Posted on 07/30/2007 11:07:50 AM PDT by Bosco
As a pastor I’m often asked, "What’s the real issue that divides Catholics and Evangelicals?" Many cite the adoration of Mary, prayers to the saints, and for some it’s papal authority. While these topics can be troublesome for Evangelicals, the fundamental difference lies in our understanding of the cross itself. In a recent series of documents, Pope Benedict XVI clearly brought this cross-centered difference to the forefront when he said,
Protestant, Lutheran and other Christian denominations ... were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the “means of salvation.” The other communities “cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense” because they do not have apostolic succession -- the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles -- and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid...." [1]
Without any ambiguity, the Pope has strongly affirmed the centuries old error that salvation is distributed by the church and not imparted as a gift by Christ Himself (John 10:27-30). The goal is not to pick a fight with the Pope; but to highlight the effectual difference in the way both Catholic and Evangelical theologies approach the cross of Christ.
The difference between Catholics and Evangelicals may best be summed up by answering two simple questions, what did Christ accomplish at the cross and how do we receive the benefits of His work? [2] Evangelical theology teaches that Christ died for our very salvation (Rom 5:8; 1 Cor 15:1-8); and that we receive the benefits of Christ’s death simply by faith (Eph 1:13; Jn 1:12-13). Catholic theology teaches that Christ died only for the possibility of our salvation; and that we receive the benefits of Christ’s death not by faith alone, but as heavenly merit distributed by the Catholic Church through the sacraments. This sacramental system is what the Pope refers to as the "means of salvation." [3]
In contrast to Catholic theology, the Apostle Paul made it clear that God imputes or charges the righteousness of Christ to the believer based solely on trust in the finished work of the Savior (Rom 5:18-19; 2 Cor 5:21; Eph 2:8-9). In the Catholic view of salvation, the finished work of Christ is propped-up by a man-made system that awards grace incrementally; thus infusing the faithful with righteousness that can be gained or lost based on human merit.
Any view of salvation that incorporates human merit can never exclude boasting, a core problem in the Catholic perspective (Eph 2:9). The one who properly works the sacramental system is in a cooperative effort with God for his salvation; in effect, reaching up to God while God reaches down. Genesis Chapter 3 clearly teaches that since the fall of man all humanity is born spiritually dead. A cooperative effort in salvation is like recruiting a new sports team from the local cemetery or a dead man in the emergency room reaching for his own defibrillator paddles (Eph 2:1-7; Rom 3:10-18). In contrast to the Catholic perspective, Evangelical theology embraces this dead condition and rests solely in the grace of God; whereby God reaches down to dead sinners who cannot and will not reach upward. In the end, the Evangelical perspective ascribes all glory in salvation to God alone.
Despite the Pope’s affirmation of a centuries old error, each generation must consider what Christ accomplished at the cross and how we receive the benefits of His work. So what’s the real issue that divides Catholics and Evangelicals? Answer -- it’s the cross!
Your brother,
Pastor Hirsch
[1] Associated Press, “Pope: Other Christian Denominations Not True Churches.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288841,00.html. July 10, 2007.
[2] I first heard these two questions posed by John Hannah, Distinguished Professor of Historical Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, while attending his lectures on church history in 2003.
[3] For an explanation of the Catholic doctrine of salvation see the Catholic Encyclopedia at
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13295a.htm#IV.t
You have asked this same question quite a few times now on a number of threads.
It may help to go back over your “replies” and re-read the answers that were offered to you.
In addition, we don't have a monopoly on acting "un-Christian"... Calvin's Geneva certainly wasn't a haven for Protestants of all stripes, Salem certainly executed some women they thought were witches, and the Protestant-run inquisition in the Netherlands matched or exceeded the Spanish one.
If you read more widely on those five points that you listed, you will find that they are often misconstrued to be worse than they actually were. For example, the Inquisition convicted far fewer people than it released, and those who were convicted only were because they were RELAPSED heretics, and they were passed to secular authorities for punishment. In addition, some criminals would profess heresy because the Inquisition was often gentler than the civil courts. The 'purchasing of indulgences' was an abuse where a legitimate indulgence for almsgiving was 'marketed' in a very sacrilegious manner; it was bad enough and caused enough scandal that the indulgence for almsgiving was suppressed circa Trent. The bishops who shunted pedophile priests around often worked under the assumption that the pedophiles could be rehabilitated because that is what contemporary psychologists were telling them (and actually thought).
Bad Christians don't mean that Christ is wrong... if they did, Judas would have nullified Christ's teachings. Bad Christians don't mean his Church is wrong.
