A Tradition of Authority: Why Catholic Arguments Were Convincing to Me, and Not Merely a Cure for Exegetical Paralysis

This is a bit heavier than my usual posts here, but it answers an important question that Protestant apologists have posed to me and other Catholic converts: Was I only drawn to the Catholic Church because its claims to authority offered an “easy out” to the difficulties of weighing Scripture and doctrine for myself?

Paralysis

A Catalogue of Sects

A Catalogue of the Severall Sects and Opinions in England and other Nations: With a briefe Rehearsall of their false and dangerous Tenents. Broadsheet. 1647.

I’ve been accused before, and I readily admit that it’s true, that as a Protestant, I never had a very thoroughgoing commitment to Protestant theological principles. It was not for lack of trying: for a number of years I had studied theology, prayed, and pored over the Scriptures in an earnest attempt to arrive at some apprehension of the truth. But no Protestant theology, despite the ardent, sometimes vehement assertions of each’s adherents, had a firm enough foundation to convince me. Each was based in subjective interpretations of the Scriptures that lacked either the context or the clarity to convey everything their doctrines demanded of them. Each’s interpretation conflicted with every other, and yet was based in the very same texts; and each had no greater claim to being the correct and sole interpretation of those texts than the rest. I had not the knowledge or the faculty to sort it all out, and even if I had, any conclusion I reached would be, I realized, my own subjective conclusion, based only on my own interpretation and whosever opinion happened to sway me at that time. I realized the inherent weakness, instability, and insufficiency of this position. Though I would never have articulated it this way then, it was clear that Scripture by itself could not teach me everything I needed to know about God and His salvation.

So as a Protestant, I resigned myself to uncertainty, to never being sure exactly what Scripture was trying to teach; to never knowing, in the sea of competing and conflicting doctrines, which ones were the true ones. Since I could not discern, from Scripture, the truth or falsehood of every doctrine and theology, I was lulled into a sense of complacency, what I called a thoroughgoing ecumenism: if I could discern no school of theology to be absolutely true, then each of them must be more or less acceptable and worthy of consideration. On one hand, I am glad for this: it made me tolerant and accepting of a wide diversity of Christian brothers and sisters, and open-minded enough to listen to and consider what they have to say. It was an open-mindedness that eventually made me willing to examine the Catholic Church and finally found welcome in her walls. It troubled me, and still does, the Protestants who could assume a stance of enough certainty to condemn and judge the doctrines of other believers, based on so unsteady a foundation as I perceived theirs to be. On the other hand, this ecumenism eventually reached a point of doctrinal relativism, agnosticism, or universalism: that not only could we not know the truth of doctrine, but that it didn’t really matter and that God loved and accepted us all anyway.

A Protestant apologist recently referred to this as the “paralysis” of the Protestant mind; apparently it is common enough to have its own name. This apologist also suggested, as I have heard other Protestant apologists charge against other Catholic converts, that the Catholic Church was attractive to me simply because it offered a way to break this “logjam”: that I accepted the Church’s claims only because they asserted a singular authority, because the Church could dictate the answer rather than leave me to muddle it out on my own, and not because there was anything compelling or convincing about the claims of themselves: in short, that the singular, magisterial authority of the Catholic Church was a crutch, an escape, a deus ex machina, an easy out of the Protestant conundrum of having to reason through the Scriptures.

There are several answers I’d like to make to this charge.

I resisted until I couldn’t

no

First, I wasn’t looking for such a crutch. I was well aware of the position of the Catholic Church in claiming to be the only authoritative interpreter of Scripture for years before I ever considered Catholicism — and rather than being an attractive prospect, it horrifed me more than almost anything else I knew about the Church. It seemed the perfect setup for the many doctrinal abuses I had heard about and believed existed in Catholicism: if the Church can dictate that some thing in Scripture means something different than what it says, and that doctrines don’t even have to have a biblical basis at all, then she can teach her followers anything, no matter how contrary to reason and truth, and compel them to accept and believe it. (Of course, these are all mischaracterizations of what the Church teaches.) As an academic, I cared about and was convinced by reason and evidence, and was suspicious of claims without solid factual foundation. The Catholic teaching authority, as I understood it, was a proposition that I strongly and vehemently resisted, not one that I readily embraced as a savior.

“Authority” in a Different Sense

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/bnf/lat11641/6v/0/Sequence-204

Leaf from a manuscript of Augustine at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, dated c. 7th–8th century (e-codices.unifr.ch).

Once I examined her in earnest, the Catholic Church won me over, against my expectations or inclinations, because her arguments were compelling: not merely because they claimed to be authoritative, but because they were based on actual authority, on an authentic, continuous, and documented tradition of authoritative testimony. Protestants tend to think of “authority” only in terms of divine authority, the absolute, unquestionable authority of God, which they find solely in Scripture. In this regard — even if they acknowledge that Jesus granted authority to His Apostles — they find no essential connection between that authority and the Church, and so presume that the claims of the Catholic Church to be “authoritative” are based only on bald assertion. But to me as an historian, “authority” also has another meaning: the authority of support for a claim or argument. And rather than bald assertions or empty, unsupported claims, as I had been led to believe the Catholic Church stood on, I found, for every substantive point of Catholic doctrine, well-articulated, well-defined, and well-supported arguments based in a rich, academic, scholarly tradition and founded on a continuous and consistent corpus of authoritative documents and teachings spanning twenty centuries.

The Catholic Sense of Scripture

Monk at work in scriptorium

In most everyday matters, it is precisely this latter understanding of authority that is the substance of Catholic teaching, and not the sort of dictatorial pronouncements that Protestants presume. For example, Protestants commonly understand that the Catholic Church must dictate to the believer how to interpret every jot and tittle of every passage of Scripture, such that believers cannot read and interpret Scripture for themselves. But the truth is that the Church has given authoritative teachings on only a very small portion of the whole corpus of Scripture. The sense of the Catholic understanding of Scripture subsists not only in such pronouncements, but in the exegetical tradition of Church Fathers, bishops, teachers and theologians, whose mind and understanding is faithfully passed down and preserved in the Church — whose teaching is authoritative by its own merit, because of their great learning and holiness and their nearness in history to Christ’s revelation. Though not having divine authority on its own, this is more authoritative by bounds than the subjective, substantially unsupported interpretations of Protestants.* In exactly the same way, I accept the writings of past historians as having great knowledge and insight, as being authorities into their subject matter.†

* There are some Protestants, especially the great theologians, who do seek to support their exegetical arguments with appeals to the authority of the Church Fathers; but generally, I find, they do this selectively and unevenly, accepting a Father’s argument where it suits them but ignoring him where it does not, and looking to the Fathers only as a last recourse, designed to support their own subjective interpretation, and not as a primary means to discerning the meaning of the Scriptures in the first place.

† Of course, some historians are simply wrong; and Church Fathers can also be wrong. Here the consensus of the Church, the opinions of other Fathers and teachers and theologians, is important. If the consensus of later writers is that Augustine was a great and orthodox teacher, then that is the reputation and the authority he enjoys. If the consensus is that Tertullian strayed off track in his later life and expressed some opinions that are not in agreement with the Church’s teachings, then we read those opinions of Tertullian as dissenting and sometimes heterodox arguments. Nevertheless, because of his position in time, so close to the Apostles themselves, Tertullian’s authority as an historical witness to the doctrines believed and taught in his time is absolute.

Teaching from the Deposit of Faith

Burglechner, The Council of Trent

Matthias Burglechner, The Council of Trent, 16th century (Wikimedia Commons).

This is the raw material: Scripture and the generations of holy men and women who taught, prayed, and commented on it, preserving and passing on the teachings they had received, the inheritance of the faith delivered once unto the saints, and with it the teaching of Christ and the Apostles themselves. When the Catholic Church does make official pronouncements of doctrine — whether from a council of bishops or pastorally from the pope — these teachings are not invented from nothing, but are drawn from, based on, and supported by this raw material. Especially when the meaning of Scripture and doctrine is not completely clear from the sources themselves, and when there is uncertainty or dispute, it is the role of the Church’s Magisterium, her teaching authority, to weigh the body of evidence and discern the truth from it. Even then, the conclusion is not arbitrary: the Magisterium cannot declare something contrary to the evidence, contrary to Scripture or to the orthodox teachers of the faith; she cannot declare a circle square, or dictate something that revelation has not itself revealed, or compel her faithful to believe something not already contained in the deposit of faith. The Church teaches what she has received (1 Timothy 4:11): not anything more and not anything less.

A Well-Built Building

pyramid

Catholics believe that in such teachings, the Holy Spirit guides the Church into all truth (John 16:13) — and this is a simple matter to believe, because they are evidenced by the constant and unchanging course of that guidance, and founded in reasonable and well-supported arguments from authority. For example: the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the epitome of Catholic doctrine, is not a book of empty assertions, but bases its every sentence on several thousand citations to authority in Scripture, the Church Fathers, councils and popes. Every one of these citations can be followed to find the origin and basis of the Church’s teaching, like a well-built building, every element borne up by the support of another, until it reaches the ground of absolute authority in Christ’s revelation itself. Even the declarations of the most controversial doctrines to those outside the Church, such as the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in Pope Pius XII’s 1950 Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus, rest not on bald assertion or any empty claim to papal privilege or authority, but on carefully constructed and well-reasoned arguments from the tradition of received authority.

