"I'm first a Christian, next a Catholic, then a Calvinist, fourth a Paedobaptist and fifth a Presbyterian. I cannot reverse this order."

-John Duncan. a Scottish minister

Things you are but won't admit

About once a month, I will use one of the following five terms and someone will argue that:

1. They are not that term
2. You should not be that term
3. That term may be coming between you and your personallordandsaviorjesuschrist.

Well, Christians are (or should be) all of these terms whether they like it or not:

Confessional – No, this does not mean you confess your sins to a clergyman or anyone else, though that wouldn’t hurt you either. This means the heart of Christianity involves that act of confessing the faith. Confessing means to acknowledge, own, or affirm. This did not start with Constantine oppressing the Church at Nicea but is the common practice of New Testament Christians such as

Nathanael:

John 1:49 Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"

Peter:

Matt 16:16 Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Thomas:

John 20:28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"

Creedal – creeds are the contents of what is believed. Creed comes from the latin that means to believe, and a creed merely answers what is believed. One of the most ignorant things one can say is “no creed but Christ.” This is asinine because first, that very statement is a creed – a statement of belief. And second, that statement in a non-answer. It merely tries to be clever in not answering Christ’s most important question: “Who do you say that I am?” (Luke 9:20) What is a ‘Christ’? Is that all that is necessary? Does Paul add too much to ask that “confess with your mouth that ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ” (Romans 10:9) or has Paul added too much creedalism in asking one to believe Jesus is Lord? Paul goes further in adding content to what is to be believed:

1Cor 8:6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Paul says much more than that Jesus is Christ. Who do you say that Jesus is? What you say is your belief or creed. In saying it, you are confessing a creed. Now, I don’t like to say silly things about Jesus, so I like to say those things Scripture said. So did the early church in constructing the earliest creeds like the Apostles Creed. It is a “ready answer for the hope you have”

Denominational – denominate means to give measure or to name. To call something “non-denominational” is to name something “unnamed” and give the measure of something as non-measured. You may not have a name for something, but you must at least have some confession to what you believe, unless everyone merely comes to your church to chant to themselves in non-language. The minute you have a confession, you denominate yourself. The minute you answer your denomination as nondenominational, you have denominated yourself. Again, our answer to questions of belief should clarify, not confuse in non-answers.

Liturgical – this word denotes the established order for worship. Do you usually sing songs before a sermon? There you go, that’s your liturgy. Do you have an invitation from Scripture, some hymns a prayer and a sermon? That’s a bit of a better liturgy. Are there prayers, creeds, read Scripture, a sermon and the Lord’s Supper? Now that’s a great liturgy, but a liturgy no more or less so than the others. The choice is not between liturgy and no liturgy, but what is included in the liturgy and how much thought is given to the content and purpose of it.

Sacramental – Sacraments are “means of grace.” Now you know you don’t have those! Although, Paul did comment about preaching:

Rom 10:14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

There, Paul does give preaching a status as a means by which God accomplishes salvation. So, perhaps preaching may be seen as a “means of grace” if by means of grace what is meant is a set form by which it is acknowledged that grace is figured and offered to the person who accepts by faith. There may be more tangable ways the word is offered, such as if you have an alter call that offers restitution, or a prayer prayed with heads bowed and eyes closed that offers salvation, then you have sacraments. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are preferred by some since they are ordained by God in Scripture (as a means of grace by the word – Ephesians 5:26, 1 Cor 11:26), but everyone has sacraments in the eyes of the congregation, the difference is whether they are Scriptural ones or the ones we replace them with.

So are you Confessional, Creedal, Liturgical, Denominational and Sacramental? If you are Christian you are. So, don’t disparage one who uses the terms for which all Christians actually believe, whether they know it or not.

Why I Cannot be Roman Catholic

My investigation of the Christian faith has largely been executed in an historical manner. Such a journey often leads people to switch traditions. As for myself, I found myself most comfortable in Reformed Presbyterianism. But I also see some people look past Geneva (or even Wittenburg and Canterbury) to Rome. I must admit, at one time of reading Chesterton and Peter Kreeft, Rome looked like a magical destination. Yet, the more I study Historical Theology, the less Rome appeals to me. That is partly why I did this series, not just to bash Roman Catholics, but to explain why studying history led me away from Rome and not towards it. The areas in Romanism that attracted me (tradition, authority, etc) were not best preserved there. Instead, fidelity to a faith centered on Christ, that faith of the apostles and evident in so much of the history of the work of the Holy Spirit across time, leads me to Reformation Christianity. I want to do a few posts sometime on a more positive note of “Why I am a Reformed Catholic,” or Reformation Christian, or whatever, but I want to give some of topics I’d like to cover (Imputation, Word and Sacrament, Sola Fide, etc) a little more time to simmer in my mind, and allow myself some time to do some broader reading in systematics to best craft those posts. Let me know if there is any interest in such a thing or if I am writing these blog series just for my own benefit. Here is a recap of the Roman Catholic series:

