Billy Graham tells the story of preaching in a small town before he became a world-famous evangelist. One day he was looking for the local post office and happened upon a boy of ten or so.
“Excuse me, young man,” he said. “Could you tell me where the post office is?”
After the boy gave him directions, Graham decided to do a little evangelizing.
“Son, I’d like to invite you and your folks to come on out to the First Baptist Church tonight,” he said. “I’m an ordained Baptist minister, and I’ll be telling people how to get to heaven.”
“No offense, sir,” the boy said, “but how do you know how to get to heaven when you don’t even know how to get to the post office?”
In whom do we place our trust?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives a succinct definition of faith: “Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself” (CCC 1814).
There are two key points here. First, we must know that, at its core, faith involves trusting in a given proposition put forward for us to believe. Faith means believing what has been said to us.
Second—and this is key for our purpose here—if it is truly the theological virtue of faith that we are talking about, it has to have a divine, infallible source for it to be authentic. We can trust in that divine source, whether it’s Scripture or the teaching of the Church, only because we know it has God as its ultimate author—“because he is truth itself.” We can place divine faith in God’s word is because we know God can neither deceive nor be deceived. His word is trustworthy.
Thus, the quintessential question to be asked when someone says he has faith is: “In whom are you placing your faith?” That ten-year-old boy had it right when he asked a simple question of Billy Graham that really amounted to, “Why should I follow you?”
Why indeed?
Billy Graham—and, generally speaking, most Protestants—would no doubt respond to that question by saying, “Don’t follow me, follow what God says in his word, the Bible.” But in reality, we all have to trust in someone’s interpretation of the Bible. The Bible does not interpret itself, as evidenced by the tens of thousands of Christian denominations all claiming the Bible as their foundation.
The truth is, if you are Protestant, it may be your pastor, or your denomination, or a combination of many different teachers, or it may be just yourself; but the fact is you (and all of us) are trusting in someone’s interpretation of Scripture. The question is: Whose interpretation should you follow?
The failure of sola scriptura
A large number of the conversion stories of Protestants or other sectarians involve the realization that sola scriptura is a self-refuting principle. Sola scriptura (or “Scripture alone”), the sole rule of faith in the life of Protestant Christians, cannot reasonably prove the scriptura part.
By that I mean you cannot prove what constitutes the canon of Scripture by referencing only Scripture itself. Scripture does not even attempt to provide a canon; and even if it did, that would amount to circular reasoning.
Moreover, as a matter of history there were many books we enjoy in our canon today that were not considered canonical by some in the early Church, and there were some books that are not in our canon that were considered canonical, or inspired, by some. This led to real questions in the early Church that could not be answered by the Scriptures themselves.
St. Augustine answered this question indirectly in a sentence in his Letter Against the Manicheans, reporting a simple historical fact: “But I would not believe in the gospel had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me” (5, 6). And when I say “historical fact,” I mean as a matter of fact—as a matter of history—it was the Catholic Church that separated the wheat from the chaff and gave us the canon of Scripture.
The truth concerning biblical authority
The question arises at this point: Isn’t your reasoning also circular? You say the Church is infallible because the Bible says so and the canon is infallible because the Church says so.
Actually, that is not what the Church says.
As an apologetic strategy, we do not begin with the inspiration of Scripture. We begin with history. Even if someone does not accept the inspiration of Scripture, he can know through the use of reason alone that the New Testament contains accurate historical information. And one of the central things that Jesus did in his ministry—as a matter of history—was to establish “the Church” that would speak for him—the Catholic Church. And indeed, historically, it was that same Church that gave us the Scriptures. In matters of dispute Jesus directed us to submit to the decisions of the Church:
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the Church; and if he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matt. 18:15-18).
Here Jesus—who, historically, demonstrated he was God through the fulfillment of prophecy and the performance of miracles—guarantees the future definitive decisions of the Church would be backed up by the authority of heaven itself, long before a single book of the New Testament would ever be written down. So radical is this authority that he communicates to his Church that he would also say of his Church, “If they receive you, they receive me; if they reject you, they reject me” (Matt. 10:40; cf. I Tim. 3:15; Eph. 3:10; 4:11-15, etc.). These words indicate not just some nebulous kind of authority but an infallible authority—the authority of Christ himself.
