Dialogue on Oral Tradition & Apostolic Succession

Last updated on: May 31, 2018 at 1:00 pm By Dave Armstrong

Jesus referred to “Moses’ seat” as the basis upon which the Pharisees had teaching authority. This is an analogy to apostolic succession. The Pharisees and the Saduccees Come to Tempt Jesus, by James Tissot (1836-1902) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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John E. Taylor is a Presbyterian friend of mine (OPC). This occurred in a Facebook thread on my page. His words will be in blue.

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Then someone tell me what “Jewish traditions” we should be observing, if it was Jewish tradition that gave us the Old Testament canon, the way it is alleged that it was “Catholic tradition” that gave us the New Testament canon. No Jewish traditions, Dave? Then why should I be so concerned about Catholic traditions?

That’s a huge, huge topic. Certainly you know enough about that to know I couldn’t possibly give any fully adequate short answer.

But in a nutshell: Catholic tradition is developed from biblical and apostolic tradition, which is why we keep it. Protestant traditions are a mixed bag of authentic Catholic traditions and a host of non-biblical novelties introduced in the 16th century.

But you didn’t answer my question about JEWISH traditions! The fact is, I DON’T know a whole lot about them, which is why I asked.

I certainly have no use for “Protestant” traditions like “altar calls” and getting “saved” by praying “the sinner’s prayer”. No doubt the Reformers would have repudiated them, too.

I did answer by saying: “That’s a huge, huge topic. . . .”

Can’t you name one extra-biblical Jewish tradition we should believe? You’ve made a career out of citing such Catholic traditions.

I have great confidence in you.

Moses’ seat. Jesus espoused that one in Matthew 23; even said that Christians should heed the teachings of the non-Christian Pharisees. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

I’ve been impressed by rabbinic interpretation of OT Scripture. They unfortunately are a tad weak when it comes to the Messiah.

So Dave, name me a Pharisaical tradition “from Moses’ seat” we’re supposed to follow.

Just one.

Even I can name a fistful of Catholic ones – papal primacy, immaculate conception, Marian queenship, purgatory, indulgences, the infallibility of Catholic doctrine, the ultimate Scriptural interpretive authority delegated to the Catholic Magisterium.

You’re the expert, the full-time apologist. I’m just a working stiff, hack interpreter for the automotive industry. So surely you can name one Jewish tradition we should follow, because that same tradition gave us the OT canon.

I just did. I’m not gonna go round and round on this, when you have yet to produce even one Protestant scholarly source that backs you up on the “other Mary” being the Blessed Virgin. It’s the “floating ducks / 101 topics at once” Protestant tactical routine, and I don’t play that game.

If you want more, go to my web page on Judaism and Christianity: it’ll be a feast for ya.

I read your Sola Scriptura article. Re “2) JEWISH ORAL TRADITION WAS ACCEPTED BY JESUS AND THE APOSTLES:”

The names of Jannes and Jambres, the rock in the wilderness, and phrases like “He shall be called a Nazarene” and “the seat of Moses”, etc., hardly constitute doctrinal tradition of the sort Catholics appeal to.

I didn’t say they did. You simply assumed that. The argument that I made was the following, plainly described:

the Old Testament analogy is much more in line with both the early Church and present-day Catholicism (which developed from that early Church) and its notions of Church authority and tradition, than with the Protestant sola Scriptura rule of faith.

That’s not an argument of absolute equation, but one of relative similarity: “a is much more like b than c.”

Analogies also are usually not total; they admit of degrees. That is the case here.

As for the allegation of successors to Moses, they sure weren’t reliable in Jeremiah’s day, were they? They saw Jerusalem destroyed, something they most fallibly taught SURELY wouldn’t happen, and persecuted Jeremiah for telling them otherwise.

That was an “allegation” of Jesus. He’s the one who referred to it. I have engaged in extremely extensive debates with James White over this issue.

Succession was built into Judaism via the Aaronic priesthood and, later, the Davidic dynasty. What room does that leave for succession via some oral tradition?

And Jeremiah’s fingerless contemporaries are just ONE example of Jewish leaders’ apostasy – Old Testament history is a sad repetition of that one theme, finally resulting in their murdering the Lord of Glory.

So Jewish succession seems like a mighty weak reed to lean on.

Nor does an analogy to succession in the old covenant to that in the new depend upon the total faithfulness of such successors. It’s simply a matter of “succession occurred in the OT” and looking to see who continues that succession today. Catholics do and Protestants do not. I have written about indefectibility in the Old Testament (in intense discussions with a Lutheran apologist), further drawing the analogy.

As for the angelology tradition, I’d say it caused much trouble. It was the first error Hebrews had to correct in the writer’s attempt to persuade them not to return to Judaism (Heb. 1)

In other words, that tradition was distracting the Hebrews from Christ — the same thing I see so much Catholic tradition doing — Mary, saints, papal supremacy, to name only a few.

How do “Mary, saints, papal supremacy” distract anyone from Christ (as a grand, sweeping generalization), anymore than your TULIP, faith alone, and sola Scriptura distract you from Christ? We don’t make that claim about you. You ought not say stupid and ridiculous things about us, either. It’s unseemly, and it’s a lie.

But you just have to make false dichotomies and either/or fallacies. It’s been part and parcel of the Protestant mindset from the beginning: especially in Calvinists, but by no means confined to them.

One can’t possibly honor and venerate Mary or other saints, while worshiping and adoring God infinitely more. According to the Bible and Catholicism, this is entirely possible, but not in the Calvinist mind, where everything is a zero sum game: any mere veneration must detract from worship of God.

Nor does papal supremacy detract from God in the least bit. Peter was the leader in the early Church, by Jesus’ own choice (He built the Church upon Peter). We believe there is a leader now, too.

You guys eschew such leadership, yet I would contend that how the typical committed Calvinist views John Calvin — as almost an oracle of God –, is making him a leader in fact at least as much as we view popes. Calvin would affect the daily lives of Calvinists far more than popes affect ours.

I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t purport to speak for Catholics about distractions, if you don’t purport to speak for Calvinists about their esteem for Calvin.

I should add also (with regard to your recalling of massive old covenant sin in their successions) that Jesus wasn’t concerned the sin and hypocrisy of the Pharisees would affect their teaching, so that no one should follow it. He expressly stated:

Matthew 23:2-3 (RSV) The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; [3] so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.

If hypocrisy and sin means that one can’t teach at all, and loses authority, then we have had no teacher in the history of the Church. Thus, your objection proves too much.

And it’s interesting you keep waving Mt. 23:2-3 at me. I take that one as literally as you (and I) take v. 9, for I have addressed a priest as “Father” on numerous occasions.

I never said hypocrisy and sin means one can’t teach at all; I was simply saying the Jews had no infallible succession authority in 586 BC and 33-70 AD when their teaching led to the destruction of the nation (and numerous points in between), which makes me a tad skeptical with anyone’s claim to have it now.

You say merely believing in such a thing as a pope is a “distraction” from our Lord Jesus. I simply observed that how Calvinists view Calvin gives him more authority in their lives than popes have in ours. After all, no pope wrote a gigantic book that started an entirely new denomination and way of thinking.

Even so, I never said that that distracted you from Christ.

But this is what you get when man-centered and man-made religion (i.e., all the novel traditions of men that Calvin brought in) takes center stage. He comes and overthrows dozens of things that had been believed for 1500 years. No pope ever does that. Popes have to honor previous existing apostolic tradition. Therefore, they have no authority to arbitrarily proclaim novelties, like Luther and Calvin did.

So you see that the “making a mere man the leader” argument is a two-edged sword. We are not dumbstruck when you run down the papacy. We have solid replies to offer back to you. This is an argument I’ve made for over 25 years: about the Protestant founders being de facto “super-popes.”

Shusaku Endo is a Catholic novelist whose work “The Silence” had recently been made into a movie. It’s about the heroic Catholics in Japan who faced horrible persecution. The book mentions the hero priest’s concern that the peasant flock he inherited spoke more lovingly about Mary than about Jesus, and it concerned him and he resolved to talk to them about it.

Unfortunately he being Caucasian, his flock risked their lives whenever they saw him (he was locked in a shed for his own safety), and as I recall they had to move him away before he could talk to them about it.

It’s a stirring book.

There are Catholics who are out of balance. Vatican II straightforwardly addressed that. But I reject the wild generalizations that you draw, which come far more from Protestant either/or obsessions with false and unbiblical dichotomies than with Catholic behavior en masse.

We’ve been systematically misrepresented, lo, all these centuries. Why should it be different now?

Ok, ok, let me say Mary, etc. “runs the danger of being a distraction”.

That statement is much better, so I appreciate the qualification.

In fact, all Christians have to be vigilant to allow anything to be placed above God in their allegiance and priorities, since that is idolatry. Catholics are no worse than anyone else in that regard.

Jesus also said “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees” (Mt. 16:6 – the very ones he said sit in the seat of Moses)

I also think your Mt. 23 citation needs to be read in the context of the entire chapter!

To be sure ANYONE can add leaven to his teaching. The “Galatian heresy” (Christ plus keeping the law), forbidding the drinking of alcohol, etc.

One Presbyterian minister I know had to be defrocked for teaching your had to be a 5-point Calvinist to be saved!

So Christ’s “Beware of the leaven…” applied to us all.

Peace, brother!

How does this somehow wipe out His plain statement: “practice and observe whatever they tell you”? It’s amazing how Protestants will ignore very clear, perspicuous biblical teachings, even from the lips of Jesus Himself, if it goes against their preconceived theologies. They will deliberately ignore one motif and highlight another, forgetting that all of Scripture is inspired and has to be coherently harmonized. This is what you are doing right now.

You guys are far too predictable. I could have given your argument myself. One just needs to learn the talking points.

Jesus observed pharisaical customs, since it was the mainstream Jewish school of the day. It had variations within it. But He said their teachings should be followed, even if they are hypocrites.

Paul called himself a Pharisee twice. It was not a totally wicked thing to be a Pharisee, anymore than “tradition” is [supposedly] always a “dirty word” in Scripture.

It occurred to me that another Jewish tradition Protestants follow, rather than the virtually universal patristic teaching, is to accept the 39-book canon of the Old Testament. That was the majority (Palestinian) Jewish position, while Jesus and other NT writers cited the Septuagint, which contained the Deuterocanon: which was from the Alexandrian / Hellenistic Jewish tradition. The Catholic Encyclopedia (“Canon of the Old Testament”) states: “the New Testament undoubtedly shows a preference for the Septuagint; out of the 350 texts from the Old Testament, 300 favour the language of the Greek version rather than that of the Hebrew.”

The same article also observed:

The sub-Apostolic writings of Clement, Polycarp, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, of the pseudo-Clementine homilies, and the “Shepherd” of Hermas, contain implicit quotations from or allusions to all the deuterocanonicals except Baruch (which anciently was often united with Jeremias) and I Machabees and the additions to David. No unfavourable argument can be drawn from the loose, implicit character of these citations, since these Apostolic Fathers quote the protocanonical Scriptures in precisely the same manner.

Coming down to the next age, that of the apologists, we find Baruch cited by Athenagoras as a prophet. St. Justin Martyr is the first to note that the Church has a set of Old Testament Scriptures different from the Jews’, and also the earliest to intimate the principle proclaimed by later writers, namely, the self-sufficiency of the Church in establishing the Canon; its independence of the Synagogue in this respect.

Thus, when it goes along with your received tradition, you’ll follow [majority, not unanimous] Jewish thought, even after the arrival of the new covenant, rather than the Christian tradition of the early Church. Jerome (the lone major anomaly among the fathers as regards the canon) did the same, because he lived in Bethlehem, and was highly influenced by Jewish thinking. We saw where he lived: right next to where Jesus was born, in 2014.

But since we don’t follow lone men, rather than the collective of wise Christian teachers, in Church councils, we reject his dissenting view and follow what the Church decreed.

As to what was meant by the “leaven of the Pharisees,” I did a huge study of that, and concluded that it was clearly hypocrisy as opposed to false doctrine. This is, of course, what Jesus consistently rebuked them for. They had pretty good doctrines. It was the Sadducees who rejected many crucial doctrines (the “liberals” of their day). If you don’t believe my conclusion, then take note of what Jesus said:

Luke 12:1 (RSV) . . . “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”

Paul teaches basically the same thing.

So you have disproven nothing in my argument. Jesus plainly said that their teachings should be followed, but not their hypocrisy.

Indeed. When the Pharisees taught the Old Testament – accurately – they should be followed. Protestants don’t have a problem with that.

But though they sat in the seat of Moses, the vast majority of them failed to recognize the Messiah when they were face to face with him.

Not exactly a teaching of theirs I can place much confidence in.

Jesus’s comments about the Pharisees were rather complex:

Matthew 15:12‭-‬14 (ESV) Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

Leave alone those who sit in the seat of Moses?

You’ve repeatedly accused Protestants of cherrypicking but the shoe is on you guys’ foot, too.

If they were essentially bad and wicked, why did Paul call himself one, and why did Jesus follow their customs?

John Calvin makes a very interesting comment in his commentary on Matthew 23:2, and takes a sort of middle position on the matter:

2. In the chair of Moses. Reasons were not wanting for inserting here what Luke relates at a different place. Besides that the doctrine is the same, I have no doubt that Luke, after having said that the scribes were sharply and severely reproved by our Lord, added also the other reproofs which Matthew delayed till the proper place; for already we have frequently seen that the Evangelists, as occasion required, collected into one place various discourses of Christ. But as the narrative of Matthew is more full, I choose rather to take his words as the subject of exposition.

Our Lord gives a general exhortation to believers to beware of conforming their life to the wicked conduct of the scribes, but, on the contrary, to regulate it by the rule of the Law which they hear from the mouth of the scribes; for it was necessary (as I have lately hinted) that he should reprove many abuses in them, that the whole people might not be infected. Lest, through their crimes, the doctrine of which they were the ministers and heralds should be injured, he enjoins believers to attend to their words, and not to their actions; as if he had said, that there is no reason why the bad examples of pastors should hinder the children of God from holiness of life. That the word scribes, agreeably to the Hebrew idiom, denotes the teachers or expounders of the Law, is well known; and it is certain that Luke calls the same persons lawyers (89)

Now our Lord refers peculiarly to the Pharisees, who belonged to the number of the scribes, because at that time this sect held the highest rank in the government of the Church, and in the exposition of Scripture. For we have formerly mentioned that, while the Sadducees and Essenes preferred the literal interpretation of Scripture, the Pharisees followed a different manner of teaching, which had been handed down, as it were, to them by their ancestors, which was, to make subtle inquiries into the mystical meaning of Scripture. This was also the reason why they received their name; for they are called Pherusim, that is, expounders. (90) And though they had debased the whole of Scripture by their false opinions, yet, as they plumed themselves on that popular method of instruction, their authority was highly esteemed in explaining the worship of God and the rule of holy life. The phrase ought, therefore, to be thus interpreted: “The Pharisees and other scribes, or, the scribes, among whom the Pharisees are the most highly esteemed, when they speak to you, are good teachers of a holy life, but by their works they give you very bad instructions; and therefore attend to their lips rather than to their hands.”

It may now be asked, Ought we to submit to all the instructions of teachers without exception? For it is plain enough, that the scribes of that age had wickedly and basely corrupted the Law by false inventions, had burdened wretched souls by unjust laws, and had corrupted the worship of God by many superstitions; but Christ wishes their doctrine to be observed, as if it had been unlawful to oppose their tyranny. The answer is easy. He does not absolutely compare any kind of doctrine with the life, but the design of Christ was, to distinguish the holy Law of God from their profane works. For to sit in the chair of Moses is nothing else than to teach, according to the Law of God, how we ought to live. And though I am not quite certain whence the phrase is derived, yet there is probability in the conjecture of those who refer it to the pulpit which Ezra erected, from which the Law was read aloud, (Nehemiah 8:4.) Certainly, when the Rabbis expounded Scripture, those who were about to speak rose up in succession; but it was perhaps the custom that the Law itself should be proclaimed from a more elevated spot. That man, therefore, sits in the chair of Moses who teaches, not from himself, or at his own suggestion, but according to the authority and word of God. But it denotes, at the same time, a lawful calling; for Christ commands that the scribes should be heard, because they were the public teachers of the, Church.

The Papists reckon it enough, that those who issue laws should possess the title and occupy the station; for in this way they torture the words of Christ to mean, that we are bound to receive obediently whatever the ordinary prelates of the Church enjoin. But this calumny is abundantly refuted by another injunction of Christ, when he bids them beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, (Matthew 16:6.)

If Christ pronounces it to be not only lawful, but even proper, to reject whatever of their own the scribes mingle with the pure doctrine of the Law, certainly we are not bound to embrace, without discrimination or the exercise of judgment, whatever they are pleased to enjoin. Besides, if Christ had intended here to bind the consciences of his followers to the commandments of men, there would have been no good ground for what he said in another passage, that it is in vain to worship God by the commandments of men, (Matthew 15:9.)

Hence it is evident, that Christ exhorts the people to obey the scribes, only so far as they adhere to the pure and simple exposition of the Law. For the exposition of, Augustine is accurate, and in accordance with Christ’s meaning, that, “the scribes taught the Law of God while they sat in the chair of Moses; and, therefore, that the sheep ought to hear the voice of the Shepherd by them, as by hirelings.” To which words he immediately adds: “God therefore teaches by them; but if they wish to teach any thing of their own, refuse to hear, refuse to do them.” With this sentiment accords what the same writer says in his Fourth Book of Christian Doctrine: “Because good believers do not obediently listen to any sort of man, but to God himself; therefore we may profitably listen even to those whose lives are not profitable.” It was, therefore, not the chair of the scribes, but the chair of Moses, that constrained them to teach what was good, even when they did not do what was good. For what they did in their life was their own; but the chair of another man did not permit them to teach what was their own.

I have Calvin’s Commentaries on my smart phone and I was reading what he said on that passage yesterday!

But how do we distinguish always between “false teaching” and “hypocrisy”? For example (and trust me, I’m not playing “gotcha” here):

Mark 7:9‭-‬13 ESV And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”‘ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

Whatever this is, it’s a false teaching, a false application of the Law, based on a flawed view of God. And “many such things you do”, indicating this was pretty typical. Here’s another one:

Matthew 23:16‭-‬19 ESV “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

Again, a false teaching vs. the inviolability of one’s word, as clearly taught in the Law, because the Pharisees couldn’t wrap their minds around God’s truthfulness and the necessity to be like him. Finally:

Matthew 23:23‭-‬24 ESV “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

Again, they couldn’t have “…neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” without having imbibed – and taught – a lot of false teaching.

In conclusion, I’m not sure what to do with this “seat of Moses” thing. I still don’t think you guys have the right answer, given the hair-raising things that the Pharisees both taught and practiced while sitting in the seat of Moses, culminating in the murder of our Lord, which would have been impossible without error, “heaps upon heaps”.

(cf. And Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men.”
Judges 15:16 ESV

Well, I agree with you that there are some complexities here, as with the whole “Law vs. Grace” / old and new covenant situations. That’s why I tried repeatedly to take a pass about dealing with these issues, but you kept pressing, so I gave an example: Moses’ Seat: which concept is never mentioned in the Old Testament. Therefore, Jesus was citing an extrabiblical tradition and saying to follow pharisaical teachings.

Certainly, this is not what most Protestants would have expected. They would have thought that He wouldn’t cite an extrabiblical tradition at all, and wouldn’t say anything nice about pharisaical teachings, given the hypocrisy charge and the sorts of false teachings that you highlight (from His own words).

Yet He did, and it has to be interpreted somehow. I think Calvin actually articulated a nuanced position that doesn’t “diss” tradition altogether, and has some elements of the Catholic general argument, and of course, also a different Protestant perspective. Calvin is certainly very thoughtful and stimulating. I’ve never denied that. I just think (as you’d expect) he has lots of false premises that he builds arguments upon.

I don’t know what else to say about this topic. I already debated it at extreme length with James White. I think I have shown for sure (at the very least) that extrabiblical traditions (not necessarily contrary to biblical teaching!) come into play here. But particulars can be debated.

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Dialogue on Sheol / Hades & the Rich Man and Lazarus

Last updated on: May 9, 2017 at 1:50 am By Dave Armstrong

vs. Baptist “Grubb”

The Descent into Hell (1568), by Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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(2-28-08)

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Grubb’s words will be in blue. The first comment I responded to (in green) was from fellow Catholic Keith Rickert, Jr.

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How did God ultimately deal with the rebellion of his children? Did He give us some sort of cosmic spanking? Quite the opposite. He lowered himself. He appealed to our hearts, He tried to win them over through love. He lowered himself to become one of us. Even then he didn’t take to the streets telling people how wrong they were. Instead he went about healing people infirmities. He served us. Gave himself to us. Washed our feet. Then He gave up his life for us.

I’m surprised you would make this argument. Surely you know how God dealt with His rebellious children throughout the Old Testament. When Adam and Eve rebelled, they were kicked out of the garden. When the Jews rebelled in the wilderness under Moses, God judged and killed thousands of them on the spot. When the Jews rebelled over and over again with idolatry, they would often lose battles, because God wasn’t with them. Saul and his army (including Jonathan) went down this way.

After a number of bad kings, God used Nechuchadnezzar and the Babylonians to defeat Israel, destroy the temple, and lead the Jews away into captivity for over 100 years. When the Jews rejected Jesus, the Romans came in and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple once again, in 70 A.D.

The point is that, in cases of wanton rebellion and “not listening”, God would be harsh. In the OT period, this was the equivalent of the Jews being (spiritually) “children.” God was trying to get through to them the basic notion of obeying a fundamentally superior Being and Creator. So He was relatively more harsh, because that was all they could relate to at that primitive stage. God loved them the whole time. Even His judgments were an act of love. You see the analogy, I trust, by now . . .

Once Jesus and the New Covenant came, then God could exercise much more outward mercy and love and tenderness than before. But there is still a strong motif of “chastisement” in the NT, as I have shown. Indeed, purgatory itself is another analogy. Because we won’t be obedient we have to learn the hard way, and so we will have to suffer again before we can go to heaven.

Of course, if you want to go the Protestant route, where everything is all warm fuzzies and peaches and cream when you die, and you go right to the throne of God the Father, like Jesus did, then that would be the analogy there. No spanking; just pure mercy. But we believe that when we are again “infants” in terms of entering heaven, there will have to be some suffering to be endured first.

I agree with most of your comment Dave. Obviously I disagree with the “Protestant route” portion. Setting aside purgatory, God says in multiple places in the NT that true followers who are disobedient get disciplined. Heb 12:6-7 says, “because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. Endure hardship as discipline, God is treating you as sons, for what son is not disciplined by his father?” That’s not to say every hardship is the result of disobedience, but I bet if each of us was honest about it, we’d agree that we have far less hardships (aka discipline) than we have disobedient actions.

