This is a review of “The Path is Very Long” by Catacomb Resident.

I grew up as an Anabaptist in the Church of the Brethren, an explicitly non-creedal church. I would seem to agree with CR here that creeds should not bind the hearts and minds of men. I avoid churches with long mission statements or with massive bureaucracies and their codified rules, regulations, and laws.

The Anabaptists initially had no problem using the Apocrypha. Historical circumstances caused it to be set aside, for the most part, but it was never rejected explicitly. Another closely related Anabaptist group, the Mennonites, included it in their Bibles. It was mostly abandoned, even where it was maintained.

But it is critical to note that Jesus quoted—as scripture—from every major section of the Old Testament scripture, but he never did so of the Apocrypha. There is some debate among scholars if the version of the Septuagint used by Jesus, the apostles, and the early church even included the apocryphal books. We don’t even know if the canon that we have today would have matched the one that they supposedly used! The acceptance of the apocrypha as scripture has always been a deeply questionable, speculative proposition.

I’m not only aware of it, but I speak of it fairly often on this blog. I’m well aware of its importance and relevance. But, scriptural variance is the kind of thing that makes people upset. For example:

A lot of what CR calls “Big Eva” holds to a particularly non-historical concept of scriptural inspiration. Attempting to point out that the “inspired Word of God” is different from the translations that they possess is not a pill that is easily swallowed.

But that said, even though Jesus used the Septuagint, it does not logically follow that the other written and oral traditions outside the canon of the Pharisees—the same canon that most Protestants use—were ever viewed as scripture. That includes the apocrypha in its various configurations.

Catacomb Resident wants to include extra-biblical material, because his chosen belief system relies on it, but there is no compelling reason that a Christian—whether “Big Eva” or not—should do so. He has raised his own religious clan’s choices to the level of doctrine, without sufficient justification. Choosing doctrine because that’s what the group—or a leadership authority in the group—demands is precisely what “Big Eva” does. Catacomb Resident thinks it is okay when his preferred group does it. That, my friends, is special pleading.

This hides the fact that Catacomb Resident is trying to add to revealed scripture. This is why his sect—which emphasizes mysticism—veers into heresy and fails the test of the spirits. The movement is thus, objectively, not of Christ, as with most tiny bespoke religious movements.

Look, I’ll be honest. I like a lot of what Radix Fidem teaches. It’s why I’ve been reading their articles for years. I think that the focus on the cultural context of the Ancient Near East is actually mostly correct. But if you fail the test of the spirits, you are not of Christ. It’s not one of those negotiable or ambiguous “subject to discernment” things. It’s really is simple. Radix Fidem is a cult. I only hope that this error is repented, because the movement could offer a lot of value to other branches of Christianity.

It seems rather sensible to ignore unpublished lore, since we don’t have it. Knowing it existed tells us little-to-nothing about what it was, nor does that fact tell us if what we do have is incomplete in any meaningful way. While we can infer that other sources may have exist and have some general understanding of what it might have contained, a reconstruction of such materials is nothing more than wishful speculation.

Even apart from Jesus failing to quote from the non-canonical works, Jesus was not silent on this issue:

Jesus had already accounted for whatever might not have been written down. This is the reason for the sufficiency of sola scriptura: the Holy Spirit revealed to the apostles what they needed to know and they wrote it down. Most importantly, the disciples did not need to rely on perfect memory recall—which doesn’t actually exist in human witnesses—in order to communicate God’s truth.

That rather begs-the-question, doesn’t it?

The problem here is that CR cannot demonstrate his claim. There is no argument or evidence to support what is essentially pure speculation (e.g. those “reconstructions”). Sure, maybe my view of sola scriptura is incomplete, that we need to study more than what the Holy Spirit revealed to the Apostles that was written down. Maybe what CR is presenting is part of the Holy Spirit’s revelation…or maybe it isn’t. I have no way of knowing this, and neither do you. Anything beyond sola scriptura—which is deductively based on written teachings of Jesus—is speculative opinion, and no more than that.

Many (most?) cults do this. Whether Mormon, Radix Fidem, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Islam do this: they include new constructions of God’s revelation that are—according to proponents—not subject to examination or falsifiability. All rely on appeals outside the domain of reason. But Christian mysticism is different. It relies on conformance to scripture by application of the mind (e.g. the Bereans; Paul’s teachings on prophecy and speaking in tongues). The point is this, when CR says…

…this is indistinguishable from the exact same appeal that Roman Catholics would use to get us to accept their Magisterium and papacy. The same Roman Catholics who would have burned Radix Fidem members to death a few hundred years ago. This “argument” isn’t persuasive. The only persuasive argument—because it is backed by the historical evidence—is that Paul (and the other apostles) wrote down their oral teachings and that the early church understood this to be sufficient until around the late 4th century.

We know that the Jesus and the Apostles made reference to extra-biblical oral traditions. Here is one of them:

Many people in “Big Eva” conclude from this that when you die, you immediately go to heaven or hell where you experience an exalted conscious existence, even though that teaching is not taught the rest of scripture (especially the Old Testament), which teaches over-and-over-again that the dead sleep. Indeed, Catacomb Resident just got done complaining that “Big Eva” is ignoring the Old Testament. So we would expect Catacomb Resident to not ignore the Old Testament, right?

In “A Dead Problem,” Catacomb Resident addresses this in a curious way:

But notice what he is doing, he is setting aside the Old Testament teaching that the dead are unconscious. And he’s doing in a way that ensures that he also disagrees with the teaching of “Big Eva” which says that dead Christians go to heaven as conscious beings and that dead non-Christians go to hell eternally.

