How John Calvin Made me a Catholic
Jun 1st, 2010 | By David Anders | Category: Featured ArticlesI once heard a Protestant pastor preach a “Church History” sermon. He began with Christ and the apostles, dashed through the book of Acts, skipped over the Catholic Middle Ages and leaped directly to Wittenberg, 1517. From Luther he hopped to the English revivalist John Wesley, crossed the Atlantic to the American revivals and slid home to his own Church, Birmingham, Alabama, early 1990s. Cheers and singing followed him to the plate. The congregation loved it.
Portrait of Young John Calvin
Unknown Flemish artist
Espace Ami Lullin of the Bibliothèque de Genève
I loved it, too. I grew up in an Evangelical Church in the 1970s immersed in the myth of the Reformation. I was sure that my Church preached the gospel, which we received, unsullied, from the Reformers. After college, I earned a doctorate in Church history so I could flesh out the story and prove to all the poor Catholics that they were in the wrong Church. I never imagined my own founder, the Protestant Reformer John Calvin, would point me to the Catholic faith.
I was raised a Presbyterian, the Church that prides itself on Calvinist origins, but I didn’t care much about denominations. My Church practiced a pared-down, Bible-focused, born-again spirituality shared by most Evangelicals. I went to a Christian college and then a seminary where I found the same attitude. Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Charismatics worshiped and studied side-by-side, all committed to the Bible but at odds on how to interpret it. But our differences didn’t bother us. Disagreements over sacraments, Church structures, and authority were less important to us than a personal relationship with Christ and fighting the Catholic Church. This is how we understood our common debt to the Reformation.
When I finished seminary, I moved on to Ph.D. studies in Reformation history. My focus was on John Calvin (1509-1564), the French Reformer who made Geneva, Switzerland into a model Protestant city. I chose Calvin not just because of my Presbyterian background, but because most American Protestants have some relationship to him. The English Puritans, the Pilgrim Fathers, Jonathan Edwards and the “Great Awakening” – all drew on Calvin and then strongly influenced American religion. My college and seminary professors portrayed Calvin as a master theologian, our theologian. I thought that if I could master Calvin, I would really know the faith.
Strangely, mastering Calvin didn’t lead me anywhere I expected. To begin with, I decided that I really didn’t like Calvin. I found him proud, judgmental and unyielding. But more importantly, I discovered that Calvin upset my Evangelical view of history. I had always assumed a perfect continuity between the Early Church, the Reformation and my Church. The more I studied Calvin, however, the more foreign he seemed, the less like Protestants today. This, in turn, caused me to question the whole Evangelical storyline: Early Church – Reformation – Evangelical Christianity, with one seamless thread running straight from one to the other. But what if Evangelicals really weren’t faithful to Calvin and the Reformation? The seamless thread breaks. And if it could break once, between the Reformation and today, why not sooner, between the Early Church and the Reformation? Was I really sure the thread had held even that far?
Calvin shocked me by rejecting key elements of my Evangelical tradition. Born-again spirituality, private interpretation of Scripture, a broad-minded approach to denominations – Calvin opposed them all. I discovered that his concerns were vastly different, more institutional, even more Catholic. Although he rejected the authority of Rome, there were things about the Catholic faith he never thought about leaving. He took for granted that the Church should have an interpretive authority, a sacramental liturgy and a single, unified faith.
These discoveries faced me with important questions. Why should Calvin treat these “Catholic things” with such seriousness? Was he right in thinking them so important? And if so, was he justified in leaving the Catholic Church? What did these discoveries teach me about Protestantism? How could my Church claim Calvin as a founder, and yet stray so far from his views? Was the whole Protestant way of doing theology doomed to confusion and inconsistency?
Understanding the Calvinist Reformation
Calvin was a second-generation Reformer, twenty-six years younger than Martin Luther (1483-1546). This meant that by the time he encountered the Reformation, it had already split into factions. In Calvin’s native France, there was no royal support for Protestantism and no unified leadership. Lawyers, humanists, intellectuals, artisans and craftsman read Luther’s writings, as well as the Scriptures, and adapted whatever they liked.
This variety struck Calvin as a recipe for disaster. He was a lawyer by training, and always hated any kind of social disorder. In 1549, he wrote a short work (Advertissement contre l’astrologie) in which he complained about this Protestant diversity:
Every state [of life] has its own Gospel, which they forge for themselves according to their appetites, so that there is as great a diversity between the Gospel of the court, and the Gospel of the justices and lawyers, and the Gospel of merchants, as there is between coins of different denominations.
I began to grasp the difference between Calvin and his descendants when I discovered his hatred of this theological diversity. Calvin was drawn to Luther’s theology, but he complained about the “crass multitude” and the “vulgar plebs” who turned Luther’s doctrine into an excuse for disorder. He wrote his first major work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), in part to address this problem.
Calvin got an opportunity to put his plans into action when he moved to Geneva, Switzerland. He first joined the Reformation in Geneva in 1537, when the city had only recently embraced Protestantism. Calvin, who had already begun to write and publish on theology, was unsatisfied with their work. Geneva had abolished the Mass, kicked out the Catholic clergy, and professed loyalty to the Bible, but Calvin wanted to go further. His first request to the city council was to impose a common confession of faith (written by Calvin) and to force all citizens to affirm it.
Calvin’s most important contribution to Geneva was the establishment of the Consistory – a sort of ecclesiastical court- to judge the moral and theological purity of his parishioners. He also persuaded the council to enforce a set of “Ecclesiastical Ordinances” that defined the authority of the Church, stated the religious obligations of the laity, and imposed an official liturgy. Church attendance was mandatory. Contradicting the ministers was outlawed as blasphemy. Calvin’s Institutes would eventually be declared official doctrine.
Calvin’s lifelong goal was to gain the right to excommunicate “unworthy” Church members. The city council finally granted this power in 1555 when French immigration and local scandal tipped the electorate in his favor. Calvin wielded it frequently. According to historian William Monter, one in fifteen citizens was summoned before the Consistory between 1559 and 1569, and up to one in twenty five was actually excommunicated.1 Calvin used this power to enforce his single vision of Christianity and to punish dissent.
A Calvinist Discovers John Calvin
I studied Calvin for years before the real significance of what I was learning began to sink in. But I finally realized that Calvin, with his passion for order and authority, was fundamentally at odds with the individualist spirit of my Evangelical tradition. Nothing brought this home to me with more clarity than his fight with the former Carmelite monk, Jerome Bolsec.
In 1551, Bolsec, a physician and convert to Protestantism, entered Geneva and attended a lecture on theology. The topic was Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, the teaching that God predetermines the eternal fate of every soul. Bolsec, who believed firmly in “Scripture alone” and “faith alone,” did not like what he heard. He thought it made God into a tyrant. When he stood up to challenge Calvin’s views, he was arrested and imprisoned.
What makes Bolsec’s case interesting is that it quickly evolved into a referendum on Church authority and the interpretation of Scripture. Bolsec, just like most Evangelicals today, argued that he was a Christian, that he had the Holy Spirit and that, therefore, he had as much right as Calvin to interpret the Bible. He promised to recant if Calvin would only prove his doctrine from the Scriptures. But Calvin would have none of it. He ridiculed Bolsec as a trouble maker (Bolsec generated a fair amount of public sympathy), rejected his appeal to Scripture, and called on the council to be harsh. He wrote privately to a friend that he wished Bolsec were “rotting in a ditch.”2
What most Evangelicals today don’t realize is that Calvin never endorsed private or lay interpretation of the Bible. While he rejected Rome’s claim to authority, he made striking claims for his own authority. He taught that the “Reformed” pastors were successors to the prophets and apostles, entrusted with the task of authoritative interpretation of the Scriptures. He insisted that laypeople should suspend judgment on difficult matters and “hold unity with the Church.”3
Calvin took very seriously the obligation of the laity to submit and obey. “Contradicting the ministers” was one of the most common reasons to be called before the Consistory and penalties could be severe. One image in particular sticks in my mind. April, 1546. Pierre Ameaux, a citizen of Geneva, was forced to crawl to the door of the Bishop’s residence, with his head uncovered and a torch in his hand. He begged the forgiveness of God, of the ministers and of the city council. His crime? He contradicted the preaching of Calvin. The council, at Calvin’s urging, had decreed Ameaux’s public humiliation as punishment.
Ameaux was not alone. Throughout the 1540s and 1550s, Geneva’s city council repeatedly outlawed speaking against the ministers or their theology. Furthermore, when Calvin gained the right to excommunicate, he did not hesitate to use it against this “blasphemy.” Evangelicals today, unaccustomed to the use of excommunication, may underestimate the severity of the penalty, but Calvin understood it in the most severe terms. He repeatedly taught that the excommunicated were “estranged from the Church, and thus, from Christ.”4
If Calvin’s ideas on Church authority were a surprise to me, his thoughts on the sacraments were shocking. Unlike Evangelicals, who treat the theology of the sacraments as one of the “non-essentials,” Calvin thought they were of the utmost importance. In fact, he taught that a proper understanding of the Eucharist was necessary for salvation. This was the thesis of his very first theological treatise in French (Petit traicté de la Sainte Cène, 1541). Frustrated by Protestant disagreement over the Eucharist, Calvin wrote the text in an attempt to unify the movement around one single doctrine.
Evangelicals are used to finding assurance in their “personal relationship with Christ,” and not through membership in any Church or participation in any ritual. Calvin, however, taught that the Eucharist provides “undoubted assurance of eternal life.”5 And while Calvin stopped short of the Catholic, or even the Lutheran, understanding of the Eucharist, he still retained a doctrine of the Real Presence. He taught that the Eucharist provides a “true and substantial partaking of the body and blood of the Lord” and he rejected the notion that communicants receive “the Spirit only, omitting flesh and blood.”6.
Calvin understood baptism in much the same way. He never taught the Evangelical doctrine that one is “born again” through personal conversion. Instead, he associated regeneration with baptism and taught that to neglect baptism was to refuse salvation. He also allowed no diversity over the manner of its reception. Anabaptists in Geneva (those who practiced adult baptism) were jailed and forced to repent. Calvin taught that Anabaptists, by refusing the sacrament to their children, had placed themselves outside the faith.
Calvin once persuaded an Anabaptist named Herman to enter the Reformed Church. His description of the event leaves no doubt about the difference between Calvin and the modern Evangelical. Calvin wrote:
Herman has, if I am not mistaken, in good faith returned to the fellowship of the Church. He has confessed that outside the Church there is no salvation, and that the true Church is with us. Therefore, it was defection when he belonged to a sect separated from it.7
Evangelicals don’t understand this type of language. They are accustomed to treating “the Church” as a purely spiritual reality, represented across denominations or wherever “true believers” are gathered. This was not Calvin’s view. His was “the true Church,” marked off by infant baptism, outside of which there was no salvation.
Making Sense of Evangelicalism
Studying Calvin raised important questions about my Evangelical identity. How could I reject as unimportant issues that my own founder considered essential? I had blithely and confidently dismissed baptism, Eucharist, and the Church itself as “merely symbolic,” “purely spiritual” or, ultimately, unnecessary. In seminary, too, I found an environment where professors disagreed entirely over these issues and no one cared! With no final court of appeal, we had devolved into a “lowest common denominator” theology.
Church history taught me that this attitude was a recent development. John Calvin had high expectations for the unity and catholicity of the faith, and for the centrality of Church and sacrament. But Calvinism couldn’t deliver it. Outside of Geneva, without the force of the state to impose one version, Calvinism itself splintered into factions. In her book Orthodoxies in Massachusetts: Rereading American Puritanism, historian Janice Knight details how the process unfolded very early in American Calvinism. 8
It is not surprising that by the eighteenth century, leading Calvinist Churchmen on both sides of the Atlantic had given up on the quest for complete unity. One new approach was to stress the subjective experience of “new birth” (itself a novel doctrine of Puritan origins) as the only necessary concern. The famous revivalist George Whitefield typified this view, going so far as to insist that Christ did not want agreement in other matters. He said:
It was best to preach the new birth, and the power of godliness, and not to insist so much on the form: for people would never be brought to one mind as to that; nor did Jesus Christ ever intend it.9
Since the eighteenth century, Calvinism has devolved more and more into a narrow set of questions about the nature of salvation. Indeed, in most people’s minds the word Calvinism implies only the doctrine of predestination. Calvin himself has become mainly a shadowy symbol, a myth that Evangelicals call upon only to support a spurious claim to historical continuity.
The greatest irony in my historical research was realizing that Evangelicalism, far from being the direct descendant of Calvin, actually represents the failure of Calvinism. Whereas Calvin spent his life in the quest for doctrinal unity, modern Evangelicalism is rooted in the rejection of that quest. Historian Alister McGrath notes that the term “Evangelical,” which has circulated in Christianity for centuries, took on its peculiar modern sense only in the twentieth century, with the founding of the National Association of Evangelicals (1942). This society was formed to allow coordinated public action on the part of disparate groups that agreed on “the new birth,” but disagreed on just about everything else.10
A Calvinist Discovers Catholicism
I grew up believing that Evangelicalism was “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” I learned from Protestant Church history that it was hardly older than Whitefield, and certainly not the faith of the Protestant Reformers. What to do? Should I go back to the sixteenth century and become an authentic Calvinist? I already knew that Calvin himself, for all his insistence on unity and authority, had been unable to deliver the goods. His own followers descended into anarchy and individualism.
I realized instead that Calvin was part of the problem. He had insisted on the importance of unity and authority, but had rejected any rational or consistent basis for that authority. He knew that Scripture totally alone, Scripture interpreted by each individual conscience, was a recipe for disaster. But his own claim to authority was perfectly arbitrary. Whenever he was challenged, he simply appealed to his own conscience, or to his subjective experience, but he denied that right to Bolsec and others. As a result, Calvin became proud and censorious, brutal with his enemies, and intolerant of dissent. In all my reading of Calvin, I don’t recall him ever apologizing for a mistake or admitting an error.
It eventually occurred to me that Calvin’s attitude contrasted sharply with what I had found in the greatest Catholic theologians. Many of them were saints, recognized for their heroic charity and humility. Furthermore, I knew from reading them, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Francis de Sales, that they denied any personal authority to define doctrine. They deferred willingly, even joyfully, to the authority of Pope and council. They could maintain the biblical ideal of doctrinal unity (1 Corinthians 1:10), without claiming to be the source of that unity.
These saints also challenged the stereotypes about Catholics that I had grown up with. Evangelicals frequently assert that they are the only ones to have “a personal relationship with Christ.” Catholics, with their rituals and institutions, are supposed to be alienated from Christ and Scripture. I found instead men and women who were single-minded in their devotion to Christ and inebriated with His grace.
The Catholic theologian who had the greatest impact on me was undoubtedly St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430). All of my life, I heard the claim that “the Early Church” had been Protestant and Evangelical. My seminary professors and even Calvin and Luther always pointed to St. Augustine as their great Early Church hero. When I finally dug into Augustine, however, I discovered a thorough-going Catholicism. Augustine loved Scripture and spoke profoundly about God’s grace, but he understood these in the fully Catholic sense. Augustine destroyed the final piece of my Evangelical view of history.
In the end, I began to see that everything good about Evangelicalism was already present in the Catholic Church – the warmth and devotion of Evangelical spirituality, the love of Scripture and even, to some extent, the Evangelical tolerance for diversity. Catholicism has always tolerated schools of thought, various theologies and different liturgies. But unlike Evangelicalism, the Catholic Church has a logical and consistent way to distinguish the essential from the non-essential. The Church’s Magisterium, established by Christ (Matthew 16:18; Matthew 28:18-20), has provided that source of unity that Calvin sought to replace.
One of the most satisfying things about my discovery of the Catholic Church is that it fully satisfied my desire for historical rootedness. I began to study history believing in that continuity of faith and trying desperately to find it. Even when I thought I had found it in the Reformation, I still had to contend with the enormous gulf of the Catholic Middle Ages. Now, thanks to what Calvin taught me, there are no more missing links. On November 16, 2003 I finally embraced the faith “once for all delivered to the Saints.” I entered the Catholic Church.
- “The Consistory of Geneva, 1559-1569,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 38 (1976): 467-484. [↩]
- Letter to Madame de Cany, 1552. [↩]
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J. T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960: 3.2.3, 4.3.4. [↩]
- Institutes 4.12.9. [↩]
- Institutes 4.17.32. [↩]
- Institutes 4.17.17; 4.17.19. [↩]
- Letters of John Calvin, trans. M. Gilchrist, ed. J.Bonnet, New York: Burt Franklin, 1972, I: 110-111. [↩]
- Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. [↩]
- Cited in Mark A. Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys. Downers Grove: IVP, 2003, 14. [↩]
- Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995, 17-23. [↩]
Thank you, Dr. Anders, for this excellent article. Having converted to the Catholic faith from Calvinism only fairly recently, I am still learning what I left behind, more and more, as my “new” vantage point allows me to more clearly see what Calvinism really entails, then and now. This article helped me in that regard. I look forward to your appearance on EWTN Live on 6/23.
Blessings and Peace. KB
Pretty typical narrative…Protestantism is “doomed to confusion and inconsistency.” Enter Rome. It should be noted, however, that there’s a significant movement within the Reformed/Presbyterian world that is fully aware of the differences between Reformational Protestantism and post-Awakening American Evangelicalism. The folks at Westminster West are some of the leaders of this renewed confessional catholicism, which has adherents going back to the “Old Lights” of the 18th century who protested the Awakening and the Mercersburg school of the 19th century (Philip Schaff, J. W. Nevin) who heavily criticized the overly-pietist strain within American Protestant religion. As it happens, I stand more with the Free Church tradition, but I think it’s interesting to note how someone like Dr. Anders has followed a path almost identical to R. Scott Clark or Mike Horton, yet the latter ended-up with a renewed emphasis on the catholicity of their Reformed churches, yet Anders ended-up embracing Rome — both paths were in reaction to the instability of an excessive individualism within (certain segments of) contemporary Protestantism.
On an entirely different note, I found it a bit difficult to take Anders seriously when he said:
I found him [Calvin] proud, judgmental and unyielding.
Seriously? I can’t remember the number of times, while reading the Institutes, that I’ve been amazed by the spiritual depth and humility of Calvin, not to mention the riches found in his commentaries on Scripture. Calvin could certainly, at times, be unyielding in his position as a Genevan reformer (not surprising, considering the precarious situation of the Reformation and the threats from without and within), but his dogmatic and exegetical work are models of Christian discipleship.
It’s obvious from the article that Dr. Anders’ familiarity with Calvin’s personality goes a lot deeper than just reading the Institutes and Commentaries. Why would we expect to get to know a person from reading systematic theological treatises, anyway? Have you read the letters or anything else? I just ask because your response is the same as what I always hear when it is suggested that Calvin was not the paragon of Christian charity. Historical actions are parried with references to treatises. Well, I know plenty of people who can make themselves look and sound really pious when they need to, both evangelicals who can sway in the dark to soft rock “worship” music with their eyes closed and hands in the air, then spew vile gossip an hour later, and Reformed folk who can talk pious theology like Calvin but will tear you to pieces if you disagree with them.
Personally I’d like to thank Dr. Anders for opening up the discussion with primary sources and secondary scholarship that I didn’t even know existed.
Having re-read that post, I noticed that I made too much of a dichotomy between what a treatise can say and what other sources can say. Obviously it’s not the case that everyone is just fake when they write some kind of official document. My point was that those sources shouldn’t be given some kind of “primary” status through which other sources are relegated to insignificance. They should be read together, especially since it’s a lot easier to speak piously than to act piously.
David,
If Anders is going to impugn Calvin as “proud, judgmental, and unyielding,” then he needs to explain the ways in which this pride is expressed in his life as a reformer and a scholar and, fundamentally, as a disciple of Christ. Otherwise, it’s just a cheap shot and a caricature. I have no problem recognizing Calvin’s character flaws — I have plenty myself — but amidst these faults the grace of God prevailed in some marvelous ways. I’m not interested in portraying Calvin, or any man, as “a paragon of Christian charity,” but rather as a vessel of God’s mercy.
I’ve recently read Bruce Gordon’s biography of Calvin and the typical Reformation scholarship of, e.g., Heiko Oberman and Steven Ozment. I read some of Calvin’s correspondence for my class on the Reformation as an undergraduate (at a large, secular university). I’m no expert, to be sure, but I’m hardly ignorant either.
Kevin D (#2):
I notice that Dr Anders described some of the measures Calvin actually took in Geneva to punish and suppress dissent. Are you prepared to justify them? I also notice that many Protestants condemn similar measures that Catholic authorities once took to punish and suppress dissent. Do you agree with those Protestants? If so, I’d love to see you try to explain how Calvin was justified in doing what Catholic prelates were unjustified in doing.
This is just further support for an argument I’ve been making for years. It is evident that intelligent, well-informed people can study the same dataset, and even be disturbed by the same problems, and yet come to mutually incompatible theological conclusions about how to interpret the data so as to solve the problems. The question then arises: how is one to tell the difference between conclusions that are only personal opinions, and conclusions that actually express the assent of faith as distinct from opinion? My argument is that, if the Protestant hermeneutical paradigm were correct, then one could not tell the difference, whereas if the Catholic HP is correct, one can. And I take it as self-evident that such is a reason to prefer the Catholic HP.
Best,
Mike
Actually, I thought it was anything but typical. Most converts (and Calvinists) I know seem to have glossed over Calvin, but it’s obvious that Dr. Anders knows his subject, both on a professional and a personal level. Anyway, his admission that he found he didn’t like Calvin seems almost secondary, doesn’t it?
And while I do think that Protestantism is doomed to confusion, I think the point of this article is that Protestantism is not doomed so much to inconsistency as it is to an extreme reductionism that squeezes out anything other than “We both love Jesus” from gospel unity. What we have in Calvin is an early indicator of where Protestantism was headed. I think he demonstrates that well, generally-speaking.
Thanks for your response, Kevin. Just so you know, I didn’t mean to imply that you hadn’t read anything else by/about Calvin. It was an honest question and I can tell from your answer that you’re probably more well-read than I am on the specifics of Calvin’s life. On the other hand, since Dr. Anders focused on Calvin in his PhD in Reformation History, I’m going to assume he’s read (and written) more than both of us on the subject. In this relatively short and basic article he made mention of particular historical incidents and quoted from particular texts in support of his claim that Calvin was often proud and unyielding, yet you didn’t attempt to refute any of them in your original response; you merely quoted and condemned the conclusion without evaluating the premises. Which of the historical examples mentioned in the article do you disagree with?
Dr and Mrs Anders, welcome home.
While I was not a Calvinist of any stripe, I remember reading the Institutes and then comparing them with the biography of Calvin and the history of Geneva during his reign. I did that in part because I understood that one is supposed to “watch what I do, not what I say,” although one can hope that the words and deeds match.
I had the impression then and have found nothing to contradict the impression that Geneva was a police state with a fairly high level of control invested in those who ran that jail. Conformity – with great peer pressure backed by punishment – was the watchword. Obedience to Calvin and then the ministers/theology. (In reading the article and again noting the punishments, I was reminded of Article 58:10, anti-Soviet agitation, as the basis for punishment in a later police state.)
I was not impressed by Calvin’s theology, and I was even less impressed by his efforts. He appeared to be the enemy of the good, rather a herald thereof.
That kind of recognition by an American of Calvinist leanings with an evangelical background would be a problem. You want to love God freely and, thinking he is Calvin your ally, determine he is in fact Calvin your enemy, who intends you to be Pinnochio while he pulls the strings. Calvin was proud, judgmental and unyielding. A perfect temperment for a dictator.
Fortunately Rome did enter the argument as a proper disputant, with birthdays all the way back to the beginning as the Church instituted by Christ Jesus and given the authority to do what it must to bring redemption to the human race. The saints noted above evidenced obedience by desire out of love, no strings attached, and the comparison with the reformers was (and continues to be) staggering.
Isn’t Bolsec the one who was in trouble everywhere- not just Geneva? Isn’t he the one who wrote a biography on Calvin making him out to be vile, promiscuous with both men and women? Hasn’t this person been sufficiently been discredited? How did Bolsec gain sympathy from Dr. Anders?
Ron,
It doesn’t appear to me that Dr. Anders is showing sympathy toward Bolsec, rather painting Bolsec and Calvin in the same light (two people who claimed to have hold of the Holy Spirit and held their individual interpretation of Scripture as valid, though they were mutually exclusive). It appears to me that Dr. Anders is using Bolsec’s case to show Calvin’s “dark side”, not from Bolsec’s biography, but from objective history and Calvin’s mouth himself. If Dr. Anders has converted to Catholicism, it should be an indicator that he is no apologist for Bolsec either.
Dr. Anders,
I enjoyed the article. Your points about the Reformation theology of the 16th century not being the same as modern day evangelical spirituality were good and valid, but how do you get from realizing that to making the move to Rome? The realization of that has caused some Presbyterians to move to a more catholic view of the Church. And not a few Lutheran and Anglican churches are still orthodox and still holding to the Reformation theology as articulated by the Reformers. How would you view them?
On the other hand, in support of your point (which is that Protestantism must either have arbitrary authoritative interpretation, or no authoritative interpretation at all), consider this quotation:
Upon first seeing this, the reader might suspect it to be from a Roman Catholic document from the time of the Reformation. In fact, this is a quote from the “Decree Against Toleration,” published by the Reformed Church of Scotland in 1649. The irony is palpable, especially in this quote, but also throughout the entire document (which can be found here: http://www.reformed.org/ecclesiology/index.html). The theology of the Church of Scotland was, admittedly, founded in a great part on the theology of a man who did exactly what they condemned–John Calvin went against the Church’s opinion and interpreted Scripture as he wished. It just goes to show that nearly everyone (aside from men like Chillingworth) before the rise of evangelicalism did realize that there has to be an interpretive authority–but Protestantism didn’t want Rome to occupy that seat of authority.
Pax Christi,
Spencer
Bolsec converted to Catholicism too. FWIW.
Ron, in what way and by whom has Bolsec been discredited? Discredited how? Are you claiming that Dr. Anders is wrong and that Bolsec was not imprisoned for disagreeing with John Calvin’s interpretation of the Scriptures? If that’s the case, can you produce evidence of this?
Spencer (#12):
You are quite right. And I think that points up the fundamental problem with the Reformation at its very beginnings.
The so-called “Colloquy of Marburg” held in 1527 among the major Reformers of the time broke up in acrimony. The ample scholarship on that event shows that the broad outlines of the split between Lutheran, Reformed, and free-church Protestantism were evident even then. Thus a few years later (1530), Casper Schwenckfeld could cynically note that “the Papists damn the Lutherans; the Lutherans damn the Zwinglians; the Zwinglians damn the Anabaptists and the Anabaptists damn all others.” By the end of the seventeenth century many others saw that it was not possible on the basis of Scripture alone to build up a detailed orthodoxy commanding general assent. (A.N.S. Lane, “Scripture, Tradition and Church: An Historical Survey”, Vox Evangelica, Volume IX – 1975, pp. 44, 45). The Lutherans, the Zwinglians, even the Anabaptists each recognized the need for an ecclesial interpretive authority; but because they eschewed ecclesial infallibility, and each claimed authority on the basis of mutually incompatible interpretations of Scripture, they left themselves absolutely no way to adjudicate between competing claims to such authority. In other words, by rejecting the sacramental magisterial authority claimed by the Catholic Church in virtue of apostolic succession, as that concept was traditionally understood, they left themselves unable to bring off the very thing whose necessity they took for granted. All they could do was assert the primacy of their own consciences and hence the utter rightness of their own opinions, as if they had the sort of authority they all rejected. We see the results today, but they were already evident centuries ago.
