Theology – Page 4 – Jimmy Akin

“Changing the Sabbath” and the Antichrist

Recently I was contacted by someone who seems quite openminded and who asked me some questions about why we worship on Sunday rather than the Sabbath.

In particular, this person was wondering why that should be the case if the only person in the Bible who seeks to change the Sabbath is the Antichrist.

I responded as follows . . .

When you refer to the Antichrist changing the Sabbath, I assume that you’re referring to Daniel 7:25, where a coming king will “think to change times and seasons.”

Concerning this prophecy specifically, I’d make several points:

1) It does not specifically mention the Sabbath, but this is almost certainly included in the meaning of changing times and seasons, for reasons we will see below.

2) Prophecy can refer to more than one thing (i.e., have more than one fulfillment). Thus in Revelation the Beast from the Sea’s seven heads are both seven mountains and seven kings (Rev. 17:9-10).

We see the same thing in other prophecies, which can have more than one fulfillment. For example, Isaiah’s prophecy of Emmanuel had a near-term fulfillment in the birth of a child in the time of King Ahaz–something that is obvious because the sign was given to him as a sign that the alliance of kings against him would not succeed in toppling him from his throne (see Isaiah 7:1-16).

For Ahaz, the child Emmanuel would be a sign that God was with his people against this alliance of kings. But the prophecy also has a later fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who was God with us in an even more literal sense.

3) Because prophecies can have more than one fulfillment in history, it is important to identify the original historical fulfillment before exploring possible later fulfillments.

4) In the case of Daniel 7, scholars of multiple persuasions (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, other) hold that the most likely original fulfillment of this vision is to be found in the kingdoms leading up to the triumph of Alexander the Great in the 300s B.C. (who is also clearly in focus in chapter 8 of the book) and the kingdoms that came about in the wake of his empire. This does not mean that it does not also have one or more later fulfillments, but this is what the original fulfillment involves.

5) In particular, Daniel 7:25–and other passages in Daniel–appear to be referring originally to the post-Alexander king Antiochus IV (i.e., Antiochus Epiphanes). He was king of the Seleucid Empire, which was one of the kingdoms that grew out of Alexander the Great’s conquests, and he persecuted the Jewish people in the 160s B.C.

Specifically, Antiochus tried to compel them to give up the Jewish faith and adopt the Hellenistic (Greek) religion. This meant compelling them to give up celebrating Jewish feasts, including the Sabbath, and this is what Daniel 7:25 apparently is referring to when it says this king will “think to change times and seasons.”

The “think” is important, because Antiochus did not succeed. The Jewish people resisted him, won their freedom, and retained their ancestral faith and its practices–as chronicled in the books 1 and 2 Maccabees.

6) It is possible that a future dictator may also try to compel the Jewish people to give up their faith–including its holy days–and this future dictator may be the same as the final Antichrist, but we must be careful about such speculation as the prophecy is not repeated in the New Testament and not every prophecy has a later fulfillment.

At least, I couldn’t prove that they all will have a fulfillment at the end of the world, so I have to leave this proposal as a possible speculation but only a speculation.

So, you may well be right that the final Antichrist will attempt to force the Jewish people to drop the Sabbath, but I can’t say this for certain, myself.

However, this is an independent issue of what liturgical calendar Christians, and especially Gentile Christians, should follow.

The Sabbath–along with the monthly New Moons and the annual feasts (e.g., Passover, Tabernacles)–was part of the liturgical calendar that God gave to the Jewish people before the time of Christ.

It was never binding and was never meant to be binding on Gentiles, as Jewish scholars have always held. (In fact, Gentiles were even positively prohibited by Jewish law from being able to do things like keep Passover, as circumcision was required for eating the Passover lamb.)

The uniqueness of the Sabbath to the Jewish people is due to the fact there is nothing in natural law/human nature that demands that one day in seven (as opposed to one day in five or one day in ten) be set aside for rest and worship or that it must be the seventh day in particular (rather than the first or the third). Since God did not build this into human nature/natural law, such a law could only come from a divine mandate, and God only mandated this for the Jewish people, not for all peoples.

When the early Church began making significant numbers of Gentile converts, one of the questions that arose was whether they needed to be circumcised and become Jews in order to be saved (cf. Acts 10-11, 15, Gal. 1-2). The answer was that they did not.

The Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) ruled on this question, and even though it involved a few points to help Jewish and Gentile Christians live together (Acts 15:29), you’ll note that keeping the Sabbath was not one of these. The Jerusalem Council thus recognized that Gentile Christians did not need to be circumcised and adopt Jewish practices. Though a few points were asked of Gentiles for the sake of harmony with Jewish Christians, observing the Jewish ceremonial calendar was not among them.

St. Paul sheds even more light on the subject, indicating in his letters that–even though he is a Jew–he is not bound by the Jewish Law (1 Cor. 9:19-23), because Christ has fulfilled the Jewish Law and so put an end to it. He indicates this in various passages, such as Romans 14:1-6, where he writes:

As for the man who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over opinions. One believes he may eat anything, while the weak man eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains pass judgment on him who eats; for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Master is able to make him stand. One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike. Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

Here Paul takes up two examples of practices that could affect different groups of Christians: keeping kosher laws (not eating unclean foods) and observing the Jewish calendar (honoring certain days). He characterizes some–who believe that they cannot eat certain things and must observe certain days–as “weak in faith,” and others–who recognize they are not bound by these laws–as strong in faith, by implication (for they recognize Christ has eliminated the need for such things by his fulfillment of the Jewish Law).

Rather than trying to get people to abandon their positions, Paul urges peace among Christians by letting everyone do what their conscience says they need to do to honor God.

Paul could not argue in this way if the “weak in faith” position was correct and it was mandated that Christians keep kosher and observe Jewish holy days. It is only because we are not bound by these things that he can allow those who are “weak in faith”–i.e., who have scrupulous fears that Jesus might not have freed us from these things–to continue to practice them rather than violate their consciences.

If everybody was bound to avoid certain foods and keep certain days as a matter of divine law, Paul would have said so–as he does with other things that are matters of divine law. Thus, in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, he warns that people who practice a variety of sins will not inherit the kingdom. He doesn’t say, “You get to do these sins if your conscience tells you it’s okay.” He says “This is a sin; don’t do it!”

Therefore, in Romans 14 the allowance of both positions–eating and not eating certain foods, observing and not observing certain days–is because neither is a violation of divine law. We have the liberty of eating all foods and treating every day alike because God has not mandated that we do otherwise.

Paul is even more explicit in Colossians 2:14-17, where he writes that God has “canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”

He thus indicates that the various regulations of the Mosaic Law concerning food and liturgical days (the annual feasts, monthly New Moons, and weekly Sabbaths being the three kinds of days on the Jewish liturgical calendar) were shadows that pointed forward to Christ, but now that Christ has come and fulfilled the Jewish Law, “nailing it to the Cross,” even Jewish Christians–such as himself–are no longer bound by these, for God has “cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands.”

Consequently, he says “let no one pass judgment on you . . . with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath.”

The Sabbath thus is not binding, even on Jewish Christians, because of what Christ did on the cross.

In the first century and for a time thereafter, many Jewish Christians did continue to observe the Sabbath, as Paul indicated was possible for them in Romans 14. However, this was not the day that Christians held their religious gatherings on.

Instead, they observed the first day of the week, because it was the day on which the Lord Jesus rose. Thus, we see Paul recommending that collections be taken up in the church of Corinth on this day:

Now concerning the contribution for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come (1 Cor. 16:1-2).

This day soon came to be known as “the Lord’s Day,” because it was the day on which the Lord Jesus rose. Thus, we see St. John writing:

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet (Rev. 1:10).

And from the first century forward we see the early Christians continuing to celebrate the first day of the week–the Lord’s Day–rather than the Sabbath, as illustrated by the quotations from early Church documents listed here:

https://www.catholic.com/tract/sabbath-or-sunday

In time, the Church used the power of the keys that Christ had given to Peter to “bind and loose” (Matt. 16:18) to institute a new Christian liturgical calendar, built around the weekly observance of the Lord’s Day.

It is this exercise of the keys that is the reasons Christians today are bound to observe the Lord’s Day–not because one day intrinsically requires observance compared to other days.

However, the Church did not “change” the Sabbath. The Sabbath is when it always was: the seventh day of the week. It’s just that Christians are not required to observe it, as it was something that pertained to the Jewish people prior to the time of Christ. Instead of celebrating the Sabbath, Christians celebrate the first day of the week in honor of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

For more on the Church’s official teaching, see here:

https://www.ncregister.com/blog/did-the-catholic-church-change-the-sabbath

I hope this helps, and God bless you!

