Isaiah vs. Protestant Soteriology / Absolution, Love, & Remission of Sins / Was Mary Who Wiped Jesus’ Feet with Her Hair, a Believer When She Did So? / Good Works of the Regenerate Rewarded with Heaven
Photo credit: Portrait of Philipp Melanchthon (c. 1535), by Hans Holbein (c. 1497-1543) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) was the founder of Protestantism: Martin Luther’s best friend, co-reformer, and successor as the leader of Lutheranism. Encyclopaedia Britannica (“Philipp Melanchthon“) states that “Melanchthon . . . in 1521 published the Loci communes rerum theologicarum (‘Theological Commonplaces’), the first systematic treatment of Reformation thought.” It’s considered the initiatory work in the Lutheran scholastic tradition. Modified editions appeared in 1535, 1543 and 1559.
Martin Luther wrote, “No better book has been written after the Holy Scriptures than Philip’s. He expresses himself more concisely than I do when he argues and instructs. I’m garrulous and more rhetorical” (Table-Talk, 1543; in Luther’s Works, Vol. 54, 439-440). Many think that this volume was the reason why Luther never wrote his own work of systematic theology. Melanchthon at length departed from Luther in some ways; most notably, in his denial of the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, by the time of the 1543 edition, and on the question of free will.
Luther, who had some violent disagreements with him, never criticized him publicly and never really broke with him. In fact, the verdict of history is that Luther was kinder to Melanchthon than Melanchthon was to Luther. . . . Most Lutherans in America up to the present time have been critical of him, including Schmauck, Neve, Bente, Pelikan, and many others, although that attitude is changing somewhat. (p. 7)
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Melanchthon was a prodigy. He entered Heidelberg University at twelve and received his bachelor’s degree at 14. He moved on to Tubingen, where he earned the master’s degree at 17, . . . He never received the doctorate and was never ordained into the ministry. He never preached from the pulpit, although he had much to do with the development of the study of oratory and homiletics. He received an appointment to teach at the newly established University of Wittenberg in 1518. . . . He remained at Wittenberg the rest of his life . . . differences [with Luther] appear as early as 1530, . . . and become more evident as the years roll on. (p. 8)
See also my introductory post for this series on Facebook, which highlights his historically brand-new position of imputed justification (sola fide). For other installments of this series, see my Lutheranism web page, second section: “Replies to Philip Melanchthon’s Loci Communes.” Melanchthon’s words will be in blue. I use RSV for biblical citations.
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Isaiah does not say that we should cease doing evil things and remission will be given you be cause of your virtues. Indeed, in another passage he clearly says of Christ, “Truly He has borne our griefs,” Is. 53:4. (p. 112)
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Isaiah teaches that God draws all sinners by His grace, without which no one is, or can be saved, and there are passages hinting at the NT doctrines of justification, faith, grace, and salvation, as well as about God’s love and mercy and forgiveness. Thus far, Catholics and Protestants are in agreement. But Isaiah also regards works — as Catholics do — innecessary conjunction with faith (rejection of “faith alone”):
Isaiah 1:27 Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness.
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Isaiah26:2 Open the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps faith may enter in.
Isaiah 32:17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever.
Isaiah 38:2-3 Then Hezeki’ah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the LORD, [3] and said, “Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in thy sight.” . . .
Isaiah 64:5 Thou meetest him that joyfully works righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways. . . .
Isaiah teaches the NT and Catholic doctrine of grace, works, and faith all being involved in the process of salvation (see fifty passages from Paul about this). He also proclaims the biblical and Catholic doctrine of good, meritorious works and obedience to God’s law and moral commands playing a central role in God’s determination of every person’s ultimate salvation or damnation:
Isaiah 3:10 Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.
Isaiah 10:1-3 Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, [2] to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey! [3] What will you do on the day of punishment, in the storm which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth?
Isaiah 29:20 . . . all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,
Isaiah 33:15-16 He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking upon evil, [16] he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him, his water will be sure.
Isaiah 48:18-19 O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; [19] your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.”
Isaiah 56:1 Thus says the LORD: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.
Isaiah 57:1-2 . . . For the righteous man is taken away from calamity, [2] he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness.
Isaiah 59:2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear.
Isaiah 59:11-12, 18 . . . we look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. [12] For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: . . . [18] According to their deeds, so will he repay, . . .
Melanchthon later refutes his own view, by citing Daniel:
Dan. 4:27, “Free yourself from sins by righteousness and alms for the poor, and there will be a cleansing of your iniquities.” (p. 113)
Exactly! This is Catholic merit and infused justification: God crowning His own gifts of grace, and our working together with Him.
Nor am I using this story to support the notion that good works merit the remission of present sins, . . . (p. 113)
So Melanchthon doesn’t get it. The text plainly teaches that, but he can’t see it, because his preconceived man-made tradition of “faith alone” blinds him to it.
Thus in this statement, “Forgive and it shall be forgiven you,” the first part is a commandment. The second part contains the promise; but it is not added that because of your forgiving spirit your sins are remitted to you. (p. 112)
We have our sins forgiven all the time, in absolution:
John 20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
James 5:14-15 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; [15] and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
we are accepted before God on account of the Mediator and not on account of our own worthiness or our own qualities. (p. 113)
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That is quite true in initial justification and of regeneration, but not in later life, when we stumble into sin and have to be absolved, and where we have to persevere and exhibit good works, which then contribute to ultimate salvation.
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“Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven her because she loved much,” Luke 7:47: Therefore remission of sins takes place on account of love. I reply: There is a twofold absolution. One is private, directed to the conscience which is struggling with the wrath of God. In this absolution we must understand that remission is received by faith and not on account of our virtues. . . . Our faith does not rely upon our love
but only on the mercy which has been promised, as is evident. (p. 114)
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Jesus said that forgiveness was granted because of the great love of the penitent and also because of her faith (“Your faith has saved you; go in peace”: Lk 7:50). So it’s both faith and love (see my previous installment for much biblical data on the relationship of faith, works, and love). But Melanchthon holds that the forgiveness came only by faith and not “on account of . . . virtues”. He does the frequently observed Protestant false dichotomy: because it’s by faith it supposedly can’t also be by love.
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Catholics say it is both (i.e., after regeneration and initial justification, as we must repeat till we’re blue in the face), because the biblical text plainly asserts that. We don’t have to force an outside tradition or philosophy onto the text (eisegesis). We can let it speak for itself, and follow it in grateful obedience: yielding up our predispositions to the inspired Word of God in the revelation of Scripture.
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This takes place on account of good works which are testimonies of a person’s conversion, as when Christ here explains to the Pharisee why He had received the woman, namely because there were evident testimonies to her conversion. . . . Christ transfers this honor to this poor woman: the righteousness of the Law is pleasing here where there is the true knowledge of Christ. And in this congregation there is true worship, that is to say, repentance, faith, true calling upon God, love, kissing Christ’s feet and washing them, that is, adorning and defending the ministry of
the Gospel and the necessary zeal for the church, . . . Her many sins were forgiven her because she had been converted. (p. 114)
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There is no evidence whatsoever in the text for what Melanchthon incorrectly assumes: that this woman was already a Christian believer. To the contrary, Luke’s narrative describes her as “a woman of the city, who was a sinner” (Lk 7:37) and Simon the Pharisee said, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner” (7:39). Jesus then gave the parable of two debtors (7:41-43), where the debt of one was ten times that of the other (an obvious analogy to this woman), and He further noted that “her sins . . . are many” (7:47). She was a nonbeliever who was repenting and was on the verge of becoming a believer.
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Christian movies (using the technique of “dramatic compression”) often portray this woman as Mary Magdalene, but again, the text gives no indication of that at all, and in fact, Mary Magdalene is mentioned two verses later in Luke 8:2, with no awareness that it’s the same person. Moreover, John 11:1-2 actually identifies the repentant woman as Mary, the sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead.
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“Sinner[s]” appears 30 times in the Gospels, and never once does it refer to a believer or disciple of Jesus. Paul contrasts “sinners” with believers in Romans 5:8, 19. In one exception in the epistles, Paul says of himself, “I am the foremost of sinners” (1 Tim 1:15), but this is in the immediate context of a description of his past behavior: “I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him; but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Tim 1:13). So Melanchthon is simply wrong. This woman was not yet a believer / disciple of Jesus.
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God gave her grace and faith enough to repent and perform an extraordinary act of love towards Jesus, and then her sins were forgiven — present tense: “are forgiven”: 7:47-48 — and she became a believer. Jesus expressly said that it was her faith and love that “saved” her; not faith alone. Melanchthon chose to simply disbelieve one thing that Jesus said and embrace the other. Oh how many errors our theology will contain if that is our method of Bible interpretation: picking and choosing which sayings of Jesus we will accept and which we will reject! Remember what Martin Luther wrote: “No better book has been written after the Holy Scriptures than Philip’s.” Forgive me if I am underwhelmed and unimpressed.
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Eternal life is a reward because it brings blessings even if it is given for another reason, namely for the sake of Christ. Just as an inheritance is a reward for a son, even if it comes to him for another reason. This reply is brief and simple and it satisfies the objection of our adversaries who are exaggerating the word “reward” out of all proportion and are drawing some ridiculous conclusions from it, such as placing works and reward either in the realm of the marketplace, or making the price and the reward equal. Thus they come up with the notion of equalizing our obedience with our eternal life, and speak of the obedience of the merit of our worthiness (meritum de condigno); they imagine that men can satisfy the Law and they mix it all up with works of supererogation. And in regard to faith which does not look to our worthiness but to the Mediator and which receives the remission of sins and the inheritance of eternal life for the sake of Christ—of this they say nothing. (pp. 114-115)
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More caricatures of Catholic teaching, and no documentation of what it actually is . . . What else is new in classic Protestant polemics? Melanchthon calls “ridiculous” the notion that eternal reward has some relation to our works. That’s highly interesting, since Jesus Himself expressly taught this:
Matthew 16:27 For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.
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Matthew 19:29 And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. (cf. Mk 10:29-30; Lk 18:26-30)
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Matthew 25:34-35 Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; [35] for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, . . .
Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.
Luke 14:13-14 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, [14] and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
See many more similar biblical proofs from Jesus, Paul, and others. St. John is arguably referring to heaven, too, when he writes, “Look to yourselves, that you may not lose what you have worked for, but may win a full reward” (2 Jn 1:8). St. Paul certainly is doing so:
Colossians 3:23-25 Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men, [24] knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you are serving the Lord Christ. [25] For the wrongdoerwill be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.
Our good works do not merit . . . the inheritance of eternal life, . . . (p. 115)
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Really? Why don’t we look to see what the Bible actually teaches about works of faith, enabled by grace, being involved as causes of eternal life:
Matthew 7:18-21, 24 A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. [19] Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [20] Thus you will know them by their fruits. [21] “Not every one who says to me, `Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.. . . [24] Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock
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Matthew 25:34-35, 41-43. 46 Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; [35] for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, . . . [41] Then he will say to those at his left hand, `Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; [42] for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, [43] I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ . . . [46] And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
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Luke 3:9 (+ Mt 3:10; 7:19) . . . every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
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John 5:28-29 . . . all who are in the tombs will hear his voice [29] and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.
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Romans 2:6-10 For he will render to every man according to his works: [7] to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; [8] but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. [9] There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, [10] but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.
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Romans 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.
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2 Thessalonians 1:8 inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
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1 Timothy 6:18-19 They are to do good, to be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, [19] thus laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life which is life indeed.
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Hebrews 5:9 and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,
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James 2:14 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?
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Revelation 2:5 Remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
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Revelation 20:12-13 . . . And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. [13] . . . and all were judged by what they had done.
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Photo credit: Portrait of Philipp Melanchthon (c. 1535), by Hans Holbein (c. 1497-1543) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
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Summary: Replies to Philip Melanchthon, including Isaiah’s soteriology; love & absolution; Mary, who wiped Jesus’ feet: a believer?; good works of the regenerate rewarded with heaven.
“Working Together” with God / Human Striving & Merit / Tridentine Soteriology / David’s & Paul’s Godly “Boasting” / Regenerate Sinners / Romans 7 & 8 & Sin / God is Pleased by Our Meritorious Acts / Colossians 1:28: Imputed Justification?
Photo credit: Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560): leader of Lutheranism after Luther’s death; 1532 portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560) was the founder of Protestantism: Martin Luther’s best friend, co-reformer, and successor as the leader of Lutheranism. Encyclopaedia Britannica (“Philipp Melanchthon“) states that “Melanchthon . . . in 1521 published the Loci communes rerum theologicarum (‘Theological Commonplaces’), the first systematic treatment of Reformation thought.” It’s considered the initiatory work in the Lutheran scholastic tradition. Modified editions appeared in 1535, 1543 and 1559.
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Martin Luther wrote, “No better book has been written after the Holy Scriptures than Philip’s. He expresses himself more concisely than I do when he argues and instructs. I’m garrulous and more rhetorical” (Table-Talk, 1543; in Luther’s Works, Vol. 54, 439-440). Many think that this volume was the reason why Luther never wrote his own work of systematic theology. Melanchthon at length departed from Luther in some ways; most notably, in his denial of the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, by the time of the 1543 edition, and on the question of free will.
Luther, who had some violent disagreements with him, never criticized him publicly and never really broke with him. In fact, the verdict of history is that Luther was kinder to Melanchthon than Melanchthon was to Luther. . . . Most Lutherans in America up to the present time have been critical of him, including Schmauck, Neve, Bente, Pelikan, and many others, although that attitude is changing somewhat. (p. 7)
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Melanchthon was a prodigy. He entered Heidelberg University at twelve and received his bachelor’s degree at 14. He moved on to Tubingen, where he earned the master’s degree at 17, . . . He never received the doctorate and was never ordained into the ministry. He never preached from the pulpit, although he had much to do with the development of the study of oratory and homiletics. He received an appointment to teach at the newly established University of Wittenberg in 1518. . . . He remained at Wittenberg the rest of his life . . . differences [with Luther] appear as early as 1530, . . . and become more evident as the years roll on. (p. 8)
See also my introductory post for this series on Facebook, which highlights his historically brand-new position of imputed justification (sola fide). For other installments of this series, see my Lutheranism web page, second section: “Replies to Philip Melanchthon’s Loci Communes.” Melanchthon’s words will be in blue. I use RSV for biblical citations.
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I want to say clearly and plainly that our obedience, that is, the righteousness of a good conscience or of the good works which God has commanded us, must necessarily follow our reconciliation. (p. 97)
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That’s what everyone agrees on: the true regenerated Christian with authentic faith must do grace-enabled good works. The controversy comes over whether they are meritorious, and whether sanctification is an organic part of justification, rather than an abstractly separate category.
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Then there is comfort in the fact that he says that God has prepared before hand these good works in the church [Eph 2:10], just as He prepared beforehand in Samuel, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others the marvelous works through which He both calls, governs, and preserves His church; and as He says in another place, “Strengthen, O God, that which You have wrought in us,” Ps. 68[:28]. (p. 97)
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Exactly. They are not exclusively our works. They are caused by God’s grace and in His will. But they are also ours at the same time. It’s the paradoxical, biblical “both/and” rather than “either/or”:
1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me.
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1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God’s fellow workers . . .
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2 Corinthians 6:1 Working together with him, . . .
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Philippians 2:13 for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
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Colossians 1:29 . . . I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within me.
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Mark 16:20 And they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them . . .
The adversaries want to appear to be treating the doctrine of works as something very important, although they actually are speaking only of external hypocrisy or human ceremonies. But they do not know the works of the First Table and they bury the real source of good works. They say nothing about faith which is trust in the mercy and the free reconciliation of God, nor of the necessity of praying to Him in all situations. And when this faith is taken away then doubt prevails which either despises God or flees His wrath and does not call upon Him. (p. 97)
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Now (after initial encouraging agreement) we see the usual inane caricatures of Catholicism. If one feels compelled to lie about one’s theological opponents in order to set forth a supposedly superior, more biblical theology, something is surely awry. It bespeaks a lack of confidence in one’s own beliefs. I, on the other hand, don’t have to misrepresent and distort Melanchthon’s Lutheran beliefs. I have no need or desire whatsoever to do that: with him or anyone else.
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I want my readers to know exactly what others believe, and why they do. Towards that end, I present their good-faith, sincerely held positions in their own words and then proceed to show why I believe they are in error, based on Holy Scripture. But Melanchthon uses the age-old method of Protestant polemics against Catholicism (something Luther was a “master” at): present a straw man of what we supposedly believe in his words rather than actually citing a Catholic source and letting us speak for ourselves.
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I have often said that we must not indulge in the idle human notion that we can govern our outward behavior by human diligence and human powers . . . (p. 98)
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Really? We can and should do so after we are regenerated and justified initially (thus working with God, per the above passages):
Philippians 2:12 . . . work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
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1 Timothy 5:22 . . . keep yourself pure.
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2 Timothy 2:15, 21 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, . . . [21] If any one purifies himself from what is ignoble, then he will be a vessel for noble use, consecrated and useful to the master of the house, ready for any good work.
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2 Peter 1:10 Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall;
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Jude 20-21 But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; [21] keep yourselves in the love of God;
It is evident that godly minds are tormented and also hopeful that their obedience may be pleasing to God, but in this terrible weakness of ours they see that our obedience is crippled, impeded, imperfect, corrupt, . . . (p. 99)
Sometimes it is (we being fallen human beings who fail even after regeneration); most times it is not, if we are being obedient (the very act of which indicates a preceding grace). The seven representative passages above show not the slightest hint of the efforts and works done being “crippled, impeded, imperfect, corrupt.” That’s simply Protestant “faith alone”: being improperly superimposed onto the Bible. I submit that Melanchthon’s and Protestants’ prior presuppositions or worldview trump what the Bible actually teaches (which I think I am showing as I move along).
The hypocrites think that they do satisfy the Law, that they are righteous, that is, that they have been accepted by God because of their own worthiness or their fulfillment of the Law, as the Pharisee says in Luke 18:9-12. (p. 99)
That’s supposedly us dumb, deluded Catholics, of course! This is the old tired caricature of Catholicism as works-salvation (a thing we had roundly condemned 1100 years before Melanchthon): equating it with the Pharisees and Judaizers. The silliness and wrongheadedness of this charge — in terms of what Catholics actually teach and believe and seek to practice — is seen in the Decree on Justification from the Council of Trent, from its Sixth Session on 13 January 1547: less than four years after the third edition of Loci Communes that I am critiquing, was published, and thirteen years before Melanchthon died:
CHAPTER I. On the Inability of Nature and of the Law to justify man.
The holy Synod declares first, that, for the correct and sound understanding of the doctrine of Justification, it is necessary that each one recognise and confess, that, whereas all men had lost their innocence in the prevarication of Adam-having become unclean, and, as the apostle says, by nature children of wrath, as (this Synod) has set forth in the decree on original sin,-they were so far the servants of sin, and under the power of the devil and of death, that not the Gentiles only by the force of nature, but not even the Jews by the very letter itself of the law of Moses, were able to be liberated, or to arise, therefrom; although free will, attenuated as it was in its powers, and bent down, was by no means extinguished in them.
Thus we see that actual magisterial Church teaching, reiterated and promulgated during Melanchthon’s lifetime, is the polar opposite of his ridiculous caricature (that is still widely used to this day). The first three canons on justification from the same document, are so in line with Protestant teaching, that John Calvin, in his work, Acts of the Council of Trent with the Antidote (21 November 1547) — which I wrote about it in one article –, completely agreed with them and offered no further comment (writing, “To Canons 1, 2, and 3:, I say, Amen.”):
CANON I.-If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.
CANON II.-If any one saith, that the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, is given only for this, that man may be able more easily to live justly, and to merit eternal life, as if, by free will without grace, he were able to do both, though hardly indeed and with difficulty; let him be anathema.
CANON III.-If any one saith, that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and without his help, man can believe, hope, love, or be penitent as he ought, so as that the grace of Justification may be bestowed upon him; let him be anathema.
Here are some more good ones that any Protestant ought to readily agree with:
CANON X.-If any one saith, that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby He merited for us to be justified; or that it is by that justice itself that they are formally just; let him be anathema.
CHAPTER V. On the necessity, in adults, of preparation for Justification, and whence it proceeds.
. . . the beginning of the said justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God through Jesus Christ . . . without any merits existing on their parts . . . yet is he not able, by his own free-will, without the grace of God, to move himself into justice in His sight . . .
CHAPTER VIII. In what manner it is to be understood, that the impious is justified by faith, and gratuitously.
. . . none of those things which precede justification — whether faith or works — merit the grace itself of justification. For if it be a grace, it is not now by works; otherwise, as the same Apostle says, grace is no more grace.
There are always people like this who admire their own virtues, who give long tributes to their own wisdom and righteousness, especially in secondary matters which are showy, which they think they can govern by their own ideas and which they choose to accept as the divinely given fruits of their own virtues and diligence, . . . (p. 99)
This is the picture which many hypocrites project, and there are not a few who are like this, self-confident, pleased with them selves because of their gifts, applauding their own wisdom, . . . (p. 100)
I guess he is talking about David and Paul, too:
1 Samuel 26:23 [David] The LORD rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness; . . .
2 Samuel 22:21-25 [David] The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me. [22] For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
Romans 15:17 . . . In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God.
2 Timothy 4:6-8 For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come. [7] I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. [8] Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, . . .
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In fact, St. Paul was in several instances in his letters, given to long glowing descriptions of his own [God-enabled] righteous works and sanctity (I guess Melanchthon would consign him to the proud, arrogant, Pharisee-types, too, huh?):
2 Corinthians 11:5-30 I think that I am not in the least inferior to these superlative apostles. [6] Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not in knowledge; in every way we have made this plain to you in all things. [7] Did I commit a sin in abasing myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God’s gospel without cost to you? [8] I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. [9] And when I was with you and was in want, I did not burden any one, for my needs were supplied by the brethren who came from Macedo’nia. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. [10] As the truth of Christ is in me, this boast of mine shall not be silenced in the regions of Acha’ia. [11] And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do! [12] And what I do I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. [13] For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. [14] And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. [15] So it is not strange if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. [16] I repeat, let no one think me foolish; but even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. [17] (What I am saying I say not with the Lord’s authority but as a fool, in this boastful confidence; [18] since many boast of worldly things, I too will boast.) [19] For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! [20] For you bear it if a man makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. [21] To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that! But whatever any one dares to boast of — I am speaking as a fool — I also dare to boast of that. [22] Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. [23] Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one — I am talking like a madman — with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. [24] Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. [25] Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; [26] on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; [27] in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. [28] And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. [29] Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? [30] If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
1 Corinthians 9:14-19 In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. [15] But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing this to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have any one deprive me of my ground for boasting. [16] For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! [17] For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. [18] What then is my reward? Just this: that in my preaching I may make the gospel free of charge, not making full use of my right in the gospel. [19] For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more.
2 Corinthians 1:5-14 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. [6] If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. [7] Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. [8] For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. [9] Why, we felt that we had received the sentence of death; but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead; [10] he delivered us from so deadly a peril, and he will deliver us; on him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. [11] You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us in answer to many prayers. [12] For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we have behaved in the world, and still more toward you, with holiness and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God. [13] For we write you nothing but what you can read and understand; I hope you will understand fully, [14] as you have understood in part, that you can be proud of us as we can be of you, on the day of the Lord Jesus.
Colossians 1:24-28 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, [25] of which I became a minister according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, [26] the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints. [27] To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. [28] Him we proclaim, . . .
Yes, of course in 2 Corinthians 11, it is partly sarcastic (this boast of mine”; “I am talking like a madman” etc.), but he goes on and on, and sarcasm (in Paul or Jesus or anyone else who uses it) always has an underlying serious point to make. If indeed, Paul could take no credit at all for any or all of this (the Protestant denial of merit), then the whole discourse is most improper and inappropriate. Moreover, he also uses “boast” in a totally non-sarcastic way in 1 Corinthians 9 and 2 Corinthians 1.
Therefore they tout themselves above others because of their wisdom and righteousness, as Nebuchadnezzar did, . . . (p. 99)
Paul certainly did so above. He had none of Luther’s existential angst and cyclical insecurity about his standing before God. Melanchthon, a timid, nervous type to begin with, seems to have inherited that from Luther. Unfortunately, they both passed on their personal insecurities and struggles into mainstream Protestant soteriology (theology of salvation), so that they became institutionalized. Personally, I suspect that it’s more psychological stuff than theological or biblical . . .
But even before psychology enters in, the root of it is arguably the Protestant leading trait of creating illogical “either/or” false dichotomies. Louis Bouyer, a Lutheran who became a Catholic, wrote an entire brilliant book about this, called The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism. I recommend it more highly than any other book, for Catholics desiring to understand the premises and presuppositions of Protestantism.
Likewise Saul believed that the kingdom of Israel had been established by his power, although he should have known that both this power and the successes were blessings from God, and that he could not have accomplished or ruled over such things by himself, . . . (p. 100)
That’s exactly my point: both as regards biblical teaching and the fact that Catholics agree with it in this respect and every other. Protestants aren’t the only ones who teach salvation by grace alone, God’s providence and sovereignty, predestination, election, the wrongness of works-salvation, etc. This may come as a shock to many, but so be it. I’m here to educate and proclaim what I strongly believe to be the truth, not please (i.e., when the two differ from each other).
But first of all we must establish this point: Although in the regenerate there must be a beginning of obedience and the righteousness of a good conscience, yet sins still remain in them, that is to say, the disease which is born in us, the doubts, the ignorance of many things; or in other words, that they do not fear God as they ought nor burn with love toward Him as the Law demands. (p. 100)
That’s self-evident in the Bible, and the Catholic Church had always taught it, so I fail to see why Melanchthon thought he needed to “establish” it (with whom?: biblical illiterates or completely uncatechized folks?). Odd . . . :
Psalm 130:3-4 If thou, O LORD, shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? [4] But there is forgiveness with thee, . . . (130:3 was cited by Melanchthon on p. 101; mistakenly identified as “103:3” by either him or translator Preuss)
Matthew 6:14-15 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; [15] but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
John 8:7 . . . “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
James 5:15-16 . . . if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. [16] Therefore confess your sins to one another, . . .
1 John 1:8-10 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [9] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. [10] If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1:8 was cited by Melanchthon later on the same page: 100).
