Includes Biblical Arguments for the Catholic Priesthood
Photo credit: cover of my 2003 book, Protestantism: Critical Reflections of an Ecumenical Catholic.
This discussion and dispute began with a meme that I put up. It stated (numbers added):
Protestantism:
[1] Where everyone is a priest except priests,
[2] Where everyone can bind and loose except bishops,
[3] Where you can command angels but not ask their help,
[4] Where you can talk to the devil but not to saints,
[5] Where everyone gets a crown except the Virgin Mary,
[6] Where everyone can interpret Scripture except the Church,
[7] Where every Church is a Church except the Church.
That caused a firestorm of controversy on one of my Facebook threads. The general tenor of the many Protestant critics who showed up was that I was either grossly ignorant of Protestantism, or deliberately dishonest. I contended that much of the furor, in my opinion, was based on a mistaken view of the sort of “literature” this was: proverbial, which allows of many exceptions. I replied to the most vociferous critic, Steve Gregg, a zealous preacher who emerged from the Jesus Movement of the early 70s, in my article, “Various Protestant Errors (Vs. Steve Gregg)” and made the following observation:
Now, posting a meme doesn’t necessarily mean that one agrees with every particular of it. And this is clearly a proverbial-type of meme, that would allow many exceptions (just as passages in the Book of Proverbs do). Moreover, with Protestantism one has to generalize, since there are so many divisions, but these observations are either broadly true or true of some and sometimes many Protestants, or else I wouldn’t have posted it. There can always be partial exceptions in an individual as well. . . .
It’s important to realize that the meme doesn’t necessarily have to mean that all Protestants believe all these things. . . . It’s implying (at least in my opinion and interpretation) that these beliefs can be or are found among Protestants.
To use an analogy, I could put up a meme about “The Democratic Party” and list seven things that some or many Democrats believe (free abortion and widespread illegal immigration and opposition to fossil fuels would be three examples). It wouldn’t follow that every Democrat believes all seven things; as Democrats (the men and women on the street; not just the politicians) are quite diverse as a group, just as Protestants are. But the generalizations would hold. Democrats are absolutely overwhelmingly in favor of legal abortion, etc. The fact that some aren’t doesn’t negate the legitimacy of the generalization. And the same applies to this meme. . . .
All of the points in the meme have been believed by Protestants; often, by many, and sometimes by very many.
Gregg soon imploded and launched an avalanche of personal attacks, after misinterpreting remarks I made about the behavior of the Protestants other than him in the thread (he took them all personally), as can be seen at the end of that article. With his departure, no other Protestant (of the many critics who chimed in) was willing to reply to my response-paper, save for one person whose demeanor had been cordial all along (h e wishes to remain anonymous). This is my reply to his comments in the original thread. His words will be in blue. Cited words from my reply-paper will be in green. I use RSV for Bible citations.
1. Recognizing special ministry roles (ones of authoritative leadership and otherwise) is not synonymous with “gap-bridging between God and man” priesthood. The sacramental “gatekeeping access to God” role Protestantism saw in Catholic “priesthood” is not parallel to those roles we see affirmed in the NT.
I agree; hence I wrote, “the universal priesthood of believers . . . is scriptural, and we also believe it. But we differ in thinking that there is an additional specific class of clergy called priests, . . . In other words, there are two senses of ‘priest’ in the Bible.” Thus, I was not arguing for equation, but rather, differentiation of two groups of people.
All the examples provided fail to establish NT priesthood. They establish ministerial roles (in general and various kinds), certainly, but not a “gatekeeping access to God” role typically referenced specifically as “priests.” It isn’t there. Bishops, overseers, shepherds, many terms are used for authoritative caretaking roles, but not priesthood. Jesus is the high priest, and we merely are kept in perpetual remembrance of his high priesthood.
I wrote: “The priesthood as we know it today is not a strong motif in the New Testament. But this can be explained in terms of development of doctrine: in the early days of Christianity some things were understood only in a very basic or skeletal sense.”
That said, I did offer arguments for the priesthood, particularly as presiding over the Mass (“Jesus entrusts to His disciples a remembrance of the central aspect of the liturgy or Mass (consecration of the bread and wine) at the Last Supper [(Lk. 22:19: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’]; Paul may also have presided over a Eucharist in Acts 20:11.” [“Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten”], even though that wasn’t the primary purpose of what I argued in my book (which was the differentiation of “priesthood of all believers” from priests in the Catholic sense). I addressed the “binding and loosing” aspect, which ties into confession and absolution (your “gatekeeping access to God” description), in replying to #2 in the meme. If you want “gatekeeping” you see that in this passage:
John 20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
That’s “gatekeeping,” because, note that it’s talking about forgiving the sins of others in a general sense; that is, even if they have nothing to do with the person offering the forgiveness, or penance (“retained”). We see the Apostle Paul doing the same thing with regard to a serious sinner in the Corinthian congregation:
1 Corinthians 5:1-5 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. [2] And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. [3] For though absent in body I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment [4] in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, [5] you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
This is an example of Paul “binding” (Mt 18:18) or “retaining” sins; i.e., imposing a penance for them. That’s the priestly function in the more specific Catholic sense. Then later he relaxes the punishment, which is the “loosing” function or forgiveness, and is actually an explicit example of what we call an indulgence (the relaxing or removal of temporal punishment for sin):
2 Corinthians 2:6-8, 10 For such a one this punishment [penance!] by the majority is enough; [7] so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. [8] So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. . . . [10] Any one whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ,
Note particularly verse 10: “Any one whom you forgive, I also forgive.” Paul is forgiving those who did him no (personal) wrong, and that’s because he is functioning as a priest and gatekeeper. He can formally pronounce either forgiveness or penance as a representative of God, and he did both. Paul casually assumes that priests are still operative under the new Christian covenant, by referring to the table of the Lord (or altar) and contrasting it with the table of demons, in a eucharistic context:
1 Corinthians 10:14-21 Therefore, my beloved, shun the worship of idols. [15] I speak as to sensible men; judge for yourselves what I say. [16] The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? [17] Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. [18] Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar? [19] What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? [20] No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. [21] You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. (cf. 9:13)
Paul is in this same priestly thought-world in another of his statements:
Romans 15:15-17 But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God [16] to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. [17] In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God.
He’s “offering” a “priestly service” to the Gentiles. The Greek word is hierourgeo. Strong’s Concordance defines it as “to be a temple-worker, i.e., officiate as a priest (fig.): — minister.” This classic (non-Catholic) reference work states: “to minister in the manner of a priest, minister in priestly service.” It also notes (from Joseph Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon) historical etymological definitions of “to be busied with sacred things; to be perform sacred rites” (from Philo), and “used esp. of persons sacrificing” (from Josephus).
Baptist Greek scholar A. T. Robertson, in his famous work, Word Pictures of the New Testament (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1930; six volumes; under Romans 15:16; vol. 4, 520), provides the basic definition: “to work in sacred things, to minister as a priest.” Likewise, Marvin Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament (four volumes; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887; reprinted: Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1946; vol. III, 174) states, for the same passage:
Ministering (ierourgounta). Only here in the New Testament. Lit., ministering as a priest.
Offering up (prosfora). Lit., the bringing to, i.e., to the altar. Compare doeth service, John xvi. 2.
Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament defines it as:
‘to perform sacred or sacrificial ministry.’ In Josephus and Philo it always means “to offer sacrifice” and often has no object. (hierourgia means “sacrifice” and hierourgema the “act of sacrifice.”)
None of these reference works are Catholic; thus, no charge of bias based on Catholic affiliation can be made against them. The bottom line is that Paul has called himself a priest – using two different terms.
We get the word liturgy from litourgos (Strong’s word #3011; cf. #3008, 3009, and 3010). Strong’s (word #3008: litourgeo) applies it to, among other things, “priests and Levites who were busied with the sacred rites in the tabernacle or the temple.”
Paul also casually assumes the continued existence of altars among Christians (1 Cor 10:14-21), and altars are mentioned in the New Testament in other places (apart from the many mentions of altars in heaven), as well:
Hebrews 13:9-12 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings; for it is well that the heart be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited their adherents. [10] We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. [11] For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. [12] So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.
Therefore, if it is true that – as John Calvin argues in his Institutes: IV, 18:3 –: “the cross of Christ is overthrown the moment an altar is erected”, then the New Testament is against the cross. It’s much more likely that Calvin has misunderstood the passages above.
Priests dispense sacraments (1 Cor 4:1; Jas 5:14), including baptism (Mt 28:19; Acts 2:38, 41). A universal priesthood of “offering” (sacrifice) extending to “every place” in New Testament times is prophesied in Isaiah 66:18, 21 and Malachi 1:11.
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2. If binding & loosing refers to excommunication and reconciliation, we see Paul prompting the Corinthian church to do so as a community rather than tasking a priest/pastor/elder to do so. This binding & loosing would be church-communal rather than limited to a few in authority.
Here you appear to be referring to the passages I brought up, above. What you overlook is the fact that Paul himself was functioning as the priest in that instance, and merely encouraging the assembly to follow-up on his instructions. Paul started the ball rolling, so to speak. Accordingly, he writes with “high” priestly, commanding authority: “Let him who has done this be removed from among you. . . . I have already pronounced judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus . . . you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved . . .” (1 Cor 5:2-3, 5).
Paul directed the whole thing: not the Corinthians themselves. He was the priest. He was doing “gatekeeping” — as you described it. Likewise, he led and guided the relaxation of the penance or indulgence, too (which directly contradicts your argument). He commands them and tells them what to do: “this punishment by the majority is enough; so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him . . . I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. . . . Any one whom you forgive, I also forgive” (2 Cor 2:6-8, 10).
3. Word of Faith / “Prosperity Gospel” figureheads, while they exist, are dismissed by almost all Protestants with contempt as heretical false teachers.
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I agree. As I noted, I rebuked these errors as a young apologist in 1982, and as a charismatic Protestant. But it hasn’t been established that this error occurs only among the “word of faith” extremists. And I can attest to the fact that this mentality is rampant in pentecostal circles. I attended Assemblies of God from 1982-1986 and I personally encountered or witnessed dozens of people talking this nonsense, even though AG doctrine was against it. In this meme, practices “on the ground” are being referred to, not just official doctrines.
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So the whole “commanding angels” thing simply is not something to say “occurs in our ranks.”
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Again, as I noted, there are over 644 million pentecostals or charismatics worldwide. It certainly does occur in your ranks. In five seconds I found this on an Assemblies of God site:
Mark 1:34 says, “He [Jesus] did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew Him” (NKJV). In Mark 5:8, He commands, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!” This is why believers can take authority in Jesus’ name over demonic activity.
Assemblies of God is usually regarded as the largest pentecostal denomination. It has 68.5 million members, just 6.5 million less than Presbyterians and 11.5 million less than Lutherans and Methodists. Granted, this citation is about demons, but they are angels, too, after all (fallen angels). Other charismatic articles deny that this is the case; for example, “Can Christians Command Angels?” (Samantha Carpenter, CharismaNews, 5-19-21).
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As I’ve reiterated over and over, I don’t believe that the meme was claiming that all Protestants believe any of these points: only that some or many do. If in fact the meme writer didn’t intend that understanding (maybe he or she didn’t), it’s still certainly my own view of the points in it. This particular item probably applies to the smallest number (as I already conceded), but it’s still not nonexistent.
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You may as well be addressing JW or LDS as “a problem in Protestant ranks” as if it is something we can existentially eradicate any more than Catholicism can.
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Those groups are non-trinitarian heresies and not Protestant at all (I wrote against JWs in the early 80s as an evangelical Protestant: it was one of my earliest apologetics projects). The “word of faith” theology and group of folks — bad and dangerous as the theology is — is not in that category at all. They are almost all trinitarian Protestant Christians; more comparable to a group like Seventh-Day Adventists, which contains significant departures from historic Protestantism (denial of hell and assertion of soul sleep), but is not out of the fold of Christianity. That was Walter Martin’s view (the cult expert, in his book, The Kingdom of the Cults) and is my own as well.
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Alternatively, we could point at rogue Catholic bishops maintaining their positions on controversial matters as evidence Catholicism “has that in its ranks.” If that doesn’t count because it “isn’t condoned” or “they’ve been excommunicated anyway,” the same thing holds for how widely Protestants decry Word of Faith / Prosperity Gospel. Take a look at how everyone talks about Joel Osteen. We ostracize that entire way of thinking.
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Yep. I have been very consistent and vocal in my view that the Catholic Church has mollycoddled and pampered and winked at theological liberals and wolves in sheep’s clothing in our ranks for sixty years. We’ve had hell to pay as a result, with the sex scandals (active homosexuals entering the priesthood with those views and practices) and widespread theological illiteracy. We have plenty of serious problems “on the ground” and in practice, just as you do.
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That said, we have a means to correct people like this, by our unified theology (even if often we don’t do it), whereas Protestants can only correct folks in one particular denomination. And then the ones being censured can simply leave and form another denomination or go to another one more amenable to their views (many liberal Protestant denominations to choose from!).
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The example of Lot isn’t even relevant, as Lot was APPROACHED BY an angel commanding him with a message from God, and Lot RESPONDED by appealing that delivered directive. Since God had explicitly used an intermediary, Lot was positioned to respond to that intermediary. This is unrelated to Christians spontaneously “reaching out” to aimlessly command random unknown angels.
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I commend you for addressing the second part of #3: that Protestants don’t pray to angels. Virtually all of the critics consistently missed the aspect of “compare and contrast” in the seven points. That was the second most prevalent error after not understanding the nature of generalizations.
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The question at hand here is whether Protestants believe that we can “ask”: angels for “help”; i.e., basically pray to them. And Protestants deny that we can do so. Therefore, I produced a clear biblical example of someone dong so in the Bible, and this being casually assumed (by Moses, who wrote it) to be altogether proper. For convenience’ sake, here is the passage again:
Genesis 19:15, 18-21 When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.”. . . And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me, and I die. Behold, yonder city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there — is it not a little one? — and my life will be saved!” He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.
Remember, the question is whether we can ask angels for help: to petition them. Standard Protestant theological says that we cannot do so: that we can’t invoke or ask for intercessory assistance either angels or dead human beings. But what you guys forbid is clearly taught here. Lot asks the angel if he can flee to a nearby city. The angel not only allows that, but also says that he won’t destroy the city (!) by “grant[ing]” the “favor” of not “overthrow[ing]” the city. That’s petition or prayer to an angel, which is utterly impermissible in Protestantism.
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You use a rather desperate and irrelevant reply to try to escape this dilemma by noting that the angel approached him first; therefore, it is supposedly essentially different from prayer to an angel. But it’s not. Petitionary prayer is what it is, whether an angel or dead person approaches us or not, and Protestantism forbids it. The aspect of “approaching first” is a non-essential element of it; therefore it doesn’t overthrow the difficulty.
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4. The rich man talking to Abraham is two physically-dead (but spiritually alive?) people talking, which is not comparable to one living and one dead person talking.
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I’ve dealt with this objection countless times. The fact that the rich man was also dead is irrelevant with regard to the absolute Protestant prohibition of invoking anyone other than God. If that is accepted as a prior premise (as it is), then it matters not that a person who is dead in Hades is making the prayer petition to a man (Abraham in this case). He or she can’t do it, because it’s forbidden. The theology doesn’t suddenly change just because a person dies. And if it is forbidden, as Protestants claim, Abraham would have had to rebuke the rich man for making the petitions. But of course he didn’t, because it is biblically permissible.
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And the denials aren’t “ain’t doing it as that is against God’s will.” Both requests are simply useless, one because it is impossible and the other because even if granted it would make no difference. If anything, it shows the total fruitlessness of engaging in it. There’s nothing to be accomplished from it. There’s an uncrossable gap involved AND we see an implication that intervention by a faithful comforted (and dead) believer would make zero difference.
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All of that is irrelevant to the question at hand, too (what’s known as a non sequitur in logic). All that is relevant is whether Scripture sanctions prayer to a dead man. It does here, right from the lips of Jesus, and Abraham didn’t rebuke the prayer and say, “why are you asking me?! Don’t you know that you can only ask God to answer prayer requests?!” — which he would have to do if this tenet of Protestantism were true.
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The same thing happens again when King Saul petitions the dead prophet Samuel. Samuel tells him that he is going to die in battle the next day, and offers no solace. What he didn’t do was rebuke Saul for offering an impermissible prayer. It all fits with Catholic theology and not at all with the Protestant outlook.
* 5. Weak and dodgy. Referring to Protestants saying Mary isn’t “the queen of heaven” — but ignoring the idea of all saints attaining crowns of victory & glory — is begging there to be a point. Even saying Rev 12 = Mary is just bad exegesis someone only engages in if they’re believing what someone else has told them is there.
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This is the point (you verify it in this reply): which is that Protestants love talking about all the crowns believers get in heaven, while denying and warring against virtually any specific honor in Mary’s case as “Maryolatry.” Mary’s crown is referred to in Revelation 12 and Protestants typically deny that the passage is about Mary. But this is exegetically weak, anti-Marian bias.
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There are many good reasons for believing that Revelation 12 has an application to Mary (it also has a dual application to the Church). Who else, after all, “brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne” (Rev 12:5)? The Church didn’t bring forth Jesus, since it was Jesus Who established the Church. I’ve made the exegetical case several times (here are five of those):
* 6. No, sola scriptura does not make the individual’s interpretive role absolute. Rather, it makes interdependent communal interpretation that much more crucial, as scripture still means what it means even if we misinterpret it. We remain accountable to scripture itself, not to our interpretation of it.
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I’ll repeat what I stated last time, because you have not addressed it at all:
The individual (likeLuther, who invented this!) can judge the institutional (Catholic / Orthodox) Church. That’s exactly what Luther did in 1521 at the Diet of Worms. He knew better than the entire unbroken 1500-year tradition of the Catholic Church.
Any Protestant — by the express principle of sola Scriptura — can dissent against his or her denomination, just as Luther did against the Catholic Church, simply by declaring what is dissented against as “unscriptural. And no Protestant can show that that is not what sola Scriptura logically boils down to. Therefore, in the final analysis, the individual indeed reigns supreme in Protestantism.
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If this is denied, then Martin Luther’s very actions to start the whole thing would be nullified; thus discounting the entire Protestant “Reformation” and its initial rationale. You can talk a good game of limited denominational authority, but that only goes so far, when there are hundreds of other denominations to choose from if someone is censured.
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With Catholicism, by contrast, nobody is accountable to scripture itself, but ONLY to what the Magisterium declares it to mean.
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This is patently false, and is one of the most stubborn, intransigent Protestant myths about the Catholic Church. In fact, there are only seven (some think nine) passages out of the entire Bible where the Catholic Church requires only one interpretation. Beyond that, Catholics are as free as any other exegete to interpret Scripture on their own. See my article:
The Catholic Church, of course, wants that enterprise to be guided in an ultimate sense by the Church (orthodoxy), but that’s no different from every Protestant group offering Scriptures that mean a certain thing, and an overall theology (in creeds and confessions and membership statements), meant to guide its adherents. In other words, this is a wash and a non-issue. But it sounds really good as a potshot against the Big Bad Catholic Church, doesn’t it? If only it were true . . .
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7. Hair-splitting. The passages referenced to not indicate the points being made. If the church means all who are in Christ, but some can fall away, then they are no longer part of the church as they are no longer in Christ.
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Yes, when they fall away, they aren’t, but the problem is that no one can know for sure whether they will persevere till the end (or whether they themselves will). We don’t know the future. We’re not God. We know there is an elect (the eschatologically saved, who make it to heaven). But we can’t know with certainty which individuals are included in that category. And because of that, “bad” individuals, or [terrible] “sinners” are in the Church, and there is abundant biblical indication of that. I only gave a small amount of the proof to be had. I have much more that can be seen on my web page, Inquisition, Crusades, & “Catholic Scandals” (in the section, “Sinners in the Church”). I’ve written about the general topic at least eleven times.
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Addressing churches in a way that condemns some of their “bewitched” beliefs is not a way of saying “you people who count / don’t count as part of the church.”
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Exactly! That was my point. They are part of the Church, too.
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And if Paul meant it that way in saying “to the churches,” he was failing to address them properly because if they were actually Church they’d be infallible.
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I don’t follow this reasoning, and so won’t comment further on it.
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“Churches” is interconnected local gatherings of believers,
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No one denies that.
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whereas “the church” [entire] is all global believers. Nothing you wrote overturns that.
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Protestants deny an institutional, hierarchical, historically verified Church, which is impossible to do. You simply ignored the one compact argument I made for the institutional Church:
[T]he Jerusalem Council . . . was led by Peter and the bishop of Jerusalem, James, attended by Paul, and consisted of “apostles and elders.” It made a decree that was agreed with by the Holy Spirit (i.e., an infallible or even inspired one) — Acts 15:28 — , which was proclaimed by Paul far and wide as binding on Christians (Acts 16:4).
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That’s undeniably an institutional Church, and one that produced infallible binding decrees in council: all of which is contrary to the beliefs of most Protestants. Sola Scriptura denies that councils can be infallible, but the Jerusalem Council was. You deny that the Church was an organization. Yet here it was. BIG discussion — and if you hang around, we can get into that in far more depth — , but that is my short, nutshell answer for now.
Steve Gregg — to whom I was replying there — chose not to stick around, choosing the path of emptyheaded and misdirected insults, so we couldn’t get into “far more depth” — beyond a “nutshell answer.” Maybe you will. I think this is a good dialogue and that we could have many more. What denomination do you attend, by the way? Are you a pastor or theological professor?
As to the basic question here, see my articles and dialogues:
The Authority of the Catholic Church (+ Pt. 2): chapter two of my 2009 book, Bible Truths for Catholic Truths: A Source Book for Apologists and Inquirers [10-16-23]
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Thanks for the cordial discussion and God bless you.
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Summary: I reply to and interact with one Protestant who didn’t like a meme I put up which generalized about certain errors in Protestantism. I defend my position in depth.
Protestant Steve Gregg’s words will be in blue. See his online biography.
