The Best Ecclesialist Apologist Can't Understand This Simple Argument (REBUTTING Joe Heschmeyer)
Javier Perdomo | 26 Oct. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7jie2hdqKM
13:56 The problem of your reductio is, it attributes "perspicuity of tradition" to the Ecclesialist side.
It also involves the idea that different Ecclesialist communions are all equal, but that is an idea at variance with Ecclesialism. If Ecclesialism is true, and if there is more than one Ecclesialist Church, that means only one of them is the true Church, and others are false Churches with faked traditions.
A bit like a Sola Scriptura adherent would react to a JW Bible.
So, the Ecclesialist argument is not that "all we need is an Ecclesial tradition and a Church," but we need the right Ecclesialist tradition and the right Church.
It's not like a needle in a haystack. You have Roman Catholic, you heave Eastern Orthodox, you have Copts, Armenians, perhaps on the Monophysite side some Syrian communion as well, and you have Assyrians, aka Nestorians. That's why your reductio isn't one of his argument taking issue with "perspicuity of Scripture" (you presumably have a spectrum of denominations and non-denominationals all accepting more or less KJV and NIV, with 66 books, and the song of the three young men not written out in Daniel 3, while you don't have a great agreement between Orthodox and Catholics on whether St. Thomas Aquinas or Palamas represent the Tradition of the Apostles and of the Cappadocian fathers).
15:21 For your second level reductio, it presumes that there is today just one body claiming to be the Catholic Church.
Joe Heschmeyer and I don't appeal to the same Pope in the present. He appeals to "Pope Francis" and I appeal to Pope Michael II. My Catholic Church is much smaller than his, well, so be it for the moment. If I'm right lots of people now on his side will either come to adher to Pope Michael II instead, or become much less Catholic. If I am wrong, arguably the Vatican in Exile will peter out. It hasn't, so far, Michael II is our second Pope.
Then on some levels in the past, it also presumes that essential doctrines cannot be disagreed on other than with different consequences in ritual. But the magisterium could at a point decide "we are not sure which version of the doctrine is correct, but we will do like this so we do right whichever of them be correct" ... for instance, do simple priests have an inherent, though tied up, power to ordain, or do only bishops have a power to ordain? Most of the time, only bishops have ordained, and the one occasion in the 15th C. when Popes seemed to accept an exception, that exception was tied to one single monastery. The possibly invalid priests in that monastery were surrounded before then and after then and outside the monastery by priests who were validly ordained, even on the more strictly episcopalist view of ordination.
16:20 As said, CCC is not a Roman Catholic document.
Possibly all "Popes" from the start of Vatican II, certainly all "Popes" around the papal household preacher Cantalamessa and around CCC, namely Wojtyla, Ratzinger, Bergoglio, are non-Popes.
Michael I and Michael II have not changed the view of the death penalty.
They have also not allowed even spontaneous blessings of people coming together for a blessing while in a same sex relation.
It should be obvious from the very nature of the Ecclesialist argument that, if something is fraudulently claiming to be the papacy but isn't, that something may in fact be a cause of confusion, just as the papacy as such is a cause of clarity.
16:44 I do not think that NFP is a correct thing, unless used to maximise the chance of getting children (the OT involved that kind of NFP).
If it somehow is, it would according to Pius XII be in very extreme circumstances. Imagine for instance, the risk of having to flee, knowing the pregnancy and children already there are a hasard to flight, and a certain couple having real trouble with total abstinence ... or the poverty of some third world countries, where both parents work and can get sacked if they attend to much to children. Simply being poor in the First World, where there are financial aids to be applied for, well, no.
I don't think that the Vatican in Exile has come out on the subject, and as for "Paul VI" Pope Michael I back in the time referred to him as Antichrist or Man of Iniquity, a manifestation of Daniel 7:25. There is no way to appeal to Humanae Vitae for a broader licence. Not sure that they even agree as far as Pius XII went (which was not even in an Encyclical).
17:04 As to liberal Catholics who pretend that "all forms of contraception are OK" I don't think any of them adher to the Vatican in Exile.
They are a prime example of why Bergoglio is not Pope, since he's not excommunicating them.
17:20 Nobody can pretend that a woman working outside the home because she absolutely has to is committing a sin.
It would also be disingenious to pretend a woman were sinning in working in the business owned by her husband. Bakers' wives in France often work in the bakery.
However, Pius XI insisted that a righteous wage is one which allows men working full time for someone else to have their wives at home, rather than for instance also under that someone else or under someone other someone else.
So, an employer employing men, and whose full time employees need to have their wives working too is simply paying them too little.
"the trads and the ... normie Roman Catholics disagree on 17:34 how to interpret the magisterium on all sorts of things if the form of Joe's 17:39 argument holds it would lead to what he considers 17:45 to be surely an absurd conclusion that the Roman 17:50 Catholic view of the Roman Catholic magisterium being clear is not correct"
Where exactly is it stated that the Roman Catholic magisterium is always clear?
The Bible itself says some passages in the Bible are "hard to understand" (I or II Peter about, I would presume, Romans). The Magisterium itself, however, does not say the Magisterium is always clear.
In fact, you find things like Vatican I giving a restatement (hoped to be clearer) of the principle in Trent Session IV. You can find Pius XII in his (actually at least not very clarifying) Humani Generis complaining that a letter from 1947 had been misinterpreted. What he says is not that Genesis 1 to 11 is a highly symbolic or condensed version of the real events, but basically that it is a kind of Reader's Digest version of them. As he was an Old Earth Creationist, this presumably means, he was placing the millions of years before the creation of Adam and from then on sticking to Biblical chronology, precisely as Fr. Fulcran Vigouroux did, very unlike modern Old Earth Creationists. I would say as far as that goes, it is doctrinally nearly innocent, it is just that this is impossible to combine with standard Old Earth versions of Science. It may be noted, in 1950, Neanderthals hadn't been carbon dated, so, one could not know that accepting millions of years would extend the span of mankind to tens or hundreds of thousands of years backward.
