Tag Archives: soteriology

Falling from Grace, and God’s Mercy and Forgiveness

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The conclusion of what I originally wrote concerning grace and justification and “Falling from Grace,” in preparation for a discussion of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. There’s a lot more where this came from! [Part one. Part two. An aside. Part three.]

Baptism: Initial Justification

The Baptism of Cornelius, by Francesco Trevisani

The Baptism of Cornelius (1709), by Francesco Trevisani (Wikipedia).

Our Baptism is the moment of our initial justification, the beginning of our road of salvation; and this is wholly a gift of grace, through our faith, not because of any work or action or merit on our part; there is nothing we could have done to deserve such grace. Even the preparation for that moment, our having been called and drawn to the baptismal font, is entirely a work of God’s prevenient (that is, coming before) grace. At that time we are regenerated, born anew in Christ, and we receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). We are also sanctified, washed clean and made whiter than snow (Psalm 51:7, Isaiah 1:18, Ephesians 5:26), as innocent as newborn babes. Regeneration, being made a new creation in Christ, is a grace that cannot be undone; one can never “fall” from being “born again.” In Baptism, our every sin, both the stain of original sin (in fact, our damaged human nature) and every actual sin committed in one’s past, is washed away by the Blood of the Lamb. We receive sanctifying grace, filling up our heart: we are therefore not only cleared of all sin in God’s heavenly court, but we are actually made righteous in His sight.

What, then, of future sins? We have been washed clean, clothed in a robe as white as snow in Baptism. But our sins still very much affect our soul — as anyone who has struggled with sin surely knows. The Protestant view, preoccupied with God’s judicial aspect toward us, finds complacency in the idea that our sins are covered and will never be counted against us; but it fails to take into account the very real spiritual damage that sin can inflict, even upon the believer. When we sin — when we choose consciously and deliberately to reject God and betray His grace to us — we make a decision not to walk by the Spirit; we choose not to love and not to abide in Him. God’s grace, His love, cannot and will not live in a heart that chooses not to love: and so in serious, willful sin, we damage that love, perhaps even choke it out.

Falling from Grace

Caravaggio, Penitent Magdalene

Penitent Magdalene (c. 1597), by Caravaggio (WikiPaintings.org.

And this is what it means to “fall from grace”: to be in a state of grace — the righteous, sanctified state we are in following Baptism, filled with God’s love and grace — and to lose that sanctifying grace through deliberate, grave sin. What are we really losing when we lose grace? Are we “losing our salvation,” as Protestants suggest? Salvation, again, is not something we have ever fully received, and won’t fully receive until the end of life. The graces we received in Baptism — our spiritual rebirth — cannot be taken away. Our spiritual growth and progress, the degree to which we’ve been conformed to Christ, is not erased — we don’t have to start over from zero — though we could certainly compromise that progress through repeated and prolonged sin. So what have we really lost? If sanctifying grace is a clean, white robe in which God has wrapped us, falling from that state of grace is like tripping and falling in the mud. Stumbling does not change who we are: We are still the new creations God has made us to be, and His handiwork in our lives, molding and changing us, is still there. We have only fallen and sullied our robe. We are still God’s children, even if we have squandered our inheritance in a pig pen far from home.

Protestant critics who allege that “falling from grace” is equated with “losing our salvation” are operating from a mistaken, Protestant understanding of grace to begin with. They presume that falling into sin after justification entails that God, who has declared us righteous, imputing the righteousness of Christ to us, now somehow takes that away, goes back on His word, and revokes his promises. If He has promised us an eternal inheritance in “saving” us, he must then, they say, be taking that inheritance away when we sin — only to give it back when we are reconciled, then take it away again, and so forth — but this is not the Catholic view of grace, sin, or forgiveness. The idea that God is watching us with an ever wrathful, judgmental eye at all times, prepared to condemn us, take away our eternal reward, plunge us into the pit of hell, the moment we make a mistake, is strictly unbiblical, and does not describe the Catholic understanding of God at all. Scripture says repeatedly that God will judge us on the Last Day (Matthew 10:36; Acts 17:31; Romans 2:16; 1 Corinthians 4:5; 2 Corinthians 5:10; 1 Peter 4:5; Revelation 20) or when we die (Hebrews 9:27). And if we are indeed predestined to our eternal reward (Romans 8:29), chosen before the world began (Ephesians 1:4), then God foreknows whether we will receive that reward in the end or not; it is only a narrow, temporal view that would presume that God, Who is outside time, would alter our eternal destiny based on every positive and negative action we commit in our own, earthly present.

El Greco. Penitent Magdalene. c. 1590.

El Greco, Penitent Magdalene, c. 1590 (WikiArt.org).

But for the important, eternal question: Can a believer in Christ who has been regenerated in Baptism, but who has fallen into sin, be condemned to hell, should he die in that state? In light of the scriptural warnings against falling away (e.g. Matthew 24:10; Mark 14:27; Luke 8:13; John 16:1) and living unrighteously (e.g. 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10:12; Galatians 5:21; 1 Timothy 3:6, 6:9–10; Hebrews 10:29; James 5:12; 2 Peter 1:10), the Catholic Church believes that he can. Christ Himself warned that those who were in Him, who did not abide in Him, would be cast away into the fire. Is this not, then, “losing one’s salvation”? Is “salvation,” in the scriptural sense, something that is ever fully realized before the end of life? Protestants, particularly the Reformed and those in their tradition, who espouse a belief in the “perseverance of the saints” or “eternal security,” appeal to such verses as John 6:37–40 and 10:27–30, 1 Peter 1:4–5, and 1 John 4:16–18 to demonstrate the irresistibility of grace, the immutability of divine election, and the finality of the gifts already given; but these conclusions depend, in many cases, on presupposing a Reformed view of God’s sovereignty that limits or eliminates human freedom. Yes, God has willed that all those He gives to Christ shall not die but be saved; but does God not allow men the free will to choose life or death (Deuteronomy 30:19, Sirach 15:17)? Who is it who has really been given or elected? The Reformed themselves allow uncertainty about an individual believer’s election — such that if a believer should fall away from Christ, the conclusion is that he never really had saving faith in the first place. They allow that the body of the visible church contains many who are not elect, who appear to be regenerate but are not. In the Catholic position, the uncertainty is not regarding whether a believer has been regenerated, whether he has received God’s grace in his life — which is evident by his works; the uncertainty is regarding whether he will abide in that grace and love and allow it to save him (John 15); whether he will persevere to the end (e.g. Matthew 10:22). Ultimately, there is uncertainty in either case: even for those who claim “assurance,” there is the possibility of falling away, and uncertainty whether a believer is elected to final perseverance. (Not all those, say Catholics, who are elected to be regenerated are elected to persevere, a distinction that the Reformed do not make.)

