Down yonder, a reader writes:
Mr. Akin,
In your opinion is it contrary to Catholic faith to hold a "cessationist" position on tongues?
As phrased, the answer to the question is no.
I should explain, a couple of things, though.
First, cessationism is a position that is common in many conservative Protestant circles that holds that the various miraculous gifts mentioned by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 have ceased to be given. In particular, this view holds that the gift of tongues has ceased to be given.
There are several different flavors of cessationism, WHICH YOU CAN READ ABOUT HERE.
From what I can tell, the cessationist viewpoint may have grown in Protestant circles as a reaction to the historic reports of miracles in Catholic circles (AS IN THESE QUOTES FROM THE CHURCH FATHERS). Since these miracles were regarded as evidence for the truth of the Catholic faith, Protestant apologetics sought to undercut them by claiming that God no longer did miracles–or at least miracles of this sort–and so all reported miracles were false, either being hoaxes, legends, or products of diabolical activity.
The problem with cessationism, even from a Protestant viewpoint, is that it is very hard to square with Scripture. There is no clear teaching anywhere in the New Testament that God will cease giving the different miraculous gifts prior to the Second Coming. Various verses are offered by cessationists to argue their case, the best of them being 1 Corinthians 13:8. Here it is in context:
8: Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as
for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9: For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10: but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I
reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12:
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in
part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully
understood.
The statement that prophecies will pass away and that tongues will cease is taken as evidence for the cessationist view.
The problem is that this passage contains time cues that make this interpretation implausible. Verse 10 refers to the imperfect (e.g., our partial knowledge, partial prophecies, etc.) passing away "when the perfect comes"–i.e., when we have perfect knowledge of God. This would seem to be something that does not apply in this life. We won’t have perfect knowledge of God until (a) we die or (b) the Second Coming happens.
Cessationists sometimes respond by arguing that we do have perfect knowledge of God–relative to our state in this life–in that the New Testament has been completed and so we have a complete scriptural knowledge of God.
Catholics might be quick to point out the problems with the doctrine of sola scriptura at this juncture, but this does not remove the cessationist’s argument. It merely pushes it back a step. While Catholics would not necessarily look on Scripture as providing a complete (perfect) knowledge of God in keeping with the state of this life (though some might hold to the material sufficiency of Scripture), Catholics would hold that the revelation Christian faith is closed and has been since the death of the last apostle (CCC 66-67). In other words, the deposit of faith is closed, and in that sense we do have complete knowledge of God according to the state of this life.
But this is not the only time cue that the passage contains. In verse 12 it refers to the time when perfection comes as when we will see "face to face" and "understand fully, even as [we] have been fully understood." These references point much more strongly to a direct encounter with God than a mediate one through his written (or unwritten) word. The references to faces and to our already being "fully understood" are indicative of a personal subject that we will see face to face and that already in Paul’s day (before the closing of the New Testament and the deposit of faith!) understood people fully. This strongly indicates that the subject is God (or God in Christ) and thus points to our personal encounters with God–at death or the Second Coming–as the time when the miraculous gifts will be done away with.
There are other passages that cessationists cite, but 1 Corinthians 13:8 tends to be cited the most (in my experience).
When I was a Protestant, I reviewed this subject in rather considerable detail (by which I mean that I studied my brains out on it) and concluded that the texts offered in favor of cessationism don’t prove what advocates of the position would like them to. Indeed, 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 is actually a good text for arguing against cessationism.
Despite this, one could hold that the gift of tongues has ceased without being in violation of Catholic faith.
To understand this, one need to distinguish between two different forms of faith: divine faith and Catholic faith.
Divine faith is faith in whatever God has revealed. Catholic faith is faith in whatever the Church has infallibly proposed to be divinely revealed.
Now, 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 could be interpreted as containing a divine revelation that tongues will not cease until the Second Coming. However, the Church has not infallibly defined that tongues will not cease until the Second Coming, therefore it is not contrary to Catholic faith to hold that they have. A Catholic does have the theological liberty to hold this position.
That being said, taking a categorical cessationist position goes against the grain of Catholic teaching. Throughout the ages there have been reports of various miraculous gifts, including tongues, and the Church has an open but cautious attitude toward these, in keeping with St. Paul’s injunctions:
So, my brethren, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues (1 Cor. 14:39)
and
Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything; hold fast what is good (1 Thess. 5:19-21).