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This began with a thread on my Facebook page where I posted a meme. It read as follows (numbers added for the sake of reference):
Protestantism:
[1] Where everyone is a priest except priests,
[2] Where everyone can bind and loose except bishops,
[3] Where you can command angels but not ask their help,
[4] Where you can talk to the devil but not to saints,
[5] Where everyone gets a crown except the Virgin Mary,
[6] Where everyone can interpret Scripture except the Church,
[7] Where every Church is a Church except the Church.
Now, posting a meme doesn’t necessarily mean that one agrees with every particular of it. And this is clearly a proverbial-type of meme, that would allow many exceptions (just as passages in the Book of Proverbs do). Moreover, with Protestantism one has to generalize, since there are so many divisions, but these observations are either broadly true or true of some and sometimes many Protestants, or else I wouldn’t have posted it. There can always be partial exceptions in an individual as well. I will defend this as far as I agree with it and reply to objections that are in the thread. More on this aspect below . . .
All of a sudden this post has received 345 likes or dislikes, 95 comments, and 154 shares in a little less than 24 hours: far more than I usually get on my Facebook page. Readers can see the comments in their original contexts and format by consulting the post (linked at the top). I will be doing my usual back-and-forth (Plato / Socrates / Peter Kreeft) dialogue format. But I have cited all the words of my opponent. No “cynical / hostile” editing here!
I wrote to Steve Gregg on Facebook: “I, too, came out of a Jesus People / Movement background. In the early 80s I wanted to join Keith Green’s ministry, shortly before he was killed. I used to read Cornerstone Magazine, and visited there. I did street witnessing all through the 80s at U of M in Ann Arbor. Etc. I admire all of that. We have much in common because of it.”
I am neither Roman Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox. So I guess I would be called “Protestant”. I prefer the label “believer” or “disciple.” I do not fit your description:
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Yes, you are a species of Protestant. But I understand that many Protestants deem themselves beyond any traditional or conventional theological / denominational labels and call themselves — as you did — merely a “believer” or “disciple” [of Jesus]” or just “Christians.” That’s fine on a certain level, with limitations, but in any event, one must be aware of their own theological pedigree and traditions. No one is beyond this, whatever they claim. We’re all products of some sort of tradition or influence.
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In your biography you referred to many authors you have read. I am familiar with just about all of them. I know where you are coming from. It’s a form of Protestantism. I used to believe many of these same things as a non-denominational Baptist-type Arminian, with many Christian influences. Someone said that “everyone has a [theological] tradition; even if it is an unacknowledged one.”
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You yourself made reference to where your own belief-system came from, historically speaking, in writing in your biography: “I suppose the first new ideas that I developed, from my personal study of the scriptures, were what would best be termed ‘Anabaptist’ convictions.” That’s good. I once angered one of my old evangelical teachers (a converted Jew for whom I had immense respect), by asking him if he were in the Anabaptist tradition. He thought he was above all categories and traditions, which is folly and silliness.
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You, on the other hand, show that you are aware of at least some pedigree. The Anabaptists, of course, began shortly after Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses in 1517 and kicked off the Protestant Revolt. They’re considered to be Protestants who were part of “the radical reformation.” Both Luther and Calvin approved of executing them for heresy and sedition, as you may already know. It’s not just Catholics who killed others for believing what they thought was heresy.
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1) No, everyone is a priest whom Jesus and the apostles acknowledged to be priests;
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This part of the meme clearly refers to the Protestant emphasis on the universal priesthood of believers. That sense is scriptural, and we also believe it. But we differ in thinking that there is an additional specific class of clergy called priests, who preside over the Mass and watch over their flocks, as Protestant pastors do. In other words, there are two senses of “priest” in the Bible. I addressed this topic in my 2007 book, The One-Minute Apologist: Essential Catholic Replies to Over Sixty Common Protestant Claims (pp. 48-49; I use RSV for biblical citations):
The priesthood as we know it today is not a strong motif in the New Testament. But this can be explained in terms of development of doctrine: in the early days of Christianity some things were understood only in a very basic or skeletal sense. This is true even of certain doctrines accepted by all Christians, such as the Holy Trinity or original sin. The canon of biblical books took four centuries to be fully established. . . .
But one can indeed find evidence in the Bible of a Christian priesthood. Jesus entrusts to His disciples a remembrance of the central aspect of the liturgy or Mass (consecration of the bread and wine) at the Last Supper [(Lk. 22:19: “Do this in remembrance of me”]; Paul may also have presided over a Eucharist in Acts 20:11. These same disciples were models of a priestly life: wholly devoted to God, fulfilling a lifelong calling. Jesus had chosen and “appointed” them, and they had become His “friends” [Jn. 15:15-16]. He was their sole master [Mt. 6:24]. There was no turning back in their ministry [Lk. 9:62], and they were called to a radical commitment involving even leaving possessions and their entire families [Mt. 4:22; 19:27; Lk. 14:26]. The priest-disciple must accept hardships and privations and embrace self-denial [Mt. 8:19-20; 10:38; 16:24, etc.], and (if so called) celibacy, for the sake of undistracted devotion to the Lord [Mt. 19:12; 1 Cor. 7:7-9]. They served the Body of Christ [1 Cor. 3:5; 9:19; 2 Cor. 4:5], and dispensed sacraments [1 Cor. 4:1; Jas. 5:14; Mt. 28:19]. A universal priesthood of “offering” (sacrifice) extending to “every place” in New Testament times is prophesied in Isaiah 66:18, 21 and Malachi 1:11.
Protestants sometimes cite 1 Peter 2:5, 9 (cf. Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6) to the effect that all Christians are priests; therefore there is no set-apart priestly ministry. But Peter was citing Exodus 19:6: “you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” This passage couldn’t possibly have meant that there was no priesthood among the ancient Hebrews, since in Leviticus they clearly had a separate class of priests. In fact, this same chapter twice contrasts the “priests” with the “people” [Ex. 19:21-24; cf. Josh. 3:6; 4:9]. Thus, it makes much more sense to interpret “priests” in 1 Peter 2:5 as meaning a chosen, specially holy people. This is fairly clear in context, in both parallel passages. The notion of “spiritual sacrifices” (faith, praise, giving to others) applies to all Christians [Phil. 2:17; Heb. 13:15-16].
The idea that all Christians are priests to the exclusion of a special class of clergy-priests is traceable to Martin Luther, not the Bible.
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2) Bishops are not singled out to be excluded from the activity of binding and loosing;
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The idea in the meme is that most Protestants don’t have bishops at all, despite their being cited as a Church office in the Bible (“bishop” appears four times in the NT in RSV). Technically (where I disagree with the meme), priests — not just bishops — bind and loose as well, in the course of confession, absolution, and penance. But most Protestants don’t have priests, either, so it makes little difference as to the overall point being made. Catholics believe that Jesus’ original disciples represented as a prototype, priests (or pastors, if one “Protestantizes” it).
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Hence, Jesus told Peter to “Feed my lambs” and “tend my sheep” and “feed my sheep” (Jn 21:15-17). And the Apostle Paul, speaking to “the elders of the church” (Acts 20:17), said, “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God” (Acts 20:28). Similarly, the Apostle Peter wrote: ” So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder . . . Tend the flock of God that is your charge” (1 Pet 5:1-2).
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Now, one might ask what we mean by “binding and loosing.” International Standard Bible Dictionary (“Bind, Bound”) states:
In a figurative sense, to bind heavy and burdensome (extra) so-called religious duties on men (Mt 23:4). This figurative use of the word in Mt 16:19 and Mt 18:18 has given special interest to it. Necessarily certain powers for administration must be conferred on this company of men to carry out the purpose of Christ. That this power was not conferred on Peter alone is evident from the fact that in Mt 18:18 it is conferred on all the apostles. The use of the word in the New Testament is to declare a thing to be binding or obligatory (Joh 20:23).
New Bible Dictionary (“Binding and Loosing”) affirms that this means “the Church’s power to excommunicate and reconcile the sinner.” Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (“Binding and Loosing”) likewise defines it as “the authority to to determine the rules for doctrine and life . . .” These are all Protestant sources.
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3) Most Protestants do not believe in commanding angels. I don’t…nor does anyone I know; *
Again, it’s a proverbial-type meme. I agree with you that this particular item applies to only a small number of Protestants. Even you assumed that by using the word “most.” If “most” Protestants don’t believe this, then by the same token, “some” do! They exist. You mentioned Kenneth Hagen in your biography. His fellow “Word of Faith” minister Kenneth Copeland teaches this:
2. Command your angels
Can you really do this? In short, yes. Keep in mind, you aren’t commanding them in the same way you are commanding and rebuking the devil. You are releasing them to do the work they’ve been assigned to perform on your behalf.
You have been given the authority of Jesus Christ, as an heir, and you can command your angels to move on your behalf to carry out the Word (Psalm 103:20). Kenneth Copeland advises saying something like this: “In the Name of Jesus, ministering spirits, I assign you according to Hebrews 1:13-14 to see to it that I have protection in this car, in this airplane, in this building. I claim this right as an heir to salvation.” (“5 Ways To Put Your Angels To Work,” Kenneth Copeland Ministries)
Another Protestant site has an article entitled, “You Can Command Angels to Help You!” The Bible passages it cites don’t prove this, in my opinion. A third site states, “Yes, you CAN command angels with your words and your prayers.” There is even a book called Commanding Angels. So this exists. But it would be very difficult to find any Catholic of any note who believes in something this stupid and unbiblical. And this is the point. The error exists in your ranks. It doesn’t in ours. And I think that you have to ask yourself why that is?
It’s important to realize that the meme doesn’t necessarily have to mean that all Protestants believe all these things. That false notion is at the root of many objections in my Facebook thread. It’s implying (at least in my opinion and interpretation) that these beliefs can be or are found among Protestants.
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To use an analogy, I could put up a meme about “The Democratic Party” and list seven things that some or many Democrats believe (free abortion and widespread illegal immigration and opposition to fossil fuels would be three examples). It wouldn’t follow that every Democrat believes all seven things; as Democrats (the men and women on the street; not just the politicians) are quite diverse as a group, just as Protestants are. But the generalizations would hold. Democrats are absolutely overwhelmingly in favor of legal abortion, etc. The fact that some aren’t doesn’t negate the legitimacy of the generalization. And the same applies to this meme.
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It’s not our fault that Protestantism includes many weird and false beliefs within itself. You get angry when we merely point some of these out. But every difference of opinion within Protestantism entails at least one false view or two. They can’t both be true. Therefore, Protestantism by nature contains much false doctrine, simply because of the innumerable contradictions. It’s up to you to change that, but the grossly unbiblical spectacle of denominationalism has never been resolved and never will be because your own rule of faith of sola Scriptura precludes the possibility. We can solve things because we abide by the biblical notions of authority: an authoritative Church and tradition in harmony with and guided by the inspired revelation of Holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit.
The other part of this entry is “not ask[ing] their [angels’] help.” The vast majority of Protestants certainly oppose invocation of angels or departed human beings. That is absolutely indisputable. But this action is biblical. There is even a passage in Scripture where prayer petitions are asked of an angel and granted (!):
Genesis 19:15, 18-21 When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.”. . . And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me, and I die. Behold, yonder city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there — is it not a little one? — and my life will be saved!” He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.
That’s asking an angel to help, and prayer to an angel, and the Bible presents it as perfectly fine and dandy. We’re biblical in this respect; probably 99% of Protestants aren’t (some high Anglicans would agree with us).
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4) I don’t talk to the devil, but he (unlike deceased Christians) is around and might actually hear me;
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I make numerous biblical arguments for the invocation of saints, which this item in the meme mentioned, as a thing Protestants deny. The best one, I think, is the rich man’s prayer petitions to Abraham (Luke 16). Abraham never rebukes him for petitioning him, but he answers “no”: just as God does when we ask something improper or against His will. So that’s one thing. As for talking to the devil, Jesus did that in the wilderness, so we certainly can (He being our model: 1 Cor 11:1; 1 Thess 1:6; Heb 12:2-3).
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I think James 4:7 (“Resist the devil and he will flee from you”) is consistent with the practice of talking to him when resisting him. Jesus said, “Begone, Satan!” (Mt 4:10), so we could say the same thing, applying James 4:7. So the relevant question here for Protestants, is, why are they reluctant to do a thing (talk to the devil) that Jesus Himself did?
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5) Who ever suggested that Mary does not get a crown? *
Again, the meaning behind this is that Protestants resist any mention of Jesus as the Queen of Heaven, etc., as supposed idolatry (“Mariolatry”), even though this is explicitly biblical (Rev 12:1: “on her head a crown of twelve stars”). Why? Several of the points in the meme are criticizing the very common Protestant shortcoming of “either/or” false dichotomies. An entire (brilliant) book was written about this very tendency, called The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, by Louis Bouyer, a Lutheran convert to Catholicism. My very highest recommendation!
6) Everyone who is in Christ actually IS the Church; *
This point was about interpreting Scripture. Protestants — in the final analysis, or bottom line — essentially give the individual the final say in this, by adopting sola Scriptura, since it removed infallibility for the Church. Therefore, the individual (like Luther, who invented this!) can judge the institutional (Catholic / Orthodox) Church. That’s exactly what Luther did in 1521 at the Diet of Worms. He knew better than the entire unbroken 1500-year tradition of the Catholic Church. I’ll get to what the Church is in my next reply.
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7) The Church is comprised of all who are in Christ. No church building or organization is “the Church.” That identity is reserved for the disciple community—the whole body of Christ globally. No one local congregation can claim to be the whole body of Christ.
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This is untrue. The name of the group which is comprised of “all who are in Christ”: at last in terms of all who are actually saved and go to heaven in the end, is “the elect.” And the problem with that is that no one knows for sure who is in the elect, because we don’t perfectly know the future, and Christians can fall away from the faith. In the Bible, there are many instances of folks who are probably fallen away already, being included in the blanket term as members of the local church. So, for example, when Paul wrote to the Galatians, he addressed them as “To the churches of Galatia” (Gal 1:2). That is, he’s writing to those whom he considers part of the Church.
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Yet in that group were terrible folks, since Paul wrote, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?. . . Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?” (Gal 3:1, 3). It’s the same with the seven churches in revelation. In that instance, Jesus is talking to them, commending and rebuking. But he addresses them as [local] churches. The people in those assemblies are part of the Church, in other words. There are bad people in the Church. And we don’ know who the elect are until we get to heaven and literally see who made it.
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“Church” (ecclesia) is used many times in Scripture in the sense of the entire institutional Church. There are many arguments to be made along these lines, and I have made them. One of my favorites is the Jerusalem Council. This was led by Peter and the bishop of Jerusalem, James, attended by Paul, and consisted of “apostles and elders.” It made a decree that was agreed with by the Holy Spirit (i.e., an infallible or even inspired one) — Acts 15:28 — , which was proclaimed by Paul far and wide as binding on Christians (Acts 16:4).
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That’s undeniably an institutional Church, and one that produced infallible binding decrees in council: all of which is contrary to the beliefs of most Protestants. Sola Scriptura denies that councils can be infallible, but the Jerusalem Council was. You deny that the Church was an organization. Yet here it was. BIG discussion — and if you hang around, we can get into that in far more depth — , but that is my short, nutshell answer for now.
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Who told you these falsehoods about your “separated brethren”?
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I draw these conclusions from my own study as an apologist (over 43 years) and “sociological observer” (I’m a sociology major) and my 13-year history as a zealous evangelical Protestant. I’ve defended them now and have pointed out the broad, general nature of the meme, which is always necessary in any “statement” about Protestantism.
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I simply responded truthfully, line-by-line to the meme.
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And now I have extended to you the same “favor” and courtesy.
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[To someone else] you did not find Christ in a Protestant setting, which tells me you were never actually a “Christian” in Protestantism. . . . you have never known Christ–only religion
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You don’t know that. You can’t say that about him because you don’t know his heart. Only God knows that. You don’t know enough about him to make such a sweeping judgment, because he didn’t say that much about his personal spiritual life. But here you are judging his soul. And the insult is complete with a Protestant slogan: the pitting of Christ against religious observance, as if that is valid to do. Religion is not a bad thing. It’s not a dirty word. It appears six times in the NT in RSV (and religious also appears three times), in an entirely positive sense. So who are we to make it a term of condescending disdain when the Bible doesn’t?
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Since neither Christ nor the apostles affirmed any point in this paragraph, I will assume you take these things to be true on the authority of the particular religious establishment in which you have chosen to place your confidence.
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All of them are affirmed in the Bible, and I have shown that in many of my articles and books. You make bald statements. I make elaborate biblical and historical, rational arguments. The Mormon comparison is an old tired and boorish saw. Don’t even try that, if I am around.
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this was also true of many early Christian congregations before the idea of apostolic succession was invented.
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Apostolic succession is explicitly biblical. See, for example:
You may have been around Pentecostals. Most Protestants do not believe in such things.
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Yeah, I agreed above. I contend that the meme doesn’t require an interpretation that “all Protestants believe everything in the meme.” Wikipedia (“Pentecostalism”) states that “worldwide Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity numbers over 644 million adherents.” I was a charismatic evangelical for ten years and I attend a Catholic charismatic parish now (since 2020). I never believed that I could command an angel, but if even, say, a third of pentecostals believe this (I don’t know how many do), that’s about 215 million people (60 million more than all worldwide Lutherans and Presbyterians combined).
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That’s more than sufficiently enough to note this as a belief of [some] Protestants. By contrast, there are 80 million Lutherans worldwide, 85 million Anglicans, 80 million Methodists, 170 million Baptists, and 75 million Presbyterians. There is overlap in the categories, but assuming for comparison’s sake that pentecostals are a distinct group, they have 154 million more people than all of these very mainstream denominations combined. That even brings into question the notion that pentecostals are a minority in Protestantism. Sounds like they are a majority and by far the largest single distinct group.
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I have been in very many different Protestant churches and do not find this to be accepted in the vast majority of cases. No Protestant I know believes in commanding angels.
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Then you must not have been to many pentecostal churches. I have. As I said, I was a charismatic evangelical, and most of my time was spent there (Assemblies of God, where I got married, and non-denominational congregations).
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I have been in (probably) about 100 (I have taught in many around the world over the last 55 years), and have never seen such a reaction to the mention of the mother of Jesus. Your experience seems very limited.
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The mere mention of Mary doesn’t do that (after all, Protestants talk about her quite a bit at Christmas, but not much the rest of the year), but if anyone dares mention “Catholic” views of Mary, even those which all Protestants once believed (like her perpetual virginity) or say she is the “mother of God” there is plenty of scorn.
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What all of these people, including you, have in common is a blind loyalty to a preferred religious system, which has no support from scripture.
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If you believe that, then you may have come to the very last place you want to be online: to the person whose career is centered around “biblical Catholicism.” I hope you stick around. You’ll see how biblical Catholicism is. We can discuss whatever you like. I’ve covered all of the major areas of theology in my 4,800+ articles and 55 books. You didn’t even claim we have “less” support than Protestantism does, but rather, “no“ support. Every Christian group supports their views from Scripture. We are no exception. I can attest to the fact that as a Catholic, I have learned about Scripture in exponentially more depth than I ever did as a Protestant. And I say that as one with deep respect for Protestantism and for my own former teachers during my evangelical experience.
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If you wish to explore the controversy at a somewhat more thoughtful level, you might be interested in hearing my five debates with Jimmy Akin on Catholic Answers—or my five debates with Tim Staples at my own website *
Good for you. Then perhaps you will be willing to dialogue with me, too. I hope so! You can start by replying to this, or by picking another topic of your choice (but I hope you do that after you respond to this). I’ve done probably over 1,000 written debates.
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I promise never to complain about any truth. However, you have only repeated controversial and unsupportable Catholic talking points, which I have heard hundreds of times, but which I know to have no scriptural case in their favor. *
Then you must not have run across me before. I can defend, and have defended virtually every Catholic “distinctive” doctrine from Scripture: most many times. And this has been done for a long time. A book that highly influenced me was James Cardinal Gibbons‘ book, The Faith of Our Fathers(1876). It’s filled with scriptural arguments. So is St. Francis de Sales’ superb book, The Catholic Controversy, which helped convert over 70,000 Calvinists in France (not to mention St. Thomas Aquinas’ work, too).
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So yeah, Protestants don’t have a monopoly on biblical argumentation, much as you may have deluded yourself is supposedly the case. We all make sincere biblical arguments; we all revere the inspired revelation of Scripture. That’s what we have in common. And that’s why I defend Catholicism from Scripture. We’re by far the most thoroughly biblical communion in Christianity.
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Sadly, you have done nothing to demonstrate that these statements even have the slightest likelihood of being true.
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He may not have (I don’t know), but I have. If you want to get into this discussion, then do it with the person who has devoted his life for now 34 years (the last nearly 23 as a professional, full-time, published apologist), to defending Catholicism from Scripture. That’s what Protestants (generalizing! — but in this instance from long personal experience) are so unwilling to do. They’re very reluctant to engage with Catholics who are willing and prepared to engage their arguments (from Scripture or history) point-by-point and in great depth. I was willing to do that as a Protestant, and as a result I am a Catholic. I knew the superior arguments once I finally came into contact with them.
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No, you are not restricted to one choice, namely, to generalize about Protestants. You admit that Protestants vary broadly from each other, so generalization is simply impossible and irresponsible.
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That’s simply untrue. We generalize all the time about many things. There is nothing wrong with it. I have defended each point of the meme. If you disagree, now is your chance to counter-reply.
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If you have known some Protestants who hold the views you listed, you might mention which brand you are referring to, while pointing out that they would represent a tiny minority of those under the diverse Protestant rubric.
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I have done some of that. I already blew away your insinuation that pentecostals are but a tiny fraction of Protestantism. They are not at all. They are the fastest growing sector, by far.
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Making irresponsible and false generalizations
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I vehemently deny that, per my above argumentation and much more that I could provide. You act as if no one can ever make any generalizations about anything, which is patently absurd. Sociology (my major) and many other fields heavily utilize it. See, for example, “Generic Generalizations,” by Sarah-Jane Leslie and Adam Lerner, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It states:
It is clear that generics are not equivalent to universal statements, but rather permit exceptions—that is, generics can be true even if some (or sometimes many) members of the kind lack the property in question. Generics also do not mean “most”; it is false that most mosquitoes carry the West Nile virus and true that most books are paperbacks, but our intuitions about the truth/falsity of the corresponding generics are reversed.
