North Campus Sage

Athens educated. Triple Dawg. Historically curious. Theologically troublesome. Saturday is for the Dawgs. Sunday is for bigger questions.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

This is true.

Luther’s 1534 Bible: “These books are not held equal to the Holy Scriptures, and yet are useful and good to read.”

They were still printed in Protestant Bibles for centuries. Economics helped push them out of many mass-produced editions, and somehow “not Scripture” eventually became “Protestants shouldn’t read them.”

That’s a loss, not a Reformation principle.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

Agreed … that you are obnoxious 🤷‍♂️ 😂 ☠️

And I’d challenge Protestants in the other direction. We’ll give enormous weight to MacArthur, Mohler, Sproul, Piper, etc., while barely reading Ignatius, Clement, Irenaeus, or Justin Martyr.

The Fathers weren’t infallible. But when we’re trying to understand Scripture, the Church, and the sacraments, surely Christians living within a generation or two of the apostles deserve at least as serious a hearing as our favorite modern theologians.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

I could be. Everyone brings biases and a hoped-for outcome into these debates. It is incredibly difficult to separate what the evidence actually establishes from what we want it to establish. I’m as guilty of that as anyone.

I try to be conscious of it, put my preferred conclusion in the corner for a minute, and ask what the text, context, logic, and historical evidence actually warrant.

Anyways, time for me to go home and be with my family. I’ll dig into the text tonight and we can continue tomorrow.

And I do appreciate the challenging discussion and your obvious knowledge. I don’t mean that tongue in cheek. A lot of Catholic-Protestant debate never gets much deeper than “Is Peter is the rock” or the usual proof texts. You clearly know the arguments and the sources behind them, and that makes me think harder and challenge positions I may have simply assumed. I appreciate that.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

Let's go sentence by sentence here.

1. Authority can be obtained immediately (directly from God) or mediately (e.g laying on of hands).

Those are two methods Scripture explicitly depicts. But Scripture also describes appointments and authorizations without telling us that laying on of hands was involved. Titus appoints elders (Titus 1:5), Paul and Barnabas appoint elders (Acts 14:23), and Matthias is selected to take Judas's apostolic ministry (Acts 1:15–26). None of those accounts mentions laying on of hands. Could laying on of hands have occurred? Absolutely. Do we see a hard rule that it must occur for authority to be valid. No.

2. Anyone today can claim immediate authority from God.

True a real concern. Simply claiming authority from God obviously does not establish that you have it.

3. Without a mediate and visible mechanism, how can we possibly tell who has actual authority to bind and loose?

Well, first, I don't accept the premise that the apostles’ particular authority to bind and loose necessarily continued successively beyond the apostolic generation. But that's not necessary to resolve this question. I think the better question is: how does Scripture tell us to recognize someone who legitimately speaks and ministers with God’s authority?
And Scripture actually gives us tests. Test the spirits rather than simply accepting claims of divine authority (1 John 4:1). Test teaching against what God has revealed (Acts 17:11). Paul says that even an apostle or an angel from heaven is to be rejected if he proclaims a different gospel (Gal. 1:8–9). Church leaders are tested by doctrine, character, reputation, and conduct (1 Tim. 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9). Jesus himself says false prophets are recognized by their fruits (Matt. 7:15–20). So Scripture does give us visible means of testing claims to authority. A chain of hands is not the only conceivable answer to your question, and Scripture itself repeatedly tells us to test authority by its fidelity to the apostolic faith, doctrine, character, and fruit.

It is evening. time to be with family. Happy to continue the discussion tomorrow.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

“It is very clear from the context.” 🤣🤷‍♂️ But that is how this whole thing kicked off. It may be clear through your Catholic lens, but the text and context are actually quite nonspecific about what this particular reference to “laying on of hands” means.

Laying on of hands has multiple applications in the NT. I just listed several of them. You have identified the reference in Hebrews 6:2 with the particular application you want it to be, and then used that identification to interpret what follows. You’re reading a Catholic theological framework into language that does not itself supply that framework.