While a complete cessationist view on tongues would rub against the grain of Catholic theology, a more moderate position would be much more in line with traditional Catholic thought. For example, if one were to maintain that, in our age, the authentic gift of tongues is a rare phenomenon then that would be consonant with the historic Catholic view.
It also would go along with what we know of parallel gifts in biblical times, for in the Old Testament there wre a number of periods in which the gift of prophecy was seldom given or even not given. God gave it at certain times and not others. One might hold a similar view of tongues–that God grants it in certain periods of Church history but not others.
That would leave open the question of whether we are presently living in a period in which he is granting it in a more common manner than has been the case in most periods of Church history.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for the response.
I get the impression from this article from the older Catholic Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03588e.htm
that the common view was that tongues were foreign languages and that their post-apostolic manifestations were quite rare.
Is singing in the spirit (or singing with the glossalia)are te same thing with “Iubilatio” which exist in some old Liturgies?
In 1 Cor 14:27-28 there are some regulation from St. Paul to speak in tongue on the conggregation. Can we considered that the Charismatic do some “Liturgical abuse” because they break this rule?
For those who are interested: Many Orthodox Christians also hold a cessationist view and tend to interpret the modern phenomena as prelest. This view is expressed in some popular Orthodox books, but Jimmy probably wouldn’t want me to name them, since they’re also anti-Catholic books.
Know a woman online who argued for the weak position, though her church holds to the strong one.
It was a little hard to argue with her question: if they are miracle workers today, where are they? (She has a child with spina bifida and other problems. ):
There are plenty of miraculous things that happen and folks with miraculous gifts. Whether or not a given person comes into contact with such a person, and whether that person gets results… well, that’s a matter of chance or Providence. Asking “where are the miracle workers?” is basically the same question as “why does God allow my child to be sick?”
It appears that the answer involves the bit where THE miracle worker went and got up on the cross.
Myself, I’ve never seen an okapi. But I know they exist. There are books about them. People who’ve seen them run the pictures on television. So just because I’m not an okapi, and no okapi is part of my life, it doesn’t mean God no longer provides us with okapi.
The info in this article closely mirrors a similar article for the cessation of tongues by the same author in his manuscript The Plot of the Bible http://kgov.com/docs/MiracleDynamics.html
Let me know what you think of it.
Really the argument in this article is not similar for the cessation of tongues using the same exact reasoning, but basicly, since God is not doing miracles at all in Paul’s epistles and we know that we will suffer pain and even be killed and not delivered from it, tongues are not a sign that is going to be occuring in the Body of Christ because there is no need for them today.
Ah shoot! If ya wanna see the exact argument get The Plot. He’ll send you a free copy if you ask 🙂
Concerning Cessation of Tongues. That stopped in 70 AD (about the same amount of days of the old Israel calander during the time of the Exodus times forty years of these 360 day years) at the destruction of the Temple. The forty years of 360 days started at the death of John the Baptist in March of 31 AD. Jesus was born on September 11, about 2 or 3 BC (depending on whether 1 AD or 1 BC is the zero year). He was resurrected on April 13, 32 AD. He was 33 years and seven months old.
