Antithesis: First, of the Papists.
Antithesis: First, of the Papists.
§ 464. Antithesis. Those who take judiciary authority away from Holy Scripture include: (I) The Papists, who deny with clear words that Scripture can be the judge of controversies. In De verbo Dei, bk. 3, c. 3, Bellarmine argues about the authentic interpreter of Scripture and the judge of controversies and goes on as follows:
Our adversaries and we are agreed that the Scriptures should be understood by means of that Spirit in which they were made, that is, the Holy Spirit. The entire question, then, is: Where is that Spirit? We (Roman Catholics) think that even if this Spirit is often granted to many private people, yet He is found for sure in the Church, that is, in a council of bishops confirmed by the supreme pastor of the Church, or in the supreme pastor with a council of other pastors. Therefore we say that the judge of the true meaning of Scripture and of all controversies is the Church, that is, the pope with the council, in which all Catholics convene. All the heretics of this age, however, teach that the Holy Spirit, the interpreter of Scripture, is not bound to bishops nor to any class of men. Therefore they say that each should be a judge either by following his own spirit, if he himself has the gift of interpretation, or by adhering to someone else if he sees that such a person has been endowed with this gift.
In this formation of the state of the question, however, we require many things: (1) We do not deny simply that the Church—that is, the ministers and hearers of the Church—is the judge. Rather, we say that these are the ministerial judges, bound to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit sounding in the Scriptures and bound to observe strictly the norm of judgment set forth in Scripture.
(2) We also do not say that each person should be a judge either in following his own spirit or in adhering to another whom he knows has been endowed with the gift of interpretation, as Bellarmine falsely accuses us, connecting us with the Schwenckfeldians. Instead, we say that each should follow the judgment of the Holy Spirit, which is set forth in the Holy Scriptures.
(3) The genuine and proper meaning of Scripture is to be sought not in the heart of the pope nor of any human, but in the Scriptures themselves, which are the public tablets of the Holy Spirit.
(4) Here Bellarmine is making the general assertion that “the judge of all controversies is the Church, that is, the pope with the council.” Actually, however, he attributed this office of judgment to the pope alone, as we showed on the basis of his hypotheses in our treatise On the Interpretation of Scripture [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 2, §§ 17-20] and as the Jesuits confessed at Regensburg without beating around the bush.
(5) Because the judgment of the pope occasionally differs from the judgment of his councils, the pope with the council cannot be established as judge: it must be either the pope alone or the councils alone.
§ 465. Therefore Bellarmine is claiming that Scripture cannot be the judge of controversies but that this completely belongs to the Roman pontiff, for he writes: “God was not unaware that many difficulties about faith would arise in the Church, so He had to establish a judge. Yet that judge cannot be Scripture nor the Spirit making private revelation nor a secular prince. Therefore it must be the ecclesiastical prince (the Roman pontiff) either alone or at least with the council and the consensus of his fellow bishops” (De verbo Dei, bk. 3, c. 9). The rest make the same claim too. Gregorius de Valentia, Anal., bk. 5, c. 2: “Holy Scripture cannot be the judge of all controversies of faith.” The Bavarian theologians at the Colloquy of Regensburg: “Holy Scripture is not the judge of all controversies of faith and of the Christian religion.” At the same colloquy, Gretserus, sess. 9, p. 292: “We are in the sight of Holy Scripture and of the Holy Spirit. Let Him pronounce the sentence. If He says: ‘Gretserus, your idea is bad, your case has failed; Jacob Heilbrunner, you have beaten him,’ then I will immediately cross over to your bench. Let Him come! Let Him be here! Let Him come and condemn me!” The opinion of the rest is the same.
The arguments with which they try to prove that the Roman pope is the only and authentic judge of controversies pertain to the locus on the Roman pope. We shall merely consider, therefore, those with which they try to prove in that place that the office of judging cannot be assigned to Scripture.