Posted on 04/04/2008 11:01:22 AM PDT by Gamecock
Last week I received the following e-mail, and I felt it would be best to share my response here on the blog.
Dear Mr. White, For someone considering converting to Catholicism, what questions would you put to them in order to discern whether or not they have examined their situation sufficiently? Say, a Top 10 list. Thanks.
When I posted this question in our chat channel a number of folks commented that it was in fact a great question, and we started to throw out some possible answers. Here is my "Top Ten List" in response to this fine inquiry.
10) Have you listened to both sides? That is, have you done more than read Rome Sweet Home and listen to a few emotion-tugging conversion stories? Have you actually taken the time to find sound, serious responses to Rome's claims, those offered by writers ever since the Reformation, such as Goode, Whitaker, Salmon, and modern writers? I specifically exclude from this list anything by Jack Chick and Dave Hunt.
9) Have you read an objective history of the early church? I refer to one that would explain the great diversity of viewpoints to be found in the writings of the first centuries, and that accurately explains the controversies, struggles, successes and failures of those early believers?
8) Have you looked carefully at the claims of Rome in a historical light, specifically, have you examined her claims regarding the "unanimous consent" of the Fathers, and all the evidence that exists that stands contrary not only to the universal claims of the Papacy but especially to the concept of Papal Infallibility? How do you explain, consistently, the history of the early church in light of modern claims made by Rome? How do you explain such things as the Pornocracy and the Babylonian Captivity of the Church without assuming the truthfulness of the very system you are embracing?
7) Have you applied the same standards to the testing of Rome's ultimate claims of authority that Roman Catholic apologists use to attack sola scriptura? How do you explain the fact that Rome's answers to her own objections are circular? For example, if she claims you need the Church to establish an infallible canon, how does that actually answer the question, since you now have to ask how Rome comes to have this infallible knowledge. Or if it is argued that sola scriptura produces anarchy, why doesn't Rome's magisterium produce unanimity and harmony? And if someone claims there are 33,000 denominations due to sola scriptura, since that outrageous number has been debunked repeatedly (see Eric Svendsen's Upon This Slippery Rock for full documentation), have you asked them why they are so dishonest and sloppy with their research?
6) Have you read the Papal Syllabus of Errors and Indulgentiarum Doctrina? Can anyone read the description of grace found in the latter document and pretend for even a moment that is the doctrine of grace Paul taught to the Romans?
5) Have you seriously considered the ramifications of Rome's doctrine of sin, forgiveness, eternal and temporal punishments, purgatory, the treasury of merit, transubstantiation, sacramental priesthood, and indulgences? Have you seriously worked through compelling and relevant biblical texts like Ephesians 2, Romans 3-5, Galatians 1-2, Hebrews 7-10 and all of John 6, in light of Roman teaching?
4) Have you pondered what it means to embrace a system that teaches you approach the sacrifice of Christ thousands of times in your life and yet you can die impure, and, in fact, even die an enemy of God, though you came to the cross over and over again? And have you pondered what it means that though the historical teachings of Rome on these issues are easily identifiable, the vast majority of Roman Catholics today, including priests, bishops, and scholars, don't believe these things anymore?
3) Have you considered what it means to proclaim a human being the Holy Father (that's a divine name, used by Jesus only of His Father) and the Vicar of Christ (that's the Holy Spirit)? Do you really find anything in Scripture whatsoever that would lead you to believe it was Christ's will that a bishop in a city hundreds of miles away in Rome would not only be the head of His church but would be treated as a king upon earth, bowed down to and treated the way the Roman Pontiff is treated?
2) Have you considered how completely unbiblical and a-historical is the entire complex of doctrines and dogmas related to Mary? Do you seriously believe the Apostles taught that Mary was immaculately conceived, and that she was a perpetual virgin (so that she traveled about Palestine with a group of young men who were not her sons, but were Jesus' cousins, or half-brothers (children of a previous marriage of Joseph), or the like? Do you really believe that dogmas defined nearly 2,000 years after the birth of Christ represent the actual teachings of the Apostles? Are you aware that such doctrines as perpetual virginity and bodily assumption have their origin in gnosticism, not Christianity, and have no foundation in apostolic doctrine or practice? How do you explain how it is you must believe these things de fide, by faith, when generations of Christians lived and died without ever even having heard of such things?
