Subsequent to Dr. Francis Beckwith’s recent “conversion” to Roman Catholicism and his resignation from the ETS presidency and as an ETS member there has been a good amount of discussion as to whether or not Roman Catholics can sign the ETS doctrinal statement while remaining true to the Roman Catholic doctrine of Scripture and divine revelation. To shed light on this matter I decided to get some insight from Dr. Gregg Allison, a former missionary to Italy, professor of Systematic Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and an expert in Roman Catholic theology. Below is my query and Gregg’s response.
Dear Gregg:
I am writing to see if you can clear up an issue for me about which there seems to be some confusion out there in the aftermath of Dr. Francis Beckwith’s departure from the ETS. Some have repeatedly made the argument in recent days that Roman Catholics could sign the ETS statement because, while they may hold to other sources of authority besides the Bible, they, too, only consider “the Bible alone” as “the word of God written.” In my view this may be true with regard to the Magisterium and ex cathedra statements, but not with the Apocrypha. Assuming that “the Bible” spoken of in the ETS doctrinal base is the 66 books of the Protestant canon, would it not be true that the reference to “the Bible alone” would rule out Roman Catholics since they consider other books besides the 66 books (i.e. the Apocrypha) to be the Word of God written? I would greatly appreciate it if you could shed any further light on this.
Cordially,
Andreas Kostenberger
Response from Gregg Allison:
Andreas,
I am including in this e-mail the entire second chapter of the Vatican II document entitled “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” (Dei Verbum, November 18, 1965). [NOTE: instead of including the second chapter here, a link to Dei Verbum is provided below.] This is the authoritative Roman Catholic statement on divine revelation, and chapter 2 addresses the issue at hand.
In my opinion, we should not assume that Roman Catholics can readily affirm the expression in our doctrinal basis that “the Bible alone … is the Word of God written,” because such an expression is not how Roman Catholics view this issue. They affirm that the Word of God is Tradition and Scripture.
Note the following (with my emphases): “Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, committed to the Church” (section 10).
Again (from section 10): “But the task of authentically interpreting the Word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the Word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on. …”
The reason for this intimate union of Tradition and Scripture is spelled out in section 9: “Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For sacred Scripture is the Word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the Word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this Word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known.”
In my opinion, Roman Catholics should find the wording of the ETS doctrinal basis strange at least, for it does not view the Word of God as consisting of both Tradition and Scripture. The statement “the Bible alone … is the Word of God written” is a woefully inadequate statement about what Roman Catholics believe about the Word of God, and I would seriously doubt that informed Roman Catholics would sign it.
On your second point – the canon of Scripture – I think you are right on target. Certainly, the founding theologians and biblical scholars of the Evangelical Theological Society, and those who formulated the doctrinal basis of our Society, were Protestant evangelicals who, when they made the statement about “the Bible,” made reference to the Protestant Bible that contains sixty-six books and does not contain the apocryphal writings.
If authors’ intent means anything, then the ETS statement concerning “the Bible” means that those sixty-six books constitute “the Word of God written.” Roman Catholics cannot agree with this, because for them “the Bible” refers to the seventy-three books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees are included) with expanded editions of Esther and Daniel.
Thus, that to which the ETS statement concerning “the Bible” refers, and that to which Roman Catholics refer when they use that term, are different matters. This is a second reason that I would seriously doubt that informed Roman Catholics would sign the ETS doctrinal basis.
I hope this helps.
Gregg
For further reading, here is a link to Dei Verbum. See also David Howard’s column in The Wall Street Journal.
[...] Evangelicals and Catholics Together? [...]
[...] Andreas Kostenberger writes: Subsequent to Dr. Francis Beckwith’s recent “conversion” to Roman Catholicism and his resignation from the ETS presidency and as an ETS member there has been a good amount of discussion as to whether or not Roman Catholics can sign the ETS doctrinal statement while remaining true to the Roman Catholic doctrine of Scripture and divine revelation. To shed light on this matter I decided to get some insight from Dr. Gregg Allison, a former missionary to Italy, professor of Systematic Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and an expert in Roman Catholic theology. Below is my query and Gregg’s response. Source: Justin Taylor [...]