Why I cannot be a Roman Catholic:

1) I believe in the catholic faith (and Rome departed from catholic teachings)

2) I believe in Tradition (as apostolic teaching, not mere transfer of authority)

3) I believe in Merit (Christ's Merit, not man's merit)

4) I believe Mary is the Theotokos (And points to Christ, not herself for devotion)

5) I believe in Authority (of Scripture above church, councils, and popes)

Why I cannot be a Roman Catholic (Part 5): I believe in Authority

I don’t have as much time for these posts with school work piling up, but I thought I would end on a final question of Authority. The question relates to the ability of the visible church and one in authority to contradict the true faith. Can the church or tradition be placed in a position of authority?


I would like to submit that the question must be nuanced to be of any value. For if the question is merely stated as above, the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox should answer yes. There are many different ways at looking at authority in relation to Scripture, tradition and the church. I would like to briefly (probably too briefly) explore three possibilities. The Pope authoritatively determines doctrine, the Councils authoritatively determines doctrine and the "Church Fathers" determine church doctrine. My answer to the Church fathers and the councils is actually, yes they do to a large degree help determine the faith. Yet, the question is not just a determination of doctrine, but an infallible guide. The real question becomes: Can the Pope, a Council or a/the Father(s) infallibly be an authority of the Christian faith in the same way Scripture can?


The Church Fathers?


Some, mostly those new to Church History, will place the Church Fathers, (variously grouped from the Apostolic Fathers to Augustine or perhaps to Gregory the Great) in a place of authority and infallibility alongside the Bible. I think seeing Church Fathers as the deposit of infallible authority is the weakest answer. Various early church fathers, and not just Origen and Tertullian, but recognized orthodox church fathers like Gregory Nyssa, contradict each other and accepted orthodox doctrine in certain areas. If the Church Fathers are an infallible guide, do we accept Ireneaus’ premillenialism, or Augustine’s amillennialism? Do we hold to the Latin fathers who held to Christ’s presence in the Eucharist as a function of the priest’s invocation, or to the Eastern Fathers’ view of the presence as a function of the Holy Spirit? Do we hold to the partaking of the Eucharistic presence as by faith (as Augustine does) or as objective, as Thomas Aquinas does? Considering their disagreement with each other, it is not disrespectful to put them in a secondary relationship to Scripture, as the Second Helvetic Confession put it in Chapter 2: “Neither do we think that we do them any wrong in this matter; seeing that they all, with one consent, will not have their writings equated with the canonical Scriptures, but command us to prove how far they agree or disagree with them, and to accept what is in agreement and to reject what is in disagreement.”


And this is true, when writing about theology, early church theologians cited Scripture as a rule over faith. Tertullian would often base points of argument on merely stating "for the Scriptures have taught us." [Against Praxeas, ch 17] Justin Martyr called Typho the Jew to believe on the authority of "so many Scriptures [as] proved to you." Typho's criteria for belief is "the Scriptures compel me to admit." The early fathers themselves held Scripture to have authority over them.


The Church Councils?


One must first ask what is meant by elevating “councils” to authoritative status. In the early history of the church, multiple synods and councils met, some now called the “Ecumenical Councils” and some not. The Councils of Toledo where rejected as not speaking for the entire church by the East. Other councils such as Orange issued decrees that were later lost to a great part of the church. Generally, there are either Four or Seven Councils recognized by Christians. The first problem is identifying what is a genuine ecumenical council. The Council of Hieria met as an Ecumenical Council, but was later rejected by a subsequent Ecumenical Council (Second Nicaea).


If we look at the first four Ecumenical Councils, perhaps there can be more agreement there. While the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition have a position of high importance in identifying orthodox Christianity, are they on the same level as Scripture? Scripture carries the same inspiration in Genesis as in Revelation, can we say this for the first four councils? In the first council in Nicea, an anathema was affixed at the end of the creed, condemning any who say Christ is of another “hypostasis” than the Father. By Chalcedon (the four council), Christ was being describes as one in ousia with the Father, but a different hypostasis than the Father. At one point, the wording of hypostasis was anathema, at another it was catholic faith. I say this not to undermine those creeds, which are vitally important to the faith, but to place the fluidity of tradition and developing understanding in contrast to the Scriptures.


