Category: Non-Catholic Apologists

Practical Tips for Being Charitable with Others

A correspondent writes:

I’ve never seen you treat someone uncharitably in a conversation, so my question is, how can I grow in that area so that I’m not allowing my approach to be a stumbling block to my interlocutor?

I have the intention to not stand in the way of truth with my approach but sometimes I fail and could use some practical tips.

Thank you very much! You are too kind!

Regarding being uncharitable, this is something we all have to wrestle with, and we all fail sometimes. “We all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man” (Jas. 3:2).

I try, in any statement destined for the public (whether spoken or written) not to say anything that I would not say to a person’s face.

Getting in the habit of speaking charitably even when a person is not there probably has a spillover effect even when the person is there–i.e., I learn to keep the charitable speech filter on all the time, rather than turning it on and off. At least that’s the goal.

I also try to put myself in the other person’s position as much as possible. If I wouldn’t want something publicly said to me, I don’t want to say it to or about the other person.

In some cases, it may help to think in terms of other, closely related parties as well. For example, suppose I was in a conversation with a man and his wife and children also were present. There are certain things I would not want to say to him in front of those he cares about, lest I undermine him as a husband and father (the same thing would apply with the sexes reversed).

If I wouldn’t want something said about me in front of my loved ones, I shouldn’t say it to another person in front of his loved ones. Nobody should be mocked in front of those they hold most dear.

While these people may not be physically present for a conversation, in the age of the Internet, a person’s loved ones could see the conversation–either live or after the fact–and even if they don’t, the person’s fans will see it, and people care about how they look and are made to look in front of their online followers.

So, the Golden Rule continues to apply: If I wouldn’t want something publicly said about me, I shouldn’t say it about someone else.

All of those are considerations that deal with the reasons not to be uncharitable, but there are also positive reasons to be charitable, which relate directly to one’s own self-interest.

For example, my interlocutor himself is more likely to take me seriously and thoughtfully if he can see I’m being friendly and fair minded toward him.

And, if I’m in a public conversation and those observing it see that I’m clearly being charitable, they will think more positively of me and be more open to what I have to say.

(Conversely, if my interlocutor comes off as less charitable or uncharitable, the audience will correspondingly take a negative view of him and what he is saying.)

There are thus multiple reasons that favor a charitable approach, and by keeping these factors in mind and putting them into practice, the discipline of taking a charitable approach becomes a habit and second nature, though (especially with certain individuals) it can be a challenge and there can be lapses.

Of course, all this deals primarily with how one says something rather than what one says. It is a false charity if one shies away from telling truths that need to be spoken in a given conversation.

Going into minor or tangential matters can display a lack of charity (e.g., you can look like you are beating someone up or going down rabbit trails, even if you remain pleasant and calm), but the main truths that are relevant to a conversation need to come up, even if they are uncomfortable. Yet, with practice and discipline, they can still be spoken in a charitable way.

This is the first time I’ve tried to articulate some of these thoughts, but I hope they are helpful.

What Does the Church Actually Say About “Praying to the Saints”?

Any informed, English-speaking Catholic will tell you that the Church says it’s both permissible and beneficial to pray to the saints.

But is he right? Is that what the Church actually says?

The answer is not what you might expect.

 

Discussions with Protestants

The topic of “praying to the saints” most commonly comes up in dialogue with Protestant Christians.

In the older branches of Christianity—Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and other forms of Eastern Christianity—it is common to ask the saints in heaven for their intercession.

However, in the 1500s, the emerging Protestant movement rejected this practice, and it is still widely rejected in Protestant circles today.

One key argument goes like this:

  1. Prayer should be directed only to God.
  2. The saints are not God.
  3. Therefore, one should not pray to the saints.

The key premise in the argument is the first—that prayer should be directed only to God.

How might one support this?

 

A Biblical Argument

One way of supporting the premise would be to mount a biblical case, which might go something like this:

  1. When we look in the Bible, we find that the word “pray” is used in connection with God rather than the saints.
  2. We should model our language on the way the Bible uses language.
  3. Therefore, we should use the word “pray” in connection with God rather than the saints.

One thing we need to be careful about when evaluating the first premise of this argument is what language we are talking about.

Just checking to see what an English translation for the word “pray” isn’t enough. All that will tell you is how the English translators thought the word should be used, not how the biblical authors used the equivalent vocabulary.

We need to check the original languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—to see what language the biblical authors used, and how.

To keep this post short(ish), we’ll focus on the Greek. In biblical Greek, the main verb for “pray” is proseukhomai, which appears 102 times in the Greek Bible, and the equivalent noun for “prayer”—proseukhê—appears 61 times.

It so happens that in Greek, these words are used exclusively to refer to communication with God or the gods. They even have that meaning in the secular Greek of the period.

In this, the Greek is like contemporary American English, which also associates prayer exclusively with God or the gods.

The initial premise of this argument thus looks good!

What about the second? In other words . . .

 

How Closely Must Our Language Follow the Bible’s?

In general, I think it’s a good thing to model our language after the usages found in the Bible—at least when it comes to concepts related to the Christian faith.

I don’t think we have any obligation to follow Greek usage on other terms.

For example, color terms often vary significantly from one language to another, and in dialects of ancient Greek, honey could be described as “green” (khlôros), but I don’t think that creates an obligation for English-speakers to call honey green rather than yellow or golden.

However, it is generally a good idea to model the use of faith-related words to their biblical counterparts. Thus, we’re fortunate that the English word “God/god” broadly corresponds to the Greek word theos (it corresponds less well to the Hebrew word elohim, which can refer to things we wouldn’t call gods).

Despite my sympathy for the second premise, it has limits.

The fact that languages change over time is an unstoppable phenomenon, and even when Christians try to conform their usage to what’s in the Bible, terms inevitably take on new usages over the centuries.

If we had to model our religious vocabulary strictly on biblical usage, one term we’d have to eliminate immediately is “Bible.” The Greek term this is based on is biblion, which originally referred to a sheet of papyrus and then came to mean things like “letter,” “document,” and “scroll.”

In no case did biblion mean what we refer to as “the Bible.” That’s a post-biblical usage.

Similarly, every theological community has developed religious vocabulary that differs from biblical usage in various ways.

Thus, in both Catholic and Protestant circles, the term “the elect” has taken on a theological meaning that refers to “those people who will be saved on the last day,” despite the fact that this is not how the term is used in Scripture.

In Lutheran theology, the terms “Law” and “Gospel” have taken on technical meanings that differ significantly from the way these terms are used in Scripture. (To somewhat oversimplify, Law is conceived of as any divine command, while Gospel is understood as any divine promise; but in the New Testament the most prominent usage of “Law” is for the Mosaic Law or even the Old Testament more broadly, while “Gospel” is used for the message of what God has done through Jesus.)

One may regret that these usages have developed, but the fact is that they have—and that communities are using them.

Language change over time is inevitable. The question is what to do in response.

 

Avoiding Word Fights

On two occasions, St. Paul warns us against “quarreling about words”:

Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers (2 Tim. 2:14).

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain (1 Tim. 6:3-5)

For St. Paul, the most important thing is what is true, not the language that is used to express it.

Therefore, when a community of Christians has developed a theological usage that differs from the biblical usage, one should not fight about the terminology itself.

Complaining about an established usage is not going to change that usage. It’s only going to generate heat rather than light.

Of course, it’s fair to point out that the usage differs from what’s in the Bible.

Pointing that out can actually be helpful! It can help people remember that they need to control for the fact their theological vocabulary is different and should not be read onto the biblical text.

But once the biblical text is correctly understood, we must allow each group of Christians to express that in the language that has become established in their community.