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Predestination in the Bible

In the last 2,000 years, a lot of theological baggage has developed around the idea of predestination as theologians have discussed it.

Today, people associate the idea of predestination with being inexorably fated to either heaven or hell. To many people, if something is predestined, then it not only will happen, it will happen in an unstoppable way.

This leads to the idea that predestination is incompatible with free will. Further, many suppose that God predestines things arbitrarily—with no basis for his decisions. He simply picks some people to go to heaven and leaves the rest to go to hell.

Not surprisingly, many people are uncomfortable with the idea of predestination, and many don’t like it.

But the Bible uses the word predestination. It does talk about God predestining things.

The question is: Does the Bible mean that God predestines things the way people today understand the concept?

Language Changes

It’s easy for people familiar with one way a term is used to read their understanding of it back onto an older text.

For example, if someone today said, “That actor’s performance was awful,” they would mean that it was really bad, and if they read a theatre review from Shakespeare’s time and saw that statement, they likely would assume it meant the same thing: the actor put in a bad performance.

But the critic from Shakespeare’s time actually would have meant something very different. The word awful comes from the roots awe and full, and it originally meant something full of awe.

Back in Shakespeare’s day, to say an actor’s performance was awful would mean either that the performance itself was full of awe (i.e., the actor was very reverential when delivering his lines) or that it inspired awe in the audience.

Because language changes, we always have to check ourselves—when reading an older text—and ask whether a term had the meanings we attribute to it today.

So: Does the Bible understand predestination the way modern people tend to?

The Greek Word

The term that gets translated “predestine” in the New Testament is proorizô, and it is not very common—either in the New Testament or in Greek literature.

As Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament notes, it is “a comparatively rare and late word.”

This is a sign that we need to be very careful. If we don’t have a lot of examples of how a word is used, we can’t build a good case that it must mean this rather than that. The fewer the examples we have, the less we can flesh out our understanding of the word and the more ambiguity and uncertainty there is.

That, of itself, should tell us to be very careful not to read modern assumptions about predestination into the term.

If you want to advocate a particular understanding of predestination, you’ll need to prove it from the biblical text, because you can’t simply rely on the word having the sense that developed later in theology. At this time, that development had not occurred.

Where It Comes From

The origin of a word is known as its etymology, and it often is not a particularly good guide for what words mean, because of the way language changes over time.

How a word is used—not where it came from—is what ultimately determines its meaning. Otherwise, the English word “nice” would mean foolish, because it came from the Latin word nescius (“not knowing”).

But there is an exception to this rule: To the extent a word is late or rare, it lacks much of an established usage, and its word origins are a better guide to how people were using it.

Proorizô comes from two Greek roots: pro and horizô. The first means before and the latter is a verb that means things like set limits to, define, explain, determine, appoint, fix, set, designate, or declare (see BDAG).

Based on its word origins, proorizô could mean a lot of things, and they don’t all indicate inexorable fate. It could simply mean “to set limits beforehand,” “to explain beforehand,” “to appoint or designate beforehand,” etc.

None of those things involve inexorable fate. If someone sets limits or lays down guidelines before a discussion starts, if he explains something ahead of time, or if he appoints someone to a position before an event happens, none of those things involve overriding free will or random choices.

In fact, they don’t even guarantee that the thing will happen or that it was accurate. People in a conversation can exceed the guidelines they were given. An early explanation can be botched. And an appointed official can die before he takes office.

An Objection

“Wait!” someone may say. “But what if it’s God doing those things? He’s infallible and omnipotent, so if he does one of those things, won’t it definitely happen?”

Maybe. However, one glance around the world—in any period after the Fall of Man—illustrates that not everything is happening the way God willed.

God doesn’t will that people commit adultery, but they commit it nonetheless.

God is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9), yet some don’t repent.

So, if one used the Greek verb proorizô to say things like, “God determined beforehand that spouses should be faithful to each other” or “God appointed it ahead of time that men should repent” then we would be in a situation where God ordained something, but it doesn’t always come to pass.

Of course, there are particular situations where God has ordained something in such a way that it is guaranteed to happen, but this strong form of ordination can’t be presumed. It’s something that has to be argued in a given case.

In any event, it’s not the word proorizô that would tell you something is ordained in the strong sense—as illustrated by the fact one could use the same word to describe the action of an earthly king who made laws against adultery or failure to repent. Kings may preordain anything they want for their subjects, but it doesn’t mean the subjects will obey.

The word by itself thus is not enough to prove a strong sense of predestination. That’s something that will have to be argued from the biblical context, not the mere use of the word.

The Word in the Bible

The above understanding is based on interpreting proorizô in terms of its word origins. However, we noted that this isn’t always a reliable guide to what something means.

It’s perfectly possible to argue, based on later usage, that the meaning of a term drifted from its origins and should be taken in a different sense.

But here’s the thing: You have to argue that based on later usage. You can’t just assert it.

So what happens if we look at how proorizô is used in the Bible?

It turns out that it’s not found at all in the Septuagint—the Greek translation of the Old Testament—and it only appears 6 times in the New Testament.

That’s not much.

It’s certainly not enough to build a case that the meaning of the term has fundamentally shifted away from its origins (the way “nice” and “awful” have). You’d need a lot more examples than 6.

The most you could show is that, in particular cases, proorizô had acquired a new meaning. But you wouldn’t be able to rule out that it still had its prior, expected meaning in other cases.

But let’s look at the New Testament examples and see what we find.

Acts 4:28

In Acts 4, we find Peter and John making a speech to the Sanhedrin in which they say:

Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place (4:27-28).

Here the text refers to the conspiracy against Jesus, which involved both Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate, as well as various Gentiles and Jews. It says that these people conspired “to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”

The verb “predestined” is singular in Greek, meaning that it was God’s plan that predestined what happened to Jesus—a rather interesting phrase, as it personifies God’s plan.

The association of God’s hand with his plan also suggests God was in some way involved in bringing these things about, though we are not given more detail about how.

What would this passage contribute to an overall doctrine of predestination?

The first thing to note is that the plan in this passage concerns Jesus. It’s true that God has plans for ordinary people, but those are not in focus in this passage, and we can’t simply generalize this passage to refer to things not under discussion.

Consequently, this passage would make a contribution to a doctrine of the predestination of Jesus and what happened to him, but it doesn’t tell us about God predestining people to heaven or hell.

Could what the plan predestined concerning Jesus have failed to happen? I’d be inclined to say no, but it’s primarily my theology that tells me that: God had determined to send his Son to die for us, and nothing was going to stop that. The reference to God’s hand in the passage also suggests this. But it is these factors—my theology and the reference to the hand—that tell me this, not the word for “predestined.”

Did God override anybody’s free will in the unfolding of these events? The passage does not tell us so. While the reference to the hand suggests God took some kind of role in bringing these things about, that doesn’t mean the parties involved didn’t have free will. God is active in the world in all kinds of ways, but that doesn’t mean people lack freedom.

Was the predestination in this passage arbitrary? The passage does not suggest this, and that holds true regardless of what one considers the subject of predestination:

If it’s Jesus, there was a reason God had his Son die for us and not some random individual.
If it’s Herod, Pilate, the Gentile soldiers or the Jewish leaders, there was a reason God used them (namely, because they were the ones with the ability and/or authority to put Jesus to death).
And if one takes the events of Jesus’ passion as the subject of predestination, there was a rational basis for those as well, as illustrated by all the Christian literature devoted to the question of why God chose to have his Son die on a cross.

1 Corinthians 2:7

In 1 Corinthians, Paul is discussing his ministry and says:

We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed [proorizô] before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (2:7-8).

The secret wisdom he is discussing is the message of the gospel, as illustrated by the reference to Jesus’ crucifixion.

Paul says that God predestined the gospel before the ages, and he indicates one of the goals of the gospel: the glorification of those who accept it.

As before, we do not have the predestination of people to heaven or hell under discussion. Indeed, the subject of predestination here is not even a person. It’s a message: the gospel or “secret and hidden wisdom” that God preordained. Thus, this passage also has no direct relevance to the doctrine of predestination to heaven or hell.

Was it certain that the gospel would play the role God preordained for it? Again, I’d say yes, but it’s my theology that tells me that, not the Greek verb.