Yep. Keep 'em ignorant.
That's why they hide the Aquinas in the back of the book stores, and why you can't find a copy of the catechism or the early Church Fathers or the Confessions of St. Augustine or the writings of de Montfort anywhere!
AND that John Cardinal Newman. WHAT an ignoramus!
Thomas Aquinas College, an intitution dedicated to making sure the students remain ignorant.
Okay, I'm not persuaded. What makes you think we want you ignorant? Got some evidence, or is it just that we have opinions that differ from yours so we must be ignorant since you are wise?
As I see it, if you are 'being' saved but not yet saved, you are not 'sealed' with the Holy Spirit...
One can not be a member of the church of God without being filled with the Holy Spirit...No Holy Spirit, no Christian...
Either the Holy Spirit was and will remain with the Church forever or not.
THAT is entirely the problem.
For such people looking at what the Church actually teaches is "parsing" or somehow insincere. It's not malice, or mendacity. It IS a kind of ignorance, but an ignorance of intent and piety, not slovenliness.
That's my take anyway.
That is how anti-Catholics have and continue to take the shortcomings of individual members of the Church (which are genuinely bad and scandalous) and use them to paint the Church broadly as something less than divinely instituted.
Many Catholics, by not keeping aware of the truth concerning these things, are quickly and easily led astray.
This thread directs my Catholic mind to scripture. Specifically, Matthew 7:6.
Wrong. Sinning is not Christ-like. With the exception of the Blessed Mother (note to all FReepers on this thread, I don't want to discuss the reasoning why on this thread) ALL Christians have been sinners. By your reasoning, all Christians are un-Christian.
Fornication and murder are evil acts. I won't disagree with you on that. If you're suggesting that that sullies the entire history of the Church, you're stretching. If you're suggesting that it sullies the authority and doctrine of the Church, you've moved beyond stretching.
Bad Christians don't mean that Christ is wrong
Not arguing with you there.
You have to argue with that point if you're going to argue against the Catholic Church, because it is Christ who gave us the one Church, which has sadly been rent into so many pieces. You cannot fully have Christ without having the fullness of His Church. THAT is the point of the Pope's document in a nutshell.
I'm saying the Catholic Church is the problem.
Why? That the Catholic Church has members and even leaders that are bad, doesn't make the Church the problem, or alternately, makes EVERY Christian body equally problematic.
For those of us who are clueless, could you expound a little?
“That gives fertile ground to Process Theology.”
The Unbounded Now missing from Process Theology probably gives rise to other ideas such as an evolutionary god, or a god that learns or one that matures.
The Unbounded Now is the Immutable God of Creation and that is a very difficult theological point in the Divine Attributes.
I love this:
“The Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church believes and professes that there is one living and true God, Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, omnipotent, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intellect and will and in all perfection Who, being One, singular, absolutely simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, is to be regarded as distinct really and in essence from the world most blessed in and from Himself, and unspeakably elevated above all things that exist, or can be conceived, except Himself.”
IOW, Divine, what’s not love and adore. And I certainly am a tiny creature.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02062e.htm
Lutherans have never considered themselves “protestant”.
The “protestant” sects of Christianity, historically, are traced to Jean Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Arminians and the Anabaptists.
The Catechism has this view of the matter of the salvation of those who are not in the visible Church
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience -- those too may achieve eternal salvation
Rational and wise. This, one instinctively feels, is how a loving and caring God would work the economy of grace. But how does this salvation of the non-visible Church square with the words of Christ ("Unless You Eat ... You shall not have life within you")?
I believe the resolution must be something along these lines.
The Eucharist is indeed communion with God, as full a communion with Him as we can have on this side of death. But it is clearly not absolutely necessary to physically receive the Eucharist to achieve communion.
There is ancedotal, but compelling evidence of this: did the Good Thief take the Eucharist before his death? Clearly not, and yet he was saved. He gained communion with Christ. "Today you shall be with me in paradise"
So, anecdotally at least - salvation would appear NOT to be pinned absolutely to the Eucharist. It IS pinned to communion with Christ: that is the very least Christ's words could mean. He set up the Eucharist as the way in which the visible Church achieves communion with him ... but at least one man was given life everlasting without the formal Eucharist.
The example of the Thief assures me that God's saving grace is not limited to the outer form of the sacraments. Anyone who asks for salvation from Christ will receive Christ's life within him as a free gift
All very well, in fact excellent. But it's just not an answer to your excellent question. There's some theology I'm missing here - how Christ's exacting words about the sacrament of His Body can be reconciled with the known reality of the way His saving grace works. Maybe some better-edumacated FReeper could chip in here!
