In this exchange, Art responds to a very polite and searching Protestant on a number of topics. The Protestant's remarks are in purple. Art responds in blue.
For instance, Tim addressed the issue of whether or not a doctrine is true because a majority of men agree upon it. Your response seems to indicate that this is so, based upon the idea that the Holy Spirit would be guiding all but the most obtuse of men in attendance in a council.
No, that is not the case. When we are talking about the faith of the Church, we are talking about the virtue of Faith wrought in us by sanctifying grace. It has nothing to do with the opinions or predilections of men, but rather the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. The Church is not a human institution but a divine one. It was not founded by men but by God and so we need to approach the mystery of the Church with fear and trembling because we are approaching the work of God Himself. This is something that Protestants do not understand. They act like the Church is a jolly little tea party separate and independent of God. This is grossly incorrect and frankly borders on blasphemy. Jesus himself warned us about this:
Then a blind and dumb demoniac was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the dumb man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, "Can this be the Son of David?" But when the Pharisees heard it they said, "It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons." Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand; and if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your demons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can one enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (Matthew 12:22-32)
Jesus warned the Pharisees that whatever slander they said about Him would be forgiven them (!!), but when they saw the power of the Holy Spirit working, they had better not speak against it. This means that we need to be VERY careful how we judge the actions of other people. If God is working through them and we are just being contrary or cantankerous towards them, it is a serious matter and potentially damning.
When the entire Church confesses a doctrine as "de fide" (i.e., a matter of supernatural faith, not a mere human opinion) it is not men talking "but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you." (Matthew 10:20) You must judge such a teaching not in a human way but as one trembling before the mystery of God's own Spirit.
Am I wrong in understanding that a great number of Bishops opposed Pius IX at the Vatican Council of 1870, but were eventually bullied into submission to the doctrines of Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin? If this is correct, this hardly seems like the unity of Spirit that would be required for the passage of important Church doctrines.
I am sorry but you are totally incorrect. The vast majority of the Bishops fully supported the Pope and the vote in the Council reflects that. Some Bishops were concerned that a declaration of Papal Infallibility would be ill advised at that time because of ecumenical concerns. When it came to a vote most of these men voted for it because they knew it was true in principle. In fact, prior to the Council, Pope Pius IX had polled the Bishops of the world on this and it was because of their virtually unanimous support for the doctrine that he put it on the agenda. A similar poll (with a similar positive response) was done prior to the declaration of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, so the charge that these 2 dogmas were "imposed" on the Bishops is incorrect.
Another problem I encounter as I look across the Tiber is how the Roman Church seems to have gone extremely overboard in the honor given to the Blessed Mother.
Quite the contrary, the problem is how she is ignored, abused, and slandered by Protestants. The BVM is the greatest human person that ever lived. (N.B.- Before you have a conniption, please remember that while Jesus had a human nature he was not a human person but a divine person. As the Council of Chalcedon taught, He was one person with 2 natures.) She was the subject of the earliest prophetic utterance in Scripture: Gen 3:15 in which she was placed at enmity with Satan. This passage also applies to faithful corporate Israel (which foreshadowed Mary) and the Church (of which Mary is the Biblical type). Her faith breaches the gap from the OT to the NT. Her "fiat" at the Annunciation was not merely her own submission to God. She spoke vicariously for all the faithful who preceded her in the OT and all those who would succeed her in the New. Her "let it be" was ours as well. She spoke for all of the elect in Christ and it is only by joining ourselves to her confession that we can be called Christians.
As Eve had spoken with an (evil) angel, asserted her will against God, and eaten of forbidden fruit, Mary spoke with a (good) angel, submitted her will to God, and bore in her flesh the "fruit of her womb" -- Jesus Christ -- whose flesh & blood we eat for spiritual nourishment. She reversed the curse of Eden. Just as the original Eve had been taken from the flesh of the first man, the New Adam was taken from the flesh of the new Eve. This is no small matter. It is a central mystery of the faith which Catholic Mariology with all of its components has barely touched. Mary submitted herself unconditionally to the will of God and immediately the new life in Christ became incarnate within her flesh leading to the salvation of mankind. She is not merely the first Christian. For a while, she WAS the Church itself. It is no wonder that St. Louis de Monfort would claim that we can never say enough about Mary.
I remember recently watching a Mass on ETWN (as part of my continuing to seek understanding of the Roman Catholic Church) and as part of the homily, a young girl stood up and spoke of how much her confirmation had made her witness even more to others about the glory of Mary.
