Grace and Growth

This post is in response to my friend John Shelley's original blog post which can be found here.

Whenever I get the opportunity to talk with an old friend about my impending conversion to Roman Catholicism, the old friend inevitably will have a major problem with only one or two minor aspects of the faith. I and my wife both have been amazed at the apparent lack of real issues our Protestant pals will want to discuss. Lots of them have problems with Mary, or with praying to saints, or with statues. One person I talked to actually said she mistrusted Catholics because "they're always doin' stuff with their hands when they pass cemeteries or churches".

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I initially had an issue with these bug-a-boos as well during my burgeoning Catholic days of 2006 (yes, it's been a long ride). Having since dealt with them, I now face a bigger mountain to climb; the Catholic teaching on Grace, Justification, and Sanctification. This is the doctrine that keeps me up at night - the doctrine that makes me suspicious of the rosary on my bookshelf. And, truthfully, this is the doctrine that could topple my Romish ambitions.

John has succinctly explained the traditional Protestant approach to this doctrine at the aforementioned blog. The concept is simple, yet far-reaching: those who rest their salvific hopes on Christ, through faith, are instantiated with a saving grace sufficient to eternal salvation. Any good or evil deeds that a person commits after this "moment" - a tricky word depending on where you fall in the free-will/determinist argument - is not viewed as inconsequential, rather as supplemental to that initial grace. In other words, Justification and Sanctification are unique events in the Christian's life, the latter being the consequence and not the catalyst of the former.

It is this last bit (the separation of the 2 doctrines) where the Catholic distinction begins. The Church teaches, in contrast to the Protestant reformers, that there is no actual difference between "saving grace" and "sanctifying grace". When a man is Justified, his soul is actually cleansed. Therefore, Justification is not viewed in a strictly legal sense, rather a person becomes eligible for Heaven because he has actually been purified of his sins. This idea, of course, is anathema to reformed theology: the idea of "once saved, always saved" seems to go hand-in-hand with "once-a-sinner, always-a-sinner".

Now, that's not to say that Catholics never sin; instead the teaching is that dirty souls need to be re-cleansed. Hence confession, penance, and indulgences (topics for another day). The Church does teach, however, that a man may sin so grievously as to have all justification removed from his soul. Can he then be re-graced? Yes, but that falls under another, yet related, topic.

While I understand and appreciate the various Biblical texts that seem to support the Protestant rendition of Justification, I now have trouble seeing anything but the Catholic version when I read the Bible. Even the best proof-texts which come from the book of Romans don't bear out the "legal" view of Justification because I now understand that all of Romans 1 - 11 are building up to Romans 12, which is a diatribe on proper Christian living. Why would Saint Paul write so complex a document as his letter to the Romans just to build up to the climax of "how to live as a Christian" if his intent was to showcase an imputative grace that was not effectual to actually change a soul? He wouldn't, and he didn't. Even a cursory reading of Romans 6 will show that Saint Paul understood the efficacy of justification to make a soul pure and the ability of that soul to err after being justified.

The nuances of Saint Paul notwithstanding, you'll have a tremendously difficult time trying to find the legal view of justification anywhere else in Scripture. Try the Gospels, or John's epistles, or the Epistle of St. James, or the Old Testament. Nearly the entire Bible (including all of Paul's letters) has one central message: "Look what God has done, now live rightly".

Please don't misunderstand this post as a confident defense of Catholic soteriology. I'm still making my way through this mire, but I'm beginning to accept what generations of Church Fathers have always believed and preached. If I am honest with myself, this interpretation scares the hell out of me, but I guess that's the point.

Update

A blog is an excellent gimmick for making others think that you are more certain about your beliefs than you really are. Take, for example, the title of this blog: "Confirmed". It makes you think, "wow, this dude knows where he's headed" or "man, there's no changing his mind" or "what an arrogant prig". See what I mean? Well, I'm confessing today that the certainty relayed in this blog is a complete sham.

If I had changed the title of this blog to match my religious mood over that past 11 months, the progression would have been something like this:

1. "Confirmed"
2. "Running Scared"
3. "I'd Rather Watch The Sopranos On Sunday Morning"
   
4. "I'll At Least Go For Easter"
5. "Church is Cool Again"
6. "Confirmed, but Cautious"

So I'm currently at number 6. I suppose I'm glad I didn't keep up the blog during phases 2 - 5. Too much drama. But here's a summary.

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After attending a few Inquiry Classes at St. Jude, we were ready to begin RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults). The deacon in charge of the Inquiry Classes was excellent; very kind and informative. Our next step was to be officially welcomed into RCIA by the church during a Wednesday evening Mass. This got me sweating - since my time at Bryan College, I utterly despise standing in front of a group of religious people. I was told, however, not to worry because we would simply stand, receive a blessing from the priest, and shake congregant's hands afterwards at a pot-luck dinner. No problem.