Finally, what does it say about the love of God, that He would allow his son or daughter to perish? Does it evince a failure of God’s sovereign will — or a condescension of that will, to allow His beloved creations the freedom to choose? Scripture testifies that He does not take pleasure in the death of a sinner, but desires that he turn from his way and live (Ezekiel 33:11, cf. 2 Peter 3:9): if only God’s will were at issue, than all would be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). It is a mark of God’s love, rather than a neglect or abandonment of that love, that He allows us the freedom to accept or reject His grace. If any man should perish, it is ultimately by his own willful choice to reject God.

God’s Mercy and Forgiveness

The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Rembrandt

The Return of the Prodigal Son (1665), by Rembrandt.

The correct view of the grace and forgiveness of God is the one presented in Scripture again and again: that of absolute, unfailing mercy, rather than perpetual wrath. Jesus presents it in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32), in which the father sadly but freely allows his son to pursue a life of profligacy, but runs to meet him in the road and pours out his grace unsparingly as soon as his son repents and returns. The wayward son had been raised in the favor of his father, but ungraciously cast it away. Sin had destroyed his life, and so long as he remained in the far-off land, he was without recourse; he would have died a pauper. But the father’s love was unending and his mercy boundless. There is no note here that the son, who had cast away grace, was from then on forever in his father’s graces, irrespective of his future conduct; but certainly, whatever he should do in the future, the father’s mercy and love would ever meet him in the road. It is exhibited in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the face of God which He revealed to us. It is the same view presented by the prophets of God’s mercy toward wayward Israel — for a most vivid example, in the Book of Hosea. Even despite Israel’s repeated infidelity — even though she make herself a harlot — even despite God’s righteous judgment — the Lord, again and again, receives her back, cleans her, clothes her in clean robes, and again pours his mercy and favor and love upon her. “I will heal their faithlessness; / I will love them freely, / for my anger has turned from them” (Hosea 14:4).

Reconciliation

And that brings us, at last, to Reconciliation, the Sacrament of God’s forgiveness and mercy, by which the Lord receives those believers who have fallen, picks them up, heals them, and restores them to the flock. From this point we will begin our discussion.

But wait, there’s more! A further reflection on Catholicism and assurance of salvation: Assurance for today: God works through the Sacraments.

The Catholic View of Grace and Justification

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Part three of a longer thought on grace and justification and “Falling from Grace.” [Part one. Part two. An aside.]

Murillo, Christ on the Cross (1665)

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Christ on the Cross (1665) (WikiArt.org).

So, then, is justification merely a forensic declaration acquitting the sinner of sins, as the Protestants say? Or is it, as the Catholic Church teaches, an actual infusion of grace that cleanses and purifies the soul, obliterating sin and making the sinner not sinful? To ask an even more basic question: Is grace an actual thing, an objective gift that is actually given by God and received by the sinner — “God gives grace to the sinner”? Or is it an abstract concept, like favor, merely describing God’s disposition toward the sinner — “God is gracious to the sinner”? Is the sinner justified because God changed the sinner, making him acceptable, or because God changed His attitude toward the sinner, who has not objectively changed?

In the latter, Protestant view, man is justified because God assumes an objectively different disposition to the sinner. He no longer sees a sinner at all, but sees only the righteousness of Christ; and future sin cannot affect or alter this new disposition. Given this understanding, the idea of a Christian confessing future sins (1 John 1:9) seems almost superfluous. A standard Protestant view seems to be that even though his sin is covered by the Blood of Christ, a Christian is nonetheless obligated to obey God and to seek His forgiveness when one fails. I have even read some Protestant commentary seeking to draw a distinction between God’s divine judgment upon the unjustified sinner and His paternal chastisement upon a wayward Christian.

Sacred Heart

Pompeo Batoni. Il Sacro Cuore (The Sacred Heart) (1740).

In the Catholic view, on the other hand, grace is an actual thing that is given by God to the sinner, in the form of love poured into His heart and the gift of the Holy Spirit, such that it fills him, cleanses him, and transforms him. The concepts of regeneration, justification, and sanctification are difficult to separate in the Catholic understanding: though they describe different effects of grace, they are all effected by the same grace poured into the soul, often worked at the same time. This grace is called sanctifying grace, because in addition to the forensic aspect of being made right in God’s sight, this grace actually makes us holy, turns our hearts toward Christ, and begins the process of transforming us in His image (2 Corinthians 3:18) — that we might become the righteousness of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The response to sin

Diego Velazquez, The Crucifixion (1632)

Diego Velazquez, The Crucifixion (1632).

In the end, these distinctions profoundly affect the way a Christian views sin and grace. The Catholic response to serious sin is to repent and confess the sin and seek God’s mercy and forgiveness — which is always freely given, without limitation, a gift of His mercy and grace and a work of His healing. He picks us up, mends our wounds, and sets us back on the road. Protestants may or may not even see the need for the confession of sins: since in many views, the grace of God’s justification has already been given in full, there is, in a practical sense, no more comfort to be offered; only the assurance (false assurance, the Catholic might say) that all one’s sins are already forgiven.

I will leave much more to say here for our discussion of the Sacrament of Confession, but let me briefly say this: Only God forgives sins. Catholics do believe that a sinner can be forgiven his sins without the benefit of sacramental Confession, if he is truly repentant and contrite for his sins. Confessing sins, as Scripture teaches, whether to a minister, before the church, one to another, or even privately to God, places one in a much better position toward one’s sin than not, since it expresses that contrition.

Both the Catholic and Protestant views can be defended scripturally (the Catholic view, in my judgment, being more consistent with the whole of Scripture, not to mention Tradition). Is one “more Christian” than the other? Protestants today, in my experience, are much more likely to charge that Catholics have a mistaken understanding of grace than vice versa. But any view that understands God’s love and mercy as abundant and freely flowing, and His redemption and salvation as a free gift of grace by the Cross of Christ, cannot miss the mark entirely.

Next up: Falling from Grace, and God’s Mercy and Forgiveness

Justification Is Not the End of the Road

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Part one of a series on “Falling from Grace.”

The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Rembrandt

The Return of the Prodigal Son (1665), by Rembrandt.

Lately the Lord has been putting it on my heart to begin a series on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, also known as Confession. But first there are a few prickly issues which, approaching the subject from a Protestant perspective, I felt I needed to address beforehand. Of most importance are significant differences in the Catholic and Protestant modes of thinking about sin and grace, which stem from fundamentally different understandings of the justification of sinners. The question in focus: Can a Christian fall from grace through sin?

