“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” -Matthew 16:18-19
Introduction
Since Martin Luther’s first nail, Protestants and Catholics have shared an uneasy relationship to say the least. Not wanting to re-open old wounds unnecessarily, this essay presents three inter-related, first-principles problems that reveal the internal self-defeatingness of Protestantism; problems Catholicism does not similarly contain.
Problem 1: No True Interpretation
As indicated by its very name; ‘Protestantism’ fundamentally defines itself in direct relation to Catholicism; namely in its protestation and rejection of the magisterial authority of Rome and of sacred Tradition.
From such rejection, ‘sola scriptura’ or personal interpretation of the Bible was born.
Since this grand falling away from Church authority, the modern world has witnessed, over the last half millennia, a proliferation of over 39,000 (and in-principle infinite) Protestant denominations, churches, and sects; increasing and seemingly unresolvable (by the very principle of sola scriptura) internecine in-fighting within and between these various denominations; Jonestown, The Moonies, and various other instances of heinous cult abuse, church scandal, and corruption in the name of Christ; increased capture of Protestant sects and institutions by ‘woke’ neo-Marxist ideology and the increased emergence of modern liberalism as such (the secular version of Protestantism in essence), which has helped to bring us to the current LGBTQ+, radically post-modern, radically relativistic moment in which we now presently find ourselves.
Indeed, without any authoritative magisterium to adjudicate interpretive conflict, murkiness, or error, any interpretation of scripture is as good as any other.
Problem 2: No True Bible
The rejection of sacred Tradition, however, generates a deeper problem for Protestantism than just radically relativistic and radically proliferating scriptural interpretations. For protestants want to reject sacred Tradition while still keeping ‘the Bible’ to personally interpret. This, however, cannot work without being conceptually self-defeating. For in order for us to have ‘the Bible’, whatever that proxy happens to be, requires some legitimate binding authority to edit, curate, and canonize that particular set of texts as official scripture and to officially set them apart from all other texts, in principle, that are not scripture. Indeed, the legitimacy of sacred Tradition (from Christ to Peter to the codification of the Bible at the Council of Rome in 382 A.D.) is a constitutive, sine qua non feature baked into the very concept of ‘the Bible’ as such. Without any binding authority, however, we end up with not only a potentially infinite in-principle set of interpretations of the Bible, but also a potentially infinite in-principle number of Bibles as well. On such a personalized account, protestants have no in principle reason as to why The Book of Enoch, the latter writings of John Calvin, or the essays of Carl Jung couldn’t also count as equally legitimate books of ‘The Bible’ as that of the Gospels of Mathew and Mark, or, conversely, why the Gospels of Luke and John couldn’t likewise be tossed out on account of one’s own personal prerogative. Lastly, by placing epistemic authority solely in ‘the Bible’ and by rejecting the Tradition preceding its formation, Protestantism also paradoxically seems committed to the radical view that early Christian martyrs, early Church fathers, the Gospel writers, and even the Apostles, who all technically existed before the Bible’s earliest codification, weren’t actual Christians.
Now one quick objection here might be to argue that Catholicism and various forms of Protestantism are all ‘part of the truth,’ and that by some effort of triangulation between different versions of the Bible found on Bible.com or what have you, one can arrive at some overall consensus point more or less constituting the ‘true’ Bible. This move, however, just pushes the epistemic problem to arms-length, and replaces the legitimate editing and binding authority of Tradition with the new editing and binding authority of the owners of Bible.com. What’s more, the in principle, infinite open-endedness of Protestant interpretation, and therefore, the corresponding possibility of an in principle infinite set of new Biblical editions, wholly undermines the reliability of any such consensus-taking process designed to determine God’s true word.
That being said, by Protestantism’s own account, not only is there no fixed and authoritative interpretation of scriptura, but no fixed and authoritative scriptura to even interpret.
Problem 3: No True Protestants
Protestantism’s rejection of the authority of sacred Tradition generates a final, in-principle problem.
With no one, true, and fixed biblical interpretation, nor even one, true, and fixed Bible, the very concept of Protestantism itself collapses into a similar relativism.
For if both interpretation of scripture as well as the fixity of scripture itself ultimately collapses into radical subjectivity, then what, in-principle, prevents Lutherans from fully adopting the beliefs and practices of Mormonism but nonetheless calling themselves ‘Lutherans’, or Calvinists from asserting themselves to be Anglicans, or Episcopalians from fully adopting the tenets of Unitarian Universalism, or for all of these denominations from becoming fully woke, secular, neo-Marxists under the banner of ‘Christian’ if they so choose? Indeed, by their own account, no such external standard exists to prevent such a collapse into radical relativism and radical subjectivity.
Technically-speaking then, there are no Protestants.
Conclusion
‘The Bible’, conceptually-speaking, cannot coherently get off the ground in the first place without some official binding authority to codify it as such and to set it apart, in principle, from any other randomly assembled and randomly edited set of texts. We cannot locate that official binding authority in our own personal subjectivity nor in the popular opinion of the day and age, nor in the theories and pronouncements of men, gifted as they might be, but only in the sacred Tradition and unbroken lineage passed down from Christ to Peter to the present day, instantiated in the form of the One True Faith. And from such official authority, official authoritative interpretation similarly follows.
That said, the Roman Catholic Church, since the advent of Protestantism, has certainly not been without its fair share of problems; problems Catholics must be willing to soberly acknowledge and own up to.
From the many legitimate criticisms articulated by Luther, to increased caving and capitulation to modernism and secular liberalism, to the allowance of 20th Century communist infiltration, to Vatican II watering down of the Faith, to Church child sex scandal cover-ups, to the apathetic tolerance of 73 million abortions worldwide per year, to radical drops in worldwide marriage, baptisms, families, and church attendance, to ecumenicalism bordering on relativism, to continued magisterial capitulation to present-day woke and LGBT ideologues, to weekly reports of scandals within the present-day pontificate; Catholicism has not been putting its best and most consistent foot forward as the official expression of Christ’s kingdom here on Earth. Without making undue excuses for apathy, complicity, or inaction both within the clergy as well as the laity, in a sense though, isn’t the present predicament of the battle-worn and dilapidated Catholic church not exactly what one would expect?
From the sheer volume, severity, and complexity of centuries-long attacks, both internally and externally and from principalities and powers both seen and unseen, is the outline and shape of Satan’s true target by now not immediately obvious and immediately self-evident? For the pattern of persistent shelling reveals the true city capital centered within the enemy’s cross-hairs.
Despite such continued bombardment efforts however, and just as He promised, Christ’s church here on Earth has not yet fallen to the gates of Hell. Such continued endurance, for the last two millennia and counting, therefore serves perhaps as the single greatest example and enduring testament to the strength, legitimacy, and truth of the One True Faith.
And as more and more institutions, both Protestant and secular alike, continue to cave with mounting and increasing speed to the unrelenting, negating, and thoroughly corrupting forces of Wokeism, Leftism, and secular Liberalism more broadly, the enveloping darkness can’t help but make both the light of Truth and the word of God that much more obvious and exactly what one would expect from the Creator-turned-flesh to both instruct and redeem His creatures;
a single, unified, and unbroken thread, running from God to Christ through Peter, through two thousand years plus of sacred Tradition, to the present magisterium, to us, right here, right now. A single, unified thread revealing what is, was, and forever will be;
One Truth. One God. One True Faith.
Peter did not start the catholic church