Also, this passage contains nothing about people lacking free will. Neither was the predestination of the gospel arbitrary. The fact Paul refers to it as “wisdom” indicates it had a rational basis.

Ephesians 1:5

In Ephesians, we find two references to predestination. First, Paul writes:

He destined [proorizô] us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will (1:5).

Here we do have a passage referring to the predestination of ordinary human beings (rather than Jesus or the gospel). However, the predestination in question is not to heaven or hell. Instead, it’s “to be his sons through Jesus Christ.”

Some might argue that whether you’re a son of God determines, infallibly, whether you will go to heaven or hell, but it would be their theology that tells them that—not the passage.

The passage does not say that a son of God cannot imitate the Prodigal Son, leave the Father, and be spiritually “dead” (cf. Luke 15:32). And Paul himself elsewhere warns that Christians must “continue in his [God’s] kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off” (Rom. 11:22).

The passage also does not require a strong, inescapable form of predestination. As we noted, the term proorizô can just mean to appoint something ahead of time. This passage is consistent with the idea of God appointing—in a general way—anyone who responds to the gospel to be a son through Christ. That does not mean that everyone who hears the gospel will respond to it.

Neither does it mean that free will was not involved in their response to the gospel.

Alternately, since proorizô can mean to declare something beforehand, the passage also is consistent with the idea of God declaring certain individual people to be his sons through Christ—based on their free will response to the gospel.

Would either of these be arbitrary? Some might think that the reference to God preordaining us his sons “according to the purpose of his will” might suggest this. But that would assume that the purpose of God’s will is arbitrary, and this would not be indicated if God predestined people to be sons based on their response to the gospel, as in the previous two possibilities.

Also, some translations render the last phrase “according to the kind intention of His will” (NASB), which would simply suggest God predestined us to be his sons out of kindness, without implying arbitrariness about who would become a son.

Ephesians 1:12

A bit further on, Paul writes:

We who first hoped in Christ have been destined [proorizô] and appointed to live for the praise of his glory (1:12).

Many commentators have taken “we who first hoped in Christ” as a reference to Jewish Christians, though it also could refer to simply a group of people who had been Christian longer than those Paul is envisioning as his primary audience.

Whichever is the case, the passage does not refer to predestination to heaven or hell.

Indeed! It speaks of being predestined to a task in this life—namely, “to live for the praise of his glory.”

This is very interesting, and it reveals just how much flexibility there can be in the New Testament’s understanding of predestination. While some things—like what happened to Jesus—might be unalterable parts of God’s plan that are guaranteed to happen, that is not the case here.

Did all of the people Paul is speaking of—whether Jewish Christians or not—always live for the praise of God’s glory?

It would seem not! This is something that sin would interfere with, and Paul himself speaks of the reality of Christians sinning:

Apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? (2 Cor. 11:28-29).

Or, as in other translations, “Who is led into sin without my intense concern?” (NASB), “Who is caused to sin, and I do not burn with indignation?” (LEB).

Later in Ephesians, Paul will warn the readers:

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice (4:30-31).

It is thus quite clear that Christians do not always “live for the praise of [God’s] glory,” despite being predestined to do so. Predestination, at least under some New Testament conceptions, thus can fail.

And, of course, free will is involved when that happens.

Finally, is this kind of predestination arbitrary? No. If Christians are predestined to live in such a way as to promote God’s praise and glory, that is non-arbitrary. It is a calling rooted in basic morality and the natural outworking of God’s grace in a person’s life.

Romans 8:29-30

I’ve saved this passage for last, because it is the one that people normally go to first. That makes it easy to unwittingly read modern conceptions of predestination into it, so it’s helpful to see what else the New Testament has to say on the subject before coming here.

In Romans 8, Paul writes:

Those whom he [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified (8:29-30).

There is more to say about this passage than we can cover here (look for a future blog post), but here we’ll focus specifically on what this passage says about predestination.

One thing to note is that the second reference to predestination (“those whom he predestined he also called”) simply resumes the thought initiated at the first mention. It doesn’t add to it. Therefore, we need to focus on the first mention to understand how this passage is treating the concept.

Here the subjects of predestination are “those whom [God] foreknew.” We’ll cover their identity in more detail another time, but for now suffice it to say that they are a group of people with whom God has a special relationship. It’s not everybody.

The object of their predestination also is explicitly stated. He predestined them “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (thus generating the many brethren of whom Jesus is the firstborn).

When does that happen? When do Christians receive the image of God’s Son?

This can be understood different ways. If Christians are understood as being sons of God right now, as in some passages (e.g., 1 John 3:1), then we have already received the image of God’s Son and have joined his “many brethren.”

Paul speaks of this transformation when he writes:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17).

For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation (Gal. 6:15).

However, our transformation into being Christlike is still in process in this life and will not be complete until the next.

The text of Romans 8:29-30 does not give us the data needed to determine (though the rest of Romans might) whether Paul is envisioning the acquisition of Christ’s image as an accomplished fact or as a process that is still ongoing.

That means the passage itself is consistent both with the idea that the predestination in question has already been achieved or that it is still in progress.

Either way, this passage is not speaking about predestination to heaven or hell.

The most a strong predestinarian could hope for would be to mount a winning argument that the passage is conceptualizing predestination to the image of God’s Son is an ongoing process that will not be complete until we are in heaven, making it an implied predestination to heaven.

But that’s an argument that has to be made. It can’t simply be assumed.

Further, given what we saw with Ephesians 1:12, we’d have to take into account the possibility of human sin interfering with this pre-established goal on God’s part.

Even if the passage were speaking of a goal that awaits us in heaven, that wouldn’t mean those whom God foreknew couldn’t fall into sin and fail to achieve the goal—any more than “we who first hoped in Christ” couldn’t fall into sin and fail to live to God’s praise and glory.

The possibility of free will thus isn’t eliminated.

And neither does the passage speak of the predestination being arbitrary.

Conclusion

None of the passages where the New Testament uses the term predestination require the concepts that people today often associate with it:

None of them explicitly refer to predestination to heaven or hell
None of them say that such a predestination is inexorable
None of them say that such a predestination doesn’t involve free will
And none of them say that it is arbitrary

That’s not to say that one couldn’t argue for these ideas—either in passages that use proorizô or in other passages. But it is to say that they can’t simply be read into the texts.

Addendum: A while ago, I also did a similar study of the concept of election in Scripture and discovered that, the way the Bible uses language, “the elect”/”the chosen” are not simply those predestined to heaven, as so often assumed today. For information on that, see my Chosen by God: God’s Elect in the Bible and the Church Fathers.

St. Thomas and the Occult, Part 2 – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the greatest intellects in Christian history. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli continue their discussion of the saint and what he had to say about hidden or “occult” mysteries such as astrology, crystal healing, amulets, demons, ghosts, and psychic powers.

Help us continue to offer Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. Won’t you make a pledge at SQPN.com/give today?

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St. Thomas Aquinas and the Occult – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the great intellects in Christian history who wrote on many subjects, including topics we would consider occult. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli discuss what Aquinas had to say about astrology, crystal healing, amulets, demons, ghosts, psychic powers and more.

Help us continue to offer Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. Won’t you make a pledge at SQPN.com/give today?

Links for this episode:

Please spread the word about the podcast. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!
Purchase the books and other material from this and other episodes at the Mysterious World Bookstore.
Join the conversation at the Starquest Facebook page and the Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World Facebook page.
Send your feedback or comments to mysterious@sqpn.com or send a tweet with the hashtag of #mysteriousfeedback

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Thomas Aquinas on the Occult

When people think of the occult, things like astrologers, mediums, witches, and demons come to mind.

Many dismiss such things as incompatible with modern science, and while Christians know the supernatural is real, they can be affected by this skeptical attitude.

But in the past, highly respected, intellectual figures like St. Thomas Aquinas took occult phenomena seriously.

Back then, the word “occult” had a different meaning. In Latin, occultus meant anything that was hidden—anything that people didn’t know about or understand. The world thus was filled with “occult” or hidden things and forces.

These weren’t automatically contrary to the Faith, and “occult” had a neutral meaning. Just because men didn’t understand something, that didn’t mean it was evil.

God was the one who set up the world, and he created many things hidden from man’s knowledge. Sometimes, he would reveal these through the prophets and thus provide “occult knowledge.” Thus, Scripture says that God “reveals the things that are hidden [Vulg., occulta]” (2 Macc. 12:41).