This has been an exceedingly difficult post to write. In making a sincere effort to be fair to the diverse Protestant points of view, I’ve started this post over from the beginning several times. Trying to synthesize a single, coherent presentation of “the Protestant understanding” of justification is a lot like trying to eat an elephant whole. If I still miss the mark, please call me on it.

(This also proved to be quite long. So I think I will give it to you in three or four pieces.)

Justification: A Moment or a Process?

Perhaps the most basic, practical difference between the Catholic and Protestant modes of thinking about justification — the work of God’s grace by which we are exonerated of our sins and made to be righteous in His sight — is that in the Catholic way of thinking, justification is generally understood to be an ongoing, continuous process, while it seems to be a hallmark of Protestant theology that justification is a moment — a single, instantaneous, and total action.

This is the fruit — and the end — of two fundamentally different understandings of the mode of justification. The traditional, Augustinian, Catholic understanding is that justification is an infusion of God’s grace into the sinner’s soul, a pouring of God’s love into his heart (Romans 5:5) that obliterates sin and not only makes him right before God, but actually sanctifies him and makes him righteous. The Protestant view, beginning with the teachings of Luther and other early Protestant Reformers, conceives of justification as a purely forensic declaration by God as judge, declaring the sinner righteous in God’s court by an imputation of his sins to the sinless Christ and an imputation of Christ’s perfect righteousness to the sinner — not actually, in this act, affecting the sinfulness of the believer, but merely covering his sins.

The Protestant view of Justification

Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1533), by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Because, in the Protestant view, God declares the sinner righteous in this once-and-for-all, forensic, judicial declaration, he is then held “not guilty,” in God’s judgment, of all his sins — in most conceptions, all the sins he has committed in his past life and even all he ever will commit in the future. In this idea of imputation, a “swap” or substitution is accomplished, an exchange of accounts: the sinner’s hopelessly bankrupt debt is cancelled, and Christ’s perfect and infinite righteousness is credited to him. Because of this credit, all the sinner’s eternal debts are paid: even if he sins in the future, no sin of his could compare or counter the payment Christ gave on the cross for the sins of all humanity. The sinner’s every sin, from then on, is covered by the blood of Christ.

So in the Protestant conception, the idea of “falling from grace” is nonsensical. For one thing, the notion of a “state of grace” — let alone falling from it — is not generally in the Protestant vocabulary. For another, because justification is understood as a once-and-for-all event, “justification” is often effectively equated with “salvation” — with the result that “falling from grace” sounds to Protestant ears as “losing one’s salvation.” This is not how Catholics understand it.

“Lumping” and “splitting”

What appears at first to be a stark contrast between the Catholic and Protestant views is ameliorated when one takes a broader view of the situation. I’ve written before about “lumpers and splitters” — Catholics having a tendency to lump concepts and terminology together and Protestants tending to split them. Here is another case of that. Even in the Protestant view, justification is only one step in a larger process, one of the initial steps. They split into a separate action the process of sanctification — by which God’s grace makes one actually holy. On the other hand, in the Catholic understanding, justification and sanctification are so closely related as to be part of the same action.

This is the source of much confusion. Many of the Protestant charges that Catholics believe in “justification by works,” I believe, stem from the fact that when Catholics speak of works being involved in justification, they usually are referring to what Protestants would call sanctification, the process of growing in grace and being made holy — which even many Protestants will admit does involve works of charity. Likewise, many Catholic apologists caricature the Protestant position on justification by claiming that it merely casts a cloak over a man’s wretched, festering, sinful state, and doesn’t actually effect a change in his soul or his holiness; but they often overlook that sanctification is a closely bound concept even for Protestants that follows necessarily upon a sincere conversion to Christ, and regeneration is another important event that does accomplish a real change in the soul through God’s grace.

Justification is not the end of the road

El Greco, Apostle St. Paul

Apostle St. Paul (c. 1612), by El Greco.

But what about “falling from grace”? How can one, in the Protestant view, conceive of such a thing? Well, it is important for the Protestant to realize that Catholics take a much broader view of salvation than many Protestants do. While in the minds of many Protestants, “salvation” is the moment when one accepts and converts to Christ — accomplishing (and this is a flattening or lumping) regeneration, justification, and conversion all at once — that is not the end of the road, even for Protestants. “Salvation” implies being saved from something; and while this initial regeneration and justification may have saved the sinner from his sins — even, in the Protestant conception, from the eternal consequences of them — there is still much to be saved from before the end: many sins, dangers, and temptations, and from death itself. The believer still must live the life ahead of him, yielding good fruit (Philippians 1:11, Colossians 1:10) and being sanctified (1 Thessalonians 4:1–8, Romans 6:22). Even Paul in the Scriptures speaks of having been saved not only in the past tense (e.g. Ephesians 2:8–10), but also in the present tense, how we are being saved even now (e.g. 1 Corinthians 1:18, 2 Corinthians 2:15), and we shall be saved, future tense, on the Day of Jesus Christ (e.g. Romans 5:9–10, 1 Corinthians 5:5, cf. 1 Peter 2:12); and this future tense is by far the most common mode of speaking of salvation in the Gospels (e.g. Matthew 24:13, Mark 13:13, Luke 13:23, John 6:54): “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13, etc.).

Next time: the Catholic view of Salvation as a Journey.

Some questions about justification and righteousness

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John Calvin

John Calvin (1509-1564)

I am pretty busy with thesis research right now, and now packing for a move, so I thought I would try something different: some questions, asked particularly of Protestants, but really of anybody who would like to reply. This is not to stir up a contentious debate (though a friendly, academic discussion would be fine with me) — but more to get a sense, as I’ve been trying recently, of how other Christians view Christ and understand their theology. So, here goes:

  1. What is righteousness before God? How do you define it?

  2. What is justification? How is it accomplished?

  3. What is sanctification? How is that accomplished?

  4. Is it possible for any human to become “righteous” in any way or degree during his or her lifetime? How, or why not?

  5. What was John Calvin’s favorite flavor ice cream?

Faith and Love

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Giotto, Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet

Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet, by Giotto (c. 1305), Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

For the past little while, since I’ve been engaging with hostile Protestants, I’ve been increasingly troubled. Because to my Protestant-steeped brain, their reading of the Apostle Paul sounds correct—the way I’ve been raised up to read him. I’ve struggled to read the Catholic idea of “justification through faith plus works” in his thought (even though I know this is a Protestant misrepresentation), and aside from the few verses I’ve explicated, it has been disturbingly difficult. What if we Catholics have Paul wrong? What if Luther was right? What if he really does mean sola fide, justification by faith alone?