Thus, the charge that I was drawn to the Catholic Church solely because her claims to authority were a cure for my exegetical paralysis, a crutch and an escape from having to discern and decide for myself, is completely false. The Catholic Church did cure my exegetical paralysis, but I was not seeking and did not believe there could be a cure: I was taken by surprise, and thoroughly convinced, by something I was not expecting at all, something I never imagined could exist: a Christian body who based its arguments not on subjective interpretations of Scripture, not on concepts and constructs of theology with no other basis than such interpretations, not on vitriolic polemics against other sects — but on the very concepts of authority, evidence, and tradition I had been taught to embrace and accept as an academic; on a sturdy and unshakeable foundation of such authority reaching back through the ages to the Apostles themselves, evincing and confirming the origin of all authority, Christ Himself.

Some Early Testimonies to the Authority of Apostolic Tradition

Part of an ongoing discussion at Reformation500.

The Sermon on the Mount (1877), by Carl Heinrich Bloch

The Sermon on the Mount (1877), by Carl Heinrich Bloch (Wikimedia).

As I’ve been arguing, I think Protestants, in thinking about “Tradition,” fail to see the forest for the trees. You (and I presume these historians) are looking for “traditions,” “hidden doctrines,” something concretely novel or different from the Word of God in Scripture — but given that, according to the proposition, this “Tradition” came from the very same source and same revelation as Scripture, that isn’t something we should expect to see. You are looking for some separate, concrete body of knowledge which the Early Church hailed as authoritative — some esoteric, “secret” store of privileged revelation — which frankly reeks of Gnosticism. But that isn’t the sort of thing I am talking about at all.

Christ Preaching (1652), by Rembrandt.

Christ Preaching (1652), by Rembrandt.

What I’m talking about is simply the whole teaching of Christ to His Apostles, and of the Apostles to their disciples, and henceforth. In the main, this would have been no different than the content of the New Testament; and yes, we can have faith that God caused the most important points to be written down. But no document of the New Testament purports to be a catechism or compendium of Christian doctrine. In the teaching of the faith, from Jesus to the Apostles, from the Apostles to their disciples, and with each successive generation, even to today, Christian teachers do not simply hand the Bible to new converts and expect them to learn from it alone; Christian discipleship is accompanied by instruction in how to understand Christian Scripture and doctrine and how to live the Christian life; how to do the things Christians do. By nature of what it is, this teaching carries content not found in Scripture. And the Apostles would have passed on as fully as they could the teaching they received from the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:23), and instructed their own disciples to do likewise (1 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, 2 Timothy 2:2). Thus, this body of “Tradition” (παράδοσις [paradosis], lit. teaching that was handed over) was immediately apostolic in origin, if not from the very mouth of God Himself.

Baptism, Catacomb of St. Callixtus

A third-century representation of Baptism from the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, Rome.

I’ve been pointing out a few visible examples of this. Arguably, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the sacramental efficacy of baptism — i.e. baptismal regeneration; the understanding that the water of baptism washes away sins and gives rebirth in Christ — are clear enough from Scripture itself; but the fact that many Protestants have disputed these doctrines demonstrates either Scripture’s lack of perspicuity or the necessity of Apostolic Tradition: because from the earliest times, as witnessed by diverse Church Fathers, these understandings were universal and unambiguous throughout all the Church, evidently from the teaching that all the churches had received. Likewise, from the earliest times, universally, even in most Protestant traditions, the Church has transferred the Old Testament Sabbath observance to Sunday, the Lord’s Day, in honor of His Resurrection; and the annual commemoration of the Resurrection has been kept in conjunction with the Passover — but neither is taught by Scripture. The outlines of the liturgical celebrations of baptism and the Eucharist in all churches everywhere appear to stem from the same apostolic tradition. Likewise the testimony to a successive, singular episcopal office is universal. These things complement and guide the practice of the Church, and inform and fill out her doctrine, confirming and supporting the Word of God in Scripture, not contradicting it.

The Four Doctors of the Western Church

The Four Doctors of the Western Church: Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome.

I could cite numerous testimonies to this παράδοσις of the Apostles from the Church Fathers, but I will pick out only a few of the earliest. I hope these examples will indicate the kind of doctrines and practices which the Church has always held by Tradition. Some of the earliest unambiguous references, appropriately enough, appear in the context of combatting the teachings of heretics, who twist the Scriptures to their own interpretations, arguing that they had received an esoteric tradition of secret knowledge (γνῶσις) — a charge not unlike Protestant caricatures against Catholic teachings about Apostolic Tradition. These people, Irenaeus argues, reject Scripture:

Irenaeus

Irenaeus of Lyon (ca. A.D. 120–200).

When, however, [the heretics] are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but viva voce: wherefore also Paul declared, “But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world” (1 Corinthians 2:6). And this wisdom each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing … (Against Heresies III.2.1)

On the other hand, Irenaeus says, the same heretics also reject apostolic tradition:

But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the Apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the Apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. … (Against Heresies III.2.2).

The key for Irenaeus, therefore — the only sure means by which the heretics can be refuted — is not by Scripture alone, but by Scripture informed by Tradition, verified by Apostolic Succession:

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the Apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the Apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. (Against Heresies III.3.1).

This tradition is demonstrated clearly, he continues, by the continuous testimony of all the churches of the world in agreement with one another (Against Heretics III.3.2). And as a personal testimony of this tradition, Irenaeus shares:

But Polycarp also was not only instructed by Apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by Apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departing this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the Apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time,—a man who was of much greater weight, and a more stedfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics (Against Heretics III.3.4).

Tertullian

Tertullian of Carthage (c. 160 – c. 225).

Tertullian actually speaks to the impotence of Scripture alone in refuting heresies:

But with respect to the man for whose sake you enter on the discussion of the Scriptures, with the view of strengthening him when afflicted with doubts, (let me ask) will it be to the truth, or rather to heretical opinions that he will lean? Influenced by the very fact that he sees you have made no progress, whilst the other side is on an equal footing (with yourself) in denying and in defence, or at any rate on a like standing he will go away confirmed in his uncertainty by the discussion, not knowing which side to adjudge heretical. For, no doubt, they too are able to retort these things on us. It is indeed a necessary consequence that they should go so far as to say that adulterations of the Scriptures, and false expositions thereof, are rather introduced by ourselves, inasmuch as they, no less than we maintain that truth is on their side. (The Prescription against Heretics I.18)

Rather, one should ask, “With whom lies the very faith to which the Scriptures belong?” And how is this rule of faith known?

Our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the Scriptures; nor must controversy be admitted on points in which victory will either be impossible, or uncertain, or not certain enough. But even if a discussion from the Scriptures should not turn out in such a way as to place both sides on a par, (yet) the natural order of things would require that this point should be first proposed, which is now the only one which we must discuss: “With whom lies that very faith to which the Scriptures belong. From what and through whom, and when, and to whom, has been handed down that rule, by which men become Christians?” For wherever it shall be manifest that the true Christian rule and faith shall be, there will likewise be the true Scriptures and expositions thereof, and all the Christian traditions. (ibid, I.19)

It is this tradition, Tertullian argues, that distinguishes the true Apostolic Churches:

[The Apostles] founded churches in every city, from which all the other churches, one after another, derived the tradition of the faith, and the seeds of doctrine, and are every day deriving them, that they may become churches. Indeed, it is on this account only that they will be able to deem themselves apostolic, as being the offspring of apostolic churches. … Therefore the churches, although they are so many and so great, comprise but the one primitive church, (founded) by the Apostles, from which they all (spring). In this way all are primitive, and all are apostolic, whilst they are all proved to be one, in (unbroken) unity, by their peaceful communion, and title of brotherhood, and bond of hospitality,—privileges which no other rule directs than the one tradition of the selfsame mystery. (ibid, I.20)

Tertullian again speaks, presciently, to the situation so often separating Catholic and Protestant churches: Why should anyone accept practices not found explicitly in Scripture?

And how long shall we draw the saw to and fro through this line, when we have an ancient practice, which by anticipation has made for us the state, i.e., of the question? If no passage of Scripture has prescribed it, assuredly custom, which without doubt flowed from tradition, has confirmed it. For how can anything come into use, if it has not first been handed down? Even in pleading tradition, written authority, you say, must be demanded. Let us inquire, therefore, whether tradition, unless it be written, should not be admitted. Certainly we shall say that it ought not to be admitted, if no cases of other practices which, without any written instrument, we maintain on the ground of tradition alone, and the countenance thereafter of custom, affords us any precedent. To deal with this matter briefly, I shall begin with baptism. (De Corona 3)

I gave the same example above before I’d even discovered this passage. He elucidates:

When we are going to enter the water, but a little before, in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, and his pomp, and his angels. Hereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the Gospel. Then … we are taken up (as new-born children)… (ibid.)

