Summary: The Protestant Revolt from its inception was a chaotic mess of mutually anathematizing, ever-warring factions: initiated by Luther’s principle of private judgment & sola Scriptura.
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Dive into Part 4 of Dave Armstrong’s explosive series on Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation! Discover the jaw-dropping truth about the bitter rivalries and fiery conflicts that tore apart the early Protestant leaders after Luther’s 95 Theses in 1517. Far from the promised unity and harmony, reformers like Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, and others clashed viciously, hurling insults and accusations of heresy at one another. From Luther being called a “full-blown heathen” to Calvin labeling Lutheranism an “evil,” this video uncovers the chaotic infighting that defined the early Protestant movement.
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Travel back 500 years to witness the shocking disunity among Protestant founders, including Luther’s scathing attacks on Zwingli, Oecolampadius, and Karlstadt, and Calvin’s fears of Lutheranism’s spread. Learn how these leaders, meant to unite under the Bible’s authority, instead condemned each other as “murderers of souls” and “enemies of Christ.” Plus, find out why even Anabaptists faced the death penalty under both Calvin and Luther’s influence!
Practical Matters: I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 5,000+ free online articles or fifty-six books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them. If you believe my full-time apostolate is worth supporting, please seriously consider a much-needed monthly or one-time financial contribution. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV).
You can support my work a great deal in non-financial ways, if you prefer; by subscribing to, commenting on, liking, and sharing videos from my two YouTube channels, Catholic Bible Highlights and Lux Veritatis (featuring documentaries), where I partner with Kenny Burchard (see my own videos and documentaries), and/or by signing up to receive notice for new articles on this blog. Just type your email address on the sidebar to the right (scroll down quite a bit), where you see, “Sign Me Up!” Thanks a million!
Photo Credit: cover of my self-published book from 2014.
My good and esteemed friend and apologist-colleague and fellow Michigander Steve Ray wrote in a public Facebook post (2 May 2025): “We don’t need a successor of Pope Francis; we need a successor [of] St. Peter.” Then in the combox, he wrote, “Oh, I’m very clear. There’s a deeper meaning than the surface text. Think about it.”
After thirteen hours, this post has received 706 likes and 34 shares (sadly, par for the course for this sort of thing).
So I did think about it, and this is my reply:
. . . which of course Pope Francis was, so it’s a bit of self-contradictory reasoning. For the point (at least if taken literally) to be successful, one must presuppose the falsehood that Pope Francis was nota successor of St. Peter, which is pseudo-sedevacantism, or a lousy pope who bound the faithful to false teaching (which would be contrary to the very high level Vatican I teaching of papal indefectibility).
If Pope Francis in fact did not bind the faithful to heresy or even non-heretical error, then it seems to me that the entire point is null and void. If he did, then I request that we all be shown where this occurred. Even pope-basher Phil Lawler, author of the hit piece, Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis is Misleading His Flock (2018), which I eviscerated in many critical reviews, denied that anyone has demonstrated that Pope Francis was guilty of any heresy. He wrote on 3 May 2019:
Is the Pope a heretic? I am not qualified to address that question. . . . Who could make the authoritative judgment that the Pope had fallen into heresy and therefore lost his authority? Certainly not a handful of independent scholars. . . .
Peter Kwasniewski, one of the principal authors of the letter, now says that the document lists “instances of heresy that cannot be denied.” This, I’m afraid, is a demonstrably false statement. The “instances of heresy” mentioned in the letter have been denied, and repeatedly. The authors of the letter are convinced of their own arguments, but they have not convinced others. In fact they have not convinced me, and if they cannot persuade a sympathetic reader, they are very unlikely to convince a skeptical world. . . .
See my article on this view of Lawler’s, with many links. In a follow-up letter of 16 May 2025, Lawler wrote: ““the authors of the open letter made a tactical mistake, because the charge of heresy is very difficult to prove . . .” Now, he may have changed his mind in the meantime, and adopted the brain-dead schismatic or quasi-schismatic mindset of Taylor Marshall or the excommunicate Vigano et al, but that’s what he thought then, at any rate. And he was correct.
So I respectfully dissent from my respected friend and fellow apologist and Michigander Steve. I simply couldn’t let a statement like this pass by without comment.
The anti-papal rhetoric — generally speaking now — will continue with the next pope: I have predicted for several years now. And it will because in my opinion as an apologist and longtime observer of the Christian community, it’s a quasi-Protestant and Americanist attitude of hyper-individualism and nitpicking the pope whatever he does, which is highly reminiscent of both Martin Luther and theologically liberal dissident Catholics. It incorporates fundamental errors of both the far right and the far left of the ecclesiological spectrum. We either have a pope whom we respect and follow or not.
That’s not to say that we must agree with absolutely everything he said: up to what color socks to wear (as I have often joked about). I respectfully disagreed with Pope Francis on a few political issues, such as immigration, the use of nuclear energy, and climate change. But that’s just it: those things aren’t faith and morals and not areas where the pope is infallible or even particularly an expert. The Holy Father himself drew this distinction in his great encyclical Laudato si (5-24-15), where he wrote, “the Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics” [188].
I’m not an ultramontanist in the sense that St. Cardinal Newman opposed. I am an orthodox Catholic, who follows the pope as the infallible and indefectible vicar of Christ on earth, and yes, the successor of St. Peter. What has happened in the last twelve years among his nattering nabob critics is an absolute disgrace and a scandal. I have done my best to counter these grave errors, with 241 articles defending the pope (now it’s 242) and proving that his critics were mistaken, and also a collection of 342 articles from others doing the same thing. But no one can be convinced by something that they refuse to read or seriously consider, even if they do read it.
“You can lead the horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” in other words . . . Jesus said several times, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Lk 14:35). He was criticizing the refusal to hear, or obstinacy. Many Catholics today refuse to consider any defense of Pope Francis because they have bought all of the propaganda and the false narrative. The only winner here is the devil. He has divided and conquered once again and we have been stupid and blind enough to let him do it.
And the saddest thing of all is that it will continue in the next papacy, because nothing satisfies this sort of critical, unCatholic spirit . . .
Now, when I generalize about an error as I am doing here (putting on my “Catholic sociologist” hat) the danger is that some people may think that I am assuming low motives or bad faith in those who hold the position, and that I am engaging in personal attacks. THIS IS NOT TRUE AT ALL. A person can hold an erroneous position in completely good faith and sincerity, thinking they are doing good and on the side of the angels. I think this is true, for example, of Luther and Calvin. At the same time it can be in fact an objectively false and dangerous belief. The effect is the same. The well-intentioned person spreading what is a grave error produces the same bad fruit.
I know Steve (friends for 43 years) and I know his heart and his motivation for what he does. A person (like Steve) can do a tremendous amount of good work (as he has: which I immensely admire), but still simply be wrong on one point. In other words, it’s not a matter of overall character (a “good” or “bad” person) but (usually) of a good person who is simply wrong about a specific matter; has received erroneous teaching and accepted it. It’s not a matter of good vs. evil but of right vs. wrong thinking (lacking facts, logic, internal cohesion and consistency, etc.).
So I say that the vast majority of folks who follow this line of thought have simply fallen victim to bad thinking and analysis and perhaps also in some cases the enticements of the “bandwagon.” If a lot of people are saying a particular thing, then it’s very difficult to dissent from it and to not be one of the crowd. The anti-Francis bandwagon became very large indeed and infiltrated many otherwise respectable and helpful institutions and Catholic circles. We all like to be accepted and we don’t like controversy. I hate the latter myself. But my job requires me to be involved in it at times.
I try to always do so without any personal enmity whatever, as in this case.
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Practical Matters: I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 5,000+ free online articles or fifty-six books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them. If you believe my full-time apostolate is worth supporting, please seriously consider a much-needed monthly or one-time financial contribution. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV).
You can support my work a great deal in non-financial ways, if you prefer; by subscribing to, commenting on, liking, and sharing videos from my two YouTube channels, Catholic Bible Highlights and Lux Veritatis (featuring documentaries), where I partner with Kenny Burchard (see my own videos and documentaries), and/or by signing up to receive notice for new articles on this blog. Just type your email address on the sidebar to the right (scroll down quite a bit), where you see, “Sign Me Up!” Thanks a million!
Summary: Was Pope Francis a legitimate or worthy “successor” of St. Peter? The title of a Facebook post from my good friend & fellow apologist Steve Ray suggested otherwise & I replied.
Lucas Banzoli is a very active Brazilian anti-Catholic polemicist, who holds to basically a Seventh-day Adventist theology, whereby there is no such thing as a soul that consciously exists outside of a body, and no hell (soul sleep and annihilationism). He has a Master’s degree in theology, a degree and postgraduate work in history, a license in letters, and is a history teacher, author of 27 self-published books, as well as blogmaster for six blogs. He has many videos on YouTube.
This is my 68th refutation of Banzoli’s writings. From 25 May until 12 November 2022 he wrote notone singleword in reply, claiming that my articles were “without exception poor, superficial and weak” and that “only a severely cognitively impaired person” would take them “seriously.” Nevertheless, he found them so “entertaining” that after almost six months of inaction he resolved to “make a point of rebutting” them “one by one”; this effort being his “new favorite sport.” But apparently he changed his mind again, since he has replied to me only 16 times (the last one dated 2-20-23).
Lucas’ original Portugese was automatically translated into English on his blog by Google Translate. His words will be in blue.
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You have certainly seen a Catholic accuse Protestants of being divided into “40,000 sects with different doctrines” (which is humanly impossible, since there are not even 40,000 doctrines to have 40,000 doctrinal divergences),
Yes; this is a dumb argument. I renounced it over twenty years ago in my article, 33,000 Protestant Denominations? No! [9-4-04], and have ever since said “hundreds” to describe the number of Protestant denominations. There are methodological difficulties with the usual figures. In any event, denominationalism itself is utterly unbiblical and anything beyond one Church is already a very serious unbiblical falsehood.
and many of them say that there is not even a common core of doctrines to be considered “Protestant”, as if “Protestant” could be anything.
That’s a stupid belief, too, but I immediately note that almost all of what Protestants have in common are beliefs that Catholics and Orthodox also hold; in other words, these are tenets that all Christians hold in common. I will demonstrate that in my reply.
First of all, it is important to highlight two things. First, unlike the scarecrow constantly present in Catholic apologetics, antitrinitarians are not “protestants,”
I’ve been a Catholic apologist for almost 35 years, and I haven’t observed this false view being “constantly present in Catholic apologetics.” One would have to be very ignorant to claim this, and as usual when sweeping statements about “Catholic apologists” are made by Protestants, not even a single example is provided. Speaking for myself, I have never ever stated that actual Protestants denied the Trinity.
Unfortunately, out of ignorance or bad faith, many of them say this because they believe that Jehovah’s Witnesses are Protestants,
“Many”? I think not. It doesn’t take much knowledge at all to see that JWS are not Protestants or any other kind of Christians. They’re Arian heretics. I particularly object to this silly characterization, seeing that my first major apologetics project as a Protestant evangelical in 1981, was to do a massive refutation of the false belief of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was part of an “anti-cult” ministry.
behind the secondary issues that divide us is a primary and much more important element that unites us.
And he thinks these are listed in his thirty points. But I will show that with regard to many of these so-called “central” or “primary” beliefs, Protestants in fact disagree with each other. Note that Lucas claims in his title that these points are “common to allProtestants.” So if I demonstrate that several of them aren’t, he is guilty of a misleading, only partially true title and would have to shorten his list to half as long in order to be intellectually honest.
Nineteen, or 63% of all his points are simply beliefs held in common with all Christians, and thus irrelevant. What Lucas needs to demonstrate are beliefs that are distinctive to Protestants and held by all of them. That list becomes a very short one indeed, under scrutiny (perhaps even nonexistent). Thus, we can exclude (in this scenario that I think is reasonable) from the discussion right off the bat (#1-2, 4-6, 8, 11, 13-17, 21-22, 25-29; #21 being somewhat unique, as I will explain).
The other eleven points, or 37% of the list (#3, 7, 9-10, 12, 18-20, 23-24, 30) are disputable, and I contend that there are Protestants — not infrequently, many — who disagree with what Lucas claims is unanimity. Thus, 100% of his points fail in their purpose, under scrutiny: being either irrelevant (19) or untrue as a matter of fact (11), leaving his claim a complete failure. Let’s take a look at the “duds.”
3) We believe that God is the only one we should pray to and the only one who answers our prayers.
Catholics agree that God ultimately answers our prayers, and that when saints are involved, they are functioning as intermediaries who can only “pass along” what God brings about. But there are some Protestants who believe that saints can be invoked. A post from St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Matthews, North Carolina states:
The practice of requesting the intercessions of the glorified Saints is no different in degree, nature, or kind from the necessary intercessory prayer that Christians offer for one another on earth. If I ask you to pray for me and for my intentions, I know that in Christian charity you will do so. If you ask prayers of me, I should be delighted and moved by the same charity to pray for you. Offering requests through God in the Communion of the Saints to those fellow Christians who reign with Christ beyond the veil is no different. We may ask for their prayers, just as we pray for them. . . .
Anglicans are not obliged to solicit the gracious prayers of the Saints on our behalf, but, just as they are not compelled to request the intercessory prayers of fellow Christians in heaven, so they are forbidden to say that such a practice is contrary to Scripture and Tradition. For Anglicans, the practice of the invocation of the Saints is limited in the main to private devotions and extraliturgical services which are not part of the usual public Liturgy. However, it is certainly to be encouraged and has never been rejected by the Anglican Church, , which counts herself a true Apostolic Church practicing the fullness of the Catholic Faith, of which the Communion of Saints is a supreme article. Please note that Article of Religion XXII does not condemn the ancient or patristic or biblical doctrine concerning the Invocation of Saints and other related truths, but only the Romish, that is, the popularly-believed late medieval and thus erroneous view of the same. The Anglican teaching is the reformed Catholic view, anchored in the Holy Scriptures and the Tradition of the Primitive Church.
With approximately 85 – 110 million members, Anglicanism is the third-largest Christian communion after Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
7) We believe in a worship free of graven images for purposes of worship and/or veneration, and that we should not bow down before any image.
Martin Luther believed in adoration of Jesus in the sacrament of the Eucharist, which includes bowing before the consecrated host and chalice. He even wrote a treatise about it in 1523, called, The Adoration of the Sacrament, which is included in Luther’s Works in English, in volume 36, pp. 268–305, where he proclaimed, “he who does believe, as sufficient demonstration has shown it ought to be believed, can surely not withhold his adoration of the body and blood of Christ without sinning . . . One should not withhold from him such worship and adoration either . . . one should not condemn and accuse of heresy people who do adore the sacrament.”
Luther was observed bowing before the consecrated host and chalice. It’s for this reason that John Calvin called Luther “half-papist” and that “he had raised up the idol in God’s temple.” See more on this. Some “high” Anglicans or Anglo-Catholics practice this, too. So, for example, the article, “What is Eucharistic Adoration?” from Church of the Good Shepherd, an Anglo-Catholic parish in South Carolina, affirmed:
The practice of Eucharistic Adoration is the spiritual exercise of adoring the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. The intention of such a devotion is to allow the faithful to be connected with an awareness of the gift of Christ’s sacramental presence and experience a spiritual communion with Him. . . .
In the Church of England, Father John Mason Neale (1818-1866) revived interest in Eucharistic Adoration among Anglicans when he made it a part of the devotional life of the nuns of the Society of Saint Margaret. Father Neale saw Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and Eucharistic Exposition as the logical devotional expression of the Church Catholic’s understanding of the Real Presence.
9) We believe that Sacred Scripture is the highest authority for Christians, the highest and final authority that prevails over any tradition, teaching, denomination, council, confession of faith or religious leadership.
This is generally true of Protestantism, as one of its two pillars and its rule of faith, but again, there are exceptions (whereas Lucas ignores that). Anglicanism and its offshoot, Methodism, place a higher emphasis on tradition and the authority of the Church, and also accept the notion of apostolic succession, both of which are, strictly speaking, contradictory to sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone as the only infallible authority). Along these lines, John Wesley, the key figure at the beginning of Methodism, but himself a lifelong Anglican, stated:
If to baptize infants has been the general practice of the Christian Church in all places and in all ages, then this must have been the practice of the apostles, and, consequently, the mind of Christ. . . . The fact being thus cleared, that infant baptism has been the general practice of the Christian Church in all places and in all ages, that it has continued without interruption in the Church of God for above seventeen hundred years, we may safely conclude it was handed down from the apostles, who best knew the mind of Christ. (A Treatise on Baptism; in Coll. iii, 232-233; 11 Nov. 1756)
Martin Luther had made the exact same point over 200 years earlier:
Child baptism derives from the apostles and has been practised since the days of he apostles. . . .