So what about English-speaking Catholics and “prayer to the saints”?

 

“Prayer” in English

Following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, numerous French words entered English, and one of them was what became “pray” in the early 1200s.

French is based on Latin, and so the term “pray” comes from Latin roots. Specifically, it comes from the verb precare.

Precare means things like “to ask,” “to beg,” “to implore,” “to entreat,” “to supplicate,” etc.

In Latin, it is used in religious contexts—like when you’re asking God or the gods for something—but it is also used when you’re asking human beings for something.

Both usages carried over into English. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, English-speaking Christians would use “pray” to refer to making requests of God and of other human beings—including the saints.

In the latter case, what they were doing was asking the saints to intercede with God on their behalf—to serve as their “prayer partners” in heaven.

When the Reformation occurred, English-speaking Protestants objected to asking the saints for their intercession, and so the verb “pray” came to be more associated with requests directed to God.

In colloquial American English among Protestants, “pray” came to refer exclusively to speech directed toward God.

Still, the other usage survived in British English. If you read Shakespeare or watch period dramas set as late as the early 20th century, you’ll see characters saying things to each other like, “I pray you,” and all they mean is “I ask you.”

So, if a young gentleman in a British drama says to a young lady, “I pray your hand in marriage,” what it means is that he’s asking her to marry him—not that he’s worshipping her as a deity.

This is also where the word “prithee” comes from. It’s a contraction of “I pray thee.”

The human-directed usage even survives in American English in at least two contexts.

One is in legal settings. If you have a lawyer file a motion with a court, the motion will contain language that says, “My client prays that the court will do thus-and-so.”

It doesn’t mean that the client is worshipping the court. It means that he’s asking the court to do something.

The other context in which the human-directed usage survives in American English is among Catholics.

They have simply retained a usage that was around before English-speaking Protestants started narrowing the verb to only God-directed communications.

Thus, it is natural for English-speaking Catholics to talk about “praying to the saints”—meaning asking for their intercession.

So, how should the two groups deal with this in conversation?

 

Back to the Word-Fight Issue

Per St. Paul’s dictum, we should not fight about the usage of the English word “pray” and whether it should be associated only with God-directed communications.

Words mean what communities use them to mean, and the English-speaking community originally used “pray” to mean “ask,” regardless of who was being asked.

Even though the Protestant influence on English has associated the verb exclusively with God-directed communication in many contexts, other established usages remain.

A Protestant might think it would be better for those to go away, but they remain for now, and spending time complaining about them will generate heat rather than light.

To generate light, we should recognize the different usages and what they mean and, having done that, talk about the underlying truths.

For example, a Protestant might say, “In my community, ‘prayer’ is a form of worship reserved to God. When you talk about praying to the saints, are you giving them more honor than they should have as human beings?”

Of course, an informed Catholic should say, “No, and here’s why . . .” The discussion might then turn to what kind of honor human beings—especially saintly ones—should have.

Or, a Catholic might say, “In my community, ‘praying to the saints’ means asking them for their intercession. We teach that this is both permissible and beneficial.”

And, rather than getting hung up on the word “pray,” the discussion might then turn to whether it is permissible and beneficial to ask the saints for their intercession.

(As a side note, we also shouldn’t quarrel about the word “saints.” In various biblical and post-biblical usages, it can refer to the holy angels, to all Jews, to all Christians, to those Christians who are especially holy, to those Christians who are in heaven, and to those Christians who have been canonized as being in heaven. As before, we shouldn’t fight about the usage of the word but correctly note which usage is being employed and continue the discussion on that basis.)

 

Responding to Our Two Initial Arguments

With all this in mind, we can respond to the two initial arguments that were made—and do so in a way that generates light rather than heat.

Concerning the biblical argument, it’s true that the Greek term proseukhomai was used exclusively for God-directed communications, but that doesn’t finally determine the way “pray” is used in English.

As a result, if you want to say—as in the first argument—that “Prayer should be directed only to God,” you’ll need to clarify what you mean by “prayer.”

“Praying” to the saints is an established usage among English-speaking Catholics that means asking for their intercession.

The real question is not the term but whether it’s permissible and beneficial to ask the saints for their intercession.

So much for discussions about the English verb “pray.”

But there’s a noteworthy fact that will surprise English-speakers, both Catholic and Protestant alike.

 

The Language the Catholic Church Actually Uses

This is the kind of thing that you won’t notice unless you really live and breathe Church documents and think carefully about the language they do and don’t use.

It took me a while to notice and then confirm it, but if you read the documents of the Catholic Church’s Magisterium, they don’t actually talk about “praying” to the saints.

Ever.

At least not in the documents that come from Rome. (I can’t answer for every individual bishop and what he might write.)

To illustrate this, here’s a screen cap of what you find when searching the Vatican web site for “prayer to the saints”:

And here’s what we find for “praying to the saints”:

In both cases, we get no results. Zero.

It turns out that these expressions are used by English-speaking Catholics, but they are not used in official Church documents, and when those documents are translated into English, the translators are careful enough not to use colloquial English expressions like “prayer to the saints” or “praying to the saints.”

So, what do they say instead?

One thing they do is speak of “the intercession of the saints,” where the key Latin verb is intercedere (“to intercede”).

Thus, in the sections of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that an English-speaking Catholic would turn to for information about “praying to the saints,” you don’t find that phrase. Instead, you find “intercession of the saints” (cf. CCC 956, 2683).

However, “intercession” refers to what they do for us. What language does the Church use for what we do with respect to them?

It speaks of “the invocation of the saints,” where the key Latin verb is invocare (“to invoke,” “to call upon,” “to appeal to”).

So, we invoke (appeal to) the saints to intercede (pray for us) with God.

That’s the language the Church actually uses. “Praying to the saints” is just something we say colloquially in English.

A logical next question is: What term does the Church use in its official documents for when we talk to God?

There can be a number of them, but the key ones are the verb orare (“to speak,” “to plead,” “to supplicate,” “to pray”) and the noun oratio (“speech,” “oration,” “prayer”). These are the words you’ll find if you look in the Latin edition of the Catechism in its section on prayer.

Interestingly, in Latin these terms don’t have to be used just for communications directed to God, but they are often used that way—especially in ecclesiastical (i.e., church) Latin.

It’s thus interesting that ecclesiastical language has a preferred set of terms for God-directed communications and a different set of terms for saint-directed communications.

In that respect, it’s similar to Protestant American English.

 

One Last Thing About Word Fights

Given this, it could be tempting for some from the Protestant community to tell Catholics, “Hey! Your own Magisterium has a separate term for prayer that is directed to God and doesn’t use ‘prayer’ with respect to the saints! You should change your usage to fit official ecclesiastical-speak!”

Except . . . if the Magisterium was concerned that this needed to happen, it would mandate the change, and it hasn’t.

The Magisterium recognizes the organic way languages change over time, and—per St. Paul—it’s not concerned about quarrelling over every linguistic usage.

The English “praying to the saints” is a historical usage with a long pedigree—going back to when the term “pray” first came into the English language, and the Vatican isn’t concerned about it.

On the other hand, it’s fair for Catholics—in discussing the overall issue with Protestants—to say, “You know, I understand why you might want to have a term for communications directed to God that’s different from those directed to others. Both biblical Greek and ecclesiastical Latin have similar usages. English is different. ‘To pray’ originally just meant ‘to ask,’ and English-speaking Catholics have preserved this usage when it comes to the saints. But rather than quibble about English terminology, let’s go to the real issue instead: Is it a good idea ask the saints in heaven to be our prayer partners? Let’s not quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers (2 Tim. 2:14).”