At the same time, I’ve been more comfortable with our reading of Saint James and of Jesus Himself; and I’ve recalled the charge I’ve heard all my academic life, that Paul preached a different Gospel than Christ. I’ve never believed that. Both Catholics and Protestants find ways to read Scripture to make it appear internally consistent to themselves; it certainly is possible. But it is very clear that Paul was thinking along different lines than either Jesus or James; he was confronting different problems. Jesus never propounded anything resembling justification by faith alone. It is very clear that Protestants, particularly the Reformed variety, emphasize Paul and sola fide to the exclusion of all other interpretations; they force Jesus and James into their own framework of sola fide. They likewise accuse us of the same thing, of forcing Paul into our framework of “works’ righteousness.”

I’ve been writing recently and vehemently that the Catholic Church does not teach “works’ righteousness”—that it is through our works, done by the grace of God, that we are saved, not by our works, done in our own power (see Philippians 2:12-13). God working in us, through our works, justifies us and sanctifies us; but I haven’t really thought about what it is that is actually occurring in us as this happens. Last night I read a piece by Bryan Cross of Called to Communion that has profoundly affected me; provided me with this missing puzzle piece I didn’t even know I was lacking; shone light on the key to the Catholic understanding of salvation; given the glue that binds together what Jesus said and what James said and what John said and what Peter said and what Paul said, what God has said throughout the entire Bible:

… It’s love. Love is the key. Not faith alone. Not faith and works. Because even if I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, but have not love, I have nothing; I am just a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1-2). Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love (1 John 4:8). Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead (James 2:14-26)—but what works? Works of love. Jesus said that the greatest commandments are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, all soul, and all our strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27). And how do we love God? We keep his commandments (John 14:15). Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10).

This has been staring me in the face all along, and it hasn’t clicked. I’ve worn out the section on grace and justification in my copy of the Catechism (or at least I would have, if I were still carrying my paper copy)—and yet I haven’t seen it. The word “love” is used eleven times in that section alone; “charity” is used another eleven. Love—agape (ἀγάπη)—charity (caritas)—all three words refer to the same idea—is at the core of Catholic teaching; as it well should be, since it is at the core of Scripture.

Bryan brilliantly illustrated this to me clearly for the first time in his explication of the thought of St. Irenaeus (c. 125–c. 202) toward justification, and in his piece, which I hadn’t read before but read immediately following, on the soteriology of Pope St. Clement of Rome. Though our doctrine today is more fully developed, both early Fathers reflect these ideas. And if we read Paul with this understanding, then everything makes sense.

If we have faith, but have not love, then our faith is in vain. It is only having faith in love that accomplishes anything toward our justification. If we do good works, but don’t do them in love, then they are empty and meaningless. If we love God, we will obey His commandments. If we continue to disobey God, how can that be love? “If anyone says he loves God, but hates his brother, he is a liar. . . . God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:20, 16). “No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him” (1 John 3:6).

The Reformers would have us believe that we are totally depraved; that even our good works are filthy rags before God; that the entire purpose of the Law was to prove that we couldn’t keep it, that we were morally bankrupt without salvation, and even with it, we are just and sinners at the same time (simul justus et peccator). And yet all throughout Scripture—in the Old Testament, and in the teachings of Jesus, Peter, Paul, James, and John, we are called to obedience and holiness (1 Peter 1:13-35). We are told again and again that we will be judged according to our deeds (Matthew 16.27, 1 Peter 1:17, Romans 2:6, Revelation 20:13)—and yet Protestants tell us that we are incapable of living by God’s Law; that our works do not matter as long as they are covered by Christ’s imputed righteousness. I have said before that I never felt much inclination as a Protestant to pursue holiness, feeling that my sin was “covered.” Now I see how starkly the Protestant view misses the main idea of Scripture: We are to obey God’s commandments, because we love Him, through the grace which He gives us by the Blood of Christ. It is through living in His grace, growing in His love, conforming ourselves to His image, that we are saved. Faith and works are both just active parts of that.

The necessity of faith and works

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Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1533), by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

A little flash that just occurred to me:

Protestants argue sola fide, that we are justified by faith alone. The Catholic position is often presented as fide et operis, by faith and works. But Catholics and Protestants agree that it is not our action or operation, either in having faith or doing works, that saves us, but entirely the grace of God (sola gratia).

The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-10:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Protestants get very hung up on the Catholic insistence on works, that works are necessary for salvation. But most Protestants admit this, if the question is posed the right way. As Saint James writes (James 2:14-17):

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

As this makes evident, works are necessary. Faith without works is dead. Protestants argue from this that works follow faith — that true faith necessarily produces the fruit of good works; that if a brother does not produce good works, then he never had true faith to begin with. But the result is exactly the same: Good works are a necessary consequence of faith.

This is exactly what Catholics argue — only in affirming free will, Catholics present that it is incumbent upon the believer to choose to do good works, given the gift of God’s grace which enables the believer both to will and to work (Philippians 2:12-13).

Catholics affirm that our initial justification is by faith alone, as a gift of God’s grace, not because of any work or merit on our own. Protestants affirm that works are necessary for salvation — a necessary consequence of true faith. That puts the two parties on the same page regarding the necessity of both faith and works for salvation — and much closer to agreement than either would like to admit.

Work out your own salvation: The Apostle Paul, William Tyndale, and the leaven of a phrase

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El Greco, Apostle St. Paul

Apostle St. Paul (c. 1612), by El Greco.

One of the most iconic phrases of the English New Testament, one of the Apostle Paul’s great quotes that has always echoed in my ears growing up, is to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). But what does that even mean?

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Codex Sinaiticus

A leaf from Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest known Greek uncial manuscript of the entire Bible (c. A.D. 330–360).

As a Protestant, I admit I never thought much about it. I guess I had a vague sense of “working something out” with God, the way one negotiates an agreement or a solution — through a process of trial and error, learning and growing as a Christian, to reach a situation that “worked.” If the verse meant anything to me, it was as an encouraging exhortation: Keep on obeying God, and you and God will “work it out.”

As I’ve been growing as a Catholic, this verse has been an indication that there might be some “work” involved in salvation in Paul’s view, as opposed to the sola fide (by faith alone) interpretation that the Protestant Reformers so ardently expressed. It’s been a handy crutch in presenting the Catholic position. “But, Paul said ‘work out your own salvation’!”

But what did Paul really mean? Recently I decided to delve into the Greek in order to explore this. What I found was a little startling.

