Martin Luther
Posted on 01/05/2002 11:55:52 AM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
Why Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation MARK BRUMLEY
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ABSTRACT: Louis Bouyer contends that the only way to safeguard the positive principles of the Reformation is through the Catholic Church. For only in the Catholic Church are the positive principles the Reformation affirmed found without the negative elements the Reformers mistakenly affixed to them. |
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Martin Luther
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Many Protestants see the Catholic/Protestant split as a tragic necessity, although the staunchly anti-Catholic kind of Protestant often sees nothing tragic about it. Or if he does, the tragedy is that there ever was such a thing as the Roman Catholic Church that the Reformers had to separate from. His motto is "Come out from among them" and five centuries of Christian disunity has done nothing to cool his anti-Roman fervor.
Yet for most Protestants, even for most conservative Protestants, this is not so. They believe God "raised up" Luther and the other Reformers to restore the Gospel in its purity. They regret that this required a break with Roman Catholics (hence the tragedy) but fidelity to Christ, on their view, demanded it (hence the necessity).
Catholics agree with their more agreeable Protestant brethren that the sixteenth century division among Christians was tragic. But most Catholics who think about it also see it as unnecessary. At least unnecessary in the sense that what Catholics might regard as genuine issues raised by the Reformers could, on the Catholic view, have been addressed without the tragedy of dividing Christendom.
Yet we can go further than decrying the Reformation as unnecessary. In his ground-breaking work, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, Louis Bouyer argued that the Catholic Church herself is necessary for the full flowering of the Reformation principles. In other words, you need Catholicism to make Protestantism work - for Protestantism's principles fully to develop. Thus, the Reformation was not only unnecessary; it was impossible. What the Reformers sought, argues Bouyer, could not be achieved without the Catholic Church.
From Bouyer's conclusion we can infer at least two things. First, Protestantism can't be all wrong, otherwise how could the Catholic Church bring about the "full flowering of the principles of the Reformation"? Second, left to itself, Protestantism will go astray and be untrue to some of its central principles. It's these two points, as Bouyer articulates them, I would like to consider here. One thing should be said up-front: although a convert from French Protestantism, Bouyer is no anti-Protestant polemicist. His Spirit and Forms of Protestantism was written a half-century ago, a decade before Vatican II's decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, yet it avoids the bitter anti-Protestantism that sometimes afflicted pre-conciliar Catholic works on Protestantism. That's one reason the book remains useful, even after decades of post-conciliar ecumenism.
In that regard, Bouyer's brief introduction is worth quoting in full:
This book is a personal witness, a plain account of the way in which a Protestant came to feel himself obliged in conscience to give his adherence to the Catholic Church. No sentiment of revulsion turned him from the religion fostered in him by a Protestant upbringing followed by several years in the ministry. The fact is, he has never rejected it. It was his desire to explore its depths, its full scope, that led him, step by step, to a genuinely spiritual movement stemming from the teachings of the Gospel, and Protestantism as an institution, or rather complexus of institutions, hostile to one another as well as to the Catholic Church. The study of this conflict brought him to detect the fatal error which drove the spiritual movement of Protestantism out of the one Church. He saw the necessity of returning to that Church, not in order to reject any of the positive Christian elements of his religious life, but to enable them, at last, to develop without hindrance.The writer, who carved out his way step by step, or rather, saw it opening before his eyes, hopes now to help along those who are still where he started. In addition, he would like to show those he has rejoined how a little more understanding of the others, above all a greater fidelity to their own gift, could help their 'separated brethren' to receive it in their turn. In this hope he offers his book to all who wish to be faithful to the truth, first, to the Word of God, but also to the truth of men as they are, not as our prejudices and habits impel us to see them.
Bouyer, then, addresses both Protestants and Catholics. To the Protestants, he says, in effect, "It is fidelity to our Protestant principles, properly understood, that has led me into the Catholic Church." To the Catholics, he says, "Protestantism isn't as antithetical to the Catholic Faith as you suppose. It has positive principles, as well as negative ones. Its positive principles, properly understood, belong to the Catholic Tradition, which we Catholics can see if we approach Protestantism with a bit of understanding and openness."
Bouyer's argument is that the Reformation's main principle was essentially Catholic: "Luther's basic intuition, on which Protestantism continuously draws for its abiding vitality, so far from being hard to reconcile with Catholic tradition, or inconsistent with the teaching of the Apostles, was a return to the clearest elements of their teaching, and in the most direct line of that tradition."