This description very much resembles the rite of baptism in Catholic, Orthodox, and even Protestant churches, to this very day — thus is the authority and staying power of Tradition. And yet the details of this rite are not described in Scripture. Tertullian goes on to enumerate a number of other traditions, several of which are still very familiar in the Catholic Church, including the Sign of the Cross. Regarding these practices, Tertullian continues:

If, for these and other such rules, you insist upon having positive Scripture injunction, you will find none. Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as their observer. That reason will support tradition, and custom, and faith, you will either yourself perceive, or learn from some one who has. … If I nowhere find a law, it follows that tradition has given the [practice] in question to custom, to find subsequently (its authorization in) the apostle’s sanction, from the true interpretation of reason. (Ibid. 4)

Origen

Origen (184–254).

Origen, to add the voice of Alexandria to those of Gaul and Asia Minor (Irenaeus) and Africa and Rome (Tertullian), concurs:

Since many, however, of those who profess to believe in Christ differ from each other, not only in small and trifling matters, but also on subjects of the highest importance, as, e.g., regarding God, or the Lord Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit, … it seems on that account necessary first of all to fix a definite limit and to lay down an unmistakable rule regarding each one of these, and then to pass to the investigation of other points. … So, seeing there are many who think they hold the opinions of Christ, and yet some of these think differently from their predecessors, yet as the teaching of the Church, transmitted in orderly succession from the apostles, and remaining in the Churches to the present day, is still preserved, that alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ecclesiastical and apostolical tradition. (De Principiis, Preface, 2).

A few more brief quotes from later Fathers, in both the East and the West:

Gregory of Nyssa

Gregory of Nyssa (c. 330 – c. 395).

Let no one interrupt me, by saying that what we confess should also be confirmed by constructive reasoning: for it is enough for proof of our statement, that the tradition has come down to us from our fathers, handled on, like some inheritance, by succession from the apostles and the saints who came after them. (Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius IV.6)



Basil of Caesarea

Basil of Caesarea (329–379).

Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined which are preserved in the Church some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have received delivered to us “in a mystery” by the tradition of the Apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force. And these no one will gainsay;—no one, at all events, who is even moderately versed in the institutions of the Church. For were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority, on the ground that the importance they possess is small, we should unintentionally injure the Gospel in its very vitals; or, rather, should make our public definition a mere phrase and nothing more. For instance, to take the first and most general example, who is thence who has taught us in writing to sign with the sign of the cross those who have trusted in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ? (Basil of Caesarea, On the Spirit 66)

Basil proceeds to name, like Tertullian, a great list of authoritative traditions held by the whole Church.

John Chrysostom

John Chrysostom (c. 347–407).

Hence it is manifest, that [the Apostles] did not deliver all things by Epistle, but many things also unwritten, and in like manner both the one and the other are worthy of credit. Therefore let us think the tradition of the Church also worthy of credit. It is a tradition, seek no farther. (John Chrysostom, In 2 Thess. hom. IV.14, commenting on 2 Thess. 2:15)

[The Scriptures] need examination, and the perception to understand the force of each proposition. But Tradition must be used too, for not everything is available from the Sacred Scripture. thus the holy Apostles handed some things down in Scriptures but some in traditions. (Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion LXI.6.4)

Saint Augustine in His Study, by Botticelli.

Augustine of Hippo (354–430).

[I believe that this custom (i.e. of not requiring the rebaptism of heretics)] comes from apostolical tradition, like many other things which are held to have been handed down under their actual sanction, because they are preserved throughout the whole Church, though they are not found either in their letters, or in the Councils of their successors. (Augustine of Hippo, Contra Bapt. Donat. II.7.12)

So I’ve shown that the Church did possess an Apostolic Tradition, “passed down and preserved by all the churches” — and it is their agreement that makes it manifest. But of what authority was this tradition? Was it “infallible”? As John [Bugay] rightly pointed out — “infallibility” is not a concept or category that anybody in this age of the Church would have understood or thought about, and I’m not sure it’s helpful for this conversation. Certainty Christians considered Scripture of the highest authority — there’s no disputing that. But if a doctrine came from the very same source as Scripture, from the mouths of Jesus and the Apostles, would they have accepted it with any less authority, simply because one was written down and the other wasn’t? No less than Paul himself suggests that this distinction wasn’t so important as Protestants have sought to make it (2 Thessalonians 2:15). Why, within living memory of Paul, would anyone have drawn a distinction between what Paul taught by word of mouth or by letter? It is plain that the Early Church did not. Certainly Tradition is not Scripture, which is the very, written Word of God; but with legitimate evidence of its apostolic origin and belief throughout the ages, in all the churches, we can see by the testimony of these Fathers that the Church accepted it as authoritative. Several of them even declare that Tradition is held as of equal weight as Scripture. The fact that with regard to so many of these traditions, the Church everywhere has maintained them to this day, testifies to the authority in which they have been held.

A Note on “Hebrew Roots” or “Messianic” Christianity

(Here is a note that originated as a comment to a friend on Facebook, voicing my concerns about something I’ve never spoken about here before: “Hebrew Roots” Christianity or “Messianic Judaism.”)

Arch of Titus Menorah

An image from the Arch of Titus in Rome, commemorating the Roman sack of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

I have mixed feelings about the Messianic and “Hebrew Roots” movements. (I don’t know if it’s fair to lump those together or not. I think the two have different origins, but work from similar principles.) I think it’s definitely valuable to understand the Hebrew context and roots of the Christian faith, to seek to recover valuable traditions — but at the same time, many of the people I’ve talked to tend to be anti-traditional and iconoclastic in the opposite direction, toward all established Christian tradition, both Protestant and especially Catholic.

Christianity has come down to us by way of a 2,000-year-old tradition — 2,000 years of faithful men and women who have believed and followed God and preserved and handed down the faith. And if one isn’t careful about it, this “Hebrew Roots” movement implies a renunciation of all that. It seems to be the extreme end of the attitude that was born in the Reformation: let’s go back and recover the original Christian faith; let’s find a “pure” faith, and throw away anything else that’s been added.

Reformation iconoclasm in the Netherlands.

Reformation iconoclasm in the Netherlands.

But I think it’s dangerous to separate faith from history and tradition. I think it was dangerous (and harmful) for the Protestant Reformers to separate the faith from so much of the tradition through which they had received it — so many babies thrown out with the dirty bathwater — and Protestants have been lacking some necessary elements ever since. The Protestant notion of sola scriptura put forward the idea that all one needs to have Christian faith is “Scripture alone,” so it’s only logical to suppose that if we strip away all the tradition, even the Protestant tradition, we’ll end up with what we were originally supposed to have. But that presumes that the Protestant idea was correct in the first place. I get the feeling that much of what is driving this movement is frustration with the disorder and fragmentation the Protestant tradition is in — it was the same frustration that has led me and many others to rediscover the Catholic Church — but that disorder ought to be an indication that something has gone wrong in the principles and premises of Protestantism, not in the whole of Christian tradition. It seems to be a foregone concluson among Protestants that the Catholic Church is a corrupt and unviable option; perhaps they should take a closer look at that before they dismiss it.

de la Tour, St. Paul (1620)

St. Paul (1620), by Georges de la Tour.

Yes, Jesus and the Apostles were Jews, and the Christian faith is the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy and the culmination of Hebrew tradition. Yes, the earliest Christians were all Jewish and sought to preserve their Jewish identity in addition to being followers of the Messiah. But Protestants, especially those in this “Hebrew Roots” movement, presume that the historic, Catholic Church unfaithfully put aside those Jewish traditions or overwrote them with syncretistic or pagan or otherwise compromised doctrines. And separating the faith from history, presuming that Scripture is the only source one needs, makes it easy to believe that.

But the fact is that history presents a very different story. By the beginning of the second century, mere years after the deaths of the Apostles, the Christian and Jewish traditions were already parting ways. The Jews rejected Christians as anti-Jewish heretics, and Christians came to reject Jewish traditions as subversive and anti-Christian. Christian worship on the Lord’s Day (Sunday) had been a practice since the Apostles themselves (which Scripture itself supports), and the growing Church, as Christians were expelled from the synagogues, soon fell away from also celebrating Jewish worship on the Sabbath.

To sever faith from history forgets all of that and denies it happened. To cast away the Tradition of the Church loses the whole context of the New Testament and the Early Church, and with it the authentic teaching of the Apostles on how Christian worship was to be conducted. The liturgy of the Catholic Mass even to this day clearly follows the forms of the Jewish synagogue liturgy. The “Hebrew Roots” of Christianity are not lost; they merely grew into full-grown oaks.

