Episode 11: Year A—Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word, we look at three details in this upcoming Sunday Mass readings that are relevant for apologetical discussions. The details that come from the Gospel, which is Matthew 5:13-16, are Jesus’ teaching about “salt losing its flavor” and Christians being “the light of the world.” The third apologetical detail, which is Paul’s deemphasis of human wisdom, comes from the second reading, which is taken from 1 Corinthians 2:1-5.
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The Sunday Catholic Word
Episode 11
5th Sunday of Ordinary Time—Year A
Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In this episode, we’re going to look at three details from this upcoming Sunday Mass readings that are relevant for apologetical discussions. Two of the three come from the Gospel, which is Matthew 5:13-16, and the third comes from the second reading, which is 1 Corinthians 2:1-5.
Let’s begin with the Gospel reading. Again, this is Matthew 5:13-16:
13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. 16 Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”
The first detail that has relevance to doing apologetics is Jesus’ reference to salt losing its taste and being thrown out. Notice Jesus applies the image of salt to His disciples, saying, “You are the salt of the earth.” He then proceeds to suggest that it’s possible for salt to lose its flavor. And if salt loses its flavor, it is “no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”
I would suggest that that this text provides us with evidence that it’s possible for a Christian to lose his salvation. There are two lines of argumentation here.
First, notice that Jesus identifies His disciples as the salt in the metaphor. So, just as salt can lose what makes it worth something as a seasoning, namely, its taste, so too a Christian can lose that which makes him worth something as a Christian. What could that be? The only thing that makes him worthy of the name Christian is the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. Therefore, according to Jesus, it’s possible that a Christian have the gift of salvation and then lose it, just like salt can have its taste and then lose it.
Second, just as salt can possibly “no longer be good for anything but to be thrown out,” so too a Christian can “no longer be good for anything but to be thrown out.” This implies that a Christian once was good for something but no longer is. In other words, he was a true Christian, just like the salt was true salt, but is no longer. And if he’s no longer a true Christian, then he no longer has that which comes along with being a true Christian, the gift of salvation. Hence, a true Christian can lose the gift of salvation. And without the gift of salvation, such a person will no longer be numbered among those in the household of God, just like salt is thrown out and is no longer numbered among household items. What else could Jesus mean by a Christian being thrown out?
Now, this exegesis is relevant for doing apologetics because it disproves the claim among some Protestants that once we’re saved, we’re always saved, which is a doctrine often called ‘eternal security.’ The bottom line is that Christians can lose what makes them Christian just like salt can lose what makes it salt. And what makes a Christian a Christian is the gift of salvation. Eternal security, therefore, is false.
The second detail in the Gospel reading that’s useful for doing apologetics is Jesus’ statement that we as disciples of Jesus are “the light of the world.” Within the context of the first reading, this reveals that the Christian community, or the Church, constitute the New Israel of God. Just as the Israel of God in the Old Testament was called to be a light to the world, as indicated in the first reading from Isaiah 58:7-10, so too the Church in the New Testament, which Paul calls “the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16), is to be the light of the world. But for apologetic purposes, it comes into play when addressing several different objections.
For example, many Protestants argue that Peter can’t be the rock of the Church in Matthew 16:18 because Jesus is said to be the foundation of the Church in 1 Corinthians 3:11. The assumption here is that what is said of one cannot be said of the other.
But Jesus’ revelation that we are the light of the world proves this assumption to be false. Consider that Jesus calls himself “the light of the world” in John 9:5. For Jesus, the metaphor of “the light of the world” can be applied to both He and Christians.
So, it’s simply false to think that since the foundation metaphor is applied to Jesus it can’t be applied also to Peter. The metaphor can be applied to both.
Another objection where “the light of the world” reference comes into play is the objection that the saints can’t be intercessors because Jesus is “the one mediator between God and man” (1 Tim. 2:5). Like the objection above, the assumption here is that what is said of one cannot be said of the other. But, again, this assumption is false given that Jesus calls himself the light of the world and us as Christians.
There’s another objection directed at Peter’s papal role where this information about Christians being “the light of the world” comes into play. In Luke 22:32, Jesus tells Peter to “strengthen your brethren.” Many Catholics infer from this command Peter’s papal ministry. But some Protestants counter that the terminology of “strengthening” is used elsewhere in the New Testament, the implication being that Peter strengthens just like everybody else. This being the case, it’s argued that there is no basis for reading papal prerogatives into this passage.
The assumption here is that if a word or motif is used for two people, it must mean the same thing for both of them—they must be equal with regard to that word or motif. Jesus’ reference to Christians as “the light of the world,” knowing that He calls himself “the light of the world,” proves this assumption to be false. Surely, Christians are not equal to Jesus in being “the light of the world.”