It was that Church that years later would write the New Testament, preserve it, and finally canonize it.
Got faith?
According to Scripture, without an infallible church you really cannot have faith in the sense that God wills for us; because, if you don’t have an infallible church, then you are trusting in some man’s private interpretation rather than God’s spokesmen who speak infallibly.
In I Thess. 2:13, St. Paul put it this way: “And we thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God.”
Notice that St. Paul did not say he was communicating his own fallible opinion of what he thought the gospel was saying. He spoke “the word of God” to the Thessalonians. This is why Scripture and the Catholic Church never command what the Church calls “divine faith” to be placed in anything other than definitive teaching of the magisterium. To place “divine faith” in anything else would be to accept “as doctrines the precepts of men.” Jesus did not have nice things to say about that (cf. Mark 7:6-8).
The Protestant idea—that we are to get our Bibles out and argue verses, come to our varying non-infallible opinions, and then start our own churches—as has been the case for well over 450 years of the Protestant Reformation, ultimately undermines faith and is alien to the New Testament. The New Testament refers to that as “private interpretation” and condemns the practice. Now, mind you, this is the very practice upon which the doctrine of sola scriptura rests:
First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God (2 Pet. 1:20-21).
Many Protestants will say this is speaking only of the inspiration and authority of the text of Scripture alone. In other words, this is saying only that the text of Scripture itself is not “a matter of one’s own interpretation” and that it has nothing to do with who interprets Scripture.
St. Peter disagrees.
In the next verse (2 Peter 2:1), St. Peter tells us he was concerned with more than just the text of Scripture. By extension he was concerned with “private interpretation” of the text. Notice, he immediately warns of “false teachers” who would, in the future, introduce “heresies”:
“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies.”
In 2:10, he describes these false teachers as “despising authority,” and then, in 3:16, says they “twist the scriptures to their own destruction.” The context of St. Peter’s letter leaves no room for doubt: Our first pope was condemning the private interpretation of Scripture—the foundation of the Protestant movement.
The consequences
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that, apart from the teaching authority of the Church, it is impossible to maintain the “saving truths of the faith” (CCC 2051).
The infallibility of the magisterium of the pastors extends to all the elements of doctrine, including moral doctrine, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, expounded, or observed.
Too many Catholics take for granted the great gift of the magisterium of the bishops in union with the Bishop of Rome that has safeguarded the truth of the Faith for 2,000 years. In fact, there is no human way to explain the reality of “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5), what we have experienced in the Catholic Church for two millennia, apart from this supernatural gift. But perhaps even fewer of us consider some of the consequences that have come as a result of the absence of this great gift.
Below, we have gathered just a few examples—two pertaining to faith, and two to morals—of what happens when you don’t have the infallible gift of what the Catechism calls “the Magisterium of the Pastors.”
Mary, Mother of God
I can remember believing this to be absolutely crazy when I was Protestant. And on the surface, one can perhaps understand the problem: If we say Mary is the “Mother of God,” wouldn’t she have to be God? If a dog begets a dog, and a cat begets a cat, would not Mary have to be God in order to give birth to God?
The error here is a failure to understand that Mary was not the source of Jesus’ divinity, nor was she the source of his human soul. She was the source of his body. But that does not mean she was and is not his mother, because she did not give birth to a body, a soul, a nature, or even two natures—she gave birth to person, and that person is God. Therefore, Mary is the Mother of God.
But more fundamentally, we have to ask the question: If you deny Mary is the Mother of God, who is Jesus? Walter Martin gives us an example of what happens when you get this wrong in his classic, Kingdom of the Cults (1977 edition):
[T]here cannot be any such thing as eternal Sonship, for there is a logical contradiction of terminology due to the fact that the word “Son” predicates time and the involvement of creativity. Christ, the Scripture tells us, as the Logos, is timeless, “. . . the Word was in the beginning,” not the Son! (p. 103).
Think about this: In the process of denying Mary to be Mother of God he lost Jesus. Jesus is no longer the eternal Son.