Here is the Greek (only the bolded portion from above; Greek text from NA27):

. . . μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου τὴν ἑαυτῶν σωτηρίαν κατεργάζεσθε· θεὸς γάρ ἐστιν ὁ ἐνεργῶν ἐν ὑμῖν καὶ τὸ θέλειν καὶ τὸ ἐνεργεῖν ὑπὲρ τῆς εὐδοκίας.

Transliterated into Roman characters, for your benefit:

. . . meta phobou kai tromou tēn heautōn sōtērian katergazesthe, theos gar estin ho energōn en humin kai to thelein kai to energein huper tēs eudokias.

And now broken down:

. . . μετὰ [preposition, with, in the midst of] φόβου [fear] καὶ [and] τρόμου [trembling] τὴν [definite article, accusative singular: goes with σωτηρίαν] ἑαυτῶν [3rd person reflexive pronoun, genitive plural: your own] σωτηρίαν [accusative singular (the direct object, being acted upon): salvation] κατεργάζεσθε [present middle deponent, 2nd person plural imperative: (you) “work out”] · θεὸς [God] γάρ [postpositive particle, for] ἐστιν [3rd person active indicative, impersonal, (it) is] ὁ ἐνεργῶν [present active participle, nominative singular: acting, operating, working, being efficacious] ἐν [preposition, in] ὑμῖν [second person plural personal pronoun, you] καὶ [and (together with other καὶ, both . . . and)] τὸ θέλειν [present active infinitive: to be willing, wish] καὶ [and] τὸ ἐνεργεῖν [present active infinitive, same verb as above: to act, operate, work, be efficacious, effect, execute] ὑπὲρ [preposition, for] τῆς εὐδοκίας [genitive singular, (his) good will].

What startled me is that to “work out” is all contained in the verb κατεργάζομαι. “Work out” is a single action, and “salvation” is the direct object — the object on which the action is performed. But salvation isn’t supposed to be something we act on at all, is it?

The BDAG, the most authoritative lexicon of New Testament Greek, gives four definitions for κατεργάζομαι:

  1. to bring about a result by doing something, achieve, accomplish, do.
    • Romans 7:15-20: For what I do, I do not understand; for I do not practice what I prefer, but I do that thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not prefer, I agree with the Law, that it is good.
    • 1 Corinthians 5:3: . . .  I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.
  2. to cause a state or condition, bring about, produce, create.
    • Romans 4:15: For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
    • Romans 5:3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance  . . .
  3. to cause to be well prepared, prepare someone.
  4. to be successful in the face of obstacles, overpower, subdue, conquer.
    • Ephesians 6:13: Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done [proving victorious over] all, to stand firm.

Of these definitions, the BDAG suggests that the second one, to bring about, produce, create, is the appropriate one for our verse, Philippians 2:12.

The Friberg Analytical Lexicon agrees with the definitions of the BDAG. Similarly, the Louw-Nida Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains suggests that the use of κατεργάζομαι in Philippians 2:12 implies a change of state: “to cause to be, to make to be, to make, to result in, to bring upon, to bring about.” Joseph Henry Thayer's Lexicon (1886; revised 1889), which I still rather like, obsolete though it may be, suggests the Latin efficere for the usage of the word in this verse: “to work out, i.e. to do that from which something results.” St. Jerome's Vulgate translates the word operor, which Lewis and Short defines “To work, produce by working, cause.”

So what does all this mean? It means that “work out” in Philippians 2:12 has a much more active meaning than I formerly supposed. There is agreement between all the lexica I consulted: κατεργάζομαι implies a very strong sense of bringing about, producing a state or condition. The result is that the correct understanding of this verse is that with fear and trembling, we are to bring about, produce, effect our own salvation. This seems startlingly un-Pauline, at least according to the Protestant understanding of Paul’s theology.

William Tyndale

William Tyndale, first translator of the Bible from its original languages into English.

But I should remind my Protestant readers that despite how Luther wanted to read Paul, Paul never once says by faith alone. Paul stresses justification by faith in opposition to the Judaizers, who stressed their works and denied that faith had any role, insisting that salvation in Christ came only by the works of the Jewish Law — that being circumcized would in itself bring salvation. Paul denies that works bring salvation; it is faith, the gift of God, that saves us, not the result of our own works. But Paul never denies that works are also important. He in fact writes of the importance of good works: we are “created for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10). God “will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life” (Romans 2:7). The people of God are to devote themselves to good works (Titus 3:8,14).

And now, by obeying Christ, we are to bring about our own salvation — a command, a strong imperative statement in the Greek. And through our working, it is not our own doing or merits that brings this about, but God who works in us by His grace, both to will (wish, want, prefer) to do good, and to work (to be active, effectual, able to bring about). Though at first it appears unlike Paul for him to say that we produce our own salvation, he is here consistent in reminding us that it is not our works that bring about our salvation, but God working in us. This interpretation is consistent in every way with Roman Catholic doctrine.

But in the English — to work out our own salvation — where does this come from? Given this clear, active meaning of κατεργάζομαι, with so strong a sense of working, producing, effecting, why has nearly every major English Bible translation since the sixteenth century — including Catholic ones — translated this phrase “work out your own salvation”?

Tyndale New Testament title page

The title page to Tyndale’s 1534 edition of the New Testament.

I suspected immediately that this was a Tyndalism — a translation first promulgated by William Tyndale in his 1534 English New Testament, that has such a sonorous ring to it, and that, by way of being assumed into the 1611 King James Version (of which Tyndale’s work makes up about 80%), has become so ubiquitous in the English language that no translator dare change it. Examples of the many other Tyndalisms include “Let there be light,” “gave up the ghost,” “my brother’s keeper,” “it came to pass,” and the nearly universal translation of the Our Father or Lord’s Prayer, which even Roman Catholics pronounce according to the King James translation (“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”). Tyndale also coined many words that have enriched the English language, including “scapegoat,” “Passover,” and “Jehovah.”

