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

Catholic Dossier/ CERC ^ | MARK BRUMLEY

[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

Interpreting the Reformation is complicated business. But like many complicated things, it can be simplified sufficiently well that even non-experts can get the gist of it. Here's what seems a fairly accurate but simplified summary of the issue: The break between Catholics and Protestants was either a tragic necessity (to use Jaroslav Pelikan's expression) or it was tragic because unnecessary.

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."

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."

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."

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.

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

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Notice that proud doesn't really want to discuss the use of birth control or abortion among Rome's flock

I do not need to discuss it. I do not need you to tell me the reality of the situation.

My wife and I teach NFP as an alternative to Onanistic and abortifacient contraceptives. I'm actually doing something about Onanistic and abortifacient contraceptives, not just debating it on FR. What are you doing about it among your flock?

OP, there is a fundamental difference between having sex during the fertile time and being onanistic, and having recourse to NFP.

NFP is simply abstaining. It is morally neutral. It is not intrinsically evil.

Onanism is acting yet foiling the purpose of the act. It is morally intrinsically evil.

NFP is simply a bridge from Culture of Death contraception to the Culture of Life and ultimately providentialism. It is not a destination in and of itself.

When I teach NFP I teach it too is sinful if used with a contraceptive mentality. It is morally neutral; the motive makes it morally licit or illicit.

There are defined reasons for legitimately having recourse to NFP:

1)-The mother's life is literally in danger due to health reasons. I have a friend with severe Lupus, another with a form of cancer. These are perfect illustrations.

2)The mental health of the parents are in danger...literally they will have a nervous breakdown in they have another child.

3)Economic...the child will die from starvation if the parents have another (not a bigger house or Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer)

4)Persecution...the government will abort the child if you get pregnant

5)Mission work...parents may postpone pregnancy while doing mission work where pregnancy would seriously detract from their ability to fulfill their duties...for example married missionary doctors in Africa.

As St. Paul affirms, a couple may legitimately refuse themselves the intimacies of the Sacrament Matrimony "by consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer" (I Corintians 7:5).

Clealy the RCC does not teach that NFP is always moral. It can indeed be used with a "contraceptive mentality." It can also be used with a worthy goal in a completely moral manner.

However, Calvin and Luther (along with ALL of Christianity) were clear about Onanism:

Martin Luther (1483 to 1546) - "Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest or adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes into her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed."

John Calvin (1509 to 1564) - Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race.

OP, you know well the distinction between NFP and Onanism, and it is disingenuous to act as if you don't just to attempt to win a point of debate. I'm disappointed in you in this. Otherwise you have been quite honest.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

And you have done nothing of the sort--because you know in advance that we will destroy you for your trouble in the debate.

It was never my intention to debate bankrupt Calvinistic claims that essentially rely on an infallibility limited to the OP position, and a reversion to pre-Christian pagan fatalism.

I have fully accomplished what I set out to accomplish.

In the end, my area of expertise is the Culture of Life, not deep Christian apologetics. I admit that OP has a much greater scholarship on Calvinistic predestination than I do.

You have failed to even admit that contraception is sinful and has always been seen so by Christianity. Therefore I have no compunction to debate you further.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

I told you way back on this thread that I don't agree with your position on contraception, ....In fact, he has answered them in essentially the way I would have.

You contradict yourself. OP agrees that Onanism is sinful, from a biblical authority standpoint, and has explicitly stated that abortifacient contraceptives are gravely sinful.

You state repeatedly that I don't agree with your position on contraception

Its not me you disagree with. It is the continual teaching of all of Christianity.

And I repeat, this disagreement with a continual teaching of all of Christianity is the fruit of the very Calvinistic ideas you want me to debate.

Why should I take your Calvinistic agenda seriously. It is simply your personal interpretation of scripture, your personal opinion.

It is not infallible, and it is not necessarily even correct. OP has done a wonderful job of OP apologetics, and my respect for the OP position has been elevated.

I still think that, bottom line, it is pagan fatalism, it is not Augustinian but an error filled heresy of Augustinian predestination, and I'm really not that impressed with your Christian apologetics.

To me, you are represented by that litany of insults and lies that I posted earlier from your two posts that pulled me back into this thread, and will never be anything more than that.