But it gets worse, if that’s possible. He also says on that same page, “The term Father incidentally never carries the descriptive adjective ‘eternal’ in Scripture. . . . [T]he words Father and Son are purely functional.”
Now he lost the Father. The immediate question arises: Who, then, is God in eternity before there was a creation? I suppose we would have to call God “The Blah, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.”
Predestination
In their 1997 book What Unites Presbyterians, Clifton Kirkpatrick (who at the time was the highest ranking staff member—the “stated Clerk” as they call it—of the largest Presbyterian body in the United States) and William Hopper said:
Presbyterians have endorsed this conviction (double predestination), but with Calvin we have always had trouble with it for two reasons: First, if God predestines every person, and not all are called, elected, or predestined for salvation, then God has predestined some persons to Hell or eternal damnation. Second, if God has determined the ultimate fate of all persons, then the individual has no power to make any important decisions.
Presbyterians have learned to believe, also, in free will, realizing that these two doctrines are logically impossible to hold at the same time, but that each person is free as taught in the Westminster Confession.
Those persons who can with a clear conscience accept what they are taught, regardless of apparent inconsistencies, are in some ways better off than those who think. It is almost unfortunate that Presbyterians are a thinking people. There is always a creative tension between these two, because we do believe both, even when we know that they are logically inconsistent.
The Catholic response can be found in the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (the Pastoral Constitution on the Church):
For, since Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery (GS 22:5).
I Timothy 2:4 tells us God positively wills “all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” while 2 Peter 3:9 tells us God does not will “that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” To put it simply: In order to go to hell, the Catholic Church teaches, a person must reject God’s salvific will for him.
I am truly grateful to God that the Catholic Church never asks me to park my brains on the doorstep before I enter the church.
Abortion
“Thou shalt not kill” is not a Catholic-only club. Pope John Paul II tells us, when it comes to abortion:
[F]rom the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and . . . modern genetic science offers clear confirmation (Evangelium Vitae 60).
Indeed, it is so clear. And when we consider that the moral law is something that is knowable, at least in theory, by the light of natural reason alone apart from revelation (though God gives us revelation so that the moral law can be known with facility, certainty and without the admixture of error), it is all the more disturbing that eighteen denominations teach abortion to be licit in at least some circumstances. We will cite just half of them here:
1. The Salvation Army
From its international website:
[T]ermination can occur only when: Carrying the pregnancy further seriously threatens the life of the mother; or reliable diagnostic procedures have identified a foetal abnormality considered incompatible with survival for more than a very brief post natal period.
In addition, rape and incest are brutal acts of dominance violating women physically and emotionally. This situation represents a special case for the consideration of termination, as the violation may be compounded by the continuation of the pregnancy.
2. The Mormons (LDS)
In the February 1973 edition of “The Priesthood Bulletin,” the First Presidency (Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney):
The [Mormon] Church opposes abortion and counsels its members not to submit to or perform an abortion except in the rare cases where, in the opinion of competent medical counsel, the life or good health of the mother is seriously endangered or where the pregnancy was caused by rape and produces serious emotional trauma in the mother (p. 1-2).
Got to give them credit, they held out for one month after Roe v. Wade.
3. The United Church of Christ
It has supported the legalization of abortion since at least 1973. It is an official member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights. It is so radical that it joined with NARAL (the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) in supporting President Clinton’s veto of the ban on partial birth abortion in 1996 and 1997.
4. The American Baptist Churches
The general board of American Baptist Churches affirmed that this matter is up to the individual in 1988 and reaffirmed it in 1994.
5. The Southern Baptist Convention
The largest Baptism denomination in the U.S. declared in 1971 that Southern Baptists should “work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.”
Thank God, it back-pedaled on that in 1980 and declared abortion to be permissible only “to save the life of the mother.” But when you okay murder in any cases, you’re not just on a “slippery slope;” you’ve slid to the bottom of it.
6. Presbyterian Church (USA)
This is the largest Presbyterian body in the United States. It condemned abortion outright in 1965. In 1970, a study concluded that abortion could well be a “help” in cases of unwanted pregnancies. By 1983, the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly adopted an official policy in favor of abortion, calling it a “stewardship responsibility.” Today, it is an official member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights. In 1992, the General Assembly stated, “[T]here is a basis in our tradition not only for a woman’s difficult choice for abortion, but also for the preservation of the lives of the unborn.”