Of course! Just as the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary at the Annunciation, He overshadowed this girl at Confirmation. Mary's experience was like her experience as well. When you are filled to overflowing with the Spirit of love between the Father and the Son, it is a pale shadow of what it must have been like to conceive in your womb not only the Incarnate Son of God but the new life for all the regenerate souls of the elect from all time! No image could be more apt for the confirm and than to contemplate the glory of Mary at the Annunciation! That is why Mary is Blessed Mother of God and of the Church. It was not only the human life of Jesus that she bore in her womb but the supernatural life of all of the Church.
Well, excuse me for sounding sola scriptura (I think this is a convenient charge Roman Catholics level at us when we test Holy Tradition by Scripture) but the message from Scripture I have is this:
John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me
The above young girl's testimony seems to be a very bad departure from this principle.
Not at all! It was the Spirit of the Father that overshadowed Mary. That same Spirit is what we receive in Confirmation. The parallel is perfect! We are the seed of "The Woman" whom God placed at enmity with the seed of Satan and the sons and daughters of God. Is it not Mary's glory to be the Mother of God? Is it not also her glory to have born the Christ in the flesh? And are we not also her spiritual children born through the "new birth" of baptism into the Church?
The work of God in history was not that His Blessed Mother be lifted up, but that the salvation program of God be offered to all nations, which involves lifting up Christ.
You come from an impoverished theology which sees salvation as a merely forensic declaration that an alien righteous applied to man. This "righteousness" does not belong to the saved but to God alone. In that system we merely reflect his glory.
Catholicism takes a different view. We believe that the plan of salvation is intended to make us, "partakers in the divine nature" (2Pet 1:4). This has a much greater end in mind than merely reflecting the divine glory. See what Scripture says about this:
But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)
Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not see the end of the fading splendor. But their minds were hardened; for to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds; but when a man turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:12-18)
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor 5:21)
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God. (2 Cor 7:1)
Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph.4:22-24)
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Col.3:9-10)
Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he has promised us, eternal life. (1 John 2:24-25)
Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:2-3)
And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:27-30)
So was it God's intention to glorify Mary and the saints? Scripture says it was. Not that they would be glorified apart from Him. It was God's intention to Himself be glorified in His saints. St. Irenaeus of Lyon put it well: "The glory of God is a man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God."
The hyper-emphasis upon Mary present in the Roman Catholic Church gives me pause before I swim the Tiber (which I may do some day, a la Scott Hahn, who knows?)
It is not a hyper-emphasis. It is an ordinate emphasis for the greatest of all saints who is also the greatest of all human persons who ever have or ever will live.
It is true, and I will formally admit it to all who read, that sola scriptura cannot be defended from either Church history or the Scriptures themselves. BUT -- many of the writings of the early fathers insisted on the PRIMACY of Scripture over Holy Tradition and that Tradition be brought to the Scriptures for testing and affirmation.
This is the principle of Prima Scriptura which Scott Hahn has defended so eloquently. I concur with you here.
Unfortunately, even though you and many others will not admit it, we ALL do theological gymnastics in order to prove and maintain our points. The hardest trick in the world for people is to read the Scriptures with an open and inquiring mind (me included) and not with the idea of reinforcing our prejudices.
Guilty as charged. But I have come to see my presuppositions in this regard as warranted and logically necessary. This is not the place to go into a long story, but I have come under the influence of the writings of Cornelius VanTil and Greg Bahnsen and their transcendental argument for Christianity. Essentially, everyone must come to knowledge on the basis of some presupposed facts. There is no such thing as a completely open mind. There cannot be. A mind without content is blank. We learn by contrast and conformity with what we all ready know. These are valid presuppositions without which we could do no reasoning at all.
Some of these presuppositions include the linguistic conventions of our native tongue, the Law of Non-Contradiction, the Law of Identity, the reliability of sense data, the validity of the mind to abstract universal forms out of particular objects, etc. Those ideas that are necessarily true in all possible worlds in which there are thinking minds like ours are called transcendentals. Not all presuppositions are transcendentals. The Law of Non-Contradiction is one. Most importantly the idea of the Christian God is another. He is Necessary Being itself and cannot not exist no matter what else may or may not exist. VanTil and Bahnsen insisted that we must presuppose the Christian God before we could validly know anything. I think they were right. We must acknowledge the existence of transcendental truths as a consequence of being rational creatures.
I would also argue that he existence of the Catholic Church with the power and authority she claims is also a transcendental truth. There must be a source of absolute truth with no admixture of falsehood which has the power to correct the subjective rebellion inherent in the mind of Man. That is what the Magisterium is. It is the very authority of the Holy Spirit given to the Church by Jesus himself which continues to this day and to the consummation of all things. From it we received Scripture and Tradition in their fullness. The denial of the Holy Spirit working in and through the Church is a denial of the original mission of Christ himself. IF there was no teaching authority that proceeded from Christ, then nothing which the Church has taught in any age can be trusted. It is all guess work and mere supposition. If the witness of the Church in history has not been faithful to Our Lord's mandate, then the gates of Hell have prevailed against it and Christianity itself becomes untenable.