He also says in Rev 3:19, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.” God indicates in multiple places that we’ll be rebuked and disciplined by Him while we’re on earth.

There are no clear indications in the Bible that we’ll be punished after we die.

What do you do with 1 Corinthians 3:12-15, then? For that matter, Luke 16 and the “parable” of the rich man and Lazarus is quite clear. He died (16:22) and then was “in anguish in this flame” (16:24). 1 Corinthians 3:15 also mentions a (non-hell) fire or something akin to it: “he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” So that’s two passages I would say are quite clear enough.

[Grubb then provided exegesis for 1 Corinthians 3, but I replied: ” I don’t have time to get into purgatory and 1 Cor 3, but I’ll do Luke 16 with ya” — he had exegeted that passage too]

The story of Lazarus:

Luke 16:22, “The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried,”

Why wasn’t the poor man carried to purgatory first? It appears he went straight to heaven.

Nope; this is Hades, or the Limbo of the Fathers. It clearly says so in 16:23. It’s neither heaven nor hell. So it proves that there is such a thing as a third state after death and thus indirectly touches upon purgatory as a possibility of another “third state.”

Luke 16:23, “and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.”

Hades = Hell not purgatory.

It’s not hell. The word for hell in Greek is Gehenna. This is Sheol / Hades.

Can those in hell really see and speak with those in heaven?

No. That’s why this isn’t referring to hell and heaven. The rich man may end up in hell. We don’t know. But we know he’s not in hell here because he still has charity towards his brothers.

This leads us to believe it’s a parable rather than a true story.

It’s called a parable, but it really isn’t. It isn’t introduced as such, and reads like true history. But even if it were a parable, Jesus couldn’t include false categories in it, because that would mislead His hearers.

Sounds more like the great divide between heaven and hell than a temporary cleansing doesn’t it?

It’s the divide between the wicked and the righteous in Hades.

Not really sure how this supports purgatory at all. It’s certainly not crystal clear in doing so.

I didn’t say it directly supported purgatory. You forget what I am responding to. This was in reply to your claim that there is no biblical indication of punishment after death. I showed you this passage which is indeed a clear instance of that. The argument for purgatory is more involved. I give many biblical arguments for that on my Saints, Purgatory, and Penance web page.

I can see how I Cor 3 might be interpreted to support the idea of purgatory, but Luke 16 doesn’t even come close as near as I can tell. My point wasn’t that there’s no scripture that can be used to support the idea of purgatory but that it’s not clear and irrefutable. I still stand by that.

You wrote:

God indicates in multiple places that we’ll be rebuked and disciplined by Him while we’re on earth. There are no CLEAR indications in the Bible that we’ll be punished after we die.

I have shown that Luke 16 fits this category perfectly. You haven’t overcome that. You’ve only shown that you are confused about the various biblical categories of the afterlife.

I’ve already sparred with Bishop White on 1 Corinthians 3 and purgatory, which is one reason I don’t want to spend more time on that passage.

Thanks for responding. I’ll do some checking on your points and hope to respond later today or Monday. I know you’ve already discussed this at length, and re-discussing something over and over (even with a different person) can get old and monotonous. Maybe I’ll post my reply here and in the open forum to see if anyone else wants to discuss it. Actually, you didn’t address one of my best points. It says that Lazarus was carried directly to Abraham’s side. Why didn’t he go to Sheol for a brief cleansing?

Abraham and Lazarus and the rich man were all in Sheol. The Jews believed (and Jesus agrees by virtue of this story) that Sheol / Hades had a divide between the righteous and the wicked. Christians believe that Jesus went and “rescued” these people after His death (see Eph. 4:8-10; 1 Pet 3:19-20). The reprobate in Hades eventually are sentenced to hell (Rev 20:13-15).

Plus Abraham said no one could go from here to there or there to here, but one would go from purgatory to heaven after being purified.

That was the nature of Sheol / Hades, as determined by God. It is analogous to purgatory mainly insofar as it is a third state after death that is neither heaven nor hell, but which has foreshadowings of both, as we see in Luke 16.

If Sheol is a temporary stopping point that leads to heaven, Abraham lied; but we both know Abraham wouldn’t lie.

I don’t see why you would have to think anyone lied. Again, you need to become more acquainted with the doctrine of Hades in Scripture. It’s a fascinating topic, for sure.

Here is a Protestant page that talks about Hades and takes essentially the same position I have; and another, that is virtually identical with what I have argued in this discussion. I was making these arguments 25 years ago in debating Jehovah’s Witnesses, as a Protestant, and opposing their doctrines of annihilationism and soul sleep. It’s not just an argument used by Catholics. It’s an exegetical biblical argument that anyone can make.

Debate with a Lutheran Pastor on Faith and Works

Last updated on: May 4, 2017 at 5:02 pm By Dave Armstrong

Image by “geralt” (April 2017) [Pixabay / CC0 public domain]

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[from another public Facebook thread. Lutheran (LCMS) Pastor R. Daniel Carlson’s words will be in blue]

*****

You can’t take a passage like “whoever BELIEVES (has faith) in Me will not perish but have everlasting life”, which are Christ’s own words from His mouth, and negate it by saying that other passages imply that it’s not just believing but also works. That’s called BAD exegesis.

So instead you look at these straight forward passages (like John 3:16, Romans 3, Ephesians 2, etc.) and let them stand. Then you look at James where it says “faith without works is dead” and other such passages IN THE LIGHT of the clearer passages AND the Gospels. You also look for passages that talk about works and “fruits”…lo and behold, the ONLY conclusion that can be drawn without stepping outside of Scripture is that faith PRODUCES works/fruits. Works DO NOT go alongside with faith as an additional requirement, but follow faith. WE are saved by grace through faith….NOT of ourselves, it is the GIFT of God, NOT by works…WE are CREATED (or better we are created as Christians) to DO good works, but NOT works must be done for salvation. Again, Jesus says, “whoever BELIEVES [has faith] in me shall not perish but have everlasting life,” not “whoever believes and does good works…”

Lutherans and Catholics do NOT agree on this, and your Sacrament of Penance is a fine example of our disagreement. Roman Catholics see works as a “paying off” of sin. So you go to confession, and the priest tells you, for your penance, to do certain works in order to pay off your transgression. For Catholics, Baptism is just a seed, planted into the heart and good works are required to make the seed grow. The more good works, the closer you are to heaven, the less good works, the more time you spend in purgatory.

Lutherans believe none of this. For Lutherans, good works are a bi-product of faith, a bi-product produced by the Spirit of Christ living in us and giving to us in our Baptisms. We are FULLY sanctified, FULLY made holy, FULLY set apart – yes, FULLY saints and absolutely going to heaven when we die, no strings attached. We are thankful for God’s gifts of the spirit, for good works, but we don’t gauge our salvation by them. When we sin, we confess our sins and then, by faith trust that Christ’s death on the cross paid IN FULL the price.

[my citation of part of the above] “We are thankful for God’s gifts of the spirit, for good works, but we don’t gauge our salvation by them.”

Why do God and Scripture writers, then, mention works and never faith alone, in 50 passages concerning the final judgment? You tell me. How do you interpret that in your theological system? Why is faith alone never mentioned in those contexts, in the very place where it seems to me that we ought to expect it, if Protestant theology is correct?

[cited again] “Then you look at James where it says “faith without works is dead” and other such passages IN THE LIGHT of the clearer passages”

James is very clear. It’s not unclear at all. It’s only unclear to those who don’t care for the message he is giving:

James 2:14 (RSV) What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?

2:17-18 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. [18] But some one will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.

2:20-22 Do you want to be shown, you shallow man, that faith apart from works is barren? [21] Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? [22] You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works,

2:24-26 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. [25] And in the same way was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? [26] For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.

Crystal clear; couldn’t be any more clear than it is!

Catholics synthesize that with the passages that discuss grace and the ones that talk of faith. It’s no problem. I’ve done it in various papers and books of mine many times. We think in “both/and” terms because (I would contend) that is the scriptural / Hebrew outlook. “Either/or” is the overly rationalistic approach. Here are relevant papers of mine:

St. Paul on Grace, Faith, & Works (50 Passages) [8-6-08]

Grace Alone: Perfectly Acceptable Catholic Teaching [2-3-09]

Bible on Participation in Our Own Salvation (Always Enabled by God’s Grace) [1-3-10]

Bible on the Nature of Saving Faith (Including Assent, Trust, Hope, Works, Obedience, and Sanctification) [1-21-10]

Justification: Not by Faith Alone, & Ongoing (Romans 4, James 2, and Abraham’s Multiple Justifications) [10-15-11]

New Testament Epistles on Bringing About Further Sanctification and Even Salvation By Our Own Actions [7-2-13]

Reply to James White’s Exegesis of James 2 in Chapter 20 of His Book, The God Who Justifies [10-9-13]

Jesus vs. “Faith Alone” (Rich Young Ruler) [10-12-15]

Dialogue: Rich Young Ruler & Good Works [10-14-15]

“Catholic Justification” in James & Romans [11-18-15]

Grace Alone: Biblical & Catholic Teaching [12-1-15]

Philippians 2:12 & “Work[ing] Out” One’s Salvation [1-26-16]

To answer some of your questions:

“Faith without works is dead”. This is a statement of fact, not a statement of condition. Also, the word “works” in many of these contexts does not equate to someone earning their way to salvation by DOING such works.

Let’s change the words “faith” and “works” to something more day-to-day. “TV” without “REMOTE” is “USELESS”. This is a point of fact, not a condition. My TV has one button and it turns the TV on or off, that’s it. Thus when I got the TV, the remote necessarily had to come with or it is worthless.

Likewise, faith which does not produce [good] works is no faith, why? Well, faith is a gift from God, given through the Holy Spirit’s indwelling in a person. Therefore works necessarily follow.

James’ statement “faith without works is dead” isn’t James shaking his pointer finger at us and saying “you better do good things or God will take your faith away”, or “you can’t have faith unless you force yourself to do good” or anything like that. If you read the greater context, James tells us what he’s trying to get at. He is saying that his faith is shown/proven/demonstrated by his good works, that anyone who says “we have faith” but no works show from it…they truly don’t have faith.

It’s not faith AND works but faith THEN works, otherwise Jesus would be wrong when He says that believing is what gives eternal life, and St. Paul would be wrong when he says that we are saved by grace (alone) through faith (alone). You take issue with the “alone” word, but since neither Christ or St. Paul, or the writer of Hebrews adds any trailing thought to this, it’s fine to say “alone” after these phrases because they stand alone. Likewise, Abraham was made right by FAITH, and with regard to his works, he was not exactly a consistent good-doer. “Abraham believed God” and what? He was righteous! That’s it.

All the other passages that you contend teach that it’s works AND faith that save, well I assert that they must be filtered and exegeted with John 3:16 in mind, and not on their own, and yes, this includes James.

You still haven’t answered my question about the 50 passages concerning judgment. That’s not surprising. I don’t think any Protestant has since I came up with the argument 15 years ago. What possible answer could there be?

Catholics aren’t saying that it is works that save (which is the Pelagian heresy). We’re saying that we’re saved by grace through faith, and that faith by nature includes works within it, in the overall matrix of faith, action, justification, and eschatological salvation.

And this is massively backed up in Scripture, as I have shown in many of my writings.

***

It becomes a big problem if one wants to only consider a particular set of Bible passages that have a certain theme, and ignore another set that has a different theme, within the overall topic of soteriology.

The Catholic position takes both sets seriously and (agree or disagree with us) harmonizes them into a coherent whole.

But Protestants too often want to ignore all the passages having to do with good works and merit and synergy and concentrate almost solely on the passages having to do with grace and faith.

We see this happening above: in the refusal to deal with the 50 passages I collected, that have to do with the final judgment, and are unanimously about works, not faith.

I see Protestants (in the course of my hundreds of dialogues these past 21 years online) doing the same thing with the Church fathers. Passages about Scripture are always produced, while the ones from the same person about tradition, Church authority, and apostolic succession are ignored.

Neither side can be hyper-selective like that. We need to take all of Scripture and all of a Church fathers’ writings into account, in order to accurately convey the teaching of either.

Many of us who used to be Protestant, became Catholics largely due to starting to look at all of Scripture rather than only the usual prooftexts, and reading the fathers to see what they actually taught, rather than relying on selected “pre-filtered” quotations, meant to prop up a Protestant outlook that began 800-1400 years after the patristic period.

[a day later] Do you plan on ever explaining to me why 50 passages in Scripture about the final judgment all talk about works but never faith alone?

Here’s my response to works playing a part in our salvation and not faith alone: [Defense of the Augsburg Confession: section on good works].

How many of my 50 passages does it address? [I then looked at it] Looks like it doesn’t deal with a single one. I am underwhelmed. So (what else is new?): no Protestant reply to fifty biblical passages about works in relation to judgment and salvation.

You can have a million passages and it doesn’t change the fact that Jesus said “believe in me…have eternal life…” and never said anything about works.

If I were to say to you that I have a dog, love my dog, and take him to the park every day and play fetch with him – you’d say “okay”. If, 20 years later, I tell you that my dog is dead, do you take these two statements and conclude that I play with my dead dog?

Of course not! The 50 passages, when I’m going to go through one by one as you’ve not gone through them one by one, ALL have to deal with Christians – we who ARE saved. They are not in refute, other than the suggestion that works are required TO BE saved. Jesus, in John 3, is telling Nicodemus how one IS saved – these are two different things and they need not be intertwined.

Dave Armstrong James, when talking to his audience, it talking to CHRISTIANS, people who ARE SAVED, who HAVE BEEN BAPTIZED, who have on their bodies the marks of Christ. He’s not to a pagan, unbelieving audience.

Note how Peter, in Acts 2, and in other places, is talking to an audience of people who are NOT saved. What does he say to them? Does he or St. Paul or anyone EVER tell them that they must do good works to be saved? NO, but only faith. It’s the same for St. Paul in Romans 3 – “a salvation APART FROM WORKS…justification BY FAITH…” Yet, St. Paul, St. Peter, and all the rest, even Jesus, all say to the faithful, to those who are saved, that good works must necessarily follow or it is dead faith – like the parable of the sower.

You can refute this all you want to, but you simply cannot say that one is saved by faith AND works….because Jesus never said it, and by saying it, you very strongly imply that Christ’s work on the cross is inadequate, and that, sir, is blasphemy.

And you know that’s also what the Baptists do with their whole “decision” and “ask Jesus into your heart” garbage – it’s all works righteousness and it’s all slander against Christ and the Holy Spirit.

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.”

Romans 2:6-7 For he will render to every man according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; (cf. 2:8; 2:10)

Romans 2:13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. (cf. James 1:22-23; 2:21-24)

Romans 8:13 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. (cf. 2 Cor 11:15)

1 Timothy 6:18-19 They are to do good, to be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, 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 1:16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds; they are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good deed.

You’re not quoting anything that we don’t already know. EVERY one of these passages come from a context of preacher preaching to a child of God and NOT to pagans.

Find me a quote where the preacher is preaching to pagans and telling them “you must do good works to be saved” and then we’ll talk.

Half of my passages (Romans 1-2) deal with a wider audience than Christians. St. Paul is talking to pagans in Romans 1:18 up through 2:16: which incorporates my first three passages.

Martin Luther, in his Lectures on Romans (Luther’s Works, vol. 25, p. 155: I have the whole 55-volume set in hardcover) agrees:

[v. 1: 20] [T]he apostle with these words does not rebuke the Romans only, as many believe. He rebukes not individuals but all people, Gentiles and Romans alike. This can be seen very clearly from the words of the apostle later in Rom. 3:9: ‘We have already charged that all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.’ . . . the apostle, as he writes, sees before his eyes the whole world as one body . . .

Titus 1:16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds; they are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good deed.

This passage is also written expressly about unbelievers, since the preceding verse 15 states: “To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.” That makes it four out of six of my passages that are about unbelievers and not Christians, whereas you stated (inexplicably and remarkably): “EVERY one of these passages come from a context of preacher preaching to a child of God and NOT to pagans.”

Or find me a passage from the Gospels where Jesus tells an unbeliever that he must have faith AND works to be declared righteous by God and I will throw away my Luther’s rose.

Matthew 19:16-24 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, “Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” [18] He said to him, “Which?” And Jesus said, “You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, [19] Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [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.” [22] When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions. [23] And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. [24] Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

What is most striking about this incident in the life of Jesus — given Protestant views — is the almost sole emphasis on works rather than faith, in Jesus’ reply to the rich young ruler’s question (I have combined elements in all three accounts), “what good deed must I / shall I do to inherit / have eternal life?” It’s reiterated over and over again: works, works, works. It doesn’t follow that faith is not involved, too. Elsewhere, Jesus and Paul and other biblical writers say plenty about faith and assent. But it does mean that works are central in the whole equation and can’t be separated from faith and put in a secondary category.

Right at the beginning of the incident, the ruler asks, “what good deed must I do?” Inheriting eternal life is clearly synonymous with “ultimate salvation.” According to Protestant soteriology (theology of salvation), this isn’t even the right question to ask. Their immediate reply would be, “you have a fundamental misunderstanding of salvation. You can’t do anything to be saved. No work you do is sufficient. All you can do is have faith in Jesus Christ, Who died for your sins.” That’s evangelical Protestant doctrine.

The interesting consideration here, then, is: why doesn’t Jesus act like a good evangelical and correct him right out of the starting-gate? Jesus would have failed Soteriology 0101 in any evangelical seminary or divinity school. Not only are good works, or deeds front and center; he also asks about which deed “must” he do. There is an element of necessity. If he doesn’t do some sort of good deed, he won’t be saved. But if this is essentially wrong and wrongheaded, Jesus would have corrected him by saying that he was wrong to be thinking about works rather than faith, and about thinking that any work was necessary for salvation.

He doesn’t do that at all. Instead, Jesus strengthens the man’s initial assumptions and explains what works he has to do to be saved: “If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” It’s a required condition for obtaining a desired goal: “If you want x, do y.” Y is necessary to obtain x, and y = keeping commandments, which are good works, in order to achieve x (eternal life). This is not like any sermon I ever heard in my 13 years as an evangelical! This is not how we were taught to share out faith in street witnessing, in order to “get people saved.”

***

You’re arguing something different from what we are arguing anyway. You’re acting as if we believe that the non-believer can be saved by faith + works at first (i.e., semi-Pelagianism), rather than be initially justified by faith through grace (as we believe). He then is required to do good works (just as in your system) to show that he has an authentic faith. If he fails to do these, he can lose this justification or (worst-case scenario) his ultimate salvation.

Our systems then diverge in that we say these works are part and parcel of merit and increase of grace, whereas as you say they are relegated to the box of sanctification, having nothing to do with either justification or salvation.

***

What the Bible actually teaches about attaining eschatological salvation; what you resolutely refuse to deal with, is summarized by the following, from the end of my paper of 50 passages dealing with judgment and final salvation:

***

In light of this survey of biblical statements on the topic, how would we properly, biblically answer the unbiblical, sloganistic questions of Matt Slick [Presbyterian pastor and head honcho of the large CARM forum]: “If you were to die tonight and face judgment and God were to ask you why He should let you into heaven, what would you tell Him? Just curious.”

He’s completely well-intentioned and has the highest motivations. He desires that folks should be saved. But he is dead wrong in his assumptions, when they are weighed against the overwhelming, (far as I can tell) unanimous biblical record. Our answer to his question and to God when we stand before Him, could incorporate any one or all of the following 50 responses: all perfectly biblical, and many right from the words of God Himself:

1) I am characterized by righteousness.
2) I have integrity.
3) I’m not wicked.
4) I’m upright in heart.
5) I’ve done good deeds.
6) I have good ways.
7) I’m not committing abominations.
8) I have good conduct.
9) I’m not angry with my brother.
10) I’m not insulting my brother.
11) I’m not calling someone a fool.
12) I have good fruits.
13) I do the will of God.
14) I hear Jesus’ words and do them.
15) I endured to the end.
16) I fed the hungry.
17) I provided drink to the thirsty.
18) I clothed the naked.
19) I welcomed strangers.
20) I visited the sick.
21) I visited prisoners.
22) I invited the poor and the maimed to my feast.
23) I’m not weighed down with dissipation.
24) I’m not weighed down with drunkenness.
25) I’m not weighed down with the cares of this life.
26) I’m not ungodly.
27) I don’t suppress the truth.
28) I’ve done good works.
29) I obeyed the truth.
30) I’m not doing evil.
31) I have been a “doer of the law.”
32) I’ve been a good laborer and fellow worker with God.
33) I’m unblamable in holiness.
34) I’ve been wholly sanctified.
35) My spirit and soul and body aresound and blameless.
36) I know God.
37) I’ve obeyed the gospel.
38) I’ve shared Christ’s sufferings.
39) I’m without spot or blemish.
40) I’ve repented.
41) I’m not a coward.
42) I’m not faithless.
43) I’m not polluted.
44) I’m not a murderer.
45) I’m not a fornicator.
46) I’m not a sorcerer.
47) I’m not an idolater.
48) I’m not a liar.
49) I invited the lame to my feast.
50) I invited the blind to my feast.

You miss the whole point of Jesus’ conversation with the young man in Matthew. He thinks he’s done all the good he needs to do – even responds with “I’ve done all these things”. Jesus then says, “one thing you lack…”, and reveals the true heart of the young man — greed and covetedness and hate and idolatry…breaking every one of the commands he thinks he keeps. Afterward, Jesus says to his disciples that with man it is impossible, but not with God, calling the disciples to believe (have faith) in God’s work of salvation. He NEVER tells the young man that he’ll be saved if he just does good works.

Man, you need to learn the difference between Law and Gospel.

But this particular text isn’t dealing with good works for salvation but revealing that, before God, no good works will save them, not from the Jews or the Gentiles or anyone because…ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Yes, ultimately the issue is one of grace. What IS grace? Is it a substance that you can get more and more of through good works? NO. Grace is a disposition God has toward us on account of His love for us. When we are saved, we have ALL the grace He can give. Being saved is a WHOLE lot more valuable than anything. For Roman Catholics, grace is a substance, sort of like the angels in the show Supernatural have. You get enough grace in baptism for justification, but then you must do good to get more grace and more grace…

I don’t take issue with good works – and the BEST work we can do is proclaim the Gospel to the lost. Yet, all of the stuff that you’ve written about the necessity of good works for salvation is like cat screams to me. Not only do I interpret the passages you provide differently than you do, I simply refuse to say that salvation is by faith AND works. I agree with James when he says “faith without works is dead” because works are a God-given response to faith and if there is no faith, there are no works.

