Who Decides and With What Authority? | Prof. Michael Root
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
4.8 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 19 April 2024
⏱️ 39 minutes
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Summary
Professor Michael Root explores the question of who has the authority to make binding decisions on matters of faith within Christianity. It traces the historical development of this issue from the early Church through the Reformation, highlighting Luther's principle of sola scriptura and the concept of private judgment in Protestantism. The speaker contrasts this with the Catholic understanding of authoritative decision-making through councils, papal declarations, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, emphasizing the ability to close questions definitively in Catholicism versus the potentially "fissiparous" nature of Protestantism.
This lecture was given on February 3rd, 2024, at the Dominican House of Studies.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events
About the Speaker:
Prof. Michael Root (Catholic University of America) is formerly Ordinary Professor of Systematic Theology at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Root is a native of Norfolk, Virginia and studied at Dartmouth College (B.A.) and Yale University (Ph.D. in theology). He was received into the Catholic Church in August, 2010. His particular theological interests are ecumenical relations, eschatology/last things, and grace and justification. Root has been a member of the US and international LutheranCatholic dialogues, the US LutheranUnited Methodist dialogue, the AnglicanLutheran International Working Group, and the Anglican Lutheran International Commission. He served on the drafting teams that produced the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast. |
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| 0:28.6 | This is designed as an end of the day lecture. |
| 0:31.6 | After I think the kind of ambiguities, which I think plague in some ways, |
| 0:36.6 | discussion about justification or the sheer |
| 0:38.7 | conceptual complexities of some of the issues about justification, I mean about the Lord's |
| 0:45.3 | Supper, mass. This question is, I think, in some ways, conceptually simpler, but as in some |
| 0:50.9 | ways it's also a decisive question. One, I think, mistake the modern ecumenical movement made |
| 0:59.0 | was in discussing the issues of the Reformation, |
| 1:03.0 | you would then settle the theological issues, |
| 1:06.0 | you would then be able to bring about Protestant Catholic unity. |
| 1:10.0 | The mistake is thinking that ecumenical relations |
| 1:13.2 | are between the relations between theologians |
| 1:16.0 | or the relations between concepts. |
| 1:18.9 | Ecumenical relations about the relations between communities. |
| 1:22.9 | Communities constituted by the gospel, |
| 1:24.6 | so they believe, but still human community. |
| 1:27.3 | So you're going to have to |
| 1:27.9 | relate actual communities, which can be quite tricky. I was on the Executive Council of the |
| 1:34.7 | Lutheran Church in America. When it merged with the American Lutheran Church, these were basically |
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