When someone posts a generalization someone will post an exception.
Why is that?
Exceptions do not mean generalization are not generally true.
Generally does not mean always.
Hypothetical examples:
Someone posts that men are generally stronger than women, so someone will mention a very strong woman they know.
Someone generalizes that hybrid cars are usually driven more slowly than other cars, so someone will mention a hybrid owner that drives fast.
Someone generalizes that cats are more aloof than dogs, so someone will mention a very affectionate cat they know.
Someone generalizes that people with higher education usually make more money, so someone will mention a rich high school drop out they know of, or a person with a master degree working at a low-paying job.
There are a thousand examples here on PS.
I’m sure I’ve done it myself.
Why do we bother post exceptions?
It seems redundant.
Are generalizations somehow upsetting or threatening to people?
Do they think people making generalizations are so stupid that they think there are no exceptions?
Do they think exceptions neutralize what usually holds true?
Is this just PC-ness run amok?
Generalizations are okay.
They are only generalizations, in this article
you are not opposed to misrepresenting those who are not in your camp—giving the profound impression that only such lies make it possible to make your view seem valid.
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As I have shown, I have not done that. All of the points in the meme have been believed by Protestants; often, by many, and sometimes by very many. These are strong words. You need to counter-reply, since I have expended so much effort to refute your charges, and other similar ones in the same thread, in this article.
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I don’t think it is right for one group to mischaracterize the other. It only makes points with the ignorant.
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I completely agree. Again, I vigorously deny that I have done this, and have now explained why I have done so. You are the one grotesquely misrepresenting, by claiming that Catholics have “no” biblical arguments at all to support our positions. I assume for the sake of charity that you are profoundly ignorant of Catholicism, to say such a silly and outlandish thing. You couldn’t possibly claim this if you had even a rudimentary familiarity with Catholic apologetics and theology.
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[we also had this exchange about how Christian Catholicism is]
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I wanted to clarify one thing with you: can someone who believes and practices allthat the Catholic Church teaches be saved, be a Christian, a believer, a disciple of Jesus, and heaven-bound? In other words, is Catholicism a species of Christianity alongside all the other groups or denominations? Or are we out of the fold because we’re Catholic?
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I believe very many Catholics have been true followers of Jesus (St. Francis, Girolamo Savonarola, G.K. Chesterton, and Mother Theresa come immediately to mind).
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Vatican II, likewise, seems to allow that many Protestant believers are also saved (assuming they don’t understand that the Catholic Church is the true church).
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I don’t think it is right for one group to mischaracterize the other. It only makes points with the ignorant. No one needs my permission to choose their church assembly according to their conscience. You may notice that I have not said one word of attack about Catholicism. I simply (without rancor) corrected the misrepresentations of Protestantism in the meme.
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Okay, good, so a Catholic, and a solid Catholic can possibly be saved. St. Francis, St. Teresa of Calcutta, and G. K. Chesterton all accepted all that the Church teaches. So you do believe that Catholicism a species of Christianity alongside all the other groups or denominations?
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I believe there is only one species of Christianity, but several varieties (as there are 200 varieties of dogs, but all the same species). The one species of Christianity in the Bible is comprised only of true disciples of Jesus (Acts 11:26). In biblical times, there was only one variety.
* Over the course of history, disciples have developed various worship forms and theological controversies that did not exist in the original movement, but these differences do not all place a person outside the fold under the Shepherd. These varieties are not all equally valid, of course, but nor do they, if believed by a true follower of Christ, necessarily make that person “not a Christian.” * So just to be clear, you hold that Catholicism is a “variety” of true Christianity (just as, say, Lutheranism or Calvinism are)? It seems so, by your last sentence, but I just wanted to be absolutely sure. It’s relevant because unless you acknowledge this, you would be dialoguing with me as an outsides, not a brother in Christ, and in a superior-subordinate relationship, not an equal one: as two committed disciples of our Lord and Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ.
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I do not know you personally, so I hold no theories concerning your salvation. All true disciples of Jesus are saved. They are “Christians” by the only definition of that word found in scripture (Acts 11:26). If you are a disciple of Jesus (I am in no position to have an opinion about that), then you are a Christian. I don’t decide these things about others. You do not need my affirmation about this, if you have God’s.
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I didn’t ask you if I was saved. I asked you (now for the third time): “do you hold that Catholicism is a ‘variety’ of true Christianity (just as, say, Lutheranism or Calvinism are)?”
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You are asking about an institution; I am talking about the community of Christ. In the latter, there are Catholics and Protestants. If you wish to reframe this to say “Catholic (Christians) are Christians, and therefore part of Christianity,” I have no objection, but it is hardly different from what I have said previously every time you asked.
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By the way, why are you so interested in my opinion about this? God’s opinion is the only one that matters. I have never set out to cut any particular group of Christians off from the Christian fold. My point is that Christians are individuals who follow Christ. I don’t care where they sit on Sunday mornings. That is irrelevant to their following of Christ. *
Thank you for the clarification. This is a specific aspect of the larger determination of whether anti-Catholicism is in play or not (i.e., the denial that Catholics who adhere to all of the Catholic Church’s teachings can be Christians or be saved). With this answer you prove that you are not anti-Catholic, so I’m delighted to hear that.
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In light of no responses whatever to my counter-reply blog post in over 8 1/2 hours (after scores and scores of rapid-fire criticisms yesterday), perhaps we could add an 8th point to the list in the “controversial” meme:
[8] Where it’s considered proper to go to Catholic sites to preach, troll, and condescend, but not to dialogue or even to read a counter-reply . . .
Note: several commentators flatly refused to even read my reply. They said so. Very open-minded and confident in their views, huh?
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Oh, pardon me. I didn’t realize that I had signed up for an endless dialogue with you. I actually have a life, and a Facebook page where I am called upon to answer many questions on different subjects. *
I did not troll you. Your meme showed up in the notifications on my page. I read it, and responded to it without rancor or challenge. Your meme was inaccurate, so I thought a person who cared about truth, like yourself, would welcome correction. You were not discussing doctrine, but seeking to describe Protestant beliefs. As a Protestant myself, I simply pointed out that neither I nor any Protestants that I know hold those beliefs. If I had known that you didn’t like to be informed, I would have refrained from intruding. I am not used to visiting pages where the host wants to maintain an amen club echo chamber.
* You extended the discussion beyond my first response, so I interacted with you as long as I had time to do so. Then (you must have made the mistake of thinking I am obsessed with conversing with you), you began posting long and irrelevant responses to Protestantism, using me as your example (I don’t object to that).
* What I do object to is that someone thinks himself so important as to oblige me to take hours of my day to read his essays, and (worse yet) to respond to them. If you want my responses to your familiar talking points, feel free to listen to my responses to Tim Staples and Jimmy Akin (I gave you the website). I am not interested in spending my life making the same points to every Catholic who craves my attention. If Scott Hahn wants to debate, I would give him the time. No offense, but you simply are not that big a priority in my life. In fact, I never heard of you before.
* I do not troll Catholic (or any other websites). I don’t even know where they are, nor go looking for them, because they are not of particular interest to me (sorry, again, if that makes you feel less important). I spend as little time online as I can manage, since (as I said) actually have a life in the real world.
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Of course, none of what I wrote applied to you. It was a generalization, as all of this is. That’s what has been so misunderstood. You apparently have a difficulty with understanding statements in context. I referred to “scores and scores of rapid-fire criticisms”: i.e., posts from many commentators. I was contrasting all of that bustling activity to the dead silence today.
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Then I noted that “several commentators flatly refused to even read my reply. They said so.” That wasn’t you. You never said that (though now you do). I was clearly referring to the general tenor of discussion in a very lively thread with many participants. So what do you do? You casually assume that I am referring only to you. And you call me self-important?
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You had shown arrogance in the thread already, particularly in reply to other people: judging their hearts, as if you can read minds. Now your pharisaical, judgmental attitude comes out again, directed towards me. I have less than no desire to interact with an arrogant pompous ass. You argued well, but your attitude stinks to high heaven. And now you won’t have to reply at all to my reply. How convenient!
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Yes. Very convenient. I like convenience. I also like to dialogue with people whose skin is a bit thicker than that of tissue paper. I will leave you to your unoffending audience.
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After this idiotic childish outburst you now accuse me of having a thin skin and wanting to have an echo chamber? You are too much! You’re blind as a bat to your own faults: at least in this instance, as all can see.
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I have no secrets. I am glad that all can see. *
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Practical Matters: I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 4,800+ free online articles or fifty-five books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them.
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Summary: I reply to & interact with well-known Protestant apologist Steve Gregg, who didn’t like a meme I put up which generalized about certain errors in various sectors of Protestantism.
Photo credit: St. Peter’s Cathedral in Worms, Germany (west end), in the same city where the famous Diet of Worms with Martin Luther took place, in January-May 1521. Photo by AndreasThum (4-17-11) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license]
Martin Luther completed his treatise, On the Councils and the Church in March 1539. In Luther’s Works (Vol. 41) it takes up 170 pages (9-178; translated in 1966). In the Introduction included in that volume, the editors observe:
Luther’s On the Councils and the Church represents his final judgment concerning the medieval church as well as the first broad foundation for a new doctrine of the church within nascent Lutheranism. . . . Luther concludes from his analysis that although councils protect the church from error, they have no authority to create new articles of faith. . . .
Experience taught Luther to bury all hopes for any reconciliation with Rome — a sad lesson, climaxing in the conviction that “a free, general, Christian council,” once his dream, was never to become a reality. (p. 5)
I will be utilizing a different public domain translation of Rev. C. B. Smyth: published in London by William Edward Painter in 1847; available at Internet Archive. When I cite Scripture, it is RSV. Luther’s words will be in blue.
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I have bypassed Luther’s Preface, which consists of ranting and raving and little actual argument. Likewise, I will pass over similar material in my reply and stick to portions where Luther is actually lucid and presents some sort of sustained rational argument. Luther is not Calvin, who (like him or not) systematically presents concise, cogent arguments. Unless one wants to essentially descend to a shouting match or polemics and little else (which helps nobody), one must necessarily be selective in what to respond to in Luther.
They will consign the Church to ruin sooner than they will give way in one point — that is, they will first give up councils and fathers before they will abandon anything invented by themselves. For were the councils and the fathers faithfully followed, ah, then, what a sorry figure would the pontiff and modern prelates exhibit? (p. 14)
Of course, we say precisely this against Lutherans and larger Protestantism. It’s because they have departed from the Church fathers and early councils that they have gone astray in many ways. Not only do they massively differ from patristic consensus in several major ways (as I have shown many times: see my Fathers of the Church web page); they also contradict each other innumerable times, since they have split into many hundreds of sects, and have no way to resolve that scandalous problem. Where there are serious differences of opinion, contradictions are massively and necessarily present, on one side or possibly both, in any given conflict. But Catholicism can trace itself back to the beginning, in an unbroken chain of consistent development of doctrine.
They must go to ruin, and cease to remain as lords in the ascendant. (p. 15)
Thus prophesied Luther in 1539. We’re still here, teaching the same as always, whereas his Lutherans have split into factions: most of them theologically liberal and contrary to historic Lutheranism, while a small portion remains true. If that’s supposedly the “mainstream” of Christianity, it’s a pathetic thing indeed.
Why, the universal vicar is above councils, above fathers, above kingly and divine authority, and angels! Let me see you bring him down to submission, and (if you can) make fathers and councils to dictate to the apostolic vicar. (p. 16)
I guess he’s projecting here, since he wrote 17 years earlier about himself:
I call myself an ecclesiastic by the grace of God in defiance of you and the devil, although you call me a heretic with an abundance of slander. And even if I called myself an evangelist by the grace of God, I would still be more confident of proving it than that any one of you could prove his episcopal title or name. I am certain that Christ himself, who is the master of my teaching, gives me this title and regards me as one. Moreover, he will be my witness on the Last Day that it is not my pure gospel but his. . . .
I need not have any title and name to praise highly the word, office, and work which I have from God and which you blind blasphemers defile and persecute beyond measure. I trust my praise will overcome your defiling, just as my justice will overcome your injustice. It does not matter if, with your blasphemy, you are on top for the moment.
Therefore, I now let you know that from now on I shall no longer do you the honor of allowing you – or even an angel from heaven – to judge my teaching or to examine it. For there has been enough foolish humility now for the third time at Worms, and it has not helped. Instead, I shall let myself be heard and, as St. Peter teaches, give an explanation and defense of my teaching to all the world – I Pet. 3:15. I shall not have it judged by any man, not even by any angel. For since I am certain of it, I shall be your judge and even the angels’ judge through this teaching(as St. Paul says [I Cor. 6:3 ]) so that whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved – for it is God’s and not mine. Therefore, my judgment is also not mine but God’s. (Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops Falsely So-Called, July 1522; from Luther’s Works, Vol. 39: Church and Ministry I, excerpt from pp. 247-249; see much more along these lines)
In stark contrast, popes massively consult with bishops, priests, and even laypeople, before making any major doctrinal or dogmatic pronouncements, as I recently documented. No one could disagree with Luther (if they did he often consigned them to a destiny in hell, in his singular foreknowledge). He was as autocratic and dogmatic (in the worst sense of that word) as they come.
The holy father will not succumb to any reformation of himself and inferior lords, cardinals, and prelates — no council can be of any service — no reformation is to be hoped for in the Catholic Church. Thus he tramples under foot the bare mention of any proposals, and peremptorily bids us to close our lips. Are we required, then, to allow ourselves to be reformed, and benefit the Church with their co-operation, according to conciliar and patristic patterns, when truly the pontiff and papists will not allow it to be put to experiment? . . .
Even in points of importance we would bend, so far as we could, without opposing the Almighty. Yes: we are willing to give way to the very last degree of suffering in order to avert injury and destruction from the Churches, according to the utmost of our knowledge and our power.(pp. 17-18)
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Anyone can talk a good game, but it takes the cooperation of two parties to compromise or come to any resolution of honest disagreements. So what do we observe in the closest thing to any sort of attempt at reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants near the beginning of the Protestant Revolt, at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530? Catholic historian Warren Carroll described the proceedings and the lack of tolerance in the Lutheran party:
Early in July the bishops presented their complaints to the Diet of the plundering and destruction of churches, seizure of monasteries and hospitals, prohibition of Masses, and attacks on religious processions by the Protestants. When Charles called upon the Protestants to restore the property they had seized, they said that to do so would be against their consciences. Charles responded crushingly: ‘The Word of God, the Gospel, and every law civil and canonical, forbid a man to appropriate to himself the property of another.’ He said that as Emperor he had the duty of guarding the rights of all, especially those Catholics unwilling to accept Protestantism or go into exile, who should at least be allowed to remain in their homes and practice their ancestral faith, specifically the Mass; the Protestants replied that they would not tolerate the Mass . . .
On the 13th [of July] Luther announced from Coburg that the Protestants would never tolerate the Mass, which he called blasphemous, and said of the Emperor:
We know that he is in error and that he is striving against the Gospel . . . He does not conform to God’s Word and we do . . .
Luther stated in a letter to Melanchthon [on] August 26:
This talk of compromise . . . is a scandal to God . . . I am thoroughly displeased with this negotiating concerning union in doctrine, since it is utterly impossible unless the Pope wishes to take away his power.
In subsequent letters he declared that no religious settlement was possible as long as the Pope remained and the Mass was unchanged . . .
The Augsburg Confession must endure, as the true and unadulterated Word of God, until the great Judgment Day . . . Not even an angel from Heaven could alter a syllable of it, and any angel who dared to do so must be accursed and damned . . . The stipulations made that monks and nuns still dwelling in their cloisters should not be expelled, and that the Mass should not be abolished, could not be accepted; for whoever acts against his conscience simply paves his way to Hell. The monastic life and the Mass covered with infamous ignominy the merit and suffering of Christ. Of all the horrors and abominations that could be mentioned, the Mass was the greatest.
. . . no Catholic of spirit and courage could be expected, let alone morally required, to give up all his religious rights without a struggle; and few Protestants, at this point, would allow Catholics to exercise those rights if the Protestants were strong enough to deny them. These were the irreconcilable positions taken by the two sides at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, which made those long and bloody years of conflict inevitable. (The Cleaving of Christendom; from the series, A History of Christendom, Volume 4, Front Royal, Virginia: Christendom Press, 2000, 103-107; see more about the council)
These abominable behaviors and positions are supposedly the spirit of “reformation” and “co-operation” that Luther scolded Catholics and popes for not possessing? Protestants were equally as intolerant amongst themselves in the colloquies of Regensburg (1541) and Poissy (1561). There is plenty of inflexibility and unwillingness to change to go around.
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The difference, however, is that Catholics were simply wishing to continue their 1500-year history of development, whereas Protestants were seeking to establish a novel doctrine and “church” which had existed for less than a generation (indeed, for only 13 years at the time of the Diet of Augsburg). Luther burst onto the scene in 1517, and by 1520 had demanded that the Catholic Church change its beliefs and practices in at least fifty ways. No institution can reasonably or sensibly be expected to do that just because one man arbitrarily and irrationally demands it.
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In the first place, it is notorious that the councils not only do not harmonize, but are perfectly contradictory to each other. (p. 23)
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This is a fundamental disagreement. Because Luther and Protestants believe this (part of sola Scriptura: nothing is infallible except the Bible), Luther is bound to argue the position he does. Protestantism doesn’t have enough faith to believe that God could or would protect His Church from error. Catholics, on the other hand, have faith enough — by God’s grace — to believe that He can and does protect His Church from error in terms of infallible pronouncements not being contradictory (non-infallible ones can contradict, by definition; this is a crucial distinction to be kept in mind throughout this analysis): just as He preserved Holy Scripture without error.
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The same charge is equally applicable to the patristic writers. (p. 23) *
Here Luther denies what is called “unanimous consent” of the fathers: a term that is much misunderstood. In an ecclesiological / patristic context, “unanimous consent” doesn’t mean “absolutely every” — as it is commonly used today in general usage, but rather, “consensus of the vast majority” in line with the magisterium of the Church (see more on this issue).
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I strongly contend that Protestantism is doctrinally very often at odds with what the Church fathers taught, and I have documented this time and again. Church fathers clearly do contradict each other in many areas, but a broad consensus can be easily observed. I have documented and summarized the fathers’ teaching regarding, for example, the rule of faith (rejection of sola Scriptura), their rejection of “faith alone” (sola fide): see Part 1 and Part 2, and baptism: all positions in line with Catholicism and in conflict with Protestantism.
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A mighty task, indeed, it would be to select the truth, and reject what is false, in the midst of so much that is unlike and wholly at variance with itself! (pp. 23-24)
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This is precisely why Catholics believe that God ordained an authoritative Church (the magisterium) — protected in its infallibility and indefectibility by God — to make these determinations (including things like the canon of Scripture). Since Lutheranism ditched the magisterium and infallible Church, it can only offer arbitrary and conflicting opinions (often merely a head count of scholars), and that is the Protestant tragedy. Protestants will fight with each other till Kingdom come, with no way of resolving anything, because there is no final say.
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All they can do is split from each other and form new groups, after their endless squabbling produces no resolution. Meanwhile, the Bible teaches that there is one faith, one Church, and not hundreds of competing sects. The latter is roundly condemned in the Bible, especially by St. Paul, and Luther agreed with him; so did Calvin and Melanchthon in their correspondence. Protestantism is institutionally hopeless: doomed to be forever unbiblical and at odds with the 1500-year Christian tradition before it.
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Who is to distinguish on these questions? (p. 24)
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Excellent question! Protestantism can’t answer it.
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St. Augustine . . . mentions no other than [baptism and the Eucharist as sacraments]. (p. 25)
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Augustine taught that matrimony was a sacrament: “Undoubtedly the substance of the sacrament is of this bond, so that when man and woman have been joined in marriage they must continue inseparably . . .” (Marriage and Concupiscence, 1:10:11 and 1:17:19). So was penance / absolution: “In the Church, therefore, there are three ways in which sins are forgiven: in baptisms, in prayer, and in the greater humility of penance” (Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed, 8:16). And confirmation: “By this ointment you wish the sacrament of chrism to be understood, which is indeed holy as among the class of visible signs, like baptism itself” (Against Petilian the Donatist, 2, 104:239). And holy orders: “There remains in the ordained persons the Sacrament of Ordination” (On the Good of Marriage, III:412).
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He also believed in performing Extreme Unction / Anointing, which is a Catholic sacrament as well (see more about all of these). So Luther was wrong five times about what St. Augustine taught. He falsely believed that Augustine affirmed only two sacraments, and so followed the “practice” that was a myth of his own invention. This is hardly impressive, let alone compelling.
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What are we then to do? Must we subject the Church once more to patristic and conciliar teaching and practice? This is the ground taken by Augustine; but such a step in us would lead us into error. . . . Suppose we banish Austin [Augustine] from their ranks — the residue of them would not be of any great value. (p. 32)
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Huh?! Protestant apologists tell us till they are blue in the face that they follow the Church fathers supposedly far more closely than Catholics do; they honor and esteem them as great authorities in Christianity (though not infallible), etc. But now here is Luther expressly rejecting any subjection to them, and disagreeing even with his (off and on) hero St. Augustine! This strikingly confirms what we have often noted: the ahistoricism, anti-traditionalism and radical subjectivism of Protestantism.
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Protestants reject the fathers and simply casually assume that Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Bullinger, Zwingli et al know better than they do. In other words: get rid of the influence of the early Church and follow instead self-proclaimed “reformers” fifteen centuries after Christ, who want to introduce scores of unheard-of novelties. “The fathers contradicted each other, so we’ll ditch them.” This is the mentality. Like Protestant don’t do the same thing to a much greater degree?! It makes very little sense, once adequately scrutinized. The Bible states, in contrast: “Remove not the ancient landmark which your fathers have set” (Prov 22:28).
