Nov
21
2009
More on Evangelicals and Catholics
Note: links are fixed now
Doug Phillips (not the one from Vision Forum) has a great interview with Chris Castaldo. Chris, as you may remember, has a new book Holy Ground: Walking With Jesus as a Former Catholic. I blogged about the book here.
Doug asks Chris two questions.
1. How do people like Francis Beckwith, who seem to affirm the compatibility of at least the core of Protestant/evangelical belief with Catholic teaching, view matters like Catholic beliefs regarding Mary (immaculate conception, assumption into heaven, etc.)?
2. In light of the Decrees of Trent, wouldn’t we still have to say that official Catholic doctrine on the matter of justification rises to the level of error so serious that it amounts to ‘another gospel’ – thus warranting an apostolic anathema (Gal.1:6-9)?
I benefited from Chris’ responses, though I’m still trying to figure out how Pope Benedict doesn’t have to understand justification in the light of Trent. I’m not saying Chris is wrong, I just don’t quite get how a binding decree doesn’t have to be binding.
I commend Chris’s book, Doug’s interview, and Doug’s blog By Every Word. Both Chris and Doug are solid pastors, good thinkers, and friends of mine.
13 Comments
Interesting blog. Unfortunately, your links to the “interview” are broken. Thanks for the thoughtful review.
Here’s the corrected web address for the interview:
http://secondtimothy215.blogspot.com/2009/11/chris-castaldos-book-holy-ground.html
Great question Kevin. I think Tony Lane provides helpful groundwork for understanding the reason when he writes, “The canons [of Trent] were deliberately not addressed against specific people and the statements condemned were derived from second- or third-hand compilations of the statements of the Reformers, taken especially from the earlier years of the Reformation and not seen in their original context” (Anthony Lane. Justification by Faith in Catholic-Protestant Dialogue: An Evangelical Assessment, pp. 104-105). Thus, unlike Alexander V’s papal bull against Wycliffism in 1409 or Leo X’s Exsurge Domine against Luther in 1520, Trent’s Canons were aiming into a mist of hearsay (not to be confused with the word heresy). Moving forward in history, even to the present, Catholic theologians have said, in effect, that because the bishops of Trent didn’t accurately understand Reformation teaching, the object of their canons were different from what truly was or is Reformed theology. Accordingly, the preamble of the Joint Declaration, an official ecumenical document endorsed by the Vatican in 1999 with the Lutheran World Federation, says in paragraph seven, “…this declaration is shaped by the conviction that in their respective histories our churches have come to new insights.” The “new insights” about which the Declaration speaks is the realization of Trent’s misguided critique of Reformed doctrines such as justification by faith alone. This, it seems, is the view that guides the understanding of Catholic theologians like Pope Benedict.
That’s really helpful. Thanks Chris.
I think Chris is spot on, though I would add that in a weird way Trent’s decrees, by inadvertently addressing perversions of even the Reformers, has done a service for both Protestants and Catholics by allowing for greater opportunity for unity. I’d say it was the Holy Spirit.
…and yet, when I read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and its section on “Justification” I simply cannot see how this can be portrayed as essentially compatible with the Protestant-evangelical understanding of this crucial doctrine.
Compare http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s1c3a2.htm#I with just one section of a recent evangelical declaration regarding the Gospel:
12. We affirm that the doctrine of the imputation (reckoning or counting) both of our sins to Christ and of his righteousness to us, whereby our sins are fully forgiven and we are fully accepted, is essential to the biblical Gospel (2 Cor. 5:19-21).
We deny that we are justified by the righteousness of Christ infused into us or by any righteousness that is thought to inhere within us.
13. We affirm that the righteousness of Christ by which we are justified is properly his own, which he achieved apart from us, in and by his perfect obedience. This righteousness is counted, reckoned, or imputed to us by the forensic (that is, legal) declaration of God, as the sole ground of our justification.
We deny that any works we perform at any stage of our existence add to the merit of Christ or earn for us any merit that contributes in any way to the ground of our justification (Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5).
14. We affirm that, while all believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and are in the process of being made holy and conformed to the image of Christ, those consequences of justification are not its ground. God declares us just, remits our sins, and adopts us as his children, by his grace alone, and through faith alone, because of Christ alone, while we are still sinners (Rom. 4:5).