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Were child baptism now wrong God would certainly not have permitted it to continue so long, nor let it become so universally and thoroughly established in all Christendom, but it would sometime have gone down in disgrace. The fact that the Anabaptists now dishonor it does not mean anything final or injurious to it. Just as God has established that Christians in all the world have accepted the Bible as Bible, the Lord’s Prayer as Lord’s Prayer, and faith of a child as faith, so also he has established child baptism and kept it from being rejected while all kinds of heresies have disappeared which are much more recent and later than child baptism. This miracle of God is an indication that child baptism must be right. . . .
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You say, this does not prove that child baptism is certain. For there is no passage in Scripture for it. My answer: that is true. From Scripture we cannot clearly conclude that you could establish child baptism as a practice among the first Christians after the apostles. But you can well conclude that in our day no one may reject or neglect the practice of child baptism which has so long a tradition, since God actually not only has permitted it, but from the beginning so ordered, that it has not yet disappeared.
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For where we see the work of God we should yield and believe in the same way as when we hear his Word, unless the plain Scripture tells us otherwise. . . .
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[I]f the first, or child, baptism were not right, it would follow that for more than a thousand years there was no baptism or any Christendom, which is impossible. . . . For over a thousand years there were hardly any other but child baptisms. . . .
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We . . . are certain enough, because it is nowhere contrary to Scripture, but is rather in accord with Scripture. (Concerning Rebaptism, January 1528; in Luther’s Works, 225-262; citation from 254-257)
The Anglican historian of Christian theology, Alister McGrath (b. 1953) noted the high irony of how even Martin Luther and his Lutherans changed their tune about sola Scriptura and the Bible after 1525 (just four years after Luther was excommunicated and in effect started Lutheranism):
The magisterial Reformation initially seems to have allowed that every individual had the right to interpret Scripture; but . . . The Peasant’s Revolt of 1525 appears to have convinced some, such as Luther, that individual believers (especially German peasants) were simply not capable of interpreting Scripture. It is one of the ironies of the Lutheran Reformation that a movement which laid such stress upon the importance of Scripture should subsequently deny its less educated members direct access to that same Scripture, for fear that they might misinterpret it (in other words, reach a different interpretation from that of the magisterial reformers). (Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 4th edition, 2012, p. 110)
10) We believe that the reading of Sacred Scripture is for all the faithful, that its translation into the language of the people should be encouraged and that it can be freely examined by the faithful, to the detriment of an ecclesiastical monopoly of some institution.
First of all, Lucas lies about supposed Catholic suppression of the Bible, and denunciation of non-Latin vernacular translations in particular. McGrath gives the actual facts of the matter:
No universal or absolute prohibition of the translation of scriptures into the vernacular was ever issued by a medieval pope or council, nor was any similar prohibition directed against the use of such translations by the laity.” (The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, 1987, p. 124)
Nor was this even true of Luther’s original Lutheranism, within the first ten years. McGrath explains the details:
For example, the school regulations of the duchy of Wurttemburg laid down that only the most able schoolchildren were to be allowed to study the New Testament in their final years — and even then, only if they studied it in Greek or Latin. The remainder — presumably the vast bulk — were required to read Luther’s Lesser Catechism instead. The direct interpretation of Scripture was thus effectively reserved for a small, privileged group of people. . . . The principle of the “clarity of Scripture’ appears to have been quietly marginalized, in the light of the use made of the Bible by the more radical elements within the Reformation. Similarly, the idea that everyone had the right and the ability to interpret Scripture faithfully became the sole possession of the radicals. (Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 2nd edition from 1993, p. 155)
12) We believe that Jesus is the only person who spent his entire life without contracting any stain of sin.
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Again, Martin Luther, the founder of the system, believed in the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which includes her sinlessness (even from original sin). No one has to take my word for that. Many Lutheran scholars and historians assert it. The well-known Lutheran scholar Arthur Carl Piepkorn stated in a scholarly article in 1967 that “Martin Luther’s personal adherence to the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God (barring two lapses) seems to have been life-long.” This same piece was described as a “splendid and learned summary” by the great Lutheran scholar Jaroslav Pelikan in his 1996 book, Mary Through The Ages, on page 249. Prominent Lutheran theologian Friedrich Heiler was cited in a 1959 Lutheran article stating that “Mary is for Luther ‘immaculately conceived,’ . . . in the sense . . . which the Roman Church in 1854 formulated as a dogma.”
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The eminent Lutheran scholar Eric W. Gritsch, one of the translator in the 55-volume set of the works of Luther, concurred, writing: “The literary evidence from Luther’s works clearly supports the view that Luther affirmed the doctrine.” He also stated that “Luther affirmed Mary’s assumption into heaven.” This was in the 1992 book, The One Mediator, the Saints, and Mary, Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VIII, written by twelve Lutheran and ten Catholic scholars. The Lutherans agreed with a common statement on page 54: “Luther himself professed the Immaculate Conception as a pleasing thought, though not as an article of faith.” Also, the German Lutheran Julius Köstlin, author of a famous 1883 biography, Life of Luther, stated that “the Immaculate Conception” was “firmly maintained by Luther himself.” For more on this, see:
Some Protestants also believe that John the Baptist never sinned.
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18) We believe in the necessity of good works as a consequence of salvation by faith, and not as the cause of salvation.
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Several strains of Protestantism dissent from the strict, pure notion of faith alone (sola fide), where works have nothing whatsoever (formally) to do with salvation. In particular, we can point to Christian perfectionism. Wikipedia has an excellent, in-depth article with the same title. I cite it at some length:
Within many denominations of Christianity, Christian perfection is the theological concept of the process or the event of achieving spiritual maturity or perfection. The ultimate goal of this process is union with God characterized by pure love of God and other people as well as personal holiness or sanctification. Other terms used for this or similar concepts include entire sanctification, holiness, perfect love, the baptism with the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, baptism by fire, the second blessing, and the second work of grace. . . .
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Traditional Quakerism uses the term perfection and teaches that it is the calling of a believer.
Perfection is a prominent doctrine within the Methodist tradition, . . . Methodists use the term Baptism of the Holy Spirit to refer to the second work of grace, entire sanctification.
Other denominations, such as the Lutheran Churches and Reformed Churches, reject the possibility of Christian perfection in this life as contrary to the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, . . .
In traditional Calvinism and high church Anglicanism, perfection was viewed as a gift bestowed on righteous persons only after their death (see Glorification). John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was responsible for reviving the idea of spiritual perfection in Protestantism. . . . Wesley transformed Christian perfection as found in church tradition by interpreting it through a Protestant lens that understood sanctification in light of justification by grace through faith working by love. . . .
Wesley taught that the manifestation of being entirely sanctified included engagement in works of piety and works of mercy. . . .
Daniel L. Burnett, a professor at Wesley Biblical Seminary, writes that:
Views compatible with the Wesleyan understanding of entire sanctification were carried forward in later times by men like the medieval Catholic priest Thomas a Kempis, . . . the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius, the German Pietist Phillip Jacob Spener, the Quaker founder George Fox, the Anglican bishop Jeremy Taylor, and the English devotional writer William Law. Many of these influences fed into [John] Wesley’s heritage and laid the foundation for the development of his thought.
John Wesley wrote about the falsity of “faith alone”:
Beware of solifidianism; crying nothing but, ‘Believe, believe’ and condemning those as ignorant or legal who speak in a more scriptural way. At certain seasons, indeed, it may be right to treat of nothing but repentance, or merely of faith, or altogether of holiness; but, in general, our call is to declare the whole counsel of God, and to prophesy according to the analogy of faith. The written word treats of the whole and every particular branch of righteousness, descending to its minutest branches; as to be sober, courteous, diligent, patient, to honour all men. So, likewise, the Holy Spirit works the same in our hearts, not merely creating desires after holiness in general, but strongly inclining us to every particular grace, leading us to every individual part of ‘whatsoever is lovely.’ And this with the greatest propriety; for as ‘by works faith is made perfect’, so the completing or destroying the work of faith, and enjoying the favour, or suffering the displeasure, of God, greatly depends on every single act of obedience or disobedience. (A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, 1767; rev. 1777; in W xi, 431-432; from Farther Thoughts on Christian Perfection, 1762)
19) We believe that salvation is defined based on what we have done in this life only, with no second chances for salvation after death (whether through reincarnation, purgatory or the like).
There are two silly and absurd things here. Catholics don’t believe in a “second chance” for salvation after death. One’s eternal destiny is determined at the moment of death, and doesn’t change. Accordingly, all who are in purgatory, in our view, are saved and inevitably on the way to heaven. Secondly, no Christian, as the term has always been defined through history, believes in reincarnation. That said, now we can address purgatory. And yes, some serious Protestants believe in this, too. C. S. Lewis wrote:
Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy”? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you know” — “Even so, sir.”
I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. . . .
My favourite image on this matter comes from the dentist’s chair. I hope that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am “coming round,” a voice will say, “Rinse your mouth out with this.” This will be Purgatory. The rinsing may take longer than I can now imagine. The taste of this may be more fiery and astringent than my present sensibility could endure. (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1964, 107-109)
Elements of the Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist traditions hold that for some there is cleansing after death and pray for the dead, knowing it to be efficacious.
20) We believe that sins can and should be confessed directly to God, who forgives us if we are sincerely repentant, and that we can also confess our sins to one another (especially if we have sinned against them), and not under the obligation of a private confession to a priest or that forgiveness depends on that private confession.
Some Protestants accept this, too. John Wesley wrote:
Do not they yet know that the only Popish confession is the Confession made by a single person to a priest? — and this itself is in no wise condemned by our Church; nay, she recommends it in some cases. (A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists; in Coll. iv, 186 [W (1831) v. 176-190]; 1748)
C. S. Lewis, the famous Anglican apologist, believed in and practiced formal confession, as I discovered when reading the book, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol. II: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949, edited by Walter Hooper, HarperSanFrancisco, 2004. In a letter to his friend Mary Neylan on 4 January 1941 (“Supplement” section of Volume III from 2007), Lewis gave a basic explanation, referring to “Confession and Absolution which our church enjoins on no-one but leaves free to all . . . the confessor is the representative of our Lord and declares His forgiveness” (p. 1540). Writing again to her on 26 April 1941 Lewis stated (p. 481) that practicing confession was “a desire to walk in well established ways which have the approval of Christendom as a whole.” See much more on this.
The Wikipedia article, “Absolution” has a wealth of information about various Protestant versions of confession and absolution. It states about Lutheranism:
The second form of confession and absolution is known as “Holy Absolution“, which is done privately to the pastor (commonly only upon request). Here the person confessing (known as the “penitent“) confesses his individual sins and makes an act of contrition as the pastor, acting in persona Christi, announces this following formula of absolution (or similar): “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” In the Lutheran Church, the pastor is bound by the Seal of the Confessional (similar to the Roman Catholic tradition). Luther’s Small Catechism says “the pastor is pledged not to tell anyone else of sins told him in private confession, for those sins have been removed.”
And about Anglicanism:
In the Church of England and in the Anglican Communion in general, formal, sacramental absolution is given to penitents in the sacrament of penance now formally called the Reconciliation of a Penitent and colloquially called “confession.”
And in Methodism:
In the Methodist Church, penance is defined by the Articles of Religion as one of those “Commonly called Sacraments but not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel”, also known as the “five lesser sacraments“. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, held “the validity of Anglican practice in his day as reflected in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer“, stating that “We grant confession to men to be in many cases of use: public, in case of public scandal; private, to a spiritual guide for disburdening of the conscience, and as a help to repentance.” The Book of Worship of The United Methodist Church contains the rite for private confession and absolution in A Service of Healing II, in which the minister pronounces the words “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!” . . .
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Lay confession is permitted, although this is not the norm. Near the time of death, many Methodists confess their sins and receive absolution from an ordained minister, in addition to being anointed.
23) We believe that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are still valid today.
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Note how vague and general this statement is. There is a good reason for that. It’s because Protestants have massive disagreements on the nature of these rites, which most of them agree with us in regarding them as sacraments. I could document this till kingdom come, but I’ll just provide a brief summary. From the beginning, Protestants differed on the Eucharist, with Luther and Lutherans following a view of the Real Presence, similar but not identical to the Catholic view (more like that of Orthodoxy). Zwingli opted for a completely symbolic Eucharist, and John Calvin took a middle position, of a mystical presence.
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That’s basically the three views regained today, that is, unless one is a Quaker or member of the Salvation Army: neither of which practice it at all. An article by a Quaker explains:
As far as I know, there are only two Christian traditions who officially don’t celebrate the Eucharist: the Salvation Army and the Society of Friends (Quakers). A fellow student at Queen’s Theological Foundation, where I study Theology, who is a ‘Salvationist’, told me that there are many different reasons for the Salvation Army not celebrating the Eucharist, but these are two important ones: they have always regarded women as equal in ministry (and sacraments at the time were only distributable by men); and they believe that throughout history the sacraments have had a divisive influence on the church, and differing beliefs about them have led to abuse and controversy. . . .
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The Quakers have never celebrated the Eucharist or any sacraments. . . . because Quakers find that all ritual distracts and takes focus away from God. Also, Quakers believe that ministry is not only equal between men and women, but that it belongs to all people, not just a few ministers.
Protestants got so ridiculous about the Eucharist within their first six decades, that in 1577, at Ingolstadt in Germany, a book entitled, Two Hundred Interpretations of the Words, “This is My Body” was published.
Note also that Lucas didn’t claim that Protestants agreed on ordination, because he knows that many of them now ordain women; nor that they can agree on something as fundamental as abortion (all of the mainline denominations favor it) or divorce, or whether practicing homosexuals can get married, or whether sodomy is a sin.
As for baptism, note that these two groups don’t practice that, either, despite it being a command of Jesus Christ (oh well). Beyond that, there are four major variations of baptism among Protestants, who are split into infant baptism and adult believers’ baptism camps (the former group, including Luther and Calvin and their followers, used to execute the latter for this reason).
Furthermore, the infant camp contains those who accept baptismal regeneration (Lutherans, Anglicans, and to some extent, Methodists), as does the adult camp (Churches of Christ and Disciples of Christ). Thus, there are five distinct competing belief-systems among Protestants with regard to baptism. They can’t even agree on these crucially important sacraments: both directly tied to salvation in Holy Scripture.
24) We believe that the Church consists of the body of Christ, the gathering together of all those saved in Christ wherever they are.
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This is the “mystical body” and Catholics agree that it is comprised of the elect, known ultimately only by God. But various Protestants also hold to a “visible Church” that goes far beyond this limited conception. So, for example, John Calvin wrote:
In this Church there is a very large mixture of hypocrites, who have nothing of Christ but the name and outward appearance: of ambitious, avaricious, envious, evil-speaking men, some also of impurer lives, who are tolerated for a time, either because their guilt cannot be legally established, or because due strictness of discipline is not always observed. Hence, as it is necessary to believe the invisible Church, which is manifest to the eye of God only, so we are also enjoined to regard this Church which is so called with reference to man, and to cultivate its communion. (Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV, 1:7)
Still those of whom we have spoken sin in their turn, by not knowing how to set bounds to their offence. For where the Lord requires mercy they omit it, and give themselves up to immoderate severity. Thinking there is no church where there is not complete purity and integrity of conduct, they, through hatred of wickedness, withdraw from a genuine church, while they think they are shunning the company of the ungodly. They allege that the Church of God is holy. But that they may at the same time understand that it contains a mixture of good and bad, let them hear from the lips of our Saviour that parable in which he compares the Church to a net in which all kinds of fishes are taken, but not separated until they are brought ashore. Let them hear it compared to a field which, planted with good seed, is by the fraud of an enemy mingled with tares, and is not freed of them until the harvest is brought into the barn. Let them hear, in fine, that it is a thrashing-floor in which the collected wheat lies concealed under the chaff, until, cleansed by the fanners and the sieve, it is at length laid up in the granary. If the Lord declares that the Church will labour under the defect of being burdened with a multitude of wicked until the day of judgment, it is in vain to look for a church altogether free from blemish (Mt. 13). (Ibid., IV, 1:13)
Likewise, Martin Luther wrote:
The second kind of fellowship is an outward, bodily and visible fellowship, by which one is admitted to the Holy Sacrament and receives and partakes of it together with others. From this fellowship or communion bishop and pope can exclude one, and forbid it to him on account of his sin, and that is called putting him under the ban. . . . This external ban, both the lesser and the greater, was instituted by Christ when He said in Matthew xviii: “If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. If he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word or transaction may be established. If he will not hear them, then tell it unto the whole congregation, the Church. If he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee a heathen man and a publican.” [Matt. 18:15 ff.] Likewise St. Paul says in I Corinthians v: “If any man among you be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one keep not company, neither eat with him.” [1. Cor. 5:11] Again he says in II Thessalonians iii: “If any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.” [2 Thess. 3:14] Again, John says in his second Epistle: “If any one come unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed, and he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.” [2 John 10] . . . St. Paul limits the purpose of the ban to the correction of our neighbor, that he be put to shame when no one associates with him, and he adds in 11 Thessalonians iii: “Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.” [2 Thess. 3:15] . . . To put under the ban is not, as some think, to deliver a soul to Satan and deprive it of the intercession and of all the good works of the Church. (A Treatise Concerning the Ban, 1520)
30)We believe in the final judgment, when God will judge both the righteous and the wicked; the righteous to receive the reward of eternal life, and the wicked to be condemned.