1. Sola Gratia. What was the Reformation's main principle? Not, as many Catholics and even some Protestants think, "private judgment" in religion. According to Bouyer, "the true fundamental principle of Protestantism is the gratuitousness of salvation" - sola gratia. He writes, "In the view of Luther, as well as of all those faithful to his essential teaching, man without grace can, strictly speaking, do nothing of the slightest value for salvation. He can neither dispose himself for it, nor work for it in any independent fashion. Even his acceptance of grace is the work of grace. To Luther and his authentic followers, justifying faith . . . is quite certainly, the first and most fundamental grace."
Bouyer then shows how, contrary to what many Protestants and some Catholics think, salvation sola gratia is also Catholic teaching. He underscores the point to any Catholics who might think otherwise:
"If, then, any Catholic - and there would seem to be many such these days - whose first impulse is to reject the idea that man, without grace, can do nothing towards his salvation, that he cannot even accept the grace offered except by a previous grace, that the very faith which acknowledges the need of grace is a purely gratuitous gift, he would do well to attend closely to the texts we are about to quote."
In other words, "Listen up, Catholics!"
Bouyer quotes, at length, from the Second Council of Orange (529), the teaching of which was confirmed by Pope Boniface II as de fide or part of the Church's faith. The Council asserted that salvation is the work of God's grace and that even the beginning of faith or the consent to saving grace is itself the result of grace. By our natural powers, we can neither think as we ought nor choose any good pertaining to salvation. We can only do so by the illumination and impulse of the Holy Spirit.
Nor is it merely that man is limited in doing good. The Council affirmed that, as a result of the Fall, man is inclined to will evil. His freedom is gravely impaired and can only be repaired by God's grace. Following a number of biblical quotations, the Council states, "[W]e are obliged, in the mercy of God, to preach and believe that, through sin of the first man, the free will is so weakened and warped, that no one thereafter can either love God as he ought, or believe in God, or do good for the sake of God, unless moved, previously, by the grace of the divine mercy . . . . Our salvation requires that we assert and believe that, in every good work we do, it is not we who have the initiative, aided, subsequently, by the mercy of God, but that he begins by inspiring faith and love towards him, without any prior merit of ours."
The Council of Trent, writes Bouyer, repeated that teaching, ruling out "a parallel action on the part of God and man, a sort of 'synergism', where man contributes, in the work of salvation, something, however slight, independent of grace." Even where Trent insists that man is not saved passively, notes Bouyer, it doesn't assert some independent, human contribution to salvation. Man freely cooperates in salvation, but his free cooperation is itself the result of grace. Precisely how this is so is mysterious, and the Church has not settled on a particular theological explanation. But that it is so, insist Bouyer, is Catholic teaching. Thus, concludes Bouyer, "the Catholic not only may, but must in virtue of his own faith, give a full and unreserved adherence to the sola gratia, understood in the positive sense we have seen upheld by Protestants."
2. Sola Fide. So much for sola gratia. But what about the other half of the Reformation principle regarding salvation, the claim that justification by grace comes through faith alone (sola fide) ?
According to Bouyer, the main thrust of the doctrine of sola fide was to affirm that justification was wholly the work of God and to deny any positive human contribution apart from grace. Faith was understood as man's grace-enabled, grace-inspired, grace-completed response to God's saving initiative in Jesus Christ. What the Reformation initially sought to affirm, says Bouyer, was that such a response is purely God's gift to man, with man contributing nothing of his own to receive salvation.
In other words, it isn't as if God does his part and man cooperates by doing his part, even if that part is minuscule. The Reformation insisted that God does his part, which includes enabling and moving man to receive salvation in Christ. Man's "part" is to believe, properly understood, but faith too is the work of God, so man contributes nothing positively of his own. As Bouyer points out, this central concern of the Reformation also happened to be defined Catholic teaching, reaffirmed by the Council of Trent.
In a sense, the Reformation debate was over the nature of saving faith, not over whether faith saves. St. Thomas Aquinas, following St. Augustine and the patristic understanding of faith and salvation, said that saving faith was faith "formed by charity." In other words, saving faith involves at least the beginnings of the love of God. In this way, Catholics could speak of "justification by grace alone, through faith alone," if the "alone" was meant to distinguish the gift of God (faith) from any purely human contribution apart from grace; but not if "alone" was meant to offset faith from grace-enabled, grace-inspired, grace-accomplished love of God or charity.
For Catholic theologians of the time, the term "faith" was generally used in the highly refined sense of the gracious work of God in us by which we assent to God's Word on the authority of God who reveals. In this sense, faith is distinct from entrusting oneself to God in hope and love, though obviously faith is, in a way, naturally ordered to doing so: God gives man faith so that man can entrust himself to God in hope and love. But faith, understood as mere assent (albeit graced assent), is only the beginning of salvation. It needs to be "informed" or completed by charity, also the work of grace.
