My conversion story involves both a change of heart and a change of mind. The change of heart occurred when I came to an understanding of grace—or, rather, a discovery of grace. But it was the change of mind that prompted my return to Catholicism. It was a fascination with the apocalyptic—so common among Fundamentalists—that eventually led me back home to Rome.
At age eight I was initiated into the Catholic Church at Easter Vigil Mass. I believed everything I was taught by the nice young nun who catechized me in preparation for this event. But shortly afterward I acquired a fear that I was going to go to hell until, after several days of this, my parents and uncle reassured me that hell is only for really bad people like Hitler or Stalin. Consequently, I didn’t worry much about salvation issues until after college.
When I was in seventh grade my aunt loaned me a book entitled The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay. After reading it, I became fascinated with things apocalyptic, the books of Daniel and Revelation in particular. I found it amazing that the Bible could foretell the rise of empires and the end-of-the-world events with such detail, many hundreds of years before these things would happen. This fascination lasted for quite some time until I was exposed to the Catholic approach to such matters. The Catholic Church insisted, contrary to the view of Mr. Lindsay, that the book of Revelation is not a prophetic forecast of events but is rather a symbolic encouragement to the early Christians under the fierce persecution of the Roman Empire. I grudgingly accepted this and put the apocalyptic on the shelf.
Unconcerned about salvation issues, I went through high school with a very crude knowledge of basic Christian “facts” but with no real understanding of the core message of Christianity. One thing I couldn’t understand was the problem of physical evil. With regard to natural disasters, accidents, and disease, I wondered: Why did nature seem oblivious to the moral status of the recipients of its wrath? Bad things happen to good people and bad people alike.
I came up with what I thought was the only plausible explanation: With the exception of biblical events and miracles, God doesn’t interfere with this world. He allows the laws of nature to run their course. I had no idea that such a belief is opposed to the foundational doctrines of Christianity (e.g., grace). It would take the humiliation of being ridiculed to wake me up to the fact that God does help us and that I needed him.
At the end of my junior year of college, despite great academic achievement, I was becoming suicidal. The reason was my job at a warehouse. Since I was skinny, I wasn’t cut out for the work. My back was always bothering me, so I was constantly doing strange exercises to alleviate the discomfort. After a while, this made me the object of ridicule from the other men at work.
I began losing my self-esteem and acquired a sense of worthlessness and depression. It came to the point where I had to reassess the meaning of life and find a purpose and sense of worth. It was at this point that God somehow brought to my mind something I had not noticed before. I began to think, if God is my Father, and I am his child, I should turn to him as any child would to his own biological father. A good father is someone who is always there for you: loving you, supporting you, and giving you the hope and guidance you need. For the first time in my life, God was able to show me that he does indeed help us, and that all of us need this help—this grace —more than anything else.
God also showed me that every human being counts. There are no “losers” in God’s eyes as concerns the value of a human being. Every person has infinite worth and is loved by God more than we can comprehend. No matter what talents or capabilities we have or do not have, God loves us! In fact, he wants to give us a very share in his divine love and goodness, that we might go on and share this love with everyone we know and meet. No, the only real losers are those who will not come to share in this goodness, in this life, in this joy. The realization of these things was a major turning point in my life.
One night, some time after college, I was watching TV when a Catholic priest came on who interpreted the book of Daniel in a way that puzzled me. So I got out my New American Bible, and the footnote explanations in it did not agree with what the priest was saying. This made me think then that perhaps a Catholic might be able to interpret the apocalyptic in a more fundamental (small “f”) fashion than I had previously thought. I became infatuated again with end-times issues and started researching various viewpoints, even Protestant ones. I became so engrossed with the apocalyptic under Protestant influences that I ended up distrusting the Catholic Church.
It wasn’t long after this that my earlier fear of going to Hell re-emerged. I thought, “Forget about the apocalyptic. What must I do to be saved?” Distrusting the Church, I thought I must use only the Bible to find out. This was frightening because the Bible does not spell things out like a catechism does. The thought ” How do I interpret it?” was very scary. I had acquired a very scrupulous conscience. Considering what Jesus said to the rich young man and to the apostles, I thought that perhaps in order to be saved I might have to sell everything I own and become a wandering homeless preacher.