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Note that Lucas doesn’t mention hell. And that’s because his own view in this respect is like the Seventh-Day Adventists. He believes in soul-sleep after death, and in annihilationism, which is a denial of the very biblical doctrine of an eternal hell of punishment and of the eternal existence of all souls. He classifies himself as a Protestant, but denies things that probably 95% of them or more believe. Thus, already, we see a doctrinal relativism concerning the doctrine of man (anthropology) and eschatology (last things).
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Annihilationism is gaining ground as a fashionable view among even evangelical Protestants (usually more traditional). John Stott was one such figure who came to adopt it. F. F. Bruce — the great biblical scholar — wrote a letter to Stott in 1989, saying, “annihilation is certainly an acceptable interpretation of the relevant New Testament passages. . . For myself, I remain agnostic.”
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In his book, The Problem of Pain, even C. S. Lewis sounds like an annihilationist. He wrote:
But I notice that Our Lord, while stressing the terror of hell with unsparing severity usually emphasizes the idea not of duration but of finality. Consignment to the destroying fire is usually treated as the end of the story—not as the beginning of a new story. That the lost soul is eternally fixed in its diabolical attitude we cannot doubt: but whether this eternal fixity implies endless duration—or duration at all—we cannot say.
So the endless debates go in within Protestantism, with regard to this issue and many dozens of others. I have now shown, from Lucas’ own list, that in the ten areas which are Protestant distinctives and not in agreement with other Christians, there are always some Protestants who disagree. It’s theological relativism and ecclesiological chaos.
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21) We believe that it is against the will of the Holy Spirit for heretics to be burned, since Jesus commanded us to love everyone, even our enemies.
All Christians have believed that snice the mid-18th century at the latest. Virtually all Christians believed in and practiced capital punishment for heresy before that time. So this discussion is useless and a wash. For the abundant history of Protestant scandals in this regard, see my web page, Protestantism: Historic Persecution & Intolerance.
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Summary: Protestant apologist Lucas Banzoli fails to prove — as I demonstrate with facts — that Protestants have things in common besides those that all Christians have in common.
Photo credit: Bishop Charles Gore, by John Lemmon Russell, 1902, from the National Portrait Gallery [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Charles Gore (1853–1932) was a bishop in the Church of England (at Worcester, Birmingham, and Oxford), one of the most influential Anglican theologians of the 19th century, and author of many books. I am replying to his well-known volume, Roman Catholic Claims (London: Rivingtons, 2nd ed., 1889), specifically to chapter V: “The Promise to St. Peter” (pp. 71-88). His words will be in blue. I use RSV for Bible citations.
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To this promise of Christ to St. Peter [Matt. xvi. 13-20], . . . we will now turn our attention. St. Peter, acting as the spokesman of the other Apostles, had just given expression to the great conviction which had been slowly growing in the minds of the whole band, that the Son of Man was the Christ the Son of the living God. This outspoken confession of His Divine mission and Nature Christ meets and confirms with His most solemn benediction: ‘Blessed art thou’ (so we may venture to paraphrase it) ‘Simon Bar-Jonah: for this conviction is not derived from weak human nature, it is a supernatural communication from above: and (in virtue of this thy profession of it ) I also say unto thee that thou art Rock-man and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of death shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt prohibit on earth shall be prohibited in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt permit on earth, shall be permitted in heaven.’
This passage is, on the face of it, one involving several ambiguities. It is difficult, I think, to feel any doubt that our Lord is here pronouncing the person Peter to be the Rock. (pp. 71-72)
Many important Protestants over the last 500 years have — with equal “certainty” and vigor — expressly denied this last thing, even though Bp. Gore thinks it is “difficult” to “doubt” that it refers to Peter himself as the Rock (i.e., what Catholics have been saying from the beginning).
The Church as a human society is to be built on human characters, and in virtue of St. Peter’s courageous act of faith in Himself, his deliberate acceptance of His Divine claim, our Lord sees in him, what he had hitherto failed to find among men, a solid basis on which His spiritual fabric may be reared, or at least a basis capable of being solidified by discipline and experience, till it become a foundation of rock on which the Church can rest. (p. 72)
Amen! Delighted to hear that we agree on this.
So far our Lord is dealing with St. Peter as a human character, but He goes on beyond all question to promise to invest him with an office, the office of steward in the Divine kingdom, and with a supernatural legislative authority. (p. 72)
Indeed.
St. Peter speaks in this passage as one of a body of twelve. (p. 73)
Is Christ dealing with him as distinct from the others, or as their representative? (p. 73)
More so the former, but part of a group, just as popes today work with bishops, while being “higher” than they are.
Is the office to belong to him only or in a special sense, or is it to be given to all who share the apostolic commission? (p. 73)
Him only, as strongly suggested by his being singularly classified as the “Rock” (a new name) upon which Jesus builds His Church, and the fact that only he receives the “keys of the kingdom” (Mt 16:19).
The ground for this question is left the more open by the fact that Christ is not here bestowing an office but promising it. The passage is an anticipation, a promise (‘I will,’ not ‘I do‘ ) which waits its interpretation in our Lord’s future action, . . . (p. 73)
This seems much ado about nothing, since what God says He will do, He inevitably does, and God did indeed set up Peter as the leader in the early Church, as is evident in the book of Acts. And if there is a leader at first, then it’s just common sense to hold that there will be a perpetual leader, just as there are perpetual bishops. Why have a leader for some thirty years, and then none ever after? That makes no sense. Thus, Jesus’ commission to St. Peter plainly has implications for Church leadership all through history.
It must, we think, be admitted that our Lord’s subsequent language and conduct do not confirm. the stronger and more exclusive meaning which has been put upon His promise to St. Peter. The solemn delegations of ministerial authority given by our Lord after His Resurrection, are so given as to imply the essential equality of all the Apostles. (p. 75)
I don’t see how. Peter is regarded by Jesus as the Chief Shepherd after Himself (Jn 21:15-17) when He tells Peter to “Feed my lambs” and “Tend my sheep” and “Feed my sheep.” This is obviously the office of the chief shepherd of the people of God. The retort is that all this is, is an undoing of Peter’s three denials. That may very well be true, too, but if so, it doesn’t follow that my interpretation is null and void. He still encouraged Peter to be a pastor of what is arguably the entire Church. In the context of many Bible passages already indicating a profound leadership of Peter among the disciples and in the early Church, it’s significant that Jesus uses an agricultural shepherd and sheep parallel, which is a metaphor for being a pastor. The word “shepherd” is used 15 times in the NT in this fashion.
So what does Jesus do here? He was with seven of the disciples (Jn 21:2) in a post-Resurrection appearance. But He singled out Peter and charged him to be the shepherd of the entire Church, since He uses the words “the sheep” or “sheep” 14 times in John 10: meaning, believers in the Church. There He was talking about Himself as the Ultimate Shepherd. But there are also earthly shepherds (pastors or priests or bishops). Jesus didn’t say this to all seven disciples present. He said it to Peter only. That must have some significance. It fits into the scenario of him being the leader of the Church.
Moreover, Peter alone among the apostles is mentioned by name as having been prayed for by Jesus Christ in order that his “faith may not fail” (Lk 22:32). I believe it’s the only time Jesus is said to have prayed for one person, who is named. And guess who it is? Just a “coincidence”: it’s once again Peter. Furthermore, Peter alone among the apostles is exhorted by Jesus to “strengthen your brethren” (Lk 22:32): the supreme pastor again. Bp. Gore acknowledges these two things on page 76 and describes them (virtually conceding two important points and Petrine distinctives!) as “special dealings of our Lord with St. Peter.” If all of the above is “essential equality” it’s certainly the strangest “essential equality” I’ve ever seen.
The Bible massively indicates that he was the leader of the disciples and of the early Church. Protestants don’t even deny that. It’s too obvious. Here he is shown to be that again by being singled out. All of them would be shepherds but Jesus talks to Peter alone. It makes perfect sense. If He built His Church upon Peter, then Peter would certainly be charged with feeding the “sheep” en masse. Peter didn’t have a specific flock when Jesus told Him to feed His sheep. So it seems to be a universal shepherding, which also is what we see in the nature of his first epistle, which is to a large group (“To the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappado’cia, Asia, and Bithyn’ia”: 1:1), not one local church, as with Paul’s letters.
Pontus was in the north of Turkey and largely surrounding the Black Sea north of it. Galatia was in the center of Asia Minor (Turkey), Cappadocia in its southeast, and Bithynia in its northwest. “Asia” in the NT refers to Asia Minor. So Peter was writing to Christians in a vast area. The size of Turkey is about a thousand miles from west to east, and 300-400 miles from north to south. This is the area, and also east and north of the Black Sea, that was the recipient of Peter’s first epistle.
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“As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you” the Apostles in general: (p. 75)
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Yes; they were all being sent to go turn the world upside down, as the first evangelists (cf. Mt 28:19-20). That has nothing to do with whether or not they have a leader, and who that was. We know who it was (see the above biblical argumentation).
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“and when He had said this, He breathed on them and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; . . . (p. 75)
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That’s the indwelling, possessed by all baptized Christians, not just the eleven disciples.
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. . . whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.” (p. 75)
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Yes, the disciples, representative of future clergy, all have the power to bind and loose, meaning to impose penances and to grant absolution. They have that in common with popes, who can also do the same. Bishops and priests both have the same power in that specific respect. Just because some things are held in common, it doesn’t follow that all are.
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Thus the Mission to represent Christ, as endowed with His authority to baptize and to teach, to remit and to retain sins (which is the power of the keys in its application to individuals) is given to the whole apostolic body at once and equally. (p. 75)
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Yes, they have that in common, but again, it doesn’t follow that there is no leader who possesses exclusive prerogatives. Bp. Gore seems to commit a basic logical fallacy and fails to make basic, elementary distinctions. I’ve already listed five aspects that were unique to Peter, after all, and in see also my list of fifty things.
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To all equally had the Holy Eucharist been committed before His passion. (p. 75)
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Yes indeed, but it’s a non sequitur (irrelevancy) with regard to the singular leadership status of Peter, which is the topic of this chapter of his.
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It would seem then that what is promised to St. Peter in virtue of his confession of Christ’s name, is bestowed by our Lord equally on all after His Resurrection, . . . (p. 75)
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This is a gratuitous assumption on inadequate grounds, but not a solid proof, whereas I submit that I have proven my case from the Bible.
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and St. Peter’s primacy which he undoubtedly held in the apostolic college, carries with it no distinctive powers, but is a personal leadership amongst equals. (p. 75)
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Again, he assumes without proof. This is merely special pleading and wishful thinking.
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Mr. Rivington [Catholic] interprets this to mean that it was ‘unnecessary’ for our Lord to pray for all the Apostles because ‘there was one head among them with whom they were to be joined’: so that He prayed for one, in order to protect all!(p. 76)
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That may be, but I think it’s a weak apologetic. I believe that the more important aspect is the simple fact that Peter is the only person — as far as I know, and I think I’m right — that the Lord is described as praying for. There were certainly others, but singling this out is, I believe, the Bible writers’ way of indicating the huge importance of the person who was described as a recipient of the Lord’s prayer. And this is part of an overall pattern, too, where he is singled out. So, for example, an angel tells Mary Magdalene and others at the empty tomb, “go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee” (Mk 16:7).
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St. Paul distinguishes the Lord’s post-Resurrection appearances to Peter from those to other apostles (1 Cor 15:4-8). The two disciples on the road to Emmaus make the same distinction (Lk 24:34), in this instance mentioning only Peter (“Simon”), even though they themselves had just seen the risen Jesus within the previous hour (Lk 24:33). Peter is often spoken of as distinct among apostles (Mk 1:36; Lk 9:28,32; Acts 2:37; 5:29; 1 Cor 9:5), and is often the spokesman for the other apostles, especially at climactic moments (Mk 8:29; Mt 18:21; Lk 9:5; 12:41; Jn 6:67 ff.).
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Peter’s name occurs first in all lists of apostles (Mt 10:2; Mk 3:16; Lk 6:14; Acts 1:13). Matthew even calls him the “first” (10:2). Judas Iscariot is invariably mentioned last. Peter is almost without exception named first whenever he appears with anyone else. In one (only?) example to the contrary, Galatians 2:9, where he (“Cephas”) is listed after James and before John, he is clearly preeminent in the entire context (e.g., 1:18-19; 2:7-8). And Peter’s name is always the first listed even of the “inner circle” of the disciples (Peter, James and John – Mt 17:1; 26:37,40; Mk 5:37; 14:37). The cumulative evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.
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How strangely is this idea in contrast with the fact of our Lord’s prayer in St. John, xvii. 9, 10. [“I am praying for them; . . . for those whom thou hast given me, . . .”] (p. 76)
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They are prayed for as a collective, without individual names given, whereas Peter is prayed for specifically by name. This indicates preeminence. It’s this way for a reason. God — speaking through the evangelists — was indicating the special and unique status of Peter. The point isn’t that Jesus didn’t pray for the others, too, but how the prayer is differently presented in Holy Scripture. It’s somewhat like how Moses was singled out because God spoke to him “face to face”:
Exodus 33:11 Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. . . .
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Deuteronomy 34:10 And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
Moreover, we have the terminology of “the LORD and . . . his servant Moses”: Ex 14:31; “my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house”: Num 12:7; “Moses the servant of the LORD”: Dt. 34:5; Josh 1:1-2, 7, 13, 15; 8:31, 33; 9:24; 11:12, 15; 12:6; 13:8; 14:7; 18:7; 22:2, 4-5; whereas Joshua is called Moses‘ “servant”: Ex 24:13; 33:11. Joshua isn’t called God’s servant, even though both he and Moses served Him, because Moses was over him. What’s “strange” is how Bp. Gore seems to utterly overlook so much that I have brought up. As so often in these debates with old sources from dead people (or even with live Protestants), I invariably utilize far more Scripture than my Protestant opponent does, because it’s God’s revelation and as such carries inherent and intrinsic weight. It’s where the argument must be grounded. Any proclaimed Christian view must be in harmony with all of it.
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But when Jesus says, “but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Lk 22:32), this isn’t just because Peter was to deny Him for a short amount of time before he repented (it could have only been ten minutes, as opposed to the seeming months that Paul persecuted and killed Christians), but also has implications for his role as pope, where his faith can’t fail without dire implications for the Church and the faithful. This gets into papal indefectibility, that was most explicitly discussed in Vatican I in 1870. All of this points to one thing: Petrine — and papal — preeminence and supremacy.
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There is nothing in the Gospels to suggest that St. Peter’s position among the Apostles was any less personal or any more destined to be an abiding fact in the Church’s ministry than that of St. John. (p. 77)
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This is simply absurd, and is contradicted by all I have argued above, and many other Bible-based articles I have written about Petrine primacy, on my Papacy and Infallibility web page.
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He was the leader-the ‘coryphæus’ of the apostolic band. He spoke and acted at first as such, and, as holding ‘ the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ opened the door to the Gentiles. But his position of leader does not seem to carry with it any prerogative of primary importance. The Apostles at Jerusalem are described as “sending him ” [Acts viii. 14] with St. John to Samaria. (p. 78)
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That’s an “interesting” argument. Why don’t we apply it to St. Paul, too?:
Acts 17:10 The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroe’a . . .
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Acts 17:14 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, . . .
At least the “apostles” sent Peter somewhere; with Paul it was mere “brethren.” They obviously weren’t “higher” than he was, so this argument from the word “sent” collapses.
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He occupies no governing position in the Council at Jerusalem. . . . the formal authority, the formal “ I decide,” comes from St. James, and the decree goes out in the name of “the Apostles and elders” generally. (p. 79)
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From Acts 15, we learn that “after there was much debate, Peter rose” to address the assembly (15:7). The Bible records his speech, which goes on for five verses. Then it reports that “all the assembly kept silence” after having previously been split (15:12). Paul and Barnabas speak next, speaking about “signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles” (15:12). Then when James speaks, not making additional authoritative pronouncements, but confirming Peter’s exposition, and referring right back to what “Simeon [Peter] has related . . .” (15:14), and he says, “with this the words of the prophets agree” (15:15). To me, this suggests that Peter’s talk was central and definitive. James speaking last could easily be explained by the fact that he was the bishop of Jerusalem and therefore the “host.”