The Medieval Cosmos

In the Middle Ages, it was thought that things on Earth were made of the four classical elements—air, earth, fire, and water. Everything else was a mixture of these four. Also, the elements weren’t thought to be made of atoms but could be divided indefinitely, without reaching a smallest unit of matter.

Opinion was divided on the stars. Some thought the heavenly bodies were made of the same four elements, but others thought they were made of a fifth element called aether (cf. Summa Theologiae I:70:1 ad 1).

It was thought that the Earth was a sphere at the center of the cosmos. The heavenly bodies—the sun, moon, and stars—were thought to surround the Earth in a series of transparent, concentric shells or spheres.

The lowest sphere held the moon. Everything below the moon (i.e., the “sublunar world”) was subject to change and corruption. But since the heavenly bodies endlessly moved in their orbits, seemingly without change, they were regarded as incorruptible.

Outside the spheres was the highest heaven, sometimes called the empyrean heaven—a realm filled with light, where the angels and saints dwell (ST I:61:4, I:102:2 ad 1).

The spiritual world contained beings Aquinas called “separated substances”—that is, things that exist though separated from matter. These included God, angels, demons, and disembodied human souls.

Occult Forces

Modern science recognizes four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. The latter two were unknown in Aquinas’s day, and the first two were very imperfectly understood.

People knew physical objects fall, but they didn’t use gravity to explain that. It wasn’t till the 1600s that Isaac Newton proposed an invisible force causing objects with mass to attract each other. He named the force “gravity,” from the Latin word meaning “heaviness.”

Newton got pushback, because the physics of his day held that bodies couldn’t influence each other unless connected by a physical medium. Gravity was supposed to work even across a vacuum, with objects exerting “spooky action at a distance,” so Newton was criticized for proposing this magical, “occult” force.

By contrast, Aquinas held that stones fall toward the Earth because they contain the element of earth (Letter on the Occult Workings of Nature), and though electricity and magnetism had been known since ancient times, it was not understood that they were two aspects of a single force.

Aquinas even listed magnetism as an occult force: “Now in the physical order, things have certain occult forces, the reason of which man is unable to assign; for instance, that the magnet attracts iron” (ST II-II:96:2 obj. 1).

Other objects also had natural abilities. Thus, Aquinas held that gold could improve mood and that sapphires could stop bleeding (LOWN)—a parallel to modern “crystal healing.”

The way these worked was hidden, but that didn’t make it wrong to employ them: “There is nothing superstitious or unlawful in employing natural things simply for the purpose of causing certain effects, such as they are thought to have the natural power of producing” (ST II-II:96:2 ad 1).

But there was a problem if you were adding magical or superstitious observances to an object’s natural abilities.

Magic

The term “magic” (Latin, magia) comes from the Magi—a Medo-Persian tribe with priestly duties. Originally, “magic” referred to the rituals Magi performed, but it was extended to any foreign or unauthorized rituals.

Magus (“magician”) then was applied to people who performed such shady rituals, no matter what their nationality—even Samaritans and Jews (Acts 8:9, 11, 13:6). It’s thus hard to say what nation the Magi who visited Jesus belonged to, just that they came “from the east” (Matt. 2:1).

In the first century, fields we take for granted were not clearly distinguished. Religion, philosophy, science, medicine, and magic were combined in a confusing way.

By Aquinas’s day, the distinctions were becoming clearer, and he contributed principles that helped distinguish them.

Medicine

Our word “pharmacy” comes from the Greek pharmakon, which could mean a magic potion, a medicine, or a poison. Whichever of the three you wanted in the ancient world, you’d go to a pharmakeus, who would make it for you—illustrating just how tangled magic and medicine (and crime) were.

The practice of making such substances was known as pharmakeia. This is the word the New Testament uses when Paul lists sorcery as one of the “works of the flesh” (Gal. 5:20) and when John says that the nations were deceived by sorcery and that people did not repent of their sorceries (Rev. 9:21, 18:23).

This negative attitude toward pharmakeia was because it involved magic. Ancient pharmacists didn’t just grind up herbs to make medicine. They also said spells and performed magical procedures over them.

This continued in the Middle Ages, and herbology was viewed with suspicion. Yet some plants had curative powers, and Scripture acknowledges that “the Lord created medicines (pharmaka) from the Earth” (Sir. 38:4)—so there had to be something good here. The question was how to disentangle medicine from its magical overlay.

Aquinas acknowledged that it’s permitted to use a substance’s natural effects, “but if, in addition, there be employed certain [mystical] characters, words, or any other vain observances which clearly have no efficacy by nature, it will be superstitious and unlawful” (ST II-II:96:2 ad 1).

Astrology

Astronomy and astrology were not distinguished in the Middle Ages, but it was clear they contained a mix of truth and falsehood.

Aquinas knew some things could be predicted with certainty, “even as astrologers foretell a coming eclipse” (ST II-II:95:1), but not everything astrologers said was true.

It’s surprising how open Medievals were to astrology. The heavenly bodies had been regarded since antiquity as having a great deal of influence on Earth. Thus, in medicine, herbologists would pick or prepare plants when the heavenly bodies were in certain alignments, to ensure their potency (a practice not wholly without basis, since plants ripen in different seasons, though that has to do with the sun rather than the moon or planets).

Aquinas was quite prepared to see the stars as influencing physical bodies: “The natural forces of natural bodies result from their substantial forms, which they acquire through the influence of heavenly bodies; wherefore through this same influence they acquire certain active forces” (ST II-II:96:2 ad 2).

But he denied that one could create “astronomical images” imbued with power from the stars by inscribing astrological signs on them. The reason was that the signs are artificial.

The stars might give a magnet its ability to attract iron, but men could not channel the power of the stars by inscribing symbols on an image, since such characters “do not conduce to any effect naturally, since shape is not a principle of natural action.” Consequently, “no force accrues to them from the influence of heavenly bodies, in so far as they are artificial.” Only the natural substances they were made of might have an effect (ibid.).

Because the stars influenced the physical world, Aquinas held that “astrologers, by considering the stars, can foreknow and foretell things concerning rains and droughts” (II-II:95:1).

But what effect did they have on man? In antiquity, many thought the stars rule our fates inexorably, but Christian thinkers held this wasn’t compatible with free will.

It was men’s choices that ultimately determined their destiny, but this didn’t mean the stars had no influence. Since they were physical objects, stars couldn’t affect our souls directly, but they could affect our bodies and the sensations we experience, such as anger and concupiscence.

They thus could influence the choices we make, for “the majority of men follow their passions, which are movements of the sensitive appetite, in which movements of the heavenly bodies can cooperate” (ST I:115:4 ad 3).

Aquinas didn’t regard making predictions on this basis as the sin of divination, because they were natural predictions based on human reason: “Accordingly it is not called divination, if a man foretells things that happen of necessity, or in the majority of instances, for the like can be foreknown by human reason” (ST II-II:95:1).

It would be superstition, though, if “by observing the stars, one desires to foreknow the future that cannot be forecast by their means,” and thus, “we must consider what things can be foreknown by observing the stars” (ST II-II:95:5)

Since most men follow their passions, Aquinas concluded that “astrologers are able to foretell the truth in the majority of cases, especially in a general way. But not in particular cases; for nothing prevents man resisting his passions by his free-will” (ST I:115:4 ad 3).

But since few resist, astrologers were particularly able to predict “public occurrences which depend on the multitude” (ST II-II:95:5 ad 2), such as wars and the like.

Demons

Demons could influence physical objects, at least in certain ways, so Aquinas held they could intervene in human affairs.

Both they and the good angels could assume temporary physical forms (ST I:51:2). These temporary bodies allowed them to perform some tasks but not others. For example, they could not reproduce—at least not directly.

However, following St. Augustine, Aquinas held that demons could take the forms of incubi and succubi and have relations with human beings. This would allow them to acquire the cells needed for reproduction: “If some are occasionally begotten from demons, it is not from the seed of such demons, nor from their assumed bodies, but from the seed of men taken for the purpose; as when the demon assumes first the form of a woman, and afterwards of a man.” In this case, the offspring would be fully human, “so that the person born is not the child of a demon, but of a man” (ST I:51:3 ad 6).

Demons’ control over physical bodies was limited. Again following Augustine, Aquinas held they could not transform a human body into that of a beast, “since this is contrary to the ordination of nature implanted by God.” But demons could trick human senses into thinking a person had turned into a beast: “Imaginary apparitions rather than real things accounted for the aforementioned transformations” (On Evil 16:9 ad 2). He thus saw werewolf-like transformations as illusions rather than physical events.