A Protestant might say, “Why, you were being ridiculous! All you have to do is accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.” I would respond, “What do you mean by ‘accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior’?” I could gather together Christians from separate denominations who would complete the following statement different ways:
“When you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you are saved and . . .”
1) “You can’t lose your salvation, no matter what you do or neglect to do.”
2) “You can’t lose your salvation, but if you commit a serious sin afterwards then you were never saved to begin with.”
3) “You can’t lose your salvation, but if you commit any sin afterwards, then you were never saved to begin with.”
4) “You can lose your salvation, but only if you stop ‘believing’ in Jesus, and if you stop, you’re damned forever.”
5) “You can lose your salvation if you stop believing in Jesus, but if you start believing again you get re-saved. “
6) “You can lose your salvation, but only if you commit a serious sin, and if you do that, you’re damned forever.”
7) “You can lose your salvation, but only if you commit a serious sin, but you can get re-saved if you confess it.”
Considering that each respondent above will have Scripture verses to support his position, it is clear that the Bible does not teach the doctrines of salvation in a sufficiently clear and unambiguous fashion.
While reading the Bible to figure out “What must I do to be saved?” I was researching the book of Daniel, which is the cause of a battle between Fundamentalists and rationalists. Rationalists do not believe in miracles, including prophesying, so they argue that Daniel was written after the events it supposedly prophesies about. I acquired a book by an Anglican scholar, Edward Pusey, who wrote a defense against the attacks of the rationalists. One of the arguments he uses regards the canon of Scripture. The canon refers to the official list of the contents of the Bible. Pusey argues that it was the Old Testament prophets themselves who canonized the Old Testament.
The subject made me realize that the Bible did not just fall from the sky, whole and intact. It wasn’t like there was this wise old man praying on a mountaintop, and suddenly a hand reached down from Heaven and handed him a book, and a thunderous voice said, “HERE IS THE BIBLE. TAKE IT, READ IT, AND DISTRIBUTE IT TO THE WHOLE WORLD!” No, it was men who decided which books should go into the Bible and which ones shouldn’t. The immediate question is: What sort of man or group of men could have made such decisions? These men would have had to have been guided by the Holy Spirit in an infallible manner because they were determining what books are infallible. And if they were determining which of the writings inerrantly communicate God’s truth, would they not have had to know and understand what that truth is?
I thought Pusey’s view of the Old Testament seemed reasonable, at least in theory. The Old Testament prophets were enlightened about the truths of God, inasmuch as they preached the Word of God under the active guidance of the Holy Spirit. However, we still must ask, “Who canonized the New Testament?” And since Protestants maintain that the only men who were infallible under the New Covenant were Jesus and the apostles, it would be necessary that either Jesus or one or more of the apostles established the New Testament canon.
But here the Protestant is disappointed, since neither Jesus nor any of the apostles settled the canon. Who did? The bishops of the Catholic Church (and not until the fourth and fifth centuries, and later dogmatically in the fifteenth century). And they not only established the New Testament canon but also the Old. In fact, during the New Testament times, there was no consensus amongst the Jews as to the canon of the Old Testament. One sect believed only in the Torah. Another sect believed not only in the Torah, but also the psalms and prophets, but only such books in Hebrew. Still another accepted the additional books found the Septuagint (the Greek translation used by the Alexandrian Jews).
This is strong evidence that Pusey’s idea that the prophets canonized the Old Testament is wrong. What are the implications? A Protestant pulls the rug out from underneath himself. His entire faith is based upon a book for which he has no certitude what its contents should be. As Scott Hahn puts it, the Protestant has a fallible collection of infallible books.
What is the solution? Either you accept the authority of the Catholic Church, or you have no certain means of knowing Divine Revelation. In addition, accepting Catholicism means you have the solution to the interpretation problem I mentioned earlier. Since the Church is able to recognize what is Scripture, it possesses knowledge and understanding of the truths that Scripture teaches (and also of the oral Word of God, the Sacred Tradition). Hence, it can give an authentic interpretation to the Word of God, so that Catholics can rest assured that they have the truth concerning the issues of faith and morals.
Now I have the sense of purpose, knowing that God loves me and helps me with his grace. At the same time I have the assurance that the Catholic Church teaches the infallible truth about God, giving me the answer to “What must I do to be saved?” and possesses two thousand years of tradition and theology to help me understand those truths.