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The preachers at this [Jerusalem] council declare that the sentence of the Holy Spirit [Acts 15:28] is that Christians must keep themselves from things offered to idols, and blood, and strangled, &c. Shall we then, constitute the government of a Church after this highest and first model? If so, then none must touch the red interior of the birds, animals, and fishes, and the game that is strangled by hunters. Shall we adopt this prohibition? Are the Hebrews to become directors over our churches and kitchens, who will eat no meat with Pagan or Christian? (pp. 32-33)
This is a clever argument; I’ll give Luther that much. But it ultimately falls short and doesn’t accomplish what he thinks. Faced with a clear example of a conciliar decision guided by the Holy Spirit, he must somehow discount it, lest his novelty sola Scriptura be overthrown by a biblical teaching of an infallible council (which expressly contradicts sola Scriptura). So how does he do that? He notes that it is a timebound or temporary decision, having to do with legal dietary requirements, that obviously haven’t applied to all of history.
In terms of being analogous to the full Catholic notion of an infallible decision, which is that it is irrevocable for all time, Luther’s point has force. It’s true that it’s not analogous in that sense. But the decision also had the other quality of conciliar or ecclesiastical infallibility: being binding upon all Christians at the time it is given. In that sense, the Jerusalem Council still contradicts sola Scriptura. It was binding upon Christians far and wide, as shown by how the text treats St. Paul’s promulgation of it:
Acts 16:4 As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem.
The decision would be analogous to the original giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Jews were bound to that. Things changed later as the new covenant came into being and the New Testament was written, with a radically developed interpretation of the place of the Law in the Christian life. But for the observant Jew, the Mosaic Law was written in stone (figuratively and literally).
Let us understand these matters well before we commit the Church to the modes of life prescribed by ecclesiastical councils. If the first and highest gives us such embarrassment, how shall we dispose of all the rest? (p. 35)
Luther triumphantly — but prematurely — declares victory concerning this dispute. But he hasn’t understood the second aspect of this, that I just pointed out. The decision was binding on Christians far and wide. In other words, it was not merely local, as many Protestants argue was the case in early Church ecclesiology: authority extended no further than the local church. The Jerusalem Council puts the lie to that. It shows an authoritative and hierarchical (as well as episcopal) Church. Bishops and apostles and elders got together and decided what was what. And their word was law, and was ratified by the Holy Spirit (which makes it impossible to be wrong, when it was decreed, albeit being temporary)
But I must not forget to resume the subject of the Nicene assembly — the best and first general synod after that held by the holy apostles. One of its decrees commands all Christians who have grievously sinned to be debarred from absolution for seven years; and, if they die before the septennial penance be completed, they are to be absolved and to partake of the Eucharist at the point of death. But what is the practice now of the advocates for councils? (p. 35)
The same analysis I made above applies here. It was an authoritative temporary decree, just as the Mosaic Law ultimately was. St. Paul taught that:
Galatians 3:23-26 Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. [24] So that the law was our custodian [KJV: tutor”] until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. [25] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; [26] for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
If we set this constitution aside, we may dispense with all conciliar edicts. (p. 36)
True to form, Luther throws the baby out with the bathwater. It was his constant method. But this doesn’t follow. The Jerusalem Council proved that conciliar and hierarchical authority is a feature of Christianity. Pope Peter was the central figure, and James the bishop of Jerusalem also played an important role. The Council of Nicaea showed the same thing, even though it dealt with things that weren’t binding for all time, either.
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Practical Matters: I run the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site: rated #1 for Christian sites by leading AI tool, ChatGPT — endorsed by popular Protestant blogger Adrian Warnock. Perhaps some of my 4,800+ free online articles or fifty-five books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them.
Or you may believe my work is worthy to support for the purpose of apologetics and evangelism in general. If so, please seriously consider a much-needed financial contribution. I’m always in need of more funds: especially monthly support. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV). 1 December 2021 was my 20th anniversary as a full-time Catholic apologist, and February 2022 marked the 25th anniversary of my blog.
Summary: An examination of Martin Luther’s treatise, “On the Councils and the Church” (March 1539), leading to discussions about the rule of faith and sola Scriptura.
Photo Credit: photograph taken from advertising material posted on the Word on Fire website and on Facebook.
I have reviewed the previous three installments of Bishop Robert Barron’s planned seven-volume Word on Fire Bible: Volume I: The Gospels, Volume II: Acts, Letters and Revelation, and Volume III: The Pentateuch. Volume IV: The Promised Land is, like all of the others, bound in beautiful leather, with page edges of brilliant gold foil. The text utilizes the NRSV version, and is chock-full of relentlessly insightful and interesting commentary from Catholic luminaries, as well as gorgeous reproductions of great Catholic art. Word on Fire provides the following general introduction:
Volume IV of The Word on Fire Bible features the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings . . . [with] over 75 commentaries from Bishop Robert Barron and over 175 commentaries from mystics, artists, and scholars throughout history. This volume also includes 40 works of art with commentary, 8 word studies of the original Hebrew, and introductions written by Peter Kreeft, Sally Read, Katie Prejean McGrady, Richard DeClue, and more.
I was particularly interested in the commentary offered regarding the book of Joshua and the so-called “conquest of Canaan,” having devoted 26 pages to that topic in my recent book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: 2023). Bishop Barron wrote about this in his commentary, “The Warfare of the Ban” on page 66:
We should address with focus and care this issue that bedevils many commentators today and gives fuel to the enemies of religion: How could the God who presides over the bloody conquest of the Promised Land be anything other than a moral monster? The “new” atheists of the early twenty-first century — Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and especially Richard Dawkins — obsessively turned to these and other similar texts to show what they took to be the moral ambiguity of the portrait of God in the Bible.
Bishop Barron then summarized three “classic attempts to solve this problem”: the first was St. Irenaeus’ emphasis on the developmental or progressive nature of revelation in which God’s nature and actions are more understood over time (Joshua’s time being a relatively primitive era). The second explanation, taken by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas and many others (my own favored interpretation), sees the conquest as “a delegated exercise of the divine justice” (p. 67). I described this in my book, as follows:
A point can be reached at which certain segments of the human population are beyond all hope of redemption, and so God judges them, up to and including sentencing them to death. He usually uses human agents to do so—in this instance, Joshua’s army. (p. 226)
I also noted that God wasn’t exercising double standards (i.e., protecting His “chosen” people and harshly judging others), since He also predicted through His prophets the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, if the Israelites were disobedient and unfaithful. This happened twice: in the sixth century BC and first century AD, with many thousands of deaths and/or subsequent enslavement.
Bishop Barron’s third interpretation (his own preferred one), derived from the Church father, Origen, who
argues that the whole of the Bible should be read from the standpoint of an event narrated in the last book of the Bible — namely, the appearance of the Lamb standing as though slain. . . . Therefore, any interpretation of any section of the Bible that leads to the conviction that God is an avenging, violent tyrant is, ipso facto, incorrect. (pp. 68-69)
What I discovered in approaching the book and the events in it from an archaeological perspective, is that Joshua’s “conquest’ was not, in fact, nearly as bloody and “cruel” as is usually assumed. Archaeologist Kenneth A. Kitchen, for example, observes: “The text of Joshua does not imply huge and massive fiery destructions of every site visited (only Jericho, Ai, and Hazor were burned)” (On the Reliability of the Old Testament [Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003], 183). Archaeologist James K. Hoffmeier concurs:
A close look at the terms dealing with warfare in Joshua 10 reveals that they do not support the interpretation that the land of Canaan and its principal cities were demolished and devastated by the Israelites. (Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition [New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996], 34-35)
The historical record shows that there was a great deal of peaceful assimilation and coexistence alongside the earlier Canaanite inhabitants, for a long time prior to the Israelite monarchy. As an analogy, the early history of England — involving Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans — is also increasingly believed to have been largely of this nature. People didn’t fight so much as they intermarried and culturally influenced each other. In other words, bolstered by this analysis, I deny much of the widely accepted premise regarding Joshua’s allegedly “bloodthirsty” and “cruel” entrance into Canaan: a scenario emphasized by those hostile to Christianity, God, and the Bible.
The great King David figures prominently in this volume. St. Augustine is cited regarding his terrible sin of deliberately causing a man to be killed in battle, so he could have his wife, Bathsheba:
he cried out after hearing God’s fearsome threats, and said, “I have sinned”; and shortly afterward heard, “The LORD has put away your sin.” . . . in these three syllables the flames of the heart’s sacrifice rose up to heaven. So those who have done genuine penance, and have been absolved . . . (p. 421)
Magnificent commentaries on King David abound: too many to even select another in this relatively short review; so I will merely make this statement of praise for the storehouse of treasures herein and move on.
David’s son, King Solomon was known for being exceedingly wise (see 1 Kings 3:9). An excerpt from a General Audience of Pope Francis provides an elegantly simple definition of wisdom: “Wisdom is precisely this: it is the grace of being able to see everything with the eyes of God. It is simply this: it is to see the world, to see situations, circumstances, problems, everything through God’s eyes. This is wisdom” (p. 501). But, sadly, Solomon — like King Saul — fell into serious sin later in life, and he may not have ever repented of it, as David did. His downfall is a metaphor for the perpetual human condition of sin and rebellion. Andrew Tolkmith explains, in the section, “Solomon Worshiping Idols”:
Solomon, influenced by his many foreign wives, built high places for Chemosh, the god of the Moabites, and Molech, the god of the Ammonites [1 Kings ch. 11] . . .
Solomon . . . who successfully built the defining monument of the Jewish religion, to whom God promised a throne forever, nevertheless allows his heart to be turned away from the Lord. Solomon’s idolatry is all the more shocking in light of his father David’s reputation as a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14). . . .
The actions of Solomon, whose reign is arguably the high point of Israel’s entire history, nevertheless set in motion a process that will eventually culminate in Israel’s demise and the Babylonian exile. (p. 541)
Bishop Barron follows up on these thoughts: “What is perhaps most striking, and most unnerving, about 2 Kings is the way it ends . . . [with] the utter demolition of Solomon’s kingdom and the destruction of his temple” (p. 692).
A happier story is that of Samson, another man of great faults and sins, just as in the cases of David and Solomon. But his famous end (bringing an entire house down on his enemies) was like David’s and not Solomon’s. Bishop Barron comments on him:
Perhaps the most important theological point to understand is that whatever strength we have comes ultimately from God and is enhanced by our devotion to God . . . Samson — betrayed, corralled by his enemies, tortured, and mocked — is an anticipation of Christ in his Passion. (p. 192)
Incidentally, in one of my articles, I offer archaeological confirmation that there were indeed Philistine buildings during Samson’s time (the first half of the 11th century B.C.) that were wholly or mostly supported by two pillars, which could be reached by a large man with a long arm span. The Bible was historically accurate in this story, as always!
As King David and Samson foreshadowed Christ in some ways, so Ruth foreshadowed in part the Blessed Virgin Mary and was an ancestor of our Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture is filled with such foreshadowings or prototypes or “types and shadows” as they are sometimes called. Former atheist Sally Read, in her “Introduction to Ruth,” offers some illuminating insights:
This scene, where Ruth earlier marvels that she has “found favor,” [Ruth 2:10, 12] put me in mind also of the Annunciation, when, centuries later, the angel Gabriel comes to the Virgin Mary and uses these words of Ruth as he tells her that she will bear the Son of God. Both Ruth and Mary consent to a path that potentially holds little but shadows and risk. By their consent, both women, in different ways, set in motion the salvation of the world. . . .
Her actions, though small and seemingly limited to her own story, ensure the genealogy of the Son of God. We can’t know the effect our lives will have on those around us and those after us. (pp. 213-214)
Buy this Bible and this entire set! It’s wonderful and inspiring, will edify and educate you in equal measure, and make you appreciate all the more the amazing revelation that God gave to us: His infallible Sacred Scripture.
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Photo Credit: photograph taken from advertising material posted on theWord on Fire websiteand on Facebook.
Summary: My book review and recommendation of The Word on Fire Bible: Volume IV: The Promised Land, highlighting commentary on Joshua, David, Solomon, Samson, & Ruth.
Photo Credit: Portrait of Martin Luther (1532), by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553). [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
+ Luther’s ignoring of the biblical motif of “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16)
The following is drawn from The Interpretation of the Second Psalm (March 1532), derived from the transcription of the “indefatigable scribe” Georg Rörer (1492-1557), possibly also from the notes of Veit Dietrich (1506-1549), who prepared it for publication in 1546 (see the Introduction in Luther’s Works, Vol. 12, viii). Since it is included in a set called Luther’s Works, the editors evidently concluded that it was substantially Luther’s words. His words will be in blue below.
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Read the writings of the papists, listen to their discourses, and you will find that they rely on this one argument, namely, the claim that nothing good has come of our teaching. For immediately after our Gospel sounded forth, there followed the horrible revolt of the peasants, disagreements and sects arose in the church, discipline broke down, and, as if all the restraints of the laws were done away with,all began to indulge in the greatest license. This is indeed true. For now there is greater freedom for all vices than there was in former times, when the common crowd was coerced with fear. But now, like an unbridled horse, it undertakes everything according to its own good pleasure. For it despises the ecclesiastical chains with which it was formerly held by the papacy and makes full use of the negligence of the civil magistrate. All these misfortunes, which are by no means trifling, our adversaries impute to our teaching or to the Gospel. (Luther’s Works, Vol. 12, 7-8; specifically commenting on Psalms 2:2)
Thus far, Luther recounts what he assumes are the self-evident facts of Lutheran behavior in practice, as opposed to the teaching he introduced. He lamented these things many times (and I’ve documented many similar utterances: see “Related Reading” near the end). But Luther had a ready explanation for why they happened:
But suspend judgment a little while, and first reflect more carefully. Reduce the argument to a dialectical form, and consider whether this is a logical conclusion: “This theologian is evil, therefore theology is evil; this lawyer is worthless, therefore a knowledge of the law is also bad; this teacher is a fornicator, therefore the arts which he teaches are a fornication.” Would we not call anyone mad who defended these conclusions as good and sound? Nevertheless the adversaries draw inferences not a bit wiser than this. But listen to this psalm foretelling that when this King begins His kingdom, that is, when He begins to teach, the murmurings of the heathen will follow, the conspiring of the peoples, battles and the wars of kings, the plottings and counsels of the rulers. Against whom? Against the Lord and His Christ. Therefore fortify your conscience and, admonished by the Holy Spirit in this passage, understand that the world will be in an uproar. But do not put the blame on this King or His Word, but rather on Satan and the godless world. You must, on the contrary, affirm and declare: “Though evils follow the teaching of this King, nevertheless the teaching is not on that account evil, but rather the men are evil who are opposed to the good teaching and wish it suppressed.” For it is a true and logical conclusion that the more eagerly the world opposes this sacred teaching, the more evil and wicked it is. Nor should the teaching be maligned on account of the fault of men. The Jews crucify Christ, shall we therefore accuse Christ, the Teacher? It is therefore necessary for us to be well fortified in advance and to say: “What is that to God, what is that to His Word, if men are evil? For this is the imperfection of men, not of God, who for this very reason sends His Son and His Word that men may be saved. But if they are not willing, they perish by their own fault. Christ does not for this reason cease to be the Son of God, God does not for this cause reject Him whom He has appointed king over all things. (Ibid., 8-9; my bolding)
In his sermon for the Twenty Sixth Sunday After Trinity, on Matthew 25:31-46 (1522?), from The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther (John Nicholas Lenker, Minneapolis, Lutherans in All Lands Co., Vol. XIV, 1905, 379- 395; currently updated in Vols. 75-78 of Luther’s Works), Luther sounded the same theme (all bolding my own):
11. It seems as though he meant hereby to show that many Christians, after receiving the preaching of the Gospel, of the forgiveness of sins and grace through Christ, become even worse than the heathen. For he also says in Mat. 19, 30, “Many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.” Thus it will also be at the end of the world; those who should be honest Christians, because they heard the Gospel, are much worse and more unmerciful than they were before, as we see too many examples of this even now.
Aforetime when we were to do good works under the seduction and false worship of the Papacy, every one was ready and willing; a prince, for example, or a city, could give more alms and a greater endowment than now all the kings and emperors are able to give. But now all the world seems to be learning nothing else than how to estimate values, to rake and scrape, to rob and steal by lying, deceiving, usury, overcharging, overrating, and the like; and every man treats his neighbor, not as though he were his friend, much less as his brother in Christ, but as his mortal enemy, and as though he intended to snatch all things to himself and begrudge everything to others.
12. This goes on daily, is constantly increasing, is a very common practice and custom, among all classes of people, among princes, the nobility, burghers, peasants, in all courts, cities, villages, yes in almost every home. Tell me, what city is now so strong and pious as to be able to raise an amount sufficient to support a schoolmaster or a preacher? (pp. 384-385)
15. We ought really to be ashamed of ourselves, having had the example of parents, ancestors, lords and kings, princes and others, who gave so liberally and charitably, even in profusion, to churches, ministers, schools, endowments, hospitals and the like; and by such liberal giving neither they nor their descendants were made poorer. What would they have done, had they had the light of the Gospel, that is given unto us? (p. 386)
34. . . . the same conditions, alas, prevail now everywhere ; and I fear and must almost resign myself that Germany may have the same experience as Sodom and Jerusalem, and will be a thing of the past; it will either be destroyed by the Turks or it will crumble by its own hand, unless the last day overtake it soon. For the present conditions are altogether unbearable and so exceedingly bad that they cannot become worse; and if there be still a God, he cannot thus let matters go on unpunished. (p. 394)
In another similar sermon on Matthew 18:21-25 (Twenty Second Sunday After Trinity, 1530), available via a multi-volume Baker Books edition (1996) edited by Eugene F. A. Klug and also in The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), Luther stated:
28. The nature of the gospel is such, that those who misuse it, become more wicked than they were before. Christ himself says (Matt. 12:43-45): “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.” There you have it, black on white! Any person to whom the gospel is proclaimed and who then misuses that gospel, becomes seven times more wicked than he was to begin with, and it would have been better for him if he had never heard the gospel. That is why I have often said that if I could accomplish things by wishing, I would wish that peasants, burghers, and nobles, who now horribly misuse the gospel, might still be under the papacy, for they are nothing but a hindrance, a shame and a disgrace to the gospel.
29. You see that illustrated here in this wicked servant too. After having experienced such great mercy, this scoundrel leaves and becomes more wicked than he had been before. This is not just my own personal judgment or opinion; it is the judgment of our Lord Christ himself, In crystal clear words he asserts that those who become evangelicals turn out to be more wicked than they were before. Experience, too, teaches us that this is so. Sad to say, we daily experience the fact that people who are under the gospel now bear greater and more bitter hatred and envy in their hearts; they are more greedy and to materialistic now than when they were still under the papacy. As Christ says, The reason for this is that they have again opened their heart’s door to Satan, and he has brought with himself seven other spirits more wicked than he himself is. We, who proclaim the gospel, must simply put up with the fact that under the gospel people become more wicked than they were before. But it is not the fault of the gospel, but of the devil andthose peoplewho return to serving Satan, allowing him to reenter their hearts and rule there along with sew other, more wicked spirits. This really depresses and angers the rest of the servants, so they come and report to the king the sordid conduct of their fellow servant. We, too, experience the same kind of disappointment when those who have the reputation of being “evangelical” conduct themselves so disgracefully and abominably that we really wish they were still under the papacy. But here we follow the example of these fellow servants by bringing their disgraceful abuse of the gospel to the attention of God and of the public. (The Complete Sermons, vol. 7, 141-142; my bolding)
In another sermon in 1537, he bitterly observed:
[W]ho of us would have begun to preach if we had known in advance that so much misery, sectarianism, offense, blasphemy, ingratitude, and malice would ensue? (Luther’s Works, Vol. 24, 358)
Another line of reasoning that is relevant is to note that Luther thought his period was the last days, with the Second Coming imminent. And so he wrote in the same year:
I have no doubt that the Last Day is not far away, though the highly intelligent and super-rational world is not concerned about this, being are that there is no need for that for a long time. As time goes on it is becoming so callous and wicked that, even if no Last Day were supposed to come, still it itself—highly intelligent reason—would have to say that it may not and cannot continue or remain this way for long . . .
It is an old saying, repeated by many teachers, that after the revelation of the Antichrist the people will become so dissolute that they will thereafter be unwilling to know or to believe anything about any god. Rather, each one will do or not do according to his own pleasure, as the devil and the flesh teach. We see such a time being fulfilled here before our eyes. For now that the horrible, dreadful lies and deception of the abominable Antichrist, the papacy, have been revealed and come to the light of day through God’s amazing and exceptional grace, the people are beginning to believe nothing at all any longer. And because they feel freed and released from the bonds and strictures of the papacy, they want to be released and freed from the Gospel and all of God’s commandments as well. From now on whatever pleases them and seems good is to be good and right By rights, this will be the end of the song, if God so wills. (Preface to Ambrosius Moibanus, The Glorious Commission of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior(Mark 16 [:15]), in Luther’s Works, Vol. 60, 149-150; my bolding)
So what happens if his period is not the last days? Another 500 years have gone by. We can safely say — with the considerable benefit of hindsight — that they weren’t. Therefore, this explanation must be discarded. If it’s not the last days and the devil, what was the cause of all the upheavals and chaos in Lutheran circles? Again, in a letter to his wife, Katie, dated 28 July 1545, a little less than six months before he died, Luther disdainfully lamented the moral conditions in his Wittenberg (he did return later, however):
I would like to arrange matters in such a way that I do not have to return to Wittenberg. My heart has become cold, so that I do not like to be there any longer. . . . As things are run in Wittenberg, perhaps the people there will acquire not only the dance of St. Vitus or St. John, but the dance of the beggars or the dance of Beelzebub, since they have started to bare women and maidens in front and back, and there is no one who punishes or objects. In addition the Word of God is being mocked [there]. Away from this Sodom! . . . I am tired of this city and do not wish to return . . .
I. . . will rather eat the bread of a beggar than torture and upset my poor old [age] and final days with the filth at Wittenberg . . . I am unable any longer to endure my anger [about] and dislike [of this city]. (Luther’s Works, Vol. 50, 278-281; my bolding)
Luther tried very hard to reasonably comprehend and explain (from Scripture) what immensely troubled him, and to counter the Catholic accusations; and indeed he made some perfectly valid points: particularly his argument that sinning practitioners don’t prove the falsity of the teaching they are claiming to be following. I’ve utilized the same argument many times in defending Catholicism, under the general category of “sinners in the Church.” But that only goes so far. I don’t think Luther can fully explain what happened in early Lutheranism and larger Protestantism on this basis alone. Nor can he — like the comedian Flip Wilson’s famous routine — rely on “the devil made me do it” excuse: his other primary interpretation of the scandalous events in Protestant circles.
