In the Catholic/Protestant debate arena, I have seen Catholics try to “bait” Protestants with a question, and the question Catholics ask is:
“What is the
pillar and foundation of the truth?”
Often, this question
is intended to trick the Protestant into saying “the Bible,” since many, if not
most, Protestants hold the Bible as the ultimate source of truth in spiritual
matters. So, if the Protestant answers
this way, the Catholic will respond that the correct answer to this question (according
to the Bible, itself) is the Church:
“But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how
thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of
the living God, the pillar and ground [foundation/bulwark] of
the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15 – emphasis added)
It is unfortunate that some Protestants will
answer the question wrongly. But anyone
who has been saved for a while and is familiar with the Bible should be
acquainted with this verse and what it actually means.
However, in a footnote in its Catechism, the Catholic Church uses this
particular verse to advance the idea that it is the Catholic Church who is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth,” who “faithfully
guards the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (CCC 171) – and
somehow, this idea leads
to the “infallibility” of their Church. Infallibility
means that the Church is incapable of
error (under certain conditions).
But is the biblical passage in question really saying that? Are Protestants missing something?
Catholics
will fight hard against the teaching of Sola Scriptura, i.e., the concept of
“the Bible alone.” The doctrine of Sola
Scriptura, believed by most Protestants, teaches that the Bible is the only
infallible source of truth for the church today, as 2 Timothy 3:16-17 indicates. But Catholics will use 1 Timothy 3:15 to try to
say otherwise, to demonstrate that the Church has infallibility, also.
To maintain
this interpretation, the Catholic logic goes something like this:
“Pillars and
foundations are made to hold up something and keep it from crashing down. In the case of this verse, this
pillar/foundation is holding up the truth.
If the truth would somehow collapse, it would be lost. But Jesus told us in Matthew 16:18 that the
gates of Hell would not prevail against the church. For this victory against the gates of Hell to
be true, the Church should not be able to err in its teachings, therefore, it must be infallible. Furthermore, the fact that Jesus Christ is
the Cornerstone of this foundation (Matthew 21:42; 1 Peter 2:6) and the
Church is the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27), these things
assure us of the infallibility of the Church.”
At least,
that’s pretty much how they come to this conclusion.
An Analogy
But the
Catholic interpretation of 1 Timothy 3:15 is like a son who is
admonished by his father:
“Son, you
are aspiring to be a doctor and it is of the utmost importance that you
maintain the highest medical and ethical standards and responsibilities. You must study to become the best possible
doctor that you can be!”
And then the
son concludes from this short speech:
“Dad says
that I am the best doctor there is – I can do no wrong!”
Of course,
this was not at all what Dad was really saying.
The son, in his quest for greatness, was obviously mistaken in
interpreting his father’s message to him.
The father’s words were spoken to impart responsibility and nothing more.
But they were twisted by his son into suggesting some sort of
infallibility.
This is
exactly the same mistake that the Catholic Church is committing when they claim
infallibility from Paul’s admonition to Timothy in this passage.
The man’s
son was wrongly emphasizing his exaggerated ability above his critical responsibility in his chosen field. In the very same way, the Catholic Church is taking
this verse out of context to wrongly emphasize a supposed special ability over
and above its critical responsibility
to uphold the gospel truth.
Again, the
emphasis of the apostle Paul was on Timothy’s (and his local church’s) responsibility to behave and to uphold
the truth in the household of God – not on some imagined infallibility. This is indeed an incredible leap of logic for
the Catholic Church which violates the context of this passage.
“The Church” Really Means Something
Else
By the way,
when Catholics say “the Church,” they are referring specifically to the Catholic Church, and often, to its “Magisterium”
(i.e., its leaders). But this is an
unbiblical definition, as I show elsewhere on this blog. Absolutely nowhere in the Holy Scriptures
does the term “the church” ever refer to a Magisterium. As the old saying goes, “It just ain’t there!”
See these
articles:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-origin-of-truth.html
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2024/05/is-noahs-ark-symbol-of-catholic-church.html
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-catholic-mindset.html
All About Responsibility!
But let’s
look at the passage again, starting with the previous verse:
v. 14
-These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly:
v.15 -
But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave
thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the
pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Timothy 3:14-15 - Emphasis added)
Notice the “ought” in v. 15. This is about what the members of the church should be doing. The apostle Paul is telling Timothy and his
congregation how to conduct themselves when the church assembly (Greek,
“ekklesia”), or “house of God,” is gathered together. But again, Catholics take this passage
completely out of context. They love to
inject a whole new meaning into it.
Once more, the
whole chapter (1 Timothy 3) is about
the RESPONSIBILITIES, OBLIGATIONS and EXPECTATIONS of the leaders within the
church, and NOT about any infallibility or special authority.
No, the
chapter is about church leaders needing to be careful in their behavior (v. 1-15) and their teachings (v.
2, 9), since it is their responsibility to safeguard and uphold the
gospel message and not be a stumbling block in the way they conduct
themselves. This was actually more of a limitation on church leaders, rather
than about their exaltation.
But
Catholics try their hardest to make it about special Church authority and
privileges of the Magisterium, when it is not about that at all.
Guarantee of Infallibility?
Like I said,
there is no infallibility here for the church.
The universal church of Jesus Christ, as a whole, is the pillar and
foundation (metaphorically speaking) of the truth. The church is not the truth itself and the
truth doesn’t originate from the church, but Paul is saying that the church has
the responsibility to uphold and
support the truth through the faithful preaching of the gospel – not that it is
a guarantee of infallibility for anyone
in the post-apostolic church.
Has the
church always been effective in fulfilling its mission of upholding the truth? No, there are certainly times when members of
the church have deviated from the truth.
This is exactly the reason why most of the New Testament epistles are
corrective in nature, that is, the authors are correcting false teachings or improper
behavior. So we shouldn’t be surprised
if we see apostasy in the church today.
After all, Paul warns us in the very next chapter that some would
abandon the faith, and it would get worse as time goes on (1 Timothy 4:1-2).
Of course,
this has not been a total apostasy,
since Jesus said that the gates of Hell would not prevail against the church (Matthew
16:18). You see, God has always had a faithful remnant. But apostasy did indeed (and still does) exist,
at different levels and in different places, throughout church history.
But the
point here is that the church doesn’t have to be infallible to maintain the
message of 1 Timothy 3.
Do You Really Want to Say That?
When you say
that the church cannot err, exactly what church are you talking about? If Catholics are using the word “church” in a
biblical sense, they are saying
either:
1) that the
local assembly (altogether) cannot err, or
2) that the
universal, worldwide community of true believers (altogether) cannot err.
But it is highly
unlikely that they would ever say this about either of these two groups. This is because they so often use the term
“the Church” in an unscriptural sense.
The only way
that you can force the Catholic interpretation onto the text of 1
Timothy 3:15 is by assuming an
infallible Magisterium to start with.
Catholics
will sometimes stress the idea that, since the Church is the foundation,
“whatever is built upon a foundation cannot be greater than that foundation – in
other words, the foundation is always
greater than what it supports.” But hold
on! That may be true in the fields of
architecture and construction, but are they implying that the Church (foundation)
is greater than the very truth it
upholds? This is both arrogant and
blasphemous! Once again, the church can only be the pillar of truth IN THE SENSE
OF BEING OBLIGATED TO UPHOLD THAT TRUTH!
There are always some in the church that can err
in doctrine. The Head (Jesus) cannot err,
but the body (the church) certainly can.
Just because Jesus is identified with the church does not mean the
church is infallible like He is. The
church is supposed to emulate Him in
its character and its fruit (Galatians 5:22-25). Christians
have some of His characteristics, but
we certainly don’t have His immutability, His omniscience, His omnipotence, His
omnipresence, nor His infallibility.
Those are reserved for the Trinity alone.
What is a Household?
In 1
Timothy 3:15, the apostle Paul calls the church the “house” or “household”
of God. A family household is not always
comprised of parents only, but also of children. In the same way, the household of God does
not contain leaders only, but it also includes “the laity” (the common man in
the pew). So, if the Church is indeed the
household, and you want to maintain the Catholic
interpretation of this passage, you’d have to say that everyone in the Church is infallible! And I don’t think that anyone would want to
say that.
Bad News
If being an
infallible pillar of truth is automatic for Magisterial leaders, simply by
reason of their office (as Catholics seem to think), then why do we have all
the warnings from Paul toward church
leadership (1 Timothy 3:1-13; 4:16; 5:21-22) and why such a concern for
apostasy – even from leaders (Acts 20:28-31; Timothy 4:1)? Furthermore, we often forget that Jesus, Himself,
also warned His churches – including leaders (Revelation chapter 2 and 3).
There should
be no need for these warnings if infallibility is “automatic.” In fact, these firm warnings (along
with other biblical principles) exclude
the possibility of such a gift for the post-apostolic church. Otherwise, Jesus’ and Paul’s threats would be
irrelevant.
The truth is, being
a biblical pillar/foundation is something that you choose to do, it is what you ought
to do, so that you fulfill your responsibility as a leader or member of the
church. It doesn’t automatically happen
because of the position you hold in your church.
At the risk
of being redundant, the bottom line, once again, is that the apostle Paul (in
context) was telling Timothy, “You NEED to be a pillar of the truth,” not, “You
are guaranteed to be an infallible pillar of the truth.” Thankfully, the church does not need to be infallible in order to
effectively share and uphold this gospel truth.
The burden
of proof is on Catholics to prove
that infallibility is spoken of here (1 Timothy 3). Once again, I would assert that this concept
is simply being forced into this passage.
The bad news
for the Catholic Church is this: Not only do you have a wrong interpretation of
1
Timothy 3:15 (and therefore, do NOT have infallibility), but you also
are NOT the pillar and foundation of the truth, as long as you are neck-deep in
false doctrine.
So, I would
assert that the concept of an “infallible church” is indeed a deception and that
the doctrine of Sola Scriptura remains unscathed!
We will
continue this topic next time in Part 2…