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James says, “my judgment is . . . ” (15:19). But it doesn’t necessarily follow, logically, that his is either the only or definitive, most authoritative judgment. St. Paul hardly plays any major role. Is he “under” James, too? Bp. Gore contradicts himself anyway, since he notes that the decree went out from all. So if that undermines Peter’s authority, it equally undermines James’ supposedly greater conciliar authority. It was a decree agreed upon by the overall assembly, including even non-apostles (“elders”).
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It was a council, just as Catholic ecumenical councils are group efforts, but ultimately led by popes. What James stated doesn’t disprove that Peter wasn’t the one with the crucial intake, that brought about the actual outcome. Even Bp. Gore (remarkably) concedes, “Christ’s revelation to him, indeed, when he opened the door to the Gentiles, [Acts xv. 7-11] was a fact which must have been conclusive of the question before the meeting” (p. 76). Exactly! Peter spoke and the debate ended, and James referred back to him, sounding every bit like someone deferring to a superior’s opinion.
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Practical Matters: I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 5,000+ free online articles or fifty-six books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them. If you believe my full-time apostolate is worth supporting, please seriously consider a much-needed monthly or one-time financial contribution. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV).
You can support my work a great deal in non-financial ways, if you prefer; by subscribing to, commenting on, liking, and sharing videos from my YouTube channel, Catholic Bible Highlights, where I partner with Kenny Burchard (see my own videos), and/or by signing up to receive notice for new articles on this blog. Just type your email address on the sidebar to the right (scroll down quite a bit), where you see, “Sign Me Up!” Thanks a million!
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Photo credit: Bishop Charles Gore, by John Lemmon Russell, 1902, from the National Portrait Gallery [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Summary: Anglican Bishop Charles Gore (1853–1932) made all the usual anti-Petrine arguments, which I believe I have refuted from Holy Scripture itself and various logical observations.
Does “Works of the Law” Refer to All Good Works Whatsoever?
Photo credit: N. T. Wright (20 December 2007), by Gareth Saunders [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license]
Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575), a Calvinist leader in early Protestantism, or “reformer”, after citing Galatians 2:16, wrote the following in his most significant work, Decades(1551; rep. Cambridge University Press, 1849; first and second decades):
This is now the third time that Paul saith, that men are not justified by the works of the law: in the which clause he comprehendeth all manner of works of what sort soever. (p. 113)
John Calvin, in his Commentaries, draws the same false conclusion about Galatians 2:16:
Let it therefore remain settled, that the proposition is so framed as to admit of no exception, “that we are justified in no other way than by faith,” or, “that we are not justified but by faith,” or, which amounts to the same thing, “that we are justified by faith alone.”
Hence it appears with what silly trifling the Papists of our day dispute with us about the word, as if it had been a word of our contrivance. But Paul was unacquainted with the theology of the Papists, who declare that a man is justified by faith, and yet make a part of justification to consist in works. Of such half-justification Paul knew nothing. For, when he instructs us that we are justified by faith, because we cannot be justified by works, he takes for granted what is true, that we cannot be justified through the righteousness of Christ, unless we are poor and destitute of a righteousness of our own. Consequently, either nothing or all must be ascribed to faith or to works.
And therein lies a fundamental error, repeated by many many Protestants for over 500 years: the interpretation of a particular phrase in Paul relating to Mosaic Law, to supposedly mean all good works; thus leading to a false “faith alone” viewpoint. Recently, I proved the falsity of “faith alone” (sola fide) from a hundred passages in the Bible. But Calvin and Bullinger somehow manage to ignore that much clear teaching of the Bible. The Wikipedia article, “New Perspective on Paul” (“NPP”) provides a good overview:
The “New Perspective” movement began with the publication of the 1977 essay Paul and Palestinian Judaism by E. P. Sanders, an American New Testament scholar and Christian theologian.
Historically, the old Protestant perspective claims that Paul advocates justification through faith in Jesus Christ over justification through works of the Mosaic Law. During the Protestant Reformation, this theological principle became known as sola fide (“faith alone”); this was traditionally understood as Paul arguing that good works performed by Christians would not factor into their salvation; only their faith in Jesus Christ would save them. In this perspective, Paul dismissed 1st-century Palestinian Judaism as a sterile and legalistic religion.
According to Sanders, Paul’s letters do not address good works but instead question Jewish religious observances such as circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath laws, which were the “boundary markers” that set the Jews apart from other ethno-religious groups in the Levant. Sanders further argues that 1st-century Palestinian Judaism was not a “legalistic community”, nor was it oriented to “salvation by works”. As God’s “chosen people”, they were under his covenant. Contrary to Protestant belief, following the Mosaic Law was not a way of entering the covenant but of staying within it. . . .
The writings of the Apostle Paul contain a substantial amount of criticism regarding the “works of the Law“.
By contrast, “New Perspective” scholars see Paul as talking about “badges of covenant membership” or criticizing Gentile believers who had begun to rely on the Torah to reckon Jewish kinship. . . .
The “New Perspective on Paul” has, by and large, been an internal debate among Protestant biblical scholars. Many Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox scholars have responded favorably to the “New Perspective”, seeing a greater commonality with certain strands of their own traditions.
Anglican bishop and Bible scholar N. T. Wright (b. 1948) is the most well-known figure in the NPP movement. He stated in a lecture delivered at the Tenth Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference (August 2003):
In my early days of research, before Sanders had published Paul and Palestinian Judaism in 1977 and long before Dunn coined the phrase ‘The New Perspective on Paul’, I was puzzled by one exegetical issue in particular, which I here oversimplify for the sake of summary. If I read Paul in the then standard Lutheran way, Galatians made plenty of sense, but I had to fudge (as I could see dozens of writers fudging) the positive statements about the Law in Romans. If I read Paul in the Reformed way . . ., Romans made a lot of sense, but I had to fudge . . . the negative statements about the Law in Galatians. . . . it dawned on me, I think in 1976, that a different solution was possible. In Romans 10.3 Paul, writing about his fellow Jews, declares that they are ignorant of the righteousness of God, and are seeking to establish ‘their own righteousness’. The wider context, not least 9.30–33, deals with the respective positions of Jews and Gentiles within God’s purposes – and with a lot more besides, of course, but not least that. Supposing, I thought, Paul meant ‘seeking to establish their own righteousness’, not in the sense of a moral status based on the performance of Torah and the consequent accumulation of a treasury of merit, but an ethnic status based on the possession of Torah as the sign of automatic covenant membership? I saw at once that this would make excellent sense of Romans 9 and 10, and would enable the positive statements about the Law throughout Romans to be given full weight while making it clear that this kind of use of Torah, as an ethnic talisman, was an abuse. I sat up in bed that night reading through Galatians and saw that at point after point this way of looking at Paul would make much better sense of Galatians, too, than either the standard post-Luther readings or the attempted Reformed ones. . . .
I regard as absolutely basic the need to understand Paul in a way which does justice to all the letters, as well as to the key passages in individual ones) . . . the struggle to think Paul’s thoughts after him [is] a matter of obedience to scripture. . . .
When Jimmy Dunn added his stones to the growing pile I found myself in both agreement and disagreement with him. His proposal about the meaning of ‘works of the law’ in Paul – that they are not the moral works through which one gains merit but the works through which the Jew is defined over against the pagan – I regard as exactly right. It has proved itself again and again in the detailed exegesis; attempts to deny it have in my view failed. . . .
It is blindingly obvious when you read Romans and Galatians . . . that virtually whenever Paul talks about justification he does so in the context of a critique of Judaism and of the coming together of Jew and Gentile in Christ. As an exegete determined to listen to scripture rather than abstract my favourite bits from it I cannot ignore this. The only notice that most mainstream theology has taken of this context is to assume that the Jews were guilty of the kind of works-righteousness of which theologians from Augustine to Calvin and beyond have criticised their opponents; . . . I regard the New Perspective’s challenge to this point as more or less established. . . .
It seems that there has been a massive conspiracy of silence on something which was quite clear for Paul (as indeed for Jesus). Paul, in company with mainstream second-Temple Judaism, affirms that God’s final judgment will be in accordance with the entirety of a life led – in accordance, in other words, with works. He says this clearly and unambiguously in Romans 14.10–12 and 2 Corinthians 5.10. He affirms it in that terrifying passage about church-builders in 1 Corinthians 3. But the main passage in question is of course Romans 2.1–16. . . .
Here is the first statement about justification in Romans, and lo and behold it affirms justification according to works! The doers of the law, he says, will be justified (2.13). Shock, horror; Paul cannot (so many have thought) have really meant it. So the passage has been treated as a hypothetical position which Paul then undermines by showing that nobody can actually achieve it; or, by Sanders for instance, as a piece of unassimilated Jewish preaching which Paul allows to stand even though it conflicts with other things he says. But all such theories are undermined by exegesis itself, not least by observing the many small but significant threads that stitch Romans 2 into the fabric of the letter as a whole. Paul means what he says. Granted, he redefines what ‘doing the law’ really means; he does this in chapter 8, and again in chapter 10, with a codicil in chapter 13. But he makes the point most compactly in Philippians 1.6: he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus. The ‘works’ in accordance with which the Christian will be vindicated on the last day are not the unaided works of the self-help moralist. Nor are they the performance of the ethnically distinctive Jewish boundary-markers (sabbath, food-laws and circumcision). They are the things which show, rather, that one is in Christ; the things which are produced in one’s life as a result of the Spirit’s indwelling and operation. . . .
I am fascinated by the way in which some of those most conscious of their reformation heritage shy away from Paul’s clear statements about future judgment according to works. It is not often enough remarked upon, for instance, that in the Thessalonian letters, and in Philippians, he looks ahead to the coming day of judgment and sees God’s favourable verdict not on the basis of the merits and death of Christ, not because like Lord Hailsham he simply casts himself on the mercy of the judge, but on the basis of his apostolic work. . . . [Paul is] clear that the things he does in the present, by moral and physical effort, will count to his credit on the last day, precisely because they are the effective signs that the Spirit of the living Christ has been at work in him. We are embarrassed about saying this kind of thing; Paul clearly is not. What on earth can have happened to a sola scriptura theology that it should find itself forced to screen out such emphatic, indeed celebratory, statements?
With that background in mind, I’d like to briefly examine the contexts of St. Paul’s use of the phrase, “works of the law.” Here are the eight instances of that phrase or “works of law” in six verses in his epistles:
Romans 3:20 For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Romans 3:28 For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law. (also, “works” in 3:27 seems to be in the same sense, based on the context of 3:20, 28)
Galatians 2:16 yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified.
Galatians 3:2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?
Galatians 3:5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?
Galatians 3:10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.”
Do the immediate contexts of these passages suggest that Paul is referring to all works — even good works — , or, on the other hand, works in the sense of Jewish religious observances such as circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath laws, which were the ‘boundary markers’ that set the Jews apart” (as the Wikipedia article put it)? The phrase, “works of the law” — because of the word “law” — would seem to me to suggest on its face the latter position, but as we have seen, most Protestant exegetes through the centuries have not thought so, and have followed Bullinger’s and Calvin’s thinking on the issue.
N. T. Wright thinks they have been greatly mistaken, and Catholics agree wholeheartedly with that assessment. The erroneous man-generated tradition of sola fide has overcome common sense exegesis in this instance. When Paul refers to “the law” all agree that he means by that, the Mosaic Law, given to Moses on Mt. Sinai and codified in the first five books of the Bible (the Torah or Pentateuch). Let’s now examine the contexts of these passages.
Romans 3:20
The “law” is referred to in both the immediate preceding and succeeding verses:
Romans 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
Romans 3:21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it,
Romans 3:28
The context of the next three verses refers to Jews and Gentiles, circumcision, and “the law” and Paul even makes it a point to stress that “we uphold the law.”
Romans 3:29-31 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, [30] since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised through their faith. [31] Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
In the next chapter, devoted to Abraham, who lived before the law, Paul still refers to “the law” five times in 4:13-16.
Galatians 2:16
Galatians 2:15 We . . . are Jews by birth . . .
Galatians 2:19-21 For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God. . . . [21] I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose.
Galatians 3:2, 5, 10
Paul had been discussing “the law” at the end of chapter 2 (2:19-21). Then he proceeds to refer to “the law” twelve more times throughout the chapter, besides 3:2, 5, 10 (3:11-13, 17-19, 21, 23-24).
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Practical Matters: I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 5,000+ free online articles or fifty-six books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them. If you believe my full-time apostolate is worth supporting, please seriously consider a much-needed monthly or one-time financial contribution. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV).
You can support my work a great deal in non-financial ways, if you prefer; by subscribing to, commenting on, liking, and sharing videos from my YouTube channel, Catholic Bible Highlights, where I partner with Kenny Burchard (see my own videos), and/or by signing up to receive notice for new articles on this blog. Just type your email address on the sidebar to the right (scroll down quite a bit), where you see, “Sign Me Up!” Thanks a million!
Summary: The New Perspective on Paul — in agreement with Catholics — holds that Pauline “works of the law” are “boundary markers” that set the Jews apart from other religious groups.
Photo credit: The Woman Taken in Adultery (1620s) by Guercino (1591-1666) [public domain / picryl]
Edward Josiah Stearns (1810-1890) was an Episcopal clergyman from Maryland and author of several books. His volume, The Faith of Our Forefathers (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1879), was a reply to The Faith of Our Fathers(1876), by James Cardinal Gibbons (1834-1921), one of the best and most well-known Catholic apologetics works, with an emphasis on scriptural arguments and replies to Protestant critiques of Catholicism. It had sold over 1.4 million copies by the time of its 83rd edition in 1917 and was the most popular book in the United States until Gone With the Wind was published in 1939. This volume highly influenced my own development as a soon-to-be Catholic apologist in the early 1990s: especially with regard to my usual modus operandi of focusing on “biblical evidence” for Catholicism.
The words of Rev. Stearns will be in blue. I use RSV for biblical citations.
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It is hardly necessary to say that the Roman division of sins into mortal and venial, has no warrant in the Word of God. . . . there is no . . . passage that gives even the slightest countenance to the Roman distinction. All sin repented of, even the most aggravated, is venial; all sin unrepented of, even the least aggravated, is mortal. There is a difference in the punishment of slight and of heinous sins, but it is a difference of intensity, not of duration; sin repented of hath full and free forgiveness; sin unrepented of hath never forgiveness. (p. 224)
Once again, Rev. Stearns is grossly, scandalously unfamiliar with the Bible that Protestants as a matter of course assume they know and understand so much better than Catholics do.
Some non-Catholic Christians (like Rev. Stearns) think that all sins are exactly alike in the eyes of God: everything from a white lie or a child stealing a cookie to mass murder. They believe this not out of common sense, but because they erroneously think that the Bible teaches it. But this mistaken notion is decisively refuted by many biblical passages. Scripture states that there are differences in the seriousness of sin:
1 John 5:16-17 If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is a sin which is not mortal.
James 1:14-15 but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. [15] Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death. (cf. 5:20)
Matthew 5:22 But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, “You fool!” shall be liable to the hell of fire.
Matthew 12:32 And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (cf. Lk 12:10)
John 19:11 . . . he who delivered me to you has the greater sin.
Romans 6:16, 23 . . . sin, which leads to death . . . [23] For the wages of sin is death, . . . (cf. 7:11)
The Bible also teaches about differences in subjective guiltiness of sin (which is one of the keys as to whether a sin is mortal or venial). People are not always completely aware that certain acts or thoughts are sinful. In Catholic theology, in order to commit a grave, or mortal sin, where one ceases to be in a state of grace and is literally in potential, but real danger of hellfire, three requirements are necessary: 1) it must be a very serious matter, 2) the sinner has to have sufficiently reflected on, or had adequate knowledge of the sin, and 3) he must have fully consented in his will.
The biblical and Catholic distinction is between “unwitting sin” or “error” committed by a person who “does not know” is distinguished from sin “with a high hand” (Num 15:30 below): done by person who “reviles the LORD”, and “has despised the word of the LORD”. This scenario is precisely analogous to the Catholic notion, insofar as the more serious sin caused the person to be “cut off” from the congregation of Israel: the usual OT concrete expression of what in Catholicism is understood in the spiritual sense as being cut off from God’s grace and communion with Him (and possibly from salvation and heaven in the long run).
