Roman Catholicism

Looks Can Be Deceiving
(Especially When You WANT To Be Deceived)
A Study in the Tactics of Roman Catholic Apologists
Part II: The Response

by James White

Greetings

It seems Mr. Sungenis doesn't want to wait a few weeks to get into the debating mode. -) Well, that's OK. While Mr. Sungenis has, to my knowledge, only one debate to do on Long Island, I have three, and so I will be rather brief, and to the point, in this response. I am replying to all to whom Mr. Sungenis sent his note I did not send my e-mail to anyone but Irishchico@aol.com. For some reason, he chose to share that note with others, and so here again we have that strange cyber-occurrence of the sudden impromptu e-mail list.

At 0722 PM 4/15/99 -0400, Sungenis@aol.com wrote

>At the end of Mr. White's letter Irishchico, he directed Irishchico to read

>the following quote from Gregory of Nyssa in an attempt to convince Mr. White

>that Gregory believed in sola scriptura. Here is the extract of Gregory that

>Mr. White cites

I think what Mr. Sungenis meant to say was that I was attempting to convince my correspondent, not myself. Be that as it may, in actuality, the quote is in a tagfile, and I pointed to it due to the comments of Mr. Betts regarding the historicity of sola scriptura. Hence, I was responding to that allegation regarding the patristic witness to the concept.

>Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-95) "...we make the Holy Scriptures the rule

>and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that,

>and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the

>intention of those writings." On the Soul And the Resurrection

Now, please note this is a script in a tagline stored in my e-mail program. It is not an attempt to exhaustively discuss the passage. Many people have similar quotations and the like in their e-mail programs. BTW, I did not take this from the Eerdman's set. This is my own translation of the passage from the TLG CD-ROM, and the last thing I was going to do was spend my time explaining to everyone what *that* is.

>This is typical of the sleight-of-hand Mr. White and his colleagues have long

>engaged. Notice that Mr. White does not give the exact place where one can

>find this quote in "On the Soul and the Resurrection." For those who are

>interested, it can be found in NPNF II, Vol. 5, page 439. Once you read the

>context, you'll know why Mr. White does not give the exact reference -

>because the context doesn't support what Mr. White is trying to say.

Now, please note the attitude of Mr. Sungenis. It is his common tactic to insert in the mind of his audience the idea that those with whom he disagrees are dishonest and deceptive. Anyone who has read his books knows this is the case (and, I note, you can read my own books and decide for yourself if I follow such a path). Here he asserts that I did not give an exact location for a nefarious reason (rather than the real reason, I was translating from the Greek in the TLG, hence, the exact reference would be meaningless to most of my correspondents in a mere tagfile). Does he have any basis for making this assertion? None. It is mere rhetoric, a plain attempt to engage in ad-hominem argumentation. As such, it is a shame. I do hope Mr. Sungenis can restrain himself on May 6th, or, at the very least, that he does not go to the lengths of Dr. Sippo, whose response goes a long way in demonstrating the fairness of his attitudes and actions.

It would have been easy for me, if I were interested in arguing on the level Mr. Sungenis takes here (I confess I can't even begin to imagine behavior like Dr. Sippo's), to take him to task with similar terminology when, in his book, _Not By Faith Alone_, Mr. Sungenis wrote

We can also prove this point grammatically. In Romans 51 Paul begins by declaring, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith..." As noted above, this statement treats justification as a past event. In fact, the Greek verb in the phrase, "having been justified," is a perfect passive Greek verb which denotes a completed past event. Evangelical James White claims that such usage of the past tense precludes entertaining the Catholic teaching that one must fulfill "all conditions which are necessary for achieving justification" as quoted from Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott. What White fails to tell his readers is that the same verbal tense appears in reference to love when Paul says in verse 5, "God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit." (p. 259).

