Car repair centers rely on
customers trusting their knowledge and experience. Imagine the following
scenario: You are having car trouble and describe the problem to three
mechanics. Each one comes up with a different diagnosis leaving you confused.
You then decide to take matters into your own hands by reading the
manufacture’s repair manual yourself. The book is inspiring and upon reading it
you have an epiphany. Armed with your newfound knowledge you head out to the
dealership for repairs. Assured of your analysis you dictate to the service
manager the specific repair to be performed. A problem arises when he disagrees
with your solution and refuses to do work that he deems to be unnecessary. In
response you plead your case by quoting passages from the official repair
manual. He retorts that you misinterpreted those pages and offers an
alternative explanation. You passionately disagree. After all, your level of
education and reading comprehension is superior to his. He argues that his
dealership is directly affiliated with the manufacturer of your vehicle and he
received his training through them. Who knows your car better than the company
that made it? Plus he has other publications such as technical service
bulletins from the manufacturer that expound on information in the repair
manual. So now what would you do? In this case you can’t both be correct. How
do you decide which course of action to take? Who has the credentials and
therefore a better chance of being correct?
By now you
probably figured out where I am headed with my analogy. Every time I hear
non-Catholics counter Catholic teaching by quoting their interpretation of
scripture, I have to wonder how this makes any sense. The bible is a Catholic book. It came about from Catholic
Tradition. The canon (table of contents) was decided by Church councils at:
Hippo (A.D. 393), Carthage (A.D. 397), and finally deemed to be closed in Trent
(A.D. 1545). It was the Catholic Church that preserved the scriptures down
through the centuries by hand coping them long before the printing press came
along. You could say Catholic Church owns the Bible in the sense that
they had control over its content. In order to acknowledge that the Bible is
the infallible word of God is to recognize the authority of the Catholic
Church.
The Church
also has the credentials – apostolic succession. They have a documented
connection tracing back through the centuries all the way to the apostles. No
other church can make this claim.
Equally important is the fact that Church dogma has not changed over the
years. I can’t stress this fact enough. It is the very idea that the immutable
truth was known and held from the very beginning of the Church and is not lost
today. Every other church has changed their dogma or was created as a result of change in dogma in the first place.
Telling the Catholic Church that their dogmas are incorrect
based on your interpretation of scripture is akin to telling the manufacturer
that made your car that they don’t understand how it works. So again I have to
ask: How do you reconcile your differences?
-Mike Maley