Scripture provides many indications of this difference in seriousness of sin, and in subjective guiltiness for it:
Leviticus 5:17-18 “If any one sins, doing any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity. [18] He shall bring to the priest a ram without blemish out of the flock, valued by you at the price for a guilt offering, and the priest shall make atonement for him for the error which he committed unwittingly, and he shall be forgiven.” (cf. 4:2, 13, 22, 27; Lev 5:15, 18; 22:14)
Numbers 15:27-31 “If one person sins unwittingly, he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering. [28] And the priest shall make atonement before the LORD for the person who commits an error, when he sins unwittingly, to make atonement for him; and he shall be forgiven. [29] You shall have one law for him who does anything unwittingly, for him who is native among the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them. [30] But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from among his people. [31] Because he has despised the word of the LORD, and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.” (cf. 15:24, 27-29; Josh 20:3, 5; Tobit 3:3)
These lesser, venial sins were “forgiven” (Lev 4:20, 26, 31, 35; 5:10, 16, 18; Num 15:25-26, 28) through the usual processes of priestly sacrifice and atonement, based on the Law of Moses.
Ezekiel 45:20 You shall do the same on the seventh day of the month for any one who has sinned through error or ignorance; . . .
Luke 12:47-48 And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.
Luke 23:34 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” . . .
John 9:41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”
Acts 3:17 And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.
Acts 17:30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent,
Romans 3:25 . . . This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins;
Romans 10:2-3 I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. [3] For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
1 Timothy 1:13 though I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him; but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief.
Hebrews 10:26: For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
James 3:1 Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness.
1 Peter 1:14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
And the Bible refers to (mortal) sins which — if not repented of — will exclude one from heaven:
Leviticus 18:26, 29 But you shall keep my statutes and my ordinances and do none of these abominations, . . . [29] For whoever shall do any of these abominations, the persons that do them shall be cut off from among their people.
Ezekiel 18:5-13 “If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right — [6] if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman in her time of impurity, [7] does not oppress any one, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, [8] does not lend at interest or take any increase, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between man and man, [9] walks in my statutes, and is careful to observe my ordinances — he is righteous, he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD. [10] “If he begets a son who is a robber, a shedder of blood, [11] who does none of these duties, but eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, [12] oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, [13] lends at interest, and takes increase; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.
The prophet continues in the same vein in 18:14-23. This is not “one sin”; it’s a host of sins, a lifestyle: a life given over to wanton wickedness and unrighteousness. Then in 18:26 he reiterates: “When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die for it; for the iniquity which he has committed he shall die.” If that weren’t clear enough, he refers again to “all the transgressions” (18:28, 31) and “all your transgressions” (18:30).
Matthew 5:28-30 But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [29] If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. [30] And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (cf. Mk 9:47-48)
Matthew 15:18-20 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. [19] For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. [20] These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, [10] nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 1:8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.
Galatians 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, [20] idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, [21] envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Ephesians 5:3-6 But fornication and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting among saints. [4] Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving. [5] Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. [6] Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
Colossians 3:5-6 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. [6] On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
Revelation 21:8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.
Revelation 22:15 Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and every one who loves and practices falsehood.
Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, his successor Philip Melanchthon (in the Apology for the Augsburg Confession), and prominent early Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz, all maintained the distinction between mortal and venial sins.
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Practical Matters: I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 5,000+ free online articles or fifty-six books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them. If you believe my full-time apostolate is worth supporting, please seriously consider a much-needed monthly or one-time financial contribution. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV).
You can support my work a great deal in non-financial ways, if you prefer; by subscribing to, commenting on, liking, and sharing videos from my YouTube channel, Catholic Bible Highlights, where I partner with Kenny Burchard (see my own videos), and/or by signing up to receive notice for new articles on this blog. Just type your email address on the sidebar to the right (scroll down quite a bit), where you see, “Sign Me Up!” Thanks a million!
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Photo credit: The Woman Taken in Adultery (1620s) by Guercino (1591-1666) [public domain / picryl]
Summary: Anglican apologist Edward Josiah Stearns claimed there was “no” scriptural support at all for mortal and venial sins. I produced 31 passages and many cross-references as well.
Photo credit: The Ark and the Mercy Seat, illustration in Treasures of the Bible by Henry Davenport Northrop, published by International Publishing Company, 1894 [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Edward Josiah Stearns (1810-1890) was an Episcopal clergyman from Maryland and author of several books. His volume, The Faith of Our Forefathers (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1879), was a reply to The Faith of Our Fathers(1876), by James Cardinal Gibbons (1834-1921), one of the best and most well-known Catholic apologetics works, with an emphasis on scriptural arguments and replies to Protestant critiques of Catholicism. It had sold over 1.4 million copies by the time of its 83rd edition in 1917 and was the most popular book in the United States until Gone With the Wind was published in 1939. This volume highly influenced my own development as a soon-to-be Catholic apologist in the early 1990s: especially with regard to my usual modus operandi of focusing on “biblical evidence” for Catholicism.
The words of Rev. Stearns will be in blue. I use RSV for biblical citations.
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It is noteworthy that the Archbishop does not cite a single passage of Scripture in proof of image-worship. (p. 213)
He’s clearly asserting that there is no such passage. I can think of at least three:
Exodus 33:9-10 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the door of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. [10] And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the door of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, every man at his tent door. [worship of God through a cloud]
2 Chronicles 7:3-4 When all the children of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the LORD upon the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the earth on the pavement, and worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever.” [4] Then the king and all the people offered sacrifice before the LORD. [worship of God through fire]
1 Chronicles 16:4 Moreover he appointed certain of the Levites as ministers before the ark of the LORD, to invoke, to thank, and to praise the LORD, the God of Israel.
One might retort that the ark of the covenant didn’t represent God, so how could this passage refer to image-worship? It’s because God was present above the ark in a visible cloud between the carved cherubim on its lid: what was called the “mercy seat”:
Leviticus 16:2 and the LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at all times into the holy place within the veil, before the mercy seat which is upon the ark, lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.
Numbers 16:42 (“the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD appeared“) and Deuteronomy 31:15 (“And the LORD appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud“), prove, in their use of “appear” in relation to a cloud that this is also the case in Leviticus 16:2. God doesn’t just say that He will be “present”, but that He will “appear” in this cloud. Therefore, it’s a third instance of God being worshiped through an image.
1 Samuel 4:4 . . . the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim . . .
Exodus 25:22 There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony . . . (cf. 30:6)
Numbers 7:89 And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was upon the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him
The burning bush proves that God Himself was there in the bush that Moses saw. In other words, worshiping it was the same as worshiping God (which is the fundamental idea involved in icons, though they are venerated — not worshiped or adored — when creatures are involved):
Exodus 3:4-6 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here am I.” [5] Then he said, “Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” [6] And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
The same idea is reiterated in references to “face to face” and the pillars:
Exodus 13:21 And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire . . .
Exodus 33:11 Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. . . .
Numbers 12:5 And the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the door of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. (cf. Ps 99:7)
Numbers 14:14 . . . thou, O LORD, art seen face to face, and thy cloud stands over them and thou goest before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. (cf. Neh 9:12)
Deuteronomy 5:4 The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire,
Deuteronomy 31:15 And the LORD appeared in the tent in a pillar of cloud . . .
Deuteronomy 34:10 And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,
Sirach 24:4 I dwelt in high places, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud.
Rev. Stearns cites — in disagreement — Catholics explaining these teachings:
St. Thomas Aquinas . . . says, “The same reverence is to be given unto the image of Christ and to Christ himself: and by consequence, seeing Christ is adored with the adoration of latria (the highest kind of worship), his image is to be adored with the adoration of latria also,” . . . — Summ. part 3, q. 25, art. 3. And Azorius says, ”It is the constant judgment of theologians that the image is to be honored and worshipped with the same honor and worship wherewith that is worshipped whereof it is an image.” . . . Jo. Azor. Institut. Moral,, t. i. 1. 9, c. 6 . . .
Such is the image-worship taught and practised in the Roman Church. (p. 206)
Image-worship is a superstition of the heart, not of the head; hence its danger. (p. 211)
I have just provided the biblical rationale: none of which Rev. Stearns seems to be familiar with. Live and learn . . . As usual, the Protestant contra-Catholic argument is insufficiently biblical to an alarming extent.
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Photo credit: The Ark and the Mercy Seat, illustration in Treasures of the Bible by Henry Davenport Northrop, published by International Publishing Company, 1894 [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Summary: Anglican apologist Edward Josiah Stearns claimed that image-worship of God is unbiblical. I produce three biblical passages / passage-clusters that prove otherwise.
Edward Josiah Stearns (1810-1890) was an Episcopal clergyman from Maryland and author of several books. His volume, The Faith of Our Forefathers (New York: Thomas Whittaker, 1879), was a reply to The Faith of Our Fathers(1876), by James Cardinal Gibbons (1834-1921), one of the best and most well-known Catholic apologetics works, with an emphasis on scriptural arguments and replies to Protestant critiques of Catholicism. It had sold over 1.4 million copies by the time of its 83rd edition in 1917 and was the most popular book in the United States until Gone With the Wind was published in 1939. This volume highly influenced my own development as a soon-to-be Catholic apologist in the early 1990s: especially with regard to my usual modus operandi of focusing on “biblical evidence” for Catholicism.
The words of Rev. Stearns will be in blue, and those of Cardinal Gibbons in green. I use RSV for biblical citations.
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A word of introduction is in order before we begin.
Catholics hold that Scripture is a fairly clear document and able to be understood by the average reader, but also that the Church is needed to provide a doctrinal norm, an overall framework for determining proper biblical interpretation. I’ve always found Holy Scripture to be clear in my many biblical studies, but Church history shows us that it isn’t clear enough to bring men to agreement. Catholics don’t think Scripture is nearly as unclear and obscure as we are often caricatured to supposedly believe. But we know that heretics throughout the centuries have distorted the Scripture, for whatever reason, so that an authoritative statement of orthodoxy becomes practically necessary in order to preserve unity as well as orthodoxy.
It’s often stated that Scripture is “perspicuous” (clear) and able to be understood in the main by the committed, regenerate layman, and that by comparing Bible passage with Bible passage, the truth can always be found. But the rub is that there are different ways of harmonizing the Scripture. There is the Calvinist way and the Arminian way and the Baptist way, the Lutheran, Anglican, Nazarene, Presbyterian, Methodist, Plymouth Brethren, 7th-Day Adventist, Mennonite, Church of God, Church of Christ ways, etc., etc. ad infinitum. Simply invoking the principle does not solve the problem in the least.
Catholicism doesn’t require a totally obscure Bible at all. This is a myth. But could virtually the entire Bible be understood without the need of authoritative teachers? No. And that’s rather obvious to this day. Protestants continue to absurdly claim that the Bible is perspicuous, yet fail to agree amongst themselves. And their reasons for why this is (stupidity or sin on the other guy’s part) are as absurd and silly as the original false premise.
One can arrive at any number of true doctrines by reading Scripture alone. I pretty much did that in a number of cases, when I was a Protestant. The problem, however, comes with the Jehovah’s Witness (an Arian) on the next block, who reads the same Scripture that we do and concludes that Jesus was created. It’s with the Mormon two blocks over who believes that God was once a man and that men can become gods. It’s with the Christian Scientist and the Sabellian (Jesus Only) and the Unitarian and Moonie and Scientologist and snake handlers and Name-it-Claim-it heretics, etc., etc., etc. They’re all operating on the principle of Scripture Alone, just as the ancient Arians and virtually all heresies did, too.
The Catholic view of authority and Holy Scripture is not about some ubiquitous churchman looking over everyone’s shoulder so that they would interpret each and every verse exactly as the Church says it ought to be interpreted (in fact, less than ten Bible verses are “officially” interpreted by the Catholic Church). People can read the Bible and it was largely clear; just not always, and it is not self-interpreting enough to prevent heresy without the Church intervening on behalf of orthodoxy. This is the Catholic rule of faith.
The Protestant rule of faith, sola Scriptura, on the other hand, cannot pronounce on orthodoxy, except on a denominational level only. All it can do is appeal back to the individual and claim that Scripture is perspicuous (clear) and formally sufficient and that no Church council has binding authority if an individual sees otherwise in Holy Scripture. That can never bring about unity, and never has in fact, because it is inadequate for establishing orthodoxy as applying to all Christians across the board.
“A competent guide must be clear and intelligible to all, so that every one may fully understand the true meaning of the instructions it contains. Is the Bible a book intelligible to all ? Far from it; it is full of obscurities and difficulties not only for the illiterate, but even for the learned.” (p. 104.) [cited on p. 84]
That there are hard places in Scripture nobody denies, but they are not those necessary to salvation. (p. 84)
This is one of those maxims of Protestantism that are easy to state, but much more difficult to prove (especially in actual practice). To give just two examples: baptism is said in Scripture several times to be necessary to salvation, yet Protestants can’t agree on whether this is true or not, and separate into five major camps regarding baptism. Secondly, the Eucharist is said to be necessary for salvation as well (Jesus states this repeatedly in John 6), but Protestant can’t agree on that, either. Therefore, I submit, judging by Protestantism’s various and contradictory conclusions, the Bible must not be clear — in and of itself without authoritative interpretation –about what is necessary for salvation.
The “things hard to be understood,” which ”St. Peter himself informs us” of, ” in the Epistles of St. Paul,” are, as the connection shows, certain prophecies, particularly about the “times and seasons,” which are purposely left in uncertainty, that we may be always watching for the coming of the Lord. (p. 85)
Okay; let’s take a closer look at this passage:
2 Peter 3:15-17 . . . So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, [16] speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. [17] You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability.
It’s indeed true that earlier in the chapter, St. Peter wrote about the coming of the Lord: the specific time of which we don’t and can’t know (“the day of the Lord will come like a thief”: 3:10). Verse 16 at its beginning appears to refer back to this theme, but then St. Peter moves on from it and makes a general statement: “There are somethings in them [Paul’s letters] hard to understand.” In other words, he doesn’t write something to the effect of, “and this teaching [about prophecies, etc.] is hard to understand.” He is now expressing himself in broad terms. Then he notes that these “things . . . hard to understand” [in Paul] are what “the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction”.
If there is any doubt that he is thinking in general terms at this point, there can be none when we see that he writes, “. . . “as they do the other scriptures”. So now Peter is saying that many scriptures — not necessarily even those written just by Paul — are “twist[ed]” by the ignorant and unstable. And this, of course, proves the Catholic point and disproves the Protestant one about the perspicuity of Scripture: supposedly sufficient enough as to preclude a binding, authoritative interpretation from the Church. Note also that Peter ends with a warning: “lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability.” In other words, he thinks the problem is sufficiently serious to warn every reader to be vigilant and to not be led astray.
A comeback may be that Peter is only teaching that Pauline and/or other portions of Scripture are difficult only for the “ignorant and unstable.” The problem with that is that many people are “ignorant” (i.e., simply lacking knowledge of Scripture, or its exegesis, and the nature and exercise of hermeneutics: systematic interpretation of Scripture). Anyone who has spent much time at all in Christians circles (Protestant and Catholic alike; and I’ve been in both for many years) knows full well of the massive amount of biblical illiteracy.
That’s all it takes to distort the Bible, even before we get to deliberate heresy or spiritual, emotional, or theological instability. Needless to say, the endless internal Protestant disagreements do not give one much confidence at all in the Protestant assertion of “perspicuity of Scripture”. All that the denominationalism and division show is that excessive private judgment and rejection of a binding teaching authority as to orthodox theology leads to ecclesiological chaos and theological relativism, ending up in confusion and lack of certainty.
The passage the Archbishop quotes from 2 St. Peter 1:20, ”that no prophecy of Scripture is made by private interpretation,” refers, not to the explanation of it, but to the making of it, as the very wording of it shows; and if it did not, the next verse would make it plain. (p. 85)
Let’s look at this one, too:
2 Peter 1:20-21 First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, [21] because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
Rev. Stearns’ exegesis is too simple and incomplete. The overall point Peter is making is that prophecy can’t be understood as a matter of private interpretation, because it’s spiritually discerned: having come from God the Holy Spirit in the first place. The more spiritual and less carnal a thing is, the more we need an authoritative Church to interpret and apply it, because the Church is the accumulated wisdom of spiritual persons for 2,000 years, which is far superior to anyone’s own specific understandings. But Rev. Stearns vainly contends that this has nothing to do with “explanation.”
I don’t see how that could be, because the word “interpretation” doesn’t refer to “the making of” prophecy. It refers to the understanding of it, and that leads us back to the discussion at hand: how clear Scripture is to the individual without any aid of a Church and a Sacred Tradition, or even matters such as cross-referencing from Scripture itself. Rev. Stearns is doing very poor exegesis and winds up special pleading.
To nail down his point, St. Peter goes on (originally the New Testament had no verses or chapters) to warn of the bad effects of erroneous private interpretation of Scripture:
2 Peter 2:1-3 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. [2] And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled. [3] And in their greed they will exploit you with false words; . . .
St. Paul warns about the same sort of thing:
2 Timothy 4:3-4 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, [4] and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.
