[PleaseReadBeforeJudging] Why Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work: Bouyer on Reformation

Why Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation MARK BRUMLEY

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.

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."

The Reformation was Right

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."

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."

The Reformation was Wrong

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.

The Catholic Church and Reformation Principles

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.

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.

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.

Just wanted to follow on and add a couple more thoughts to what I wrote in #1086 late last night:

You had written: "Our Lord spoke to the Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees in such strong language because He (and He only) could read their hearts. ... You.. do not ..bear this divine gift of reading the hearts of men. And you should act accordingly."

"Our Lord" teaches us this in Matt.12:34: "Out of the abundance of the heart --- THE MOUTH SPEAKS".

"Our Lord" teaches us this in Matt.7:6: "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces."

He would not give us these instructions unless it was possible to "know" who the dogs and the pigs are. As he shows in Matt.12:34, what comes out of "their mouths" gives them away.

And he taught us this discernment in the context of exposing the legalists for who and what they were/are: his enemies.

You wrote: "..I'm no legalist"

Why do you speak like one, then?

In some ways similar to your refusal to discuss doctrine substantively, and contenting yourself with hiding behind the antique linguistic bloviations of another age. But no, as usual, you are completely wrong. The Church's teaching on salvation does not exempt all of us from spreading the Gospel to the four corners of the globe. It is merely an expression of basic principles of human (and divine) justice. If, through no fault of his own, a man does not and cannot know Christ (or the complete Christ), God does not condemn him. Period. That is a completely separate issue from the obligation of the rest of us to take Christ to others. - Squire

The teaching of the Catholic Church, as repeated in Pope Pius XII's encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, is that any non-Catholic (that includes both you and White Mountain) can be saved if (1) he remains non-Catholic through no personal fault or vincible ignorance; (2) he follows the dictates of the religion to which he adheres: and (3) he at all times conforms to the dictates of the Natural Law.

841 The Churches relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; those profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day,"

Last night I worked out, like I do most Mondays. Afterwards, while relaxing in the hot tub, I got into a conversation with somebody I thought was a Roman Catholic. At one point in our conversation, he says the following: "there are false prophets and false teachers who if it were possible would even deceive the elect." Now, he had my attention, so I asked him what kind of church he went to.

Instead of discussing something so unimportant he says the following:

My friend, I was born again by the grace of God lying on the concrete floor of the county jail on ____ 1986. I was a Roman Catholic, but I did not have Jesus in my heart. I met the Lord that night and I've never been the same since.

He told me that the Lord healed his leg and he threw away his cane and then went to the welfare office and told them that he didn't want their money any more. They couldn't believe it and the people looking for a handout couldn't believe it either. They told him that it was the law and they had doctors orders (even though he was healed) and that he would have to earn more than $3600 a month before he could get off of welfare. So, he asked the Lord to show him the way.

He told his wife he had met the Lord and she left him and his kids left him (all professing Roman Catholics, BTW). His eyes were opened and he looked around the Catholic Church and saw nothing but false teachers so he left. He has served the Lord ever since and has not looked back.

You have not tasted my Jesus. He is far too Holy for the worthless gospel you are defending above. It is a false way and like my spiritual ancestor, I too will declare that I hate every false way. You preach the gospel of the lost; the gospel of hatred; the gospel of Satan.

Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is your brother Abel?'" (Genesis 4:9).

This is the second question God asked. The first was, "Where are you?" Where a man is in relation to God, is primary. But following closely, is the question of his relation to his brother.

Cain is the world's first murderer. We who have not killed anyone, are apt to think of Cain from a separated vantage point. When we imagine him clubbing his brother Abel to death, it is easy to see him as altogether different from ourselves; a monstrous and wretched figure. The kind of person that is banished from present society by imprisonment.

Yet how different was he, really? According to Genesis Cain was the first human being to be born. His mother called him Cain to signify she had "gotten a man from the Lord." He was a child of hope. God had promised Cain's parents that the woman's offspring would bruise the serpent's head; the final victory would be carried by the 'good' against the 'evil.' Perhaps Eve believed that victory would be wrought by Cain. But it was not to be. The failure begun at Eden's tree, was disappointingly perpetuated in this son. Hatred and brutality soon sprang up, and soon he had shed blood.

Cain was not the Christ child. He was and is the human race apart from Christ. He demonstrates that the world problem is inherently a religious one. After the God-human relationship has been fractured, the religious constitution of human beings is still present, but it is disturbed. Cain is religious. He engages in religious acts; rituals that are pleasing to God. The first murder takes place not far from an altar.