The same assumption is found in the objection fired at the Catholic appeal to John 21:15-17, where Jesus gives Peter the command to feed and shepherd His sheep. Many Catholics infer from this shepherding command that Peter is the universal or lead shepherd for Christ’s flock here on earth.
But some Protestants counter and say that others have the role of shepherding, too—both apostles and those of lower rank, such as the presbyters in Acts 20:28. If Christ wants others to be shepherds, so it’s argued, then Peter’s commission to shepherd Christ’s flock doesn’t make him a unique leader.
Again, the assumption is that if an idea is used for multiple people, then they must be equal with regard to that idea. But given Jesus’ teaching that both He and Christians are “the light of the world,” this assumption is false. Jesus’ unique role as being “the light of the world” is not threatened by Christians being “the light of the world.” The reason is that Christians can be “the light of the world” if and only if they are in Christ.
Let’s now move to the second reading, which comes from 1 Corinthians 2:1-5. Paul writes,
1 When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, 4 and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive [words of] wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God
Notice Paul’s deemphasis on “human wisdom.” It might seem that Paul is rejecting the good of philosophy; thereby providing evidence for the heresy of fideism—the belief that reason is so corrupt that we can only arrive at true knowledge of God through divine revelation.
There are a few things that we can say in response.
First, if Paul truly meant to reject philosophy as a legitimate means of arriving at truth, and more in particular the truth about God, then he would be contradicting himself. Consider, for example, in Romans 1:20, where Paul writes, “Ever since the creation of the world [God’s] invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” To perceive God’s eternal power and deity through created things is to perceive divinity through reason alone. Paul, therefore, affirms that reason, without the aid of divine revelation, can arrive at some true knowledge of God. So, less we say that Paul is contradicting himself in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, we must conclude that Paul is not rejecting philosophy in that text.
Second, Paul’s words only proves that He didn’t want to use philosophy when evangelizing the Corinthians. He makes this explicit when he writes, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you” (v.2). Not wanting to use human wisdom with the Corinthians doesn’t mean that Paul thinks human wisdom should be excluded absolutely speaking.
But why would Paul choose to avoid human wisdom for the Corinthians?
What Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:1-2 begins to shed some light. He writes, “But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it.” It’s clear from this that it was the Corinthians spiritual immaturity that led Paul to avoid human wisdom and stick to “a demonstration of spirit and power.”
But what was the nature of their immaturity?
We get a hint in 1 Corinthians 3:19, where Paul writes, “For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.” According to St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Commentary on 1 Corinthians, the wisdom of the wise doesn’t refer to wisdom absolutely speaking. Rather, it refers to the wisdom that the wise of this world have invented for themselves against the true wisdom of God.[1] In the words of James, “this wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish” (James 3:15). It is a wisdom whereby the wise of this world esteem themselves prudent in earthly/worldly affairs and cling to the goods of this life.
This tendency to live for worldly affairs alone drives our attempts to explain the world. Just as we tend to live only for the goods of this world, we tend to explain the world only in terms of the things in the world, restricting our explanations to natural causes and not allowing recourse to a transcendent reality or the possible light of divine revelation. This is what Aquinas means when he says in his aforementioned commentary, “[O]n account of the vanity of his heart man wandered from the right path of divine knowledge” (1 Corinthians Lecture 1-3, 55).
According Dominican priest Fr. Thomas Joseph White, in his 2014 Nova Et Vetera article “St. Thomas Aquinas and the Wisdom of the Cross,” it’s this misery of the human condition that the wisdom of God in the crucified Christ heals, “opening [reason] up to an authentic horizon of intellectual universality.” In the words of Aquinas, “God brought believers to a saving knowledge of himself by other things, which are not found in the natures of creatures” (1 Corinthians Lecture 1-3, 55).
A teacher who recognizes his students are missing the point, if he wants them to learn, will change track and use another example or explanation to get the point across. This is exactly what Paul had to do with the Corinthians. He recognized that they were having a hard time understanding the meaning of their lives and the world with the language of nature. Consequently, he employed the language of the cross to convey that meaning.
But what’s that meaning? It’s love.
The language of love that Jesus expresses on the cross opens man’s reason up to the reality that we are called to a loving relationship with God the Father, through Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit. In the words of Fr. White, the “love of Christ crucified . . . redeems the human mind by introducing it at once to the heights and depths of the mystery of the Trinity.”
And how do we achieve such a loving relationship? By imitating the crucified Christ and offering our lives for others in self-sacrificial love. That’s the message that Paul preached to the Corinthians—not that philosophy or human wisdom is bankrupt.
Well, that does it for this episode of The Sunday Catholic Word
We’re now equipped with some tools to engage in conversations about the doctrine of eternal security, objections that deal with ideas or motifs being used for more than one person, and the good and limitations of human philosophy.
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[1] See Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on 1 Corinthians, Lecture 1-3, 55.