God, Infalliblity, Sola Scriptura, and The Church

Carrie has a post up in which she quotes St. Augustine as saying,"God alone swears securely, because He alone is infallible." She interprets this (apparently, anyway - given the title of her post: "Early Church Father [sic] on Sola Scriptura") as an argument in favor of sola scriptura.

She also has another post: "Augustine on Scripture". In this post, she quotes St. Augustine as saying:

The faith will totter if the authority of the Holy Scripture loses its hold on men. We must surrender ourselves to the authority of Holy Scripture, for it can neither mislead nor be misled.

Unfortunately, the reference she gives as her source for this quotation is a poor one for the person who is interested in valid attributions. It's taken from a book of Christian quotations, and only says that Augustine wrote it - but not where.

A quick search does not turn up a source for that exact statement. We do find something somewhat similar, though, in Book I, Chapter 37 of On Christian Doctrine:

Now faith will totter if the authority of Scripture begin to shake. And then, if faith totter, love itself will grow cold. For if a man has fallen from faith, he must necessarily also fall from love; for he cannot love what he does not believe to exist. But if he both believes and loves, then through good works, and through diligent attention to the precepts of morality, he comes to hope also that he shall attain the object of his love. And so these are the three things to which all knowledge and all prophecy are subservient: faith, hope, love.

Now obviously this is not at all the same as what Carrie provided us. So it appears to be a convenient conflation of two separate statements by St. Augustine. We'll see if she can give us a better source.

But before we move on, it's worth pointing out that there are some other very interesting things in Book I of On Christian Doctrine. Like this, for instance, in chapter 39:

And thus a man who is resting upon faith, hope and love, and who keeps a firm hold upon these, does not need the Scriptures except for the purpose of instructing others. Accordingly, many live without copies of the Scriptures, even in solitude, on the strength of these three graces. So that in their case, I think, the saying is already fulfilled: "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away" (emphasis added).

Does that sound like the words of a Protestant? Does that sound like something that we should expect to hear coming from the mouth of any well-informed Protestant? By no means!

And again - before we move on, it's worth looking at something else in Book I of On Christian Doctrine - this time from chapters 17 and 18:

Further, when we are on the way, and that not a way that lies through space, but through a change of affections, and one which the guilt of our past sins like a hedge of thorns barred against us, what could He, who was willing to lay Himself down as the way by which we should return, do that would be still gracious and more merciful, except to forgive us all our sins, and by being crucified for us to remove the stern decrees that barred the door against our return?

He has given, therefore, the keys to His Church, that whatsoever it should bind on earth might be bound in heaven, and whatsoever it should loose on earth might be loosed in heaven; that is to say, that whosoever in the Church should not believe that his sins are remitted, they should not be remitted to him; but that whosoever should believe and should repent, and turn from his sins, should be saved by the same faith and repentance on the ground of which he is received into the bosom of the Church. For he who does not believe that his sins can be pardoned, falls into despair, and becomes worse as if no greater good remained for him than to be evil, when he has ceased to have faith in the results of his own repentance.

Here St. Augustine says that our guilt, which "like a hedge of thorns" barred our way to heaven, is forgiven by Christ's death for us. And he says that therefore he gave the keys to his Church, so that what it binds on earth will be bound in heaven, and what it looses on earth will be loosed on heaven, and he goes on to unequivocally link the forgiveness of sins with this exercise of the keys!

Now, by way of a digression, it should be pointed out that no Protestant in his right mind would believe such things. And it's true that they have no problem in saying that St. Augustine was wrong when he said this. But it also ought to be said, and unambiguously, that it is a grotesque misrepresentation of Augustine's faith as a Catholic to rip quotes out of his writings which (superficially and out of their full context) seem to suggest that he held to any Protestant doctrine on which Protestants are in error. Period. Agree with the man according as you honestly and accurately represent what he taught, but please stop with the textual abuse. Thank you :-)

But back to our topic.

Apart from the fact that what St. Augustine says in chapters 17-18 clearly requires that the keys remain with the Church, and did not pass from this earth with St. Peter and the other Apostles, and apart from the fact that this strongly implies the fact and necessity of apostolic succession, something important is required by the fact that God has given the keys to the Church. If, as Christ said, what the Church binds or looses on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven, and if, as he said, sins will be forgiven or retained on the word of the Church, then one of two things must be true. Either Christ has bound himself to confirm in heaven the errors of sinful men, or Christ has bound himself to ensure, somehow, some way, in some circumstances or other, that the Church will act infallibly. The first is impossible. Therefore the second must be true.

And the Catholic Church claims no more for itself than that: that God has given a certain specific charism of infallibility to the Church. As I have pointed out in another post, this may also be seen as a natural conclusion of the fact that, with Christ her Head, and as his Body, the Church and Christ "make up the whole Christ". The Church's union with Christ is mystical but real, not merely symbolic. If the Church with Him are one Christ, then to say that the Church can err with regard to faith and morals is tantamount to saying that Christ himself may err, and that is blasphemy.

The Church does not possess infallibility on its own. It is a gift from God, and flows from her union with Christ.