When we arrived that Wednesday, we were informed about the evening's schedule:

1. walk in from the back after everyone else is seated
2. stand in front on steps facing congregation (choir style)
3. receive some kind of weird "head-to-toe" blessing from our sponsor

At this point, I envisioned myself in front of 600 college kids with a guitar, closing my eyes, singing to Jesus my Boyfriend, and pretending not to think about how awesome I considered myself to be. The memory closed around me like Willy Wonka's shrinking hall.

I added my own number 4: BOLT!

And bolt, I did. I didn't even tell anyone. Just left. Completely Freaked Out.

You can guess from the date on my last blog entry when this occurred. Late August, early September. After the episode at St. Jude, I attended a few RCIA classes at St. Stephen, but I had lost my motivation. I didn't recover it until Easter of this year. The Easter Mass at Sts. Peter & Paul was beyond anything I had ever experienced. I left reignited and ready to try again.

We begin RCIA in September - unless they ask me to lead praise & worship...

St. Francis is a Sissy

An historical approach to Christianity was not one I had been accustomed to taking. My historical upbringing was so sparse, in fact, that I first learned about John Calvin during my high school sophomore world history class; you could, therefore, rightly assume that I knew nothing of the saints, the Church Fathers, or of Church history in general.

As a Southern Baptist, my view of Church history looked something like this: Jesus ascended into Heaven, the apostles preached the gospel for a few years and then were martyred, Martin Luther was the first real Christian after the death of the apostles, and he saved Christianity from the sinister Mary-worshipers (but we're not Lutherans because his Sola Scriptura didn't lead him to the same conclusions we now hold). Since then, everything in Christianity has been awesome. With the help of great men like M. Luther, Daddy Dobson, and my personal pope Rick Warren, God has always (at least since the mid-16th century) kept Christians - well, Baptists at least - on track.

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You can imagine my horror when I learned there is not a 1500-year gap in the Church's timeline. And a double shock from learning that M. Luther himself knew of this mysterious, godless history. And an outright cardiac event when I learned that Luther, Calvin, and other reformers actually based some of their doctrines on nothing other than tradition!? It's a good thing they abandoned the ways of Rome, or they might also have started teaching the perpetual virginity of Mary! 1

Satire aside, I took it on myself to discover our history. Clement (our 4th Pope, who knew Paul & Peter), Ignatius & Polycarp (both taught by John), Irenaeus, Augustine, Chrysostom, Tertullian, Jerome - all who found themselves in a very short line of people who directly or indirectly knew the apostles. Without going in to too much detail, and with no intentional offense, I quickly learned for myself what John Henry Newman had discovered 150 years earlier:

To be deep in history is to cease to be protestant.

I was getting deeper, and the ceasing had already begun.

Additional Thoughts from 2 Current Theologians

In continuation of my last post's question, I have pasted below a couple of correspondences with 2 men I respect on the very topic at hand. For your reading pleasure, and for your personal growth, here are the correspondences with Scot McKnight and Doug Kennard.

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Dr. McKnight,

I have only recently read your article entitled, "From Wheaton to Rome: Why Evangelicals become Roman Catholic", published in the September 2002 edition of the ETS Journal. I very much enjoyed the paper and am wondering if you might point me in the direction of some good Evangelical responses. As a struggling Evangelical, the two main problems with my church experience are those of Scriptural Interpretive Authority and Church History. I'd like to be able to understand the Evangelical answers to those two questions.

Thank you again for your article. It's always reassuring to know that I'm not the only one with these struggles.

Chris,

Thanks for your note. For its size, that article of mine has surely been read by lots of folks.

The resolution of the problems of "authority" and "history" are not really found in the RCC or the Eastern Orthodox Church, but in the mysterious providence of God who has permitted his Church to be what it is -- divisions and all. I don't think the unity of the Church can be found structurally -- though I'd like to see more of it. Nor can it be found institutionally -- it doesn't work on the good earth we live on now.

That unity is found in communion with the Spirit of God.

There is some kind of resolution in the Catholic magisterium, though there are plenty of skeletons in the closet in the RCC (and it claims perfection) and there are all kinds of division within and without. So, it uses structural connection to argue for what is no more united than the typical evangelical denomination.

The evangelical church needs, however, to wake up about Church history. It won't do to lop off 1500 years and pretend it was all mixed up until Luther and Calvin - who had their own mix-ups. What we need is more of the AEF (see the latest Christianity Today to see what I'm speaking of). WE need more we are more connected to the whole of the Church, and that comes when leaders will embrace the whole Church, preach from it, teach it, and encourage
others to explore it.

Hope this helps.

Blessings,
--
Scot McKnight
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Dr. Kennard,

I am hoping you might be able to help me with a question that has been bothering me for nearly a year. While attending a church in Florida last year, I stumbled onto this question--and it's had me in a tailspin ever since.