1 John 2:1 My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
The monks even teach that these doubts concerning providence, the wrath of God, His mercy, our wicked desires, unless there is consent to them, are not sins; . . . (p. 100)
. . . sin remains in this mortal nature of ours. (p. 100)
No one is disagreeing, so again, I don’t know who it is that Melanchthon fancies would disagree with this. Catholics simply say that one can become holier and holier and more righteous over time, by God’s grace and our resolve, discipline, and free will choices. Theoretically, we could arrive at a sinless state of being, but as we all know, it virtually never happens. We all strive, or should at least desire to strive, with God’s help, to live as free from sin as we can. At the moment of baptism, we are at least momentarily sinless, since all of our old sins have been forgiven and we have been regenerated and born again.
Rom. 7:23, “I see another law at work in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner to the law of sin which is in my members.” Now, although the sophists get around this passage and say that . . . here the word refers to . . . the tendency to sin which has come from the fall of our first parents [concupiscence], yet Paul himself refutes this sophistry in his definition of sin itself, when he says that it is an evil in our members which is at war with the law of God.
Furthermore, we have discussed in regard to this article whether the wickedness which remains in our nature is something which is in conflict with the law of God. Human judgment excuses this corruption, but Paul uses very graphic words to describe this terrible thing. He says that the corruption is at war in his members, that it is viciously contending against the law of his mind, confirming his carnal security or his righteous ness which is at odds with God, filling his mind with pride in his own virtues and arrogance, kindling lusts, hatred, desire for revenge, and urging him to seek for bidden help; and finally it takes him captive, because it overthrows the antagonisms of his mind by fears and brings him to the point of despair, so that he flees from God. aw at work in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner to the law of sin which is in my members.” Now, although the sophists get around this passage and say that there has been a shift in the word “sin,” and that here the word refers to “the punishment of sin,” the tendency to sin which has come from the fall of our first parents, yet Paul himself refutes this sophistry in his definition of sin itself, when he says that it is an evil in our members which is at war with the law of God. (p. 100)
It is characteristic of this and the following paragraph, 13–25, that St Paul argues in the first person. The natural conclusion is that he relates his own experience. On the other hand, to argue from a purely individual experience is out of place in such a general discussion as is developed in Rom. This forces upon us the further conclusion that Paul regarded his own experience in this case as typical. And since he speaks in the past, obviously referring to the time before baptism, it can be further described as typical of the pre-Christian time. Then the question arises whether it is to be considered as a typical experience of Israelites and Gentiles alike or only of the former. The answers differ. All who limit the theme of Rom 7 to a discussion on the Mosaic Law must limit the typical value of Paul’s experience accordingly because it is the basis of the whole argument. On the other hand, Rom is addressed to a Christian community consisting of former Israelites as well as of former Gentiles (cf. 1:18–3, 20) and there is no evidence that in our chapter Paul is speaking to the former Israelites only. In view of the addressees, therefore, it seems more natural to think that he looked upon his own experience in the matter as generally typical of the time before becoming a Christian without distinguishing between former Israelites and Gentiles.
The law of which St Paul speaks here has been identified with the natural moral law, the Mosaic Law, and both together. The last is the most satisfactory answer. That he foremost had the Mosaic Law in mind follows from the fact that he speaks in the first person. At the same time he must have included the natural moral law because of the former Gentiles among his readers. The simplest solution therefore is to take the law here as the Mosaic Law but as typical of the natural moral law in the same sense as the first person in this description is meant to be typical of man in general, Israelite and Gentile alike. This wider interpretation of ‘law’ is not contradicted by the commandment ‘Thou shalt not covet’, 7. No doubt this is a quotation from the Decalogue. But the quotation is so free (cf. Ex 20:17; Deut 5:21) that it fits the natural moral law as well. Nor can it be urged against this explanation that it entails the abrogation of the natural law which is clearly against Christian doctrine. The point of the whole chapter is not the abrogation of the law, but ‘who is to be given first place’, Christ or — as it has been heretofore — the law? . . .
Modern commentators agree that both context and contents point decisively to the time before conversion. It is the characteristic experience of the soul before conversion to the Christian faith to be ‘sold under sin’, 14, and to be unable to carry out its higher aspirations, 15, 18, 23, 25b. To regard this experience as remaining after conversion is against the whole line of the argument, cf. 6:6, 9, 12–14, 17, 22; 7:6; 8; and also against all the moral exhortations in St Paul’s epistle. Nor is it necessary to understand the picture as a reflexion of the Apostle’s own state of soul when writing because he uses the present tense. There is no reason against taking this as an historic or graphic present to denote what is past, so that there is no real change of tense between 7–12 and 13–25. (my italics)
Romans 8 is Paul’s “treatise” on what the spiritual life is like after regeneration. Paul didn’t have two personalities. Nor was he self-contradictory. The topic of Romans 7 is the pre-regenerate or pagan / carnal life, whereas Romans 8 is about the Christian life, which he was experiencing (and all of us can, too):
Romans 8:1-3, 6 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. [2] For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. [3] For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: . . . [6] To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
Romans 8:26-28 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. [27] And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. [28] We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. (8:28 is my favorite verse in the Bible).
Romans 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Melanchthon, on the other hand, wants to take Romans 7 as descriptive of the life of every Christian (even Paul’s!): supposedly miserably and utterly unable to overcome sin, as if there were no Romans 8 to follow it and provide the solution to Paul’s rhetorical spiritual dilemma, laid out in chapter 7. It’s classic isolated proof-texting, which is sadly common in Protestant theology and apologetics, especially when deliberately trying to refute Catholicism. St. Paul in Romans 8 isn’t arguing that we are beyond sin (as if it poses no difficulties at all), but rather, that we can always conquer it, provided we cooperate with God the Holy Spirit, Who lives within us (8:9-11; cf. John 14-16). That’s why it’s such a jubilant, triumphalistic, joyous, sunny chapter.
This gets to the heart of the “Reformation” debate over justification: does it actually change us for the better (Catholicism), or is it a mere declaration, with any actual righteousness neatly separated into a separate non-salvific “box” of sanctification (Protestantism)? As Protestant scholars like Alister McGrath and Norman Geisler tell us, the latter notion wasn’t taught by the Church fathers (especially not by St. Augustine), and Melanchthon introduced it fifteen centuries after Christ; in effect making out that no one had ever understood this until he did. I also add that our view has the support of the Bible, as I think I have demonstrated here and in scores and scores of other articles collected on my Salvation, Justification, & “Faith Alone” web page (see especially the first section). I habitually provide much more biblical argumentation than my theological opponents do. Melanchthon is no exception.
Therefore, although sins are present with us and the godly to some degree recognize the wrath of God, yet they believe that they are pleasing to God because of His promised mercy, and they sustain themselves with this comfort, as Ps. 33:20 ff. says, “My soul sustains itself in His Word … my soul hopes in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy”; Ps. 32:5-6, . . . (p. 101; he provides several more biblical examples of that)
That’s necessary, given our fallen nature prior to regeneration, but in the Bible there are also many examples of God being “pleased” because of what regenerate believers obediently do in His power and grace (which is precisely why He rewards us for same, which is Catholic merit: vigorously and categorically denied by Protestantism). Yet here it is massively in the Bible (“ya pays yer money and ya makes yer choice”):
Genesis 18:19 I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice; so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.
Genesis 22:16-17 “By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, [17] I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. . . .
1 Samuel 26:23 The LORD rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness; . . .
2 Samuel 22:21-25 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me. [22] For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. [23] For all his ordinances were before me, and from his statutes I did not turn aside. [24] I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt. [25] Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight. (cf. Ps 18:20-23)
1 Kings 3:9-14 Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind to govern thy people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to govern this thy great people?” [10] It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. [11] And God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, [12] behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. [13] I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days. [14] And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.”
Proverbs 15:26 The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the LORD, the words of the pure are pleasing to him.
Jeremiah 31:16 . . . your work shall be rewarded, says the LORD, . . .
Jeremiah 32:19 great in counsel and mighty in deed; whose eyes are open to all the ways of men, rewarding every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings;
Haggai 1:8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may appear in my glory, says the LORD.
Matthew 6:3-4 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, [4] so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. . . . (cf. 6:6, 17-18, 20)
Mark 10:29-30 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, [30] who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, . . .
Ephesians 5:10 and try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. (cf. Phil 2:13)
Ephesians 6:8 knowing that whatever good any one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, . . .
Philippians 4:18 I have received full payment, and more; I am filled, having received from Epaphrodi’tus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.
Colossians 1:10 to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, . . .
Colossians 3:20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 2:4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please men, but to please God who tests our hearts.
1 Thessalonians 4:1 Finally, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more.
Hebrews 13:16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
1 John 3:22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
Daniel teaches the same thing for which Paul so copiously contends, when he says that we understand that the nature of man is wicked and does not satisfy the Law, but that we are accepted by God through His mercy for the sake of the promised Lord. (p. 101)
That’s only part of the whole picture, as I just proved. Melanchthon, in classic Protestant style, completely ignores a prominent biblical motif, while pretending that the partial truth he presents is the whole picture. There is a reason why we swear in courts to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Later, Melanchthon acknowledges that we can do things that are pleasing to God:
It is necessary to possess the good righteousness of a good conscience and to know how it pleases God. . . . obedience is pleasing to God, . . . (pp. 101-102)
But he can’t admit that this is essentially the same thing as what Catholics call merit, because Luther and Protestantism arbitrarily, irrationally, and unbiblically decided that it doesn’t exist. In another paper, I provided 46 biblical passages proving that it does.
In 1 Cor. 1:31, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord,” that is, we cannot be glorified or exalted because we are without sin, but we glory in the Lord, that is to say, in the Lord who promises us mercy. (p. 101)
This is another partial truth. Many biblical passages (I found 26 myself) teach that God shares His glory with us. Why is it that Melanchthon, a Bible scholar, didn’t know this; nor does he seem familiar with many other biblical themes I am pointing out? Or did he indeed know, but wanted to conceal them and engage in consciously selective presentation?
In Col. 1:28 it says, “You are presented perfect in Christ Jesus,” that is, even if the regenerate do not yet fulfill the Law, yet they are righteous and pleasing to God for the sake of His Son. Here we should confess and celebrate the fulness of the mercy of God, that in those who have been reconciled, this obedience which is incomplete, imperfect, unclean, and corrupted by many wicked desires, is still accepted by God, not in deed because of the worth of our virtues but because of the Son of God, Rom. 6:14, “You are not under the Law but under grace.” (p. 102)
Melanchthon seeks to force-fit this verse into Protestant forensic, external, imputed justification. To do so, he made out that it is referring to a completed event. But my RSV reads, “that we may present every man mature in Christ.” Then Paul immediately adds, “For this I toil, . . . (1:29). How can he “toil” for a thing that is, by definition, God’s work alone? “May” is present in virtually every English translation of Colossians 1:28. But in any event (whatever the Greek tense is), Paul couldn’t “toil” for imputed justification (even in the temporary sense in which Catholics accept it). He would have nothing to do with it.
Paul also expressly denies what Melanchthon seeks to assert: “Not that I . . . am already perfect . . . I press on toward the goal . . .” (Phil 3:12, 14). This is the Catholic striving for actual holiness, not a one-time instant declaration that we are holy in God’s sight, when in fact we aren’t. Forgiveness of sins and reconciliation — which we receive in baptism and initial justification — are not the same thing as being perfectly holy: although we temporarily are that after baptism until the next sin we commit. Catholic and Protestantism happily “meet” in what we call initial justification, but then it immediately diverges again when it comes to considering what happens after that, for the rest of the person’s life.
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Photo credit: Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560): leader of Lutheranism after Luther’s death; 1532 portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
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Summary: Topics covered incl. “working with God”, merit, Tridentine soteriology, Paul’s “boasting”, Rom 7 & 8 & the Spiritual Life, Col 1:28 and imputed justification, and pleasing God.
100 Bible Passages On Catholic Justification, Sanctification, and Faith + Works (from 22 out of 27 NT Books): All Disproving Protestant “Faith Alone” Soteriology
Photo credit: cover of my 2009 book, Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths (available online for free)
My own biblical citations are from RSV.
Protestants believe that we are justified in a one-time occurrence, and that it is imputed (we are declared righteous by God). Catholics agree that initial justification is monergistic: a purely gratuitous act of God alone — wholly by His grace — without any participation or works on our part; but only faith (over against Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, or “works salvation”). Both sides joyfully agree thus far. But we disagree over the following propositions, which Catholics affirm:
1) justification is not a one-time event, has to be maintained, and can be lost,
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2) sanctification (manifested by good works) is a direct contributing cause of salvation, alongside justification, to which it is organically connected (faith and works).
This paper is an attempt to compile as many biblical passages as possible with regard to this topic: categorized and expressed as briefly as possible, for the purpose of quick referencing and replying to Protestant “faith alone” arguments. For the background and clarification on basic Protestant and Catholic definitions and significantly different understandings of these terms, see: Justification: Classic Catholic & Protestant Reflections [1994].
Passages specifically tying sanctification and justification or salvation together will be preceded by an asterisk (*).
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Psalm 7:10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.
Isaiah 1:27 Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness.
Isaiah26:2 Open the gates, that the righteous nation which keeps faith may enter in.
Isaiah 32:17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever.
Isaiah 33:15-16 He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking upon evil, [16] he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him, his water will be sure.
Isaiah 48:18-19 O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; [19] your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.”
Isaiah 56:1 Thus says the LORD: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.
Isaiah 56:4-5 For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, [5] I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which shall not be cut off.
Isaiah 59:18 According to their deeds, so will he repay, wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies; . . .
Jeremiah 17:10 “I the LORD search the mind and try the heart, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” (cf. 32:19)
Jeremiah 21:12 O house of David! Thus says the LORD: “‘Execute justice in the morning, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed, lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of your evil doings.’”
Ezekiel 36:19 I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries; in accordance with their conduct and their deeds I judged them.
Hosea 4:9 . . . I will punish them for their ways, and requite them for their deeds.
Amos 5:14 Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you,
Obadiah 1:15 For the day of the LORD is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you, your deeds shall return on your own head.
Zephaniah 2:3 Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his commands; seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the wrath of the LORD.
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Matthew 5:20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 7:18-21, 24 A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. [19] Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [20] Thus you will know them by their fruits. [21] “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.. . . [24] Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; (cf. Jn 4:36)
Matthew 10:22 (cf. Mt 24:13; Mk 13:13) . . . But he who endures to the end will be saved.
Matthew 16:27 For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.
Matthew 19:16-17, 20-21 And behold, one came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?” [17] And he said to him, “. . . If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” . . . [20] The young man said to him, “All these I have observed; what do I still lack?” [21] Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (in the parallel passage Lk 10:27 the ruler says, “. . . You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus replied, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”)
Matthew 19:29 And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. (cf. Mk 10:29-30)
Matthew 25:20-21 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ [21] His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’
Matthew 25:34-35, 41-43, 46 Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; [35] for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, . . . [41] Then he will say to those at his left hand, `Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; [42] for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, [43] I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ . . . [46] And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Mark 16:16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; . . .
Luke 3:9 (+ Mt 3:10; 7:19) . . . every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.
Luke 7:47, 50 “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” . . . [50] And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Luke 18:26-30 Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” [27] But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” [28] And Peter said, “Lo, we have left our homes and followed you.” [29] And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, [30] who will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
John 3:5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, unless a man is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (cf. 3:3: unless a man is born again . . .)
John 3:36 He who believes [pistuo] in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey [apitheo] the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him. (1 Pet 2:7 uses the same parallelism, with pistuo and apitheo, though RSV translates the latter as “do not believe.” KJV renders it as “disobedient” in the same way that Jn 3:36 and several other verses [Rom 1:30; 2 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:6; 3:3] do)
John 4:36-38 He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. [37] For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ [38] I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
John 5:28-29 . . . all who are in the tombs will hear his voice [29] and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.
John 6:27 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you . . .
John 6:48-50 I am the bread of life. [49] Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. [50] This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.
John 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; 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.
John 6:53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;”
John 6:54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:57-58 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. [58] This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.
John 15:2, 4-6, 8 Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. . . . [4] Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. [5] I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. [6] If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. . . . [8] By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.
Acts 2:40-41 And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” [41] So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
Acts 10:34-35 And Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, [35] but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
Acts 15:8-9 And God who knows the heart bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; [9] and he made no distinction between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith.
The Greek word for “cleansed” used here is katharizo. It is used many times in the Gospels in reference to the cleansing of lepers (e.g., Mt 10:8; Lk 7:22).
*Acts 26:18 to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. [Phillips: “made holy by their faith in me”]
Romans 1:5, 17 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, . . . [17] For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” (cf. Acts 6:7)
Romans 2:6-10 For he will render to every man according to his works: [7] to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; [8] but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. [9] There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, [10] but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.
Romans 2:13-16 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. [14] When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. [15] They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them [16] on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:3-4 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
*Romans 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.
Romans 8:13, 17 for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. [17] . . . heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 10:13, 16 For, “every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” . . . [16] But they have not all obeyed the gospel; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”
Romans 13:8-14 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. [9] The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [10] Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. [11] Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; [12] the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; [13] let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. [14] But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Romans 16:26 but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith (cf. Heb 11:8)
1 Corinthians 5:7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed.
1 Corinthians 13:2, 13 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. . . . [13] So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
2 Corinthians 7:1 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God. (cf. Jas 4:8)
2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
Galatians 3:11 Now it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law; for “He who through faith is righteous shall live”;
Galatians 5:14, 19-24 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” . . . [19] 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. [22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. [24] And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Galatians 6:7-10 Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. [8] For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. [9] And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. [10] So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Philippians 2:12-16 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; [13] for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. [14] Do all things without grumbling or questioning, [15] that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, [16] holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
Philippians 3:8-16 Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ [9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; [10] that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, [11] that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. [12] Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. [13] Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, [14] I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. [15] Let those of us who are mature be thus minded; and if in anything you are otherwise minded, God will reveal that also to you. [16] Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
Philippians 4:3 And I ask you also, true yokefellow, help these women, for they have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
Colossians 3:23-25 Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men, [24] knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you are serving the Lord Christ. [25] For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.
1 Thessalonians 1:3-7 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. [4] For we know, brethren beloved by God, that he has chosen you; [5] for our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. [6] And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit; [7] so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedo’nia and in Acha’ia.
1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 . . . may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, [13] so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
1 Thessalonians 5:8-9 But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. [9] For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
1 Thessalonians 5:23 May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 1:8, 11 inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. . . . [11] To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his call, and may fulfil every good resolve and work of faith by his power,
*2 Thessalonians 2:13 But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.
1 Timothy 2:15 Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.
1 Timothy 4:8, 10, 12-16 . . . godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. . . . [10] For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe. . . . [12] Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. [13] Till I come, attend to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, to teaching. [14] Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophetic utterance when the council of elders laid their hands upon you. [15] Practice these duties, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. [16] Take heed to yourself and to your teaching; hold to that, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
1 Timothy 6:11-14, 18-19 But as for you, man of God, shun all this; aim at righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. [12] Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. [13] In the presence of God who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, [14] I charge you to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; . . . [18] They are to do good, to be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, [19] thus laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life which is life indeed.
Titus 3:5 He saved us, . . . by the washing of regeneration . . .
Hebrews 5:9 and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,
Hebrews 6:9-12 Though we speak thus, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation. [10] For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. [11] And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, [12] so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Hebrews 9:12-14 he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. [13] For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, [14] how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (same word: katharizo, for “purify” here, as is used in 1 John and Acts 15:9 for “cleansed”)
Hebrews 10:10, 14 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. . . . [14] For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
Hebrews 10:22-24, 35-39 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. [23] Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful; [24] and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, . . . [35] Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. [36] For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised. [37] “For yet a little while, and the coming one shall come and shall not tarry; [38] “but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” [39] But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and keep their souls.
James 1:12 Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.
James 2:14, 17, 20, 22, 24, 26 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? . . . [17] So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. . . . [20] . . . faith apart from works is barren . . . [22] You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, . . . [24] You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. . . . [26] . . . faith apart from works is dead.
1 Peter 1:2 chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ . . .
1 Peter 1:14-17, 22 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, [15] but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; [16] since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” [17] And if you invoke as Father him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. . . . [22] Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brethren, love one another earnestly from the heart.
1 Peter 3:21 Baptism … now saves you . . .
1 Peter 4:13 But rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
2 Peter 1:5-7, 10-11 For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, [6] and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, [7] and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. . . . [10] Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall; [11] so there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 3:10-14 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up. [11] Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, [12] waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire! [13] But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. [14] Therefore, beloved, since you wait for these, be zealous to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
1 John 1:7, 9 but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. . . . [9] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 2:3-5 And by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his commandments. [4] He who says “I know him” but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; [5] but whoever keeps his word, in him truly love for God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him:
1 John 3:24 All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us.
2 John 1:8 Look to yourselves, that you may not lose what you have worked for, but may win a full reward.
Jude 20-21 But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; [21] keep yourselves in the love of God; wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Revelation 2:5 Remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Revelation 2:10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
Revelation 2:19, 23, 25-28 “`I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. . . . [23] . . . I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve. . . . [25] only hold fast what you have, until I come. [26] He who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, I will give him power over the nations, [27] and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received power from my Father; [28] and I will give him the morning star.
Revelation 3:1-5 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: `The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “`I know your works; you have the name of being alive, and you are dead. [2] Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. [3] Remember then what you received and heard; keep that, and repent. If you will not awake, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you. [4] Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. [5] He who conquers shall be clad thus in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life; I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
Revelation 3:8, 10-12 “`I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut; I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. . . . [10] Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial which is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell upon the earth. [11] I am coming soon; hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. [12] He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God; never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.
Revelation 14:12-13 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. [13] And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”
Revelation 20:12-13 . . . And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. [13] . . . and all were judged by what they had done.
Abraham Was Justified Twice By Works and Once By Faith, But It All Works Together
In Genesis 12 Abraham was justified by faith and works together. God told him to leave his home and trust him for the future, and he did so (a work): “So Abram went, as the LORD had told him” (12:4). Then he built two altars to the Lord (good works again) in 12:7-8. These were good works of obedience, and as a result, God blessed him greatly and said to him, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great … by you, all the families of the earth shall bless themselves” (12:2-3).
Faith is never mentioned in the chapter, but Abraham clearly exercised it when he obeyed God’s instructions. The book of Hebrews interprets Genesis 12, stating that “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go” (11:8), and “by faith he sojourned in the land of promise …” (11:9). Therefore, this instance of justification was by faith and works. Abraham had the faith to believe God (faith), and he obeyed him (a work).
Hebrews 11 is about the heroes of the faith. Faith is described as leading to men receiving God’s “divine approval” (11:2), which sounds very much like justification. If it’s denied that Genesis 12 refers to justification, then it has to be explained how Hebrews 11:8 describes the passage as Abraham exercising faith. This must be justification in the Protestant sense because fallen man on his own cannot have or exercise true faith: “And he believed the LORD, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).”
In Genesis 15:6, Abraham was justified as a result of having “believed the Lord.” James (2:23) gives an explicit interpretation of the Old Testament passage, by stating, “And the scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,’ and he was called the friend of God.” The previous three verses — that is, the context — were all about justification, faith and works, all tied in together (2:20: “faith apart from works is barren”; 2:22: “faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works”) and this is what James says “fulfilled” Genesis 15:6.
God reiterates that works are central to Abraham’s justification (and anyone’s) in Genesis 18:
Genesis 18:19 . . . I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice; so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”
God repeats the same sort of thing again, in speaking to Isaac:
Genesis 26:3-5 “Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you; for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will fulfil the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. [4] I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give to your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves: [5] because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”
Genesis 22, the passage about Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac if God commanded him to do so, provides a third example where Abraham is said to be “justified.” God spoke through the angel of the LORD and said, “Because you have done this … I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants … because you have obeyedmy voice” (Genesis 22:16-18). Genesis 22 already establishes that it was a work of Abraham that brought about God’s renewed covenant with him. Just as Paul does with regard to Genesis 15:6, so does James offer an authoritative, detailed, developed interpretation of the events recorded in Genesis 22: “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?” (2:21). The book of Hebrews adds: “By faith Abraham … offered up Isaac” (11:17).
Works are always present where true faith exists. James doesn’t deny that Abraham also had faith, which was part of his justification as well (2:18, 20, 22-24, 26). But God had already reiterated in Genesis itself that works were central to Abraham’s justification (and anyone’s) — without faith or belief being mentioned (Genesis 18:19):
I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice; so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.
It’s interesting that Genesis never mentions the “faith” of Abraham (at least not by using that word), even though he is considered the exemplar and “father” of monotheistic faith. But it does mention plenty of his works. But his faith is predominantly highlighted in the New Testament (Romans 4; Galatians 3; Hebrews 11; James 2), while not ignoring the fact that works also played a key role in Abraham’s justification. St. Paul — similarly to St. James — brings faith and works together when he refers twice to “the obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5; 16:26) and also writes:
Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love.
1 Thessalonians 1:3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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I didn’t find Christ in Catholicism . . . I lost the forest (the big picture of Christ) for a lot of unnecessary trees that were not scripturally grounded. Part of this . . . was due to some non-scriptural and even (in some cases) anti-scriptural doctrines that undermine the role and significance of Christ. I would love to come back to a purified Catholicism more in keeping with a biblical witness. The excessive adulation of Mary, which at times seems to me to come close to elevating her to the godhead (like a replacement consort for Yahweh in lieu of Asherah), is one such obstacle.
After I had made five in-depth responses to him, Dr. Gagnon replied (just for the record) in a thread on another Facebook page, on 9-17-24, underneath my links to all five: “like your other one, it is an amateurish piece.” This is his silly and arrogant way of dismissing my critiques in one fell swoop. I had informed him that I had over twenty “officially published books” [22, to be exact] and yet he replied that he didn’t know “whether” they were “self-published or with a vanity press or a reputable press.”
His words will be in blue. I use RSV for biblical citations.
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I’m responding to a post on his Facebook page, dated 8-20-24, devoted to massively criticizing alleged idolatrous utterances in the Catholic papal document, Ubi Primum (On the Immaculate Conception), from Blessed Pope Pius IX, issued on 2 February 1849. The post was “with” Jerry Walls: another vocal critic of Catholicism (whom I’ve critiqued many times), who misguidedly pontificates in the combox (8-20-24): “It’s certainly easy to see why lay RCs actually worship Mary and have no qualms at all in doing so.”
