JOHN MARTIGNONI’S LOSING BATTLE

 

I’ve previously devoted several of my articles to addressing comments made by Catholic apologist and speaker John Martignoni, who maintains the Bible Christian Society newsletter.  Today, we will deal with his Newsletter #410.  You can find it here:

https://www.biblechristiansociety.com/newsletter/586-apologetics-for-the-masses-410-private-interpretation-of-the-bible-vs-church-teaching

John often speaks about how Protestants (who admit to being fallible) will have a problem correctly interpreting Scripture, while claiming it is not an issue with Catholics.  He emphasizes that what the Protestant believes depends entirely on his private, fallible interpretation of the Bible, while the Catholic can rest confidently in the authority of the Catholic Church for correct interpretations.

In this particular newsletter, he gets a question from someone named “Cary L.” who asks:

“Why is your potentially fallible decision to trust the claims of the Roman Catholic Church for your salvation correct?

John Martignoni states that it is an excellent question, and I agree!  In fact, I don’t think that John (or any other Catholic) can adequately answer it the way he wants to without violating Scripture or common sense.

First Things First

But John requests that Cary first deal with a question of his (John’s) own:

“If you are not infallible in your interpretation of Scripture, then how do you have any sure way of knowing what is and is not authentic Christian doctrine and practice?”

Ok, so let me try to adequately answer John Martignoni’s question to Cary L.  It’s about certainty.  The question is assuming that infallibility is a must to be able to know basic Christian doctrine.  But this doesn’t follow.  This is the same old false dichotomy that some Catholic apologists use over and over: 1) either your interpretation is infallible (i.e., unable to err), or 2) it has to be wrong.  It is as though there is no third option.  But every single person is fallible, yet, many times a person gets the interpretation correct!  Just because an interpretation could possibly be wrong doesn’t mean that it will indeed be wrong.

Post-apostolic Christians don’t have infallibility, but we don’t need it to have enough certainty to come to the knowledge of the truth, or to be saved.  We only need a sufficient amount of certainty. 

Are there some passages more difficult than others?  Yes, there are (2 Peter 3:15-16).  Do we get it wrong sometimes?  Yes, we may.  And you may say, “That’s not very reassuring if it’s possible that we can be wrong!”  But that’s what Bible study is for, and nowhere in that Bible are we told that we need infallibility to interpret a Bible verse.  In fact, Scripture points out that the common person can indeed understand it.  Jesus expected exactly that!  See here:

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2013/07/quick-notes-on-sola-scriptura-part-6.html

https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/search?q=interpretation

In fact, it was mostly the common people who listened to and followed Jesus.  Basic hermeneutical concepts (i.e., Bible interpretation principles) and common sense go a long way here. 

What’s the Difference?

Ok, back to Cary’s question.  Cary is basically asking: “Isn’t the reasoning of the Catholic who is trusting in his understanding of Church teachings just as fallible as the reasoning of the Protestant who is trusting in his understanding of Scripture?  The answer is yes, indeed.

But Martignoni is saying no, it isn’t.  He says that what Protestants do “does not at all equate with my accepting the teachings of the Catholic Church as being authoritative and infallible.”  In other words, the Protestant has a problem, but the Catholic can’t go wrong when trusting in his “infallible” church. 

Supposedly, Protestants can’t read and understand infallible Scripture with certainty, yet Catholics can confidently read and understand their church’s “infallible” teaching.  But how is it that the Catholic is supposed to somehow have more certainty than the Protestant?  He doesn’t.  There is no difference.  Even if they end up with an infallible source, they still both have to begin with their fallible reasoning.

Martignoni’s “Infallibility”

John Martignoni goes on to state that he is indeed infallible in his first-hand knowledge of some things, for example, he “infallibly” knows that he is married, that he lives in Birmingham, that 2+2=4, etc. 

He further says that he can know something infallibly about matters of which he has second-hand knowledge, like the speed of light, the fuel for the sun, the year of the death of George Washington, etc.

Ok, I get his point, but these last things he mentioned would have less certainty, since some scientists, researchers, historians and authorities may have actually got some of their information wrong.  It happens from time to time.