Best,
Mike
Tim,
No disagreement with the fact of his imprisonment. He was considered a trouble-maker in many other cities as well. He wrote some pretty far-fetched things about Calvin and others. My only point is that imprisoning Bolsec, knowing more of the history, does not make him just like any other evangelical of today. Objectively, from history- he was a trouble-maker and I am sure Calvin was probably not the only one wishing him in a ditch.
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This article is so far from the published primary source material on Calvin and the Genevan Consistory that I must say YOU GUYS CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS!
Aside from the fact that this site itself is dishonest in attempting to appear as something other than what it is – a propaganda engine to convert folks to Romanism – the above post just represents more historical revisionism with a jaundiced Roman eye typical of the sort of half-informed historically inaccurate mish mash that makes up the main of Catholic apologetics on the Internet.
So you have one more wishy-washy Evangelical academic who has found his way to Rome – so what? Is this not merely evidence that even the brightest of men in the worst of environments rationalize the idolatry they suppose in their hearts and find a way to that which they want regardless of the truth of the matter? If Dr. Anders account and story was really objective in his look at Calvin, would he really have the unmitigated gall to call Calvin proud and judgmental? Can you not see that this is hardly an account that looks at the history without undue bias?
It is amusing to see the difference between those who convert from Romanism to Protestantism, and those who convert from Protestantism to Romanism.
The first group – and I’ve seen quite a few of those – bases their conversion to Protestantism because they found some objective principles of interpretation. Very seldom you see a convert to Protestantism that bases their conversion on some kind of personal feelings or preferences – it is usually a doctrinally motivated conversion.
This article – and I find it amusing – talks mainly about the personal preferences of the author. Here what he says at the conclusion of the article:
“One of the most satisfying things about my discovery of the Catholic Church is that it fully satisfied my desire for historical rootedness.”
Notice the words: “…it fully satisfied my desire…” It is about personal satisfaction, it is not about objective truths. The rest of the article is exactly that: An attempt – and very lame attempt, I must say – at rationalizing a decision that was made on entirely subjective, emotional, anti-intellectual basis. It is strange that a person would be proud of being so self-centered that to make his personal preferences a factor in choosing his religion (whatever happened to objective truth?) but it is even more strange that the Roman church would accept and promote such conversion. It only comes to prove that the Roman converts are moved by emotionalism, not very different from Charismatics, Manicheans, and other anti-intellectual groups. Those that value the truth of the Bible over any personal preferences have only choice: Reformed Christianity.
Make that banishment.
Ron – that’s cool I’m not disagreeing with you. I’ve been quite a trouble-maker in my day as well. I don’t know what it means in his case because I don’t know the history. I mean if he was breaking the law – he should have been thrown in prison I agree. But was that what he was thrown in there for or was it something else? Dr. Anders makes it sound like Bolsec was put into prison for disagreeing with Calvin. Troublemaker or not, I think it makes Dr. Anders’ point (if that’s true). But maybe it’s not – is that not what he was thrown in prison for?
Bojidar Marinov,
With all respect, brother, this sounds uncharitable towards Dr. Anders. To say that his move to Rome was wrong is one thing, and to say that there is a little bit of triumphalism in this article which might have been left out is one thing, but to impute an entirely emotionally based conversion to Dr. Anders is unfounded.
I am currently at a period of being undecided about ecclesiology and am working through the process of discernment. While I agree with you that sometimes nowadays too much stress is put on the emotional aspects of conversion stories to Rome, I don’t think you find that in this article–which focuses mostly on objective historical and theological argumentation–and certainly not on C2C as a whole.
I am grateful to the writers of C2C for their desire to seek the unity of all Christians. May we all be brought into one fold, under one Shepherd.
Pax Christi,
Spencer
Spencer,
Thank you for that. I was afraid that this combox was headed for disaster. Hopefully, the tone will come down a notch or two.
Spencer,
“C2C” is not about the unity of all Christians – that is merely codespeak for saying that what C2C and its authors desire is for everyone to “convert” to Rome. This is why real ecumenism with Rome is impossible. It is either the Roman way or the highway – and this exclusivist position is hardly in line either with the reality of Christ and His Church spread across all sorts of communions and lands and the actuality that there are Christians outside of Rome’s walls.
But, as I said earlier, I just wish you fellows would be blatantly honest with those you speak to about these things instead of inferring that what you are really about is unity among all brothers. The truth is you are not interested in any unity except that which would be present from everyone capitulating their position and practice in favor of yours. At root, this project is dishonest in the extreme and it is only the uninformed that will buy what you are selling. But, that is what wolves do – parade as sheep for the sake of deception.
Spencer, my words may sound “uncharitable,” but can that be a reason for not saying what is obvious from the very words of the article? The author ends the article with what he believes is “one of the most satisfying things,” and it is that some “desire” of his has been satisfied. Since when, I ask, is satisfaction of personal desires the standard for discerning God’s truth? Is it possible that sometimes God’s truth is emotionally or intellectually “unsatisfactory” because of our fallen nature? (Not that the truth of God itself is imperfect or unsatisfactory.)
What the author has done is he has taken his own desires and lusts for his standard for judging the truth – by his own admission, note that, not by my judgment. Don’t kill the messenger, I am only pointing to a fact in the very article itself. I am not being “uncharitable,” I am only pointing to what the author himself says about himself. And I am commenting on it.
And I don’t understand why Joe June had to make the comment above: “I was afraid that this combox was headed for disaster. Hopefully, the tone will come down a notch or two.” I find this very offensive and un-Christian. Just because I disagree with the author of the article doesn’t make my comment “disastrous” or “high notch.” But since I meet such an attitude, I’ll leave y’all and not disturb your comfortable discussion anymore.
Tim,
On multiple occasions Bolsec disrupted speakers and publicly derided the ministers of Geneva. His arrest was due to disorderly conduct and his inappropriate speech against the ministers. This was not Calvin’s doing- Calvin did him banished from Geneva though. Although there was much debate about double predestination (which Bolsec took issue with), he was accused of Pelagianism and if I recall the RCC and every other orthodox Christian body thinks is wrong. Many in Geneva, as well as other Reformers (like Philipp Melachthon) thought Calvin was too harsh.
Bojidar,
The first group – and I’ve seen quite a few of those – bases their conversion to Protestantism because they found some objective principles of interpretation. Very seldom you see a convert to Protestantism that bases their conversion on some kind of personal feelings or preferences – it is usually a doctrinally motivated conversion.
Since we’re sharing anecdotes, almost every person I know or have heard of who leave the Catholic Church for Protestantism–and there are a lot of them–were poorly catechized in their faith and left the Church quite ignorant of what she actually teaches. An earnest Protestant sets them up with some questions their nominal Catholic understanding has no (or bad) answers for, then shows them with some Bible verses how their answer is wrong and why they need to be saved by Christ [through Protestant Christianity]. That’s 99% of conversions right there; doubt it? just look at South America.
The Protestants who convert to Catholicism, on the other hand, are strong in their faith and know Protestantism well. Usually they have tremendous prejudices against the Catholic Church which they must overcome, along with the dread of their Protestant friends, family, and community being hurt by their decision, not understanding it, and possibly ostracizing them. They convert only because they become convinced that the Catholic Church teaches the fullness of the truth.
To Dr. Anders: excellent and insightful article. I’ve sent it to my Presbyterian friend.
Kevin, (re: #23)
Welcome to Called to Communion. If you look at the Posting Guidelines, you will see that ad hominems are not allowed here. I let both your comments through because if this is your first time posting here, you might not know about the rules for commenting here. The purpose of these rules is so that we can have free, open and fruitful discussion without fear of insults and personal attacks. That means that accusing others of dishonesty is not allowed here. Neither is calling other people “wolves.” If you think something in David’s post is false, feel free to explain which of his claims is false, and why they are false. So far, you have not refuted anything in David’s article.
As for Called to Communion’s mission, we do pray earnestly for the union of all Christians. And we believe that this unity can only be had by union with the successor of St. Peter. We have been open and clear about that from the beginning. We explained our mission in our first post here back on Ash Wednesday in 2009, in which we wrote:
A very short time later we explained the difference between two conceptions of ecumenicism, one built on compromise, and the other built on mutual pursuit of truth. Your notion of ecumenicism seems to be that everyone must compromise. But are you willing to compromise about your conception of ecumenicsm? If so, then we can dialogue about that, on the “Two Ecumenicisms” thread. If you want all Christians in the world to believe just like you, then your position is no more subject to compromise than that of the Catholic Church. But if you are fine with Christians not believing just like you, then you shouldn’t mind Christians believing that true unity only comes through full communion with the successor of St. Peter. Just because people believe true unity requires full communion with the successor of St. Peter does not mean that they are dishonest or “wolves.”
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Kevin (#23):
I have a question for you. I shall ask it because I really don’t know the answer, and knowing the answer is important if dialogue is to be possible.
You wrote:
My question is this: how do you reconcile that statement with the following statement from Vatican II’s Unitatis Redintegratio (footnotes omitted; emphasis added):
Best,
Mike
Kevin,
“So you have one more wishy-washy Evangelical academic who has found his way to Rome – so what?”
I would say back to you: You are better than that. If we are going to have real discussion about such crucial and vital matters, we can do without comments like “wishy-washy” which serve no purpose. You have something to offer as way of a critique and we are all ears and in fact pray for genuine engagement in mutual pursuit of the truth.
Kevin,
I apologize for appearing to “pile-on”. As I was typing and away from my computer I see that Bryan already responded. I echo his words.
Devin’s experience matches up with mine, too. Most of the converts from either side to the other are converts from Protestant to Catholicism, not Catholicism to Protestantism. Of the people I know on both sides, those on the former are generally more educated and have had the most to lose, socially speaking, from making the change. Rather than being moved by “emotion” (whatever Bojidar means by that), they saw the futility of a world in which they bore the weight of wading through thousands of competing voices demanding allegiance to their personal opinions about the meaning of scripture. They were convinced by object evidence from scripture and history that the Reformation distinctives were novelties, and that the Catholic Church was founded by Christ and given the Spirit in such a way as to be able to teach the faith authoritatively in all generations.
Most of the converts from Catholicism to Protestantism are also very similar to the ones Devin described. They were poorly catechized and eventually led astray by fluffy, “emotional” promises about a deeper “personal relationship with Christ” and freedom from the “bondage” of “religion” and “formalism.” In this sense most of these converts have the same grievances with traditional Reformed Christianity that they have with Catholicism. They don’t know anything about doctrine. They despise doctrine. This, again, is an objection that they hold against both Catholicism and traditional Reformed Christianity.
But really, what does all this matter? What does our personal experience have to do with anything under discussion? I find it highly ironic that Mr. Marinov begins his criticism of what he perceives to be an article poisoned with emotionalism and “personal desire” with a description of his own personal experience among converts, as if his triumphal report of his experience is supposed to mean something to us. Then, when called out for the rank lack of charity in his comment (He mentions more than once how “amusing” he finds the article; then labels the article lame, emotional, subjective, and anti-intellectual without even responding to any its particular historical and theological observations; then he compares converts to Catholicism to Manichaeans and Charismatics) he says that the person who pointed it out is being un-Christian. Come on. All of us on this site, as Devin pointed out, love Christ and the scriptures, and we spent a lot of time studying and praying before making the decision to convert. Most of us have or are pursuing advanced degrees in theology, philosophy and/or history. Many of us are suffering considerable fallout because of our decision to convert to Catholicism. To compare us to Pentecostals who roll around on the ground and have laughing fits is uncharitable. It’s not your “disagreement with the author” that makes your post high notch, but your condescending rhetoric.
I will leave the business of “sharing anecdotes” to the others, and I will point to a very firmly established fact: The very words of the very author of the article:
“One of the most satisfying things about my discovery of the Catholic Church is that IT FULLY SATISFIED MY DESIRE for historical rootedness.”
You can talk about “anecdotes” all day long, I will stick to the article itself, and what the author reveals about himself in his own words.
I can also use David Pell’s words, while he is using anecdotes:
“Rather than being moved by “emotion” (whatever Bojidar means by that), they saw the futility of a world in which THEY BORE THE WEIGHT of wading through thousands of competing voices demanding allegiance to their personal opinions about the meaning of scripture.”
Another proof of emotionalism as a factor of converting to Romanism. These people just got tired of doing what they were supposed to do: Study the Scriptures.
I also like the fact that from the words of both Devin and David – no anecdotal evidence, their own words, please note – those that come from Romanism to Protestantism are poorly catechized, have no knowledge, and are in need of better instruction in the faith. To the contrary, those that come from Protestantism, are well-educated, catechized, have strong faith, and are real Christians.
I think that shows very well the fruit of the two faiths: Even the worst level of faith in the Protestantism is much better educated in the faith than most Romanists. And I must admit: I have very seldom seen any faith or understanding in those that come from Romanism. We need to educate them and catechize them. Whereas there is not much need to educate and catechize those that convert from Protestantism to Romanism – they come educated and understanding.
Ron – That sounds fair. Dunno my history there so I’ll take your word until I know better but it sure sounds like the sort of thing that could get misrepresented.
Ron – let me clarify – I meant that it [the Bolsec scenario] could easily get misrepresented. I’m not claiming that you are likely misrepresenting it.
Bojidar,
Let’s leave to the side your concerns about one making a decision based off what you claim was emotional. To be fair, as St. Augustine said long ago, we have made for God and our hearts our restless until they find Him. Thus, if one finds the truth about God and His Church then it should not be surprising that our desires are met. I do not concede that Dr. Anders left the Reformed faith for such reasons as you claim but I think it best to address his topic: How John Calvin Made Me a Catholic.
When Calvin writes, in reference to the Church, that leaving her is always fatal, as the following quote makes clear, on what basis did he (Calvin) leave the Church? That is a fair question and not based off emotionalism. I would be happy to get your thoughts about that, if you don’t mind.
“But as it is now our purpose to discourse of the visible Church, let us learn, from her single title of Mother, how useful, nay, how necessary the knowledge of her is, since there is no other means of entering into life unless she conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourish us at her breasts, and, in short, keep us under her charge and government, until, divested of mortal flesh, we become like the angels, (Matth. 22: 30.) For our weakness does not permit us to leave the school until we have spent our whole lives as scholars. Moreover, beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for, as Isaiah and Joel testify, (Isa. 37: 32; Joel 2: 32.) To their testimony Ezekiel subscribes, when he declares, “They shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel,” (Ezek. 13: 9;) as, on the other hand, those who turn to the cultivation of true piety are said to inscribe their names among the citizens of Jerusalem. For which reason it is said in the psalm, “Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance,” (Ps. 106: 4, 6.) By these words the paternal favour of God and the special evidence of spiritual life are confined to his peculiar people, and hence the abandonment of the Church is always fatal.” (IV:4).
Tim, it is easy. Calvin never left the Church. It may be your personal opinion that he left the Church, or it may satisfy some personal desire for you to say that he left the Church, but the reality is that Calvin never left the Church.
Bojidar — The fact that Dr. Anders’ desire for historical rootedness was fulfilled in his reception into the Church neither condemns conversion to Catholicism nor impugns Dr. Anders’ reasons for doing so.
If an atheist joined your reformed congregation and expressed how relieved he was to finally have his desire for communion with the transcendent fulfilled would you chastise him for not talking about objective truth enough? Or would you be happy that his conversion to the objective truth of the death and resurrection of Christ for that man came along with spiritual, psychological and epistemological consolation?
Dr. Anders’ didn’t say that consolation of historical rootedness (which one ought to expect when coming to the knowledge of the God of history) was his only reason for converting. I might be better to say it was a delightful side-benefit of discovering the objective truth that the Catholic Church is the Church Jesus founded.
At any rate it’s clear that Dr. Anders did a great deal of historical and theological study on his way to Catholicism. He’s at least got one more doctorate than you or I do in studying Calvin. You’re really making a mountain out of a molehill of a passing remark.
Bojidar said: “Those that value the truth of the Bible over any personal preferences have only choice: Reformed Christianity.”
Of course no personal preferences, just the clear truth of the bible leads to (as you said it) the only choice………
Canadian and American Reformed Churches
Christian Reformed Church in North America
Christian Reformed Churches of Australia
Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches
Congregational Federation of Australia
Dutch Reformed Church
Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches
Free Reformed Churches of North America
Heritage Reformed Congregations
Netherlands Reformed Congregations
Orthodox Christian Reformed Church
Protestant Reformed Churches in America
Reformed Church in America
Reformed Church in Hungary
Reformed Church in the United States
Remonstrant Brotherhood
United Reformed Church
United Reformed Churches in North America
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
Bible Presbyterian Church
Christ Community Church
Church of Scotland
Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches
Cumberland Presbyterian Church
Evangelical Presbyterian Church
Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales
Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ukraine
Evangelical Presbyterian Church (Australia)
Free Church of Scotland
Free Church of Scotland (Continuing)
Free Presbyterian Church (Australia)
Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland
Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster
Greek Evangelical Church
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church in America
Presbyterian Church in Canada
Presbyterian Church of India
Presbyterian Church in Ireland
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan
Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand
Presbyterian Church of Australia
Presbyterian Church of Brazil
Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia
Presbyterian Church of Korea
Presbyterian Church of Pakistan
Presbyterian Church of Wales (also a Methodist church)
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Presbyterian Reformed Church (Australia)
Presbyterian Reformed Church (Canada)
Reformed Church of France
Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly
Reformed Presbyterian Church of Australia
Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America
Southern Presbyterian Church (Australia)
United Free Church of Scotland
Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa
United Presbyterian Church of Pakistan
Upper Cumberland Presbyterian Church
Westminster Presbyterian Church of Australia
There’s many more, but you get the idea.
Canadian, of your post I conclude that the biggest “choice” for you that comes from your faith is what organization you need to join. Your earthly membership in an organization seems to be of much importance to you. May be it satisfies some personal desire to be under a bureaucratic umbrella, I suppose. It seems to be much more important than your faith in Jesus Christ as your only Lord and Savior, irrespective of earthly bureaucratic organizations. That must be why Jesus died: To make you a member of a religious club.
By the way, all the above are part of the community of faith. The existence of these separate bodies is not a choice you make from your faith, it is a choice you make from your understanding of your faith, or to put it in different words, it is your confession of faith. Let me remind you that the Roman church today is much different from what it was 10 centuries ago. Just look at your last catechism – 800 pages, isn’t it? Do you know it all? I doubt it. So you have accepted the “choice” of one organization that you don’t even know what it believes.
Greetings, C2C.
I wish to thank all of you for your feedback, and for the opportunity to share my thoughts and experiences.
At this point, I would like to respond to a few of the initial comments on my article.
To begin with, let me say that I wrote this article to point out some very specific nuances in the history of Calvinism and Evangelicalism, and to explain how this helped me on my path to Rome. The title “How John Calvin Made me a Catholic” is obviously a bit of hyperbole, and does not begin to explain all the reasons I became Catholic.
My “desire for historical rootedness” and my frustrations with the”confusion and inconsistency” of Protestantism were very real, but hardly sufficient reasons to join the Catholic Church. To Bojidar, Kevin, and Spencer, I say that my conversion to Catholicism was the fruit of ten years of theological study, and the honest conclusions arrived at in the pursuit of truth. Becoming Catholic was literally the last thing I ever wanted or expected, but I joined the Church fully convinced of its truth. My conversion was not simply an emotional response to Protestant anarchy.
Many Evangelicals come to Rome in search of an interpretive authority. While this is the logical thing to do – answering the epistemological question first – accepting the Church’s magisterium was actually the last step in my conversion. My journey began with soteriology – comparing biblical and patristic doctrines to the Reformers. I concluded – on the basis of hard, cold, unemotional exegesis – that Luther profoundly misread Paul. From this, I reexamined ecclesiology, and ultimately authority, and concluded that the Catholics had the better arguments.
I have given a broader account of my conversion here:
http://www.chnetwork.org/newsletters/may10.pdf
I have also given an interview that goes into more of the doctrinal basis for my conversion.
It is available online :
http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?seriesID=-6892289
Also, in response to my historical claims about Calvin and Bolsec.
I deliberately left out most of the footnoting I would have included in an academic article.
If you would like more documentation, please examine my dissertation.
It is avaible at:http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb#search
Prophets from the ranks of shepherds: John Calvin and the challenge of popular religion (1532–1555)
by Anders, Albert David Ph.D., The University of Iowa, 2002, 712 pages.
For those who are interested, I also recommend Philip Holtrop’s 2-volume study on the Bolsec controversy.
Michael Liccione,
No, I am not willing to defend Calvin’s handling of Geneva at all points, and I’m certainly not going to defend his role in Servetus’ execution. However, a contextual reading certainly relativizes the actions and perhaps lessening the culpability — I don’t know, I’m not Calvin’s judge…God is.
Dr. Anders,
Thank you for your contribution to CtC.
Bojidar,
If Calvin did not leave the Church, then what is it that he did?
“Your earthly membership in an organization seems to be of much importance to you. May be it satisfies some personal desire to be under a bureaucratic umbrella, I suppose. It seems to be much more important than your faith in Jesus Christ as your only Lord and Savior, irrespective of earthly bureaucratic organizations. That must be why Jesus died: To make you a member of a religious club.”
Your comments about a Church would be correct if the Church were a man-made institution. To require membership in a man-made institution for salvation would be the height of arrogance and is not credible. However, the Church is not of man’s authority or creation but of God and has Christ for Her Founder and as such she is His Bride endowed with His authority, which can be traced back to the Apostles, empowered by the Holy Spirit working through history in this one Body of Christ.
Tom, it is simple: Calvin stayed in the Church and helped reform the Church.
“Your comments about a Church would be correct if the Church were a man-made institution.”
Tom, notice: my comments were not about “a Church.” They were about a bureaucratic organization. The Roman church is not a “church” in the Scriptural sense, therefore it is a man-made organization. Therefore my comments are correct.
BM (#44):
Since Dr Anders has clearly reached the opposite conclusion after a long study of the issues, I wonder what authority you’re willing to acknowledge for adjudicating between his interpretation of Scripture and yours on the question what counts as ‘church’. Is it scholarship? Is it what you take to be the inner testimony of the Spirit? Or some combination of the two? And whatever your answer, how would we know it’s anything more than one opinion among many, i.e. a doctrine propounded with divine authority?
Bojidar,
Though this thread was supposed to be about the Dr.’s conversion and what he discovered about Calvin, you have made it about the foundational difference between Protestantism and Catholicism.
I have to ask you: how do you know the Bible is the inspired word of God? After all, there were more than 150 manuscripts floating around for the first few centuries before the canon of Scripture was decided upon. Martin Luther went through the Scriptures and decided which ones he believed were inspired, and chucked several books that had been accepted as inspired by all of Christianity up until that point. I have to wonder why every person with a personal relationship with Christ does not have the right to read over the 150+ manuscripts himself, and decide for himself which ones are inspired by the Holy Spirit and which ones are not. Why does Martin Luther get to decide, but I don’t? This is why Protestantism is founded on a house of sand, because the only way you can know the Scriptures are inspired is by submitting to the Catholic Church’s authority. There is no other way to know that a specific writing is inspired except through authoritative revelation and that revelation came through the Catholic Church more than a thousand years before Protestantism cropped up. The very Bible you use to bash the Catholic Church was given to you by the Catholic Church. As Scott Hahn so aptly put it, you must sit in Rome’s lap to slap her in the face.
I believe Dr. Ander’s point is that the foundational principle of modern Protestantism–the absolute right to privately interpret Scripture–was not, in fact, a principle of the Reformation. The leaders of the Reformation were absolutely ruthless in their quests to serve as the authoritative interpreters of Scripture and doctrinal gatekeepers. What he and others have touched on here are the real, practical problems with sola scriptura, and why it can never be the foundation for Christianity that Jesus intended. In reality, the only person who is allowed to practice sola scriptura is the pastor of the Protestant church. Anyone who disagrees with him will be asked to leave. I simply cannot believe Our Lord would have prayed for a unity that he did not believe was possible. And unity IS impossible in Protestantism, with “every man his own Pope,” to quote Mr. Luther.
Michael, I already wrote a post about it but the admins decided to not publish it.
David Anders self-proclaimed authority is his “ten years of theological studies” and “honest conclusions.” It is all his, I concede that, and his it must remain. I will say that I have TWENTY years of theological studies, with ten years of non-Christian philosophical studies before that, before I became a Christian. And my conclusions are every bit as “honest” as his.
Bojidar,
You said,
You have yet to show this in your comments. Therefore, your comments are “correct” as far as they only line-up with your own personal judgment and reaffirm it – which you have yet to prove both in the “Scriptural sense” and the historical sense to Tom or any of us. You should try to avoid statements like these unless you can include some support for them.
In the peace of Christ,
Sh’muel
My apologies for comment stacking, Dr. Liccione got to ya first :)
Herein lies the beauty of the Catholic Church. I don’t have to wrestle with the claims of competing scholars or have 30 years of theological study to worship God in good conscience. “Professional theologian” is not my vocation. God’s wisdom is not man’s wisdom, which is why the principle of unity in the Church was always apostolic succession, not years of theological study. Thank God that we have a principle that can be understood and followed by those without even a year of formal theological study, or those who lived before the canonization of the bible or the invention of the printing press. It’s not a “desire for ease,” as our interlocutor here would insult us. It’s “they listened to the teaching of the apostles, broke the bread and prayed.” It’s “obey your elders, for they have been put over you by God as stewards of your souls.” It’s “not all of you should desire to be teachers.” It’s a recognition with the Ethiopian eunuch that I need someone to explain the faith to me. The big-C Catholic principle is truly a little-c catholic principle. This Church is for everyone.
Bojidar (#47):
I very much doubt that Dr Anders believes his scholarly credentials prove Catholicism to be true, or that he is more “honest” than you. He has written what is largely a brief intellectual autobiography, and that’s why I understand why the “admins” wouldn’t let you publish your arguments, if that’s the choice they made. In that case, my request that you produce such arguments was probably inappropriate. Sorry.
Best,
Mike
Kevin D (#41):
I’m glad to hear that. I’m sure you’ll be equally glad to hear that I see the Catholic persecutors in the same way.
Best,
Mike
The “admins” for this thread are not allowing comments that contain personal attacks or insults directed at other participants in the conversation. Discuss the evidence, arguments, history, all you want. But comments containing personal attacks will not be approved.
“Let your speech always be with grace” (Col 4:6)
Dawn, every single one of the questions you are asking are answered by Protestant theologians in the last 400 years. As are all the arguments that Anders mentions in his article. Which brings me to the question how much of “serious studies” he has really done if he repeats arguments that have been answered, without providing explanation for his personal choice to ignore the answers. My bet is he hasn’t done much of a study if he doesn’t know that those arguments are proven false by the opponents.
Again, my argument stands, that Anders’ conversion to Romanism is entirely based on his personal emotional preferences. “Ten years of study” and “honest conclusions” are not very convincing claims if all he does is repeat warmed over arguments that have been answered. Anders lacks any convincing claim to objective reasons for his conversion. It is entirely personal, and while it is interesting to read, it can’t be taken for authoritative – unless, of course, we want make the Roman church be as subjectivist in its apologetics as are the Charismatics.