You may not know this, but the most opposing thing that I read – maybe you’re not trying to say this – is that works must come from the old man. See what I mean? When you say we MUST do good works to be saved, to me that’s LAW, and we cannot be saved by keeping the law because the primary purpose of the law is to show us our sinfulness. Now, if good works come from the NEW MAN, then that’s a God-thing! God is creating the good works in us, and that’s GOOD NEWS! I WANT to do good works, and God enables me and empowers me to do them. This is completely different than saying we MUST do good works to be saved, see??

In essence it’s ‘true’, but the language of “MUST” vs. “CAN” changes the whole thing. When I read Eph 2:8ff, I read that the works that God prepares for us to do aren’t burdensome, heavy, or demand, but gospel, joyful, and we’re empowered by God so that we CAN do them. Thus, if I sin, I don’t feel like I have to do 2x as much good to pay my penance – Christ has paid it all ready – instead I have the freedom to, with God’s help do better.

Thanks for your reply.

Reply to a Calvinist: Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart

Last updated on: April 12, 2017 at 4:46 pm By Dave Armstrong

(vs. Colin Smith)

Photograph by Xuan Che (12-30-05) [Flickr / CC BY 2.0 license]

***

(10-14-06)

*****

Reformed Baptist apologist James White enlisted his fellow Calvinist friend, Colin Smith, to respond to my article concerning who hardened Pharaoh’s heart. “Dr.” [???] White wrote:

Yesterday on the DL I mentioned the appearance on Roman Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong’s blog of a brief statement on Romans 9. As much as I wanted to respond to it myself, I had to finish a project by last night (does a little after midnight count?). So I asked Colin Smith, who has written for this website before (you can find his articles in our apologetics sections) if he would be willing to put something together in response to Armstrong, and he was very kind to do so. Very fast movement…for a British fellow! So here is Colin Smith’s response to Dave Armstrong on Romans 9 and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.

First of all, let me say that I am honored that White thought so much of my work that he felt obliged to reply to a little old article of mine (after repeatedly stating that I don’t have a clue about exegesis at all, and am a complete theological ignoramus, unworthy of anyone’s attention). Why the concern that I must be refuted within a day then? I wish to point out a few glaring errors in Pastor Smith’s presentation, make a few clarifications, and add a few tidbits to my existing argument. His words will be in blue.

* * * * *

. . . the passages referring to Pharaoh hardening his own heart merely reflect from Pharaoh’s perspective what the Lord had done within him . . .

[for background, see my paper, God “Hardening Hearts”: How Do We Interpret That?; see also the related paper, Romans 9: Plausible Non-Calvinist Interpretation]

It’s interesting how one’s prior theology affects one’s exegesis. I noted this in the paper under consideration. We have two strains of thought that appear at first glance to be contradictory. But both interpretations agree that the Bible isn’t contradicting itself. So Colin Smith looks at the two (God hardening Pharaoh and Pharaoh hardening his own heart) and concludes (with no immediate justification from the texts themselves) that when the Bible says Pharaoh hardened himself, it is really saying that God did it (based on the other passages). In other words, he presupposes his Calvinist theology: that God does such things, and superimposes it onto the text.

This is not so much wrong as it is inevitable, and everyone does this at some point. So when Catholics or Arminians or Wesleyan Protestants or Orthodox see the same two sorts of texts, we do the opposite: we interpret the statements about God’s causation in light of the ones where Pharaoh seems to be the initial cause. But at least in my case I provided some solid parallels elsewhere in Scripture (which were all utterly ignored in the critique). I interpreted these passages in light of similar ones elsewhere that, I contended, illustrated instances of the same dynamic and relationship between God and the sin of His creatures, and how God causes or merely permits that. I even found a parallel of Roman 9 (also – for some reason – ignored in the critique), where St. Paul speaks of “vessels” – but this time he indicates human (not divine) responsibility for sin.

. . . those who hold to the Reformed position claim that, unlike their opponents, they are dealing honestly with the text of Scripture.

Here we go. It doesn’t take long for the discussion to devolve from honest disagreements among those who both hold Scripture in the highest regard, to charges of dishonesty. Why is that necessary? I don’t return the charge (almost needless to say). My opponents are honest men who love God and interpret Scripture to the best of their ability, and honor it. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could grant that non-Calvinists do the same?

Instead of trying to insert meaning into passages, they let the passages stand and say what they say.

But this isn’t true, as I just noted. Both sides insert meaning at some point based on prior theological commitments. It’s not a matter of one “letting the clear text speak for itself” and the other dishonestly eisegeting. No one approaches the Bible in a “theological vacuum.” It’s silly to deny this obvious fact.

Therefore, if the text says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, then God did exactly that.

Again, by the same token, when the text said that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, why is it impermissible to say that “Pharaoh did exactly that”? The two have to be harmonized somehow. In order to do so, they cannot both be taken literally, or at least not literally in the same sense. So it is not quite as simple as is being made out.

He did not sit back and wait to see how Pharaoh would respond to Him.

Of course, no one is maintaining such a silly thing. God, being omniscient, knows everything that man will do before he does it, and so can work His sovereign plan around those actions, and can incorporate man’s free actions in so doing.

In philosophical terms, I am referring here to God using men as secondary agents for the fulfillment of His purposes.

Exactly. So are we. But we don’t have to deny human free will or pretend that it is somehow an entity that could possibly override God’s sovereignty. It does not and indeed cannot do so. That doesn’t mean that God can create free creatures who necessarily won’t sin. I’m talking about His providence in using the sin caused by man for His good purposes. Sin can’t overcome that.

While Armstrong agrees with the fact that God does use people in this way, he arbitrarily denies that God would do so if sin is involved.

It’s not arbitrary at all; a perfectly holy God does not, and cannot positively ordain sin and evil (and I would contend, with all due respect, that it borders on blasphemy to claim that He does do so, though it is not intended to denigrate God at all, from a Calvinist perspective). But He can use the evil originated in sinful creatures for His own purposes.

Interestingly, he cites the crucifixion as evidence of men used as secondary agents, but seems to overlook the fact that God used them to blaspheme, beat, and ultimately kill His only begotten Son.

Who’s overlooking anything? He worked around their evil actions. He didn’t cause them. Otherwise we have the absurd, outrageous scenario of God positively ordaining blasphemy of Himself. He ordained that the crucifixion was to be His plan for saving mankind, but not the sinful acts entailed therein.

Does he seriously want to suggest that somehow this was not sin?

Why in the world would I want to suggest that? Of course it was. But since even Jesus on the cross said that “they know not what they do” then there is a sense in which many of those who carried out the sentencing were clueless as to the immense significance of what they were doing. The thing itself was wrong, but some of the individuals involved had less culpability.

Supposedly I suggested that sin wasn’t involved in my “response to Fred in the Comments.” I don’t see how. I wrote:

I don’t believe God ever causes sin directly. He uses the sin of human beings for His purposes, just as He did with the crucifixion itself. Providence and sovereignty involve secondary causation or ultimate causation, but not in terms of God ordaining or bringing about sin.

This is what is truly at the crux of the problem with the Arminian position: a lack of appreciation for the true nature of God’s sovereignty.

This is what is truly at the crux of the problem of the almost-ubiquitous Calvinist caricature of the Arminian position: a lack of appreciation for the true nature of the Arminian acceptance of God’s sovereignty.

The Bible is replete with statements and stories that support the notion that God is in total and complete control of all things.

Yes, of course He is. No one disagrees with that. Certainly Arminians and Catholics do not.

This concept may not sit well with people, but those who claim to look to the Word of God as the sole and supreme authority on the subject need to come to terms with it.

It sits fine with me. What doesn’t sit well is making God the author of evil and sin. We need not do that in order to preserve God’s sovereignty. Do Colin Smith and Calvinists think dinky little man’s free will is a power so great that God can’t incorporate it into His sovereign plan? I think they limit God. They are the ones who must explain why they think free will and God’s sovereignty are unable to be synthesized, as if God is a weakling, in subjection to His own creatures. If anything harms sovereignty and God’s ultimate control of everything, that does. We non-Calvinists have, I submit, a greater, more majestic conception of His power and providence.

Romans 8:28, a much-beloved passage for many people,

Indeed. It has long been my favorite passage in the Bible.

clearly states that “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” . . . Paul then reminds his readers of the wonderful truth that, regardless of whatever might be happening around them, or to them, there is nothing that takes place that God has not caused for the good of His people. This would include not only blessings and encouragements, but also persecutions, beatings, and even death. All things, Paul says, not some things, or even just the good things. If it is true that God causes all things to occur for the good of His people, that must mean He is able to direct the hearts of even sinful men to fulfill His purposes.

Now this is where Smith’s comments get extremely (shall we say?) “interesting,” because I will argue that he has distorted the Bible in his zeal to defend the distinctives of Calvinism, and committed basic errors of both eisegesis, and even of not reading the actual text properly, according to syntax and grammar. It’s not deliberate; it flows from his prior theological predisposition. But it is a classic case of seeing what one wants to see, when in fact it is not there at all in the biblical text which is being awkwardly pressed into service for some theological “cause.”

Note what he has done here (it is so subtle, I venture to guess that most people wouldn’t even notice what happened, but it is highly significant): he produces Romans 8:28: “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” This is from the NASB translation (I originally read almost the whole Bible in that version in the late 70s and early 80s and I have a lovely leather copy, filled with notes).

Now, what is caused by God, according to the text? The state of affairs whereby all things work together for good. But that is not the same thing as God causing all things, as Pastor Smith argues is the teaching of the text. Note the difference:

Romans 8:28 (NASB): God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.

Colin Smith’s eisegesis of Romans 8:28: there is nothing that takes place that God has not caused for the good of His people. This would include not only blessings and encouragements, but also persecutions, beatings, and even death.

The second does not follow from the first at all. It’s simple logic and grammar. Nor does the further conclusion that God causes all the individual sins (beatings, murders, etc.) follow, because it is based on the false premise, and certainly not to be found in the glorious text of Romans 8:28. For the following two propositions are not identical:

1. God causes all things to work together for good for His people.

2. God causes all things to occur for the good of His people.

One might also express #1 in this way:

1a. God causes to work together for good, for His people, all things.

This is fundamentally different from #2, because what is caused there is all things, making God the cause of all things that happen, including evil and sin. But in #1, God uses all things, whether He caused them or not, to work together for good. So Romans 8:28 offers no support whatsoever for Smith’s Calvinist argument of God ordaining sin. His statement:

2b. there is nothing that takes place that God has not caused for the good of His people.

is not what Romans 8:28 teaches, which is, rather:

1a. God causes to work together for good, for His people, all things.

In order to conform to Romans 8:28 and what I submit is the truth of the Catholic and Arminian conception of God’s sovereignty, Smith need only change one word:

there is nothing that takes place that God has not used for the good of His people.

The earlier version of the NASB, the American Standard Version (ASV), perhaps makes my point a bit more clear, in its translation of this verse:

And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose.

Likewise, the KJV:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

And the RSV:

We know that in everything God works for good.

So it appears that the NASB is somewhat peculiar in that it inserts the word “causes”, where other translations do not. Even so, I contend that Colin Smith has confused what exactly God caused, according to the verse (even in this version). It’s an absolutely classic case of eisegesis, or superimposing onto a biblical text (something not there in actuality) what one wants to see.

He would have to prevent any and all hindrances to His plans, even if this means turning the hearts of men against His own, in order to make sure the good He has designed for His people comes to pass.

God doesn’t have to make sin happen in order to bring about His purposes, any more than we have to sin to bring about some far lesser good than God’s sovereign plan (which is unethical and immoral). If we can’t sin to bring about good, then to make out that God has to do so, is to make God less holy than men, which is outrageously false. No; God is much greater than that. He is able to bring about what He wants by incorporating the free (often sinful) decisions of men. He need not make anyone sin. There is more than enough sin without God joining with the devil and our fallen rebellion and concupiscence in causing it to come about

If there is the slightest possibility that a man acting as a free agent could go his own way, contrary to the purpose of God, then God cannot be said to be causing all things to work together for the ultimate good of those who love Him.

Of course there is no such possibility. No mere man could thwart God’s purposes. But this doesn’t require Calvinism to be a true state of affairs (as we know it is from the Bible).

Then Smith launches into a defense of original sin and the need for regeneration, which is perfectly irrelevant to the discussion, since all parties agree on those matters. Nor is the story of Joseph in any way hostile to Arminian and Catholic soteriology or notions of God’s sovereignty and providence.

I also find it highly ironic and amusing that on this point atheists and Calvinists agree over against Catholics (and Arminians). Both the atheist and the Calvinist hold that these passages teach that God positively ordained evil. But the atheist draws the exact opposite conclusion from that:

Catholic: God does not positively ordain evil because that would make Him the author of sin, which is contrary to His nature and perfect holiness. It is not required for Him to be sovereign.

Calvinist: God does positively ordain evil and this is part of His greatness, because it is necessarily part and parcel of His sovereignty.

Atheist: God does positively ordain evil and this makes Him the author of sin, which is contrary to His nature and perfect holiness, according to Christianity. Therefore, He doesn’t exist, or if He does, He is not all-good and perhaps even the opposite of good.

Fascinating, isn’t it?

Lastly, I want to introduce one more similar “paradox” from Scripture, illustrating the same point I have been making, that it is a forced interpretation of the relevant biblical data, to say that God ordains evil.

Job 42:11 (RSV): Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house; and they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold.

NASB: . . . they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversities that the LORD had brought on him.

So does that refute my case? Hardly. It illustrates it, and shows once again how Calvinism is misguided in this regard. Let’s do a little bit of comparison of Scripture with Scripture. What does it mean for the Bible to reference “the evil that the LORD had brought upon” Job? Does that not prove the Calvinist contention? No, because it has to be interpreted in light of other relevant Scriptures. What can we learn about the cause of Job’s miseries? What about Job 1:12?:

And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only upon himself do not put forth your hand.” So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

And Job 2:3, 6?:

3: And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you moved me against him, to destroy him without cause.”

6: And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your power; only spare his life.”

Now from this data we can deduce a number of things about causation, evil, God, and the devil. How does one reconcile the following seeming contradictions?:

A. God brought evil upon Job (Job 42:11).

B. God destroyed Job “without cause” (Job 2:3).

C. Job was in Satan’s power; hence calamities followed, apparently (as a quite plausible deduction) derived from this diabolical, malevolent power. (Job 1:12; 2:6)

D. Satan moved God “against” Job (Job 2:3)

1) How can it be that if Job was in Satan’s power, for that terrible being to torment him, that somehow God is said to have brought the evil upon him and destroyed him?

2) How can an omniscient being be persuaded; let alone by one of His own creatures who rebelled against Him?

3) How can two different beings, one good and one evil, be said to cause the same occurrences?

Here is how I answer:

1a) The sufferings were instigated by the devil, by God’s permission (His permissive will: 1:12; 2:6). It can’t be judgment of Job (which God does do, and which is good, not bad), because God Himself bears witness to Job’s extraordinary righteousness (2:3).

2a) He was not persuaded, because this is impossible for an omniscient being. God knew all along what His plan was. He used the devil for His own purposes (the resulting book of Job being one), just as He did with the crucifixion and with Joseph’s brothers’ horrid treatment of Joseph. He is described as having been persuaded because this is the common technique of anthropomorphism: portraying God as if He were like human beings, so that people could relate to the story.

3a) God is said, in the pungent Hebrew style, to have caused it, because He allowed the devil to actually do the tormenting (in other words, His ordaining or elective will is compressed into His permissive will, in pre-theological, pre-philosophical Hebrew thinking). This is a way of expressing that God was in control, and sovereign.

This is perfectly plausible, and is harmonious with the other biblical data I brought to bear in my earlier paper. But what can be made of this by the Calvinist? He has to maintain that God caused all of Job’s miseries. But the Bible says that God gave Satan the “power” over Job. How could God cause all the suffering, yet the devil had the power? Job was in Satan’s power, yet God actually did all the bad things to him? Does this mean that the devil’s and God’s will were one and the same? Does that make any sense? Now we have an evil being and the holy God having the exact same will?

Moreover, if this were indeed God’s will, why would the Bible portray Satan convincing God to do it? He can’t do so, by definition, because an omniscient God can’t change. Thus, it is obviously poetry and not literal truth. Therefore, it is also, I submit, a poetic, non-literal expression to say that God brought the evil on Job (just as in the analogous passages from my earlier paper). Otherwise, you have the ludicrosity of the quintessential evil creature convincing the holy God to do evil acts that the devil thoroughly approves of. What sense does that make?

It makes much more sense to say that this was a visual word-picture meant to convey that whatever the devil does is allowed by God, but that in the end God is in control and can be trusted as all-good and all-wise simply because He is Who He is. Indeed, this is the message of the end of the book of Job. God allows the devil to do evil, but He doesn’t ordain or cause it Himself. He uses the devil like a toy, to bring good from his evil.

“The Passion”: Review and Reflections

Last updated on: April 10, 2017 at 12:48 pm By Dave Armstrong

Flagellation of Christ, by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]

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(2-29-04; abridged and edited on 4-10-17)

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My Review

The following is one of the most difficult things I have ever written (and writing comes very easy for me), because words are so utterly inadequate to describe the impact of this film. One could cite Holy Scripture, but Christians are already familiar with that, and the biblical passion is a different thing than the filmed version of it (i.e., one is real; the other is artistic depiction, which can be done in many kinds of ways). I’ll try to do the best that I can do, given these limitations. I wanted to write “fresh” from seeing the movie . . .

One could talk about the now-familiar phenomenon of the silent audiences after it is over (so I will). I didn’t look around too much because I was almost in front (I didn’t want any distractions), but I did see many people sitting in stunned shock, teary-eyed, in a daze.

The two women about ten seats away from me in my row certainly broke down several times, but that wasn’t all that different from my own reactions (I maintained general composure — being a guy and all — but I had to wipe my eyes three times so I could keep watching).

The most difficult scene to endure for me was the one where it shows the Blessed Virgin Mary comforting Jesus as a child, juxtaposed with His carrying of the cross and His mother watching in agony and yearning to comfort Him again. I don’t think any mother in the world could get through that dry-eyed (and fathers are not all that different, when it comes down to it). It’s enough to break your heart all by itself in a film otherwise far and away the most emotionally intense imaginable.

Driving home, about 15 minutes after it ended — in a daze and moved beyond words, I happened to look over to a car at an intersection and I noticed a couple waiting at a red light, both with their heads tilted to the side and buried in their hands.

This is the way to do a biblically-based movie. It is absolutely realistic; it shows what it would have been like to be there at the time. It took over a hundred years for the movies to finally show the day of crucifixion as it was. We have long since known all the technical and physiological details of crucifixion, scourging (and those scenes in the movie are arguably more excruciating than even the crucifixion, apart from the unbelievably graphic “nails” sequences), the brutality of Roman soldiers, etc., from historical research.

But no one (for some odd reason) ever put it all together in one film, as Mel Gibson has done. The Passion, in its extraordinary realism, makes the similar scenes of Jesus of Nazareth (my favorite Christian movie up till now, and superb in its own right) look like a tea party in the park.

It is real and gory and gruesome and almost impossibly painful and gut-wrenching to watch, while at the same time the direction and cinematography and acting and editing and music are all first-rate (so that it is so much more than what a video recording of the same events might have looked like).

Here is art gloriously at the service of history and Christianity. The use of slow motion and flashbacks to related incidents; the devil figure, insinuations of demons (both outward and inner ones) the crushed-yet-accepting reactions of the Virgin Mary, the mocking soldiers and sneering Jewish leaders: all are brilliantly done.

What I felt as I watched it, is fairly simple to at least summarize, — if not to fully describe — how it feels “on the inside”. I kept thinking to myself: “God loves us this much; He was willing to go through all this! What love, what love, what love, what mercy, what forgiveness; what an awesome, good God we have! How unworthy we are to deserve any of this . . . ”

Those who know a bit of theology about what God had to do and what He chose to do, may know that both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas held that there could have been another way to accomplish redemption: God being God (with all power and knowledge). That only makes the impact of this film all the more profound: Jesus went through these unspeakable tortures for our sake.

He did it willingly. He knew what was to happen (many passages in Scripture). He chose to suffer for us and with us, because that is such a prominent characteristic of life for most human beings throughout history — for the purpose of saving our souls (we who are absolutely unworthy of such salvation).

And beyond that, the biblically-literate person knows that our Lord Jesus had the load of the entirety of human sin on His shoulders as well. There is no way to adequately portray the unfathomable horror and ugliness and “cosmic catastrophe” of that, even in a remarkable film like this. It can’t be described in words, either (even the Bible doesn’t attempt to say all that much about it). It can scarcely be comprehended by our small human minds.

That’s what I thought of and felt soul-deep while watching this film. You can read the well-known passages in the Scripture, such as “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). We Christians hear and read that all the time and casually process it into our brains, more or less abstractly.

But a film like this shows what the kind of love that the God-Man Jesus has for us, entails. We believe The Passion gives us a chance to see it and experience this love, right before our eyes and deep down into our hearts and souls.

And that is the beauty and power of dramatic presentations of the biblical events — especially of the life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They appeal to the whole person and make the Bible come to life. I’ve always been very moved by the better biblical films (sadly, there aren’t many which don’t have some phony or corny or “Hollywoodish” elements in them).

This one is perfect. I don’t see how it could have been done any better. I’m no film expert, but I could easily see how someone might think this is among the best movies ever made, in any genre. After all, Gibson won the Oscar for Best Director and Best Picture for Braveheart, so he is not without great skill as a filmmaker.

How one reacts, watching this, is not just the emotion and sympathy that any normal human being would feel, seeing a person tortured and mistreated for the better part of two hours; it is the realization of what redemption cost God. And the more we realize what it cost Him, the more we see how utterly lost in sin we all were before the spiritual power of regeneration was graciously applied to us by God the Father, through the Holy Spirit, as a result of what Jesus did for us on that dreadful, horrific Good Friday.

If this film doesn’t move a person down to their bones and fingernails and the deepest recesses of their souls, — both emotionally and (hopefully) spiritually — then they are as un-alive as a rock. And no one who is not changed in some way for the better by watching this, has any inkling of the sublime events which it portrays.

To recognize that level of spiritual deadness in oneself (itself only by the grace of God) would be even more terrifying than watching what the sin of mankind caused Jesus to have to endure — what this film enables us to see as we never have before; “Jesus died for you” — , yet it would be the first step towards redemption and salvation (which is the entirety of what this film is about).