The Councils display a developing understanding and a fluidity of terminology and words. Scripture, on the other hand, lends itself to interpretation based on the particular wording, tense and phrases invariably, rather than with fluidity. Jesus based His defence of resurrection on the particular tense of a verb in Exodus. (Matt 22:23-33) Jesus also spoke of the Law being preserved in such a way in the Law that neither a “jot or tittle” would pass from it. (this incidentally, is not a philosophy of text criticism, but a statement of the precise nature of Scripture's authority to the word.) Deuteronomy stated God is one, and though the New Testament developed the three persons, it was never to the denial of the Shema (that God is one). On the other hand, Nicaea first said one hypostasis, then developing terminology and need of another term then required the church to declare three hypostasis.


Can the Pope contradict the true faith?



I would submit for your consideration the little known case of Honorius. Honorius was Pope in the early Middle Ages and publicly backed the Monothelitist heresy. The church anathematized (condemned as a heretic) Honorius in the third Council of Constantinople for his heresy. In this case, the pope in authority did not speak for the true catholic faith. In fact, this case was cited in 1870 by Roman Catholics who did not want papal infallibility to become official doctrine (yes, it was not a formal doctrine until 1870). Of course, modern Catholics can use an achronistic new category of ex cathedra to read back into the affair to say that somehow though Honorius was supporting, writing letters and encouraging people to believe such a heresy he still was not "officially wrong" because he did not say he was officially speaking from the chair of St. Peter. It is a good argument since that phrase was not used for making teaching “official” by bishops of Rome - but it was said about the bishop of Rome in the Council of Chalcedon when they praised the current bishop of defending orthodoxy at the council. This is another interesting instance where the orthodoxy of the bishop of Rome was judged by others and not his own self-declaration, but I digress. One must deal with the fact that to be true to the catholic faith during Honorius’ reign, one had to disagree with the Pope to be catholic. That is because the true catholic faith is about something other than mere human authority. But for more detail, and how this helps disprove papal infallibility, see Schaff’s treatment here.


The Authority of Scripture.


Catholic apologetics cannot allow for a fallible Pope, mostly due to their quasi-Gnostic view of Scripture. What do I mean by quasi-Gnostic view of Scripture? Catholics set up interpretation of Scripture as this impossible task, best left to the magesterium. The Papacy becomes the only way to know if an interpretation is correct. In this way, modern Catholic apolegtics sets up a faith to crumble. The idea that the teaching of the Pope was errent now has set up a situation where because the Scriptures are set up as a foreign book of codes, it no longer is able to be understood at all. Is this how the early church interpreted the Bible?


Irenaeus, when facing the question of interpretation, never appeals to a magesterium, but boldly declares, "the entire Scriptures, the prophets, and the Gospel, can be clearly, unambigiously and harmoniously understood by all..." but the important distinction between the Christian understanding and the pagan is "...all do not believe."

There are several principles the early church sets up for the interpretation of scripture, the first:

1) Believe and you will understand.
This is a trust in the authority and of God to speak through the Scriptures. Anslem said this more broadly about theology stating he does not "understand in order to believe, but believes in order to understand."


2) Christ is the key to interpretation
The Apostolic Father Ignatius wrote to a group of believers who debated if they should accept the gospel preached to them in the Gospels and the preachers, questioning how to interpret the Old Testament (which they refered to as the ‘archives‘). Ignatius replied “But for me, the archives are Jesus Christ, the unalterable archives are his cross and death and his resurrection and the faith that comes through him.” [Ignatius to the Philadelphians 8:2] The rule of faith in interpretation was to see the Scriptures through the lens of the person and work of Christ. The first creed of Christianity is "Jesus is Lord." (Rom 10:9, Phil 2:11, etc.) Such a creed is not merely bestowing a title, but the reorienting of all life to a different paradigm. This reorientation extends even to the reading of Scripture. The true interpretation of Scripture is Christotelic. But you can read more on that elsewhere…


3) Scripture does not answer all our questions
Irenaeus ends his short section on interpretation declaring that though some questions can be clearly answered from Scripture, not all can. "In regards to those things which we investigate in the Scriptures, we are able by the grace of God to explain some of them, while we must leave others in the hands of God." Scripture does not intend to explain some scientific matters like the human circulatory system or even some theological matters such as the circumstances of the fall of Satan or workings of the responsibility of man and the sovereignty of God or the reasons behind God's election of some and not others.