But, of course, the infallibility that we are concerned with here is not about these things.  We are speaking of having infallible certainty in spiritual and moral matters.  No one but God has this level of certainty.  But again, He does give humans sufficient certainty in spiritual matters (1 John 5:13).

But John’s whole point, I think, is that the things he mentioned here are told to us by an “authoritative” source (scientists, researchers, historians, etc.).  So, apparently, according to John, if it’s based on some authority, it must be true, correct?  And of course, depending on an authoritative source is exactly what John will claim, concerning the Catholic Church.  He also makes a big deal over Cary’s admission of fallibility, and he keeps throwing it back into Cary’s face.  But fallibility is not necessarily a weakness when it comes to Bible interpretation.  We all have fallibility and Martignoni needs to stop pretending that Catholics are somehow immune to it, just because they believe their Church to be infallible. 

Double Standard

We use our fallible reasoning daily in everything we do, and most people use it effectively.  By the way, every type of communication has to be interpreted.  And the Catholic, just like the Protestant, is obligated to use his own fallible, “non-authoritative,” “private” understanding to interpret not only the Bible, but also to interpret his own church’s teachings.  Again, no one has moral infallibility today, and it doesn’t take such a gift to have a sufficient amount of certainty.  There is no getting around this fact, in spite of what John Martignoni says.  There is a double standard being used here.

All Christians should use the Scriptures to evaluate their own church’s teaching.  1 Thessalonians 5:21 says to “… test all things.”  But this does not apply only to the leaders, but to the “laity,” as well.  Checks and balances.

The problem is that John has been pushing his version of “fallibility-can’t-produce-certainty” for a long time.  He refuses to give up his argument, but he is still wrong on this. 

Biblical “Proof” of the Need for an Infallible Magisterium?

He then demeans the God-breathed Scriptures when he tells Cary:

“The Scriptures reflect the tradition of the Christian faith, they are not the source of the Christian faith, as you make them out to be.” (Emphasis mine)

Ok, first of all, I’ve never seen a Catholic who can actually fully define this Sacred Tradition.  You can’t trust in it if you can’t accurately tell us what all it contains.  See here:

https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-about-tradition.html

Second, the Christian faith is indeed encapsulated in Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  This is how we know what the true Christian faith is, and this is also how we detect false doctrine.

John proceeds to mention a couple of Bible passages to attempt to prove that we need more than just the Bible.  He uses Nehemiah 8:1-8 to suggest that it was the leaders in this passage (like in the Catholic Magisterium) who had to explain what the Book of the Law was saying.  But we have to remember that, in this context, these Jews had just returned from Babylon (whose language had become ingrained in their minds for many years while there).  Many of those Jews grew up with the Babylonian language.  But the Book of the Law was written in Hebrew, so, many Jews in that seventy-year exile had to now “brush up” on their native language, while some could probably speak very little Hebrew!  That’s why the Jewish leaders had to expound/translate the Law for the people.  So, this passage does not at all prove that we need an infallible magisterium to interpret for us.

Again, John Martignoni also uses Acts 8:30-31 for the same purpose.  In this passage, the Ethiopian eunuch is reading the book of Isaiah aloud, and Philip asks the eunuch if he understands what he is reading.  The eunuch responds, “How can I unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:31).   Catholics will often respond, “See, there it is!  We need an infallible Magisterium to interpret Scripture for us.” 

But, to use the words of John Martignoni, “Not so fast!”  Philip was NOT an apostle, a pope, or part of an infallible magisterium, but simply a deacon in the church (Acts 6:5)!  So why does John use this passage to try to prove a magisterium?  Is there some intentional deception going on here? 

Furthermore, these passages that John quoted do not negate the abundance of verses showing that the common man is expected to understand Scripture, as revealed in the links above.

Later on, John points out more passages to demonstrate that the (Catholic) Church has authority to bind and loose (Matthew 16:19), to decide between disputes (Matthew 18:15-19), to teach with authority (Luke 10:16), etc., etc., to suggest that the Catholic Church fits all that criteria.  But most of these points are addressed in the following links:

https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2016/10/matthew-16-keys-binding-and-loosing.html

https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2016/09/matthew-16-who-or-what-is-rock.html

https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2009/09/pillar-and-foundation.html

https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2011/08/hi-jacking-of-john-2023.html

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2009/12/apostolic-succession.html

John’s attempt to use Scripture to show that the Catholic Church is infallible falls far short of its goal.

