Onsi A. Kamel (First Things, October 2019):
The issue of ecclesiastical authority was trickier for me. I recognized the absurdity of a twenty-year-old presuming to adjudicate claims about the Scriptures and two thousand years of history. Newman’s arguments against private judgment therefore had a prima facie plausibility for me. In his Apologia, Newman argues that man’s rebellion against God introduced an “anarchical condition of things,” leading human thought toward “suicidal excesses.” Hence, the fittingness of a divinely established living voice infallibly proclaiming supernatural truths. In his discourse on “Faith and Private Judgment,” Newman castigates Protestants for refusing to “surrender” reason in matters religious. The implication is that reason is unreliable in matters of revelation. Faith is assent to the incontestable, self-evident truth of God’s revelation, and reasoning becomes an excuse to refuse to bend the knee.
The more I internalized Newman’s claims about private judgment, however, the more I descended into skepticism. I could not reliably interpret the Scriptures, history, or God’s Word preached and given in the sacraments. But if I could not do these things, if my reason was unfit in matters religious, how was I to assess Newman’s arguments for Roman Catholicism? Newman himself had once recognized this dilemma, writing in a pre-conversion letter, “We have too great a horror of the principle of private judgment to trust it in so immense a matter as that of changing from one communion to another.” Did he expect me to forfeit the faculty by which I adjudicate truth claims, because that faculty is fallible? My conversion would have to be rooted in my private judgment—but, because of Rome’s claim of infallibility, conversion would forbid me from exercising that faculty ever again on doctrinal questions.
MavPhil comment: Here is one problem. I must exercise my private judgment in order to decide whether to accept Rome's authority and thereby surrender my private judgment. But if my private judgment is trustworthy up to that point, then it will be trustworthy beyond that point in the evaluation of the pronouncements of say, Pope Francis. It is also important to note that my private judgment is not merely private inasmuch as it is informed and tempered and corrected by a lifetime of wide and diligent study and by the opinions of many others who have exercised their private judgments carefully and responsibly.
A second problem is that it is the private judgments of powerful and influential intellects driven by resolute commitment that have shaped Rome's teaching. St. Augustine is a prime example. Imagine being at a theological conference or council and squaring off with the formidable Augustinus. Whom do you think would carry the day? The magisterial teaching does not come directly from the Holy Spirit but is mediated by these intellectually powerful and willful drivers of doctrine. They were not mere conduits even if they were divinely inspired.
Finally, the infighting among traditionalist, conservative, and liberal Catholics made plain that Catholics did not gain by their magisterium a clear, living voice of divine authority. They received from the past a set of magisterial documents that had to be weighed and interpreted, often over against living prelates. The magisterium of prior ages only multiplied the texts one had to interpret for oneself, for living bishops, it turns out, are as bad at reading as the rest of us.
“When I decide to follow one authority rather than another, I am not in effect setting myself up as a superior authority. It would be quite difficult for me to give good reasons for trusting one lawyer or doctor rather than another; but such trust on my part need not be merely blind, nor on the other hand am I claiming to know more law than my lawyer or more medicine than my doctor” (Peter Geach, Trust and Hope, 51).
I certainly see the force of your argument on the reliance on private judgement in the decision to accept the authority of the RCC in matters of dogma and doctrine, but I wonder if Geach is not onto something in the above quotation in calling attention to the inevitable presence of trust in matters of this kind. The authority that, say, a cancer or endocrine physician possesses, which is derived from his own specialized education and training and the sum of the individual intellectual contributions of those of his vocation that preceded him, thus of a combination of many private scientific judgements, certainly surpasses my knowledge or competence; yet, I make the rational choice to believe what he tells me and to follow the course of treatment that he prescribes. And in doing so I am simply acknowledging the fact that the tradition out of which he operates possesses sufficient coherence and consistency for me to place my trust in it. I do not claim to KNOW that the particular physician or the tradition itself is without fault but I have good reason to BELIEVE that—allowing for the particular errors of this or that practitioner—it is worthy of my trust in its essential claims. If this so, the argument could be strengthened with reference to the RCC, for such matters as revelation, Apostolic teaching, doctrinal consistency, moral and artistic virtue, and so on can be introduced so as to buttress the argument of trust, but these are complex questions that I cannot comment on here.