Luther and his followers, though, rejected the Catholic view that "saving faith" was "faith formed by charity" and therefore not "faith alone", where "faith" is understood as mere assent to God's Word, apart from trust and love. In large part, this was due to a misunderstanding by Luther. "We must not be misled on this point," writes Bouyer, "by Luther's later assertions opposed to the fides caritate formata [faith informed by charity]. His object in disowning this formula was to reject the idea that faith justified man only if there were added to it a love proceeding from a natural disposition, not coming as a gift of God, the whole being the gift of God." Yet Luther's view of faith, contents Bouyer, seems to imply an element of love, at least in the sense of a total self-commitment to God. And, of course, this love must be both the response to God's loving initiative and the effect of that initiative by which man is enabled and moved to respond. But once again, this is Catholic doctrine, for the charity that "informs" faith so that it becomes saving faith is not a natural disposition, but is as much the work of God as the assent of faith.
Thus, Bouyer's point is that the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide) was initially seen by the Reformers as a way of upholding justification by grace alone (sola gratia), which is also a fundamental Catholic truth. Only later, as a result of controversy, did the Reformers insist on identifying justification by faith alone with a negative principle that denied any form of cooperation, even grace-enabled cooperation.
3. Sola Scriptura. Melanchthon, the colleague of Luther, called justification sola gratia, sola fide the "Material Principle" of the Reformation. But there was also the Formal Principle, the doctrine of sola Scriptura or what Bouyer calls the sovereign authority of Scripture. What of that?
Here, too, says Bouyer, the Reformation's core positive principle is correct. The Word of God, rather than a human word, must govern the life of the Christian and of the Church. And the Word of God is found in a unique and supreme form in the Bible, the inspired Word of God. The inspiration of the Bible means that God is the primary author of Scripture. Since we can say that about no other writing or formal expression of the Church's Faith, not even conciliar or papal definitions of faith, the Bible alone is the Word of God in this sense and therefore it possesses a unique authority.
Yet the supremacy of the Bible does not imply an opposition between it and the authority of the Church or Tradition, as certain negative principles adopted by the Reformers implied. Furthermore, the biblical spirituality of Protestantism, properly understood, is in keeping with the best traditions of Catholic spirituality, especially those of the Fathers and the great medieval theologians. Through Scripture, God speaks to us today, offering a living Word to guide our lives in Christ.
Thus, writes Bouyer, "the supreme authority of Scripture, taken in its positive sense, as gradually drawn out and systematized by Protestants themselves, far from setting the Church and Protestantism in opposition, should be the best possible warrant for their return to understanding and unity."
Where does this leave us? If the Reformation was right about sola gratia and sola Scriptura, its two key principles, how was it wrong? Bouyer holds that only the positive elements of these Reformation principles are correct.
Unfortunately, these principles were unnecessarily linked by the Reformers to certain negative elements, which the Catholic Church had to reject. Here we consider two of those elements: 1) the doctrine of extrinsic justification and the nature of justifying faith and 2) the authority of the Bible.
1. Extrinsic Justification. Regarding justification by grace alone, it was the doctrine of extrinsic justification and the rejection of the Catholic view of faith formed by charity as "saving faith." Bouyer writes, "The further Luther advanced in his conflict with other theologians, then with Rome, then with the whole of contemporary Catholicism and finally with the Catholicism of every age, the more closely we see him identifying affirmation about sola gratia with a particular theory, known as extrinsic justification."
Extrinsic justification is the idea that justification occurs outside of man, rather than within him. Catholicism, as we have seen, holds that justification is by grace alone. In that sense, it originates outside of man, with God's grace. But, according to Catholic teaching, God justifies man by effecting a change within him, by making him just or righteous, not merely by saying he is just or righteous or treating him as if he were. Justification imparts the righteousness of Christ to man, transforming him by grace into a child of God.
The Reformation view was different. The Reformers, like the Catholic Church, insisted that justification is by grace and therefore originates outside of man, with God. But they also insisted that when God justifies man, man is not changed but merely declared just or righteous. God treats man as if he were just or righteous, imputing to man the righteousness of Christ, rather than imparting it to him.