John’s System

It’s a losing battle, but John gives it his best shot and waxes eloquent in his explanation of how he arrives at his conclusion:

“My theological system is based on the teachings of the 2000-year old Catholic Church which I believe, after careful consideration of the available evidence, and there is a lot of evidence - historical, scriptural, logical, etc. - was founded by Jesus Christ and is guided by the Holy Spirit and operates with the authority of Jesus Christ which He Himself gave to it.”

But unfortunately, John had to use his fallible reasoning, step by step, to come to this conclusion!  This happens in each of those steps in this process, yet John thinks he is bypassing this issue of man’s fallibility.  He is not.

John Martignoni greatly downplays fallibility, but if it weren’t for his fallible reasoning, he would have never discovered his “infallible Church” (even though his conclusion is wrong).  So, if John’s fallible reasoning is good enough to get him to that conclusion (after plowing through the logical data, Scripture, tons of church history, studying the multitude of church fathers, studying Sacred Tradition, etc., etc.), wouldn’t that same fallible reasoning be good enough to simply read and understand Scripture in the first place?  If your fallible reasoning can help you navigate through all that, you should be able to trust it to understand and interpret Scripture.  Apparently, the Catholic Church can’t trust you to read Scripture directly, but they can trust you to go through all the above process with no issues!  Interesting logic.

Conclusion

It is not only John Martignoni, but there are many Catholic apologists that emphasize the Catholic Church’s ability to “infallibly interpret” the Bible. 

We need to ask, though, exactly how much of the Bible is actually interpreted infallibly by the Church?  No one really knows, since Catholics disagree on the number of verses with such a status.  But know this for sure… it is only an incredibly tiny fraction of the Scriptures that the Catholic Church has interpreted with such certainty!  If infallible interpretation is so critical (and the Catholic Church seems to think that it is), then why are so few verses rendered as “infallibly” determined?  What about the “certainty” of the rest of the verses in the Bible? 

If you appeal to common sense (or something like it) then why can’t Protestants do the same thing?  The Catholic’s certainty is not any greater than ours.  See also this link:

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2015/10/martignoni-and-authority-to-interpret.html

Catholics will say, “But if you misunderstand something in Scripture, the ‘Living Church’ can correct you, unlike the Bible.” 

But misunderstandings don’t just happen to Protestants. 
There are plenty Catholics who also misunderstand “infallibly-interpreted” Church teachings.

But the Bible is indeed a living book (Hebrews 4:12), given to us by the Word of God, Himself (John 1:1), and its words will judge us on the last day (John 12:48).  It is not the Catholic Catechism that will judge us on the last day.  And neither will the Catholic Church.  It will be the words of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, penned inside the greatest book the world has ever known.  It is a miraculous, God-proven and God-breathed book (2 Timothy 3:16), with its contents perfectly interwoven by God.  And if a person studies it, he will soon see that it does indeed correct misunderstandings, if you take it in context, and in its totality.  It is a life-changing book of such great magnitude, yet it can be understood sufficiently by mere humans whose hearts are right.

So what’s the answer when we disagree with someone else about Bible passages?  Horror of horrors [for some Catholics], it simply comes down to us debating the Bible using our fallible minds (along with decent biblical hermeneutics, common sense and a humble attitude -Luke 8:15).

John Martignoni, I hope that you will be humble enough to recognize (and admit!) that your worn-out arguments about man’s uncertainty due to his fallibility don’t hold water.  Stop misleading your audience.  Since this is a losing battle for any Catholic, let’s put this false teaching to rest.

ABUSING THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH

Acts 8:

30) And when Philip had run up, he heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31) And he [the Ethiopian eunuch] said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

This is the story of God using Philip, who was sent by an angel to a lonely desert area to providentially share the gospel with an Ethiopian man (Acts 8:26-40). 

Catholics will often use this passage to try to prove that we need an “infallible magisterium” in order to understand Scripture.  They don’t believe that Scripture, by iself, is sufficient as a Rule of Faith because there is not enough perspicuity in the Bible (i.e., it is not always clear enough), and they’ll point to Protestants and their divisions as “proof” that Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) “doesn’t work.”  According to Catholics, it takes more to understand the Bible than just reading it.  It demands an “independent visible teaching authority that is guided by the Holy Spirit.”  In other words, the Catholic Magisterium.

