Reformation Day – and What Led Me To Back to Catholicism

October 31 is only three days away. For Protestants, it is Reformation Day, the date in 1517 on which Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to that famous door in Wittenberg, Germany. Since I returned to the Catholic Church in April 2007, each year the commemoration has become a time of reflection about my own journey and the puzzles that led me back to the Church of my youth.

One of those puzzles was the relationship between the Church, Tradition, and the canon of Scripture. As a Protestant, I claimed to reject the normative role that Tradition plays in the development of Christian doctrine. But at times I seemed to rely on it. For example, on the content of the biblical canon – whether the Old Testament includes the deuterocanonical books (or “Apocrypha”), as the Catholic Church holds and Protestantism rejects. I would appeal to the exclusion of these books as canonical by the Jewish Council of Jamnia (A.D. 90-100) as well as doubts about those books raised by St. Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, and a few other Church Fathers.

My reasoning, however, was extra-biblical. For it appealed to an authoritative leadership that has the power to recognize and certify books as canonical that were subsequently recognized as such by certain Fathers embedded in a tradition that, as a Protestant, I thought more authoritative than the tradition that certified what has come to be known as the Catholic canon. This latter tradition, rejected by Protestants, includes St. Augustine as well as the Council of Hippo (A.D. 393), the Third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397), the Fourth Council of Carthage (A.D. 419), and the Council of Florence (A.D. 1441).

But if, according to my Protestant self, a Jewish council and a few Church Fathers are the grounds on which I am justified in saying what is the proper scope of the Old Testament canon, then what of New Testament canonicity? So, ironically, given my Protestant understanding of ecclesiology, then the sort of authority and tradition that apparently provided me warrant to exclude the deuterocanonical books from Scripture – binding magisterial authority with historical continuity – is missing from the Church during the development of New Testament canonicity.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, maintains that this magisterial authority was in fact present in the early Church and thus gave its leadership the power to recognize and fix the New Testament canon. So, ironically, the Protestant case for a deuterocanonical-absent Old Testament canon depends on Catholic intuitions about a tradition of magisterial authority.

This led to two other tensions. First, in defense of the Protestant Old Testament canon, I argued, as noted above, that although some of the Church’s leading theologians and several regional councils accepted what is known today as the Catholic canon, others disagreed and embraced what is known today as the Protestant canon. It soon became clear to me that this did not help my case, since by employing this argumentative strategy, I conceded the central point of Catholicism: the Church is logically prior to the Scriptures. That is, if the Church, until the Council of Florence’s ecumenical declaration in 1441, can live with a certain degree of ambiguity about the content of the Old Testament canon, that means that sola scriptura was never a fundamental principle of authentic Christianity.

After all, if Scripture alone applies to the Bible as a whole, then we cannot know to which particular collection of books this principle applies until the Bible’s content is settled. Thus, to concede an officially unsettled canon for Christianity’s first fifteen centuries seems to make the Catholic argument that sola scriptura was a sixteenth-century invention and, therefore, not an essential Christian doctrine.

Second, because the list of canonical books is itself not found in Scripture – as one can find the Ten Commandments or the names of Christ’s apostles – any such list, whether Protestant or Catholic, would be an item of extra-biblical theological knowledge. Take, for example, a portion of the revised and expanded Evangelical Theological Society statement of faith suggested (and eventually rejected by the membership) by two ETS members following my return to the Catholic Church. It states that, “this written word of God consists of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments and is the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behavior.”

But the belief that the Bible consists only of sixty-six books is not a claim of Scripture, since one cannot find the list in it, but a claim about Scripture as a whole. That is, the whole has a property – i.e., “consisting of sixty-six books,” – that is not found in any of the parts. In other words, if the sixty-six books are the supreme authority on matters of belief, and the number of books is a belief, and one cannot find that belief in any of the books, then the belief that Scripture consists of sixty-six particular books is an extra-biblical belief, an item of theological knowledge that is prima facie non-biblical.

For the Catholic, this is not a problem, since the Bible is the book of the Church, and thus there is an organic unity between the fixing of the canon and the development of doctrine and Christian practice.

Although I am forever indebted to my Evangelical brethren for instilling and nurturing in me a deep love of Scripture, it was that love that eventually led me to the Church that had the authority to distinguish Scripture from other things.

Genesis 1. In order:

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the eartha— 2* and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters—b

3Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light.c 4God saw that the light was good. God then separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” Evening came, and morning followed—the first day.*

6Then God said: Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters, to separate one body of water from the other. 7God made the dome,* and it separated the water below the dome from the water above the dome. And so it happened.d 8God called the dome “sky.” Evening came, and morning followed—the second day.

9Then God said: Let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin, so that the dry land may appear. And so it happened: the water under the sky was gathered into its basin, and the dry land appeared.e 10God called the dry land “earth,” and the basin of water he called “sea.” God saw that it was good. 11f Then God said: Let the earth bring forth vegetation: every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it. And so it happened: 12the earth brought forth vegetation: every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree that bears fruit with its seed in it. God saw that it was good. 13Evening came, and morning followed—the third day.

14Then God said: Let there be lights in the dome of the sky, to separate day from night. Let them mark the seasons, the days and the years,g 15and serve as lights in the dome of the sky, to illuminate the earth. And so it happened: 16God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night, and the stars.h 17God set them in the dome of the sky, to illuminate the earth, 18to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. 19Evening came, and morning followed—the fourth day.