David Pell, you “beauty of the catholic church” proves exactly what I set out to prove: namely, that those who choose the Roman church do it for one main reason: personal preference to not study the Scriptures themselves. This is no objective argument, this is a subjective argument. It is your own, and your won it will remain. There is no excuse for not studying the Scripture.
Michael:
“I very much doubt that Dr Anders believes his scholarly credentials prove Catholicism to be true, or that he is more “honest” than you. He has written what is largely a brief intellectual autobiography…”
Well, then my case is closed. Your words, if taken face value, proved what I set out to prove: Anders’ conversion is based on personal emotional preferences – no matter what he claims. He has no objective grounds for his conversion, only the satisfaction of some personal needs and desires.
Hey, @Canadian #38, you left out the Reformed Churches of New Zealand, which is the one that led me (through teaching me the principles of religious authority and love for truth) to the Catholic Church in 1995 – thanks be to God!
Wonderful news, Dr Anders.
jj
Bojidar,
As a once firmly convinced Reformed Baptist who (wrongly) considered Catholics to have embraced a “false gospel of works” and who genuinely longed to persuade them of their “errors,” I can assure you that emotion does not win the day for me here. I am concerned about truth– what the Bible actually teaches.
If I still believed that the Biblical Gospel consisted of justification (a legal declaration of the sinner’s imputed righteousness before God) by grace through faith *alone*, I would still be a Protestant. If one really wishes to look at the clear teaching of the Bible on this issue, the second chapter of James states explicitly that man is *not* justified by faith alone. I know that Protestants will say that this verse must be interpreted in light of the other, “clear” verses on justification in the Bible which supposedly “prove” that justification actually *is* by faith alone. (Of course, I know that Protestants will say this– it is what I said as a Protestant myself!) However, what could be more clear than James’ own statement? Why are the other verses on justification somehow more “clear” than this absolutely unequivocal one?
A large part of the reason that I am leaving Protestantism is that, in light of all of the Protestant exegetical (or *eisegetical*) gymnastics to support their various positions, the Catholic Church’s teaching simply makes much more obvious *sense* of the *Bible’s* teachings. Again, truth, not emotion.
Bojidar,
In the past I’ve seen accounts given of those who came into the Catholic Church that were much more ‘objectively’ styled and left out the ‘emotional.’ I’ve seen those authors get criticized from Protestants for not being emotional enough.
Bojidar,
In response to David’s statement in the article that “One of the most satisfying things about my discovery of the Catholic Church is that it fully satisfied my desire for historical rootedness,” in #18 you wrote:
What you offer is a false dilemma, one that is not charitable. Your dilemma ignores the possibility that historical rootedness is desirable presicisely insofar as it is truth-confirming. The truth of a system of theology that showed up yesterday, and claimed to be that taught by Jesus Christ of Nazareth, would be highly dubious, precisely because it lacks historical rootedness. Hence desiring historical rootedness can be an expression of our desire for objective truth. And because of that, and because charity requires that we assume the best of a person, until shown otherwise, we should assume that David desired historical rootedness precisely for this reason, i.e. in virtue of his desire for objective truth.
Then in #54 you wrote:
Your ‘argument’ is based on a false dilemma, as I showed above. And therefore, your conclusion does not follow that David’s conversion is “entirely based on his personal emotional preferences” or that “he has no objective grounds for his conversion.” Those are mere assumptions on your part (uncharitable as well), which do not follow from the false dilemma you offered in #18.
Lastly, in #54, you wrote:
If you think one (or more) of the statements David has made in his article is false, then instead of attacking David himself (i.e. by claiming that he hasn’t done serious study), the more charitable and appropriate response is to show which of his claims is false, and why it is false. So far, you have not done that. You have not shown that any of David’s statements are false. So at this point, David’s article stands entirely unrefuted.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Christopher and Sean, I am sure you have more anecdotal evidence, and I am sure it is your choice to interpret it as a “quest for truth” rather than emotional decision. Your personal interpretation of that anecdotal evidence is not an argument. What is an argument in this case, are the words of the author of the article, where he says that “one of the most satisfying things” is the fact that the Roman church satisfied a desire of his. I am sure that if you two needed to write an honest account of your conversion to Romanism, you’d have to make the same confession as the author does.
And Christopher, you have to make a gigantic logical leap from the statement “we are not justified by faith alone” to the statement “the Roman church has the authoritative interpretation of the Scripture.” While the former is a Biblical truth that requires interpretation in the light of the whole Scripture, the latter is a subjective statement of choice, and it has no direct grounds in the Scripture. There is no necessary logical connection between the two.
Bryan, my dilemma doesn’t ignore the possibility for the validity of historical rootedness as truth-confirming. In fact, if you knew anything about the arguments of the Reformers, you would know that their criticism against the Papacy are exactly that it has abandoned the historical rootedness and has created a new religion based on a bureaucratic organization, not on the truth of the Scripture and handed down by the Church Fathers. My dilemma only questions the motives of the author himself – as evidenced by his own honest statement of what is “most satisfying.”
In previous post – not published by the admins – I pointed to some false historical interpretations made by the author, and how they flow from his personal bias, not from any objective facts. I pointed to the following passage in the article:
“Calvin’s most important contribution to Geneva was the establishment of the Consistory – a sort of ecclesiastical court- to judge the moral and theological purity of his parishioners.”
“Most important contribution”??? Says who? Anders? Has Calvin ever declared this to be his “most important contribution”? I don’t recall so.
Calvin’s most important contribution is his Institutes of the Christian Religion. This is what he spent the bulk of his life on, and this is what we the Calvinists consider his REALLY most important contribution, to Geneva and to the rest of the world. If Anders has done any deep historical studies, he would have known that. But he chose to arbitrarily declare one little thing “the most important contribution” of Calvin because he has personal preferences.
An example of a historical event in the article presented falsely and interpreted subjectively by the author is this:
“One image in particular sticks in my mind. April, 1546. Pierre Ameaux, a citizen of Geneva, was forced to crawl to the door of the Bishop’s residence, with his head uncovered and a torch in his hand. He begged the forgiveness of God, of the ministers and of the city council. His crime? He contradicted the preaching of Calvin. The council, at Calvin’s urging, had decreed Ameaux’s public humiliation as punishment.”
And now the historical truth from someone who had TWENTY years of study:
Two and a half years earlier, Pierre Ameaux and his wife Benoite wanted a divorce with a permission to remarry to different partners in the future – a completely unbiblical divorce, you would admit. Pierre Ameaux was probably a libertine. To get a legal divorce, he had to appear before the Consistory and ask for permission to divorce his wife. He falsely accused his wife first of blasphemy, and then, at the second trial before the consistory, of adultery. The decisions of the Consistory did not please him, so he went around calling Calvin a “Picard” and that his teachings were false. (“Picard” is the Swiss derogatory word for the French, comparable to the N-word or to “gook” in America today.) For this he was sentenced – not by Calvin or the Consistory, note that – by the City Council to ask God for forgiveness. God, not Calvin.
The rest of the article is full with similar incorrect interpretations of history, Calvin, and Evangelical theology like that.
Bojidar (re: #59)
You wrote:
Your dilemma only “questions the motives of the author” if it is a true dilemma. But if you acknowledge the possibility that the desire for historical rootedness can be on account of it being truth-confirming, then your dilemma is a false dilemma, in which case you have not shown that the motives of the author are anything less than truth-loving.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
It is a bit too late for this, Bryan. I already showed that the author gives false account and interpretations of historical events. Even if by a logical twist you can show the probability that he is truth-loving – only a probability, mind you – his incorrect presentation of history speaks mightily against it.
Bojidar,
You say Dr. Anders is biased. Are you unbiased? I would say everyone who studies one historical fgiure as much as Dr. Anders has studied Calvin will have some emotion attached to his view of that person. He is not writing a scholarly piece. Emotions are allowed in this forum.
I do think you seem to view the choosing of Calvinism or Catholicism as merely a scholarly exercise. Who is right on the bible and on the history. It is more than that. Catholicism demands you ascent to the church as the body of Christ. Just like the incarnation of Jesus demanded more than a scholarly investigation of the truth of His claims. It demanded a response of faith. The church’s claim is similar. It claims to extends the incarnation into our present day. If Dr. Anders response was unemotional scholarship I would wonder if he got it.
Bojidar (re: #61)
At least we have established that all those things you claimed earlier (with such confidence and certainty) that supposedly followed from David’s statement about satisfying his “desire for historical rootedness” do not actually follow from that statement. Do you therefore wish (out of courtesy) to retract them, and build your case against David’s article entirely on the two items you describe in #59 (i.e. Calvin’s “most important contribution” and what David says about the case of Pierre Ameaux)?
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
This is an interesting post and discussion thread. I am an Anglican currently reading through the Catechism Of The Catholic Church. In the interest of ecumenism, is there anything Luther or Calvin did or wrote that Catholics find beneficial to the life of the Church? What are your thoughts on Luther’s attack on indulgences and a desire to return to the teachings of the early church fathers?
I am not a Calvinist. I think righteousness is infused. I reject Sola Scriptura. I have a mixed view of the Atonement (Christus Victor & Substitutionary)
Also, in light of Lumen Gentium #15, what incentive is there to abandon Anglicanism and enter the Roman Catholic communion? The spirit of the following statement seems to affirm ecumenical ties with us:
15. The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. (14*) For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. (15*) They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical communities. Many of them rejoice in the episcopate, celebrate the Holy Eucharist and cultivate devotion toward the Virgin Mother of God.(16*) They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits. Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood. In all of Christ’s disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, in the manner determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pursue this end. (17*) Mother Church never ceases to pray, hope and work that this may come about. She exhorts her children to purification and renewal so that the sign of Christ may shine more brightly over the face of the earth.
“What is an argument in this case, are the words of the author of the article, where he says that one of the most satisfying things’ is the fact that the Roman church satisfied a desire of his.”
Bojidar,
Your entire argument seems to hinge off of this one sentence in the article. Dr. Anders stated that the satisfaction of his desire… was ONE of the most satisfying things. One of MANY, not the ONLY one. Your assertion depends on his “desire for historical rootedness” being the ONLY satisfying thing about his conversion, which isn’t what he said at all. And to criticize the use of the the word “satisfy” in his article is plain silly. For example, one can receive satisfaction from intellectual endeavors just as much as they can sensually. Are you satisfied when you read the Scriptures? So, why can’t one be satisified with coming to realize Truth exists in its fullness within the fold of the Catholic Church? “Satisfaction” doesn’t necessarily imply thoughtless emotion. “Desire” is a synonym for “wish” or “request”. It doesn’t have to imply thoughtless emotion either. Basically, your argumentation is wrong on several fronts, even down to basic English. Nor have you proved any of your assertions to be accurate.
Randy, thank you for your admission. Yes, I say Anders is biased and this article must be taken for what it is: A purely subjective personal account. It is his, and his it shall remain. One only wonders why would Roman Catholicism rely on subjective accounts and bias, if the very Roman religion claims objectivity. I see contradiction here. Don’t you?
And no, Catholicism doesn’t demand the ascent to the Church as the body of Christ. Catholicism demands the subjection under a bureaucratic organization centered in Rome that claims to be the Church. There is nothing in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ that points to such subjection to a bureaucratic organization as a supposed “ascent to the church.” It is a later interpretation by Roman theologians who had vested interests in the bureaucratic organization of Rome – and just like Bryan said earlier, “The truth of a system of theology that showed up yesterday, and claimed to be that taught by Jesus Christ of Nazareth, would be highly dubious, precisely because it lacks historical rootedness.”
Therefore Romanism is every bit as historically unrooted as Anders accuses Protestantism to be.
Bryan, I don’t know how you have “established” such a thing. How did you establish something contrary to what the author said in the article, namely, that “one of the most satisfactory things” is that his desire was satisfied? By a logical twist? If we were talking abstract logic here, with no context, in a purely formal Aristotelian fashion, I would have said you have established that it is possible. But we have a specific case of an article and an author, who is proved to be less than objective or honest in his presentation of history, and we have his own admission that he is after his desires being satisfied. So even if I admit that in the abstract sense there is a probability that such a statement still allows for some slight probability for honest truth-seeking, how is this admission going to solve your problem in this specific case, where there are more factors involved?
The following statement is offensive and uncharitable:
“…and build your case against David’s article ENTIRELY ON THE TWO ITEMS you describe in #59 (i.e. Calvin’s “most important contribution” and what David says about the case of Pierre Ameaux)?”
It deliberately misses the very point of my post, that the whole article is written in the same spirit. I specifically mention that these are only examples of the authors incorrect and subjective interpretations. You can notice the last statement I made in that post, and you could have figured out I didn’t give more examples only because I didn’t want to make a longer post. If you want me to write a whole article debunking what Anders has said point by point, would you publish it on your site? I doubt so. Therefore I found it sufficient to only give two examples. They are enough to cast doubt on the honesty of something that is supposed to be a personal testimony.
Joe, your assessment of my argument is incorrect. If you want me to point to other places in the article where the subjectivism of the author is apparent, I will do it.
To start with:
“Strangely, mastering Calvin didn’t lead me anywhere I expected. To begin with, I DECIDED THAT I REALLY DIDN’T LIKE Calvin. I FOUND him proud, judgmental and unyielding.”
Strangely, if I wrote the same thing about the author of the article in this discussion, the admins won’t publish it. But notice the words: TO BEGIN WITH.
“Calvin’s most important contribution to Geneva was the establishment of the Consistory…”
Again, personal preference in deciding what is “Calvin’s most important contribution.”
“But I FINALLY REALIZED that Calvin, with his passion for order and authority, was fundamentally at odds with the individualist spirit of my Evangelical tradition.”
Again, a subjective realization. Amazingly, the most individualistic of all nations on this planet are the USA and Switzerland, both established by Calvinist populations in history. Obviously the author has his own subjective ways of interpreting Calvin and the Evangelical tradition.
There is more. In fact, the whole article is like that, based on subjective bias, not objective scholarship.
If I understand the idea of becoming a Catholic involved an emotional response, I’d have to say yes to that. My emotions weighed against becoming Catholic. Everyone and everything that was familiar, comfortable, and rote in my existence and practice was being shuttled out the door, so to speak. I had to justify what I was seeing with others who could or would not see the same things I was seeing, or were incapable of putting the same weight on them that I was being required to use. (Perhaps the cost to those individuals was even greater than mine. I do not know.)
Work out your salvation in fear and trembling were Paul’s words and look what he gave up to become a servant of Jesus. I cannot work my way to heaven, but I can merit the grace I am given by responding to it correctly to the best of my ability given my station in life. So I imitated Peter without the depth and breadth of his call when Jesus told him: “You follow Me.” I could have stayed where I was but I am convinced that had I done that, I would be damned in the real sense of that word, as in only fit for Hell. I would have denied the Truth and one cannot deny the Truth without peril to one’s own soul.
I found much more than I left behind. God is true and has been true to me. The item about a hundred fold for those who leave behind everything has been met in my experience. I was given a wife whose Presbyterian lay missionary parents generally loathed me for being Catholic and barely tolerated me for being married to their daughter. (They actually thought I was ripe for conversion. Weren’t they surprised!)
My wife found out what Catholicity really is and poped, and I became even less popular with my in-laws. The other side of that coin would note that I was able to share something in common with our Lord, and it was not the glad hand of welcome.
Later, my in-laws were in grave trouble. He had early dementia and she had alzheimers. We opened our home to them, setting up an in-law apartment for their privacy and otherwise ensuring that they were fed, bathed, provided with clean clothing and sheets, rides to the doctor, and regular doses of attention. It permitted my wife to honor her parents (and surprisingly reconnect with her siblings) and I was permitted to display that “turn the other cheek” response that Jesus commanded.
I definitely did not pope in the fit of an emotional ephiphany. It involved none of the high drama of my original conversion, nor did it resemble the emotional acme of a real pentecostal revival. I poped because the Church, the Body of which Christ is the Head, was right where I was right, and it was right where I was wrong – which I deemed at least as important as the right/right stuff.
When Newman arrived at the Catholic Church, he noted that Jesus had equipped It to do what must be done in the face of His enemy. The first thing I did, having already been validly baptised, was to make a good confession. What a relief! What a lifter of burdens! I also managed to find a rosary and learn to use that wonderful sacramental.
Surprisingly my wife, when she was received into the Church, started with a good confession and wept for joy coming out of the confessional. She had not been scolded by the confessor, she had been relieved of the burdens she carried and she recognized it as exactly that. God had forgiven her, and don’t we all need that.
Up above, Canadian does us the favor of listing the various Reformed communions and churches. When I first scanned it, it looked like the Yellow Pages under Church, and the Yellow Pages list the conflicts involved without providing the histories of those conflicts.
I have a good Catholic bible, a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, more good literature than I could ever have hoped for, the opportunity to serve, as in CCD, and a host of people who have my back, as with the mainstays of this website. Jesus noting a “hundred fold” might be a bit short in my case. I seem to have been favored more greatly than that and I am most appreciative.
Bojidar,
So, you are willing to abandon your argument over Dr. Ander’s supposedly purely emotional decision to become Catholic based on my solid refutation of that particular argument? Good. So, let’s move on to the other “new” elements you’ve discovered.
“Strangely, mastering Calvin didn’t lead me anywhere I expected. To begin with, I DECIDED THAT I REALLY DIDN’T LIKE Calvin. I FOUND him proud, judgmental and unyielding.”
Yes. That is his personal observation. But that observation, as I’m sure the Dr. would agree, is not the reason he became Catholic. There have been quite a number of “proud, judgmental, and unyielding” Catholics throughout the Church’s 2000 year old history as well. It doesn’t mean that the Church’s teachings are wrong. Nor does Calvin’s personality flaws, real or perceived, prove that he’s wrong. So it’s highly doubtful that this was the main criteria for Dr. Ander’s decision to become Catholic… which neuters your argument.
“Calvin’s most important contribution to Geneva was the establishment of the Consistory…”
Again, personal preference in deciding what is “Calvin’s most important contribution.”
I’m not sure what his most important contribution to Geneva was. If it wasn’t the establishment of the Consistory, please let me know what it was.
“But I FINALLY REALIZED that Calvin, with his passion for order and authority, was fundamentally at odds with the individualist spirit of my Evangelical tradition.”
First, you’d have to disprove that Calvin had a passion for order and authority to show that this is subjective reasoning. Second, the Doctor concludes that this passion for order and authority conflicted with the individualist spirit of his particular Evangelical tradition (and there are many). This is not a contradiction. This makes complete sense and can be proven objectively. His attraction was the individualist spirit of Evangelicalism and it conflicted with the authoritarian view. I see nothing wrong with this statement.
Ok, what else?
Donald, thank you for your honest post. You did prove my point: That conversion to Romanism is mainly a result of seeking satisfaction for emotional issues. I agree.
I only disagree with your justification of it. I find such an attitude self-centered. I don’t think a person can be proud of such an attitude. It also contradicts the Roman claims for “objectivity.” Apparently, a person becomes a Romanist just the way they become a Charismatic – based on emotions.
You still don’t seem to get it. Every conversion story is subjective and personal. But most involve a good bit of reason as well. It can impact us on many levels. You seem to put emotion against reason. That any emotion means you can ignore all the logic given.
You don’t seem to understand Catholicism very well. You seem to focus on a “bureaucratic organization”. I have not found Catholicism to be more or less bureaucratic than my protestant church was. It is entirely beside the point. Bringing it up means you are miles from asking the right question.
Are you claiming Jesus never talked about a church? Mt 18:17 says, “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” Are you claiming Jesus never said that? If not, then why do you say, “There is nothing in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ that points to such subjection to a bureaucratic organization as a supposed “ascent to the church.”?
You do a lot to question the motives of those who disagree with you. First Dr Anders and then “Roman theologians who had vested interests.” Questioning motives is easy. Interacting with arguments is harder.
Joe,
“So, you are willing to abandon your argument over Dr. Ander’s supposedly purely emotional decision to become Catholic based on my solid refutation of that particular argument? Good.”
Well, since you didn’t have any “solid refutation” of that argument in this particular context, logically I am forced to keep the argument. When you show a “solid refutation,” I will abandon it, I promise. I find you very far from the mark, yet.
“Yes. That is his personal observation. But that observation, as I’m sure the Dr. would agree, is not the reason he became Catholic.”
That’s your interpretation. Anders’ words are: TO BEGIN WITH. A different, way more logical interpretation, based on Anders’ own STARTING POINT, is that his conversion flowed from his initial “dislike” of Calvin. He didn’t know much about Calvin, then he found out he disliked Calvin. And then he makes a judgment of Calvin’s character – a judgment, I’d say, that is entirely inappropriate for a discussion like ours. If I said that I found Anders proud, judgmental and unyielding, that would mean my banishment from this discussion. But for some reason the admins won’t use the same standards fro Anders, would they?
“I’m not sure what his most important contribution to Geneva was. If it wasn’t the establishment of the Consistory, please let me know what it was.:
You could be sure if you just read what I wrote above: “Calvin’s most important contribution is his Institutes of the Christian Religion. This is what he spent the bulk of his life on, and this is what we the Calvinists consider his REALLY most important contribution, to Geneva and to the rest of the world.” Did you read it?
“First, you’d have to disprove that Calvin had a passion for order and authority to show that this is subjective reasoning. Second, the Doctor concludes that this passion for order and authority conflicted with the individualist spirit of his particular Evangelical tradition (and there are many). This is not a contradiction. This makes complete sense and can be proven objectively. His attraction was the individualist spirit of Evangelicalism and it conflicted with the authoritarian view. I see nothing wrong with this statement.”
Anders claims that he “realized” something that others reject. His realization is in conflict with the “realization” of so many others. There is no conflict between Calvin’s passion for order and authority and the individualist spirit of the Evangelical tradition. To say that, you must have made a priori assumption that “individualist spirit” necessarily contradicts “order and authority.” And then another assumption that “collectivism” necessarily means “order and authority.” Such assumptions are yet to be proven valid. Anders made a personal subjective decision to accept them for valid but he doesn’t show how he proved their validity. He must have accepted it for granted – hardly an objective, scholarly thing to do.
Randy, I have never read where Jesus equated the Church with a bureaucratic organization based in Rome. Please direct me to the specific words of Jesus Christ where He says so.
In response to the claim that I got my facts wrong in the Ameaux case:
From the Registres de la compagnie des Pasteurs II: 155-156:
Calvin’s complaint to the company of pastors (not the council):
“A proposer Monsieur Calvin touchant Pierre Ameaux, que la fame est commune par la ville que led. Ameaux a heu ditz que led. Sr. Calvin a prescher fause doctrine par si devant, comme la chose est notoire que led. Ameaux a ditz telles choses, se playgnant fort, et qu’il demande l’advis et vouldroyt estre à cent lieux d’ici, se offrant s’il neamoing [sic] à la ville. Que Messieurs l’ont ouy et que le nom de Dieu en est blasmé.”
The Council’s Decision:
Having seen the content of the trial and P. Ameaux’s responses in which he admitted to speaking against the Christian Reformation and having greatly insulted J. Calvin, minister, saying that he was a seducer and had preached a false doctrine for seven years, which is amply contained in his confessions, it is ordered, seeing that he asked for forgiveness, that forgiveness be offered when he comes to beg mercy from God and the justice of the Large Council, confessing to have spoken badly and paying 60 escus soleil for the fortification of the city. And if one [Calvin] does not wish to forgive him, that he come before the bishop’s residence bareheaded with a lit torch in his hand and his case be read between the two doors and he must beg mercy on his knees of God and the authorities and confess that he spoke badly in the presence of Seigneur Calvin. (Roget, Amédée. Histoire du Peuple de Genève depuis la réforme jusqu’à l’escalade. 5 vols. Geneva: Librairie Alexandre Jullien, 1870-1883. Reprint; Nieuwkoop: B. de Graf, 1976. (cited in Roget 2:212-213)
To retort that Ameaux was a libertine, and that this somehow justifies Calvin’s charge of blasphemy, and the council’s punishment is to engage in an anachronistic and polemical reading of the facts. Ameaux was not punished for his divorce or his wife’s immorality. He was punished for speaking against Calvin and his theology.
I also recommend reading the treatment given to Ameaux by William Naphy. Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994.
Bojidar,
Your view that the Catholic Church’s position on justification “has no direct grounds in the Scripture” is your personal interpretation. At least as you set it out here, it is not even an argument– just a simple assertion. Moreover, your statement that it is a “gigantic logical leap” from the belief that “one is not justified by faith alone” to “the Catholic position is correct” is also a simple assertion. I may not have made a detailed argument for my acceptance of the Catholic position, but I at least attempted to go further than making assertions.
How you know that you are correct about the Church’s position on justification, as related to the Scriptures’ teaching? Have you actually studied the Church’s position on justification directly from Church documents (rather than as quoted, perhaps out of context, by Protestants in their writings)? It is my experience that many who hold anti-Catholic beliefs do not truly know what the Church teaches, because they have not studied directly from the Source. Of course, I’m not saying that this is the case with you. I’m asking, precisely because I do not know.
On the issue of emotion in Dr. Anders’ article, as Randy has noted, anyone who has studied Calvin is bound to have some emotions about the man. It is unreasonable to expect that emotion would *not* be involved in the course of one’s discovery of , and response to, objectively disturbing truth about one’s theological “hero” (in this case, Calvin).
If you read back through your comments on this thread, it is clear that they have been marked by intense emotion– perhaps even emotion at the *expense* of argumentation, which, ironically, is what you claim to see, and find very objectionable, in Dr. Anders’ article. A further irony lies in the fact that, at least from what I have seen on this thread, people have been responding to you with quite calm, measured, thoughtful replies, and your answers to them have continued to largely consist of simple assertions characterized by strong anti-Catholic emotion. Why are you seemingly not willing to hold yourself to the same strict standards which you demand of Dr. Anders (and which you believe that he has violated in this article)?
Donald, thank you for your honest post. You did prove my point: That conversion to Romanism is mainly a result of seeking satisfaction for emotional issues. I agree.
Bodijar, having been on the forefront when people are disputing scripture, I understand that two people can see the same identical thing and draw different conclusions from it. Having re-read what I wrote above, and noting that the arrival at Rome involved quashing my emotions which ran against making that particular trip, the idea of emotional satisfaction would seem to be contraindicated. I looked for a way out, not a way in. In doing this search I ran into the following:
“Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that Jerusalem is the place where one must worship.” Jn 4:20 The Samaritan woman at the well was asking the right question, which is “where?”
It indicates that there is a right place to be. Would most Samaritans know that? I wasn’t there and cannot presume to answer for them. I am here and I have no excuses for not attempting to determine where I am supposed to be.
The second item I ran into, which I deemed applied to me was also from John, 21:22. Jesus said to him (Peter), “If I wish him (John) to remain until I come, what is it to you? You follow Me.”
What the people around me were doing was not the primary concern. The primary concern is what Jesus would have me do. Since I wasn’t especially keen for a “get thee behind me Satan” moment, I followed Him.
Why you would be surprised that men have emotions is beyond me. Why you would ascribe my move an emotional response in favor of the move would indicate that you might need to re-read what I wrote.