Before I start analyzing point-by-point, some preliminary general observations need to be made, in order for readers to properly understand the Catholic worldview, Catholic Mariology, and my own responses. Every worldview has basic premises and presuppositions, and when speaking to others in the same group, it’s not necessary — and would be foolish and tedious — to reiterate in every other sentence (in writing), or every two minutes (if speaking) what those are. So, for example, all educated Protestant discussions presuppose the self-defined “two pillars of the Reformation”: sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone as the rule of faith) and sola fide (faith alone as the fundamental soteriology or theology of salvation and justification). Many other propositions flow from these assumed, ingrained presuppositions. They need not be repeated over and over.
Catholics are no different. We have a highly developed devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, whereas Protestantism today has virtually none to speak of; only minimal lip service: mostly at Christmas, where they even habitually set up statues [gasp!] of Mary and St. Joseph, and temporarily forget that — according to their own theology — this is an outrageous practice. When it comes to Mary, Catholics will speak in language — developed over many centuries — that to Protestant ears unfamiliar with it will automatically sound “idolatrous” at worst and extremely “excessive” at best. Because Protestantism essentially ditched the doctrine of the communion of saints, it can’t comprehend any veneration — not worship! — at all towards anyone but God. And so any such devotion sounds horrifying and blasphemous to them.
I’ve defended such “flowery” Marian Catholic language and expressiveness many times. Fortunately, the person perhaps most excoriated in this regard, St. Alphonsus de Liguori, author of The Glories of Mary (which I defended 22 years ago), often does explain in his book, the presuppositions about our Lord Jesus that any informed Catholic always takes for granted when writing or talking (or thinking) about the Blessed Virgin Mary. But Protestants often seem unaware of these initial premises, so they mistakenly assume — in their lack of knowledge of Catholicism — that Marian devotion in its essence is somehow deliberately attempting to denigrate Jesus or set up an idol in competition with Him. Hence, the problem of communication and one group hugely misunderstanding another. The problem isn’t supposed idolatry, but the ignorance of the accuser. I wrote in my paper defending St. Alphonsus:
In order to properly understand the overall framework of the thoughts and ideas and doctrines expressed in this book, we must examine what St. Alphonsus has to say about the relationship of Mary to God the Father and God the Son, Jesus, since this is [Protestants’] primary and most impassioned charge: that she supposedly usurps and overthrows God’s prerogatives and unique position of supreme honor and glory, in Catholic theology, and attains some sort of divine or quasi-divine or semi-divine status (which would, indeed, be blasphemous and grossly heretical). Nothing could be further from the truth, and this is all expressed in the book itself.
Now here is what St. Alphonsus also wrote in this book so hated by Protestant critics of Catholic Mariology. All excerpts are taken from The Glories of Mary, by St. Alphonsus de Liguori — a Doctor of the Catholic Church –, edited by Rev. Eugene Grimm, Two Volumes in One, Fourth Reprint Revised, Brooklyn: Redemptorist Fathers, 1931:
[citing another in agreement] “His divine Son paid and offered the superabundant price of his precious blood in which alone is our salvation, life, and resurrection.” (“To the Reader,” p. 26)
Jesus our Redeemer, with an excess of mercy and love, came to restore this life by his own death on the cross . . . by reconciling us with God he made himself the Father of souls in the law of grace . . . (p. 47)
In us she beholds that which has been purchased at the price of the death of Jesus Christ . . . Mary well knows that her Son came into the world only to save us poor creatures . . . (pp. 60-61)
“Either pity me,” will I say with the devout St. Anselm, “O my Jesus, and forgive me, and do thou pity me, my Mother Mary, by interceding for me” . . . my Jesus, forgive me; My Mother Mary, help me. (p. 79)
We know that Jesus Christ is our only Saviour, and that he alone by his merits has obtained and obtains salvation for us . . . (p. 137)
The price of my salvation is already paid; my Saviour has already shed his blood, which suffices to save an infinity of worlds. This blood has only to be applied even to such a one as I am. And that is thy office, O Blessed Virgin. (pp. 140-141)
No one denies that Jesus Christ is our only mediator of justice, and that he by his merits has obtained our reconciliation with God . . . St. Bernard says, “Let us not imagine that we obscure the glory of the Son by the great praise we lavish on the mother; for the more she is honored, the greater is the glory of her Son.” (p. 153)
It is one thing to say that God cannot, and another that he will not, grant graces without the intercession of Mary. We willingly admit that God is the source of every good, and the absolute master of all graces; and that Mary is only a pure creature, who receives whatever she obtains as a pure favor from God . . . We most readily admit that Jesus Christ is the only Mediator of justice . . . and that by his merits he obtains us all graces and salvation; . . . (pp. 156-157)
St. Bonaventure: “As the moon, which stands between the sun and the earth, transmits to this latter whatever it receives from the former, so does Mary pour out upon us who are in this world the heavenly graces that she receives from the divine sun of justice” . . . it is our Lord, as in the head, from which the vital spirits (that is, divine help to obtain eternal salvation) flow into us, who are the members of the mystical body . . . (pp. 159-160)
. . . the mediation of Christ alone is absolutely necessary; . . . (p. 162)
Whoever places his confidence in a creature independently of God, he certainly is cursed by God; for God is the only source and dispenser of every good, and the creature without God is nothing, and can give nothing. But if our Lord has so disposed it, . . . (p. 174)
Jesus now in heaven sits at the right hand of the Father . . . He has supreme dominion over all, and also over Mary . . . (p. 179)
“Be comforted, O unfortunate soul, who hast lost thy God,” says St. Bernard; “thy Lord himself has provided thee with a mediator, and this is his Son Jesus, who can obtain for thee all that thou desirest. He has given thee Jesus for a mediator; and what is there that such a son cannot obtain from the Father?”
. . . If your fear arises from having offended God, know that Jesus has fastened all your sins on the cross with his own lacerated hands, and having satisfied divine justice for them by his death, he has already effaced them from your souls . . . ” . . . What do you fear, O ye of little faith? . . . But if by chance,” adds the saint, “thou fearest to have recourse to Jesus Christ because the majesty of God in him overawes thee — for though he became man, he did not cease to be God — and thou desirest another advocate with this divine mediator, go to Mary, for she will intercede for thee with the Son, who will most certainly hear her; and then he will intercede with the Father, who can deny nothing to such a son.” (pp. 200-201)
Does this sound like the Catholic Church places Mary “above God,” or that she “can manipulate God,” or “can get things for Catholics from God the Father that Jesus can’t”? Hardly. The truth of the matter is plain to see. Protestants believe — based on their own theological and hermeneutical presuppositions (themselves not above all critique) — that the notion of Mediatrix is thoroughly unbiblical, and in fact, untrue. But they can’t prove that the Catholic system teaches it in such a way that God is lowered and Mary raised to a goddess-like status. That simply isn’t true, and even in the very book which is “notorious” in anti-Catholic circles for the most allegedly “extreme” remarks about Mary, we find many statements such as the above.
Now I’ll examine what it is that Dr. Gagnon objects to as allegedly “idolatrous” in Ubi Primum.
To my Catholic friends: I ask you in all seriousness, you don’t find it a tad excessive, bordering on worship, to speak of Mary as:
*The one to whom we pledge a “devotion” so great that “nothing has ever been closer to our heart”
*
None of it is worship or adoration. None of it detracts from God. It’s veneration, which has a biblical basis. Also, there is much flowery language: familiar to just about anyone who has had a sweetheart or spouse. We’ll say “I adore you” or “I’ll do anything for you.” “You are my everything” etc. And so Catholics will say very strong things like that to or about Mary, the highest creature God ever made, and the Mother of God the Son. Martin Luther, in his Commentary on the Magnificat (March 1521) understood devotion to and praise of Mary:
She became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man’s understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child. She herself is unable to find a name for this work, it is too exceeding great; all she can do is break out in the fervent cry, are great things,” impossible to describe or define. Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God. No one can say anything greater of her or to her, though he had as many tongues as there are leaves on the trees, or grass in the fields, or stars in the sky, or sand by the sea. It needs to be pondered in the heart, what it means to be the Mother of God. . . . she was without sin . . . (Luther’s Works, Vol. 21, 326-327)
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*The one to whom “glory” should “redound” in “everything” we do
*
Peter states that our “faith . . . may redound to praise and glory and honor” (1 Pet 1:7). There are many passages in the Bible about human beings receiving glory, by God’s design. Jesus said, “The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them” (Jn 17:22). Paul wrote, “we all, . . . beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18) and “God . . . calls you into his own kingdom and glory” (1 Thess 2:12) and “he called you . . . so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess 2:14). Peter proclaimed: “the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Pet 4:14) and that God “called us to his own glory” (2 Pet 1:3). So Mary gets a lot of glory? Of course! Any of us can and should, and she was the Mother of God, after all. What better creature to receive lots of glory?
*
*The one to whom we should “always endeavor to do everything that would … promote her honor and encourage devotion to her”
*
The Bible either permits honor of persons or not. Of course it does. So it’s only a matter of degree. Protestants assume that this detracts from the honor of God, but it doesn’t. That doesn’t follow inexorably or logically. It’s just an old tired Protestant “either/or” false dichotomy. If it did, God wouldn’t have permitted us to honor other creatures. “Honor” appears 69 times in the NT in RSV. Many are referring to God, but many times it also refers to people. We’re to honor our parents (Mt 15:4) and prophets (Mk 6:4) and the humble (Lk 14:10).
*
God the Father honors those who follow His Son (Jn 12:26); “every one who does good” receives both “glory and honor” (Rom 2:10), other Christians are to be honored (Rom 12:10), and wives (1 Thess 4:4) and widows (1 Tim 5:3) and elders in the church (1 Tim 5:17) and “all men” (1 Pet 2:17) and the emperor (1 Pet 2:17). We honor Mary because God desires that (“all generations will call me blessed”: Lk 1:48; “Blessed are you among women”: Lk 1:42; “the mother of my Lord”: Lk 1:43). Even the angel Gabriel said “Hail Mary” to her (Lk 1:28).
*
*The one in whom we should have “great trust”
*
If God so ordains it, yes. Paul wrote that “servants of Christ” ought to be “trustworthy” (1 Cor 4:1-2). Paul described himself in the same way (1 Cor 7:25). We trust that Mary can aid us with her singularly powerful intercession, according to the very strong biblical motif of the prayers of the righteous availing much. The Mother of God, whom we believe to be without sin, certainly qualifies as one we can particularly trust.
*
*The one whose “merits” are a “resplendent glory … far exceeding all the choirs of angels”
*
Because she was sinless and immaculate, that’s true, and after all, Paul wrote, “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? . . . Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” (1 Cor 6:2-3). God “rewards” the faithful who “seek him” (Heb 11:6). Mary did this more than any other creature who ever lived. None of this is idolatry in the slightest. Your God is too small (to use an old book title, from J. B. Phillips). God isn’t threatened by His creatures receiving honor and merit and glory. It’s His will and design.
*
* The one whom God has “elevated to the very steps of his throne” (presumably along with Jesus at God’s right hand)
*
The steps to a throne are not the throne itself. Revelation 4:4 states: “Round the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders” (cf. 5:11; 11:16; 14:3). Revelation 5:6 even says that Jesus was “standing” near the Father’s throne, “among the elders” and 5:11 says that “thousands of thousands” of “angels” are also there (cf. 7:11, 15). Then we see “a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne” (Rev 7:9) and “harpers playing on their harps . . . before the throne” (Rev 14:2-3) and “the dead, great and small, . . . before the throne” (Rev 20:12).
*
Does that make all of them equal to him, too? Was St. John trying to convey idolatry? I don’t think so. But if someone wants to insist that everyone who gets close to God’s throne is equal to God, or that it is idolatry to take any note of them, then the 24 elders and all the rest must be equal to God, in that tunnel vision mentality, since they’re right there with Jesus. That’s absurd; therefore, the whole notion is, by reductio ad absurdum. We have hundreds of thousands of creatures before God’s throne, right in the Bible, but Mary somehow can’t be? It’s ludicrous and most unbiblical.
*
*The one whose “foot has crushed the head of Satan” (I thought that was Jesus’ job)
*
This probably refers to Genesis 3:15, which was mistakenly translated as “she” by a later copyist of the Vulgate, and thus was thought to refer to Mary, the “second Eve” (e.g., by Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory the Great, and others). Dom Bernard Orchard’s Catholic Commentary of 1953 noted that St. Jerome cited the passage in another work with the masculine pronoun, thus showing that the error was from a later copyist, not from him. Moreover, many manuscripts of the Vulgate have ipse rather than ipsa (feminine). Barnes’ Notes on the Bibleconcurs with this judgment:
The Vulgate also, in what was probably the genuine reading, “ipse” (he himself) points to the same meaning. The reading “ipsa” (she herself) is inconsistent with the gender of the Hebrew verb, and with that of the corresponding pronoun in the second clause (his), and is therefore clearly an error of the transcriber.
The Catholic Church doesn’t claim that every pope must be a first-rate exegete or translator of the Bible. Protestants acknowledge certain Bible passages that are of questionable authenticity, too. These things happen. But — that said — one can also say that Mary made this crushing possible by bearing the Messiah and Savior of the world. That was her contribution to the way being made for mankind to be saved. She was a key participant in God’s plan for salvation.
*
*The sole mediator “set up between Christ and His Church” (I thought there was just one mediator between God and humans)
*
The role of Mediatrix is secondary and non-essential. We believe that this was the arrangement that God set up. There is much indication of secondary conduits of grace in the Bible. God clearly uses many human beings as mediators. We pray for each other. Moses interceded and “atoned” for the Jews in the wilderness, and God decided not to destroy them (Ex 32:30). If Moses could successfully intercede on behalf of an entire sinful and disobedient group, and if Abraham’s prayer could spare his nephew Lot (and potentially Sodom and Gomorrah also, if enough righteous men had been found there: Genesis 18:20-32), why is it so remarkable that God would choose to involve Mary in intercession and distribution of graces to an entire sinful and disobedient group (mankind)?
*
If one thing can occur, so can the other (so one might make a biblical argument from analogy). Paul states that he can help “save” people (1 Cor 9:22) and refers to his “stewardship of God’s grace” (Eph 3:2; cf. 2 Cor 4:15). Peter says that we can all do that for each other (1 Pet 4:10). Paul informs Timothy that he can “save” both himself and his “hearers” (1 Tim 4:16; cf. 1 Cor 7:16; James 5:20; 1 Pet 3:1), and teaches that God uses preaching and spouses to save people (1 Cor 1:21; 7:16; cf. 1 Pet 3:1). James says that we can help convert others (Jas 5:19-20).
*
God can do whatever He wants! It is written in the Psalms and prophets that God could raise up a rock or a tree to sing His praises, if stubborn men refuse to do so. God used a donkey (Balaam’s ass) to speak and express His will once. He appeared in a burning bush and in a cloud. He chose to come to earth as a baby! Why should anything He does or chooses to do surprise us, or make us wonder in befuddlement? The ending of Job makes this clear enough. His thoughts are as far above ours as the stars are above the earth (Isaiah 55:8-9). None of this Catholic belief is in conflict with biblical teaching; though it’s not explicitly taught. It’s in harmony with what we know.
*
*The one who “always has delivered the Christian people from their greatest calamities and … all their enemies, ever rescuing them”
*
*The one who is “the foundation of all our confidence”
*
These go back to the principle of the righteous person’s prayers having great power. If indeed Mary was the most holy person, her prayers would have the most power, based on what James taught, just as Moses, Abraham, Samuel, Daniel, and other holy people bailed out the ancient Israelites over and over again.
*
*The one who, “through her efficacious intercession with God,” delivers “her children” even from “the punishments of God’s anger”
*
Oh, you mean like Moses did?:
Numbers 11:1-2 And the people complained in the hearing of the LORD about their misfortunes; and when the LORD heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the LORD burned among them, and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. [2] Then the people cried to Moses; and Moses prayed to the LORD, and the fire abated.
*
Numbers 14:17-20 And now, I pray thee, let the power of the LORD be great as thou hast promised, saying, [18] `The LORD is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.’ [19] Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray thee, according to the greatness of thy steadfast love, and according as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.” [20] Then the LORD said, “I have pardoned, according to your word;
If Moses already did it, why is it unthinkable that Mary could do the same?
*
*The one to whom “God has committed the treasury of all good things”
*
God can do that; no problem. Do Protestants wish to argue that God couldn’t possibly do it? He delegates tasks to human beings all the time. Nothing in this (as with everything else here) is contrary to the teachings of Scripture. It’s not proven from Scripture, either, but it’s not contradictory to it, and so can’t be ruled out as a possibility.
*
*The one through whom is “obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation … everything”
*
As the pope explained in the next sentence: “For this is His will, that we obtain everything through [not, by, or from] Mary.” I can think of analogies. God seemed to do virtually everything through Moses when he was around, and through Peter, when he led the early Church, and Paul when he was at the forefront of evangelism to the Gentiles. If God chooses to use Mary to extend His grace and salvation, who are we to object? So critics say it’s not spelled out in the Bible? Neither are sola Scriptura or sola fide (and both are contradicted numerous times). The New Testament canon is not in the Bible anywhere, yet it’s believed. So we don’t buy this line that everything Protestants believe is explicit in the Bible. That has never been true.
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To which I say: What’s left for Jesus in terms of adoration, devotion, and functions?
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Everything that was there all along, as St. Alphonsus constantly reiterated: as documented above. Protestants simply can’t see past their relentless false dichotomies. Catholics have much more faith, and reason, and we worship a bigger God, Who can and does use His creatures in extraordinary ways.
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I thought our greatest devotion should be to Jesus.
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Of course. That’s why St. Alphonsus wrote about Jesus’ “precious blood in which alone is our salvation, life, and resurrection” and that “Jesus our Redeemer” was the one Who “came into the world only to save us poor creatures” and that “Jesus Christ is our only Saviour, and that he alone by his merits has obtained and obtains salvation for us” and that Jesus’ blood “suffices to save an infinity of worlds” and that “No one denies that Jesus Christ is our only mediator of justice, and that he by his merits has obtained our reconciliation with God” and that “God is the source of every good, and the absolute master of all graces; and that Mary is only a pure creature, who receives whatever she obtains as a pure favor from God” and that “He has supreme dominion over all, and also over Mary.”
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And this is the book usually considered the most outrageously “idolatrous.” It has a Christology identical to that of Protestantism. Blessed Pope Pius IX was speaking in a way similar to St. Alphonsus. I have defended other commonly trashed Marian devotees and devotions as well:
That he is the object of our great trust. That it is his glory that we should most seek. That he is the foundation of our every confidence. That it is he who has rescued us from all our troubles and punishments. That he was the one who crushed Satan’s head. That he was the sole mediator between God and his church. That in him is found the treasury of all good things. That it is his efficacious intercession at God’s right hand that achieves our deliverance. That it is through him that we have obtained salvation.
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Indeed: as the quotes I just gave and many more assert.
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You really don’t find this excessive, a swallowing up of everything that the NT witness attributes to Jesus?
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Not at all, if it is actually understood. That’s the key. Not a single prerogative of Jesus is removed by veneration of Mary and God’s use of her to distribute His self-originated grace, by His plan. We already know from the Bible that God does many amazing things with human beings, that might seem at first glance to be idolatrous also, or to blur the line between man and God. St. Paul implies that believers even while on the earth can achieve “the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Col 1:9) and can obtain “all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, of Christ” (Col 1:10).
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And they “shall be like” Jesus (1 Jn 3:2) and fully “united to the Lord” and “one spirit with him” (1 Cor 6:17). Saints in heaven will be “filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph 3:19) and “the fulness of Christ” (Eph 4:13) and will be fully “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4) and totally free of and from sin (Rev 19:8; 21:8, 27; 22:14-15).
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We’re “equal to” angels after death, according to Jesus (Lk 20:36), and “like angels” (Mt 22:30; Mk 12:25). Moreover, there is the whole theology of God indwelling us. We’re described as “God’s temple” (1 Cor 3:16-17; 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:22). God “will live in” us (2 Cor 6:16). He’s “in” us (1 Jn 3:24; 4:4). God “abides in” us (1 Jn 3:24; 4:12-13, 15-16). Jesus abides in us (Jn 6:56; 15:4), and He is “in” us (Jn 14:20; 17:23; Rom 8:10; Col 1:27). He dwells in our “hearts” (Eph 3:17). The Holy Spirit is “within” us (Ezek 37:14). He’s “with” us (Jn 14:16), “dwells” “in” or “with” us (Jn 14:17; Rom 8:9, 11; 1 Cor 3:16), and is in our “hearts” (2 Cor 1:22; 3:3; Gal 4:6). As Jesus noted, the Law even described human beings as “gods” (Jn 10:33-36).
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If all that can occur and is explicitly laid out in Holy Scripture, and doesn’t interfere with God’s utter transcendence, then I submit that our Marian doctrines — consistent with all of the realities above — do nothing at all to undermine God, either. It’s only erroneously thought that they do because almost all of the Protestants who protest the loudest don’t make any effort to try to understand these many factors that I have addressed, within the overall context of Catholic theology.
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And such loud critics could hardly comprehend these things even if (and it’s a huge “if”!) they were willing to do so: having discarded not only virtually all of Mariology, but also the entire communion of saints over 500 years ago now, so that they think very differently from even the first Protestant leaders. Martin Luther, for example, believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary; even her virginity in partu (a physical virgin during Jesus’ birth], used the phrase, “Mother of God” and accepted some form of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption his entire life: so Lutheran scholars inform us. How scandalously “Catholic” of him!
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I welcome any corrections from my FB Catholic friends if I am misreading these encyclicals . . .
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Glad to provide that service!
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I think I may have been a little naive about the possibility of having differing opinions about Mariology from the standpoint of official Catholic teaching.
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This goes to show that Dr. Gagnon is inadequately acquainted and informed, not only with regard to Catholic Mariology, but also the practice of issuing anathemas. In a recent paper in reply to Reformed Baptist Gavin Ortlund, I made an extended argument showing that Protestants do essentially the same thing. For example, Martin Luther wrote in July 1522:
I now let you know that from now on I shall no longer do you the honor of allowing you – or even an angel from heaven – to judge my teaching or to examine it. . . . I shall not have it judged by any man, not even by any angel. For since I am certain of it, I shall be your judge and even the angels’ judge through this teaching (as St. Paul says [I Cor. 6:3 ]) so that whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved – for it is God’s and not mine. Therefore, my judgment is also not mine but God’s. (Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops Falsely So-Called, in Luther’s Works, Vol. 39; citation from pp. 248-249, my italics; see much more along these lines from Luther).
I also observed:
Luther casually assumed that Protestant opponents of his like Zwingli, who denied the Real Presence in the Eucharist, were likely damned as a result. Luther and Calvin and Melanchthon approved of drowning Anabaptists as heretics and seditious persons because they believed in adult baptism. Thus they would have approved of Gavin Ortlund and James White (and myself, earlier in life) being executed. The early Protestants were extremely intolerant of each other, with many mutual anathemas exchanged. I could go on at great length about this, but I think my point of comparison and double standards is sufficiently established. If one wants to go after a specific aspect of Catholicism that also occurs in Protestantism, then the criticism ought to be fair and across the board, not cynically selective and one-sided, as if only Catholics ever do this.
Dr. Gagnon made more observations in the lively combox:
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This is the kind of adulation that borders on, if not actually already enters into, worship. Worship consists of giving supreme honor to another. All of these statements sure sound like giving supreme honor to Mary, the kind of honor that in the throne room of God in the Book of Revelation is reserved for God and the Lamb of God. Mary is not even mentioned in those throne room scenes, to say nothing of being the object of devotion and praise.
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The language of complete devotion and glory, the functions, and privileges most certainly encroaches on the realm of Christ. It is a Mary cult, it seems to me. You should go all the way and make her the co-redemptrix and mediatrix of graces, for that is where this all leads.
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Yes, we do do that. I have defended it many times from the Bible and Church history:
Mary Mediatrix and the Church Fathers (+ Documentation That James White Accepts the Scholarship of the Protestant Church Historians I Cite [J. N. D. Kelly and Philip Schaff] ) [9-7-05]
This goes well beyond your rationalizing it away. The words in this papal encyclical represent a Mary Cult pure and simple. This is not an extemporaneous moment of getting carried away. It should be offensive to anyone who embraces the singular exaltation of Christ in the NT. This was not some kid off the street using this language. It was the Pope in an encyclical preparatory to another encyclical declaring loss of salvation for anyone who did not embrace the dogma of the Immaculate Reception. That so many of my Catholic FB friends do not denounce it is concerning. This is not about “really loving Jesus’ mama.” It is about arrogating to her devotion, honor, glory, privileges, and functions that in the NT witness are reserved exclusively for Jesus.
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Mary is perhaps the greatest of all female disciples in being honored to bear the Son of God and be the mother of the Messiah. But her role beyond that is virtually non-existent in the rest of the NT canon. She certainly does not exercise any of the prerogatives of the Messiah, or intercession, or cultic devotion. It is not vitriol toward Mary but rightly biblically based critique of the misappropriation of Mary as an object of devotion that rivals or surpasses Christ (read the papal encyclical above regarding what is said about Mary); and all the made-up doctrine that has no basis in first-century Christianity and the Scriptures that is then used to exclude others from the Kingdom who don’t share these unbiblical views of Mary.
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There is no way that Jesus or the apostles in the NT would have supported such a Mary cult. They certainly could have promoted it, if they had wished to do so.
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Pretty much all of it is over the top. But at least I found one reasonable Catholic who thinks “some of this is over the top.”
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Photo credit: The Ghent Altarpiece: Virgin Mary (detail; bet. 1426-1429), by Jan van Eyck (c. 1390-1441) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Summary: Protestant NT scholar Robert Gagnon made the accusation that Blessed Pope Pius IX engaged in massive idolatry (Mariolatry) in his 1849 decree, Ubi Primum. I defend it.
Its “Late” Development / Two 4th Century Witnesses / Protestant Commentators on Revelation 12 / Biblical Arguments
Photo credit: Madonna in Glory (c. 1670), by Carlo Dolci (1616-1686) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Dr. Gavin Ortlund is a Reformed Baptist author, speaker, pastor, scholar, and apologist for the Christian faith. He has a Ph.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary in historical theology, and an M.Div from Covenant Theological Seminary. Gavin is the author of seven books as well as numerous academic and popular articles. For a list of publications, see his CV. He runs the very popular YouTube channel Truth Unites, which seeks to provide an “irenic” voice on theology, apologetics, and the Christian life. See also his website, Truth Unites and his blog.