Aquinas didn’t have a problem with using hidden natural forces, but he was wary of practices that included words or other symbols. There was nothing wrong with invoking God, the good angels, or the saints, but the only other spirits that might respond to invocations were demons.

“In every incantation or wearing of written words [on an amulet or medal around the neck], two points seem to demand caution. The first is the thing said or written, because if it is connected with invocation of the demons it is clearly superstitious and unlawful. On like manner it seems that one should beware lest it contain strange words, for fear that they conceal something unlawful” (ST II-II:96:4).

Ghosts

The spirits of departed humans also could manifest in the world.

Like all Medievals, Aquinas recognized that the saints in heaven could appear to men, and he recognized that the same was true of other souls: “It is also credible that this may occur sometimes to the damned, and that for man’s instruction and intimidation they be permitted to appear to the living; or again in order to seek our suffrages, as to those who are detained in purgatory” (ST III-II:69:3).

The damned thus might appear—perhaps against their will—to scare the living back onto the straight and narrow, and those being purified might appear to seek prayers.

Natural Human Abilities

What power might the human soul have to influence physical things? Aquinas held that souls can affect their own bodies directly, and they can affect other things indirectly.

For example, “when a soul is vehemently moved to wickedness,” this might manifest in the eyes so that “the eyes infect the air which is in contact with them to a certain distance” and thus “the countenance becomes venomous and hurtful, especially to children, who have a tender and most impressionable body” (ST I:117:3 ad 2).

This was Aquinas’s explanation for the “evil eye,” and it was reasonable to fear a child might be harmed by it (ST II-II:96:3 ad 1).

Aquinas only considers the case of a person’s soul being moved by a desire to harm someone, not whether the same principle could be used for neutral or good purposes. However, he sees the soul as having at least a weak natural ability capable of producing physical effects remotely. Today, such natural mental abilities would be classified as psychic powers, and this specific ability would be a form of telekinesis.

He also acknowledged another natural human ability that today would be classified as psychic: precognition, which he referred to as “natural prophecy.”

In supernatural prophecy—or prophecy in the proper sense—God reveals something to a person, possibly through an angel. However, Aquinas held that humans also have a natural disposition allowing them to sometimes learn about the future.

He distinguished this from predictions based on learning and experience, such as how “the doctor foresees that health or death will come, or a meteorologist foresees the storm or fair weather” due to “technical knowledge” (Disputed Questions on Truth 12:3).

Instead, natural prophecy “is derived from the power of created causes, in so far as certain movements can be impressed on the human imaginative power.” Given the influence he believed the stars have, it’s no surprise he saw them as one cause of these impressions, saying they can be produced “for instance, by the power of the heavenly bodies, in which there pre-exist some signs of certain future events.” Also, unlike supernatural prophecy, natural prophecy is not infallible, “but predicts those things which are true for the most part” (ibid.).

Natural prophecy can occurs in dreams, but it wasn’t the only reason dreams sometimes foretell the future. Aquinas says they also may do so by chance or when a man responds to a dream to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alternately, predictive dreams may be caused by God, angels, or demons. But sometimes they are due to the natural “disposition of the heavenly bodies” (ST II-II:95:6).

Aquinas doesn’t explain in detail how to tell when this is the case, but he notes that “we must say that there is no unlawful divination in making use of dreams for the foreknowledge of the future, so long as those dreams are due to divine revelation, or to some natural cause inward or outward” (ibid.).

Superstition

Superstition is a vice contrary to religion that “offers divine worship either to whom it ought not, or in a manner it ought not” (ST II-II:92:1), and Aquinas’s discussions of occult phenomena offer principles for discerning whether a particular practice is lawful or superstitious.

The first concerns whether the goal of the practice is good. If you’re trying to do something wrong—like harm a child with the evil eye—the practice is not permitted.

The second concerns whether it can be expected to have an effect. If the practice can’t possibly work—like expecting an image to have power from the stars because you put an astrological symbol on it—it’s superstitious and thus not permitted.

The third concerns whether the practice works by natural means. If you’re only relying on powers God built into nature—like an herb’s healing effect—the practice will be lawful.

The situation is more complex if you’re explicitly or implicitly invoking a spiritual entity. The fourth principle thus concerns who you’re invoking. If it’s demons—whether you’re aware of that or not—the practice isn’t lawful.

Even if you’re invoking God, his angels, or the saints, it’s not automatically legitimate, because it’s possible to invoke them superstitiously. The fifth principle is thus checking that you’re being reasonable and reverent.

For example, when considering whether it’s lawful to wear an amulet or medal with divine words written on it, Aquinas says, “one should beware lest, besides the sacred words, it contain something vain, for instance certain written characters, except the sign of the Cross; or if hope be placed in the manner of writing or fastening, or in any like vanity, having no connection with reverence for God, because this would be pronounced superstitious. Otherwise, however, it is lawful” (ST II-II:96:4).

Aquinas on Evaluating Practices

A Modern Perspective

It’s remarkable how free the Medievals were of modern skepticism about mysterious phenomena.

It’s also striking how willing figures like Aquinas were to think carefully about what is acceptable and unacceptable. He didn’t simply dismiss everything as being due to demons or forbid everything that we would consider occult.

In subsequent centuries, we’ve made both scientific and doctrinal progress (CCC 2115-2117). Astronomy and astrology have been disentangled. Also, medicine and magic are largely distinct, though quack procedures relying on allegedly spiritual principles remain (e.g., Reiki).

In some ways, our age has become too skeptical, too quick to dismiss accounts of the spiritual and paranormal. Aquinas may have been wrong about the influence of the stars, but the world still has hidden elements.

These include the supernatural forces Christians have long been aware of. They also include natural things science hasn’t discovered (e.g., some scientists think we may have found evidence of a fifth, previously unknown, fundamental force).

Aquinas made a real contribution with his principles for discerning the good and the bad in mysterious phenomena, and these remain valuable as we encounter the many mysteries God’s world still contains.

Imprimaturs and Private Revelations

In recent years, imprimaturs have been granted to books connected with unapproved private revelations, and this has led to some confusion.

It has been argued that imprimaturs and nihil obstats are acts of the Magisterium, and therefore the faithful are obliged to give the religious submission of mind and will that they must to any other act of the Magisterium.

This argument has been made, for example, by some supporters of the non-Catholic mystic Vassula Ryden.

Is this true? Are imprimaturs and nihil obstats acts of the Magisterium? What implications do they have for the faithful and how they are to regard private revelations?

The Code of Canon Law does not use the terms imprimatur and nihil obstat, but they are often used by Catholic publishers.

A nihil obstat (Latin, “nothing obstructs”) is a written opinion issued by a censor that nothing obstructs the publication of a book in terms of faith or morals (can. 830 §3).

In issuing this opinion, the censor is bound “to consider only the doctrine of the Church concerning faith and morals as it is proposed by the ecclesiastical Magisterium” (830 §2). This means that the censor is not to base the opinion on whether he agrees with everything claimed in the work—only whether the book contains statements that contradict Church teaching.

Censors are not typically bishops, so there is no question of whether nihil obstats are acts of the Magisterium. The Church’s Magisterium can be exercised only by bishops teaching in communion with the pope, so unless a censor is a bishop, there is no possibility that an opinion issued by a censor could be an act of the Magisterium.

An imprimatur (Latin, “Let it be published”) is an authorization given by a local ordinary (typically a bishop) to publish a work. The U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine notes:

In the Latin Catholic Church, there are two primary forms of ecclesiastical authorization for written works. These are identified in church law as “permission” (licentia) and “approval” (approbatio). Since these terms are not used consistently within the various authoritative documents, a consensus has not yet emerged among canonical experts as to whether the terms are interchangeable or whether there is, in fact, a precise and practical distinction between the two (n. 2).

However, these terms are given precise meanings in the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches, which provides:

1. Ecclesiastical permission, expressed only with the word imprimatur, means that the work is free from errors regarding Catholic faith and morals.

2. Approval granted by competent authority shows that the text is accepted by the Church or that the work is in accordance with the authentic doctrine of the Church (can. 661).

Are imprimaturs acts of the Magisterium? It should be pointed out that imprimaturs are issued by “local ordinaries” (cf. can. 824 §1), and not all local ordinaries are bishops. For example, local ordinaries include vicars general and episcopal vicars (can. 134 §1).

The fact that non-bishops can issue imprimaturs is a significant sign that they are not acts of the Magisterium.

