Roman Catholicism Essay, Research Paper
Are You Catholic or Protestant?
How clear is your understanding of Protestant theology? Test yourself and see. Evaluate each of the fol-lowing ten paired statements and mark the one that you think best states a Protestant doctrinal position.
(1a) God gives a man right standing with Himself by mercifully accounting him innocent and virtuous. (1b) God gives a man right standing with Himself by actually making him into an innocent and virtuous per-son.
(2a) God gives a man right standing with Himself by placing Christ?s goodness and virtue to his credit. (2b) God gives a man right standing with Himself by putting Christ?s goodness and virtue into his heart.
(3a) God accepts the believer because of the moral excellence found in Jesus Christ. (3b) God makes the believer acceptable by infusing Christ?s moral excellence into his life.
(4a) If a sinner becomes ?born-again? (the regenerat-ing, transforming process of character), he will achieve right standing with God. (4b) If the sinner is granted right standing with God through faith (?born-again?), he will then experience transformation of character.
(5a) We receive right standing with God by faith alone. (5b) We receive right standing with God by faith which has become active by love.
(6a) We achieve right standing with God by having Christ live out His life of obedience in us. (6b) We achieve right standing with God by accepting the fact that He obeyed the law perfectly for us.
(7a) We achieve right standing with God by following Christ?s example by the help of His enabling grace. (7b) We follow Christ?s example because His life has given us right standing with God.
(8a) God first pronounces that we are good in His sight, then gives us His Spirit to make us good. (8b) God sends His Spirit to make us good, and then He will pronounce that we are good.
(9a) Christ?s finished work on the cross and interces-sion at God?s right hand gives us favor in the sight of God. (9b) It is the indwelling Christ that gives us favor in God?s sight.
(10a) Only by the imputation of Christ?s righteousness through faith can we fully satisfy the claims of the Ten Commandments. (10b) By the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, we can fully satisfy the claims of the Ten Commandments.
Correct Responses:
· Protestant: 1a, 2a, 3a, 4b, 5a, 6b, 7b, 8a, 9a, 10a.
· Roman Catholic: 1b, 2b, 3b, 4a, 5b, 6a, 7a, 8b, 9b, 10b.
Part One:
Catholic Theology
One: Authority
Introduction
Behavior among the people of God is defined by doctrinal beliefs, and doctrinal beliefs are rooted in some source of authority. The question of authority is basic, it is the foundation of any religious system. Roman Catholi-cism and Protestantism initially and fundamentally divide around the question of authority. The doctrinal differences that form the expanse that separates the two arise from the distinctively different voices of authority which underpin them.
Authority in Protestantism
Protestantism contends that the Scriptures are the sole source of authority for the believer–hence, sola scriptura, or, Scripture alone as authoritative. sola scriptura (along with sola fide–faith alone) was the rallying cry of the Reformers. They realized anew that the Bible alone is vested with absolute authority. It alone is the guide for the believer?s faith and life. Protestant belief in the Bible as the single source of authority results in the subordination of all beliefs and practices to the Bible. Those beliefs and practices which are counter to the Scriptures are expected to be discarded and replaced by those which are clearly biblical.
Every religious movement that develops some unity and continues to live has its traditions. These traditions gather up the beliefs, thinking, practices and rules of the group, particularly as these are expressed in its doctrinal standards and forms of government. In this manner the movement gives stability to and regulates its own manner of life, and hands that stability and manner of life on to the next generation.
We do not reject all tradition, but rather make judicious use of it in so far as it accords with Scrip-ture and is founded on truth. We should, for instance, treat with respect and study with care the confessions and council pronouncements of the various churches, particularly those of the ancient church and of Reformation days. We should also give careful attention to the confessions and council decisions of the present day churches, scrutinizing most carefully of course those of the de-nomination to which we belong. But we do not give any church the right to formulate new doc-trine or to make decisions contrary to the teaching of Scripture. The history of the church at large shows all too clearly that church leaders and church councils can and do make mistakes, some of them serious. Consequently their decisions should have no authority except as they are based on Scripture.