Arranging Debates with James White

In a recent video, James White responds at some length (about 49 minutes) to my interest in debating him on the topic of sola scriptura.

In the course of his response, he makes a number of factually inaccurate statements (including about me), but to keep matters focused, I will let those pass.

 

Sola Scriptura

White says he is not reluctant to debate me on sola scriptura.

Good! I take him at his word, and I look forward to arranging a debate on this topic, which Matt Fradd has offered to host (in fact, he made the initial request of both of us).

White refers to his desire to wait until he has configured a new studio that will allow debating at a distance with high sound and video quality.

That’s fine with me, and Matt has indicated it’s fine with him also. We’ve got the holidays coming up, and it’s no problem to wait until it’s convenient for all three of our schedules.

White is skeptical regarding my claim to have anything new to offer in this debate.

I would never claim to have thought of something that no one has thought of in the last 2,000 years of Catholic history.

What I can—and do—say is that I have developed arguments that I have not seen used by the current generation of Catholic apologists or tested in debate with the current generation of Protestant apologists.

White invites me to identify where I have published these arguments and wonders if I might be holding them back until the time of the debate.

I have no interest in setting up “gotcha” moments that surprise a debate opponent. For a quality debate to occur, both parties should be able to think about their opponent’s key points ahead of time.

I have presented my arguments numerous times, including on Catholic Answers Live, and they are found, in summary form, in my book The Bible Is a Catholic Book.

If White will privately send me his current mailing address, I will send him this book, as well as my book Teaching With Authority, which is a theological manual on how the Magisterium works. If he prefers electronic copies, I’ll send them to him if he lets me know his preferred email address.

In fact, if he will do the same for me, I will send him an advanced copy of my entire opening statement (and any other planned statements), so he’ll know exactly what I plan to say.

 

The Canon of Scripture

White says that the topic of the canon of Scripture would be a good subject to debate, and I’d be happy to debate that with him as well.

I’ve checked with Matt, and he would be happy to have us do several debates, as long as they’re scheduled a month or more apart, which is fine with me.

White objects to the use of the canon that other apologists have made in debates on sola scriptura.

I agree with him that the subject should not be sprung on an opponent who has no time to respond. In fact, no subject should be brought up without the opponent having time to respond to it.

The canon of Scripture is relevant to the issue of sola scriptura, but it is not essential to making the case against the latter.

Consequently, I’d be happy to avoid this subject in a debate on sola scriptura and do a second debate on the canon, instead.

The principal arguments I’d use are covered in my book The Bible Is a Catholic Book, and I’d be happy to exchange advance copies of planned statements with him.

 

The Catholic View of Authority

White says that Catholics need to step up and defend the positive epistemological claims that they make.

In other words, they should be willing to mount a positive defense of the model they propose for doctrinal authority, which is Scripture + Tradition + the Magisterium.

Fine! That’s quite fair. If Protestants need to mount a positive case for their view of authority (sola scriptura), then Catholics should be as well. And I am.

I’m not interested in a debate focused on irrelevant issues such as actions by Pope Francis that don’t even attempt to engage the Church’s infallibility—for reasons explained here and here.

But I am quite willing to debate the overall Scripture + Tradition + Magisterium paradigm.

 

A Slate of Debates?

I therefore propose a slate of three debates: one on the Protestant view of authority (sola scriptura), one on the canon of Scripture, and one on the Catholic view of authority (Scripture + Tradition + the Magisterium).

I have no interest in “gotcha” moments. Both presenters should know and be able to think about what arguments they will need to respond to.

I therefore propose that we exchange advance copies of opening statements (and any other planned statements, depending on the format Matt wants us to use).

There’s no hurry on these. The debates would be scheduled at the convenience of all three of us, with at least one month between them, per Matt’s request.

Sound good?

Jude 3 and Sola Scriptura: The Faith Once for All Delivered

Periodically, I’m asked to name a doctrine that is not found in Scripture.

This comes up in discussions about the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, which holds that we should use “Scripture alone” to form our doctrine.

Knowing that Catholics base their teachings not only on Scripture but also on apostolic Tradition, supporters of sola scriptura ask Catholics to name a doctrine that we know by Tradition rather than Scripture.

It certainly would be possible to name distinctively Catholic teachings, but since these aren’t accepted by Protestants, it’s more helpful to name some that Protestants do accept.

Typically, I name three:

  1. The fact that there are to be no more apostles (being an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry was a requirement for membership in the Twelve—cf. Acts 1:21-26—not being an apostle; Jesus appeared to St. Paul and made him an apostle, and if he chose, he could have continued to appear down through the centuries and appoint people as apostles)
  2. The fact that there are to be no more books of Scripture (you didn’t have to be an apostle—Mark and Luke weren’t—and the Holy Spirit could have chosen to inspire new books of Scripture down through the centuries)
  3. There is to be no new publicly binding revelation before the Second Coming (God could have chosen to give this, as illustrated by the previous two examples)

Attempts have been made to prove these doctrines by Scripture alone, but none of the arguments are successful. The verses cited simply do not require any of these three doctrines to be true, though they are accepted by Protestants.

This reveals how our Protestant brethren are, at least in practice, willing to accept doctrines that are based on Tradition rather than Scripture alone.

Here I’d like to look at a verse sometimes cited as proof of the third teaching—that there is to be no more public revelation.

 

Jude’s Plan

The text is found in Jude 3, and for context, here are verses 3 and 4 of the book:

Beloved, being very eager to write to you of our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

For admission has been secretly gained by some who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ

Based on the Greek text, scholars have generally understood Jude to mean that although he had been eager to write his audience concerning “our common salvation,” he found it necessary to set that plan aside because they had been infiltrated by certain ungodly and immoral people.

Therefore, he is writing them a different letter, in which he warns them against the ungodly people.

 

The Faith Once for All Delivered

For our purposes, the key part is Jude’s exhortation “to content for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”

This is the part that interests advocates of sola scriptura: If the Faith has been delivered once for all to the saints, does this mean that the whole of Christian teaching has been revealed, and so there is to be no new public revelation?

There are a number of problems with this idea.

 

Not the Last Book?

First off, if Jude were saying that all public revelation had ended, then—since Scripture is itself public revelation—the book of Jude itself would have to be the last book of Scripture to be penned.

But we don’t know that at all.

Scholars differ on when the book of Jude was written. My own estimate is that it was written around A.D. 64-65, though it could have been later.

The fact is, we don’t know its date with confidence. Neither can we establish the exact dates of many books of the New Testament, so we don’t know which was last.

For example, if—as often supposed—Revelation was the last book to be written, then Jude would require us to eject it from the canon (with all its newly revealed prophecies), as well as any other books written later than Jude.

 

Not the Last Part of the Book

There’s another problem with the idea that Jude 3 is saying that public revelation is closed, which is that it’s speaking of this as having happened in the past—as a completed act (“delivered once for all”).

As we’ll see below, this happened quite some time in the past, but even if we ignored that, the moment that Jude said that the faith had been delivered once for all, that would have been the last bit of public revelation—if he was speaking about the closing of public revelation.

In other words, not only would Jude need to be the last book of the Bible written, Jude 3 would need to be the last verse of Scripture written.

If Jude were talking about the closing of public revelation, you would need to delete the remainder of the book (vv. 4-25) from the canon.

 

“Delivered to the Saints”

It’s worth noting that when Jude speaks of the Faith being “delivered” to the saints, he uses a special term in Greek: paradidômi.

This is the verbal form of paradôsis, which means “tradition”—the term that Paul uses to refer to his own teachings when he commends and commands his audience to keep the traditions that he has given them (1 Cor. 11:2, 2 Thess. 2:15, 3:6).