As I see it, if you are 'being' saved but not yet saved, you are not 'sealed' with the Holy Spirit...
We cannot say that any person with free will is "saved" before their death. They can still choose to reject God's will. They can still choose to sin. The most we can claim for any person is that they are "being saved"
The only people who we on earth can rationally identify as saved are the Saints. They are not the only ones, of course. The vast bulk of the Church is made of people who are either a) alive right now and who are being saved and b) the dead who are saved, though we may not know it.
But claiming to be saved while one is still alive ... I don't want to offend "saved" Christians, absolutely not FRiends, but it is the very height of sparkling-white sepulchure-fresh Phariseeism for any of us to claim sinlessness. We'ld honestly be better off robbing a bank.
One cannot even get past the first line of this article to see how uninformed it is about authentic Catholicism. “Many cite the adoration of Mary...” — please. Either the author is badly misapprehending the Catholic Faith, or he is setting-up strawmen to cut down in imitation of being authoritative.
But his misleading juxtapositions between “Catholicism” and his own brand of Baptist belief don’t end there. Indeed, he manages to mangle his own beliefs *and* Catholic beliefs in paragraph 3. He asserts that “Evangelical theology teaches that Christ died for our very salvation,” implying, I suppose, that Catholic theology “doesn’t”??? He then goes on to state the following: “Catholic theology teaches that Christ died only for the possibility of our salvation...,” implying, unitentionally, I’m sure, that ALL people are saved through the Cross. Either that, or he would have to admit that it IS, in fact, only a “possibility” that Christ’s death can be applied to all men, even non-Christians, since I’m sure he would agree that Hell is not exactly unpopulated with people who lived after the crucifixion! He’s making a false dichotomy when he implies silly stuff like this about his own faith. BOTH belief systems say that the application of the fruit of the Cross is not accomplished in all men, insofar as not all men are saved. Even when considering that Catholics distinguish between redemption and salvation (and he shows no evidence of really knowing that or caring about it), he unwittingly makes his own brand of Christianity very similar when he puts “possibility” on the pedestal that he does just to lambaste the Catholic Church.
His credibility already shot, he manages to mangle more Catholic beliefs for the sake of juxtaposing them with his own in paragraphs 4 and 5. Thank goodness this article was very short; it would be a shame to wade through a major tome founded on this level of knowledge of Catholic beliefs looking for authentic, authoritative comparisons of those beliefs with Evangelical theology. None can be found here.
If it can’t be trusted to speak truthfully of Catholicism even beyond the first line, this article is worthless for whatever “truth” it seeks to impart as a goal. It’s disingenuous tripe, fit for the bird cage floor.
I would add the martyrs to your citation of the thief on the cross. Those who die for the sake of Christ are saints in Heaven. There’s no mention of the Sacraments in this understanding.
I think the distinction would be salvific acts, a Baptism of Desire and the economy of Salvation. For example, if one were to die right after Confession, we believe that he should inherit the kingdom, his sins remitted. However, planning on this when death isn’t imminent is problematic, to say the least.
We are told that martyrs (true martyrs, not those who seek their death and others) have a direct line to Heaven—there is no mention of only those martyrs who have already been Baptized. Surely this makes sense when we consider that God is a God of justice. Perhaps the martyrs’ own blood is the instrument of their Baptism. Who can say in the economy of God?
When someone wants to be Baptized but dies before it occurs, we believe in a Baptism of Desire. Their heart was longing for God and would have been joined to Him in this world if God had not already called him to the next.
The rest of us have to live life in this secular world from which we are culled. The Sacraments are about strength for the journey and living as the Family of God. They are not, in and of themselves, salvation. They are food for the journey.
That’s my thought after reading your post.
God venting out His Just Wrath, and then, over and done with, never to be spoken again.
Not spoken of again? You know that all Protestant churchs have crosses on the wall don't you?
Thanks pgyanke. That is helpful. And as you say, those who come to God without receiving the outer form of a sacrament have still indeed received the inward grace. In the Eucharist, the Body and Blood are wrapped in the accidents of Bread and Wine - but the saving power of Christ can move and act without this outward show.
I like your remark about being "culled". The rather irreverant image in my head of the people of God lolling around like blubberous seals and getting whacked on the head by a loving Deity is probably not the one you were going for: I guess its more like God picking fruit when it's ready.
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