There is a discussion thread over at the message boards I frequent on the question of how and whether one can know if one's reading of the Scripture is correct, or whether a change in historic Christian practice can be predicated upon that notion that the Holy Spirit demands this change. The discussion is centering on the question of authority and whether the Church can claim the authority to correctly interpret the Bible vis a vis the individual Christian reader.
Many of the criticisms of the Church's authority center upon the notion that individual Christians are sinful, and that entities like the Roman Catholic Church have sanctioned the Crusades or the Inquisition, and therefore, the Church lacks any credible authority because, after all, Christians are the Church. In fact, among Protestants in particular, though non-Christians as well, this is one of the primary criticisms against the so-called “institutional Church” having any sort of authority over and above that of the individual, or of authority being vested in any visible earthly body of Christians.
But this criticism fails in two general ways: by virtue that the criticism itself is false and wrongly argued, as well as by virtue of what the Scripture actually says about the Church and the consequences of those claims. In this post I will address the failures of the criticism itself.
1. The Failure of the Criticism
This resort to the sinfulness of the members of the Church (the so-called “hypocrite defense”) presumes that no body of Christians can truthfully and really claim, let alone exercise, authority (in any this-worldly sense) over the beliefs and practices of individuals because the same Church or Christian group that would so exercise that authority is itself made up of fallible sinners and such an authority would be compromised by those fallible sinners.
This criticism fails in a number of ways, a few of which I wish to highlight.
a. It Commits the Fallacy of Composition
First, and most tellingly, it commits the logical fallacy of composition, which states that because individual parts (or members) of a whole have a certain characteristic or characteristics then the whole must have that characteristic or characteristics as well. An example of this fallacy can be illustrated as follows: Since the seats of our Toyota 4Runner are covered with cloth, the entire vehicle is covered with cloth. Thus, it is not the case that simply because individual Christians are sinful, or commit sinful acts, that therefore the Church as a whole is sinful or can commit sinful acts.
This is abundantly clear, even if we still have a sense that the Church as a whole has moral culpability for the sins of her members.
But let us examine that intuition by away of analogical illustration. Let us assume two parents, Fred and Mary, both of whom are devout Christians and who have raised a son, Robert, in the most Christian way possible, being consistently and healthily loving as well as fair and consistent in discipline. Robert has been provided with the absolutely best possible parenting we could imagine, his developmental needs (physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, social, etc.) having been met in all possible ways while growing up. We should not suppose Fred and Mary to have been perfect parents, nor that they never committed any sins. Simply that they have done the best that anyone could possibly have done to raise and nurture Robert. Robert, on his 22nd birthday, decides freely to commit the act of murder and stabs his girlfriend to death.
The question: Is there any moral justification for holding Fred and Mary responsible for Robert's acts? Are those acts in any way justifiably morally attributed to Fred and Mary?
We may find ourselves hesitant to answer that question. After all, no one is perfect, and surely Fred and Mary made some mistakes along the way, so that while Robert is, indeed, responsible for his own actions, nonetheless, some culpability is to be laid at his parents' doorstep.
But is it?
Let's further stipulate that Fred and Mary have other children, that Robert was the second born, and that all his other siblings live exemplary Christian lives, and that those of Fred and Mary's children who are married and themselves have children are making the very same sort of parents that Fred and Mary have been, and that prior to leaving home to live, study and work on his own Robert exhibited no obvious tendencies to the horrific act he has committed. In light of this, don't we now have a sense that Robert's actions really are his own and are not to be attributed to his parents? Isn't that former lingering suspicion that somehow, in some way Fred and Mary are to be blamed for Robert's actions now much less strong?
I suggest that if we do indeed have a weakening intuition with regard to the culpability of Robert's parents for his own actions, it is the proper moral intuition we should have. It is right to recognize all the social and familial factors that go into a person's development and character, but it is right as well to recognize that morally speaking we own our own actions. And if this is so, how much more is it the case for the “family” of the Church vis a vis the sinful acts of her individual members?
So I suggest that to attribute to the Church the moral actions of her individual members, while it is not an illegitimate moral intuition in itself, is predicated upon a logical falsehood, and when confronted with similar existential analogies, we ourselves recognize the fallacy of such a criticism.
b. It is Inconsistently Held and Incoherent
Having noted the logical fallacy of such a criticism, let me also reiterate that there is a legitimate moral intuition we have that human sinfulness is, in fact, a proper basis for questioning the spiritual authority of a group claiming such authority. If a group is, indeed, responsible for the furtherance of the sinful acts of its members either by command, approval, or failure to condemn, then we have a proper sense, morally speaking, that the authority of the groups is compromised.