The writings of the church fathers inform our reading of Scripture. The creeds provide the boundries. Christ provides the key. Yet, in the end, the Scriptures are our only infallible rule for faith, of which no other has claim, be it tradition, a pope, a theologian or a council. Perhaps this is why theology remains both a science and an art. Yet, objective truth remains, as the Second Helvetic puts it:


“Who Is The Judge? Therefore, we do not admit any other judge than God himself, who proclaims by the Holy Scriptures what is true, what is false, what is to be followed, or what to be avoided. So we do assent to the judgments of spiritual men which are drawn from the Word of God.”

Quote of the Day: the church catholic

"The Catholic church is one mystical body of Christ, and all good Christians make up but one body, incorporated by one charter, that of the gospel, animated by one Spirit, the same Holy Spirit who by his gifts and graces quickens, enlivens, and governs that body. If we belong to Christ, we are all actuated by one and the same Spirit, and therefore should be one." -Matthew Henry on Ephesians 4

Why I Cannot be a Roman Catholic (Part 3): I Believe in Merit

The spark of the Reformation is undoubtedly the issue of indulgences. Indulgences, however, only point to the bigger issue of the Reformation, namely: The abandonment by the Roman Church of the catholic doctrine of the work of Christ. But two late medieval innovations must be considered before any evaluation of the Roman Church’s lack of congruence with tradition may be made: penance and merit.

Penance itself was not a new theological concept. The concept would even live on in Reformation traditions. The Eastern Orthodox believed in penance as an instrument of maintaining the seriousness of sin. The late medieval Latin church, however, described the parts and efficacy of penance in a novel way in the time of Duns Scotus. Penance now had three parts: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. One must feel guilt for their sin, confess the sin, and then make restitution for their sin.

The final stage of the Latin doctrine of penance, satisfaction, led to another novel doctrine. Satisfaction had been explored in Anselm before, and as he explained it, satisfaction rests on the basic and reasonable idea that any wrong requires an act of restitution to the wronged party. After Anselm died, later medievals began applying satisfaction to the work of penance: man was able by his own actions to merit grace from God. The best short summary of this belief was stated by theologian Gabriel Biel: “When people do their best (Quid in se est), God infallibly gives grace.” This was because, “by virtue of contrition our sins are forgiven.” [John Fisher]

The problem with this formulation of satisfaction in penance and merit lies in its novelty.

The gospel the early church found in Scripture did not look for the salvation of man in men’s own works or man’s merit but Christ. The Athanasian Creed identifies Christ as He “Who suffered for our salvation.” The Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed presents the work of Christ in suffering, dying, and rising again as all, “for us and our salvation.” The Definition of Chalcedon also presents the purpose of Christ’s incarnation as “for us men and for our salvation.” The satisfaction Anselm wrote of in “Why God Became Man,” was the satisfaction of God’s wrath accomplished by God Himself in Christ.

Some late medieval theologians tried to reconcile this contradiction with an explanation of merit as gracious receiving or a distinction between two types of merit (condign and congruent). Man’s merit was merely a lesser merit, in response to grace; a means of acquiring Christ’s “first meriting.” Obviously, Men could not merit all that was needed for salvation. One approach, mostly by the volunteerists, could be seen as a marketplace where a customer might want a product of $100 value, but only possesses $50, or even less, perhaps $10. The merchant graciously sets the condition so that he may give a product worth $100 for the $10 on his voluntary decree beforehand (in actu secundo). [and Protestants are accused of legal fiction!] Others (the more sacramentalist leaning) employed different models, instead putting the customer in need of extra merit so to his own merit would be added what the Church was able to distribute from the “treasury of merits” that Christ and the saints had left over from their good deeds. Men could then merit Christ’s merit. Satisfaction was worked out in an imparted grace in man, where he perfected the grace given him in good works.

Yet, even these were pitiful attempts to harmonize these innovations with tradition and Scripture, because both Scripture and the testimony of the church was to the gospel through the merit of Christ. This is the merit I believe in, Christ's merit won on my behalf. I can do no other from the testimony of Scripture where men’s “wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 6:23) I can do nothing else from tradition where Augustine, commenting on Romans 6:23 wrote, “[Paul] preferred to say ‘the gift of God is eternal life,’ in order that we might understand that God leads us to eternal life for His mercy’s sake, not for the sake of our merits.”