Now, if I assumed the worst about my opponents and expressed that assumption in my writings, such a passage would be a home run for me. You see, Mr. Sungenis puts in print the assertion that I "fail to tell" my readers something vitally important. We can see from his recent e-mail that indeed that is what he believes, or, at least that he wishes to communicate to others. Of course, as Mr. Sungenis knows, I didn't "fail" to tell my readers anything, since, as he's admitted, he is in error regarding the grammatical form of dikaiothentes in Romans 51. Now, Mr. Sungenis believes me in error regarding Gregory, but at least in this instance, it is a fact that can be determined upon which Mr. Sungenis has erred. Dikaiothentes is an aorist participle, not a perfect tense verb. Hence, the entire argument (in his entire book) against one of the KEY passages in the Protestant presentation of justification is entirely in error.

Now, if I were to take his position, I'd say, "Now, look at Mr. Sungenis! He misleads his readers by giving them false and bogus information, trying to deceive them about this divine truth! How common for the Catholic apologist to twist the Scriptures!"

Now, such would preach well, but it is hardly fair, nor honest. Mr. Sungenis mis-parsed a Greek verb. To my knowledge, he does not teach the language, hence, if you are not in the subject with regularity, it is easy to make a mistake. Besides, it would be silly of him to do something like that purposefully: he may not like me, but he's surely got to believe I'd catch the error upon the first reading of his comments. Hence, obviously, the error was unintentional on his part. He wasn't trying to purposefully mislead anyone.

Now, why Mr. Sungenis cannot return the favor, but chooses the "let's paint James White as a deceiver right from the start," is beyond me. It's unfortunate, and may well bode of things to come.

>If you don't have NPNF, here is what Gregory says before and after the quote

>Mr. White extracted

>

> "You are quite justified, she replied, in raising this question, and it has

>ere this been discussed by many elsewhere; namely, what we are to think of

>the principle of desire and the principle of anger within us.....The

>generality of men still fluctuate in their opinions about this, which are as

>erroneous as they are numerous. As for ourselves, if the Gentile philosophy,

>which deals methodically with all these points, were really adequate for a

>demonstration, it would certainly be superfluous to add a discussion on the

>soul, as far in the direction of supposed consequences as the thinker

>pleased, we are not entitled to such license, I mean that of affirming what

>we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every

>tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which

>may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings. We must

>therefore neglect the Platonic chariot and the pair of horses of dissimilar

>forces yoked to it, and their driver, whereby the philosopher allegorizes

>these facts about the soul; we must neglect also all that is said by the

>philosopher who succeeded him and who followed out probabilities by rules of

>art....."

>

>I have italicized the quote which Mr. White extracted from Gregory so that

>you can contrast it with the context. Here's the $64,000 Is Gregory pitting

>Scripture against Church authority or the Tradition of the Church? Do you

>find one word about such entities in here? The answer is NO. Gregory is

>pitting Scripture against speculative philosophy, which every Father did.

>When Gregory is arguing against Gentile philosophers and the like, he mainly

>quotes Scripture, for the pagans will listen to little else, especially in

>esoteric topics such as the soul.

That is a fascinating reading of the passage, but, I don't know how Mr. Sungenis comes to his conclusions. Nor do I see how, or why, Mr. Sungenis misses the import of Gregory's statement. Let's look at it. Mr. Sungenis inserts into the text issues of "Church authority" and "Tradition of the Church." Where do these terms appear in the text? Indeed, where did I say "here Gregory pits Scripture against these concepts." See, Mr. Sungenis assumes the anachronistic existence of what his modern Roman Catholic authorities teach him regarding such ideas as "Tradition (with a capital T no less!) of the Church, and on that basis, misses the whole point of Gregory's statement. I am reminded of the words of Ignatius of Loyola in such instances as this

"That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the Church herself, if she shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it black." - [St. Ignatius Loyola, "Rules for Thinking with the Church", Rule 13, (cited from Documents of the Christian Church, pp. 364-365, ed. Henry Bettenson, New York

Be that as it may, I can assure Mr. Sungenis that I don't believe Gregory was pitting the authority of Scripture against anything. His words are plain Scripture is the kanoni and nomw of EVERY (pantos) dogmatos, according to Gregory. I ask you: does he ever make such a statement concerning "Tradition"? Where is the parallel passage affirming the authority of "oral tradition." There are none, and, as we shall see, those offered by Mr. Sungenis don't even come close.

