Book Review by Cesar Vigil-Ruiz
Book by Eric Svendsen
Growing up and living out my life as a professing Christian, I was always asked by my classmates if I was Catholic. I always answered no, but it didn’t dawn on me that it had more to do with my race than my own personal convictions. Unbeknown to me, it was simply assumed that any Latin-American in this country was Catholic of some sort. Although my mom and her family came out of a Catholic background, I was never exposed to the Catholic faith as a viable option. Until college, I never really understood why that was, and why I was not a Catholic.
Upon encountering the concept of defending the faith and beginning to study apologetics, it was only a matter of time until I would begin engaging some friends about Roman Catholicism, and whether it was a legitimate form of Christianity. My answers were surface level, and not completely satisfactory even to me. However, upon becoming a Christian, I was made aware of a reformed view of apologetics and the issues between Rome and Scripture became much more clear.
One book that was helpful in my understanding was a small work by Eric Svendsen, Upon This Slippery Rock. Back in the days when he maintained a website called New Testament Research Ministries (the now-defunct ntrmin.org, which James White comments on here), he had a number of articles that dealt with Roman Catholic apologetics. Many addressed the claims of papal infallibility, the immaculate conception, the Marian dogmas, purgatory, and a host of other issues Rome calls all Catholics to believe. However, with this book, New Testament scholar Svendsen deals with one of the most common objections to the Protestant faith, one that deals with sola Scriptura.
As Christians attending a church that preaches, teaches, and lives by the Bible, our belief in the Holy Scriptures as the undiluted Word of God draws us to look to it for faith and guidance, even in how we worship together corporately. Sola Scriptura means “Scripture alone” as being the sole, infallible rule of faith for the church in terms of belief and practice. What Rome challenges is our ability to use our private judgments in interpreting the Bible without the authority of the Roman magisterium. The basic issue deals with our epistemology, the area of philosophy that addresses how we know what we know. If you’ve ever had a discussion with a Roman Catholic, you’re bound to have been asked, “How do you know, apart from your own fallible private judgment, that what you believe is the truth?” or “How do you know which books should and should not have been included in the canon of Scripture?” The point in asking these questions is to get us to see that where we appeal to our source of truth as a decision we made, which is not from an infallible source (unless you think you’re personally infallible, which is another problem). After all, who are we to decide that we can interpret the Bible on our own?
Of course, we recognize the importance of authority: first God’s, and then our leaders in our church, which is a delegated authority given by God Himself. But is that enough? Or are we in need of an infallible interpreter, like Roman Catholicism suggests? Is this the only way we can get unity? Many a Roman Catholic will appeal to its 2,000 year tradition and its long-standing history of believing in the same truth, building true unity, and not the “25,000 different denominations” that have arisen due to belief in sola Scriptura. At least, that’s what is claimed.
What Svendsen helps us to see is how baseless and flawed this argument really is. He draws out the view that Scripture takes, and points out that what Rome claims is against Scripture itself. He also points to the self-destructive nature of the argument put forward by anyone who considers this a worthy objection to evangelical faith in the essentials of Gospel truth.
While his website was still active, Svendsen posed three challenges to the Roman Catholic that he believed could not be surmounted. Just to give you a flavor of the irrationality of the argument, here’s his first challenge:
Tell us how you came to decide that Rome was the “true” church without engaging in the very private judgment that you have already dismissed as illegitimate. (p.32)
What Eric Svendsen points out throughout his book, through stories and examples, is how this roots out the inconsistent standard many in Rome hold to when it comes to knowing what the Bible says and how they accuse Protestant evangelicals of using their fallible reasoning to get to a position they claim certainty in. Roman Catholics happen to do the same thing, yet are blindly unaware of it. The other two challenges attacks the argument from other angles that puts this issue at rest and gives confidence to the Christian who puts complete trust in Christ and looks to His Word for an infallible look at who God is and what Christ did while here on earth.
The book is only 68 pages long, and is very much worth the read. Svendsen is very aware of what the common objections are from a Roman Catholic, and is more than qualified to write a book like this. In two appendices he gives real life responses to real life questions, as well as the position Rome holds in terms of private judgment in the Council of Trent, Vatican I and II. Knowing how often I meet Catholics in the San Diego area, I have seen how conversations could easily lead to a direction where the Gospel is shared more clearly in using the content of this book. It helps clear one of the most common objections Rome gives, and gives us another hearing with those who see us in error. I would commend this little book to you and hope that God would open up opportunities for us to point Catholics to Christ and His infallible Word that He gave for us to understand, cherish, proclaim and judge on its basis, and not anywhere else.
Editor’s Note: Cesar previously reviewed Douglas Wilson’s book Persuasions, which contains an excellent sample conversation between Evangelist and a Roman Catholic. That conversation would also be an excellent starting point for gaining an understanding of the issues that would lead to a constructive and charitable dialogue.