That’s Your Problem—Not Mine! Addressing the Protestant Tu Quoque

Concerning issues of unity, private judgment, and interpretation, is everyone really in the same boat?

Catholics often present objections to Protestants that, on the surface, seem—honestly—pretty devastating. For example, they argue that Protestants are stuck with issues of private judgment and interpretation concerning Scripture, leading to massive division and disunity, or the inability to discern essential doctrines of the faith. However, there is a particular line of Protestant response, the tu quoque, which aims to neutralize these objections by essentially saying, “Look guys, we’re all in the same boat—Catholics have this problem too, it might just not be as obvious.”

The Tu Quoque

Before we take a look at whether this particular line of counterattack helps Protestants—even if only by neutralizing reasons to become Catholic over Protestant—we must first consider the nature of the tu quoque objection. It is often considered a fallacy.

But is it a fallacy? That depends. The tu quoque can be a fallacious response, but it’s not always. If, for example, someone merely points out hypocrisy or inconsistency without addressing the original argument, it could indeed be fallacious. In such cases, saying, “You have this problem too,” doesn’t refute the claim—it simply diverts attention. For example:

Parent: "You shouldn’t smoke, dear daughter, it’s unhealthy, as studies X, Y, and Z show."
Child: "But Mom, you started smoking when you were fourteen. Don’t be a hypocrite!"

Here, the daughter doesn’t actually refute the argument that smoking is unhealthy; she’s simply pointing out a performative inconsistency.

But again, the tu quoque is not always fallacious. Why? Because often, at least in discussions between Catholics and Protestants, the context is something like this: “You should become Catholic (or at least consider Catholicism) because your system has a serious doctrinal identification issue.” In this case, it’s perfectly legitimate to respond, “Well, no, because your system has this problem too.”

Here, the response isn’t merely pointing out the plank in the accuser’s eye while they mention the speck in yours—it’s rather directly contesting the more fundamental (sometimes unstated) claim that one paradigm offers a solution to the problem in question. If both paradigms share the same defect, then the defect cannot serve as a legitimate reason for conversion.

Moreover, it should be clear that Catholics raise this objection—or rather, they only should raise this objection—because they believe the issue does not apply to Catholicism.

In short, whether the tu quoque is a legitimate response depends on the context, as is often the case with informal or material fallacies. When it merely deflects the argument without addressing its substance, it is probably fallacious. However, when it contests a claim of superiority or problem-solving, it can be a contextually appropriate (and totally reasonable) reply.

With those preliminaries out of the way, we can now proceed. For the remainder of this article, we will address several Protestant tu quoque responses. These arguments generally take the form of, “If this is a problem for us, it’s just as much a problem for you.” My goal is to demonstrate that while each of these issues is indeed a problem for Protestants, they are not genuine problems for Catholics.

Catholics Are Divided Too

Catholics object to Protestantism because of its obvious divisions, particularly doctrinal, which stem (allegedly) from Sola Scriptura. However, isn’t there just as much division among Catholics? Not all Catholics agree on everything, including what the Church definitively teaches—many actively dissent. So, pot, kettle, black, right?

A brief response should suffice to address this tu quoque objection.

Catholic unity is established by the clear, authoritative teachings of the Magisterium. Individuals are in union with the Church to the extent that they submit to this teaching and Church authority. Those who dissent are separated from the Church to varying degrees. The test for any Catholic is this: Do they profess to believe all the Catholic Church teaches concerning faith and morals? Do they (knowingly, willfully) dissent from any such teachings? If yes to the former and no to the latter, then they are union with the Catholic Church. Pretty simple!

Protestantism, by contrast, lacks a clear, visibly unifying function because it rejects an ongoing, infallible theological teaching authority as something they can either be in discernible union with or dissent from. As Bryan Cross has pointed out, the only kind of unity Protestantism can achieve is an accidental one, where there just happens to be widespread agreement among Protestants concerning Scriptural interpretation which is not the case, never has been the case, and probably never will be the case. For example, while some Protestants may assert that certain doctrines or teachers are essential and thus provide the critical unifying function, others simply (often strongly) disagree, each pointing toward Scripture to support their position—whether it’s about baptism, the bodily resurrection, or even the Trinity.

Catholic unity, on the other hand, is not based on widespread agreement among the laity but is secured by a definitive visible teaching authority, which individuals can either submit to or dissent from. Even if most Catholics dissented from official Church teaching, this would not undermine the fact that the Catholic Church offers a unity—through its Magisterium—that Protestantism, by its very nature, cannot provide.

So, while it is true that Catholics may be divided, since nothing compels individuals to assent to Church teachings, the Church still provides a truly unifying function (by way of visible institution) that Protestantism lacks. What is a problem for Protestants in this regard is definitely not a problem for Catholics.