[...] Read the whole post at Andreas Köstenberger’s blog. [...]
One of the unfortunate aspects of the Protestant/Catholic divide is that Protestants read Catholic documents in the same way they read Scripture. But a charitable reading of Catholic documents, reading like a Catholic reads it, yields a different result.
When Dei Verbum talks about Word of God written or handed down it is talking about the Bible, for the Bible itself was handed-down, sometimes orally and sometimes in transcription. But Evangelicals believe this as well. For example, Peter’s narrative, which was written down as Mark, was probably orally presented by Peter in different venues on different occassions. According to DV, this transmission of the Word of God, from Peter’s eyes and ears through his mouth and onto Mark’s pen was preserved.
Why not read the ETS doctrinal statement generously to include Catholics? What harm what that do? Would it not enrich ETS to have other Christians contribute who may enhance and enrich the annual meetings? This seems like a no-brainer to me.
As for the “intent” of the Founders. That is conested. After all, the founders’ intenede purpose for ETS was: “To foster conservative Biblical scholarship by providing a medium for the oral exchange and written expression of thought and research in the general field of the theological disciplines as centered in the Scriptures.”
What happens when this purpose conflicts with what one believes that “Bible” may not include “Catholic Bible”? If not including the “Catholic Bible” under “Bible,” isn’t this placing a limitation on fostering conservative biblical scholarship?
Thanks for this very helpful exchange!
Jim
[...] Andreas Kostenberger posts his query and an informed response by SBTS Professor Gregg Allison in “Evangelicals and Catholics Together?” [...]
Thomas Aquinas’ statement that the Word of God written or handed down is talking about the Bible is in error. That which is ‘handed down’ is not the Scripture in oral form prior to its being written, but to oral ‘tradition’ that has been passed down through the continuing apostolate and has found expression in extra-biblical teaching such as the Assumption of Mary, which did not make it into Scripture, or even official teaching within the RC until the 1950’s.
Wouldn’t this situation be a place where Roman Catholics should need to get an official declaration from their church approving whether or not they can hold to the ETS statement of belief?
As the Catholic argues it’s all about authority and I am not aware of any Catholic apologists who have commented so far that have the authority to speak for their church.
Thanks for the update,
Mark
Andreas Kostenberger wrote above: “Assuming that “the Bible” spoken of in the ETS doctrinal base is the 66 books of the Protestant canon, would it not be true that the reference to “the Bible alone” would rule out Roman Catholics since they consider other books besides the 66 books (i.e. the Apocrypha) to be the Word of God written? I would greatly appreciate it if you could shed any further light on this.”
Yes, we [Catholics] do have 73 books in our bible. We have the 7 Luther “did away with.” It’s not good to add or subtract from the Word of God. (the scripture verse eludes me at the moment) When Luther did that, (he also didn’t like James and a few other books, and wanted to scrap them, too) he did a very bad thing…look where it’s taken Protestantism. With now over 30,000 denoms and nobody agreeing with each other on basic, albeit truly important tenets of the faith. Sad indeed. I’m a convert to the Catholic faith, and can’t be more at peace in mind, body and soul. The safety of having an Apostolic authority, a place where the buck stops, is truly as Jesus intended and gave us starting with Peter. Jesus was/is a true Good Shepherd, so why on earth (no pun intended) would he leave the interpretation of scripture to every individual so that 2007 years later, there’d be even more hatred and division in Christendom and ever Joe Blow on the block with a bible with 66 books can start or plant a church and lead others astray by his own interpretation and opions? Jim Jones is a perfect example of “Sola Scriptura” he read it, interpreted it, and voila, how many bloated bodies were fallen around his corpse in Guyana?
PAX,
susie
I have enjoyed reading the comments posted. It seems to me that the larger question that never seems to be asked is “How does anyone know what the canon of Scripture is?” The Bible did not fall out of the sky. The table of contents are not inspired. The answer is, we know the canon of Scripture because of four Councils of the Roman Catholic Church.