In my opinion, he is currently the best and most influential popular-level Protestant apologist (see my high praise), who (especially) interacts with and offers thoughtful critiques of Catholic positions, from a refreshing ecumenical (not anti-Catholic), but nevertheless solidly Protestant perspective. That’s what I want to interact with, so I have issued many replies to Gavin and will continue to do so. I use RSV for all Bible passages unless otherwise specified.
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This is my 31st reply to his material. He has made just one lengthy and substantial reply to my critiques thus far. Why is that? His own explanation is simply lack of time. He wrote on my Facebook page on 17 April 2024: “Dave, thanks for engaging my stuff. People often ask to dialogue or engage and then are disappointed when I decline. Unfortunately I have to say no to most things. . . . if you are expecting regular responses, I’m afraid that is not realistic right now.” Again, on 23 August 2024 he commented on my Facebook page: “thanks for your engagement here. [I’m] grateful you give my work so much attention, and I only apologize [that] I’m not able to respond more. I think in the past I’ve explained a little bit about why.”
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All of my replies to Gavin are collected on the top of my Calvinism & General Protestantism web page in the section, “Replies to Reformed Baptist Gavin Ortlund.” Gavin’s words will be in blue.
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This is my response to Gavin’s video, “Why Mary’s Assumption Is Indefensible” (8-17-23), which at the time of this writing has garnered 59,182 views and 3,069 comments. I think it deserves a solid reply from a Catholic apologist. Glad to do it!
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1:12 I think Trent [Horn] is a good apologist and I enjoy engaging his work. . . . I’m happy to dialogue with him on this too if he wants
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He is a good apologist. I hope that one day Gavin will “enjoy engaging”my work as well. I don’t think it’s that bad, if I do say so myself. At the very least, I think I offer significant food for thought, if nothing else, and agree or disagree. As the old saying goes, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”
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1:18 now I’ve done other videos on this topic, but this one will be the most updated the most thorough. I put a lot of work into it. Some of this information I’m not aware is out there available elsewhere so I hope this will really be helpful . . . I think this will be one of my more important videos
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That’s what I like to interact with: his best shot at this topic.
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1:54 I know that hearing your beliefs criticized can be uncomfortable and even painful I know what that’s like
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Indeed. Maybe I’m weird, but I find it fun because it’s challenging, thought-provoking, and keeps us honest. As an apologist, it almost always stimulates new arguments in me, if I don’t concede the point (as I have many times). Dialogue helps us respect and understand each other a lot better, even if no one is dissuaded from their position, and that’s a good thing.
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2:19 this is not a game; this is not just an intellectual exercise, and when we treat it like that it becomes ugly and cruel and it can destroy people. We’ve all seen people destroyed by the ugliness of apologetics and how that can go
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Very true. I agree 100%. But I am quick to add that we also see millions of souls destroyed because they didn’t care about apologetics at all, or about how to integrate faith and reason, or about knowing why they believe what they say they already believe or want to believe or better understand, as the case may be. We must do apologetics with gentleness and love (1 Pet 3:15) or it’s worthless. Gavin is an excellent role model in that respect, and I always strive to do the same. I’m sure I don’t always succeed, but it’s my constant goal and vision, and has been since I began serious apologetics in 1981.
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2:37 you should never cause any more pain than is necessary. Some pain and discomfort is inevitable when two different ideologies clash. It’s uncomfortable, it’s awkward, it’s hard, it’s frustrating at times, it’s jarring. So that’s just inevitable to some extent.
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Indeed it is. It can also be fun and stimulating if we maintain an open mind and the proper humility. But in my experience, unfortunately most people don’t like to be disagreed with or challenged in any way, and very few have any interest in true dialogue.
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4:04 I do I feel that love for these other traditions — for the people in them — but we should not hold back from contending for truth and seeking the truth with all of our heart
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Amen; I do, too, and I agree. Seek the truth. My old Protestant campus ministry was called True Truth Ministries: from a phrase in Francis Schaeffer, whom Gavin mentioned and cited. I have immense respect for Protestants (many dear friends) and Protestantism, as I have stated and written about many times. And I have honest disagreements with them. The two are not mutually exclusive at all. In this seeking of truth, folks will continue to honestly disagree in good faith, and we mustn’t demonize them when they do.
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4:17 I think the evidence against the Assumption of Mary is overwhelming. It gives every indication of being a post-apostolic accretion that seems to originate in heterodox groups and only slowly worms its way into the doctrine and piety and liturgy of the church over the course of many centuries, as we shall see. And yet it has been made by several churches into an obligatory irreformable part of the Christian faith
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We say in reply that it can be grounded in the Bible — not explicitly proven, but shown to be harmonious with it, and even indicated in some ways. Protestants always seem to demand explicit proof of any doctrine, yet there is none at all for the canon of New Testament Scripture, and even historically it was only known in its complete form no earlier than 367 (in St. Athanasius). There is no explicit proof for sola Scriptura, as some Protestants are willing to admit (notably, recently, Gavin’s friend, the Lutheran apologist Jordan Cooper). It must be deduced from Scripture, just as the Assumption is. Lastly, Scripture never states that all doctrines must be explicitly proven from the Bible, and it does indicate an authoritative, doctrine-affirming Church and tradition.
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I went through this business of doctrines being “an obligatory irreformable part of the Christian faith” in my last article: a reply to Gavin’s video on Mary’s Immaculate Conception, and noted several instances of Protestants making these demands, just as Catholics do (reading people out of Christianity if they disagree). So let’s have no more double standards. It gets very wearisome. I will point them out as I run across them, every time. That doesn’t help me be more popular or loved by one and all (Jesus said we inevitably wouldn’t be, anyway, if we truly follow Him), but it does keep me honest and truthful.
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6:27 I’ve said this several times: it represents an area where our traditions (Protestant and Roman Catholic) are drifting further apart, and the same is true for the Immaculate Conception.
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That’s largely true, but I would note in an ecumenical way that even Martin Luther accepted the truthfulness of the Immaculate Conception earlier in his life (up till at least 1527) — many Lutheran and other non-Catholic scholars verify this — and accepted an only slightly modified view of it for the rest of his life. I recently also wrote about Luther’s seeming lifelong personal acceptance of Mary’s Assumption. If he could do those things as the founder of Protestantism, perhaps there is more common ground, even with regard to these vexed issues, than either side usually realizes.
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7:54 if something is declared as an infallible dogma, then that sets the stakes pretty high and it’s totally appropriate to give it some critical reflection
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Absolutely, Bring it on. And we will defend Catholic dogmas (and return the favor and criticize what we believe to be false and unbiblical Protestant doctrines). Unfortunately, after we apologists and theologians do that, the dialogue usually ends and our critics disappear or discover that they have many more important things to do instead. To me, that’s when serious, constructive should begin: after both sides go “one round.” The second round and further rounds are what are most interesting and fun. But sadly, very very few are ever willing to pursue anything that far.
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8:18 anathemas are not wrong in principle; anathemas are biblical (Galatians 1 or 1 Corinthians 16:22).
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I made this point in my last article, too. Glad to see that Gavin agrees and notes this. I don’t see how he or any Christians who believes in biblical inspiration could disagree. Paul is very clear about it.
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9:54 it appears to be something close to a scholarly consensus that the Assumption of Mary only comes into the church in the late 5th Century between 450 and 500.
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In terms of being widespread or mentioned very much, I agree. And why was that? I would say that the slow development of Mariology was no different than many other doctrines where both sides agree (such as the creed and the canon and trinitarianism), per St. John Henry Newman’s historical analysis:
It is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is violated. . . . If the Imperial Power checked the development of Councils, it availed also for keeping back the power of the Papacy. The Creed, the Canon, in like manner, both remained undefined. The Creed, the Canon, the Papacy, Ecumenical Councils, all began to form, as soon as the Empire relaxed its tyrannous oppression of the Church. (Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1845; revised 1878; Part I: ch. 4, sec. 3)
Newman in this same classic work gave the analogous example of original sin (accepted by Protestants and Catholics alike) as another slow-developing doctrine:
(2.) Original Sin
I have already remarked upon the historical fact, that the recognition of Original Sin, considered as the consequence of Adam’s fall, was, both as regards general acceptance and accurate understanding, a gradual process, not completed till the time of Augustine and Pelagius. St. Chrysostom lived close up to that date, but there are passages in his works, often quoted, which we should not expect to find worded as they stand, if they had been written fifty years later. It is commonly, and reasonably, said in explanation, that the fatalism, so prevalent in various shapes pagan and heretical, in the first centuries, was an obstacle to an accurate apprehension of the consequences of the fall, as the presence of the existing {127} idolatry was to the use of images. If this be so, we have here an instance of a doctrine held back for a time by circumstances, yet in the event forcing its way into its normal shape, and at length authoritatively fixed in it, that is, of a doctrine held implicitly, then asserting itself, and at length fully developed. (Ibid., Part I: ch. 4, sec. 1, 2)
Then he gave his opinion as to why Marian doctrines developed relatively late:
I have said that there was in the first ages no public and ecclesiastical recognition of the place which St. Mary holds in the Economy of grace; this was reserved for the fifth century, as the definition of our Lord’s proper Divinity had been the work of the fourth. There was a controversy contemporary with those already mentioned, I mean the Nestorian, which brought out the complement of the development, to which they had been subservient; and which, if I may so speak, supplied the subject of that august proposition of which Arianism had provided the predicate. In order to do honour to Christ, in order to defend the true doctrine of the Incarnation, in order to secure a right faith in the manhood of the Eternal Son, the Council of Ephesus determined the Blessed Virgin to be the Mother of God. Thus all heresies of that day, though opposite to each other, tended in a most wonderful way to her exaltation; and the School of Antioch, the fountain of primitive rationalism, led the Church to determine first the conceivable greatness of a creature, and then the incommunicable dignity of the Blessed Virgin. (Ibid., Part I: ch. 4, sec. 2, 10)
The title of theotokos, or “Mother of God,” — which Gavin agrees with and doesn’t make an issue of — was declared in 431 at the Council of Ephesus. So that was only 19 years before he says the doctrine of the Assumption started coming more into focus. The Two Natures of Christ, of course, were formulated also at this time, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
11:37 I reference scholars who say that, to invite people to see, because I don’t think people understand how big of a problem this dogma is. I don’t think they get how serious the problems are so I’m quoting these scholars to try to encourage people to look at what they’re willing to concede
It’s no more of a “problem” than are all the other doctrines (where we agree) — like the canon, the creed, original sin, trinitarianism, Two Natures of Christ, the personhood and Deity of the Holy Spirit, the dogma of theotokos –, that started rapidly developing in roughly the same time frame. It’s a non-issue, as Newman amply and ably explained.
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13:34 Epiphanius [c. 310–320 – 403] says nothing about a bodily assumption to heaven. That has to be read into the text.
Not at all. I just wrote about this topic about five weeks ago on my Facebook page. He wrote:
And if I should say anything more in her praise, [she is] like Elijah, who was virgin from his mother’s womb, always remained so, and was taken up and has not seen death.” (Panarion, c. 378; “Against Collyridians”: from section 79 of The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis Books II and III. De Fide, second revised version, translated by Frank Williams, Boston: Brill, 2013, p. 641; my italics)
“Taken up” pretty obviously refers to her Assumption. And this was written about 72 years before Gavin claimed “the Assumption of Mary. . . comes into the church” (i.e., after 450). Even the canon of the New Testament had not yet been defined at that time. St. Athanasius was the first to name all 27 books in one place only about eleven years earlier. So, the Assumption is a “late doctrine”? Yes, provided we also say the same about many other far less controversial doctrines. But here, Gavin was unaware that Epiphanius expressly asserted Mary’s Assumption. Tim Staples (whose book on Mary Gavin mentioned), observed:
St. Epiphanius clearly indicates his personal agreement with the idea that Mary was assumed into heaven without ever having died. He will elsewhere clarify the fact that he is not certain, and no one is, at least not definitively so, about whether or not she died. But he never says the same about the Assumption itself. That did not seem to be in doubt. By comparing her to Elijah he indicates that she was taken up bodily just as the Church continues to teach 1,600 years later.
Looks pretty straightforward to me. I don’t know why Gavin has such a hard time seeing that he affirmed the Assumption of Mary. “Taken up” can only mean so many things, and if it is directly compared to Elijah, it’s definitely an Assumption up into heaven. Elijah did so in his body as well. He comes back to the topic later in his video, so we’ll see what he says (I am answering as I read the transcript, per my usual custom).
* Tim Staples brings up another fourth-century reference:
According to Fr. [Michael] O’Carroll (in his [2000] book, Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 388), we now have what some believe to be a fourth-century homily on the prophet Simeon and the Blessed Virgin Mary by Timothy, a priest of Jerusalem, which asserts Mary is “immortal to the present time through him who had his abode in her and who assumed and raised her above the higher regions.”
Gavin then claims (15:39) that Isidore of Seville (c. 560 –636) is the next patristic witness to the Assumption. He overlooked Gregory of Tours, who wrote a little earlier:
The Apostles took up her body on a bier and placed it in a tomb; and they guarded it, expecting the Lord to come. And behold, again the Lord stood by them; and the holy body having been received, He commanded that it be taken in a cloud into paradise: where now, rejoined to the soul, [Mary] rejoices with the Lord’s chosen ones . . . (Eight Books of Miracles, 1:4; between 575-593; see others from after that time)
21:06 the Assumption gets traction within the church in the late 5th century. The book of Mary’s Repose is a Gnostic legend. This is the first text where you ever have a bodily assumption[of] Mary.
I have shown that this occurred about a hundred years earlier with Epiphanius and Timothy, a priest of Jerusalem (orthodox sources: not heretics).
Gavin gets back to Epiphanius (41:13) and attempts to make contextual arguments against his assertion that she was bodily assumed. I just don’t see it. Maybe I’m dense (who knows?). Readers may consult the text, that I link to (go to p. 641 and read all the context you like). I don’t see how the portion I cited doesn’t mean her Assumption.
44:35 the woman in Revelation 12 is not Mary
I have contended that the text has a dual application: to Mary and to the Church; most obviously referring to Mary in verse 5: “she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne”. It’s pretty difficult not to apply that to Mary, since her Son is so obviously the Messiah, Jesus. See, for example:
Revelation 19:11-16 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. [12] His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed which no one knows but himself. [13] He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. [14] And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses. [15] From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. [16] On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, King of kings and Lord of lords. (cf. Ps 2:7-9)
So who is Jesus’ mother? Obviously, Mary of Nazareth. It can’t be, figuratively the Church, because Jesus established the Church (Matthew 16). It didn’t give birth to Him. The Bible never uses a terminology of Jesus being a “child” (Rev 12:5) of the Church. He is the child of God the Father (His Divine Nature) and of Mary (as a person with both a Divine and human nature). The Church is “of Christ”; Christ is not “of the Church”; let alone its “child.” Those categories are biblically ludicrous and indeed almost blasphemous. Only Jesus is connected directly with that, because He is God. Revelation 7:17 refers to “the Lamb in the midst of the throne.” Revelation 21: 1 and 3 reference “the throne of God and of the Lamb.” Compare Matthew 19:28; 25:31; Hebrews 1:8.
But Gavin says no; so how would he overcome this evidence? St. Cardinal Newman wrote:
What I would maintain is this, that the Holy Apostle would not have spoken of the Church under this particular image, unless there had existed a blessed Virgin Mary, who was exalted on high and the object of veneration to all the faithful. No one doubts that the “man-child” spoken of is an allusion to our Lord; why then is not “the Woman” an allusion to his mother? (“Letter to Pusey,” in Difficulties of Anglicans, Vol. 2, 1875)
And if it is Mary in this passage (as well as the Church), then we have an indication of both her veneration and glorification in heaven, akin to the Assumption. Many classic Protestant commentators agree regarding Revelation 12:5, too. Baptist A. T. Robertson (Word Pictures in the New Testament – six volumes), says of Rev. 12:5: “There is here, of course, direct reference to the birth of Jesus from Mary”. Eerdmans Bible Commentary likewise states: “the ‘catching up’ is sufficiently similar to the victorious ascension of Jesus to make plain its real meaning in this context.” Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary states: “rod of iron . . . ch. 2:27; Psalm 2:9, which passages prove the Lord Jesus to be meant. Any interpretation which ignores this must be wrong.” It also notes the reference to the ascension.
Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers states: “There can be no doubt that this man child is Christ. The combination of features is too distinct to admit of doubt, it is the one who will feed His flock like a shepherd (Isaiah 40:12), who is to have, not His own people, but all nations as His inheritance (Psalm 2:7-9), and whose rule over them is to be supreme and irresistible.”
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Meyer’s NT Commentary: “These words taken from Psalm 2:9 (LXX.), which are referred also to Christ in Revelation 19:15, make it indubitable that the child born of the woman is the Messiah; but the designation of Christ by these words of the Messianic Psalm is in this passage the most appropriate and significant, since the fact is made prominent that this child just born is the one who with irresistible power will visit in judgment the antichristian heathen.”
Pulpit Commentary: “This reference and Psalm 2:9 leave no doubt as to the identification of the man child. It is Christ who is intended. The same expression is used of him in Revelation 19, where he is definitely called the “Word of God.” And her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. The sentence seems plainly to refer to the ascension of Christ and his subsequent abiding in heaven, from whence he rules all nations.”
Coffman’s Commentaries on the Bible: “These two clauses open and close this verse; and the whole biography of the earthy life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of the Son of God is here compressed into nineteen words! The critics have really had a fit about this. Some have even denied that the birth of Christ is mentioned here. . . . Despite such views, the pregnant woman, the travailing in birth, and the delivery of a man child in this passage can mean nothing else except the birth of Christ; and the compression of Jesus’ whole biography into such a short space is perfectly in harmony with what the author did by presenting the entire Old Testament history in a single verse (Revelation 12:4). To suppose that the birth is not included here would make the passage mean that the woman brought forth his death and resurrection; because the emphatic statements of her pregnancy and her being delivered clearly makes her the achiever of whatever happened in Revelation 12:5. This therefore has to be a reference to Jesus’ physical birth in Bethlehem.”
47:21 even if Revelation 12 was about Mary it simply says nothing about a bodily assumption
We’re not claiming that it is an explicit description of the Assumption; only that it is consistent with an assumed Mary exalted in terms of veneration, in heaven. Gavin flat-out denied that Mary was referred to, and I submit that that is impossible to do in light of verse 5.
47:28 the woman is seen in heaven in verse 1 prior to all of the events of the chapter; prior to the birth of the Messiah in verse 5 prior to her flight . . .
Verse 2 states: “she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth.” This is referring back to the woman in verse 1: “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” Then verse 5 clearly is talking about the same person: “she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne.” Therefore, Mary is the woman of Revelation 12, at least in these passages (most relevant to our topic). Other parts apply to the Church.
47:45 all of that is subsequent to the initial vision of her in heaven, so the idea that Mary was bodily assumed to Heaven at the end of her life after these events happened is completely foreign to the passage
As I just showed, the person in verses 1, 2, and 5 must be the same person, if words and grammar and logic mean anything at all.
As Gavin mostly did in his video on the Immaculate Conception (which I also critiqued), he completely ignored Catholic biblical argumentation regarding the Assumption. Now, maybe he intended for this to simply address historical questions. That’s fine. But his title was, “Why Mary’s Assumption Is Indefensible,” and it’s certainly defensible from the Bible. I will present the main lines of that argument now, in conclusion, since Gavin ignored it.
Christians already believed in extraordinary non-death departures from this life in the case of Enoch (Heb 11:5; cf. Gen 5:24), Elijah (2 Ki 2:1,11), and many during the Second Coming (1 Thess 4:15-17), and also similar dramatic “going-up-to-heaven” events after having died, in the case of the two witnesses of Revelation (11:7-12) and our Lord Jesus Himself. And we have St. Paul reporting that he went up to heaven before he died (2 Cor 12:1-4): possibly in his body; possibly not (12:3), and St. John also seems to be in heaven witnessing many things (the entire book of Revelation). That’s seven biblical analogies to Mary’s Assumption, to one degree or another!
The Church hasn’t declared whether Mary died or not. All of these events occur by virtue of the power of God, not the intrinsic ability of the persons. Jesus ascended by His own power, but the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed by the power of her Son Jesus’ victory over death. Hers was an “immediate resurrection.” One day all who are saved will be bodily resurrected. Mary was the first after the Resurrection: quite appropriately (and even, I submit, “expected”), since she was Jesus’ own Mother.
Catholics believe that all Catholic and Christian doctrines must be in harmony with Scripture; must not contradict it; also, that some doctrines are able to be supported only indirectly, implicitly, or by deduction from other related Bible passages. All Catholic doctrines have scriptural support in some sense (this is my main specialty as an apologist). We also believe in Sacred Tradition: itself always in harmony with Scripture. Sometimes (as in the present case), a doctrine is “stronger” in Tradition.
I agree that there is no direct “proof” of Mary’s Assumption in Scripture. But there is strong deductive and analogical evidence (the analogous examples of “going directly up to heaven” events, shown above). The deductive argument has to do with the “consequences” of Mary’s Immaculate Conception: a doctrine more directly indicated in Scripture (e.g., Lk 1:28). Bodily death and decay are the result of sin and the fall of man (Gen 3:16-19; Ps 16:10). An absence of actual and original sin would allow for instant bodily resurrection.
It’s as if Mary goes back to before the fall (for this reason the Church fathers call her the “New Eve”). Scripture tells us the consequences of original sin; these would then be reversed by Mary not being subject to either original sin or the results. If one is completely without sin, this arguably includes original sin, and without original sin, there is no decay; ergo, the Assumption follows as a matter of course.
Biblically speaking (if not according to strict logic), I don’t think there is anything that could cause death + bodily corruption other than original sin. In other words, we are in a supernatural / spiritual realm in the Bible that is only taught to us through revelation. In that “world” of thinking, it seems to me that there is a one-to-one relation:
1) Original sin ——> bodily corruption + spiritual death.
2) Removal of original sin, or a case where original sin never occurred —–> no spiritual death and no bodily corruption.
Jesus’ Resurrection makes possible universal resurrection (1 Cor 15:13, 16), and redemption of our bodies as well as souls (1 Cor 15:20-23). Mary’s Assumption is the “first fruits,” sign, and type of the general resurrection of all (created) mankind; she exemplifies the age in which death and sin are conquered once and for all (1 Cor 15:26).
1 Corinthians 15:17-26 (RSV) If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
What better person to follow Jesus in resurrection than His own mother, who made the way of salvation possible at the Annunciation? Though this is no ironclad proof, on the other hand, it is a very plausible scenario, and contradicts nothing in the Bible.
Protestant apologist Norman Geisler admits:
[T]he Bible does teach implicitly and logically, if not formally and explicitly, that the Bible alone is the only infallible basis for faith and practice. (Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences, co-author, Ralph E. Mackenzie, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1995, 184; emphases added)
He denies that there is either “formal” or “explicit” biblical proof for this foundation of Protestant theology and its very rule of faith. So if even sola Scriptura lacks this sort of biblical proof (and I would also deny that one can find even implicit or logical proof for it in Scripture), why is it required of Catholics to provide more for a doctrine like the Assumption? There are such things as “implicit” and deductive proofs from Scripture or at least indications. Nothing in Scripture contradicts the possibility of Mary being assumed into heaven (and many parallels show it to be entirely possible and plausible).
As with Mary’s Immaculate Conception, Catholics believe that this event was “fitting” and proper, as opposed to being intrinsically necessary. The word “fitting” is used seven times in the proclamation of her Assumption as a dogma in 1950. St. Cardinal Newman makes an extended argument for Mary’s Assumption from “fittingness”:
It was surely fitting then, it was becoming, that she should be taken up into heaven and not lie in the grave till Christ’s second coming, who had passed a life of sanctity and of miracle such as hers. . . . Who can conceive, my brethren, that God should so repay the debt, which He condescended to owe to His Mother, for the elements of His human body, as to allow the flesh and blood from which it was taken to moulder in the grave? . . . Why should she share the curse of Adam, who had no share in his fall? “Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return,” was the sentence upon sin; she then, who was not a sinner, fitly never saw corruption. She died, then, as we hold, because even our Lord and Saviour died . . . by the grace of Christ which in her had anticipated sin, which had filled her with light, which had purified her flesh from all defilement, she was also saved from disease and malady, and all that weakens and decays the bodily frame. Original sin had not been found in her . . . If the Mother of Emmanuel ought to be the first of creatures in sanctity and in beauty; if it became her to be free from all sin from the very first, and from the moment she received her first grace to begin to merit more; and if such as was her beginning, such was her end, her conception immaculate and her death an assumption . . . (Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations [1849; London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906), Discourse 18: “On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary”)
Protestant anti-Catholic apologist Jason Engwer, who runs the Triablogue site, took some potshots against the Assumption of Mary in his article, Luke Against Roman Catholic Mariology (10-24-21). I counter with similar arguments, using his incessantly skeptical, cynical methodology (two can play at this game). Jason wrote:
Similarly, she’s mentioned in Acts 1:14, but not in the three decades of church history narrated afterward. No assumption of Mary is mentioned either. . . . if she died within the history covered by the document, especially if she died earlier rather than later, why is there no mention of an assumption? . . .
Luke’s writings can be an important part of a cumulative argument when considering an issue like the assumption of Mary. The more sources we have that show interest in relevant subjects, yet don’t mention an assumption of Mary, the less likely it is that she was assumed (e.g., Luke’s failure to mention an assumption despite multiple references to Jesus’ ascension, . . .) . . . Luke is the sort of author who would have been in an unusually good position to have referred to an assumption if one had occurred.
Applying the technique of analogical argument, I countered this, bringing about what is known in logic as a reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity):
Matthew’s and John’s Gospels can be an important part of a cumulative argument when considering an issue like the ascension of Jesus. The more sources we have that show interest in relevant subjects, yet don’t mention an ascension of Jesus, the less likely it is that He ascended to heaven (e.g., Matthew’s and John’s failure to mention His ascension . . .) . . . Matthew and John are the sorts of authors who would have been in an unusually good position to have referred to His ascension if it had occurred. They wrote a lot in relevant contexts, including a substantial amount about Jesus, . . .
By the way, the book of Acts “is usually dated to around 80–90 AD, although some scholars suggest 90–110”: according to Wikipedia. St. Paul’s death, according to the Wikipedia article about him, “is believed to have occurred after the Great Fire of Rome in July 64, but before the last year of Nero’s reign, in 68.” St. Peter’s death, in the article devoted to him –according to “Early Church tradition” was “at the time of the Great Fire of Rome in the year 64.” Yet neither event is mentioned in the book of Acts.