However all that other discussion about ‘when that which is perfect is come’ is only about the revalatory gifts of knowledge (the holy spirit enhanced memory of the eyewitness of what Jeses said and did) and prophecy. The phrase is an ellipsis consisting of the neuter TO TELEION or “the complete ______” with a missing noun modifed by the Neuter article TO and the Neuter adjective TELEION. Paul rarely (I never found any…but I am still looking) uses the ellipsis without giving the word somewhere in his close or even far contexts. In the Case of 1 Corinthians 13:10, the context is found in 1 Corinthians 1:6 where an introduction for the material to be spoken of is given. The word is TO MARTURION or THE TESTIMONY. So actually, Paul is saying that when THE COMPLETE TESTIMONY is come then that TESTIMONY IN PART shall be done away with. The IN PART is EK MEROUS and is the same word found in 1 Corinthians 12:31 where Paul talks of the body with members being in part. Actually this has to do with the then currant practice of testimony given by prophecy (and even by tongues – though this is the marvelous sign gifts for the unbelieving Jews) in the church by one person (in part) even by one as grand as Paul himself. There were other testimonies given, such as that by eyewitnesses, but even these were done one at a time. The church did not have a canon of scripture other than the old testament, but they got doctrine from plain old lay gifted types (in THIS matter did a CHURCH a local body of Christ provide for the doctrines we have today even)and the grand ones such as Paul. The eyewitness testimony was already established by the old Torah law of two or three witnesses that establishes a matter so that it became the spoken tradition before it was archived in scripture through the gospels. Already when Paul began the written archive of testimony, there was a mixture of spoken and written tradition. The Gospels came later. Paul in chapter 14 shows that even prophecy should be done in part two or three at a time and one judge to establish a doctrine. Paul could not even interpret his own visions of prophecy without consulting with other testimonies dealing with the same matter…that was why he yearned for a time when the testimony would be completed so that he could interpret them. Even Peter in 2 Peter 1:20 gave testimony to the use of the law of two or three witnesses that establishes a matter in its corollary given by Moses who said that in the mouth of one witness can no man be put to death. In using this for the prophesies of scriptures he says in this CORRECT translation “knowing this first that every prophecy of scripture is not of ITS OWN interpretation.” While tongues STOPPED or Pausontai in 70 AD, the gifts in part of eyewitness and prophesy was done away with in about 90-95 AD at the last testimony of John the Apostle in his Gospel, epistles, and book of prophecy…which WAS the last prophecy. John goes crazy with the various forms of the word for testimony or witness MARTURE (this being a femenine form). He uses about 48% of all the New Testament uses for this word. He uses it in association with writing…or scripture. As it turns out, Jesus sent out wise men, prophets, AND SCRIBES…the testimony of which would be completed in due time. So in verse 12 you have Paul looking in the mirror with one eye from which he obtains a certain amount of information, though troubling in that his head is flat amongst the background. When he opens up two eyes (according to the law of two or three witnesses)he is able to obtain a diffent set of knowledge (epiginosco) which is a recognition of himself with his head swimming away from the background in perspective or 3-D in a manner that others see and recognize (epiginosco). This analogy of how one recognizes oneself as one really is in scripture as God himself sees one is that joy which he anticipates…were he to have endured till the completion of scripture…but alas, he never got to that point in life, as we can today. The only thing left during these times since the death of John the Apostle for a Christian to obtain credibility is to do what Jesus says, “in this shall all men know that ye are my disciples in that ye have love (agape) one to another.” And this love has to be the type that is given by Christ to us, that we practice on one another. The world cannot love in this manner, though they could play act it, write of it in their songs and novels, even recognize it in others, but alas, when they go home, they could not DO IT. That is why Agape love is “a more excellent way” in that of the three, faith, hope, and LOVE, Agape love is the greater. There is more to this concerning the law of two or three witnesses and why the “canon” existed before the time of the general and then Roman Catholics came along. In fact, the canon existed since the death of John the Apostle, though there is a struggle to recognize the canon even today. I like it that the Catholics claim it and press it to their bosoms, because, like the Torah was a written testimony AGAINST the future erring Israelites, and even holding it close to them, the Bible in the bosom of the Catholics is blazing hot in testimony against the teaching authority of that Church today.
Herod the Great died in 4 BC. Ergo, Jesus had to have been born before then.
He was crucified on a Friday, the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan. Between the years 25-35, the 14th of Nisan fell on a Friday only in the years 30 and 33. The first Passover of our Lord’s public ministry was in the year 27. We know this, because the Pharisees said to him that the temple had been under construction for 46 years. As reconstruction on the temple began in 19 BC, adding 46 years (and remembering, as you correctly point out, there is no year 0), that brings us to 27 AD.
I know miracles go on today because my life has been filled with them. That is one of the biggest reasons I became a Christian in adulthood. I once decided to try to speak in tongues. I was alone at a friend’s house and they had a book about tongues and a large glossary of Hebrew and Greek words, and I sat in the living room and asked God to give me something to say in a tongue. I spoke a phrase. It sounded Hebrew to me, though I didn’t speak that language, and I looked it up phonetically. In Hebrew, I had said something like “The love of God”. In the charismatic meetings my parish has the others speak in tongues a lot but I don’t. I don’t interpret either. I just know God is still willing to give people that gift.
I always feel a little surprised at people’s saying that they have trouble believing in modern miracles because to me it’s as if they had asked why there are no more lines painted in streets. There are. I see them all the time.