These factors are some of the many reasons why it’s a dangerous thing for individuals to think that they understand all of Scripture, and — in the final analysis, or bottom line — need no assistance from an authoritative Tradition and/or Church: the latter being “the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).
What the ”certain man” wanted of St. Philip (Acts 8:31) was something to aid his private judgment, not to supplant it; and the explanation that St. Philip gave of the prophecy commended itself to the man’s private judgment, else he would not have asked to be baptized. (p. 85)
I don’t think this flies, either. Let’s look at it:
Acts 8:27, 30-35 . . . behold, an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a minister of the Can’dace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of all her treasure, had come to Jerusalem to worship . . . [30] So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” [31] And he said, “How can I, unless some one guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. [32] Now the passage of the scripture which he was reading was this: “As a sheep led to the slaughter or a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. [33] In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken up from the earth.” [34] And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, pray, does the prophet say this, about himself or about some one else?” [35] Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture he told him the good news of Jesus.
Rev. Stearns tries to make out that the eunuch had sufficient understanding, and only needed an aid for relatively better understanding. But that’s not how the text reads, prima facie. He’s asked if he understands what he is reading, and the eunuch answers, “How can I, unless some one guides me?” How clear can something be?! This is precisely what Catholics contend: it’s good to have an authoritative guide to help any given individual understand Scripture. The eunuch had an apostle. We have the Holy Church and Holy Tradition and other passages in the Holy Bible (cross-referencing). The eunuch was reading Isaiah 53, a well-known messianic passage. He didn’t even know that it applied to the Messiah, and thought it might be Isaiah writing about himself. And so Philip shared with him that it was referring to Jesus the Messiah.
Rev. Stearns makes a great deal out of the eunuch asking to be baptized, as if this confirmed that he had a solid, reliable “private judgment“. But the text informs us that, right after Philip started sharing the gospel, “they went along the road” and “came to some water” (8:36). We know that they were on “a desert road” (8:26), so it may very well have been some time before they arrived at water. And during that time, in Philip’s sharing of the gospel, he very likely would have proclaimed the necessity of baptism.
This is, after all, what St. Peter did in the first Christian sermon, recorded six chapters earlier in Acts. After proclaiming the gospel (Acts 2:22-36), the very next thing he did was to say, “”Repent, and be baptized every one of you” (2:38). So it’s more likely that Philip told the eunuch about baptism than it is that the eunuch already knew about its importance and necessity (although that’s certainly possible, too). But even if the eunuch did know that much, it has no bearing on his overall knowledge of Scripture. He surely didn’t know much about biblical theology, if he wasn’t aware that Isaiah 53 was a messianic passage. And this is precisely why he asked to be guided and instructed in biblical exegesis.
St. Augustine wrote about this passage:
And we know that the eunuch who was reading Isaiah the prophet, and did not understand what he read, was not sent by the apostle to an angel, nor was it an angel who explained to him what he did not understand, nor was he inwardly illuminated by the grace of God without the interposition of man; on the contrary, at the suggestion of God, Philip, who did understand the prophet, came to him, and sat with him, and in human words, and with a human tongue, opened to him the Scriptures. [Acts 8:26] Did not God talk with Moses, and yet he, with great wisdom and entire absence of jealous pride, accepted the plan of his father-in-law, a man of an alien race, for ruling and administering the affairs of the great nation entrusted to him? [Exodus 18:13] (On Christian Doctrine, Preface, 7)
The highly educated Augustine even wrote that he himself — like the Ethiopian eunuch — did not understand the book of Isaiah, which was recommended for him to read by his mentor, St. Ambrose, shortly after his conversion:
I, not understanding the first portion of the book, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it aside, intending to take it up hereafter, when better practised in our Lord’s words. (TheConfessions, ix, 5, 13)
St. John Chrysostom also preached about it:
Even as the eunuch of Candace read, but until one came who instructed him in the meaning of what he was reading he derived no great benefit from it . . . we must not attend to the words merely, but turn our attention to the sense, and learn the aim of the speaker, and the cause and the occasion, and by putting all these things together turn out the hidden meaning. (Homily on Matthew 26:19, Against Marcionists and Manichæans)
Rev. Stearns doesn’t discuss other biblical passages directly relevant to the question of the clearness or perspicuity of Scripture. But I will, because I think people deserve a much fuller biblical explanation:
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 7-9, 12 And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate; and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the LORD had given to Israel. [2] And Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, . . . [3] And he read from it . . . [7] Also Jesh’ua, Bani, Sherebi’ah, Jamin, Akkub, Shab’bethai, Hodi’ah, Ma-asei’ah, Keli’ta, Azari’ah, Jo’zabad, Hanan, Pelai’ah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the law, . . . [8] And they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so thatthe people understood the reading. [9] . . . and the Levites who taught the people . . . [12] . . . they had understood the words that were declared to them.
Mark 4:33-34 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; [34] he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.
Luke 24:25-27, 32 And he said to them, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! [26] Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” [27] And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. . . . [32] They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?”
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus later marveled at how Jesus “opened to us the scriptures”. In other words, those prophecies were not understood until Jesus explained them, and in fact, most of the Jews did not see that they were fulfilled. Thus, Old Testament Scripture was insufficient for these messianic truths to be grasped simply by reading them. One could retort that the Jews were hardhearted and thus could not understand since they had not the Holy Spirit and God’s grace to illumine their understanding. But that proves too much because it would also have to apply to these two disciples, and indeed all of the disciples, who did not understand what was happening, even after Jesus repeatedly told them that He was to suffer and to die, and that this was all foretold.
The Phillips Modern English translation renders Luke 24:32 as, “he made the scriptures plain to us.” The Greek word for “opened” is dianoigo (Strong’s Concordance word #1272). According to Joseph Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1977 reprint of 1901 edition, p. 140), it means “to open by dividing or drawing asunder, to open thoroughly (what had been closed).” This meaning can be seen in other passages where dianoigo appears: Mark 7:34-35, Luke 2:23, 24:31,45, Acts 16:14, 17:3.
Obviously, then, Holy Scripture is informing us that some parts of it were “closed” and “not plain” until the “infallible” teaching authority and interpretation of our Lord Jesus opened it up and made it plain. This runs utterly contrary to the Protestant notion of perspicuity of Scripture and its more or less ubiquitous self-interpreting nature, at the very least as regards salvation. In this instance, it did have to do with salvation, because Jesus was talking about “all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” They hadn’t understood those passages until Jesus “opened” them up to them. It’s hard to imagine a clearer refutation of the Protestant notion of perspicuity.
Shortly after in the text, Jesus appears to the eleven disciples and reiterates the same teaching:
Luke 24:44-47 Then he said to them, “These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.” [45] Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, [46] and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, [47] and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
Note again that they didn’t understand the Old Testament Scriptures simply by reading them. Nor did they understand the gospel itself (thus Scripture wasn’t clear about even the gospel and salvation, for them to grasp it: directly contrary to what Protestants assert). It was necessary that Jesus “opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” If this was true of the disciples who lived with Jesus for three years and had innumerable discussions with Him, how much more is it necessary for us today and for men and women all through time? We don’t have Jesus to explain all of this, but we have the Church that He left, which was to be guided by the Holy Spirit and protected by Him from error (see, e.g., Acts 15:28: “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”).
The great Protestant theologian G. C. Berkouwer (1903-1996) wrote very helpfully about this issue of perspicuity:
An attempt has often been made to solve this problem by referring to the ‘objective’ clarity of Scripture, so that every incomplete understanding and insight of Scripture is said to be due to the blinding of human eyes that could not observe the true light shining from it . . .
In considering this seemingly simple solution . . . we will soon discover that not all questions are answered by it . . . An incomplete understanding or a total misunderstanding of Scripture cannot simply be explained by blindness. Certain obstacles to understanding may also be related to Scripture’s concrete form of human language conditioned by history . . . Scripture . . . is tied to historical situations and circumstances in so many ways that not every word we read is immediately clear in itself . . . Therefore, it will not surprise us that many questions have been raised in the course of history about the perspicuity of Scripture . . . Some wondered whether this confession of clarity was indeed a true confession . . . The church has frequently been aware of a certain ‘inaccessibility.’
According to Bavinck . . . it may not be overlooked that, according to Rome . . . Scripture is not regarded as a completely obscure and inaccessible book, written, so to speak, in secret language . . . Instead, Rome is convinced that an understanding of Scripture is possible – a clear understanding. But Rome is at the same time deeply impressed by the dangers involved in reading the Bible. Their desire is to protect Scripture against all arbitrary and individualistic exegesis . . .
It is indeed one of the most moving and difficult aspects of the confession of Scripture’s clarity that it does not automatically lead to a total uniformity of perception, disposing of any problems. We are confronted with important differences and forked roads . . . and all parties normally appeal to Scripture and its perspicuity. The heretics did not disregard the authority of Scripture but made an appeal to it and to its clear witness with the subjective conviction of seeing the truth in the words of Scripture. (Studies in Dogmatics: Holy Scripture, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1975, translated from the Dutch edition of 1967 by Jack B. Rogers, 268-271, 286)
Rev. Stearns then produces many citations of the Church fathers (on pp. 87-95) in support or alleged support of Protestant perspicuity. Many simply say that it’s good and profitable to read Scripture, a thing that the Catholic Church has never denied. As an editor of three books of patristic quotations, I can present several, too, that support the Catholic position on this and are quite contrary to the Protestant view. Anglican patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly wrote:
So Athanasius, disputing with the Arians, claimed that his own doctrine had been handed down from father to father, whereas they could not produce a single respectable witness to theirs . . .
The ancient idea that the Church alone, in virtue of being the home of the Spirit and having preserved the authentic apostolic testimony in her rule of faith, liturgical action and general witness, possesses the indispensable key to Scripture, continued to operate as powerfully as in the days of Irenaeus and Tertullian . . . Athanasius himself, after dwelling on the entire adequacy of Scripture, went on to emphasize the desirability of having sound teachers to expound it. Against the Arians he flung the charge that they would never have made shipwreck of the faith had they held fast as a sheet-anchor to the . . . Church’s peculiar and traditionally handed down grasp of the purport of revelation. Hilary insisted that only those who accept the Church’s teaching can comprehend what the Bible is getting at. According to Augustine, its doubtful or ambiguous passages need to be cleared up by ‘the rule of faith’; it was, moreover, the authority of the Church alone which in his eyes guaranteed its veracity. . . .
It should be unnecessary to accumulate further evidence. Throughout the whole period Scripture and tradition ranked as complementary authorities, media different in form but coincident in content. To inquire which counted as superior or more ultimate is to pose the question in misleading terms. If Scripture was abundantly sufficient in principle, tradition was recognized as the surest clue to its interpretation, for in tradition the Church retained, as a legacy from the apostles which was embedded in all the organs of her institutional life, an unerring grasp of the real purport and meaning of the revelation to which Scripture and tradition alike bore witness. (Early Christian Doctrines, San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978, 45, 47-48; italics my own)
Let’s go right to the teaching of St. Augustine — virtually the “patron saint” of Protestantism — on how clear Scripture is, and whether it’s necessary to have the Church as its authoritative interpreter. I have seven pages of his citations on this topic, in my book, The Quotable Augustine: Distinctively Catholic Elements in His Theology(Sep. 2012, 245 pages). Here is a heavy sampling:
Let the reader consult the rule of faith which he has gathered from the plainer passages of Scripture, and from the authority of the Church, . . . (On ChristianDoctrine, 3, 2, 2)
For many meanings of the holy Scriptures are concealed, and are known only to a few of singular intelligence . . . (Explanations of the Psalms, 68:30 [68, 36] )
For every one with average intelligence can easily see that the explanation of the Scriptures should be sought for from those who are the professed teachers of the Scriptures; and that it may happen, and indeed always happens, that many things seem absurd to the ignorant, which, when they are explained by the learned, appear all the more excellent, and are received in the explanation with the greater pleasure on account of the obstructions which made it difficult to reach the meaning. This commonly happens as regards the holy books of the Old Testament, . . . (On the Morals of the Catholic Church, 1)
But hasty and careless readers are led astray by many and manifold obscurities and ambiguities, substituting one meaning for another; and in some places they cannot hit upon even a fair interpretation. Some of the expressions are so obscure as to shroud the meaning in the thickest darkness. And I do not doubt that all this was divinely arranged for the purpose of subduing pride by toil, and of preventing a feeling of satiety in the intellect, which generally holds in small esteem what is discovered without difficulty. . . . the Holy Spirit has, with admirable wisdom and care for our welfare, so arranged the Holy Scriptures as by the plainer passages to satisfy our hunger, and by the more obscure to stimulate our appetite. For almost nothing is dug out of those obscure passages which may not be found set forth in the plainest language elsewhere. (On ChristianDoctrine, ii, 7-8)
There are some passages which are not understood in their proper force, or are understood with great difficulty, at whatever length, however clearly, or with whatever eloquence the speaker may expound them; and these should never be brought before the people at all, or only on rare occasions when there is some urgent reason. (On ChristianDoctrine, iv, 22-23)
I resolved, therefore, to direct my mind to the Holy Scriptures, that I might see what they were. And behold, I perceive something not comprehended by the proud, not disclosed to children, but lowly as you approach, sublime as you advance, and veiled in mysteries; and I was not of the number of those who could enter into it, or bend my neck to follow its steps. . . . nor could the sharpness of my wit pierce their inner meaning. (TheConfessions, iii, 5, 9)
For not in vain have You willed that the obscure secret of so many pages should be written. TheConfessions, xi, 2, 3)
Those who are able commentators on the Scripture, . . . notwithstanding their common loyalty to the one true faith, must often bring forward various opinions on account of the obscurity of many passages; although this difference of interpretation by no means involves departure from the unity of the faith; just as one commentator may himself give, in harmony with the faith which he holds, two different interpretations of the same passage, because the obscurity of the passage makes both equally admissible. (Ep. 82 [5, 34]: to St. Jerome [405] )
Without doubt in that sentence of the Apostle [1 Corinthians 3:11-15] we must look for another interpretation, and we must account it among those things, whereof Peter says, that there are certain in his writings hard to be understood, which men ought not to pervert unto their own destruction, . . . Here perhaps I may be asked, what my own sense is of this same sentence of Paul, and in what way I think that it ought to be understood. I confess that on this point I should rather hear men of more understanding and learning than myself speak, . . . (On Faith andWorks, 26-27)
There is a third class of objectors who either really do understand Scripture well, or think they do, and who, because they know (or imagine) that they have attained a certain power of interpreting the sacred books without reading any directions of the kind that I propose to lay down here, will cry out that such rules are not necessary for any one, but that everything rightly done towards clearing up the obscurities of Scripture could be better done by the unassisted grace of God. . . . No, no; rather let us put away false pride and learn whatever can be learned from man; . . . lest, being ensnared by such wiles of the enemy and by our own perversity, we may even refuse to go to the churches to hear the gospel itself, or to read a book, or to listen to another reading or preaching, . . . Cornelius the centurion, although an angel announced to him that his prayers were heard and his alms had in remembrance, was yet handed over to Peter for instruction, and not only received the sacraments from the apostle’s hands, but was also instructed by him as to the proper objects of faith, hope, and love. (On ChristianDoctrine, Preface, 2, 5-6)
If you acknowledge the supreme authority of Scripture, you should recognise that authority which from the time of Christ Himself, through the ministry of His apostles, and through a regular succession of bishops in the seats of the apostles, has been preserved to our own day throughout the whole world, with a reputation known to all. There the Old Testament too has its difficulties solved, and its predictions fulfilled. (AgainstFaustus the Manichee, xxxiii, 9)
What, moreover, shall I say of those commentators on the divine Scriptures who have flourished in the catholic Church? They have never tried to pervert these testimonies to an alien sense, because they were firmly established in our most ancient and solid faith, and were never moved aside by the novelty of error. (On Marriage and Concupiscence, ii, 51)
Likewise, St. John Chrysostom, whom Rev. Stearns cited at great length, taught the same thing:
If anyone unpracticed in the art undertake to work a mine, he will get no gold, but confounding all aimlessly and together, will undergo a labor unprofitable and pernicious: so also they who understand not the method of Holy Scripture, nor search out its peculiarities and laws, but go over all its points carelessly and in one manner, will mix the gold with earth, and never discover the treasure which is laid up in it. I say this now because the passage before us contains much gold, not indeed manifest to view, but covered over with much obscurity, and therefore by digging and purifying we must arrive at the legitimate sense. . . . we rest not in the mere words; for thus the heretics err, because they enquire not into the object of the speaker nor the disposition of the hearers. If we add not these and other points besides, as times and places and the opinions of the listeners, many absurd consequences will follow. (Homily XL on John, v. 5:31-32)
If in things of this life a man can gain no great profit if he conduct them in an indifferent and chance way, much more will this be the case in spiritual things, since these require yet greater attention. Wherefore Christ when He referred the Jews to the Scriptures, sent them not to a mere reading, but a careful and considerate search; for He said not, “Read the Scriptures,” but, “Search the Scriptures.” Since the sayings relating to Him required great attention, (for they had been concealed from the beginning for the advantage of the men of that time,) He biddeth them now dig down with care that they might be able to discover what lay in the depth below. These sayings were not on the surface, nor were they cast forth to open view, but lay like some treasure hidden very deep. Now he that searcheth for hidden things, except he seek them with care and toil, will never find the object of his search. (Homily XLI on John, v. 5:39-40)
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Summary: Reply to Anglican Edward Josiah Stearns regarding the supposed total clearness of the Bible, pertaining to matters of salvation, and lack of necessity for a Christian authority.