Hebrew Roots

On the other hand, “Hebrew Roots” and Messianic Judaism in fact adopt a fabricated tradition — an invention of someone or another’s subjective conception of how early Jewish Christians would have worshipped — since no authentic tradition of Judaic Christianity descends to us. It takes on a false form of ancience and tradition, and in fact “adds to the faith” as much as Protestants have ever accused Catholics of doing, only adding genuine novelty and invention rather than what they only presume to be. It tends to be based on a very Protestant reading of Scripture (it doesn’t cast away that tradition wholly), and suffers from the same basic fallacies: by ignoring the received tradition of the Church, it misses many of the crucial understandings and connections which early Christian writers and the Church Fathers realized and retained and have handed down to us. Even more troubling, I’ve encountered advocates of Christians returning to the observance of the Torah, the Jewish Law, when Scripture is quite clear that this is opposed to or even negates faith in Christ.

Ribera, Saint Paul (1637)

Saint Paul (1637), by Jusepe de Ribera.

Scripture is clear that followers of Jesus, particularly Gentile believers, were under no obligation to observe the Torah or maintain Jewish practices, and if anything, even for Jews, these distracted from the fulfillment and revelation of Christ. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that God, “in speaking of a new covenant, treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13). Paul told the Colossians to “let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath [the principal elements of Jewish observance]. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:16–17). In fact, the whole message of Paul against the heresy of the Judaizers was for Christians not to allow themselves to again be placed under the yoke of the Jewish Law, to seek justification with God through religious observance and not through faith in Christ. “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace” (Galatians 5:4).

Defending Sola Scriptura: A Challenge

(I’m going to attempt to write the post I tried to write yesterday before I lost it to a tangent.)

Recently I’ve been talking to Protestants, especially those who present themselves as being of an apologetic bent, and asking them to defend the principles of the Reformation. St. Peter exhorts us to “always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you … with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15). I make every effort to ready myself to defend the beliefs I hold dear, both the Christian faith as a whole and Catholic doctrines in particular — so I figured Reformed believers ought to be willing to do the same for their own fundamental principles. So I ask them, as gently and reverently as I can, to defend the solassola scriptura in particular, which has by far been the most destructive.

John Calvin

John Calvin (1509-1564)

But what I’ve gotten is silence. Nine times out of ten, when I ask someone to defend sola scriptura, they shut down whatever discussion we are having and give no reply. I grant that many people may be wary of getting wrapped up in a fruitless and unpleasant debate, but these same people generally do not hesitate to criticize Catholic positions, or to outright denounce the Catholic Church as “apostate” or “un-Christian.”

I have yet to hear what I consider an adequate defense of sola scriptura. By “adequate,” I don’t mean “convincing,” since I think that would be an awfully high standard to set; but what I mean is thorough — covering all the bases; answering the particular questions I have posed that I think must be answered in order for sola scriptura to be a valid doctrinal position. One person has tried, and I do appreciate the patience he has shown me, but I am still waiting for an answer to my questions. Sola scriptura appears increasingly like The Emperor’s New Clothes — the doctrine that all Protestants give lip service to, but no one dares to look at very closely or question, lest anyone realize that they are in fact parading around naked.

Sola Scriptura, now a major motion picture!

Per the advice of a new friend, I picked up what was supposed to be a thorough defense of the doctrine of sola scriptura, by the foremost Reformed minds and scholars and apologists: Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible, which boasts contributions from R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, James White, W. Robert Godfrey, and more. Finally, I thought, I’m going to get that adequate defense I’ve been looking for, to demonstrate that sola scriptura is not just an empty fallacy but a respectable and defensible position. I don’t know why I got my hopes up. I guess I expected better of these people. I haven’t been so let down by a book in years.

Someone in the know, is there actual, academic material written on this subject? Can you point me in its direction? Because this book is not what it purports to be. Rather than a positive defense of sola scriptura — which, I’ll grant, it does attempt to give in some measure — it is mostly an anti-Catholic polemic, spending as much time presenting why Rome is wrong and why you don’t want to go there as it spends presenting an actual case for sola scriptura. I expected higher especially of Robert Godfrey, who purports himself to be a professor of church history. Here is someone, surely, I thought, who knows the truth of the history of the Church and will not be prone to such utter nonsense and misunderstanding of Catholic history and doctrine as is so typical among Reformed people. But if anyone could have woven a whole fabric of all the many, various, uneducated misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Roman doctrines and positions — he says that we worship statues! that we re-sacrifice Christ at every Mass! — that is what he presents in the first chapter of the book alone.

This, too, is turning into a rambling screed, and that is not what I intended it to be. Without further ado, I want to present the following challenge.

The Challenge

Bible

I would like someone — anyone — you can even collaborate — to present answers to the following questions. It is simple enough to cull together a few Scriptures that supposedly support sola scriptura, and call that a defense — but no Scripture actually says what proponents of sola scriptura teach. I am looking for more practical answers. If sola scriptura is true, then the following questions will have answers:

  1. When was the doctrine of sola scriptura taught in the Early Church, and by whom? Did Jesus teach it? Did the Apostles? Is it something Christians were supposed to have figured out for themselves by Scripture alone? If the doctrine was part of the teachings of Christ and the Apostles, how would it have been presented? “After we are gone, your only authority and rule of faith is to be Scripture”? “You are not to accept any doctrine not found in Scripture”? If that is to be our rule of faith, why isn’t it in Scripture?

  2. How did the historical transition come about, from the situation during the lifetimes of the Apostles, in which believers were to accept both the oral teaching of the Apostles and their written word (2 Thessalonians 2:15), to the purported situation Protestants maintain existed, in which Scripture alone was to be the authority? As per 1, is this something believers were taught to expect? Was there a perceived difference between doctrine that was written by the Apostles and doctrine that was received orally from the Apostles? And what about the content of that oral teaching that was not contained in Scripture? Protestants will argue that anything not contained in Scripture was not necessary for salvation — but even that being so, did early Christians see a distinction between apostolic teachings that were necessary and teachings that were unnecessary? Were some teachings of the Apostles understood to be extraneous and no longer worthy of being passed on or believed? When are Christians supposed to have learned to reject teachings not found in Scripture?

  3. Robert Godfrey complains in the first chapter of the book (page 7) about Catholic doctrines that “contradict Scripture” — naming first and foremost that Catholic tradition teaches that bishop and presbyter are two separate offices, in plain contradiction to Titus 1:5–7. But this charge in itself undermines his whole argument, or else denounces as unfaithful the earliest generations of Christians. If the earliest Christians were supposed to have held firmly to the word of Scripture and accepted no doctrine that contradicted it — if they understood Scripture to be an infallible and immutable rule of faith — then why, from only the second generation of Christians (Ignatius of Antioch, ca. A.D. 107), do we find firm declarations of this very “unscriptural” doctrine? Were early Christians so quick to deviate from the faith handed to them by the Apostles themselves, to which they were exhorted to hold fast and for which they saw their teachers go to their deaths? Were they so willing to go to their own deaths for a faith they felt they could alter as it fit them? Are such really the kind of people you propose our Christian faith is built upon?

  4. St. John Chrysostom

    St. John Chrysostom (c. 347–407).

  5. James White devotes an impressive chapter to culling many quotations from the Church Fathers that appear to endorse a doctrine of sola scriptura. But an appeal to these Church Fathers and a claim that they themselves held sola scriptura runs into an immediate and insurmountable problem: If the Church Fathers held a doctrine of sola scriptura, why did they, every one of them, accept and teach the myriad “unscriptural” doctrines from tradition that Protestants today want to reject? Why did every one of these faithful Christians — or even a single one of them — not immediately, vociferously, and unceasingly denounce these accretions of tradition, these “unscriptural” and un-Christian “inventions,” until they were rooted from the Church? The men we acclaim as Church Fathers were most of them bishops who held and taught apostolic succession, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, baptismal regeneration, the necessity of good works for salvation, a sacerdotal priesthood, the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary — and that’s just the beginning of the list. Could these men have held sola scriptura if they also held these “unscriptural” doctrines?

I had more, but that’s enough for starters.

Mary and the Living Tradition of the Church

The Immaculate Conception (ca. 1618-19), by Diego Valesquez

The Immaculate Conception (ca. 1618–19), by Diego Valesquez.

[This originated as a response to a comment on my own blog, but I thought it might be worth sharing with everyone.]

Well, even the language you are using exhibits that you are misunderstanding the Church’s teachings about Mary. And I can relate, because these are some of the same misunderstandings and objections I had.

All-Holiness: “Immaculate” is not “Perfect”

You suggest that someone is “making up a whole lot of stuff … until she is not human anymore.” Let’s start there. The Church teaches that Mary was fully, absolutely human, just as human as you or me. And she was in need of a Savior just as much as you or me. There is no teaching was “she was perfect.” Only Jesus was perfect. The Church teaches that she was preserved from sin, both the stain of original sin and the wound of ever committing actual sin — but that’s no reflection on Mary. She was not “perfect.” It’s all about the power of Christ to save. Christ’s power to save is so perfect, so absolute, that He could save His mother from the very moment of her conception, to make her wholly clean and pure in preparation for His coming. That Mary did not sin does not mean that “she was perfect” — it means that Christ’s grace is perfect. It is only by that grace that she was able to resist and avoid sin. And in the same way, we who are saved, who receive that same grace, have the power to resist sin! It does not mean that God is “less able to come all the way down to [the level of imperfect beings]” — it means that, by God coming to every one of us, we all can be made perfect by His grace!