The Reformers held this view for two reasons. First, because they came to think it necessary in order to uphold the gratuitousness of justification. Second, because they thought the Bible taught it. On both points, argues Bouyer, the Reformers were mistaken. There is neither a logical nor a biblical reason why God cannot effect a change in man without undercutting justification by grace alone. Whatever righteousness comes to be in man as a result of justification is a gift, as much any other gift God bestows on man. Nor does the Bible's treatment of "imputed" righteousness imply that justification is not imparted. On these points, the Reformers were simply wrong:
"Without the least doubt, grace, for St. Paul, however freely given, involves what he calls 'the new creation', the appearance in us of a 'new man', created in justice and holiness. So far from suppressing the efforts of man, or making them a matter of indifference, or at least irrelevant to salvation, he himself tells us to 'work out your salvation with fear and trembling', at the very moment when he affirms that '. . . knowing that it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish.' These two expressions say better than any other that all is grace in our salvation, but at the same time grace is not opposed to human acts and endeavor in order to attain salvation, but arouses them and exacts their performance."
Calvin, notes Bouyer, tried to circumvent the biblical problems of the extrinsic justification theory by positing a systematic distinction between justification, which puts us in right relation to God but which, on the Protestant view, doesn't involve a change in man; and sanctification, which transforms us. Yet, argues Bouyer, this systematic distinction isn't biblical. In the Bible, justification and sanctification - as many modern Protestant exegetes admit - are two different terms for the same process. Both occur by grace through faith and both involve a faith "informed by charity" or completed by love. As Bouyer contends, faith in the Pauline sense, "supposes the total abandonment of man to the gift of God" - which amounts to love of God. He argues that it is absurd to think that the man justified by faith, who calls God "Abba, Father," doesn't love God or doesn't have to love him in order to be justified.
2. Sola Scriptura vs. Church and Tradition. Bouyer also sees a negative principle that the Reformation unnecessarily associated with sola Scriptura or the sovereignty of the Bible. Yes, the Bible alone is the Word of God in the sense that only the Bible is divinely inspired. And yes the Bible's authority is supreme in the sense that neither the Church nor the Church's Tradition "trumps" Scripture. But that doesn't mean that the Word of God in an authoritative form is found only in the Bible, for the Word of God can be communicated in a non-inspired, yet authoritative form as well. Nor does it mean that there can be no authoritative interpreter of the Bible (the Magisterium) or authoritative interpretation of biblical doctrine (Tradition). Repudiation of the Church's authority and Tradition simply doesn't follow from the premise of Scripture's supremacy as the inspired Word of God. Furthermore, the Tradition and authority of the Church are required to determine the canon of the Bible.
Luther and Calvin did not follow the Radical Reformation in rejecting any role for Church authority or Tradition altogether. But they radically truncated such a role. Furthermore, they provided no means by which the Church, as a community of believers, could determine when the Bible was being authentically interpreted or who within the community had the right to make such a determination for the community. In this way, they ultimately undercut the supremacy of the Bible, for they provided no means by which the supreme authority of the Bible could, in fact, be exercised in the Church as a whole. The Bible's authority extended only so far as the individual believer's interpretation of it allowed.
As we have seen, Bouyer argues for the Reformation's "positive principles" and against its "negative principles." But how did what was right from one point of view in the Reformation go so wrong from another point of view? Bouyer argues that the under the influence of decadent scholasticism, mainly Nominalism, the Reformers unnecessarily inserted the negative elements into their ideas along with the positive principles. "Brought up on these lines of thought, identified with them so closely they could not see beyond them," he writes, "the Reformers could only systematize their very valuable insights in a vitiated framework."
The irony is profound. The Reformation sought to recover "genuine Christianity" by hacking through what it regarded as the vast overgrowth of medieval theology. Yet to do so, the Reformers wielded swords forged in the fires of the worst of medieval theology - the decadent scholasticism of Nominalism.
The negative principles of the Reformation necessarily led the Catholic Church to reject the movement - though not, in fact, its fundamental positive principles, which were essentially Catholic. Eventually, argues Bouyer, through a complex historical process, these negative elements ate away at the positive principles as well. The result was liberal Protestantism, which wound up affirming the very things Protestantism set out to deny (man's ability to save himself) and denying things Protestantism began by affirming (sola gratia).
Bouyer contends that the only way to safeguard the positive principles of the Reformation is through the Catholic Church. For only in the Catholic Church are the positive principles the Reformation affirmed found without the negative elements the Reformers mistakenly affixed to them. But how to bring this about?
Bouyer says that both Protestants and Catholics have responsibilities here. Protestants must investigate their roots and consider whether the negative elements of the Reformation, such as extrinsic justification and the rejection of a definitive Church teaching authority and Tradition, are necessary to uphold the positive principles of sola gratia and the supremacy of Scripture. If not, then how is continued separation from the Catholic Church justified? Furthermore, if, as Bouyer contends, the negative elements of the Reformation were drawn from a decadent theology and philosophy of the Middle Ages and not Christian antiquity, then it is the Catholic Church that has upheld the true faith and has maintained a balance regarding the positive principles of the Reformation that Protestantism lacks. In this way, the Catholic Church is needed for Protestantism to live up to its own positive principles.