Maybe you're right about what follows. But “enlightened,” “tasted the heavenly gift,” and “partakers of the Holy Spirit” do not simply say “Baptism, Chrismation, and Eucharist.”

That interpretation may ultimately be a great understanding. If the text, context, broader NT, and historical evidence lead me there, I’m perfectly willing to say so. But first we have to distinguish what the text says from the biases each of us can bring to it.

I’ll spend some time with Hebrews 6 tonight and get back to you on this initiation/chrismation reading. I want to see how well the text, context, rest of the NT, and historical interpretation actually support it.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

I'll spend some time with Hebrews 6:1-8 tonight, giving it the attention it deserves. I will read it slowly, verse by verse, look at the context of Hebrews as a whole, test my thoughts against the rest of the NT, and see what some brilliant theologians have thought about it. I’ll give you my response tomorrow. I owe you that at this point.

My initial thought is that the passage is fundamentally a challenge to Christians to grow, persevere, overcome, and bear fruit rather than remain at the foundation of the faith. Its primary concern seems to be maturity and perseverance, not ecclesiology. But let me do the work before I say much more than that.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

If you refuse to defend your original claim, I’ll accept that as an admission that Hebrews 6 does not itself prove what you initially said it did.

So, moving on: what is the laying on of hands?

In the New Testament, laying on of hands is a visible, physical practice used in several contexts.
* Jesus and the apostles lay hands on people in healing and blessing.
* Laying on of hands accompanies the reception of the Holy Spirit.
* It is used in commissioning people for missions or service.
*It is ussed with appointement or recognition of elders, overseers, and shepherds (episkopos, presbyteros, & poimen)
* Paul associates it with the giving or recognition of spiritual gifts.
I am problably missing a few more.

So to get back to the question "what is the laying of hands?". There isn’t a single uniform NT application or definition. Its meaning is contextual, but it is clearly a significant and embodied practice. Broadly, I would say laying on of hands is an act associated with prayer, blessing, healing, reception of the Spirit, commissioning, and recognition of ministry within the Christian community. In each case, the physical act accompanies something God is doing in or through the visible community of believers.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

@Ecclesiopolis @ErickYbarra3 @needGod_net That post is phrased generically because it was written in the context of the preceding thread. The subject of the thread is the claim that Hebrews 6, by itself, establishes apostolic succession through its reference to laying on of hands.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

So you love a problematic “therefore” as well, I see.

I am familiar with PPC, but I am by no means an expert, so correct me if I miss something here.

The principle says, roughly, that an effect cannot arise from a cause that has no capacity to produce that effect. In this context: a person cannot give an authority he has no capacity or authority to give.

Let's apply that here.

PPC: A person cannot confer an authority he does not possess.

THEREFORE

Kurt: Anyone who confers ecclesial authority must have acquired that authority through a previous laying of hands.

But B does not follow from A. PPC tells you something about what the cause must possess; it doesn't tell you how the cause came to possess it.

Example (from scriptures)
1. Paul and the presbyterion participate in the laying on of hands upon Timothy 3.
2. Timothy receives a gift associated with that laying on of hands.
Timothy subsequently exercises recognized authority and ministry.

PPC can tell us that the cause must possess whatever causal power is necessary to produce the effect attributed to it and we see that here.

But then you roll in with ...
4. Therefore, Paul and every member of the presbyterion must themselves have acquired that authority through an earlier laying on of hands, and laying on of hands is the necessary means by which that authority is transmitted.

That's new information. To reach #4 you need an additional premise: ecclesial authority can only be acquired through the laying on of hands by someone who already possesses it. PPC doesn't supply that premise. It concerns the necessary causal power of the cause, not the mode by which the cause acquired that power.

So getting back to the origin of this conversation, where is that additional premise established in Hebrews 6?

And taking the question beyond Hebrews: do we ever actually see in Scripture an apostle confer his apostolic office upon a successor through laying on of hands? Where is the biblical example that establishes the more specific mechanism being proposed here: office-holder -> laying on of hands -> successor receives that office -> authority can thereafter be transmitted only by the same mechanism?