He remains responsible for introducing — or greatly popularizing — the notions of private judgment, sola Scriptura, and supremacy of the individual conscience (too disconnected from traditional precedent). These things, in my opinion, had a direct causal relationship with the rampant sectarianism that immediately commenced, and that he despised (as I recently argued). Luther, of course, detested lawless antinomianism, too, and counseled the necessity of good works.
Nevertheless, I would contend that it was inevitable that his “faith alone” doctrine would be distorted and transformed by less educated, unsophisticated, brand-new Lutherans into reckless sinning under the assumption that it was permitted, since good works were formally separated from salvation altogether (imputed justification) in Luther’s and Lutheranism’s soteriology. I would say that a false doctrine leads to bad fruit in practice, because the initial untruth will be distorted even further, including sanction for sin.
As I have suggested many times, the problem wasn’t Luther’s deliberate intention to do evil (I think he was perfectly sincere and well-intended, albeit too often wrong) but rather, his naivete about human nature and his initial assumption about the likelihood that all would be well and good and so much better than the former Catholic “norm” in his new Lutheran movement. When it clearly wasn’t, especially after 1525 and the Peasants’ Revolt, Luther (rather than examine whatever may have been his role in bringing these events about) started to develop the above sort of explanation (I dare say, rationalization) for the unfortunate turn of events in his circles.
Sectarianism remains perhaps the biggest “Achilles Heel” and unresolvable difficulty in Protestantism to this day. But the breaking down of “discipline” in Luther’s Wittenberg and surrounding areas is directly attributable to Luther’s rejection of Catholic authority and hierarchy, leading to a scenario where — as he describes — “all the restraints of the laws were done away with” because the “ecclesiastical chains . . . formerly held by the papacy” were no longer present. Part of this aspect: “the negligence of the civil magistrate” was a result of Lutheranism’s replacement of the Catholic bishops (whom they no longer recognized as authoritative) with the secular German princes: a thing that his best friend and successor Philip Melanchthon bitterly regretted, to the point of frequent tears and despair. Melanchthon wrote to his friend, Joachim Camerarius, in a letter dated 31 August 1530:
Oh, would that I could . . . restore the administration of the bishops. For I see what manner of church we shall have when the ecclesiastical body has been disorganized. I see that afterwards there will arise a much more intolerable tyranny [of the princes] than there ever was before. (in Book of Concord, “Historical Introductions to the Lutheran Confessions,” by F. Bente: VII. Smalcald Articles and Tract concerning Power and Primacy of the Pope: section 70)
Protestant Church historian Philip Schaff mentioned this belief of Melanchthon’s, on page 33 of his History of the Christian Church, Vol. VII (Chapter One; § 10): “The many and crying abuses which followed this change in the hands of selfish and rapacious princes, were deeply deplored by Melanchthon.” Ignoring all this, and any hint of any causation or personal responsibility as a result of his own innovations, Luther preached:
That the kings and rulers rage against us at the present time, that Zwingli, Carlstadt, and others cause disturbances in the church, that burghers and peasants condemn the Gospel, is therefore nothing new or unusual. (Ibid., 10)
These people, then [“kings” and “rulers”], are the causes of the tumults and scandals, not we who are moderate, peaceful, quiet.And the kind of teaching we offer is also not turbulent, but most peaceful.. . . Our adversaries . . . stir up the princes of the world against us. (pp. 11-12)
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Another thing that Luther seems to have neglected altogether in this regard (certainly in this sermon) is the biblical motif of “the good tree is known by its fruits.” Is this a completely irrelevant consideration, when it comes to examining whatever the “fruit” of Lutheranism and larger Protestantism was and is? Let’s see what the Bible (and especially our Lord Jesus) say about it:
Psalm 105:24 (RSV)And the LORD made his people very fruitful, and made them stronger than their foes.
Proverbs 11:30The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, but lawlessness takes away lives.
Proverbs 14:14 A perverse man will be filled with the fruit of his ways, and a good man with the fruit of his deeds.
Isaiah 3:10 Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.
Isaiah 32:16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
Jeremiah 12:2 Thou plantest them, and they take root; they grow and bring forth fruit; . . .
Jeremiah 17:8, 10 He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. . . . [10] I the LORD search the mind and try the heart, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. (cf. 21:14; 32:19)
Zechariah 8:12 For there shall be a sowing of peace; the vine shall yield its fruit, and the ground shall give its increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.
Matthew 3:10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Matthew 7:16-21You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? [17] So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. [18] A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. [19] Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [20] Thus you will know them by their fruits. [21] “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (cf. Lk 6:43-44)
Matthew 12:33, 35 Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. . . .
[35] The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
Matthew 21:43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it.”
Luke 8:15 And as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience.
John 15:2, 4-5 Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. . . . [4] Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. [5] I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:16 . . . I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide . . .
Romans 7:4 . . . so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Philippians 1:11 filled with the fruits of righteousness which come through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Colossians 1:6, 10 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing — so among yourselves, from the day you heard and understood the grace of God in truth, . . . [10] to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Hebrews 12:11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
James 3:17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity.
If the original Lutheran movement was not exhibiting this fruit much at all (according to Luther’s own frequent reports and lamentations), then Catholics were altogether justified, on this biblical basis, to question — at least to some degree — the movement itself and its false tenets. When St. Paul rebuked the notoriously sinful Corinthians and Galatians, he didn’t simply say that the devil would oppose any good movement from God and the gospel, etc. He commanded them to rise above all that, with God’s grace and power:
1 Corinthians 5:1-2, 7, 13 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. [2] And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. . . . [7] Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. . . . [13] . . . “Drive out the wicked person from among you.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-11, 18-20 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, [10] nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. [11] And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. . . . [18] Shun immorality. Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body. [19] Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; [20] you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Jesus acted in the same way with the seven churches of Revelation:
Revelation 2:4-5 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. [5] Remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Revelation 2:14-16 But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice immorality. [15] So you also have some who hold the teaching of the Nicola’itans. [16] Repent then. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.
Revelation 3:2-3 Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. [3] Remember then what you received and heard; keep that, and repent. If you will not awake, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you.
Revelation 3:15-16 I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! [16] So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.
It wasn’t sufficient for Luther to simply appeal to the “sin argument” and the Flip Wilson “the devil made me do it” argument, in reply to Catholic criticisms. That works to an extent, but not as a complete answer. It’s just not feasible. It seems to come down in Luther’s case to the usual human failing of not being able to admit one’s own failures, whereas outside observers readily can see them. His flock had blind spots and tragically mistaken notions, and they weren’t following what Luther taught them, but he also had blind spots.
It’s not simply “anti-Protestant” or “anti-Luther[anism]” Catholic bias to point this out. Something really was seriously wrong in early Protestantism (again, as observed by Luther himself, over and over), and a serious, humble, dispassionate examination and analysis is called for, as opposed to the usual boorish and tendentious historical revisionism, hagiography, rationalizations, tunnel vision, or twisted, exaggerated caricatures that both sides too often fall into.
Matthew 7:5 . . . first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Mark 8:18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? . . . (cf. Mt 11:15; 13:15; Jn 9:41)
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Photo Credit: Portrait of Martin Luther (1532), by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553). [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Summary: Martin Luther, in a sermon in 1532, rebuked the extreme sinfulness of his flock, but then emphasized that this was the devil trying to mess up his “new” gospel. This won’t do . . .
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Anti-Catholic Reformed Protestant polemicist James Swan wrote the article, “When Catholic Apologists Pray for You” (5-30-07), directed towards yours truly. I will cite it in its entirety (his words in blue):
“I’ll keep praying for you, as I do all my severe, hostile, critics.” [me!]
I’m curious how these prayers actually sound, and if any of this language is utilized:
Yeah, I think it’s good to follow Jesus’ advice:
Matthew 5:43-47 (RSV) “You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ [44] But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, [45] so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. [46] For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? [47] And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
Luke 6:27-28 “But I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, [28] bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Note how Swan — in very typical anti-Catholic fashion — implies that this was insincere on my part, and/or immediately hypocritical, so that it can be dismissed altogether.
“Jimbo”
“Anti-Catholic polemicist and pseudo-“apologist” James Swan”
“James ‘Dave Got The Citation Wrong Again!’ Swan”
“James ‘A…….g Botches Every Citation He Makes’ Swan”
Similarly, I wonder if these titles are used as well:
Steve “Whopper” Hays, David T. “I Could Care Less about Context”, King Dr. Eric “The Yellow” Svendsen, Frank “Federal Action If You Misrepresent Me” Turk, William “Historical Revisionist” Webster, Bishop King James White
Perhaps there is a particular saint being prayed to, one of whom enjoys such creative language.
What horrific language from me, huh? This is simply tweaking, playful, harmless, Rush Limbaugh-type stuff. I was, of course, reacting in all these cases to truly vitriolic, extreme, slanderous, malicious (fringe group) anti-Catholic insults sent my way, or the Catholic Church’s way, such as that we’re not Christians; our Church supposedly denies the gospel, teaches Pelagian works-salvation, that we are unregenerate pagans and idolaters, spiritual ignoramuses, that “Rome” is the antichrist, Whore of Babylon; stuff like that. There is no one-to-one comparison whatsoever.
My epithets or insults are not nearly as harsh as those of Jesus, Paul, and the prophets. Jesus called Herod “that fox” and the Pharisees a “brood of vipers” and “whitewashed tombs.” He even called them “fools”: after saying in another place that this usage might lead one to hellfire (obviously, then, it’s not an absolute prohibition). Elijah taunted the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel (who were soon to be executed), asking them if their “god” was off relieving himself; Jesus used the sarcastic “log in the eye” word-picture; St. Paul wrote that he wished false teachers would “castrate” themselves (Gal 5:12).
*
Now let’s review just a few representative examples (out of many hundreds) of what these guys have called me:
* James Swan [link]
As far as I know, he’s a guy in Michigan sitting in his attic with a computer. (4-26-07)
….the one who craves attention. (12-22-07)
It’s all about the glory of DA. . . . . . . a guy who simply claims to be an apologist. (4-14-09)
*
This is a big difference between DA and I. I’ve never been bored. I actually have a job, . . . On the other hand, I think DA considers sitting up in his attic tapping away on a computer all day an actual job. Oh that’s right, he’s a professional Catholic apologist. . . . Wife comes in: Hi honey how was work today? Husband: today I spent all day posting inane blog comments and compiling a list of someone else’s blog posts about me. Wife: That’s great dear… how much did you get paid for doing it? Husband: well, um, err, um… (7-17-09)
*
I think it’s quite possible you have serious psychological issues. . . . your cyber-behavior strikes me (and probably others) as very bizarre. If you get yourself checked out, and my suspicions prove accurate, and you get the help you need, be it medication or therapy, and we see a change in your cyber behavior, I’ll seriously consider never mentioning you, and begin trying to strike your name from this blog. Perhaps then we could actually have a civil dialogue. If indeed this happens, I don’t want to be known as a guy who picked on a person struggling with deep psychological issues. . . . (8-24-09; this is the guy, remember, who complains frequently about folks using “psychohistory” to analyze Martin Luther)
*
[P]erhaps it is time we back of from Dave Armstrong a bit. I know you probably think I’m being sarcastic, but actually, I’m not. / . . . There’s just something not right with Mr. Armstrong. I think he needs some help. (8-26-09)
*
If anything is “comically surreal” it’s the effort you put in to your research. (12-21-09)
*
I’m sure you would very much appreciate it if I didn’t look up the quotes you mishandle and put them back in their proper context. . . . I’ll keep looking up your “research.” You’ve put forth enough bogus “research” to keep me busy for a long time, if I so choose.. . . Those who care about truth will benefit from contexts and will find your “work” substandard. . . . I don’t take you seriously as a “professional” apologist, . . . (2-26-10)
*
Great example of your psychosis. (2-26-10; retracted on 4-18-10 with apology)
*
That you won’t answer simple questions about context really does make one question your honesty. (2-27-10)
*
Yes indeed, I do find your shenanigans quite odd behavior. However, as I’ve stated repeatedly while I think you’re wacky, other people take you seriously. . . . I explained earlier your eratic [sic] behavior, particularly on my blog, lead me to question whether or not you needed help. (2-27-10)
*
I’m not against Mr. Armstrong’s book[s] simply because they are self-published. I’m against the ones I have because they’re simply awful. I’ve reviewed parts of a few of them, and the material is horrendous. (4-13-10)
“hypersensitive, paranoid, an ego-maniac, narcissistic, with a martyr and persecution complex, . . . a self-obsessive individual . . . Not only is Dave an idolater, but a self-idolater. He has sculpted an idol in his own, precious image. A singular, autobiographical personality cult” (7-16-09); “you’re a hack who pretends to be a professional apologist . . . you don’t do any real research” (1-28-10); “you need to have your psychiatrist up the dosage . . . You have an evil character. . . . I’m supposed to be taken in by your bipolar tactics?” (1-29-10); “. . . a schizophrenic guy like Armstrong . . . emotionally unhinged, . . . Armstrong’s instability” (4-18-10).
*
I used to think that Dave Armstrong was just a jerk. Not deeply evil. Just a jerk. . . . He isn’t just a narcissistic little jerk. He’s actually evil. It’s not something we can spoof or satirize anymore. He’s crossed a line of no return. (4-13-09)
*
You have to wonder what Armstrong would do with himself in heaven. I don’t think heaven is big enough for God Almighty and David Armstrong. If Armstrong ever gets to heaven, he’ll have to evict the Lord to make room for himself. Dave is his very own religion. Both subject and object. He carries around a mental icon of his adorable self-image. Lights imaginary candles to his self-image. Burns imaginary incense to his self-image. This overweening self-importance isn’t limited to Armstrong. In my observation, it’s fairly characteristic of Catholic converts who become pop apologists. . . . What is it about Catholic converts like Armstrong which selects for this particular mindset? (“The Cult of St. Dave”, 7-16-09)
*
[Y]ou play the innocent victim when someone exposes your chicanery. . . . you’re a hack who pretends to be a professional apologist . . . you don’t do any real research. . . . Dave is a stalwart enemy of the faith. He’s no better than Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. Just like the militant atheist, his MO is to destroy faith in God’s word to make room for his alternative. (1-28-10)
*
Both Paul Hoffer and Dave Armstrong are bad men who imagine they are good men. (12-7-11)
*
Roman Catholic apologists like Dave Armstrong, who lack any meaningful ability to engage the text in a serious manner, have no compunctions about grabbing anything to use as a bludgeon against the truth. (3-27-04)
DA lacks the ability to engage the text of the Scriptures in a meaningful fashion, and 2) DA will use anything to attack the truth. . . . As to the first, I simply direct anyone to the “exegesis” presented in A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, his 2001 publication. The book is a monument to how to ignore context, avoid grammar, shred syntax, and insert the traditions of Rome willy-nilly into any passage you cite. . . . DA thinks himself a modern Socrates, yet, his writing takes wild leaps from topic to topic, inserts endless (and often gratuitous) irrelevant material that serves only to cover the shallow nature of what is being said, and in the end requires one to possess the skill of nailing jello to a wall to be able to respond to it for its utter lack of substance. (3-28-04)
When do, where do you draw the line? I mean, it would be so much easier to just ignore all these people, but the problem is, we’re one of those few folks that actually gets out there and we get our hands dirty. We actually take on these, these individuals, and show where the argumentation’s bad, and you’re gonna end up with dirt on your hands, and on your face, when you wallow with some of these folks, and we try to figure out where the line is. This guy [sigh], sadly, there are people who write recommendations of his stuff! I mean, you got Scott Hahn, all these folks, which amazes me. Uh, because you [laughter] look at some of his books, and it’s just like “wow! there’s just no substance here.” It’s just rattle rattle rattle rattle, and quote John Henry Cardinal Newman and that’s the end of the subject. And there’s no meaningful argumentation going on at all. (webcast of 4-20-04)
As I said a few weeks ago, since there is no substance to the man’s methodology or study, but no end to his time to tap away at a keyboard, what do you do when he starts in with his irrational diatribes? Hopefully the clear demonstration of his incapacity to engage in meaningful exegesis (indeed, even to know what the term means) will help some who have been impacted by his sheer volume of verbosity. (4-23-04)
Mr. Armstrong has provided a reading list on his blog. In essence, this means that instead of blaming ignorance for his very shallow misrepresentations of non-Catholic theology and exegesis, we must now assert knowing deception. (12-31-04)
Honestly, how utterly pathetic can someone become? It was bad enough that his work was shown to be consistently shallow, and worse that his attempts to respond were shrill and panic-filled (leading to his melt down and his unwillingness to even attempt further defense), . . . But it truly amazes me that someone who utterly lacks the tools to do the work he claims to do with such expertise continues to be dragged along by the rest of his compatriots. Just another example of “as long as it is in the service of Mother Church, it is all good.” What a contrast: we seek to be consistent in honor of the truth, . . . (4-5-05)
Now, moonbat is an interesting phrase. It is generally used to describe the wacko left, but it strikes me as being particularly descriptive of wackos in general, unhinged folks who have no self-control and are utterly controlled by their angry emotions. Most religions have their moonbats. Rome surely does. Off the top of my head, we can list . . . Dave “the Stalker” Armstrong . . . (5-4-07)
Steve Ray and Dave Armstrong, . . . those Roman Catholic apologists who really are not serious about truth but do what they do for less-than-noble reasons, . . . (7-31-08)
The little yip yip yip yip yip dog? That’s Dave Armstrong, because he never does anything original on his own. He always borrows from somebody else. . . . . . . try doing it truthfully. (webcast, 7-31-08)
Serious readers in the field realize that while Dave may stumble over a thoughtful argument once in a while, it is always to be found somewhere else. He simply does not produce original argumentation of any kind, . . . (1-6-10)
Dave Armstrong is not a serious or thoughtful or reflective or studied Roman apologist or writer. Period. (Twitter, 5-17-12)
Dave Armstrong has never had a fresh insight on a theological and doctrinal topic. Period. (Twitter, 5-18-12)
. . . strategy of deceit that he [yours truly] uses all the time . . . (1-11-05)
*
[T]he “nature” of his apology was insincerity . . . That’s the “strategy of deceit” that Paul refers to in Ephesians 4. (1-13-05)
*
He has no problem with lying, so long as he thinks he can pin that same charge on someone else; that way he doesn’t “appear” to be lying. What a sad spectacle. (1-14-05)
*
. . . DA’s strategy of deceit, . . . (1-14-05)
*
What’s my “lack of charity” got to do with DA’s lack of honesty? Nothing. . . . that’s just what DA does best–he deceives, and he usually accomplishes that by focusing on half-truths (that’s the “strategy of deceit” that marks the heretic). (1-15-05)
. . . of course, most of what appears on the web site is not even pretext at Biblical apologetics, just inflammatory material . . . (10-18-07)
*
I have no desire to debate whether Roman Catholicism is Christian with someone who is not fully Roman Catholic . . . Obviously, for now, the debate is on hold, pending Dave’s decision about whether to follow Roman Catholic dogma or not label himself Roman Catholic. (10-27-07)
*
Dave . . . is a self-appointed e-poligist [sic] and largely self-published author. (10-29-07)
*
Your dishonesty stopped surprising me when you pretended that I refused to debate you. (8-21-09, 8:22 AM)
*
You are as kind as you are wise or honest. (8-21-09, 1:10 PM)
*
I’ve recently commented on your lack of integrity. It seems this is going to be an ongoing trend for you. (8-21-09, 5:56 PM)
*
Many folks would be ashamed to have the reports of their dishonesty recalled, but you seem to wear the judgment of godly men like Dr. [Eric] Svendsen and Pastor [David T.] King as a badge of honor. You actually seem proud to have been judged dishonest by them. I’m glad to be in their company in concluding from my personal observations to the same effect: that your agenda is more important to you than the truth. (8-21-09, 7:29 PM)
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Summary: Anti-Catholic Protestant polemicist James Swan sez that my mild epithets are the worst ever. In fact, his and his anti-Catholic cronies’ slanders sent my way are infinitely worse.
Photo credit: Martin Luther: 31 December 1525 (age 42), by Lucas Cranach the Elder [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
James Swan Misses the Forest for the Trees / Calvin & Melanchthon Embarrassed & Scandalized by Protestant Sectarianism
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Swan’s words will be in blue, Luther’s in green, Calvin’s in brown, and Melanchthon’s in purple.
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Anti-Catholic Reformed Protestant James Swan wrote an article entitled, “The Evils of Private Interpretation: ‘There are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads’ “ (Boors All, 2-25-06). As usual, his goal is to show that Catholic apologists and other writers are incompetent, even dishonest stooges and buffoons: incapable of identifying the proper identification of a source. And accordingly, he says, “I’d like to demonstrate again the failure of Roman Catholic apologetics.”
My goal, however, is to go much deeper and analyze the import and significance of Luther’s statement. What are its implications? What does it suggest? Swan doesn’t touch any of that with a ten-foot pole. What’s quite obvious to one and all is that Luther despised and had contempt for this state of affairs. Swan wrote:
This is one of those quotes put forth by Roman Catholics attempting to substantiate Luther’s opinion of the failure of Protestant Biblical interpretation, as well as the need for the infallible authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
To this extent, I agree with Swan. As far as I know (having read quite a bit of Luther), he never denounced his own so-called “Reformation” or took any blame at all for bringing about a state of affairs in which “as many sects as heads” was even possible or thinkable, let alone actual. He didn’t blame private judgment or sola Scriptura, or the schismatic mentality, etc. Maybe something will turn up. But I think if it had, it would have been known by now and used in Catholic critiques of Luther and his ideas: which in the past were generally far more critical than they are now, and much more than my own point of view.
The strategy goes like this: use the above quote and then put forth something like- “…see, even Luther realized how much of a failure sola scriptura was.” . . .
they are misusing Luther to prove the alleged superiority of their church.
Well, in order to succeed in demonstrating that, it seems to me that the person would have to find Luther expressly making the specific point about sola Scriptura. I’ve never seen it. It’s perfectly legitimate and plausible, however, for Catholics to note that the change in the rule of faith — whatever Luther thought — indeed had a direct impact on the ludicrous proliferation of sects, which is directly contradictory to the biblical idea of one Church and no denominations. St. Paul was even more critical of sectarianism and division than Luther was.