May all Christians unite in our prayers and efforts: that this extraordinary movie may bring about many changed lives, and more and more committed disciples of our Lord Jesus. This is our moment. The time is now. Let’s stop our stupid and petty in-fighting (over these basic issues where we should all readily agree) and show the world what Christianity is really all about. The film is the first step: our behavior as Christians is the crucial second part of the witness. Please God, be with us; it’s the least we can do to thank You for what You have done for us . . .

Further Reflections

I’m very fired up about this whole thing: the movie itself (I love movies and I love biblical and Christian movies), the distinct probability that it will cause revival in the lives of all kinds of Christians, and the great cultural and ecumenical potential. We may be on the verge of something quite special and spiritual on a number of fronts. Let’s all pray that we Christians won’t squander the opportunity we may have right now to do some substantive culture-transformation. At the risk of sounding too “Catholic” (but see Hebrews 12:1), I think Francis Schaeffer is smiling down upon us from heaven.

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I was at [Reformed] Russ Reeves’ blog, Tolle Blogge, where he said he wouldn’t watch the movie because it violated the second commandment (“graven images”). Yet he has paintings of Jesus on his sidebar. I simply scratch my head and try to figure out the difference between a painting and a movie “image-wise.” He also said that one can worship God idolatrously. Since idolatry by definition is worshiping something other than God, how is that possible, I wonder? I find this line of thought extremely odd . . .

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If this movie made someone convert, it would not merely be an “emotional whim.” People need to be moved, and to have their whole person jolted and awakened by something which reaches to their heart. Movies have a great power because they bring things to life. Actually, the movie Jesus of Nazareth played a pretty important role in my evangelical conversion in 1977. But a person is predisposed to go one way or another. Catholicism simply wasn’t an option for me in those days. I knew very little about it (I barely knew anything about the Bible or Christian theology at all). So it may have “pushed me over the edge” but it wouldn’t have been decisive in and of itself.

Likewise, if it pushes some people into Catholicism, chances are there were many other factors at play. But the push of the movie could be, I think, a genuine impulse from the Holy Spirit and not just the stereotypical “smells and bells” emotionalism of Catholicism (as parallel to the urge to do an altar call or a sinner’s prayer of evangelicalism).

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The “license” of a movie like this is to have dialogue that quite plausibly could have occurred, as long as it isn’t contrary to what we have in the Bible. This would be roughly synonymous to Catholic apostolic tradition (but on a much lesser scale). This is permissible in the same way that non-historical elements of historical fiction are valid. Jesus and Paul and all the early Christians sat around and talked. They weren’t just “walking Bibles.” So I would contend that to do a realistic movie about these events, one must introduce dialogue that is not in the Bible, or else it sounds canned, phony, and “super-pious” in the worst sense of that term. As long as nothing is contrary to the Bible, that is fine. And yes (anticipating a Protestant retort), I think all Catholic doctrines can be found in the Bible or (at the very least) harmonized with it.

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If a person can’t even see the importance of the suffering of Jesus. . . what can one say? It’s like denying the centrality of the sun for heat and light purposes on a hot, clear day in summer. The cross is what it is all about. How could it ever not be, in Christianity? This is one thing I love about the Lutheran tradition: their high emphasis on the theology of the cross. That’s the center: that is what it is about. And of course, our Catholic Mass reflects that. We ponder the cross every Sunday when we worship, and we believe that Jesus is truly, substantially present with us.

I would say that the biblical view is that there is usually no victory without suffering. That is how our lives are, isn’t it? One could give a hundred examples. So when God became man He chose to live as we do. Suffering was part of what it meant to be human (at least a fallen human). God loved us so much that He willingly took on the suffering that we brought about through our rebellion. It is a very beautiful thing to ponder.

The whole system of animal sacrifice in the Old Covenant was meant to bring that point home, so that when Jesus died for us, His death had already been prefigured in Old Testament sacrifice and modes of thought. Hence, John the Baptist calls Him the “Lamb of God” from the beginning. And that aspect even continues in heaven, where John sees Jesus “as a Lamb slain” (Revelation 5:6). It’s not over with. It is eternally present. Jesus is referred to as the Lamb in the book of Revelation 27 times, in 11 different chapters. But Jesus is also glorified. These things transcend time. He is glorified and suffering simultaneously because the Redemption is the central act and moment of salvation history, yet God as God is out of time. All this can be backed up with much Scripture.

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The Passion will obviously be exceptionally powerful for any Christian to see. Given the very nature of the story and subject matter of this film, there is no place for any “comic relief” that usually is included in movies to “let up” on the audience [there was some emotional relief, at least, with the use of flashbacks — I write after having now seen it]. I think for that reason, this will be one of the most jolting and intense films ever (even apart from the subject and “plot”). The only thing I compare it to in my mind is the first section of Saving Private Ryan, which portrays D-Day and what those poor men went through.

Mel Gibson has done all Christians (and all who see the movie) a great service by making the most important twelve hours in history come to life, as if we were there. I was greatly affected by Jesus of Nazareth (my favorite biblical movie) in 1977, and it played a role in my evangelical conversion. It made the story of Jesus seem “real” in a way that simply reading the Bible had never done for me up till that time (age 18). I believe this movie will have a similar effect on millions of people. It will be interesting to observe as a cultural phenomenon.

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I just visited a Reformed site where the person says he won’t go see The Passion because of the 2nd Commandment’s prohibition against images of God. Here is what I wrote in the comments section:

Hi [name],

Two questions:

1. Would you whitewash the Sistine Chapel and call that a “net gain” for Christianity? I know this sounds “tweakish” But I am dead serious.2. Doesn’t Jesus becoming the eikon of the invisible God change things a bit? If God the Father wanted us to see Jesus as a human being with flesh and bones, why, then, is it unacceptable to “re-create” this live image with painting, statuary, and movies?

Perhaps the most dramatic rendering of the Passion I have experienced up till now was (ironically) an audio presentation by a group called Radix. Personally, I don’t see how that is all that different from a visual portrayal. Both can elicit emotions (the audio certainly did with me). Why should the visual be more enticing to an alleged “temptation to idolatry” than the audio? For that matter, can a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ make Him an idol in the first place?

In other words, I think it becomes a reductio ad absurdum. The point of the second commandment is a prohibition of idolatry, not all images. We’re Christians, not Muslims. They’re the ones who want to be a-historical, with their scriptures floating down from heaven whole and entire. The Incarnation inexorably leads to both sacramentalism and images because it sanctifies both: God having become man.

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Bret Bellamy wrote:

Whatever differences conservative Protestants may have with orthodox (non-rad-lib-revisionist) Catholics, the controversy from The Passion may well have the effect of the two realizing they do have a lot in common, including common enemies, and hopefully we will see closer and better relationships between the two as they stand together against common enemies (which includes the revisionists in both parts that do not believe in Jesus, the Bible, or historical orthodox Christianity.).

Amen!!!!! How I long for that. If God can use a film to help achieve it, then it won’t be the weirdest thing He’s ever done. I think drama is an excellent medium for the propagation of the gospel and larger Christianity. I eagerly look forward to a profound religious experience when I watch the movie tomorrow afternoon. I relish this because I want more emotion and involvement of my “whole being” in my spirituality. That’s what it often lacks for me. I’ll be observing myself closely to see what happens inside of me, in my heart.

Maybe this is a divine “kick in the butt” to get us to recognize what is most important to all of us. If we can’t get it through our thick skulls by reading Scripture and worshiping every Sunday and praying, then maybe an in-your-face presentation of the torture and crucifixion of Jesus will break through the concrete walls of our stubbornness. But I know one thing. Revival is not genuine unless it results in changed lives and changed cultures as a result of that. When it comes, there will be no doubt that it is here.

If revival doesn’t come through still-relatively-harmless things like this, then I’m afraid persecution will be necessary. That has always caused revival. That’s what turned the world upside down: not just Jesus dying but His followers being just as willing to do so, joyfully. How many of us are in that place?

[Beng:] It’s interesting that Gibson used detail from Anne Catherine Emmerich.

It’s certainly permissible from a Catholic standpoint, but we need to realize, too, that it is not on the level of public revelation, and not binding on Catholics. And our Protestant brethren need to realize we believe this, too: that we’re not implying an equivalence of authority.

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Many Protestants don’t like crucifixes but they will see a moving portrayal of the same thing. I’ve always thought the rationale for a crucifix was self-evident and have marveled at the negative reactions to it. Maybe that’s because I was raised Protestant and was never anti-Catholic. Perhaps a lot of former Catholics (and all anti-Catholics) don’t like it simply because it is “so Catholic,” as you say. It’s an emotional and ultimately irrational reaction. But objectively considered, crucifixes are simply “visual Bible.” If we read the end of all four Gospels, what possible objection can there be to a crucifix? But people manage to come up with one. It never ceases to amaze me.

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[someone wrote]: As you mention, words cannot explain the emotion one feels, especially as a Christian. The one thing I think you failed to mention was that the symbolism was entirely Catholic and the film, I believe, was quite Marian.

There were a few reasons for that. First of all, I am always interested in speaking the language that my Protestant brothers and sisters can relate to, according to the dictates of Vatican II, ecumenism, and my emphasis of building bridges between the two camps (stressing things where we entirely agree) and working for greater mutual respect and understanding. So in the present context, I naturally tended to write in ways which did not sound specifically “Catholic.” St. Paul urged us to “be all things to all people.”

Secondly, I actually don’t believe there is all that much in the film specifically “Catholic” at all. What is there is explicitly biblical, for the most part. We can all agree on this. It has been said a lot that Protestants don’t emphasize the suffering of Christ as much as we do, and tend to go right to the Resurrection and Glorified Jesus (I heard a Protestant scholar from Fuller Seminary on a news show yesterday humbly concede this very point).

This is true, but I would contend that it is not intrinsic to Protestantism. I think it is a failure in practice and in emphasis that has come about probably largely due to over-reaction against Catholicism.

It’s not inherent in Protestantism because Lutherans (the original Protestants) have a robust theology of the cross, and traditional or “Anglo-Catholic” high church Anglicans hold to many of the same beliefs and emphases that we do. Many individual Protestants of many stripes do not fall into this trap. I was never of this mindset when I was a low church evangelical Baptist-type Protestant — who didn’t care much for liturgy or sacramentalism — (though I certainly understand these things better as a Catholic than I used to). We would put out our little sculpture of Michelangelo’s Pieta during Easter season just as we do now. We understood this. It was common (biblical) sense.

I have a little semi-humorous response that I make when a Protestant asks me why I am concentrating on Jesus on the cross when He is in heaven now. I ask them, “then why do you reflect upon Jesus in a manger as a baby at Christmas?”

Failure in practice in Protestantism is the same as the failures in practice of Catholics;for example, our abysmal lack of Bible knowledge and Bible study. That is not intrinsic to Catholicism, but it is, sadly, the way things are for many, many Catholics (for a variety of reasons), and Protestants understand this far better than we do. We can help each other and complement each other. Likewise, the ignorance of Church history among many Protestants . . .

That said, I do think there were arguably some particularly “Catholic” elements in the film (in some sense) and I will now note them. One was the wiping up of the blood of Jesus after the scourging. That is very “Catholic” because it constitutes a relic. But even here, this is a “biblical thing” at bottom, not a “Catholic thing,” because the Bible reports how the bones of Elisha brought a dead man to life; the shadow of Peter healed people, and Paul’s handkerchief did the same. Therefore, to the extent that Protestants would frown upon this, they are not being as “biblical” as we are. Ironic, isn’t it? Opposition to this would be every bit as irrational and unbiblical as opposition to crucifixes or meditation upon Jesus’ sufferings in the Rosary or in other ways. It so happens that we Catholics “get” this and many Protestants don’t, but that doesn’t make it intrinsically “Catholic” — just “Catholic-practiced” and (mostly) “Protestant-ignored.”

One might say that the big role for the Blessed Virgin Mary in the film was a “Catholic thing.” I don’t see how, because this is simply historical fact. We know from the Bible that she and John and a few other women were the only followers of Jesus present at the crucifixion. So it is not unreasonable to assume that she was present for some or all of the other proceedings (especially since it was all on one day and mostly in one area). Mainly it shows her following Jesus and suffering with Him, empathetically and maternally.

This is simply history (or reasonable assumptions about what probably occurred). It is no more “Catholic” (whatever one’s Mariology might be) to show a mother concerned about her son being tortured and killed than it is to show John watching the whole thing, too, or for any of us “watching” vicariously through the medium of cinema. Reformed writer Jeffrey J. Meyers, writing on his blog, Corrigenda (2-25-04) confirmed that the movie (as perceived by a Protestant) was not overly-“Catholic”:

Yes, Mary has a prominent place, and there’s more than a little traditional Catholic imagery and symbolism used when she is portrayed. But as far as I could tell there was nothing explicitly Roman about any of this. The worst we get is the disciples referring to Mary as “Mother” at one point. This is, of course, extra-biblical and hardly likely. Besides seeing a bit more of Mary in the movie that we read of her in the Gospel stories about Jesus’ suffering and death, there’s nothing about her being a co-redeemer or mediatrix. No one prays to her. And Jesus hardly acknowledges her presence. Unless one comes with preconceptions there is no Mariolatry in this film.

The film presents a visual representation of the “Pieta”: Mary holding her dead Son Jesus (as in Jesus of Nazareth which had a very moving similar scene — that gets me every time — , but with Mary wailing uncontrollably). Is this peculiarly “Catholic”? If it is, it is only insofar as Protestants wish to deny that it might have happened just like that, since Mary was at the cross, and loved her Son, and would want to hold Him even in death, as the natural impulse of any mother (or father) would dictate. So I just don’t see it. That is not Catholic theology (i.e., no more Catholic than Protestant): it is simply being a normal human being and a mother.

What I did find very “Catholic” myself was the careful way in which Mel Gibson portrayed the Blessed Virgin Mary: she was (of course) extremely distraught and in agony, yet it was with a certain stoicism and acceptance that this was the way it had to be (and this interpretation was followed through in the “pieta” scene as well).

She knew her Son came to die and redeem the human race and she knew it early on — arguably from Simeon’s prophecy (Luke 2:35) but in all likelihood earlier, because she knew He was the Messiah (right from the angel at the Annunciation) and if she knew her Scripture she would have known that Messiah was to suffer and even die for us (e.g., Isaiah 53). Furthermore, Jesus talked about it quite a bit. The disciples may have been dense about that, but it doesn’t follow that she was, too. She heard this and understood it. Views about the “ignorance” of Mary with regard to Christ’s mission are unbiblical, implausible, and “liberal” in the same way that views about Jesus’ “ignorance” are.

Therefore, Mary willingly accepts His passion and death. That doesn’t mean she was overjoyed about it (any more than Jesus Himself was); only that she suffered in a way that excluded the total despair of a person who has lost all hope and sees no meaning whatsoever in some suffering or calamity. There is a huge emotional and existential difference between despair and a distraught state and utter, black despair without hope or meaning.

I believe Gibson was consciously aware of this and incorporated it into the film; otherwise Mary would have cried and carried on much more than she did (just as we viewers cried and carried on).

Lastly, here is what I thought was perhaps the most distinctively “Catholic” moment in the film (and no one I have yet read caught it). It’s just my opinion and mere speculation, but see what you think: During the “pieta” scene, Mary looks straight at the camera for a long time and I agree that this could be read as her saying “why did you do this to my Son?,” or “look what love my Son had for you.”

But a detail I noticed was that her right hand was opened, either heavenward or towards the viewer (I’d have to see it again). That might be construed as Mary offering Jesus her Son up to the Father, much in the way that we participate in the Sacrifice of the Mass every Sunday. This is quite Catholic. My wife noted that it might also signify Mary saying, “come accept the salvation that my Son just made possible by His horrible suffering.”

Mary in turn helped make that possible by bearing Jesus in the first place (being the Theotokos); thus participating in the Incarnation, without which there is no Redemption. Does that make Mary equal to God or Jesus, or make her role in salvation history at all equal or on the same level as the work of Jesus? No, no, and no (with the highest emphasis). But it does make her a key human “player” in redemptive history. And that is very “Catholic” indeed, but also — I firmly believe — not contrary to biblical teaching, even if not explicitly spelled out in it.

But I admit that this is speculation based on one observation of a gesture in the movie. Take it for what it’s worth. If Gibson ever confirms this, then my impression will have been justified.

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Stanley Williams, a friend and filmmaker himself, wrote:

[T]ake the many “Stations of the Cross” that are illustrated for us. Most Protestants have never heard of the “Stations of the Cross”. Finally, the film, if it is anything, is a visualization of Contemplation, whether that be the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary, or the result of a lifetime of Spiritual Exercises at the instruction of St. Ignatius. This is Catholic in practice, and only a few Protestants are discovering this in-depth Catholic[ism] too. Amazing stuff. But Protestants won’t see it.. . . the real turn on to me is the difference between how a Catholic filmmaker approaches a subject and how a Protestant filmmaker does it. The Catholic will use images while the Protestant will use words. Compare any of the Left Behind films with The Passion or Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth. There was even a panel discussion between Catholic and Protestant film theorists at a conference in Hollywood last year, where even the Protestants agreed that Catholics, because Catholics are in tune with sacramentality (making visible what is happening spiritually) of our faith, make better filmmakers.

That’s fascinating stuff about Catholic filmmakers. There is a reason why Jesus of Nazareth remains the best treatment of Jesus’ whole life. I remember thinking when I was a Protestant that when John the Baptist sprinkled people to baptize them in the Jordan River in that film, that this was a “Catholic” influence. Now I think it was simply a wrongheaded scene. If they were in a river, they would have been immersed; it is only for lack of plentiful water that sprinkling was adopted by the Church (as I understand it).

The other (quite moving) scene was Mary holding Jesus after He died and pitifully wailing and weeping (that beautiful, angelic face of Olivia Hussey): the “pieta” imagery. But as I argued today, even that is arguably not “intrinsically” or exclusively Catholic. It is considered such, I think (at least in my own former case) simply because of the connotations of Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel, historic Catholic Madonnas and other Christian art, etc. But it should not be deemed specifically Catholic at all. And even in those days (as very unsacramental Protestants) we had our little Pieta sculpture, so we certainly had no objection to it.

In any event, Catholics get these things right and Protestants fall short, generally-speaking. One might argue that this is because we enshrine them in our theology and outlook of sacramentalism, which flows from the Incarnation. Would that we would also learn from our Protestant brethren to do better at the things they excel at: such as Bible study (as I recently wrote about in This Rock). We can learn from each other.

So I do rejoice that this film is so “Catholic” (in the sense of the outlook of its maker), and its artistic excellence benefits therefrom, but I rejoice even more that it is so biblically-based that our Protestant brethren can appreciate it as much as we do, so that we can stand together in this case against the secular culture of death and nihilism (and ugliness).

Response to a “Mary-Obsessed” Review of the Film by Steve McCoy

I saw scarcely little in Steve’s review (and subsequent remarks on his blog) to demonstrate to me that the movie had all these horrendous, objectionable “Marian” elements in it.

So Mary felt she wanted to die with her Son, and this is some terrible thing? I am amazed that the self-evident emotions of a parent in such a situation can be turned into yet another opportunity to make some point about Mary which is completely unnecessary and groundless. Some Protestants see “Mary under every rock” when dealing with Anything Catholic the way John Birchers used to see Communists under every rock.

I watched the movie as a Catholic and I didn’t see all this. I saw a story I was very familiar with already, with a mother who was agonizing over the torture and murder of her Son. The Son happens to be God in this case, but that doesn’t have any effect on the emotions of a mother, that I can see. Mary said very little in the movie. Her dialogue could have easily fit on one sheet of paper.

I reiterate that nothing in the movie was contrary to the Bible in the sense of contradicting it or being doctrinally foreign. It had things that were not in the Bible, of course, but that is necessary in the same sense that fictitious dialogue in every movie based on a true story is necessary.

If a Catholic like myself and a Presbyterian like Pastor Jeffrey Meyers (and like Jonathan Barlow, whose excellent review I read, too) can agree that it was essentially a faithful and highly moving portrayal of the way things happened on that fateful day, why is it that another Protestant sees Mary everywhere in this film like a huge hat in front of a fan at a baseball game, obstructing his view of the field?

Those of you Reformed Protestants (whom I admire very much) who are confident in your belief-system don’t have to proceed with such suspicion and knee-jerk defensiveness in watching The Passion anymore than I have to when watching superb Protestant movies such as Chariots of Fire or any number of other ones I have seen (I watched A Man Called Peter recently: that is a marvelous movie with many wonderful preaching scenes). It’s not about the apostle Peter but about Peter Marshall, who was a chaplain in the US Senate. :-)

Let’s rejoice in what we have in common, for heaven’s sake, for a change, and be happy that we have before us a masterpiece of cinema, bringing the most important day in world history to life right before the eyes of thousands of nominal Christians (Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox alike) or non-Christians, and make the most of it instead of using it to be the occasion for yet another unnecessary, stupid fight. There are doctrinal battles worth fighting. I certainly do so, and my Protestant brothers do also. But why quibble about how much Mary or other “Catholic” elements are featured in this film, when all trinitarian Christians are in virtually total agreement about Jesus: Whom the movie is about?

I think it is a matter of emphasis, prudence, and the possible squandering of an opportunity to reach the lost, if we Christians start fighting about this movie with our usual battles that the world is ultra-sick of hearing about already (along with many Christians who wish many unnecessary battles could be put out to pasture). Again, I fully agree that there are doctrines worth fighting for. I just wish it could be an in-house fight rather than the galactic battle of Light vs. Darkness, Good vs. Evil, etc., which anti-Catholics and anti-Protestants make it out to be.

I thank God for balanced, thoughtful, insightful (Protestant) reviews of the movie such as those of Pastor Meyers and Jonathan Barlow. Good job, and I tip my hat to you and wish you all God’s blessings.

Reply to Reformed Baptist Anti-Catholic Apologist James White’s “Random Thoughts” on The Passion

[From his website, 2-25-04; White’s words will be in blue]

OK, saw it.

Yes you did, but you have seen “with” and not “through” the eye, as William Blake would say.

. . . 1) When Jesus said “I AM” to the soldiers, they fell back upon the ground. Why on EARTH delete that even when Jesus says “I am”?

This seems to have been overlooked. Perhaps it is a sinister Catholic plot?

2) “It is accomplished” and “It is finished” are not, in the context of the atonement, the same things.

That’s interesting, since in the KJV, John 19:28, using the same word, (teleo), reads, “. . . all things were now accomplished.” They gave Jesus vinegar, and He said “it is finished” (19:30). It’s not rocket science to see that it is the same thing. NEB and REB translate 19:30 as “accomplished.” Strong’s Concordance gives as one possible rendering for teleo (word # 5055): “accomplish,” along with several other synonyms. Teleo is translated as “accomplish” in the KJV at Luke 12:50, 18:31, and 22:37. Much ado about nothing . . .