François Turretin (1623-1687) was a Genevan-Italian Reformed scholastic theologian and renowned defender of the Calvinistic(Reformed) orthodoxy represented by the Synod of Dort, and was one of the authors of the Helvetic Consensus (1675). He is generally considered to be the best Calvinist apologist besides John Calvin himself. His Institutes of Elenctic Theology (three volumes, Geneva, 1679–1685) used the scholastic method. “Elenctic” means “refuting an argument by proving the falsehood of its conclusion.” Turretin contended against the conflicting Christian perspectives of Catholicism and Arminianism. It was a popular textbook; notably at Princeton Theological Seminary, until it was replaced by Charles Hodge‘s Systematic Theology in the late 19th century. Turretin also greatly influenced the Puritans.
This is a reply to portions of a section of Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Vol. 3, 19th Topic: The Sacraments / 27th Question: Transubstantiation). I utilize the edition translated by George Musgrave Giger and edited by James T. Dennison, Jr. (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey: 1992 / 1994 / 1997; 2320 pages). It uses the KJV for Bible verses. I will use RSV unless otherwise indicated. All installments of this series of replies can be found on my Calvinism & General Protestantism web page, under the category, “Replies to Francois Turretin (1632-1687).” Turretin’s words will be in blue.
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Third, the testimony of faith bears specially upon this subject, which confirms the testimony of the senses and of reason and teaches that the invention of transubstantiation is no less repugnant to Scripture and the analogy of faith than to the senses and reason. Here belong all those arguments adduced from the Scriptures in the preceding question. To them we add the following. First, from the passages where the Eucharistic symbols retain the same name after the consecration which they had before (namely, the name of bread and wine). This would not have been done if in virtue of the consecratory words they had ceased to be bread and wine and were changed into the body and blood of Christ.
St. Paul refers to “eat this bread and drink the cup” (1 Cor 11:26) but in the same context also expresses himself literally: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself” (11:27, 29). He speaks in both ways, here and in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 (“The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”).
Jesus did the same in John 6:51 (“if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh”) and in Matthew 26:26 (“Jesus took bread, and . . . gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body”). The metaphorical use refers to the accidents of outward appearance, while the literal use refers to transubstantiation and the body and blood of the Lord. It seems to me the only way to interpret these two complementary motifs is as I have done (or else as Lutherans do: with bread and wine and the body and blood both continuing to be present after consecration). Otherwise, we are left with mere bread and wine being passed out, and no body and blood of Christ at all, or Jesus ludicrously being equated with mere bread and wine, and the Bible disallows that.
Note also that Paul’s use of “drink the cup” (1 Cor 11:26-27). No one can literally “drink a cup” and must drink what it contains. But how do we know what is in this cup? We know by the context and in this instance it highly suggests, or, I submit, virtually demands, a reading that it contains Jesus’ blood. (“In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood . . .'”: 1 Cor 11:25). Again, Paul writes in the previous chapter, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?” (1 Cor 10:16). It’s the same scenario at the Last Supper (“And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, . . .”: Mt 26:27-28). Thus, three times, it’s made crystal clear that we drink Christ’s transubstantiated blood, just as He repeatedly said that we must do to be saved, in John 6.
Beyond these factors, we could also say that general use of “bread” and “wine” after consecration is simply referring to the appearance, which is what Catholics refer to when we say that these are the “accidents” of the body and blood of Christ.
But to what purpose would Paul so often without any limitation call it bread, if it was no longer bread?
To call it what it looked like. In effect, he — like Jesus — was describing the accidental properties, since in context he also refers to “the body” and/or “the blood.” The latter fact can’t be ignored by Protestants bent on a wrongheaded, eisegetical symbolic interpretation.
Would he not on this point have afforded to believers an occasion of erring by believing that to be true bread which was anything else than bread?
No; he avoids giving that impression by also mentioning “body” and “blood” in the same context. Jesus does the same, as shown above.
The eighth class is drawn from the testimony of a purer antiquity. That the dogma of transubstantiation was unknown to it, both their writings testify (as we have seen) and many of our opponents are compelled to confess, however they may try to draw them over to their side. Peter a Marca, Archbishop of Paris, yields to us the suffrages of most of the fathers, especially of Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Irenaeus, Cyprian, Theodoret, . . .
If it is afterwards inquired when and how this monstrous dogma was introduced into the church, the answer is easy. It is recent and newfangled, not a trace of it occurring among the ancients even down to the eighth century. . . .
It is evident that it was not settled before the Council of Trent. Now let our opponents go and glory in its antiquity.
Glad to do so! One wearies of having to prove the same obvious thing over and over, but here goes. First, here are two prominent Protestant historians of Christian doctrine, providing an overview of patristic belief regarding the Eucharist:
In general, this period, . . . was already very strongly inclined toward the doctrine of transubstantiation, and toward the Greek and Roman sacrifice of the mass, which are inseparable in so far as a real sacrifice requires the real presence of the victim…… (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 3, A. D. 311-600, revised 5th edition, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, reprinted 1974, originally 1910, p. 500)
Theodore [c. 350-428] set forth the doctrine of the real presence, and even a theory of sacramental transformation of the elements, in highly explicit language . . . ‘At first it is laid upon the altar as a mere bread and wine mixed with water, but by the coming of the Holy Spirit it is transformed into body and blood, and thus it is changed into the power of a spiritual and immortal nourishment.’ [Hom. catech. 16,36] these and similar passages in Theodore are an indication that the twin ideas of the transformation of the eucharistic elements and the transformation of the communicant were so widely held and so firmly established in the thought and language of the church that everyone had to acknowledge them. (Jaroslav Pelikan [at this time a Lutheran], The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1971, 236-237)
And here is just a small representative sampling of the fathers themselves:
St. Ignatius of Antioch: They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, ch. 7)
St. Justin Martyr: Likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. (First Apology, chapter 66)
St. Irenaeus: . . . the bread which is His body. . . . the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ . . . (Against Heresies, V, 2, 3)
Tertullian: He declared plainly enough what He meant by the bread, when He called the bread His own body. He likewise, when mentioning the cup and making the new testament to be sealed “in His blood,” affirms the reality of His body. For no blood can belong to a body which is not a body of flesh. (Against Marcion, Book IV, chapter 40)
Origen: You know how, when you have received the Body of the Lord, you reverently exercise care lest a particle fall, and lest anything of the consecrated gift perish. . . . you observe such caution in keeping His Body, and properly so, . . . (Homilies on Exodus, 13, 3)
St. Cyprian: And therefore we ask that our bread—that is, Christ—may be given to us daily, that we who abide and live in Christ may not depart from His sanctification and body. (On the Lord’s Prayer / Treatise IV, 18)
St. Hilary of Poitiers: As to the verity of the flesh and blood there is no room left for doubt. For now both from the declaration of the Lord Himself and our own faith, it is verily flesh and verily blood. And these when eaten and drunk, bring it to pass that both we are in Christ and Christ in us. Is not this true? (The Trinity, Book VIII, 14, 17)
St. Athanasius: You will see the Levites bringing loaves and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table. So long as the prayers and invocations have not yet been made, it is mere bread and a mere cup. But when the great and wondrous prayers have been recited, then the bread becomes the body and the cup the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . When the great prayers and holy supplications are sent up, the Word descends on the bread and the cup, and it becomes His body. (Sermon to the Newly-Baptized)
St. Basil the Great: It is good and beneficial to communicate every day, and to partake of the holy body and blood of Christ. . . . once the priest has completed the offering . . . (Letter XCIII, To the Patrician Cæsaria)
St. Cyril of Jerusalem: For as the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist before the invocation of the Holy and Adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, while after the invocation the Bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the Wine the Blood of Christ . . . (Catechetical Lecture XIX, 7)
Having learnt these things, and been fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the Body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ . . . (Catechetical Lecture XXII, 9)
J. N. D. Kelly summarizes Cyril’s eucharistic theology:
Even the pioneer of the conversion doctrine, Cyril of Jerusalem, is careful to indicate that the elements remain bread and wine to sensible perception, and to call them ‘the antitype’ of Christ’s body and blood: ‘the body is given to you in the figure of bread, and the blood is given to you in the figure of wine’. (Cat. 22, 9; 23, 20; 22, 3)
. . . He uses the verb ‘change’ or ‘convert’, pointing out that, since Christ transformed water into wine, which after all is akin to blood, at Cana, there can be no reason to doubt a similar miracle on the more august occasion of the eucharistic banquet. (Cat., 22, 2)
Chrysostom exploits the materialist implications of the conversion theory to the full . . . Thus the elements have undergone a change, and Chrysostom describes them as being refashioned or transformed. In the fifth century conversionist views were taken for granted by Alexandrians and Antiochenes alike. According to Cyril . . . the visible objects are not types or symbols . . . but have been transformed through God’s ineffable power into His body and blood. Elsewhere he remarks that God ‘infuses life-giving power into the oblations and transmutes them into the virtue of His own flesh.’ (Chrysostom: In prod. Iud. hom. I, 6; in Matt. hom. 82, 5; Cyril: In Matt. 26,27; In Luc. 22, 19) (Early Christian Doctrines, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 5th revised edition, 1978, 441, 443-444)
St. Gregory of Nyssa: So nourishment (bread and wine) by becoming flesh and blood gives bulk to the human frame: the nourishment is the body. Just as in the case of other men, our Saviour’s nourishment (bread and wine) was His Body; but these, nourishment and Body, were in Him changed into the Body of God by the Word indwelling. So now repeatedly the bread and wine, sanctified by the Word (the sacred Benediction), is at the same time changed into the Body of that Word; and this Flesh is disseminated among all the Faithful. (The Great Catechism, chapter XXXVII; the footnote in NPNF 2 for this passage states: “Gregory distinctly teaches a transmutation of the elements very like the later transubstantiation: he also distinctly teaches that the words of consecration effect the change. There seems no reason to doubt that the text is correct.”)
St. Ambrose: We observe, then, that grace has more power than nature, and yet so far we have only spoken of the grace of a prophet’s blessing. But if the blessing of man had such power as to change nature, what are we to say of that divine consecration where the very words of the Lord and Saviour operate? For that sacrament which you receive is made what it is by the word of Christ. But if the word of Elijah had such power as to bring down fire from heaven, shall not the word of Christ have power to change the nature of the elements? You read concerning the making of the whole world: “He spake and they were made, He commanded and they were created.” Shall not the word of Christ, which was able to make out of nothing that which was not, be able to change things which already are into what they were not? For it is not less to give a new nature to things than to change them. . . . The Lord Jesus Himself proclaims: “This is My Body.” Before the blessing of the heavenly words another nature is spoken of, after the consecration the Body is signified. He Himself speaks of His Blood. Before the consecration it has another name, after it is called Blood. (On the Mysteries, Chapter IX, 50, 52-55)
St. John Chrysostom: It is not a man who makes the sacrificial gifts become the Body and Blood of Christ, but He that was crucified for us, Christ Himself. The priest stands there carrying out the action, but the power and grace is of God. “This is My Body,” he says. This statement transforms the gifts. (Homilies on the Treachery of Judas, 1, 6)
St. Augustine: For not all bread, but only that which receives the blessing of Christ, becomes Christ’s body. (Sermons, 234, 2)
J. N. D Kelly states (citing Ennar. 98):
One could multiply texts like these which show Augustine taking for granted the traditional identification of the elements with the sacred body and blood. There can be no doubt that he [Augustine] shared the realism held by almost all of his contemporaries and predecessors. (Early Christian Doctrines, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978, 447)
St. Cyril of Alexandria: He states demonstratively: “This is My Body,” and “This is My Blood“(Mt. 26:26-28) “lest you might suppose the things that are seen as a figure. Rather, by some secret of the all-powerful God the things seen are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, truly offered in a sacrifice in which we, as participants, receive the life-giving and sanctifying power of Christ. (Commentary on Matthew [Mt. 26:27] )
Moreover, the belief of these same Church fathers, en masse, in the Sacrifice of the Mass attests to their eucharistic realism, over against Calvin’s and Turretin’s mere mystical symbolism and denial of the substantial, bodily Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.
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Practical Matters: I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 5,000+ free online articles or fifty-six books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them. If you believe my full-time apostolate is worth supporting, please seriously consider a much-needed monthly or one-time financial contribution. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV).
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Summary: Calvinist theologian François Turretin says transubstantiation is impossible due to post-consecration biblical references to “bread” & “wine” & alleged absence in the fathers.
François Turretin (1623-1687) was a Genevan-Italian Reformed scholastic theologian and renowned defender of the Calvinistic(Reformed) orthodoxy represented by the Synod of Dort, and was one of the authors of the Helvetic Consensus (1675). He is generally considered to be the best Calvinist apologist besides John Calvin himself. His Institutes of Elenctic Theology (three volumes, Geneva, 1679–1685) used the scholastic method. “Elenctic” means “refuting an argument by proving the falsehood of its conclusion.” Turretin contended against the conflicting Christian perspectives of Catholicism and Arminianism. It was a popular textbook; notably at Princeton Theological Seminary, until it was replaced by Charles Hodge‘s Systematic Theology in the late 19th century. Turretin also greatly influenced the Puritans.
This is a reply to portions of a section of Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Vol. 3, 19th Topic: The Sacraments / 27th Question: Transubstantiation). I utilize the edition translated by George Musgrave Giger and edited by James T. Dennison, Jr. (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey: 1992 / 1994 / 1997; 2320 pages). It uses the KJV for Bible verses. I will use RSV unless otherwise indicated. All installments of this series of replies can be found on my Calvinism & General Protestantism web page, under the category, “Replies to Francois Turretin (1632-1687).” Turretin’s words will be in blue.
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In the Eucharist, is there an entire conversion of the substance of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ; or are the bread and wine, in virtue of the words of consecration, truly transubstantiated into the very body and blood of Christ, the external species only of the bread and wine remaining? We deny against the Romanists[.]
Although from the discussion of the preceding question, the decision of this can easily be made (for if it is once certain and indubitable that the sacramental words are figurative and tropical, as has been proved, the dogma of transubstantiation falls by that very thing, being founded solely upon the literalness of the words . . .
It’s anything but“certain and indubitable that the sacramental words are figurative” as I submit that I demonstrated in my previous reply. Turretin is now proceeding by assuming a false and undemonstrated premise.
yet because our opponents are desperately in love with this figment (as their Helen) and fiercely contend for it (as if for their altars and firesides), the treatment of this controversy must not be omitted.
We’re “desperately in love with” whatever Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition teach us. As the Bible itself states: “The sum of thy word is truth” (Ps 119:160).
the question does not simply concern the presence of Christ in the Supper; for this belongs to another controversy which will be taken up after this. Rather the question concerns the presence of Christ effected by way of conversion. . . . the question concerns a change as to substance—whether a real conversion is made of the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of Christ. . . . We deny it and maintain that the bread and wine, although they are changed as to use according to the institution of God, yet they always retain their own substance, and that no real change or conversion takes place in reference to them.
This is a good description of the competing positions.
First, as to the senses. What many senses properly disposed and furnished with all the requisites for action, uniformly always and everywhere testify—that is necessarily true. Now the senses with one accord (homothymadon) testify that after the consecration, the symbols are properly bread and wine, not body and blood. Therefore, this is necessarily true.
I already refuted this thinking last time, citing an article of mine from 2000:
The virgin birth, . . . cannot be observed or proven, and is the utter opposite of a demonstrable miracle, yet it is indeed a miracle of the most extraordinary sort. Likewise, in the atonement of Jesus the world sees a wretch of a beaten and tortured man being put to death on a cross. The Christian, on the other hand, sees there the great miracle of redemption and the means of the salvation of mankind – an unspeakably sublime miracle, yet who but those with the eyes of faith can see or believe it?
Many miracles in Christianity are of such a nature that they cannot be perceived by the senses alone. In other words, not all knowledge is empirical (of the senses). The incarnation itself — as another example — can in no way be established through the senses (by simply looking at Jesus if one had been alive during His time). How can one determine whether God is eternal through the senses? We can’t even comprehend eternity into the future, let alone infinitely extended back in time and before (or outside of) time itself. Yet all Christians including Turretin believe in that doctrine. Or we could talk about the Holy Trinity or many other doctrines.