The Catholic View

An official Catholic document presented by the Pontifical Biblical Commission to Pope John Paul II (April 23, 1993), The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, uses this same Bible passage in an attempt to point out the difficulty of Scripture interpretation:

“According to the Acts of the Apostles, an Ethiopian of the first century found himself in the same situation with respect to a passage from the Book of Isaiah (Is. 53:7-8) and recognized that he had need of an interpreter (Acts 8:30-35).”

But not just any interpreter.  This document goes on to say that “responsibility for authentically interpreting the word of God… has been entrusted solely to the living magisterium of the church…”

And there are many Catholic apologists who use this passage in the same way.

Speaking Like a Pope

Now, every Scripture passage has a purpose for being there.  And it almost seems that Catholics believe that this particular passage mentioned above (Acts 8:26-40) exists solely to demonstrate a “need” for an infallible magisterium and no other reason.  One would think that the eunuch’s question, “How could I, unless someone guides me?” was some sort of infallible “ex-cathedra” papal pronouncement, seeing the way Catholics tend to interpret this! 

 

Pope Philip?

But first of all, is Philip even considered part of the magisterium?  According to the Catholic Church, the infallible magisterium is confined to the popes and / or bishops of the Church, to which Philip did not belong.  Philip wasn’t an apostle or bishop and therefore not part of the “apostolic succession of bishops.”  He was simply a deacon (Acts 6:5).  So what was Philip doing interpreting Scripture for the eunuch?  Apparently, it didn’t take the magisterium to interpret here.  So this passage has nothing to do with a magisterium.  

Again, in this story, the eunuch didn’t appeal to a magisterium, and Philip never told him that one was needed, nor did the author of the book of Acts suggest that he needed an “official interpreter.”  Yet Catholics tend to focus more on, and give more weight to, the eunuch’s question rather than Philip’s message of the gospel.

The purpose of this passage was certainly not to prove that we need an “infallible magisterium” with special authority to decode the Bible for us.  That is simply reading a Catholic idea back into the text.

“But It’s Hard!”

At this point, the Catholic may say, “Well, maybe so, but it still shows that Scripture is hard to understand.” 

No, the eunuch was simply asking about the person to whom Isaiah was referring, that’s all (v. 34).  The eunuch’s question came up, not because the text itself was hard to understand, but because he simply was not yet aware of the fulfillment of the prophecy he was reading.  He had not yet been fully presented with the facts of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah.  Anyone who was not from this region (like the eunuch) had no idea yet of Isaiah’s recently fulfilled prophecy (Isaiah 53:7-8).  So of course, unfulfilled prophecy that focuses on a particular person can sometimes be an issue, but this doesn’t demand an infallible interpreter, because even an infallible interpreter could not have identified the Messiah until He actually arrived.  It is also like the antichrist – we can understand many of the prophecies about him, but no one will know his actual identity until he arrives.

Limited Access

Furthermore, what the eunuch had available to him was limited.  The book of Isaiah may have been the only Bible book he had in his possession.  He didn’t have the luxury of the gospels and epistles of the New Testament which we have today.  So, this Catholic argument stressing the Ethiopian eunuch’s question cannot be used against the clarity / perspicuity of the Scriptures as a whole.

We agree that some passages are harder to understand than others.  We all need help sometimes in Bible interpretation.  We don’t deny that.  But what about the difficult passages?  Do we just give up our study of them because it’s easier to rely on a supposed infallible magisterium?  Of course not.  We continue studying, because the Bible never speaks of an infallible, independent, human teaching authority in the post-apostolic church.  It just doesn’t exist. 

Is It Even a Good Idea?

But perhaps we should question whether a single human authority / institution / magisterium to answer all questions is even a healthy idea to start with.  Not only is it not scriptural, but it is a bad idea, in general.  Why?  Because knowing the nature of man and the propensity for such a group to become proud and corrupt when given such absolute power over all questions, it may not be such a great idea, after all.  Compounding that problem would be the tendency of those asking the questions to idolize the “magisterium,” practically guaranteeing the latter’s corruption.  Furthermore, the dependence of “the laity” on this magisterium would certainly cause the laity to be less responsible in their studies, with far too much dependence on the magisterium.  That’s just the nature of man.