(We say that Mary is “immaculate” — which does not mean “perfect.” “Immaculate” means “without a stain.” “Perfect” means “completely finished.” And we — just as Mary — are only “perfect” when we are “completely finished” works of grace.)

Virgin and Child with Rosary, 1655 (Murillo)

Virgin and Child with Rosary (1655), by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

Perpetual Virginity — Mary as a Consecrated Vessel

And the idea that Mary is “anti-sexual” — I had the same objection: that the Church’s teaching on Mary’s perpetual virginity somehow implies that sexuality is “dirty” and that sex would somehow taint her all-holiness. But this is a misunderstanding. Certainly if the Church thought sexuality (especially women’s sexuality) were sinful (as many have in the history of civilization) — and if the Church were free to “make stuff up” — then it would have Jesus being born from a rock or a seashell or coming down from heaven fully-grown or some other such — not coming out of a woman’s gross lady-parts. The very act of Jesus being formed in a human womb and born by a natural human birth intrinsically makes Mary in some sense “sexual” — but the fact is that this is not “dirty.” The fact is that God did come down to her, in a miraculous and wonderful way.

But her perpetual virginity — why did she not have sex after Jesus was born? Does this not say that sex is somehow “dirty” and that for her to have sex would be a sin? No, it means that sex is something worldly — and Mary’s womb, by the very fact that it contained God Himself, is something consecrated, set aside for a higher purpose.

From the earliest Tradition — from apostolic times — the Church has hailed Mary as the “Ark of the New Covenant” — the box that contained Christ, the incarnate Word, and bore Him into the world. See, for example, Revelation 11:19–12:1. The chapter break (which was not in the original text but only added later) causes many to overlook it, but here John plainly says, “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple…. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun” (Revelation 11:19–12:1) — a woman from whom is born “a male child, one who is to rule all the nations” (Revelation 12:5). Certainly the child represents Jesus, and the mother Mary, and the mother is implied to be connected with the Ark of the Covenant in the heavenly temple! The Ark of the Covenant, a consecrated vessel, the very gate between Heaven and Earth — that is why Mary’s womb is held to be something that no man could touch, not because the sexual act is somehow “dirty.”

There is evidence from Scripture, even, that Mary was intended to be a consecrated virgin — as an early (mid–second century) apocryphal gospel, the Protoevangelium of James, reports. In Luke 1:34, Mary asks the angel Gabriel, “How shall this be, since I know not man” — ἄνδρα οὐ γινώσκω, present tense, a Greek phrase that translators have been struggling with for centuries. Many translations render it “since I am a virgin,” but that doesn’t quite get it; not does “since I have no husband.” It says Mary was betrothed! Certainly she had every expectation of having a husband, and unless she was not aware of the facts of life, would have fully expected having marital relations with her husband in the near future and conceiving children naturally! Why, then, did she ask this question?

Duccio, Assumption fragment (1311)

Assumption (fragment) (1311), by Duccio.

Mary’s Assumption — A Sure Sign of Hope and Comfort

And regarding the Assumption — again, you are missing the point of the teaching. It is not that Mary is someone special who, “once God truly touches” her, “doesn’t have a place on planet earth anymore” — but that every one of us whom God truly touches doesn’t belong to this earth, but has a place, body and soul, in His eternal kingdom. Look to this post I made about it. Mary is the firstfruits of His inheritance to all, the assurance that every one of us who are in Him have a heavenly reward awaiting. The liturgy of the Mass for the feast of the Assumption puts it better than I ever could:

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere to give You thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God,
through Christ our Lord.
For today the Virgin Mother of God
was assumed into heaven
as the beginning and image
of Your Church’s coming to perfection
and a sign of sure hope and comfort to Your pilgrim people;

rightly You would not allow her
to see the corruption of the tomb
since from her own body she marvelously brought forth
Your incarnate Son, the Author of all life.

God came down to touch and to save not just one, not just Mary, but every one of us.

St. Luke as iconographer

An early Eastern tradition holds that St. Luke himself was the first iconographer and created the first icon of the Virgin and Child.

Mary In Scripture

You are right that “righteous” and “blameless” don’t mean “perfect” — something that Protestants should be reminded of, since they love to point to Paul’s quotation that “no one is righteous” (Romans 3:10) as evidence that we are all “totally depraved” and incapable of being righteous. But yes, Zechariah and Elizabeth were “righteous” — even though they sinned (for which Zechariah was stricken dumb, for doubting the angel’s words).

But regarding Mary — you suggest that “one little portion of Scripture led to a million statues.” Really? You think that the Church’s devotion to Mary is the result of a misunderstanding — of someone misinterpreting St. Luke when he says that Mary was “blessed”? Please remember that the Catholic Church is not like Protestant churches. We did not take the Bible and read it from scratch and interpret the Scriptures only for what we thought they meant. We received the Scriptures as part of a living Tradition — not just receiving the texts, but receiving teachings from those who wrote the texts, who taught us how to understand them and who gave us the fullness of revelation.

Go back to the beginning and read these words and try to put yourself in St. Luke’s mind: why did he write that “all generations would call [Mary] blessed”? Or that she was “highly favored” or “full of grace”? Was he just saying nice things about Jesus’s mother, or did he know more about her than he wrote in Scripture? By every indication, Luke knew Mary and talked to her, as one of the “eyewitnesses of the word” (cf. Luke 1:2) — or at least he talked to those who had known her very well. He had very personal and immediate knowledge of the circumstances of Jesus’s Nativity, things only Mary would have had knowledge of. Would Luke say that “all generations would call her blessed” — very high praise indeed — if there were not very good reasons why all generations would call her blessed? — if the generations of the Church were not already calling her blessed in their liturgy?

Fr. Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church

Mary and the Living Tradition

You suppose that the Church’s Marian doctrines are tradition getting out of hand, something added on later as people got carried away; and this is a common Protestant view. But from the very earliest Christian writers, we have testimony to the extraordinary things which the Church believes about Mary — that she was perpetually a virgin, that she did not sin, that she was assumed body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life. The Protestant view supposes that the Church, so careful to preserve intact and uncompromised the faith that had been received from the Apostles, so determined that she would condemn heretics for deviating from that Truth, would, at the same time, “make stuff up” about the mother of Jesus, and “deify” a mere human to a point that entirely departs from that Truth — and that all the same Christians who would persecute heretics for alternate understandings of the divine and human natures of Christ would be entirely okay with this. Think about whether that makes sense.

I think, toward the end of this, you are starting to figure out for yourself where the Marian doctrines might truly be directed: “that maybe we are destined for greater things that we can imagine.” That is absolutely it! We say in the Salve Regina, my favorite Marian hymn, that Mary is “our hope.” Does that mean that we “hope” in Mary for our salvation? No — what it means is that Mary is everything we hope for, everything we hope to be. And everything we can be, by God’s grace.

Mary and the Middle Ages, by Fr. Luigi Gambero

I would highly recommend a book, Mary and the Fathers of the Church, by Fr. Luigi Gambero, a book that made a profound difference in my understanding of the Church’s Marian doctrines. Gambero goes through all the Church Fathers, from the very earliest writings to the medieval age (for which he has a sequel, Mary in the Middle Ages, which I don’t have yet but it’s on my list), and surveys the teachings of each regarding Mary, giving quotations that demonstrate that all the things the Church believes have been believed since the earliest times — that this Tradition isn’t just something “made up,” but something real and received. Mary is not the Gospel — but she is the demonstration of the Gospel, our living witness and assurance that all the promises of the Gospel are true.

What Sacred Tradition Is and Is Not: 7 Answers to Common Misconceptions

Saints Peter and Paul, by El Greco

Saints Peter and Paul (between 1605 and 1608), by El Greco.

This started out as a response to someone’s blog, but I got carried away. Here are some answers to some common misunderstandings regarding the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church, especially with reference to the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. Pardon me for just dumping it here with so little introduction or conclusion, but I hope it will be helpful to someone.

1. Sacred Tradition — including Sacred Scripture — started out as oral tradition.

Of course, all Christian teaching started out as oral tradition. Until the Gospels were written, decades following Christ’s Ascension, the sayings and teachings and doings of Jesus were transmitted solely by word of mouth. Over the course of the first century, that was recorded in the books of Sacred Scripture we now call the New Testament. As you admit yourself, not everything Jesus did was recorded. There’s no doubt that not everything Paul preached was recorded; he often refers in his letters to teachings he gave in person, the content of which we are left to infer. Paul was a gifted writer, but we have from him only a handful of letters written for specific purposes, handling local business or offering correction or rebuke to specific situations and problems. None of the authors of the New Testament set out to write a compendium of the Christian faith or a catechism for teaching everything there was to know.

