![\"CathedralPrague\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2017\/05\/CathedralPrague.jpg\")
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St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague. Photo by \u201ckirkandmimi\u201d (9-29-16)<\/span> [Pixabay<\/a> \/ CC0 public domain<\/a>]<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n (2-11-04; some new recommended links added on 5-2-17)<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n [Derived from actual correspondence with one such person (without violating any confidences): hence the use of first-person address]<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n If you consider yourselves actually out of the Protestant position, then I will simply have to help persuade you of the Catholic one, so you can get out of this limbo. I know you are the type of person who wants to be really sure of what you believe. That\u2019s good, and I admire it. I advise folks in this position to take their time and not rush into anything. But at the same time, of course I want to help you feel totally comfortable with the Catholic outlook. If you\u2019re anything like me, you hate being uncertain and unsure. It\u2019s no fun.<\/p>\n My wife (who grew up Catholic) wasn\u2019t really \u201cagainst\u201d the Catholic Church. She came into Protestantism mainly because there was good fellowship to be had, and the local Assemblies of God<\/a> church was where \u201cthings were happening.\u201d A sad commentary . . . I\u2019m glad she did, otherwise we may never have met. I still remember the day that the lovely young girl with the \u201csad\u201d but beautiful big \u201cFrench\u201d eyes visited our singles group. She jokes about how three or four guys that night cornered her and started running down the Catholic Church and acted most rude and obnoxious, but I didn\u2019t do that at all, and showed her my fall color photographs. :-)<\/p>\n I used to be in Inter-Varsity, and I was a campus missionary in the late 80s (independently; out of my church). That all collapsed and was an abysmal \u201cfailure.\u201d I was sort of in a place where you are at: not knowing what was in the future for me. My dreams had collapsed and it made no sense. I didn\u2019t want to do anything except apologetics and evangelism. That was my calling. But here I am, 15 years later, a full-time apologist! God works in mysterious ways. If someone had told me in 1986 that I would be a Catholic apologist and author, I would have taken them straight to an insane asylum, to make sure they were committed. LOL<\/p>\n I always advise potential converts that the road to the Church is not undertaken with Protestant methods. One doesn\u2019t \u201cfigure everything out\u201d one-by-one and then make the leap. That is the Protestant method, and it is very ingrained (I know, firsthand). When you become a Catholic, at some point you simply accept the Church\u2019s authority because it is an entity far far greater than yourself. You may not understand everything, but who does, anyway?<\/span><\/p>\n What you come to see is that this is the Church and authority structure \u2014 with all its human foibles and terrible, scandalous shortcomings in practice \u2013 that was ordained by God, and how He intended it to be. The true doctrine and \u201capostolic deposit\u201d was passed down and it has been known all along. It isn\u2019t to be discovered in every generation, or \u201cre-invented\u201d like the wheel. All other knowledge works the same way (science, engineering, mathematics, musical theory, the received outlines of history, legal precedents, etc.), yet when it comes to religion, somehow people think that it is this entirely individualistic and subjective affair. It\u2019s very weird when you sit down and analyze it.<\/p>\n Oftentimes, if you ask such people what they think the Catholic Church teaches about Mary, it is clear that they don\u2019t understand it. True, millions of Catholics don\u2019t, either (the \u201cignorant\u201d are, unfortunately, always with us, just like the poor), but neither do most Protestants. One must at least know what it is they are rejecting. One major reason why I do apologetics is that I want folks to know why<\/em>\u00a0they believe what<\/em>\u00a0they believe. It builds faith and confidence, and it helps to incorporate reason into faith and theology.