We deny that believers must be inherently righteous by virtue of their cooperation with God’s life-transforming grace before God will declare them justified in Christ. We are justified while we are still sinners.
http://www.ligonier.org/thegospel_affirmations.php
Discussions like this one often leave some important assumptions unspoken. Is baptism being considered a work? Is justification in its entirety in view, or are we only discussing what some people call initial justification?
If a Catholic believes that people are normally justified through baptism, and that they then maintain or increase their justification through works after that baptism, then I consider that a false gospel. I see no reason to classify baptism as something other than a work. And if you maintain or increase your justification through works just after being baptized, what’s the significance of saying that justification was apart from works initially, for a brief moment? If the normative means of justification in Catholicism (the Catholic Church allows for some exceptions) begins with the work of baptism and involves other works thereafter, then in what sense is there faith alone in the Catholic system? In Catholicism, what we see in Genesis 15:6 is an exception to the rule, such as among those who die with faith prior to baptism. In Biblical soteriology, on the other hand, Genesis 15:6 represents the normative means of justification.
Some Protestants agree with the errors of Catholicism that I’ve referred to above. They would place justification at the time of baptism, for example. And I would apply the same standards to them that I apply to Catholicism. But I suspect that most of the readers of Kevin DeYoung’s blog are Evangelicals, and I suspect that most of those Evangelicals don’t define faith alone as that term would have to be defined by any mainstream Catholic who would use that terminology. If Pope Benedict XVI’s concept of faith alone involves receiving justification through baptism and maintaining and increasing justification through other works thereafter, then his concept of faith alone is radically different than that of most Evangelicals.
Kevin et al,
I have found that the book “Nothing in My Hand I Bring: Understanding the Differences Between Roman Catholic and Protestant Beliefs” by Ray Galea (Matthias Media) to be very helpful. Ray Galea, an evangelical Anglican pastor in Australia, had a good experience in the Catholic church as a child, but he is not afraid to speak the truth when comparing Catholic theology with the Scriptures.
Here is a sample chapter of “Nothing in My Hand I Bring”:
http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/mmstore/nimh.html
Thanks Nick. Ray Galea’s book is terrific, one of my favorites along with Geisler and MacKenzie’s Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences. Richest blessings! Chris
When Protestants read Trent there are many items we cannot agree with. Our positions are anathematized.
I don’t see any way to compromise.
I don’t think any of us are arguing on behalf of the Catholic view, certainly not I. The initial question to which we were responding was how the Catholic Church could retract its canons against faith alone, which it did in the Joint Declaration and elsewhere.
To the previous comment on this string, obviously, a Protestant who agrees with Trent’s canons has ceased to be a Protestant. As I state in my answer to Doug’s second question, “Given the binding nature of Trent’s decrees, evangelical Protestants remain in the crosshairs of the Catholic Church’s anathematizing canons. To the extent that Catholics operate according to this Tridentine framework (i.e., defining their position over and against justification by faith alone), they appear to be skating on the same thin ice as Paul’s Galatian interlocutors and in imminent danger of falling into the frigid water of ‘another gospel.’”
Further still, I emphasize the importance of sharing the gospel with Catholic friends and loved ones, even as I write in today’s blog post: “I think most of all we can help Catholics to understand the Gospel—the message of divine grace in Jesus’ death and resurrection accessed through faith apart from one’s meritorious behavior. This may sound terribly condescending and perhaps even anti-Catholic, but, to a large extent, it is the reality of the situation. Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft describes the problem:
“There are still many who do not know the data, the gospel. Most of my Catholic students at Boston College have never heard it. They do not even know how to get to heaven. When I ask them what they would say to God if they died tonight and God asked them why he should take them into heaven, nine out of ten do not even mention Jesus Christ. Most of them say they have been good or kind or sincere or did their best. So I seriously doubt God will undo the Reformation until he sees to it that Luther’s reminder of Paul’s gospel has been heard throughout the church” (Peter Kreeft. “Ecumenical Jihad.” Reclaiming The Great Tradition. Ed. James S. Cutsinger. [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1997]. 27).