So I ask if indeed Gregory believed in sola ecclesia, why utter such words? Would Robert Sungenis ever say to an audience, "we make Scripture the canon and rule of EVERY dogma" and that we "approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings"? I'd like to hear that, because I would then ask him to show me where such dogmas as the Bodily Assumption can fit in such a statement.

Quite simply, the quote stands. Mr. Sungenis might well be charged with the "sleight of hand" he accuses me of, since he does not, in fact, deal with the text itself, nor does he show us how the context in the slightest changes the application that I would see it having.

Now, given that Mr. Sungenis inserts the concept of "tradition" into the discussion, I would like to introduce two quick quotes from Roman Catholics that might be of interest to the less jaded reader:

When one hears today the call for a return to a patristic interpretation of Scripture, there is often latent in it a recollection of Church documents that spoke at times of the "unanimous consent of the Fathers" as the guide for biblical interpretation.(fn. 23) But just what this would entail is far from clear. For, as already mentioned, there were Church Fathers who did use a form of the historical-critical method, suited to their own day, and advocated a literal interpretation of Scripture, not the allegorical. But not all did so. Yet there was no uniform or monolithic patristic interpretation, either in the Greek Church of the East, Alexandrian or Antiochene, or in the Latin Church of the West. No one can ever tell us where such a "unanimous consent of the fathers" is to be found, and Pius XII finally thought it pertinent to call attention to the fact that there are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, "nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the Holy Fathers is unanimous." (fn. 24) Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Scripture, The Soul of Theology (New York Paulist Press, 1994), p. 70.

To imagine that the Church, at a given moment in its history, could hold as of a faith a point which had no statable support in Scripture, would amount to thinking that an article of faith could exist without bearing any relation to the centre of revelation, and thus attributing to the Church and its magisterium a gift equivalent to the charism of revelation, unless we postulate, gratuitously, the existence of an esoteric oral apostolic tradition, for which there exists no evidence whatsoever. It is an express principle of Catholic teaching that the Church can only define what has been revealed; faith can only have to do with what is formally guaranteed by God. Yves M.-J. Congar, Tradition and Traditions An Historical and a Theological Essay (London Burns & Oates, 1966), p. 414.

Some might see something important in those quotes. Some might not. -)

>Now, contrast Mr. White's attempt to make Gregory a sola scriptura man,

Actually, I believe the text proves he was NOT a sola ecclesia man, which, of course, is the only important thing, if you understand the actual debate.

>with

>the occasion in which Gregory actually does talk about the Church and

>Tradition. For example Here's another quote from Gregory

>

>"And yet if those had been the more appropriate names, the Truth Himself

>would not have been at a loss to discover them, nor those men either, on whom

>successively devolved the preaching of the mystery, whether they were from

>the first eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word, or, as successors to

>these, filled the whole world with the Evangelical doctrines, and again at

>various periods after this defined in a common assembly the ambiguities

>raised about the doctrine; whose traditions are constantly preserved in

>writing in the churches" (Against Eunomius, I13, NPNF II, V50).

Again, one is not sure where Mr. Sungenis is going. I could use the same tactic and speak about what Mr. Sungenis "doesn't want you to read" (doesn't that kind of behavior get tiring?), but that accomplishes nothing. Here's what comes before the quote just given

Such is his blasphemy systematized! May the Very God, Son of the Very God, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, direct our discussion to the truth! We will repeat his statements one by one. He asserts that the "whole account of his doctrines is summed up in the Supreme and Absolute Being, and in another Being existing by reason of the First, but after It though before all others, and in a third Being not ranking with either of these but inferior to the one as to its cause, to the other as to the energy" The first point, then, of the unfair dealings in this statement to be noticed is that in professing to expound the mystery of the Faith, he corrects as it were the expressions in the Gospel, and will not make use of the words by which our Lord in perfecting our faith conveyed that mystery to us he suppresses the names of ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost,’ and speaks of a ‘Supreme and Absolute Being’ instead of the Father, of ‘another existing through it, but after it’ instead of the Son, and of ‘a third ranking with neither of these two’ instead of the Holy Ghost.