Catholics have responsibilities as well. One major responsibility is to be sure they have fully embraced their own Church's teaching on the gratuitousness of salvation and the supremacy of the Bible. As Bouyer writes, "Catholics are in fact too prone to forget that, if the Church bears within herself, and cannot ever lose, the fullness of Gospel truth, its members, at any given time and place, are always in need of a renewed effort to apprehend this truth really and not just, as Newman would say, 'notionally'." "To Catholics, lukewarm and unaware of their responsibilities," he adds, the Reformation, properly understood, "recalls the existence of many of their own treasures which they overlook."
Only if Catholics are fully Catholic - which includes fully embracing the positive principles of the Reformation that Bouyer insists are essentially Catholic - can they "legitimately aspire to show and prepare their separated brethren the way to a return which would be for them not a denial but a fulfillment."
Today, as in the sixteenth century, the burden rests with us Catholics. We must live, by God's abundant grace, up to our high calling in Christ Jesus. And in this way, show our Protestant brethren that their own positive principles are properly expressed only in the Catholic Church.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Mark Brumley. "Why Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation." Catholic Dossier 7 no. 5 (September-October 2001): 30-35.
This article is reprinted with permission from Catholic Dossier. To subscribe to Catholic Dossier call 1-800-651-1531.
THE AUTHOR
Mark Brumley is managing editor of Catholic Dossier. A convert from Evangelical Protestantism, he was greatly influenced by Bouyer's book The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, when he first read it over twenty years ago. Recently, Scepter Books has republished The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, which can be obtained online at www.scepterpub.org or by calling 1-800-322-8773.
Copyright © 2001 Catholic Dossier
Augustine was a double predestinarian. All of the vain philosophizing in the world can never change that.
Read Augustine's exposition of Matthew 11, the passage concerning Bethsaida and Chorazim. This is the passage which caused Augustine to realize that absolute predestination is absolutely true. And you will never understand the issues of mechanism until you grasp that.
So, you are still over your head in this discussion.
Um, no, I actually read what he writes. I also read with an open mind. The error of Luther and Calvin, and, I think, you, is that you read to find "justification" (no pun intended) for beliefs you already hold.
You are once again completely in error about St. Augustine on the issue of predestination. Augustine, like Thomas after him, endorses the notion of a positive predestination -- that God predestines certain people to glory and gives them the grace necessary to secure that His decision will come to pass. But he does not endorse the idea of predestination to damnation precisely because this twisted idea contradicts the Justice and Holiness of God, the freedom of man, and the universality of the Divine Desire for salvation.
As St. Augustine teaches in his Contra Jul. III 18, 35: "God is good, God is just. He can save a person without good works, because He is good; but He cannot condemn anyone without evil works, because He is just."
Then read his exposition of Matthew 11. It's pretty cool.
I also read with an open mind.
No, it is impossible for RCs to seriously entertain the Protestant position on anything. This is in the very nature of RCism. Rome's claims of spiritual authority bind your mind and thereby blind your understanding of several things which are pretty important in the Bible.
This is why you embrace the RC doctrines of the "priesthood" and "sainthood." This is also why you incessantly violate the obvious spirit of 1 Timothy 2:5.
And this is why your theology inserts the word "alone" in Romans 3:20--when it ain't there.
The error of Luther and Calvin, and, I think, you, is that you read to find "justification" (no pun intended) for beliefs you already hold.
Actually, I rarely bother to read Luther or Calvin or Augustine. I am more interested in the Bible itself--and I always have been since I was born of the Spirit of God over 25 years ago. But I do know some of the crucial positions which these three men held--and I have noticed to my horror that no RC theologian since the time of the Reformation has ever grappled honestly with Luther or Calvin or even Augustine.
Bouyer is a good example of this travesty of theology.
And my FReeper friend attagirl is a good example of a FReeper RC who is determined to go off on the tangent of saying we must have practical godliness. (I say to her, So what? She is missing the real point which I have repeatedly stipulated. God's elect will be holy in visibly obvious ways. Calvin says that very clearly. But most people are not elect. Most people are reprobate. Most people do think that practical godliness is an antecedent necessity in justification. But Paul says in Romans 3 and 4 that it is not an antecedent necessity. On the contrary, he clearly teaches that it is a consequential necessity [Philippians 2:12-13]. It is a certain and visible result of the sanctification which true faith produces in the truly justified.)
You are once again completely in error about St. Augustine on the issue of predestination.
Nope. Augustine taught an absolute predestination. He taught the predestination of the elect to heaven and the predestination of the non-elect to hell.