The spiritual capacities built into men and women by God, can function in either a salutary or noxious way. Religion can be strong to save or to damn. Religion can help you to be good, or it can intensify wickedness. It was said that Louis XI never sinned quite so gleefully as after he prayed. Daily news bulletins evidence the fact that a large percentage of criminals, attend church.

The question, "Where is your brother?" is a religious one. It examines Cain's relation to God. The counter-question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" heightens the same issue. The acid test for worthy religious belief , is the brother test. Does my religion take me closer to my brother's needs? Does my religion ease me of my concern for others?

Cain's religion contrast's markedly with the religion of the gospel. Cain asks, "Must I be my brother's keeper?" The gospel says: "You that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak." Cain says: "What I do is my business, and it affects no one but me." The gospel says: "No man lives to himself." Cain says: "Every man should look out for his own interests." The gospel says: 'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Cain was manifestly not the Christ. But God was still interested in him, and the punishment that was given him was tinged with grace. So it is for us. Though we have violated one another and made of ourselves vagabonds and strangers, there is grace for us. Messiah has come. And in him we place our trust.

Yours in... service(link),

Ron J. Allen.

tiki it seems to me you are the one that doesn't want to look at the truth..what I posted was from YOUR church..they think Jesus is optional..

I have absolutely no problem with the encyclical, the problem is your enthusiasm when you think you can discredit the Catholic Church.

Actually, the teaching of the Catholic Church, as repeated in Pope Pius XII's encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, is that any non-Catholic (that includes both you and White Mountain) can be saved if (1) he remains non-Catholic through no personal fault or vincible ignorance; (2) he follows the dictates of the religion to which he adheres: and (3) he at all times conforms to the dictates of the Natural Law.

Isn't that wonderful that we have a God who understands each and everyone of us, that even though His Son died for our sins, He can make allowances for those who don't hear or if they do don't understand. What a wonderful God!!!!

Now we come to you, are you vincibly ignorant or invincibly ignorant.

Do not kill the messanger because the message makes you squirm!

It is not the message I have a problem with, It is your constant hatred of the Catholic Church and I don't even think it's my problem, I think it is yours. I exult in the message that we have a loving God.

You have not tasted my Jesus. He is far too Holy for the worthless gospel you are defending above. It is a false way and like my spiritual ancestor, I too will declare that I hate every false way. You preach the gospel of the lost; the gospel of hatred; the gospel of Satan.

Oh my! I was going to let this one go but...think a while on this post and ask who is showing charity here.

Truly, I have no problem that you're not Catholic, I've said time and again that God has and is leading us on the paths we are on and that hopefully one day they will converge on the same path and we will meet in Heaven Why such hatred and anger, when Jesus preached love? Why do you feel that you must discredit the Catholic Church? Why not extol the virtues of you own beliefs in the hopes that someone will actually listen to what you say?

Is anti-Catholicism your religion because it beats me when I read your posts what you believe exactly, except that you hate Catholicism. Is yours a religion of exclusion, that you judge and condemn, not only a whole religion, but close to a billion people, to damnation. Do you believe that it is you who will judge who gets to Heaven? Do you believe that God is anything like as mean as you are?

Where in Catholicism is there a Gospel of hatred? Especially in light of the encyclical. It seems to me that the Church tries to show the omnipotence of God's love. That we can't define Him completely and that we don't know who will or can be saved and under what circumstances.

The deluded voltaries of Rome:

The teaching of the Catholic Church, as repeated in Pope Pius XII's encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, is that any non-Catholic (that includes both you and White Mountain) can be saved if (1) he remains non-Catholic through no personal fault or vincible ignorance; (2) he follows the dictates of the religion to which he adheres: and (3) he at all times conforms to the dictates of the Natural Law.

841 The Churches relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; those profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day,"

The Pope:

Kisses the Bible.

The Mormons and all other false religions:

Look how tolerant and loving he is!

The Saints:

HO! Look! The Pope is paying his respect to Satan.

He who sits in the Heavens Laughs:

Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure!

The defender of the false way:

Truly, I have no problem that you're not Catholic, I've said time and again that God has and is leading us on the paths we are on and that hopefully one day they will converge on the same path and we will meet in Heaven Why such hatred and anger, when Jesus preached love? Why do you feel that you must discredit the Catholic Church? Why not extol the virtues of you own beliefs in the hopes that someone will actually listen to what you say?

