> But the core dogma of "believe specific claims of fact because they were written down in one text and not another" is bad epistemology no matter how you cut it.
My understanding of Catholicism comes from outside of it, but this isn't how I understand Catholic epistemology—this sounds more like Sola Scriptura, which is a Protestant doctrine and emphatically not a Catholic one.
Since I'm not a Catholic, I'm going to link out to an explanation from people who are [0]:
> The living magisterium, therefore, makes extensive use of documents of the past, but it does so while judging and interpreting, gladly finding in them its present thought, but likewise, when needful, distinguishing its present thought from what is traditional only in appearance. It is revealed truth always living in the mind of the Church, or, if it is preferred, the present thought of the Church in continuity with her traditional thought, which is for it the final criterion, according to which the living magisterium adopts as true or rejects as false the often obscure and confused formulas which occur in the monuments of the past. Thus are explained both her respect for the writings of the Fathers of the Church and her supreme independence towards those writings; she judges them more than she is judged by them.
So the epistemological problem to resolve is not why these particular documents, it's why this particular organization? Not why do I trust what's written here but not there—the answer to that is because the Church says so—but why do I trust this Church?
Not being a Catholic, I can't really answer that question, but I do think it's important to approach the Catholic question on its own terms rather than Protestant terms.
My understanding of Catholicism comes from outside of it, but this isn't how I understand Catholic epistemology—this sounds more like Sola Scriptura, which is a Protestant doctrine and emphatically not a Catholic one.
Since I'm not a Catholic, I'm going to link out to an explanation from people who are [0]:
> The living magisterium, therefore, makes extensive use of documents of the past, but it does so while judging and interpreting, gladly finding in them its present thought, but likewise, when needful, distinguishing its present thought from what is traditional only in appearance. It is revealed truth always living in the mind of the Church, or, if it is preferred, the present thought of the Church in continuity with her traditional thought, which is for it the final criterion, according to which the living magisterium adopts as true or rejects as false the often obscure and confused formulas which occur in the monuments of the past. Thus are explained both her respect for the writings of the Fathers of the Church and her supreme independence towards those writings; she judges them more than she is judged by them.
So the epistemological problem to resolve is not why these particular documents, it's why this particular organization? Not why do I trust what's written here but not there—the answer to that is because the Church says so—but why do I trust this Church?
Not being a Catholic, I can't really answer that question, but I do think it's important to approach the Catholic question on its own terms rather than Protestant terms.
[0] https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/tradition-and-living-m...