The formulation of penance made by some late medievals violates the catholic faith. Athanasius in On the Incarnation stated: “But [mere] repentance would, firstly, fail to guard the just claim of God.”[sec 7]

No act of repentance or penance by itself can answer God’s demand for justice in man's violation of His infinitely great law. Athanasius argues man was the offender, but man was incapable of atoning for his own sins. God was the only party that had the ability, but was not man in order to make atonement. Thus, God must become man to be our substitute:

“It belonged to none other to bring man back from the corruption which had begun, than the Word of God [Jesus].” [sec 10] “The common savior of all has died on our behalf, we, the faithful in Christ, no longer die the death as before.” [sec 21]

True merit is found only in the passion of Christ, not in the works wrought by people. The true strange work of salvation is not accomplished in reconciling God to man inside man, but “alien” to man (Isaiah 28:21) Righteousness is not found coming from man, but “the Lord is our righteousness” (Jer 23:6)

There could hardly be stronger words in Scripture for the uselessness of our deeds before God. We have nothing of value to exchange, indeed what we have is of anti-value. Our reading of Isaiah 64:6 is sanitized in our translations because we do not want to offend people at church. But when our righteousness is called “filthy rags” the translation is inaccurate. The proper meaning of the words translated “filthy rags” is actually “soiled menstrual rags.” There are few ways to more emphatically stress the anti-value of works than calling them bloody tampons. They have no value and are negative in value. If you try to sell them, people may pay you to get the menstrual rags away from them, but not give them a positive value higher than their already positive value. Any talk of our relative merit is mere sophistry. As Paul tells us:

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. (Rom 4:2-4)

That is why Paul said, God is the “one--who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.” The gospel tells us “It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Rom 4:24-25)

The work of Christ is the ground of justification, not works or merit. Christ is the satisfaction and propitiation of God’s wrath, not our dirty menstrual rags, for as much as we think our filth is worthy, God does not want to touch them, and cannot be near our most holy deeds for they are all tainted with the stench of sin. As Clement of Rome so aptly put it, we “are not justified by…works which we have wrought in holiness of heart.” The catholic faith is in the God who justifies the ungodly, who Himself must merit our salvation if we are to have any hope of salvation. I hope all who read will realize that there is no other refuge except when “your faith and hope are in God.” (1 Pet 1:21)

Why I Cannot be a Roman Catholic (Part 2): I believe in Tradition.

In Galatians 2:11-14, Paul recounts how Peter acted hypocritically, denying the gospel in his works, eating according to the Law with the circumcision party. The circumcision party believed membership in the community required subscription to the Jewish law. Paul rebuked Peter to his face, in front of everyone, for his deeds which proclaimed a false doctrine (2:14).

I began to wonder, what would have happened if Peter told Paul to take a flying leap? What if Peter excommunicated Paul? Who the heck was Paul, a murderer and by his own admission the least of the apostles (1 Cor 15:9), who wasn’t even around when Christ gave to Peter (Matt 16:19) and the other apostles (Matt 18:18) the right to bind and loosen. How dare Paul?!

Paul, one of lesser authority rebuked one of higher authority over the importance of the purity of the gospel. But what if Peter commanded Paul to recant? Paul was disrespecting the dignity of Peter’s office and causing disrepute to Peter’s ministry and the appointment of Christ.

Question: What happens when apostolic authority is challenged by apostolic doctrine? Biblically, apostolic doctrine trumped apostolic authority.

Actually, the question can be asked differently now, for we do not have divinely appointed apostles in the same manner today. The question today focuses on the nature of apostolic tradition. Roman Catholicism when confronted with a man calling for repentance played their card of apostolic authority. Martin Luther was not to question the authority of the church, for this was the nature of apostolic tradition according to the Pope: the transfer of authority.

What is Apostolic Tradition?
The difference between Roman Catholics and Protestants is NOT the acceptance of tradition by Catholics and the rejection of tradition by Protestants. For Scripture itself speaks to tradition, sometimes negatively, but the tradition of the apostles is always positive such as in 1 Corinthians 11:2:

Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.

Biblical Christianity requires “maintaining the traditions.” So what is the primary nature of apostolic tradition? Our answer is clear in 2 Thessalonians 2:15:

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

The church is commanded to hold firm in the traditions “taught.” Tradition is primarily the content of faith, not the transfer of authority over what is taught. That is tradition’s own self-understanding as well. It is in 2 Thess 2:15, and in early church history. Why else would the Athanasian creed say salvation was based on the catholic faith, which was the doctrine of Christ’s assumption of human flesh for the accomplishment of salvation (with no mention of authority of the Pope)? The Athanasian creed defines the catholic faith as doctrine, not authority. Irenaeus defended his doctrine because his teacher was Polycarp, and Polycarp’s teacher was the Apostle John. Irenaeus had tradition on his side, a tradition of a taught doctrine of catholic faith.