[George W. Bush]

Martin Luther (1483 to 1546) - "Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest or adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes into her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed."

John Calvin (1509 to 1564) - Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race.

As usual, you semi-Pelagians elevate yourselves above God himself. As always, it is your choice that determines the order of the universe. God is just the helpless victim of your sin, His divine and ancient plan of creation turned upside down at your slightest whim.

I believe that God is sovereign in all things. Am I suggesting that abortion isn't necessarily evil? No, of course it is evil. However, man's evil in murdering the unborn cannot not thwart God. However, merely because man's evil cannot impair or deflect God's plan, that does not mean that man will escape judgment for the evil that he practices against the laws of God, i.e. the shedding of innocent blood in infanticide.

I believe that God's will cannot be thwarted. If He desires a child to be born, then that child will be born. Just as Jesus was born to a virgin.

These speculative writings by Luther and Calvin are not binding upon any of us. You seem to think that we Protestants really do have popes after all. Pope Luther, Pope Calvin. Now you've made me smile a little. Luther and Calvin would have grinned too.

Sorry. Try again.

[George W. Bush]

proud2bRC to the_doc: ...rely on an infallibility limited to the OP position...

What? Did I miss something here? Are you now infallible too just like JP2? Not exactly the demeanor expected of a pr-r-r-roper Pr-r-r-rotestant...

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Sorry. Try again.

I beg you, PLEASE in the interest of debate, read this timeline CAREFULLY, and pray about it.

*****

Some history of Christian thought on Birth Control:

(Note: The quotes of the early church fathers can be researched in their entirety, courtesy of Calvin College.)

Anthropological studies show that means of artificial birth control existed in antiquity. Medical papyri described various contraceptive methods used in China in the year 2700 B.C. and in Egypt in the year 1850 B.C. Soranos (A.D. 98-139), a Greek physician from Ephesus, described seventeen medically approved methods of contraception. Also at this time, abortion and infanticide were not uncommon practices in the Roman Empire.

The early Christian community upheld the sanctity of marriage, marital love, and human life. In the New Testament, the word pharmakeia appears, which some scholars link to the birth control issue. Pharmakeia denotes the mixing of potions for secretive purposes, and from Soranos and others, evidence exists of artificial birth control potions. Interestingly, pharmakeia is oftentimes translated as "sorcery" in English. In the three passages in which pharmakeia appears, other sexual sins are also condemned: lewd conduct, impurity, licentiousness, orgies, "and the like." (E.G. Galatians 5:19-21.) This evidence highlights that the early Church condemned anything which violated the integrity of marital love.

Further evidence is found in the Didache, also called the Teachings of the Twelve Apostles, written about the year A.D. 80. This book was the Church’s first manual of morals, liturgical norms and doctrine. In the first section, two ways are proposed—the way of life and the way of death. In following the way of life, the Didache exhorts, "You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not seduce boys. You shall not commit fornication. You shall not steal. You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions. You shall not procure abortion, nor destroy a new-born child. you shall not covet your neighbor’s goods . . . " Again scholars link such phrases as "practice magic" and "use potions" with artificial birth control.

191 AD - Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor of Children

"Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted." (2:10:91:2) "To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature" (2:10:95:3).

307 AD - Lactantius - Divine Institutes

"[Some] complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . .or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife" (6:20)

"God gave us eyes not to see and desire pleasure, but to see acts to be performed for the needs of life; so too, the genital ['generating'] part of the body, as the name itself teaches, has been received by us for no other purpose than the generation of offspring" (6:23:18).

325 AD - Council of Nicaea I - Canon 1

"[I]f anyone in sound health has castrated [sterilized] himself, it behooves that such a one, if enrolled among the clergy, should cease [from his ministry], and that from henceforth no such person should be promoted. But, as it is evident that this is said of those who willfully do the thing and presume to castrate themselves, so if any have been made eunuchs by barbarians, or by their masters, and should otherwise be found worthy, such men this canon admits to the clergy"

375 AD - Epiphanius of Salamis - Medicine Chest Against Heresies

"They [certain Egyptian heretics] exercise genital acts, yet prevent the conceiving of children. Not in order to produce offspring, but to satisfy lust, are they eager for corruption" (26:5:2 ).

391 AD - John Chrysostom - Homilies on Matthew

"[I]n truth, all men know that they who are under the power of this disease [the sin of covetousness] are wearied even of their father's old age [wishing him to die so they can inherit]; and that which is sweet, and universally desirable, the having of children, they esteem grievous and unwelcome. Many at least with this view have even paid money to be childless, and have mutilated nature, not only killing the newborn, but even acting to prevent their beginning to live [sterilization]" (28:5).

393 AD - Jerome - Against Jovinian

"But I wonder why he [the heretic Jovinianus] set Judah and Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children?" (1:19).

419 AD - Augustine - Marriage and Concupiscence

"I am supposing, then, although are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility [oral contraceptives] . . . Assuredly if both husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were like this from the beginning they come together not joined in matrimony but in seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband or he is an adulterer with his own wife" (1:15:17).

522 AD - Caesarius of Arles - Sermons

"Who is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion [an oral contraceptive] so that she is unable to conceive or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund? As often as she could have conceived or given birth, of that many homicides she will be held guilty, and, unless she undergoes suitable penance, she will be damned by eternal death in hell. If a women does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a Christian woman" (1:12).

Martin Luther (1483 to 1546) -

"Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest or adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes into her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed."

John Calvin (1509 to 1564) -

Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race.

John Wesley (1703 to 1791) -

"Onan, though he consented to marry the widow, yet to the great abuse of his own body, of the wife he had married and the memory of his brother that was gone, refused to raise up seed unto the brother. Those sins that dishonour the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile affections. Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord - And it is to be feared, thousands, especially single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord, and destroy their own souls.

(Examining sermons and commentaries, Charles Provan identified over a hundred Protestant leaders (Lutheran, Calvinist, Reformed, Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican, Evangelical, Nonconformist, Baptist, Puritan, Pilgrim) living before the twentieth century condemning non- procreative sex. Did he find the opposing argument was also represented? Mr. Provan stated, "We will go one better, and state that we have found not one orthodox [protestant]theologian to defend Birth Control before the 1900's. NOT ONE! On the other hand, we have found that many highly regarded Protestant theologians were enthusiastically opposed to it." )

In 1908 the Bishops of the Anglican Communion meeting at the Lambeth Conference declared, "The Conference records with alarm the growing practice of the artificial restriction of the family and earnestly calls upon all Christian people to discountenance the use of all artificial means of restriction as demoralising to character and hostile to national welfare."

So also at their Lambeth Conference of 1920.

The Lambeth Conference of 1930 produced a new resolution, "Where there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, complete abstinence is the primary and obvious method..." but if there was morally sound reasoning for avoiding abstinence, "the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of Christian principles."

In doing so, they acknowledged that previously they had always taught the immorality of marital contraception.3 This marked the first time in history that a Christian Church had given its acceptance to using unnatural methods of birth control. Furthermore, they were warned by one of their own, Bishop Charles Gore, that accepting contraception would open the door to accepting homosexual sodomy, but Gore voted in the minority.

1930 AD - Pope Pius XI - Casti Conubii (On Christian Marriage)

"Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin."

1965 AD - Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World - Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II

Relying on these principles, sons of the Church may not undertake methods of birth control which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law. (51)

1968 AD - Pope Paul VI - Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life)

Equally to be excluded, as the teaching authority of the Church has frequently declared, is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or of the woman. Similarly excluded is every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, propose, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible. To justify conjugal acts made intentionally infecund, one cannot invoke as valid reasons the lesser evil, or the fact that such acts would constitute a whole together with the fecund acts already performed or to follow later, and hence would share in one and the same moral goodness. In truth, if it is sometimes licit to tolerate a lesser evil in order to avoid a greater evil to promote a greater good, it is not licit, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so that good may follow therefrom; that is to make into the object of a positive act of the will something which is intrinsically disorder, and hence unworthy of the human person, even when the intention is to safeguard or promote individual, family or social well-being. Consequently it is an error to think that a conjugal act which is deliberately made infecund and so is intrinsically dishonest could be made honest and right by the ensemble of a fecund conjugal life. (14)

1993 AD - Catechism of the Catholic Church

"The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception)." (2399)

After reading the above statements it should be clear that the Catholic Church does not leave much "wiggle room" on this issue. Is should also be clear that rumors that at some time in the near future the Church will have to change this teaching are nothing more than the wishful thinking of its disobedient members.