1. Council of Rome 382 A.D. Determined the Old Testament canon: 73 books. These books contain the 66 that Evangelicals have in their Bibles and also the Deuterocanonicals, which Evangelicals call the Apocrypha. The Jews did not have a defined canon at the time of Jesus. There were several canons at that time such as the Palestinian, which contain the 66 books found in the Protestant Bible, and the Alexandrian that contain 73 books as found in Catholic Bibles.
There are 350 Old Testament quotes in the New Testament. 300 of those quotes are from the Alexandrian canon, which contain the Deuterocanonicals, commonly footnoted as LXX (70 or Septuagant).
2. Councils of Hippo 393 and Carthage 397 & 419 finalized the New Testament. Reportedly, there were about 800 books claiming to be Scripture at that time.
Martin Luther aknowleged this in his commentary on the Gospel of John. Paraphrasing, “We would know nothing of the Scriptures if it were not for the Catholic Church.”
The Septuagent was the accepted Old Testament for 1400 years until Luther through out the Deuterocanonicals.
We believe the Catholic Church’s desicion because of it’s Divine Founder, Jesus the Christ. Mt. 16 “I will build MY CHURCH…on Peter (Rock) the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. Peter is given the “keys to the Kingdom of Heaven” and the divine authority to bind and loose in Jesus’ name. See Isaiah 22:15-22.
Paul tells Timothy that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth. See 1Tim. 3:15
Pauls ORAL preaching is called “Not a human word, but the Word of God.” See Acts 2:13
Paul tells and COMMANDS the Corinthians and the Thessolinians to “Hold fast to what is written (Scripture) AND to what is “Passed on by word of mouth (Tradition). See 1Cor. 11:2, 1Thes. 2:15.
We only know what Scripture is because of the Church. The Church believes in th Word Incarnate, the Word Proclaimed and the Word Written.
Thank you, Mark.
Reguarding my Scripture citations on 8/29/07 I was incorrect on two verses.
Paul’s oral preaching is not a human word, but the word of God is 1Thess. 2:13 NOT acts 2:13.
Hold fast to the written and the oral should be 1 Cor. 11:2 and 2 Thess. 2:15 NOT 1Thess. 2:15.
My apologies for citing the incorrect verses.
[...] Gregg Allison, my Systematic Theology professor at Southern, writes about Beckwith’s return to Rome, and what this means for evangelicals who believe Scripture is our sole authority. [...]
I can see why everyone who differ on how may books there are. Let me put it this way. God had a plan that every book would some how conecide with another book. Something in the old Testament refers to Jesus in the New Testament. I think that God knew that these 66 books enough for us to handle. We need to quit worrying about how many and more about content. Reading and seeing what God is showing each of us. We need to get off the milk and start eating meat! The word of God. The more I read the more I learn about God and the plans he has for me. I am so exicited I can’t wait to pick it up again and find out what new and exciting things God has in store for me.
Sussie Wrote:
“Sad indeed. I’m a convert to the Catholic faith, and can’t be more at peace in mind, body and soul. The safety of having an Apostolic authority, a place where the buck stops, is truly as Jesus intended and gave us starting with Peter [.....] Jim Jones is a perfect example of “Sola Scriptura” he read it, interpreted it, and voila, how many bloated bodies were fallen around his corpse in Guyana?”
I don’t doubt your sincerity, but How in the world you can have a peace of mind when the Catholic Church is also divided?
I cannot see the adventage of renouncing to objectivity in favar of closing your mind and accept all the supposedly “infalible” teachings of the Catholic Church.
The apostolic authority that you think you have in the RCC is just a BIG MYTH. There is no such a teaching in the Scriptures. What you are doing is just exactly what Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons do, when they PLACE their eternal destiny at the hands of the MAGISTERIUM’S interpretation. To me, that is the WORST kind of nonsense.
And the accusation you make of the teaching of SOLA SCRIPTURA, is simply NOT TRUE. Jim Jones DID NOT DO what he did because he was teaching SOLA SCRIPTURA, but because he was deceived.
Thatkind of argumentation is just one example of the worst BIAS against the teaching of SOLA SCRIPTURA.
Thank you.