So, it is better to have some divisions within the church of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 11:19) than to have a corrupt “magisterium” with a weak and dependent “laity.”  

In Time

So, how do we handle hard Bible passages?  Remember, a necessary component of Scripture reading and understanding is our relationship with our spiritual Father.  Growth in this relationship is usually gradual and the child must be ever learning.  But it is indeed a growth process.  He won’t learn everything overnight – not even the most important lessons.  It takes time to piece it all together.  God does not demand that we know the answers to all the hard questions immediately.

Scripture Interprets Scripture

Interestingly, those claiming that Scripture is hard to understand are actually relying on the clarity of certain Scriptures (like Acts 8) to try and prove their point.  But why not use this same principle in a positive way, i.e., use the simpler and clearer teachings of the Bible as a foundation, as a basis to help us understand the more difficult passages.  Surely, God’s Word is consistent with itself, so if studied diligently, it will eventually lead to an understanding of the whole.  

And just as in an earthly parent-child relationship, the parent teaches the child by building on basics, from the simpler things to the more complex, to learn and grow in the principles of life, and then to learn to apply those to the harder things in life.  In the same way, hard-to-understand Bible passages are interpreted in the light of the more easily understood passages on the same topic.  In this way, God gradually helps us to see how the Bible message unfolds.  Remember, Scripture is called divine revelation (Romans 16:25-26) for a reason: because it is something that is intended to be revealed.  Even if it sometimes seems hidden, it is meant to be understood.

Insufficient?

Catholics claim the Bible is an “insufficient” source because some of it is misunderstood, but why is it that no one jumps to the same conclusion when people didn’t understand the things that Jesus Christ, Himself, sometimes spoke when He was here?  Would anyone dare to say that He, too, is an insufficient source?

This is a subtle attack on the role of Scripture as a sufficiently clear Rule of Faith.  It is also an attack on the ability of God to make His will known to men of all walks of life.  Sure, teachers in the church have their place, but the Protestant position has never been (or at least, should never be) that we don’t need teachers in the church.  It is that we don’t need a single infallible magisterium to answer all questions.

The Bottom Line for Catholics

After reading this wonderful story of God’s love and providence (Acts 8:26-40), where He sends a willing vessel (Philip) out of his way to miraculously meet and share the gospel with a hungry soul (the Ethiopian eunuch), opens his heart to prophecy, and gets him saved and baptized, and then sends the eunuch off rejoicing to share this same gospel message with his own people in his own land – and this message is further verified by a miracle that transports Philip away to another city called Azotus (Ashdod), some thirty miles away… and yet, after reading all of this, many Catholics can only seem to summarize this passage with the idea that Scripture is not sufficient. 

 

Really?  Does any sane person think that THAT’S what this story is all about?  This is exactly the type of thing that the scribes and Pharisees (Jesus’ enemies) would have done.  Instead of rejoicing when the man with the withered hand was healed, they got angry that Jesus worked on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-11).  They worried about the ritual washing of hands, pots and pans, but rejected the commandments of God (Matthew 15:1-6; Mark 7:1-9).  They would strain out a gnat, yet swallow a camel (Matthew 23:24).  They neglected the important things while focusing on the trivial.  Catholics are doing the same thing with the Ethiopian eunuch story.  Like the Pharisees, Catholics miss the point of the passage in order to focus on something that the passage is not even teaching.  This is twisting the Scriptures.

Although this may not apply to all Catholics, but many of them seem to be more excited about weakening the authority of Scripture than they are about the eternal salvation of the eunuch, or the spread of the gospel to his people.  It’s almost as if they feel like they have an obligation to weaken the role of God-inspired Sacred Scripture at every turn. 

 

There is something seriously wrong with this picture.  It is an abuse of the simple and encouraging story of an Ethiopian eunuch, and it is an attack on Scripture, itself.

See these links for more information on Scripture and its interpretation:

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2009/12/dialogue-on-bible-interpretation.html

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2014/07/private-interpretation.html

http://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2013/07/quick-notes-on-sola-scriptura-part-6.html