The verb paradidômi (“deliver”), together with its companion verb paralambanô (“receive”), were used to communicate the giving and receiving of tradition, as in St. Paul’s famous statement:

I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3-4).

Jude is thus conceiving of the Faith as having been given to the saints as a matter of Tradition.

But when was it given?

Here, as elsewhere in the New Testament, “the saints” refer to the Christian community, and of course “the Faith” refers to the Christian faith.

So, who gave the Christian faith to the Church? Depending on who Jude is thinking about, it would either be Christ himself or at least the apostles.

The latter is perhaps more likely, since later in the letter Jude tells the readers, “You must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 17)—so we know he was thinking about the apostles as he wrote the letter.

Either way, when did Christ and his apostles deliver the Christian faith to the Church?

No later than A.D. 33. That’s when the Faith was delivered: Right at the beginning.

But even though the Faith had been delivered, that did not mean all public revelation had ceased. There would be many more items of public revelation given, as illustrated by all of the books of the New Testament that remained to be written.

And, as Jesus himself said at the Last Supper:

I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come (John 16:12-13).

So, even after Christ had made the first Christians—and thus delivered the Faith to them—there was more public revelation to come.

 

“The Faith”

It’s worth discussing what Jude means by “the Faith” a little further. When we read a text in the New Testament, we cannot simply assume that it means what we want it to.

We must first ask what the possible range of meanings a term or text has—and then look at the evidence to see which it best supports.

While it is possible to use the phrase “the Faith” to refer to the entirety of the Christian faith—every single doctrine that Christians are expected to believe—this is far from the only meaning of the term.

It also can be used to refer to the substance or core of the Faith—what is often called “the gospel.”

This is the sense in which “the Faith” can be said to have been delivered by Christ and the apostles, since there had been Christians—and thus members of “the Faith”—ever since the first converts accepted the message of Jesus.

If we knew nothing else, we would have to say that Jude 3 could be referring to either of these meanings and, not having decided between them based on evidence, we could only safely assert that Jude was making the more modest claim—i.e., that he at least meant that the gospel had been delivered to the saints.

However, we could not, without evidence, claim—and we certainly could not claim to have proved—that he had the more expansive meaning in mind, which is what the advocate of sola scriptura would need to show.

But, in fact, the evidence points in the other direction: We have already seen, based on the context, that Jude is talking about the Christian Faith having been given to the saints at some point in the past. In fact, decades in the past, by Christ and/or his apostles.

That points us to the more modest understanding of “the Faith” as simply the gospel. The same is indicated by the fact that—as Jesus himself indicated—there would be ongoing public revelation even after he taught the gospel to his disciples

Jude himself would have acknowledged that public revelation was still being given in his day. Certainly he would have acknowledged this if he recognized his own letter as inspired Scripture (cf. 2 Pet. 1:21).

And even if he didn’t automatically recognize his own letter as Scripture, as some have suggested, we do. Therefore, we must acknowledge that public revelation was still being given when Jude wrote.

All of this points to Jude 3 simply meaning that the substance of the Faith—the gospel—had been definitively delivered to the saints, not every item of public revelation that God would eventually give.

As the (Protestant) British scholar Richard Bauckham notes in his volume on Jude in the Word Biblical Commentary:

[T]here is no reason to suppose that Jude means by pistis [“faith”] anything other than “the gospel.” It need not refer to confessional formulae, though such formulae were already known in Paul’s time, nor does it imply the idea of a defined body of orthodox doctrines. . . . Jude’s readers are to contend, not for some particular formulation of Christian belief, but for the central Christian message of salvation through Jesus Christ (at v. 3).

Further, Jude is thinking in particular of the moral demands of the gospel, since he is warning his readers against immoral people. As Bauckham also notes:

Jude’s concern is especially with the moral implications of the gospel (not with doctrinal orthodoxy; hence the idea that “the faith” means a set of doctrinal formulae is quite inappropriate). No doubt he has in mind particularly the instruction in Christian conduct which accompanied the gospel in the initial teaching given by the apostles, but he refers to the gospel itself, hê pistis [“the faith”], because it is the gospel itself for which his readers will be fighting when they remain faithful to its moral demand and resist the antinomianism of the false teachers.

 

Implications for Sola Scriptura

Jude 3 thus does not prove what advocates of sola scriptura need it to prove. For all the reasons covered above, it does not show that Jude thought public revelation had ceased.

And once we recognize that Jude is simply talking about the substance of the Christian faith—the gospel—it becomes clear that, when he says the faith has been delivered “once for all,” Jude is simply saying that the gospel itself cannot change (cf. Gal. 1:8-9), not that new public revelation cannot be given.

In fact, public revelation—including additional Scripture—was given, as illustrated by the fact Jude does not stop at verse 3. It’s also quite likely that other whole books of Scripture—including, especially, Revelation—remained to be written.

This verse thus does not support sola scriptura.

In fact, even if Jude had meant that public revelation was closed, he doesn’t say anything about all of public revelation being written down. One would thus have to take seriously the possibility that some public revelation continued to be passed on—and preserved by God’s protective guidance—in the form of oral Tradition.

Catholics forthrightly acknowledge that this is what happened—and the fact there is to be no new public revelation before the Second Coming is one of those items of authoritative, apostolic Tradition.

Protestants have, historically, also accepted this teaching, but without an awareness that it is based on Tradition rather than Scripture.

If we were to go by Scripture alone, we would not be able to prove that public revelation has ceased, and thus we could not show that no new Scriptures are to be written and that the canon is closed.

Genesis and Justification: Misreading a Famous Text

abraham_and_stars_1xThere’s a famous passage in Genesis that often comes up in discussions of salvation. It says Abraham “believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).

Protestant pastors frequently preach on this passage, and they frequently get it wrong.

Really wrong.

Here’s why . . .

 

Why It Comes Up

This passage frequently comes up in preaching about salvation because it’s used that way in the New Testament.

Paul quotes it in two places (Rom. 4:3-25, Gal. 3:6), and James quotes it once (Jas. 2:23).

This makes sense, because the Genesis passage connects faith and righteousness.

It was thus logical for the New Testament authors to use the passage in discussions of how we become justified (righteous) through faith in Christ.

It’s also logical for us today to also use the passage—whether we’re Protestant or Catholic.

But we need to use it the right way.

Unfortunately, that’s not always done.

 

The Wrong Way to Use It

Protestant preachers frequently use Genesis 15:6 (and Paul’s quotations of it) to argue for the classical Protestant understanding of justification. That model goes something like this:

  1. We are all sinners and therefore unrighteous before God.
  2. In our sinful state, we can’t become righteous before God by good works.
  3. However, if we place our faith in God, he will forgive our sins and reckon us righteous even though we are not.
  4. This reckoning is something that happens as a once-for-all event in the Christian life known as “justification.”

Points 1 and 2 are true, and points 3 and 4—though flawed—contain elements of truth.

The problem that concerns us here is that Protestant preachers tend to assume Genesis 15:6 maps onto the classical Protestant model in a straightforward way.

At first glance, this isn’t unreasonable, for Paul uses the verse to support justification by faith rather than works.

But the matter isn’t as straightforward as people assume.

 

A One-to-One Mapping

If Genesis 15:6 mapped directly onto the classical Protestant model of justification, the following would result:

  1. Abraham was a sinner and therefore unrighteous before God.
  2. In his sinful state, Abraham could not become righteous before God by good works.
  3. But Abraham came to have faith in God in Genesis 15:6, so he forgave Abraham’s sins and reckoned him righteous even though he was not.
  4. This reckoning was a once-for-all event in Abraham’s life, his justification before God.