Posted by: Vito B. Caiati | Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 05:54 AM
Vito,
I am happy to see that you are reading Geach. I have some things to say about that book too. Later.
As for the above quotation, I agree with it entirely. In dealing with physicians, I test them (in subtle and crafty ways) to see if I should trust them. If they pass my tests, then I put my trust in them. (In general, we cannot get on well in this world without trust, which is another reason why the Biden admin is so deleterious: the brazen lying of Biden on down undermines trust in government in general when we need a certain amount of gov't). It is perfectly clear that my doctors know vastly more about cancer treatment, say, that I do. Having vetted them, it is reasonable for me to trust them.
But I don't surrender my might and duty to think for myself after I put my trust in them and submit to their aggressive treatment of my body (chemo, radiation, surgery). I continue to ask questions, test what they say against what other sawbones say, etc. The trad RCC, however, demands the crucifixion of the intellect, the sacricio dell' intelletto, at the point where the believer surrenders to Rome's authority.
Here is what I wrote: " I must exercise my private judgment in order to decide whether to accept Rome's authority and thereby surrender my private judgment. But if my private judgment is trustworthy up to that point, then it will be trustworthy beyond that point in the evaluation of the pronouncements of say, Pope Francis. "
I am saying that while we must trust authorities, we must never surrender our critical faculties to them, but continue to examine them even after we have embraced them, open to the possibility of withdrawing our trust.
There is the case of Franz Brentano, philosopher, and Catholic priest, who left the RCC when Papal Infallibility was proclaimed.
Posted by: BV | Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 08:02 AM
"I am saying that while we must trust authorities, we must never surrender our critical faculties to them, but continue to examine them even after we have embraced them, open to the possibility of withdrawing our trust."
I agree with the above statement, Bill, which is why the trust that I extend to the RCC, while broad, is not absolute. For instance, there are certain doctrinal claims that it makes regarding, say, papal authority or the destiny of the soul of which I am doubtful or skeptical. I guess this puts me in a somewhat dubious position, but so be it. I find that in any robust faith belief is inevitably associated with doubt.
Posted by: Vito B. Caiati | Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 08:34 AM
Ah yes, the RCC, certainly it has a handle on Truth, especially as shown here:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/01/san_diego_catholic_diocese_touts_its_historic_first_in_divesting_from_fossil_fuels.html
The absolute naked poverty of Saint Francis looks better all the time, compared to the clowns above.]
We can take hope in the fact that Saint Francis statues are still popular in the gardens of humble people.
https://www.etsy.com/market/st_francis_of_assisi_garden_statues
Posted by: Joe Odegaard | Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 11:27 AM
Following the slight detour introduced into the discussion by Joe Odegaard, here is another, far worse example of the RCC leadership today, one involving Bergoglio himself, who, if you recall, John Zmirak recently characterized as “a vandal, a foreign agent, whose task is to salt the fields and poison the water at an institution he hates” (https://chroniclesmagazine.org/recent-features/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-francis/) Many would regard this judgement as shocking and excessive, but then we have the events of the past week, in which Bergoglio’s praised the Communist movement, thus breaking with the condemnation of it his ten predecessors. Rod Dreher has this disgusting story, a whitewash of the greatest mass murderers of the last century: https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/popes-marxist-dreams/
Posted by: Vito B. Caiati | Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 01:38 PM
Here is an article about resisting a destroyer pope:
https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/6979-lessons-about-francis-the-destroyer-from-st-robert-bellarmine-s-objections-to-protestants
I suppose I am resisting by not going to the N.O. mass, and not putting any paper bucks in the plate, because I am not there.
Posted by: Joe Odegaard | Saturday, January 13, 2024 at 04:12 PM