3) Jesus was wearing clothing when He came out of the grave. Not the way to end.

He wasn’t wearing the same clothes He was buried in (see John 10:6-7), and the film doesn’t show Him leaving the tomb, so this is a non sequitur.

4) The apostles addressed Mary as “Mother”?

Why not? After all, Jesus told John that she was his mother (Jn 19:27).

5) Mary had supernatural knowledge even prior to the coming of the Spirit?

Yes; it is called the Annunciation. The angel Gabriel came to her and told her she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit and would bear the son of the Most High (Lk 1:26-33). What do you call that? “Natural knowledge”? It is also written that Simeon was “inspired by the Spirit” to speak about Jesus to Mary (Lk 2:27; cf. 2:26). That’s not “natural” either, and it is the same Holy Spirit.

6) Relics, relics, and more relics (straight out of Emmerich).

Straight out of the Bible too: Elisha’s bones raised a man from the dead; Peter’s shadow and Paul’s handkerchief healed people, etc.

Stations of the cross,

Heaven forbid any Christian meditate on the cross. The Greeks thought it was foolishness. Funny that certain anti-Catholic Reformed Baptists would, too.

“St. Veronica,” the whole nine yards.

I saw nothing whatever contrary to the Bible in the movie. I don’t see you condemning the host of Protestant beliefs that can’t be found in the Bible, such as sola Scriptura and sola fide. The canon of Scripture is an extra-biblical tradition. Is that to be condemned too because it isn’t in there?

7) We might well see the founding of the Roman Anti-defamation League as a result of this.

That, too? If anything, Pontius Pilate was portrayed too sympathetically.

8) What on EARTH was that hideous baby thing in the devil-woman’s arms?

A demon who was mocking the nurturing love of a mother at the worst time in Jesus’ life. What did you think it was? A Muppet?

9) Most, but not all, of the overt Roman Catholic elements were kept at the “subtle enough not to catch the mind of the evangelical, prominent enough to assure the Roman Catholic that “all is well” . . .

The Passion of Christ itself is often (oddly enough) an “overt Roman Catholic element” since Protestants of your sort have been minimizing it for hundreds of years. Why they do so, I have not the slightest inkling, as it is the central act of redemption in salvation history, and central in the New Testament. It’s beyond strange that so many Protestants overlook such a crucially important aspect of Christianity and salvation.

10) The emotional element was not quite as strong as I expected, but then again, I have never gone into a film more primed to be watching it closely, so I am hardly a meaningful barometer. Besides, I’m Scottish.

Me, too. And I had to wipe my eyes three times. Even anti-Catholicism could not blind one to the exceptional power and profundity of this film.

11) Will I think of this film at the next Lord’s Supper? Probably.

Good.

12) Will I envision Jesus as Jim Caviezel? No. Not for a moment. Not once during the film did I make that connection. That was Jim Caviezel up there, not my Lord.

No kidding? Likewise, your caricature of yourself on your blog is a painting, not you. You don’t need to point that out; nor do you need to remind anyone that an actor is not Jesus. Most of us have the capacity to do that, thank you.

13) Will the emotions over-run commitment to the why of the cross, leaving people emotionally committed to whatever traditional lens through which they viewed the film? For many, yes.

Why do the two have to be opposed to each other? How could a Christian not be emotional, in seeing portrayed the biblical theme of God’s unfathomable love for us?

14) Does the film open the door for proselytization of “evangelicals” by zealous Roman Catholics? Yes and no. Outside of the unbiblical and extraneous Marian elements, the issues are what they were before the film was released, and, sadly, evangelicals remain just as ignorant of the importance of sound doctrine regarding God’s purposes in the atonement as they were before. This just opens up more opportunities either for that ignorance to be corrected, or, negatively, to be taken advantage of.

I have no idea what you’re talking about. The movie had nothing about the four spiritual laws or TULIP. It presented the gospel in its original meaning: “Good News” (i.e., Jesus died for us so we can be saved and go to heaven and be reconciled to God).

15) Could an evangelical successfully “filter out” the extraneous stuff? I suppose so, but it would take a conscious effort.

One you obviously did not pull off . . .

So, to see or not to see? Tough call. It is culturally relevant. A person who has seen it is in better position to speak to its issues than one who has not. On the other hand, it is not nearly as accurate as we were told; it is truly a prize for Rome, and it may well bother many believers with its portrayal and presentation. If you go, don’t go because of the herd mentality. Go realizing what you are seeing, or don’t go at all.

Thanks for the advice. At least you are not an iconoclast. You watch movies to keep up to cultural speed. Good for you. Did you say anything at all good about the film? If so, I missed it. But you did say it was “random thoughts,” so I look forward to unrandom coherent thoughts from you.

Someone wrote on my blog:

White is generally Calvinistic, so I assume he is against altar calls, which are common in Arminian-influenced Baptist churches. I think he did criticize this practice, if my memory serves me correctly.

I replied:

Yeah, I could see that, but if you read closely I was criticizing him for not condemning the many things in Protestantism (whether he holds to them personally or not) that are extra-biblical, including the very canon of Scripture.

Not everything that is “extrabiblical” is “unbiblical” or “anti-biblical.” This is a distinction which is quickly lost on a certain kind of extreme sola Scriptura advocate such as Mr. White. So he wants a movie that quotes only the Bible? Well, that is his right. But it would make for a fairly lousy movie and relatively poor art, because Jesus and the apostles were not walking Bibles. 99.9999% of their words were not recorded in Holy Scripture.

A movie with real conversations between real people is not a book. Jesus or Paul could easily speak more words than the entire New Testament in just one long night of conversation. This is so self-evident it is embarrassing and silly to even have to point it out.

And of course many events not recorded in the Bible are quite plausible. So in the film His blood was soaked up after the terrible scourging and this isn’t in the Bible, so therefore it is some terrible, blasphemous, (GASP!) “Catholic” thing? I don’t see why, since people sought to touch the hem of his garment and were healed. Why should they not do this? This is God we are talking about. What would Bishop White do if he had been there when Jesus was carrying His cross? If he had wiped the forehead of his Lord, would he take that cloth and flush it down the toilet, as if it were of no significance whatsoever? This is utterly depressing . . .

No dialogue in this movie (and there wasn’t much in the first place) or behavior, is inconsistent with what we know of the historical events in the Bible, or with the theology taught therein.

Mr. White has little inkling of the intrinsic sacramental nature of Christianity. Thankfully, White’s truncated, Enlightenment-gutted Christianity is being called on the carpet (it’s high time) by many of his far more historically conscious fellow Reformeds, as inconsistent with legitimate Reformed heritage. But that is another topic . . .

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Reply to a Calvinist on Faith Alone & Works [of God Only?]

Last updated on: April 4, 2017 at 1:56 pm By Dave Armstrong

Image by “jalandas0” (3-23-16) [Pixabay / CC0 public domain]

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Erik is a thoughtful, amiable Calvinist who claims he has never had a constructive theological discussion with a Catholic. Hopefully, this will be his first time. I enjoyed it on my end! He commented under my blog paper, “Reply to Calvin” #3: Synergism, Grace Alone, & the Elect. His words will be in blue.

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I believe you are correct that Calvinism and Catholicism (especially Thomism) have a virtual overlap in terms of soteriology. Officially, that is. And I believe that is why the Catholic participants in ECT could so easily use the terminology of Sola Fide. From a Protestant prospective, Sola Fide is there as a hedge around Sola Gratia. From our perspective, it is nonsensical to speak of the two separately. Deny one, you deny the other. Again, from our perspective, Sola Fide has utterly no logical connection with Antinomianism. (From a common Catholic perspective, on the other hand, they are synonymous.)

The educated Catholic or apologist knows that sola fide is not antinomianism. I have several papers along those lines:

Martin Luther: Good Works Prove Authentic Faith

John Calvin: Good Works Manifest True Saving Faith

Martin Luther: Strong Elements in His Thinking of Theosis & Sanctification Linked to Justification

Martin Luther: Faith Alone is Not Lawless Antinomianism

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To my mind, our unanimity on justification depends on what any given Catholic means by “Spirit-wrought works of love.” Are these works Spirit-assisted or Spirit-ACCOMPLISHED? Are both our cooperation AND the cooperative grace which assists it graciously accomplished (from start to finish) by the self-same Spirit? After all, as St. Paul observed: “I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor. 15:10).

David Anders gives the illustration of a man rolling a wheel barrow up a hill. His young son puts out his hand to help “push” it up the incline. But, of course, he adds not one iota to the task’s accomplishment. This is the proper recipe. Cooperation without justificatory merit. Sola Gratia.

My impression, however, is that very few Catholics believe in Sola Gratia without de-sola-izing it. Why else would they cringe at the phrase “by grace alone THROUGH FAITH ALONE on account of Christ alone for the glory of God alone”? Makes no sense to me. They adamantly affirm that justification is by faith AND works.

Well, the difference is that we think in terms of “both/and” and not “either/or.” So with the faith and works issue, we say that we do a thing, and God also does it. This is biblical and Hebrew paradox, which is very common.

The Calvinist doesn’t seem to be able to comprehend that God and a person can do the same thing, and both take credit (God, of course, far more). This is how we interpret 1 Corinthians 15:10 above (thanks for citing that). Paul is not saying that he did nothing whatsoever. He says, “I laboured more abundantly than they all.”

That’s real labor and work. Yes, God gives the grace. He enables absolutely every good thing we do by His grace (that’s Catholic teaching, right from Trent). It doesn’t follow, however, that we don’t cooperate.

Even your little boy pushing the wheel barrow up the hill is not doing nothing. He is actually helping, just as everyone in a tug-of-war is helping, while the stronger ones do much more work proportionately.

In that sense, we deny sola fide / faith alone.

There is plenty in Scripture about all of these things:

Catholic Bible Verses on Sanctification and Merit

Reflections on Common Ground Between Catholics and Protestants (Particularly, Good Works)

St. Paul on Grace, Faith, & Works (50 Passages)

Exposition on the Scriptural Relationship Between Grace, Faith, Works, and Judgment

Bible on Participation in Our Own Salvation (Always Enabled by God’s Grace)

Bible on the Nature of Saving Faith (Including Assent, Trust, Hope, Works, Obedience, and Sanctification)

New Testament Epistles on Bringing About Further Sanctification and Even Salvation By Our Own Actions

“Catholic Justification” in James & Romans

Philippians 2:12 & “Work[ing] Out” One’s Salvation

Paul vs. Calvin: “Doers of the Law” Will be Justified

Final Judgment & Works (Not Faith): 50 Passages

Catholics & Justification by Faith Alone: Is There a Sense in Which Catholics Can Accept “Faith Alone” and/or Imputed Justification (with Proper Biblical Qualifications)?

The “Obedience of Faith” in Paul and its Soteriological Implications (Justification and Denial of “Faith Alone”) [from Ferdinand Prat, S. J.]

Reply to James White’s Exegesis of James 2 in Chapter 20 of His Book, The God Who Justifies

Final Judgment Always Has to Do with Works and Never with “Faith Alone”

Jesus vs. “Faith Alone” (Rich Young Ruler)

“Work Out Your Own Salvation” & Protestant Soteriology (vs. Ken Temple)

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But whose works are we talking about? The Spirit’s works? If so, then we are left again with only faith, itself a gift. For justification IS A TOTAL GIFT: Sola Gratia.

I don’t believe any educated Protestant will call Catholics semi-Pelagian. There is an academic definition, and Catholics don’t fit it. I do believe, however, that the way Catholicism is sometimes practiced is “Pelagianizing” in its effects. Much as Arminianism does in Protestantism, it ascribes to the work of believers what should only be ascribed to God.

Once again, you seem to be thinking in paradigms that are not particularly biblical, at least not in these particular terms. You want to connect the Holy Spirit and “works” as if men’s works are not ours at all, and only those of the Spirit.

I got curious to see how that lined up in Scripture: the relationship of “Spirit” and “works.”

When I searched “Spirit” and “work[s]” in conjunction in the RSV, I got no connection.

When I searched the phrase “Spirit works” I got absolutely nothing.

Likewise, with “works of the Spirit” and “works of the Holy Spirit”. So those two thoughts cannot be said to be particularly “biblical”: at least insofar as the term “works” itself is concerned, as connected with the Spirit. When “works” are discussed, it is the usually works of man.

There are at least a few “hits” for “works of God”.

And for “works of the Lord”.

Also, there is one time that “God works” appears (Rom 8:28) and one time, “The Lord works” (Ps 103:6).

None of this is to deny (at all!) that God the Father or the Holy Spirit work. Of course they do. But we are talking about the relationship of man’s work to God’s work: does the latter wipe out the former, when it is referring to the same exact work?

I say no: the Bible doesn’t teach that.

The second thing to note is that when the Bible does discuss “God’s work” it is usually His alone, and has nothing to do with man. It’s just something He does, as God.

On the other hand, there is the motif of “workers with God”: which precisely supports my contention: we do the works, and God also does, in the enabling sense:

1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God’s fellow workers; . . .

1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

2 Corinthians 6:1 Working together with him, . . .

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things in him who strengthens me.

*****

As far as assurance is concerned, I am likewise convinced that there is very little difference between our respective paradigms. We simply draw the fulcrum (between despair and presumption) at alternate spots on the balance. You accuse us of presumption. We accuse you of despair.

It’s healthy to wonder if we are where we need to be in terms of our walk of faith. We need to make our calling sure. It is unhealthy to be totally in the dark as to whether we are in God’s good graces. We should not be doubting his work in our lives.

I agree that there is a lot of common ground here, too, and have written about it:

Bible on the Moral Assurance of Salvation (Persevering in Faith, with Hope)

John Calvin holds that we can’t know for sure who is of the elect. That puts a big qualification on [absolute?] “assurance”.

Only Catholics Issue Anathemas Against Dissenters?

Last updated on: March 22, 2017 at 1:04 pm By Dave Armstrong

Protestants Also Issue Plenty of Them (vs. James White)

Synod of Dort (1618-1619), in which Reformed Protestants anathematized the Arminian Protestants who disagreed with them [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

(3-12-04)

***

White wrote in his book, Mary — Another Redeemer? (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1998), in chapter four, devoted to the Immaculate Conception:

But just how serious this dogma is can be seen from what came
immediately after the definition:

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 es-
tablished by law if he should dare to express in words or
writing or by any other outward means the errors he think
in his heart.

Here, with infallible and binding authority, the Pope forbids
anyone from even thinking otherwise than he has defined con-
cerning the Immaculate Conception. If you are led to a different
conclusion by the study of the Bible, or the study of history, you
are to submit your mind and your heart to the ultimate authority
of the Papacy, and reject even those conclusions derived from the
Word itself.

Mr. White acts as if this were the most novel and outrageous thing in the world: to require some tenet of faith to be held by the faithful, as if Protestants don’t do this, too. Of course, they do (all the time). Passing over the 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), we will examine a few of the Reformed creeds and confessions and discover that they take this exact same stance. The good Calvinist has to submit his “mind and heart to the ultimate authority of the creeds and confessions of Calvinism.” I don’t see how this state of affairs is all that different, in terms of being bound to some authority which offers an interpretation of the Bible and Christian doctrine.

Mr. White is a Calvinist (Reformed Baptist). One of the classic expositions of Calvinism was that set out by the Synod of Dort (1618-1619). We find statements from that synod such as the following, directed towards those who don’t accept the five points of Calvinism, or “TULIP” (which acronym derives from this very synod):

T = Total Depravity
U = Unconditional Election
L = Limited Atonement
I = Irresistible Grace
P = Perseverance of the Saints

Article 6: God’s Eternal Decision

*

The fact that some receive from God the gift of faith within time, and that others do not, stems from his eternal decision. For all his works are known to God from eternity (Acts 15:18; Eph. 1:11). In accordance with this decision he graciously softens the hearts, however hard, of his chosen ones and inclines them to believe, but by his just judgment he leaves in their wickedness and hardness of heart those who have not been chosen . . . This is the well-known decision of election and reprobation revealed in God’s Word. This decision the wicked, impure, and unstable distort to their own ruin, . . .

In it’s “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. I have dealt with this inconsistency and hidden assumption in White’s work in great detail, and shown how — by his own stated assumptions — people like Martin Luther, C. S. Lewis, and John Wesley were not, and could not be Christians. That is what his logic entails. Catholics, of course, do not deny that Protestants are Christians, or that they can be saved. See:

“Man-Centered” Sacramentalism: The Remarkable Incoherence of Dr. James White: How Can Martin Luther and St. Augustine Be Christians According to His Definition?

So 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. 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.

That’s not all. We have the habitual “anathematizing” treatment of the Catholic Church in other Protestant creeds and confessions, reading those who adhere to its doctrine out of the faith. For example, the Westminster Confession of 1646:

CHAPTER XXV. Of the Church*

VI. There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ, and all that is called God.

Likewise, the Second Helvetic Confession (1566):

CHAPTER XVII Of The Catholic and Holy Church of God,
and of The One Only Head of The Church*
. . . The Roman head does indeed preserve his tyranny and the corruption that has been brought into the Church, and meanwhile he hinders, resists, and with all the strength he can muster cuts off the proper reformation of the Church.

And the Belgic Confession (1561):

Article 29: The Marks of the True Church*
. . . As for the false church, it assigns more authority to itself and its ordinances than to the Word of God; it does not want to subject itself to the yoke of Christ; it does not administer the sacraments as Christ commanded in his Word; it rather adds to them or subtracts from them as it pleases; it bases itself on men, more than on Jesus Christ; it persecutes those who live holy lives according to the Word of God and who rebuke it for its faults, greed, and idolatry. These two churches are easy to recognize and thus to distinguish from each other.

How are these two stances all that different, authority-wise? The Catholic position was that if someone didn’t follow the pope’s teaching with regard to the Immaculate Conception, they were in big spiritual trouble. The anti-Catholic Calvinist position (thankfully, not all Calvinists are anti-Catholic, by any means) is that if someone follows any of the pope’s teachings, or those of the Catholic Church, he is following antichrist, a man who “hinders” and “resists” all proper reformation of the Church, denigrating the Bible, not subjecting himself to Christ, follows men more than Christ, is an idolater, etc.

If he doesn’t accept a doctrine like double predestination (where the damned, or reprobate, never had any choice but to be damned from eternity), he is “wicked” and “impure” and under a heavy “judgment of God.” How is one worse than the other? But of course, Bishop White will never point this out. His goal is to make the Catholic Church look utterly unreasonable, arrogant, and outrageous, while the Protestant sects who make exactly the same kind of statements — about doctrines which are highly-controversial — get a pass.

Coming up to our present time, and the ecumenical joint statement, Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT), we again find a vigorous anti-Catholic opposition. For example, prominent anti-Catholic Michael Horton (chairman of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and associate professor of historical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California), in his critical review of ECT, wrote (and surely White would agree):

If Rome continues to uphold the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent, all individual members of that body who follow those decrees (which, in Roman Catholic ecclesiology must include every faithful son or daughter) continue to stand in opposition to the unchanging Gospel of Christ. If they stray from the official teaching of Rome, either from ignorance or in opposition to those statements, they may be regarded as brothers and sisters in Christ.. . . the Roman See persists in its denial of the message that makes the church’s existence both possible and necessary.

. . . We deny that this catholic consensus is sufficient for recognizing the Roman church as a true visible expression of Christ’s body.

. . . We affirm that individual Roman Catholics, who for various reasons do not self-consciously give their assent to the precise definitions of the Roman Magisterium regarding justification, the sole mediation of Christ, the monergistic character of the new birth, and similar evangelical issues, are our brothers and sisters despite Rome’s official position.

[again, this is the condescending notion that a Catholic has to be a lousy, disobedient, dissenting Catholic in order to be a Christian]

James White makes many similar utterances, too numerous to recount. Here is one of the more striking ones:

The issue isn’t the Pope, the issue is the system he represents. The question, at the bottom of the issue, is, “Does Rome promote, or stand against, Christ’s work in this world?” The answer, in light of the “gospel” taught by Rome, is clear in my mind: she stands against the work of Christ. Hence, if we wish to use the term “antichrist,” it is the system that partakes of that spirit due to her opposition to the free grace of Christ.(statement on his own sola Scriptura Internet list: 8-16-96)

Now, again, I ask: why is it unacceptable for the Catholic Church to require its members to believe in the Immaculate Conception (where other Christians vigorously disagree), and give stern warnings for failure to do so, but it is perfectly acceptable for anti-Catholics to make far more extreme statements denigrating the Catholic Church altogether and some one billion Catholics? In each case, others who disagree and the relative state of their souls or “correct belief” are discussed, but the anti-Catholic statements are infinitely more sweeping and condescending. Therefore, what White proves, when this further relevant examination is brought to the table, is the existence of his own glaring double standards (as so often in his anti-Catholic polemics). His rhetoric backfires on him.

“Luther” Film (2003): Detailed Catholic Critique

Last updated on: March 6, 2017 at 2:50 pm By Dave Armstrong

Luther at the Diet of Worms (1877), by Anton von Werner (1843-1915) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

(10-28-03; abridged with revised links on 3-6-17)

***

I. Cinematically Excellent
***I watched Luther a few hours ago. Some visitors to my blog might be familiar with my many articles about Martin Luther, from the Catholic perspective. I would like to comment on the movie itself and then on some related historical and theological issues.

First of all, the movie qua movie was superb. The script, sets, costumes, direction, acting, cinematography, dramatic pace, locations were all excellent. As a lover of history — particularly Church history and the Middle Ages — I enjoyed the “period” aspect of the movie immensely. The film plainly exhibits the Protestant perspective (over against Catholicism), as would and should be expected. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with presenting a piece of important history from one particular viewpoint. Everyone has an outlook, and this is altogether normal.

II. Some Fair Portrayals of Catholics, But . . .
***Someone (I don’t remember who) once made a statement (about the media, I believe) to the effect that “we don’t expect a partisan to be unbiased, but we can rightfully expect him to be fair, in presenting multiple viewpoints.” The film Luther is fair in some respects, in this sense. Particularly, Luther’s confessor and mentor in the Augustinian order, Johann von Staupitz (c. 1460-1524), was presented realistically and sympathetically. It was shown that he was a lifelong Catholic, who wasn’t swayed by Luther’s diverging theological views. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia stated concerning him:

Staupitz was no Lutheran but thoroughly Catholic in matters of faith (especially as regards the freedom of the will, the meritoriousness of good works, and justification). This has been established by Paulus from the writings of Staupitz.

