I’m sure you will also have seen some variation on these. Some are popular with our enemies. Others are popular with our friends. All derive their appeal by giving justification for replacing the word of God with modern prejudice.
- In Gospel A Jesus teaches X, which I don’t like. However, this is not mentioned in Gospel B, or if it is, it’s not mentioned in what I consider the most important part of Gospel B, the core teaching of Gospel B. Therefore Gospel B (or part of it) can be said to deny X, i.e. the failure to affirm X is the affirmation of not X. Gospel B is my favorite Gospel. Therefore, it (or the part of it that I like) is the most reliable record of the mind of Jesus. Things in the Gospels that I don’t like are mistranslations or fabrications of the first Christians. [Note: Pitting evangelists against each other is the work of the Devil. Faithful Christians read the Bible as a whole and presume consistency between its parts. They also don’t play the game of “Paul said that, but Jesus didn’t mention it.”]
- Jesus teaches a lot of things in the Gospels, including T1, T2, and T3, but the main point of His teaching is T4 (e.g. “love everybody”). This may or may not be something He actually said, but let’s consider the strongest version where it is something He said. The way I interpret T4 (in the light of 21st century cultural prejudices) makes it inconsistent with T1. Therefore, Jesus was wrong about T1 and was too stupid to notice His inconsistency (because of His cultural conditioning, presumably). [Note: the correct procedure when one reads an author asserting A and B which seem to be contradictory is to ask whether one is misinterpreting A, B, or both; interpretations which do not entail inconsistency are to be preferred. One uses the clearer, more specific rule to guide one’s understanding of the more general, vaguer rule, not vice versa.]
- It would be inappropriate for a human father to usurp divine prerogatives by demanding X (=worship, propitiation for sins), since he is fundamentally another creature and not the source and plentitude of being and intelligibility. God is a good father; therefore He would also never claim divine prerogatives.
- John Calvin taught X. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if it’s directly affirmed in the Bible. I don’t believe it.
- Medieval scholastics taught X. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if it’s directly affirmed in the Bible. I don’t believe it. [Note: the doctrine for which Calvin is most famous is also affirmed by Augustine, Aquinas, and Saint Paul himself.]
- The point of Christianity is A, not B. Therefore, claim B1 on subject B is not a core teaching of Christianity. Therefore the Church shouldn’t teach B1. Therefore, B1 is false. Therefore, it is a core teaching of Christianity that B1 is false.
- God wants us to be happy. X makes us happy. Therefore…
- The Gospels teach A, which is consistent with the culture of the time they were written. Therefore, it “reflects” the culture of the time. Therefore, it is man-made and false. Instead, not-A, which is agreeable to my culture, is true. I am part of the first generation not to be blinded by cultural assumptions.
- When Saint Paul/one of the evangelists wrote X, he was addressing members of community Y. I am not a member of Y. Therefore X is false.
- I am a Roman Catholic, not some Protestant fundamentalist of the rural lower classes, so I know that the Bible is absolutely and totally incomprehensible in itself absent an authoritative interpreter. Of course, the same thing is true of Church teachings themselves, from Nicea to Trent to Vatican I. In fact, on cannot appeal to anything said or written before the current pope. The Bible says X, but Pope Francis has never mentioned X, so X is false.
The Orthosphere 
But surely it doesn’t actually matter if X is true or not. I mean, as long as you’re nice to people and don’t go around waiving pride flags that seems like it should be sufficient. I can’t imagine that God would actually care whether anyone believes in X or not, and my personal imagination is the best source of insight into how God sees things. Therefore X is false.
Truth is obviously important and valuable, but I doubt everyone needs to know it, or even can. We live in a scientific society, but a great many people in it have very erroneous ideas about science (despite twelve years education at public expense). Many of them lack the cognitive power and many others lack the time. Every successful religion has what is called “easy mode” in a video game. We must never forget that humans are busy and more than half of them have an IQ <100. I expect many good Christians have lived with a creed they could write (but of cours they could not write) on the palm of their hand.
There is a difference between one who has faith in what the Church teaches while being ignorant of the details (because of low intelligence, lack of education, etc.) vs one who knows what the Church teaches but thinks he knows better.
Definitely a difference. I don’t claim to know better than the Church, although my thoughts are not always congruent with it. But you also seem not to understand the nature of a blog. If a reader wants pure doctrine, they should ask a priest or read the Catechism. I’m here to provoke and entertain. A faith that can be derailed by a rando on the internet is a very sorry faith. Is Catholic doctrine really this fragile?
I run into # 10 all the time in my on-line discussions with other Catholics. Pope-worship is a fact in our church, sad but true. And Biblical illiteracy is the rule rather than the exception. Don’t know what can be done about it. Always feel like I’m rowing against the current.
The rcC and eO use these arguments . X=Jesus said call no man father. rCC and eO: that’s only in one gospel, etc.
I’ve never heard this argument used on that issue, but if it is it’s a bad one. One Gospel is enough.
Same here: have never heard the “only one gospel” argument from either RCC or OC writers. It looks to me prima facie like the sort of arguments that heretics would employ, picking and choosing which verses supported their heterodoxies.
If a Protestant gave me any grief over this passage, I’d just say that they’ve got the same problem, since they also refer to biological fathers as “father”. Like their Catholic and Orthodox brothers, and like the early Christians, they’ve realized the need to think about what Jesus means here.
Since the injunction does not appear in a discussion of forbidden words, I think everyone can go on using the word “father” in any way they fund convenient. Jesus is denouncing honorific titles and other external paraphernalia of piety. All such paraphernalia is to be judged as useful or not useful, convenient or inconvenient, until people begin to reverence it as an end in itself. Then it becomes superstition and idolatry. Protestants could do this with “reverend” just as easily as Catholics could do it with “father.” It’s the superstitious usage, not the words.