<\/p>\n Women approach the prospect of possible conversion in a very slow, deliberate, \u201cholistic,\u201d instinctual, more practical way, whereas men tend to be far more abstract and propositional (one might describe the difference as \u201cproblem-solving\u201d vs. \u201clife experience and spiritual truths realized on a deep instinctive and emotional level of a whole person\u201d \u2014 though my words are very inadequate to express my thoughts here). I hasten to add that I don\u2019t think one method is superior to the other: they are simply different, based on how God made us (if anything, I think the \u201cfemale way\u201d is the better of the two, if I had to choose). Kimberly Hahn\u2019s tape on Mary (which I heard in person) is one of the most incredible, moving talks I have ever heard: I think she is wonderful.<\/p>\n When I first started thinking seriously about Catholic Mariology, I approached it in a more right-brained, typically \u201cnon-male\u201d way than one might expect from me. I had been accustomed to giving Mary great honor, as the greatest woman (and indeed, created person, period) who ever lived. She was awesome to me: the very picture of womanhood and femininity.<\/p>\n When my Catholic friend started explaining to me how Mary was the \u201cNew Eve\u201d, that fascinated me and resonated in my spirit with my understanding of how God works in other ways. It didn\u2019t strike me as \u201cunbiblical\u201d or excessive or \u201ccorrupt\u201d at all. The concept is simple: Eve said \u201cno\u201d to God and Mary said \u201cyes.\u201d Eve\u2019s choice led to the Fall, and Mary\u2019s led to the Incarnation and Redemption. She represented the human race (and for once we got it right). God wanted it to be that way. Human beings had fallen based on free choice and God wanted them to be redeemed by a free choice as well (as opposed to being declared saved apart from their free will). But Mary\u2019s choice was, of course, steeped in God\u2019s grace and entirely derived and enabled by it. She wasn\u2019t doing this on her own power, as if she were intrinsically superior to all other creatures.<\/p>\n As I recall, this was the first step of my deepening Mariology. But it wasn\u2019t really that big of an issue for me. My issues were infallibility; especially papal infallibility. I thought that was the most absurd and implausible thing ever to cross the mind of man . . .<\/p>\n The very notion that you as an individual have to \u201cmake all the Catholic pieces fit into a big puzzle\u201d presupposes the Protestant idea of private judgment. You don\u2019t have to. What you have to do is become convinced that the Catholic Church is what it claims to be, and the Guardian of the Apostolic Deposit. Once you get to that point, you can accept all that it teaches as a reasonable, plausible choice, just as we do in all other fields of knowledge. The scientist accepts the laws of thermodynamics or Newton\u2019s laws of motion, etc.<\/p>\n The Catholic accepts all that the Catholic Church teaches because he believes that the Church was guided by God to be infallible in matters of faith and morals: in those things which Catholics are bound to believe as dogma. And beyond that, he believes that God desired that His theological and spiritual truth be known with a high degree of certainty: not that people have to search their entire lives to find it. Doesn\u2019t that make sense? Doesn\u2019t that sound like how God would want things to be, since Christianity has to do with the most important things in life?<\/p>\n It\u2019s really not that different from Protestantism\u2019s approach to the Bible. They believe that the Bible is inspired and inerrant because God desired it to be so, and because it is His word (thus, could not be otherwise). Men could have corrupted the Bible, but<\/em>\u00a0for God\u2019s protection of it. Sinful men wrote it (David, Paul, Peter), but that didn\u2019t stop it from being inerrant and inspired and infallible because God saw to it that it would be so.<\/p>\n And you can\u2019t figure out every \u201cproblem\u201d of biblical exegesis or hermeneutics or difficult passages. No one can. If every \u201cproblem\u201d and seeming contradiction had been resolved, then the Bible scholars would have far less to talk about, wouldn\u2019t they? There wouldn\u2019t be books like Gleason Archer\u2019s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties<\/em>. Obviously, if there were no \u201cdifficulties\u201d at all, that book wouldn\u2019t be written or needed. You may believe that all the difficulties can theoretically be resolved and that there are answers whether we find them or not (as I do), but that is different from actually resolving them and attaining certainty.<\/p>\n Yet Protestants believe the Bible is inspired and inerrant and infallible by faith, based on what they know, and existing strong evidences. They are justified in believing this, and it is rational. It is not blind faith. The Catholic attitude towards their Church is very similar: we accept in faith the notion that God wanted to have one Church represent His doctrine and truth in its fullness (not excluding many elements of truth in other Christian traditions at all). To do so, He had to specially protect it from error (just as He did with the Bible-writers).