Once you know what the Roman Catholic Axiom is, it is often quite easy to identify its use:
Here’s the cool thing about being Catholic:
I don’t have to make it make sense because regardless of what the Pope does, the Catholic Church is still the Church of Christ.
When Protestants are scandalized by their pastors, they just hop on to another church because, in their theology, a church is a church is a church.
But I have nowhere else to go, nor do I want to go anywhere else. Whether the Pope is on-point or far left field, I know one thing to be true: the Catholic Church is the Church of Christ and is protected by the Holy Spirit.
But sometimes it can be a bit tricky to unpack in complex arguments.
Statements like this are actually Protestant rebukes of Eastern Orthodoxy. The fact that the rebranded OrthodoxLuigi uses these arguments is very alarming, as it shows he has not mentally accepted what it means to be part of any Apostolic Church, including his own.
Orthodoxy does not have an infallible list of infallible teachings for the exact same reason Catholicism does not: we submit to a living Church, and agree to believe all it teaches, unconditionally. We do not assent to propositions one by one and decide if we agree with them or not. It’s also impossible to generate such a list, because the Apostolic Deposit is infinitely contemplated and better-known. If the list itself was infallible, it couldn’t develop. But doctrine does develop, as the Trinity and Christology prove.
We have the Catechism if you wish to learn what the Church officially teaches.
There is the Roman Catholic Axiom—sola ecclesia—right there in bold, and it is quite revealing. Let’s see how Angelo uses it.
First, the Roman Catholic does not assent to specific propositions. He must blindly accept them all as a complete package without dissent. There is no room for individual reason or discernment, nor any possibility that anything could be wrong. As Kauffman noted regarding the Axiom, “Because Rome is the True Church, every doctrine it teaches is therefore true.” By accepting the Axiom, you are obligated to accept all of its propositions as being true.
Second, Roman Catholic doctrine develops and what is developed is applied retroactively backwards through time. As I noted regarding the Axiom, “The recent explicates the older.” Lawrence McCready, a Roman Catholic apologist, said the same: “When looking at doctrinal development, it behooves us to look at the former through the lens of what it developed into later.”
Third, the Catechism teaches what is officially true. But, by the first and second points, if it is ever wrong, you are obligated to accept any new proposition as being just as true as the true propositions that they replaced. For example, when Roman Catholicism took a turn on the death penalty, both the original and the new teachings must be viewed as true in their own times, even though they are mutually exclusive “truth.” Such is the power of the Axiom.
Now, let’s continue examining the discussion.
I believe the point he is trying to make is that everyone is in the same epistemic boat.
Jedidiah is making an objectively correct observation. Axioms are epistemologically equivalent. No axiom is inherently “better” or more “correct” than any other axiom by definition of what an axiom is. Whether sola scriptura or sola ecclesia, neither has an epistemological advantage over another.
Epistemology, noun — the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.
As Angelo made so very clear, the Roman Catholic Axiom is epistemologically equivalent to sola scriptura because it isn’t subject to specific assent. It’s an axiom, not subject to rational examination. Like sola scripture, you either accept it or reject it.
Roman Catholics absolutely hate this fact. Their entire worldview relies on convincing you that their Axiomatic epistemology is superior to anyone else’s, but they have no logical grounds to claim this.
The Roman Catholic Axiom is not circular reasoning for the plain reason that an Axiom is not a circular argument. But the way that Roman Catholics apply the Axiom often is circular. The claim to the superiority of the Axiom is one, almost universal, example of this. It, quite literally, begs the question.
If that were true, no one would be responsible for rejecting Christ, because there would be no means of certainty in what He wants.
Understand what Angelo is saying: if sola scriptura and sola ecclesia were equal on epistemological grounds, then there would be no certainly in what God wants us to do. But, if one chooses sola ecclesia, suddenly one is supposed to have complete certainty about what God wants.
Does it logically follow that if we agree to believe everything that Roman Catholicism teaches that we will have certainty in what God wants us to do? Of course not. The claim is absurd. The Axiom itself cannot tell you with certainty that you chose the correct Axiom. You might have chosen incorrectly. This is why some who once confidently embraced the Roman Catholic Axiom can one day just as confidently choose to reject it. The ubiquitous existence of the Catholic-to-Protestant, for example, proves that the Roman Catholic Axiom did not provide certainty.
The reason is straightforward. Axioms do not establish anything, let alone certainty of belief. Axioms are assumptions that are simply accepted as-is. Assuming a belief as-is without any due consideration cannot ever provide epistemological certainty. To believe otherwise makes one a very credulous and irrational person.
Except for the True Believer, assumptions are the antithesis of certainty. But of course, one can be a True Believer of any Axiom, such as sola scriptura. Blind certainty is a delusion, not faith.
Thus, if the claim is that choosing a specific Axiom ensures that the choice of Axiom provides certainty that the Axiom (and its associated epistemology) is the correct one, then this is clearly a circular argument. You end with the very thing you started with. A circular argument cannot provide certainty regarding the circular claim being made, for a circular argument is meaningless.
Sola ecclesia does not provide epistemological certainty. It cannot.
Angelo has a basic belief that truth must be certain, or else no one can truly believe in Christ. From what does he derive such certainty? From the Roman Catholic Axiom, of course. His belief tells him that he is certain, and so he is certain about his belief. Circles.
Jedidiah tries again, but it doesn’t work:
I think his tweet is for when RCs say you can’t know dogma as Ortho or prot because you dont have the pope to act as head and decide. But if there is no infallible list then we are all left to research and determine for ourselves, making us all in the same boat.
That’s simply not true. We are not left in that boat. If that were true, Christianity would be irrelevant and you could ignore it. Orthodoxy does have epistemological problems, namely it has the issue of Competing Finals, which means you cannot know what’s true on faith and morals when the multiple equal authorities disagree on the doctrinal level. Orthodoxy can’t come to a universal agreement on what even constitutes a legitimate baptism, the entry into the Christian faith.
Again, Jedidiah is clearly correct.
Angelo is offering a fallacious Argument from Consequences. He asserts that one of the Axioms (sola ecclesia) must not only be true, but be inherently superior, or else Christianity would be irrelevant. But of course just because epistemological equality has an (alleged) undesirable consequence does not make it logically invalid, nor does it that sola ecclesia must be correct.
The fact of the matter is that Roman Catholicism has a major epistemological problem because without an infallible list of infallible teachings, you are left with a fallible list of “infallible” teachings and an uncertain Axiom that presumes, without sufficient grounds, that by agreeing with a set of teachings they are somehow correct.
How can a Roman Catholic know for certain that what his church teaches is correct? He assumes the Roman Catholic Axiom that everything his church teaches is correct.
That, right there, is an unavoidable epistemological problem. And, frankly, if all we had was the Roman Catholic Axiom, I could understand why anyone would conclude that there would be no means of certainty in Roman Catholicism to know if any teaching at all was correct.
Frankly, if the Roman Catholic Axiom were true, there would be no need for the Axiom. But, there is a great need for it indeed.