No martyrdoms of St. Paul or St. Peter are mentioned [in Acts] either. . . . if they died within the history covered by the document, especially if they died earlier rather than later, why is there no mention of their martyrdoms? . . . Luke’s writings can be an important part of a cumulative argument when considering an issue like the martyrdoms of St. Paul and St. Peter. The more sources we have that show interest in relevant subjects, yet don’t mention martyrdoms of St. Paul and St. Peter, the less likely it is that they were martyred (e.g., Luke’s failure to mention martyrdoms of St. Paul and St. Peter . . .) . . . Luke is the sort of author who would have been in an unusually good position to have referred to the martyrdoms of St. Paul and St. Peter if they had occurred. He wrote a lot in relevant contexts, including a substantial amount about St. Paul and St. Peter, . . .
Mark’s and John’s Gospels can be an important part of a cumulative argument when considering an issue like the virgin birth in Bethlehem of Jesus. The more sources we have that show interest in relevant subjects, yet don’t mention the virgin birth in Bethlehem of Jesus, the less likely it is that He was born of a virgin in Bethlehem (e.g., Mark’s and John’s failure to mention His virgin birth in Bethlehem, and Mark’s failure to mention Bethlehem at all in his entire Gospel . . .) . . . Mark and John are the sorts of author who would have been in an unusually good position to have referred to the virgin birth in Bethlehem of Jesus if it had occurred. They wrote a lot in relevant contexts, including a substantial amount about Jesus, . . .
Matthew’s and Mark’s and Luke’s Gospels can be an important part of a cumulative argument when considering an issue like the raising of Lazarus from the dead by Jesus. The more sources we have that show interest in relevant subjects, yet don’t mention the raising of Lazarus, the less likely it is that Lazarus was raised by Jesus (e.g., Matthew’s and Mark’s and Luke’s failure to mention His being raised from the dead by Jesus . . .) . . . Matthew, Mark, and Luke are the sorts of authors who would have been in an unusually good position to have referred to the raising of Lazarus from the dead by Jesus if it had occurred. They wrote a lot in relevant contexts, including a substantial amount about Jesus, . . .
Etc., etc. One gets the analogical / satirical point by now . . . Folks don’t always mention every particular thing.
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Photo credit: Madonna in Glory (c. 1670), by Carlo Dolci (1616-1686) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Summary: I respond to a video by Reformed Baptist apologist Gavin Ortlund, explaining why Protestants reject the Assumption of Mary. Unlike him, I discuss relevant Scripture, too.
Including Analysis of Catholic Anathemas in Dogmatic Statements / Development of Doctrine and Mary
Photo credit: cover of my 2010 book, “The Catholic Mary”: Quite Contrary to the Bible?
Dr. Gavin Ortlund is a Reformed Baptist author, speaker, pastor, scholar, and apologist for the Christian faith. He has a Ph.D. from Fuller Theological Seminary in historical theology, and an M.Div from Covenant Theological Seminary. Gavin is the author of seven books as well as numerous academic and popular articles. For a list of publications, see his CV. He runs the very popular YouTube channel Truth Unites, which seeks to provide an “irenic” voice on theology, apologetics, and the Christian life. See also his website, Truth Unites and his blog.
In my opinion, he is currently the best and most influential popular-level Protestant apologist (see my high praise), who (especially) interacts with and offers thoughtful critiques of Catholic positions, from a refreshing ecumenical (not anti-Catholic), but nevertheless solidly Protestant perspective. That’s what I want to interact with, so I have issued many replies to Gavin and will continue to do so. I use RSV for all Bible passages unless otherwise specified.
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All of my replies to Gavin are collected on the top of my Calvinism & General Protestantism web page in the section, “Replies to Reformed Baptist Gavin Ortlund.” Gavin’s words will be in blue.
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This is my 3oth reply to his material. He has made just one lengthy and substantial reply to my critiques thus far. Why is that? His own explanation is simply lack of time. He wrote on my Facebook page on 17 April 2024: “Dave, thanks for engaging my stuff. People often ask to dialogue or engage and then are disappointed when I decline. Unfortunately I have to say no to most things. . . . if you are expecting regular responses, I’m afraid that is not realistic right now.” Again, on 23 August 2024 he commented on my Facebook page: “thanks for your engagement here. [I’m] grateful you give my work so much attention, and I only apologize [that] I’m not able to respond more. I think in the past I’ve explained a little bit about why.”
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This is my response to Gavin’s video, “The Immaculate Conception: A Protestant Evaluation” (8-30-23), which at the time of this writing has garnered 31,947 views and 1,742 comments. I think it deserves an in-depth Catholic reply, but likely far less people will ever see this, because we’re now in the age of videos. Oh well. Truth is truth, I say, and if I convince even one person, and educate many more than that, it’s well worth my time and effort.
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The disciples turned the world upside down, preaching their gospel message, before the Internet, TV, radio, or mass production of books. Whatever written materials existed were not mass-produced, and few could afford them, and relatively few were literate. But eventually we had the written Bible, read by billions of people. So I think that writing isn’t obsolete yet, regardless of how many people still choose to read as opposed to (or in addition to) listening to lectures that almost always have far less substance content than corresponding written material.
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0:13 [This is] basically a very brief overview of an explanation of a Protestant concern and position about the Immaculate Conception, then we can follow up and do more thorough work at some point
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Understood.
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1:56 I’m going to be focusing upon the Roman Catholic dogma
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Good.
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3:08 the first thing that I want to say right out of the gate is that in allowing that Mary was not morally perfect, we are not dishonoring her. On the contrary, the biblical portrait of Mary is as a godly and courageous person, so we should speak well of her. We should seek to emulate her faith. She’s one of the great heroes of Christianity, so God bless her.
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This is understood, too. It’s close to what I would have said about Mary as an evangelical Protestant. I thought she was the greatest created person who ever lived, but just not sinless or immaculate. I respond to this by simply appealing to the Bible and also sacred tradition. Somehow, a lot of Church fathers believed that she was without sin, and this developed over time to including her lack of original sin, as well, which could only have been God’s doing in a special miraculous act at her conception.
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Gavin then objects to Catholic dogmatic statements about Mary including anathemas and statements about believing in them in order to be a Christian. He writes:
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4:20 people soften anathemas today and make them nicer than they were, but nonetheless it’s still clear, however you cash that out in terms of its application, that this is an obligatory part of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church is making the Immaculate Conception of Mary an obligatory part of the Christian religion.
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Ineffabilis Deus: Blessed Pope Pius IX’s proclamation of the dogma in 1854 indeed stated:
Hence, if anyone shall dare — which God forbid! — to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart.
I can see how that wouldn’t sit well with Protestants, but this is a biblical model, as I have written about: Bible on Authority to Anathematize & Excommunicate [August 2009]. St. Paul wrote, “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” (Gal 1:8). See, for example, the article, “Anathema” in Easton’s Bible Dictionary. Our position on this also needs to be much better understood:
Moreover, we’re not the only ones who do this. Protestants do, too, all the time. We have a multitude of extraordinarily dogmatic statements from Luther and Calvin, anathematizing all who disagree (fellow Protestants and Catholics alike) with their own judgments (on entirely arbitrary grounds). For example, Martin Luther wrote in July 1522:
I now let you know that from now on I shall no longer do you the honor of allowing you – or even an angel from heaven – to judge my teaching or to examine it. . . . I shall not have it judged by any man, not even by any angel. For since I am certain of it, I shall be your judge and even the angels’ judge through this teaching (as St. Paul says [I Cor. 6:3 ]) so that whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved – for it is God’s and not mine. Therefore, my judgment is also not mine but God’s. (Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops Falsely So-Called, in Luther’s Works, Vol. 39; citation from pp. 248-249, my italics; see much more along these lines from Luther).
One of the classic expositions of Calvinism was that set out by the Synod of Dort (1618-1619). In its “Conclusion: Rejection of False Accusations,” the Synod declares, against Protestant Arminian Christians:
. . . the Synod earnestly warns the false accusers themselves to consider how heavy a judgment of God awaits those who give false testimony against so many churches and their confessions, trouble the consciences of the weak, and seek to prejudice the minds of many against the fellowship of true believers.
Note that this is entirely a dispute amongst Protestants. The great majority of Protestants today are Arminian, not Calvinist. They are all condemned by the rhetoric at Dort, and essentially read out of the Christian faith. Catholic dogmatic authority asserts that a person who rejects the Immaculate Conception has been “condemned by his own judgment” and has “suffered shipwreck in the faith.” Calvinist dogmatic authority asserts that people who reject predestination to hell of the reprobate and other tenets of five-point Calvinism (which multiple millions of Protestants reject), are “wicked, impure, and unstable” and do so “to their own ruin.” They are “false accusers” who will be subject to a “heavy judgment of God” if they continue in their ways (Article 6 of Dort).
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What’s the difference? In both cases, a teaching which is disagreed with by many many different kinds of Christians is made obligatory on followers of the professed faith, under penalty of the shipwreck of their faith or souls. So why do we always hear about Catholic anathemas, but rarely or never about Protestant ones? There are millions of anti-Catholic Protestants (and not a few Orthodox ones, too) who believe that Catholics aren’t Christians at all, and hellbound, if they accept all that the Catholic Church teaches. How is that not at least as offensive or objectionable in principles as Catholic anathemas?
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Luther casually assumed that Protestant opponents of his like Zwingli, who denied the Real Presence in the Eucharist, were likely damned as a result. Luther and Calvin and Melanchthon approved of drowning Anabaptists as heretics and seditious persons because they believed in adult baptism. Thus they would have approved of Gavin Ortlund and James White (and myself, earlier in life) being executed. The early Protestants were extremely intolerant of each other, with many mutual anathemas exchanged. I could go on at great length about this, but I think my point of comparison and double standards is sufficiently established. If one wants to go after a specific aspect of Catholicism that also occurs in Protestantism, then the criticism ought to be fair and across the board, not cynically selective and one-sided, as if only Catholics ever do this.
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So, to use Gavin’s own words, Calvinists made Calvinist soteriology “an obligatory part of the Christian religion”: on pain of being banished or losing one’s job as a pastor, etc. in the Netherlands in the 17th century. Luther made belief in the eucharistic Real Presence “an obligatory part of the Christian religion”: on pain of being read out of Christianity. Luther and Calvin made belief in infant baptism “an obligatory part of the Christian religion” on pain of losing one’s life by drowning: in mockery of believers’ adult baptism. Millions of anti-Catholics today require Catholics to believe like Protestants in many ways, as“an obligatory part of the Christian religion”: lest they be proclaimed out of the fold and damned and hellbound, as Pelagians, idolaters, etc., etc. (I’d love to have a dime for every time I’ve heard that myself).
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In the Lutheran Apology of the Augsburg Confession, written in 1531 (Article XXIV: The Mass) it is stated:
In the papal realm the worship of Baal clings — namely, the abuse of the Mass . . . And it seems that this worship of Baal will endure together with the papal realm until Christ comes to judge and by the glory of his coming destroys the kingdom of Antichrist. Meanwhile all those who truly believe the Gospel should reject those wicked services invented against God’s command to obscure the glory of Christ and the righteousness of faith. (in The Book of Concord, translated and edited by Theodore Tappert, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House / Muhlenberg Press, 1959, 268)
Marvelously ecumenical, isn’t it? Goose and gander?
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4:48 Protestants in our conscience have a concern about this. The concern is, basically, you can’t change Christianity. It’s a revealed religion. If the apostles had never heard of it, you can’t add it later on, and we think that that’s what’s going on here. We think that this wasn’t something the apostles or Mary herself ever had the foggiest notion of even imagining.
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This is another double standard. No apostle knew what the canon of the New Testament was. They didn’t have “the foggiest notion” of that because the Bible doesn’t teach it anywhere, and the NT wasn’t even completed till the late first century, after almost all of them were dead. The first Church father to list all 27 NT books in one place was St. Athanasius in 367: more than 330 years after the death of Jesus. This isn’t even arguable. It’s a fact. Protestant scholars Alister McGrath and Norman Geisler both state that essentially “no one” believed in Protestant “faith alone” soteriology until Martin Luther, almost 1500 years after Christ. No apostle had “the foggiest notion” about Luther’s and Melanchthon’s novel, invented soteriology from the 16th century. I would say the same about sola Scriptura. The patristic consensus was that clear. Luther basically invented sola Scriptura when backed into a corner in a debate in 1519.
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No one fully understood trinitarianism until the 7th century AD: the fine points of it took many centuries to develop and understand, with the heresies, Monophysitism and Monothelitism appearing relatively late in history and having to be opposed (as Arianism and Sabellianism had been opposed earlier). But development of doctrine is not essential change or “evolution.” It builds upon what exists. What exists in the Bible — the “kernel” or “germ” of the Immaculate Conception — is the sinlessness of Mary (where? I will show that in due course). St. John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote about its development:
As to the antiquity of the doctrine. In the first ages original sin was not. formally spoken of in contrast to actual. In the fourth century, Pelagius denied it, and was refuted and denounced by St Augustine. Not till the time of St Augustine could the question be mooted precisely whether our Lady was without original sin or not. Up to his time, and after his time, it was usual to say or to imply that Mary had nothing to do with sin, in vague terms. The earliest Fathers, St Justin, St Irenaeus etc. contrast her with Eve, while they contrast our Lord with Adam. In doing this – 1. they, sometimes imply, sometimes insist upon, the point that Eve sinned when tried, and Mary did not sin when tried; and 2. they say that, by not sinning, Mary had a real part in the work of redemption, in a way in which no other creature had a share. This does not go so far as actually to pronounce that she had the grace of God from the first moment of her existence, and never was under the power of original sin, but by comparing her with Eve, who was created of course without original sin, and by giving her so high an office, it implies it. Next, shortly after St Augustine, the 3rd General Council was held against Nestorius, and declared Mary to be the Mother of God. From this time the language of the Fathers is very strong, though vague, about her immaculateness. In the time of Mahomet the precise doctrine seems to have been taught in the East, for I think he mentions it in the Koran. In the middle ages, when everything was subjected to rigid examination of a reasoning character, the question was raised whether the doctrine was consistent with the Blessed Virgin’s having a human father and mother – and serious objections were felt to it on this score. Men defined the words ’Immaculate Conception’ differently from what I have done above, and in consequence denied it. St Bernard and St Thomas, in this way, were opposed to it, and the Dominicans. A long controversy ensued and a hot one – it lasted many centuries. At length, in our time, it has been defined in that sense in which I have explained the words above – a sense, which St Bernard, St Thomas, and the Dominicans did not deny. The same controversy about the sense of a word had occurred in the instance of the first General Council at Nicaea. The Nicene Creed uses the word ’Consubstantial’ to protect the doctrine of our Lord’s divinity against Arius, which the great Council of Antioch some 70 years before had repudiated as a symbol of heresy. In like manner great Saints have repudiated the words ’Immaculate Conception,’ from taking them in a different sense from that which the Church has accepted and sanctioned. (Letters & Diaries, Vol. 22; To Lady Chatterton, 2 Oct. 1865)
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You will ask perhaps, ‘Why then was there so much controversy about the doctrine or about its definition?’ . . . I do not see any difficulty in the matter. From the beginning of the Church even good and holy men have got involved in controversies of words. . . . The devotion to her has gradually and slowly extended through the Church; the doctrine about her being always the same from the first. But the gradual growth of the devotion was a cause why that doctrine, in spite of its having been from the first, should have been but slowly recognised, slowly defined. . . . ‘The new devotion was first heard of in the ninth century.’ Suppose I say, ‘The new doctrine of our Lord’s immensity, contradicted by all the Ante-nicene Fathers, was first heard of in the creed of St Athanasius?’ or ‘The Filioque, protested against by the Orthodox Church to this day, was first heard of in the 7th Century?’ . . . we must recollect that there were at first mistakes among pious and holy men about the attributes of the Holy Spirit. . . . I fully grant that there is not that formal documentary evidence for the doctrine in question which there is for some other doctrines, but I maintain also that, from its character, it does not require it. (Letters & Diaries, Vol. 19; To Arthur Osborne Alleyne, 15 June 1860)
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5:34 with the Immaculate Conception you can at least make a case for it inferentially from other things. So, for example, the typology with Mary and Eve. Mary is the new Eve; or with the Ark of the Covenant. Mary is the Ark of the Covenant or language throughout the church fathers of Mary as holy and pure and the model of virginity and so forth, especially spirals up in the 4th Century
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True. And we can make a case from the meaning of the Greek in Luke 1:28 (the words of the angel to Mary at her Annunciation).
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6:56 you have people saying Mary is a sinner and they’re saying it without any expectation of pushback, and it doesn’t occasion any controversy, and you get enough teachings like this, that does start to become more of a falsification of the idea
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It’s true that many fathers thought that Mary sinned. The consensus is not virtually unanimous and overwhelming as in the case of, say, the Eucharist and baptism and the rule of faith and infused justification (Catholic soteriology) and many other things, but there was a strong consensus as to Mary’s sinlessness (free from actual sin). Some got it wrong and some got it right, which is true about a lot of topics and the Church fathers.
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Gavin cites six Church fathers, saying that Mary sinned. This doesn’t disprove the doctrine. It only shows that the patristic consensus was less strong than for several other doctrines. Thus, there is no need for me to analyze all that because I concede the point in the first place, but then immediately note that it’s not decisive, anyway. Many other Church fathers affirmed her sinlessness, and there is a fairly strong biblical case to be made that she was sinless, which is consistent with her Immaculate Conception. The inspired Bible is what we all agree on. If a good case can be made there, then it meets these Protestant objections from certain Church fathers.
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17:47 we all know people like Thomas Aquinas who rejected it
19:04 here is a doctrine that pretty clearly does not seem to be anywhere close to the apostles
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In its fullness, it wasn’t (I agree), but neither were the canon of the NT, trinitarianism, etc. But the kernel is in the Bible, which means that it wasn’t totally foreign to the apostles, as I will shortly demonstrate. Gavin seems unaware of many of these arguments (beyond New Eve and Mary as the new ark), and since he has chosen not to interact with my critiques, he may very well continue to be in the dark, if indeed he isn’t familiar with those additional argument. And I think the biblical data is super-relevant to the question. It’s not merely a patristic / historical issue.
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21:14 what is ultimately decisive for us is what is in the Holy Scripture, because we think that that is the uniquely infallible rule: the one that can’t err.
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We agree that it can’t err. It’s what we have in common. This is why I make many biblical arguments for Mary’s Immaculate Conception (most supporting the kernel of sinlessness).
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Summary: I respond to a video by Reformed Baptist apologist Gavin Ortlund, explaining why Protestants reject the Immaculate Conception of Mary. I discuss history and Scripture.
Includes Biblical Arguments for the Catholic Priesthood
Photo credit: cover of my 2003 book, Protestantism: Critical Reflections of an Ecumenical Catholic.
This discussion and dispute began with a meme that I put up. It stated (numbers added):
Protestantism:
[1] Where everyone is a priest except priests,
[2] Where everyone can bind and loose except bishops,
[3] Where you can command angels but not ask their help,
[4] Where you can talk to the devil but not to saints,
[5] Where everyone gets a crown except the Virgin Mary,
[6] Where everyone can interpret Scripture except the Church,
[7] Where every Church is a Church except the Church.
That caused a firestorm of controversy on one of my Facebook threads. The general tenor of the many Protestant critics who showed up was that I was either grossly ignorant of Protestantism, or deliberately dishonest. I contended that much of the furor, in my opinion, was based on a mistaken view of the sort of “literature” this was: proverbial, which allows of many exceptions. I replied to the most vociferous critic, Steve Gregg, a zealous preacher who emerged from the Jesus Movement of the early 70s, in my article, “Various Protestant Errors (Vs. Steve Gregg)” and made the following observation:
Now, posting a meme doesn’t necessarily mean that one agrees with every particular of it. And this is clearly a proverbial-type of meme, that would allow many exceptions (just as passages in the Book of Proverbs do). Moreover, with Protestantism one has to generalize, since there are so many divisions, but these observations are either broadly true or true of some and sometimes many Protestants, or else I wouldn’t have posted it. There can always be partial exceptions in an individual as well. . . .
It’s important to realize that the meme doesn’t necessarily have to mean that all Protestants believe all these things. . . . It’s implying (at least in my opinion and interpretation) that these beliefs can be or are found among Protestants.
To use an analogy, I could put up a meme about “The Democratic Party” and list seven things that some or many Democrats believe (free abortion and widespread illegal immigration and opposition to fossil fuels would be three examples). It wouldn’t follow that every Democrat believes all seven things; as Democrats (the men and women on the street; not just the politicians) are quite diverse as a group, just as Protestants are. But the generalizations would hold. Democrats are absolutely overwhelmingly in favor of legal abortion, etc. The fact that some aren’t doesn’t negate the legitimacy of the generalization. And the same applies to this meme. . . .
All of the points in the meme have been believed by Protestants; often, by many, and sometimes by very many.
Gregg soon imploded and launched an avalanche of personal attacks, after misinterpreting remarks I made about the behavior of the Protestants other than him in the thread (he took them all personally), as can be seen at the end of that article. With his departure, no other Protestant (of the many critics who chimed in) was willing to reply to my response-paper, save for one person whose demeanor had been cordial all along (h e wishes to remain anonymous). This is my reply to his comments in the original thread. His words will be in blue. Cited words from my reply-paper will be in green. I use RSV for Bible citations.
1. Recognizing special ministry roles (ones of authoritative leadership and otherwise) is not synonymous with “gap-bridging between God and man” priesthood. The sacramental “gatekeeping access to God” role Protestantism saw in Catholic “priesthood” is not parallel to those roles we see affirmed in the NT.
I agree; hence I wrote, “the universal priesthood of believers . . . is scriptural, and we also believe it. But we differ in thinking that there is an additional specific class of clergy called priests, . . . In other words, there are two senses of ‘priest’ in the Bible.” Thus, I was not arguing for equation, but rather, differentiation of two groups of people.
All the examples provided fail to establish NT priesthood. They establish ministerial roles (in general and various kinds), certainly, but not a “gatekeeping access to God” role typically referenced specifically as “priests.” It isn’t there. Bishops, overseers, shepherds, many terms are used for authoritative caretaking roles, but not priesthood. Jesus is the high priest, and we merely are kept in perpetual remembrance of his high priesthood.
I wrote: “The priesthood as we know it today is not a strong motif in the New Testament. But this can be explained in terms of development of doctrine: in the early days of Christianity some things were understood only in a very basic or skeletal sense.”
That said, I did offer arguments for the priesthood, particularly as presiding over the Mass (“Jesus entrusts to His disciples a remembrance of the central aspect of the liturgy or Mass (consecration of the bread and wine) at the Last Supper [(Lk. 22:19: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’]; Paul may also have presided over a Eucharist in Acts 20:11.” [“Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten”], even though that wasn’t the primary purpose of what I argued in my book (which was the differentiation of “priesthood of all believers” from priests in the Catholic sense). I addressed the “binding and loosing” aspect, which ties into confession and absolution (your “gatekeeping access to God” description), in replying to #2 in the meme. If you want “gatekeeping” you see that in this passage:
John 20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
That’s “gatekeeping,” because, note that it’s talking about forgiving the sins of others in a general sense; that is, even if they have nothing to do with the person offering the forgiveness, or penance (“retained”). We see the Apostle Paul doing the same thing with regard to a serious sinner in the Corinthian congregation:
1 Corinthians 5:1-5 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. [2] And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. [3] For though absent in body I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment [4] in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, [5] you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
This is an example of Paul “binding” (Mt 18:18) or “retaining” sins; i.e., imposing a penance for them. That’s the priestly function in the more specific Catholic sense. Then later he relaxes the punishment, which is the “loosing” function or forgiveness, and is actually an explicit example of what we call an indulgence (the relaxing or removal of temporal punishment for sin):
2 Corinthians 2:6-8, 10 For such a one this punishment [penance!] by the majority is enough; [7] so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. [8] So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. . . . [10] Any one whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ,
Note particularly verse 10: “Any one whom you forgive, I also forgive.” Paul is forgiving those who did him no (personal) wrong, and that’s because he is functioning as a priest and gatekeeper. He can formally pronounce either forgiveness or penance as a representative of God, and he did both. Paul casually assumes that priests are still operative under the new Christian covenant, by referring to the table of the Lord (or altar) and contrasting it with the table of demons, in a eucharistic context:
1 Corinthians 10:14-21 Therefore, my beloved, shun the worship of idols. [15] I speak as to sensible men; judge for yourselves what I say. [16] The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? [17] Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. [18] Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar? [19] What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? [20] No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. [21] You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. (cf. 9:13)
Paul is in this same priestly thought-world in another of his statements:
Romans 15:15-17 But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God [16] to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. [17] In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God.
He’s “offering” a “priestly service” to the Gentiles. The Greek word is hierourgeo. Strong’s Concordance defines it as “to be a temple-worker, i.e., officiate as a priest (fig.): — minister.” This classic (non-Catholic) reference work states: “to minister in the manner of a priest, minister in priestly service.” It also notes (from Joseph Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon) historical etymological definitions of “to be busied with sacred things; to be perform sacred rites” (from Philo), and “used esp. of persons sacrificing” (from Josephus).
Baptist Greek scholar A. T. Robertson, in his famous work, Word Pictures of the New Testament (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1930; six volumes; under Romans 15:16; vol. 4, 520), provides the basic definition: “to work in sacred things, to minister as a priest.” Likewise, Marvin Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament (four volumes; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887; reprinted: Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1946; vol. III, 174) states, for the same passage:
Ministering (ierourgounta). Only here in the New Testament. Lit., ministering as a priest.
Offering up (prosfora). Lit., the bringing to, i.e., to the altar. Compare doeth service, John xvi. 2.
Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament defines it as:
‘to perform sacred or sacrificial ministry.’ In Josephus and Philo it always means “to offer sacrifice” and often has no object. (hierourgia means “sacrifice” and hierourgema the “act of sacrifice.”)
None of these reference works are Catholic; thus, no charge of bias based on Catholic affiliation can be made against them. The bottom line is that Paul has called himself a priest – using two different terms.
We get the word liturgy from litourgos (Strong’s word #3011; cf. #3008, 3009, and 3010). Strong’s (word #3008: litourgeo) applies it to, among other things, “priests and Levites who were busied with the sacred rites in the tabernacle or the temple.”