But when you read Genesis 15, this is not what is happening.

Not. At. All.

 

Read the Context

To understand what’s happening, you need to start by reading the events that led up to it. Those are found in Genesis 14.

Basically, a war started between two groups of kings, one of whom was the king of the wicked city Sodom. During the war, Abraham’s kinsman Lot—who had been living in Sodom—was taken captive.

When Abraham heard about this, he mustered a group of more than three hundred fighting men from his own household and defeated the opposing kings. He thus rescued Lot, the other captives, and their goods.

Afterward, in thanksgiving for his victory in battle, Abraham went to Melchizedek—a priest of God most high—and gave him a tenth of all the spoils.

Then the king of Sodom offered Abraham a reward, telling him, “Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself” (Gen. 14:21).

Abraham refused this reward, saying that he’d sworn an oath not to take anything from the king of Sodom.

God then comes to Abraham in a vision and says, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great” (Gen. 15:1).

Abraham asks how this will be, for he has no children, and his current heir would be Eliezer of Damascus, a slave born in his household.

God tells him, “That man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.” Then he takes Abraham outside and has him look at the stars, telling him, “So shall your descendants be” (Gen. 15:4-5).

At this point we read: “And he believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

 

An Initial Question

We should note there is an ambiguity in Genesis 15:6—it says that “he reckoned it to him” as righteousness.

This can be read two ways: (1) God reckoned Abraham righteous or (2) Abraham reckoned God righteous.

The latter has been supported by some interpreters, including Jewish ones, and it makes sense in context: Abraham believed that God would give him a multitude of descendants, and he regarded this this as a sign of God’s righteous goodness.

However, this is not the way the New Testament takes the verse. On all three occasions where it’s quoted, the authors understand God as reckoning Abraham as righteous.

For Christians, that guarantees that this is a proper way of looking at the text (even if it is not necessarily the only way of looking at it, since Scripture operates on more than one level).

 

A Very Different Picture

If we understand God reckoning Abraham righteous, how well does the passage match the classical Protestant view of justification?

Not well at all.

Notice how different the whole approach of the text is. Abraham is not being presented as a sinner who can’t redeem himself by good works but who then comes to have faith in God and who is then forgiven his sins and declared righteous (even though he is not) in a once-for-all, life-changing event.

Quite the opposite is true! Abraham is already a follower of God, someone who already has faith in him, and the context stresses Abraham’s good works and righteousness:

  • He defeated the evil kings.
  • He rescued Lot and the other captives.
  • He went to a priest of God and gives thanks for the victory.
  • He refused any reward from the wicked king of Sodom.
  • And so God himself promised to give Abraham a reward instead.

The fact God is rewarding Abraham for what he has done shows this isn’t a case of a sinner coming to God and repenting so he can obtain forgiveness. It’s God rewarding a follower for faithful service.

That means Abraham isn’t acquiring righteousness here for the first time. He is already righteous, as his actions have shown.

Then Abraham believes the incredible promise that he will have a multitude of descendants, despite his age (cf. Rom. 4:19, Heb. 11:12), and God reckons that act of belief as a new act of righteousness on Abraham’s part.

Some translations bring this aspect out better than others. The New American Bible does a particularly good job. It says that the Lord: “attributed it to him as an act of righteousness.”

Notice, by the way, that Abraham’s act of faith also wasn’t generic in nature. Abraham already believed in and trusted God in a general way. Here he is believing something very specific: that God will give him a multitude of descendants—a point Paul recognizes when he uses the verse (Rom. 4:17-22).

And notice the righteousness isn’t a counterfactual, purely legal thing: Believing God when he tells you he will do something is a righteous act. Abraham did something actually righteous here.

All of this means that we need to be careful when we apply this verse to discussions of justification.

It is relevant to the subject. Thus Paul makes the point that Abraham wasn’t circumcised at the time this happened (Rom. 4:9-12), so God can view someone as righteous even though he’s not circumcised and thus doesn’t have works of the Jewish Law (Rom. 3:28-30).

But it’s a mistake to map the passage onto the classical Protestant view of justification.

Meet Jack Chick

jackchick2_1Anti-Catholic comic book writer/artist Jack Chick passed away on Sunday, October 23, 2016.

Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.

As far as I know, I’m the only Catholic apologist ever to meet him.

Below is an account of that meeting, originally published in the March, 2004 issue of This Rock (now Catholic Answers Magazine).

—

For decades the cartoon tracts of Jack T. Chick have fascinated and horrified. Their pages contain the most extreme, paranoid conspiracy theories imaginable. Among other things, Chick publications will tell you that:

  • the Catholic Church keeps “the name of every Protestant church member in the world” in a “big computer” in the Vatican for use in future persecutions (see his tract My Name . . . In the Vatican? );
  • through the Jesuits, the Vatican runs an extensive conspiracy that includes the Illuminati, the Council on Foreign Relations, international bankers, the Mafia, the Club of Rome, the Masons, and the New Age movement, among others (Four Horsemen);
  • the Catholic conspiracy also includes creating venomously anti-Catholic movements such as Communism, the Ku Klux Klan, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, and Islam (The Big Betrayal, The Godfathers: Alberto Part Three, The Force: Alberto Part Four, The Prophet: Alberto Part Six).

Chick’s material is weirdly compelling. It is amateurish, lurid, ham-fisted, and viciously hateful at times. But it is intense, and something about that intensity makes people want to read it. His tracts generate a kind of bizarre fascination. Since he first began publishing them, Chick has distributed over half a billion, making him the most published comic book author in the world.

Yet little is known of him. The seventy-nine-year-old Chick is a recluse. His office does not give tours, he never allows his photo to be taken, and he never, ever gives interviews. Little is known about him beyond what is revealed in the biography on his web site, www.chick.com.

Recently Chick has ventured out of the world of comic book publishing to produce a feature-length movie entitled The Light of the World. I received an unexpected invitation to the premier of the movie. Writing movie reviews is a hobby of mine, and the camp value alone of a Chick film would make it worth reviewing, so I made the trek to the premier—and got more than I imagined I would.

The Light of the World premiered in Ontario, California, where Chick Publications is based. The site was an old auditorium that would have been dazzling in the 1940s and that still boasted an impressive main theater. As I approached it an hour before the screening was scheduled to begin, a small group of people, including a number of elderly men, was out front.

Could one of these men be Jack Chick? I wondered, then answered my own question: probably not. No doubt he’d seen the completed film, and with his reclusive tendencies he wasn’t likely to show up.

Still, I kept an eye out, particularly for an elderly man with a young Asian woman. (After the death of his wife a few years ago, Chick married an Asian woman much younger than himself.)

In the foyer of the auditorium, representatives of Chick Publications had tables set up where copies of the film were on sale on VHS and DVD. One table was cash only, one check only, and one credit card only. Having a copy of the film would let me get exact quotes for a critique of the film, but I didn’t really want to give my credit card or checking account number to a bunch of conspiracy theorists. I approached the cash only table.

Once I had the copy in hand, I began to contemplate the fact that I had just driven two hours to get to the theater, the screening wouldn’t even begin for another hour, and it would be almost midnight before I got back home to San Diego. The thought of driving back and watching the DVD in the comfort of my own living room was attractive, and I was on the verge of heading home when I decided to take one more look around to see if I could spot Chick.

I was sitting in the back row, so I had a good view of the theater. Nobody looked like an obvious candidate to be Chick. The folks in the front row were too young. I couldn’t see an elderly man with Asian wife. There was an elderly guy sitting alone on the far side of my row, talking with a few people in the aisle. I heard one of them say, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

I took a closer look at him. He had white hair, glasses, and was wearing a white dress shirt and dark slacks. He had a fancy gold wristwatch (a Rolex?)—the kind that you could afford if you’d sold half a billion tracts.