***** One last thought...

*****

"If It Works, Don't Fix It"

[Brian Kopp DPM]

I believe that God's will cannot be thwarted. If He desires a child to be born, then that child will be born. Just as Jesus was born to a virgin.

Likewise I believe that God's Will cannot be thwarted. Your analogy is incorrect though, when it comes to artificial contraception.

Let me illustrate. We're both certain it is not God's Will that you die of a gun shot wound.

So to illustrate that point, let me stand three feet in front of you with my H&K USP .45 and pull the trigger. If it is not God's Will, you will not die.

Likewise does your condoms and God's Will analogy make sense.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

If He desires a child to be born, then that child will be born. Just as Jesus was born to a virgin.

Neither of us is the Holy Spirit. Neither of us is married to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Other than these two small details, your analogy is perfectly logical.

[the_doc]

It was never my intention to debate bankrupt Calvinistic claims that essentially rely on an infallibility limited to the OP position, and a reversion to pre-Christian pagan fatalism.

You CALL our claims "bankrupt" when we have shown that our position was AUGUSTINE'S. (Wll, I guess it beats facing reality.) And you WRITE OFF Augustine's position and ours as pagan fatalism even though we stand with Augustine in specifically affirming the doctrine of free will.

Pardon me, but I think you are in very, very bad shape, fellow.

Besides, this Calvinistic position is NOT "limited to the OP position." I am a Baptist, not an OP. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the world, was founded by men who held to my position.

In fact, all major Protestant denominations have their roots in an Augustinian/Lutheran/Calvinistic doctrine of predestination.

I have fully accomplished what I set out to accomplish.

More power to you.

In the end, my area of expertise is the Culture of Life, not deep Christian apologetics. I admit that OP has a much greater scholarship on Calvinistic predestination than I do.

I think OP would tell you that his debate with Squire was like shooting fish in a barrel. No RC really knows this topic worth beans.

You have failed to even admit that contraception is sinful and has always been seen so by Christianity. Therefore I have no compunction to debate you further.

Your claim is flatly false. I specifically said that some contraception is sinful. You are being overly simplistic and misstating my position. It suits you to do this, but you really need to be more honest. (A little less RC PRIDE would be in order.)

***

From your #1403:

You contradict yourself. OP agrees that Onanism is sinful, from a biblical authority standpoint, and has explicitly stated that abortifacient contraceptives are gravely sinful.

But this happens to be my position. I indicated that I am opposed to onanism. The fact that the term is directly derived from the Bible is authority enough for me. (Did I really need to lay out everything for you?) And I explicitly stated that I vigorously oppose abortifacients used as contraceptives. I pointed out that Protestants are coming out against these.

You state repeatedly that I don't agree with your position on contraception. Its not me you disagree with. It is the continual teaching of all of Christianity.

Read what I said above. You haven't even understood what I definitely did say. I just don't agree with your sweeping oversimplifications about contraception. The fact is, I happen to hold to the same position as presented by OrthodoxPresbyterian. I think his complaints against your position are valid.

And I repeat, this disagreement with a continual teaching of all of Christianity is the fruit of the very Calvinistic ideas you want me to debate.

False. You are just trying to find an excuse not to get exposed as having pervasively rotten doctrine.

Why should I take your Calvinistic agenda seriously. It is simply your personal interpretation of scripture, your personal opinion.

Balderdash. If you weren't RC, you wouldn't say silly things like that. And Augustine agrees with us. If Augustine had been alive in the sixteenth century, he would have sided with the Reformers against the likes of you.

It is not infallible, and it is not necessarily even correct. OP has done a wonderful job of OP apologetics, and my respect for the OP position has been elevated.

You seem desperate to style this as the OP position, when, in fact, it is the historic PROTESTANT position.

I still think that, bottom line, it is pagan fatalism, it is not Augustinian but an error filled heresy of Augustinian predestination, and I'm really not that impressed with your Christian apologetics.