Swan then goes on to note that several Catholics, including apologist Steve Ray, cited these words but provided no primary documentation. Yeah; ideally, they should have. Again, I agree. Swan noted that it was cited in the 1917 book, The Facts About Luther, by Patrick O’Hare: a book I used to cite, when I had few Catholic sources about Luther in the early 90s, but stopped, after determining that it was too “anti-Luther” and sloppy. But O’Hare does provide a primary source and some context:
“This one,” he says, “will not hear of Baptism, and that one denies the sacrament, another puts a world between this and the last day: some teach that Christ is not God, some say this, some say that: there are as many sects and creeds as there are heads. No yokel is so rude but when he has dreams and fancies, he thinks himself inspired by the Holy Ghost and must be a prophet.” (De Wette III, 61) [p. 214]
There is nothing whatsoever wrong with this. The primary source is there. He didn’t provide the name of the specific work (Letter to the Christians of Antwerp, from early 1525), which is unfortunate, but he gives the readers something to verify the words that Luther wrote: of that there can be no doubt. And they mean something. The 55-volume Luther’s Works (which I have in hardcover in my living room) chose not to include this letter in its three volumes of Luther’s letters (the year 1525 is in volume 49). Some twenty or so new volumes are planned; perhaps the editors will see fit to include it in those.
*
Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780-1849) was a German theologian and biblical scholar, who compiled five volumes of Luther’s writings (Berlin: 1825-1828). They are now available online (in Latin and German): see volumes one / two / three / four / five. One can go to the Google book page for volume 3, type in the word “Antwerpen” in the “Search Inside” box and see that word in the name of the letter on page 60, and the year 1525. The words from the famous citation appear on page 61. The letter is in German. The PDF of the entire book can also be searched. The letter in question can be seen on page 60 (actually “79” in the pagination on top). I ran the German title, An die Christen zu Antwerpen through Google Translate and it came out as To the Christians of Antwerp. So this is definitely the letter, and one can see a photocopy of the original book online. I kept translating the material on page 61 (first two paragraphs and part of the third) and this is what I got:
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For a long time under the papal regime we have suffered many cruel seductions from the scoundrels or the wicked spirits, which we believed and held to be human souls who had died and were supposed to be walking around in the flesh. This belief has now been brought to light and revealed by the grace of God through the Gospel, so that we know that they are not human souls, but pure evil devils who have deceived the people with false answers and have established much idolatry throughout the world.
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But now that the wretched devil sees that his blustering and thumping no longer counts, he attacks something new and begins to rage in his members, that is, in the godless, and thunders out all sorts of wild, dark beliefs and teachings.One does not want to be baptized, another denies the sacrament; another sees a world between this and the last day; some teach that Christ is not God; some say this, some that, and there are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads; his nonsense is now so gross that if he dreams or thinks of something, then the Holy Spirit must have inspired him and wants to be a prophet.
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I must tell you an example here, because I have a lot to do with such ghosts. There is no one who claims to be more learned than Luther, who said, “They would all become nemesis of me; and if God would that they were what they think they are, and I were nothing.”
The Introduction on page 60 (presumably by De Wette) reads:
A fanatic from the Netherlands had come to Wittenberg, and had made his opinions known to Luther: this letter is directed against this and other fanaticisms. Luther wrote this letter in Latin, as Walch’s preface to the Xth Th. p. 90 claims, but Opsopoeus No. 15. gives it only in a Latin version (f. Beefenmeyer Litterargeſsch. d. Br. L. p. 58.) and so it can be found in Aurif. II. 281. Viteb. VII. 503. It was published in German under the title: A letter from D. Martini Luther to the Christians in Antorf. Wittenberg 1525. 4. S. Rotermund p. 43. It can also be found in German in the German edition Wittenb. II.60. Jen. III. 109. Altenb. III. 101. Leipz. XIX. 345. Watch X. 1782. We deliver it in German after the first printing.
Is that enough primary documentation for Swan? If not, there is nowhere else to go. He commented under a related post on 11-28-07:
I would gladly welcome someone scrutinizing the text. In fact, I wouldn’t mind having some good translation work on this, even if it meant I was wrong on the conclusions I drew from the text. . . .
I can actually provide the German text for this quote, now that I actually have a reference (recall not one Catholic apologist I’ve ever come across has given any sort of helpful documentation for the quote…but they use the quote gleefully). . . .
I may be a bit paranoid due to all those in the RC’s in the past I’m used to dealing with.
His own article puts the lie to this (his claim in the second paragraph above). He himself cited the Catholic Encyclopedia (ironically and humorously without including the title of the article), which gave the title of the letter and the primary source from De Wette. That was in 1912. O’Hare also gave the primary source in 1916. Now we can access that in Google Books and translate it with Google Translate (which I did). It’ll all kosher and legit. Much ado about nothing, as usual.
One can readily see that O’Hare (or whoever else he may have gotten it from, in English) accurately translated it. The Catholic Encyclopedia article was written by Sydney Smith in 1912 under the title, “Union of Christendom.” Smith made, in my opinion, exactly the argument that should be set forth (one I have made myself, many times), without claiming that Luther agreed with it. He stated:
What was special and novel in Luther and his colleagues was that they erected the principle of an appeal to the Bible not only into an exclusive standard of sound doctrines, but even into one which the individual could always apply for himself without dependence on the authoritative interpretations of any Church whatever. Luther himself and his fellow-reformers did not even understand their new rule of faith in the Rationalistic sense that the individual inquirer can, by applying the recognized principles of exegesis, be sure of extracting from the Scripture text the intended meaning of its Divine author. Their idea was that the earnest Protestant who goes direct to the Bible for his beliefs is brought into immediate contact with the Holy Spirit, and can take the ideas that his reading conveys to him personally as the direct teaching of the Spirit to himself. But, however much the Reformers might thus formulate their principle, they could not in practice avoid resorting to the principles of exegesis, applied well or ill, according to each man’s capacity, for the discovery of the sense ascribed to the Holy Spirit. Thus their new doctrinal standard lapsed even in their own days, though they perceived it not, and still more in later days, into the more intelligible but less pietistic method of Rationalism.
Now, if the Bible were drawn up, as it is not, in the form of a clear, simple, systematic, and comprehensive statement of doctrine and rule of conduct, it might not, perhaps, seem antecedently impossible that God should have wished this to be the way by which his people should attain to the knowledge of the true religion. Still, even then the validity of the method would need to be tested by the character of the results, and only if these exhibited a profound and far-reaching agreement among those who followed it would it be safe to conclude that it was the method God had really sanctioned. This, however, was far from the experience of the Reformers. Luther had strangely assumed that those who followed him into revolt would use their right of private judgment only to affirm their entire agreement with his own opinions, for which he claimed the sanction of an inspiration received from God that equaled him with the Prophets of old [which he did indeed virtually claim, as I have documented to a tee]. But he was soon to learn that his followers attached as high a value to their own interpretations of the Bible as he did to his, and were quite prepared to act upon their own conclusions instead of upon his. The result was that as early as the beginning of 1525 — only eight years after he first propounded his heresies — we find him acknowledging, in his “Letter to the Christians of Antwerp” (de Wette, III, 61), that “there are as many sects and creeds in Germany as heads. . . .”
This is exactly my own opinion. Swan did, at least, cite a good chunk of the above, for which I give him credit. Luther’s big problem in this regard, per the “theory” above, was his extreme naivete: thinking that everything would be fine and dandy in his new system and never being able to conceptualize the quite arguable connection between it and the proliferation of sects.
It’s real simple in the final analysis: others applied Luther’s new rule of faith (sola Scriptura, private judgment, and a distorted individualistic supremacy of conscience) and went their own way, differing from Luther,just as he had with the Catholic Church. Any astute observer could have easily predicted what happened. Erasmus and More and Eck could see what was coming, in their disputes with Luther. But Luther couldn’t (or wouldn’t, one might opine).
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Much better, I think, was the perspective of John Calvin, in addressing the problem of the wildly multiplying denominations, in a letter to Luther’s successor Philip Melanchthon, dated 28 November 1552. At least he is clearly embarrassed by it, implying that he thought the principles of Protestantism were in some way and to some extent responsible (otherwise, why the discomfort?). He stated:
For you see how the eyes of many are turned upon us, so that the wicked take occasion from our dissensions to speak evil, and the weak are only perplexed by our unintelligible disputations. Nor in truth, is it of little importance to prevent the suspicion of any difference having arisen between us from being handed down in any way to posterity; for it is worse than absurd that parties should be found disagreeing on the very principles, after we have been compelled to make our departure from the world. . . .
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And surely it is indicative of a marvellous and monstrous insensibility, that we so readily set at nought that sacred unanimity, by which we ought to be bringing back into the world the angels of heaven. Meanwhile, Satan is busy scattering here and there the seeds of discord, and our folly is made to supply much material. At length he has discovered fans of his own, for fanning into a flame the fires of discord. (Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters: Letters, Part 2, 1545-1553, vol. 5 of 7; edited by Jules Bonnet, translated by David Constable; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House [Protestant publisher], 1983, 454 pages; reproduction of Letters of John Calvin, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1858; the letter in question is numbered as CCCV [305] and is found on pp. 375-381; the portion above is from pp. 376-377).
Whereas Luther made it clear that the other sects were completely separate from him, and fanatical, Calvin was more honest and open to criticism, and included himself in the scandal of denominationalism:
the eyes of many are turned upon us, so that the wicked take occasion from our dissensions . . . our unintelligibledisputations. . . . difference having arisen between us . . . after we have been compelled to make our departure from the world . . . we so readily set at nought that sacred unanimity . . . our folly . . .
Melanchthon, too, was severely distressed over internal Protestant divisions and strife, as I have documented not just once, but twice. Protestant historian Philip Schaff referenced this:
The controversies among the Protestants in the sixteenth century roused all the religious and political passions and cast a gloom over the bright picture of the Reformation. Melanchthon declared [c. Dec. 1552?] that with tears as abundant as the waters of the river Elbe he could not express his grief over the distractions of Christendom and the “fury of theologians.” (History of the Christian Church, vol. 6, p. 46)
Writing to Cranmer on April Fools’ Day, 1548, Melanchthon expressed statements of embarrassment (?) quite similar to Calvin’s word above:
I do not, however, desire in this letter to do anything more than express my grief, which is so great, that it could not be exhausted, though I were to shed a flood of tears as large as our Elbe or your Thames.
You see what a multitude of explanations have been elaborated in former times, and are elaborated at this day; because a simple and sincere [appeal to] antiquity is neglected.
. . . no ambiguities should be left to posterity, as an apple of discord.
This most miserable anarchy causes me such anguish that I would gladly leave this life . . .
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If only I could revive the jurisdiction of the bishops! For I see what sort of Church we shall have if the ecclesiastical constitution is destroyed.
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I am unable to suggest anything that could heal this anarchy (letter to Hardenburg, c. 1558).
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Something wasn’t going as planned (it seems obvious). He didn’t specifically place the blame on anything, but he was greatly troubled, to the point of many tears. Why? The devil again? Protestants and their leaders bore no blame at all? Human beings find it hard to admit any wrong, as we all know.
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The causes and the solutions are what is at issue between Protestants and Catholics. Luther and Calvin and Melanchthon apparently never figured out that it was their foundational principles which set the wheels of this sad process inexorably and inevitably in motion. The weakness, I submit, is in the foundation, not the superstructure of denominationalism gone wild. Calvin and Melanchthon were embarrassed — as well they should have been — at the “absurd” (as Calvin put it) nature of such strong disagreements occurring, and the “miserable anarchy.”
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To their credit, they felt this tension, expressed it in private letters, and wished that it could be resolved before “posterity” got wind of it. They understood the scandalous, indefensible scandal of sectarianism and denominationalism in a way that few Protestants today do (after 500 years of rationalizing and pretending that it is a good, healthy thing).
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But Calvin and Melanchthon didn’t understand or know how to properly solve the problem of relativism and Protestant “epistemology”. That’s my take, and it seems obvious to me. They were referring to the public and history’s reaction to the dissensions. They “got it.” The founders of the Protestant system (including Luther) thought that Protestant divisions were scandalous. This has been a problem since Day One: Luther at Worms in 1521. Private judgment and sola Scriptura inevitably produce such doctrinal relativism and ecclesiological confusion.
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The Catholic, on the other hand, believes that there is one Church instituted by Christ (of which Protestants are imperfectly a part, by virtue of baptism and common beliefs), which the Holy Spirit will prevent from falling into dogmatic error. We have the faith that God can and does do such a thing. Protestants don’t believe in such a thing as an indefectible Church that God ordained, free from error. The Catholic view is not only a far more plausible scenario, but also far more a biblical one, and spectacularly borne out by the facts of history.
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If the Catholic Church were merely human, as so many seem to think, it would have long since evolved into something else, or disappeared. But it doesn’t do either thing. It’s the Protestant denominations that continually evolve into theological liberalism and that adopt immoral teachings, according to the zeitgeist. Witness, for example, the recent abominablecaving of the United Methodists on homosexuality. John Wesley (I published a collection of his quotations with a Wesleyan publisher) is surely turning over in his grave. The liberal Protestant denominations have also long since caved on abortion, too: calling evil good. No other institution in world history is even remotely like the Catholic Church. Protestantism survives only to the extent that its life comes from the doctrines it inherited from us.
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In my opinion, Calvin, in the letter above to Melanchthon, and the sensitive Melanchthon, in his various despairing utterances, are rightly and admirably aghast with regard to a situation (division) which is equally alarming to us Catholics. In this instance they agree with us and candidly, honestly admit the strong contradiction between sectarianism and the Bible. But like Luther, they don’t see that the discord resulted from fallacious first principles, just recently conceived by their illustrious predecessor.
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Their anarchical and semi-Donatist principles set the wheels in motion that made rampant sectarianism historically inevitable. I’m sure they didn’t think that; nor was it their intent, but I hold all of them responsible for extreme naivete and irresponsibility in not anticipating what their principle of sola Scriptura would inexorably lead to.
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They thought everyone would simply agree with them and that there would be this spontaneous, marvelous unity out under the “yoke of Rome.” Their novel views brought about what we see, despite whatever good intentions they had (which I readily grant them). But of course, they couldn’t even agree with each other.
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It’s not with glee that I critique what I feel are flawed principles, while simultaneously acknowledging — as I always have — the great good which is also present in Protestantism and its members. The very fact that I have a high regard personally for many, many Protestants, makes me think that I can persuade them of some of the serious difficulties in their system, as perceived by a friendly “outsider.”
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I appreciate anyone who takes the time to respond to anything I’ve written. (2-18-06; my emphasis; and this is at the bottom of an article dealing with mostly my arguments; he calls me a “guy”; per his usual juvenile methodology)
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Really? How does this expressed appreciation harmonize with Swan’s refusal to reply to any critique I have made for about fourteen years now? If he appreciated even my critiques (notwithstanding his innumerable insults sent my way: including that I am supposedly psychotic and off my rocker), wouldn’t it follow that he would interact with what I offer? “Say one thing, do another”? Meanwhile, I continue to critique his articles (see his section on my Anti-Catholicism web page), because doing so is, I think, helpful for the purpose of understanding how to effectively confront the errors of Protestantism (and especially of the tiny fringe anti-Catholic faction). I refute falsehoods and bad arguments, so that my readers can get some suggestions as to how to reply to similar objections that they encounter. This is the utility of dialogue. It’s a great teaching tool.
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* Practical Matters: Perhaps some of my 4,600+ free online articles (the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site) or fifty-five books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them.
Or you may believe my work is worthy to support for the purpose of apologetics and evangelism in general. If so, please seriously consider a much-needed financial contribution. I’m always in need of more funds: especially monthly support. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV). 1 December 2021 was my 20th anniversary as a full-time Catholic apologist, and February 2022 marked the 25th anniversary of my blog.
Photo credit: Martin Luther: 31 December 1525 (age 42), by Lucas Cranach the Elder [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Summary: Anti-Catholic Protestant polemicist James Swan falsely claimed that Catholics never documented this famous quotation, and as usual he ignored its troubling implications.
James Swan’s Utterly Unfounded, Outrageous Misrepresentations of the Great Catholic Historian
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Anti-Catholic Reformed Protestant polemicist and self-proclaimed Luther expert James Swan made the following ludicrous remark about the Catholic historian Hartmann Grisar (1845-1932), author of the six-volume biography, Luther [see volumes one / two / three / four / five / six]:
Grisar basically categorizes Luther[‘s] neurosis with pathological manic-depressive psychology. . . . Grisar wants you to pity him for being a psychopath. (“Using Psychohistory to Interpret Luther,”Boors All, 6-6-06)
The remarkable thing here is the equation of manic-depression (now usually known as bipolar disorder) with being a “psychopath.” One wonders whether this flows from Swan’s ignorance of psychology and mental illness or if he actually believes this is what Grisar held (or both). As one who majored in sociology, minored in psychology, and who has a long personal experience with many people who suffer from bipolar disorder, I know a little bit about this. I certainly know enough to not equate bipolar with being a psychopath or sociopath. We know that it is mostly caused by a chemical imbalance, which is why it’s successfully treated with many different drugs. Swan’s extreme characterization was likely parroting someone else whom he cited in another article specifically about Grisar: Leonard Swidler, who wrote:
For the Jesuit Hartmann Grisar, Luther was not so much a morally evil man as a mentally sick man. We should turn not our hate but our pity toward Luther the psychopath, who was subject to illusory visits by the devil and terrible fits of depression. (“Catholic Reformation Scholarship in Germany,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 2 1965; 190-191)
Swan claimed that Grisar was a psychopath three other times, too:
Grisar was a Jesuit historian who used Freudian psychology to arrive at the assessment that Luther was a monk obsessed with the lust of the flesh and a pathological manic-depressive personality. Luther’s view of justification by faith alone came from his own immorality—that in order to justify his loose life and to excuse his renunciation of the monastic ideal, Luther denied salvation with works. Luther was a neurasthenic and a psychopath. (5-29-06)
a person having an egocentric and antisocial personality marked by a lack of remorse for one’s actions, an absence of empathy for others, and often criminal tendencies
It offers the following synonyms, among others: loon, maniac, nutter, sicko, loony, nut, psycho, wacko, crazy, lunatic, nutcase, and notes that the word dates back to 1885. Therefore, Grisar could have used the German equivalent of it (and presumably, Swidler and Swan thought that he did, in order to arrive at this opinion that he thought Luther was one). The term manic-depressive dates from 1902, according to Merriam-Webster, so Grisar could have used it as well, if this was what he thought.
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Swan, in his article on Hartmann Grisar, cites and agrees with the assessment of Grisar made by the late well-known Luther scholar Eric Gritsch, who opined that Grisar deemed Luther to be “manic-depressive” (God’s Court Jester: Luther in Retrospect, Fortress Press, 1983, 146).
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What I will do now is actually cite Grisar (what a novelty, huh?), rather than bloviate about his supposed beliefs, in order to see exactly how he characterized Luther in this respect. Is it warranted to claim that he classified Luther as a psychopath and treated him with contempt as some sort of lunatic or nut? No; and I will now proceed to prove that, over against Swan’s bigoted anti-Catholic nonsense and made-up fantasies.
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Before I do that, I wanted to note that it’s nothing unusual for non-Catholic historians and biographers to express the notion that Luther suffered from — at the very least, severe recurring attacks of depression. I’ve addressed the topic several times:
David C. Steinmetz writes that “Luther continued to suffer periods of severe spiritual anxiety.” Roland Bainton, Luther’s most famous biographer, notes that “the recognition is inescapable that he had persistent . . . depressions . . . [which] may have had some physical basis . . . His whole life was a struggle against them, a fight for faith.” Richard Marius thinks Luther was “prone to melancholy — we would say depression, even . . . “clinical” depression . . .” Michael A. Mullett mentions Luther’s “recurrent bouts of depression.” The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther, by Donald K. MacKim, cites “occasional bouts with what may tentatively be identified as clinical depression.”
Martin Brecht thinks that he was “an unstable man” who suffered repeated bouts of “emotional depression, combined with his spiritual Anfechtungen.” Martin E. Marty refers to “the decade [1535-1545] of his disease and depression.” Robert Herndon Fife cites Luther’s own words: “When I was first inducted into the monastery, it happened that I would always go about sad and depressed and could not shake off this melancholy,” and (in 1532) “Am I the only one to suffer the spirit of sadness?,” and writes about Luther’s “attacks of depression” and “hysterical symptoms” and “severe attacks of despair” that “followed him through life.” James MacKinnon refers to Luther’s “fits of dejection to which he was temperamentally subject.” Mark U. Edwards concludes: “That Luther suffered from severe illnesses and depression cannot be denied.” And he called him “a neurotic man.” R. C. Sproul makes reference to his “neurotic phobias.”
Certainly many more opinions along these lines could be produced. This is not “anti-Protestant prejudice”: although several older and far more polemical Catholic writers sadly fell into that (just as the extreme faction of anti-Catholic Protestants then and now were and are filled with rank insults and slanders towards Catholics). Such is the human condition. People lie about things that they don’t understand. So now back to Grisar and what he actually believed about Luther’s “psychology”:
In the monastery, . . . he no doubt remained subject to such fits of depression, . . . It is difficult to say how far the feeling of self-despair, which he mentions, had mastered him . . . (p. 8)
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His state of fear, however, as already indicated, proceeded not merely from the numerous temptations of which he himself speaks, but also from his own inward depression, from an affection, partly psychical and partly physical, which often prostrated him in terror. . . . He imagined that during these fits, in which troubles of conscience also intervened, and which, according to his description, were akin to the pains of hell, he was forsaken by God, and sunk in the eerie night of the soul of which the mystics treat. He also considered them at an early period as a trial sent by God and intended to prepare him for higher things. (p. 125)
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He also suffered greatly at times from inward commotion and darkening of the soul, due to fears regarding predestination, to a troubled conscience or to morbid depression, of which the cause was perhaps bodily rather than mental. (p. 237; my italics)
The last statement closely approaches a remarkably modern understanding of mental disorders (from a man writing in 1914, when psychology was in its infancy), as ultimately stemming primarily from bodily chemistry, as opposed to being purely a moral / mental phenomenon (lunatic / nutcase, etc.). This is why it’s such an outrage for Swan and others to characterize this great scholar as supposedly classifying Luther as a “psychopath.” Grisar is compassionate and understanding towards Luther; not derogatory and insulting. Swan does him a great injustice. Slander is a very serious sin. It’s the “bearing of false witness” in the Ten Commandments. Blessedly, we can see for ourselves what Grisar wrote, and not have to be dependent on Swan’s outlandish twisted distortions of same.