If it were Chick, what would I say to him? The apologist in me would have loved to debate him theologically. Part of me would want to ask him futile questions like “You don’t really believe all that stuff you publish, do you?” But I decided that, if it was Chick, the most charitable thing I could do was simply be nice to him and chat.

Moving a few seats closer to him, I heard him tell the people, “We got started about forty years ago . . .” Doing some quick math in my head, I realized that was when Chick Publications began.

I moved to the seat next to him (well, technically, next to his jacket, which was draped on th seat next to him), and, when the well-wishers moved on, I said, “Excuse me, sir. Are you Jack Chick?”

“I am,” he replied, smiling warmly. “What’s your name?”

“Jimmy Akin,” I replied. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

We shook hands, and he asked me, “What do you do?”

“I’m an evangelist.”

His face brightened. “Praise God!” But then his eyes studied me a moment. Wearing a Stetson, cowboy boots, faded blue jeans, and a Texas belt buckle, I didn’t look like the typical suit-and-tie evangelist from Chick’s Fundamentalist world.

“I’ve read a lot of your comic tracts,” I said as he settled back into his seat.

“We have plans for a lot more,” he replied.

“You’re going to be doing a lot after the film?”

“Yes,” he smiled. “That’s in their hands now,” he said, referring to the Light of the World Project, which has hopes to translate the film into a thousand languages. “There were times when I thought we would never be finished with it.”

“I understand you’ve been working on it for ten years.”

“Fifteen,” he corrected. “I think it will help a lot of pastors. It should get a lot of people sold—uh, saved.”

Was that a Freudian slip? Given Chick’s tendency to devote publication after publication to the sensationalist claims of men who were later exposed as religious con men, there has been some question of whether he really believes his own publications. Some have suggested he is simply in it for the money.

Another group of well-wishers came by to greet him, and while they did I fished out a pen and a tract promoting the film that I had been given at the door. When he turned back to me, I asked for his autograph.

He laughed heartily, as if he wasn’t used to giving autographs. I handed him the tract and pen, and he looked around for a hard surface to sign it.

“Here, use this,” I said, handing him my Light of the World DVD.

He signed and handed the articles back to me. His signature matched the version I had seen printed in his publications.

Originally, Chick did all the art for his tracts, but in 1972 he began working with a then unknown artist. Fans noticed the difference immediately. Since the artist never signed his name, and since his style was much more realistic than Chick’s, fans speculated for years who “the good artist” was. In 1980, Chick revealed that the other artist was an African-American named Fred Carter, whom Chick claimed was shy and did not wish to have his name on his work.

“The artist who does the comic books . . .” I began, blanking on the gentleman’s name.

“Fred Carter,” Chick said. “He’s a pastor. I’m really hoping he’s going to be here tonight.”

Cool, I thought. Maybe I could meet him, too. 

“I really like his work,” I said. “He has a wonderful technique.”

“Yes, he does.”

“I practiced for a long time to be a comic book artist. I really like the way he uses Zip-A-Tone,” I said, referring to a technique comic book artists uses to create detailed textures in their work.

Chick agreed.

“Have you ever used any other artists, or has it just been the two of you?”

“No, just the two of us,” he said.

Score! I thought. One more rumor about Chick disconfirmed.

“Are you affiliated with any church?” Chick asked me.

“Catholic,” I replied. Chick’s eyes widened.

“Oh? You have a Catholic background?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I love Catholics,” he assured me.

“Uh-huh,” I said, already familiar with the I-love-Catholics-that’s-why-I-attack-their-faith routine used by countless Fundamentalists.

“Well. A Catholic evangelist!” Chick mused. “Are you a Jesuit?”

It was my turn to laugh. If Jack didn’t believe his comics’ paranoid conspiracy theories about Jesuits, he was acting as though he did.

“No, I’m just a layman. I’m not even a priest. I’m not an anything,” I said, hoping to reassure him that I wasn’t a sinister Vatican agent. Perhaps a brief profession of faith might help. “We have our differences,” I told him, “but we both worship God—and his Son, Jesus.”

Chick made what was probably best read as a pleasant but non-committal acknowledgement.

“I’m sure the Pope will have seen this movie by next week,” he said.

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure it’ll be going out on a plane. They have all my stuff at the Vatican.”

“I see.”

Since he’d signed a tract for me on the back of my Light of the World DVD, he might think that my copy was the very one that would be sent to the Pope.

“I’m one of the few who stands up against Rome,” Jack continued. “That all started years ago when I met Alberto. Do you know about Alberto?”

“Yes,” I said.

Alberto Rivera’s conspiracy theories are the subjects of many of Chick’s comics and tracts. Rivera claimed to be an ex-Jesuit sent to infiltrate and destroy Protestant churches for the Vatican. He was later exposed as a fraud by Protestant publications and groups such as Christianity Today, Cornerstone magazine, and the Christian Research Institute. He also was wanted by the law for writing bad checks and credit card theft, among other financial improprieties. Chick’s persistence in publishing Rivera led to his leaving the Christian Booksellers Association. Rivera died in 1997 of colon cancer.

“Alberto was murdered, you know,” Jack informed me.

“Well, I understand that he had cancer, but beyond that I’m not aware of anything,” I replied.

“Oh, yes, he was murdered.” Jack said an ex-member of the Irish Republican Army had told him of two poisons, one of which causes cancer. “And that was what they gave him.”

“I see.”

More well-wishers said hello to Jack. While they chatted I tried to think how I might be able to get a tour of Chick Publications itself. These are seldom granted, and I knew my chances were next to nil, but I had to ask. When Chick turned back to me I said, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask: Do y’all ever give tours of your place? I’d love to see where you work.”

“No, I’m afraid not,” he said.

I paused for a minute trying to think if there was a good way to ask for an exception.

“Sorry,” he smiled, knowing what I was thinking. “We have to draw the line somewhere. I don’t let my picture be taken. I’m on too many hit lists.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Yes, we get death threats every week . . . from the Muslims.”

“Yeah, we get them, too,” I said, thinking of the periodic threats we get at Catholic Answers from various groups, though not Muslims in particular.

“Really?” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought you would.” This would be a natural assumption for Chick if he believes his own propaganda about the Catholic Church starting and then later manipulating Islam. “Do you still draw a lot?”

“No, not anymore. These days I’m mostly just a writer.”

This seemed to tickle Chick’s fancy.

“Really?” he chuckled at an unstated irony, perhaps thinking of his own evolution from being a writer and illustrator to being principally a writer. “Where do you work?” he asked.

“In San Diego.” I realized immediately this probably wasn’t what he was asking. “At Catholic Answers,” I said.

Jack laughed uproariously.

“You know of us?” I asked.

” O-o-o-h, yes,” he said mirthfully.

Over the years Catholic Answers has conducted a number of campaigns to educate people about the paranoid anti-Catholicism in Chick’s tracts. We have sent out hundreds of thousands of pieces of educational material. No doubt some made their way to Chick’s desk. I thought of telling him that I am the author of the latest special report critiquing his work, but decided it might spoil the moment.

More well-wishers came by, and Chick informed me that his wife would soon arrive and that she would be sitting in the chair between us, where his jacket rested. I was very interested to see what she looked like. By this point, I was considering staying for the movie. Being able to say that I watched the world premier of Jack Chick’s movie sitting next to him and his wife would make it worth staying.

“I figured I’d be approached tonight,” Chick confided.

