logically follows from the other, and leads them to interpret, for example, Matt. 16:18-19 in the way Catholics do. Even if you don't accept the assumptions, you can still see how if one does, then everything follows and makes sense/is natural in that paradigm, it's not such an off-the-wall-desperate-attempt-to-distort-Scriptures-to-obtain-power-and-deceive-the-masses.

Matt. 16:18-19, "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  The Catholic interpretation of Jesus giving the keys to Peter, building His church on this leadership (Catholics say the authority was to the seat of Peter, as Bishop of Rome; the Orthodox say the authority was to the Apostles, who ultimately govern by councils), and giving this leadership the authority to bind and loose, doesn't seem as off the wall and totally unlikely--given the context of all the other ideas we've discussed thus far and the concern for an authoritative voice and a unified Church and teaching that will never be in error (i.e., gates of Hades will not overcome it). But if one doesn't consider those assumptions and such, then that verse could easily be interpreted other ways, to conveniently fit the rest of one's theology that one wants to subscribe to.  So I'm not saying I subscribe to the Catholic/Orthodox way, but simply that this is yet another example (and a new one to me) of important passages in the Bible being interpreted in different ways by very serious, well-meaning, prayerful people. At this point, there was no way I could ever argue full-heartedly the Protestant version of this--I would have to concede that there is an alternative interpretation that some hold and it may be right, just as much as some interpret passages toward Calvinism and others toward Armenianism and we just have to agree to disagree. Basically, it's me saying, "I don't know, I see the arguments for both sides, let me present you with both and you can decide and I won't judge you either way." (An approach that obviously wouldn't be accepted in Protestant churches.) But golly, there were some major issues that were the root of significant division and fighting between Christians for centuries!!

Whoa boy.  I did not like the direction this is going. But I knew enough of the rules of logic from my math degrees that if one can disprove a logical conclusion, then that automatically disproves the hypothesis.  That is, if you have a logical IF  THEN statement, and you prove THEN can't occur, then you have proven that the IF can't occur.  So IF the church teaches something that is binding that is clearly against Scripture, then it it would prove that the church's teachings are not authoritative and infallible. Thus why my journey has continued and continued...it hasn't reached it's end yet.

Before I sign off on this post, I want to reiterate that all these considerations have not diminished my regard for the Bible--I still believe it is the authoritative, infallible and inerrant word of God. These have simply potentially elevated my regard for the Church, in its position to preserve the integrity and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures, the Church being inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit in this responsibility.  Naturally, one must ask what "Church" is this having the ultimate leading of the Holy Spirit for interpretation. Protestants are only 500 years old and quite fractured in denominations, there is no consensus on the interpretation nor authority in declaring an interpretation to be the "official" way, and no single denomination, except from Church of Christ?, stakes a claim at being the authoritative interpretation--it's still always portrayed as categories of perspective that an individual can pick and choose which one sits the best with their individual conscience--a sort of relativism that is accepted once in the boundaries of Christianity. Only the Catholic (and in some sense, Orthodox) churches can claim continuity for 2000 years and have the rigorous system of councils and hierarchical structure for this authoritative interpretation to even be conceivable. Naturally this leads to the notion of Apostolic Succession and government, which will be addressed in a later post.

I also want to note that before the printing press, every single copy of the Bible was an original manuscript that a monk or friar had laboriously copied onto pages of parchment. During the Roman invasion, the Irish monks “saved civilization” by storing all the manuscripts in their high towers in the distant island of Ireland.  For 1500 years, when there were no Baptists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, non-denominations, etc., the Catholic Church preserved the Scriptures from error, saved them from destruction and extinction, multiplied them in every language under the sun, and conveyed the truths they contained to people everywhere.  It seems to me Protestants should be more careful about regarding Catholics with such disdain and antagonism, and take some time to truly listen to the reasoning for the beliefs Catholics hold. Even if not accepting all the teachings, perhaps at least one could understand where they are coming from, that it's not some absurd thing way out in left field (which is what I'd sort of always thought when reading the Protestant portrayal of the Catholic Church).