Further, to exercise his personal magisterium, a bishop must himself issue a teaching, but this is not what is happening when an imprimatur is granted. The bishop himself does not teach something; he authorizes someone else to do something—namely, to publish a work.

The situation is similar to when a bishop issues a mandate for a theologian to teach in a Catholic university (cf. can. 812). He’s giving permission for someone else to teach, but that does not make everything the theologian says part of the bishop’s personal magisterium.

Similarly, when a local ordinary—even a bishop—gives permission for a book to be published, it does not make everything the book says part of the bishop’s personal magisterium.

As the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explains:

Ecclesiastical permission or approval . . . guarantees that the writing in question contains nothing contrary to the Church’s authentic magisterium on faith or morals (II:7:2; cf. II:8:3).

This is a negative guarantee. It means that the work does not contradict Church teaching. However, it is not a positive guarantee that all of the opinions found in the book are true. In fact, this is sometimes expressly pointed out in the notification printed for an imprimatur.

For example, G. Van Noort’s 1954 book Dogmatic Theology: Volume I carries this notification:

The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal and moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur agree with the opinions expressed.

What about private revelations and imprimaturs? In the 1917 Code of Canon Law, it was required that books of private revelations carry an imprimatur (cf. can. 1399 n. 5), however this is no longer required.

In fact, very few books today require imprimaturs or other forms of ecclesiastical permission. These include translations of Scripture (can. 825), liturgical books, liturgical translations, prayer books (can. 826), catechetical materials, religious textbooks used in Catholic schools, books sold or exhibited in churches (can. 827), and collections of official Church documents (can. 828).

Since comparatively few books require imprimaturs, this is why most books by Catholic publishers—including Catholic Answers—don’t carry them, and the same applies to books dealing with private revelations.

So, what does it mean if a book on an apparition gets an imprimatur? It does not mean that apparition is genuine. The Church has a separate process for investigating apparitions, and unless that process has been used, the apparition has not been approved as genuinely supernatural.

Even when the Church does approve an apparition, it does not mean that the faithful are required to accept it, only that they are authorized to accept it if it seems prudent. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained when he was head of the CDF:

Ecclesiastical approval of a private revelation has three elements: the message contains nothing contrary to faith or morals; it is lawful to make it public; and the faithful are authorized to accept it with prudence

It’s also worth noting that, when the Church does investigate an apparition, it’s not just any bishop who can do so. Although the Vatican or the conference of bishops could intervene, the only local bishop with the authority to conduct such an investigation is the one where the apparition has been reported.

This means that an imprimatur issued by a bishop in another part of the world would be unrelated to the apparition approval process.

What an imprimatur would mean is that a bishop somewhere in the world has judged (based on the opinion that the censor gave him) that the work does not contain anything that contradicts Church teaching.

It may not even express itself well. It may have ambiguous statements that don’t necessarily contradict Church teaching but that could be understood in an erroneous way. It also may contain theological opinions that are false but that the Church has not (yet) condemned. And it may contain statements about non-religious matters that are inaccurate.

Of course, an individual bishop might favor the book—and the apparition on which it is based—and he might recommend them to others.

This would mean that he, personally, favors them, but his granting an imprimatur would not constitute an act of the Magisterium binding the faithful to give “religious submission of intellect and will” (Lumen Gentium 25) to the apparition or what it says.

Even if he were (very extraordinarily!) to issue a teaching document endorsing the apparition, it would at most bind only the faithful of his own diocese (can. 753), for an individual bishop cannot bind the faithful of another diocese by his personal magisterium. Such a bishop also would likely get in trouble with the Vatican for overstepping the apparitions approval process.

So the implications for an imprimatur being given to a book of private revelations are the same as they are for any other book. It’s a judgment by an individual bishop that the work does not contradict Catholic doctrine. Nothing more.

Just the Facts: the Amazon Synod

The three-week Synod of Bishops for the Amazon has drawn to a close, with a final Mass celebrated by Pope Francis on Sunday, October 27.

The synod was held to address two principal topics, both mentioned its title, Amazonia: New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology.

By discussing “new paths for the Church,” it sought to address pastoral concerns in the pan-Amazon region of South America, and by discussing “an integral (i.e., complete) ecology,” it sought to address environmental concerns in the region.

So, what happened, and what happens now?

Controversy erupted over the synod before it even began, with some criticizing its initial working document as being insufficiently focused on Christ and the Christian faith.

The controversy expanded following a tree-planting ceremony held at the Vatican on October 4, just before the start of the synod.

This ceremony featured several wooden carvings of a naked, pregnant woman whose identity was ambiguous. They were identified by various parties as representations the Virgin Mary, Mother Earth, the Incan earth deity Pachamama, or some kind of symbol of life.

These carvings were taken from the Roman church where they were housed and thrown into the Tiber River, though they were later recovered.

The Italian police commander who took charge of them upon their recovery suggested that they might be present during the closing Mass of the synod, but this did not happen. Instead, a traditional image of Mary was used.

When the Synod of Bishops meets, it uses a working document prepared ahead of time as a starting point for its discussions, and then it prepares a final document that is submitted to the pope.

It’s then up to the pope to decide what—if anything—is to be done on the basis of the synod’s advice.

The final document produced by this synod discussed a wide variety of subjects—many more than we can cover here—but we will focus on two that have been lightning rods.

Based on the initial working document, various commentators expressed concerns that the synod might call for the ordination of married men to the priesthood and for the ordination of women to the diaconate.

The final document submitted to the pope did contain paragraphs discussing these subjects, though they contained qualifiers that weren’t always reported in the press. John Allen notes:

In the final document of the synod released Saturday night Rome time, the 184 voting members, mostly bishops from the nine countries that contain a share of the Amazon rainforest, appeared to offer cautious approval to all three ideas—married priests, women deacons, and an Amazon rite—but with an emphasis on “caution.”

Some of that was actually anti-climactic, since Francis himself drew the synod to a close by insisting that it would be a mistake to focus on internal Church debates, saying the emphasis instead should be on the fate of the Amazon itself.

On ordaining married men to the priesthood, the final document cited a shortage of priests in the Amazon that can lead to gaps of months or years between visits by a priest who can celebrate the Eucharist, confessions, and the anointing of the sick.

It therefore proposed establishing criteria to ordain priests who are “suitable and esteemed men of the community, who have had a fruitful permanent diaconate and receive and adequate formation for the priesthood, having a legitimately constituted and stable family” to serve “in the most remote areas of the Amazon region.”

Married priests are found in many Eastern rite Catholic churches, but for many centuries, the Latin rite of the Catholic Church has ordained only celibate men to the priesthood—at least under ordinary circumstances.

There have been exceptions, such as when a couple with no children at home separates to devote themselves to God (e.g., the wife becomes a nun and the husband becomes a monk or priest). Recently, the Holy See has allowed the ordination of married men in the Latin rite who were clergymen in another Christian body.

Under present Latin canon law, a man who has a wife is impeded from ordination except to the permanent diaconate (can. 1041 §1), but this impediment can be dispensed by the Holy See (can. 1047 §2 n. 3).

The final synod document proposes that a new exception be made for certain married men in the Amazon, though the document notes that some synod members preferred “a more universal approach to this subject.”

Since divine law and Church teaching do not require that only unmarried men be ordained to the priesthood, the question of ordaining married men is a subject of prudential judgment on which Catholics can hold different views.

The situation is different when it comes to women deacons, for here Church teaching is involved.

The Church teaches that “Only a baptized man validly receives sacred ordination” (CCC 1577). It also teaches that the diaconate is one of the three grades of holy orders (CCC 1554). From that, it follows that the Church teaches only a baptized man can validly be ordained to the diaconate.

Yet in the early Church there were women who were called “deaconesses” (cf. Rom. 16:1).

How can these things be squared? The standard view is that the deaconesses in the early Church did not receive the sacrament of ordination but were called “deaconesses” because of their role in serving the Church (Greek, diakonos, “servant”). However, some argue that they were ordained.

In 2016, Pope Francis convened a commission to study the subject, but its results were inconclusive.

The synod referred to this commission, and its concluding document noted that some of the synod fathers favored the permanent diaconate for women. It stated, “We would therefore like to share our experiences and reflections with the commission and await its results.”

Here the participants ask to provide input to the commission. No doubt, the bishops who favored ordaining women to the diaconate would continue to urge that, while bishops who did not favor this proposal would urge the reverse.