“Really? I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I said, unable to think of a way of convincing him that I wasn’t a secret agent sent to “approach” him for some evil purpose.

It was occurring to me that, despite his friendliness, Chick might well be uncomfortable with my presence—especially if he really were the paranoid conspiracy nut he appears to be. He probably was not looking forward to watching the film with a presumed Jesuit agent sitting by his side. Things were quite amicable between us, but it came as little surprise when a final group of people showed up in the aisle and Chick asked politely if I could move so that they could take the seats next to him. One in the group was his wife. Not as young as I had supposed from press accounts, but quite pretty.

“Of course,” I said as graciously as I could, and we stood up to part.

“We’re in the war,” Chick said. “I’m sure we’ll be hearing from you in the future.”

“I’m sure,” I said, nodding and smiling warmly. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, sir,” I said, extending my hand again. Jack shook it and smiled, and that was the end of our encounter.

On the way out I saw a smartly dressed African-American man walking up the far aisle, and I suspected that he might be Fred Carter. As I approached to find out, a thin, poorly groomed man threw his arms around him and cried, “Fred! I’m so happy to see you!”

When the thin man released him, I walked up and said, “Excuse me, sir. Are you Fred Carter?”

He acknowledged that he was, and I shook his hand, saying “I’m pleased to meet you. I really like your artwork. You have an excellent technique.”

He expressed his appreciation, but I wasn’t able to strike up a conversation because the thin man suddenly became interested in me, introduced himself, and started asking about a book on St. Paul that I was carrying. Carter departed for the foyer.

As I drove home, I reflected on my meeting with the king of Fundamentalist kitsch. Chick came across as a kind, gentle old man. He was nothing but polite. He smiled. He laughed. Unlike the characters in his comic books, he didn’t say “Haw! Haw!” when he laughed. From meeting him one would never suspect him to be the most infamous broadcaster of hate and paranoia in the Christian comic book world.

Chick noted that “we’re in the war.” The only experiences I could compare meeting him to are strange wartime incidents I’ve read about where soldiers of opposing sides are able to put down their weapons and share a moment of humanity. Like when Yankees and Confederates stopped shooting at each other long enough to trade coffee and tobacco. Or when German and British soldiers climbed out of their World War I foxholes to exchange Christmas greetings.

I wondered what Chick thought of our meeting. Maybe nothing, but maybe his conspiracy-prone mind would cause it to assume larger-than-life proportions. He had read me as a potential Vatican agent making some kind of hostile “approach” to him. Maybe he would think that there was a cancer-causing poison on my palm when we shook hands.

Given Chick’s tendency to sometimes include real people in his comics—even as minor, unnamed characters—he might even record the incident. If you’re ever reading a Chick comic and see a young, bearded Jesuit agent dressed like a cowboy, it’ll probably be me.

I only hope Fred Carter does the art.

Should You Read Non-Catholic Materials?

A correspondent writes:

I am presently attending a Bible study.  During our small group discussion, a question arose from someone in our group.We would like to know if it is wrong for us to read and examine other books and Bibles that are not Catholic-based to see what they have information-wise pertaining to spiritual matters.  For example, we both have Life Application Study Bibles and enjoy reading the associated study footnotes.

My opinion is that the Holy Spirit guides us with discernment especially when we pray before reading or delving into other Christian denomination books and Bibles.  I guard myself (my heart, mind and spirit) so that I’m not influenced in any way that could conflict with Catholic beliefs.  If I’m not sure or confused about an issue (e.g., Why do we believe this and they that?”), I said I then will go to a religious authoritative person to have any questions or issues addressed or I check Internet sites like www.Catholic.com.  I believe I am exercising my ‘child-like faith’ with wanting to know and love more, which draws me closer to Him and to others, while using my adult judgment. I also believe that, when we know more about other religions and philosophies (Christian, Jewish, Eastern, scientific, etc.), it helps us to practice love, respect others, and establish a common ground for our relationship and possible future discussions for witnessing for Catholicism. If I didn’t understand or have knowledge of what they believe, I may not be able to convey my Catholic beliefs and doctrines as accurately.

The other person in our small discussion group is concerned that when we read, we can be swayed / influenced to turn from our Catholic beliefs and choose another path.  Are we able to guard ourselves enough (with the Holy Spirit’s assistance), spiritually and mentally, to protect our Catholic faith or is avoidance of other doctrines the answer?  Is it a matter where it differs per individual and how strong their faith is (figuratively, those who are nursing vs. those eating solid food)?

Please share your opinion and feel free to correct me where I’m wrong.  Thank you!

I think that you and the other person in your Bible study have valid points. There is not a one-size-fits-all answer on this one.

On the one hand, there is a great deal to be learned from non-Catholic sources, including non-Catholic religious and philosophical ones. St. Thomas Aquinas did an enormous service for the Church by showing how Christian faith can be related to the thought of non-Christian thinkers, such as (and especially) the pre-Christian philosopher Aristotle. Aquinas’s attitude was that all truth is God’s truth, and so if you find truth in a non-Christian source it not only will not contradict the Christian faith but it also will be of use to Christians. The more truth, the better!

His attitude was thus to exercise critical thinking in reading materials from non-Catholic sources (and from Catholic ones, for that matter!). Although St. Paul said it in a different context, the idea also applies here:

 

Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22)

This philosophy has also carried down to our day. In fact, in the books he is writing on the life of Jesus, Pope Benedict regularly interacts with the ideas of the American Rabbi Jacob Neusner, whose perspective on Jesus he finds to have value, even though he doesn’t agree with everything. (And he’s willing to reference Neusner in public—and thus implicitly encourage others to see what Neusner has to say.)

If you have a good grounding in your Catholic faith and can exercise critical thinking in what you read then there is nothing to fear in non-Catholic writings, and there is much to be learned from them! Though we have the fullness of religious truth, we do not have a monopoly on truth, and the perspectives of others can help bring out things that we as Catholics may not have known or may not have fully worked out yet.

In my own work, I use non-Catholic materials all the time. In fact, my favorite commentaries on the book of Genesis are by Jewish authors (Rashi and Nahum Sarna), there are Evangelical commentaries on certain books of the Bible that I learn a great deal from (the writings of N. T. Wright and James Dunn come to mind), and there are things to be learned even from folks who do not have any faith.

The key to being able to sift through this material and find what is good in it, though, involves more than praying to the Holy Spirit, and here is where I think your friend has a good point. One must also have a firm knowledge of your own faith in order to be able to think critically about material presented from other perspectives.

While one certainly should and must rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance, the Holy Spirit does not promise to protect us from coming to mistaken conclusions just because we pray to him. He also wants us to study, internalize, and thoroughly know our own faith. And then, with his guidance, we can approach materials from other perspectives profitably and with confidence.

Because everybody in our culture is taught to regard himself as an expert on religion from the time of birth, it is easy—often far too easy—for us to imagine that we have the kind of knowledge of our own faith that is needed to accurately identify beliefs that conflict with it. Indeed, we’d often feel insulted if someone suggested that we don’t! “What do you mean I don’t know my Catholic faith well enough to know what contradicts it!”

Yet there are a great many people who, in fact, don’t have a good grasp on the Church’s teaching even though they think they do.

And then there are people who, while they know the teaching of the Church well, may be experiencing an emotional crisis or a crisis of faith of some sort, and this would interfere with their ability to productively and serenely interact with materials from non-Catholic authors.

Certainly the safest course is to stick with Catholic materials, and as a general matter this is advisable, particularly for those who are less educated in their faith or who are going through difficult patches in their lives, but if you are well educated in your faith and able to exercise the critical thinking necessary to profitably sift what you are reading, there is nothing to fear from doing so.