So, not only has the Magisterium pointed out that Scripture is not always clear, but also that Magisterium itself is not always clear enough. If Joe Heschmeyer teaches some kind of radical inperspecuity of Scripture and basically perspicuity of the Magisterium, he does not have this from the Magisterium. It's certainly a reception of it. It has certainly had some popularity. But it's not obliging Catholicism.
One method often appealed to by some, especially about the older Magisterium which seem to imply Magisterial definitions of Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism (arguably because they do so, like acceptance of Roman Martyrology as Universal in 1583, like condemnation of Galileo in 1633) is appealing to the consensus of theologians. Now, if you go over some decades of famous theologians, you will probably not find anyone of them (prior to Pope Michael I) who considered this as Magisterial. However, the consensus of theologians itself is a Magisterial teaching from Tuas libenter, and that one is speaking of consensus of theologians over centuries. Like, centuries of theologians had considered the Blessed Virgin as Sinless from the start (this is also one of the items where Biblical perspicuity is highly in favour of the doctrine), and that kind of "over centuries" is not matched by appealing to consensus of contemporary or near contemporary theologians like a doctor might appeal to a consensus of doctors.
The point of "the Bible is not always clear, so we need a magisterium" is not that the magisterium is always clear, but it is usually able to clarify when need arises. Apart from the fact that this is also Biblical.
"how do 18:34 you know the papacy how do you know the 18:40 papacy is infallible how do you know the papacy is God 18:48 ordained uh and that pause there did reasons come to your mind did you think about maybe appealing to scripture maybe 18:54 a certain chapter in Matthew that that we always appeal to wait a second I thought scriptures weren't 19:00 clear"
Well, the point is fair against a parodic view involving the "inperspicuity of Scripture" ... that may be a Joe Heschmeyer teaching, it's not a Magisterial teaching.
Let me quote Trent Session IV for you.
Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,—in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, —wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,—whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,—hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established.
Do we need to follow tradition if it has pronounced itself on the question in an unanimous way? We certainly do.
Do we need to follow the Magisterial teaching which the Church hath held and now holds? We certainly do.
But is this because the Scriptures are imperspicuous or unclear? That's not stated.
Does it say that someone has no right to rely on his talent (with God's help)? That's also not stated. What is stated is, if someone so relying on his own talent comes to conclusions that contradict all Church fathers or contradict Magisterium of past and present, that means he has gone wrong.
20:05 I'm not sure what you mean by Foundationalists.
I am however sure that radical inperspicuity of Scripture is not in St. Thomas Aquinas where I have looked.
Does he say Scripture has many senses? Yes he does. Does he say Scripture can be misinterpreted? Given the number of times he goes out of his way to correct misinterpretations, it would seem so. But he never says that Scripture has no or only very insufficient inherent clarity. In his and Occam's time, there were two positions on what kind of truths a Christian is obliged to hold. Note, to both of them, a Magisterial definition only confirms what is already there, neither of them denies we need to abide by it, neither of them however thinks it can add to the truths a Christian was anyway basically obliged to.
A) Scripture alone (probably St. Thomas' position, but then he uses Scripture as a broad umbrella).
B) Scripture. Tradition. Reliable Chronicles. Private Revelation when sufficiently confirmed before the Church. Logical deductions from the content of these (and this was very certainly Occam's position, and probably not concretely very different other than in terminology from the other one).
20:57 The advantaged position is not perspicuity of magisterium vs inperspicuity of Scripture.
The advantaged position is a possibility of adding perspicuity to one's contemporaries, to whom Scripture can at times become less perspicuous than it used to be.
For instance when Scripture speaks of Tradition and Magisterium, suddenly that became far less perspicuous to John Calvin than it had been to St. Thomas Aquinas. Some guys who didn't participate in that lapse were Popes Paul III to Pius IV.
They also were not contradicting the totality of Church Fathers. They also were not contradicting the Magisterium from St. Thomas' time.
21:15 Wait, you are a Lutheran?
Joe was speaking about Protestantism, I think I have gathered. If you are a Lutheran, you are supposed to believe that Baptists and Calvinists (and therefore logically Anglicans) are wrong.
As an ex-Lutheran, I happen to know this.
You know there was a debate among 17th C. Lutherans ... is the Augsburg Formula obliging quia conforming to Scripture, or qua conforming to Scripture?
In the former case, how is that not adding a Catholic style magisterium to the Bible?
In the latter case, how is that not inperspicuity of Scripture, if you aren't totally sure that the Augsburg Formula is conforming to it?
I happened to learn this fact from a very devout Lutheran in Latin class, when we were discussing the grammatical difference between qua and quia.
So, if you say the Augsburg Formula obliges "insofar as" (qua) it is itself conforming to Scripture, you have not erected it to a Magisterial statement of the Catholic type, but you have also not defended Scriptural perspicuity. If you say the Augsburg Formula obliges "because" (quia) it is itself conforming to Scripture, we can say absolutely the same thing for Trent, but our Magisterium at least has a claim to continue what went on before Luther and Pope Leo, and what came from Christ. Luther was more like claiming to "return" to it, which is against Matthew 28:16—20.
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