To be sure, at this time and in this place, there is no question that what I did inspite of my emotions was the right thing to do. I was not required to give up my emotions when I became Catholic, however they were (and are) required to conform to grace, as there are emotions proper to each time, place and situation.
Bojidar:
Your suggestion that people are drawn to Catholicism primarily on emotional grounds is an absurd overgeneralization. It is evident from experience alone that a person’s converting to some form of religion is usually going to involve some emotional factors. Those factors influence thought. If they didn’t, then love or beauty could not attract people to the truth; and if they shouldn’t, then love or beauty ought not to attract people to the truth. I’m sure you would not want to say otherwise. But it is evident from reason alone that those factors by themselves do not suffice either to justify or to discredit their decision. Emotions can, in some cases, form part of the evidence for or against their decision, but by themselves they can never be decisive. They’re just one part of the picture.
The things I’ve just said are pretty much common sense known to everybody. You are only undermining your case by proceeding as if it weren’t, or didn’t matter. But in case you don’t get the point, I’ll adduce my own example.
I’m a “cradle Catholic” who suffered a years-long crisis of faith in adolescence after being sexually molested by a Jesuit teacher of mine when I was 14. That is not a new revelation of mine; I made it publicly here, in the context of discussing the sex-abuse-and-coverup scandal. Yet I “reverted” to Catholicism as a Columbia undergraduate after an intense period of intellectual inquiry in which everything, including theism itself, was an open question for me. I double-majored in philosophy and religion for that very reason, and eventually reached a conclusion I did not welcome: that Catholicism is the truth. But even as a revert, I know all too well the knack the Catholic Church has for misusing people; believe me, she is no more a meritocracy than a democracy. Take my own case (please). I’ve always wanted to be a man of God, am fully qualified for that in an academic sense, and even have three years’ experience as director of adult education for a large urban parish. Yet, for different reasons at different stages of my life, the Catholic authorities have never seen fit to admit me to a seminary as a student, even thought I’ve taught as an adjunct in three different Catholic seminaries. There’s a lot more I could say about the experience of old Catholic friends of mine who actually did become priests. They adhere to their vocations not for the emotional or financial rewards, which in their cases are at best minimal. They adhere by grace alone.
I don’t remain a Catholic because I like being Catholic. Given my experiences in the Church, I’m emotionally ambivalent about the whole thing, to say the least. I remain Catholic simply because I am utterly convinced that Catholicism is true. It isn’t even in my worldly interest to remain Catholic.
In Houston 15 years ago, an evangelical pastor with whom I was conducting a joint bible study invited me to become an assistant pastor at his megachurch. It would have been a nice salary boost. But I couldn’t do it, for reasons that should be self-explanatory by now. Several months ago, an Orthodox bishop with whom I have several mutual friends offered to make me a priest in his rather small but canonical jurisdiction. I was strongly tempted. It wasn’t because of money–there was none involved, not even a stipend–but because I’m deeply committed to Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism and this bishop’s ecclesiology is very close to my own. But I couldn’t bring myself to break communion with Rome. So where does that leave me? I could be a clergyman, it seems, in virtually any church save my own; if I did, I’d have the status and security I’ve never managed as an adult Catholic. But I choose instead to pay the ongoing, very personal cost of being Catholic in these troubled times.
So spare me your nonsense about people becoming or remaining Catholic because they find it emotionally satisfying. Some people do become or remain Catholic partly because of how they feel about it; but some people become or remain Catholic partly in spite of how they feel about it. The question how feelings might constitute evidence for or against such a decision is not one that can be answered by easy, polemical generalizations. As I’ve already suggested, your attempt to discredit Dr Anders’ decision with such generalizations does not speak well for how your intellectual credentials have formed you.
This reminds me of those who point out that Jesus, Himself, never explicitly condemned sodomny. If Sola Scriptura does not work out then the next line of defense is to demand to find it in the words of Jesus. Then make you demand more specific yet. Jesus must use certain words or I won’t obey.
It is a game. God won’t play. If you don’t want to do His will then don’t. He won’t force you. He won’t force you physically and He won’t force you logically either. The for the church is much like the evidence for the resurrection. It is there. It is strong. But it is possible to deny it if you really want to. That is precisely the way God wants it.
So what church was Jesus referring to in Matthew 18?
I find it very odd that this discussion has not really touched on the thesis of the article.
I made the claim that Evangelicalism differs from Calvin in three crucial respects:
1) “Born-again,” conversionistic spirituality,
2) A broadminded approach to denominations,
3) A deemphasis on liturgy, sacraments, and intepretive authority.
By contrast, Calvin:
1) Encouraged a sacramental/liturgical spirituality,
2) Insisted on doctrinal unity – even on issues that Evangelicals consider unimportant,
3) Believed in a magisterial authority that exceeds what evangelicals would accept today
As one observer noted, these claims are really not controversial. Nevin and Schaaf noted them long ago. More Modern Scholars like Imbart de la Tour, Joseph Tylenda, Benno Gassmann, Kilian McDonnell, and Alexandre Ganoczy have also pointed out these “Catholic” elements in Calvin’s thought.
As I mentioned above, finding these elements in Calvin’s thought prompted me to ask,
1) If Calvin was correct in holding them,
2) Why Evangelicalism no longer holds them,
3) Which ecclesial community holds them most authentically (biblically, historically).
It seems to me the debate between Catholics and Protestants ought to be about these last three questions. Was Calvin correct in insisting on doctrinal unity and, if so, what is the proper basis for that unity? Is “born-again” spirituality authentic Christian spirituality? Was Calvin correct in his insistence on the sacramental, liturgical dimension to Christian piety? If you think Calvin was correct, then why do you think evangelicalism departed from Calvin? If Calvin was not correct, does this impugn his doctrine of Scripture? Did he misinterpret the Bible?
These are really the issues I raised. This whole thread about emotion seems utterly beside the point.
Wholly for the sake of argument, what if I am a neurotic, emotional basket case? I don’t see how this has any impact on the issues listed above.
Dr. Anders,
On behalf of CTC thanks for the excellent article and interaction. For what it’s worth, our discussion here does tend to be a little more substantial (and charitable) than some of the interaction with this post. It’s a little embarrassing actually.
I see that you have refuted Bojidar on the Ameaux case. Can you comment on Ron’s objection that Bolsec was arrested, not for merely differing with Calvin, but for being a trouble-maker of other sorts? I’m afraid I can’t afford to purchase the dissertation at the moment.
Hello “Canadian”,
Appreciated your detailed and informative listing of the ‘split-P’s’ and their Reformed ‘brothers’ in your response to Bojidar…
Have you read William B. Evans’, “DÈJÁ VU ALL OVER AGAIN? THE CONTEMPORARY REFORMED SOTERIOLOGICAL CONTROVERSY IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE”, recently published essay? (The Westminster Theological Journal, Spring 2010 -Vol. 72.1) It is certainly germane to the topic at hand. I have provided numerous selections from the essay (with a few of my own reflections) HERE.
Grace and peace,
David
The Facts of the Bolsec Case:
Records of the City Council explain “that a physician on Friday was arrested for having spoken certain words against the Gospel in the congregation … and was brought before the magistrates by Jean de la Maisonneuve.” Calvin and the ministers, however, requested that he be prosecuted for blasphemy.
See Roget 3: 163: “qu’un médecin fust détunu pour avoir esté vendredy en la congregation, là où il pourroit avoir dict certaines paroles et aultres doctrines contre l’Évangile, que le Sr. lieutenant l’a fait répondre et l’a remis devant Messieurs par la personne de Jean de la Maisonneuve … que Calvin, au nom des autres ministres, ainsi que maistre Guillaume Farel, a requis le Conseil de faire justice dudit d’aultant qu’a blaspheme Dieu et propose faulce doctrine.”
The official interrogation (which took place in jail) was theological in nature (confirming that Bolsec was arrested for doctrinal matters).
Again – see Roget 3: 172-173.
The official deposition was filled with theological debate, in particular about the interpretation of scripture.
Bolsec:”Does he [Calvin] not confess that all articles of faith and the doctrines taught in Our Lord’s church must be proved from several manifest and evident statements [of Scripture] which cannot be construed in diverse ways and from the authority of the Holy Scripture in its entirety?” (Registres 1:104)
It goes without saying that Bolsec was also considered a trouble maker. He was a trouble maker precisely because he contradicted Calvin’s doctrine.
Again – the council documents:
Roget 3:162: “Attendu le trouble et scandale qu’a tasché de faire aujourd’hui un quidam nommé Hiérosme, comme desjà ce-devant il s’y estoit efforcé, les ministres de la parole de Dieu supplient humblement Messieurs, qu’il leur plaise le faire interroguer sur les articles suyvantz et ce, à cause que c’est matière de doctrine et de foi; néamoins, les dits ministres proposent ces articles seulement par forme d’advertissement, non pas qu’ils craignissent de se faire partie (se porter accusateurs), quand besoing serait, mais pource qu’ils se tiennent bien assures que Messieurs, avec toute leur justice, auront la cause assez recommandée. Ce leur est assez d’avertir quelles sont ces erreurs dudit maistre Hiérosme par lesquelles il a tasché de séduire et mutineer le peuple.”
Dr. Anders – thanks. Ron or anyone else – have any other objections?
Bojidar:
Logical fallacy. That emotion accompanies an action does not prove that it is the basis for that action.
My own conversion to the Catholic Church from having been a Calvinist Christian was emotional, but certainly not a result of seeking satisfaction for emotional issues. For the most part my emotion was fear that the Catholic Church might not be what reason seemed to indicate it was: the fulness of the faith of Christ.
To be sure, once I was convinced, on reasonable grounds, that the Church was, indeed, God’s unique provision for salvation, my emotions began gradually to change.
But my emotions were a response to what my mind told me, at the beginning, and to what my mind and heart, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, told me at the end. They were not, and could never be, a basis for a change which, on human grounds, was filled with as much negative as positive.
Indeed, strictly judging from my experience as a Catholic, there were many things in my Reformed church that were done far better, and that were more emotionally satisfying.
The only thing the Reformed claims lacked – insofar as they were not in harmony with the Catholic – was truth.
jj
Bojidar,
As Dr. Anders has recently commented, reminding us, that his post touched on the following points. If we are going to have frutiful conversation, it behooves us, to engage the content of the post, the ideas touched on. Trying to engage in psychological and emotional analysis from behind the computer screen is not productive and has caused this wonderful post to get bogged down in issues not even addressed by the author. You are welcome to disagree with us, but we ask that it be done charitably and done addressing the content of the post. I recommend re-reading what Dr. Anders recently posted to help get back on track. It is legitimate to ask if Calvin was right in saying that it is always fatal to leave the Church.
“I made the claim that Evangelicalism differs from Calvin in three crucial respects:
1) “Born-again,” conversionistic spirituality,
2) A broadminded approach to denominations,
3) A deemphasis on liturgy, sacraments, and intepretive authority.
By contrast, Calvin:
1) Encouraged a sacramental/liturgical spirituality,
2) Insisted on doctrinal unity – even on issues that Evangelicals consider unimportant,
3) Believed in a magisterial authority that exceeds what evangelicals would accept today
As one observer noted, these claims are really not controversial. Nevin and Schaaf noted them long ago. More Modern Scholars like Imbart de la Tour, Joseph Tylenda, Benno Gassmann, Kilian McDonnell, and Alexandre Ganoczy have also pointed out these “Catholic” elements in Calvin’s thought.
As I mentioned above, finding these elements in Calvin’s thought prompted me to ask,
1) If Calvin was correct in holding them,
2) Why Evangelicalism no longer holds them,
3) Which ecclesial community holds them most authentically (biblically, historically).”
I wanted to jump out of my office chair and react like this as I read Dr. Liccione’s response #76.
But maybe that’s just me.
Thanks, Jonathan. But I think you meant my #76.
Best,
Mike
I understand that this thread should head in another direction, a direction more in line with Dr. Anders’ wonderful, refreshing article. But, if my comment is worthwhile enough to take up the space, I just wanted to say that the first time my friend (and the individual who would later become my Catholic Sponsor) took me to Eucharistic Adoration, I so emotionally REJECTED the notion of the Real Presence of Christ in the monstrance before me that I felt I might vomit. Every fiber of my being was OPPOSED to Catholicism’s claims- especially those concerning the Blessed Sacrament. So, yes, Bojidar, mine was a very emotional conversion experience. These emotions, however, rather than detracting from the genuine ness of my conversion experience, in my mind, simply make it all the more real, all the more human. peace.
For my part, I’ll second some of the emotional ambivalence of Mike L’s and Herbert’s posts. I was raised in a conservative Baptist home, attended Calvin College (where I was steeped in Reformed theology and during which I joined the Christian Reformed Church, in which I remained for several years), and later received a master’s in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary (an evangelical school). I’ve certainly had plenty of training in Protestant theology, and was quite attached, both theologically and aesthetically, to the “medium-high” worship of my home Reformed congregation (the great Protestant hymns, almost BCP-ish liturgy, and so on). My family, except for the brothers of mine who have utterly rejected their Christian upbringing, remains steadfastly Protestant. My wife’s family, except for one brother-in-law, remains steadfastly Reformed (my grandfather-in-law was a prominent Presbyterian theologian, and my father-in-law is a staunch Calvinist). I came to Catholicism kicking and screaming, intent to prove all of its claims wrong, adamantly insisting that everything about Catholicism and Orthodoxy was fatally flawed. Now, after years of prayer, study and struggle with the Church Fathers and Church history, I am utterly convinced of the truth of the Catholic Church’s claims. I am not, however, thrilled with the parishes in which I find myself (lots of horrible music, some questionable liturgical practices, so-so preaching). I dearly miss the hymns I so love, the transcendent music and poetry, the powerful oratory from the pulpit. I get no satisfaction from being Catholic while my wife and the rest of my family remains not just Protestant, but most of them quite antagonistic toward Catholicism. BUT, I learned long ago not to trust my emotions alone in matters of faith, but to seek the Truth with as much humility as I can possibly muster. I pray constantly that God will guide me along His true path, in accordance with His perfect will, and I trust that as I have tried to follow Him like a child, He will lead me in the paths of Righteousness for His name’s sake.
So yes: let’s have an end to the “emotional issues” argument.
Dr. Anders,
I hope I’m not straying too far from your article, but I wonder if you could touch on Calvin’s view of the Virgin Mary. From what I’ve read, this is another area in which the modern Calvinist might be beyond the realm of comfort when faced with Calvin’s actual teaching.
Jessica
@Scott B:
I have to laugh sometimes. When, on my 51st birthday in 1993, I finished reading Newman’s ‘Apologia’ and his ‘Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine’ and realised for the first time that the Catholic faith might just be simply nothing more nor less than true, I thought, “I am really in trouble now.” The first time I walked into any Catholic place – the Newman Centre at Auckland University – I was terrified. I wondered if, possibly, I was entering a synagogue of Satan. At the nadir of my experience, in June, 1994, I experienced major psychological dissociation – forgot for a while who I was – for fear.
We converts experience emotion, Bojidar, but it doesn’t drive us into the Church. It accompanies what is, after all, for an English-speaking Protestant, real conflict because of the major distortion our post-Reformation society imposes on us. The emotion must be gone through; it can justify nothing.
If any one is interested, I have written something about my own conversion here.
jj
Forgive me if I’m perpetuating an off-topic turn here, but my experience is in the same vein as others’: my father was anti-Catholic; my mother wept when I told her I was becoming Catholic; my brother and my best friend both yelled at me. Oh yes, there is plenty of emotional “satisfaction” in all that…if one is a complete sociopath who enjoys upsetting the people he loves best, anyway.
Dr. Anders,
I have a question about a remark you made and want to give you an opportunity to possibly correct my reading of Calvin. You wrote,
“And while Calvin stopped short of the Catholic, or even the Lutheran, understanding of the Eucharist, he still retained a doctrine of the Real Presence. He taught that the Eucharist provides a “true and substantial partaking of the body and blood of the Lord” and he rejected the notion that communicants receive “the Spirit only, omitting flesh and blood.”
This seems incorrect or ambiguous. From my reading, Calvin does not affirm the real presence of Christ’s humanity in the elements. What Calvin affirms is that the virtue or divine power from Christ is exemplified in the sacrament when received with faith. He seems to limit the presence of Christ’s humanity to a natural mode of presence in heaven. One can speak as if the substance of Christ’s humanity is present in the elements since his divine power is and there is virtually no difference. But there is no intrinsic union between the human flesh of Christ and the elements for him.
David,
re: #80
I am not Catholic, but my interest and investigation in the ancient church came from reading Mathison’s “Shape of Sola Scriptura”. That book helped make plain to me that something was wrong with sola scriptura itself.
I skimmed the article on your blog and found this all to be true when I was peeking in on the FV/Truly Reformed debates a few years back. Many of the Reformed bodies tried to act as if they had ecumenical conciliar authority to spank those FV bad boys into submission or anathema. Rather amusing to see weakness display itself as if it were strength.
In providing a very incomplete list of denominations (just Reformed and Presbyterian, let alone the other hordes) I was highlighting for Bojidar that what he calls “the only choice–Reformed Christianity” really amounts to his personal choice of one from the smorgasbord of many. And those bodies are not just separated by semantics as he seemed to imply. Some of them are schisms of schisms of schisms not in communion with one another which leads not a choice of governance but a choice of faith.
Response to Perry:
Let me define my terms.
Real Presence: doctrine that Christ true body and blood are communicated in the supper.
Transubstantiation: Catholic doctrine on HOW the body and blood are communicated.
Consubstantiation: Lutheran doctrine on HOW
Mystical Presence: Calvin’s doctrine on HOW.
Calvin was very clear both in his rejection of a local presence (both Catholic and Luther’s view), and in his affirmation of a real presence.
He strongly opposed the merely symbolic view of the supper.
This is why I said he affirmed the real presence, but not the Catholic doctrine on the Eucharist.
To Canadian on Matthison’s “Shape”
I read Shape of Sola Scriptura several years ago when I was thinking of entering the Church. I found it very unsatisfying.
Matthison’s position is not original. He borrowed his thesis from an essay by Heiko Oberman, published in Dawn of the Reformation. The essay is called “Quo vadis, Petre? Tradition from Irenaeus to Humani Generis.”
Oberman’s essay is very good, and does a good job of distinguishing various nuances in the Scripture/Tradition debate.
Oberman argues that there are really three concepts of tradition:
1) Tradition as the custodial function of the church – preserving the canon, the “shape” of the creed and rule of faith, etc.
2) Tradition as unwritten content, in addition to Scripture, that is nevertheless part of the deposit of faith
3) Tradition in the Pius IX sense: “I am tradition.” The Church’s dogmatic declarations.
Oberman (and Matthison) identify the Reformers with Tradition I.
Matthison’s use of the concept to defend the Reformers, however, is full of difficulties.
To begin with, even if you jettison tradition II and III, and concede only tradition I, it is obvious that the Reformers, in spite of their claims of fidelity to antiquity, were unfaithful to tradition I.
The fathers most associated with “tradition I,” like Tertullian and Ireneaus, taught that Scripture must be interpreted according to the consensus of the apostolic churches. Now, nothing could be more plain than that the Reformer’s departed from that consensus. Compare Luther to the 2nd century fathers, for example, on the doctrine of justification.
2nd – the integrity of tradition I is guaranteed by apostolic succession – which the Reformers lack. Why does Matthison think Calvin is a valid bearer of that tradition?
But there are also very good historical reasons for holding tradition II and III.
Even if the 2nd century fathers did not articulate a doctrine of tradition II, it is obvious that they held doctrines on the basis of tradition II. For example, Tertullian and Ireneaus appeal to the authority of the apostolic sees as a matter of doctrine. But the identity of those sees is not contained in Scripture. They could only know these things from unwritten tradition. Also – Sunday worship, infant baptism, the sign of the cross, etc. etc.
I won’t defend tradition III here, since that is another esssay, but suffice it to say that I am convinced that Christ intended it when he founded the church and gave her the gift of infallibility.
So – I agree that the Reformers appealed to tradition I. But they do so illegitimately. Tradition I is not on their side.
Just a side note to David Anders #94: Keith Mathison wrote an excellent book titled Given for You that describes Calvin’s view. It seems it is often not understood well amongst the Reformed.
-David Meyer
Side Note to David Meyer:
John Williamson Nevin wrote The Mystical Presence in 1846, also to defend Calvin’s doctrine of the Supper. Every Reformed Christian should read Nevin’s book. One of the classics of Reformed theology, in my opinion.
Dr. Anders,
re: #95
Thanks for your comment. I may not have been clear in my comment you are referencing but I was saying that it was actually Mathison’s book that catapulted me toward the ancient church and Catholicism/Orthodoxy. I found that in his attempts to defend a more historical view of scripture and the church his efforts to stop at the Reformation was like trying to get off a train at full speed by jumping off at one’s desired spot knowing that you couldn’t continue to the logical destination. It is always funny how that train for Protestants seems to jump track and go on hidden and invisible, then suddenly show up in the first century. Now your remarks about Trad 2 and 3 are interesting and need to be fleshed out more in this discernment process. Thanks for your fine original post, by the way.
David,
I appreciate the sense in which Calvin’s doctrine falls under the rubric of “real presence.” For example: A man is “really present” in a phone conversation, even though no one would confuse the phone lines and receiver with the man himself. However, because the phrase is so elastic, and so popular among so many folks, having significantly different understandings of what is denoted by “real presence,” I think it best to be more specific, in order to avoid equivocation. Thus, taking my cue from the terms themselves, my definition of “real presence” would have to express both “where (in what sense “present”)?” and “in what mode (in what sense “real”)?”
Defining the “real presence” without reference to these questions, focusing instead on the *communication* of the Body and Blood, is, potentially, to define something other than the consecrated species, which would subtly shift the subject of the definition, resulting in equivocation. If, by “real presence” we are referring to the consecrated elements themselves, we are primarily concerned to indicate *what* these elements are. This *what* question is distinct from the *how* question. I don’t think that “transubstantiation” is so much an answer to the latter as to the former; thus, I understand transubstantiation as a statement of the Real Presence, in terms of what the consecrated species really are.
There is an important distinction between the eucharistic elements as a *means of receiving* Christ’s body and blood and the eucharist as simply *being* Christ’s body and blood (which is how I define “real presence”). The reason that Calvin cannot bear the doctrine of transubstatiation is that ( it seems to me) he cannot affirm that the consecrated species are, in themselves, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. I would be happy to be corrected on this point.
Calvin’s eucharistic doctrine might be taken to indicate an “objective” presence in the consecrated species (par. 11–17), and his statements to the contrary (par. 42) could be taken as a mere rejection of “local” presence, which is distinct from “substantial” presence (the Catholic view). Calvin sort of acknowledges this distinction (par. 41), but I cannot escape the impression that he sharply distinguishes the substance of Christ from the consecrated species themselves. Perhaps Calvin was responding to a deformed construal of transubstantiation/real presence. Thomas Aquinas, for example, denied a local presence of Christ in the eucharist (in the sense that a local presence entails extension in space). I have heard it remarked that the actual Catholic view, “substantial presence” (i.e., transubstantiation), is closer to Calvin (and vice versa) than is sometimes supposed.
Dr Anders (#95):
I didn’t know that Mathison was following Oberman, since I haven’t read Mathison’s stuff. But I have read Oberman’s essay, and I did so because Protestant scholars I was debating a few years ago kept hammering me over the head with it.
I agree it’s much better than the usual polemics, but it suffers from two serious difficulties. First, it doesn’t take account of Vatican II’s dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, Dei Verbum, for the very good reason that Oberman wrote his essay at virtually the same time that successive drafts of DV were being debated at the Council. Hence, some of his criticisms of Catholic doctrine on the Scripture/Tradition relationship were outdated almost as soon as he published them. Second, and accordingly, I would not accept his Tradition I-II-III schema as an entirely accurate representation of Catholic teaching. Although Vatican II’s word on all this is probably not the last, I am especially taken with DV §10 (footnotes omitted, emphasis added):
That doesn’t quite fit into Oberman’s schema. Although DV doesn’t say so explicitly, it’s pretty obvious that Scripture has come to be seen as the written side of what’s “handed on,” i.e. of Tradition. That makes sense inasmuch as the NT itself was written in light of paradosis through kerygma. And what about magisterial statements by the successors of the Apostles–at least those made with the Church’s full authority?
They are indeed one kind of thing that’s “handed on,” and thus count as “tradition” in a sense distinct from ‘the word of God’–a phrase itself used by DV to refer to the same thing referred to by ‘the deposit of faith’. To that extent, Oberman is right. But DV as a whole doesn’t seem to allow for taking post-apostolic magisterial statements as anything more than “authentic interpretations” of Tradition in the primary sense of the term. That’s why the Church teaches that Scripture is “God-breathed” but does not say that even about doctrines taught infallibly by the Church.
I could go on, but this isn’t a faculty colloquium–or if it is, I should let some others have the floor!
Best,
Mike
Dr. Anders,
Thank you for the reply. I appreciate you taking the time to do so.
While it is true that Calvin and say Aquinas (ST tertia pars, 75, 1 ad. 3) reject a local mode of presence this leaves untouched the idea that the humanity of Christ is in the elements. (In Thomas’ commentary on the Sentences he says Christ’s humanityis only locally in heaven as well. Sent 4, dist x, qu. 1, art. 1, sol. ad. 5) So for example, often, though not always high Church Anglican authors will distinguish their view from Continental Protestant bodies by speaking of real presence in the elements while denying a local mode or circumscribing presence.
More over, Receptionism takes the body and blood to be genuinely communicated to the believer, just not in the elements. But Calvin’s view seems to me to fall short of Receptionism since Calvin doesn’t think that the genuine humanity of Christ is in fact communicated to the believer, but rather some manifestation of divine power or virtue.
The doctrine of the Real Presence seems to me to be the idea that Christ is in the elements, albeit in a non-cirsubscribing and non-natural mode of presence.
As an aside, ISTM that Lutherans fairly often deny the claim that they endorse Consubstantiation.
In any case, ISTM that what Calvin means by “real presence” is a real benefit or a real communication of divine virtue to the believer, but not that the humanity of Christ is in fact communicated in the elements. That is, I take Calvinist’s to equivocate on the term “real presence.”
Andrew Preslar,
I think we agree in our reading of Calvin. The mode of reception is a different question as to what the thing is. “Means” can be said in many ways. And many employ the language of real presence having read material from Calvin or say Wallace’ work on the former’s view of the eucharist thinking that their position finds a place in patristic theology, when in fact it doesn’t. I for one can’t see any significant difference between say Cranmer’s virtualism and Calvin’s view. They both employ the language of “real presence” but deny that the humanity of Christ is conveyed through the means or is in the believer. Hence their view is weaker or less robust metaphysically speaking (it commits one to affirming less) than even Receptionism.
ISTM that the underlying reason why Calvin can’t admit that Christ’s humanity is present in the elements is the idea that for it to be so would annihilate the individual existence as such of the elements qua elements. That is, the humanity of Christ would replace the form of the thing (elements) and so it would cease to be that thing (since substance as individual existence entails that specific form), since its formal existence ceases. Rome it seems will grant a change in form, but deny that the elemental annihilation as it were takes place. For Calvin then, the humanityof Christ can only be capable of a natural mode of presence, while it could be moved around by acts of divine will and power. Hence it could only be extrinsically immortal.