Protestants viewing the movie might form the impression that Staupitz was a good evangelical almost-Protestant Christian (since he was shown as a “good guy” and told Luther about Jesus — a notion supposedly few Catholics stress). Church historian Philip Schaff tries valiantly to make him into one, with caricatured, unnecessarily dichotomy-strewn statements like:

He cared more for the inner spiritual life than outward forms and observances, and trusted in the merits of Christ rather than in good works of his own . . . He was evangelical, without being a Protestant. He cared little for Romanism, . . .

But even in the context of this partisan treatment, Schaff (characteristically) fairly presents Staupitz’s thoroughly Catholic beliefs:

Staupitz was Luther’s spiritual father, and “first caused the light of the gospel to shine in the darkness of his heart” . . . But when Luther broke with Rome, and Rome with Luther, the friendship cooled down. Staupitz held fast to the unity of the Catholic Church and was intimidated and repelled by the excesses of the Reformation. In a letter of April 1, 1524, he begs Luther’s pardon for his long silence and significantly says in conclusion:

May Christ help us to live according to his gospel which now resounds in our ears and which many carry on their lips; for I see that countless persons abuse the gospel for the freedom of the flesh . . .

The sermons which he preached at Salzburg since 1522 breathe the same spirit and urge Catholic orthodoxy and obedience. His last book, published after his death (1525) under the title, Of the Holy True Christian Faith, is a virtual protest against Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone and a plea for a practical Christianity which shows itself in good works. He contrasts the two doctrines in these words:

The fools say, he who believes in Christ, needs no works; the Truth says, whosoever will be my disciple, let him follow Me; and whosoever will follow Me, let him deny himself and carry my cross day by day; and whosoever loves Me, keeps my commandments . . . The evil spirit suggests to carnal Christians the doctrine that man is justified without works, and appeals to Paul. But Paul only excluded works of the law which proceed from fear and selfishness, while in all his epistles he commends as necessary to salvation such works as are done in obedience to God’s commandments, in faith and love. Christ fulfilled the law, the fools would abolish the law; Paul praises the law as holy and good, the fools scold and abuse it as evil because they walk according to the flesh and have not the mind of the Spirit.

(History of the Christian Church, New York: Charles Scribner’s sons, 1910, vol. 7: The Reformation From A.D. 1517 to 1648, Section 22, “Luther and Staupitz”)

One is happy to see Catholics fairly portrayed at all in any such movie, even if the impression is left that they are quasi-Protestants, “born again” in the evangelical sense or what-not (because so many Protestants don’t understand that all Christians have the gospel of Grace Alone by Means of Jesus Atoning Death on the Cross in common; thus they believe that any Catholic who grasps these elementary things must be a Protestant or on the way to being one). In any event, we’re so used to the tired, timeworn stereotypes of Catholics that even partially-sympathetic dramatizations are refreshing and most welcome, even under these semi-pretentious conditions.

Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony (1463-1525), played by the delightful Sir Peter Ustinov, comes off as a lovable, endearing, teddy-bear-like, but principled and wise ruler, concerned for Luther’s well-being (as one of his subjects and fellow German) — beyond the religious disputes. He did indeed protect Luther (which is commendable). But the whole truth about him — as with Luther himself, warts and all –, is far more interesting. Catholic historian Hartmann Grisar, S. J., writes:

In the letter which Luther wrote to Albrecht of Brandenburg, he referred to the general degradation of the clergy manifested by “various songs, sayings, satires,” and by the fact that priests and monks were cartooned on walls, placards, and lastly on playing cards. This systematic defamation was common particularly in electoral Saxony, during the reign of Frederick, the protector of the “Reformation,” who knowingly permitted the attacks upon Catholicism to increase in every department of life. The deception and duplicity which he practiced casts a dark shadow upon his character and places his customary surname, “the Wise” in a peculiar light.

Up to his death, on May 5, 1525, Frederick practiced double-dealing in religious matters. He never married, but had two sons and a daughter by a certain Anna Weller . . . [and was not] distinguished by high moral qualities . . .

A new sermon in which Luther fulminated against the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, was delivered on November 27, 1524. The princes and the authorities, he exclaimed, ought finally to force “the blasphemous servants of the Babylonian harlot” to stop the devilish practice of saying Mass . . . The town-council and the university threatened with the wrath of God the priests who still held out. Finally, Frederick “the Wise” abandoned them ignominiously to their fate. A vigorous word from him, reinforced by his guard, would have silenced the opponents, at least in the city . . . On Christmas, 1524, Mass was suspended for the first time, never to be resumed.

(Hartmann Grisar, Martin Luther: His Life and Work, translated from the 2nd German edition by Frank J. Eble, Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1950; originally 1930, 241-243)

Grisar states that Frederick died as an adherent of Luther; “the first German prince thus to pass away” (p. 243), and that he and Luther had never met personally. His brother John, who succeeded him in his office, was a committed Lutheran, by whose assistance:

Luther was able to exterminate Catholic worship in the electorate of Saxony. As the Reformation was imposed in electoral Saxony by pressure from above, so, too, in other German territories . . . by recourse to penal measures enforced by the civil authorities. (Grisar, ibid., 243-244)

The issue of religious freedom and toleration and the movie’s skewed presentation of it will be further discussed at length in sections VI, VII, and XI.

III. 16th-Century Corruption in the Church and How Catholics View it
***The corruption of the time was dramatically and effectively presented. Catholics have never denied that corruption existed (after all, all Christians are also fallen human beings). The film even shows several Catholics decrying the corruption-in-morals and practice. I appreciated this, for this is how human reality always is: there are good and bad people in any given group (including all Christian circles). Catholics disagree with the Protestant solution to the problems.

The Catholic — bottom line — always contends that Luther “threw the baby out with the bathwater.” We also affirm that the Church could have been –indeed, must be, and was, in fact — reformed without splitting it up. There are different solutions and “answers” to the excesses of the doctrine of indulgences which the film accurately portrays. Catholics responded by reforming the abuses in practice, but not throwing out the doctrine itself. But Protestants threw out this doctrine, and several others (see more on the indulgences issue and treatment of the Diets of Worms and Augsburg below).

IV. The One Glaring Distortion of History: Catholics and the Bible
***Granted, a film is not a theological treatise. Nor is it a formal debate. It’s not possible to present both sides of the issues comprehensively. And even if this were done (adding an hour to the length), most of the audience would not grasp even the main points of the disputes. Many of the issues involved are complex and multi-faceted and could hardly be dealt with except in a lengthy treatment in a more academic documentary form: fit primarily for students of theology (perhaps only advanced students at that). I understand this limitation from a “cinematic” standpoint.

My beef with Luther was not, therefore, what it presented (the Protestant emphases were in no way surprising to anyone who knows the outline of the story), but what it inexcusably omitted, in terms of indispensable factual information. In courts of law, witnesses are enjoined to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” There was one major area in which Luther not only did not tell the “whole truth,” but also inexcusably communicated outright falsehoods.

That subject matter is the Catholic viewpoint towards the Holy Scriptures, and particularly the Scriptures in the vernacular (native languages of each country, as opposed to Latin). Here the movie went from substantially-accurate history (told from a Protestant theological perspective) to myth and propagandizing. And that is unacceptable and (in my opinion) unethical. Thankfully, Luther is not in the same league as the sheer mythmaking or fiction of historically-farcical movies such as Amadeus or Gandhi (where central aspects of the film’s protagonist or of the plot itself are fundamentally botched or deliberately fudged), but it was bad enough, as far as it went.

Before I analyze this shortcoming and reply with what I think are absolutely compelling factual counter-arguments, I would like to submit why it is that this fault occurred, in such glaring contrast to the easily-documented facts of history. I believe that it was required because it ties in so closely to what might be called the “Protestant myth of its own origins” — or a sort of Protestant “folklore.”

Central to Protestant self-understanding is the notion that Protestants are the “Bible people”; the ones who are Bible-centered (as well as “gospel-centered,” of course) and who reject the “traditions of men” and arbitrary rulings of a powerful ruling class with a vested interest in the status quo. Many Protestants assume that they more or less have a “monopoly” on love and respect for the Bible. The questionable (quite-disputable from even the Bible itself) formal Protestant Rule of Faith, sola Scriptura (the belief that the Bible is the ultimate formal authority, over against Church and Tradition) is assumed almost without argument.

And because of the human tendency to dichotomize differing viewpoints and to create “good guys” and “bad guys” in the most sweeping terms, it becomes almost “psychologically necessary” to come up with a villain, historically speaking. If Protestants are for the Bible, then (in this mindset) someone has to be the “bad guy” and against the Bible. Therefore, in a movie of this sort, which deals with the myth and folklore of Protestant origins, the Catholic Church “must” be the “bad guy” and enemy of the Holy Scriptures (otherwise, much of the Protestant self-understanding and historical importance and rationale for the very movement itself is greatly hindered). Alongside this is the commonly-held Protestant caricature of claiming that the Catholic Church “feared” the Bible, and how it would expose the falsity of Catholic beliefs, which is why she allegedly forbade it to the common people, in the common tongue, and discouraged its study.

The only problem with such embellishment of one’s own epic and noble tale of origins is that it can’t hold a candle to the true history concerning the Catholic high reverence for Scripture. It is a simple, indisputable historical fact that the Catholic Church was the guardian, translator and preserver of the Bible for the nearly 1500 years between the time of Jesus Christ and Martin Luther. Anyone at all familiar with the Middle Ages knows about learned monks copying the Scriptures laboriously by hand.

Had the Catholic Church hated or feared the Bible as is so often absurdly claimed, it was an easy matter during this period to destroy all copies. Nor were the masses ignorant of the Bible in the Middle Ages before the Protestants came into the picture. If anything, Bible literacy in the fifty years before Luther’s revolt (1467-1517) among lay non-scholars was arguably greater than in our own time.

Before the modern printing press was invented in the mid-15th century, Bibles were chained at libraries not in order to “keep them from the people,” as the stereotype goes, but rather, to protect them from thieves, so the common people could have more access to them, as books were very expensive. This practice persisted long after 1517 in Protestant countries such as England, since older books would have continued to be very valuable. Every Protestant (even the most anti-Catholic sort) ought to be profoundly thankful to the Catholic Church, without which they would not possess their Bible.

Nor is it at all true that the Catholic Church was opposed to the printing and distribution of Bible translations in vernacular languages (it did oppose some Protestant translations which it felt were inaccurate). For instance (utterly contrary to the myths in this regard which are pathetically promulgated by the movie Luther), between 1466 and the onset of Protestantism in 1517 at least sixteen editions of the Bible appeared in German, with the full approval of the Catholic Church. For further reading on this, see:

Were Vernacular Bibles Unknown Before Luther? (+ later Facebook discussion) [6-15-11]

Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman on Catholic Bibles in the Vernacular Before Luther[Facebook, 1-9-12]

Catholic Church: Historic “Enemy” of the Bible? [9-11-15]

Catholic Church: Superior to the Bible?: Does the Catholic Church Claim to be ‘Above’ the Bible and Its “Creator”? [9-14-15]

V. Why Catholics Opposed Certain Bible Translations (St. Thomas More)
***When the Catholic Church did oppose translations, it was not because she was against the vernacular, but because she thought particular translations were bad ones (thus harmful to the people). This was true of both Wycliffe’s and Tyndale’s translations. Protestant scholars themselves often take the same stance with regard to the relative worth of the many translations of the Bible. So it is most unfair to charge the Catholic Church with being “anti-Bible” when she was merely trying to safeguard the Scriptures for the people by making sure it was translated properly — just as Protestants themselves do. In fact, as one excellent example (one of many), Protestants tried to repress the English language New Testament produced by Catholics at Rheims in 1582.

Debates over good and bad translations are not debates over the merit and worth of the Bible itself. This is shown, for example, by St. Thomas More’s reaction against Tyndale’s translation. F. F. Bruce noted this:

In 1529 Sir Thomas More . . . published a work in which he launched a fierce attack upon the English version of the New Testament lately completed by William Tyndale. In the course of this attack he refers to the “great arch-heretic Wycliffe”, who undertook “of a malicious purpose” to translate the Bible into English and “purposely corrupted the holy text.” It was Wycliffe’s activity, he says, that led to the ban on unauthorized versions of the Bible in the Constitutions of Oxford. But it was by no means intended that all Bible versions should be indiscriminately banned. For, he goes on, “myself have seen, and can shew you, Bibles fair and old written in English, which have been known and seen by the bishop of the diocese, and left in laymen’s hands, and women’s, to such as he knew for good and Catholic folk. (History of the Bible in English, New York: Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 1978, 22-23, citing More’s A Dialogue Concerning Heresies)

Bruce adds, “If the owners were orthodox and practising Catholics, no one would forbid them to read these books.” Now, whatever one thinks of St. Thomas More’s particular opinion on Wycliffe’s and Tyndale’s translations and the faults or motives of these two men, this proves beyond doubt that the Catholic attitude was one of opposing translations thought to be corrupted by heretical teaching and bias, not vernacular translations, period.

Along these lines, the Preface of the (Catholic) Rheims New Testament (1582) stated:

Now since Luther’s revolt also, diverse learned Catholics, for the more speedy abolishing of a number of false and impious translations put forth by sundry sects, and for the better preservation or reclaim of many good souls endangered thereby, have published the Bible in the several languages of almost all the principal provinces of the Latin Church, no other books in the world being so pernicious as heretical translations of the Scriptures . . .

VI. Luther’s Censorship of Catholic Bibles & Books of Other Protestants
***

Given these little-known historical counter-facts, it is greatly ironic (especially in light of the mythical folklore in Luther about attitudes toward the Bible), that Luther himself also wished to deliberately suppress Catholic translations of the Bible:

“The freedom of the Word,” which he claimed for himself, was not to be accorded to his opponent Emser . . . When . . . he learnt that Emser’s translation . . . was to be printed . . . at Rostock, he not only appealed himself to his follower, Duke Henry of Mecklenburg, with the request that “for the glory of the evangel of Christ and the salvation of all souls” he would put a stop to this printing, but he also worked on the councillors of the Elector of Saxony to support his action. He denied the right and the power of the Catholic authorities to inhibit his books; on the other hand he invoked the arm of the secular authorities against all writings that were displeasing to him. (Johannes Janssen, History of the German People From the Close of the Middle Ages, 16 vols., translated by A.M. Christie, St. Louis: B. Herder, 1910 [orig. 1891], vol. 14, 503-504 — referring to an incident in 1529, a year before the Diet of Augsburg, portrayed in the movie)

This attitude of censorship from Luther and his cohorts extended to other religious publications as well. Luther was certainly no advocate of free speech as we know it today. In this respect he was not a whit different than Catholics (arguably much more hypocritical because of his supposed first principles of freedom of conscience and religion). When the controversy on the Lord’s Supper was started at Wittenberg, the utmost precautions were taken to suppress the writings of the Swiss Reformed theologians and of the German preachers who shared the latter’s views.

Philip Melanchthon (Luther’s right-hand man and successor and the “hero” of Augsburg in the movie — he wrote the Augsburg Confession) demanded in the most severe and comprehensive manner the censure and suppression of all books that were opposed to Lutheran teaching. For example, the writings of Zwingli and the Zwinglians were placed formally on the Index at Wittenberg. (See Janssen, ibid., vol. 14, 504).

VII: Early Protestants: Champions of Conscience, Freedom, & Toleration?
***The other glaring error in the movie, Luther, of the same general nature, but lesser in degree, was implied mostly in the final scene at the Diet of Augsburg and the “editorial comment” or “moral of the story” with which the movie finished (and is very commonly held in both Protestant and secular culture at large). This was the subtle insinuation that early Protestants were almost exclusively the champions of religious freedom, while the Catholics were the ruthless persecutors and enemies of same. This ties in with the fundamental Protestant self-understanding and “myth of origins” as well.

The impression was given that Luther, distressed by the aftermath of the Peasants’ Revolt, in which an estimated 100,000-130,000 died, had become particularly concerned with religious freedom. The Revolt was itself portrayed fairly, for the most part, because allusion was made to the fact that Luther had some responsibility in stirring up the peasants by his over-the-top quasi-violent rhetoric, and his pangs of guilt were also displayed.

Luther was shown as thoroughly opposed to the violent fanatic Carlstadt. That much is true. Although his rhetoric sometimes seemed contrary, Luther opposed destroying churches, insurrection, and iconoclasm (which considered any images of religious themes idolatrous — Luther defended, for example, the use of crucifixes and other non-idolatrous images). There was no silly whitewashing of church interiors or banning of stained glass in Lutheran territories — as there was in many Calvinist-dominated areas –, or prohibition of music.

For an in-depth (and, I think, very fair and impartial) treatment of the complex issue of Luther and his attitude towards the Peasants’ Revolt, see my heavily-documented paper (mostly consisting of quotes from Luther and Church historians): “Martin Luther’s Violent, Inflammatory Rhetoric and its Relationship to the German Peasants’ Revolt (1524-1525).”

The “Luther-as-always-the-noble-hero-and slayer-of-hopelessly-corrupt-Rome-Babylon” myth, however, also holds that he was the champion of religious freedom and freedom of conscience, for men to worship as they please. This is simply not true (contrary to the film’s implication that denial of same was mainly an attribute of only the fanatic hordes, led by Carlstadt). This mythology was contradicted by Luther’s notion of the “State Church,” where secular princes took the role previously held by bishops, with each region was declared to be of one religious persuasion or the other. And it is contradicted by a host of other decrees and acts of power, oppression and suppression.

For much more on this aspect, see:

Protestantism: Historic Persecution & Intolerance (Web Page)

Luther Favored Death Penalty for Anabaptists [2-24-04]

Martin Luther’s Reactions to the Deaths of Zwingli, St. Thomas More, and St. John Fisher [11-30-07; posted to Facebook on 2-2-17]

Martin Luther: The Civil Government Ought to Put Frigid Wives and Adulterers to Death [12-20-07; posted to Facebook on 2-2-17]

“Reformation” Theft of Thousands of Catholic Churches [4-12-08]

Martin Luther Advocates Torture and Execution for Prostitutes, Female Sorcerers, Burning of “All” Witches [2-22-10; posted to Facebook on 2-2-17]

Reply to Reformed Luther Apologist James Swan’s Request for Documentation of Executions of Anabaptists Sanctioned by Luther, in the 1530s [8-17-14]

VIII. Salvation “Outside the Church”
***Comments on three more aspects of the movie are in order: In an early scene, the first thing Luther was shown to disagree with in Catholic teaching was the idea that no one is saved outside the institutional Catholic Church. He asked whether Greek Christians were all damned, and the response (from a pre-radical Carlstadt, no less) implied that they could not be saved unless they became Catholics. This is a distortion of the Catholic position, which is often misunderstood. It is a fairly complex discussion, but in a nutshell, Catholics acknowledge many situations in which non-Catholics could be eschatologically saved (i.e., saved when they die). See my paper: “Dialogue on ‘Salvation Outside the Church’ and Alleged Catholic Magisterial Contradictions (Particularly in the Middle Ages; With Emphasis on St. Thomas Aquinas’s Views)”.

Nor has the Catholic Church ever taught that a person who commits suicide is automatically damned to hell (if the movie meant to imply that: I’m not sure). The Church leaves that judgment up to God. Objectively, suicide is objectively a mortal sin, but the subjective state of the person’s soul (and thus his guilt) is known only to God. In order for a sin to be subjectively mortal, full consent of the will is required, and it is doubtful that many people in the severe stress preceding suicide are capable of that. We can rest assured that God is merciful and just in such tragic instances, as He always is.

IX. Indulgences: True Excesses and False Myths
***There was much disinformation and misinformation on indulgences in the film. For the Catholic counter-response, see my papers:

Biblical Evidence for Indulgences [1996]

Catholic Indulgences: History & Myths [8-6-16]

X. Diet of Worms & “Here I Stand” (1521): A Closer Look
*** Regarding Luther’s stance at the Diet of Worms (“here I stand,” etc.), the all-too-common perception of Protestants is the idea that Luther had the Bible and reason on his side, and that the Catholics were simply a bunch of spiritually-dead (and often whoring) knee-jerk reactionaries who didn’t know a thing about the Bible, wished to suppress it because it exposed their fraudulent tradition-infested doctrines, and who were insufferably unreasonable and intolerant for demanding recantation and not letting Luther argue his case.

I certainly thought all these things when I was an evangelical Protestant (prior to 1990). Luther was one of my biggest heroes and I considered it self-evident that he was right and the Catholics wrong. After some reflection upon precisely what Luther was requiring the Church to do, however, a different picture emerges, where Luther is the one who plays the unreasonable and arrogant, impossibly demanding figure.

In the movie, it was mentioned that among his works that the Church wanted Luther to renounce were The Babylonian Captivity of the Church and To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.

These were written in 1520, and the Diet of Worms occurred in 1521. Now, what sort of things were they advocating? For the answer to that, see my paper: 50 Reasons Why Martin Luther Was Excommunicated [National Catholic Register, 11-23-16].

In a dialogue with a Presbyterian, I made a humorous yet ultimately dead-serious analogy to a sort of theoretical Diet of Worms in Calvinist circles, with myself as the nonconformist, confrontational Luther-figure:

How about if I rush up to your Calvinist school (or Westminster Seminary or some place like that) and demand that they deny TULIP and if not, to show me from “Scripture and plain reason” how they can possibly defend their “clearly false” beliefs? Failing that, I will stomp my foot, cry “here I stand” and be carried out by you and other staunch defenders of Established Orthodoxy, perhaps fleeing to a present-day Wartburg Castle in the backwoods of Idaho, where I can come up with ideas for vulgar woodcuts of Calvin or R.C. Sproul being eliminated from the rear end of a Grizzly Bear. I’m sure I would be wildly popular in Calvinist circles, wouldn’t I? Would this be accepted cheerfully, causing the Reformeds to repent en masse, tear their shirts (robes?) open and pour dust on their heads, acknowledging their gross errors and corruptions and the historically and biblically obvious? I think not. I have a sneaking suspicion that I would be extended infinitely less patience than Luther was accorded by the Catholic Church.

No one ever seems to analyze this historical situation and Luther’s demands in this light. No Calvinist would give in to the demands of an Arminian or a Unitarian who insisted on them giving up their distinctive beliefs for a second. Yet the same people think that the Catholic Church should have done so, in response to one Augustinian monk. They expect the Church to have responded, in effect:

. . . sure, Fr. Luther; you know, you have a point. We have been wrongly teaching five “sacraments” all these years, and if we’re honest with ourselves, we must admit that we’re wrong about everything else you criticize us for. 1500 years of unbroken, developed tradition means nothing. You are here now: God’s anointed; God’s prophet and man of the hour [which Luther himself virtually claimed, in a certain fashion], and we bow to the self-evident nature of your biblical arguments. There we stood. We can now do other things, because God has brought you to us and it is a new dawn.