<\/p>\n The gift or charism of infallibility is a lesser one than inspiration. It is easier to believe that God simply prevented popes from teaching error and falsehood in certain circumstances (a fundamentally preventive measure) than to believe that He positively inspired the words of Bible-writers and caused them to write his very inspired (\u201cGod-breathed\u201d \u2014 theopneustos<\/em>) words. Why should one be harder to believe than the other? If one can believe the greater miracle, why not the lesser? It doesn\u2019t rest upon weak, fallible men, but upon God Almighty.<\/p>\n This is a roundabout way of saying that one comes to believe that the Church has authority to declare on doctrines and once having done so, the person accepts teachings like those on Mary which may be hard to understand. We acknowledge our own limitations and weaknesses and blind spots and biases. The inquirer into Catholicism and Catholic Mariology can also read stuff like my papers on Mary<\/a>, which are designed to show that the teachings are not at all unbiblical or anti-biblical (though often not explicitly biblical).<\/p>\n If the doctrines can be shown to be biblically plausible or at least possible, then much of the battle is won. I find that the more difficult thing to dissuade Protestants of is the more presuppositional idea that everything must be explicitly biblical, and that sola Scriptura<\/em> (Scripture as the final infallible authority-in-practice over against popes and councils) is true. That\u2019s a whole separate discussion, but suffice it to say for now that it is not at all clear in the Bible itself that this is true. If it is true, then it is a truth no more explicit in the Bible (I say, far less so) than Mariology itself. And this gets into questions of logical incoherence and circularity.<\/p>\n None of us have all the answers. At some point we must bow to authority. Every Protestant does this, just as every Catholic does: they simply give authority to different things in different ways. Another huge discussion . . . The Bible itself (even presupposing sola Scriptura<\/em>, for the sake of argument) certainly talks a lot about both authority and the Church. People differ on what exactly it teaches, but there is something there. Paul discusses tradition quite a bit. And he shows no indication that there is any doubt in his mind as to what is contained in that tradition.<\/p>\n You will have no choice but to follow your conscience, whatever the cost, if it leads you to Catholicism. The good news is that, oftentimes, Protestant friends and family are not as alarmed and offended and horrified by conversion as we think they might be. If we continue to love them and show that we are no different relationship-wise, then they accept it. It may take a little time (especially if they are anti-Catholic), but they\u2019ll come around. When I converted, my mother (a lifelong Methodist) somehow thought I would be this different person. I simply told her, \u201clook; I\u2019m the same old me. I won\u2019t be any different from the son that you have known all along. I\u2019ve just moved from one brand of Christianity to another.\u201d<\/p>\n Some people may forsake you and think you\u2019re weird or whatever. Others may refuse to talk about those issues but otherwise you will get along fine (I have a relationship like that with a very dear Protestant friend of mine, with whom I used to live and work in the 80s \u2013 it is an unspoken agreement to avoid all the controversial issues). But this is no different from what Jesus told us to expect, anyway. He said families would be divided and that discipleship was costly. If other people can\u2019t accept our choices made under God, in conscience and faith, with the use of reason and study and bathed with prayer, then in the end that is their problem. It may be difficult and painful and hurtful, for sure, but no one ever promised that following Jesus was a bed of roses.<\/p>\n But it is not as hard as you think it will be. Trust me on this. God has brought you to this place to be a witness. It will be exciting, I am convinced, and you will be happy to be able to share what you have learned, after the initial (quite understandable and justified) fears that you are going through now. You are in the place you are in because God ordained it so, as He ordains all things, in His Providence. He will give you words to speak when the time comes to share your faith and your new discoveries. And it will be some of the most spiritually-fulfilling times you have ever had. I hope I am not being presumptuous. I\u2019m trying to encourage you. Having gone through the \u201ctunnel\u201d and emerged out of it, I can see the light at the end of it, whereas you cannot right now because you are in the tunnel.