Protestants…keep these standards strictly subordinate to Scripture, and in that they are ever ready to re-examine them for that purpose. In other words they insist that in the life of the church Scrip-ture is primary and the denominational standards are subordinate or secondary. Thus they use their traditions with one controlling caution: they continually ask if this or that aspect of their belief and practice is true to the Bible. They subject every statement of tradition to that test, and they are willing to change any element that fails to meet that test.
Faithfulness to the Bible is the believer?s weapon against costly spiritual compromise and error. Faithfulness to Scripture translates into faithfulness to God in the life of the believer.
Authority in Roman Catholicism
In contrast to the Protestant position of sola scriptura, Roman Catholicism finds its source of authority in three areas: the Bible, Tradition, and the teaching authority of the Church, or the Magisterium. Roman Catholic documents state:
Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out of the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move toward the same goal. Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit. And Tradition transmits in its en-tirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and by the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching. Thus it comes about that the Church does not draw her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Hence, both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal feelings of devotion and reverence.
Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church. By adhering to it the entire holy people, united to its pastors, remains always faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and the prayers (cf. Acts 2:42 Greek). So, in maintaining, practicing and professing the faith that has been handed on there should be a remarkable harmony between the bishops and the faithful.
But the task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone.
It is clear, therefore, that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.
Roman authority resides, then, in the ?Word of God? as the source and the teaching office of the Church as interpreter.
For Discussion:
1. Identify some traditions that are present in the Protestant sub-culture today. Where do these traditions come from? How do our traditions benefit us? How do they hurt us? What power do traditions hold over us?
2. What traditions have influenced your spiritual nurturing? Have you ever challenged a tradition that you have grown up with and changed it after discovering that it lacked compelling biblical support? Are you open to such personal challenge? Are there elements of your personal faith that need to be challenged by Scripture?
3. How does the usage of ?The Word of God? differ between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism?
The Bible
Inspiration
Roman Catholicism embraces the inspiration of the Scriptures.
In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, ?but as what it really is, the word of God.? [Note the lower case ?w? in ?the word of God.?] ?In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his chil-dren, and talks with them.?
God is the author of Sacred Scripture. ?The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.?
For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself.
The Text
Roman Catholicism?s Bible differs, however, from the Protestant Bible. The Roman Catholic Bible contains the Apocrypha–books contained in the LXX (Greek Old Testament or Septuagint) but not contained in the Hebrew Scriptures. The early church and the Reformers questioned the authority of the Apocryphal books on the basis of their absence from the Hebrew Canon. ?Jerome (d. A.D. 420) declared as apocryphal all those writings which stood outside the Hebrew Canon, but in his Vulgate Version he included them according to church practice, though not without some reservations.? Jerome?s Latin Vulgate was declared Rome?s official Bible at the Council of Trent in 1546. In doing so, it was therefore canonized by the Catholic Church. The Latin Vulgate Version alone was recog-nized as authentic by the Catholic Church.
The Vatican Council of 1870 [Vatican I] reaffirmed the declaration of the Council of Trent that ?these books of the Old Testament and New Testament are to be received as sacred and canonical, in their integrity, with all their parts, as they are enumerated in the decree of the said council, and are contained in the ancient Latin edition of the Vulgate.?
In the year 1590 Sixtus V issued an edition of the Vulgate which he declared to be final, and pro-hibited under an anathema the publication of any new editions thereafter unless they should be ex-actly like that one. However, he died soon after, and scholars found numerous errors in his edition. Two years later a new edition was published under pope Clement VIII, and that is the one in gen-eral use today.
The Roman Catholic Douay version of the Bible (New Testament, 1582, and Old Testament, 1609) was made from the Latin Vulgate, as are the Roman Catholic translations into modern languages.
Rome?s reverence for the Vulgate over the centuries meant that Catholic translations of the Bible were only translations of translations rather than translations of the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Advances in the quality of the original texts gained by the process of textual criticism did not benefit Rome.
The Church seems to have shifted in its position toward the Vulgate according to Vatican II documents.
…suitable and correct translations are [to be] made into various languages, especially from the original texts of the sacred books.
Sola Scriptura, Indeed!
The Reformers? commitment to sola scriptura was, no doubt, met with many assaults by the Roman Church. Certainly they were sometimes over zealous in protecting their theology from potential incursions of tradition. The following illustrates the unusual extremes to which they were willing to go to defend sola scriptura.