Galatians 2:11-14 presents a vivid picture of what happens when apostolic authority clashes with apostolic teaching; the apostolic faith takes precedence over all authority. Obedience to apostolic tradition means defense even against those higher in authority who contradict the gospel, be they a priest, a Bishop or even the chief of the apostles Mr first Pope himself Peter. Paul even includes himself, an apostle of authority, as under the standard of measurement, in the same book, in 1:8:

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”

The Protestant case is that of, as Jaroslav Pelikan put it, “obedient rebels.” The Reformation is a question of “catholic substance and protestant principle.” The obedience of the Reformers was to the catholic faith in rebelling against the claim of apostolic authority to invalidate a call to repentance. Peter denied the gospel in deed and then repented. Rome denied the gospel in deed, then invented (or solidified the teaching of) another doctrine of the gospel to validate its deeds. Remember, Luther did not seek to found a new church, he sought repentance - he got excommunication when he refused to recant his call to repentance. To say Luther was unconcerned about the church or unity would be like saying John the Baptist had his beheading coming to him for not respecting Herod or the Pharisees. The gospel defines the church, the church does not define the gospel. The first Reformation confession, the Augsburg confession, claimed to teach nothing new, that "the Sum of our Doctrine, in which, as can be seen, there is nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church catholic" and is but the catholic faith so very old, - the gospel of Christ and Paul explained so well by Augustine and the fathers. That is, it taught the Reformation faith - the catholic faith.

So was that truly the case with Luther against the Leo X? I submit that it was, but more on that in Part 3.

Until then, enjoy:

Why I Cannot be a Roman Catholic (Part 1): I believe in the catholic faith

I have engaged many Roman Catholics when discussing religion, either online or in person. I enjoy engaging Catholics on common beliefs, and even on controversial issues. When I state my belief that tradition is important (even authoritative), that the church has authority in matters of discipline and that the canon of the New Testament is based (at least partially) on the testimony of the church - Roman Catholics usually want a sinner’s prayer conversion to Catholicism right there.

I feel I should first state that several pre-Trentine Catholics have been instrumental in my theological and spiritual development (such as Thomas Aquinas and Anselm of Canterbury). I have even appreciated some post-Trentine Catholics like Francis Thompson, Peter Kreeft, Richard John Neuhaus, Henri Nouwen, G.K. Chesterton, and James V. Schall.

But I am not Roman Catholic. I cannot be. Paradoxically, my inability to be Catholic depends on my inability to recant the catholic faith. I thought I would take a few posts over the next few days and explain what this means in a few important areas. I believe I have sufficiently posted on my own beliefs to warrant a critique of another tradition, without the charge that the project or my entire intention in blogging is merely negative.

But the task seems negative. In fact, to a degree it is and must be. In being a Protestant, it is a question one must ask: What am I protesting? By living in western civilization, one must at one time or another ask “Why am I not ‘Catholic’?” After all, Christianity is not a cafeteria where you get to choose those teachings which are to be authoritative and which are not. The catholic faith deserves submission.

This series also does not mean to imply that all Catholics are hell-bound. It does, however, imply and explicitly state (at least here) that the Roman Catholic church is not the external manifestation of the true Church. There are doctrines in the Roman Catholic church which I will not attack, for they are either correct or at a minimum not contrary to the Bible such as the honor of the saints, exercise of church discipline, paedobaptism, confession to a priest, doing penance, or exclusivity of salvation in the church, for though I may have critiques on their exercise and exclusivity in the Latin Church, they are not apostate beliefs.

Being Protestant means I protest certain things in the teachings of the church claiming catholicity. The Roman claim to catholicity is just as offensive to Protestants as my criticism of Rome’s demerits are to Catholics. So be it.

[Please note my use of ‘Catholic’ refers to Roman Catholics and ‘catholic’ refers to universal. As a Protestant, I hold that the two are NOT interchangeable. That is why Reformation Christians refer to Catholics sometimes as Papists or Romish, because they are not catholic in the truest sense of the word. But all that in due time…]

The catholicity of the Reformation

The more I read about the Reformation, the more I am interested in what I would call the second-generation Reformed ecumenism. The Reformed and Lutheran camps were at odds in the first generation between Zwingli and Luther, but second generation reformers John Calvin, Phillip Melancthon, Thomas Cranmer, Martin Bucer and Bullinger all made moves towards uniting the Reformed, Lutheran and Anglican streams in one Reformation confession. Often the starting point was the Augsburg Confession, especially as explained by Melancthon. Tragically, the more ardent Lutherans rejected Melancthon's efforts as compromise and liberalism, the Church of England went from the golden age of Protestantism under Edward VI to the brutal rule of Catholic Bloody Mary in which Cranmer was burned at the stake, and so reconciliation was thwarted, despite its Biblical mandate.