Catacomb Resident isn’t applying his methodology consistently. But Catacomb Resident doesn’t even know if the parable is meant to be taken literally or figuratively! The reason for this inconsistency is that his viewpoint is arbitrary and speculative: it isn’t grounded in any particular rational basis. He can’t even tell us what Jesus’ parable—which is actually written—means, even as he wants you to subscribe to a bunch of unwritten oral traditions, which are even more unclear.

This is what is meant by “That rather begs-the-question, doesn’t it?” Catacomb Resident is offering you nothing of value.

This is an extremely broad statement that does not logically follow from the previous statements. I, of course, do agree that the concept of “orthodoxy” is mostly nonsense, but if I wanted to convince you of that I would cite all the articles that I’ve written on the topic in which I defend the claim using reason and evidence. It’s not hard to show that “orthodoxy” is derived from an abandonment of logic and reason, not its embrace.

Catacomb Resident does not do this. His claim is of no value, merely begging the question.

Every religious snake-oil salesman has a newly recovered “genuine” holy text that he wants to sell you. Is that the Mormons that I hear calling? The Book of Momon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ…

I sympathize with Catacomb Resident. I even agree with some of his opinions. But what he offers has no rational basis for his belief. He has no justification for what he is suggesting. Catacomb Resident is sure that he needs an Ancient Near East mode of thinking, but his belief is just empty as the belief system he is trying to overthrow. He has offered no reason to reject “Big Eva” other than “I’m sure my opinion is the correct one.”

That means those who agree with him are doing so without any confidence that they are not making a critical mistake. Like all religion zealots, they can certainly convince themselves to confidence, but they are no better than the adherents of “Big Eva.”

I’ll make this simple: the rejection of reason is inherently self-defeating. He can dress up his view with a deep lore, but without reason, it is all empty rhetoric. That’s why Paul applauded the Bereans, who examined the written word to determine if the oral teaching was valid. If I do the same thing, I’m essentially forced to reject the full sum of Catacomb Resident teaches, even if I see aspects of truth within it.

This is a very serious problem, which is why you should question any kind of mysticism that does not also embrace reason.

I can accept that Jesus was a Hebrew mystic of the Ancient Near East. I can accept that of Paul. I can even accept that the Bereans were mystics. But I cannot accept that any of them rejected the primacy of reason.

Paul expected the Bereans to use their reason to reject any teaching that failed to conform the scripture, and to accept the teachings that did.

How did an Ancient Near East mystic know that only females could get pregnant? How did he know that a man could not be a woman? How did he know that one sheep was different from two sheep? He applied the laws of logic. But how did a mystic from the East know about the laws of logic which were codified in the West? Because the logic is fundamental to reality. Even had the West never described the laws of logic, a mystic would still apply them to know that one sheep is less than two sheep and that a fertile male, lacking a womb, cannot get pregnant. If he received a mystical revelation that his male sheep was going to get pregnant next week, he’d have paid it no mind.

When John wrote…

…and…

…he was implicitly declaring that the law of noncontradiction—which is the foundation for distinguishing between truth and lie—is divine. This is why Hebrews states:

The law of noncontradiction is divine. To say that “God cannot lie” is to assert the Law of Noncontradiction. It is just as divine as saying “God is love.”

The problem with Catacomb Resident, and Radix Fidem in general, is that by denying the primacy of logic, it denies the primacy of truth. Indeed, it denies that aspect of God himself. You can read what Catacomb Resident wrote above and wonder how you could possibly know if what he is saying is true or false, whether you should be a follower. That is to ask “what is true?” or its equivalent “what is divine?” and its equal “what is reality?”

See, Catacomb Resident offers something of great value here: insight into the cultural framework that Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles operated within. But he does so by rejecting God’s truth by forcing his views into a logical conformance, that is, to be true. This critically hobbles his teaching, which is why his teaching isn’t grounded in reality.

This saddens me, because it is such a simple error to resolve. The mystics of the Ancient Near East didn’t reject logic and reason. Paul applied it liberally alongside his mysticism. It is a mistake to treat the two as being at odds with one another. I analyzed this in “Traditions of Men” when I analyzed the meaning of “heart” as the core of one’s being in the Ancient Near East, a core that included the mind.

I remain stunned at how a movement that purports to rely on its adherence to Ancient Near East develops a conception of reality that flies against the traditions of the Ancient Near East.

I’ve never publicly weighed in on this topic. I’ll leave this to others to discuss.

Here is the passage in question:

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be struggling with in this passage.

That is, uh, a creative take on Hebrews 6:1-9. I can see why he thinks it is a difficult passage to exegete, as his explanation is difficult to justify. The writer of Hebrews isn’t talking about playing games with simplistic teaching, nor does he make mention of any such requirements of the Covenant. Catacomb Resident appears to be reading into the passage what he wishes was present.

I see the writer  talking about developing spiritual maturity in various ways. I read it with the same understanding that I read of Paul, who talked of replacing spiritual milk with spiritual solid food. And in the case of Paul, he was talking about replacing the worldly existence with that of God’s ways. If you want to call that “the Covenant”, fine, but requirements? Following Christ has never been about following the rules, regulations, flow charts, etc.

Radix Fidem is really good about some stuff, but they refuse to accept the fully revealed nature of God. Do we also have to leave them behind? Catacomb Resident should be careful that his own standard is not applied to himself: