Many Protestants try and force Catholics into admitting a false doctrine of “Sola Ecclesia.” Protestant apologists desperately try to pit the Scriptures against the Catholic Church, as if the two somehow oppose each other. Of course this comes from a misconception of Catholic Ecclesiology. The Catholic Church does not hail itself as a ruler over the Scriptures. In fact the Church serves the Sacred Scriptures, and the Church preserves Holy Writ from erroneous interpretation. But, in order for us to understand this, we need to take a look at Christ Himself, and how He decided to communicate His Divine Revelation to us. This is crucial to understand. Because if we assume something wrong in the beginning, then the error is all the more destructive in the end. Using my limited knowledge and talents, I will attempt to explain the definition of the Catholic Ecclesial structure. I have used the document titled Dei Verbum to help me along in this venture. This is by no means an exhaustive explanation. It is intended not to make one an expert on the subject, but to merely inform the reader as to the basic role and nature of the Church.
Catholics believe that Christ alone is the author of our faith. It is He who communicates Himself, the Divine Word, to us through His Divine Revelation. Christ did not teach a doctrine per se, He taught Himself. We know this not because Scripture alone tells us so, but because it is so, as it has been proclaimed by the living Church, long before the New Testament was ever finished. The Church is the hand, or instrument of God, which is guided by the Holy Spirit. It is not just a visible hierarchy of bishops, priests and laymen. It is not just an invisible group of like-minded believers. It is the hand of God, guiding and proclaiming His Word, by His authority. The Church has a human, corporeal nature, and a spiritual nature, just as Christ has a human and divine nature. The then Cardinal Ratzinger, further expounds, “The Church is much more than an organization: it is the organism of the Holy Spirit, something that is alive, that takes hold of our inmost being.” (15 September 2001)
Yes, Scripture gives us a written testimony to this truth. But it is not this circular argument that the Catholic needs to prove this. Protestants try and force upon the Catholic a circular argument to explain this connection between the Church and Sacred Scripture. Even without this written testimony, this fact was still known to all believers. It is a fact that there was no New Testament canon for the better part of 300 years after Christ's ascension into heaven. The Church operated with the Old Testament Scriptures under the authority of the apostles, who conveyed the Gospel of Christ, the Word. This was done in an oral fashion. We call this the Oral Kerygma, or oral Tradition, some of which was later written down. The Holy Spirit guided the apostles to convey God's Word infallibly. Dei Verbum explains this historical fact,
“This commission was faithfully fulfilled by the Apostles who, by their oral preaching, by example, and by observances handed on what they had received from the lips of Christ, from living with Him, and from what He did, or what they had learned through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. The commission was fulfilled, too, by those Apostles and apostolic men who under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit committed the message of salvation to writing.”
As the document further explains, the Church spread from place to place under the authority of the apostles, they in turn passed down their apostolic authority to others who carried on proclaiming the same Word infallibly, by the same guidance of the Holy Spirit. This was clearly understood by Christians of the time. Read Saint Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses) for historical evidence. Every ancient Church claims this apostolic connection with Christ. That includes all Catholic, Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. As the New Testament was written, their reading became part of the liturgical practices of different Christian communities. Not all of these communities however had every book. Some used books that would not end up in the canon like I Clement, and some even rejected some books that would later be accepted, like some of the non-Pauline Epistles.
As the New Testament was settled upon, the Church used them as a Written witness as to how the Church began, and how it operated in its infancy in various places. The Church also recognized the New Testament as an authority, since it is the written Word of God. The Church did not invent the Scriptures. God had given an Oral Kerygma, guided by His Holy Spirit to faithfully, and infallibly give Divine Revelation, and now he likewise had inspired His chosen authors to write infallibly His written Word, which we now know as the New Testament Scriptures. Many Protestants claim that the establishment of the New Testament replaced all need for Oral Kerygma, or oral Tradition. For the Protestant, the age of the apostles essentially died after this historic event. This however was never the case. The Church continued to operate under the same apostolic authority that Christ had instituted from the outset. Dei Verbum tells us, “And so the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved by an unending succession of preachers until the end of time.” Nowhere in Christian history do we see any group of Christians claiming that once the New Testament had been finished, that Oral Kerygma stopped, or the age of the apostles had died. The Church was still the same mouthpiece of God that she had always been. The Scriptures are the written Word of God, but the Oral Word never ceased to exist, as if it had been replaced by the written. The written Word of God also never mentions such an event taking place. This is a major problem for the Protestant, since there is no written, historical evidence that proves that any such event ever took place.