This is the concern of Holy Ground—that the grace of God in salvation remains central. When talking with Catholics, there are myriads of potential rabbit trails. We may enter into a conversation to talk about how Jesus provides life with meaning and suddenly find ourselves enmeshed in a debate about the apocrypha or Humanae Vitae. Sometimes it’s right to broach these subjects, but too often we do so at the expense of the gospel. This is tragic. What does it profit a person if he explicates a host of theological conundrums without focusing attention upon the death and resurrection of Jesus? In all of our discussion with Catholics we must consider, celebrate, and bear witness to the splendor and majesty of our Savior, the one who died, rose, and now lives.”
“I don’t think any of us are arguing on behalf of the Catholic view, certainly not I.”
Somehow I doubt that Dr. Beckwith is commenting against the Catholic view. But if no one else will hold forth for the Catholic teaching on the matter, I certainly will.
It is simply nonsense to say that the Catholic Church has retracted the canons of Trent. As Doug Phillips has noted, Trent’s footprint is all over the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and is directly quoted in the section on grace justification, and merit. And it is silly to say that the Holy Father does not himself understand justification in light of the teachings of Trent. This is mere wishful thinking, as is the thinking that Trent somehow was not refuting actual Protestant teachings at the time. It certainly was, as Luther’s own statements reveal. Likewise it is nonsense to place Trent in opposition to St. Paul and the rest of the Sacred Scriptures. Good works matter—Jesus said so, and St. Paul affirms it. As the CCC points out, with Trent, works have no role in man’s initial justification. But they do play a role in his final salvation. For the Christian, faith and works are of a piece. Or as St. James said, faith without works is dead. Indeed, Peter Kreeft, whom Chris Castaldo quotes in his favor, affirms the same in his excellent book Catholic Christianity.
As for the Joint Declaration, that is a statement that came from a dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans, and hopefully helped both sides to come to a clearer understanding of one another. But it certainly cannot be placed on the same level of magisterial authority as the documents coming from an Ecumenical Council. Christopher J. Malloy has written a thorough critique of the Joint Declaration (http://www.amazon.com/Engrafted-into-Christ-Declaration-University/dp/0820474088/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259085168&sr=8-15). Not to mention the fact that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith itself issued a response in 1998, saying, among other things:
“The major difficulties preventing an affirmation of total consensus between the parties on the theme of justification arise in paragraph 4.4 The Justified as Sinner (nn. 28-30). Even taking into account the differences, legitimate in themselves, that come from different theological approaches to the content of faith, from a Catholic point of view the title is already a cause of perplexity. According, indeed, to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, in baptism everything that is really sin is taken away, and so, in those who are born anew there is nothing that is hateful to God.3 It follows that the concupiscence that remains in the baptized is not, properly speaking, sin. For Catholics, therefore, the formula “at the same time righteous and sinner”, as it is explained at the beginning of n. 29 (”Believers are totally righteous, in that God forgives their sins through Word and Sacrament…. Looking at themselves … however, they recognize that they remain also totally sinners. Sin still lives in them …”), is not acceptable. This statement does not, in fact, seem compatible with the renewal and sanctification of the interior man of which the Council of Trent speaks.4 The expression “opposition to God” (Gottwidrigkeit) that is used in nn. 28-30 is understood differently by Lutherans and by Catholics, and so becomes, in fact, equivocal. In this same sense, there can be ambiguity for a Catholic in the sentence of n. 22, “… God no longer imputes to them their sin and through the Holy Spirit effects in them an active love”, because man’s interior transformation is not clearly seen. So, for all these reasons, it remains difficult to see how, in the current state of the presentation given in the Joint Declaration, we can say that this doctrine on “simul iustus et peccator” is not touched by the anathemas of the Tridentine decree on original sin and justification.”
The 1999 version of the Joint Declaration still contains the wording in question. So there is much still to be discussed, but it will not do to paper over these differences. One thing we can be assured of: the Catholic Church will not alter her teaching.
Finally, it is amusing to see the comment about evangelicals being “in the crosshairs of the Catholic Church’s anathematizing canons.” Is it not the case that Catholics have been in the crosshairs of the evangelicals anathematizing canons ever since the Protestant movement of the 16th century? Only rarely do I meet a Catholic these days that denies that Protestants are Christians, yet I still run into many evangelicals who doubt or deny that Catholics—and especially Catholics faithful to the Church—can be Christians at all. What’s sauce for the goose….