And the number 1 question I would ask of such a person is: if you claim to have once embraced the gospel of grace, whereby you confessed that your sole standing before a thrice-holy God was the seamless garment of the imputed righteousness of Christ, so that you claimed no merit of your own, no mixture of other merit with the perfect righteousness of Christ, but that you stood full and complete in Him and in Him alone, at true peace with God because there is no place in the universe safer from the wrath of God than in Christ, upon what possible grounds could you come to embrace a system that at its very heart denies you the peace that is found in a perfect Savior who accomplishes the Father's will and a Spirit who cannot fail but to bring that work to fruition in the life of God's elect? Do you really believe that the endless cycle of sacramental forgiveness to which you will now commit yourself can provide you the peace that the perfect righteousness of Christ can not?
Come on now.
Your story is “first heard the Gospel on her deathbed...”
It was what? read to her? heard on tape? By osmosis?
Tell me the sequence.
I agree. I kind of think God just looks down shaking his head at all the in-fighting. This is kind of like Satan's version of Operation Chaos. Watch Christians fight among themselves instead of saving others.
“What else will be discarded when it has been disproven, eh? “
The sanctity of life is a dogma. Not everything in the church is a dogma.
Don’t be so quick to think Catholics don’t follow it. I had two C-sections in nine months at great risk to my own life because of that belief in the sanctity of life.
I thank you for not misunderstanding my criticisms of Catholicism. Many Catholics so have inerrancy and sola scriptura intertwined in their minds that they respond to defenses of the former with refutations of the latter. I also hope you have noticed that I have never accused Catholics of worshiping the Devil, or conspiring to rule the world, or seducing nuns in confessionals, or any number of other Protestant motifs (and my attacks on Catholic "works" are entirely within the context of the hypocrisy of defending Catholic "works" while attacking Jewish "works." In other words, I attack the Church for betraying its own alleged beliefs (as well as for proving such a disappointment in my own spiritual journey--the Catholic image is far, far removed from the Catholic reality). But despite this I'm tarred with the same "bigotry" brush as genuine sola scriptura Protestants who believe all that other stuff about the Church.
And I feel the need to remind you that the inerrantist position has not been repudiated. I would agree with you that people, even bishops and even popes, have been trying to play footsie with it, but what right have they to trump numerous dogmatic statements in this regard?
Dogmatic statements that have been locked in archives for centuries and are no longer quoted or taught are, for all practical purposes, useless. You've heard of "out of sight, out of mind," right? But in addition to the simple silence there is the fact that it is quite commonly taught either that the Church never believed in inerrancy, or else used to until forced by new knowledge to recant.
Let me know when the ancient statements on inerrancy get the same publicity as the encyclical on birth control.
” I specifically exclude from this list anything by Jack Chick and Dave Hunt.”
You haven’t been keeping up with threads, Alex. The banned words now include those with the prefix and suffix chick, chic (for French chickophiles) and chickee.
Carry on.
Biblical inerrancy used to be a dogma, until suddenly it wasn't any more. Shame on the Catholic Church for reducing the Word of G-d to fables, parables, and myths (from ancient paganism, no less!)!
Everthing that is a dogma today will remain a dogma--until it to no longer is. So much for the "ancient and unchanging church!"
Yes. It's called free will. God extends mercy to all, and without compromising His sovereignty one iota, allows us to make a choice. Many choices. He allows within us the wheat to grow among weeds until the time of harvest.
Dr. White's theology, on the other hand, cannot cope with a falling away. If someone "comes to Christ" and then falls away and becomes a heathen....was he saved or wasn't he that first time? Did the justification take or didn't it? If it didn't take in the first place, which is the stock answer people usually give, then how does *anyone* know their "coming to Christ" was genuine and was not a sham?