Perry,
I’m inclined to agree with your take on these things, at least as you’ve expressed it thus far. I have my own take, which affirms transubstantiation but denies that the visible elements after consecration are non-inhering accidents. But this isn’t the place to discuss that. Perhaps we could discuss it in another setting if you’re interested.
Best,
Mike
Further clarification on Calvin and presence – real, substantial, or virtual.
Inst. 4.17.5: “we are quickened by a real participation of him.”
Inst. 4.17.11: “For the promises present him to us, not that we may rest in contemplation merely and naked notion, but that we may enjoy him in the way of real participation . . . I say, then, that in the mystery of the Supper . . . Christ is truly presented to us.”
Inst. 4.17.17: “true and substantial partaking of the body and blood of the Lord”
Inst. 4:17.10:”It may seem incredible indeed that the flesh of Christ should reach us from such immense local distance . . .”
De vera participatione carnis et sanguinis Christi in sacra coena:
“The controversy is simply on the mode of eating, since we openly and ingenuously affirm,that Christ becomes ours . . . that his body also was not only once offered for our salvation . . . but is daily extended to us for our nourishment.”
– cited in J.W. Nevin, Mystical Presence, ed. Augustine Thompson, O.P., Eugene, OR, 2000.
Note also J.W. Nevin’s own assessment of Calvin’s view: “In whatever way it might be supposed to occur, he held and taught the fact of a real presence of the Savior’s human life . . . in the sacramental transaction.” (p.69)
If we defer to Calvin’s own language, he taught a “real and substantial” presence of Christ in the Supper, but not a local presence.
However, I completely agree that these very same terms – real, substantial, local – are given a different signification in Catholic theology. Knowing that, Calvin can be accused of some dissimulation for using terms that had already acquired a technical precision in the academic theology of his day.
Also, Andrew and Perry are correct about Calvin rejecting any presence in the physical host. Calvin had a horror of Eucharistic adoration, or that the “real” presence might be distributed physically to the impious or the unbeliever.
“Calvin had a horror of Eucharistic adoration, or that the “real” presence might be distributed physically to the impious or the unbeliever.”
Dr. Anders,
Can you bring some clarity here for me? It seems that the Reformed say that the Supper is beneficial by faith for the believer but I don’t how they approach Paul’s warning of judgement on those who partake unworthily (or in unbelief). Calvin somewhere taught that the believer soars into heaven and partakes of Christ there by the Spirit. Yet the unworthy certainly don’t soar into heaven to receive judgement. Clearly, to me, the scripture implies that not only is there benefit in the supper but condemnation because whether you are taking worthily or not, you come in contact with the body and blood. The judgement comes in the actual eating and drinking, so something must have changed in the elements themselves. There seems to me a clear objectivity in the supper because of Christ’s presence that effects different results in those who partake. Calvin’s view also doesn’t seem to hold up under Chalcedonian Christology but what is the Catholic view of those who are judged at the table.
Candian:
You are absolutely correct. Also very astute of you to point to Chalcedon. Calvinism has always been subject to the charge of Nestorianism. (A charge which Calvinists are obviously quick to deny.)
When I was studying Calvin, I was interested to learn how seriously Calvin took the Supper, but I was also persuaded that his doctrine was utterly untenable. Calvin concocted a very complicated theory of signs and things and mystical union in an attempt (it seems to me) to reconcile Lutheran and Zwinglian theories, but I can’t see that he has Scripture, tradition, or logic on his side.
On a related note – when you study the interaction between Calvin and those called before the consistory, it appears that his parishioners had a very difficult time following his fine nuances.
Everyday Genevans were likely to affirm either that “the bread is God,” or that it was nothing at all.
Dr. Anders,
I am not surprised to learn that the Genevans were torn between affirming that the bread is God or that it was nothing at all.
Calvin was and is hard to pin down not only on the Eucharist but on Baptism (as evidenced by the great debate raging currently in the PCA over baptismal efficacy). This is why I have asked my former conferes in the PCA (friends of mine who are TE’s) “what happens when you perform a Sacrament?” They really cannot say. In fairness to them, it seems as if the Reformed history was never able to say. DeLubac once stated in a Communio article that this has to do with the fact that Election trumps everything in Reformed soteriology, thus, there is a real reticence to ascribe any real efficacy to the Sacraments for that might do damage to the doctrine of election. I think DeLubac was right.
There were times I would read Calvin and think that through the actual bread and wine I receive Christ’s body and blood (it seems he placed heavy emphasis on the sursum corda for this view) and other times I would ask myself in reading him, “so the point of the bread and wine is….?”
I love how Father Al Kimmel put it in his eleventh law, “It doesn’t matter how vigorously you protest your belief in the eucharistic real presence: if you are not willing and eager to prostrate yourself before the Holy Gifts and adore, worship, and pray to the glorified Lord Jesus Christ, present under the forms of bread and wine, you really do not believe in it.”
Dr. Anders,
I am aware of the passages in the Institutes as well as other places. They initially persuaded me that Calvin held to more or less a receptionist view. But further study convinced me otherwise that he in fact advocated a kind of virtualism.
Consequently, the language of participation, substantial and such mean what they do for someone like Cranmer. They do not imply a real presence in the elements anymore than when other virtualists use those same terms. Thomas Aquinas also denies, as I pointed out above, a local presence and affirms a “substantial” presence. But I don’t think we are to draw from that the conclusion that Calvin taught transubstantiation or anything like what Aquinas had in mind. What matters is how Calvin used the terms and it seems that he used them in a virtualistic way. Those terms do not preclude a virtualist position.
I grant that Calvin says that the controversy is over the mode of eating, but that assumes that Calvin’s self assessment of the situation is correct. Reading the material from the Colloquy of Montbeliard for example where the participants took the matter to be the same convinced me that their self assessment was incorrect. The issues were Christological. The same I think is true of Calvin.
As for Nevin seems to be influenced by a species of Idealism, which was quite popular at the time, as evidenced in his organicism and such. I think his metaphysical idealism influenced unduly his reading of such language in Calvin.
Perry,
I completely agree with you. This is why I said:
“these very same terms – real, substantial, local – are given a different signification in Catholic theology. Knowing that, Calvin can be accused of some dissimulation for using terms that had already acquired a technical precision in the academic theology of his day.”
Granted that Calvin uses terms like real and substantial in a non-Catholic way, and without precision, I still find his language interesting. I never said Calvin held to transubstantiation. Of course not. My main point in raising the issue was simply to point to the gulf between Calvin’s language and modern Evangelical spirituality.
Can you imagine Bill Bright or Billy Graham speaking about the sacraments or spirituality this way?
Dr. Anders,
I figured we agreed, but I wanted to nail it down. It is quite true that the average evangelical view of the eucharist fails to rise to the level of probably even Zwingli.
But something else to note about Calvin. If a virtualist gloss of his view is correct and the substantial and the virtual are not really distinguishable, it seems that this implies a kind of docetism about the humanity of Christ. By “really” I mean in the scholastic sense of separable. I realize that I am not the first to worry about this kind of docetism in Calvin, but better right than original I suppose.
Dr. Anders,
Is there any cheaper way of getting a copy of your dissertation besides ordering it from the University of Iowa?
As one who remains in the evangelical Reformed fold, I must say that I relate to much of what Dr. Anders is saying, especially after having read Bruce Gordon’s new biography of Calvin. I was reading it this winter, at the same time a nasty, bitter debate was being publicly waged by John Frame and Michael Horton, two of today’s leading Reformed theologians.
I couldn’t help but thinking that nothing has changed in nearly 500 years. Gordon (who I assume is Reformed) demonstrates throughout his fine biography that the leaders of the Reformed churches in Switzerland, Germany, and France all waged war with each other from the very beginning.
I had expected to come away with more confidence in Calvin and the early Reformers, but I realize now that it was all built on a very shaky foundation.
As a cradle Catholic I have often wondered what it is that so sharply divides Catholics and Protestants. I have heard that “preacher’s preach against my kind.” This is so disturbing to me. I love my Catholic faith and have ALWAYS had a VERY deep and personal relationship with my Lord, Jesus Christ. I love Him more and more each and every day. He has led me where no man can. I love this article as it now makes me see more clearly why Protestants cannot understand what I do understand about the Catholic faith. I would just love to see more people truly experience the fullness in the joy that Catholicism gives me. I am just sorry that they cannot have this REAL divine experience. So MANY Catholics do have this same wonderful personal relationship with Him. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. Thank you Dr. Anders for so eloquently sharing your experience with us all.
Julie, I’m like you here. I’ve been reading blogs like this one and InternetMonk among others along with books like “Catholicism and Fundamentalism” and the “Surprised by Truth” series to understand why there is such a divide. Growing up securely Catholic for a long time I wasn’t aware of how deep runs the rift between Catholic and Protestant . In my small town Catholics and Protestants mostly got along, but when I got to college and encountered aggressive evangelism from certain Evangelical / Fundamentalist groups I began to see.
I agree but I think we should be more positive in approaching those currently not in full communion with the Catholic Church. The reason being that because of the difference in paradigm you see in this post and comments, it is absolutely impossible for them to see the truth of your statement. They can’t interpret it in any reasonable way of understanding from within their paradigm.
It is very much like two different computer languages that are largely similar, use mostly the same rules and perform all the same basic functions but differ in structure and syntax in a handful of fundamental and countless minuscule ways.
What that means in practice is that if us Catholic want to effectively talk about the faith and explain Catholicism to Protestants we have to learn how they think and how to translate into their code / paradigm. It is wonderful, but rare that I encounter a Protestant that has enough actual understanding of the Church to be able to directly dialogue about the faith without me having to figure out how to put things in terms that won’t be misinterpreted, or trigger exploding heresy assumptions.
Julie,
After years as a Reformed Protestant, I am in the process of returning to the Catholic Church (which I did not know or understand well as a Catholic). I have been a member of some of the most Biblically thoughtful churches that I believe are to be found in the Reformed Protestant tradition. However, I *cannot* say, from what I saw, that these churches are very strong in emphasizing the role of the early Church Fathers in one’s interpretation of Scripture. This is *very important*, in regard to your question of what sharply divides Catholics and Protestants.
At this point, in my view, much experience with the early Church Fathers will logically take a Protestant to either the Catholic Church, to Eastern Orthodoxy, or to the view that while the Church Fathers may have held to certain interpretations of the Bible, it is ultimately *my personal interpretation* of the Bible that trumps everything else. I don’t write this to be uncharitable to my Protestant brothers and sisters– not at all. Until recently, I was one of them. I still love them very much.
However, when I was a Protestant, it was ultimately my personal interpretation of the Bible that I used to evaluate and “judge” the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Church Fathers, and the Catholic Church as a whole. If my interpretation judged them to be Biblically right on an issue, then they were “Biblical” on that issue. If my interpretation judged them to be Biblically wrong on an issue, then they were simply “unBiblical” on that issue.
This gets to the heart of what divides Catholics and Protestants. Catholics submit (or are logically, consistently supposed to submit, as Catholics) to the magisterial, sacramental, teaching, and interpretive authority of the Church, because Christ founded that authority. Catholics don’t try to personally interpret the Bible, from their own understanding, because the Church is the divinely appointed interpretive authority. For Protestants though, despite what they say about “I submit only to what the Bible teaches” and “The Bible is my final authority for faith and practice,” it is ultimately *their personal interpretation(s)* of the Bible to which they are submitting. Not “the Bible alone,” but their understanding of what the Bible teaches.
As anyone can see about Protestantism, their are hundreds, if not thousands, of different interpretations of what the Bible teaches, which explains the many different Protestant denominations. Now, a Protestant might say, “Well, ok, but all Protestants do agree on justification by faith alone, and that unites us all against the Catholic Church”– but now, even among Protestants, they are beginning to quarrel over this very doctrine and how to best think of it and talk about it. Protestants don’t just “fight with” Catholics. Sadly, very often, they fight among themselves. I speak from personal knowledge and experience.
As for why so many Protestants don’t see Catholics as having a personal relationship with Christ, much of the time, I think it is due to different ways of speaking about things among Catholics and Protestants. My ex-Catholic, very Protestant roommate strongly asserted to me, a few nights ago, that “Catholics worship saints.” He said this because Catholics pray to saints, or more properly, Catholics ask saints to pray *for* us to God. In my roommate’s view, this is worship of saints. He is mistaken, but it is what he believes, as an ex-Catholic Protestant.
Some of the division between Catholics and Protestants can also be explained, partially, by individual Catholics who may take certain Catholic practices too far, beyond what the Church teaches. My roommate claims that in his years as a Catholic, he almost never heard Catholics speak of praying to God personally. In his memories of his experiences with fellow Catholics (and memories can be deceiving…), he claims that he heard them speak of praying to Mary, and praying to this or that Saint, to help them with this or that problem– but he says that he rarely heard Catholics mention praying to God directly. I replied to him that if that is true, it is very unfortunate, and that it *does not* reflect what the Church officially teaches. Of course, the Church teaching is not “either/or” (either pray to God, or ask saints to pray to God for us), but it is “both/and.” My roommate’s response is that he never heard that understanding from the Catholics whom he knew.
If this recounting from my roommate, of his time as a Catholic, is accurate, it is very sad. It highlights the need for Catholics to *know* their faith, to read and study the Bible and the Catechism together, to not take what they might hear from Catholics around them, to always be the truth about Church teaching. The more that Catholics know their faith and can explain it to Protestants, the healing of divisions there can be between Protestants and Catholics. This site is a good example of Catholics really knowing their faith, and it has helped greatly in bringing *this* ex-Catholic and fervent Protestant back home to the Church! Blessings to you, my sister in Christ!
This is an excellent article — so elucidating. Thank you! I look forward to EWTN Live this week!
The early church that Jesus found was Catholic…..
Christopher — I’ve been on the fence for many years now, having studied RCism and Orthodoxy until I’m nearly crazy! I remain a very disenchanted evangelical Protestant, but unable to make the leap to RCsim, in part because of many of the same observations that your roommate has.
Catholic apologists, and especially recent converts, tend to be very defensive when it comes to the issue of the proper teaching of the communion of the saints. “Sure,” you say, “many Catholics have it all wrong…they shouldn’t be PRAYING TO Mary and all the saints. I’ve been hearing the argument for years that it’s all because of poor catechism, but I just don’t buy it.
But Christopher, I challenge you to be honest in admitting that millions of Catholics do just that. Then one has to ask himself, where is the fruit?
If indeed the Catholic Church is the one true Church, why is it that after 2000 years, there are so many clueless Catholics who PRAY TO Mary and hundreds of other saints every day?
Jesus said that we would know them by their fruit. I just don’t see it.
Jim,
Honestly, I can’t comment as to how many Catholics literally “pray to Mary,” because as a convert to Catholicism from agnosticism, many, many years ago, I didn’t actually stay in the Church long enough to ascertain much about the prayer lives of Catholics around me. Now, I’m coming back to the Church after being a Protestant for several years, but I’m still trying to arrange a time with the priest for Confession and haven’t been back to Mass yet. (There is the ongoing issue of transportation for me, as I have a physical disability and am unable to drive.)
About the respective fruit of Catholics and Protestants, I’m not sure that that is the issue to use to determine whether or not the Catholic Church is the Church that Christ founded, with the continuing principle of apostolic succession, to this day. Actually, I’m fairly sure that the fruit of Catholics is *not* the right issue to use to make that determination, because the practice of some people who claim to be Catholic simply does not determine whether or not the Church is what she claims to be.
What *is* determinative, here, is the answer to the question (as I implied above), did Christ found one *visible* Church, with *continuing apostolic succession*, to teach and lead His people to this very day? Bryan Cross has written about this question here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/06/christ-founded-a-visible-church/
One other thought– from my time as a Protestant, I know that it can be easy to criticize the supposed “lack of fruit” among Catholics, but is that not largely because the Catholic Church *is* one visible Church? What about the prosperity Gospel among some Protestants, or the “I’m a Christian, because I prayed a prayer, but now I’m living however I want, because I’m saved” phenomenon among Protestants? The latter tendency is HUGE in certain camps of Protestantism.
Of course, it’s not always as easy to criticize the “fruit” of Protestants as it is the fruit of Catholics, because Protestants can always point to “sound, Biblical” Protestant churches, and simply disavow themselves of the wackier churches, while the Catholic Church is One Visible Church, with parishes of varying degrees of faithfulness to official Catholic teaching (which has implications for individual Catholics).
There is “official Catholic teaching” in the Catholic Church though, by which the faithfulness of Catholics can be assessed. Where is the “official Protestant teaching” that can bind the consciences of Protestants, and by which their faithfulness can be assessed? It seems to me that such “official Protestant teaching” is a moving target, moving with the winds of cultural change. Until 1930, all Protestant denominations condemned artificial contraception as rebellion against God’s design of our sexuality. Now, in Protestantism, the acceptability of artificial contraception is hardly even questioned.
Very interesting read and I am a recent convert to Roman Catholicism in 2008. My first church was a non-denominational Christian church similar to Charismatic churches in my view. What is the evidence for Calvinist followers descending into anarchy?
Jim and Christopher
(Welcome Back BTW Christopher – I’m praying for you and I hope you can arrange transportation very soon, if there is anything I can do….)
As for the practice of the ‘average’ Catholic regarding prayer to Saints, speaking as a cradle Catholic, I don’t really see it being a common problem that Catholics misunderstand this particular doctrine / practice. In the younger generation, other than the Hail Mary, a good many ‘average’ Catholics never make a petition to any Saint at all! The ones that do, in my observation, generally understand exactly what an intercession is and what a Saint is and there isn’t a hint of idolatry. Whether they use sufficiently nuanced language to properly reflect that understanding to a typical inquiring protestant with a background in formal theology is of course another matter entirely.
GNW_Paul,
Thank you for your prayers and the welcome back Home. About the arranging of transportation to and from Confession (and to and from church generally), if I don’t hear from the priest by Thursday, I will call the parish office to see if I can speak to him. He is 80 years old; he may have forgotten to call me, or he may not be feeling well. He’s a wonderful man, but age does have its effects of all of us, so I’m trying to give him time. I live in New Mexico, and I think that you are in another region of the U.S., so I’m not sure if there is anything you can do for me, personally, other than pray (which is important, and I thank you again!).
Eric,
The disunity among Calvinists (also known as “Reformed Christians,” though some Reformed will even quarrel about how broadly that term should be applied!) is great and wide. Even simply among one “camp” of the Reformed– Presbyterians–, there are so many different denominations that some Presbyterians jokingly use the term, the “split P’s!”
Among “five-point Calvinists” more generally (not just Presbyterians), some believe that the charismatic gifts are still in use today, such as John Piper, Sam Storms, and D.A. Carson. However, other Calvinists, such as those in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, believe that the entire charismatic movement is Biblically mistaken and even dangerous. Years ago, one OPC minister was actually disciplined for praying in tongues (using a “private prayer language”) in his own house! (The Catholic Church broadly accepts the charismatic movement in the Church, though discernment is always needed.)
From what I have read, John Calvin had quite a high view of his own authority, as a church leader, and he believed that church authority was to be submitted to and obeyed by Christians. In that light, I have to wonder what he would think about the disunity and disagreements among Christians who claim to be “Calvinists” (as I did myself until earlier this year).
A reminder for those following this thread: Dr. Anders will be on EWTN Live tonight at 7 PM CST (8 EST) talking about “Protestant Theology before and after the Reformation.”
1. God is an awesome God and it will be fruitful to know who God is
2. We are a wonderful new Creation in Christ. It is fruitful to know who we are, and WILL always be very uplifting and inspiration to come to know more, understand more, and believe who we are in Christ
3. Experience the overwhelming peace and contentment and a joy unspeakable that comes from knowing the Love of God.
Why focus on “theology”? How about preaching the good news of the Gospel, that Jesus died, rose again, giving us forgiveness of sin, and making us a new creation. His blood on the cross, and resurrection has made us righteous, a gift of salvation thru no effort of our own. That is the good news about the Love of God, and we are to Live by Faith.
Why not focus on helping people come to know, understand, and believe who they are in Christ and our awesome new nature, wonderfully created with so many attributes and promises.
That is why I challenge you with tough questions about what you believe. For example, so many believe God commands us to be obedient. My question is HOW do you “try” to be obedient. If not by belief, then I ask, which of the 613 Old Testament Laws do you follow, which ones do you feel it’s ok to be disobedient? If you cannot answer that question, then I suggest you don’t know who you are.
Here’s the answer, plain and simple… Live by Faith, not by sight (senses, or thoughts):
(Gal 2:20) –
YOU have been crucified with Christ;
it is no longer YOU who live,
but Christ lives in YOU;
and the life which YOU now live in the flesh
YOU live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved YOU
and gave Himself for YOU.
http://www.mychristianidentity.com/page5.html
When you desire to know who God is, who we are in Christ, and His Love for us; then EVERY other issue is resolved so as to experience the Peace, Joy, and Love of His Kingdom, now.
Living by Faith means that as Christians, we are no longer in “bondage to the law” and instead in bondage to Christ to “perfectly” follow every law; that’s a spiritual truth.
Yet we live in a world with laws that exist in the physical realm. As long as we live in America, with our Constitution as written, it’s our responsibility as a citizen to participate in society, with all of it’s laws. However, it must be understood, there is a difference following the laws of the land, compared what it means to live by Faith. Following and/or violating America’s laws have benefits and consequences, just as you experience the benefits of following or consequences of violating SPIRITUAL LAWS AND PRINCIPLES.
Think about this: What benefit do you get from following any law of government compared to benefits from following spiritual laws.
For example: There is no U.S. law that states you MUST give to a Charity; There is no 11th Commandment, or even one of the 613 Old Testament Law that says you must give to any one particular Charity; however there is tax benefit and a spiritual principle (and benefit) in giving to a Charity? That is an example of the difference between a physical law, and spiritual Law, and a spiritual principle.
There are spiritual consequences to actions in the physical realm, and just like there are spiritual laws and principles. If it seems my “focus” has gone a little overboard on politics, I apologize. The intent is to use politics to make people aware of the foundation of our country. That foundation includes founders, with documents and a Constitution that embraces God as the source of our existence, with all rights, values, and laws originating from God, not government. I realize I get off track from that message a lot.
If you can’t answer a simple question, what does it mean to “live by Faith”, or the difference between “being in Christ” compared to “living in Christ”… who cares what you believe about Calvin, the Pope, or the Church you go to?
I am Catholic but I still respect the Presbyterians and most other Christian denominations. Why do we exaggerate in our arguments? Doesn’t this have a tendency to polarize and who do we persuade when we do this?
Eric,
How has anyone exaggerated here? Speaking for myself, I have written many times, in my comments here at Called to Communion, that I love my Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ. Until recently, I was a Protestant myself. You asked a question about the evidence for Calvinists “falling into anarchy.” Actually, you used more extreme language than I would have. There is great division and disagreement among the various camps of Calvinists, but I wouldn’t describe the situation as “anarchy.”
Anarchy means that there is no ultimate governing body and/or no governing rules. All Protestants have at least one governing rule: the ultimate right of the Christian to reach conclusions about Biblical teaching by the “illumination of the Holy Spirit,” without an authoritative Magisterium. One can look at the history of Protestantism and easily see the results of this one governing rule. Exaggerations are one thing. The objective evidence of history is another.
W A Gluck,
You ask, “Why focus on ‘theology’”? However, your comment is filled with theological statements about what you believe the Bible teaches.
There is simply no way to be a “non-theological Christian.” Every Christian has a theology. Whether it is a *consciously held* theology is another matter. One question to begin with here is, how do you know that your theology of justification and righteousness through faith alone is truly what the Bible teaches?
Hello Christopher,
Sorry for my lack of specificity. I was referring to Dr. Ander’s paragraph and last sentence below:
A Calvinist Discovers Catholicism
I grew up believing that Evangelicalism was “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” I learned from Protestant Church history that it was hardly older than Whitefield, and certainly not the faith of the Protestant Reformers. What to do? Should I go back to the sixteenth century and become an authentic Calvinist? I already knew that Calvin himself, for all his insistence on unity and authority, had been unable to deliver the goods. His own followers descended into anarchy and individualism.
I agree with your definition of anarchy, which is why I asked my question. Do you agree that this last sentence from the above paragraph is an exaggeration because it uses the word anarchy?
Yes, Calvin opposed “theological diversity.” He believed there was only ONE TRUE GOD.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
Dr. Anders, terrific job tonight on EWTN Live!
Eric,
On the face of it, yes, the word “anarchy” seems to be an exaggeration there. Perhaps Dr. Anders used that word in a rhetorical, somewhat hyperbolic way to make a point, but I won’t attempt to answer for him.
John Lofton,
Yes, Calvin believed that there was only one true God. Catholics believe the same.
Dr. Anders,
As Bryan said, great job tonight on EWTN! This show was worthy of ordering on DVD! Perhaps some of my Protestant friends will be willing to watch it, and it may open doors for dialogue!
Perhaps John Lofton, Recovering Republican is pointing out that Calvin was justified for quelling theological diversity because Calvin believed there is one God and therefore one theology (he was being consistent). If that’s what he’s getting at, I agree wholeheartedly. There is one faith, one Lord, one baptism. Dr. Anders article was not meant to blame Calvin for being opposed to theological diversity, but to point out that the Protestant world has strayed so far from the vision of its founders and to ask, given that Calvin believed he had the one theology, whether Calvin was right, and how we might know.
I’d like to ask a Calvin critic to do something for me, please. Give me one direct Calvin quote (and its specific source) and then show me from Scripture, specific passages, where Calvin was wrong. Thank you.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
Dear John,
We’re all amongst friends here, so I hope you will soon feel comfortable dropping the hefty signature block.
Regarding your challenge, it seems overly broad, so not really relevant to this article. Also, judging from your word choice, it also seems like a bit of a set-up. I suspect that I could show you a specific and cited Calvin quote, and a specifc and cited Scriptural quote, and then write out some analysis of why the two are inconsistent. (I imagine that going single-citation by single-citation, your terms of engagement, we could scandalize any theologian.) But what would that prove? You will reply with other passages that you will claim counteract the Scripture I mentioned, and support Calvin’s view. Doesn’t this seem like a prelude to futility?
Peace in Christ,
Tom B.
Dear Tom: Instead of trying to predict the future, why don’t you do what I ask and let’s see what happens? — if you are a Calvin critic. And my request was very specific, not “overly broad” at all. Thank you.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
John,
See this thread.
If that does no suffice than you can always go to a sola scriptura affirming website of the Arminian persuasion like this one for example which argue that Calvin’s theology is unbiblical in many other ways.
John – it seems to me that your request pre-supposes two things that are at question in the Calvinism-vs-Catholicism debate:
Scripture alone
private interpretation
Your question seems to me to presuppose the answers.
jj
[...] See the full article, “How John Calvin Made me a Catholic” here. [...]
Calvin vs. Scripture:
“All the works which proceed from us, so as properly to be called our own, are vicious, and therefore they can do nothing but displease God, and be rejected by him.” – Catechism of the Church of Geneva
“God ‘will give to each person according to what he has done.’ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. ” – Romans 2:6-7
I was sitting in my jammys on my couch last night watching an intelligent, theological conversation about specific topics on a broadcast television station devoted to proclaiming the truth of Catholicism. It struck me how imposible this would be for any theological heirs of the Reformation to do. (Ever seen TBN?) Having descended into what I have experienced as theological anarchy, they could never find enough supporters from their persuasion to keep them on the air. (imagine “TULIP Television Network: Proclaiming the joys of the Doctrines of Grace 24/7!”)