So please notice that the context has to do with the names Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Gregory insists that these names are part of the "mystery of the Faith" and are "expressions in the Gospel" that were conveyed to us by our Lord. Now, wherein are these words so communicated to us? In a nebulous, undefined "tradition," or in the "Gospel," i.e., Matthew 2819, for example? So what is Mr. Sungenis' claim? That if Gregory ever uses the word "tradition" that this must mean that 1) he held to Sungenis' understanding of authority, and 2) that he was investing this word with the modern Roman intention? What "tradition" is Gregory referring to, Mr. Sungenis? Where has it been officially defined for you? If you can't tell me, I can't see how your quotation is at all relevant to the task you pursue.

>Here's another "The doctrine of the true faith is clear in the first

>tradition we receive, in accordance with the Lord's wish, in the bath of the

>new birth" (Epistles, 24; PG 461088D).

That's a fascinating quote, Bob. However, that epistle isn't in Eerdman's. You give the Migne reference. Do you have Migne, Bob? Did you translate this passage yourself? If you have Sgreek.ttf, here is the reference

th=j swthri/aj musth/rion parado/ntoj

Possibly the term "theopneustos" should have caught your attention? If it didn't, the context should have:

Poreuqe/ntej ga/r,

fhsi/, maqhteu/sate pa/nta ta\ e)/qnh, bapti/zontej au)tou\j

ei)j to\ o)/noma tou= patro\j kai\ tou= ui(ou= kai\ tou= a(gi/ou pneu/-

matoj, dida/skontej threi=n pa/nta o(/sa e)neteila/mhn u(mi=n

And what is the "tradition" to which Gregory refers, Bob? Matthew 2819. There's your "tradition" a direct quotation of the Scriptures. Art Sippo spoke of attention to context: tell us honestly, Mr. Sungenis was this a reference you gleaned from a secondary source, and had you ever even checked the context? Yes or no? In reality, it is a strong affirmation of the accuracy of my own citation of Gregory, for it again affirms, clearly, the superiority of his view of Scripture, and even identifies his "tradition" with a Scriptural passage! Thank you for bringing up this reference!

>Here's more. In Mr. White's book Sola Scriptura The Protestant Position on

>the Bible, which he recommended that John Betts read,

Well, Bob, thank you for the compliment, but, it's not my book. Don Kistler edited it, and I wrote one chapter.

>Mr. White says the

>following about a quote from Basil, which, unbeknownst to Mr. White, actually

>comes from Gregory of Nyssa

Again, I'm not sure why you think I was not aware of the issue of whether this section of Basil is from him or Gregory. Have you ever even bothered to ask me if I am aware of that discussion? Anyone checking the reference, however, in the source I am citing, will find it in Basil, not Gregory.

-----

> Their complaint is that their custom does not accept this, and that

>Scripture does not agree. What is my reply? I do not consider it fair that

>the custom which obtains among them should be regarded as a law and rule of

>orthodoxy. If custom is to be taken in proof of what is right, then it is

>certainly competent for me to put forward on my side the custom which obtains

>here. If they reject this, we are clearly not bound to follow them. Therefore

>let God-inspired Scripture decide between us; and on whichever side be found

>doctrines in harmony with the word of God, in favor of that side will be cast

>the vote of truth.

>First, I should reiterate that patristic scholars recognize the above quote

>as originating in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa, not Basil. Nevertheless,

>I will deal with the citation as it appears in Basil in NPNF. Our assumption

>is that Mr. White chose this citation from Basil to prove that Basil believed

>in the doctrine of sola scriptura, and indeed, a first reading of it might

>give such an impression to the uniformed reader.

Actually, I cite the passage because of what it says, not because of what I'd like anyone to believe about the beliefs of Basil or Gregory. The passage's import is clear the deciding factor is not tradition, but God-inspired Scripture. That is a distinctly "Protestant" concept. If you and I were to debate the Marian dogmas, I'd challenge you on the same basis, and I really, really doubt you would defend them by making statements such as those I cited.

>But let's look very closely

>at what Basil is saying. First, Basil states that his opponent's tradition is

>not to be regarded as the "rule of orthodoxy." Then he says, "If custom is to

>be taken in proof of what is right, then it is certainly competent for me to

>put forward on my side the custom which obtains here" showing that it is his

>tradition [Basil's tradition] which is the correct tradition. Thus, on the

>basis of tradition versus tradition, Basil declares himself the winner.

