Jimmy Akin

Down yonder, a reader writes:

Mr. Akin,

In your opinion is it contrary to Catholic faith to hold a "cessationist" position on tongues?

As phrased, the answer to the question is no.

I should explain, a couple of things, though.

First, cessationism is a position that is common in many conservative Protestant circles that holds that the various miraculous gifts mentioned by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 have ceased to be given. In particular, this view holds that the gift of tongues has ceased to be given.

There are several different flavors of cessationism, WHICH YOU CAN READ ABOUT HERE.

From what I can tell, the cessationist viewpoint may have grown in Protestant circles as a reaction to the historic reports of miracles in Catholic circles (AS IN THESE QUOTES FROM THE CHURCH FATHERS). Since these miracles were regarded as evidence for the truth of the Catholic faith, Protestant apologetics sought to undercut them by claiming that God no longer did miracles–or at least miracles of this sort–and so all reported miracles were false, either being hoaxes, legends, or products of diabolical activity.

The problem with cessationism, even from a Protestant viewpoint, is that it is very hard to square with Scripture. There is no clear teaching anywhere in the New Testament that God will cease giving the different miraculous gifts prior to the Second Coming. Various verses are offered by cessationists to argue their case, the best of them being 1 Corinthians 13:8. Here it is in context:

8: Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as
for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9: For our  knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10: but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 
11:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I
reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12:
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in
part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully
understood.

The statement that prophecies will pass away and that tongues will cease is taken as evidence for the cessationist view.

The problem is that this passage contains time cues that make this interpretation implausible. Verse 10 refers to the imperfect (e.g., our partial knowledge, partial prophecies, etc.) passing away "when the perfect comes"–i.e., when we have perfect knowledge of God. This would seem to be something that does not apply in this life. We won’t have perfect knowledge of God until (a) we die or (b) the Second Coming happens.

Cessationists sometimes respond by arguing that we do have perfect knowledge of God–relative to our state in this life–in that the New Testament has been completed and so we have a complete scriptural knowledge of God.

Catholics might be quick to point out the problems with the doctrine of sola scriptura at this juncture, but this does not remove the cessationist’s argument. It merely pushes it back a step. While Catholics would not necessarily look on Scripture as providing a complete (perfect) knowledge of God in keeping with the state of this life (though some might hold to the material sufficiency of Scripture), Catholics would hold that the revelation Christian faith is closed and has been since the death of the last apostle (CCC 66-67). In other words, the deposit of faith is closed, and in that sense we do have complete knowledge of God according to the state of this life.

But this is not the only time cue that the passage contains. In verse 12 it refers to the time when perfection comes as when we will see "face to face" and "understand fully, even as [we] have been fully understood." These references point much more strongly to a direct encounter with God than a mediate one through his written (or unwritten) word. The references to faces and to our already being "fully understood" are indicative of a personal subject that we will see face to face and that already in Paul’s day (before the closing of the New Testament and the deposit of faith!) understood people fully. This strongly indicates that the subject is God (or God in Christ) and thus points to our personal encounters with God–at death or the Second Coming–as the time when the miraculous gifts will be done away with.

There are other passages that cessationists cite, but 1 Corinthians 13:8 tends to be cited the most (in my experience).

When I was a Protestant, I reviewed this subject in rather considerable detail (by which I mean that I studied my brains out on it) and concluded that the texts offered in favor of cessationism don’t prove what advocates of the position would like them to. Indeed, 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 is actually a good text for arguing against cessationism.

Despite this, one could hold that the gift of tongues has ceased without being in violation of Catholic faith.

To understand this, one need to distinguish between two different forms of faith: divine faith and Catholic faith.
Divine faith is faith in whatever God has revealed. Catholic faith is faith in whatever the Church has infallibly proposed to be divinely revealed.

Now, 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 could be interpreted as containing a divine revelation that tongues will not cease until the Second Coming. However, the Church has not infallibly defined that tongues will not cease until the Second Coming, therefore it is not contrary to Catholic faith to hold that they have. A Catholic does have the theological liberty to hold this position.

That being said, taking a categorical cessationist position goes against the grain of Catholic teaching. Throughout the ages there have been reports of various miraculous gifts, including tongues, and the Church has an open but cautious attitude toward these, in keeping with St. Paul’s injunctions:

So, my brethren, earnestly  desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues (1 Cor. 14:39)

and

Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise  prophesying, but test everything; hold fast what is  good (1 Thess. 5:19-21).

While a complete cessationist view on tongues would rub against the grain of Catholic theology, a more moderate position would be much more in line with traditional Catholic thought. For example, if one were to maintain that, in our age, the authentic gift of tongues is a rare phenomenon then that would be consonant with the historic Catholic view.

It also would go along with what we know of parallel gifts in biblical times, for in the Old Testament there wre a number of periods in which the gift of prophecy was seldom given or even not given. God gave it at certain times and not others. One might hold a similar view of tongues–that God grants it in certain periods of Church history but not others.

That would leave open the question of whether we are presently living in a period in which he is granting it in a more common manner than has been the case in most periods of Church history.

Hope this helps!

A reader writes regarding an answer I gave on yesterday’s radio show:

I was a bit concerned with your response to the woman asking about her
friend who "has the gift of tongues" after having asked for it. From
what my priest has said (primarily using the works of St. Thomas
Aquinas, I believe), the gift of tongues is a charismatic Grace and
that NO charismatic Grace should be asked for as they are unnecessary
to salvation and they come with such a large responsibility.