You believe, as the Catholic Church affirms, that Sacred Scripture is the heart of Divine Revelation, the very, infallible, written Word of God. But what do you suppose happened to all the stories of the other things Jesus said and taught and did, all the other things that Paul and the Apostles taught? Did people just forget them? And did these things somehow become less valid or less real because they weren’t written down? Everything that came from the mouth of Jesus was the Word of God. Did it cease to be the Word of God, cease to be Divine Revelation, because it was among those “many other signs Jesus did”?

Codex Vaticanus

A leaf from Codex Vaticanus, one of the earliest extant manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.

2. Sacred Tradition is the Word of God.

No, of course it didn’t, and the early Christians did not forget. They cherished every word that issued from the mouth of God through Christ, every word taught to them by the Apostles. Did the words of Jesus cease to be Divine Revelation because it was the Apostles repeating them and teaching them? Did they cease to be Divine Revelation after the Apostles died, and their disciples taught them to the next generation of Christians? No, the Word of God spoken orally was and still is just as much the Word of God as the Word of God written in Scripture — just as much as when we memorize and recite Scripture, we are speaking the Word of God. Memorizing and reciting the teachings of Jesus taught from one generation of Christians to the next is no less the Word of God — in fact, we depend upon it. You do, too. This is how the teachings of Jesus were transmitted for the generation or two before they became Scripture. Proclaiming the Gospels as the Word of God depends on the oral tradition of Christ’s teachings being and remaining the Word of God.

You believe that at the death of the Apostle, Divine Revelation was closed. We, the Catholic Church, go even further than that: Jesus Himself, the Word spoken by God, was the ultimate revelation. The New Testament is the New Testament not just because it was written by the Apostles, not even solely because it was inspired by Holy Spirit (which it was), but because it records the words and teachings of Jesus, the words of Divine Revelation Himself. What distinguishes the documents accepted into the New Testament canon as Scripture, versus the ones from only a generation later, such as the Didache or the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (1 Clement) — which were both among those documents considered for inclusion in the New Testament — was the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but also the fact that the canonical books were written by the Apostles or their associates, witnesses to the life of Christ Himself, or who were taught immediately by such witnesses — and above all that they consisted almost purely of the word and teachings of Jesus carried on and taught by the Apostles.

But did the words of the Word of God cease to be Divine Revelation because they weren’t written in Scripture? Did they cease to be the Word of God at the death of the last Apostle? Why the arbitrary cutoff at the death of the Apostles?

St. Thomas the Apostle

St. Thomas the Apostle.

3. Sacred Tradition was all most of the Apostles left us.

Most of the Apostles were too busy preaching to the ends of the earth to do much writing. That in itself, by the way, is an argument against sola scriptura: if the Apostles had any anticipation that only their written teachings would remain the Word of God after their deaths, wouldn’t you think they’d have done a lot more writing? What about St. Bartholomew, who preached in Armenia, or St. Thomas, who brought the Gospel all the way to India? Or St. James the Greater, who is traditionally held to have preached in Spain? Would they have given their lives as martyrs for the Lord so eagerly, never having written down their teachings, if they believed that all their preaching and suffering was worth smack — that after they died, their teachings would bring no one else to salvation, their deaths would turn no hearts, but that their mission fields would have to wait for someone else to write and compile and disseminate the New Testament? In any case, most of the Apostles, common men of Galilee, were probably barely literate if at all, as were the people they preached to.

But as for the rest of the Word of God — that that didn’t get written in Scripture: People didn’t just forget it, or dismiss it as no longer necessary now that they had the New Testament, which was “sufficient to lead a person to eternal life.” They didn’t decide, at the death of the last Apostle, that “nothing else was needed” and that the other teachings they had received from the Apostles and their followers were extraneous and no longer to be preserved or believed. Yeah, that story about St. Veronica wiping the bloody face of the suffering Savior? That’s not in Scripture; we don’t need that anymore. That liturgy you’ve been developing? No longer necessary; we have the New Testament now. Early Christians were even more excited than you are to preserve the Word of God, to learn and pass on the teachings of their Savior, the Son of God! They received no instruction from Scripture that they should discard and no longer believe the rest of the deposit of faith they had received. Not only did they receive no such instruction, but the fact is plain that they did not, since without a doubt these traditions continued to be transmitted by the earliest Christians. And if you suppose they had received such teaching to reject unwritten traditions about our Lord from the mouths of the Apostles themselves — then the idea of sola scriptura depends on an extrascriptural tradition and is self-contradictory.

St. Augustine

St. Augustine (c. 1645-1650), Philippe de Champaigne.

4. Sacred Tradition didn’t stay “oral tradition.”

Many Protestants speak of Catholic “traditions” — as you do above — as if the teachings of the Catholic Church consist of and depend solely on “oral traditions,” the kind of folklore American Indians tell around a powwow — passed down from pope to pope for 2,000 years like a tragic game of telephone. Protestant critics complain that “tradition” is something nebulous and undefined that Catholics can say is whatever they want it to be. “You made that up!” “No I didn’t, it came from tradition!”

But that is a fundamental misunderstanding. I’ve been writing about the first generations of Christians who faithfully preserved and passed down the words and teachings of Jesus, eventually recording them in Scripture. I’ve shown, I hope, that the other teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, those that were passed down (that’s all “tradition” means, by the way, is “that which is passed down”), didn’t cease to be Divine Revelation just because it was spoken and not written. They didn’t forget — it was crucial not to forget. Paul exhorted Timothy, “What you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2) — and that’s exactly what the early Christians did. They taught to others these teachings, and ensured that they were passed on intact, just as carefully — even more carefully — than the bards passing on the epics of Homer, who memorized the whole of those vast poems and carried them for centuries.

But unlike Homer, the Church didn’t have to carry them for centuries. Over the first few centuries, thankfully, the Christian faith found its way to learned and literate men who, bit by bit, set these remaining teachings of Jesus and the Apostles — the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27) — to writing. We call these men the Church Fathers.

St. Cyprian of Carthage

St. Cyprian of Carthage

5. Sacred Tradition is just as much Divine Revelation as Sacred Scripture — but not the same.

I’ve often heard it charged from Protestants that the Catholic Church “places Scripture and Tradition on the same level” or “equal authority.” Well, in a sense, yes. But I would dispute the claim that the two have “equal authority” — as if the two are “equal” to each other. They are not. Both Scripture and Tradition form one deposit of faith, but the two have very different characters.

Sacred Scripture is, the Catholic Church teaches and affirms just as much as any “Bible Christian,” the very written Word of God, inspired (“breathed out”) by the Holy Spirit. As such, it is infallible, inerrant, and indisputable in matters of faith, doctrine, and morals. God has spoken. We do not believe that Scripture is “perspicuous” or “self-interpreting” — a ridiculous claim to anybody who has spent time or energy laboring in scriptural translation or textual criticism or exegesis. Scripture is thousands of years old, written in languages and idioms no one speaks anymore, in ancient cultures and contexts very different than our own. The act of translation is itself an act of interpretation, so anyone claiming that their English Bible is “self-interpreting” is already mistaken.

Sacred Tradition, on the other hand — not “oral traditions” — is a very different animal. The writings of the Church Fathers are not infallible; they are not even inspired. The Church Fathers are not Sacred Tradition, but they do contain Sacred Tradition. They contain Divine Revelation not as Sacred Scripture — which is “pure silver, seven times refined” (Psalm 11:7), the pure, unadulterated Word of God — but more as unrefined silver ore — which contains pure silver, but also a lot of dirt and rock. The Church Fathers record the precious teachings of Jesus and the Apostles that they received from their teachers, who received them from their teachers, who received them from the Apostles themselves (in some cases, as with St. Clement of Rome or St. Ignatius of Antioch or St. Irenaeus of Lyons, as close as a generation away) — but they also have a lot to say that is merely their opinion or reflection. And sometimes they are plain wrong. Sometimes, many times, the Church Fathers even disagree with each other! But it is the things they agree upon, the core of apostolic teachings, that we receive as Sacred Tradition.

It is only the pure silver that is absolute and authoritative. If we could obtain the pure, undiluted Sacred Tradition in the form that came directly from the mouth of Jesus, it would be just as absolutely authoritative and divinely inspired as Scripture — since Scripture, too, originated as words from the mouth of Jesus. But the dirty ore of the Church Fathers is not that. The Sacred Tradition contained especially in the Church Fathers, but also in the ancient liturgy of the Church, in the pronouncements of Church councils, or even in the works of other writers, has to be refined in order to be authoritative. In the sense that Sacred Tradition comes from the exact same source as Scripture, the very words of Jesus — it is absolutely equal in authority. But practically speaking, since we don’t have that pure Tradition, it functions as a secondary authority — no less authoritative, but dependent on and supported by Scripture — which Tradition also supports.

Guido Reni, Assumption of the Virgin (1580)

Assumption of the Virgin (1580), by Guido Reni.