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The word “manic” never appears; nor does “psychopath.”
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In addition to his bodily ailments, the result more particularly of extreme nervous agitation, the indefatigable worker was over and again tormented with severe attacks of depression and sadness. They were in part due to the sad experiences with his followers and to the estrangement — now becoming more and more pronounced — of his party from the fanatical Anabaptists ; in part also to the alarming reports of the seditious risings of the peasants . . . (p. 165)
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He was at that time dominated by fear and dread, partly owing to the proceedings at the Reichstag, partly on account of the unfortunate termination of the religious conference with Zwingli at Marburg, where no understanding had been reached regarding the chief point under dispute, and partly also because in his solitude his old inward ” temptations ” and mental depression were again tormenting him. He was also suffering much from the result of over-work. A malady due to nervous exhaustion had, in 1527, so enfeebled him as to bring him to the verge of the grave. The malady now returned with similar, though less severe, symptoms. The spiritual desolation and fear, which were the consequence of his doubts, now again assailed him as they had done after his previous illness in 1527. Of this condition, Melanchthon, to whom it was familiar enough, wrote to Dietrich, that one could not hope to dispel it by human means, but only by recourse to prayer. (p. 390)
In 1530, Luther, . . . was himself then struggling with the most acute mental anxiety. (p. 175)
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. . . the state of habitual depression in which he lived. (p. 225)
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. . . depression caused by bad news, cares and gloomy thoughts, pressure of work, temptations to sadness and doubts, sleeplessness and mental exhaustion. (p. 312)
Again, Grisar suggests non-moral, non-judgmental reasons for Luther’s depression: bad news, work, sleeplessness, etc. This is the furthest thing from characterizing him as some kind of raving lunatic or psychopath.
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The words “manic” and “psychopath” never appear in this volume.
[Due to internal Lutheran problems, detailed] Luther gradually became a victim to habitual discouragement and melancholy, particularly towards the end of his life. (p. 218)
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The real reason for the depression against which he was struggling is, however, clearer in other letters dating from that time. In them we get a glimpse of his grievous vexation and annoyance with the false teachers within the Evangelical fold: “New prophets are arising one after the other. I almost long to be delivered [by death] so as not to have to go on seeing so much mischief, and to be free at last from this kingdom of the devil. I implore you to pray to God that He would grant me this.” [footnote: To the preacher, Balthasar Rhaide, Jan. 17, 1536] (p. 312)
The words “manic” and “psychopath” never appear in this volume.
. . . the depression, nay despair, which overwhelmed him. (p. 199)
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The depression which is laying its hand on him manifests itself in the hopeless, pessimistic tone of his complaints to his friends, . . . (p. 226)
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During such a period of depression his fears are redoubled when he hears of the atrocities perpetrated by the Turks at Stuhlweissenburg . . . (p. 227)
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Luther is so communicative that it is easy enough to fix on the various reasons for his depression, which indeed he himself assigns. To Melanchthon Luther wrote: “The enmity of Satan is too Satanic for him not to be plotting something for our undoing. He feels that we are attacking him in a vital spot with the eternal truth.” [Dec. 7, 1540] Here it is his gloomy forebodings concerning the outcome of the religious negotiations, particularly those of Worms, which lead him so to write. (p. 230)
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It is not unlikely that pathology played some part in the depression from which he suffered. (p. 251)
Again, Grisar identifies physical “pathology” — not moral turpitude or degeneracy — as a likely cause of Luther’s serious depression. This word had been in use since 1611, according to Merriam-Webster, in the sense of “the study of the essential nature of diseases and especially of the structural and functional changes produced by them.” Likewise, Dictionary.com defines pathology as “the science or the study of the origin, nature, and course of diseases.” Thus, Grisar shows himself to be very advanced indeed as to the physical causes of depression, which is now common knowledge.
Joking was a permanent element of Luther’s psychology. Often, even in his old age, his love of fun struggles through the lowering clouds of depression and has its fling against the gloomy anxiety that fills his mind, and against the world and the devil. (p. 306)
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. . . we frequently find Luther using jocularity as an antidote against depression. (p. 314)
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“I have lived long enough,” he said in 1542; “the devil is weary of my life and I am sick of hating the devil.” Terrible thoughts of the “Judgment of God ” repeatedly rose up before him and caused him great fear. Before this, according to other notes, he had said to his table companions, that he was daily “at grips with Satan “; that during the attacks of the devil he had often not known whether he were “dead or alive.” “The devil,” so he assures them, ” brought me to such a pitch of despair that I did not even know if there was a God.” (p. 320)
I myself experienced many instances of severe anxiety during a recent exceedingly serious family crisis, including what I know for certain were many attacks from the devil, which any Christian ought to expect to receive, as part and parcel of being a disciple of Jesus (1 Cor 7:5; 2 Cor 2:11; 1 Thess 2:18; Eph 4:27; 6:11; Jas 4:7; 1 Pet 5:8; Rev 2:10). Thus, I can relate much more than I ever have to such fear and existential angst, and can fully understand how a person could temporarily be subjected to this agitated, disturbing, frightening — even faith-challenging — state. I also experienced clinical depression for six months in 1977, and my initial evangelical conversion came about in part because of that.
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For all we know, Grisar may have experienced these things, too, so that he is compassionate in addressing Luther’s agonies. Empathy and shared experience go a long way. In any event, Grisar is not at all the way Swan portrays him. He is simply reporting on a well-known phenomenon in Luther’s life: one that many Christians and saints have also suffered.
. . . there can remain no doubt that a heavy mist of doubts and anxieties overshadowed Luther’s inner life. (p. 321)
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If we glance at the history of Luther’s so-called “temptations” throughout the whole course of his career, we shall find that they were very marked at the beginning of his enterprise. Before 1525 they had fallen off, but they became again more frequent during the terrors of the Peasant War and then reasserted themselves with great violence in 1527. After abating somewhat for the next two years they again assumed alarming proportions in 1530 in the solitude of the Coburg and thus continue, with occasional breaks, until 1538. From that time until the end of his life he seemed to enjoy greater peace, at least from doubts regarding his own salvation, though, on the other hand, gloomy depression undoubtedly darkened the twilight of his days, and he complains more than ever of the weakness of his own faith; . . . (pp. 330-331)
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. . . deep depression which un questionably underlies many of his utterances. (p. 373)
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The words “agonies” and “nocturnal combats” which Luther so often used to describe his struggles of conscience remain to testify to their severity. (p. 374)
The words “manic” and “psychopath” never appear in this volume.
This volume provides Grisar’s most extensive and lengthy analysis of Luther’s struggles with depression and anxiety, tied into (in his mind and likely as a matter of fact) spiritual warfare with the devil, which again, is the normal course in any Christian life; Satan opposes and attacks us.
Profound depression can alone account for the step he took in 1530, when, for a while, he discontinued his sermons at Wittenberg because he was sick of the indifference of his hearers to the Word of God and disgusted with their conduct. The editor of the sermons of this year, which have only recently been published, remarks justly, that “the only possible explanation of this step is a pathological one.” Luther even went so far as to declare from the pulpit that he was “not going to be a swine-herd.” Yet, a little after, during the journey to the Coburg, a sudden change occurred, and we find Luther making jokes and writing in a quite optimistic vein, and, no sooner had he reached his new abode, than he plunged into new literary labours. Nevertheless, whilst at the Castle, he was again a victim of intense depression, was visited by Satan’s “embassy” and even vouchsafed a glimpse of the enemy of God. On his departure from the Coburg good humour again got the better of him, as we see from his jovial letter to Baumgartner of Oct. 4, 1530, . . . The facility with which his moods altered is again apparent when, in his last days, he left Wittenberg in disgust only to return again forthwith in the best of spirits.
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[Footnote: Paul Pietsch, in the preface (p. xxi. f.) to vol. 32 of the Weim[ar]. ed. [the standard German edition of Luther’s works]: “His annoyance and his tendency to see only the darker side of things show plainly enough . . . that Luther was suffering from that deep depression to which great men are sometimes liable. In later life, for instance in 1544, this depression again overtook Luther, and he even resolved to quit Wittenberg, and it was only with difficulty that he was dissuaded from doing so. In 1545 again something similar occurred. Yet in 1544 and 1545 his discouragement had again no real cause.”] (p. 168)
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No disturbance of Luther’s intellectual functions or mental malady amounting to actual “psychosis” can be assumed at any period of his life. This, however, is a quite different thing from admitting that his case was not entirely normal. (p. 172)
Here is an undeniable declaration of a “diagnosis” of Luther’s problem with melancholia and anxiety — which denies psychosis — that cannot be misunderstood, and it absolutely rules out any thought of Grisar allegedly classifying Luther as a “psychopath”.
No Protestant hitherto has used terms so strong to describe Luther’s overwrought nerves as his most recent biographer, Hausrath, . . . For instance, he even ventures to hint expressly at the nature of the malady: “The regularity with which the attacks return during all the years spent in the monastery and after he had commenced his public career, leads us to infer a recurrent psychosis, the attacks of which became less frequent after his marriage, but never altogether ceased.” (pp. 172-173)
Note again that Grisar had just denied that ongoing “psychosis” in Luther’s life can be proven. But here he cites a Protestant theologian and biographer, Adolph Hausrath, asserting exactly that. Once again, Swan should be disabused of his myth that only [to varying degrees] “hostile” Catholics arrive at such a psychological classification as regards Luther.
Wilhelm Ebstein, a Professor of Medicine, recently, and not without reason, registered a protest against the view of those who maintain that Luther was actually out of his mind. Himself interested in the treatment of cases of gout and calculus, he comes to the conclusion that Luther’s chief sufferings were caused by uric acid and faulty digestion, the two together constituting the principal trouble, and being accompanied, as is so often the case with gout, by “neurasthenic symptoms which at times recall psychosis”; his “hypochondriacal depression which passed all bounds” was entirely due to these ailments. (p. 176)
Grisar then vigorously opposes another Catholic who classified Luther as “mentally deranged” and “insane”:
In 1874 Bruno Schon, of Vienna, published an essay in which he depicted Luther as mentally deranged.
The author, who was chaplain to a lunatic asylum, was not merely no historian and still less an expert in mental disease, but lacked even a proper acquaintance with Luther’s life and writings. His historical groundwork he took from second-rate works, and his opinion was biased by his conviction that Luther could not but be insane. He makes no real attempt to prove such a thing; all he does is to give us an account, clothed in psychiatric terminology, of the different forms of madness from which Luther suffered; in the first place he was afflicted with megalomania and the mania of persecution, two forms of insanity frequently found together. — But nervous irritability, anxiety, moodiness, excitability, a too high opinion of himself, perversion of judgment and even hallucinations — could such be proved in Luther’s case — all these would not entitle us to say that he was ever really insane. Nervous derangement, says Kirchhoff, is not psychosis, and people subject to hallucinations are not always insane. (p. 179)
After mentioning a few more Catholic examples of poor analysis, he reiterates in even stronger terms:
As against Kerz, Schon and even Prechtl, we must urge that we have no proof that Luther was actually the slave of his morbid fancies, or mentally diseased; no such proof to support the hypothesis of insanity is adduced by any of the writers named. Of the temporary clouding of the mind they make no mention.
As for the kind of megalomania met with in Luther, when he insists on his being the mouthpiece of revelation, this is not the sort usual in the case of the mentally deranged, when the patient appears to be held captive under the spell of his delusion. Luther often wavered in his statements regarding his special revelation, indeed sometimes went so far as to deny it; in other words he was open to doubt. Moreover, at the very times when he clung (or professed to cling) to it with the greatest self-complacency, he was suffering from severe attacks of depression, whereas it is not usual for megalomania and depression to exist side by side. As for the periodic fits of insanity suggested by Hausrath his moods alternated too rapidly. His morbid ideas do not constitute a paranoiac system of madness, and still less is it possible to attribute everything to mere hypochondriacal lunacy. . . .
In view of Luther’s aptitude to pass rapidly from craven fear to humorous self-confidence it would be necessary in order to prove his insanity, to show clearly as far as possible — a demonstration which has not yet been attempted — that periods of depression or fear really alternated with periods of exaltation, and what the duration of these periods was.
We cannot too much impress on those who may be inclined to assume that, at least at times, Luther was not in his right mind the huge and truly astounding powers of work displayed by the man. Only comparatively seldom do we hear of his being disinclined to labour or incapable of work, and almost always the reason is clear. Even were the advocates of intermittent insanity ready to allow the existence of lengthy lucid intervals still so extraordinary a power for work would prevent our agreeing with them any more than with Schon, Mobius, Hausrath and the older authors referred to above.
As to the question of the possibility of such a disability having been inherited either from his father or his mother — a matter into which modern psychiaters are always anxious to inquire: Here, again, we find nothing to support the theory of mental derangement. (pp. 181-182)
Yet Swan wants to assert that Grisar thought Luther was a “manic-depressive” and “a psychopath”? The actual truth is quite otherwise. Grisar flatly and repeatedly denies that he is insane and comes nowhere remotely close to thinking he is a psychopath. It’s ridiculous. His words above also — notably — rule out a bipolar / manic-depressive diagnosis, since he denies that anyone has demonstrated (or even attempted to show) that Luther had “periods of depression or fear . . . alternated with periods of exaltation”: that is, the classic symptoms of bipolar disorder.
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So in the end Grisar — without question — simply holds the same view that virtually all non-Catholic and also Catholic biographers today adhere to: Luther suffered from recurring depression and was a very anxious-type person, and he wrestled with the devil, which St. Paul and hundreds of saints all did, and which the New Testament confidently predicts will be our lot.
. . . certain of Luther’s symptoms . . . which were put down to mental derangement may have been due rather to a form of neurasthenia. (p. 183)
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. . . his depression of mind, due primarily to physical causes, . . . (p. 227)
Once again, Grisar exhibits a very modern outlook: that most depression stems from physiological causes (as opposed to moral, etc.).
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The words “manic” and “psychopath” never appear in this volume, either, which means that they did not in the entire six-volume biography of Luther. Where, then, does Swan get the idea that Grisar thinks Luther was a psychopath, or even just bipolar? Well, it looks like he simply grabbed the epithet from another writer whom he cited, without doing adequate research of the sort that I have done in this article. Swan is aware that the six-volume work is available online (he provides the links himself, after all), and (presumably) that it can easily be word-searched. It’s just shoddy, unethical research: what we have come to expect from him; as I know well from 22 ragged, wearisome years of experience with his tactics.
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James Swan is full of hot air and ought to offer a full public retraction and apology with regard to this dead scholar. But the likelihood of that is about as high as hell freezing over.
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Practical Matters: Perhaps some of my 4,600+ free online articles (the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site) or fifty-five books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them.
Or you may believe my work is worthy to support for the purpose of apologetics and evangelism in general. If so, please seriously consider a much-needed financial contribution. I’m always in need of more funds: especially monthly support. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV). 1 December 2021 was my 20th anniversary as a full-time Catholic apologist, and February 2022 marked the 25th anniversary of my blog.
Photo credit: Hartmann Grisar, S. J.: photo from 1931 [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Summary: Anti-Catholic zealot James Swan claimed that Catholic historian Hartmann Grisar (1845-1932) classified Luther as a psychopath & bipolar. He did neither, as I prove.
“Please Hit ‘Subscribe’”! If you have received benefit from this or any of my other 4,600+ articles, please follow this blog by signing up (with your email address) on the sidebar to the right (you may have to scroll down a bit), above where there is an icon bar, “Sign Me Up!”: to receive notice when I post a new blog article. This is the equivalent of subscribing to a YouTube channel. Please also consider following me on Twitter / X and purchasing one or more of my 55 books. All of this helps me get more exposure, and (however little!) more income for my full-time apologetics work. Thanks so much and happy reading!
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Martin Luther’s words will be in blue; James Swan’s in green.
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Luther preached in a sermon:
This is what St. Paul meant when he preaches about love. “If I speak in the tongues of angels;” and again: “If I had all faith so that I could move mountains, but did not have love, then I would still be nothing,” etc. (1 Corinthians 13[:1-2]) If a person goes off securely in the thought that he has faith, and yet never experiences it, he must decay and dry up; his faith will be found nowhere at all when it comes to the point that it should be found.
The dear apostles certainly saw this, and we experience it. The world always either boasts falsely about faith, or wants to be holy without faith. If we preach about faith and grace, no one wants to do works. If we promote works, no one wants faith. Those who keep to the true middle course are very rare. Indeed, it is even hard for righteous Christians.
I confessfor myself — and without a doubt others must also confess, that I lack the diligence and seriousness [some translations: “earnestness”], which I should now much more than before; I am much more careless than I was under the papacy. Nowhere is there now the seriousness[some translations: “zeal”] with the Gospel which we saw previously among the monks and priests, when people established and built so much, and no one was so poor that he would not give something. However, now there is not one city which would support a preacher, and nothing except only robbing and stealing among the people, and no one restrains it. Where does such a shameful affliction come from? They cry out: “From the doctrine they teach, that people should not rely on works!” However, it is the devil himself who falsely blames this on the pure, saving doctrine; it is the fault of his and people’s malice who misuse this doctrine — as well as our old Adam who always wants to follow the forest trail to nowhere- and think that it is unnecessary, even if we do not do many good works and so become unintentionally lazy and negligent and stale, until we completely lose the strength and savor of faith. (Sermon on 1 John 4:16-21: from a series of sermons on 1 John and love, dated 1532-1533; in Luther’s Works, Vol. 78: Church Postil IV [2015], 365-405; click “Look Inside” under the image of the cover for the Table of Contents; my bolding)
Pretty striking admission, I would say. It’s so jarring to Protestant ears, that Luther defender and vitriolic anti-Catholic James Swan felt compelled to write one of his notorious sophistical rationalizations in a futile attempt to spin Luther’s words so as to make them (to gullible readers) not mean what they plainly do mean.
A portion of these words appeared in the 1884 volume, Luther’s Own Statements, by Henry O’Connor (p. 56), and in the third volume of six of the title, Luther, by Hartmann Grisar (p. 206); dated 1914. Swan, writing in November 2011, chides Catholics who produce this citation, in his usual boorish fashion:
If you search around on the Internet for this quote, you’ll probably not find any of Rome’s current defenders producing a primary context. What you’ll typically find is the reference “Walch IX 1311.” I doubt any of Rome’s current defenders actually possess or have read this old source. Most of them couldn’t tell you if this statement was from a treatise, letter, sermon, or a Table Talk recording. Their “deep into history” triumphalism is often abandoned when Luther is the subject. Where did Luther say it? What’s the context? These basic questions should be asked by anyone thinking of using this quote.
This is a ridiculous charge, for the simple reason that the entire context (the complete sermon) doesn’t seem to have been available in English until 2015 (four years after Swan originally wrote his article about the citation), when it was added to volume 78 of Luther’s Works (originally, 55 volumes). What Swan was demanding, then, was for Catholics to find obscure German collections of Luther’s works (and apparently to take a course in German beforehand), locate the sermon and read all of it. If one knows German, great, but if not, it’s an unnecessary demand on his part. O’Connor (footnote 164) made the reference to Walch.
As Swan himself notes, this “refers to a set of Luther’s works published 1740-1753 by Johann Georg Walch. . . .Here isvolume IX, 1311 from the old set.” There is nothing improper whatsoever for a scholar to cite a primary source of a citation in another language, and for an apologist like myself to cite him as a secondary source citing the primary source. But I’m not required to learn German, so as to understand the words in the context of where they appear. The words are self-evident as they are, and stand alone, in any event (as I will discuss in more depth below). Context doesn’t add all that much.
Likewise, Swan notes that Grisar cited the Erlangen edition of Luther’s works in German, and cites the volume online, and the exact page Grisar quotes from. Additionally, he mentions that the citation is also present in vol. 36 of the standard Weimar edition of Luther’s works in German, from 1883, citing the page (469). None of this is the least bit improper or dishonest. Yet Swan always makes that insinuation when Catholic apologists and others cite secondary sources such as these.
Grisar described the words as coming from “a sermon in 1532.” He gives the German source if anyone wants to look it up. That’s what scholars do. But if I dare to cite Luther from Grisar, as I have done hundreds of times. Swan scolds me, as if I have committed a capital crime. It’s nonsense! And it’s embarrassing, from one intelligent enough to obtain a degree in philosophy. You would think he knows how basic research and citation work. But he seems not to.
Swan in his article continues his usual asinine, insipid, vapid accusations against Catholics and how they interpret this utterance of Luther:
This quote is used by Roman Catholics in a variety of ways. First, it sometimes serves as proof Luther admitted his personal life was characterized by sin, or that once he was freed from Rome, his moral and spiritual life became worse (see below). Second, it’s sometimes used as proof that the doctrine of justification by faith alone does not produce good works, and Luther here admitted it. . . . Another blogger uses the quote as proof Luther had “regrets as to the relative failure of the ‘Reformation’ ” and “the lower state of general morality.”
That blogger was yours truly, in a paper of mine dated May 2008 and originally entitled, Martin Luther’s Regrets as to the Relative Failure of the ‘Reformation’. I later uploaded it to my current blog on Patheos, and it’s entitled, Did Luther Regret Anything About His “Reformation”? Note the question in the new title, and the word “relative” in the original one. This shows where I am coming from. So do my clear, concise words in the article itself (if we want to talk about “context”!):
Luther never said that the “Reformation” as a whole was a failure, or shouldn’t have happened, but he said quite a bit about how the new Protestants were miserably failing in manifesting the superiority of their system over Catholicism. . . .
I will cite only those statements that directly connect Protestant teaching to the negative results observed in his own lifetime: where he himself observes that there is some causal connection, or when he unfavorably compares Protestant behavior to Catholic.