A little bit of research confirmed that I was correct. Stepping through the history of English Bible translation:

Wycliffe Bible (1380s): worche ye with drede and trembling youre heelthe
Tyndale Bible (1534): worke out youre awne saluacion with feare and tremblynge
Coverdale Bible (1535): worke out youre awne saluacion with feare and tremblynge
Matthew Bible (1537): worke out youre awne saluacion with feare and trembling
Great Bible (1539): worke out youre awne saluacion with feare and tremblyng
Geneva Bible (1560): make an end of youre owne saluation with feare and trembling
Bishop’s Bible (1568): worke out your owne saluation with feare and tremblyng
King James Version (1611): worke out your owne saluation with feare and trembling
KJV Cambridge Edition (1769): work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
Young’s Literal Trans. (1862): with fear and trembling your own salvation work out
Revised Version (1885): work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
American Std. Version (1901): work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
Revised Standard Version (1946): work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
New American Standard (1963): work out your salvation with fear and trembling
New Intl. Version (1978): continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling
New Revised Standard (1989): work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
Holman Christian Std. (1999): work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
English Standard Version (2001): work out your own salvation with fear and trembling

Now that’s staying power. With only one slight exception — the overly Calvinistic Geneva Bible, which changed “work out” to “make an end of” — every English Bible translation since Tyndale’s own has left Tyndale’s wording and phrasing of this verse intact.

I have intentionally not included Roman Catholic translations in the list above, to demonstrate Tyndale’s overpowering influence:

Rheims New Testament (1582): with feare and trembling worke your saluation
Challoner Revision (1752): with fear and trembling work out your salvation
New Jerusalem Bible (1985): work out your salvation in fear and trembling
New American Bible (1970–2011): work out your salvation with fear and trembling

Even into the Catholic mind, Tyndale’s leaven worked through the whole batch. Despite the Rheims translators’ initial attempt to escape Tyndale’s shadow — self-consciously avoiding translations that would appear to support Reformation theology, and replacing work out with work, though retaining Tyndale’s feare and trembling — Bishop Challoner reverted the whole thing to Tyndale’s wording. It has stuck ever since.

So why “work out” — a phrase with such an ambiguous meaning? Was Tyndale trying to obscure a phrase that seemed to cast doubt on Protestant theological suppositions? No, apparently not. Rather, “work out” has an archaic usage that is no longer current in today’s English. According to the Oxford English Dictionary:

work out. II. 6. To bring about, effect, produce, or procure (a result) by labour or effort; to carry out, accomplish (a plan or purpose).

In fact, this is the very meaning of the Greek word. And according to the OED citations, Tyndale’s is the first use of the phrase in this sense on record:

1534 Bible (Tyndale rev. Joye) Phil. ii. 12 Worke out youre awne saluacion with feare and tremblynge.
1600 Shakespeare Henry IV, Pt. 2 i. i. 181 We..Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas, That if we wrought out life, twas ten to one.
1805 Wordsworth Waggoner iv. 118 When the malicious Fates are bent On working out an ill intent.
1847 Tennyson Princess ii. 75 O lift your natures up:..work out your freedom.

The last noted use of the phrase by this usage is 1874.

Why did Tyndale choose “work out”? There’s no clear answer. Since κατεργάζομαι is a compound of the prefix κατά and the verb ἐργάζομαι (to work, labor), Tyndale may have added the “out” to reflect the prefix; though he did not translate κατεργάζομαι that way anywhere else. He may have been thinking in Latin: recognizing the meaning of the Greek to approximate the action “to effect,” he may have rendered it first efficere (ex + ficere, to work out) and followed accordingly with the English. Or, he may have just liked the way it sounded. He seems to have had a knack for that.

The Tyndalian wording of this verse, as beautiful and iconic as it is, is now archaic, and tends to obscure the meaning of Paul’s words. Paul clearly was saying that through working — though the praise for our works belongs to God alone, by His grace — we effect our salvation.

I have always admired William Tyndale, first when I was a Protestant and still now that I am a Catholic. Not only was he bold and fearless in his determination to bring the Scriptures into the English language — he ultimately gave his life for that cause — but he was brilliant both as a translator and as a wordsmith. As the first translator of the Bible into English from its original languages, Tyndale has no doubt had more impact on the English Bible than any other single person, and has had an impact on the English language itself to rival that of Shakespeare.

The Other Side of Calvin

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John Calvin

John Calvin (1509-1564)

I’m about to enter the scriptorium exeuntis, the paper-writing cave, from which there may be no return. But I suppose I shouldn’t leave everyone (all one or two of y’all?) hanging. Here is the second half of my post about Calvin.

I have felt pretty bad about the tone of that last post. I very nearly quietly removed it this morning, but after re-reading it, I decided that it wasn’t so bad. But I have feared that I came across in too polemical a way. That isn’t what this blog is about. I do not want, I am not interested at all, in attacking anyone else’s doctrine or theology or tradition. This blog is about my journey to the Catholic faith, all the good and praiseworthy things I have found in Catholicism. As I found out early on, embracing the Catholic tradition necessarily entails rejecting some other things. But I want to be clear that my aim is not to denigrate. In that last post, it was late; I was tired; and I probably could have done with a better choice of words (not to mention a good many fewer).

The title of this book I’m reviewing is Against Calvinism — but I am not against Calvinism at all. On the contrary, I am very fascinated by it. I think it is a worthy, valuable, and thoughtful paradigm for interpreting Scripture and thinking about God. I don’t know everything about God. The Catholic Church doesn’t know everything about God, nor does it claim to. What the Church does claim, I have embraced and I will uphold. But I do respect and even admire the knowledge and thought of others.

Against Calvinism

Against Calvinism. Dead, wilted TULIPs.

Roger Olson, in Against Calvinism, does come across in a rather polemical way. That was demonstrably his commission from Zondervan: to take apart and critique Calvinism, to provide the con to Michael Horton’s pro in For Calvinism. Olson makes clear that his aim is not to attack Calvinists — he affirms his love and respect for them as brothers and sisters in faith — but when he gets down to arguing, he can come across as rather vicious.

Notably, it’s clear that Horton and Olson didn’t read each other’s manuscripts before the publication of these books. Horton provides little in For Calvinism to anticipate the criticisms of Olson — and he probably should have, since I understand they’re pretty common criticisms. Likewise, the seemingly moderate Calvinism Horton presents (he vehemently denies his support of “hyper-Calvinism”) is not the Calvinism that Olson critiques in Against Calvinism. Olson takes aim at the “radical Reformed” theology of the “young, restless, Reformed” generation.

I went to school with a lot of those people (one or two may even be reading this), so I completely understand what Olson is talking about. I admire their passion for the Gospel and for God and most of all for their re-application of the intellect to faith. Olson sadly explains — and I nod fervently — the death of theology and doctrine in much of evangelical culture, the growing anti-intellectualism that leaves so many young people feeling empty. It certainly did that to me. It was a very good thing that I found security in my Catholic faith before reading Horton’s book. If I had read it while I was still lost, I think I would have pounced on Calvinism ravenously. (Most of my exposure to Calvinism while I was lost, though, was rather frightening and distasteful. Maybe I’ll share that sometime. But Horton presented it better than anyone ever had to me.)

As Olson critiques “radical Calvinism,” though, he makes clear that nearly all Calvinism is radical, if followed to the ends of its logic. Like a vicious game of dominoes, he pursues every Calvinist argument to its logical conclusions — many painful contradictions that, as Olson presents them, impugn the character of God. One of several phrases he repeats throughout the book is that Calvinism’s conclusions make God “either morally ambiguous or at worst a moral monster.” He demonstrates how each of the “five points” of Calvinism demands each other, how no “moderate Calvinist” can affirm just four and be logically honest (usually the one they want to reject is “limited atonement”), and how the whole system is predicated upon, and proceeds logically from, the affirmation of God’s absolute, meticulous sovereignty.

One thing I appreciate about Olson’s work is the extensive quotations he gives from Calvinist thinkers and authors, demonstrating that they in fact affirm what he is accusing them of affirming. Olson quotes from both Calvin and a half dozen influential Calvinist authors, including Loraine Boettner (a favorite villain for Catholics, who penned the wildly inaccurate Roman Catholicism (1962), responsible for so much of the rabid anti-Catholicism of the past half-century; I must confess I rather enjoyed watching him be pecked apart), R.C. Sproul (of whom I’d heard, but knew little about; I didn’t realize he was so anti-Catholic, and I’m now tempted to read him), and John Piper (the paragon and spiritual leader of so much of the RUF crowd; notably not anti-Catholic; I would really like to read him).

The contradictions Olson exposes are real and problematic. In my mind, they amount to these: If God is absolutely, meticulously sovereign, decreeing every event and movement down to the smallest atom, then he is necessarily the author of sin and evil. He created Satan and caused him to rebel; he created Adam and caused him to sin — or at least, “rendered his sin certain”; he “renders certain” each of our sins and failures. Calvinists have many ways of evading the conclusion that God bears responsibility for human sins and evils, arguing that God’s ways are not our ways, that He has a sovereign plan for it all, for His greater glory. They have many ways of explaining the apparent paradox between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility for our sins. But I am convinced by Olson’s argument here — both cannot be true.

Also, and even more problematic for me, Calvinism would present that God divinely reprobates the nonelect — those whom he did not choose to be saved — for sins that He himself ordained. He created many, if not most, of humanity for the sole purpose of being damned, of suffering both in this life and in eternity. God, who has the power and sovereignty to save all effectually, chooses to reject the most, even by choosing not to save them. How could a God who is love (1 John 4:8) do that? Olson argues that “double predestination” is a necessary conclusion of Calvinism’s other doctrines; that it can’t be excluded as Horton tries. And many (most of the authors he quotes) openly affirm it. Calvinists again have many arguments to explain divine reprobation. They argue that our human concept of love is not the same as God’s concept — but if God created our concept of love, how could it not be the same? Jesus reveals to us in fullness the character of God (John 14:9) — and I do not see Jesus rejecting people in this way or consigning anyone to suffering. Piper, for example, argues that God loves the elect in special way, but being love, loves all of creation, giving even many blessings to the reprobate — but as Olson points out, this is tantamount to “giving them a little piece of heaven to go to hell in.” How does creating people for suffering and death and loss, without any hope for redemption, exhibit “love”?

And that has always been my problem with Calvinism. I have had many friends who extol the hope and assurance it gives them to believe that God is control of everything, that no matter what happens, no matter what trials and sufferings they face, God has a plan for it and will ultimately bring them to glory and salvation. But I have always tended to see the other side of that coin. Identifying, as Jesus does, with the lost and the suffering, the “least of these,” I have only seen the utter hopelessness and despair to which these propositions necessarily leave the great mass of humanity. What is the point of living, of suffering through this existence, if there is no hope for anything beyond — if those people are predestined for only more and eternal suffering? To me, it necessarily undermines the essential dignity of all mankind, one of my core beliefs as a Christian and as a human — that all people are created in the image of God, and all people are worthy of love and respect; that no one deserves death and pain, and that I should labor in service to all. But Calvinism would tell me that much of humanity is destined only for destruction, that ministering to the lost is only a salve to the dying, that God ultimately doesn’t love those people the same way he loves his exclusive, preordained flock. Calvinists argue that the reprobate earn their destruction for themselves, through their sins and their rejection of Christ — but that only makes it worse, to say that they deserve it. For Christ rejected them first; he had the power to save them too, but didn’t. God decreed the very sins for which they suffer.

*exhales* … And as I said, I’m not against Calvinism. *grins sheepishly* I, like Olson I think, tend to get a little carried away with my rhetoric. I was going to say that I thought Olson was being a little harsh, but I’m not sure I did a lot better. The bottom line: I enjoyed Against Calvinism as well, though it was a bit of a painful experience, like watching someone take a hammer to the beautiful sculpture Horton had crafted. But I do think Olson is correct to point out these paradoxes, contradictions, and conundrums. All faith necessarily has mysteries, places where faith seems even foolish — in the Catholic faith, most ostentatiously, that bread and wine literally become the Body and Blood of Christ, when the senses show us otherwise. The problem of evil, explaining the origins and causes of sin and pain and suffering, is a problem for any faith. I certainly believe — I have seen enough in my life to affirm without a doubt — that God is sovereign over this world and our lives. But I have a very hard time embracing a view that openly declares that God is the author of all sin and pain, or that our loving God is not as loving as we believe.

Discovering Calvin

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John Calvin

John Calvin (1509-1564)

Last Christmas, I received a couple of books of theology: For Calvinism by Michael Horton and Against Calvinism by Roger Olson. I had asked for them; they had come highly recommended. I had never given Calvinism a fair shake, I felt. Every time I had tried to approach it through personal study in the past, it had left me feeling hopeless and despondent; it seemed to undermine the essential dignity of man. But I had a feeling that I probably wasn’t comprehending it fully. Other people I had talked to spoke of the hope and assurance it brought them; but I couldn’t see that at all. What was I missing? These books, I was told, were written by well-known academic theologians who presented their arguments well, so I hoped it might help me properly put the pieces together in my mind. And I was curious.

I’ve never had much of a mind for theology, especially not to discern between all the competing arguments that each seemed to have weight. Having no real foundation of my own, I had no point of reference from which to judge ideas; so more often than not, the entire discipline left me feeling frustrated and lost. But in coming to the Church, I had found my bedrock of truth, the faith passed down from the Apostles and confirmed by the generations. For the first time in my life, I knew what I believed. I was ready to tackle this.

For Calvinism

For Calvinism. See the pretty TULIPs?

Almost from the start, Horton’s For Calvinism charmed me. The picture Horton painted was not the bleak, harsh world that I had encountered before. The ideas he presented were surprisingly moderate, and seemed to follow logically. It was not a worldview at odds with the rest of Christianity (for I have met too many combative, polemic Calvinists), but a system of interpretations that sought to recover biblical truths. These interpretations, Horton claimed, were not new. They had been passed down from the Church Fathers and councils, most notably St. Augustine, but passing through a long list of great men, including my beloved St. Bernard of Clairvaux — until finally they were returned to light by Calvin. This seemed, at once, too good to be true.

To my immense surprise, I found Calvin himself, from the many quotes Horton shared from the Institutes and other writings, to be compassionate and amiable — not the cold, stern voice I was expecting. He was erudite, thoughtful, and reasonable, yielding points where I did not expect him to yield; I was expecting rigid, dogmatic pronouncements. I had to admit, I liked Calvin. One passage in particular, Horton quoted at length. Of my beloved ancients, Calvin wrote:

Whenever we come upon these matters in secular writers, let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts. If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God. For by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem, we contemn and reproach the Spirit himself. What then? Shall we deny that the truth shone upon the ancient jurists who established civic order and discipline with such great equity? Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature? Shall we say that those men were devoid of understanding who conceived the art of disputation and taught us to speak reasonably? Shall we say that they are insane who developed medicine, devoting their labor to our benefit? What shall we say of all the mathematical sciences? Shall we consider them the ravings of madmen? No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. We marvel at them because we are compelled to recognize how preeminent they are. But shall we count anything praiseworthy or noble without recognizing at the same time that it comes from God? Let us be ashamed of such ingratitude, into which not even the pagan poets fell, for they confessed that the gods had invented philosophy, laws, and all useful arts. Those men whom Scripture, calls “natural men” were, indeed, sharp and penetrating in their investigation of inferior things. Let us, accordingly, learn by their example how many gifts the Lord left to human nature even after it was despoiled if its true good (Calvin, Institutes, 2.2.15, quoted at Horton, For Calvinism, 42).

The more I read, the more I was taken aback. As Horton laid out the doctrines of the TULIP (the terms of which he slightly modified), the “five points” of Calvinism, the idea began to crystallize: This is not that different than what we believe. Though Horton made fairly frequent references to what “Roman Catholics believe” — very often misunderstanding or misrepresenting what we in fact believe — his descriptions of Calvinist doctrine seemed to agree in many aspects with Catholic understandings. Total depravity — our total inability, in mankind’s fallen state, to reach to God in any way apart from His grace: certainly, the Church has always believed that. Unconditional election — without a doubt, Scripture teaches God’s election; and the way Horton presented it, it made perfect sense; when it didn’t, he appealed to mystery. I was impressed and relieved that Horton vehemently rejected double predestination. No, Horton said, it is perfectly reasonable to believe that God simply passes over those he does not choose, leaving them to the wages of their sins. I began to write extensively in the margins.

The chapter on atonement fascinated me. Horton went down a list of theories of the atonement, none of which I had studied before. But each of the ones Calvinism affirmed were consistent with the Church’s teachings; most of them, Horton admitted, were proposed by Church Fathers or even medieval theologians. In fact, Horton very frequently cited Church Fathers or church councils to illustrate or support his arguments. I met the doctrine of particular redemption (Horton’s preferred term for what is often called “limited atonement”) with considerably more resistance, but Horton explained it very well; it seemed to be logically necessary.

The way Horton presented effectual grace (or “irresistible grace”) didn’t immediately conflict with Catholic teaching. Catholics affirm that it is only by God’s grace that we are called. Though we believe that we have to assent to that grace, how do we know it wasn’t irresistible, since we who are Christians didn’t resist it? It was certainly effectual in us. Horton explained that after that initial, saving grace, Calvinists believe that in their continuing conversion, they have to “work out their salvation with fear and trembling,” cooperating with God’s grace to move toward their sanctification — an idea completely consistent with Catholic teaching.

At the very beginning of his argument for perseverance of the saints, Horton gave a hefty quote from St. Augustine. In the margin I wrote, “HA!” Following from Augustine, Horton went on to describe the “visible church” that contained both the elect and the nonelect — both those who would be saved and those who would be lost — in the same terms Catholics use. People fall away, he affirmed; people apostasize; it happens. But God never loses those whom He chose, whom He effectually called. If we do not fall away, if we do not deny Him, we will be saved.

Horton went on to relate Calvinism and the Christian life. His descriptions of a piety that emphasized public, communal means of grace over private relationships with God could be easily applied to Catholic piety. The remainder of the book, with chapters on Calvinism and missions, and a hasty summation rounded out with rude, unsupported jabs at Roman Catholicism, was unsatisfying. Horton should stick to what he does best, theology.

In the end, I was thoroughly enchanted by Horton’s book. He had sanded off the hard edges of Calvinism, and presented what on its face seemed moderate and logical and well supported. I went off jabbering about all the things it had in common with Catholicism, wondering why in the world we had been unable to resolve our differences for the past five hundred years. I didn’t realize until later — until after I’d read Olson’s Against Calvinism — where I had gone wrong. In my thinking, I mistook unconditional election for foreknowledge: since we have to assent to God’s call, how do we know he didn’t elect from the beginning those whom he foreknew would assent? But then, this election wouldn’t have been unconditional. Remove that brick, and the whole structure comes tumbling down.

Ultimately, in his efforts to be reasonable and moderate, Horton had nearly completely downplayed the absolute, meticulous sovereignty of God that Calvinists affirm. I had to go back through to look for affirmations that this is what he believes; and they were there, but subtle. All of the points of Calvinism that seemed acceptable to me had only been acceptable without the idea that God was decreeing absolutely everything. Adding this back to the mix, and following it to its logical conclusion — as Olson does in Against Calvinism — results in some truly disturbing contradictions.

But you’ll have to wait until tomorrow (or later; I can’t promise) to hear about that. Of For Calvinism, I can say that it was well written and well presented, and I enjoyed it a lot. Horton is a good theologian and a good writer and I hope to read some more from him in the future. He dispelled many of the caricatures I had of Calvinism; he puffed away even some of the bad experiences I have had with Calvinists. Above all, and most important, he brought me to an understanding of the harmony and consistency of Calvinist thought. I can at last see why my friends find it so assuring. I have a newfound respect for Calvinist theology, and for Calvin himself, and I intend to continue my study.

Postscript: For what it’s worth, I am not alone in my feeble attempt to reconcile Calvinist theology to Catholic theology. Jimmy Akin did the same thing a number of years ago, with much better results: A Tiptoe through TULIP.