The reasons why this imaginary station could never happen are the reasons why “anarchy” is the perfect word to describe the situation.
Excellent job on EWTN Live Dr. Anders! Bringing the conversation from Calvin to the gospel of Evangelicalism made clear how far Evangelicalism has strayed from itself, let alone from the historic faith. I hope they have you back.
David M.
And I have not yet said ANYTHING about “Scripture alone,” Mr. Jensen. What I have asked for from the Calvin critics is: Give me one direct Calvin quote (and its specific source) and then show me from Scripture, specific passages, where Calvin was wrong — a request which presupposes that, among other things, Roman Catholics (most of the ones I’ve talked with) say, yes, they believe the Bible is the Word of God.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
Dear Dr. Anders,
Will you please comment on your use of the word anarchy in the last sentence of your paragraph below? In your opinion does salvation exist for those Christians outside of Roman Catholicism and why? Does this include Pentecostals and Mormons that do not baptize according Roman Catholic standards. In fact, Mormons reject the doctrine of the Trinity, which I have to strongly disagree with but they still profess Jesus Christ.
A Calvinist Discovers Catholicism
I grew up believing that Evangelicalism was “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” I learned from Protestant Church history that it was hardly older than Whitefield, and certainly not the faith of the Protestant Reformers. What to do? Should I go back to the sixteenth century and become an authentic Calvinist? I already knew that Calvin himself, for all his insistence on unity and authority, had been unable to deliver the goods. His own followers descended into anarchy and individualism.
Any anarchist or individualist is NOT a follower of Calvin. No way.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
John Lofton,
Is it your position that Calvin cannot possibly be wrong about anything in the scriptures?
Better to ask a person their position rather than first imputing it to them and THEN asking. Answer: No, that is not my position. My request is what it is.
ohn Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
John,
I provided links which discuss several areas where Calvin was fundamentally wrong from scripture. Here is another specific example (it cites his writing about papal primacy and then argues contrarily from scripture).
We could argue from scripture about how we think Calvin is wrong all day but that does not address the fundamental question of authority which is the topic of this thread.
If you have a point to make about the topic please make it.
Didn’t ask, Sean, for links. Asked simply for one direct Calvin quote (and its specific source) and then show me from Scripture, specific passages, where Calvin was wrong.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
John,
I gave you links because this is covered ground.
But here is one example…that has already been covered here.
From Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion Book II, Chapter 16, 10 in full.
But, apart from the Creed, we must seek for a surer exposition of Christ’s descent to hell: and the word of God furnishes us with one not only pious and holy, but replete with excellent consolation. Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. In order to interpose between us and God’s anger, and satisfy his righteous judgement, it was necessary that he should feel the weight of divine vengeance. Whence also it was necessary that he should engage, as it were, at close quarters with the powers of hell and the horrors of eternal death
We lately quoted from the Prophet, that the “chastisement of our peace was laid upon him” that he “was bruised for our iniquities” that he “bore our infirmities;” expressions which intimate, that, like a sponsor and surety for the guilty, and, as it were, subjected to condemnation, he undertook and paid all the penalties which must have been exacted from them, the only exception being, that the pains of death could not hold him. Hence there is nothing strange in its being said that he descended to hell, seeing he endured the death which is inflicted on the wicked by an angry God. It is frivolous and ridiculous to object that in this way the order is perverted, it being absurd that an event which preceded burial should be placed after it. But after explaining what Christ endured in the sight of man, the Creed appropriately adds the invisible and incomprehensible judgement which he endured before God, to teach us that not only was the body of Christ given up as the price of redemption, but that there was a greater and more excellent price – that he bore in his soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man.
Scripture, contra Calvin, teaches that the descent into hell was not punitive in anyway, but rather triumphant.
Christ “proclaimed the Gospel even to the dead” (εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ καὶ νεκροῖς εὐηγγελίσθη, 1 Pet 4:6). Jesus wasn’t burning in the flames like Calvin taught. He was dashing the gates of Hell, proclaiming His victory, and delivering the righteous of the Old Testament.
Don’t see the Scripture, Sean, that contradicts what Calvin says — an entire Scripture.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
Can’t say I was holding my breath there…
John,
David Anders – comment #42 has yielded to your demands to appropriate this com-box and debate on your terms in CalledToCommunion’s forum.
I can see you may have missed it because he didn’t direct it to John, simply “scripture vs. Calvin” and apparently you aren’t actually attempting to follow the broader discussion.
God Bless
John Lofton,
If the exercise is going to be one where we give examples and you merely assert, “nope, don’t see it” than we aren’t going to waste anymore time on the exercise.
John Lofton,
In addition to the many contradictions in those links that you didn’t ask for, Dr. Anders showed a clear contradiction above in 142. You haven’t yet responded (not that we don’t already know what you’re going to say).
Tim and GNW.
He did respond but the response contained an AD HOM which is contrary to the posting guidelines thus his comment was not published.
But, yes, it was pretty much what you would have expected and in the ‘nope, you are wrong’ variety.
What I don’t see, Sean, is what I requested — a Scripture or Scriptures, not a partial Scripture, out of context.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
John Lofton,
Some of us are here to learn. Some of us are here to learn because we got our “arse” handed to us when we used to approach others in a condescending arrogant manner much like yours, and we discovered we didn’t know everything. You are a guest here and your demanding tone is not in keeping with what I believe is the intent of this site—cordial, gracious, others-better-than-yourself-kind-of interaction.
John Lofton,
You might have missed Dr. Anders’ comment, #142, in which he quoted from the Catechism of the Church of Geneva (which, if Calvin did not have a hand in composing himself, surely he approved of the document) and refuted it with Romans 2:6-7.
However, as others have mentioned here, could you not simply reply by presupposing “Scripture alone,” quoting other verses, and then saying that we are misunderstanding Romans 2:6-7?
The ultimate question here is, is individual interpretation of the Bible (even individual interpretation as informed by historic confessions, creeds, the thoughts of your church elders, etc.) truly the *model* that Jesus *intended* for His people?
It might be helpful for you to read Bryan Cross’ article here, entitled, “Solo Scriptura, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority.” In my view, this article gets to the heart of the “Protestant problem,” when it comes to their individual, and collective, interpretation(s) of Scripture. http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/11/solo-scriptura-sola-scriptura-and-the-question-of-interpretive-authority/
Something tells me that every response we give is going to be proclaimed ‘out of context….’ or ‘partial.’
John,
Why don’t you re-respond to 142 again without an ad-hominem this time. And saying “its out of context” or “I don’t see it” doesn’t suffice as a response. If you think it’s out of context, then you need to show why.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a PCA pastor shortly after starting my conversion process. He said “why would you go to Rome when the Bible is clear that we are justified by faith alone?” I responded that I didn’t think it was so clear especially when the bible explicitly says we are NOT justified by faith alone. He said “it doesn’t say that” and I tried without success to convince him that it did (couldn’t remember the verse at the time). So I later sent him an email with the verse and he decided to change his position in accordance with what the Bible said. No, actually I’m kidding he didn’t do that. He just said it was taken out of context. First he said its not there, but when confronted with hard evidence, instead of modifying his position, he subordinated the clear reading of the text to his theology.
When we read the Scripture through Calvin colored glasses, of course there aren’t any verses that contradict Calvin. In the mind of a Calvinist, no conceivable verse could be brought up that would contradict Calvin (this ought to raise red flags since according to your own doctrine, Calvin got some things wrong.)
If you are saying, Tim, that Calvin said things that contradict Scripture then, please, give me one direct Calvin quote (and its specific source) and then show me from Scripture, specific passages, where Calvin was wrong. Thank you.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
So, is Calvin infallible, or the Scriptures, or just Calvin’s interpretations of the Scriptures, or the interpretation of Calvin’s interpretation of the Scriptures?
Just wondering, because, at times, where a Catholic states, the authority of the Church (identified by the Four Marks and physically evident in sacramental Apostolic Succession) has made this infallible declaration in terms of doctrine and dogma, a Calvinist will imply that Calvin’s interpretations of the Scriptures, defining Calvinist doctrine, is infallible.
So, where a Catholic sees authentic authority as sacramental, traced from the Apostles to the college of bishops of the Catholic Church throughout Christian history, Calvinists see authentic and binding authority traced from one man 1500 years after Christ ascended into Heaven, who most certainly wasn’t alive to be commissioned by Christ in the same way that the Apostles were and there is no historical reference to him ever being ordained a bishop of the Church by any bishops of the Church with sacramental apostolic authority. So, the question here is which authority is authentic and has the power to “bind and loose” doctrine or even interpret the Scriptures in a dogmatic fashion? Calvin or the Catholic Magisterium?
If Calvin was infallible in his interpretations of Scripture, then which Calvinist community is the true one, because there are too many to count on all of my digits? Which are misinterpreting Calvin’s infallible teachings? There can only be one truly Calvinist community… does it even exist any more? And who makes the claim that they are authentically Calvinist? Can they prove it objectively? And how do they determine that Calvin’s interpretations of Scripture is infallible enough to believe that he holds the key to understanding the Scriptures in the first place? And why can’t all Calvinist’s agree on those interpretations? So, don’t we have a problem with interpretations of interpretations of interpretations, etc?
As you can see, to the dogmatic Calvinist, it really doesn’t matter if you can show that Calvin was incorrect in his interpretation of even one verse in Scripture. Because it isn’t about Scripture, it’s about authority.
Take for example James 2: “that’s not what James meant… what he meant was…”; John 6, the Last Supper narratives, 1 Corinthians 10, etc. “this is my Body”, “except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you”, “And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord?”, “Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you…” – “that’s not what Jesus or St. Paul meant… what they meant was…”; The Lord’s Prayer “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trepass against us”, “For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences.” – “that’s not what Jesus meant… what he meant was…”
So, I don’t think that a Scripture debate is really helpful. When everything can be explained away as “that’s not what so and so really meant… what they really meant is what I want or need them to mean in order for my system to stay intact”, then how can there be anything constructive out of that? Why not go to the heart of the matter? Presbyterians (Calvinists) recite the Nicene Creed don’t they? Why not try and figure out what is meant by “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church” as defined by the Magisterium, led by the Holy Spirit, that wrote the Creed. An intellectually honest Protestant community would never recite that Creed as to do so is to admit that there is One visible and catholic Church that can be identified by authentic sacramental apostolic succession and authority, and that to recite that sentence is to affirm that one believes everything that authority teaches. Is Calvin that authority?
John Lofton,
Please re-read what I said in 162 and respond accordingly instead of repeating your original demand. That doesn’t advance the conversation.
Eric,
I’m not intending to answer for Dr. Anders here, but the consciences of all Catholics are bound by the official teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catechism clearly states that non-Catholic Christians are, indeed, Christians, which means that they can be saved, if they persevere in faith working through love.
As for Mormons, it is not my place to speculate on the salvation of *individual Mormons*, but given that their belief system rejects the Trinity, they are outside of historic, orthodox Christianity, as set out in the Nicene Creed, which is accepted by both Catholics and Protestants. If one rejects the Nicene Creed, historically and theologically speaking, one is not a Christian, but rather, a member of a non-Christian cult. I do not mean to speak “unlovingly” here, but the fact is, the most loving thing that one can do is to call a heresy what it is (heresy), and plead with those who subscribe to it to embrace orthodox, historic Christianity.
What doesn’t advance things, Tim, is repeatedly ignoring a person’s requests.
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Communications Director, Institute on the Constitution
Host, “TheAmericanView” radio show
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
John,
I think this conversation has run its (circular) course. I’ll take my bow and exit stage left – or whatever they say :-) Peace in Christ.
John,
I’m a spectator here, and not enough of a scholar to really roll up by sleeves and play, but I can play the game your way.
Just answer me simple question – yes or no.
Was John Calvin’s interpretation of scripture perfect and flawless?
John,
Dr. Anders gave his quotes in 142, Sean gave links to relevant discussion (it is relevant even though it is a link, so your dismissal of them is strange to me). You have not shown these responses to be inadequate. You have simply dismissed them. When asked for an explanation, you gave none.
If anyone is ignoring a person’s request, it is you ignoring multiple requests to explain why the responses given by Dr. Anders and Sean are inadequate. Even if they’re responses are inadequate, they have ATTEMPTED to respond to your request. You have failed to even do them that courtesy.
Since they have at least attempted to respond to your request, you should now to respond to theirs.
Gentlemen,
I found Dr. Anders’ EWTN video from last night. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qibg-m2vUno.
I hope it works.
Gentlemen,
I’m stepping in and ending this particular sub-thread, for one reason. The purpose of CTC is not for trading one-liners and ‘gotcha’s and other such tactics or back-and-forth sophistry intended to ‘score points.’ The purpose of CTC is to provide a forum for careful, considerate, intellectual dialogue about what continues to separate Protestants and Catholics, with a view to finding unity in the truth, and effecting eventual reconciliation. That goal requires a charitable and unity-pursuing stance in dialogue, one in which those who participate are all sincerely and humbly seeking to understand each other, to determine where and why we disagree, and to uncover and overcome the misunderstandings and errors that still perpetuate the Protestant-Catholic schism. And the purpose of this combox in particular is to discuss Dr. Anders’ article, whether one agrees or disagrees with various claims in the article. Raising objections to claims in the article is fine. Asking questions about the article is fine. But, this is not a place to sound-off, or vent, or even debate about anything related to John Calvin. CTC is not here to host debates, but to serve as a forum in which we may reason together in the mutual pursuit of truth in love, for the sake of achieving agreement in the truth. Feel free to discuss the article, but any further comments in the #136 subthread will not be posted.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Thanks Jared. Here it is!
Dr. Anders,
Your observations about the vast differences between modern evangelicals and what those of us who were formerly Reformed Protestants would call the “magisterial reformers” (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.) are interesting and make a lot of sense when we look at the majority of the Reformed world today. Yet, as you must know from your studies, the Lutheran, Calvinist and Zwinglian branches of the Reformation were not the only new religious movements to arise in the turmoil of the 16th century. How would you apply your observations to modern evangelicals who couldn’t give a lick about Reformed theology and practice anymore than they give a lick about Catholicism? I’m referring to the strain of Christianity that traces its roots back to the so-called Radical Reformation, either formally (Anabaptist, Amish, Mennenite) or indirectly (your average evangelical “bible church” or non-denominational church that probably has more in common with the Anabaptists then they realize, historically and theologically speaking). It seems like these people could say, “We don’t look like Calvinist Protestantism and we don’t want to, nor have we ever wanted nor intended to. We haven’t lost anything of the substance of the Reformation because Calvin doesn’t represent the substance of the Reformation. Calvin and Luther came out of Rome but Rome didn’t come out of them.” I know that this website is dedicated to dialogue specifically with Reformed Christians, but I just thought I would ask because of the TV spot and because I’d like to show it to some friends of mine, but I know a lot of people who probably thought I was just as batty when I started caring what Calvin said as I am now that I care what the Catholic Church says.
David Pell,
Interestingly, my experience has been similar to yours. When I first moved from Arminian to Reformed in my theology, my evangelical “free-church” friends didn’t seem to understand why I was embracing this strange theology of “election and predestination.” Now that I am returning to the Catholic Church, both my Arminian and Reformed friends are likely to be baffled. If only more of them would read the early Church Fathers (and *not* simply as selectively quoted within Protestant writings or social circles)….
Sadly, I just spoke with a Reformed-become-Catholic friend on the phone, and it seems that the people in his former church are more practically consistent with historic Reformed theology and practice than are most evangelicals. He has been roundly rebuked, and then utterly cut off, by most of these Reformed brothers and sisters. He is “persona non grata” to them, other than as a target for evangelism, if they ever even speak to him again. I have to remind myself that they are (hopefully) doing what they are doing out of genuine concern for his soul, however misinformed and misguided…. Mary, pray for me, a sinner.
Mr. Pell,
I agree with you completely. I’ve been in many evangelical churches where not only was Calvin not an authority, he was even treated with contempt. Even in Geneva itself, Calvin’s authority was strongly resisted for a good twenty years, until French immigration pushed the electorate in his favor. Still, I was always very interested in how much Calvin (and other magisterial reformers) fought to gain authority over these dissenters. The point I wished to make was that even Calvin and Luther understood that Scripture totally alone would lead to theological confusion.
Nevertheless, as I mentioned above, I didn’t embrace Catholicism because I agreed or disagreed with Calvin, nor because I was unsatisfied with Protestantism. In the end, I became a Catholic because I was persuaded that it is true. I find the history of Protestantism interesting, and a sound test-case for the practicality of sola scriptura, but this is not what made me a Catholic. Study of Scripture, the Church fathers, and the doctors of the Church made me a Catholic.
Only on the point that Dr. Anders made and a couple of others have commented on, I have a few evangelical friends who reject Calvin as well for various reasons. One of my friends describes Calvinism as a system that requires too many “vampire rules” to keep it from falling apart and the more he dug into those “rules” he came to the conclusion that they were so tight that they strangled the Gospel message, making it cold and clinical. That was his opinion, though. I’m sure he probably feels the same way about Catholicism, he just hasn’t said so to me.
On the other hand, I have an uncle and aunt who are Evangelicals that adhere to many of Calvin’s teachings, but not all of them. That’s why I consider Evangelicalism one gigantic umbrella under which a myriad of “choose your own adventure” or “have it your way” versions of Christianity operate.
He came up with the term “vampire rules” because of what he perceives as all of the ridiculous and restrictive rules placed on “vampires” by Hollywood and books.
Thanks Christopher for your wise advice.
Does one need to undergo water baptism in order to be saved? What if the water baptism does not follow the Catholic prescription for it?
Eric,
You can get an authoritative synopsis of the Catholic position on the necessity of baptism by referring to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, especially 1257–1261. Concerning the second question, see CCC 1240 and 1256, also note the intriguing discussion in the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Baptism, under the sub-heading “Matter and Form of the Sacrament.”
Thanks Andrew. These special baptismal cases, e.g. baptism by martyrdom and desire, demonstrate how the “good thief” could be saved without the rite being performed on him. Is that correct?
My first church that was non-denominational taught that baptism was NOT needed for salvation.
Eric,
That is correct. Also, I forgot to add the link to the CE article on baptism. Scroll down to the discussion of “Form” under “Matter and Form of the Sacrament” for information on the necessity of following the Catholic prescription for Baptism, including some discussion of which discrepancies in the form of the sacrament nullify its validity, or render its validity doubtful, etc.
Interesting. However, the view of Sola Scriptura presented here is closer to the Anabaptist SOLO Scriptura as opposed to the Lutheran/Refomed SOLA Scriptura. I fully sympathize with the author in WHAT he is reacting to as someone who has rejected American evangelicalism for Confessional Lutheranism, but I cannot sympathize with his reaction.
Jason,
How exactly is SOLO Scriptura different from SOLA Scriptura? Have you read Bryan’s article on Sola Scriptura/Solo Scriptura? Doesn’t each system ultimately make the individual interpreter of Scripture the final authority?
Peace in Christ, Jeremy
@Jeremy Tate, Absolutely not. Think of SOLO scriptura as me and my Bible alone out in the woods sitting under a tree. SOLA scriptura teaches that there are other authorities such as the church, pastors, creeds, confessions, tradition, and what have you, but the scriptures (which are authoritative because Jesus rose from the dead proving He is God in human flesh and He said they are authoritative, Matthew 5:18, Matthew 24:35, Matthew 26:56, Mark 12:24, Mark 14:49,Luke 24:27,Luke 24:45,John 5:39) interpreted via the historical/gramatical method (2 Peter 1:20) have the FINAL say. All authorities are subservient to ScriptureMatthew 15:3, Matthew 15:6. Thus where there is a conflict between the Bible and other authorities the Bible is always right and that which contradicts it is rejected. The only time we know for sure we are hearing God is in the scriptures(2 Timothy 3:16).
Here are some links to some discussions on Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide from a Lutheran perspective. In discussion with ex-evangelical Roman Catholics I often find that they were given deficient teaching in their evangelical churches and niether understood it then nor do they really understand it now as evidenced by numerous false assumptions evident in their arguments. I am sure it goes the other way around too as I see this on both sides of debates between Lutherans and our Calvinist brothers. Having been in both it really sticks out.
http://www.tabletalkradio.org/content/node/115
http://www.tabletalkradio.org/content/node/118
Jason,
Welcome to Called to Communion. The article that Jeremy referred to can be found here. The article argues that solo and sola scriptura have no principled distinction. It has 878 comments so far and no Protestant has argued either that the premises were false or that the conclusions didn’t follow from the premises.
Hi Jason,
Most who frequent this blog are well aware of the alleged differences between sola scriptura and solo scriptura, especially as articulated in Keith Mathison’s book. You can catch up with our (insanely long) discussion about it here. There have been a couple of follow-up posts, the most recent of which relates to the tu quoque objection, which, as far as I could tell, was the only substantive objection raised in the hundreds of comments on the original article.
peace in Christ,
TC
Do you believe in biblical inerrancy when it comes to science and history?
Eric, (re: #187)
I’m not exactly sure to whom your question is addressed, but the Church’s official, authoritative and irrevocable doctrine on this subject can be found in sections 20-21 of Providentissimus Deus (1893), and sections 16, 17, and especially 19-22 of Spiritus Paraclitus (1920).
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Eric,
See also section 11 of Dei Verbum.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Thanks Bryan,
I have excerpted a portion of Dei Verbum section 11:
Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation.
That last part of the above paragraph seems important to me but maybe I do not understand it correctly. Thus, does biblical inerrancy apply to matters of science?
Among practicing Roman Catholic clergy and biblical scholars, will there be a range of opinion on this question?
Eric, (re: #190)
In Providentissimus Deus we read:
In Spiritus Paraclitus we read:
So when we read in Dei Verbum:
we know that the preposition “for the sake of salvation” does not limit inspiration (and inerrancy) to a part of Scripture, but clarifies the purpose of all the truth God included in Scripture. The hermemeutic of continuity requires that later teaching be interpreted and understood in light of what is already given. And that is why Dei Verbum must be interpreted and understand not as contradicting Providentissimus Deus and Spiritus Paraclitus, but as in continuity with them.
You asked:
Among clergy and scholars one will find a range of “opinion” on this and just about every question. But whenever someone deviates from the Church’s teaching, it is just that, opinion. This deviation is partly due to ignorance of the Church’s teaching, and partly to dissent and the influence of modernism. But the complete inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture is what the Church has always believed and taught, and the Church can never revoke or reject this doctrine; she does not have the authority to do so.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Bryan,
I don’t see how your #191 answers this question from Eric M’s Question in #190
“Thus, does biblical inerrancy apply to matters of science?”
I understand (and agree with your response) in that all of sacred scripture is inerrant, but is it inerrant on every subject we apply it to, or is inerrancy limited in anyway to the scope of the matters scripture addresses?
In short, does the proper understanding of inerrancy for a Catholic require literal scientific understanding of the first Chapter of Genesis?
Paul, (re: #192)
I don’t know what the question “Does biblical inerrancy apply to matters of science” means, because I don’t know what it means to “apply” biblical inerrancy to a matter of science. Since every part of Scripture is divinely inspired, every part of Scripture is inerrant. No part of Scripture is in error. I’m not sure how to make it any clearer. If the question is “What about those verses that have to do with science?” I don’t understand why “no part of Scripture is in error” hasn’t already answered the question. It is not as though the Church statements I’ve already quoted made some kind of unspoken reservation about verses related to science. In fact, they explicitly disallowed this. Divine inspiration cannot be restricted only to some part of Sacred Scripture, and therefore inerrancy cannot be restricted only to some part of Sacred Scripture, such as the “non-science parts.”
Now, if you’re asking “Does the proper understanding of inerrancy for a Catholic require ‘literal’ scientific understanding of the first Chapter of Genesis?” that’s an entirely different question. Inerrancy is about error. This question you are asking here is about interpretation of Scripture, i.e. how those inerrant passages are to be rightly interpreted. We must not confuse the two questions: inerrancy, and interpretation. I suppose you are asking whether the Catholic Church requires that the ‘days’ of Gen 1 must be interpreted as twenty-four periods. And the answer is ‘no.’ They don’t have to be interpreted that way. (See, for example, St. Augustine’s “On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis.”) But that’s an interpretive question, not a question about their veracity. See paragraphs 35-43 of Humani Generis.
I should point out that questions about Scriptural inerrancy and interpretation are straying from the topic of this post, which is Dr. Anders’ post. Let’s try to keep the comments on topic.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Thinking of this article, and another, similar one, elsewhere, by Dr. Anders, I’m struck, in a very helpful way, by how one can relate one’s “conversion story” differently (not in a contradictory way but with different nuances), at different times, perhaps for different audiences.
What has brought up this realization for me is that I’ve been reading through another “version” of Dr. Anders’ account of his journey, away from Reformed Protestantism and to the Catholic Church, as published in the newsletter of the Coming Home Network. Dr. Anders mentioned it earlier, but for anyone who missed it, here is the link again: http://www.chnetwork.org/newsletters/may10.pdf
Personally, as a “revert” to the Church, I am comforted, in a way, by how Dr. Anders relates some of the *honest pain* of his journey in the above account. Moving from Reformed Christianity to the Catholic Church is *not* easy. It is very much worth the struggle, pain, and loss, but all potential converts and reverts to the Church should be clear-eyed about these realities.
I attended my first Mass in more than a decade today, and I cannot begin to explain what it meant, and what it was like, to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. I will only say that it was an incredibly intimate moment in my life and walk with God. The facts of being reconciled to His Church, and of receiving Him in the Eucharist, make up for the past several months of (sometimes) turmoil and loss.
The loss is real though. After Mass, I spent today and tonight, July 4th, at home alone (I’m not married or in a relationship), no friends called me to do anything, and I doubt that would have been the case if I were still a Protestant. Other than the person who drove me to and from Mass (for whom I am *very, very* grateful), and the priest, with whom I briefly interacted after Mass, almost no one attempted to talk to me. Perhaps it was just more noticeable on a day when I was fairly sure that I was going to be alone, while most of my old friends likely would not be– it’s hard to say. However, I can say that the fellowship, such as it was, after the Mass, was very, very different than the incredible welcome that I got in the fellowship time after the first service I attended at my old Reformed Baptist church. Reformed Protestant converts to the Catholic Church, and reverts to the Church, after having been away for a long time, may (I won’t say “will,” obviously, because this is my personal experience) have to adjust to some painful differences in their initial Catholic life from the church culture to which they had become accustomed. I write these things, however, not at all to *discourage* or *dissuade* Protestants from reconciling themselves to the Church.
As I wrote above, the gains are *more than worth* the losses. Greatest of all those gains, I am back in, and reconciled to, Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, which He Himself founded, and which had endured for 2,000 years. As a Catholic Christian, I received the Lord Himself today, really, truly, substantially,– His body, blood, soul, and divinity,– in a way that I simply could not have received Him in any Protestant community. I was stirred by a quiet and a reverence in worship that I had not experienced in years, and more so, by the fact that I was participating in a liturgy which predates the Reformation by over a thousand years. I was blessed and encouraged to hear a pointed and fiery homily from an 80-year-old priest who did not hesitate to speak of *all* abortions as homicides (no exceptions whatsoever) and who presented Jesus Christ as the answer to sinful abominations.