Those along the false way (Post #545):

All roads lead to Rome.

saint Woody (Post #562):

Well, as for me, the Cross is where I began the Way to my Destination, which is Mount Zion. It marks the beginning of my new life and journey and not the end; a life I do not deserve and could not even reach out to grasp even when it was offered. It is there that I was cruicified with Christ and clothed with a new Garment and Sealed with a Promise. Then my eyes were opened and I began my journey to Mount Zion. My Guide is a Radiant Morning Star who shows me through a Gate and down a narrow Way lined with great Walls.

Testominy of other saints he meets along the way (Post #1103):

My friend, I was born again by the grace of God lying on the concrete floor of the county jail on ____ 1986. I was a Roman Catholic, but I did not have Jesus in my heart. I met the Lord that night and I've never been the same since.

the saints:

REJOICED and PRAISED GOD!

The Lord:

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

The Lord Preaching the Gospel:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!

But since it was not given to them to believe, the means of believing also were denied them.

This is not an example of negative predestination. The phrase "since it was not given them to believe" does not refer to God withholding from them the grace of faith. It rather refers to these peoples' personal and collective refusal to believe. God, in His Mercy, did not try to give them the grace, knowing that they would either refuse or squander it. This was an act of the Mercy of God because the refusal or squandering of a grace adds to the guilt of each individual soul. See St. Augustine, De Dons. Pers., 10.

The soul's response to grace (unlike an eternal decree from all eternity) is largely an issue of the present moment. Tyre and Sidon were successfully evangelized by the Apostles themselves after the Ascension -- that, of course, would not have happened if they were predestined to damnation from all eternity, as you suggest. Corozaim and Bethsaida are condemned because they would not believe Christ Himself; Tyre and Sidon are justified because they believed the Holy Apostles.See St. Jerome, Hier. Comm. in S. Matt.

Original Sin has weakened the intellect of all men, including great theologians. They are not fully infallible. St. Thomas, for example, denied the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception during his middle years before later returning to embrace it.

St. Augustine was very much a "big picture" fellow -- he himself largely developed the systematized approach that to this day characterizes Western theology. But did not always sweat the details, and he sometimes wrote ambiguously (including a number of famous phrases which you have surprisingly not cited), especially when he was provoked to passion by the Pelagians. These ambiguities, nevertheless, can and have been harmonized with the Catholic position.

On the other hand, St. Augustine's ambiguities harmonize with Calvinism only when read in a forced way, but, even more striking, his non-ambiguous statements are absolutely opposed to Calvinism. The single point that most characterizes St. Augustine's teaching is that of radical human freedom. "All can be saved if they wish" [Contra Manich.; see also Retractions, I, x] -- this is a flat contradiction of Calvin. No wonder that the more enamored of Augustine the Protestants become, the more they come to recognize that Calvinist predestination, in the words of the Swiss Protestant theologian Gretillat, is "the boldest defiance ever given to reason and conscience." Gretillat, Dogmatics, Vol III at 329.

It's not hard to recognize legalistic agitators (like Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles had to deal with ---and without kid gloves, I might add --- ) who insist that Christians must add works to faith in order to be pleasing to God.

Your superficiality is showing again. We who believe (as God teaches) that both faith and works are necessary for salvation do not embrace works for the sake of works. We embrace works for the sake of a relationship with Jesus Christ. A true relationship of love. And love is at least as much a function of deeds than it is of statements.

As a great saint of the 20th Century said, "Love is deeds, not merely sweet words." If you don't believe me, ask your wife. Or husband.

"Our Lord" teaches us this in Matt.12:34: "Out of the abundance of the heart --- THE MOUTH SPEAKS".Please tell me when you have a moment what point your are trying to support with this citation. If you would like to know what Our Lord is talking about, He is saying that He (and He alone at that point) knows of their evil and that, as a result, He knows that the accusations they are making against Him bear no weight -- since they spring from interior evil.

"Our Lord" teaches us this in Matt.7:6: "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces." He would not give us these instructions unless it was possible to "know" who the dogs and the pigs are. As he shows in Matt.12:34, what comes out of "their mouths" gives them away.

Our Lord is here saying that if others give scandal by their actions, we should be careful in entrusting sacred things to them. For example, if Madonna were to show up at Mass, the priest would need to be carefully determine that she was properly disposed to receive Communion. What it does not say (and I think this is where you get lost) is that we should internally pass judgment on Madonna -- after all, we don't know/cannot know what has occurred to her in her life that makes her do some of the things she does. Maybe she hasn't received a lot of grace, maybe she was traumatized, maybe a million things. That issue is for God alone to decide.

I think that covers every issue that you have arguably raised in good faith.

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