When, on the other hand, he states, for example, that popular morals are going to pot, I haven’t cited those statements, if they don’t express the notion that the result was due (partially or wholly) to the new Lutheran teachings. I would contend that there were probably many different causes (as in most questions of history).
Luther’s statements are self-explanatory. The man always said exactly what he meant and meant what he said. No one can deny that. The evidence is in my paper above and many other similar ones I have written, too:
This is not nothing. There is quite a bit here to examine. Luther complained frequently about these sorts of things. Swan majors on the minors and absurdly quibbles about sources and perfectly acceptable research techniques. What I’m interested is an in-depth analysis of these words of Luther (something Swan virtually never does; he’s so busy rationalizing and engaging in obfuscation and obscurantist anti-Catholicism). Let’s look at the key words bit-by-bit:
I confess for myself — and without a doubt others must also confess, that I lack the diligence and seriousness, which I should now much more than before; I am much more careless than I was under the papacy.
We get that Luther didn’t reject his own so-called “Reformation” or his own conception of the gospel and justification by faith alone. That’s not at issue. He didn’t. Period. But in my opinion that makes his words all the more fascinating and even mysterious. Luther wants to — at least in part — blame it on the devil and those in his Lutheran party who corrupt his pure gospel and are bad examples (hypocritical, nominal folks that all religious groups contain). But that doesn’t totally explain this, precisely because he includes himself among those who aren’t living up to the ideal.
This is now 1532 or 1533, or 15-16 years after the Protestant Revolution began. Why is it that Luther — flush with all of his supposedly new discoveries about grace and Christianity — is wanting in the “diligence and seriousness” that he used to have as a Catholic, and is “much more careless” than he was before he decided to ditch Catholicism? Does that not imply that there is something deficient in the new belief-system that he decided to follow? If not, what accounts for it? It’s easy to blame the devil, but I think Luther failed to make a full examination of why these things were as they were. Looked at from another angle, what is it that Catholics possessed that enabled them to — widely — be more diligent and serious and careful than Luther and the Lutherans were? Of what spiritual advantage was Lutheranism if this was its fruit?
Nowhere is there now the seriousnesswith the Gospel which we saw previously among the monks and priests,
Note the extremity of his statement! He’s not just saying that there are problems here and there with the new group of Lutherans, as there would be in any group at any time. No; “nowhere” is a serious adherence to the gospel seen among the Lutherans, according to Luther. And to add insult to injury, the Catholics — who were supposedly so spiritually ignorant and less advanced than Lutherans –, were doing much better spiritually than the Lutherans: even, indeed, the monks and priests (!!), whom Luther often excoriated. How can this be? One wonders, then, how this is “reform” at all, with such miserable results “on the ground.”
when people established and built so much, and no one was so poor that he would not give something.
Again, Luther is praising Catholics to the skies, over against the Lutherans. They “built” and “established” things. And even the poorest among them gave alms to others in more need. Why? Things improved later on among Lutherans and Protestants in general, but it must be asked why these sorts of things were the initial manifestation of the new religious movement. To me, that is something to think and wonder about. One need not be “anti-Protestant” to do that. We’re simply wondering why this was, and taking Luther at his word as to his report.
However, now there is not one city which would support a preacher, and nothing except only robbing and stealing among the people, and no one restrains it.
More extraordinary observations . . . Not even “one“ city would support a Lutheran pastor! That’s incredible! Then he says nothing is taking place except “robbing and stealing.”
To me, these things are not theological discussions, but rather historical and sociological ones; even psychological to some extent. Personally, I find them interesting and worth pondering and discussing. Many others don’t. What else is new?
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Practical Matters: Perhaps some of my 4,600+ free online articles (the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site) or fifty-five books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them.
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Photo credit: Posthumous Portrait of Martin Luther as an Augustinian Monk (after 1546), from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
Summary: Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, thought that the state of piety & morality among his Lutherans (and himself) was widely less stellar than that of Catholics.
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Matthew 2:23 And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
Mr. Palm is quite correct when he says that it is difficult to determine the source of the quotation in Matthew 2:23. This is not the only passage that challenges us in regards to source material. However, to leap from a difficulty in identifying the Scriptural source to the existence of an undocumented and mysterious “oral tradition” is hardly the proper method of getting around a difficulty.
Why not? It’s certainly a plausible response to assert that — lacking any certain OT reference — that it could have come from an oral tradition. After all, the Jews believed in an oral Torah as well as a written one:
While Mr. Palm says that all attempts to identify the Scriptural source of this passage fail, that is simply his own conclusion. Can he say with certainty that all of the suggested sources could not, in fact, provide a sufficient basis? And why should we believe that Mr. Palm’s leap into the undocumentable realm of “oral tradition” is any more solid than any of the suggestions that have been given for a Scriptural source? Can Mr. Palm show us any historical evidence to substantiate this “oral tradition” being in existence at this time?
This is a clever sleight-of-hand from White: typical of his relentless sophistry. Rather than argue for a particular take on the alleged OT pedigree of this verse, he ignores that necessary task and switches the emphasis over to Palm supposedly having to establish oral tradition itself. White’s first task is to blow Palm’s contention that there is no OT referent out of the water. That’s the easiest way to disprove it. But since White has nothing compelling (and even admits that the problem is “difficult”), he switches the topic, like all good sophists (and lawyers with bad cases) do. Be that as it may, I provide plenty of evidence for oral tradition in my links above.
Classic Protestant commentaries back up the notion that such a passage cannot be found in the OT:
Benson Commentary: As to the interpretations which refer this to Christ’s being called Netzer, the Branch, Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5; or Nazir, one Separated, or, the Holy One, they all fail in this, that they give no account how this was fulfilled by Christ’s living at Nazareth, he being as much the Branch, the Holy One, when he was born at Bethlehem, and before he went to Nazareth, as after.
Barnes’ Notes on the Bible: The words here are not found in any of the books of the Old Testament, and there has been much difficulty in ascertaining the meaning of this passage.
Matthew Poole’s Commentary: the . . . words of this verse afford as great difficulties as any other in holy writ. . . . there is no such saying in all the prophets. There is a strange variety of opinions as to these questions.
Meyer’s NT Commentary: . . . others (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Clericus, Grätz) regard the words as a quotation from a lost prophetical book.
Expositor’s Greek Testament: But what prophecy? The reference is vague, not to any particular prophet, but to the prophets in general. In no one place can any such statement be found. Some have suggested that it occurred in some prophetic book or oracle no longer extant.
Matthew 23:2-3 “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.”
I have already massively refuted White concerning this topic:
1 Corinthians 10:4 . . . they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
Paul would certainly have been familiar with extra-scriptural traditions . . . Paul was likewise familiar with other Jewish works of literature, including works from the intertestamental period, and works that became a part of the Apocrypha. He was likewise familiar with Greek philosophy and mythology, and drew upon these sources as well. None of this is in dispute, of course.
Now there’s something we can agree on!
The question is, does Paul’s familiarity with such sources mean that they are divinely inspired, authoritative, and infallible? Take this passage from 1 Corinthians as an example. Surely Mr. Palm is not suggesting to us that Pseudo-Philo is providing us with an inerrant, infallible oral tradition that was passed down from Moses’ day, is he? . . . no one would seriously argue that the use of Greek philosophers means that such sources are infallible, inspired, or in any sense spiritually authoritative . . .
The source didn’t have to be inspired or infallible; nor is that Palm’s argument (he never used either word). Palm referred to possible “authoritative” oral tradition cited in the NT. But citing such information in the inspired NT would make it inspired, wouldn’t it? White’s polemical reply isn’t the relevant question. It’s just the usual White obfuscation and obscurantism. White has to explain what Paul is citing and why he would do it.
He does suggest one possibility: C. K. Barrett’s opinion that it may be a citation from the Jewish philosopher Philo or Pseudo-Philo. Palm had already suggested that in his article. Palm had already noted, “in rabbinic Tradition the rock actually followed them on their journey through the wilderness (See Tosefta Sukkah 3:11f.; Pseudo-Philo Biblical Antiquities 10:7). The former would be an oral tradition, later written down. Remember, the title of David Palm’s article was “Oral Tradition in the New Testament.” This is one example of that.
the mere fact that Paul makes reference to a Jewish idea that the rock in the wilderness was more than a mere rock hardly provides a basis for asserting that this is an inspired and infallible oral tradition that has been passed down outside of Scripture and is binding upon Christians today.
Again, White is out to sea. I reiterate that by including it in the inspired NT, the notion becomes inspired and authoritative, with the additional identification as Jesus Christ Himself. It didn’t have to be already inspired. This particular theology is binding, having been authoritatively noted by St. Paul in the inspired revelation of NT Scripture. But White wants to major on the minors and quibble about where it came from?
In fact, if Mr. Palm is defending the partim-partim view of traditional authority, is he really going to defend the idea that this tradition goes back to Moses?
It might in some less developed form. The Jews, after all, believed that Moses received an oral Torah on Mt. Sinai along with the written Law and Torah. White’s theology dogmatically — but arbitrarily — forbids such a notion from the outset. But there is nothing in the Bible to preclude its possibility. If White would claim otherwise, then let him produce such a biblical “proof.”
And if he defends the “material sufficiency” viewpoint,
Yes he would.
what does this passage provide him?
It provides an oral tradition in the NT: precisely the aim of his article. DUH!
Surely this “tradition” is not some Mosaic-interpretation of the Scriptures maintained within an “Old Testament magisterium.”
It has to come from somewhere. White hasn’t disproven the theory that it is in the Talmud, which was a later written version Jewish oral traditions. White simply plays the game of obfuscation and non sequiturs again.
1 Peter 3:19 in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison,
Palm suggests that the source for this may be “the extra-biblical book of 1 Enoch.” And so maybe it was. What does Bishop “Dr.” [???] White have to say about that? Because Palm also noted that many tie the verse to Genesis 6, he goes with that, while (predictably) mocking the possible extrabiblical source:
He has already acknowledged that Genesis 6 is the source of the nephilim concept, has he not? So what is being asserted when “Tradition” comes in here?
That there may be an additional source!
Is Mr. Palm asserting that this is an oral tradition that is inspired and infallible?
No (back to that again). White seems obsessed with this idea, that is completely irrelevant. Palm only used the word, “authoritative.”
From whence did this tradition arise?
That’s not strictly relevant, either. It’s an entirely separate discussion.
Or is Mr. Palm merely admitting that the inspired writers made reference to ideas, beliefs, and sources that were current in their day? Such an assertion is not argued by anyone.
Then why is White concerned about this article at all?
But neither is such an assertion relevant to substantiating the Roman Catholic concept of tradition, either as separate revelation or as interpretive grid.
It doesn’t have to be. There is a certain conceptual overlap:
Oral traditions in the NT
The Catholic belief in an apostolic oral tradition, passed down.
If the NT can be shown to espouse oral tradition in general, then it’s reasonable to posit that the specifically Catholic view of tradition is also harmonious with the NT. They need not be absolutely equivalent.
Is Mr. Palm saying that Peter embraced the book of 1 Enoch as an interpretive tradition of Genesis?
That seems to be a fair view of his take.
If so, does Mr. Palm likewise accept 1 Enoch as an interpretive grid, a “Tradition”?
Small-t tradition, not apostolic tradition or the apostolic deposit (of faith), which is the “big-T” tradition.
I will spare the reader citations from the book, as 99% of the work would not be accepted as having any authority interpretively by Roman Catholics or Protestants alike.
It doesn’t have to, in order for Peter to draw from the 1% that does have some significant truth. As I always say, even an unplugged clock gives the correct time (or “truth”) twice every day.
But is Mr. Palm saying that in this one instance Peter depended upon this extra-scriptural, divine, and authoritative source? Or is he simply stating that Peter is making reference to a common belief of the day that is also expressed in 1 Enoch, without making 1 Enoch, or the belief, authoritative?
The latter, it seems to me.
Remember, Mr. Palm’s “Tradition” includes, of necessity, purgatory, indulgences, Papal Infallibility, and a whole plethora of Marian doctrines.
He’s not trying to prove all that in this article; only that the NT has specimens derived from some sort of oral tradition.
Now I will only mention in passing that Mr. Palm’s reference to the early Father’s struggle against the heretics begs the issue. What was the rule of faith they used to refute the heretics? Mr. Palm’s infallible Roman Tradition? In no way. The “rule of faith” was far more simple, and was, in fact, derived from biblical sources, and is fully defendable from the Scriptures themselves. Hence, the idea that this rule of faith, this tradition, mentioned by men like Irenaeus, is in fact an extra-scriptural revelation, holds not the first drop of water.
The fathers also drew from extrabiblical traditions over against the heretics. Augustine gives the example of infant baptism (Luther refers back to that, too). I think infant baptism can be drawn from Scripture in many ways, but it’s mostly indirect, non-explicit, deductive arguments.
[Palm] A specific application of this is the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary. The data of the New Testament concerning the “brothers and sisters” of Jesus are ambiguous by themselves, although I would argue that the biblical evidence leans toward the Catholic interpretation. But we have additional help in the form of the Traditions preserved in the early Church which say that Mary remained a virgin and bore no other children besides Jesus. So Tradition can sometimes serve as arbiter and interpreter in cases where the meaning of Scripture is unclear.
The student of Church history, having gotten back up off the floor upon reading that paragraph, has to simply respond, “Well then who decides from the many conflicting viewpoints found in the patristic sources what is and what is not Tradition??” It is well documented (in Kelly as well, no less!) that there were many conflicting viewpoints on this subject in the early Church. There was no unanimity of opinion, and the idea that one can trace a real “tradition” to the Apostles through the maze of differing opinions, and the deafening silence of the earliest period, requires a bright-eyed optimistic embrace of Roman authority rather than a critical historical realism.
Nonsense. The case from both the Bible and tradition had to be pretty strong in order for Luther, Calvin, and all of the major Protestant “reformers” to retain the traditional view. No Protestant has to get back up from the floor to follow the view of those two huge figures in the history of Protestantism. The differences were mostly over whether these “brothers” were Jesus’ cousins or step-brothers (from a former marriage of St. Joseph), but not about Mary’s perpetual virginity itself. I’ve written a ton about this. See the section on my Blessed Virgin Mary web page.
Mr. Palm says that Tradition can serve as an arbiter and interpreter in cases where the meaning of Scripture is unclear. Does that mean that he accepts everything that the early Church said about Scripture?
No, why would he have to do that? Exegesis develops, just as everything else does, and if some of those were non-magisterial statements, no Catholic is bound to those.
When interpreting the atonement, does he use Irenaeus’ “ransom to Satan theory” in his studies? If not, why not?
Because it wasn’t magisterial teaching. There are still some areas even today where the Catholic Church allows differing opinions (on the precise nature of predestination, for example).
Is it not painfully clear that what we really have is not “Tradition” at all, but Roman dogmatic authority masquerading under the historical title?
It’s clear as mud!
Such is surely the case.
Such is surely not the case.
Jude 9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a reviling judgment upon him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”
Again, as in previous examples, Palm confuses the mere use of common beliefs of the day with the idea that an extra-biblical, inspired oral tradition exists that is authoritative and infallible.
Parts of it could be authoritative.
Just as Jude had no problems in referring to the story of Enoch’s prophecy in the same epistle, here too we have nothing more than what we would have today if the Bible were being written. If an apostle today were writing to believers, would he be forced to *not* make reference to popular works known to his audience?
That’s not what is going on in Jude 9. It’s a claim about an actual event involving Michael and the devil. The NT presents it as true; therefore, the tradition it came from had this truth, which was inherently authoritative because it was true.
In the same way, Mr. Palm errs in trying to substantiate Roman claims to “Tradition” on the basis of the familiarity of the Apostles with tradition (small “t”).
I don’t think he is dong that in the first place. He’s drawing a relevant analogy. Analogies are always ultimately imperfect. It’s a matter of degree.
While I was not in the room with Mr. Palm and his professor when they spoke of the NT and tradition (something made mention of earlier in Mr. Palm’s article), I truly doubt that the challenge of the professor was, “David, show me any place where the apostles showed any knowledge of extra-biblical literature, tradition, folklore, or belief.” I would imagine the professor said something like, “David, show me any place where the apostles identified extra-biblical tradition as divine, inspired, or in any way infallible.”
Again, White caricatures Palm’s argument by superimposing these charged words onto it, that Palm himself didn’t use. The word, “divine” never appears in the article, either. Palm wrote:
I believe that the passages that I cited demonstrate that the New Testament authors drew on oral Tradition as they expounded the Christian faith. This fact spells real trouble for any Christian who asserts that we must find all of our doctrine in written Scripture.
That’s the argument: not all of these alleged arguments from inspiration and infallibility, merely wishfully projected by White onto Palm’s article.
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Practical Matters: Perhaps some of my 4,600+ free online articles (the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site) or fifty-five books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them.
Or you may believe my work is worthy to support for the purpose of apologetics and evangelism in general. If so, please seriously consider a much-needed financial contribution. I’m always in need of more funds: especially monthly support. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV). 1 December 2021 was my 20th anniversary as a full-time Catholic apologist, and February 2022 marked the 25th anniversary of my blog.
Photo credit: see book and purchase information forthis book of mine.
Summary: I reply to anti-Catholic Baptist apologist James White’s weak & poorly argued critique of a 1995 article on oral tradition in the NT by Catholic apologist David Palm.
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Bp. Barron’s Word on Fire Bible (The Promised Land)
I have reviewed the previous three installments of Bishop Robert Barron’s planned seven-volume Word on Fire Bible: Volume I: The Gospels, Volume II: Acts, Letters and Revelation, and Volume III: The Pentateuch. Volume IV: The Promised Land is, like all of the others, bound in beautiful leather, with page edges of brilliant gold foil. The text utilizes the NRSV version, and is chock-full of relentlessly insightful and interesting commentary from Catholic luminaries, as well as gorgeous reproductions of great Catholic art. Word on Fire provides the following general introduction:
I was particularly interested in the commentary offered regarding the book of Joshua and the so-called “conquest of Canaan,” having devoted 26 pages to that topic in my recent book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back Up the Bible (Catholic Answers Press: 2023). Bishop Barron wrote about this in his commentary, “The Warfare of the Ban” on page 66:
Bishop Barron then summarized three “classic attempts to solve this problem”: the first was St. Irenaeus’ emphasis on the developmental or progressive nature of revelation in which God’s nature and actions are more understood over time (Joshua’s time being a relatively primitive era). The second explanation, taken by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas and many others (my own favored interpretation), sees the conquest as “a delegated exercise of the divine justice” (p. 67). I described this in my book, as follows:
I also noted that God wasn’t exercising double standards (i.e., protecting His “chosen” people and harshly judging others), since He also predicted through His prophets the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, if the Israelites were disobedient and unfaithful. This happened twice: in the sixth century BC and first century AD, with many thousands of deaths and/or subsequent enslavement.
Bishop Barron’s third interpretation (his own preferred one), derived from the Church father, Origen, who
What I discovered in approaching the book and the events in it from an archaeological perspective, is that Joshua’s “conquest’ was not, in fact, nearly as bloody and “cruel” as is usually assumed. Archaeologist Kenneth A. Kitchen, for example, observes: “The text of Joshua does not imply huge and massive fiery destructions of every site visited (only Jericho, Ai, and Hazor were burned)” (On the Reliability of the Old Testament [Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2003], 183). Archaeologist James K. Hoffmeier concurs:
The historical record shows that there was a great deal of peaceful assimilation and coexistence alongside the earlier Canaanite inhabitants, for a long time prior to the Israelite monarchy. As an analogy, the early history of England — involving Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans — is also increasingly believed to have been largely of this nature. People didn’t fight so much as they intermarried and culturally influenced each other. In other words, bolstered by this analysis, I deny much of the widely accepted premise regarding Joshua’s allegedly “bloodthirsty” and “cruel” entrance into Canaan: a scenario emphasized by those hostile to Christianity, God, and the Bible.
The great King David figures prominently in this volume. St. Augustine is cited regarding his terrible sin of deliberately causing a man to be killed in battle, so he could have his wife, Bathsheba:
Magnificent commentaries on King David abound: too many to even select another in this relatively short review; so I will merely make this statement of praise for the storehouse of treasures herein and move on.
David’s son, King Solomon was known for being exceedingly wise (see 1 Kings 3:9). An excerpt from a General Audience of Pope Francis provides an elegantly simple definition of wisdom: “Wisdom is precisely this: it is the grace of being able to see everything with the eyes of God. It is simply this: it is to see the world, to see situations, circumstances, problems, everything through God’s eyes. This is wisdom” (p. 501). But, sadly, Solomon — like King Saul — fell into serious sin later in life, and he may not have ever repented of it, as David did. His downfall is a metaphor for the perpetual human condition of sin and rebellion. Andrew Tolkmith explains, in the section, “Solomon Worshiping Idols”:
Bishop Barron follows up on these thoughts: “What is perhaps most striking, and most unnerving, about 2 Kings is the way it ends . . . [with] the utter demolition of Solomon’s kingdom and the destruction of his temple” (p. 692).
A happier story is that of Samson, another man of great faults and sins, just as in the cases of David and Solomon. But his famous end (bringing an entire house down on his enemies) was like David’s and not Solomon’s. Bishop Barron comments on him:
Incidentally, in one of my articles, I offer archaeological confirmation that there were indeed Philistine buildings during Samson’s time (the first half of the 11th century B.C.) that were wholly or mostly supported by two pillars, which could be reached by a large man with a long arm span. The Bible was historically accurate in this story, as always!
As King David and Samson foreshadowed Christ in some ways, so Ruth foreshadowed in part the Blessed Virgin Mary and was an ancestor of our Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture is filled with such foreshadowings or prototypes or “types and shadows” as they are sometimes called. Former atheist Sally Read, in her “Introduction to Ruth,” offers some illuminating insights:
Buy this Bible and this entire set! It’s wonderful and inspiring, will edify and educate you in equal measure, and make you appreciate all the more the amazing revelation that God gave to us: His infallible Sacred Scripture.
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Photo Credit: photograph taken from advertising material posted on the Word on Fire website and on Facebook.
Summary: My book review and recommendation of The Word on Fire Bible: Volume IV: The Promised Land, highlighting commentary on Joshua, David, Solomon, Samson, & Ruth.