The only good Catholic-scholar is a bad-Catholic scholar?

One of my wife's Facebook friends linked to a blog post that rather floored me. He contended that because the Catholic Church has an infallible teaching authority and beliefs that Catholics are obliged to believe, that Catholics cannot be good scholars and good Catholics.  Although this contention dominated the bulk of his post, he said that his real reason he posted was that he wanted to emphasize the value of doubting presuppositions and how doing so can lead us to deeper conviction.  The point really was not so well made and considering that it was just a handful of paragraphs preceded by paragraph after paragraph of anti-Catholic polemic, the whole thing really seemed to be a thin veil for a jab at Catholicism.

The response was interesting, especially the response that he got from other post-Protestant Christians who understood that his standard pretty much disqualified any Christian who actually believed anything. I took a different approach:

I think that the central point of this post is fairly good, that we should test our presuppositions. But I think that you should take this advice to heart, because there are several presuppositions here that you should test.

The first is that you have actually defined a good scholar. At the most basic level, a good scholar must be able to recognize his first principles as first principles. But beyond that, a good scholar must have the ability to set aside any of his premises and presuppositions (whether they be first principles or not) while engaging his study. His inquiry must be able to allow that a premise is flawed, his inquiry must be able to proceed completely neglecting a premise. The ability to doubt your presuppositions is really a poor replacement for this ability. A good scholar must be able to set aside any of his premises, no matter how fervently or absolutely held, not just the ones he doubts.

There is no reason that a Roman Catholic cannot do this.  It is a basic intellectual exercise. Of course, any scholar of faith runs a risk here, that they may come to a conclusion that forces them to jettison a premise that was an article of faith for them.  For the Catholic, the stakes may just be a little higher. The loss of any infallibly defined belief is the loss of the infallible character of them all, and the loss of the belief that the Catholic Church is who and what she says she is.

Doubt still plays a useful role, but much in the manner that fear plays a useful role. Doubt makes us keenly aware of problems in our intellectual framework, prompts us to pay attention to a possible problem with an aspect of a belief or, just as likely, a possible problem with ourself the believer. But just like fear, it can cripple and harm us.

The other presupposition that I think you should test is the notion that "bad Catholic" is a term of any real use. Most Catholics are bad Catholics. Most Christians are bad Christians. We take Jesus seriously when He says that He desires that we be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect. Few living Christians, if any, meet this high standard. Sure Catholics are called to adhere to all that is definitively taught by the Church, but this isn't expecting much when you consider that Jesus desires us to be perfect. I know a lot of Christians would be shocked at the idea, but orthodoxy is a pretty low standard for Christians. The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for saints .. a hospital chock full of bad Catholics. It is actually one of the defining elements of the Catholic Church, that she embraces her fallen and falling members; that although she accepts the bar that Jesus sets, she doesn't kick people out when they fail to meet it.


He followed up with a followup post where he attempted to establish his Catholic bono fides and further his point. I responded there as well (this is my original comment, I had to pare it down to meet the comment length limit before actually posting it):

I posted on your Part 1, but this post reveals a whole new set of presuppositions that you would be wise to challenge.

That you "looked and looked for loopholes" reveals that your inquiry into Catholicism can not properly be called discernment. Discernment is seeking God's will regardless of your own will, desires and prejudices. Instead, you tested Catholicism against a standard of your personal creation: whether or not you could disagree with a Catholic dogma and still be a "good Catholic." Real discernment would have set even this personal standard aside.

"What if I disagreed with the doctrine of transubstantiation, believing that John 6 was not to be taken literally? Could I teach and believe accordingly? No. Well, not if I expect to be a true Roman Catholic."

Buried here is the presupposition that the "freedom" to teach and believe something contrary to your church is a thing to be sought and a good standard with which to choose ecclesial affiliation. But is it?

Remember what scripture says of Jesus' Church. Jesus promised that she would be guided by the Holy Spirit and the gates of hell would not prevail against her. He gave her the authority to loose and bind and Acts depicts her doing so, depicts her settling doctrinal disputes. Paul called her the pillar of foundation of Truth.

The "freedom" to contradict the Church as scripture defines her is no freedom at all. It is like the "freedom" to sin. It is only the freedom to reject God's truth. Your presupposition guarantees that you will not join yourself to the Church described by scripture.

An additional presupposition here is that your personal conviction is a good and reliable arbiter of Truth. Put aside for the moment whether or not the Catholic Church is actually who she claims to be. Every piece of dogmatically defined belief within Catholicism rests upon numerous minds at least as good as the best minds available today, spending more time on that one isolated bit of dogma than any of us have spent on this planet. (And note, this is before the belief was even dogmatized, so your "the only good Catholic scholar is a bad Catholic scholar argument really doesn't apply even if it were sound.) Your conviction is based on your personal opinion, including your personal opinion of the scholarly work of others. In this post, I can identify at least three significant errors as to Catholic belief. If your conviction that you understand Catholic belief is so manifestly false, if your personal opinion is so fallible when it comes to things that can be known with certainty (such as what the Catholic Church teaches) why should it be the ultimate standard of Truth for those things that cannot be known with certainty? To what can be appealed to justify this premise, this presupposition?

A final note here, and I am not trying to be snarky here so please forgive me if I come off that way. There is a great irony in this set of posts. Your first post was about what a good scholar is and how a Roman Catholic could not be a good scholar. Your second post reveals how even after nearly a year of what you considered significant study, you failed to gain understanding of some fundamental Catholic beliefs .. a display that certainly can't claim to be good scholarship.  So, your claim that a Catholic cannot be a good scholar is hinged on bad scholarship.



He never responded to my comments.  But I have found that to be a common occurrence when anti-Catholicism is confronted by actual Catholicism.