I am truly blessed to be Home, in the Catholic Church, and in a faithful parish, which teaches the truths of the Catholic faith. While I was alone for much of the day and evening, on a day when most Americans are together, and while I recognize that this is one of the prices that I paid, today, for returning to the Catholic Church, truthfully, if I could go back, I would not change my mind– other than to return to the Church *much sooner* than I did! :-) Blessings to everyone here!
Important correction, and an important point to make, along with it (God’s providence be quite wonderful, even in our typing mistakes!)– I meant to write, above, “Christ’s One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, which *has* (not “had) endured for 2,000 years!” One letter can make all the difference in the world, my friends! The gates of Hell have not prevailed, and shall never prevail, against the Church that Christ Himself founded. (!)
Christopher Lake – I just want to echo your sentiments. I was not brought up a Christian at all – became an evangelical Christian at age 27, a Calvinist (not Reformed Baptist – in the magisterial Reformed tradition) a few years later – and began a terrifying two-year journey towards Rome on my 51st birthday. My reception – with my wife’s and our children, although each of those was more or less independent – will have been fifteen years ago this coming Christmas Eve.
It was, indeed, a terrifying journey, and I should add, as well, that the first three or four years of our being Catholics was often very stormy – well, really, five years – as our own lives began more and more to conform to what God intended.
But – my word, I can hardly express the difference. I have come out of a dark and narrow place into the most glorious light and space. Thank God for His mercies!
jj
My Journey href=”http://susanj.atnz.net/Jensen_Family/jj_cath/jj_cath_index.html”
John,
Thank you so much for the comment, and for the link to your story, my brother in Christ. If I ever get a chance to travel to your corner of the world, we’ll have to meet up for coffee (or whatever your favorite beverage of choice happens to be)! :-)
Like you, I was not raised with a truly Christian background. My spiritual trajectory is, briefly, as follows:
1. Nominal, largely cultural, “Christian” childhood (Christian in name only though).
2. Over a decade of skepticism/agnosticism.
3. Brief journey to/embracing of the Catholic Church in college (and alas, heretical RCIA experience).
4. Many more years of outright atheism/skepticism.
5. Several years as a convinced, studied Reformed Protestant.
6. Now, this year, returning to the Catholic Church, from serious, careful studying of her own documents (Bible, Church Fathers, and other historical/Church documents).
7. Death (hopefully a good while away though!). :-)
As a Catholic, I should have added three more to the above seven (*not* to be presumptuous about my future):
8. Purgatory, I pray, through my perseverance in Christ, through faith and works, in this life.
9. Again, I pray, in hope, and the confidence of faith and perseverance, becoming a part of that great cloud of witnesses in Heaven!
10. Receiving my glorified body at Christ’s return, and knowing what it is like to not have to use a wheelchair or painful crutches! :-) Okay, I think that’s it!
@Christopher Lake #194 – Truely confessional Reformed churches do teach that they recieve the true body and blood of the Lord in the sacrement. The memorial view of the Lord’s Supper is a Baptist thing and not the teaching of Reformed and Presbyterian confessions. They differ in that they believe that the body and blood are recieved spiritually by faith. They differ from Lutherans in that we believe in Real Presence, that is the Body and Blood of the Lord are physically present but the bread and wine do not change. I will also add that the protestant objection to the Eucharist is not Transubstantiation. pre-Reformation reformer John Hus taught transubstantiation, but we reject the idea that it is a resacrificing of Christ per Hebrews 10:10-23.
Jason,
I was a Reformed Baptist, but that identity did not comprise my entire world of study as a soteriologically Reformed Christian. I know what the confessional Reformed churches teach on the subject of the Lord’s Supper. The question is, would any of the Reformed actually fall down in worship before their sacrament of bread and wine, because they believe that it has actually *become Jesus* through consecration?
If they would do so, then they have ceased to be historically Reformed. If they would not do so, then by their refusal, they prove that they do not truly believe they are receiving *Jesus Himself, body, blood, soul, and divinity*, in their Lord’s Supper, as Catholic Christians believe that we are in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist– and as Christians of the same Catholic, worldwide Church believed in 106 A.D., according to Ignatius of Antioch.
Jason,
The Catholic Church does not teach that the Eucharist a “re-sacrificing” of of Jesus Christ on the cross for sinners. The sacrifice on the cross happened once and only once, and it was for sinners, for all time. The Eucharist is a “re-presentation” of that one same sacrifice, not a “re-sacrificing” of Christ.
Sorry for the typos in that last comment, Jason… it’s very early here. :-)
@Christopher Lake- I don’t think less of people for typos. I can’t spell and frequenlty refer to a dictionary so Why should I be critical of typos on a blog. In response to #201 Please explain the following in light of Hebrews chapter ten which says all sacrifices are done away with and the fact that our Lord Jesus said himself on the cross “It is finished”:
1055 By virtue of the “communion of saints,” the Church commends the dead to God’s mercy and offers her prayers, especially the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist, on their behalf.
1365 Because it is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: “This is my body which is given for you” and “This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood.” In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
1068 It is this mystery of Christ that the Church proclaims and celebrates in her liturgy so that the faithful may live from it and bear witness to it in the world:
For it is in the liturgy, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, that “the work of our redemption is accomplished,” and it is through the liturgy especially that the faithful are enabled to express in their lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church.
1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit:
[Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper “on the night when he was betrayed,” [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.
1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”
“If any one saith, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema.” (Trent: On the Sacrifice of the Mass: Canon 3);
“As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead,” (CCC, 1414).
“The Church intends the Mass to be regarded as a ‘true and proper sacrifice’”, (The Catholic Encyclopedia, topic: “Sacrifice of the Mass”).
One more question, Bryan: Do you believe that “the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis”?
Eric, (re: #204)
The question of evolution would take us completely off-topic for this post. So, this is all I’ll say about it here. On evolution as a scientific theory regarding the divergence of species from common ancestors (not to be confused with [naturalistic] evolution as a philosophical theory), the Church has taken no formal position. (Of course naturalistic evolution is incompatible with the Catholic faith.) But, there are non-negotiables even in relation to the scientific theory of evolution. It is not permitted for a Catholic to deny the existence of the first human couple, Adam and Eve, from whom all humans come, as I already pointed out in the Humani Generis reference. Nor can a Catholic believe that human beings do not have immaterial souls that are immediately created by God. On the question whether God made Adam from pre-existing hominids, we must believe that God immediately (i.e. not by mediation of other creatures) ‘blew’ into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and gave him an immaterial subsistent soul. The other animals have souls, but not subsistent souls, i.e. souls that continue to exist after death. So the creation of man (and every human being) had to involve an immediate and miraculous act, the ex nihilo creation of a human soul. The human soul cannot be the product of evolution, because a subsistent soul cannot come from what it not subsistent. This remains the teaching of the Catholic Church relevant to this subject.
In his first homily as pope, Pope Benedict said the following:
If you are looking to study this subject more deeply, then in addition to the paragraphs I referred to in Humani Generis, see also Creation and Evolution: A Conference with Pope Benedict in Castel Gandolfo, and Cardinal Schoeborn’s Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution and a Rational Faith, and Pope Benedict’s In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall (written before he was pope).
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Jason,
Thanks for being understanding about my typos. :-) To answer your question about Hebrews, chapter 10, and its relationship to the Eucharist, that chapter is contrasting the repeated animal sacrifices of Jewish priests (who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah) with the once-for-all-time (as I wrote above in #201) sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. As is shown by the excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which you provided, the Church teaches that the sacrifice of the cross and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice, not a “re-sacrificing” of Christ:
1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”
One way that the Catechism also states the above is to explain that the sacrifice of the Eucharist *is* the sacrifice on the cross, “re-presented” in time. Jesus is not sacrificed again, in the sense that He is not re-crucified on the cross, but His one sacrifice is “presented” to us again, through the Mass. Given that it *is* the same sacrifice that was offered upon the cross, it must be truly propitiatory, because the cross’s sacrifice was/is truly propitiatory.
When Jesus said, “It is finished,” he was referring to that one sacrifice, His work for us, which would never have to be done again. He would not have to be “re-sacrificed,” as His sacrifice was/is sufficient for the sins of the world. This is still the case today– which is exactly what the Catholic Church teaches. Again, the Mass is not a re-sacrificing but a re-presenting of the one, sufficient sacrifice of Jesus.
As for Christ’s one sacrifice being “re-presented” at Mass for the sins of the dead, this goes to the teaching of purgatory, which is found in 2 Maccabees. This book is one among others which were included in *all* Christian Bibles, until Martin Luther, the “founder” of the 16th-century Reformation, decided not to accept these books in his version of the Bible, which was later accepted by all Protestants. The following Lutheran website openly admits these historical facts: http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/New-or-Returning-to-Church/Dig-Deeper/The-Apocrypha.aspx
Jason, (re: #203)
You wrote:
Christ’s sacrifice is finished with respect to suffering and death, but it is not finished with respect to our participation in His sacrifice. He has suffered and died once and for all on the cross two-thousand years ago: “Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.” (Rom 6:9) But Christ’s sacrifice is perfect precisely because in another sense it is never done away, but is eternal because it is the sacrifice of the One who is Timeless Eternity (“I Am”). By the ministerial priesthood which He bestowed upon His Apostles and their successors, we are granted participation even now in that one, perfect sacrifice. Christ is not re-sacrificed in the mass; in the mass we are miraculously granted a present participation in that once-and-for-all-time sacrifice of the cross, presented to us in an unbloody manner. In this way we presently participate in His sacrifice on the cross, and we partake of His body, blood, soul and divinity. Because the mass is our participation in the very same sacrifice of Christ on the Christ, it is not an additional sacrifice or a re-sacrificing of Christ.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Let’s see, I follow Calvin, I follow the Pope, I follow Luther… is this a joke or what… I follow Christ.
1st John 3:4-9, if you say you sin you don’t know Christ and never have, if you are in Christ, you cannot sin… Same word for sin as 1 John 1:9.
Gal 2:20…. There is a difference between who you are and what you do. You can choose to live by Faith in Christ, or faith in some Christian leader like Luther/Calvin/or the Pope. I choose to by faith in Christ.
I will never understand why Christ being tortured and dying on the cross wasn’t enough. If not saved and perfected 2000 years ago, I guess the work of Satan is what is needed to help finish what Christ couldn’t accomplish.
Hundreds of verses making it clear, I am one with Christ right now, and I am glad to be one with Christ, instead of being one with some priest, or one with the pope. Seems no one here understands the difference between “living in Christ” compared to “being in Christ”. I guess you all go in and out of “being in Christ”, right? Or, could it possibly be one with Christ means what is says, your new nature is one with Christ, and it’s who you are, now and eternally… you can choose to live out who you are, one with Chist, or live after the flesh on your own, thinking you can follow the pope, instead of living by faith in the truth, you are one with Christ, not one with pope…
Alan (#208),
As a former Reformed Baptist who recently returned to the Catholic Church, I am not “one with the Pope” or “following the Pope,” rather than following Christ. Christ founded one Church. As the Scriptures say, there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Protestants disagree among themselves about the faith and about baptism, to the point of splitting into thousands of churches. This does not represent not the oneness in Christ that God wants His followers to have.
In coming home to the Catholic Church, I am submitting to and following Christ, who founded one Church for His people. Have you read, and interacted with, the articles here? You might start with this one: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/06/christ-founded-a-visible-church/
In #209, I meant to type, obviously, “This does not represent the oneness in Christ that God wants His followers to have.”
Alan
I can’t imagine how I could be anymore One with Christ that receiving His Body and Blood fully and really present in Holy Communion while surrendering all that I am to union with him and monifesting that by being visibly united with His Body on Earth the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Peace Brother
@Christopher Lake in response to 206. I would like to point out protestant Bibles contained the Apocrypha up through the 17th century. Also, I would ask, when were the apocryphal books canonized?
@Christopher Lake also concerning 206- The ELCA aren’t really Lutherans. They just use the name.
@Christopher Lake- concerning #209, are you aware that in the early church there were significant disagreements about various things such as the proper use of images, priestly celibacy (largely unpopular and causing a riot in Mainz ,forgive me if I have the wrong city but I am nearly certain it was Mainz, when it came on the scene, I would also add that Paul calls prohibition of marriage a docrtine of demons) whether or not Mary had any children after Jesus, etc.
As far as division among protestants, not all non-Catholic churches are functionally protestant according to surveys done in the last 20 years.
Jason,
If I may just interject for a bit, Paul was speaking of the Gnostics and their variances of why be celibate. He himself as a celibate would be contradictory if he solely was against the celibate lifestyle.
Jason,
The Apostle Paul’s reference that you allude to is, as Drew pointed out, about the gnostic sects which did teach against marriage and having children etc…
That being said, the Catholic Church teaches that Marriage is a Sacrament, and as a Sacrament, it is a communication of the life of Christ. There are only a couple of Churches that I know of, the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic Church, that teach the sacred dignity of Marriage.
Jason,
As to your ELCA comment, on what basis do you make the judgement that the ELCA is not really Lutheran? I am not defending them, just wanting to know the criteria that you use to make this judgement.
@Drew H. I never said Paul was against celibacy but in 1 Corinthians 9 Paul clearly asserts his right to take a believing wife if he so desired. Celibacy is a gift that is not given to all. Also, Bishop and clergy were married in the early churh as per 1st Tim 3 and Titus 1 and the following:
Ancient Epitome of Canon XXXV.
“Bishops and clergy shall not set their children free until their morals are established.” -Synod of Hippo a.d. 393
@Tom at 217- They don’t believe the Bible and they don’t hold to the Lutheran Confessions. That simple. Sure they give it lip service, but in reality they just believe whatever they want. There may be a few faithfull among them but if I were them I would go to almost any other Lutheran Church body.
Jason,
The article on “The Canon Question” addresses your questions about the canonization of the deuterocanonical books.
Jason (re: #218),
See comment #880 in the Solo Scriptura thread.
In the peace of Christ,
- Bryan
Jason,
In the hours since I last replied to you, it looks as though other contributors here have answered most (not all) of your questions to me, or pointed you to resources that could answer them. (Thank you for the help, all!) I will now do what I can to help answer your other questions/issues.
On your #213 comment, I am aware that the ECLA is one of the more “liberal” Lutheran denominations– but how does that bear at all on their statements regarding the historical Christian status of the apocrypha? Historical facts are historical facts, and as their site states, it is the case that until the 16-century Protestant Reformation, all Christian Bibles included the so-called “apocrypha.” While it is true that for a certain span of time, Protestant Bibles included these books, they were never treated by Protestant churches as inspired and infallible. However, the books *were* treated as such by the Catholic Church, before the Reformation, and still are treated so today. In 382 A.D. the books were declared by Pope Damasus to be part of the canon of inspired books which were to read in parishes as part of the liturgy– which was declaring them canonical. The same decision was publicly reaffirmed at the Council of Trent, in response to Martin Luther’s challenging of the books’ status.
On your #214 comment, Jason, could you please provide some sort of historical documentation for your statements about the debates over images and the perpetual virginity of Mary in the early Church? That would help me in this discussion. Thank you in advance.
Jason,
Also, could you please clarify what this statement means, in #214:
“As far as division among protestants, not all non-Catholic churches are functionally protestant according to surveys done in the last 20 years.”
I’m not understanding you here. I want to understand, but I’m not seeing your meaning. Are you referring to the Eastern Orthodox churches? As far as I know, all non-Catholic and non-Orthodox communities hold to some form(s) of Protestant theology and ecclesiology.
In response to 222 Chris, “More Liberal”? How about apostate.”
1. Jesus quoted only from the accepted Jewish Canon. 2. Not a few early church fathers rejected the Apocrypha as scripture including Athanasius, Jerome, and Cyril of Jerusalem. The apocrypha were only affirmed at local councils not universal ones until Trent so is does not follow that they were universally accepted. Also, we know from the Council of Chalcedon that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome was not universally recognized though the Bishop you mention tried to claim such. ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON XXVIII.”The bishop of New Rome (Constantinople) shall enjoy the same honour as the bishop of Old Rome, on account of the removal of the Empire. For this reason the [metropolitans] of Pontus, of Asia, and of Thrace, as well as the Barbarian bishops shall be ordained by the bishop of Constantinople.”
Tobit 12:9 “For alms delivereth from death, and the same is that which purgeth away sins, and maketh to find mercy and life everlasting.” vs. Hebrews 1:3 (KJV) “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:”
Do alms (or purgatory) purge sins or does the blood of Christ purge sins?
As to what I said in 214: Just because a church (or person) describes itself as “evangelical” does not mean that they are functionally. Surveys taken at evangelical on students views of doctrine show that most are not doctrinally “evangelical” but any other number of things including Mormon. I have heard Rick Warren called “that Baptist Catholic”. Pelagianism and enthusiasm is rampant in many so called “protestant” or “evangelical” churches and thus they aren’t really evangelical or protestant in the true sense. They do not really believe and teach salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ’s work alone and on His merits for His sake alone. They basically tell you you gotta meet God half way and work the rest out on your own is the current Zeitgeist. Mysticism is also a blight of “evangelicalism” at large. Basically, greater evangelicalism has gone away from the Reformation toward the medieval. Lets not forget the apostate emergent movement in which many deny the doctrine of Hell.
Jason,
Some of these topics have been addressed in other posts. There is a post that goes into the canon question. You would do well to read it and respond to the arguments made there. Be that as it may, you statement:
That is just false. For example Mark 7:6-8 quotes a version of Isaiah only found in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.
Jason,
Without checking out your reference to the Bishop who declared the priests not married; it is important to note that Paul took vows more serious than that. In 1 Timothy 5:11-12 when he says that the widows will condemn themselves. I am not a competent exegete, but I do believe that the same word that I translate “condemn” is the same used in 1 Corinthians with someone who desecrates the Lord’s Supper.
Jason,
As Randy mentioned, there is an article dealing with the very issue of the canon which you have discussed.
The Canon Question
Jason (re:#224),
I hope that you are not only reading my replies but the replies of other people to you here, because, as I wrote earlier, they are either answering many of the questions that you have asked me, or pointing you to helpful resources which can answer them.
As Randy mentioned in #225, your statement about Jesus and the “apocrypha” is incorrect.
Some of the Church Fathers (not many, of which I am aware) were slow to accept the “apocrypha”; Jerome was one of them. However, as far as I know, those Fathers did finally accept the books. Jerome was persuaded by Augustine, to an extent, and ultimately, Jerome fully accepted the Pope’s declaration of the books’ canonical status. The same is, I believe, true of the other Fathers. For any Father to have rebelled against the Pope’s authoritative declaration on the canon would have been seen as a very grave act of sin.
About the ECLA, I should have been more clear. I am a former Reformed Baptist, so when I say “liberal,” I basically mean “heretical.” However, that still has no bearing on the historical truth, found on the ECLA website, that until the Reformation, all Christian Bible included the “apocrypha”– and *not* in the merely supplementary way that Protestant Bibles included them for many years after the Reformation.
About purgatory, it is not “in competition with Christ,” so to speak, for the purging of sin. Similarly to faith and works, related to justification, Protestants see the equation as one of “either/or,” when the truly Biblical equation is “both/and.” Christ’s death on the cross *does* purge sin, but to say that it purges all past, present, and *future* sins, and moreover, in the sense of giving a perpetual “imputed righteousness” to the one who trusts in Christ, is to engage in eisegesis.
Saddleback Church is not “Catholic” in its theology or ecclesiology. To imply that Rick Warren is not truly a Protestant is quite strange. Notwithstanding the general Reformed dislike of his writing, his subtle soteriology in “The Purpose-Driven Life” is actually closer to Calvinism than Arminianism. I’m not saying that he *is* a Calvinist, but he is certainly no Pelagian. It seems that you are basically saying that if a Protestant is not strongly Reformed in his/her theology, that person is not truly a Protestant, but rather, a would-be Catholic (but then, the Catholic Church condemned Pelagianism as a heresy and is also not semi-Pelagian)!
Jason,
With special regard to #224, I find it peculiar that you are so confident in your pronouncements of who is or is not truly “Evangelical” and/or “Protestant.” Perhaps you can enlighten us (and the Evangelical Protestant world communities) as to how you have made such a determination. When I attended one of the largest Evangelical seminaries in the US, the definition of Evangelical was a subject of considerable confusion and debate not just among students, but in the published writings of faculty members.
You might say that true Evangelicals cannot hold heretical beliefs, but then you must deal with the problem that many others (well-educated, Biblically literate, very serious others) who consider themselves Evangelical would consider some of your beliefs and Biblical interpretations heretical. How do you know that yours are right and theirs are wrong? You could say that true Protestants must hold to the teachings of Luther or Calvin (which one, though?), but if I am right to assume that you do not hold to the Perpetual Virginity of Mary as both of them did, then neither are you truly Protestant. If it is to subsequent Lutheran or Reformed confessions that you look, then again: which ones? Those communities and their writings certainly did not all agree.
Unless you hold faith in every teaching of Luther, then your claim that the ELCA is not truly Lutheran is without teeth. “Evangelical” is an umbrella term so wide as to be functionally useless (there are self-described Evanglical Orthodox and Evangelical Catholics–by what authority do you determine that they are not?). Can you prove that your opinions in these matters are anything more than just that – opinion?
Scott B:
How do you know that yours are right and theirs are wrong?
That about sums up the problem with any form of Protestantism. They’re left pretty much with an academic magisterium on the one hand and bosom-burning on the other. Put more simply: rationalism and enthusiasm. It’s sad to watch the oscillations and contradictions.
Best,
Mike
229- “How do you know that yours are right and theirs are wrong? You could say that true Protestants must hold to the teachings of Luther or Calvin (which one, though?), but if I am right to assume that you do not hold to the Perpetual Virginity of Mary as both of them did, then neither are you truly Protestant. If it is to subsequent Lutheran or Reformed confessions that you look, then again: which ones? Those communities and their writings certainly did not all agree.”
The Bible is always right. If you want to understand the Bible follow these three simple Rules. Context, context, and context. I have no problem with people who believe in Mary’s perpetual virginity but the text indicates otherwise but it is not essential for salvation. Many of my fellow Lutherans believe in Mary’s perpetual virginity however the earliest texts that support this view are from the second century and not the first. Some of them are Gnostic “Gospels” (which are not gospels because none of them contain the Gospel). Also, some church fathers such as Tertullian did not accept the doctrine.
You are right to say that Reformed and Lutherans do not agree on some points but there is also a lot of overlap but we all agree on what the Gospel is and we all believe it. Though I may find my Calvinist brothers in error I still count them brothers. After all, I was once a Calvinist too. I would also point out that in the early church there were disagreements and they went to the SCRIPTURES to hammer out the problem.
“Unless you hold faith in every teaching of Luther, then your claim that the ELCA is not truly Lutheran is without teeth. “Evangelical” is an umbrella term so wide as to be functionally useless (there are self-described Evanglical Orthodox and Evangelical Catholics–by what authority do you determine that they are not?). Can you prove that your opinions in these matters are anything more than just that – opinion?”
The last thing we want to do is assert our own opinions. What we must do is compare what they say in the name of God to the Word of God. If the ELCA says that homosexuality is not a sin and the Bible says the opposite then the Bible is right and the ELCA is wrong. If the ELCA preaches in Marxist categories of have and have not and the Bible speaks in terms of saved and not saved then the Bible is right and the ELCA is wrong. Furthermore if the ELCA denies the interpretation of the Bible laid out in the Formula of Concord they are not Lutherans. For instance, the ELCA’s stance on scripture, ordination of women, etc is not Lutheran. Any Pastor in any church should subscribe unconditionally to their confession and if they don’t they need to go some place where they can subsribe unconditionally.
http://cyberbrethren.com/2010/07/07/the-lutheran-confessions-are-not-just-lutheran/
If you want to know what Lutherans believe read this http://www.bookofconcord.org/
Now, I would like to turn the question around on you. How do you know that you are interpretting the teachings of the church of Rome correctly? Or that that people interpretting it for you are doing it correctly? Please tell me what “and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”" in the following passage means. If you guys are so error free then why does it say that Muslims “adore” the same God as Christians when in reality they hate Him and are in outright rebellion against His Gospel?
CCC 841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”
@226- not relevant to the issue at hand.
@228- Can you tell me why Roman Catholic Soteriology is not Semi-Pelagian?
@230 “That about sums up the problem with any form of Protestantism. They’re left pretty much with an academic magisterium on the one hand and bosom-burning on the other. Put more simply: rationalism and enthusiasm. It’s sad to watch the oscillations and contradictions.”
That is exactly what I think about Roman Catholocism (add sophistry) and Arminianism.
@225 “That is just false. For example Mark 7:6-8 quotes a version of Isaiah only found in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.”
Randy, think for a minute. If the Septuagint is a greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures done by Jews then how did it such a passage get there if it did not exist in any Hebrew text? Just because we don’t have those autographs today does not mean they did not exist back then.
One general assumption that I keep seeing repeated is that Luther was the first to teach Justification by faith alone. This is patently false. I will here provide a list of others who came before him. Some of them were burned to death by the Papacy. 1. All of God’s prophets from creation on including 2. Jesus and his Apostles, 3. The early church fathers 4. Claudius Bishop of Turin (810 – 827) 5. John Wycliffe 6. John Hus 7. the Waldensians (although I would take issue with them on many many points of doctrine)
Guys, y’all are wearing me out. I will be gone for two weeks. I hope you all will start reading the scriptures in context, read some of the earliest church fathers whose letters are mostly scripture quotations. Christ died for all of your sins so don’t worry about that man made medieval doctrine called Purgatory. Jesus is the only one you can or should trust.
Jason:
I asked in 229:
How do you know that yours (Biblical interpretations and beliefs) are right and theirs are wrong?
You answered in 231:
The Bible is always right. If you want to understand the Bible follow these three simple Rules. Context, context, and context… The last thing we want to do is assert our own opinions. What we must do is compare what they say in the name of God to the Word of God.
You’re begging the question. All you’ve done is assert that your interpretation based on your assessment of the contextual considerations of different texts is the correct one, and that interpretations that disagree with your opinions of what context demands are in error. The whole question at hand is how one can know that they are not deceiving themselves (or being deceived from outside) about which interpretation is the truth. We all here agree that the Bible is always right. We disagree on its interpretation.
Which is why your arguments against the ELCA are still toothless. I have known a good many ELCA Lutherans who hold the Bible every bit as highly in esteem as you do, and who argue from and for it in favor of the things you object to (women’s ordination, homosexual commitments, and so on). While you and I might happen to agree that we do not believe these things are supported by the text itself, what it really boils down for you seems to be here:
Furthermore if the ELCA denies the interpretation of the Bible laid out in the Formula of Concord they are not Lutherans. For instance, the ELCA’s stance on scripture, ordination of women, etc is not Lutheran. Any Pastor in any church should subscribe unconditionally to their confession and if they don’t they need to go some place where they can subsribe unconditionally.
