Posted on 04/04/2008 11:01:22 AM PDT by Gamecock
Last week I received the following e-mail, and I felt it would be best to share my response here on the blog.
Dear Mr. White, For someone considering converting to Catholicism, what questions would you put to them in order to discern whether or not they have examined their situation sufficiently? Say, a Top 10 list. Thanks.
When I posted this question in our chat channel a number of folks commented that it was in fact a great question, and we started to throw out some possible answers. Here is my "Top Ten List" in response to this fine inquiry.
10) Have you listened to both sides? That is, have you done more than read Rome Sweet Home and listen to a few emotion-tugging conversion stories? Have you actually taken the time to find sound, serious responses to Rome's claims, those offered by writers ever since the Reformation, such as Goode, Whitaker, Salmon, and modern writers? I specifically exclude from this list anything by Jack Chick and Dave Hunt.
9) Have you read an objective history of the early church? I refer to one that would explain the great diversity of viewpoints to be found in the writings of the first centuries, and that accurately explains the controversies, struggles, successes and failures of those early believers?
8) Have you looked carefully at the claims of Rome in a historical light, specifically, have you examined her claims regarding the "unanimous consent" of the Fathers, and all the evidence that exists that stands contrary not only to the universal claims of the Papacy but especially to the concept of Papal Infallibility? How do you explain, consistently, the history of the early church in light of modern claims made by Rome? How do you explain such things as the Pornocracy and the Babylonian Captivity of the Church without assuming the truthfulness of the very system you are embracing?
7) Have you applied the same standards to the testing of Rome's ultimate claims of authority that Roman Catholic apologists use to attack sola scriptura? How do you explain the fact that Rome's answers to her own objections are circular? For example, if she claims you need the Church to establish an infallible canon, how does that actually answer the question, since you now have to ask how Rome comes to have this infallible knowledge. Or if it is argued that sola scriptura produces anarchy, why doesn't Rome's magisterium produce unanimity and harmony? And if someone claims there are 33,000 denominations due to sola scriptura, since that outrageous number has been debunked repeatedly (see Eric Svendsen's Upon This Slippery Rock for full documentation), have you asked them why they are so dishonest and sloppy with their research?
6) Have you read the Papal Syllabus of Errors and Indulgentiarum Doctrina? Can anyone read the description of grace found in the latter document and pretend for even a moment that is the doctrine of grace Paul taught to the Romans?
5) Have you seriously considered the ramifications of Rome's doctrine of sin, forgiveness, eternal and temporal punishments, purgatory, the treasury of merit, transubstantiation, sacramental priesthood, and indulgences? Have you seriously worked through compelling and relevant biblical texts like Ephesians 2, Romans 3-5, Galatians 1-2, Hebrews 7-10 and all of John 6, in light of Roman teaching?
4) Have you pondered what it means to embrace a system that teaches you approach the sacrifice of Christ thousands of times in your life and yet you can die impure, and, in fact, even die an enemy of God, though you came to the cross over and over again? And have you pondered what it means that though the historical teachings of Rome on these issues are easily identifiable, the vast majority of Roman Catholics today, including priests, bishops, and scholars, don't believe these things anymore?
3) Have you considered what it means to proclaim a human being the Holy Father (that's a divine name, used by Jesus only of His Father) and the Vicar of Christ (that's the Holy Spirit)? Do you really find anything in Scripture whatsoever that would lead you to believe it was Christ's will that a bishop in a city hundreds of miles away in Rome would not only be the head of His church but would be treated as a king upon earth, bowed down to and treated the way the Roman Pontiff is treated?
2) Have you considered how completely unbiblical and a-historical is the entire complex of doctrines and dogmas related to Mary? Do you seriously believe the Apostles taught that Mary was immaculately conceived, and that she was a perpetual virgin (so that she traveled about Palestine with a group of young men who were not her sons, but were Jesus' cousins, or half-brothers (children of a previous marriage of Joseph), or the like? Do you really believe that dogmas defined nearly 2,000 years after the birth of Christ represent the actual teachings of the Apostles? Are you aware that such doctrines as perpetual virginity and bodily assumption have their origin in gnosticism, not Christianity, and have no foundation in apostolic doctrine or practice? How do you explain how it is you must believe these things de fide, by faith, when generations of Christians lived and died without ever even having heard of such things?
And the number 1 question I would ask of such a person is: if you claim to have once embraced the gospel of grace, whereby you confessed that your sole standing before a thrice-holy God was the seamless garment of the imputed righteousness of Christ, so that you claimed no merit of your own, no mixture of other merit with the perfect righteousness of Christ, but that you stood full and complete in Him and in Him alone, at true peace with God because there is no place in the universe safer from the wrath of God than in Christ, upon what possible grounds could you come to embrace a system that at its very heart denies you the peace that is found in a perfect Savior who accomplishes the Father's will and a Spirit who cannot fail but to bring that work to fruition in the life of God's elect? Do you really believe that the endless cycle of sacramental forgiveness to which you will now commit yourself can provide you the peace that the perfect righteousness of Christ can not?