6. Sacred Tradition cannot contradict Scripture.

Protestants complain that Catholic Tradition “contradicts Scripture.” Such is, to begin with, patently impossible: if the two come from the same source, how can they contradict? Catholic teaching does not contradict Scripture. Perhaps it contradicts Protestant interpretations of Scripture — but such interpretations have little grounding in history or tradition. The fact is, even speaking practically, the Church Fathers, as the earliest recipients of Scripture and Tradition and of all Christian teaching, know how to interpret Scripture and Tradition in light of each other better than anyone else. Catholic teaching, coming both from Scripture and from the Tradition received from the Church Fathers, is in agreement with the Church Fathers: both what they believed, and how they interpreted Scripture. If these ancient interpretations contradict Protestant interpretations, then the Protestants have a much greater problem of contradiction than Catholics do.

It is the Magisterium of the Church — the teaching authority — that puts the pieces together; that reads and interprets Scripture authoritatively, and that gleans and refines from the Church Fathers and other sources the silver of Tradition. Protestants often complain that this places the Magisterium “above the authority of Scripture,” but such is also impossible. The Magisterium is constrained by what Scripture and Tradition say — what we have received in the deposit of faith. The Magisterium is not free to “make stuff up,” or pull Blessed Virgins out of hats, or any other such. Everything the Magisterium pronounces must be contained in Scripture and Tradition and in accord with both. The Magisterium cannot pronounce, say, that adultery is now perfectly moral and legal and okay in God’s sight, since such plainly contradicts the direct word of Scripture, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and since this contradicts the unbroken teaching of the Church for 2,000 years.

What about some of the doctrines that Protestants claim “contradict Scripture”? What about the big one, the veneration of Mary? First, Scripture plainly demonstrates the beginnings of devotion to the mother of our Lord: “My soul magnifies the Lord, / and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, / for he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. / For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:46–48) — by all appearances an early liturgical prayer or hymn, which we today call the Magnificat. There is nothing in Scripture to demonstrate that we shouldn’t honor our Lord’s mother, for Jesus Himself loved her and honored her. And as for pulling Virgins out of hats — the tradition of honor given to Mary dates to the earliest centuries of the Church, found among the earliest Church Fathers and ecclesiastical writers. There is nothing in the Church’s doctrines regarding Jesus and Mary that isn’t well attested to in the writings of Tradition. The Church doesn’t “make stuff up.”

Pope Paul VI

Pope Paul VI, who re-called the Second Vatican Council following the death of Pope John XXIII in 1963.

7. Sacred Tradition is transparent and open.

I have heard Protestants complain that the Tradition of the Church is something closed and unknown, a well-guarded secret that only the prelates of the Church are privy to, with the result that the Church can proclaim anything as “Tradition” that she wishes, and no one will be the wiser. But such, again, is patently false. Every bit of the body of material that comprises Sacred Tradition is readily available, much of it online. I have never seen an organization go to greater lengths to be open and transparent as to the content and basis of its doctrines. Front and center, the Church publishes the Catechism of the Catholic Church in a dozen or so different languages, available free on the Vatican website, which not only lays out clearly and succinctly the doctrines of the Christian faith, but gives exhaustive references to Scripture, Church documents, and the Church Fathers to locate where and on what each doctrine is based. Many if not most of those Church documents (certainly the recent ones) are available for free on the Vatican website. Many of the most important writings of the Church Fathers are readily available online, both from Catholic and Protestant websites. (For what it’s worth, even New Advent, the Catholic site, reproduces a Protestant edition of the Church Fathers, the same one as on CCEL, since that is the most extensive English edition of the Church Fathers readily available in the public domain, and it’s generally a pretty fine one.) A distillation of the doctrinal sources of most important Catholic doctrines is readily available in the Enchiridion Symbolorum or Sources of Catholic Dogma. So, no, the idea that the Tradition of the Church is closed and unknown is without foundation.

Ending abruptly, because I don’t seem able to wind this down: I hope this clears up some confusion.

Going to the source: Some light on the Assumption of Mary from Munificentissimus Deus

Assumption of the Virgin, by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1758-1823)

Assumption of the Virgin, by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon (1758-1823) (WikiPaintings)

I don’t have a lot of time for an update today, and am in no mood for argument; but this is an important day: the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the celebration of our Blessed Mother being assumed body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life, as a sign of the promised resurrection for each of us. For me it is especially meaningful: for on this day seven years ago, I received in my own body a foretaste of that resurrection.

I made a meaty post last year which expounded some of the scriptural and patristic testimonies to the Assumption; it is worth a read. Today I took a few minutes to read and reflect on Munificentissimus Deus, the Apostolic Constitution by which Pope Pius XII declared the Assumption a dogma of the Catholic Faith on 1 November 1950. If any one is doubtful or insecure about the Catholic Church’s promulgation of a dogma that is not spelled out explicitly in Scripture — if any one feels that the Magisterium of the Church is free to pull fanciful doctrines out of hats, to invent and declare to a gullible public whatever is expedient or profitable for the prelates of the age — he need only read this document, to understand the prayer, caution, and deliberation that goes into such a declaration; the certainty and unanimity in a doctrine that is required; the research and reasoning and support from the deposit of faith that must form its foundation.

Venerable Pope Pius XII.

Venerable Pope Pius XII.

Here I’ll give a few quotations that stood out to me in particular. I would encourage anyone who is curious to learn more to read the whole thing (it’s not a very lengthy document), and read my post from last year.

Pope Pius XII, in a 1946 encyclical letter to all the bishops of the Church, Deiparae Virginis Mariae, asked what they thought of the notion of promulgating the Assumption (which has been held since the earliest centuries of the Church) as a dogma — if it could or should be done. To this he received a nearly unanimous response in favor (§16):

But those whom “the Holy Spirit has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God” (Acts 20:28) gave an almost unanimous affirmative response to both these questions. This “outstanding agreement of the Catholic prelates and the faithful” (Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus [1854]), affirming that the bodily Assumption of God’s Mother into heaven can be defined as a dogma of faith, since it shows us the concordant teaching of the Church’s ordinary doctrinal authority and the concordant faith of the Christian people which the same doctrinal authority sustains and directs, thus by itself and in an entirely certain and infallible way, manifests this privilege [the Assumption] as a truth revealed by God and contained in that divine deposit which Christ has delivered to his Spouse to be guarded faithfully and to be taught infallibly (First Vatican Council, Dei filius [1870]).

In other words: the near-unanimous response in favor proved that the teaching authority of the Church was in agreement with the faith of the Church.

Certainly this teaching authority of the Church, not by any merely human effort but under the protection of the Spirit of Truth (John 14:26), and therefore absolutely without error, carries out the commission entrusted to it, that of preserving the revealed truths pure and entire throughout every age, in such a way that it presents them undefiled, adding nothing to them and taking nothing away from them. For, as the Vatican Council teaches, “the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter in such a way that, by his revelation, they might manifest new doctrine, but so that, by his assistance, they might guard as sacred and might faithfully propose the revelation delivered through the apostles, or the deposit of faith.” (First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeternus [1870]).

Assumption of the Virgin (c. 1550), by Tintoretto

Assumption of the Virgin (c. 1550), by Tintoretto (WikiPaintings)

This is where it leapt out at me: To the mind of the Church, to all the faithful who petitioned for the dogmatization of the Assumption, to all the bishops who affirmed it, this was not the promulgation of a “new doctrine,” but the protection of the Divine Revelation handed down by the Apostles, that had been a part of the deposit of faith for time immemorial.

Pope Pius then went on to lay out many testimonies and evidences from both Scripture and Tradition which affirm the truth of the Assumption. Noting that the Church had celebrated the Assumption in her liturgy since ancient times, he declared (§20):

However, since the liturgy of the Church does not engender the Catholic faith, but rather springs from it, in such a way that the practices of the sacred worship proceed from the faith as the fruit comes from the tree, it follows that the holy Fathers and the great Doctors, in the homilies and sermons they gave the people on this feast day, did not draw their teaching from the feast itself as from a primary source, but rather they spoke of this doctrine as something already known and accepted by Christ’s faithful. They presented it more clearly. They offered more profound explanations of its meaning and nature, bringing out into sharper light the fact that this feast shows, not only that the dead body of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt, but that she gained a triumph out of death, her heavenly glorification after the example of her only begotten Son, Jesus Christ — truths that the liturgical books had frequently touched upon concisely and briefly.

We today are so fixated on primary sources, on declaring proofs for everything we do; but Pope Pius here makes an important point: that ancient Christians based their liturgy on the faith revealed to them, and that the Fathers who expounded on the Assumption did so from that very tradition handed down from the Apostles, not from the surviving liturgical texts which now we look to as proofs.

The Assumption of the Virgin (1650), by Nicolas Poussin

The Assumption of the Virgin (1650), by Nicolas Poussin (WikiPaintings).

Since the universal Church, within which dwells the Spirit of Truth who infallibly directs it toward an ever more perfect knowledge of the revealed truths, has expressed its own belief many times over the course of the centuries, and since the bishops of the entire world are almost unanimously petitioning that the truth of the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven should be defined as a dogma of divine and Catholic faith — this truth which is based on the Sacred Writings, which is thoroughly rooted in the minds of the faithful, which has been approved in ecclesiastical worship from the most remote times, which is completely in harmony with the other revealed truths, and which has been expounded and explained magnificently in the work, the science, and the wisdom of the theologians — we believe that the moment appointed in the plan of divine providence for the solemn proclamation of this outstanding privilege of the Virgin Mary has already arrived.