Unlike ordaining married men to the priesthood, ordaining women to the diaconate would require a change in Church teaching. Would such a change be possible?

In 1994, John Paul II ruled that it has been definitively (infallibly) settled that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood, and in 2002, Joseph Ratzinger approved a document of the International Theological Commission that concluded that, on the subject of ordaining women to the diaconate, it still “pertains to the ministry of discernment which the Lord established in his Church to pronounce authoritatively on this question.”

It thus held that this was still a subject of possible doctrinal development.

What is Pope Francis likely to do in regard to these questions?

Just before the synod, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Congregation for Bishops, indicated that Pope Francis is skeptical of ordaining married men to the priesthood, though he noted that he had authorized discussion on the subject.

Whether he will agree to the synod’s request to make exceptions for married men in certain regions of the Amazon remains to be seen.

On the question of women deacons, Pope Francis has indicated he will try to reconvene the commission studying this question for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Whether a reconstituted commission would be able to achieve more of a consensus than the first one did remains to be seen—and it would take some time for the new commission to do its work.

The next concrete development is expected to be the publication of a document that popes traditionally release after a synod (known as a post-synodal apostolic exhortation). This may happen before the end of the year, and it will provide a clearer idea of what Pope Francis plans to do in response to the synod.

Now, as Pope Francis discerns his response, is a good time for prayer.

Does Pope Francis Believe Jesus Was God?

Here we go again. It’s a predictable pattern:

Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari publishes an article attributing shocking statements to Pope Francis
The press and the blogosphere freak out
The Vatican Press office issues a statement saying that Scalfari isn’t reliable
Things die down for a while, but lingering damage is done

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

This time, on October 9^th, Scalfari said:

Those who have had, as I have had many times, the good fortune to meet him and speak to him with the greatest cultural confidence, know that Pope Francis conceives Christ as Jesus of Nazareth, man, not God incarnate. Once incarnated, Jesus ceases to be a God and becomes a man until his death on the cross. . . .

Another episode, also well known, occurs when Jesus is already crucified and there again repeats and is heard by the apostles and women who are kneeling at the foot of the cross: “Lord, you have forsaken me.”

When I happened to discuss these phrases, Pope Francis told me: “They are the proof that Jesus of Nazareth, once he became man, even if he were a man of exceptional virtue, was not a God at all” (Edward Pentin).

Sure enough, the director of the Vatican Press Office promptly put out a statement later the same day. Public consternation continued, and the next day, the Holy See Press Office issued an even more forceful denial:

“The Holy Father never said what Scalfari wrote,” Vatican communications head Paolo Ruffini said at an Oct. 10 press conference, adding that “both the quoted remarks and the free reconstruction and interpretation by Dr. Scalfari of the conversations, which go back to more than two years ago, cannot be considered a faithful account of what was said by the pope.”

“That will be found rather throughout the Church’s magisterium and Pope Francis’ own, on Jesus: true God and true man” (Catholic News Agency).

Scalfari isn’t a reliable source, for several reasons. To be blunt:

He is an atheist, and people often aren’t careful when describing the views of those who believe differently than they do.
He doesn’t use a tape recorder or even a note pad; he reconstructs the quotations he attributes to the pope from memory.
He is 95 years old, and people of that age frequently suffer from memory problems.
He is a journalist, and journalists frequently slant and distort things they were told to gin up sales and clicks.
The Vatican Press Office has issued repeated warnings and denials concerning Scalfari.

Frankly, Francis should stop talking to the man. Perhaps he’s granted interviews to him to engage with secular culture, as a form of evangelization. Perhaps to evangelize Scalfari specifically—as he is on eternity’s doorstep.

But every time he speak to him, we have a blow up like this, the Church takes a hit, and some of the faithful doubt Francis’s orthodoxy.

Prudence says Francis should stay away from him.

He may already be doing so. The latest Scalfari eruption isn’t based on a new interview but on Scalfari’s memories of a conversation that occurred years ago.

The Holy See’s statement of October 10^th notes it is based on memories “which go back to more than two years ago.” In his article, Scalfari says:

I remember these events that allowed me to meet Pope Francis several times, to discuss with him themes and problems that concern the history of humanity as a whole.

This suggests Francis hasn’t met with Scalfari in some time. Good.

What about the claim that Scalfari attributes to Pope Francis—that God somehow stopped being God when he became incarnate and remained simply a man until his death on the Cross?

This claim makes no sense. God can’t stop being God. He is immutable. The Second Person of the Trinity took on or added a human nature to his divine nature. He didn’t switch from having one to the other.

The conceptual incoherence of the claim gives us immediate reason to doubt it.

Francis has been clear on the fact Jesus remained God during the incarnation. A few moments Googling the Vatican web site turns up multiple instances. A few examples, in chronological order:

The grace which was revealed in our world is Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, true man and true God (Homily, Dec. 24, 2013).

God became mortal, fragile like us, he shared in our human condition, except for sin, but he took ours upon himself, as though they were his own. He entered into our history, he became fully God-with-us! (Angelus, Jan. 5, 2014).

[For men and women of today, we have] to bring them the Gospel, Jesus Christ himself, God incarnate, who died and rose to free us from sin and death (Message for 48^th World Communications Day, 2014).

When you touch the wounds of the Lord, you understand a little more about the mystery of Christ, of God Incarnate (Address, Apr. 30, 2015).

One Person of the Trinity entered into the created cosmos, throwing in his lot with it, even to the cross (Laudato Si 99).

For Christians, all the creatures of the material universe find their true meaning in the incarnate Word, for the Son of God has incorporated in his person part of the material world, planting in it a seed of definitive transformation (Laudato Si 235).

God chooses an uncomfortable throne, the cross, from which to reign by giving his life (Angelus, Oct. 21, 2018).

Could Francis have said something that formed the basis of what Scalfari attributed to him?

Sure. In Philippians, Paul writes:

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:5-8).

Paul’s point is that, although Jesus actually was equal to God the Father, he was nevertheless willing to humble himself in the Incarnation. He took on human form and lived as a man, being “obedient unto death” on the Cross.

Also, Hebrews notes that, Jesus was “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning” (Heb. 4:15).

Do we find this same thinking in Francis’s writings? Yes, we do.

[Jesus] does not reveal himself cloaked in worldly power and wealth but rather in weakness and poverty: “though He was rich, yet for your sake he became poor.” Christ, the eternal Son of God, one with the Father in power and glory, chose to be poor; he came amongst us and drew near to each of us; he set aside his glory and emptied himself so that he could be like us in all things (cf. Phil 2:7; Heb 4:15) (Lenten Message 2014, 1).

In looking to his face, what do we see? First of all the face of an “emptied” God, of a God who has taken on the condition of servant, humbled and obedient unto death (cf. Phil 2:7) (Address, Nov. 10, 2015).

Here we have all the elements that Scalfari mentions:

The Pre-Incarnate Christ is God
He becomes man
He lives in a human mode, “even if he were a man of exceptional virtue” (i.e., “without sinning”)
He returns to a glorified mode of existence after his death on the Cross

It looks like Scalfari simply mangled something Pope Francis said based on the teachings of St. Paul and Hebrews.

Scalfari, like some heretics in Church history, mistook Christ’s self-“emptying” as a loss of divinity. But this is not what Paul said or meant. As Pope Francis explained, Jesus is “true man and true God.”

This incident provides us with several lessons that apologists should keep in mind:

Christology is a subject that involves precise distinctions that must be carefully made. In fact, it took the Church centuries to hammer out the correct language for articulating those distinctions.
It’s important that we communicate the Church’s teachings using clear and precise language at all times.
There are some individuals for whom the costs of engaging in dialogue outweigh the benefits.

Why Was Arius a Heretic?

Erick Thomas Ybarra writes:

Jimmy Akin’s argument here on the doctrine of Justification is right on the money, and it is why I wish the authors of the Open Letter did not write on this point. It is very clear Amoris dodges this accusation. . . .

My concern, however, with Akin’s article, and I would ask him to clarify for me, is that his argument on the “canonical crime of heresy” vis-a-vis the definition of dogma which requires both divine & catholic faith, would render the ancient presbyter Arius as free of the canonical crime of heresy.

The Council of Nicaea (325) gives us the Creed with “homoousian” (one substance), but only anathematizes those who hold to it, and does not specify anywhere in clear enough terms that the matter is “divinely revealed”.

Happy to oblige!

The reason that Arius counts as a heretic can be answered in more than one way.