There is thus no one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on each individual and where that person is in their intellectual, emotional, and spiritual journeys.

In terms of the group—since people may be at different stages of those journeys—I would recommend erring on the side of caution (a flock travels at the speed of its slowest member), and if you use non-Catholic materials (or less-reliable Catholic ones, which can even be more insidious since they may have been written by wolves in sheep’s clothing), point out their limitations and strongly caution people against using them uncritically.

I hope this helps, and best of luck!

What are your thoughts?

James White Has Completely Lost It

And by "it," I mean two things: First, his mind, and second, the debate.

The reason I say that is that White has now posted pictures depicting those who have urged him to be more charitable with Frank Beckwith as radical Muslims protesting and urging beheading.

Here are the pictures.

To the first he gave the name "RCfatwa" (i.e., Roman Catholic fatwa):

Rcfatwa

To the second he gave the name "RCcharity" (i.e., "Roman Catholic charity"–depicting the attitude of the man in the picture as the kind of charity that Catholics display):

Rccharity

ORIGINAL SOURCE.

Toward the end of his post, White seeks to blunt criticism of these pictures (or appears to do so) by saying:

Now, I have obviously attempted to insert a bit of levity, and a bit of humorous sarcasm here, for the simple reason that I’m to the point where you either have to laugh or cry.

I’m sorry, but no. This kind of excuse will not do. Not in the slightest.

You do not compare your interlocutors to Islamists or portray those who urge charity on your part as if they were advocates of beheading those who disagree with them. Whether you feel they are right or wrong, annoying or not, or even reasonable or not, the actions of people engaged in this discussion with White are simply incommensurate with the kind of actions undertaken by radical Muslims.

What White has done here is not humor.

It is vile. It is reprehensible. It is despicable. It is outrageous. If White were thinking rationally, he would see this.

Hence, White has lost his mind when it comes to this. He is not functioning as a rational agent on this topic.

He also loses any debate on this point via special application of Godwin’s Law.

Godwin’s Law holds that the longer an online discussion goes, the greater the odds of someone making a comparison to Hitler. It is standard practice in many Internet circles–because of the inflammatory nature of this comparison and its tendency to start flame wars and shut down rational discussion–to regard anyone who makes such a comparison (unless you are talking about real-life Nazis or mass murderers) as having automatically lost the debate in question.

Islamists are the Nazis of the post-9/11 world, and thus anyone who depicts his debate opponents as Islamists automatically loses whatever debate was underway due to forfeiture.

He has crossed a fundamental line that shows himself to be incapable of holding a rational discussion. Excuses like "it was just a little levity" count for nothing. Those are the remarks of a troll. The individual has shown that he is not willing to make a good faith effort to abide by the terms of Internet discussions, and there is no point in discussing anything with him–either ever or at least until he seriously and sincerely acknowledges just how far over the line he was.

Discussion over.

James, you lose.

If you were Catholic, I’d tell you to go to confession.

What you did was vile, unacceptable, and childish. You have reduced yourself to the status of a troll.

If you can’t immediately see that and make amends then no one, knowing that you are capable of this, should engage you in debate or discussions of any kind.

UPDATE: The above pictures are so vile, particularly in light of 9/11 and the ensuing history and those who have been threatened or killed by radical Muslims, that this should be a matter upon which individuals of all confessional affiliations should be able to agree, including Evangelicals. I would like to invite Evangelicals, including those who have been close to White, to both publicly and privately distance themselves from the actions of Mr. White in posting these pictures as an act fundamentally incompatible with Christian charity. Evangelicals, in particular, can play a spiritual service to White by making this clear to him, since as the pictures themselves illustrate, he is deaf to appeals to charity from Catholics.

Amazing. Simply Amazing.

James White has been active in the combox over at Stand To Reason–despite his dislike of comboxes (I guess he uses them when it suits him)–in connection with Frank Beckwith’s recent appearance on that organization’s radio program.

HERE’S A LINK.

I was told he had reposted some of the material from there on his own blog, and I was thinking about responding to something he said, but then I ran into

THIS ITEM (CURRENTLY) AT THE TOP OF HIS BLOG.

It’s amazing. Simply amazing.

The topic concerns a statement Frank made on Stand To Reason that he had read documents from the Council of Trent back when he was in his twenties and then recently re-read them and was surprised by what he read. They did not say what he understood them to say based on his prior reading and what he had been told about them by others subsequently.

No big deal, right? People read something when they’re young and green and then read it again years later and realize it didn’t say what they thought it said or means something else. Happens all the time, right?

Not, apparently, to the mind of James White.

First, here’s the quotation from Frank, transcribed from the broadcast, that White picks on:

If you read the Council of Trent…which, by the way, really shocked
me. I expected to read this sort of horrible document, you know,
requiring people to stick pins in their eyes, you know, and flagellate
themselves, you know, and it turns out that there are things in there
that are quite amazing, that the initial grace is given to us by God,
in fact, there’s a condemnation in there for anyone who says that our
works, apart from grace…I mean, I thought to myself, I had not been
told…I had been misinformed!

On his blog White poses the following questions:

1) How can a person be shocked by re-reading something they read twenty
years ago. Is it your claim that you had completely forgotten
everything you had read then? Or is it your claim that you were so
completely prejudiced in your twenties that you could not even read the
document in a meaningful fashion?
2) How can someone speak of "expecting to read" something in a document
that they have already read? Are you claiming that your prejudices were
do deep that you had actually made up in your mind things like
"sticking pins in your eyes" and "flagellation"?
3) How can you find "amazing" things in a document you read twenty
years ago? Did you simply not read it well enough to understand it then?
4)  If you read this document, how is it relevant to claim that you had not been "told" the truth about it? 
5)  If you read the document, how could you be misinformed about its contents? 


Finally, would not a perfectly fair minded reading of these statements
lead any rational person to the conclusion that this was, in fact, your
first reading of the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent? [emphasis added]

HUH???

White is actually insinuating that Beckwith did not previously read the documents, despite his claim to have done so!

What possible reason would he have to lie about this? Or if the claim isn’t that he’s lying, why suppose that his memory has gone so wrong on this?

I think what "a perfectly fair minded reading" of Frank’s statements would lead "any rational person" to the conclusion that he read the documents–or some of them–back when he was young and inexperienced in matters of theology and then, with a couple of decades of additional learning under his belt, he went back and realized that they were saying something different than he thought. In the meantime, what he had read about them from other sources had colored his understanding of them, and so reading what they really have to say–and now having the background to understand them properly–was an enlightening experience for him.

That kind of thing happens all the time with human beings. It’s no big deal and nothing out of the ordinary.

If this, then, is what "any rational person" would be led to conclude by giving "a perfectly fair minded reading" to Frank’s statements, I can only conclude that James White is either not a rational person or that he is not giving a fair reading to them (or both).

The way I see it, there are three options (in order of ascending probability):

1) James White is such a supergenius that he always reads every document correctly the first time and remembers it perfectly for decades, without allowing his view of it to be colored by what others have told him about the document (though if he’s this kind of supergenius, why hasn’t he noticed that other people don’t work that way?)

2) James White is not a supergenius but assumes that he is, so that he thinks his first reading of any document is correct and he is so closed minded and incapable of admitting–even to himself–that he has been wrong that he never re-evaluates what a document says and thus has never had the experience of finding out that the document didn’t say what he thought.

3) James White is irrationally going after Frank’s claim out of a overweening desire to score points that prevents him from seeing what is blindingly obvious to "any rational person" and thus renders him incapable of giving "a perfectly fair minded reading" to the statements of someone whom he has chosen to controversially engage.