Read Matthew 11 in the way Augustine read it. It is very interesting stuff!
Augustine, like Thomas after him, endorses the notion of a positive predestination -- that God predestines certain people to glory and gives them the grace necessary to secure that His decision will come to pass.
Fine. Your statement, although presenting only half the truth of what Augustine taught--is correct as stated, including the reference to the Scholastic theologians. (Calvin embarrassed the RCs pretty badly, by the way, by repeatedly quoting Augustine and the Scholastic theologians against Rome's 16th Century position. The RCs thought they knew Augustine, but Calvin knew Augustine a lot better than they did. So did Luther, an Augustinian monk.)
But he does not endorse the idea of predestination to damnation precisely because this twisted idea contradicts the Justice and Holiness of God, the freedom of man, and the universality of the Divine Desire for salvation.
This is where you have failed to see/admit what Augustine really taught about reprobation. You have presented a nice-sounding but ultimately specious argument--because there are other issues in the picture. Augustine noticed these other issues of justice; you have not.
Thus, you are fashioning an argument for Augustine as if he surely thought about the issues in the way you are thinking about them. You need to re-read Augustine. With an open mind this time [grin].
In other words, you need to quit reading your theology into Augustine. It's a lot deeper than you have realized. Augustine did not make the error you have made above.
As St. Augustine teaches in his Contra Jul. III 18, 35: "God is good, God is just. He can save a person without good works, because He is good; but He cannot condemn anyone without evil works, because He is just."
This does not establish your case. It is actually the mainstream Calvinist position. Think again about what we are discussing. And re-read Augustine.
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I'm afraid that I am too busy to continue this discussion. (I owe attagirl a discussion of John 3:5, and I am too busy to write even that post right now.) However, I am sure OrthodoxPresbyterian will be pleased to pick up the thread of our discussion.
You need to do the same thing with the word of God..you may be amazed to learn you have been deceived
This thread does still seem pretty dead to me. That's why I am not posting. I'm suprised you didn't trot out the oldie but goodie "talibornagain".
Aside: I guess that when we raise a good objection about the RC, we have no right to express that opinion without all the whiny RC complaining about how hateful we are and having that post removed.
It is not my intent to offend you, but as a Protestant convert to Catholicism, I will simply say that this statement is, at best, utter rubbish.
This is why you embrace the RC doctrines of the "priesthood" and "sainthood." This is also why you incessantly violate the obvious spirit of 1 Timothy 2:5.
Actually, we endorse the notion of "priesthood" because man, by instinct, desires to offer sacrifice to God, and God is pleased to accept it. We endorse the notion of "sainthood" because there are, in fact, some people who live lives demonstrating that they truly are God's "best friends," and provide heroic example to the rest of us.
As for the Timothy 2:5 reference, I will direct your attention to an earlier post on this thread explaining why that verse is not in opposition to Catholic truth. I think that I posted that explanation on one of the days when everyone else thought you were banned. Essentially, Paul there uses the term mestizos, a highly specific technical term referring to an individual mediating a dispute between two parties at enmity, where the mediator is equally the friend of each party. As a result, it does not exclude the existence of lesser mediators, since only Christ is equally the friend of both God and man.
I am more interested in the Bible itself--and I always have been since I was born of the Spirit of God over 25 years ago.
Interesting. Bible reading is definitely a good way to use our time. I have a great Confraternity version which breaks up the New Testament into daily readings so that you cover the whole New Testament in a year. Good stuff.
But I do know some of the crucial positions which these three men held--and I have noticed to my horror that no RC theologian since the time of the Reformation has ever grappled honestly with Luther or Calvin or even Augustine.
Then you simply haven't looked hard enough. Right off the top of my head, I can refer you to Cardinal Palazzini's classic, Sin.
And this is why your theology inserts the word "alone" in Romans 3:20--when it ain't there.
I will be happy to discuss this issue with you, but you'll need to be more specific with your objection. The "Law" thing is a very involved topic.
Nope. Augustine taught an absolute predestination. He taught the predestination of the elect to heaven and the predestination of the non-elect to hell.
Wrong. Here, in brief, is the position of Augustinian (and Catholic position on the matter. The doctrine is presented in two theses: (1) That God's eternal choice of the elect is very real, completely gratuitous, and constitutes the greatest of graces; and (2) that God's decree does not destroy the Divine Will for the salvation of all, which, anyway, is not realized unless the individual, in the exercise of his liberty, accepts it -- the elect therefore have the power in their hands to "fall" and the non-elect have the power in their hands to "rise up."