This is clearly absurd. No one expects this of any other institution, let alone one which claims to be divinely-protected from error by the Holy Spirit. It merely begs the question in a spectacular way. The underlying assumptions of Luther are never proven; they are merely assumed. He assumes that he is God’s man of the hour and a quasi-prophet. No one can be saved who doesn’t accept his teaching, which is identical with God’s. If a pope dared to proclaim such an unspeakably outrageous thing, Protestants would throw a fit. But when Luther does it, it is fine and dandy, because, well, he is right, and the Catholics are wrong. One simply accepts Luther’s authority with blind faith that he is right and the Catholics are wrong, because . . . well . . . because they are Catholics and “everyone knows” they are always wrong when they disagree with Protestants, and because Protestants are the “Bible people” and Catholics aren’t! They follow crusty, dead traditions of men which were condemned by Jesus, and are like the Pharisees. Etc., etc.

This was the inner logic and dynamic of Luther’s new perspective, set forth at the Diet of Worms. Yet few Protestants will admit that it is unreasonable or a circular argument, and far more objectionable and implausible than the Catholic stance in reaction to Luther. It sounds wonderful and noble and almost self-evidently true to choose the “Bible and plain reason” rather than the “traditions of men.” But of course that is a false dilemma and caricature of Luther’s choice from the get-go.

With regard to tradition, the question is not “whether” but “which?” Protestants have traditions just as Catholics do. But they are less grounded in history. They’re arbitrary (excepting those which agree with the Catholic Church, because they can be traced back historically). Since Luther was starting a new tradition, he couldn’t appeal to history and thus was forced (rather than admit he was actually wrong about anything) to rely on the Bible Alone. Yet the Bible itself points to an authoritative Church and Tradition (which Luther supposedly denied by appealing to the Bible as ultimate authority, over against entities that it points to itself!!). It’s a vicious logical circle for Protestants, any way one looks at it.

XI. The Real Diet of Augsburg (1530): “The Whole Truth & Nuthin’ But the Truth”
***The movie ended with the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 between Protestants and Catholics, and the Protestant “triumph” — as their “case” was allowed to be presented (announced on the hilltops by jubilant Protestants to the surprised Luther). Then writing appears on the screen to the effect that these momentous events heralded a huge step forward for the cause of religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

If the stereotypes of the movie are to be believed, the Protestant princes and other representatives were (to a man), noble, selfless, sincere, committed Christians who simply wanted to worship in peace and to read their Bibles in German without harassment. The Catholics, represented in the scene primarily by Emperor Charles V, only wanted (as the myth would have it) to suppress the Bible, so that no one would see the self-evident biblical truth that Catholicism was false.

The reality, was, of course, far more interesting and complex. Protestant historian Philip Schaff (the very definition of a “biased but fair-minded person”) wrote in his History of the Christian Church:

The Emperor stood by the Pope and the Edict of Worms, but was more moderate than his fanatical surroundings, and treated the Lutherans during the Diet with courteous consideration, while he refused to give the Zwinglians even a hearing. The Lutherans on their part praised him beyond his merits, and were deceived into false hopes; while they would have nothing to do with the Swiss and Strassburgers, although they agreed with them in fourteen out of fifteen articles of faith . . . Margrave George of Brandenburg declared that he would rather lose his head than deny God. The Emperor replied: “Dear prince, not head off, not head off” . . . The only blot on the fame of the Lutheran confessors of Augsburg is their intolerant conduct towards the Reformed, which weakened their own cause. The four German cities which sympathized with the Zwinglian view on the Lord’s Supper wished to sign the Confession, with the exception of the tenth article, which rejects their view; but they were excluded, and forced to hand in a separate confession of faith.

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 . . .

By July it was clear that on matters of doctrine the Lutherans at Augsburg were dissimulating, concealing their real beliefs in the hope of avoiding a final breach without making genuine concessions. On July 6 Melanchthon made the incredible statement: “We have no dogmas which differ from the Roman Church . . . We reverence the authority of the Pope of Rome, and are prepared to remain in allegiance to the Church if only the Pope does not repudiate us.” As it happened, on the very same day Luther, in an exposition on the Second Psalm addressed to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, declared: “Remember that you are not dealing with human beings when you have affairs with the Pope and his crew, but with veritable devils!” . . .

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 Agust 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 . . .
Luther prepared the final Protestant answer:

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)

So we see that this supposedly wonderful newfound “tolerance” and freedom of worship among the early Protestants was shot through with hypocrisy. The Lutherans were obviously courting the Catholic Emperor’s favor (putting politics above principle to some extent), whereas they would have “nothing to do” with their fellow Protestants, the Swiss and Strassburg theologians, even though they disagreed on one article of fifteen; and the Zwinglians wouldn’t sign the confession because of dissent on one article. They held to a symbolic view of the Eucharist (identical to the view of the majority of evangelical Christians today).

And of course, at the same time or shortly thereafter, Luther and Melanchthon and the Zwinglians and Calvinists were executing Anabaptists (who weren’t allowed to speak at all at the Diet of Augsburg) because they believed in adult baptism (like today’s Baptists), and forbidding religious freedom to Catholics. Catholics were required to give up their belief in the authority of the pope and their central religious rite, the Mass; Catholic properties which were stolen and plundered would not be returned, in the name of “conscience,” while the Augsburg Confession is an oracle from God; indeed the veritable “Word of God” itself, practically divinely inspired in every syllable (according to Quasi-Prophet Luther).

This is “tolerance” and “religious freedom”? How does one “negotiate” with such people, who consider every utterance in their statements inspired and infallible and their opponents “devils” who engage in “blasphemy” every Sunday when they worship? Truth is always stranger and more fascinating than fiction.

Nor were things very “tolerant” in Augsburg itself, in matters religious, following the Diet (see more on that in the Catholic Encyclopedia).

XII. Counter-Response to a Critique of This Review: “Catholics vs. the Bible” Revisited
*** A public response to my review appeared on the large and influential [anti-Catholic] Protestant discussion board CARM on 10-17-03 (links no longer available). Subsequent to that time, this person asked that his/her name be removed from my website. But I have retained my reply:In my opinion, the movie did not leave an impression that what was new was the significance of Luther’s Bible for German language and culture, or the translation from Greek and Hebrew (rather than from the Latin Vulgate), etc. (which indeed is unquestionably true). This doesn’t mean that it ignored those things altogether (there was probably a line or two about it: I can’t remember complete scripts). The overall impression that I got, however, was the same old standard myth and stereotype: that the Catholic Church opposed all translations into the vernacular and was somehow deliberately keeping the Bible from the common man.

Look, e.g., at the scene where Ulrich the lovable monk-friend of Luther’s, was setting off for the Netherlands (I believe it was) so that they, too, could read the Bible in their language and share the wonderful experience that he had just had, courtesy of Herr Luther. The Dutch already had such vernacular versions. But that was not the impression left by the movie at all (at least not from where I sit, and I am simply giving my perception of the movie, which is as valid as anyone else’s). This man was caught and burned by the “anti-Bible” Catholic Church, probably because he was trying to simply share the Bible (or so the impression is left, by what facts are omitted).

I believe this would be the point of view (vis-a-vis Catholicism and the Bible) that people who knew nothing about the history would get from the film. I think that if someone interviewed such people after they left the movie (sort of an “exit poll”) my impression would be amply supported. And it would be easy enough to back it up from official Lutheran sources which discuss Luther’s Bible or the supposed “dark ages” biblically speaking which preceded it. Catholic film critic Steven Greydanus wrote in his excellent review:

. . . in having a character describe the very notion of a German Bible as “the thing Rome fears most,” Luther both falsely maligns Rome, and perpetuates the Protestant canard of the Church “forbidding” the scriptures to the laity.

The beginning of the 1953 movie on Luther, which was literally anti-Catholic propaganda about the Middle Ages, would be one prominent case-in-point. I heard that this new movie was also financially backed by conservative Lutherans, so one would expect to find in it the views of that group (or at least a bias towards same). And if you know what these groups believe about the Catholic Church and the Bible, then you have the background to possible and likely biases that I (as a Catholic) observed in the film.

My impression wasn’t based on the one scene, either, but on several insinuations, including at the Diet of Augsburg. Early on (if I remember right), I believe Luther was asked if he had read the New Testament and he said “no.” He was an Augustinian monk at this time. Do you really think he was that unfamiliar with the New Testament; in the order inspired by the great St. Augustine? What a joke! Perhaps it was his first day “on the job,” in which case, it might be a true presentation. But the standard anti-Catholic stereotype of Catholicism and the Bible was that even priests and monks were not taught the Bible in the Middle Ages (with many thinking this is true today as well). This is sheer nonsense.

That theme is as old as the hills: we’re scared of the Bible, especially because it will expose the fraudulent nature of our Catholic distinctive beliefs. And so we must be scared of this movie and Luther himself. Dream on . . .

The fact remains that there were many German vernacular versions of the Bible, with the full approval of the Church. And there were many versions in the vernacular in other languages, as I have documented. Whether they were good or bad on their own merits, or inherently inferior because of the “middle man” of the Latin Vulgate are separate and legitimate questions. But if the charge was that German versions did not exist, or that the Church was somehow opposed to the vernacular as a general principle, then those things are shown to be absolutely untrue. This one person’s view of the inappropriateness of German is only his own (rather bizarre) opinion, not that of the Church.

If the game is to produce isolated instances of “Catholic things” horrifying to the Protestant ear, why can the Catholic not turn the tables and find examples of pro-Bible and pro-vernacular sentiments? I can provide official teaching from Pope Leo X, the bull Inter Sollicitudines, from the Fifth Lateran Council, Session X, 4th and 5th Decrees, dating May 4, 1515, before Luther ever nailed his 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg. Note how there is no opposition to vernacular per se, only to unauthorized vernacular versions which taught things contrary to the Catholic faith (including Latin works):

. . . the art of printing, which through the divine goodness has been invented and in our own time greatly perfected, has brought untold blessings to mankind, because at a small cost a large number of books can be procured, by means of which . . . men versed in the languages . . . may conveniently improve themselves, and which are useful, moreover, for the instruction of infidels . . .

. . . nevertheless, many complaints have come to us . . . that some masters in the art of printing books in different countries presume to print and publicly sell books translated from the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldaic into the Latin language and different vernaculars, which contain errors in matters of faith and teachings contrary to the Christian religion.

(From: Official Catholic Teachings: Bible Interpretation, James J. Megivern, Wilmington, North Carolina: McGrath Pub. Co., 1978, 176)

The pope and the council then recommend a closer scrutiny and approval of books “by the bishops or by competent persons.” This was a “theological quality control,” so to speak. If the objection was to vernacular itself, then the pope and Council would have simply issued a blanket condemnation of all vernacular books, including the Bible. But that didn’t happen, because the Church was not opposed to different languages, but to doctrinal error.
*
Pope Clement V, and the Council of Vienne: Canon 11, from the year 1311, over 200 years previously, had decreed similarly (no “anti-Bible” or “anti-vernacular” sentiment can be found here, either):

Among the cares that weigh heavily upon us, not the least is our solicitude to lead the erring into the way of truth and with the help of God to win them for Him. This is what we ardently desire . . . for the attainment of our purpose an exposition of the Holy Scripture is particularly appropriate and a faithful preaching thereof very opportune. Nor are we ignorant that even this will prove of no avail if directed to the ears of one speaking an unknown tongue. Therefore, following the example of Him whose representative we are on earth, who wished that the Apostles, about to go forth to evangelize the world, should have a knowledge of every language, we earnestly desire that the Church abound with Catholic men possessing a knowledge of the languages used by the infidels, who will be able to instruct them in Catholic doctrine. (in Megivern, ibid., 172)

Historian of Germany Johannes Janssen informs us that 198 Bible translations “were in the vernacular languages, with the sanction of the Catholic Church, before any Protestant version saw the light of day”. In my understanding, there was a great need in Germany of a Bible which synthesized or brought together a common dialect. No one is denying that. The KJV served the same purpose for the English language.

198 approved vernacular versions in the 65 or so years (an average of three a year by my math) between Gutenberg’s invention of the movable-type printing press and the onset of Protestantism ought to be enough to disprove the anti-Catholic Protestant self-serving, historically-ignorant claim concerning supposed Catholic animus against Scripture, and vernacular versions of the Bible for the masses. Perhaps 298 would make these critics differently? Or 598? 5980? Or do we have to go to 59,800 to prove to these folks that the Catholic Church was not against the laity reading the Holy Scriptures in their own languages?

The argument is also made that Luther’s translation wouldn’t have been so popular if there had been prior German translations. This doesn’t follow at all. By the same “logic,” we could also reason as follows:

1. The King James Version (KJV) was very popular when it came out in 1611 and has continued to be so to this day.
2. It would not have been so if there were other translations prior to its appearance “everywhere” in English to read.
3. In fact, however, there were many widely-used post-Middle English translations before the KJV: Wycliffe (1384), Tyndale (1534), Coverdale (1535), The Great Bible (1539), Geneva Bible (1560), Bishops’ Bible (1568).
4. Therefore (assuming premise #2) the KJV must not have been popular. Or, conversely, if it was popular, there must not have been other translations readily available.

Moreover, one cannot minimize the factor of the printing press and increasing mass distribution at a reasonable price. Economics and inventive ingenuity came into play. Thus, Bibles and other Christian books were undoubtedly much more available to the common folk and peasants in 1530 compared to, say, 1480. This is a causative factor completely distinct from the theological disputes at the time or the relative merits of Luther’s vs. other translations.

Of course, for the anti-Catholic, every time the Catholics did something right, there had to be some qualification to immediately nullify it, lest someone be so foolish and rash as to believe the historical truth where the Catholic Church is concerned. So the sanction of the Church for these publishing endeavors means nothing. Anti-Catholics will ignore what doesn’t fit into their preconceived schema. This was simply capitalism at play: printers making money. If these vernacular Bibles hadn’t been published, the Catholic Church would have been proven to be “anti-Bible,” by that fact alone. If they were published, well, then, it is strictly a matter of capitalism, you see, not any noble, praiseworthy desire that the Church had to educate her people by means of God’s written Revelation. Either way, the anti-Catholic perspective wins and the Catholic Church is the big bad diabolical wolf. How ingenious; how inventive and clever . . .

Because Luther’s Bible was popular, somehow this “proves” in that the Catholic Church must have been nefariously engaged in a plot to keep the Bible from the people. But the historical facts (as opposed to groundless opinions based on wishful thinking) do not support this assertion. As Aldous Huxley stated: “facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” His grandfather Thomas Henry Huxley decried “a beautiful theory, killed by a nasty, ugly, little fact.”

Sola Scriptura is Self-Defeating & False if Not in the Bible

Last updated on: February 14, 2017 at 2:52 pm By Dave Armstrong

vs. Kevin Johnson

A diagram of how arms form in spiral galaxies. Authors: User:Dbenbenn / User:Mysid (11-10-06) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]

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(5-4-04)

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I’ve seen many Protestants deny the Catholic counter-reply that if sola Scriptura isn’t taught in the Bible, it is a self-defeating belief, and therefore untrue. It certainly is self-defeating if in fact it can’t be found in the Bible (as I maintain). The inexorable, unarguable reasoning works as follows:

1. Sola Scriptura (SS) is the view that the Scripture is the final authority and only infallible one in the Christian life, higher than councils and Tradition and the Church, none of which are infallible (this is what is known as the formal sufficiency of Scripture as a rule of faith; Catholics deny this), and that every true Christian doctrine is found in Scripture, either implicitly or explicitly (material sufficiency of Scripture, which Catholics agree with).

2. If SS can be found taught in Scripture (and if Scripture teaches what sola Scriptura denies: that neither Tradition nor Church possess binding, infallible authority, as Scripture does), then it is not only self-consistent, but a true and a binding belief (just like anything else taught in inspired, infallible Scripture: God’s revelation).

3. But SS cannot be found in Scripture (Protestants have not succeeded in showing the contrary, that it is there), and Scripture indeed teaches that Tradition and the Church possess binding, infallible authority.

4. If SS is not in Scripture then it is (by definition and nature) an “extra-biblical” tradition and a mere tradition of men. SS obviously cannot be the rule of faith, if what it entails is the Bible being the sole infallible and ultimate rule of faith, because that means that whatever is included in the Christian faith (let alone the rule of faith) is found in Scripture (since it is the rule of faith, according to SS).

5. But SS is not in the Bible; thus it cannot possibly be a guide as to the status of the Bible itself with regard to authority and its relation to Church and Tradition. It is merely one of many “traditions of men” that Protestants (again, quite inconsistently) detest when it comes to Catholic distinctives which they claim are “unbiblical” and “extrabiblical.”

6. SS itself condemns extra-biblical traditions, and Protestants condemn mere traditions of men. These cannot be binding and obligatory upon believers.

7. Therefore, SS cannot be true by its own principles (if it isn’t in the Bible itself)! It is self-defeating (and nothing self-defeating can be true). Nor can it be true by ostensible Protestant principles. And it cannot be binding because all binding principles under the Protestant system must be found in Scripture itself.

8. If it’s not in the Bible (or at the very least, clearly deducible from it), it can’t be part of the Christian faith, and it obviously can’t speak to whether the Bible is the sole rule of faith, because (not being in the Bible) that would mean that a non-biblical tradition has more authority than the Bible itself — the very thing which the principle itself denies. So it is self-defeating and logical nonsense.

9. Of course, the canon of Scripture (quite similarly to this Protestant conundrum) is another non-biblical doctrine depending on Tradition and Church authority, which is also a huge epistemological difficulty for Protestants, but another issue.

10. Ergo, SS can not only not be true, but it cannot be binding either, and whatever is not binding cannot be a rule of faith (and untruths obviously cannot be binding upon Christian believers, as God’s will).

11. Moreover, if SS is not the Protestant rule of faith, then they must find another coherent, true rule, and that necessarily, inevitably falls back upon some sort of authoritative Tradition and/or Church authority, thus putting them on the same exact epistemological and ecclesiological plane as Orthodox and Catholics and (well, in theory, anyway) Anglicans, who all appeal to an authoritative Tradition in their belief-structure and epistemology.

12. Which Tradition and which Church, then, shall a Protestant choose (SS having failed and having been shown to be a false principle)? Well, Orthodoxy or Catholicism. Then we enter into the controversy as to which is more worthy of allegiance.

But I am far less concerned with Orthodoxy than I am with Protestantism. I feel that we ought to stress our commonality with the Orthodox, rather than wrangle with them, which is why I removed almost all of my Internet papers on Orthodoxy (though I plan to probably compile them into a book).

Meanwhile, the Protestant rule of faith is thoroughly incoherent, inconsistent, unbiblical, unhistorical (it was never held to any appreciable extent till the 16th century), and unworkable in practice.

Let Protestants keep trying in vain to find this teaching in Holy Scripture. I’ve yet to see that, and I’ve written more about this issue than any other in my apologetic endeavors. If it isn’t there, it either 1) can no longer be held, or 2) must be radically modified in definition. And if #2 is the case, I fail to see how it can even continue being what it is. If it incorporates tradition within its parameters as binding and obligatory, and/or infallible, it ceases to be what it is; it loses its very nature and essence.

Kevin Johnson (words in blue), an articulate Reformed Protestant, wrote in a comment in a previous thread:

I think perhaps you Roman Catholic guys have been shell-shocked by fundamentalist Protestants for a long time.

“Shell-shocked”? LOL I’m still waiting for those guys to get off a shot that hits anywhere near us! LOL The problem ain’t being shell-shocked, it is either falling asleep or dying laughing at the sheer stupidity and goofiness of their claims, such as Eric Svendsen claiming that we raise Mary to the level of the Holy Trinity, or James White creating an absolute dichotomy between sacraments and grace, which would exclude St. Augustine and Martin Luther from the Body of Christ.

. . . so long that perhaps it is difficult to even conceive of a Protestant actually having credible arguments for what they believe.

I have no problem conceiving that at all. Usually that is the case (at least above the level of premises). I simply deny that this is one instance where a coherent case can be made. It is not only built upon false premises; it is self-defeating, which renders it unworthy of belief. And I am referring to all the most sophisticated versions of sola Scriptura, not the fundamentalist extreme Bible-Only or SOLO Scriptura stuff.

A more balanced view would recognize that men like Calvin and Luther made their impact because while they may not have always been right they were certainly formidable opponents to the Catholic clergy of their day and their arguments did make sense to at least some of the world they lived in.

Of course, but that is another issue. Here we are discussing the principles of authority that they introduced, which were contrary to the received Tradition.

. . . the argument for sola scriptura is not a matter of proof-texting different verses,

Whatever you call recourse to biblical argument and data, it is absolutely necessary in this case, by the very nature of the beast, as shown above.

rather it is a recognition of the authority inherent in the Word of God and a realizing that the whole text of Scripture must be taken into account on the matter.

Catholics don’t disagree with that, but it doesn’t settle the issues of whether 1) SS is true, and 2) whether it is in fact self-defeating. That question has to be dealt with of its own accord; again, because of the specific nature of the thing being discussed, which necessarily involves making an argument from the Bible itself. The Protestant task remains to prove the doctrine from Scripture, and they have not done so. If you say it is deduced, then we can come back and say that a binding Tradition and Church is taught explicitly in Scripture (both notions being fatal to sola Scriptura).

Fundamental interpretive issues like these should be discussed prior to proof-texting your way in or out of sola scriptura.

Sure, but this doesn’t resolve the issue at hand, at all. Scripture is authoritative. It has inherent authority. All of it must be taken into account. All of these things are wholeheartedly accepted by Catholics. But your task is to show that Scripture somehow excludes the binding nature of Tradition and the Church and asserts this principle. And that clearly must be demonstrated in Scripture itself.

If it can’t be found, it collapses, because sola Scriptura would then be an unbiblical tradition of men, which is contrary to its very definition and nature. Anyone can see this, if they can step aside from partisan concerns for the moment, and look at it purely in terms of the logical factors involved.

Otherwise, you have your verses and tradition and I have mine.

That’s what the situation reduces to at length, anyway. Sola Scriptura is simply an entrenched, arbitrary, obligatory Protestant Tradition. But it makes no sense because it can’t be proven from the Bible — not even indirectly — and much in the Bible contradicts it.

In a comment on the Pontificator’s [Fr. Al Kimel’s] blog, Kevin offered the usual rejoinder, that his opponents (in this instance, an Anglican priest) do not understand sola Scriptura and private judgment:

Your critique may indeed speak loudly to the more extreme modern elements of Protestantism that has divorced itself from a fuller understanding of the original Reformation vision. However, your comments do no damage to the doctrine of sola scriptura as it was framed by Calvin and several of the historic Reformed Confessions . . .