I’ll correct you on that because you are not quite right. I monitor my ethics and behavior 24-7. I don’t think anyone is saying that the Eucharist is the *only* way to gain grace...it’s just that taking God into your body is....well...it sorta trumps other ways.
Yep, considered pretty much all those things. More Catholic than ever.
>>...raised a Catholic all her eighty some odd years, first heard the Gospel on her deathbed...
>She heard the Gospel all her life at Mass, if she went.
You’d think so, going to what is claimed to be a Christian church. But, thank Christ Jesus, she first heard it from my cousin, while she was dying. Imagine that. She thought that going through the motions of a sacramental system was enough, and she thought that is what was taught to her throughout her decades in the RCC.
***Do you really believe that the endless cycle of sacramental forgiveness to which you will now commit yourself can provide you the peace that the perfect righteousness of Christ can not?***
Jumping through hoops is for circus animals, not the saints of God.
If she didn’t hear it, she wasn’t listening....if this story is true at all.
Whomever wrote this-—
“Do you seriously believe the Apostles taught that Mary was immaculately conceived...”
has shown their absolute ignorance of the meaning of the Immaculate Conception and the Catholic faith.
Well, ZC, we know it's important to YOU...LOL...I hardly see you talk about anything else. :)
And I feel the need to remind you that the inerrantist position has not been repudiated. I would agree with you that people, even bishops and even popes, have been trying to play footsie with it, but what right have they to trump numerous dogmatic statements in this regard?
>If she didn’t hear it, she wasn’t listening....if this story is true at all.
It is quite true, but then again, I have had the ‘charity’ of the Catholics thrown at me before in forum and in freepmail. Thanks for reminding me.
Much like the many American Catholics are on B.C. pills?
Practice charity and you might receive more in return.
Claiming a life long Catholic never heard the Gospel is not charitable, and I think you know that.
Yeah, I think I'll keep linking to it. See Claud's posts 11 and 21...
If Christ wanted to use bread and water and oil and wine to impart grace, then by gum, I'll take the bread and water and oil and wine and be darn thankful that He did so....I don’t think anyone is saying that the Eucharist is the *only* way to gain grace...it’s just that taking God into your body is....well...it sorta trumps other ways.
“...raised a Catholic all her eighty some odd years, first heard the Gospel on her deathbed...”
Now that’s just silly.
I would like to hear what said sources are.
It's a bit funny, ain't it, that all the Apostolic Churches, including the Orthodox and Oriental Churches who dispute vigorously the Papal claims and have no truck with Rome, nevertheless seem to shy away from the Reformation doctrines like the plague.
Why is that, Dr. White? Were they *all* corrupted? Every single one of them? Did the Ethiopians all fall prey to the same "Romanism" that affected the Byzantines and the Malabarese and Armenians?
You can make a case that the Church Fathers are not as clear as we'd like. But to portray them as all over the map on core doctrines like the Eucharist is hogwash.
Someone of you Reformed Christians do me a personal favor and post one of the Fathers who is supposedly denying the Real Presence. Have at it. Their writings are all over the Internet...shouldn't be hard to find. I have seen enough of said quotations to know they are almost always twisted and wrenched out of context to support a Reformation position, and when you dig down deeper they are found to *assert* the very thing they are cited to disprove.
Enough idle chitchat. Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work here!
>Practice charity and you might receive more in return.
I am, actually. Preaching the Gospel to those in an apostate church is an act of love. I will weather your bitterness, and continue in love.
>Claiming a life long Catholic never heard the Gospel is not charitable, and I think you know that.
Truth is truth.
For Protestants, it is a question of ethics and behavior 24/7.
"Ethics" and "behavior"? You're sanctified by trying really, really, really hard to be good?
Good thing you were sitting in the pew right next to her. Tell me what she heard! Please?
Alex can cite 199 all he wants.
And I’ll cite this.
“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”
I don’t think he gets the better end of that deal! :)
“Good thing you were sitting in the pew right next to her. Tell me what she heard! Please?”
The story’s premise is that a lifelong Catholic had never heard the Bible.
She was on her deathbed and was what, read the Gospel?
You tell me what occurred.
The situations aren't entirely parallel. The official teachings of the RC Church on BC remains unchanged and Catholics on BC are objectively disobeying their religion. However, actual documents and catechisms on the Bible written by church authorities and disseminated in Church media actually often state the exact opposite of what the old documents did, thus indicating a change in the "unchangeable" doctrines of the Church. And if you ask them why, they'll tell you these old doctrines had to be changed because they have been disproven.
What else will be discarded when it has been disproven, eh?
LOL...Opus, I think our friend Ottofire is not quite familiar with the concept of liturgy. :)
Opus could tell you exactly what passages she heard and when....to the day. Pick a day and pick a year.
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