<\/p>\n It is a good to want to be very sure and confident about Catholic teaching and especially the biblical rationale for them, for the sake of explaining to Protestant friends after conversion. I wholeheartedly agree with that. As with all apologetics, you shouldn\u2019t feel that you have to have a quick answer at all times. You don\u2019t. I don\u2019t. Nobody does. You can always say that you need to study so-and-so and get back to them. No one has all the answers \u2014 let alone quickly, on the spot. This is good, though, because it shows people that you are:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 1) honest;<\/p>\n 2) not proud or arrogant and claiming to know everything, but humble, with an admission of your own limitations;<\/p>\n 3) fully aware that such journeys (including your own) are not all based on reason and apologetics in the first place, but on God\u2019s grace, which often goes beyond words and quick responses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n To begin to give an answer with regard to Mariology, one way is to argue that more fully developed Mariology is not inconsistent with biblical analogies. In other words, if a Protestant is objecting to the very notions as \u201cunbiblical,\u201d then if you can show them that directly analogous notions are quite biblical, then the Mariological ones must be, too. Therefore, they are not excessive, because they flow from explicitly biblical modes of thought, at least. It\u2019s a bit subtle, but I have come to love this form of analogical argument. That comes right from Cardinal Newman: my \u201chero.\u201d In this vein, see my paper (dialogue with a fairly well-known and solid Protestant apologist, Robert Bowman, who does a lot of great work): Mary Mediatrix\u00a0and the Bible<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n The notion of Mary as a mediatrix of all graces is a very difficult one for most Protestants to even grasp, let alone accept. I think it was based on centuries of reflection by very holy and wise Christians, of what it means to be the Theotokos and Immaculate. It comes (arguably it developed from) the idea of the New Eve. We know that in Adam, all men fell. The devil caused that, but we participated as a human race in rebellion against God; we are one entity: the human race; God\u2019s creatures, so we could all fall \u201cin Adam\u201d as the Scripture says (this is explicit teaching in the Bible).<\/p>\n So when we get to the \u201cyes\u201d of Eve and the historical beginning of the redemption of the human race and Christ\u2019s work for us, we see that, again, God chose to involve a human being. He could have simply said (bypassing the Incarnation and the Cross) \u201cthis group of people are saved, and these are not\u201d \u2014 based on simply His election with no ultimate regard for human choices or based on some \u201cmiddle knowledge\u201d whereby He incorporates what He knows of how people will follow Him or not (as a function of His omniscience).<\/p>\n He could have chosen to not become a man. God could have done anything He wanted to do. But He chose to be born of a woman and to involve the human race in its own redemption, in order to \u201cundo\u201d the Fall. Once the Incarnation was God\u2019s choice, then Mary became \u201cnecessary\u201d as a human being, to make it possible. Her very body was intimately connected with God Incarnate. It is a mystery and a beautiful truth of almost unspeakable majesty and glory and wonder.<\/p>\n So God involved Mary: a human being, in that. I would argue, then, that if God could do all that: then why is it implausible that He could choose to use Mary as an intercessory vessel in His plan of redemption and cause all grace to originate from Himself (of course; by definition) but to merely flow through her? He had already involved her in the Incarnation, by means of the Annunciation. The human race was already raised to extraordinary heights by God becoming Man. So why not go one step further and give Mary this awesome responsibility of being a vessel through which all grace can flow?<\/p>\n The amazing thing is that God would use human beings like that (by extension, any of us) at all. But He chose to do so. And if Mary can be Theotokos<\/em> and if all of us can potentially be vessels of grace (like a pipe serves to bring water: having no intrinsic relation to the water and not \u201cproducing\u201d it at all), how is it implausible for her to be chosen by God to participate in His redemptive plan as an entirely secondary, not intrinsically necessary agent?