The speaker made a doctrinal statement with which I completely disagreed, and I muttered under my breath, "What authority do you have to make such a statement?"; and then, of course, I was forced to ask myself, "What authority do I have to disagree?". I had never before asked such a question, and I quickly realized that I, as a lifelong evangelical, had no acceptable answer.

The issue I had aroused, much by mistake, was the issue of the Authority of Interpretation. And one year later, I still have not come to a satisfactory conclusion.

What is the traditional protestant answer to the question of Interpretive Authority? To whom or what do we as protestants look for definitive interpretive guidance? By what agreed upon authority can a protestant declare one Biblical interpretation to be heretical and another to be
acceptable?

Other than the traditional protestant responses, what are your personal thoughts?

Any help would be appreciated. If you could even point me in the direction of some good books, I'd be grateful.

The short answer is that protestants look at particulars in the Biblical text as the determiner and arbiter on interpretation questions. Often however, tradition plays a significant role as well, but I think we need to challenge our traditions by the text. If you are interested in a more nuanced analysis of this question the attachment explains how I do interpretation with the charts on the last pages summarizing the view.

Hope this helps. Dr. Kennard



(this is Chris again) - if you'd like a copy of the attachment he sent, just mention it in the comments section; I'll be happy to pass it along.

Sola Scriptura - What's Your Take?

The title of this blog-site is deliberately misleading; I only wish I was confirmed about my own theological beliefs. The nature of my blog is biographical and not intentionally argumentative. With that understanding, I would like perspective on a few questions I have regarding the doctrine of sola scriptura. Rant, cuss, persuade - I'd like to know what others are feeling on the subject.

1. How do you understand the doctrine of sola scriptura?
2. Do you see any shortcomings in the doctrine? If so, what are they?
3. If you accept the doctrine, how do you reconcile it with the multiplicity of differing theological systems - at least those that operate under the doctrine of sola scriptura?

I'm honestly not looking for a fight; these are questions I have asked myself, and I've not been 100% satisfied with my answers.

Westminster Confession - Part 2

3. The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.

Clearly, the Westminster Assembly either a) used their own authority or b) appealed to some other authority to determine that the deuterocanonical books are not "of divine inspiration". That Maccabees, Tobit, and other "apocryphal" books are so named, rests squarely on the shoulders of some authority under which the Assembly operated.

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So who is this authority? Their answer comes in the next two points.

4. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.

5. ...our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

In honor of my friend, Rachel Held Evans, I call this "playing the God Card" in the game of scriptural interpretation. I agree that God alone can interpret Scripture; the problem lies with the last three words of point #5, "in our hearts". The traditional understanding before the Protestant Reformation was that God revealed the truth of the Scriptures through His Church - that is, through those leaders who were spiritually descended from the Apostles. Now, everyday Christians have just as much a right to make interpretive claims as the most educated Biblical scholars.

So what happens when anyone can interpret scripture for him or herself? You get an explosion of denominations like we now see in the Protestant world. Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Pentecostals, Bible Churches, Church of God, Church of Christ, Lutheran, Anglican, and many many more. Most, if not all, of these denominations now have daughter groups of their own which have splintered off over typically minor - though sometimes major, admittedly - doctrinal issues.

And every single one of these groups claims to be following the Holy Spirit's interpretation of Scripture. I am amazed that the Holy Spirit would say so many different things to different faith communities.

Whence the Canon? that word makes me feel british

I have recently come across a succinct explanation of the sola scriptura doctrine under which I was raised. I regret that I was unable to find any helpful clarification from the Southern Baptist website, but the following excerpts from the Westminster Confession of Faith plainly state the doctrine as held by most Protestant Christians.

You can find the full confession here: http://www.pcanet.org/general/cof_contents.htm

I am reacting to only one point today for lack of time, and to keep things readable for those of us with internet attention spans.

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From CHAP. I. - Of the Holy Scripture. of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

2. Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Word of God written, are now contained all the books of the Old and New Testaments, which are these…(then lists the 66 books with which all Protestants are familiar)

This is one concept I had always taken for granted, and, until recently, it did not occur to me to ask what should have been an obvious question: "how do we know which books are 'inspired'?" In all of my Precept Bible studies, I never once read a passage that refers to the other books of the Bible. There is no list in the Bible detailing which books belong there. In fact, there is not even a good description of how to determine which books should be there.

We have the 66 books of the Bible today because a group of Church leaders met in the 4th century to decide which books should be there. In other words, the Church universal exercised its authority to canonize the various texts of the Holy Word. Thus, when we proclaim the notion of sola scriptura, we neglect the original authority of Church leaders that put together that Scripture. In other words, sola scriptura is simply impossible. The very texts of Scripture were canonized by the authority of the Church, making every Scriptural passage - and thereby every interpretation of it - subservient to the authority that proclaimed it to be the Word of God.

I will do my best to examine more points from this section of the Confession in the near future.