You just called Augustine a heretic. Period.

(You really don't get it, do you?)

I don't care if you are not impressed with my Christian apologetics. I have not even been trying hard. I sometimes think that OP doesn't mind debating a stump. But that's not my bag. We have different gifts [grin].

To me, you are represented by that litany of insults and lies that I posted earlier from your two posts that pulled me back into this thread, and will never be anything more than that.

Do you hate me because I tell you the truth? I honestly think you do.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

You CALL our claims "bankrupt" when we have shown that our position was AUGUSTINE'S.

No you have not. You have tried to appropriate Augustine as your trump card. He is not your trump card.

While Calvin's view of predestination might be a variation of Augustine's view, the two are not the same. Augustine did not believe in Calvin's understanding of the "perseverance of the saints," and neither did the broadly Augustinian tradition. That understanding was new with Calvin.

Besides the obvious...

Augustine is only one stellar Catholic saint in a sea of stellar Catholic saints. His is not the final word. He was not given authority by Christ. The Church was given authority by Christ. Augustine's thoughts contributed greatly to RCC salvation theology but does not define RCC salvation theology.

You are so fixated on Augustine because his is the only patristic writing that remotely reflects Calvin's. Calvin is correct in so far as he reflects Augustine. Augustine is correct so far as he reflects RCC doctrine. And again, Augustine did not believe in Calvin's understanding of the "perseverance of the saints." That understanding was new with Calvin.

[George W. Bush]

Let me illustrate. We're both certain it is not God's Will that you die of a gun shot wound. So to illustrate that point, let me stand three feet in front of you with my H&K USP .45 and pull the trigger. If it is not God's Will, you will not die.

Regardless of whether I live or die, God's will be done in heaven as it is on earth.

However, you might find in this same posited instance that God had predestined you from the foundation of creation to die from a 180 grain jacketed hollow point Hydra-Shok® shell fired from my .40 Glock Model 23.

Predestination is funny that way sometimes.

[George W. Bush]

Neither of us is married to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I am relieved to see that you are finally facing the reality that Mary was indeed married, a normal wife who received the seed of her lawful husband as did any married woman.

It appears there remains some hope yet that you may yet become a pr-r-r-roper Pr-r-r-rotestant, perhaps even a Pr-r-r-r-resbyterian like OPie.

[George W. Bush]

Having reading your patristic quotes along with Luther and Calvin and some of those men you call pope, I conclude that it is your belief that any sexual intercourse that is not engaged in solely for the purpose of procreation is sinful and comparable to sodomy and other vile sins?

State it plainly.

[RnMomof7]

So to illustrate that point, let me stand three feet in front of you with my H&K USP .45 and pull the trigger. If it is not God's Will, you will not die.

Ask those that escaped the Twin Towers about the power of God to accomplish HIS purposes. Not one person died that day or any day without His purpose being accomplished.

I once met a woman (many years ago) that had had her tubes surgically cut and burned..but she was pregnant. It seems that the egg was in the lower portion of the tube when they were cut..baby boy born healthy.

We had a friend that took Quinine to abort an unwanted pregnancy, she crampeds,bled and aborted an 10 week pregnancy..yet she found herself still pregnant on her follow up visit. Seems she was pregnant with twins and had only aborted one..

God is in control..

[Brian Kopp DPM]

I've been pretty good about being charitable on this thread, but I must say, you are an obstinate fool.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

I conclude that it is your belief that any sexual intercourse that is not engaged in solely for the purpose of procreation is sinful and comparable to sodomy and other vile sins?

No, that was the Puritan (protestant, mind you) position.

I have just proved to you, irrefutably, that the Catholic position on contraception is the continual Christian position.

Yet you continue these juvenile antics, and refuse to admit this obvious truth. It casts long shadows on the rest of your personal interpretation of scripture, and it shows your intellectual dishonesty and spiritual immaturity.

[the_doc]

I am growing weary of explaining stuff to someone who has an emotional stake in being wrong. Maybe OP will answer your post. I won't.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

finally facing the reality that Mary was indeed married, a normal wife who received the seed of her lawful husband as did any married woman.