<\/p>\n This is typically how God works: for example, consider procreation (note the very word). We don\u2019t create another human soul as parents. Yet without us (as secondary, contributing causes), these souls do not come into being, because we provide the genetic matter and the physical element which along with the soul makes a human being. God actually lets us participate in the \u201ccreation\u201d of a human being and an eternal soul. He wants to involve people. Catholic Mariology starts with this assumption: that Mary had a sublime place in the redemptive plan of God and was the person He wanted to use in the most extraordinary fashion. It fits with how He works in many other areas.<\/p>\n Upon reflection, then, this is seen to be not at all contrary to biblical teaching or what we know about God. It is not explicit, but there can be no prima facie<\/em> objection to it from the Bible. A sola Scriptura<\/em> position will disallow it from the outset, but if that objection can be overcome on other grounds, then it is quite worthy of belief. I would recommend reading these two papers in this order:<\/p>\n The Imitation of Mary<\/a><\/p>\n Mary Mediatrix: A Biblical and Theological Primer<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Many Protestants have a real hard time with the repetition in the Rosary, and what they see as an extreme over-emphasis on Mary, But repetition itself is not at all unbiblical. In Psalm 136, e.g., the same exact phrase is repeated for 26 straight verses. See my papers:<\/p>\n \u201cVain Repetition\u201d: Jesus Shows What it\u2019s Not<\/em><\/a> (Did Jesus Condemn All Formal and\/or Repetitious Prayers: Like the Rosary and the Mass?)<\/a><\/p>\n A Fictional Dialogue on \u201cVain Repetition,\u201d the Mass, and the Liturgy<\/a><\/p>\n One must understand the functional purpose of the repetitive prayers of the Rosary. They serve as a sort of \u201crhythm\u201d or \u201cbackground\u201d of the meditations, just as music serves as the \u201ccarrier\u201d of the lyrics, in hymns or even classical and secular music. It is a (rather ingenious) way to concentrate the mind on the spiritual things at hand: \u201cHail Mary, full of grace\u201d . . . Repetition itself is not a bad thing. Protestants often have pet phrases and things repeated over and over (\u201cpraise God,\u201d \u201challelujah,\u201d \u201cthank you Jesus,\u201d \u201cglory to God,\u201d etc.). The repetition is not implying a superiority of Mary to Jesus at all: it is simply a technique to foster the meditation: which itself is mostly centered on Jesus. And most of the Hail Mary is right in the Bible, as you know, so it is simply repeating (mostly) a Bible passage. In that sense, it is little different from Psalm 136 and many other such repetitious passages. See:<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Many Protestants feel that the form prayers of Catholics are too formulaic and dry and uttered without feeling or passion. But this is often merely an example of personal bias. I understand this because I was extremely \u201cun-liturgical\u201d as a Protestant, and couldn\u2019t relate to that at all. I was a \u201cJesus Freak\u201d who spent most of my time worshiping God in free-form, spontaneous worship services (often with rock music). I didn\u2019t like liturgy. It bored me and didn\u2019t move my spirit at all. Yet I now attend Latin Mass and absolutely love it. This form concentrates my mind and spirit on worship (along with our gorgeous German Gothic church) far more than the spontaneous worship ever did (though I continue to like that form, too: another case of \u201cboth\/and\u201d \u2014 not \u201ceither\/or\u201d). See:<\/span><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Besides, serving God is not always about \u201cfeeling.\u201d I would hope that all Christians feel things, and deeply, but sometimes we have to do stuff that we don\u2019t particularly feel. It\u2019s true that Catholic prayers (in the heart of those uttering them) can become stale and sort of \u201cdull\u201d, but that is not intrinsic to the prayers themselves, and has more to do with the internal dispositions of the person. Obviously, we could not oppose formula per se because that would take out the Bible as well. Protestant \u201cchanting\u201d of verses like John 3:16 could very well come under the same criticism. In other words, it is a general human failing, not a particularly Catholic one. See:<\/span><\/p>\nIs the Rosary \u201cVain Repetition\u201d?<\/a><\/div>\n*<\/div>\nIs the Rosary Christ-Centered?<\/a><\/div>\nInformal Worship vs. Formal Catholic Liturgy<\/a><\/div>\n*<\/div>\nBible on Wholehearted Formal Worship<\/a><\/div>\n