By Historical Standards

The first way involves judging him by the standards of his own time. In this era, the term “heresy” did not have its modern, technical meaning.

Instead, as I discuss here, it was used in a broader sense that could refer to anything that conflicted with basic Christian doctrine or practice.

Consequently, it was not necessary at that time to show that a particular doctrine had been infallibly defined as divinely revealed to label someone a heretic.

Arius’s denial of the divinity of Christ unambiguously conflicted with basic Christian teaching, as solemnly confirmed by the First Council of Nicaea, and so he was labelled a heretic.

Thus, Arius has been known as a heretic down through history.

By Modern Standards

A second way of approaching the question is to apply the standards of our time, retrospectively, to the case of Arius. In other words: Would he be convictable as a heretic given the modern use of the term?

Today the term heresy, in simple language, refers to the obstinate, post-baptismal refusal to believe a dogma (for the technical definition, see CIC 751 with CIC 750).

Arius certainly was obstinate at the Council of Nicaea. He refused to submit to its teaching on the divinity of Christ and was consequently sent into exile. He also was baptized.

This leaves us with the question of whether the divinity of Christ is a dogma—that is, a truth that the Magisterium has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed.

There are several issues to be considered here:

What the Council of Nicaea actually said
What authority the Council was understood to have at the time
What authority it is understood to have today

What Nicaea Said

Regarding the first question, the Council published what scholars refer to as the Creed of Nicaea. It was later supplemented at the First Council of Constantinople (381) to for the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (more popularly called the “Nicene” Creed).

The main difference between the two creeds is that the Creed of Nicaea did not end the same way. It didn’t have the passage declaring the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Instead, it ended this way:

[We believe . . .] in the Holy Spirit.

However, those who say: “There was a time when he [the Son] was not” and “Before he was born he was not” and that he was made from nothing or who say that the Son of God may be of a different hypostasis or essence, or may be created or subject to change and alteration, [such persons] the Catholic Church anathematizes (DH 126).

As Erick points out, the anathema at the end of the Creed does not mention the doctrine being divinely revealed.

However, another part of the Creed indicates that divine revelation is involved. The Creed begins:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, creator of all things, visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-Begotten generated from the Father, that is, from the being of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with [homoousion] the Father, through whom all things were made, those in heaven and those on earth . . . (DH 125).

The key part of this for our purposes is the verb that introduces and governs the entire sentence: “We believe” (Greek, pisteuomen, Latin, credimus).

This verb indicates that the truths articulated belong to the Faith (Greek, hê pistis, Latin, fides), and thus as belonging to divine revelation.

We thus have the text of Nicaea indicating that divine revelation is involved.

What Authority the Council Was Understood to Have at the Time

The First Council of Nicaea was initially confirmed by the authority of the Emperor Constantine. Bishop Karl Josef von Hefele notes:

Constantine the Great solemnly confirmed the Nicene Creed immediately after it had been drawn up by the Council, and he threatened such as would not subscribe it with exile. At the conclusion of the Synod he raised all the decrees of the assembly to the position of laws of the empire; declared them to be divinely inspired; and in several edicts still partially extant, he required that they should be most faithfully observed by all his subjects (A History of the Councils of the Church, I:42).

This is interesting from the point of view of history, but the question from a theological perspective is what the pope said about the Council. According to von Hefele:

The signatures of the Pope’s legates, Hosius, Vitus, and Vincentius, subscribed to the acts of the Council before the other bishops, must be regarded as a sanction from the See of Rome to the decrees of Nicaea. Five documents, dating from the fifth century, mention, besides, a solemn approval of the acts of the Council of Nicaea, given by Pope Sylvester and a Roman synod of 275 bishops. It is granted that these documents are not authentic, as we shall show in the history of the Council of Nicaea; but we nevertheless consider it very probable that the Council of Nicaea was recognized and approved by an especial act of Pope Sylvester, and not merely by the signature of his legates, for the following reasons:—

It is undeniable, as we shall presently see, that

α. The fourth ecumenical council looked upon the papal confirmation as absolutely necessary for ensuring the validity of the decrees of the Council; and there is no good ground for maintaining that this was a new principle, and one which was not known and recognized at the time of the Nicene Council.

β. Again, in 485, a synod, composed of above forty bishops from different parts of Italy, was quite unanimous in asserting, in opposition to the Greeks, that the three hundred and eighteen bishops of Nicaea had their decisions confirmed by the authority of the holy Roman Church (confirmationem rerum atque auctoritatem sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae detulerunt).

γ. Pope Julius I [r. 337-352] in the same way declared, a few years after the close of the Council of Nicaea, that ecclesiastical decrees (the decisions of synods) ought not to be published without the consent of the Bishop of Rome, and that this is a rule and a law of the Church.

δ. Dionysius the Less also maintained that the decisions of the Council of Nicaea were sent to Rome for approval; and it is not improbable that it was the general opinion upon this point which contributed to produce those spurious documents which we possess (ibid. I:44-45).

At this time, the theology of ecumenical councils and when they teach infallibly had not been worked out. That was a subject that would be clarified through later doctrinal development. However, Nicaea was held by its supporters to be divinely guided and supremely authoritative. (The Arians, naturally, disagreed.)

What Authority the Council Is Understood to Have Today

Now that the theology of ecumenical councils has undergone a high degree of doctrinal development, how is First Nicaea viewed from a contemporary perspective?

It is universally regarded as the first of the ecumenical councils. According to Church teaching:

The college of bishops exercises power over the universal Church in a solemn manner in an ecumenical council. But there never is an ecumenical council which is not confirmed or at least recognized as such by Peter’s successor (CCC 884).

Bishop von Hefele argues that First Nicaea was recognized as ecumenical by a special act of Pope Sylvester I (r. 314-335), during whose reign it occurred.

However, even if it turned out that Pope Sylvester did not recognize it by a special act, the council would still be ecumenical.

A special act of recognition by the pope is not required—only the recognition itself. Subsequent popes—including all of the recent ones—have unmistakably recognized this council as ecumenical, and so it is.

Prosecuting Arius for Heresy by Modern Standards

That brings us to the Creed of Nicaea’s infallibility. While the theology of magisterial infallibility also had not been developed at the time the Council met, it has now, and the Church holds that:

[When the bishops are] gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church, whose definitions must be adhered to with the submission of faith (Lumen Gentium 25).

At Nicaea, the bishops were gathered in an ecumenical council, so that leaves us with the question of whether the Creed of Nicaea counted as a definition—that is, as a statement the bishops intended to be binding on all the faithful and to absolutely bring all legitimate discussion of a matter to an end.

Note that an ecumenical council—like a pope—does not have to use any set form of words to issue a definition. It does not have to say “anathema” or “we define.” It just has to indicate in one way or another that the matter is definitively settled.

In this case, it did. The bishops of the Council of Nicaea clearly intended to bring all legitimate discussion of the topic to an end, for all of the faithful, and to make this point they put their teaching in the form of a profession of faith for the faithful to say.

This profession of faith also has become universal in both East and West as an obligatory expression of Christian truth. One cannot be an orthodox Christian and deny it. (This means, among other things, that the ordinary and universal magisterium also has infallibly taught it, not just the extraordinary magisterium.)

That brings us to the final issue, which is whether the use of the verb “believe” (pisteuomen/credimus) indicates a matter of divine revelation.

It does. In the Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei, Ratzinger and Bertone note that the verb “believe” (Latin, credo) is used for “all those doctrines of divine and Catholic faith which the Church proposes as divinely and formally revealed and, as such, as irreformable” (n. 5).

By contrast, the verbs “accept and hold” (Latin, amplector ac retineo) are used for “all those teachings belonging to the dogmatic or moral area,which are necessary for faithfully keeping and expounding the deposit of faith, even if they have not been proposed by the Magisterium of the Church as formally revealed” (n. 6).

Such a truth is thus a “sententia definitive tenenda” (Latin, “opinion to be definitively held”—as opposed to be believed with divine and Catholic faith).

Thus, from a modern perspective, the confession of faith offered in the Creed of Nicaea—or the modern Nicene Creed—consists of matters to be believed, not merely held, and thus as consisting of truths contained in divine revelation.

Consequently, Ratzinger and Bertone state that among truths of this kind “belong the articles of faith of the Creed, the various Christological dogmas and Marian dogmas” (n. 11).

By requiring Christians to profess belief in the divinity of Christ, Nicaea thus infallibly defined that this is a truth of divine revelation.

Therefore, even when we apply modern criteria, Arius was a heretic.