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

You may have an argument for apostolic succession, but you’ve just made it from Numbers, Deuteronomy, Acts, and the Pastorals.

My entire dispute is whether Hebrews 6:1–8 establishes it. The argument made by the OP was essentially that Hebrews 6 establishes apostolic succession through its reference to laying on of hands. You are now arguing that apostolic succession is biblically supported and necessary. Those are different claims.

What you’ve offered is actually much closer to the discussion I’ve been expecting. It is a cumulative biblical argument for continuity of authorized ministry through laying on of hands. That argument is worth considering. But the fact that we need Numbers, Deuteronomy, Acts, etc. to construct it is precisely why I objected to the claim that Hebrews 6 alone gets us there.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

I’m not a strict textual literalist. I literally just said above that I don’t reject logical inference. I reject leaps of inference presented as necessary conclusions, which is the issue here.

Your example actually illustrates the distinction. “Jesus was fully human; humans have the capacity to laugh; therefore Jesus likely laughed” is a reasonable inference from an independently established premise. But if you then said, “therefore laughing is required for apostolic succession,” you’ve introduced an entirely new premise. It might be something you could argue separately, but it doesn’t follow from what came before.

Hebrews says laying on of hands was foundational. From there, the OP supplies what the hands conveyed, who was authorized to lay them, how that person acquired the authority, that the authority required an unbroken chain of transmission, and ultimately that this succession identifies the legitimate Church.

Those intermediate premises aren’t supplied by the text, logic, or natural reason. They are the theological claims he is trying to prove. You can’t bridge the gap by pointing at the starting point and saying the conclusion is “right there.”

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

It proves with 100% probability that laying on of hands was part of the foundation.

Beyond that - It doesn't tell us who laid hands, on whom, when, for what purpose, what was conveyed, or how the person laying hands acquired the authority to do it.

And I don’t want to derail this into whether your inference is probable yet. We can absolutely have that discussion later. First, can we agree on the narrower point: Hebrews 6 gives us the laying on of hands; it does not itself give us the theological mechanism behind it or what the laying on of hands accomplished.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

I don’t reject logical inference. I reject the OP’s claim that his conclusion can be reached from the text alone, without additional premises. And the premises doing the work here aren’t simply rules of logic; they are disputed doctrinal claims about authority, succession, and the Church.

Those claims may be defensible, but he has yet to defend them. Calling my objections “silly” or “crazy” is dismissive rhetoric, not a rebuttal. It does nothing to establish the disputed premises or demonstrate that the conclusion follows.

If you want to have that substantive discussion, here I stand. Otherwise, you can continue arguing against your straw man that Protestants reject logical inference.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

I’m happy to discuss what I think the text means and consider your disagrements. I don’t approach Scripture assuming I already have every question settled, and I’m perfectly willing to change my understanding when the biblical, historical, or theological evidence warrants it. Nor do I begin from the premise that Catholic teaching must be wrong. Most Catholic teaching isn’t particularly problematic to me, and where we disagree, I’m interested in understanding the strongest case for it. But that opens a different discussion. Let’s close this one first.

The summary of your position is that the Hebrews 6 text gets us to apostolic succession and identifies the legitimate Church through the laying on of hands and that the person laying hands must himself have received that authority through a previous laying on of hands, ultimately tracing back to the apostles.

I’ve challenged whether you can reach that conclusion from the text itself without disputed Catholic theological premises filling the gaps between what the text says and what you conclude from it.

If you’re willing to acknowledge that Hebrews 6 does not itself establish that doctrine, and that your conclusion requires additional theological premises, then we’ve resolved my objection and I’m happy to move on to what I think the passage means.

But until then, what I think it means isn’t relevant to whether your claim follows from the text. Calling my objection “silly” isn’t an answer. The disputed steps require disputed theological premises to bridge the gaps.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

That analogy doesn’t work. Knowing how to read the language is a prerequisite for understanding what a text says. Supplying an unstated ecclesiological premise is a conclusion about what the text means.