In that same year, the Assembly also declared: “Possible justifying circumstances [for abortion] would include medical indications of severe physical or mental deformity, conception as a result of rape or incest, or conditions under which the physical or mental health of either woman or child would be gravely threatened.”
7. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)
The ELCA, the largest Lutheran body in the United States, in 1990 adopted a statement that declared abortion to be acceptable in cases of danger to mother’s life, extreme fetal deformity incompatible with life, and in cases of rape and incest. It also declared that it neither supports nor opposes legislation restricting abortion. In 1997, members voted down a proposal to restrict abortion funding to cases of rape, incest, or life of the mother. As a result, ELCA now funds elective abortions in its health care coverage and offers elective abortion in some Lutheran-affiliated hospitals.
Today, on its website, the ELCA declares in a 1991 statement of faith declared by a Church-wide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: “A developing life in the womb does not have an absolute right to be born, nor does a pregnant woman have an absolute right to terminate a pregnancy.”
8. The United Methodist Church
The largest Methodist body in the United States, it helped organize and is a member of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, founded in 1973 and renamed twenty years later the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights. Along with the United Church of Christ, this denomination officially joined NARAL in supporting President Clinton’s veto of the Partial Abortion Ban in 1996 and 1997. Its “Book of Discipline” remains pro-abortion to this day.
9. The Episcopal Church
In 1958 it issued a strong pro-life statement. However, at its 1967 General Convention it officially supported pro-abortion legislation. It stated abortion to be morally acceptable in cases of rape, incest, fetal deformity, or danger to the physical or mental health of the mother. In 1994, the 71st General Convention expressed
. . . unequivocal opposition to any . . . action . . . that [would] abridge the right of a woman to reach an informed decision about the termination of her pregnancy, or that would limit the access of a woman to a safe means of acting upon her decision.
In 1997, at its 72nd Convention, it expressed support of partial birth abortion, but only in what it called “extreme situations.”
Homosexual unions
I must admit, I was dismayed to discover twenty-five denominations that support homosexual unions as morally licit. For lack of space, I will include just five of these ecclesial communities:
1. The Episcopal Church
Though gay priest Eugene Robinson was famously ordained a bishop in the Episcopalian church in 2003, solemnization of same-sex “unions” (they are not yet called “marriages”) were not permitted until the 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. And even then, it was left up to the local bishop to decide his own policy on the matter.
On July 9, 2012, the Episcopal Church passed a resolution approving an official liturgy for blessing same-sex unions. Though this still does not refer to these “unions” as marriages, the language of the resolution is provisional and will be reviewed in three years.
Gee, I wonder where this is going?
2. The National Baptist Convention, USA
The second largest Baptist church globally holds no official view on homosexuality, leaving the issue to individual congregations.
3. The United Church of Christ
The General Synod of the United Church of Christ passed a resolution at its 25th General Synod, “Equal Marriage Rights for All,” affirming “equal marriage rights for couples regardless of gender and declares that the government should not interfere with couples regardless of gender who choose to marry and share fully and equally in the rights, responsibilities, and commitment of legally recognized marriage.”
4. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
In August of 2009, the Church-wide Assembly of the ELCA (as mentioned above, the largest Lutheran body in the U.S.) passed a resolution stating: “Resolved, that the ELCA commit itself to finding ways to allow congregations that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships.”
That same Assembly also declared sexual orientation would not exclude anyone from ordained ministry as well. They then ordered the creation of a liturgy to “bless” these same-sex “unions.”
5. The Presbyterian Church (USA)
The largest Presbyterian body in the United States not only accepts homosexual marriage, its General Assembly, on July 8, 2010, voted to approve the ordination of open and active homosexuals. This new policy went into effect July 10, 2011.
These are just some of the inevitable but nevertheless tragic consequences that follow when you don’t have “the infallibility of the Magisterium of the Pastors” in union with the Bishop of Rome.