But if this intuition is, in fact, legitimate, it is not to be extended only to groups but also to individuals, unless a justification can be made that it applies only to groups and not to individuals. That is to say, if it applies to groups, it also applies to individuals.
But if it applies to individuals, doesn't that mean that no individual Christian could ever exercise any authority (to teach or to preach, say, or to declare his or her interpretation of Scripture) since all Christians are sinful?
One reaction would be that we ought not apply such a blanket prohibition, but recognize that authority is by degree and that the more a person's life conforms to Christ's (or, alternatively, to the Scriptures), the more authority they have to teach, to preach and to declare their interpretation of Scripture. But this, too, immediately raises problems: 1) Who, among sinful individual Christians, is competent to make a determination as to those matters, 2) Where is such a line between competing relative authorities, who declare two or more contradictory things, to be drawn (and again, who could make that determination), and 3) Why wouldn't such a standard of authority-by-degree not also apply to any particular group of Christians? If we can trust Pastor Bob who lives an exemplary life over Preacher Joe who is a known womanizer, would it not also make sense that we could trust, say, the Orthodox Church, over the collective consensus of the Restoration Movement churches (or vice versa)?
No, this criticism fails—whatever we may say as to the legitimacy of the moral intuition on which it is based—not only because it is an illogical fallacy, but because it is inconsistently held, and in fact is itself incoherent.
c. The Objective Bases on Which the Criticism is Based Are Much Too Complex and Thus the Criticism Does Not Follow
The objective bases on which such a criticism is based is usually directed at the groups who make the claim. Thus, when Roman Catholics claim that theirs is the only true Church, Protestant and certain other critics bring up the Crusades and the Inquisition.
The difficulty with such a charge is that it does not examine, nor does it acknowledge both the extremely complex historical circumstances that gave rise to various Crusades, it does not even acknowledge any of the motivations attendant upon Rome's encouragement of or directive for engaging in the various Crusades. Nor does it adequately address the nature of the Crusades and whether individual actions of Crusaders necessarily reflect the Crusade itself (the compositional fallacy again) and so on. (And these same comments could be said of the Inquisition.)
For example, when the Pope issues a directive, is he always and essentially acting as/for the Roman Catholic Church? Can a Pope ever be in error and would such error, if it could happen, obviate the claims of the Roman Catholic Church to be, in fact, the one true Church?
Furthermore, the Crusades/Inquisition criticism fails to also address the question as to whether Rome's claim to be the one true Church is, in fact, true. To a Protestant, the claim is false from the get-go, and the Crusades/Inquisition criticism is self-evident. But it isn't, really. Certainly not on its face, and Orthodox have much to say as to Rome's claims. So if, in fact, Rome is not the one true Church, wouldn't this make such criticisms irrelevant? Some would say, well, if Rome is not the one, true Church, surely she is part of it in some way, and wouldn't her actions reflect on the rest of the Church? But of course this goes back to the compositional fallacy and it also further evidences the complexity of the matter at hand.
So, the supposedly historical and objective bases on which the criticism of a church (such as Rome or Orthodoxy) having authority over the beliefs and practices of an individual believer are so complex that until such realities are carefully attended to, the claim that the Crusades or the Inquisition obviates the claims of Rome (and any other body) to authority over the individual Christian's beliefs and practices is a non sequitor.
This is not to say that this particular problem necessarily invalidates the criticism. It only manifests that the criticism has not been well founded and cannot stand on its own.
One could add to this particular set of objections to the criticism against any one Christian body claiming authority over an individual Christian's beliefs and practices other objections as well. One could argue that the assertion of the primacy of the individual Christian over his own beliefs and practices is just the same thing against which he objects only reversed. After all, if a group cannot be trusted with authority because its members are sinful, how much more can an individual not be trusted, or trust himself, because he, too, is sinful?
Clearly, then, this criticism cannot obviate the claims that the Church has, by divine grace, authority to declare God's will and Gospel teaching, even over that of an individual's own beliefs and practices. In an upcoming post, I will provide biblical evidence and argument as to why this has been given to the Church and not to individual Christians.
Posted by Clifton at January 13, 2006 11:26 AM | TrackBack