TurretinFan is providing responses to a series of arguments put forward by Dave Armstrong. In today’s installment TurretinFan was responding to this argument:

Is every Christian in the world able to find enough time, and become educated enough and familiar enough with Scripture to be his own theologian? And if he consults other ones, wise enough to always get it right when he chooses?

I was reminded of my closing statement from the debate with Mitch Pacwa where I pulled out a pile of Roman Catholic magisterial documents and asked the simple question as to whether this huge pile of material (often requiring knowledge of Latin) clarified, or muddied, the words of Romans 5:1, “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The answer is obvious, and it surely exposes the above arguments’ error. If it is a relevant argument that no one has enough time or education to “be his own theologian,” how is adding to the deposit of faith an answer? If there is not enough time in life to become an expert on Scripture, there is enough time to become an expert on the much larger, much more difficult to master body of Magisterial documents, which likewise make reference then to Scripture? The problem is compounded by the fact that the interpretation of those magisterial documents changes from decade to decade depending on the current make-up of the Magisterium itself. So the Roman Catholic offers a problem to which he posits no meaningful solution, unless you are willing to accept the time-honored position, “I believe whatever the priest tells me to believe.” And that is surely something we have all seen, over and over again.

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