From: vek@allegra.att.com (Van Kelly)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Question for fundamentalists
Date: 16 Sep 92 04:11:27 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA

Normally I try not to respond to argumentative postings copied
verbatim from published works.  However, last weekend in my attic I
came acoss three file drawers of documentation from my mother's
circa-1950 research on polemic literature between Fundamentalists and
Roman Catholics.  Of course, it was all pre-Vatican2, and higly tinged
with wartime paranoia on both sides.  I plowed through a lot of it,
and I guess I'm just oversensitized to distorted religious caricature
this week.

Thus, when Eric Ewanco posted a tract by Karl Keating a couple of days
ago, it struck a bit of fresh nerve.  Keating's unsupported claims
about Protestant Fundamentalist beliefs are as wide of the mark in
factuality, though more charitable in tone, as some of that propaganda
in my mother's research files.

I respect theological apologetics, but preferably not at the expense
of poor research which perpetuates distorted views among Christians.
My own opinion is that conservative Protestant and moderate RC
theologians are not as far apart on many of these issues as Keating
adduces, though substantive differences exist.  Much farther apart are
some of the simplified "pat answers" on both sides that masquerade as
theology.  Maybe these we could learn to live without?

Brief (??) comments to 3 of Keating's assertions (and one of Ewanco's)
follow.  I am not seriously trying to argue the Fundamentalist
position against Keating or Ewanco.  I should leave that to a
Fundamentalist.

eje@irenaus.mlo.dec.com (Eric James Ewanco) posted:

>  Let me explain to you why a Catholic believes in the inspiration of
>  the Bible, an explanation which, in the end, is the only logical,
                                                       ^^^^
>  non-circular and intellectually acceptable explanation.

All well and good, Eric, but forgive my high threshold of credulity
toward most non-analytic claims involving "never", "always", or "only".


>                           PROVING INSPIRATION
>                             By Karl Keating
>  (Author of _Catholicism and Fundamentalism_; founder of Catholic Answers)
>  ...

>  But there is perhaps no greater frustration, in dealing with
>  fundamentalists, than in trying to pin them down on why the Bible
>  should be taken as a rule of faith at all, let alone the sole rule of
>  faith.

What kind of "dealing" and what kind of "pinning down" are we talking
about here anyway?  And who is frustrated?  I really don't think
Evangelical/Fundamentalist and Catholic *theologians* have much
trouble understanding each other's positions on this issue these days.
It's just that they cordially agree to disagree.

I'd take Keating more seriously if he provided in-context supporting
documentation from *any* major contemporary Evangelical or
Fundamentalist theologian.  As it stands he ignores all the more
thoughtful Ev/Fund positions on Biblical authority, such as Carl
Henry's.  If Keating were just lamenting that many Fundies are
ignorant of their own best theologians, that would be one thing (and
probably true), but I don't think he's saying that.

An especially unfortunate characterization:

>  If one takes this [i.e., a statement about the Holy Spirit in a Radio
>  Bible Class booklet] as meaning that anyone asking for a proper
>  interpretation will be given one by God -- and that is exactly how
>  most fundamentalists understand the assistance of the Holy Spirit to
   ^^^^
>  work -- then the multiplicity of interpretations, even among
>  fundamentalists, should give people a gnawing sense that the Holy
>  Spirit hasn't been doing his job very effectively.

This old and presumptuous saw about Protestants hasn't changed much
since 1950.  What *research* tells Keating this is what "most"
fundamentalists believe?  I grew up in an Ev/Fund church and was
*never* told that I, individually, had power to establish doctrine
infallibly just because the Holy Spirit illuminated and guided my
personal *devotional* application of Scripture.  I have not read such
claims in any denominational "catechetical" materials either, at least
not in Baptist circles.  Again, I wish Keating would support his
charges of subjective individualism with some credible sources.
"Radio Bible Class" is just not, IMO, a major authority.

Keating later argues from an historically accurate New Testament to
the necessity of an infallible Church:

>  ... we see that Christ established a Church with the rudiments of all we
                                                        ^^^^^^^^^
>  see in the Catholic Church today -- papacy, hierarchy, priesthood,
>  sacraments, teaching authority, and, as a consequence of the last,
>  infallibility.  Christ's Church, to do what he said it would do, had
                                                                    ^^^
>  to have the note of infallibility.
   ^^ ^^^^

If, for argument's sake, circularity is the weakness of the "popular"
Fundamentalist position, then here would be an RC weak link.
Fundamentalists would just assert that nothing in the NT text
*defines* ecclesiastical infallibility.  In Keating's own words, only
"rudiments" are there, and in the case of infallibility, claims of the
later Fathers are, to Fundamentalists, a *considerable* extrapolation.

The argument from necessity in the last sentence quoted above is one
most Fundamentalists would not grant; ecclesiastical infallibility
would sure come in handy, it might be extremely reassuring to believe
in, but isn't it overkill for the Church's task as set forth in the NT
itself, given what subsequent history has taught us?


Van Kelly
vek@allegra.att.com

This posts reflects only my personal opinions, not those of my employer.