Let’s be specific. Hebrews says “laying on of hands.” You added: therefore the person laying hands must himself have received what he possesses through a prior laying on of hands, creating an unbroken succession back to the Apostles and ultimately Christ.

Hebrews 6 does not state that. That proposition is no more contained in the English words than in the Greek ones. The succession mechanism is something you inferred from them.

Then you made a second inference: because competing communities can claim succession, there must be a principle identifying which succession and ecclesial community is lawful. Again, that isn’t in Hebrews 6. It is an additional ecclesiological premise.

This has nothing to do with 99% versus 100% certainty. Your claim was that “the Bible itself is enough.” But the crucial “therefores” that get you from Hebrews to your ecclesiological conclusion are not supplied by Hebrews. You supplied them, assigned them your own level of confidence, and treated them as though the text itself had established them. That is precisely what the Protestant disputes. To cross that bridge, you had to bring your ecclesiology to the text.

Calling me silly and debating percentages doesn’t answer that objection. At this point silence would be your better choice. You are sullying your supposed classical expertise.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

I have never argued that 100% certainty is required. That entire standard (99.9%, 100%, whatever) is yours, not mine.

My objection has nothing to do with the degree of certainty you assign your inference. It is that it is an inference requiring additional ecclesiological premises that Hebrews does not state.

Your original claim was that “the Bible itself is enough.” That is the claim I challenged.

You’re now arguing against a 100% certainty standard I never proposed rather than addressing the distinction between what the text says and what your theology infers from it.

You started with a deliberately sweeping claim. Don’t call me silly for holding you to the words you chose.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

Your original thesis was that “the Bible itself is enough to lead you out of Protestantism.”

“Itself” is doing important work there. It means the Bible supplies what is necessary to reach the conclusion; not the Bible plus Catholic ecclesiological premises.

But you’ve now conceded that getting there requires inferences you consider “99.9% probable” and call “Apostolic Law”. While these may be settled matter to you and other Catholics, Catholic theological inferences, therefores, and logical conclusions just happen to contain the very Catholic ecclesiological premises Protestants dispute.

While you may believe those premises are correct, that’s a different argument and their necessity undermines your original thesis that the Bible “itself” gets us there.

So back to your thesis: The Bible didn’t lead anyone out of Protestantism; Catholic ecclesiology was needed to supply the “therefores” necessary to make the leap.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

This started with an appeal to the plain reading of Hebrews. You said follow the text and it leads you out of Protestantism.

Now, when I ask where the crucial premise is actually established by the text, we’ve moved to “Apostolic Law” and “99.9% probable.”

A Protestant already knows Catholicism believes normative apostolic tradition can establish doctrine beyond what Scripture explicitly teaches. This is precisely what was “protested”. You were supposedly demonstrating that Scripture itself leads us there.

If getting from Hebrews 6 to your conclusion requires accepting your understanding of normative apostolic tradition first, then you have only used Catholic premesis to prove Catholic conclusions.

This actually illustrates the Protestant objection rather nicely. The dispute isn’t over what Hebrews says. It’s over how much Catholic theology you’re required to put into the “therefore” after it.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

Your new argument is basically:

Acts shows laying on of hands sometimes accompanies receiving the Spirit or appointment to ministry. — Agreed.

Therefore something real can be bestowed through laying on of hands. — Reasonable, depending on the passage.

Therefore the person doing the laying-on must himself have received that same power through someone laying hands on him. — Still unsupported.

Otherwise the only alternative is self-appointment. — False dilemma.

You’re using a theological inference to justify your conclusion, then presenting that conclusion as though it were stated by Scripture and therefore part of foundational Christianity. It isn’t.

“I can reason my way to this conclusion” and “Scripture teaches this” are not the same claim.

[North Campus Sage @northcampussage]

Great. Let’s have the exam. Start with #5.

Where does Hebrews establish that the person laying on hands must himself have received the same gift through a previous laying on of hands?

Condescension and appeals to my supposed lack of rationality don’t make the inference correct. Defending the inference might.