Paul also casually assumes the continued existence of altars among Christians (1 Cor 10:14-21), and altars are mentioned in the New Testament in other places (apart from the many mentions of altars in heaven), as well:
Hebrews 13:9-12 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings; for it is well that the heart be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited their adherents. [10] We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. [11] For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. [12] So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.
Therefore, if it is true that – as John Calvin argues in his Institutes: IV, 18:3 –: “the cross of Christ is overthrown the moment an altar is erected”, then the New Testament is against the cross. It’s much more likely that Calvin has misunderstood the passages above.
Priests dispense sacraments (1 Cor 4:1; Jas 5:14), including baptism (Mt 28:19; Acts 2:38, 41). A universal priesthood of “offering” (sacrifice) extending to “every place” in New Testament times is prophesied in Isaiah 66:18, 21 and Malachi 1:11.
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2. If binding & loosing refers to excommunication and reconciliation, we see Paul prompting the Corinthian church to do so as a community rather than tasking a priest/pastor/elder to do so. This binding & loosing would be church-communal rather than limited to a few in authority.
Here you appear to be referring to the passages I brought up, above. What you overlook is the fact that Paul himself was functioning as the priest in that instance, and merely encouraging the assembly to follow-up on his instructions. Paul started the ball rolling, so to speak. Accordingly, he writes with “high” priestly, commanding authority: “Let him who has done this be removed from among you. . . . I have already pronounced judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus . . . you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved . . .” (1 Cor 5:2-3, 5).
Paul directed the whole thing: not the Corinthians themselves. He was the priest. He was doing “gatekeeping” — as you described it. Likewise, he led and guided the relaxation of the penance or indulgence, too (which directly contradicts your argument). He commands them and tells them what to do: “this punishment by the majority is enough; so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him . . . I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. . . . Any one whom you forgive, I also forgive” (2 Cor 2:6-8, 10).
3. Word of Faith / “Prosperity Gospel” figureheads, while they exist, are dismissed by almost all Protestants with contempt as heretical false teachers.
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I agree. As I noted, I rebuked these errors as a young apologist in 1982, and as a charismatic Protestant. But it hasn’t been established that this error occurs only among the “word of faith” extremists. And I can attest to the fact that this mentality is rampant in pentecostal circles. I attended Assemblies of God from 1982-1986 and I personally encountered or witnessed dozens of people talking this nonsense, even though AG doctrine was against it. In this meme, practices “on the ground” are being referred to, not just official doctrines.
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So the whole “commanding angels” thing simply is not something to say “occurs in our ranks.”
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Again, as I noted, there are over 644 million pentecostals or charismatics worldwide. It certainly does occur in your ranks. In five seconds I found this on an Assemblies of God site:
Mark 1:34 says, “He [Jesus] did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew Him” (NKJV). In Mark 5:8, He commands, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!” This is why believers can take authority in Jesus’ name over demonic activity.
Assemblies of God is usually regarded as the largest pentecostal denomination. It has 68.5 million members, just 6.5 million less than Presbyterians and 11.5 million less than Lutherans and Methodists. Granted, this citation is about demons, but they are angels, too, after all (fallen angels). Other charismatic articles deny that this is the case; for example, “Can Christians Command Angels?” (Samantha Carpenter, CharismaNews, 5-19-21).
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As I’ve reiterated over and over, I don’t believe that the meme was claiming that all Protestants believe any of these points: only that some or many do. If in fact the meme writer didn’t intend that understanding (maybe he or she didn’t), it’s still certainly my own view of the points in it. This particular item probably applies to the smallest number (as I already conceded), but it’s still not nonexistent.
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You may as well be addressing JW or LDS as “a problem in Protestant ranks” as if it is something we can existentially eradicate any more than Catholicism can.
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Those groups are non-trinitarian heresies and not Protestant at all (I wrote against JWs in the early 80s as an evangelical Protestant: it was one of my earliest apologetics projects). The “word of faith” theology and group of folks — bad and dangerous as the theology is — is not in that category at all. They are almost all trinitarian Protestant Christians; more comparable to a group like Seventh-Day Adventists, which contains significant departures from historic Protestantism (denial of hell and assertion of soul sleep), but is not out of the fold of Christianity. That was Walter Martin’s view (the cult expert, in his book, The Kingdom of the Cults) and is my own as well.
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Alternatively, we could point at rogue Catholic bishops maintaining their positions on controversial matters as evidence Catholicism “has that in its ranks.” If that doesn’t count because it “isn’t condoned” or “they’ve been excommunicated anyway,” the same thing holds for how widely Protestants decry Word of Faith / Prosperity Gospel. Take a look at how everyone talks about Joel Osteen. We ostracize that entire way of thinking.
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Yep. I have been very consistent and vocal in my view that the Catholic Church has mollycoddled and pampered and winked at theological liberals and wolves in sheep’s clothing in our ranks for sixty years. We’ve had hell to pay as a result, with the sex scandals (active homosexuals entering the priesthood with those views and practices) and widespread theological illiteracy. We have plenty of serious problems “on the ground” and in practice, just as you do.
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That said, we have a means to correct people like this, by our unified theology (even if often we don’t do it), whereas Protestants can only correct folks in one particular denomination. And then the ones being censured can simply leave and form another denomination or go to another one more amenable to their views (many liberal Protestant denominations to choose from!).
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The example of Lot isn’t even relevant, as Lot was APPROACHED BY an angel commanding him with a message from God, and Lot RESPONDED by appealing that delivered directive. Since God had explicitly used an intermediary, Lot was positioned to respond to that intermediary. This is unrelated to Christians spontaneously “reaching out” to aimlessly command random unknown angels.
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I commend you for addressing the second part of #3: that Protestants don’t pray to angels. Virtually all of the critics consistently missed the aspect of “compare and contrast” in the seven points. That was the second most prevalent error after not understanding the nature of generalizations.
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The question at hand here is whether Protestants believe that we can “ask”: angels for “help”; i.e., basically pray to them. And Protestants deny that we can do so. Therefore, I produced a clear biblical example of someone dong so in the Bible, and this being casually assumed (by Moses, who wrote it) to be altogether proper. For convenience’ sake, here is the passage again:
Genesis 19:15, 18-21 When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.”. . . And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me, and I die. Behold, yonder city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there — is it not a little one? — and my life will be saved!” He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.
Remember, the question is whether we can ask angels for help: to petition them. Standard Protestant theological says that we cannot do so: that we can’t invoke or ask for intercessory assistance either angels or dead human beings. But what you guys forbid is clearly taught here. Lot asks the angel if he can flee to a nearby city. The angel not only allows that, but also says that he won’t destroy the city (!) by “grant[ing]” the “favor” of not “overthrow[ing]” the city. That’s petition or prayer to an angel, which is utterly impermissible in Protestantism.
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You use a rather desperate and irrelevant reply to try to escape this dilemma by noting that the angel approached him first; therefore, it is supposedly essentially different from prayer to an angel. But it’s not. Petitionary prayer is what it is, whether an angel or dead person approaches us or not, and Protestantism forbids it. The aspect of “approaching first” is a non-essential element of it; therefore it doesn’t overthrow the difficulty.
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4. The rich man talking to Abraham is two physically-dead (but spiritually alive?) people talking, which is not comparable to one living and one dead person talking.
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I’ve dealt with this objection countless times. The fact that the rich man was also dead is irrelevant with regard to the absolute Protestant prohibition of invoking anyone other than God. If that is accepted as a prior premise (as it is), then it matters not that a person who is dead in Hades is making the prayer petition to a man (Abraham in this case). He or she can’t do it, because it’s forbidden. The theology doesn’t suddenly change just because a person dies. And if it is forbidden, as Protestants claim, Abraham would have had to rebuke the rich man for making the petitions. But of course he didn’t, because it is biblically permissible.
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And the denials aren’t “ain’t doing it as that is against God’s will.” Both requests are simply useless, one because it is impossible and the other because even if granted it would make no difference. If anything, it shows the total fruitlessness of engaging in it. There’s nothing to be accomplished from it. There’s an uncrossable gap involved AND we see an implication that intervention by a faithful comforted (and dead) believer would make zero difference.
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All of that is irrelevant to the question at hand, too (what’s known as a non sequitur in logic). All that is relevant is whether Scripture sanctions prayer to a dead man. It does here, right from the lips of Jesus, and Abraham didn’t rebuke the prayer and say, “why are you asking me?! Don’t you know that you can only ask God to answer prayer requests?!” — which he would have to do if this tenet of Protestantism were true.
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The same thing happens again when King Saul petitions the dead prophet Samuel. Samuel tells him that he is going to die in battle the next day, and offers no solace. What he didn’t do was rebuke Saul for offering an impermissible prayer. It all fits with Catholic theology and not at all with the Protestant outlook.
* 5. Weak and dodgy. Referring to Protestants saying Mary isn’t “the queen of heaven” — but ignoring the idea of all saints attaining crowns of victory & glory — is begging there to be a point. Even saying Rev 12 = Mary is just bad exegesis someone only engages in if they’re believing what someone else has told them is there.
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This is the point (you verify it in this reply): which is that Protestants love talking about all the crowns believers get in heaven, while denying and warring against virtually any specific honor in Mary’s case as “Maryolatry.” Mary’s crown is referred to in Revelation 12 and Protestants typically deny that the passage is about Mary. But this is exegetically weak, anti-Marian bias.
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There are many good reasons for believing that Revelation 12 has an application to Mary (it also has a dual application to the Church). Who else, after all, “brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne” (Rev 12:5)? The Church didn’t bring forth Jesus, since it was Jesus Who established the Church. I’ve made the exegetical case several times (here are five of those):
* 6. No, sola scriptura does not make the individual’s interpretive role absolute. Rather, it makes interdependent communal interpretation that much more crucial, as scripture still means what it means even if we misinterpret it. We remain accountable to scripture itself, not to our interpretation of it.
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I’ll repeat what I stated last time, because you have not addressed it at all:
The individual (likeLuther, who invented this!) can judge the institutional (Catholic / Orthodox) Church. That’s exactly what Luther did in 1521 at the Diet of Worms. He knew better than the entire unbroken 1500-year tradition of the Catholic Church.
Any Protestant — by the express principle of sola Scriptura — can dissent against his or her denomination, just as Luther did against the Catholic Church, simply by declaring what is dissented against as “unscriptural. And no Protestant can show that that is not what sola Scriptura logically boils down to. Therefore, in the final analysis, the individual indeed reigns supreme in Protestantism.
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If this is denied, then Martin Luther’s very actions to start the whole thing would be nullified; thus discounting the entire Protestant “Reformation” and its initial rationale. You can talk a good game of limited denominational authority, but that only goes so far, when there are hundreds of other denominations to choose from if someone is censured.
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With Catholicism, by contrast, nobody is accountable to scripture itself, but ONLY to what the Magisterium declares it to mean.
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This is patently false, and is one of the most stubborn, intransigent Protestant myths about the Catholic Church. In fact, there are only seven (some think nine) passages out of the entire Bible where the Catholic Church requires only one interpretation. Beyond that, Catholics are as free as any other exegete to interpret Scripture on their own. See my article:
The Catholic Church, of course, wants that enterprise to be guided in an ultimate sense by the Church (orthodoxy), but that’s no different from every Protestant group offering Scriptures that mean a certain thing, and an overall theology (in creeds and confessions and membership statements), meant to guide its adherents. In other words, this is a wash and a non-issue. But it sounds really good as a potshot against the Big Bad Catholic Church, doesn’t it? If only it were true . . .
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7. Hair-splitting. The passages referenced to not indicate the points being made. If the church means all who are in Christ, but some can fall away, then they are no longer part of the church as they are no longer in Christ.
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Yes, when they fall away, they aren’t, but the problem is that no one can know for sure whether they will persevere till the end (or whether they themselves will). We don’t know the future. We’re not God. We know there is an elect (the eschatologically saved, who make it to heaven). But we can’t know with certainty which individuals are included in that category. And because of that, “bad” individuals, or [terrible] “sinners” are in the Church, and there is abundant biblical indication of that. I only gave a small amount of the proof to be had. I have much more that can be seen on my web page, Inquisition, Crusades, & “Catholic Scandals” (in the section, “Sinners in the Church”). I’ve written about the general topic at least eleven times.
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Addressing churches in a way that condemns some of their “bewitched” beliefs is not a way of saying “you people who count / don’t count as part of the church.”
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Exactly! That was my point. They are part of the Church, too.
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And if Paul meant it that way in saying “to the churches,” he was failing to address them properly because if they were actually Church they’d be infallible.
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I don’t follow this reasoning, and so won’t comment further on it.
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“Churches” is interconnected local gatherings of believers,
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No one denies that.
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whereas “the church” [entire] is all global believers. Nothing you wrote overturns that.
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Protestants deny an institutional, hierarchical, historically verified Church, which is impossible to do. You simply ignored the one compact argument I made for the institutional Church:
[T]he Jerusalem Council . . . was led by Peter and the bishop of Jerusalem, James, attended by Paul, and consisted of “apostles and elders.” It made a decree that was agreed with by the Holy Spirit (i.e., an infallible or even inspired one) — Acts 15:28 — , which was proclaimed by Paul far and wide as binding on Christians (Acts 16:4).
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That’s undeniably an institutional Church, and one that produced infallible binding decrees in council: all of which is contrary to the beliefs of most Protestants. Sola Scriptura denies that councils can be infallible, but the Jerusalem Council was. You deny that the Church was an organization. Yet here it was. BIG discussion — and if you hang around, we can get into that in far more depth — , but that is my short, nutshell answer for now.
Steve Gregg — to whom I was replying there — chose not to stick around, choosing the path of emptyheaded and misdirected insults, so we couldn’t get into “far more depth” — beyond a “nutshell answer.” Maybe you will. I think this is a good dialogue and that we could have many more. What denomination do you attend, by the way? Are you a pastor or theological professor?
As to the basic question here, see my articles and dialogues:
The Authority of the Catholic Church (+ Pt. 2): chapter two of my 2009 book, Bible Truths for Catholic Truths: A Source Book for Apologists and Inquirers [10-16-23]
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Thanks for the cordial discussion and God bless you.
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Summary: I reply to and interact with one Protestant who didn’t like a meme I put up which generalized about certain errors in Protestantism. I defend my position in depth.
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I will be interacting with an excellent, ecumenical, and thought-provoking article, entitled “Interpreting Faith in the Reformation: Catholic and Protestant Interpretations of Habakkuk 2:4b and Its New Testament Quotations” (Mario M. C. Melendez, Themelios, Vol. 45, Issue 2, August 2020). Mario M. C. Melendez is Auguie Henry Chair of Bible and assistant professor of Old Testament and biblical studies at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma. His words will be in blue, Martin Luther’s in green, and John Calvin’s in brown. I use RSV for biblical citations.
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This study provides a historical survey of Habakkuk 2:4b’s use in the reformation. The accomplished research shows that Luther and Calvin pointed to Christ’s faithfulness as the object of the Habakkuk 2:4b faith.
And I will show, I think, that they were mistaken in this belief; that it is flawed exegesis on their part, flowing from their prior theological / soteriological allegiances (i.e., faith alone or sola fide).
The Reformers proclaimed a doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide) which they based on Habakkuk 2:4 as quoted in Romans 1:17.
Let’s look at both these passages before proceeding:
Habakkuk 2:4 Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
Romans 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.”
Habbakuk 2:4 is also cited — or at least alluded to — in these two additional passages:
Galatians 3:11 Now it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law; for “He who through faith is righteous shall live”;
Hebrews 10:38-39 “but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” [39] But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and keep their souls.
Right away we see two seemingly — or prima facie — distinguishable concepts: “live by [his] faith” (Hab 2:4; Heb 10:38) and “through faith is righteous shall live” (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11). I consulted other OT versions to see if they render Habakkuk 2:4 as Paul does in his citation of it. It looks like most or all are basically the same. Conversely, most appear to be very similar to the wording of Habakkuk 2:4, and RSV seems to be an exception to the rule.
The “normative” translation of Galatians 3:11 is “. . . The just shall live by faith” (KJV) or “. . . The just man liveth by faith” (Douay-Rheims) or “. . . The righteous one will live by faith” (NASB) or “. . . The righteous will live by faith” (NIV). Even RSV broadly follows it in Hebrews 10:38. Now the task is to exegete and cross-reference these related passages, to determine precisely what they mean: for Habakkuk, Paul, and the author of the book of Hebrews. In doing so, we get to the heart of 16th-century and ongoing disputes about justification and the Protestant conception of “faith alone.” Do they support the latter position or not? Predictably, I say no.
Alister McGrath noted that the Reformation debate centered upon the interpretation of Scripture.
He’s right about that. I would contend that the Protestant movement sadly introduced mistaken and novel biblical interpretation — when it dissented from received and carefully developed 1500-year-old theology: especially regarding it’s two “pillars”: sola fide and sola Scriptura.
The hypothesis of this paper is that Luther and Calvin pointed to Christ’s faithfulness as the object of the Habakkuk 2:4b faith, while the Roman Catholics pointed to the faithful actions of a believer as the object of the Habakkuk 2:4b faith.
I will be arguing that the latter conclusion follows straightforwardly from context and cross-referencing. It’s an interesting discussion, and equally learned, sincere, honest, well-meaning believers disagree with each other, but I dare say, with all due respect, that I think we can fairly decisively show that Scripture and specifically, these particular passages, do not support the “faith alone” position.
Throughout Luther’s lifetime, he wrote numerous commentaries, reflection letters, lessons, and sermons. In his commentary of the Minor Prophets, Luther wrote this concerning Habakkuk 2:4b:
In summary form Habakkuk presents the following thought: The godly people are waiting for the Lord; therefore they live, therefore they are saved, therefore they receive what has been promised. They receive it by faith, because they give glory to the God of truth, because they hold the hand of the Lord. And so the prophet is looking not only to this promise but also to all the other promises about preaching the Gospel or revealing grace. And so this is the thought: “I cannot force it into your hearts. You have the clear written record (picture) and Word. If you believe it, you will live, because the righteous live by his faith as long as he waits for the Lord. If you will not believe, you will not live, etc.” [Lectures on the Minor Prophets II: Jonah and Habakkuk, ed. Hiilton C. Oswald, Luther’s Works 19 (St. Louis: Concordia, 1974), 123.]
Luther simply assumes his new (yes, new) faith alone position and improperly reads it into the text when, I submit, it isn’t there. How do we know that? Well, by context and cross-referencing, as we apply to any given passage of Scripture. Habakkuk is only three chapters. We can see what related notions he writes about throughout his book. He refers to “righteous” (1:4, 13; 2:4) and the starkly contrasting wicked (1:4, 13; 3:13), “terrible” (1:7),”not upright” (2:4), and “arrogant” (2:5) people, in the usual straightforward sense. Most of the book describes the nature and evil actions of these bad people; non-believers or heathen.
Then he states that “the righteous shall live by his faith” (2:4). That is, he conducts himself and acts in accordance with his belief and faith in God. It’s not talking about God‘s faithfulness, because the righteous person is contrasted with the evil person, in the same verse: “he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail.” But those who are upright will “live by” (that’s good works) their “faith.” The word “faith” or similar only appears two times in the book. The other instance is “faithless men” in 1:13. There is no contextual indication that this is talking about God‘s faithfulness. It’s simply read into the text, which is improper eisegesis: the literal meaning of that term.
In fact, 2:4 records the words of God, and He refers to “his faith”; i.e., the faith of the righteous person (both in 2:4). If God were referring to His own faithfulness, He would have used the word “my” rather than “his.” It’s very clear. The author of the article claims that Luther and Calvin applied Habakkuk 2:4 to “Christ’s faithfulness.” I don’t see how Habakkuk 2:4, however, can possibly mean that, in light of grammar, context, and the meaning of the words.
The “faithfulness” of God is indeed an Old Testament (Gen 32:10; Ex 34:6; Dt 32:4; 2 Sam 2:6; 15:20; Ps 30:9; 36:5; 40:10-11; 54:5; 57:3, 10; many more) and New Testament (Rom 3:3) concept. But I don’t see that it’s referred to in Habakkuk 2:4. If we cross-reference “live by” we find the same thing:
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (cf. 5:25: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”)
This is very much the same thought as Habakkuk 2:4. It’s true that Christ lives in the believer, but when “faith” appears in Galatians 2:20, it is faith in God, not the faith or faithfulness of God. The faith is exercised by the person, bringing about the “life” that he lives, just as Melendez noted was the Catholic interpretation of Habakkuk 2:4. I wrote about this passage in my article, “Minor Prophets: Their Theology of Salvation” (8-2-23):
I interpret this passage as saying that living the faith is inseparable from faith in the sense of belief. In the Hebrew mind the two things arethe same. To believe a thing is to live it out. Accordingly, James 2:18 states: “I by my works will show you my faith.” . . . Hebrews 10:38 also cites this verse: “my righteous one shall live by faith.” And again, context (10:36) mentions works (“do”) as part and parcel of faith: “you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised.”
Once we “do the will of God,” then we receive the promise. Here’s another similar verse:
Ezekiel 33:12 And you, son of man, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness; and the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins.
Whose “righteousness”? Well, it’s the “righteousness of the righteous” (the righteous person), not of God. But that person can’t “live by his righteousness when he sins.” It’s clearly talking about his righteousness, which can exist to more or less degrees. We can also look at the surrounding context of Romans 1:17. Do grace-generated human (and meritorious) good works appear there? Absolutely:
Romans 2:6-10, 13 For he will render to every manaccording to his works: [7] to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; [8] but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. [9] There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, [10] but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. . . . [13] For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
Romans 8:17 . . . heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 15:17-18 . . . In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. [18] For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed,
I’m also reminded of Paul’s concept of the “work of faith” by God’s power:
1 Thessalonians 1:3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 1:11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his call, and may fulfil every good resolve and work of faith by his power, (cf. Gal 5:6: “faith working through love”)
Luther’s famous struggle with the book of James leads one to further grasp that Luther did not discount holy actions of the believer, but he did discount their efficacy for salvation.
This is where he and Protestants are wrong, because works are often directly tied to salvation in the Bible. The very phrase, “live by his faith” means that one is living and working and doing things, caused by their faith. That’s already works. We saw how Paul put faith and works together — and tied to both “eternal life” and justification, above:
Romans 2:6-7, 13 For he will render to every manaccording to his works: [7] to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; . . . [13] For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
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Here are twenty-one more passages that tie works directly to salvation:
Psalm 7:10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.
Isaiah 59:18 According to their deeds, so will he repay, wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies; . . .
Jeremiah 4:4 . . . lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
Jeremiah 21:12 O house of David! Thus says the LORD: “‘Execute justice in the morning, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed, lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of your evil doings.'”
Zephaniah 2:3 Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his commands; seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the wrath of the LORD.
Matthew 7:18-21, 24 A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. [19] Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [20] Thus you will know them by their fruits. [21] “Not every one who says to me, `Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.. . . [24] Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock
Matthew 16:27 For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.
Matthew 19:16-17, 20-21 And behold, one came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?” [17] And he said to him, “. . . If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” . . . [20] The young man said to him, “All these I have observed; what do I still lack?” [21] Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
Matthew 25:34-35, 41-43. 46 Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; [35] for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, . . . [41] Then he will say to those at his left hand, `Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; [42] for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, [43] I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ . . . [46] And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Luke 3:9 (+ Mt 3:10; 7:19) . . . every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
John 5:28-29 . . . all who are in the tombs will hear his voice [29] and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.
Romans 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.
2 Thessalonians 1:8 inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
2 Thessalonians 2:13 . . . God chose you from the beginning to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.
James 2:14 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?
1 Peter 1:17 . . . who judges each one impartially according to his deeds . . .
2 Peter 1:10 Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall;
Revelation 2:5 Remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Revelation 2:23 . . . I will give to each of you as your works deserve.
Revelation 20:12-13 . . . And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. [13] . . . and all were judged by what they had done.
That’s an awful lot for Luther to have missed. But somehow he did, and so do millions of Protestants.
Catholics tied faith with human works, whereas Luther tied faith with Christ’s work.
The twenty passages above sure seem to tie faith (and also salvation itself and the attainment of eternal life in heaven) in with human works, don’t they? These works always flow from and are caused by grace and faith, mind you, but works cannot be removed from the overall equation. That is what Catholicism teaches, following compelling teachings in the Bible (see the above proofs of that).
faith is a gift from God, focused upon the works of God, for the purpose of purifying man.
We’re in full agreement there, but we add that works (as James 2 stresses) are part and parcel of faith, like two sides of a coin, or better yet, like eggs and milk put together in scrambled eggs. That’s how mixed together they are. “Faith without works is dead.” If faith is dead without works, then it follows that works are an essential and inseparable part of it. Yet Protestants separate works and make them non-essential to salvation by placing them in a nice little non-salvific category and “box” of sanctification, with a nice bow on top.
No one, no matter who he may be, is allowed to be a master and judge of the Scripture, rather all must be its witnesses, disciples, and confessors. This means that no one is in a position to validate Scripture. Scripture validates itself. The church’s witness to Scripture can never be anything more than the obedient recognition of the witness which Scripture bears to itself as God’s word. The church’s decision is never under any circumstances an authority standing above the word of God but only beneath it. [cited in Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), 75.]
We fully agree with that. I say that Luther is violating his own principle by eisegeting Scripture and reading into it things that aren’t there, and ignoring or discounting the abundant scriptural indications that he is wrong (again, see these passages above). In my opinion, Scripture is abundantly clear on this score, and all we need to do is present the relevant biblical data and let folks decide what to do with it. I haven’t cited any papal bulls or other Catholic documents. My case against faith alone is fully and strongly made by Scripture alone.
Luther’s interpretation sees faith preceding the law, Christ’s fulfillment of promises as the focus of faith, and holy actions as a response to the grace of God.
Works intrinsically flow from God’s grace, but — biblically speaking — they are not separate from salvation, and (contrary to the Protestant view) they are meritorious, as we see in the passages above. In the article, John Calvin’s commentary on Romans 1:17 is cited:
The faith of the righteous alone brings everlasting life. What is the source of that life but the faith which leads us to God, and makes our life depend on him? Paul’s reference to this passage from Habbakuk would have been irrelevant, unless the prophet meant that we then stand firm only when we rest on God by faith.
I just provided twenty-one quite plain Bible passages that prove that salvation and everlasting life does not come by faith alone but by faith as manifested by works, all in God’s grace. That being the case, Romans 1:17 can’t contradict it, because that would be an error and the Bible contains no theological error or falsehood. And I believe I have demonstrated how Romans 1:17 doesn’t mean that in and of itself anyway.