Thesis 1: God has created the world and dispensed graces in such a way that He knows who will be saved. In that sense and in that sense only, is there a "list" of the saved. The graces necessary for salvation are given completely gratuitously. Why God gives this or that grace to one person and not to another Augustine concludes is a great divine mystery (See De Spiritu and littera , 35, no. 60.)
Thesis 2: Notwithstanding Thesis 1, God desires all men to be saved. To this end, God, from the foundation of the world, excluded any series of events in any individual's life that would deprive him of his liberty -- i.e., there are no such situations where an individual is powerless against sin, therefore St. Augustine, 11 centuries ahead of time, abjures the Calvinist error.
In his "Retractions" (and other works), Augustine teaches that "all men can be saved if they want to be." In his Commentary on Psalm 57, he states "Who are the elect? - You if you want to be." And in his commentary on Psalm 120, he writes, "it is up to you to be elect."
Resolution of the Theses: the theses are resolved, according to Augustine, by the fact that God knows and has always known who will respond to grace and in what way. Therefore, if the "list" does not change, it is not because the individual cannotdecide for life against death, it is only because God knew from eternity that the individual would not want to to do so.
Read Matthew 11 in the way Augustine read it. It is very interesting stuff!
Both in De Don. Pers., 10, and in De Cons Evan., ii.32, St. Augustine is talking about positive predestination -- though in a slightly different sense. From Our Lord's words, we know that certain people are given graces to help them gain salvation. But Our Lord knows when we will not respond to His grace, and, as a result, will bear greater guilt before Him. In His mercy, He avoids this problem by sometimes withholding the grace. The withholding of the grace is not to assure the person's damnation -- on the contrary, it is to minimize his guilt.
Calvin embarrassed the RCs pretty badly, by the way, by repeatedly quoting Augustine and the Scholastic theologians against Rome's 16th Century position.
When you have a moment, please provide a single example of Calvin performing this feat. Having more-or-less read the entirety of the Institutes, having seen the man's reasoning grinding away at attempting to prove his pre-determined conclusions, and having slugged through his unspeakably overwrought writing style, I'll just say that I'm a little skeptical.
This does not establish your case. It is actually the mainstream Calvinist position.
Let's define "mainstream Calvinist position." If you mean by that "the teaching of John Calvin," then you, of course, couldn't be more wrong. If you mean by that "what the average Joe Calvinist today believes," then you may or may not be wrong.
Think again about what we are discussing.
Oh, okay.
I'm afraid that I am too busy to continue this discussion.
I understand completely.
Is it just me -- or does everyone else hear a buzzing sound?
I continue to look forward to the day when you post a relevant comment of any kind whatsoever.
The Catholic Church brought to mankind something they said was "lost" and now found via the Catholic Church. But accroding to history...Christianity was never lost, persecuted yes, murdered yes, hunted by Catholic henchmen...yes again, but never did the doctrine of Jesus Christ leave the earth...nothing was lost.
Jesus said upon this rock I will build my church and hell shall not prevail against it.
Jesus built it, Christians maintained it, and despite the Catholic Churches attempt to destroy it through false doctrine and perversion....we're still here !
How can a Church give to man, something he never lost ?
He's rather too presumptuous for my tastes. You're asking me to cast my exigetical pearls before someone who is acting swinish. My temptation is simply to shake my sandals and move on. (My time is valuable too)
I am content to answer his arguments as you request, but only if he agress to meet me in a spirit of charity.
That does not mean that I desire for him to emasculate his own arguments -- that is what RC's typically expect of Protestants; to forego any truly forthright condemnation of Roman error on grounds that such forthrightness is "Catholic-bashing". Protestants have little patience for such ecumenical pap; I would gladly see "squire" present his arguments as strongly and adamantly as he is able. After all, I would do the same.
But if he intends to be presumptuous and snide, I am not going to waste my time.
I will "tease" Squire with this: if you meet me in exigetical battle, your arguments will be crushed. You will see them taken apart and cast down before your eyes. Of this, I have not even an inkling of doubt.
But you won't even get the chance, unless you ditch the swinish attitude and meet me in good faith. If you can best my arguments, fine; if I can best your arguments, deal with it.
But I'll not throw pearls into the slop.
Don't bother with answering "squire" yourself; I am eager to see the continuation of your Baptism discussion with "attagirl". As a favor to me, concentrate on that, if you have the time.
If squire wants a debate, then dependent upon his willingness to behave charitably (as defined above), I will give him one.
Deals with the Tares of the Professing Church versus the Wheat of the Confessing Church.
Deals with it hard. You'd love it.
I call first dibs on posting it.
I think the most charitable interpretation of this post is to simply assume that it was written in turns by two or more different people.
