Epistemology question. So I've been having a debate with some high church friends (very high church Anglicans who don't consider themselves protestant). As we've discussed issues about baptism and a couple of other differences, they keep raising an epistemological claim. It comes in a couple of forms. First, they would say that you can't "know" Scriptural truth confidently apart from an authoritative interpreter. Second, they would claim that rejecting such an authority makes everyone a subjective interpreter and hence one could be a Mormon just as easily as a Baptist and there would be no way to argue against the other apart from the authoritative interpreter.
They seem to be arguing that since there is a subjective element in interpretation, then "all bets are off" in terms of knowing.
I'm curious what some folks in this group think and how you would respond. I hope this question doesn't violate the rules. If it does, feel free to remove it. I love my Presby, Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal, EO, and RC brothers and sisters in Christ.
That's a very old counter-reformation move that was used originally for Roman Catholicism. It's all nonsense. Why should we need an authoritative interpreter for biblical books any more than for other books? Private reason obviously has to be used to choose one's "authoritative interpreter," so this just moves the problem back. It also moves the problem back in that one must then interpret the deliverances of the authoritative interpreter, and at some point one must just use one's own most rational judgement on pain of an infinite regress of interpreters.
There is, in fact, no getting away from having to interpret things ourselves. Which, of course, doesn't mean that all interpretations are equally reasonable or that interpretation is all relativistic. Lydia McGrew
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