Catholics Are Stuck with Private Judgment Too

Sure, Catholics claim to have an infallible Magisterium, but no individual Catholic is infallible. Just as Protestants use private, fallible judgment to interpret Scripture alone, Catholics also use their private, fallible judgment when rejecting sola scriptura and choosing to become Catholic. Nobody escapes this!

The objection, then, is something like this: if private, fallible judgment is good enough for Catholics, it should be good enough for Protestants. A Catholic cannot reasonably claim they aren’t relying on private judgment, since they used private judgment to enter into communion with Rome.

The Catholic response is straightforward and best explained through analogy. Consider the trust we place in experts, particularly medical experts. Their authority comes from specialized education, experience, training, and involvement in a tradition with a knowledge base far beyond our own. Just because we use private judgment to recognize and trust their authority doesn’t mean we’re qualified to assess everything they do on our own, even while acknowledging their fallibility. In other words, while our private, fallible judgment may be sufficient to reasonably recognize and trust an authority, it is often not sufficient to reliably work our way through everything an expert can.

Sidebar: Protestants sometimes say, “You don’t need to be infallible to discern what is infallible,” and I agree. However, the problem in the Protestant context is that texts (like Scripture) aren’t infallible—agents are. Texts can be inspired or inerrant, but they don’t actively teach or interpret in the way living agents do. Infallibility prevents error in the act of teaching, which involves interpreting and applying the truths of Scripture. So understood, I think the point that we don’t need to be infallible to recognize infallibility favors, if anything, Catholicism.

Once this distinction is appreciated, the case for trusting the Catholic Church—which claims infallibility in matters of faith and morals—becomes considerably more interesting. Moreover, Catholic teachings aren’t received directly from the Holy Spirit without mediation; rather they are conveyed through some of the greatest theological minds, like St. Augustine, whose intellect and judgment are well-formed. Lastly, having authorities—epistemic, moral, and otherwise—is essential to being human, which is why Catholicism fits our nature so well. As rational, social, and political beings reliant on traditions, institutions, and authority, we recognize the importance of living authorities—they ‘befit’ us.

The main point here is this: while private, fallible judgment is good enough for the Catholic when used to place trust in certain authorities, it’s not sufficient for the Protestant when used to reject authority and rely solely on oneself to adjudicate rather enormously complicated matters. The latter is often highly unreasonable—in many circumstances, it is downright foolish—especially in dealing with complex, technical, and (presumably) high-stakes issues pertaining to Christian theology, Scripture, tradition, and history.

All in all, what is a problem for Protestants in these regards is not a problem for Catholics.

Catholics Are Stuck with Private Interpretation Too

There are at least two versions of this objection:

1. Catholics are stuck with private interpretation of magisterial documents, just as Protestants are with Scripture.

2. Catholics become Catholic through private interpretation of Scripture, seeing their interpretation as aligned with Catholic teaching. This is epistemically no different from what Protestants do when they reject Catholic teaching.

Regarding the first objection, while it’s true that some magisterial statements can be ambiguous, Catholics have a living authority capable of clarifying issues or disputes related to Scripture or prior magisterial statements. This has happened many times. The point isn’t whether clarification always occurs, but whether it can. For Catholics, interpretive issues need only be temporary when they arise; they don’t become a permanent “stuck-in-the-mud” problem, as is often the case for Protestants. Catholics have a "tow truck" that can always pull them out (though, admittedly, it sometimes takes a frustratingly long time for that tow truck to arrive, and at times it seems like it may never come—but that’s ultimately within God’s wisdom. Why He sometimes allows certain disputes or ambiguities to persist, while other times resolving them more quickly, is part of that wisdom¹). The key point is that it can come and frequently has come. With a living, infallible theological authority, the possibility for clarification is always available—just as it is when a living expert is present to help students who might be unsure how to interpret certain texts or writings of theirs—allowing the Church to move forward with definitive clarity, something (once again) that the Protestant tradition definitively lacks.

In response to this objection, Erick Ybarra hits the nail on the head. So, I’ll quote him in full:

This rebuttal from Protestant thinkers is actually just an evasion of the real issue. Catholics are not saying that individuals will not need to exercise their own private minds to understand the infallible interpreter. No one escapes that.

But herein lies the difference, the Catholic seeks to establish the stationary location of an infallible judge such that just by virtue of its being stationary (fixed in the visible magisterium), it no longer matters that we must exercise our own mind to understand its communication because all of our personal interpretations must yield in an ever-going loop back to the magisterium, whose location is fixed. The hope and expectation is that adhesion will be possible, and when it's not achieved, it CAN be achieved in light of that ever-present loop back to a single judge.

In sum, having a fixed and stationary locale wherein the infallible judge resides and functions is what makes the difference, because even though we are left to use our minds to listen/read and interpret the infallible judge, the test for whether we are adhering to that judge ultimately depends on the judge.