I will "tease" Squire with this: if you meet me in exigetical battle, your arguments will be crushed. You will see them taken apart and cast down before your eyes. Of this, I have not even an inkling of doubt.
If true, one might think that you'd have no need for preening protestations.
I am always happy to engage in doctrinal discussions with Protestants, as long as they can defend their beliefs in a substantive manner. Please be advised that I am currently on a time-consuming medical school rotation with frequent overnight call, and it is not always possible for me to daily access FR. But I will respond to any of your posts when I am able.
I now propose the first topic of discussion. Please provide for me a scriptural basis for the Lollard (and later Protestant) teaching of sola Scriptura. Since the Chosen People, the Jews, believe that God gave them both written Scripture (aka the Torah) and an oral Tradition (later recorded in the Talmud), the Protestants must assume that God changed the revelational model. Please cite for me the Scripture where God stated that Scripture alone is the source of Divine Revelation.
As I stated above, it's a deal -- assuming that you can debate from the grandstands. And the soapbox.
As you wish. (It's immaterial to me).
I will "tease" Squire with this: if you meet me in exigetical battle, your arguments will be crushed. You will see them taken apart and cast down before your eyes. Of this, I have not even an inkling of doubt. ~~ If true, one might think that you'd have no need for preening protestations.
No preening necessary.
If I wanted to "preen", I'd have to "preen" myself before a debate with Matatics. He is an impressive Roman apologist. I don't mind saying I would enter a debate with Matatics knowing full well I was over-matched. (This is not to say that any Protestant apologist would be overmatched, just that I would be. I admit this).
In your case, however, I am not "preening", merely confident. You are not my match, so I should be pleasantly surprised to lose the engagement.
For you to call that "preening", is pathetic. Ditch the presumptuous attitude, squire.
I am always happy to engage in doctrinal discussions with Protestants, as long as they can defend their beliefs in a substantive manner. Please be advised that I am currently on a time-consuming medical school rotation with frequent overnight call, and it is not always possible for me to daily access FR. But I will respond to any of your posts when I am able. I now propose the first topic of discussion. Please provide for me a scriptural basis for the Lollard (and later Protestant) teaching of sola Scriptura. Since the Chosen People, the Jews, believe that God gave them both written Scripture (aka the Torah) and an oral Tradition (later recorded in the Talmud), the Protestants must assume that God changed the revelational model. Please cite for me the Scripture where God stated that Scripture alone is the source of Divine Revelation.
Denied. I have no interest in debating the typical Roman misconceptions about Protestant appreciation for sola scriptura. You folks don't even understand our position thereupon, so it's not worth my time.
Instead, we will return to the Patristics (surely you don't mind debating Patristics, do you?)
The discussion concerns the Patristic authority of Augustine. That is where your debate with "the_doc" was centered, I shall take it up.
We will meet on that ground, for now.... if you wish.
Question of the evening -- which immature psychological defense mechanism is at work? Fantasy or Denial?
You folks don't even understand our position thereupon, so it's not worth my time.
Whatever you say. But maybe it's worth your time to explain it to us (since we're not all mind-readers and since Protestants have so many different beliefs about the same thing). Then we'll discuss it.
That is where your debate with "the_doc" was centered, I shall take it up. We will meet on that ground, for now.... if you wish.
You da boss. My posts on Augustine have had both citations and direct quotations. I will assume that your posts as well will have both citations and quotations, since they facilitate discussion.
Confidence.
If you don't know it, don't knock it.
Whatever you say. But maybe it's worth your time to explain it to us (since we're not all mind-readers and since Protestants have so many different beliefs about the same thing). Then we'll discuss it.
It is "worth it" .. but another time.
Calvin's Institutes are constantly buttressed with observations from the patristics.
There's reason for this. Protestants do not disrespect the patristic scholarship. RC's have just been taught to think that we do.
They're wrong, of course.
But that's for another day.
Re: Augustine -- That is where your debate with "the_doc" was centered, I shall take it up. We will meet on that ground, for now.... if you wish. ~~ You da boss. My posts on Augustine have had both citations and direct quotations. I will assume that your posts as well will have both citations and quotations, since they facilitate discussion.
Absolutely. I happily agree. More tomorrow, then, God willing.
Can I use this one sometime?
It is "worth it" .. but another time.
OK, but don't forget.
Calvin's Institutes are constantly buttressed with observations from the patristics.
Yes, yes, and also constantly buttressed by Scriptural quotations ripped from their proper contexts.
Protestants do not disrespect the patristic scholarship. RC's have just been taught to think that we do.
Yet another fairy tale.
Absolutely. I happily agree. More tomorrow, then, God willing.
Why not right now?
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