I recently encountered an interesting article online I thought I would recommend. It is not a published article, but most of the article consists of cited quotations of documents and correspondence. It highlights the efforts of John Calvin towards unity, but this was not at the expense of purity, as the author concludes:

"For Calvin the fundamental criterion for unity was pure doctrine."

Walking the Tightrope: The Perils of Studying Theology

While studying theology, I’ve noticed two distinct categories of attitudes towards theology.

1) Theological Apathy

The first attitude is one of theological apathy. This attitude is typified in a comment I have heard more than once: “I don’t see why I need to read all this junk, I just want to tell people about Jesus.” This attitude tends to occur during an experiential period where the student just “feels” they know what’s right and they do not need new vocabulary or other people’s thoughts to figure out what exactly they mean by the Christianese they speak. (“How’s your walk?” – “Um, nice, it’s temperate outside so it’s umm…pleasant.”)

2) The Theological Militancy

The second attitude is what I would like to call theological militancy. This attitude enjoys employing the “h-word” a lot. (heresy) This attitude is typified in the general denunciation of everyone else – the theologically apathetic certainly, but in particular those with a different theological militancy. If the other group is not pre-mill, pre-trib; well, the obviously don’t know Jesus. Or, if the other group does not baptize babies, or does baptize babies, they are not worthy of the term church. Or if they do not share our eschatological chart, or soteriological chart to the letter, then obviously they are heretics, not Bible-believers and not Christian.

Getting Along?

Now, I don’t just share these observed attitudes of what everybody else does, but what I frequently do depending on the moment. Usually when around the theologically militant, I become apathetic: “Am I pre-millenial? No, I’m pan-millenial, it will all pan out.” Then around the theologically apathetic I turn militant: “You just want to talk about Jesus? What do you mean by Jesus? He’s a man, huh, why should I listen to him? He’s God? How does that work? Wait, stop using theological talk…”

The problem is not new. In teaching a mid-week class with my friend Jay Bennett, he posited a model for religion that had on one end emotion and on the other intellectual orthodoxy. Much of the history of the Church has been a swinging back and forth between those who see religion as an experiential reality, and those that see it as an affirmation of certain intellectual truths. Those on the emotional side err by sliding into emotionalism or enthusiasm and becoming feelings-oriented in our search for true religion. The other side errs in becoming a form of dead orthodox, an affirmation of certain truths without a sense of emotion or joy about it. True religion is both of the emotions, and of intellectual truths.
Yet, another factor comes into play. Both Dead Orthodoxy and Enthusiasm become Schismatic – The dead orthodox attack the enthusiasts and other dead orthodox that hold the wrong beliefs. The enthusiasts attack the cold doctrines of the other group or other enthusiasts who have the “wrong emotions” at the wrong times. What is missing is a sense of catholicity. What is missing is the knowledge that Christians must have an emotional reaction and certain doctrines they confess without anathematizing the other side as agents of Satan. This is especially true when we assume the role of the theologically militant. The theologically militant can have a lot of emotion with their doctrine, yet this is not displaying true religion as it is damaging when it is directed against fellow Christians that may truly just have a difference of opinion. True religion will be able to have a difference over non-essentials -still holding them with conviction- yet accepting the other person as a Christian and treating them with loving respect. Of course, that takes a lot of humilty - much more humilty than anyone can muster without help...

How can God be one, AND more than one?

This post is an outline for the material I taught a few weeks ago in a "mid-week" class I am team-teaching with Jay Bennett, a pastoral intern at my church (PCPC).


God is One

We see in Scripture that the most fundamental confession of Israel in the Old Testament is "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." (Deut 6:4) The language and confession is repeated as the most basic declaration of faith in 1Kings 8:60 and Isa 45:5-6 .


Then, in the New Testament, we see three names, that seem to be distinct, called God.
1) God the Father such as in 1 Cor 1:3
2) Jesus (also called the Son or Word) in places such as John 20:28, or John 1:1-14
3) The Holy Spirit in places such as Acts 5:3-4


How is it then, that God is one, and these three are God? The Early Church stuggled with this question, with many answers being posited by men such as Arius, Apollonarius, Sabellius and Athanasius. How do we speak of these three? How do we speak of this one?

MODALISM

The first answer we will look at is the one given by a man named Sabellius. His answer was simple, logical and seemingly true to the Biblical witness. It goes like this:

God is one
The Father is God
The Son is God
Because the Father is the Son



Sabellius would even start calling this Person of God the "Sonfather." It sees one God, with different modes or manifestations. in fact, if we read John 10:30, where Jesus declares "I and the Father are one" this explanation seems to have biblical support. Modalism appealed to some in the Early Church because:

– Preserves equal worth of Son and Father
– Maintains the Fully Deity of the Son

If we are searching for model for this explanation, we may think of water (and in fact, we may shutter to think this may have been how God was explained to us). You see, the Modalist will say, Water can be solid, liquid or gas manifesting itself as an ice cube, a glass of water or steam. Yet, it is all the same water.