20i Then God said: Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky. 21God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of crawling living creatures with which the water teems, and all kinds of winged birds. God saw that it was good, 22and God blessed them, saying: Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas; and let the birds multiply on the earth.j 23Evening came, and morning followed—the fifth day.

24k Then God said: Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature: tame animals, crawling things, and every kind of wild animal. And so it happened: 25God made every kind of wild animal, every kind of tame animal, and every kind of thing that crawls on the ground. God saw that it was good. 26l Then God said: Let us make* human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.

27God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female* he created them.

28God blessed them and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.* Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that crawl on the earth.m 29* n God also said: See, I give you every seed-bearing plant on all the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; 30and to all the wild animals, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the earth, I give all the green plants for food. And so it happened. 31God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good. Evening came, and morning followed—the sixth day.o

So, in order:
1. light (day)/darkness (night)
2. arrangement of water
3. dry land and vegetation
4. sun/moon (so where did night/day come from until now?)
5. fish + birds from waters
6. animals and human beings: male/female

. However, if we go to Genesis 3:

This is the story* of the heavens and the earth at their creation. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens— 5there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the LORD God had sent no rain upon the earth and there was no man* to till the ground, 6but a stream* was welling up out of the earth and watering all the surface of the ground— 7then the LORD God formed the man* out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.d

8The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east,* and placed there the man whom he had formed.e 9* Out of the ground the LORD God made grow every tree that was delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.f

10A river rises in Eden* to water the garden; beyond there it divides and becomes four branches. 11The name of the first is the Pishon; it is the one that winds through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12The gold of that land is good; bdellium and lapis lazuli are also there. 13The name of the second river is the Gihon; it is the one that winds all through the land of Cush.g 14The name of the third river is the Tigris; it is the one that flows east of Asshur. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

15The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.h 16The LORD God gave the man this order: You are free to eat from any of the trees of the gardeni 17except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it you shall die.* j

18The LORD God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him.* k 19So the LORD God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each living creature was then its name. 20The man gave names to all the tame animals, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be a helper suited to the man.

21So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.l 22The LORD God then built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman. When he brought her to the man, 23the man said:

“This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man this one has been taken.”

So what was Created in what order? Did God create man before the vegetation and animals and birds? Let us see how our literalists handle this one.

Are there differences in the inspired narratives of Genesis 1 and 2? Of course there are. But differences do not necessarily imply contradictions, much less multiple authorship. The real question is this: Is there a purpose to these variations? Indeed there is. Furthermore, there are a number of factors that militate against the notion that Genesis 1 and 2 are independent and contradictory accounts of the creation.

First, careful analysis reveals that there is deliberate purpose in the individuality of these two sections of Scripture. In Genesis 1 there is a broad outline of the events of the creation week, which reaches its climax with the origin of mankind in the very image of God. In Genesis 2 there is the special emphasis upon man, the divine preparation of his home, the formation of a suitable mate, etc. Edward J. Young has a good statement of this matter:

There are different emphases in the two chapters...but the reason for these is obvious. Chapter 1 continues the narrative of creation until the climax, namely, man made in the image and likeness of God. To prepare the way for the account of the fall, chapter 2 gives certain added details about man’s original condition, which would have been incongruous and out of place in the grand, declarative march of chapter 1 (1960, p. 53).

This type of procedure was not unknown in the literary methodology of antiquity. Gleason Archer observed that the “technique of recapitulation was widely practiced in ancient Semitic literature. The author would first introduce his account with a short statement summarizing the whole transaction, and then he would follow it up with a more detailed and circumstantial account when dealing with matters of special importance” (1964, p. 118). These respective sections have a different literary motif. Genesis 1 is chronological, revealing the sequential events of the creation week, whereas Genesis 2 is topical, with special concern for man and his environment. [This procedure is not unknown elsewhere in biblical literature. Matthew’s account of the ministry of Christ is more topical, while Mark’s record is more chronological.]

Second, there is clear evidence that Genesis 2 was never an independent creation account. There are simply too many crucial elements missing for that to have been the case. For instance, there is no mention in Genesis 2 of the creation of the Earth, and there is no reference to the oceans or fish. There is no allusion to the Sun, Moon, and stars, etc. Archer has pointed out that there is not an origins record in the entire literature collection of the ancient Near East that omits discussing the creation of the Sun, Moon, seas, etc. (1982, p. 69). Obviously, Genesis 2 is a sequel to chapter 1. The latter presupposes the former and is built upon it.

Even Howard Johnston, who was (at least in part) sympathetic to the Documentary Hypothesis, conceded:

The initial chapter [Genesis 1] gives a general account of the creation. The second chapter is generally declared by critics to be a second account of the creation, but, considered in the light of the general plan, that is not an accurate statement. Evidently the purpose of this chapter is to show that out of all the creation we have especially to do with man. Therefore only so much of the general account is repeated as is involved in a more detailed statement concerning the creation of man. There is a marked difference of style in the two accounts, but the record is consistent with the plan to narrow down the story to man (1902, p. 90).

The following summary statement by Kenneth Kitchen is worthy of notice:

It is often claimed that Genesis 1 and 2 contain two different creation-narratives. In point of fact, however, the strictly complementary nature of the “two” accounts is plain enough: Genesis 1 mentions the creation of man as the last of a series, and without any details, whereas in Genesis 2 man is the centre of interest and more specific details are given about him and his setting. There is no incompatible duplication here at all. Failure to recognize the complementary nature of the subject-distinction between a skeleton outline of all creation on the one hand, and the concentration in detail on man and his immediate environment on the other, borders on obscurantism (1966, pp. 116-117, emp. in orig.).

http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=1131

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