This is not what the Fathers taught. The Fathers all taught that we are given a choice, and we are free to choose one way or choose the other. A man can come to Jesus in all sincerity, receive the gift of life, and, like the seed planted among the rocks, have his eternal life wither and decay and die.
If you come to the cross in all sincerity, you will not be turned away. Period. But woe to the man who loses heart, who ultimately draws away from the thing that gave him life, for it will be worse for that man than if had never known Christ at all.
Brilliant analogy.
I’m sorry your experience with the Church has been distressing.
Would you please, to enlighten me, tell me what you believe is inerrancy, what is it you want to define, and what you believe has been the church’s failure in this regard?
I’m going to convert to Islam.
>I’m going to convert to Islam.
According to the Pope, the Catholics worship the same god...
Is this your opus?
;-)
38"Teacher," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us."
39"Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me,
40for whoever is not against us is for us.
41I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.
This is news to me. I didn’t know that Christians “saved others”.
I was under the impression that Protestants teach that only Christ can save us.
I'm Catholic.
Christ alone can save us.
We can lead others to Christ, by our witness, testimony, and example.
And then Christ saves them.
Did we have any part in their salvation?
LOL, yeah, right.
"It is the Spirit who gives life...The WORDS that I speak to you are spirit, and THEY are life. But there are some of you who do not believe. Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father." John 6:63-65
Thank you. And that is sincere, not sarcastic.
Would you please, to enlighten me, tell me what you believe is inerrancy, what is it you want to define, and what you believe has been the church’s failure in this regard?
Roman Catholicism simply shrinks the importance of the Bible to nil. I am not referring to sola scriptura; I reject sola scriptura myself. But today's Catholic media, theologians, spokesmen, apologists, publications, bishops, cathechisms, etc., either severely downplay Biblical inerrancy or else deny it altogether. Most Catholic bibles--those with the imprimatur--actually teach the blasphemous documentary hypothesis in their notes and commentary, teaching that the first eleven chapters of Genesis were adopted from ancient near eastern pagan myths in order to teach certain "theological truths." And of course books such as Esther and Daniel are late-dated and declared ahistorical.
The most-often invoked passage on inerrancy (from Dei Verbum) is intentionally fuzzy on the topic so that one may interpret it as teaching either total inerrancy or else limited (theological) inerrancy. What use is Church infallibility if it waffles like this in its "infallible" pronouncements?
I would say there is also a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) hostility to the Bible, especially when Biblical miracles and figures are downplayed and mythologized while post-Biblical specifically Catholic figures and miracles are celebrated. It is well-known that the Catholic Church considers the sun standing still for Joshua in the Bible an embarrassment. However, those same Catholics who attack the Biblical miracle with "science" enthusiastically believe that Mary made the sun dance in 1917, that saints could bilocate, ancient blood liquefies, and of course the crown jewel--transubstantiation. To defend these miracles while shooting down the miracles of the Bible (especially the "old testament") can only be due to some deep-seated hostility. Perhaps the anti-Judaism that has always led the Church to oppose Jewish practice has merely come to its logical conclusion in which Biblical Jewish stories are now considered un-Catholic?
Finally (and I'm making all this very, very brief), I would say the Catholic Church bears a cultural hostility to rural and small-town America (Catholicism in America being an urban, immigrant, liberal religion). It is quite maddening to read of the efforts Catholic missionaries go to to show respect for the pagan beliefs of their targets (totem poles and such things) while not having the slightest sympathy for rural American Protestants. No, if you're a rural American Protestant and you convert to Catholicism you're supposed to morph automatically into an urban Irish intellectual and join in the Catholic media in decrying the "bigotry" and "ignorance" of rural Protestant America. Obviously the Catholic Church considers these people undesirable and has no wish to see them "come home" (I even read articles in my diocese's official newspaper advocating the teaching of Biblical higher criticism in public schools and stating quite openly that the Catholic Church's policy was to concentrate on converting intellectuals and leaving simpler people for "the fundamentalist churches."
To hear or read of this Church being celebrated as "universal" or "conservative" when my experience is that it is neither is quite infuriating to me.
That's a short version.
Key point being objective history. It really is interesting how the claims we hear all the time don't hold up.
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