Hardly.

Thus saith JOHN CALVIN --

"There have been certain STRANGE folk who have wished to suggest from this passage [Matt 1:25] that the Virgin Mary had other children than the Son of God, and that Joseph had then dwelt with her later; BUT WHAT FOLLY THIS IS!

"For the gospel writer did not wish to record what happened afterwards; he simply wished to make clear Joseph's obedience and to show also that Joseph had been well and truly assured that it was God who had sent his angel to Mary. He had therefore NEVER dwelt with her nor had he shared her company....

"And besides this, our Lord Jesus Christ is called the first-born. This is NOT because there was a second or a third, but because the gospel writer is paying regard to the precedence. Scripture speaks thus of naming the first-born whether or no there was any question of the second. Thus we see the intention of the Holy Spirit. This is why to lend ourselves to FOOLISH SUBTLETIES WOULD BE TO ABUSE HOLY SCRIPTURE...." (Sermon on Matthew 1:22-25, published 1562)

"We have already said in another place that according to the custom of the Hebrews all relatives were called 'brethren.' Still Helvidius [a 4th century heretic] has shown himself to be IGNORANT of this by stating that Mary had many children just because in several places they are spoken of as 'brethren' of Christ." (Commentary on Matthew 13:55)

"Concerning what has happened since this birth the writer of the gospel SAYS NOTHING...certainly it is a matter about which NO ONE will cause dispute unless he is somewhat curious; on the contrary there never was a man who would contradict this in obstinacy unless he were a PIG-HEADED and FATUOUS [i.e. foolish and stupid] person." (Commentary on Matthew 1:25)

========================================================================

Thus saith MARTIN LUTHER --

"Christ our Savior was the real and natural fruit of Mary's virginal womb...This was without the cooperation of a man, AND SHE REMAINED A VIRGIN AFTER THAT." (LUTHER'S WORKS 22, 23)

[Luther preached the perpetual virginity of Mary throughout his life]

"...A virgin before the conception and birth, she REMAINED a virgin also AT the birth and AFTER it." (February 2, 1546 Feast of Presentation of Christ in the Temple)

=======================================================================

Thus saith ULRICH ZWINGLI --

"I firmly believe according to the words of the Gospel that a pure virgin brought forth for us the Son of God AND REMAINED A VIRGIN PURE AND INTACT IN CHILDBIRTH AND ALSO AFTER THE BIRTH, FOR ALL ETERNITY. I firmly trust that she has been exalted by God to eternal joy above all creatures, both the blessed and the angels." (from Augustin Bea "Mary and the Protestants" MARIAN STUDIES Apr 61)

"I speak of this in the holy Church of Zurich and in all my writings: I recognize MARY AS EVER VIRGIN AND HOLY." (January 1528 in Berne)

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Good. You called me back into this thread with two posts whereby you stated:

ROME'S PARTY LINE CONCERNING AUGUSTINE--which is, to put it bluntly, an outright LIE.
a goat headed for the slaughter
the Church of Rome was lying in the sixteenth century and has continued lying to this very day
The Church of Rome really is apostate
certainly appear to be reprobate
smarmy theological garbage
we regard Bouyer as a pagan sophist, not a Christian theologian
his depraved pride in RCism--
a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction
cast my exegetical pearls before someone who is acting swinish [OP]
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 I'll not throw pearls into the slop.[OP]
untold numbers of Protestants were murdered by Rome
RC's refusal to face that murderous fact reminds me of the anti-semitic freaks
RCism is a pack of lies and has been so since well before the time of the Reformation
malevolent, truth-hating spirit of the RCs on our forum
downright Clintonian in its character of pride and vicious perjury.

Ever since then I thought you were a bit boorish and indeed hoped you would step out of this debate to which you called me back.

The quotes in italics pretty much sum up your entire apologetics style. It is tiresome.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

an emotional stake in being wrong

Kinda like GW's refusal to admit that all of Christianity taught contraception, ALL contraception, is inherently sinful, for to admit even this is such a world shattering revelation that he has an emotional stake in continuing to be wrong. For to face this reality is to face a reality of his personal interpretation of scripture that he (and you, frankly) is inwilling to face.