In essence Calvin too believed that faith is a God dependent action, necessary for grace to abound. . . . one should understand Calvin to have believed that faith is a gift from God.
Catholics agree (over against Pelagianism, or works-salvation). This is not what the dispute is about.
Calvin believes the “work” needed for salvation, is that of Christ’s death upon the cross.
That’s true, too, but it doesn’texcludeourwork. Paul wrote that “I have reason to be proud of my work for God” (Rom 15:17) and referred to “what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed” (Rom 15:18). It’s not either/or and yet another of Protestantism’s notorious false and unbiblical dichotomies. God works in us, and we work. Hence Paul also wrote, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me” (1 Cor 15:10).
He referred to himself and Apollos as “God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor 3:9) and mentioned “good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10) and the fact that “God is at work in you, both to will and to work” (Phil 2:13). We are “workers together with him” (2 Cor 6:1, KJV), “abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord” our “labor is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58). And Paul proclaimed, in a most unProtestant way:
2 Timothy 2:15, 21 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, . . . [21] If any one purifies himself from what is ignoble, then he will be a vessel for noble use, consecrated and useful to the master of the house, ready for any good work.
Calvin believes the “work” needed for salvation, is that of Christ’s death upon the cross. . . . What did Calvin say of works? The Institutes eloquently described the actions of the believer. However, when it comes to works related to justification, Calvin pointed to Christ:“if we ask how we have been justified, Paul answers, ‘By Christ’s obedience.’” [Inst. III, 11:9] Thus, one should understand the works needed for mankind’s salvation is Christ’s death and resurrection, not any human action.
If that were correct, how could Paul write, “the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2:13)? James added, “What does it profit . . . if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?” (Jas 2:17). The rich young ruler specifically asked Jesus, “what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?” (Mt 19:16). If Jesus were a good Protestant, or understood and believed in faith alone, first of all, He should have rebuked him, saying, “there’s no good deed you can do to attain eternal life!” But instead, Jesus was a good Catholic, and said that the requirements to “enter life” were to “keep the commandments” (19:17) and “sell what you possess and give to the poor” (19:21). But Calvin would have none of that. So much for Calvin, then, in cases where he expressly contradicts the inspired and inerrant words of Jesus and Paul and James in God’s holy revelation of Scripture.
The attribution of salvific works to Christ does not negate the works of response in the believer’s life. Calvin connect work with faith, but is careful to show that any reliance upon human works negates Christ’s gift of grace.
Calvin and Protestants generally speaking strongly urge the necessity of good works in the Christian life, which is great, but where they go astray (as massively shown above) and become unbiblical is in separating them altogether from the overall equation of attainment of salvation:
. . . with Christ’s righteousness interceding and forgiveness of sins accomplished he is justified. And although regenerated by the Spirit of God, he ponders the everlasting righteousness laid up for him not in the good works to which he inclines but in the sole righteousness of Christ. (Inst. III, 11:16)
From this relation it is clear that those who are justified by faith are justified apart from the merit of works—in fact, without the merit of works. For faith receives that righteousness which the gospel bestows. (Inst. III, 11:18)
They dare not deny that man is justified by faith because it recurs so often in Scripture. (Inst. III, 11:19)
We don’t deny it in fact. But as soon as we are justified by faith (what Catholics call initial justification) we are required to do grace-caused good works in order to sustain this justification.
But since the word “alone” is nowhere expressed, they do not allow this addition to be made. (Ibid.)
It does appear once in Scripture, in conjunction with faith:
James 2:24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
St. James — I hasten to add — isn’t maintaining that salvation is only by works (which would be heresy). He also writes, in context: “faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works” (Jas 2:22). He contends that both must be present together:
James 2:17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
James 2:20 . . . faith apart from works is barren
James 2:26 . . . faith apart from works is dead.
But what will they reply to these words of Paul where he contends that righteousness cannot be of faith unless it be free [Rom. 4:2 ff.]? How will a free gift agree with works? (Ibid.)
I say that Romans 4 hearkens back to Abraham’s justification, which is a fascinating topic, because once one examines his case closely, one discovers that Scripture teaches twice that he was justified by works and once that he was justified by faith.
With what chicaneries will they elude what he says in another passage, that God’s righteousness is revealed in the gospel [Rom. 1:17]? (Ibid.)
My “chicaneries” can be observed above, where I exegeted Romans 1:17. It simply doesn’t fit the Protestant schema.
The Protestant conclusion is that man is saved by faith in Christ’s faithfulness. . . . the Council of Trent concluded with a conviction that both the works of Christ and sacraments are necessary for salvation. Thus, the Catholic interpretation of Habakkuk 2:4b is that man is saved by faith in Christ, and his work, but then is preserved by observing the sacraments. . . . The Roman Catholic church does point to the faithful actions of a believer as the object of faith in Habakkuk 2:4b, but they also to point to the actions of Christ as the beginning of justification.
I agree.
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Summary: I reply to an informative article about Protestant & Catholic interpretation of Habakkuk 2:4: “the righteous shall live by his faith”, contending that “faith alone” is a false doctrine.
Protestant Steve Gregg’s words will be in blue. See his online biography.
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This began with a thread on my Facebook page where I posted a meme. It read as follows (numbers added for the sake of reference):
Protestantism:
[1] Where everyone is a priest except priests,
[2] Where everyone can bind and loose except bishops,
[3] Where you can command angels but not ask their help,
[4] Where you can talk to the devil but not to saints,
[5] Where everyone gets a crown except the Virgin Mary,
[6] Where everyone can interpret Scripture except the Church,
[7] Where every Church is a Church except the Church.
Now, posting a meme doesn’t necessarily mean that one agrees with every particular of it. And this is clearly a proverbial-type of meme, that would allow many exceptions (just as passages in the Book of Proverbs do). Moreover, with Protestantism one has to generalize, since there are so many divisions, but these observations are either broadly true or true of some and sometimes many Protestants, or else I wouldn’t have posted it. There can always be partial exceptions in an individual as well. I will defend this as far as I agree with it and reply to objections that are in the thread. More on this aspect below . . .
All of a sudden this post has received 345 likes or dislikes, 95 comments, and 154 shares in a little less than 24 hours: far more than I usually get on my Facebook page. Readers can see the comments in their original contexts and format by consulting the post (linked at the top). I will be doing my usual back-and-forth (Plato / Socrates / Peter Kreeft) dialogue format. But I have cited all the words of my opponent. No “cynical / hostile” editing here!
I wrote to Steve Gregg on Facebook: “I, too, came out of a Jesus People / Movement background. In the early 80s I wanted to join Keith Green’s ministry, shortly before he was killed. I used to read Cornerstone Magazine, and visited there. I did street witnessing all through the 80s at U of M in Ann Arbor. Etc. I admire all of that. We have much in common because of it.”
I am neither Roman Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox. So I guess I would be called “Protestant”. I prefer the label “believer” or “disciple.” I do not fit your description:
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Yes, you are a species of Protestant. But I understand that many Protestants deem themselves beyond any traditional or conventional theological / denominational labels and call themselves — as you did — merely a “believer” or “disciple” [of Jesus]” or just “Christians.” That’s fine on a certain level, with limitations, but in any event, one must be aware of their own theological pedigree and traditions. No one is beyond this, whatever they claim. We’re all products of some sort of tradition or influence.
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In your biography you referred to many authors you have read. I am familiar with just about all of them. I know where you are coming from. It’s a form of Protestantism. I used to believe many of these same things as a non-denominational Baptist-type Arminian, with many Christian influences. Someone said that “everyone has a [theological] tradition; even if it is an unacknowledged one.”
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You yourself made reference to where your own belief-system came from, historically speaking, in writing in your biography: “I suppose the first new ideas that I developed, from my personal study of the scriptures, were what would best be termed ‘Anabaptist’ convictions.” That’s good. I once angered one of my old evangelical teachers (a converted Jew for whom I had immense respect), by asking him if he were in the Anabaptist tradition. He thought he was above all categories and traditions, which is folly and silliness.
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You, on the other hand, show that you are aware of at least some pedigree. The Anabaptists, of course, began shortly after Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses in 1517 and kicked off the Protestant Revolt. They’re considered to be Protestants who were part of “the radical reformation.” Both Luther and Calvin approved of executing them for heresy and sedition, as you may already know. It’s not just Catholics who killed others for believing what they thought was heresy.
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1) No, everyone is a priest whom Jesus and the apostles acknowledged to be priests;
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This part of the meme clearly refers to the Protestant emphasis on the universal priesthood of believers. That sense is scriptural, and we also believe it. But we differ in thinking that there is an additional specific class of clergy called priests, who preside over the Mass and watch over their flocks, as Protestant pastors do. In other words, there are two senses of “priest” in the Bible. I addressed this topic in my 2007 book, The One-Minute Apologist: Essential Catholic Replies to Over Sixty Common Protestant Claims (pp. 48-49; I use RSV for biblical citations):
The priesthood as we know it today is not a strong motif in the New Testament. But this can be explained in terms of development of doctrine: in the early days of Christianity some things were understood only in a very basic or skeletal sense. This is true even of certain doctrines accepted by all Christians, such as the Holy Trinity or original sin. The canon of biblical books took four centuries to be fully established. . . .
But one can indeed find evidence in the Bible of a Christian priesthood. Jesus entrusts to His disciples a remembrance of the central aspect of the liturgy or Mass (consecration of the bread and wine) at the Last Supper [(Lk. 22:19: “Do this in remembrance of me”]; Paul may also have presided over a Eucharist in Acts 20:11. These same disciples were models of a priestly life: wholly devoted to God, fulfilling a lifelong calling. Jesus had chosen and “appointed” them, and they had become His “friends” [Jn. 15:15-16]. He was their sole master [Mt. 6:24]. There was no turning back in their ministry [Lk. 9:62], and they were called to a radical commitment involving even leaving possessions and their entire families [Mt. 4:22; 19:27; Lk. 14:26]. The priest-disciple must accept hardships and privations and embrace self-denial [Mt. 8:19-20; 10:38; 16:24, etc.], and (if so called) celibacy, for the sake of undistracted devotion to the Lord [Mt. 19:12; 1 Cor. 7:7-9]. They served the Body of Christ [1 Cor. 3:5; 9:19; 2 Cor. 4:5], and dispensed sacraments [1 Cor. 4:1; Jas. 5:14; Mt. 28:19]. A universal priesthood of “offering” (sacrifice) extending to “every place” in New Testament times is prophesied in Isaiah 66:18, 21 and Malachi 1:11.
Protestants sometimes cite 1 Peter 2:5, 9 (cf. Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6) to the effect that all Christians are priests; therefore there is no set-apart priestly ministry. But Peter was citing Exodus 19:6: “you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” This passage couldn’t possibly have meant that there was no priesthood among the ancient Hebrews, since in Leviticus they clearly had a separate class of priests. In fact, this same chapter twice contrasts the “priests” with the “people” [Ex. 19:21-24; cf. Josh. 3:6; 4:9]. Thus, it makes much more sense to interpret “priests” in 1 Peter 2:5 as meaning a chosen, specially holy people. This is fairly clear in context, in both parallel passages. The notion of “spiritual sacrifices” (faith, praise, giving to others) applies to all Christians [Phil. 2:17; Heb. 13:15-16].
The idea that all Christians are priests to the exclusion of a special class of clergy-priests is traceable to Martin Luther, not the Bible.
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2) Bishops are not singled out to be excluded from the activity of binding and loosing;
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The idea in the meme is that most Protestants don’t have bishops at all, despite their being cited as a Church office in the Bible (“bishop” appears four times in the NT in RSV). Technically (where I disagree with the meme), priests — not just bishops — bind and loose as well, in the course of confession, absolution, and penance. But most Protestants don’t have priests, either, so it makes little difference as to the overall point being made. Catholics believe that Jesus’ original disciples represented as a prototype, priests (or pastors, if one “Protestantizes” it).
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Hence, Jesus told Peter to “Feed my lambs” and “tend my sheep” and “feed my sheep” (Jn 21:15-17). And the Apostle Paul, speaking to “the elders of the church” (Acts 20:17), said, “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God” (Acts 20:28). Similarly, the Apostle Peter wrote: ” So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder . . . Tend the flock of God that is your charge” (1 Pet 5:1-2).
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Now, one might ask what we mean by “binding and loosing.” International Standard Bible Dictionary (“Bind, Bound”) states:
In a figurative sense, to bind heavy and burdensome (extra) so-called religious duties on men (Mt 23:4). This figurative use of the word in Mt 16:19 and Mt 18:18 has given special interest to it. Necessarily certain powers for administration must be conferred on this company of men to carry out the purpose of Christ. That this power was not conferred on Peter alone is evident from the fact that in Mt 18:18 it is conferred on all the apostles. The use of the word in the New Testament is to declare a thing to be binding or obligatory (Joh 20:23).
New Bible Dictionary (“Binding and Loosing”) affirms that this means “the Church’s power to excommunicate and reconcile the sinner.” Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (“Binding and Loosing”) likewise defines it as “the authority to to determine the rules for doctrine and life . . .” These are all Protestant sources.
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3) Most Protestants do not believe in commanding angels. I don’t…nor does anyone I know; *
Again, it’s a proverbial-type meme. I agree with you that this particular item applies to only a small number of Protestants. Even you assumed that by using the word “most.” If “most” Protestants don’t believe this, then by the same token, “some” do! They exist. You mentioned Kenneth Hagen in your biography. His fellow “Word of Faith” minister Kenneth Copeland teaches this:
2. Command your angels
Can you really do this? In short, yes. Keep in mind, you aren’t commanding them in the same way you are commanding and rebuking the devil. You are releasing them to do the work they’ve been assigned to perform on your behalf.
You have been given the authority of Jesus Christ, as an heir, and you can command your angels to move on your behalf to carry out the Word (Psalm 103:20). Kenneth Copeland advises saying something like this: “In the Name of Jesus, ministering spirits, I assign you according to Hebrews 1:13-14 to see to it that I have protection in this car, in this airplane, in this building. I claim this right as an heir to salvation.” (“5 Ways To Put Your Angels To Work,” Kenneth Copeland Ministries)
Another Protestant site has an article entitled, “You Can Command Angels to Help You!” The Bible passages it cites don’t prove this, in my opinion. A third site states, “Yes, you CAN command angels with your words and your prayers.” There is even a book called Commanding Angels. So this exists. But it would be very difficult to find any Catholic of any note who believes in something this stupid and unbiblical. And this is the point. The error exists in your ranks. It doesn’t in ours. And I think that you have to ask yourself why that is?
It’s important to realize that the meme doesn’t necessarily have to mean that all Protestants believe all these things. That false notion is at the root of many objections in my Facebook thread. It’s implying (at least in my opinion and interpretation) that these beliefs can be or are found among Protestants.
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To use an analogy, I could put up a meme about “The Democratic Party” and list seven things that some or many Democrats believe (free abortion and widespread illegal immigration and opposition to fossil fuels would be three examples). It wouldn’t follow that every Democrat believes all seven things; as Democrats (the men and women on the street; not just the politicians) are quite diverse as a group, just as Protestants are. But the generalizations would hold. Democrats are absolutely overwhelmingly in favor of legal abortion, etc. The fact that some aren’t doesn’t negate the legitimacy of the generalization. And the same applies to this meme.
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It’s not our fault that Protestantism includes many weird and false beliefs within itself. You get angry when we merely point some of these out. But every difference of opinion within Protestantism entails at least one false view or two. They can’t both be true. Therefore, Protestantism by nature contains much false doctrine, simply because of the innumerable contradictions. It’s up to you to change that, but the grossly unbiblical spectacle of denominationalism has never been resolved and never will be because your own rule of faith of sola Scriptura precludes the possibility. We can solve things because we abide by the biblical notions of authority: an authoritative Church and tradition in harmony with and guided by the inspired revelation of Holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit.
The other part of this entry is “not ask[ing] their [angels’] help.” The vast majority of Protestants certainly oppose invocation of angels or departed human beings. That is absolutely indisputable. But this action is biblical. There is even a passage in Scripture where prayer petitions are asked of an angel and granted (!):
Genesis 19:15, 18-21 When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.”. . . And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me, and I die. Behold, yonder city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there — is it not a little one? — and my life will be saved!” He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.
That’s asking an angel to help, and prayer to an angel, and the Bible presents it as perfectly fine and dandy. We’re biblical in this respect; probably 99% of Protestants aren’t (some high Anglicans would agree with us).
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4) I don’t talk to the devil, but he (unlike deceased Christians) is around and might actually hear me;
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I make numerous biblical arguments for the invocation of saints, which this item in the meme mentioned, as a thing Protestants deny. The best one, I think, is the rich man’s prayer petitions to Abraham (Luke 16). Abraham never rebukes him for petitioning him, but he answers “no”: just as God does when we ask something improper or against His will. So that’s one thing. As for talking to the devil, Jesus did that in the wilderness, so we certainly can (He being our model: 1 Cor 11:1; 1 Thess 1:6; Heb 12:2-3).
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I think James 4:7 (“Resist the devil and he will flee from you”) is consistent with the practice of talking to him when resisting him. Jesus said, “Begone, Satan!” (Mt 4:10), so we could say the same thing, applying James 4:7. So the relevant question here for Protestants, is, why are they reluctant to do a thing (talk to the devil) that Jesus Himself did?
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5) Who ever suggested that Mary does not get a crown? *
Again, the meaning behind this is that Protestants resist any mention of Jesus as the Queen of Heaven, etc., as supposed idolatry (“Mariolatry”), even though this is explicitly biblical (Rev 12:1: “on her head a crown of twelve stars”). Why? Several of the points in the meme are criticizing the very common Protestant shortcoming of “either/or” false dichotomies. An entire (brilliant) book was written about this very tendency, called The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, by Louis Bouyer, a Lutheran convert to Catholicism. My very highest recommendation!
6) Everyone who is in Christ actually IS the Church; *
This point was about interpreting Scripture. Protestants — in the final analysis, or bottom line — essentially give the individual the final say in this, by adopting sola Scriptura, since it removed infallibility for the Church. Therefore, the individual (like Luther, who invented this!) can judge the institutional (Catholic / Orthodox) Church. That’s exactly what Luther did in 1521 at the Diet of Worms. He knew better than the entire unbroken 1500-year tradition of the Catholic Church. I’ll get to what the Church is in my next reply.
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7) The Church is comprised of all who are in Christ. No church building or organization is “the Church.” That identity is reserved for the disciple community—the whole body of Christ globally. No one local congregation can claim to be the whole body of Christ.
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This is untrue. The name of the group which is comprised of “all who are in Christ”: at last in terms of all who are actually saved and go to heaven in the end, is “the elect.” And the problem with that is that no one knows for sure who is in the elect, because we don’t perfectly know the future, and Christians can fall away from the faith. In the Bible, there are many instances of folks who are probably fallen away already, being included in the blanket term as members of the local church. So, for example, when Paul wrote to the Galatians, he addressed them as “To the churches of Galatia” (Gal 1:2). That is, he’s writing to those whom he considers part of the Church.
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Yet in that group were terrible folks, since Paul wrote, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?. . . Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” (Gal 3:1, 3). It’s the same with the seven churches in revelation. In that instance, Jesus is talking to them, commending and rebuking. But he addresses them as [local] churches. The people in those assemblies are part of the Church, in other words. There are bad people in the Church. And we don’ know who the elect are until we get to heaven and literally see who made it.
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“Church” (ecclesia) is used many times in Scripture in the sense of the entire institutional Church. There are many arguments to be made along these lines, and I have made them. One of my favorites is the Jerusalem Council. This was led by Peter and the bishop of Jerusalem, James, attended by Paul, and consisted of “apostles and elders.” It made a decree that was agreed with by the Holy Spirit (i.e., an infallible or even inspired one) — Acts 15:28 — , which was proclaimed by Paul far and wide as binding on Christians (Acts 16:4).
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That’s undeniably an institutional Church, and one that produced infallible binding decrees in council: all of which is contrary to the beliefs of most Protestants. Sola Scriptura denies that councils can be infallible, but the Jerusalem Council was. You deny that the Church was an organization. Yet here it was. BIG discussion — and if you hang around, we can get into that in far more depth — , but that is my short, nutshell answer for now.
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Who told you these falsehoods about your “separated brethren”?
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I draw these conclusions from my own study as an apologist (over 43 years) and “sociological observer” (I’m a sociology major) and my 13-year history as a zealous evangelical Protestant. I’ve defended them now and have pointed out the broad, general nature of the meme, which is always necessary in any “statement” about Protestantism.
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I simply responded truthfully, line-by-line to the meme.
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And now I have extended to you the same “favor” and courtesy.
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[To someone else] you did not find Christ in a Protestant setting, which tells me you were never actually a “Christian” in Protestantism. . . . you have never known Christ–only religion
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You don’t know that. You can’t say that about him because you don’t know his heart. Only God knows that. You don’t know enough about him to make such a sweeping judgment, because he didn’t say that much about his personal spiritual life. But here you are judging his soul. And the insult is complete with a Protestant slogan: the pitting of Christ against religious observance, as if that is valid to do. Religion is not a bad thing. It’s not a dirty word. It appears six times in the NT in RSV (and religious also appears three times), in an entirely positive sense. So who are we to make it a term of condescending disdain when the Bible doesn’t?
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Since neither Christ nor the apostles affirmed any point in this paragraph, I will assume you take these things to be true on the authority of the particular religious establishment in which you have chosen to place your confidence.
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All of them are affirmed in the Bible, and I have shown that in many of my articles and books. You make bald statements. I make elaborate biblical and historical, rational arguments. The Mormon comparison is an old tired and boorish saw. Don’t even try that, if I am around.
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this was also true of many early Christian congregations before the idea of apostolic succession was invented.
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Apostolic succession is explicitly biblical. See, for example:
You may have been around Pentecostals. Most Protestants do not believe in such things.
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Yeah, I agreed above. I contend that the meme doesn’t require an interpretation that “all Protestants believe everything in the meme.” Wikipedia (“Pentecostalism”) states that “worldwide Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity numbers over 644 million adherents.” I was a charismatic evangelical for ten years and I attend a Catholic charismatic parish now (since 2020). I never believed that I could command an angel, but if even, say, a third of pentecostals believe this (I don’t know how many do), that’s about 215 million people (60 million more than all worldwide Lutherans and Presbyterians combined).
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That’s more than sufficiently enough to note this as a belief of [some] Protestants. By contrast, there are 80 million Lutherans worldwide, 85 million Anglicans, 80 million Methodists, 170 million Baptists, and 75 million Presbyterians. There is overlap in the categories, but assuming for comparison’s sake that pentecostals are a distinct group, they have 154 million more people than all of these very mainstream denominations combined. That even brings into question the notion that pentecostals are a minority in Protestantism. Sounds like they are a majority and by far the largest single distinct group.
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I have been in very many different Protestant churches and do not find this to be accepted in the vast majority of cases. No Protestant I know believes in commanding angels.
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Then you must not have been to many pentecostal churches. I have. As I said, I was a charismatic evangelical, and most of my time was spent there (Assemblies of God, where I got married, and non-denominational congregations).
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I have been in (probably) about 100 (I have taught in many around the world over the last 55 years), and have never seen such a reaction to the mention of the mother of Jesus. Your experience seems very limited.
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The mere mention of Mary doesn’t do that (after all, Protestants talk about her quite a bit at Christmas, but not much the rest of the year), but if anyone dares mention “Catholic” views of Mary, even those which all Protestants once believed (like her perpetual virginity) or say she is the “mother of God” there is plenty of scorn.
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What all of these people, including you, have in common is a blind loyalty to a preferred religious system, which has no support from scripture.
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If you believe that, then you may have come to the very last place you want to be online: to the person whose career is centered around “biblical Catholicism.” I hope you stick around. You’ll see how biblical Catholicism is. We can discuss whatever you like. I’ve covered all of the major areas of theology in my 4,800+ articles and 55 books. You didn’t even claim we have “less” support than Protestantism does, but rather, “no“ support. Every Christian group supports their views from Scripture. We are no exception. I can attest to the fact that as a Catholic, I have learned about Scripture in exponentially more depth than I ever did as a Protestant. And I say that as one with deep respect for Protestantism and for my own former teachers during my evangelical experience.
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If you wish to explore the controversy at a somewhat more thoughtful level, you might be interested in hearing my five debates with Jimmy Akin on Catholic Answers—or my five debates with Tim Staples at my own website *
Good for you. Then perhaps you will be willing to dialogue with me, too. I hope so! You can start by replying to this, or by picking another topic of your choice (but I hope you do that after you respond to this). I’ve done probably over 1,000 written debates.
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I promise never to complain about any truth. However, you have only repeated controversial and unsupportable Catholic talking points, which I have heard hundreds of times, but which I know to have no scriptural case in their favor. *
Then you must not have run across me before. I can defend, and have defended virtually every Catholic “distinctive” doctrine from Scripture: most many times. And this has been done for a long time. A book that highly influenced me was James Cardinal Gibbons‘ book, The Faith of Our Fathers(1876). It’s filled with scriptural arguments. So is St. Francis de Sales’ superb book, The Catholic Controversy, which helped convert over 70,000 Calvinists in France (not to mention St. Thomas Aquinas’ work, too).
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So yeah, Protestants don’t have a monopoly on biblical argumentation, much as you may have deluded yourself is supposedly the case. We all make sincere biblical arguments; we all revere the inspired revelation of Scripture. That’s what we have in common. And that’s why I defend Catholicism from Scripture. We’re by far the most thoroughly biblical communion in Christianity.
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Sadly, you have done nothing to demonstrate that these statements even have the slightest likelihood of being true.
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He may not have (I don’t know), but I have. If you want to get into this discussion, then do it with the person who has devoted his life for now 34 years (the last nearly 23 as a professional, full-time, published apologist), to defending Catholicism from Scripture. That’s what Protestants (generalizing! — but in this instance from long personal experience) are so unwilling to do. They’re very reluctant to engage with Catholics who are willing and prepared to engage their arguments (from Scripture or history) point-by-point and in great depth. I was willing to do that as a Protestant, and as a result I am a Catholic. I knew the superior arguments once I finally came into contact with them.
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No, you are not restricted to one choice, namely, to generalize about Protestants. You admit that Protestants vary broadly from each other, so generalization is simply impossible and irresponsible.
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That’s simply untrue. We generalize all the time about many things. There is nothing wrong with it. I have defended each point of the meme. If you disagree, now is your chance to counter-reply.