While I would love to have a citation to St. Thomas Aquinas so that I could look up what passage your priest may have been thinking of, all I can say is that this is not the attitude of St. Paul. In 1 Corinthians 14:1, he writes:

Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the  spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

Since the gifts in question are the charismatic ones (prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, etc.), Paul certainly is not discouraging people from wanting or even asking for these gifts. At one point he even instructs them to ask for such a gift:

 Therefore, he who speaks in a tongue  should pray for the power to interpret (1 Cor. 14:13).

While God may not give these gifts today as often as he did in the first century, meaning that there is less of a reason to ask for them to day, I don’t see how one could support the position that one should never ask for charismatic gifts.

One can be too concerned about charismatic gifts and that can lead one into problems (like manufacturing the appearance of them when God has not really given them), but the idea that one should never ask for them is not supportable from Scripture.

The reader continues:

Furthermore, many charismatic Graces can be immitated by devils, so
asking for such a Grace can open one up to devils.

This does not follow. If you ask God to give you a gift, that does not mean that you are creating an avenue for the devil to do something in your life. Asking God for a grace is never itself an avenue for the devil to do something. You must be doing something else (in addition to asking God) to open yourself up to evil.

It’s hard to see what that might be in this case. People who are interested in praying in tongues are generally pretty closed in spirit to the devil. Their wills are set in opposition to his. That makes it unlikely that he would be able to gain influence. The disposition of the will is crucial for that.

It would be more likely that people who are overly concerned about speaking in tongues would run ahead of God’s grace and manufacture the experience themselves–so that it is of natural origin–but if their wills are set on following God and not the devil then the he will not have an opening through which to affect them.

My priest actually
used the gift of tongues as an example, saying that one who truly has
that particular Grace understands what he is saying, like St. Catherine
of Sienna. God does not give such a Grace only to have the recipient be
in the dark.

If your priest said that then he again appears to be in disagreement with St. Paul, who is very clear than uninterpreted tongues are not understood by the speaker–including St. Paul himself! He writes:

For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one
understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. . . .  For if I pray  in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. . . .  I thank God that I speak in  tongues more than you all; nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind,
in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue (1 Cor. 14:2, 14, 18-19).

The reader continues:

God gives that Grace to His saints so that they may teach
others and spread understanding, not confusion.

True, which is why Paul indicates that tongues should only be used in church if they are interpreted, making them equivalent to prophecy (1 Cor. 14:27-28, 5).

Furthermore, devils can
put words into one’s mouth, so this "gift" can easily be the work of a
devil, NOT the Holy Spirit.

I have no evidence of this whatsoever. Unless one has deliberately opened oneself up to someone other than God, this will not happen. As long as one’s will is oriented to God, the devil has no opening.

I’ve heard priests give examples of learned
scholars and priests going to Charismatic Masses where people were
"speaking in tongues" and these men who were fluent in other languages
reported that the words they heard uttered from some people with this
"gift" were in fact words that were, to be polite, not praising Our
Lord.

Without specifics, I can’t really comment on this. I would note, however, that there are also anecdotal reports of people who know other languages going to service where speaking in tongues was occurring and hearing people praise God in other languages.

In most cases, they reported that people were merely babbling. In
one case, a man knowingly recited part of the Ave Maria (in Latin,
obviously) and the one with the "gift" to translate these words quoted
nothing even close to the Hail Mary.

This is not evidence of the devil. It is evidence instead of people running ahead of God’s grace and manufacturing tongues or the interpretation of tongues, which is a phenomena that does happen.

 

It also seems to me that not telling this misled, if not
gullible, woman such information is doing her and all other listeners a
great disservice. Many listeners could have walked away from the
program today under the impression that asking for this delicate
charismatic Grace is a good thing to do. I would think that it would be
incredibly important to stress just the opposite.

A long time ago I learned two lessons: (1) Answer questions as they are put to you and (2) in a pastorally sensitive situation, don’t supply information that the inquirer hasn’t asked for unless there is a compelling reason and you can back up if you are challenged on it.

The lady who called in did not ask me my opinion of how often tongues are genuine, so I didn’t offer an opinion on this. I have my own view, but I cannot back it up from Church teaching or other sources. I thus was not asked about it and had no compelling reason to inject it into the discussion. It is a matter on which Catholics can hold different opinions.

Neither did the woman ask me about whether one should seek the gift of tongues. The Church does not teach that people should not seek this gift. I also disagree with the claim that one should never seek it. If someone asked me, I would explain the cautions that St. Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 14 regarding over-preoccupation with this gift, but saying that it should never be sought is simply not supportable. Consequently, I did not inject this into the discussion either.

I would think it
would be important to let people know that if they think they have this
Grace, they need to speak with their confessor so that he may determine
the nature of the "gift." For the welfare and safety of people’s souls,
they should not be made to think so lightly of such a huge burden.

Here is something that I agree with. The gift of tongues should not be treated lightly–that’s one of the things St. Paul is cautioning his readers against–and if one thinks that one is experiencing it, it is reasonable to seek the opinion of one’s confessor or others of sound judgment to try and determine if the experience is genuine.

I regret that I had to disagree with so much of what you wrote, but I’m glad that I could end on a note of agreement.