Wheaton to Rome Pt. 2, Certainty

As mentioned in the last post, the evangelical on the road to Rome, according to McKnight, possesses a desire for transcendence. The first manifestation of this is found in the evangelical's desire to transcend the human limits of knowledge to find certainty. At some point, the evangelical begins to ask such questions as, "How do I know what truth is...is my interpretation of Scripture the right one or not...how do I know what God's will is for my life or for the people in my church." McKnight cites Marcus Grodi, a former pastor of a Presbyterian congregation. Of Grodi he writes, “He came to the conclusion, after a series of encounters with the Catholic faith, especially with the writings of Clement of Rome (Ep. Cor. 42:1-5) and Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 3.4.1), that ‘it is the mission of the Church to teach with infallible certitude.” Grodi came to conclude that Protestants have no way of knowing with any certitude if his or her interpretations are correct. The problem is solved for Catholics in that the magisterium decides such matters of interpretation.

I think I can relate to this thought process to an extent. It is easy to say that the bible alone is our authority in all things. But, in most protestant churches, interpretation usually lies with the individual. We “do” bible studies in which “I” decide what the text means (or if not “I” than someone else in my church tradition). When someone from my church disagrees withy my interpretation – they go elsewhere to a church with which they agree. At the church in which the Lord has graciously allowed me to serve, we often say that we don’t care about man’s opinions – but rather we care about what God says in His word. This is all well and good. But, we are kind of naïve in saying this. I think we do really want scripture to speak for itself. But often times – our understandings are just that – man’s opinions found using a commentary by an author we respect. We do not have as much certainty as we think we do.

All that being said, I’m not convinced that a person can really find the certainty he/she desires just by converting to Catholicism. Interpretation, just because it is decided with finality by a group of church leaders, still doesn’t make it the absolute correct interpretation. It would seem that the search for certainty could not stop there.