Now, the Protestant tries to equate the Catholic with himself because he/she states, "Oh my joy! Well, we also have a stationary and fixed infallible judge.... and that is the HOLY BIBLE!". And so by this, both the Protestant and the Catholic, they'll say, have to use their private judgment in interpreting both, thereby establishing the common epistemic limitation.

But, not so fast.

The Holy Bible can't stop you from misinterpreting itself. It will always appear to be a judge giving you a thumbs up because all it does is reside in text-form and it leaves you as the final judge as to whether you are in conformity with it. The bible doesn't grow a face to grade you on whether your understanding has matched its own meaning.

A living judge, on the other hand, can. And that's what makes the difference. The Church's magisterium can process itself for or against the interpreter to verify or correct the individual's interpretation.²

Regarding the second issue, I’m not sure I know of anyone—certainly, I am not that person—who became Catholic because they thought that, after enormous exegetical efforts, all their private interpretations of Scripture matched what the Magisterium teaches. Maybe that’s something someone has done at some point—or at least thought they had (I don’t see how that would actually be possible, but whatever). Rather, the matter is more like this, or at least it was for me. I think about certain issues, like the nature of revelation, the inevitability of doctrinal development, the need for more than merely reliable authority, historical matters (such as what the early Church looked like and what the Church Fathers taught), the improbable endurance of the Catholic Church, her many confirmatory signs (e.g., Fatima), the lives of so many Catholic saints, the logical consistency and interrelatedness of her theological teachings—and especially the serious internal issues I see in paradigms like sola scriptura. Through various investigations and judgments, I’ve come to believe that if any form of Christianity is true, it has to be (or most probably is) Catholicism. Why? Because what the Catholic Church claims—including what she claims about herself—makes the most sense of the widest range of data and critical (including epistemological) issues. This cumulative series of considerations ultimately led me, as it has led many others, to assent to the Church's teachings, to trust that what she teaches definitively is true, to believe in her teachings, to participate in the life of the Church, and to remain open to correction when necessary (faith is a habit, a disposition!). It is a movement toward faith seeking understanding, acknowledging that I do not, and likely never will, fully know or understand everything about Scripture and Christian theology.

Sidebar: One major caveat—or perhaps clarification—with respect to the preceding paragraph, relating back to the point about assent vs. private judgment: St. Thomas Aquinas spoke about external motives, such as witnessing a miracle or being persuaded by an argument to embrace the faith, but he noted that these are not sufficient causes. Some people see the same miracle or hear the same argument and do not believe. Thus, we must assert another cause—namely, an internal cause that moves us inwardly to assent to matters of faith (Summa Theologiae, II-II, Q. 6, Art. 1). Put differently, external motives or inducements are neither necessary nor sufficient, but they can aid us in cooperating with God’s inward movement.

In fact, if someone were to become Catholic only insofar as Catholicism aligns with all their private interpretations of Scripture, that could actually be a problem. As Bryan Cross explains in addressing this tu quoque objection—a passage worth quoting in full:

“If a person becomes Catholic on the basis that (and hence on the condition that) the Catholic Church shares his own interpretation of Scripture, he is not truly a Catholic at heart; he is still a Protestant at heart. One does not rightly become a Catholic on the grounds that one happens to believe all the doctrines that the Church teaches. That approach is a form of rationalism, not fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding). One rightly becomes a Catholic by an act of faith in which one believes all that the Catholic Church teaches, even without fully understanding it, based on the apostolic authority of the Church’s Magisterium. When we are received into the Catholic Church, we say before the bishop, 'I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God.' We are not saying that we just happen to believe Catholic doctrines. We are not merely reporting our present mental state viz-a-viz Catholic doctrine. We are making a confession of faith, an act of the will whereby we are submitting to the apostolic authority of the Church regarding what it is that she 'believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God,' based on her magisterial authority in succession from the Apostles whom Christ Himself appointed and sent. We believe in Christ through believing those sent and authorized by Him and His Apostles, as they teach and explain the deposit of faith entrusted to them by Christ. 'Faith seeking understanding' is possible only where submission is required, but submission is not required wherever the identity and nature of the Church is determined and defined by one’s own interpretation of Scripture."³

1. I don’t think there is a Protestant parallel here. Allowing ambiguities or disputes to persist within a paradigm where resolution is possible—and often achieved—is clearly different from lacking any mechanism to move beyond them.

2. Original text here: https://www.facebook.com/ErickYbarra2016/posts/pfbid02TtfxtKXFEEbKC1DQjaQ1d5pd8ahc6UXrCiDPi9mX3tobZak5ZgrzdnNnL3jZqAorl

3. https://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/11/the-catholics-are-divided-too-objection/