Then he goes on to state the outlines of sola Scriptura:

The Bible is self-interpreting. It does interpret itself. I refer you to the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, paragraph 9 which says: “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself…”

Thus, we have a tradition (the Westminster Confession) determining something about the Bible, in the very act of defining the notion that nothing outside the Scripture can do so. The blindness to one’s own “philosophy” or “tradition” here fits in nicely with sola Scriptura. But where in Scripture does it teach that the Church cannot infallibly interpret it (or for that matter, where does it deny that Tradition and the Church can determine the canon: which books are in the Bible in the first place?).

Second, the Bible does belong to an obvious genre–it is the Word of God and uniquely so–as such it has a self-attesting authority as His Word and its revelatory nature dictates that it alone is the guide as to how it should be interpreted.

No one denies that the Bible is unique. But it doesn’t follow from that that nothing outside of it can be an aid to interpretation. In fact, this is denied. To give two examples from the Old Testament itself:

1) Ezra 7:6, 10: Ezra, a priest and scribe, studied the Jewish law and taught it to Israel, and his authority was binding, under pain of imprisonment, banishment, loss of goods, and even death (7:25-26).

2) Nehemiah 8:1-8: Ezra reads the law of Moses to the people in Jerusalem (8:3). In 8:7 we find thirteen Levites who assisted Ezra, and “who helped the people to understand the law.” Much earlier, we find Levites exercising the same function (2 Chronicles 17:8-9). In Nehemiah 8:8: “. . . they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” The New Testament is no different:

Acts 8:27-28, 30-31 And behold, an Ethiopian, a eunuch . . . seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah . . . So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless some one guides me?”

In fact, proper Reformed hermeneutics would demand that it is the guide by which all things are to be interpreted and understood.

Exactly; so this “all” would include sola Scriptura itself, the very rule of faith for the Protestant. You keep putting deeper into a rut and a pit. First, Scripture is totally clear and must interpret itself. Now it must be the source of understanding everything! So if Scripture is so clear and self-interpreting, where is sola scriptura clearly, self-evidently taught in it (as it must be)?

Because the Bible is God’s Word to men, it logically follows that not only does it mean something for us but the Scriptures also are clear to us–can anyone doubt that God the Father intended to place in His children’s hands a message that was comprehensible?;

That doesn’t logically follow, but I agree that it is plausible. Even so, it doesn’t follow (logically or as a practical matter) that the comprehensibility of the Scripture has to flow only from itself and without the aid of Church and Tradition. These things not only do not follow; the contrary is explicitly taught in Scripture.

The Jerusalem Council issued a binding decree and interpretation of Scripture on the matters of contraception and application of the Mosaic law in the New Covenant. The Bible even says that those at the Council were specially guided by the Holy Spirit:

Acts 15:28-29: For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity.

In the next chapter, we read that Paul, Timothy, and Silas were traveling around “through the cities,” and Scripture says that “they delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem” (Acts 16:4). This is Church authority. They simply proclaimed the decree as true and binding — with the sanction of the Holy Spirit Himself!

Thus we see in the Bible an instance of the gift of infallibility that the Catholic Church claims for itself when it assembles in a council. This is neither sola Scriptura nor Luther’s “Bible above popes and councils” revolutionary epistemological proclamation at the Diet of Worms in 1521. Not at all . . . but it is awfully biblical!

Key to understanding the limited role of tradition in relation to interpreting the Scriptures is the fact that while both men and the Church are (you will forgive I hope these references to classic Reformed systematic theology) justified, they are not completely sanctified. Men can and do err, they sin and we all look to Christ for forgiveness daily. The same is true for the Church. The Scriptures speak of ‘both/and’–we are clothed with Christ, yet we die to sin daily. Not until the eschaton are we going to be as we should. That being the case, offering a person an infallible role for the apostles or their hearers (as you posit here), the Church, or tradition is extremely suspect.

This doesn’t follow, either, by the example of the Jerusalem Council. Those decrees were binding and understood as such by Paul, who went out and proclaimed them. It was an instance of an infallible Church giving authoritative pronouncement on biblical teachings. The same thing held for utterances of the prophets and (I should think) the apostles, when they went out and preached the gospel.

Peter in Acts 2, in his sermon in the Upper Room, and in other recorded sermons, gave an authoritative New Covenant interpretation of salvation history. It was binding before it became “inscripturated,” because it was from an apostle. The writers of Scripture itself were sinners just like the rest of us (some, like David, even murderers and adulterers). But somehow God used those sinners to write an infallible, inspired Bible.

Papal and Church infallibility is a lesser gift than what Protestants already believed with regard to the Bible. If God can use sinners to write an inspired Bible, certainly He can use sinful men to proclaim infallible teachings in Tradition, as that is merely a protection from error, not a positive quality of inspiration.

Some have argued that the Church and her traditions have been guarded and guided by the Holy Spirit–and in general I agree. However, why can we not say the same for Word of the Husband (being Christ) that we do for His Bride, the Church?

I agree. That is not our problem. But you have a huge problem because you deny the proper role for the Church and Tradition that Scripture gives them. You want to follow, rather, the watered-down version of Church and Tradition that you received from Luther and Calvin. So you lessen the status of biblical and apostolic tradition based on arbitrary traditions of men.

Are we somehow going to argue that when God speaks, His words are unintelligible to those through whom the Spirit has given new life and written these very words upon their hearts?

That is not required in the Catholic position. It is not so much a denial that Scripture is clear in the main, as it is a protest against the anti-traditional, anti-biblical exclusion of Church and Tradition from the sphere of binding authority. Nor does it rule out the role of the Church in interpretation.

While I am the first to downplay the role of the individual in salvation due to the abuses in Protestantism especially in our day, we must admit the role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of individual believers. If the Word is truly written on our hearts, does it not follow that we understand what that word is by the work of the Spirit?

We have no problem with that. All we are saying is that if the Holy Spirit can so guide individuals, then He can guide His Church as well (and the Bible portrays this state of affairs as being the case in actuality).

After all this, however, let me say that I do believe the Bible outlines a teaching office for the Church, that it is important both now and historically, and that our interpretation of Scripture should take into account the witness of our Fathers. However, the witness of the Fathers must be faithful to the Word of God, not vice versa.

Of course. We believe that it is. It takes faith to believe that. The problem you and Protestants have is to explain how an individual can trump a received Tradition and the authority of the Church. If you discount the Church’s binding authority because men are sinners, then you obviously have to discount every individual’s interpretation, as each person is a sinner, too!

But you don’t do that. You give the authority ultimately to the individual to decide, by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, what is true and what isn’t, while you deny it to the Church. This makes no sense. And it is not biblical teaching (which is that there is a binding, authoritative [infallible] Tradition passed down and preserved in the Church).

The Church had binding authority in the Jerusalem Council. At what point did it lose this? As soon as the last apostle died (John?), then the Church lost its authority to bind men to interpretations and laws; to “bind and to loose”? That makes no sense, and no such notion can be found in Scripture itself. There is no indication that this profound authority would later be lessened and that the Bible would be the sole infallible rule of faith. That had to wait till Martin Luther, 15 centuries later.

It’s passing strange that a group which claims to be so concentrated on the Bible and opposed to traditions of men, would adopt a principle and rule of faith taken straight from a new, novel “tradition of man” (Luther), which says things about the Bible that the same Bible never teaches, and indeed, often directly opposes. There is no end to the logical and practical and unbiblical absurdities of this position.

But (again), I oppose sola Scriptura not at all because it is “difficult [for me] to even conceive of a Protestant actually having credible arguments for what they believe,” but because of the intrinsic weakness of this particular position. It fails because it cannot stand up to biblical and logical and historic Christian scrutiny, not because we are so reflexively prejudiced against it, or because we are (supposedly) opposing only caricatures of the position. If you disagree with that, then please refute the reasoning above. I’m all for observing you giving “credible arguments for what you believe.” Please do so; you are welcomed, and positively encouraged to make such an argument on my blog.

I will now reply to Kevin’s comments on the Pontificator’s blog. The latter made a reply of his own which (while brief) is well worth reprinting:

I’m afraid that I do not see how classical Reformation hermeneutics in any way avoids the problem posed by Newman on private judgment. You invoke the Westminster Confession for support, but this confession exemplifies the kind of private judgment that Newman decries:

(1) It rejects the infallibility of councils and denies their hermeneutical role as a “rule of faith” (XXXI.4).

(2) It asserts double predestination (III), which ecumenical Christianity rejects as heretical (Council of Orange).

(3) It rejects the veneration of images (XX.1), a practice that is explicitly commended and protected by the Seventh General Ecumenical Council.

(4) It asserts an understanding of Eucharist that would is rejected by both Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Lutheranism (XXIX).

The list could be expanded, but I’m sure you get my point. The Reformed faith as explicated by Westminster is, by ecumenical standards, idiosyncratic and heretical. But of course the Reformed are convinced that it faithfully explicates the written Word of God.

(Comment by Pontificator — 4/30/2004)

Now on to Kevin’s later comments:

The Westminster Confession was not cited as support for sola scriptura. The relevant portions quoted were given as an example of classic Reformation theology on the subject to help differentiate between the doctrine as it is posed in line with the original intent of the Reformation as opposed to today’s more modern version of the doctrine.

Neither Pontificator’s critique of sola Scriptura nor my own (nor Newman’s, for that matter), depend on caricaturing it in order to fight straw men. The critiques apply to original, bona fide, Reformation doctrine; it goes to the roots. No one who is reading Pontificator’s material lately can doubt that he is raising serious questions about original premises.

If you disagree, then you must demonstrate how either he or I are distorting the original Reformation conception of sola Scriptura, not merely assert it. For my part, ever since 1991 I have been operating with a definition of sola Scriptura from impeccable (mostly Reformed) sources such as R.C. Sproul, Charles Hodge, G.C. Berkouwer, and Bernard Ramm.

If you don’t like those, then there is an easy solution: please provide a definition of sola Scriptura yourself, and I will be happy to show that it suffers from just as many shortcomings and errors as the one I have been using. You can’t go on endlessly claiming your opponent is operating on a faulty definition, without actually arguing the matter at hand. At least not on my blog! LOL

That being said, I would have preferred to see interaction with what I wrote rather than side-stepping the issues and leaving a criticism of the Confession.

Amen! And I desire the same for what I wrote, too.

I confess I need to read more of Newman since it seems that much of popular Catholic apologetics these days is built off of his works–but perhaps you can tell me what he thinks of the historical fact that the Councils themselves contradict each other in certain instances–an odd thing to happen for an infallible tradition. I’m not sure his view is as realistic as some would like to admit.

Having criticized the Pontificator for “side-stepping the issues,” you proceed to do a little fancy footwork yourself, and try to switch the discussion over to alleged contradictions of councils, rather than the internal incoherence and inconsistency of sola Scriptura. I must admit that I saw more than a little humor in that irony.

. . . Again, as I have stated, the Westminster Confession was mentioned merely to point out the original doctrine of sola scriptura to those who seem content to attack a more modern caricature of it.

You need to clarify. Since I am now interacting with you, please demonstrate where anything I have written in criticism of SS would not apply to the version of it held by the Westminster divines. Again, I maintain that all versions of SS fall prey to internal incoherence and self-defeating factors, no matter how sophisticated; no matter how “impeccably Reformed” and so forth. Thank you.

But the same dilemma exists for the Magisterium. On what basis, other than the claim of the Church, do we accept the Magisterium as the authority in interpreting the Scriptures?

Nice try at switching the topic again. Which Tradition one accepts is a completely distinct and separate question from the question of whether sola Scriptura can stand up to logical, biblical, and historical scrutiny. That is the current question. If you wish to concede that you are unable to defend sola Scriptura, from the Bible or otherwise, feel free to do so, then we can move on. But I won’t change horses in mid-stream when there is a legitimate, worthwhile, highly important problem to be dealt with in the Protestant rule of faith.

This question is about the final appeal of authority.

That’s right. But when the claim is made that one position is self-defeating or otherwise quite weak in its construction, then that has to be dealt with first, before moving onto much wider discussions of choosing an authoritative tradition.

The Word comes from God–it’s authority is just as self-evident as God’s ultimate authority as God and the Church has duly recognized this authority over the centuries no matter what communion you belong to.

Of course. No one is denying that.

No one questions the authority of the words of the President of the United States when he speaks and why we think we can question the authority of the Word of God when He has clearly spoken is beyond me.

Again, I have no idea whom you think is doing that. Questioning sola Scriptura is not the same as questioning Holy Scripture. Please read this sentence five times, till it sinks in.

I think perhaps many Catholics are used to arguing with fundamentalist anti-Catholics who blame everything on Rome.

Their mentality is easy to understand, and they don’t interest me because they have nothing of substance to offer. Presently, I am dealing with a sophisticated Reformed Christian (you) who wishes to keep switching the topic to Rome whenever the going gets rough. I hope we can get beyond that, and that you will be willing to truly examine your own viewpoint, and defend it if you think you can, without ever mentioning the word “Rome”! I know you can do it if you really put your mind to it . . .

[passing over further attempts to move the discussion over the Rome’s pre-Reformation culpability]

Romans 9: Plausible Non-Calvinist Interpretation

Last updated on: November 22, 2021 at 3:46 pm By Dave Armstrong

Meeting between Esau and Jacob, by Giovanni Maria Bottalla (1613-1644) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

(4-22-10)

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The Great Calvinist Bible Argument: their favorite by far, and one trumpeted endlessly, is Romans 9. Here is the portion that Calvinists employ to defend their theological system of TULIP:

Romans 9:6-24 (RSV) But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, [7] and not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but “Through Isaac shall your descendants be named.” [8] This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants. [9] For this is what the promise said, “About this time I will return and Sarah shall have a son.” [10] And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, [11] though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, [12] she was told, “The elder will serve the younger.” [13] As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” [14]What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! [15] For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” [16] So it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy. [17] For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” [18] So then he has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills. [19] You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” [20] But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?” [21] Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? [22] What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, [23] in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory, [24] even uswhom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

This seems very strong and invulnerable, but it is also almost unique in the Bible, in its pattern of argument or presentation, as we can see from all the other scriptures collected above. Is there a way to exegete this in a fashion that is consistent with a non-Calvinist interpretation of predestination and election, over against the distinctive Calvinist doctrines of TULIP?

One possible (and to me, quite plausible) way of providing a non-Calvinist take of Romans 9 came from Protestant apologist James Patrick Holding, drawing in turn from scholar Marvin Wilson’s Our Father Abraham, and the notion of Hebrew “block logic”. Wilson’s writings include A Workbook for New Testament Greek: Grammar and Exegesis in First John and Dictionary of Bible Manners and Customs (with highly respected evangelical scholars Edwin Yamauchi and R. K. Harrison). Holding writes:

Let me state further that Wilson’s “block logic” comment is further substantiated by points made in Pilch and Malina’s Handbook of Biblical Social Values, which describes the ancient mind as one practiced in dualistic thought. Put another way, there is no “middle ground” where neutral value is assigned, and expressions are made in terms of “black and white”. I would add that Wilson is far from my only source; nor are Pilch and Malina, as indeed in the same article I go on to relate the matter to Ecclesiastes, based on solid OT scholarship. . . .

Hebrew “block logic” operated on similar principles. “…[C]oncepts were expressed in self-contained units or blocks of thought. These blocks did not necessarily fit together in any obviously rational or harmonious pattern, particularly when one block represented the human perspective on truth and the other represented the divine. This way of thinking created a propensity for paradox, antimony, or apparent contradiction, as one block stood in tension — and often illogical relation — to the other. Hence, polarity of thought or dialectic often characterized block logic.” Examples of this in practice are the alternate hardening of Pharaoh’s heart by God, or by Pharaoh himself; and the reference to loving Jacob while hating Esau — both of which, significantly, are referred to often by Calvinist writers.

Wilson continues: “Consideration of certain forms of block logic may give one the impression that divine sovereignty and human responsibility were incompatible. The Hebrews, however, sense no violation of their freedom as they accomplish God’s purposes.” The back and forth between human freedom and divine sovereignty is a function of block logic and the Hebrew mindset. Writers like Palmer who proudly declare that they believe what they read in spite of what they see as an apparent absurdity are ultimately viewing the Scriptures, wrongly, through their own Western lens in which they assume that all that they read is all that there is.

What this boils down to is that Paul presents us with a paradox in Romans 9, one which he, as a Hebrew, saw no need to explain. “..[T]he Hebrew mind could handle this dynamic tension of the language of paradox” and saw no need to unravel it as we do. And that means that we are not obliged to simply accept Romans 9 at “face value” as it were, because it is a problem offered with a solution that we are left to think out for ourselves. There will be nothing illicit about inserting concepts like primary causality, otherwise unknown in the text.

. . . as we have noted, expression in extremes is not a characteristic of Hebrew thought alone.

Second and more importantly, Paul was a Hebrew; he quotes from sources in Hebrew . . . and communicating in Greek changes neither of these points. Indeed, linguistic studies by such as Casey indicate . . . that bilingual interference points to Paul preserving his Hebrew linguistic and thought-forms, even as he communicates in Greek. . . .

It remains that Paul is not making a logical argument, any more than God made one (or had to) before Job. Indeed, the example of Job points to what I am talking about, and what Wilson otherwise relates: The Hebrews had experienced God personally at Sinai; it would be absurd to come to such people and say (for example), “You need the logic of the kalam cosmological argument to prove that God exists.” . . . Romans 9 is no “answer” at all in the Western sense; like the book of Job, it is God from the whirlwind saying, “That’s none of your concern.”

. . . I agree that mercy and compassion — the offering of covenant kinship and consideration — are free. It is once we are within that relationship that rewards and punishments begin to come into play . . . Nevertheless this does not prove in any sense that God did not create people with certain characteristics that suited His purposes. . . . And yes, there does remain a contrast, in my view, between mercy and hardening: It is the stark contrast between covenant concern and non-covenant disregard. And yes, the will of God is to decide who He enters into kinship relationships with. But no, this still doesn’t eliminate characteristics as a factor in God choosing people for specific assignments; and it does not eliminate free choice of humans as a factor in salvation . . .

For more on this sort of analysis of Hebrew “block logic” and Hebrew thought in general, see:

The Hebrew Mind vs. the Western Mind (Brian Knowles)

Hebrew Thought Compared to Greek (Western) Thought (N’tan Lawrence)

The Bible Idea of Time: How Archaic Hebrew Thought Is Constructed Differently than Our Thought Today (Kerry A. Shirts)

Biblical Paradox: Does Revelation Challenge Logic? (David Basinger, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, June 1987, 205-213)

St. John Chrysostom interpreted this passage in a non-Calvinistic fashion also:

Paul says this in order not to do away with free will but rather to show to what extent we ought to obey God. We should be as little inclined to call God to account as a piece of clay is.” (Homilies in Romans 16, NPNF 1 11:467)

God does nothing at random or by mere chance, even if you do not understand the secrets of his wisdom. You allow the potter to make different things from the same lump of clay and find no fault with him, but you do not grant the same freedom to God! . . . How monstrous this is. It is not on the potter that the honor or dishonor of the vessel depends but rather on those who make use of it. It is the same way with people – it all depends on their own free choice.” (Homilies on Romans 16.46; NPNF 1 11:468)

Methodist commentator Adam Clarke provides another plausible non-Calvinist take on Paul’s mention of Jacob and Esau:

Verse 12. The elder shall serve the younger] These words, with those of Malachi, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated, are cited by the apostle to prove, according to their typical signification, that the purpose of God, according to election, does and will stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; that is, that the purpose of God, which is the ground of that election which he makes among men, unto the honour of being Abraham’s seed, might appear to remain unchangeable in him; and to be even the same which he had declared unto Abraham. That these words are used in a national and not in a personal sense, is evident from this: that, taken in the latter sense they are not true, for Jacob never did exercise any power over Esau, nor was Esau ever subject to him. Jacob, on the contrary, was rather subject to Esau, and was sorely afraid of him; and, first, by his messengers, and afterwards personally, acknowledged his brother to be his lord, and himself to be his servant; see Gen. xxxii. 4; xxxiii. 8, 13. And hence it appears that neither Esau nor Jacob, nor even their posterities, are brought here by the apostle as instances of any personal reprobation from eternity: for, it is very certain that very many, if not the far greatest part, of Jacob’s posterity were wicked, and rejected by God; and it is not less certain that some of Esau’s posterity were partakers of the faith of their father Abraham.

. . . Verse 21. Hath not the potter power over the clay] The apostle continues his answer to the Jew. Hath not God shown, by the parable of the potter, Jer. xviii. 1, &c., that he may justly dispose of nations, and of the Jews in particular, according as he in his infinite wisdom may judge most right and fitting; even as the potter has a right, out of the same lump of clay, to make one vessel to a more honourable and another to a less honourable use, as his own judgment and skill may direct; for no potter will take pains to make a vessel merely that he may show that he has power to dash it to pieces? For the word came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words. Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work upon the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hands of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. It was not fit for the more honourable place in the mansion, and therefore he made it for a less honourable place, but as necessary for the master’s use there, as it could have been in a more honourable situation. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel. At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation-to build and to plant it; is it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them. The reference to this parable shows most positively that the apostle is speaking of men, not individually, but nationally; and it is strange that men should have given his words any other application with this scripture before their eyes.

Verse 22. What if God, willing to show his wrath] The apostle refers here to the case of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and to which he applies Jeremiah’s parable of the potter, and, from them, to the then state of the Jews. Pharaoh and the Egyptians were vessels of wrath-persons deeply guilty before God; and by their obstinate refusal of his grace, and abuse of his goodness, they had fitted themselves for that destruction which the wrath, the vindictive justice of God, inflicted, after he had endured their obstinate rebellion with much long-suffering; which is a most absolute proof that the hardening of their hearts, and their ultimate punishment, were the consequences of their obstinate refusal of his grace and abuse of his goodness; as the history in Exodus sufficiently shows. As the Jews of the apostle’s time had sinned after the similitude of the Egyptians, hardening their hearts and abusing his goodness, after every display of his long-suffering kindness, being now fitted for destruction, they were ripe for punishment; and that power, which God was making known for their salvation, having been so long and so much abused and provoked, was now about to show itself in their destruction as a nation. But even in this case there is not a word of their final damnation; much less that either they or any others were, by a sovereign decree, reprobated from all eternity; and that their very sins, the proximate cause of their punishment, were the necessary effect of that decree which had from all eternity doomed them to endless torments. As such a doctrine could never come from God, so it never can be found in the words of his apostle. (Clarke’s Commentary)

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