So we need to assume the existence of the infallible teaching Church even to know and read the Scriptures themselves.
One last question that has been bothering me for some time, and for which I have no answer:
Roman Catholics and Orthodox use the promise of John 16:13 to establish the claim that their church is both The Church and is without any doctrinal error. Yet, if John 16:13 is true, then how could our Lord speak of the errors resident in the churches of the Book of Revelation and how could Peter have said
2Pe 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
How could there be false teachers in the church if she would be led into all truth? Maybe I am missing something here. Just as there were false prophets in the OT assembly (not from without, but members of the OT assembly) so shall there be false teachers in the NT assembly.
Jesus told us himself about that:
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. "Not every one who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.' "Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it. (Matt. 7:15-27)
He told us that we should build our faith upon "the rock." In Matthew 16:18, he tells us who "the Rock" is: St. Peter whose ministry will sustain the Church forever. Anyone who lays a foundation for his faith on anything other than the teaching's of the Rock and his successors is a false prophet. (It is interesting to note that the name "Simon" which is St. Peter's real name is derived from the verb "to hear" in Hebrew. Literally, then, the appellation "Simon Peter" means "Hear the Rock." Maybe more people should listen to him.)
And quite frankly, both churches, Roman Catholic and Orthodox cannot be right about being the one and true Church of our Lord.
No argument there.
You missed the whole point Tim was trying to make in regards to Anabaptists -- they are not Sacramental and are a people who tend to be more highly divisive over very tiny issues than Sacramental Calvinists. At the same time, I will admit that it is very hard to get Calvinists to listen to any teaching with even a hint of a Roman Catholic flavor to it. I have strident Calvinist friends who are mortified that I keep sticking my toes in the Tiber to test the waters. Yet much of the writings I am reading of Roman Catholic apologists, such as Hahn, Ray, and yourself, are very eloquent. There is also the weight of church history on your side which is not on the side of Protestantism.
I think that Tim's "Anabaptist" is a straw-man. There are very few real Anabaptist groups left these days (Mennonites, Amish, etc.), and lots of people trying to claim some connection to them who actually have none (most Baptists in the USA).
I know there are lots of flavors of Reformation descendants and most of them disavow each other. Greg Bahnsen used to accuse the Lutherans of not having really been "reformed." It is an old Protestant debating trick to claim that objections raised in a debate don't really apply to his particular flavor. It gets tiresome after a while especially when you find the guy actually has indeed held to the thing to which you objected.
I think there is a lot to be learned from our Protestant brethren: a deep devotion to Scripture, an emphasis on lay piety in everyday life, constant religious education for everyone of all ages, using the home as a center of everyday Christian living & devotion instead of church buildings, commitment of all the people of God to the spreading of the Gospel & to other apostolates, and a more active and enthusiastic participation of the congregation in worship.
I think the Roman Catholic Church finds itself in a bit of a tight spot in regards to reformation of doctrine, for if you back up even on centimeter, you will be overrun by those with agendas, those who hate the Church, and those who just wish to impose their own systems of belief upon Her, all saying the same thing: "Well, you admitted you were wrong about such and such. How then can you think yourself to be right about so and so." Any step backwards will be an open door for attack by those who want to destroy the Church rather than to reform error and then join it. This is a tough position to be in.
All we have to do is remain faithful to our Patrimony and let the devil take the hindmost. The central core of Catholic theology is a magnificent edifice whose possibilities have not yet even been tapped. Our Dogmas form an incredible foundation for further work.
In reading all the information on Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is going to take a miraculous intervention of the Spirit to bring about the unity our Lord prayed for.
Amen. It will be a work of God, not of human effort. I think that the various schisms were inflicted on the Church as a punishment for our smugness and complacency.
Of course, your answer is that we should just all swim the Tiber. :--)
Yes, and bring all of the good thing with you that you found in Protestantism. We need you and your talents to help revive us.
Thanks for listening. Your comments are deeply appreciated as I continue to search and pray for truth in this mass of information and defenses of the various churches. PS Just so you know how far I have come in my approach to the Tiber, I used to be Jack Chick's twin brother in spirit and behavior!!
Well, I am pleased to make your acquaintance and I hope I shall be able to welcome you aboard the Barque of Peter sometime soon. :-) I think you have come a long way. I hope you can at least see that we Catholics have a rational and biblical basis for our beliefs.
Art Sippo
The Catholic Legate