Pope Pius concluded (§41) that the overwhelming weight of evidence supports this declaration of the Assumption: not only its basis in Scripture, but the certainty in the minds of the faithful, in its celebration in liturgy since the most ancient times, in its harmony with all other revealed truths (something I wanted in particular to point out to critics), and in the extensive and learned exposition by all the theologians of the ages. This, truly, was not a case of “making stuff up”: it was a setting down of what was already known and believed.

Missing Information: The Historical Limitations of Sola Scriptura

(This little essay originated as a comment in another blog just now, and I thought it might be worth sharing.)

Bible

As a historian — and this is one of the things that led me to Catholicism — I feel like it’s a fallacy of the doctrine of sola scriptura to presume that we have all the sources and aren’t missing any information. We have to remember that there were twenty, thirty, maybe forty years between the events of Christ’s earthly ministry and the writing of the earliest Gospel. For those decades, the Church wasn’t just sitting around waiting patiently for God to give them the New Testament so they could begin preaching the Gospel. The original mode of transmitting the Gospel was by oral preaching and teaching, by the Apostles going out into the world and spreading it by word of mouth. The churches they established were many and far-flung, but they were in touch with each other, by believers traveling among them, by the Apostles returning to visit the churches like Paul wrote about, bringing news and teaching.

We have to accept that we just don’t have all of that from Scripture. The writers of the New Testament didn’t record absolutely everything that happened or was going on between the churches. The Gospels, by their own admission, aren’t even a full account of everything Jesus said and did (John 21:25) — and such a thing isn’t even possible. No writer can record everything, not even a divine one — because He’s limited by the very earthly medium of paper and pen. The books of the New Testament very frequently refer to events we don’t know about and can only infer, to people we don’t know, even to letters we don’t have (1 Corinthians 5:9, 7:1).

Now, Protestants believe that everything they need for salvation is recorded in the Scriptures — and I like to think that God really did give them enough to get them into heaven, since He surely knew ahead of time that they were going to bolt. But that doesn’t mean that everything is in the Scriptures. On many points, the Bible is silent. That doesn’t mean, however, that there necessarily aren’t answers. The Tradition handed down by the Church — not vague, amorphous “traditions,” but historically documented testimony to the Church’s beliefs from the earliest ages — can shed light in many places, and complete our incomplete picture of the Early Church.

It’s very compelling to me to study the Bible and discover all I can about the people and places in it — but my salvation doesn’t hinge on which Mary was which or whether Jesus’s “brothers” were Apostles or even whether they were His brothers. Not even Tradition offers definite answers to many questions. Since I know I don’t have all the facts — not about the Early Church and certainly not about God — I’m content to just let some things be mysteries, things I wonder about but won’t know until I get to ask. I believe and have faith in the things I know for sure, and that’s that the Gospel is true and Jesus is my Savior.

Sacrament and Schism: The Media of Grace and Our Separated Brethren

van der Weyden, Seven Sacraments Altarpiece (1450), left panel

Seven Sacraments Altarpiece (1450), by Rogier van der Weyden. This is the left panel of the triptych, representing (left to right) Baptism, Confirmation, and Confession. (WikiPaintings.org)

Here’s the beginning of something I’ve been pondering for a while now (or really the last post may have been the beginning). I’m going to try to be a little more brief than I usually am, both for your sake and mine.

The ministry of the Roman Catholic Church to her people is focused in the Seven Sacraments: Baptism, the Eucharist, Confirmation, Confession, Marriage, the Anointing of the Sick, and Holy Orders. The word sacrament comes from the Latin sacramentum, which classically referred to a solemn oath, but came in Ecclesiastical Latin to mean something set apart, consecrated, made sacred. It became one of the common translations for the Greek μυστήριον (mystērion, mystery, as in the sacred mysteries) — e.g. Ephesians 5:32, “This [marriage] is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the church” (Douay-Rheims Bible).

So what is a Sacrament? The clearest definition, which apparently comes from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (though it seems to have a basis in St. Augustine and Hugh of Saint Victor), is that it is “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” Or, as it was explained to me in RCIA, a sacrament actually accomplishes spiritually what it represents physically. Baptism, through a washing with water, actually accomplishes a spiritual washing away of sin, a death to the old self and a new birth in Christ. The Eucharist, through the breaking of bread and the eating and drinking of the elements, actually communicates to us the Body and Blood of Christ, by God’s grace. We believe that the Sacraments are the “media of grace” — the means by which God transmits His grace to His people.

van der Weyden, Seven Sacraments Altarpiece (1450), right panel

Seven Sacraments Altarpiece (1450), by Rogier van der Weyden. The right panel, depicting (left to right) Holy Orders, Marriage, and Anointing of the Sick. (WikiPaintings.org)

So why do Catholics call these seven things sacraments? Why do we raise these things to the level of the sacred? Why do we place the emphasis on them that we do? The simplest answer: Because Christ commanded us to do them. We find in Scripture Christ teaching these things to His Apostles; we find the Apostles taking them and making them part of the worship and practice of the Early Church. In the Tradition of the Church, passed down from the Apostles themselves, these things have always been done; always held to be sacred. A lot of the finer points of sacramental theology were worked out by the Church’s theologians over many generations; even the firm definition of Seven Sacraments was a development over time. But we know that Christ commanded these things; we know that they accomplish what He said they would.

And that brings me to the question I’ve been pondering: We Catholics believe that the Sacraments are the means by which God saves us. If I accept as an assumption that Protestants can be saved — many of whom deny the efficacy of the Sacraments — how does God’s grace move for them? As I mused last time, I reckon God’s Divine Mercy is so overwhelming that His grace bleeds even through the cracks of our schism. The Church holds that even though the Catholic Church is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, “many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure” (Second Vatican Council, Lumen gentium §8). And I’m enthralled by this wondrous grace that reaches even beyond our gravest human failings, across the chasms of our human divisions, to catch up those who love Him and serve Him and won’t let them slip away.

I plan in the near future to focus on each of the Sacraments, and the graces that we believe as Catholics they bestow, and muse on why our separated Protestant brethren have rejected them, how each’s particular aspect of salvation is accomplished in Protestant systems of belief, and how even though Protestants reject them, the Sacraments bear grace to them anyway. First, I will think about Baptism.

van der Weyden, Seven Sacraments Altarpiece (1450), center panel

Seven Sacraments Altarpiece (1450), by Rogier van der Weyden. The center panel, showing Christ’s sacrifice in the Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith. (WikiPaintings.org)

The Outpouring of Divine Mercy: A thought on the Work of God among all Christians

The Works of Mercy, by David Teniers the Younger

The Works of Mercy (c.1645), by David Teniers the Younger. (Wikipaintings.org)

Hello, dear friends. I’m still around. I’m continuing to struggle with some things — not least of all a real terror of a paper — but I think the sun is beginning to shine through the clouds, and I hope, I pray, that I’ll soon be able to return to you on a more regular basis.

I have been thinking about a lot of things lately — the direction this blog has been taking, the direction my heart has been taking, and the way my heart needs to lead this blog. For one thing, I need and deeply long to return to this blog’s original mission, to extol all the beauties and graces of the Catholic Church, and to ponder the lamentable divide between Catholics and Protestants, and to work in my own way to bring us closer together. I have been lashing out defensively, even aggressively, against Protestants who reject communion with the Catholic Church, against their arguments and even against their beliefs. But the truth is that this all breaks my heart grievously, in being hurt and even more in that my words might hurt others.

I have been spending a lot of time with my Protestant brethren lately, most of all my dear Baptist friends. And I find that the passion, the mercy, and the love of their worship and ministry is true and genuine and full of God’s grace and healing. And that begs the question, as my wandering road as a Protestant always begged — how can more than one thing be true? If the Catholic Church is Christ’s True Church, founded by Him and His Apostles, bearer of Apostolic Tradition, the fullness of God’s plan of salvation for us — and this I firmly and thoroughly believe — what are our separated brethren? And if I see God’s grace and love alive and active in them, as witnessed by the transformation of lives — what does that mean for the Truth? It means, I suppose, that God is so much bigger than us and our petty disputes, than any division we can create; that His mercy is infinitely greater and overflowing to all who love Him.

We of the Catholic faith practice the Christian life as it has been handed down to us. Catholic tradition is just that — that which has been handed down — and it has been handed down from the ages because it is what works, what time has proven to bear fruit, and what Christ and the Apostles commanded us to do. So what about all the other Christians who do differently, who believe differently? The Catholic Church is not in the business of pronouncing judgment on them, on deeming whether they or anyone is “saved.” What the Church teaches is what she knows; what she has received; what has proven to be true. How God moves and saves with other Christians is His business, the outpouring of His Divine Mercy. It is our job to seek His Truth, and to be faithful and obey.