- fallible lists of infallible Bible books are no worse than fallible lists of infallible magisterial occasions and utterances in each occasion, or Catholics having these the first millennium;
- Protestants disagreeing about what the Bible means is no worse than Catholics doing so, or having done so in the first millennium;
- obscurity of Scripture cannot be maintained against sola scriptura, and proven by Protestant disagreements, unless atheists are disproof of Romans 1.
Fallible lists of infallible things.
I would first of all agree with Michael Lofton. Trent did not absolutely close the canon, the council said all of these books are inspired, but not that only these books are so. A book that was never regarded as inspired by any Christian Church over any length of time cannot be added, like Summa Theologiae cannot be added, even we do not hold it to be inspired, much less anyone else. But a book that a portion originally of the Church, perhaps even if now separated, has held as inspired could be added to what the Church universal holds to be inspired.
And infallible knowledge that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and so on are inspired has been available in at least parts of the Church, by an infallible judgement, since the book was written. The infallible lists are harmonisations of infallible statements, and the statements on each book have been infallible in each case since the book was accepted.
This means, while the Catholic Church had no infallible lists prior to Hippo, Carthage and Rome, each item on the list was already infallible before these councils.
As to fallible lists on which utterances are infallible of the magisterium, this is no worse than a Christian in the second C. using the Muratorian fragment as his Bible canon. Denzinger famously does not include the 1633 judgement on Galileo. I think the Galileo judgement belongs, like the judgement on Fr. Leonard Feeney (both were in the same format).
Disagreement on meaning is not such big a scandal among Ecclesialists as among Protestants.
First, if an Orthodox claims that only dunking is acceptable, for Baptism, this ignores those baptised in prison, during persecutions, and also this is a reason among others for them being in schism. If they want to reunite and only practise dunking, except in cases of necessity, that's one thing. I think this is what Byzantine rite Catholics do. Obviously, baptism should not be withheld just because the only way to administer it before someone dies is by pouring.
But second. Protestants do not just disagree on how much compliance with an ideal norm is necessary. Roman Catholics agree that dunking is the ideal, just think it is dispensable.
However, Protestants will have contradictory views on what the actual ideal is. They will not just one of them say "this is necessary" and the other "it can be done in another way", but even "this is necessary" and "this is forbidden". Lutherans will say child baptism is necessary, morally speaking, due to the risk of a baby otherwise dying without baptism. Baptists will say child baptism is forbidden.
Disagreements on the date of Easter are a different story, they are discipline, not sacramental doctrine. Discipline can change. What can change is not per se infallible and is not per se about the correct interpretation of Scripture.
I do not argue for Tradition mainly from obscurity of Scripture.
I argue from definite statements IN Scripture for Tradition. I was recently reminded of the respect for OT traditions, which are not in the Torah itself.
Our Lord celebrated Hanukkah.
The Holy Ghost celebrated Shavuot.
Neither Hanukkah nor Shavuot are part of the feasts scripturally commanded in the Torah, both are feasts added by tradition.
Apart from that, all of the OT (or at least all except the writings, which were not yet canonised among Jews in Our Lord's day) is according to Luke 24 endowed with a Christological meaning. But the NT passages that explicitly in the text identify a Christological meaning of an OT passage are much shorter than the NT as a whole, let alone the OT, so, most of this has to be known to the Church by tradition.
Dito for Magisterium.
I argue for a very partial obscurity of Scripture from Scripture.
Namely this word:
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction
[2 Peter 3:16]
Note it explicitly says that what is wrested is not limited to obscure passages in Pauline epistles. There is such a thing as bad faith. Some Catholics have taken a bad habit of arguing as if each and every word in Scripture is obscure until magisterium reveals its meaning. No, the necessity of the magisterium is not so much for each essential doctrine of each Bible reader as for getting all essential doctrines in all Bible readers and non-readers.
Atheists do not disprove Romans 1.
The existence of a proof for God doesn't mean no one will have bad faith, or imbibe bad faith about an issue from a culture.
St. Paul was arguably proving God from Geocentrism (hence my observation, among other things, that Galileo judgement and others against Heliocentrism are infallible), and certainly not from the flagellum of the bacterium, even if it disproves evolution and therefore proves God, because unlike the flagellum of the bacterium, the Sun going around us has been seen since Adam and Eve were created.
Not every word in an infallible council is infallible.
A mention of the Incarnation in Nicaea II, the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day, the Vulgate contradict each other about the number of years from Creation to birth of Jesus (5500, 5200, 4000). The four humours are not infallible about medicine because they are mentioned in a reform of the forbidden relations one cannot marry with.
The summary I started with is from a few minutes in What's the Protestant Response to Catholic Apologetics? | Javier Perdomo.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. John's Nativity, First Vespers
23—24.VI.2025
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