Tertullian voiced many of the objections of the other leaders in the church to this teaching, because while Modalism helped explain some things, it also:

– Denies distinction of Father and Son
– Denies the distinct Personhood of Son

The explanation is too simple. If the Son and Father are the same, why does the Son who was on earth, teach us to pray to the Father who is in heaven? Why does the Son pray to the Father in the Garden? How is it that the Son and Father have different roles and actions (John 5:22) if they are the same person?

No, the church could not accept the denial of the division between Son and Father. Other means must be solicited.

ARIANISM

Arius was a superb Biblical scholar. He used the technique taught in seminaries across the world: Let the New Testament aid in interpreting the Old Testament. Like a good evangelical, Arius placed his trust in his hermenutic. Finding that Paul had called Christ "the wisdom of God" in the New Testament, Arius knew he had been given the key to understanding the passage about wisdom in the Old Testament in Proverbs 8:12, 22. Here, wisdom personified declares: "The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works." This translation is based on the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and while the Hebrew has a meaning closer to "possessed me at the beginning of your works" still this translation persists today in the NIV and NET as alternative readings. Arius also pointed to the very word "begat" as proof that the Son was distinct, but a created being, divine and the greatest of God's creation, but not God.

Apolloniarius also had a theory of "Son as lesser being" teaching that Jesus was "adopted" at his baptism, when the Holy Spirit decended, as God's vehicle, Jesus then was a man who became God or divine. Yet, still not God as the Father is God.

What does it mean that the Son is Deity?

This is a difficult question, especially when facing the language of "begotten." Our favorite verse in America is John 3:16, containing the very word "begotten." Does this word mean? Very early in the history of the Church was the church father Irenaus. The apostle John had as a disciple Polycarp and Polycarp trained Irenaeus in the teaching of John. Irenaeus, even before Arius, taught what John meant by this word as communicating:

“The Father is God, and the Son is God, for whatever is begotten of God is God.”

If a human begets a son, it is human? Does it share the qualities that make the father human? Then if God begets a Son, then the Son is God in the same shared qualities of Deity. One of these qualities is Eternality. The Son himslef makes this claim as to himself in John 8:58. So also to say the Son is begotten of the Father and shares Eternality is to say there is no time in which the Son did not exist. There was never a time when the Son "was not." For the Son is I AM.

This understanding informs the Creed believed by the Church from 325AD to the present: The Nicean Creed in which it is confessed:

"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made."

The bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, continued this argument after the Council issued this creed. Athanasius tried to answer: Why is this even important? Athanasius related this back to our salvation. For:

– Man has debt
– Man has no means to pay this debt
– God has means to pay debt
– God has no debt to pay
– Must be paid by a God-man

The denial of the full deity or full humanity of Christ, leaves us dead in our sins and without hope for salvation.

HOW DO WE SPEAK OF GOD?

Can we have a model for God? Can we speak of him as exactly like a Father and Son? Can we speak of Him as water? Augustine wrestled with the same problem and asked this rhetorically:

How can we find a model in nature for a God outside of nature (supernatural)?

The answer: We cannot. Yet, we also long to understand the one-ness and three-ness of God. To this end, we have this model from Augustine:



On the one-ness of God, the Early Church tried to answer when Jesus said "I and the Father are one," Jesus is saying they are one...what?

The word they settled on was "Ousia." This is translated as Substance or Essence. This is defined as Traits of Deity that are shared by Father, Son and Spirit, such as
• Eternality
• Power
• Worth

As for the "Three-ness" of God, the word commonly used was that God is three in hypostasis. This is commonly translated as "Person." Basil simply defined hypostasis as “That which is spoken of distinctly." So:

Ousia - the common traits of God
Hypostasis - that which is spoken of distinctly

Another way to think of it is:

Ousia = What
Hypostasis = Who


We can see this simply defined in the Westminster Confession of our Church:

"In the unity of the Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and
eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of
none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the
Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. "

And even more importantly in the Nicean Creed, the creed of our common Christianity, confessed by Reformed, Lutherans, Methodists, Anglicans, confessional Baptists, Catholics and Orthodox everywhere:


We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son.] With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
If you are interested in more on this, my highest recommendation is for T.F. Torrence's "The Trinitarian Faith."



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