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If you have known some Protestants who hold the views you listed, you might mention which brand you are referring to, while pointing out that they would represent a tiny minority of those under the diverse Protestant rubric.
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I have done some of that. I already blew away your insinuation that pentecostals are but a tiny fraction of Protestantism. They are not at all. They are the fastest growing sector, by far.
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Making irresponsible and false generalizations
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I vehemently deny that, per my above argumentation and much more that I could provide. You act as if no one can ever make any generalizations about anything, which is patently absurd. Sociology (my major) and many other fields heavily utilize it. See, for example, “Generic Generalizations,” by Sarah-Jane Leslie and Adam Lerner, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It states:
It is clear that generics are not equivalent to universal statements, but rather permit exceptions—that is, generics can be true even if some (or sometimes many) members of the kind lack the property in question. Generics also do not mean “most”; it is false that most mosquitoes carry the West Nile virus and true that most books are paperbacks, but our intuitions about the truth/falsity of the corresponding generics are reversed.
When someone posts a generalization someone will post an exception.
Why is that?
Exceptions do not mean generalization are not generally true.
Generally does not mean always.
Hypothetical examples:
Someone posts that men are generally stronger than women, so someone will mention a very strong woman they know.
Someone generalizes that hybrid cars are usually driven more slowly than other cars, so someone will mention a hybrid owner that drives fast.
Someone generalizes that cats are more aloof than dogs, so someone will mention a very affectionate cat they know.
Someone generalizes that people with higher education usually make more money, so someone will mention a rich high school drop out they know of, or a person with a master degree working at a low-paying job.
There are a thousand examples here on PS.
I’m sure I’ve done it myself.
Why do we bother post exceptions?
It seems redundant.
Are generalizations somehow upsetting or threatening to people?
Do they think people making generalizations are so stupid that they think there are no exceptions?
Do they think exceptions neutralize what usually holds true?
Is this just PC-ness run amok?
Generalizations are okay.
They are only generalizations, in this article
you are not opposed to misrepresenting those who are not in your camp—giving the profound impression that only such lies make it possible to make your view seem valid.
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As I have shown, I have not done that. All of the points in the meme have been believed by Protestants; often, by many, and sometimes by very many. These are strong words. You need to counter-reply, since I have expended so much effort to refute your charges, and other similar ones in the same thread, in this article.
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I don’t think it is right for one group to mischaracterize the other. It only makes points with the ignorant.
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I completely agree. Again, I vigorously deny that I have done this, and have now explained why I have done so. You are the one grotesquely misrepresenting, by claiming that Catholics have “no” biblical arguments at all to support our positions. I assume for the sake of charity that you are profoundly ignorant of Catholicism, to say such a silly and outlandish thing. You couldn’t possibly claim this if you had even a rudimentary familiarity with Catholic apologetics and theology.
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[we also had this exchange about how Christian Catholicism is]
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I wanted to clarify one thing with you: can someone who believes and practices allthat the Catholic Church teaches be saved, be a Christian, a believer, a disciple of Jesus, and heaven-bound? In other words, is Catholicism a species of Christianity alongside all the other groups or denominations? Or are we out of the fold because we’re Catholic?
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I believe very many Catholics have been true followers of Jesus (St. Francis, Girolamo Savonarola, G.K. Chesterton, and Mother Theresa come immediately to mind).
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Vatican II, likewise, seems to allow that many Protestant believers are also saved (assuming they don’t understand that the Catholic Church is the true church).
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I don’t think it is right for one group to mischaracterize the other. It only makes points with the ignorant. No one needs my permission to choose their church assembly according to their conscience. You may notice that I have not said one word of attack about Catholicism. I simply (without rancor) corrected the misrepresentations of Protestantism in the meme.
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Okay, good, so a Catholic, and a solid Catholic can possibly be saved. St. Francis, St. Teresa of Calcutta, and G. K. Chesterton all accepted all that the Church teaches. So you do believe that Catholicism a species of Christianity alongside all the other groups or denominations?
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I believe there is only one species of Christianity, but several varieties (as there are 200 varieties of dogs, but all the same species). The one species of Christianity in the Bible is comprised only of true disciples of Jesus (Acts 11:26). In biblical times, there was only one variety.
* Over the course of history, disciples have developed various worship forms and theological controversies that did not exist in the original movement, but these differences do not all place a person outside the fold under the Shepherd. These varieties are not all equally valid, of course, but nor do they, if believed by a true follower of Christ, necessarily make that person “not a Christian.” * So just to be clear, you hold that Catholicism is a “variety” of true Christianity (just as, say, Lutheranism or Calvinism are)? It seems so, by your last sentence, but I just wanted to be absolutely sure. It’s relevant because unless you acknowledge this, you would be dialoguing with me as an outsides, not a brother in Christ, and in a superior-subordinate relationship, not an equal one: as two committed disciples of our Lord and Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ.
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I do not know you personally, so I hold no theories concerning your salvation. All true disciples of Jesus are saved. They are “Christians” by the only definition of that word found in scripture (Acts 11:26). If you are a disciple of Jesus (I am in no position to have an opinion about that), then you are a Christian. I don’t decide these things about others. You do not need my affirmation about this, if you have God’s.
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I didn’t ask you if I was saved. I asked you (now for the third time): “do you hold that Catholicism is a ‘variety’ of true Christianity (just as, say, Lutheranism or Calvinism are)?”
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You are asking about an institution; I am talking about the community of Christ. In the latter, there are Catholics and Protestants. If you wish to reframe this to say “Catholic (Christians) are Christians, and therefore part of Christianity,” I have no objection, but it is hardly different from what I have said previously every time you asked.
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By the way, why are you so interested in my opinion about this? God’s opinion is the only one that matters. I have never set out to cut any particular group of Christians off from the Christian fold. My point is that Christians are individuals who follow Christ. I don’t care where they sit on Sunday mornings. That is irrelevant to their following of Christ. *
Thank you for the clarification. This is a specific aspect of the larger determination of whether anti-Catholicism is in play or not (i.e., the denial that Catholics who adhere to all of the Catholic Church’s teachings can be Christians or be saved). With this answer you prove that you are not anti-Catholic, so I’m delighted to hear that.
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In light of no responses whatever to my counter-reply blog post in over 8 1/2 hours (after scores and scores of rapid-fire criticisms yesterday), perhaps we could add an 8th point to the list in the “controversial” meme:
[8] Where it’s considered proper to go to Catholic sites to preach, troll, and condescend, but not to dialogue or even to read a counter-reply . . .
Note: several commentators flatly refused to even read my reply. They said so. Very open-minded and confident in their views, huh?
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Oh, pardon me. I didn’t realize that I had signed up for an endless dialogue with you. I actually have a life, and a Facebook page where I am called upon to answer many questions on different subjects. *
I did not troll you. Your meme showed up in the notifications on my page. I read it, and responded to it without rancor or challenge. Your meme was inaccurate, so I thought a person who cared about truth, like yourself, would welcome correction. You were not discussing doctrine, but seeking to describe Protestant beliefs. As a Protestant myself, I simply pointed out that neither I nor any Protestants that I know hold those beliefs. If I had known that you didn’t like to be informed, I would have refrained from intruding. I am not used to visiting pages where the host wants to maintain an amen club echo chamber.
* You extended the discussion beyond my first response, so I interacted with you as long as I had time to do so. Then (you must have made the mistake of thinking I am obsessed with conversing with you), you began posting long and irrelevant responses to Protestantism, using me as your example (I don’t object to that).
* What I do object to is that someone thinks himself so important as to oblige me to take hours of my day to read his essays, and (worse yet) to respond to them. If you want my responses to your familiar talking points, feel free to listen to my responses to Tim Staples and Jimmy Akin (I gave you the website). I am not interested in spending my life making the same points to every Catholic who craves my attention. If Scott Hahn wants to debate, I would give him the time. No offense, but you simply are not that big a priority in my life. In fact, I never heard of you before.
* I do not troll Catholic (or any other websites). I don’t even know where they are, nor go looking for them, because they are not of particular interest to me (sorry, again, if that makes you feel less important). I spend as little time online as I can manage, since (as I said) actually have a life in the real world.
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Of course, none of what I wrote applied to you. It was a generalization, as all of this is. That’s what has been so misunderstood. You apparently have a difficulty with understanding statements in context. I referred to “scores and scores of rapid-fire criticisms”: i.e., posts from many commentators. I was contrasting all of that bustling activity to the dead silence today.
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Then I noted that “several commentators flatly refused to even read my reply. They said so.” That wasn’t you. You never said that (though now you do). I was clearly referring to the general tenor of discussion in a very lively thread with many participants. So what do you do? You casually assume that I am referring only to you. And you call me self-important?
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You had shown arrogance in the thread already, particularly in reply to other people: judging their hearts, as if you can read minds. Now your pharisaical, judgmental attitude comes out again, directed towards me. I have less than no desire to interact with an arrogant pompous ass. You argued well, but your attitude stinks to high heaven. And now you won’t have to reply at all to my reply. How convenient!
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Yes. Very convenient. I like convenience. I also like to dialogue with people whose skin is a bit thicker than that of tissue paper. I will leave you to your unoffending audience.
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After this idiotic childish outburst you now accuse me of having a thin skin and wanting to have an echo chamber? You are too much! You’re blind as a bat to your own faults: at least in this instance, as all can see.
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I have no secrets. I am glad that all can see. *
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Summary: I reply to & interact with well-known Protestant apologist Steve Gregg, who didn’t like a meme I put up which generalized about certain errors in various sectors of Protestantism.
Photo credit: St. Peter’s Cathedral in Worms, Germany (west end), in the same city where the famous Diet of Worms with Martin Luther took place, in January-May 1521. Photo by AndreasThum (4-17-11) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]
Martin Luther completed his treatise, On the Councils and the Church in March 1539. In Luther’s Works (Vol. 41) it takes up 170 pages (9-178; translated in 1966). In the Introduction included in that volume, the editors observe:
Luther’s On the Councils and the Church represents his final judgment concerning the medieval church as well as the first broad foundation for a new doctrine of the church within nascent Lutheranism. . . . Luther concludes from his analysis that although councils protect the church from error, they have no authority to create new articles of faith. . . .
Experience taught Luther to bury all hopes for any reconciliation with Rome — a sad lesson, climaxing in the conviction that “a free, general, Christian council,” once his dream, was never to become a reality. (p. 5)
I will be utilizing a different public domain translation of Rev. C. B. Smyth: published in London by William Edward Painter in 1847; available at Internet Archive. When I cite Scripture, it is RSV. Luther’s words will be in blue.
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I have bypassed Luther’s Preface, which consists of ranting and raving and little actual argument. Likewise, I will pass over similar material in my reply and stick to portions where Luther is actually lucid and presents some sort of sustained rational argument. Luther is not Calvin, who (like him or not) systematically presents concise, cogent arguments. Unless one wants to essentially descend to a shouting match or polemics and little else (which helps nobody), one must necessarily be selective in what to respond to in Luther.
They will consign the Church to ruin sooner than they will give way in one point — that is, they will first give up councils and fathers before they will abandon anything invented by themselves. For were the councils and the fathers faithfully followed, ah, then, what a sorry figure would the pontiff and modern prelates exhibit? (p. 14)
Of course, we say precisely this against Lutherans and larger Protestantism. It’s because they have departed from the Church fathers and early councils that they have gone astray in many ways. Not only do they massively differ from patristic consensus in several major ways (as I have shown many times: see my Fathers of the Church web page); they also contradict each other innumerable times, since they have split into many hundreds of sects, and have no way to resolve that scandalous problem. Where there are serious differences of opinion, contradictions are massively and necessarily present, on one side or possibly both, in any given conflict. But Catholicism can trace itself back to the beginning, in an unbroken chain of consistent development of doctrine.
They must go to ruin, and cease to remain as lords in the ascendant. (p. 15)
Thus prophesied Luther in 1539. We’re still here, teaching the same as always, whereas his Lutherans have split into factions: most of them theologically liberal and contrary to historic Lutheranism, while a small portion remains true. If that’s supposedly the “mainstream” of Christianity, it’s a pathetic thing indeed.
Why, the universal vicar is above councils, above fathers, above kingly and divine authority, and angels! Let me see you bring him down to submission, and (if you can) make fathers and councils to dictate to the apostolic vicar. (p. 16)
I guess he’s projecting here, since he wrote 17 years earlier about himself:
I call myself an ecclesiastic by the grace of God in defiance of you and the devil, although you call me a heretic with an abundance of slander. And even if I called myself an evangelist by the grace of God, I would still be more confident of proving it than that any one of you could prove his episcopal title or name. I am certain that Christ himself, who is the master of my teaching, gives me this title and regards me as one. Moreover, he will be my witness on the Last Day that it is not my pure gospel but his. . . .
I need not have any title and name to praise highly the word, office, and work which I have from God and which you blind blasphemers defile and persecute beyond measure. I trust my praise will overcome your defiling, just as my justice will overcome your injustice. It does not matter if, with your blasphemy, you are on top for the moment.
Therefore, I now let you know that from now on I shall no longer do you the honor of allowing you – or even an angel from heaven – to judge my teaching or to examine it. For there has been enough foolish humility now for the third time at Worms, and it has not helped. Instead, I shall let myself be heard and, as St. Peter teaches, give an explanation and defense of my teaching to all the world – I Pet. 3:15. I shall not have it judged by any man, not even by any angel. For since I am certain of it, I shall be your judge and even the angels’ judge through this teaching(as St. Paul says [I Cor. 6:3 ]) so that whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved – for it is God’s and not mine. Therefore, my judgment is also not mine but God’s. (Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops Falsely So-Called, July 1522; from Luther’s Works, Vol. 39: Church and Ministry I, excerpt from pp. 247-249; see much more along these lines)
In stark contrast, popes massively consult with bishops, priests, and even laypeople, before making any major doctrinal or dogmatic pronouncements, as I recently documented. No one could disagree with Luther (if they did he often consigned them to a destiny in hell, in his singular foreknowledge). He was as autocratic and dogmatic (in the worst sense of that word) as they come.
The holy father will not succumb to any reformation of himself and inferior lords, cardinals, and prelates — no council can be of any service — no reformation is to be hoped for in the Catholic Church. Thus he tramples under foot the bare mention of any proposals, and peremptorily bids us to close our lips. Are we required, then, to allow ourselves to be reformed, and benefit the Church with their co-operation, according to conciliar and patristic patterns, when truly the pontiff and papists will not allow it to be put to experiment? . . .
Even in points of importance we would bend, so far as we could, without opposing the Almighty. Yes: we are willing to give way to the very last degree of suffering in order to avert injury and destruction from the Churches, according to the utmost of our knowledge and our power.(pp. 17-18)
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Anyone can talk a good game, but it takes the cooperation of two parties to compromise or come to any resolution of honest disagreements. So what do we observe in the closest thing to any sort of attempt at reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants near the beginning of the Protestant Revolt, at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530? Catholic historian Warren Carroll described the proceedings and the lack of tolerance in the Lutheran party:
Early in July the bishops presented their complaints to the Diet of the plundering and destruction of churches, seizure of monasteries and hospitals, prohibition of Masses, and attacks on religious processions by the Protestants. When Charles called upon the Protestants to restore the property they had seized, they said that to do so would be against their consciences. Charles responded crushingly: ‘The Word of God, the Gospel, and every law civil and canonical, forbid a man to appropriate to himself the property of another.’ He said that as Emperor he had the duty of guarding the rights of all, especially those Catholics unwilling to accept Protestantism or go into exile, who should at least be allowed to remain in their homes and practice their ancestral faith, specifically the Mass; the Protestants replied that they would not tolerate the Mass . . .
On the 13th [of July] Luther announced from Coburg that the Protestants would never tolerate the Mass, which he called blasphemous, and said of the Emperor:
We know that he is in error and that he is striving against the Gospel . . . He does not conform to God’s Word and we do . . .
Luther stated in a letter to Melanchthon [on] August 26:
This talk of compromise . . . is a scandal to God . . . I am thoroughly displeased with this negotiating concerning union in doctrine, since it is utterly impossible unless the Pope wishes to take away his power.
In subsequent letters he declared that no religious settlement was possible as long as the Pope remained and the Mass was unchanged . . .
The Augsburg Confession must endure, as the true and unadulterated Word of God, until the great Judgment Day . . . Not even an angel from Heaven could alter a syllable of it, and any angel who dared to do so must be accursed and damned . . . The stipulations made that monks and nuns still dwelling in their cloisters should not be expelled, and that the Mass should not be abolished, could not be accepted; for whoever acts against his conscience simply paves his way to Hell. The monastic life and the Mass covered with infamous ignominy the merit and suffering of Christ. Of all the horrors and abominations that could be mentioned, the Mass was the greatest.
. . . no Catholic of spirit and courage could be expected, let alone morally required, to give up all his religious rights without a struggle; and few Protestants, at this point, would allow Catholics to exercise those rights if the Protestants were strong enough to deny them. These were the irreconcilable positions taken by the two sides at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, which made those long and bloody years of conflict inevitable. (The Cleaving of Christendom; from the series, A History of Christendom, Volume 4, Front Royal, Virginia: Christendom Press, 2000, 103-107; see more about the council)
These abominable behaviors and positions are supposedly the spirit of “reformation” and “co-operation” that Luther scolded Catholics and popes for not possessing? Protestants were equally as intolerant amongst themselves in the colloquies of Regensburg (1541) and Poissy (1561). There is plenty of inflexibility and unwillingness to change to go around.
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The difference, however, is that Catholics were simply wishing to continue their 1500-year history of development, whereas Protestants were seeking to establish a novel doctrine and “church” which had existed for less than a generation (indeed, for only 13 years at the time of the Diet of Augsburg). Luther burst onto the scene in 1517, and by 1520 had demanded that the Catholic Church change its beliefs and practices in at least fifty ways. No institution can reasonably or sensibly be expected to do that just because one man arbitrarily and irrationally demands it.
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In the first place, it is notorious that the councils not only do not harmonize, but are perfectly contradictory to each other. (p. 23)
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This is a fundamental disagreement. Because Luther and Protestants believe this (part of sola Scriptura: nothing is infallible except the Bible), Luther is bound to argue the position he does. Protestantism doesn’t have enough faith to believe that God could or would protect His Church from error. Catholics, on the other hand, have faith enough — by God’s grace — to believe that He can and does protect His Church from error in terms of infallible pronouncements not being contradictory (non-infallible ones can contradict, by definition; this is a crucial distinction to be kept in mind throughout this analysis): just as He preserved Holy Scripture without error.
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The same charge is equally applicable to the patristic writers. (p. 23) *
Here Luther denies what is called “unanimous consent” of the fathers: a term that is much misunderstood. In an ecclesiological / patristic context, “unanimous consent” doesn’t mean “absolutely every” — as it is commonly used today in general usage, but rather, “consensus of the vast majority” in line with the magisterium of the Church (see more on this issue).
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I strongly contend that Protestantism is doctrinally very often at odds with what the Church fathers taught, and I have documented this time and again. Church fathers clearly do contradict each other in many areas, but a broad consensus can be easily observed. I have documented and summarized the fathers’ teaching regarding, for example, the rule of faith (rejection of sola Scriptura), their rejection of “faith alone” (sola fide): see Part 1 and Part 2, and baptism: all positions in line with Catholicism and in conflict with Protestantism.
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A mighty task, indeed, it would be to select the truth, and reject what is false, in the midst of so much that is unlike and wholly at variance with itself! (pp. 23-24)
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This is precisely why Catholics believe that God ordained an authoritative Church (the magisterium) — protected in its infallibility and indefectibility by God — to make these determinations (including things like the canon of Scripture). Since Lutheranism ditched the magisterium and infallible Church, it can only offer arbitrary and conflicting opinions (often merely a head count of scholars), and that is the Protestant tragedy. Protestants will fight with each other till Kingdom come, with no way of resolving anything, because there is no final say.
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All they can do is split from each other and form new groups, after their endless squabbling produces no resolution. Meanwhile, the Bible teaches that there is one faith, one Church, and not hundreds of competing sects. The latter is roundly condemned in the Bible, especially by St. Paul, and Luther agreed with him; so did Calvin and Melanchthon in their correspondence. Protestantism is institutionally hopeless: doomed to be forever unbiblical and at odds with the 1500-year Christian tradition before it.
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Who is to distinguish on these questions? (p. 24)
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Excellent question! Protestantism can’t answer it.
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St. Augustine . . . mentions no other than [baptism and the Eucharist as sacraments]. (p. 25)
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Augustine taught that matrimony was a sacrament: “Undoubtedly the substance of the sacrament is of this bond, so that when man and woman have been joined in marriage they must continue inseparably . . .” (Marriage and Concupiscence, 1:10:11 and 1:17:19). So was penance / absolution: “In the Church, therefore, there are three ways in which sins are forgiven: in baptisms, in prayer, and in the greater humility of penance” (Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed, 8:16). And confirmation: “By this ointment you wish the sacrament of chrism to be understood, which is indeed holy as among the class of visible signs, like baptism itself” (Against Petilian the Donatist, 2, 104:239). And holy orders: “There remains in the ordained persons the Sacrament of Ordination” (On the Good of Marriage, III:412).
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He also believed in performing Extreme Unction / Anointing, which is a Catholic sacrament as well (see more about all of these). So Luther was wrong five times about what St. Augustine taught. He falsely believed that Augustine affirmed only two sacraments, and so followed the “practice” that was a myth of his own invention. This is hardly impressive, let alone compelling.
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What are we then to do? Must we subject the Church once more to patristic and conciliar teaching and practice? This is the ground taken by Augustine; but such a step in us would lead us into error. . . . Suppose we banish Austin [Augustine] from their ranks — the residue of them would not be of any great value. (p. 32)
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Huh?! Protestant apologists tell us till they are blue in the face that they follow the Church fathers supposedly far more closely than Catholics do; they honor and esteem them as great authorities in Christianity (though not infallible), etc. But now here is Luther expressly rejecting any subjection to them, and disagreeing even with his (off and on) hero St. Augustine! This strikingly confirms what we have often noted: the ahistoricism, anti-traditionalism and radical subjectivism of Protestantism.
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Protestants reject the fathers and simply casually assume that Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Bullinger, Zwingli et al know better than they do. In other words: get rid of the influence of the early Church and follow instead self-proclaimed “reformers” fifteen centuries after Christ, who want to introduce scores of unheard-of novelties. “The fathers contradicted each other, so we’ll ditch them.” This is the mentality. Like Protestant don’t do the same thing to a much greater degree?! It makes very little sense, once adequately scrutinized. The Bible states, in contrast: “Remove not the ancient landmark which your fathers have set” (Prov 22:28).
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The preachers at this [Jerusalem] council declare that the sentence of the Holy Spirit [Acts 15:28] is that Christians must keep themselves from things offered to idols, and blood, and strangled, &c. Shall we then, constitute the government of a Church after this highest and first model? If so, then none must touch the red interior of the birds, animals, and fishes, and the game that is strangled by hunters. Shall we adopt this prohibition? Are the Hebrews to become directors over our churches and kitchens, who will eat no meat with Pagan or Christian? (pp. 32-33)
This is a clever argument; I’ll give Luther that much. But it ultimately falls short and doesn’t accomplish what he thinks. Faced with a clear example of a conciliar decision guided by the Holy Spirit, he must somehow discount it, lest his novelty sola Scriptura be overthrown by a biblical teaching of an infallible council (which expressly contradicts sola Scriptura). So how does he do that? He notes that it is a timebound or temporary decision, having to do with legal dietary requirements, that obviously haven’t applied to all of history.
In terms of being analogous to the full Catholic notion of an infallible decision, which is that it is irrevocable for all time, Luther’s point has force. It’s true that it’s not analogous in that sense. But the decision also had the other quality of conciliar or ecclesiastical infallibility: being binding upon all Christians at the time it is given. In that sense, the Jerusalem Council still contradicts sola Scriptura. It was binding upon Christians far and wide, as shown by how the text treats St. Paul’s promulgation of it:
Acts 16:4 As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem.
The decision would be analogous to the original giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Jews were bound to that. Things changed later as the new covenant came into being and the New Testament was written, with a radically developed interpretation of the place of the Law in the Christian life. But for the observant Jew, the Mosaic Law was written in stone (figuratively and literally).
Let us understand these matters well before we commit the Church to the modes of life prescribed by ecclesiastical councils. If the first and highest gives us such embarrassment, how shall we dispose of all the rest? (p. 35)
Luther triumphantly — but prematurely — declares victory concerning this dispute. But he hasn’t understood the second aspect of this, that I just pointed out. The decision was binding on Christians far and wide. In other words, it was not merely local, as many Protestants argue was the case in early Church ecclesiology: authority extended no further than the local church. The Jerusalem Council puts the lie to that. It shows an authoritative and hierarchical (as well as episcopal) Church. Bishops and apostles and elders got together and decided what was what. And their word was law, and was ratified by the Holy Spirit (which makes it impossible to be wrong, when it was decreed, albeit being temporary)
But I must not forget to resume the subject of the Nicene assembly — the best and first general synod after that held by the holy apostles. One of its decrees commands all Christians who have grievously sinned to be debarred from absolution for seven years; and, if they die before the septennial penance be completed, they are to be absolved and to partake of the Eucharist at the point of death. But what is the practice now of the advocates for councils? (p. 35)
The same analysis I made above applies here. It was an authoritative temporary decree, just as the Mosaic Law ultimately was. St. Paul taught that:
Galatians 3:23-26 Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. [24] So that the law was our custodian [KJV: tutor”] until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. [25] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; [26] for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
If we set this constitution aside, we may dispense with all conciliar edicts. (p. 36)
True to form, Luther throws the baby out with the bathwater. It was his constant method. But this doesn’t follow. The Jerusalem Council proved that conciliar and hierarchical authority is a feature of Christianity. Pope Peter was the central figure, and James the bishop of Jerusalem also played an important role. The Council of Nicaea showed the same thing, even though it dealt with things that weren’t binding for all time, either.
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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 4,800+ free online articles or fifty-five 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.
Or you may believe my work is worthy to support for the purpose of apologetics and evangelism in general. If so, please seriously consider a much-needed financial contribution. I’m always in need of more funds: especially monthly support. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV). 1 December 2021 was my 20th anniversary as a full-time Catholic apologist, and February 2022 marked the 25th anniversary of my blog.
Summary: An examination of Martin Luther’s treatise, “On the Councils and the Church” (March 1539), leading to discussions about the rule of faith and sola Scriptura.
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