Well, that's not even an accurate reading of his point. He is simply saying that if they put forward their custom, Basil can put his forward as well. He makes no statements like "I am the winner." Such is simply a very poor reading of the text.

>If

>anything, he is establishing and defending the tradition of the Church, not

>demoting it. He reinforces his reliance on tradition by saying, "If they

>reject this [the Church's tradition], we are clearly not bound to follow them.

Excuse me?! You are not serious here, are you, Mr. Sungenis? I hope all see who has to make insertions with brackets and who does not.

>Having said this, Basil now proceeds to Scripture and suggests that Scripture

>serve as the judge between them. Considering what Basil said above about his

>reliance on tradition, are we to assume that Basil is suddenly rejecting his

>belief in Tradition in favor of Scripture? Not at all.

Mr. Sungenis, Basil nowhere said a word about his "reliance on tradition." Note how tremendously inaccurately you must handle this text, even going so far as to then anachronistically insert "belief in Tradition" (with capital T) into your statements! This is a tremendous example of how Roman Catholic apologists cannot allow the early Fathers to speak in the context in which they originally lived and wrote. *I* can allow them to be who they were *you* must make them something else. A tremendous example indeed.

-----

>We must also add that in Basil's argument from Scripture with his opponents,

>he spends most of his time reasoning out conclusions from the rudimentary but

>incomplete information that Scripture contains. For example, in the letter to

>Eustathius that the Mr White cited, Basil is trying to convince his opponents

>of the divinity and personality of the Holy Spirit. For anyone familiar with

>Scripture, this is no small task, since Scripture's references to these two

>characteristics of the Holy Spirit are sparse at best.

Interestingly enough, I managed to fill an entire chapter with exegetically sound arguments for the personality and deity of the Spirit (_The Forgotten Trinity_, pp. 139-151), and I was being brief.

----

>Now, let's treat the passage as it originates in Gregory of Nyssa's writing.

>Gregory's context is very similar to Basil's. He is in a battle with the

>Pneumatomachi, who, based on their own tradition, accuse Gregory of

>"preaching three Gods" or "they allege that while we confess three Persons we

>say that there is one goodness..." (NPNF, Vol. 5, p. 326). Gregory then

>states "But the ground of their complaint is that their custom does not

>admit this, and Scripture does not support it." Gregory then gives the same

>reply that Basil gives. Since the Pneumatomachi will not listen to the

>Tradition or authority of the Church, Gregory goes to Scripture to defend his

>case. As for Gregory's dedication to the Church and her Tradition he writes

>

> For it is enough for proof of our statement, that the tradition has

>come down to us from our Fathers, handed on, like some inheritance, by

>succession from the Apostles and the saints who came after them (Against

>Eunomius 46).

Again, the accuracy of your use of scholarly sources is distressing, Mr. Sungenis. A little context, perhaps? The section begins

Now seeing that the Church, according to the Divine teaching, believes the Only-begotten to be verily God, and abhors the superstition of polytheism, and for this cause does not admit the difference of essences, in order that the Godheads may not, by divergence of essence, fall under the conception of number (for this is nothing else than to introduce polytheism into our life) — seeing, I say, that the Church teaches this in plain language, that the Only-begotten is essentially God, very God of the essence of the very God, how ought one who opposes her decisions to overthrow the preconceived opinion? Should he not do so by establishing the opposing statement, demonstrating the disputed point from some acknowledged principle? I think no sensible man would look for anything else than this.

Now, I hope you are not suggesting that this "Divine teaching" is extra-biblical since, obviously, truths such as these are pre-eminently biblical. Then we come to the section you cited, partially, anyway:

But so long as his primary proposition remains unproved, it is idle to dwell on those which are secondary. And let no one interrupt me, by saying that what we confess should also be confirmed by constructive reasoning for it is enough for proof of our statement, that the tradition has come down to us from our fathers, handed on, like some inheritance, by succession from the apostles and the saints who came after them. They, on the other hand, who change their doctrines to this novelty, would need the support of arguments in abundance, if they were about to bring over to their views, not men light as dust, and unstable, but men of weight and steadiness but so long as their statement is advanced without being established, and without being proved, who is so foolish and so brutish as to account the teaching of the evangelists and apostles, and of those who have successively shone like lights in the churches, of less force than this undemonstrated nonsense?