So it’s not actually the Bible alone that is your final authority. It appears that you are saying that the final authority for Lutherans is the extra-Biblical interpretative rules set down in the 16th century by a group of German Protestants. And if they don’t agree, they are to go somewhere they can “subscribe unconditionally,” which actually means that the individual convictions of the individual believer are actually their final authority. How can it not if nobody else has the authority to define anything as true and binding on a person that such person does not understand or agree with (say, the dual nature of Christ way back when)? If the right response of that person is to leave and find a group who agrees with him (for now)? Spin it however you want, that makes the individual’s convictions primary and anything else of secondary importance–Scripture, the Creed, Ecumenical Councils… all of it. The quotation in the opening paragraph of the blog you linked to regarding the Lutheran Confessions says it all: “I judge that all these agree with Holy Scripture and with the belief of the true and genuine catholic Church.” And if he hadn’t? He should head out and find (or found) a confession he did judge to be correct. It’s all about his opinion.
Now, to be honest, I really don’t care too much what any of the various Lutheran bodies teach, or what any of the various Reformed bodies teach. All of them are ultimately rooted in the idea that there can be no singular authoritative interpreter of Scripture, so each of them ultimately falls to the principle above, out of enthusiasm and/or academicism, “every one to his own way.” Go ahead and deny it: the reality that the Protestant world now, 500 years along, is split into tens of thousands of groups which disagree on the interpretation of Scripture, split at each point because somebody decided to go somewhere where they could “subscribe unconditionally,” even if that meant making their own new church in the grand tradition of the Protestant forefathers. So when you say “The Bible is always right,” you cannot avoid the fact that you are actually saying “the interpretation of the Bible which I judge to be correct is always right.” Nice little papacy you’ve got going, there.
Finally, with regard to your final two paragraphs: I can know whether I am understanding the teachings of the Catholic Church correctly by asking. Unlike Lutherans/Reformed/Baptists/Methodists/Etc., the Catholic Church has a continuing and identifiable living teaching presence who can respond to questions and challenges. For the Protestant, the same questions exist, but there is nobody who can authoritatively answer them, so they remain always open-ended matters of individual interpretations of Scripture. For the Catholic, one can ask and continue asking for clarification. You cannot say to your Bible, “Am I understanding correctly if I say X?” I can say to my priest or bishop, “Am I understanding correctly if I say X?” and he can respond actively. We can have a conversation wherein we can identify things I might be missing, and clarify things that are confusing. And sometimes my priest might be wrong, but I can compare what he says with what the bishops and popes have said, and continue asking questions where there appear to be differences. The Church continues to teach, lead, and shepherd, and is protected from error by the Holy Spirit.
Your problem with the Catechism’s teaching about Muslims is sad. You say that “in reality” Muslims “hate Him and are in outright rebellion against His Gospel,” but how can you possibly know the inner motivations of millions of people? They are in theological error, yes, we are agreed on that, but even if Muslims have misunderstood the Triune God and the work and significance of Jesus Christ, they are seeking to follow God no less that you or I am. Okay, they have a lot of things wrong, but so do the ELCA and Reformed according to you. Do they also, perhaps along with the Jews, earn your ire? Muslims, Jews, and Christians all explicitly seek to follow and worship the God of Abraham. Many people will get it wrong, and that is a serious thing that deserves our prayerful and compassionate response, but you are looking on the outward appearance (incorrect doctrines), while God is looking on the heart (a desire for Him).
@233- From your viewpoint we can’t know what any text means then. From your position if the RCC says that the Bible says there are aliens and you have to believe that to be saved then you have to believe that in spite of anything the text says.
“Which is why your arguments against the ELCA are still toothless. I have known a good many ELCA Lutherans who hold the Bible every bit as highly in esteem as you do, and who argue from and for it in favor of the things you object to (women’s ordination, homosexual commitments, and so on). While you and I might happen to agree that we do not believe these things are supported by the text itself, what it really boils down for you seems to be here:”
That’s just silly, anyone who could read on a 8th grade level could read through the Bible and conclude that the ELCA is in outright rebellion against God. Sure there is the “Lutheran Core” but even they are in favor of things that scripture clearly forbids such as ordination of women. The ELCA only gives lip service to Bible.
“So it’s not actually the Bible alone that is your final authority.”
No, the Bible is THE FINAL AUTHORITY, the confessions, councils and creeds are only authoritative in that they agree with scripture. If you read early church fathers you will find they constantly appeal to Scripture.
“Now, to be honest, I really don’t care too much what…” Which is why you don’t get it and keep throwing straw men and red herrings at me.
“which actually means that the individual convictions of the individual believer are actually their final authority.” -Actually, it means they’ve been defrocked.
“Your problem with the Catechism’s teaching about Muslims is sad. You say that “in reality” Muslims “hate Him and are in outright rebellion against His Gospel,” but how can you possibly know the inner motivations of millions of people? ”
Uhhhh? God’s word! Duh!
“they are seeking to follow God no less that you or I am.”
No they are not and you have proven that you are a semi-pelagian heretic and you need to repent.
“Muslims, Jews, and Christians all explicitly seek to follow and worship the God of Abraham.”
If you do not trust in Jesus Christ alone for you salvation then you do not worship the God of Abraham. Jesus Christ is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus Christ is the God who destroyed Sodom and Gemmorah. Jesus Christ is the God who chooses and saves His people.
“but you are looking on the outward appearance (incorrect doctrines), ”
No I am looking at the WORD OF CHRIST.
“while God is looking on the heart (a desire for Him).”
Further proof that you are a Pelagian heretic. Man does not have the power to seek God there is none that seeks Him. He seeks us! He comes to us in our baptism, in HIS word, in the sacrement of the alter. We do not seek God because we are born dead in tresspasses and sins and the Word of God (preached, read, and administered in the sacrements (there are only two by the way, your extras are man-made). God judging the heart is not good news, Christ dying for our sins is good news. You are trying to be saved by the Law which according to Paul in Gelatians there is no law that can save.
Gelatians 3:21-22 (ESV) “Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For(AN) if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22But the Scripture(AO) imprisoned everything under sin, so that(AP) the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given(AQ) to those who believe.”
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+3&version=ESV
Anything that you do is Law, not Gospel. The Gospel is what Christ has done for you. Repent and believe the Gospel.
But Jason – the point is that if you say the Bible says A and I say it says B, and we find we cannot agree – and we both think the issue in question is an essential one – who decides between us? It seems to me – as an ex-Calvinist, now-Catholic – that we have no choice but either to sacrifice unity or integrity.
jj
Jason,
How are you certain that you know what the passages in Galatians mean when they refer to “works of the law”? The fact is, brother, you are not simply reading the “clear teaching of the Bible.” You are interpreting the Bible *through the Lutheran theological and philosophical paradigm*, which brings you to certain conclusions about what passages mean. We all interpret the Bible through a paradigm, and we all have to be honest about that fact.
You keep telling us to look at context when it comes to Scripture. It is precisely because Luther *did not* carefully look at the context of Galatians that he misunderstood the passages about “the law.” He took “the law” to mean *any works* at all– meaning that, none of them can contribute to our justification before God. However, Luther was not looking at the *context* of these passages, which is that Jewish Christians were attempting to require Gentile Christians to be *circumcised*. This is primarily what is meant in Galatians by the statements that works of the law do not bring justification.
If one looks at the surrounding context, the references are to circumcision and other rituals of the Mosaic law, not to any and all works, peri0d. This does *not* mean that works, in and of themselves, justify though. They must be coupled with, and inspired by, the faith that trusts in God alone. Faith without works is dead, and by implication, works also need faith. Protestants misinterpret the situation being one of “Christians are justified by faith alone, while Catholics are trying to justify themselves before God by their works.”
In actuality, the Catholic teaching is the Biblical teaching. It’s not either faith or works, related to justification. It’s both/and. Faith alone does *not* justify man before God. Without works, it is *dead*. As a former Protestant, I know the explanati0n, “Well, James is talking about a different kind of justification than Paul.” The explanation does not hold water. It is a case of eisegesis in the service of holding together a Protestant paradigm.
This is just insulting. I know many people who support female ordination. They are not incapable of reading. They are not in rebellion against God. A few of them are pastors in my family. It is possible they are mistaken. It is also possible you are. But for you to declare them to be evil just because they disagree with you is arrogant and uncharitable. I understand that the only alternative is to admit your system does not work. But what you are doing is not working very well either. It is the thinking that has led to many wars but it has not led to unity and not led to truth.
Jason (234):
I appear to have struck a nerve here, which was not my intent. I apologize for any unintentional offense. Nevertheless, you have not dealt with any of my arguments and you continue to miss the point. The only thing you have to vouch for your interpretation of Scripture is that it makes sense to you (hence the 8th-grade reading level comment, even though smarter men than you and me disagree with us both. Are they all right? All wrong?).
John and Christopher above have answered this assumption well enough, there’s no need for me to add to what they’ve said. I’m more interested in reading your honest response to what I actually wrote. If they are red herrings and straw men, show me what and why. I grew up Baptist and spent years as a Reformed Christian before coming to the Catholic Church as a student in an Evangelical seminary. I know the arguments, because I’ve made them. They all fall to the same weakness, because they all lack any authority to back themselves up. Again, you say it is the Bible alone, but are ignoring the inconvenient fact that the Bible must be interpreted, and that you are the one who is deciding which interpretation out of many is correct. You are pretending as if there is only one meaning possible in Scripture and that it is obvious, but the facts on the ground utterly contradict that idea.
I’m willing to be shown that I’m wrong, but you’ve given me nothing but dismissiveness and unexamined assumptions so far.
In actuality, the Catholic teaching is the Biblical teaching. It’s not either faith or works, related to justification. It’s both/and. Faith alone does *not* justify man before God. Without works, it is *dead*. As a former Protestant, I know the explanati0n, “Well, James is talking about a different kind of justification than Paul.” The explanation does not hold water. It is a case of eisegesis in the service of holding together a Protestant paradigm.
Actually, the Protestant explanation I understood, when I was a Calvinist, was that James is saying – what could be perfectly plausible, I think – that living faith will produce works, and that those works are the proof that his faith is living. Of course what James actually says is that a man is not justified by faith alone. And Paul does not say – Luther to the contrary – that a man is saved by faith alone, only that he is saved by faith. I personally consider the ‘faith alone’ vs ‘faith plus works’ to be a dispute about words. Both sides agree that to say “I have faith” but not have works means one is not justified.
But there are basic disagreements between Protestants and Catholics – never mind that, there are basic disagreements amongst Protestants. My question to Jason seems to me to stand still – who decides what the Bible teaches?
jj
Jason,
Please read our posting guidelines. Your last comment contained several violations including an ad hominem attack.
All: Thanks for helping us keep the discussion as charitable as possible!
To assert the necessity of the Catholic magisterium in establishing authoritative interpretations of divine revelation is not to say that no text can be understood.
Materially speaking, different kinds of texts are more or less suited to application in a wide range of contexts. If I want to know how to use my iPod, I can look at this little booklet called a “manual” that is very clearly intended to tell me everything I need to know about using my iPod. If I want to know everything I need to know about what it means to be a Christian (what I should believe and what I should do), it is not self-evident that I should look to a collection of narratives and letters written to particular communities to address particular problems. Speaking of what 8th graders can or can’t accomplish, any 8th grader should be able to look at the bible and realize that it’s not an instruction manual. This is an obvious category confusion that could only happen to someone who is simply making the assumption, for whatever theological or polemical reason, that it must be so. We don’t find, and shouldn’t expect to find, explicit treatments of baptism in a letter that Paul writes to a congregation to tell some dude to stop sleeping with his stepmom in which he only mentions baptism in passing. The demand that Protestants make of scripture is unnatural and explains why so many of them come to such different conclusions. The data is not clearly laid out like they need it to be, and so they can’t help but come to mutually exclusive, but in many cases equally rational, positions. Jason acts as though his hermeneutic and the conclusions which he draws are self-evident, yet even Peter says that many of Paul’s writings are confusing and difficult to understand. It’s particularly difficult to understand the biblical texts when they are wrenched out of their ecclesial context, and that is what has happened in Protestantism. Because the bible has no ecclesial context for the Protestant, the only context left is the words on the page. Yet we must remember that the ecclesial community is prior to the text, and so the people who wrote the New Testament were not writing it in order to tell everyone how to establish their communities. The communities had already been established on the basis of apostolic (oral) teaching and sacramental leadership, and there are therefore many things that the authors and readers of the New Testament would have simply taken for granted. It is this ecclesial context for which the Protestant hermeneutic is starved. For a Protestant, Jesus’ giving of John to Mary and Mary to John can be little more than an interesting fact of history that John decided (for whatever reason) to make us privy to. At best, we get to see what a nice son Jesus is. But it makes perfect sense to the Fathers and to Catholics and Orthodox for the subsequent centuries that the New Testament has a Mariology. It was perfectly natural for Origen to say, “we must lay our head on Jesus’ breast and take Mary as our mother” because the Church new this to be the case even outside of written revelation.
John (#239),
You’re right about the Calvinist explanation being that works “prove” that faith is living– at least, this is what I *think* that *most* Calvinists believe. However, therein lies another problem. Calvinists can’t seem to agree among *themselves*, as to the best way to think about this issue and to speak about it– whether to each other, or to themselves, particularly when it comes to the subject of assurance of salvation.
From what I have read, most of the Puritans placed a very, very strong emphasis on the visible, clearly identifiable role of works in one’s Christian life. Reading at least some of their books, sermons, etc., one could easily come away with the message, “If you are not bearing *obvious, visible* signs of *progress* in holiness at *all* times in your Christian life, then you either might not be a Christian, or you are likely not one.”
However, other Calvinist authors will say, basically, “Yes, works are important. They are one sign of a living faith. However, don’t look so much at your works, because their half-heartedness may drive you to despair. Look to Christ for assurance of your salvation– for the assurance that you are, in fact, justified before God by virtue of your faith in Christ.”
To a Calvinist, I know that the difference between the above two “Calvinist positions” on works will likely seem very small, compared to the difference(s) between the basic Protestant and Catholic positions on works. However, in daily, lived-out practice, these two Calvinist views can make a radical difference in one’s Christian life. I “lived” each one of them, at various times, as a Calvinist, and in my experience, the first can easily lead to despair, and the second can easily lead to antinomianism.
Ironically, while many Protestants see Catholic teaching on faith and works as being “law-based, legalistic,” I have found it to be much more Biblically accurate, balanced, and healthy, then either of the two aforementioned Calvinist positions. There is also the Lutheran position, which, from my understanding, is much closer to the second Calvinist position than the first. Again, Protestants disagree among themselves as to how to best think about the role of works in the Christian life. They will all *say* that works do not contribute to justification, which is by faith alone– but how justification is “lived out,” through faith and works, can look radically different from one section of Protestantism to another.
As to your view that the “faith alone” and “faith plus works” dispute is one of words, I would mostly agree. Of course, Protestants don’t see it that way, possibly due, largely, to the Catholic distinction between mortal and venial sins, with the former actually killing God’s grace in the life of the soul, and the latter being harmful but not deadly to grace in the soul. This distinction is unacceptable to Protestants, and it may be a great part of their dispute with Catholics over “faith alone” vs. “faith plus works.”
235- Doctrine divides darkness form light.
@236- That is just you interpreting the text according to the way you’ve been told. Instead of looking at the plain meaning of the text you have to do a heresy two step so it come out the way you want it. Ephesians 2 will help you clear up the Roman twisting of James.
Ephesians 2:8-11 (King James Version)
8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
11Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
Notice verse 10 how we are “created in Christ Jesus UNTO good works” and that is what James means when he says we are justified by faith and works. If you look at the context in James he says that works without faith are dead and faith without works is dead. Good works are a FRUIT of faith. Works themselves do nothing to add to our salvation nor do they justify us before God. This has been taught by the Church since the first century but it got burried in the middle ages and they started burning people for teaching it. The only reason you guys think Luther made it up is because he was the first one from Claudius on to survive.
I am starting to see that Post-modernism is very compatible with the RCC.
237- I am not the one who is arrogant. The female “pastors” are the ones who are arrogant.
1 Timothy 2:12 (King James Version)
“12But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”
“It is the thinking that has led to many wars but it has not led to unity and not led to truth.”
No, politics leads to wars and there cannot be any unity at the expense of the Gospel. As I said before, doctrine divides darkness from light and I would gladly go the stake like William Tyndale or John Hus for the sake of the Gospel so get the kindling ready.
238- What about your interpetation of the RCC churches teaching? RCC claims not to be pelagian but that is what your argument demonstrated. I used to be a Pelagian and it does strike a nerve.
“You are pretending as if there is only one meaning possible in Scripture and that it is obvious, but the facts on the ground utterly contradict that idea.”
Oh, I see, I got it all wrong and really you’ve been agreeing with me the whole time it’s just that I missed three of the four levels of meaning of the text you have typed here. Come on guys, lets stick to the issues and admit that you either have no understanding of Lutheran or Reformed doctrine or are deliberately dodging the issues. You totally ignored the fact that by your interpretation Pelagianism is taught in the CCC.
@239
“And Paul does not say – Luther to the contrary – that a man is saved by faith alone, only that he is saved by faith.”
Epehsians 2:9″Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
“My question to Jason seems to me to stand still – who decides what the Bible teaches?”
Who is to decide what the newspaper says? Who is to decide what the text you provided here means?
@240- “The demand that Protestants make of scripture is unnatural and explains why so many of them come to such different conclusions.”
Then you must know everything.
“Jason acts as though his hermeneutic and the conclusions which he draws are self-evident, yet even Peter says that many of Paul’s writings are confusing and difficult to understand.”
“which they twist to their destruction” Obviously Peter was addressing antinomianism because Paul was teaching about Justification by Faith alone and some people don’t understand how that relates to works. Antinomianism on one side legalism on the other.
I can see everything I have said has fallen on deaf ears. I give up. I am out for two weeks on a mission. I will remember you guys in my prayers.
Jason,
The idea that good works do not contribute to justification is *not* clear from the Biblical texts. Now, as one of the formerly Reformed, I once thought that it was clear from the texts. That was because I had badly catechized, as a Catholic, and was thus ripe for accepting a Protestant interpretation of Scripture. I knew no better, so I bought into the Protestant paradigm and became very anti–Catholic. Whether you believe it or not, I actually sounded a good bit like you, when I spoke about Catholics and their denial of the “true Gospel,” which I took to be the “clear reading of Scripture”!
Jason, all of the authors of the articles here (and a good number of the authors of the comments, like myself) came from, and have been schooled in, Reformed Christianity. We know your arguments, because we used to use them ourselves– for some of us, lamentably, perhaps even on Catholics!
The idea of justification by faith alone is only “the clear meaning if Scripture” if one reads, and/or is taught, the texts from a *Protestant paradigm*. This is not clarity in meaning. It is a form of Protestant eisegesis.
Justification by faith alone was not the thinking of the early Church. I do know that there were men before Luther who held to his sort of thinking. They were considered heretics, precisely because justification by faith alone was *not* the understanding of the early Church. I am curious– have you read any of the writings of the Fathers themselves, or have you only read those writings, as quoted by Protestants?
I know, from my own time as a Protestant, that Protestant authors, such as James White, can make a case against Catholic teaching that is persuasive, to some degree– but only because these authors quote the Fathers out of context, misunderstand (and/or misrepresent) statements from Church councils and documents, and hone in on certain Scripture passages, reading them with “Protestant lenses,” either to the exclusion of other verses which don’t fit into their system, or wrenching those verses to fit their system. I did these things too as a Protestant. Again, I didn’t know any better.
From what I have seen, Reformed Christians who become Catholics do not do so because they were not well-schooled (steeped, even!) in Reformed exegesis and theology. It is largely the *better-schooled* Protestants who become Catholics. By contrast, most Catholics, of whom I’m aware, who become Protestants were poorly catechized Catholics– such as myself. When I began actually looking more deeply into Catholic Biblical exegesis, and reading the early Church Fathers, I began to realize that as a Protestant, I had bought into the wrong paradigm– exegetically, historically, theologically, and philosophically.
“No, the Bible is THE FINAL AUTHORITY, the confessions, councils and creeds are only authoritative in that they agree with scripture.”
But this principle–”the Bible is THE FINAL AUTHORITY, the confessions, councils and creeds are only authoritative in that they agree with scripture”–is itself a confession. So, if confessions are not authoritative, then we can, without contradiction, reject your confession as well. On the other hand, if your confession ought to be believed, it must believed on the grounds that it agrees with Scripture. But it does not agree with Scripture, since the Scripture never claims it is the final authority. And besides, it could not be, since the collection of books we call Scripture had to be compiled and thus the grounds for the compilation–what books belong and don’t belong in Scripture–is logically prior to the Scripture itself. Thus, there is an authority–the grounds of the compilation–that determines what belongs in Scripture. So, Scripture is not “the final authority.”
Now, if you want to claim that Scripture as final authority is your fundamental presupposition, that’s your right. But then one can say in response: It isn’t to me. And you will say: It is. And again: It isn’t. Now we are at an impasse that cannot be resolve by appealing to Scripture, since the debate is over whether Scripture is the final authority.
@Jason:
Does your response to my question mean that you have no answer? Or does it mean that the teachings of the Bible are so obvious that anyone who disagrees with you must be in bad faith – must not really believe what they are saying?
I believe Matthew 16:13-19 is a prophecy of the Papacy and is one of the many Scriptural proofs that God intends the Papacy; you, one presumes, do not. You – again, one presumes – state that it is obvious that that passage does not mean what I think it means. If I am wrong, I must either be in bad faith, or, perhaps, deluded by Satan.
But your (rhetorical, I presume) response doesn’t help. Since I do actually think that passage refers to the Papacy, is there no one in authority who can judge between our two interpretations?
I would appreciate it if you would just give me a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to this question:
When we disagree about a major Biblical passage, must we either accept loss of unity or loss of integrity?
jj
I also have to ask, from a Protestant’s viewpoint, which confession “agrees with Scripture” on the issue of baptism– the Westminster Confession or the 1689 London Baptist Confession…. which highlights the whole problem of the Protestant concept of the “plain meaning of Scripture,” when it comes to many different issues (including baptism but far from limited to it).
I also have to ask, from a Protestant’s viewpoint, which confession “agrees with Scripture” on the issue of baptism– the Westminster Confession or the 1689 London Baptist Confession…. which highlights the whole problem of the Protestant concept of the “plain meaning of Scripture,” when it comes to many different issues (including baptism but far from limited to it).
Christopher,
I’m a Presbyterian and so the London Confession is not mine, but the consensus between the London Confession and the other confessions of the Reformation era is quite remarkable. There are however a few issues where there is not consensus and you have hit on one of them. The meaning, efficacy, and mode of baptism is a matter where the Reformed family of churches don’t have clear consensus. The “plain meaning of Scripture” does not apply to every single issue in Christian theology and this is one of them. There are complex and difficult issues in theology as Peter speaks about, and we are not trying to pretend that Scripture speaks with equal clarity on all matters. The situation is analogous to what happens Catholic theology – there are matters of dogma but also matters where there are multiple allowable opinions.
On a practical note, we have baptists in my church. They just don’t get the whole infant baptist thing. But that’s OK, it’s really not a big issue for us. That does not mean that baptism is not important, only that we are not dogmatic where the Scriptures are not explicit.
Andrew,
I appreciate your reply. In a way though, your response actually makes one of the major points of the above article, which is that in some significant ways, the theology and practice of contemporary Reformed churches are quite different than historic Reformed theology and practice. Calvin apparently considered infant baptism to be so clear from the Scriptures, and actually *essential for salvation*, that he strongly asserted that anyone who disagreed with him on the practice was not a Christian. “The plain meaning of Scripture,” to Calvin on this subject, is not clear at all to modern-day Calvinists– or, one might say that if it *is* clear to them, it is “clear” in exactly the opposite way, meaning that mode of baptism is considered a “non-essential,” not a matter of salvation.
Therefore, for Reformed Protestants, who makes the ultimate determination of what is, and is not, the “clear meaning of Scripture” on an issue such as baptism, or even justification– thinking here of the Federal Vision controversy among PCA’ers? If the “essentials” are clear, why was there even an FV controversy in the first place? Who ultimately gets to decide what are the “essentials” and “non-essentials”? How is such an authoritative determination made within Reformed Protestant theology and ecclesiology?
Andrew-
I, too, appreciate your participation in this thread. Thank you.
That is, despite the fact that Christ spoke of baptism in these terms:
Rather than acknowledging that Calvin left his “family of churches” with no means by which this most fundamental of issues could be settled, you’ve relegated it entirely.
This is exactly what John Thayer Jensen said must happen (comment #246). Doctrinal integrity (relegation of baptism) is sacrificed for the sake of unity (“…we have baptists in my church”).
thanks- herbert vander lugt
Christopher,
I’m sure there are Catholics theologians that you greatly appreciate, but that on some or maybe a number of issues you would disagree with. So it is a similar matter with Calvin. We do not hold Calvin to be some super-spiritual giant, and neither did Calvin himself. He was a child of his environment like we all are.
On Federal Vision, this is just one of many theological controversies to hit the Reformed Churches, and for the vast majority of these communions they have dealt with the matter well. I would say that like in the Reformed family of churches, as in the Reformation, we are still unified on the matter of justification. At the Reformation there was quite a wide variety of theologies of justification, all allowable within the pronouncements of the Council of Carthage (the last council to deal with the matter that was available to the Medieval Church). The unity on justification was considerably greater in the Reformed camp than it was in the Catholic one. My observation is that even after Trent that this was still the case.
Herbert – I feel quite confident that those following the London Confession and those following other Reformed confessions would agree on the implications of your quote from John above.
Andrew,
Individual theologians claiming to be Catholic may have any number of different opinions, but the Pope and the Magisterium, teaching in communion with him, speak with a clear voice on the things that are essential for Catholics to believe. This is why we Catholics have one Catechism, to which we can all point and tell you, “This is the compendium of our ecclesiology and beliefs as Catholics. This Catechism, and the Pope and Magisterium responsible for it, can settle disputes between us as Catholics.”
Therefore, when you compare Calvin’s statements, as to one’s beliefs on the nature of baptism or the Lord’s Supper as being *essential for salvation*, to differing statements of claimed “Catholic” theologians today, the comparison is not at all the same. We have one Catechism to help in settling disputes. It is authoritative for all Catholics. Do historic Reformed churches have anything comparable that is truly authoritative for them and can unite them on questions about which various Reformed theologians differ?
A perfectly valid question here is, who has declared *authoritatively*, for all Reformed Christians today, that Calvin’s statements on what is essential for salvation are *wrong*? Who even has the authority to make such definitive declarations within the Reformed world?
If the PCA, OPC, and all other historic Reformed churches attempted to join together for a meeting to make such a definitive declaration, couldn’t a splinter group simply form from that meeting and say, “WE are the truly historic Reformed church, because we hold that Calvin is *right* on infant baptism and a non-symbolic view of the Lord’s Supper being essential for salvation. Therefore, any Reformed church which holds to views other than those of Calvin is *not* a truly ‘historic Reformed church!’”? What exactly would be inconsistent about such a charge, Andrew? How would other Reformed churches defend themselves against it?
I would be interested in documentation, pertaining to your statements that “the unity on justification was considerably greater in the Reformed camp than it was in the Catholic one. My observation is that even after Trent that this was still the case.”
Andrew, how are such statements justifiable, given that the one, worldwide, Catholic Church was able to call one council (Trent) to speak authoritatively on the subject, while various Reformed churches (at least from what I know) could do nothing of the sort?