Otherwise we would have to say that there is nothing certain in the nature of things and the testimony of all the senses would have to be condemned with the academicians (which the thing itself proclaims to be most absurd).
We need to do no such thing. There is nothing “anti-scientific” entailed in believing in transubstantiation. All we need to do is what I just did: note the obvious fact that not all knowledge is obtained through the senses. The Bible clearly teaches this: “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Even after appearing to Doubting Thomas and mercifully providing Him with empirical proof of His resurrection, Jesus went on to proclaim that “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (Jn 20:29).
In vain is it objected: (1) “The senses cannot give a judgment concerning mysteries, which are the object of faith, far surpassing the senses.”
Yes, I essentially did just assert that. Let’s see how Turretin deals with it.
For although it is certain that the senses cannot judge of spiritual things as such (which occur in the mysteries of faith and transcend the senses), it does not follow that they cannot be consulted about sensible, visible things (which can occur in the mysteries). Undoubtedly two classes of mysteries are especially to be distinguished here. The one, wholly removed from corporeal things and as to all their parts mysteries, concealing themselves from us and far transcending the sphere both of reason and of the senses. These we hold are the object of faith alone, not of reason or of the senses. They are to be judged by the revelation of the word alone, not by the decision of reason or the testimony of the senses. However, the other involved and connected with corporeal and sensible things (as the mystery of the incarnation, of the resurrection of Christ, and the various miracles brought by him), which have sensible things annexed to spiritual. Concerning the truth and certainty of these, the senses and reason can give their testimony. We maintain that the sacraments are such mysteries in which, accordingly, the senses of which they are the proper object are not to be excluded, but listened to.
I’m glad he brought up the incarnation. What sense can prove that Jesus was the incarnate God merely by looking at Him or touching Him? The incarnation has everything to do with matter, since God became man. But it’s not verified by eyesight or touch. Jesus looked, felt, and sounded like a man; no one but those possessing faith would know (from simply observing Him) that He was also God, an uncreated Person who had made everything upon which He stood. No blood test or any sort of scientific test could reveal that. The virgin birth is in the same category as well. It was a thing involving matter but it can’t be verified in an empirical sense. Even today, if we could hypothetically use science to observe how Jesus the man came into the world (through microscopic observation), we couldn’t determine by that method alone that this male child was God.
In my previous installment I noted how God appeared in the pillars of cloud and fire in the Old Testament. Clouds consist primarily of carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen and nitrogen. Yet God was somehow “in” them. How? How could one tell the difference between a regular old cloud or a fire and the ones that God was “in”? They couldn’t (by scientific/empirical criteria). And no one could today, either, if God did that again. The only difference is that God said he was in both, in particular circumstances when both formed a “pillar.” But that’s not physical proof. It’s revelation. And it is exactly the same, analogously, as what we have in the Eucharist (substance changing without the accidents or appearances changing).
God made a donkey talk to Balaam (Numbers 22:21-31: “the LORD opened the mouth of the ass”: 22:28). Now, how would one go about demonstrating a physical change in the donkey, which now enabled it to speak (whereas we normally assume that animals do not speak, and not in the language we understand)? Would a neurologist be able to examine the brain of the animal and figure out how it could speak; what change was in the brain compared to those of non-speaking donkeys? I doubt it. But Bible-believing Christians think this actually happened and that we can’t hyper-analyze and explain it through the usual scientific means of verification.
Here again there was no outward change (the “accidents” perceived by our senses remained the same), but a miracle occurred in which a donkey talked. In other words, it is analogous to the Eucharist.
It is no more rightly said, “The senses cannot judge in this matter because the reference is to an internal change in the substance of the bread, which does not strike the senses, because they stop with the external accidents.” This rests upon a false hypothesis—that the accidents are really distinguished from the substance and can be separated from it and subsist separately.
The latter state of affairs is true of the incarnation. Senses tell us that Jesus was an ordinary man. How can senses prove that He was God and man? They can’t, because that is determined and believed in spiritually and philosophically. No microscope can identify anything in Jesus’ body that would prove that He was also God come down to earth. Therefore, the accidents of Jesus’ body have characteristics distinct and separate from the reality that He was God in the flesh. The accidents show nothing whatsoever of His divinity.
Just as we couldn’t tell that Jesus was vastly, essentially different from an ordinary human being by senses alone, likewise, we can’t tell that what was bread and wine before the consecration have become the body and blood of Jesus after it. It’s not discerned by the senses but received by faith and revelation. Jesus’ body didn’t “look like God” just as the consecrated elements don’t look like God, but we believe that they are by an informed faith that isn’t opposed to science, but rather transcends its sphere of knowledge. Science can’t speak to it.
On the contrary, while it is certain that they are inseparable from the substance (nay, are really identified with it), whoever sees the accidents of a substance, by that very thing sees the substance itself, which can be seen in no other way than by its accidents.
Again, this is clearly not true concerning the incarnation, as just explained. By the same token, the consecrated elements that don’t look like God, either, judging by the evidence of our senses. Turretin argues like a pagan rationalist. He’s simply not thinking and analyzing deeply enough. His reasoning fails since it would “prove” that the incarnation is a falsehood. Therefore, by reductio ad absurdum, it also fails by analogy in the case of the Eucharist.
Second, reason must be heard here, with which transubstantiation conflicts in many ways. Sound reason teaches that only one body occupies one place and cannot be at the same time in more places than one because it would be one and not one, standing apart from itself and exposed to various and contrary motions, which everyone sees to be absurd (asystaton).
Reason doesn’t disprove the supernatural and the miraculous. Again, he reasons like a pagan hyper-rationalist, as opposed to a Christian who believes any number of amazing things that go beyond the natural and the laws of science. Both reason and experience tell us that a physical body can’t go through walls, either. But Jesus did that, in His resurrected body (Jn 20:19, 26). In the same context, Jesus showed that He had a physical body: “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side” (Jn 20:27). He did the same thing in another post-resurrection appearance, to the two disciples walking to Emmaus:
Luke 24:36-43 As they were saying this, Jesus himself stood among them. [37] But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit. [38] And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts? [39] See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.” [41] And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” [42] They gave him a piece of broiled fish, [43] and he took it and ate before them.
The point I’m making is that the risen Jesus had a body, but it had characteristics that normal bodies didn’t have: the ability to somehow “dematerialize” and go through walls (sort of like being “beamed up” in the TV show Star Trek). No one could have perceived that this was possible by putting their hand in the risen Jesus’ side or the wounds in His hands and feet. In other words, it’s another miracle regarding physical matter that can’t be discerned by our senses, just as transubstantiation is. Turretin contends that bodies can’t be in two places at one time. But we retort that — speaking of a strictly physical plane — neither can bodies go through walls; nor can a person raise Himself from the dead, as Jesus did (Jn 2:19-21; 10:17-18), or raise others from the dead, as He and His disciples both did.
Both things are supernatural. If one thing is possible, the other is entirely possible as well. It can’t be ruled out by either reason or the senses. It’s both possible and actual because God is God, and is omnipotent. But Turretin — not understanding all of this or consistently incorporating it into his thinking — problematically acts like the rebellious disciples and the unbelieving Jews in John 6, after Jesus said that bread and wine could become His body and blood:
John 6:52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
John 6:60-61, 64, 66 Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” [61] But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? . . . [64] . . . there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him. . . . [66] After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.
A body cannot be granted which does not have quantity and extension, since quantity and extension do not differ really from the material substance, but are identified with it.
In the purely natural world, this is true. But in the supernatural world, where bodies and other material things have extraordinary capabilities, Jesus’ body and blood in the Eucharist have characteristics that normal bodies don’t have. Miracles always entail going beyond the natural. It’s almost as if Turretin can’t or won’t make exceptions to the laws of nature, for miracles. All of a sudden he has no belief in miracles, when it comes to the Eucharist. But why should it be different from any other miracle? Donkeys can’t and don’t talk; yet one talked to Balaam; human beings have no power over whether it rains or not; yet Elijah did; etc., etc.
All these and many other monstrosities of the same kind (which we desist from enumerating) are not so much prodigies of nature, as most absurd and inconsistent (asystata) creations of the human imagination, bringing the Christian religion into disgrace with infidels. They are the monstrous consectaries of the dogma of transubstantiation, which right reason not only does not receive, but is constantly opposed to.
To the contrary, all of the aspects of the Holy Eucharist that Turretin enumerated are every bit as possible as all the other miracles that we see described in the Bible. Once the miraculous (anything outside of the laws of nature) is possible in the first place, then any and all “strange” scenarios are possible. Turretin arbitrarily sets apart the one miracle involved in transubstantiation and declares it “monstrous” and a “disgrace” but he does so only by thinking in a radically unbiblical, hyper-rationalistic, cynical and skeptical way.
The factuality or possibility of miracles or supernatural events aren’t determined on the basis of whether we personally like them or not. If we take that approach, we’re like the unbelieving Pharisees who opposed Jesus: “It is only by Be-el’zebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons” (Mt 12:24). Jesus’ response to their unbelief was to say, “He who is not with me is against me, . . . every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven” (Mt 12:30-31). This was not merely a lack of ability to believe; but sinful unbelief, worthy of, ultimately, a sentence of hell. Turretin and those who think like him in this respect are treading very spiritually dangerous ground.
Although we do not deny that the mysteries of faith are above reason, still we do not think that they are contrary to it; so that if their truth cannot be proved from reason, still their credibility may be sufficiently established by faith.
We deny that transubstantiation is contrary to reason, and I have made arguments establishing that, and these need to be grappled with. But Protestants are exceedingly unwilling to do that, which is why I’m sitting here “debating” with a dead guy. That’s fine with me. Turretin is one of the best historic Protestant theologians. Yet we see that his arguments regarding transubstantiation are very weak, and scarcely even biblical or Christian in nature. They do, however, fit right in with the approach of the village atheist, who denies every miracle in the Bible or in life in general. But at least the atheist is consistent. He doesn’t arbitrarily choose which miracle he will reject, while accepting others, on no rational or consistent basis, other than (it seems to come down to) rejecting them simply because Catholics accept them; sort of a “guilt by association.”
Reason may be blind and corrupted, repugnant to revelation and rising up against it; or it may be sound and well constituted, consenting to it and subordinated to it. . . . grace does not destroy nature, but makes it perfect; nor does faith exclude, but supposes reason.
Very true!
Finally, some mysteries of faith are true and genuine, clearly revealed in the Scriptures; others are false and spurious, not the streams and rays of divine revelation, but the offspring of human ignorance and blindness. Although reason is not sufficient to demonstrate the latter, still she is sufficient to strip off their deceitfulness and falsity. We maintain that the figment of transubstantiation is such.
And I have provided many biblical arguments by analogy, and arguments from reason and logic, for why we believe it is a true and biblical doctrine. Let the reader choose who has the more plausible and cogent case!
What is said of natural being and of sacramental being could be admitted, if by sacramental being is meant the symbolic and significative being of the bread (inasmuch as it is the sacrament of the body of Christ), but not with regard to his natural body (concerning which we speak).
Turretin irrationally limits himself in his thinking, by assuming hyper-rationalism and disallowing (as if he has the prerogative to do so) the supernatural to extend to this subject. In “epistemological despair” he adopts symbolism and metaphor, rather than accept the truth of eucharistic realism. Again, he neglects to realize that Jesus’ “natural body” after He resurrected, was capable of going through walls, in opposition to the laws of nature. And even before that, Jesus raised Himself. How many dead bodies do we see rising up again, through their own power? He ascended to heaven by His own power as well.
I submit that those three things are just as strange and unexpected as Jesus entering into bread and wine and changing them into His body and blood. If one can accept the first three (as Turretin and Protestants do), I see no reason why they can’t accept the fourth thing: transubstantiation. So the question becomes: what determines if a miracle is “monstrous” or a “disgrace”? Turretin has not resolved that dilemma. He’s simply playing games with words and philosophical concepts and placing skeptical philosophy above faith.
For if the form (superficies) alone remains, how could Christ and Paul so often call it bread and the fruit of the vine?
In part, they speak phenomenologically, as Bible writers often do, and/or refer to the accidents or outward characteristics in those instances. But they simultaneously call what was bread and wine Jesus’ body and blood, after they are consecrated (Jesus does so repeatedly in John 6). They do both things, which is perfectly consistent with the Catholic position. I will treat this issue in more depth in my next installment.
We do not treat here of what God can do, but of what he wishes to do. The power of God is not the rule of our faith, but his will. For although all things are possible to God, he does not at once do whatever he is able, but only what he wishes.
Fair enough. The Catholic argues that God did indeed wish to do this, based on the relevant texts (the Last Supper, John 6, and Paul’s eucharistic passages). All taken together strongly support our view; so we argue. It’s a straightforward biblical perspective; whereas I contend that Turretin’s argument is hyper-rationalistic and skeptical and insufficiently biblical.
Omnipotence extends itself to all things possible, but not to those which are impossible; such as are those which imply a contradiction, which God can no more be said to be able to do than it be said that he is able to lie and sin. Nor are these marks of power, but of a defect and imperfection, which God not only cannot do, but which he cannot even will to do, because they are contrary to his wisdom, holiness and truth and repugnant to the laws established by him in nature.
There is no inherent contradiction in God changing bread and wine into His body and blood. It’s odd, strange, and not predictable, but not contradictory. God can certainly do this. He’s not limited by all of these laws of matter, that Turretin tries so hard to enlist as alleged disproofs of this miracle, simply because he doesn’t like eucharistic realism. Turretin almost seems to say that God is constrained by the very laws of nature that He created. He’s not at all, of course. Every miracle proves this. I agree with St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, a truly towering intellect, whom few would accuse of being unreasonable, gullible, or philosophically naive, who commented on this issue as follows:
People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe . . . It is difficult, impossible to imagine, I grant – but how is it difficult to believe? . . . For myself, I cannot, indeed prove it, I cannot tell how it is; but I say, ‘ Why should it not be? What’s to hinder it? What do I know of substance or matter? Just as much as the greatest philosophers, and that is nothing at all.’ (Apologia pro vita Sua, Garden City, New York: Doubleday Image, 1956; originally 1864; 318: part 7: “General Answer to Mr. Kingsley”)
Although we confess that God can work above the order of nature, still we deny that his omnipotence extends to those things which are contrary to nature and the order established in it, because he cannot change the natures of things and overturn the order settled by himself.
This is sheer nonsense. It is as I suspected: Turretin turns God into a caricature of Himself; a sort of deist “god” rather than the sovereign Master of the universe. Again, every miracle makes mincemeat of this self-contradictory gibberish.
Although God can make accidents with their subjects, it does not follow in like manner that he can also produce the former without the latter; not from a lack of power, but from the incompossiblity (incompossibilitate) of the thing.
It’s not impossible at all! Turretin deludes himself. Here are some things that are actually impossible, even for God: He can’t make Himself exist and not exist at the same time or to be simultaneously eternal and not eternal. He can’t make a circle a square. He can’t simultaneously subsist in Four Divine Persons and Three, or create a world in which 2+2=4 and also equals 5. And (here’s the famous one), He can’t make a rock so big that He can’t lift it, because that’s a logical self-contradiction.
All of those things are impossible for even an omnipotent being to do. But transubstantiation is not of the same nature as all of these things, and is entirely possible and not self-contradictory. Turretin builds his entire case upon the laws of nature, but he himself admits that “God can work above the order of nature.” Yes! And He does so in transubstantiation. He states a true principle, but then proceeds to ignore it and make an “exception” based on nothing solid or incontrovertible at all. It’s equally extraordinary and distressing to behold a brilliant Christian mind engage in such tortuous thinking and skeptical illogic.
But the mind cannot conceive an accident which is without its subject.
Sure it can. On what basis does he make this claim? We can conceive of it just as we do in the case of a cloud or fire having the usual properties that they do, while containing God within them, which the Old Testament states was the case. How could we know that God was there, except that He revealed that He was by revelation or divine utterance? To us it’s just a cloud and fire, if we only employ our senses. It’s the same with transubstantiation. God said that He is now present after the consecration, whereas to us it looks and tastes and feels like bread and wine. But we believe it isn’t based on God’s revelation, the Bible. But Turretin, oddly enough, thinks like the biblical “carnal” or “unspiritual” man, that Paul describes:
1 Corinthians 2:7, 10-14, 16 . . . we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. . . . [10] God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. [11] For what person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. [12] Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. [13] And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit. [14] The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. . . . [16] “For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
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Summary: Calvinist theologian François Turretin contended that transubstantiation is “monstrous” & impossible to believe. I offer numerous opposing biblical analogical & logical arguments.