Now, Mr. Sungenis, if you wish to use such a passage to substantiate the Roman Catholic view, you will have to demonstrate that what was handed on, in Gregory's words, was, in some sense, relevant to your "Tradition," and I see nothing in the text that would even begin to substantiate that position. What has handed on by the Apostles, as he says, is the truth already stated that the monogenes is "essentially God." That's biblical language, Mr. Sungenis, and has no more weight in establishing your position than if I said, "My church is consistent in its beliefs and has stood firm on biblical truths." How does that establish your "Tradition"? Would you care, after explaining the above citation of Gregory, to expand upon this one as well?

>

>And what does Gregory think of his Church?

>

>"While the Church teaches that we must not divide our faith amongst a

>plurality of beings, but must recognize no difference of being in three

>Subjects or Persons, whereas our opponents posit a variety and unlikeness

>amongst them as Beings...." (Against Eunomius, Book I, 19).

Again, I can only ask, "So?" The Church teaches faithfully what is delivered to her by God in Scripture. I say to someone who asks about the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, "The Church teaches that the Scriptures are sufficient because they are God speaking to us, whereas our opponents wish to subjugate us to external, and non-inspired, authorities." How is that different?

>In fact, you will NEVER find a statement in Gregory which pits the authority

>of the Church against the authority of Scripture.

Mr. Sungenis, that's a straw man, as I demonstrated above. I did not suggest he did I suggested that he did not make the Church what you make it, and did not hold to a view of "Tradition" with a capital T as you do. And, that has been rather clearly demonstrated.

>In fact, you will NEVER

>find any Father who does it. The challenge for Mr. White is to find us such

>passages. Let's cease with the passages that are constantly brought forth for

>proof of sola scriptura which, when examined, merely extol the quality of

>Scripture over against man and his ideas. Let's see if Mr. White can find

>just one recognized Father who says that Scripture is the authority over the

>Church, that we are to subsume every belief under Scripture, no matter what

>the Church teaches; or that Scripture is the authority over Tradition, that

>what was passed down as apostolic tradition is not an authority as great as

>Scripture and should not necessarily be used to interpret Scripture. Just one

>will do Mr. White. Until then, I suggest you remove Gregory of Nyssa from you

>salutation.

We have already seen that Gregory makes the Scriptures the "kanoni" and "nomw" of every dogma. I challenge you, Mr. Sungenis, to show me one place where Gregory makes "Tradition" the canon and rule of ANY dogma, let alone EVERY dogma. I look forward to seeing this.

Secondly, just as you raised a red herring at the end of the Papacy debate in Boston, so you do here as well. You speak of your "Tradition," yet, you don't even begin to attempt to show us this "Tradition" in the sources you've cited, or mis-cited, as the case may be. But I shall provide you with at least one interesting citation, at least taken in context, that you might find interesting

At the same time, as I have said already, it is to the canonical Scriptures alone that I am bound to yield such implicit subjection as to follow their teaching, without admitting the slightest suspicion that in them any mistake or any statement intended to mislead could find a place." (The Confessions of St. Augustine, Letter LXXXII, Sec. 24)

Could you provide me a parallel passage from Augustine in which he says that "it is to Tradition ALONE that I am bound to yield such implicit subjection as to follow their teaching"? I look forward to seeing such a statement.

Thank you for taking the time to read all of this. I have been fascinated to note that both Dr. Sippo and Mr. Betts have applauded wildly the "brilliant" effort you put forth. Yet, I don't get the feeling that either of them took even a few moments to check your work, as I did. Amazing how something can *look* so good and yet be so fundamentally *flawed* when you actually take the time to do a little homework! This has been, indeed, a learning experience---hopefully for us all.

James>>>

Mr. Sungenis replied the next day.  If you are interested, here's that interchange: click here.