Instead the Scriptures give testimony to both an oral and written Word, as both being the normative wellspring of Revelation. Saint Paul spoke of this in 2nd Thessalonians. Dei Verbum echoes this thought, “Therefore the Apostles, handing on what they themselves had received, warn the faithful to hold fast to the traditions which they have learned either by word of mouth or by letter (see 2 Thess. 2:15), and to fight in defense of the faith handed on once and for all (see Jude 1:3)” The early writers of the Church also give testimony to the authority of the church, the authority of the Scriptures and the authority of Oral Tradition. The Church serves Christ the Word in His entirety, and never elevates herself above Christ. By her very nature she cannot do this, because she is just as much a part of Christ's Divine Institution as Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. They cannot be separated or placed above one another, just as the Holy Trinity cannot be separated or placed in a hierarchical pyramid above one another. Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture are one in the same substance, which is that of Divine Revelation. Once again we look to Dei Verbum to explain.
“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. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.(6)”
It is a mistake for Protestants to cry, “Sola Ecclesia!”, as if the Church were some human institution lording herself over God and His Scripture. Again, the then Cardinal Ratzinger quoting Romano Guardini, “To the extent that we look upon the Church as organization ... like an association ... we have not yet arrived at a proper understanding of it. Instead, it is a living reality and our relationship with it ought to be—life" The Church shares in the authority of God, nothing more. She is His servant and bride. The Church is the living entity that keeps us within the Body of Christ. This has been the traditional, and original understanding of the Church's structure and role. Hopefully Protestants will quit using the lame accusations of circular arguments, or viewing the Catholic Church as replica of worldly kingdoms and secular hierarchies to form their arguments. Again, I appeal to Dei Verbum to explain this.
“But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, (8) has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, (9) 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, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.”
For the Protestant, it is this living continuity with Christ that is missing. They have no living connection to Christ. They have removed His Written Word from His hands. This results in a false interpretation of the Church, and a false interpretation of the Scriptures. It denies the living development and renewal of the living Church. The Protestant tries to recreate the Church in their own image by reading the Scriptures and interpreting them outside of this living entity. They lack the very living organism that has guided believers since the time of Christ and His apostles. The development of the Church, and how she has reacted and proclaimed the Gospel throughout the ages is lost, and it is replaced with a figment of one's imagination. I will appeal a final time to Cardinal Ratzinger, who elaborates on the importance of a genuine Christian identity as being grafted into a living continuity with Christ.
“A body remains identical to itself over the course of its life due to the fact that in the life process it constantly renews itself...Whoever wants to attach himself solely to the literal interpretation of the Scriptures or to the forms of the Church of the Fathers imprisons Christ in "yesterday". The result is either a wholly sterile faith that has nothing to say to our times, or the arrogant assumption of the right to skip over 2,000 years of history, consign them to the dustbin of mistakes, and try to figure out what a Christianity would look like either according to Scripture or according to Jesus. The only possible result will be an artificial creation that we ourselves have made, devoid of any consistency. Genuine identity with the beginning in Christ can only exist where there is a living continuity that has developed the beginning and preserved the beginning precisely through this development” (Conference of Cardinal Ratzinger at the opening of the Pastoral Congress of the Diocese of Aversa (Italy) On the afternoon of 15 September 2001)
Of course we can move further into the theology of this Ecclesial body by explaining how Christ exercises His authority over His Revelation within His Church. We can examine how Christ works in the operation and life of the Church, within her liturgies, and in her apostolic hierarchy. This all of course presupposes an apostolic connection to Christ, in the office of the Bishop, which we touched upon earlier. The unifying element of Christ present in the Eucharist, is certainly an important element of the Church that we could touch on. This of course is what unites the Catholic and Orthodox Churches together in a very special way. Finally, we could also delve into the role of the Chair of Peter, and how the Pope is grafted into Christ in a special way. But this is all beyond the scope and intent of this post. Hopefully the information I have provided is able to get one familiar with the mindset of the Catholic Ecclesial structure. I regret not being able to delve into these areas, but due to the length of this post, I will have to save that for another time.
Finally we come to my conclusion. Understanding the basics of the Catholic Ecclesiastical structure is crucial in discussing doctrines like Sola Scriptura. If someone is using an entirely different definition of “Church”, while debating a doctrine like Sola Scriptura, much time will be wasted talking past each other. I will summarize the Church with an analogy that I like to use, although it is admittedly not a perfect one. If you have a glass of water with ice cubes in it, you have two forms of the same substance in the glass, water and ice. So it is with Scripture and Tradition. They are the same Divine Revelation, given to us in two different forms. The glass that holds the substance is Christ and His Church. Since that analogy is certainly lacking in completeness, I will close with a final word from Dei Verbum, to explain it in the words of the Church, and not my own.
“It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.”
Sources:
Dei VerbumThe Ecclesiology Of Vatican II-15 September 2001