The Hebrew alphabet originally consisted of consonants only. Few of the vowels had any written notation prior to the age of the Masoretes (who began their work about A.D. 520). At that time, Hebrew was falling into dis-use so that people were increasingly less conversant with it. Visible representations of the vowel sounds in the He-brew Old Testament had become a necessary crutch. The Masoretes did not invent the vowel sounds, but ?received? them as part of their tradition: what they did was add signs or ?points? to the text as visible representations of the traditional vowel sounds. This pointed Masoretic Hebrew text became the text that the Reformers relied on, and is still the text on which virtually all modern Protestant translations are based.
Some of the Reformers? successors found themselves embarrassed by these Hebrew points. The points were simply tradition–something that had been handed down. sola scriptura, indeed! The Catholics had their ?ancient and vulgate edition,? which was translated from the Hebrew prior to the addition of the vowel points and certified as authentic by the magisterium of the church. The reformed churches, the Catholics insisted, had no comparable cer-tainty.
Some of the Reformers were uncomfortable with this seeming dilemma, and undertook to argue that the points, far from being of recent, man-made origin, had always existed alongside the consonantal letters and were equally inspired by God. The climax of this was reached in 1675 when the Helvetic Consensus Formula provided that no man should be licensed to preach the Gospel without first professing his belief in the divine inspiration of the He-brew vowel points!!
Use of the Bible
Historically, the Roman Catholic Church has forbidden the free use of the Bible by the laity. The Council of Trent reaffirmed the earlier Council of Valencia (1229) with the following:
In as much as it is manifest, from experience, that if the Holy Bible, translated into the vulgar tongue, be indiscriminately allowed to everyone, the temerity of men will cause more evil than good to arise from it; it is, on this point, referred to the judgment of the bishops, or inquisitors, who may, by the advice of the priest or confessor, permit the reading of the Bible translated into the vulgar tongue by Catholic authors, to those persons whose faith and piety, they apprehend, will be aug-mented, and not injured by it; and this permission they must have in writing.
Boettner adds,
Such was the teaching and practice of the Roman Church for centuries. For one to possess or read the Bible in his native tongue without permission in writing from his superior and under the watch-ful eye of the bishop was a mortal sin, for which absolution could not be granted until the book was delivered to the priest.
The Church has recently shifted its position regarding the use of the Bible. Vatican II encourages Bible study among the laity.
Access to sacred Scripture ought to be wide open to the Christian faithful.
and later,
…all clerics, particularly priests of Christ and others who, as deacons or catechists, are officially en-gaged in the ministry of the Word, should immerse themselves in the Scriptures by constant sacred reading and diligent study.
Likewise, the sacred Synod forcefully and specifically exorts all the Christian faithful, especially those who live the religious life, to learn ?the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ? (Phil. 3:8) by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. ?Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.? Therefore, let them go gladly to the sacred text itself….
For Discussion:
1. Working with 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21, and 1 Corinthians 2:13, compose a statement regarding the in-spiration of the Bible. Does the usage of Bible passages to validate the inspiration of the Bible constitute circular reasoning?
2. Protestant doctrine rests on the foundation of the 66 books of the Protestant Bible. Upon what basis do we recognize these 66 books as inspired and therefore authoritative?
3. Irenaeus (d. c. A.D. 200) is said to have identified tradition and Scripture as one and the same. Is it reason-able to assume that tradition (that which was given by the apostles), once inscripturated, was replaced by the written documents?
4. Why did the Roman Church prohibit the common use of the Scriptures?
5. What might be the potential result of free access to the Bible for Roman Catholics?
6. How does the Catholic Church?s post-Vatican II position on access to the Bible concern Protestant evan-gelism of Roman Catholics? How might the Bible be utilized in evangelizing them?
Tradition
What is Tradition?
Webster defines tradition as ?the process of handing down information, opinions, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example….? Tradition in Catholic theology is that which has been handed down from the apos-tles.
Christ the Lord…commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel…. This Gospel was to be the source of all saving truth and moral discipline. This was faithhfully done: it was done by the apos-tles who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the insti-tutions they established, what they themselves had received–whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit….