By way of brief recap, that post began with a list of doctrines held universally by the Churches prior to the Reformation but now rejected by Protestants across the board. From there, I argued that one of two things must be true about these teachings: either they are part of the Gospel as originally proclaimed by the Apostles, or they came in sometime later. If the second were true, there would be a paper trail; a record of disputes, books and sermons and synods taking one side or the other. There would be heretics, excommunications, schisms small and large. But there aren’t. Thus the startling conclusion: it’s all original. In other words (to borrow the title of a Joe Heschemeyer book), the early Church was the Catholic Church.1

This strategy is, to my knowledge, novel. For that reason I was very interested to see what sort of responses thoughtful objectors would develop. In this article, I’d like to take these responses seriously. In the sections with

this formatting

I adopt the voice of an objector making a version of replies I heard from real people.

First, though, let me briefly clear up a point that confused some: the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches do not have anything like the Catechism of the Catholic Church, so for contemporary sources I often had to draw on official websites belonging to some part of their Churches, such as a diocese, for explanations of their teachings.

That settled, we turn to the first objection.

The No Consensus Objection

Despite the clean picture presented in the post, history is not so neat. There have always been dissenters, there has always been conflict. The fact of the matter is that practically nothing has been agreed upon across any substantial span of time or distance. Presenting these doctrines as universal is just a historical mistake. Your own argument even depends upon the fact that there are long-standing, deep divisions within the Church.

Additionally, even passing familiarity knows that the history of theology itself is usually told in terms of intra-Christian conflict: this theologian against that one, these schools against those ones. Once you see that Protestantism is just another voice in this venerable tradition of disagreement, the idea that it’s somehow the odd man out becomes hard to credit.

We can make our objection even stronger: The post claims that on the “eve of the Reformation” there was a universal consensus. But this overlooks communities and individuals deemed “heretical” by the Roman Church, such as Montanists, Moravians, Lollards, Wyclifites, and Waldensians. And that’s not to mention the diversity of thought within the Catholic Church itself! Irenaeus held to a literal thousand-year reign of Christ at the end of history, a belief now espoused by many Evangelicals but considered heretical by the modern Magisterium, to take just one example. There is hardly any Protestant view that cannot be found in some Catholic theologian at one time or another. In summary: We are your own tradition, subjected to Scripture.

Reply to the No Consensus Objection

The first problem for the objector is that he misses the argument. In fact, he even makes it stronger. Here’s how.

Grant the objector his point. Conflict is a mainstay of theology. You might even say that no doctrine gets worked out in any detail without it. It’s the catalyst for development: Arians arguing that the Son was a mere creature prompted the declaration that He was true God; docetists arguing that the Son took on the mere appearance of humanity prompted the declaration that He was true man. The truth advances one heresy at a time.

About this the objector is wholly correct. So where are the records of conflict over the doctrines listed? What the No Consensus Objection establishes beyond all doubt is that if they were not original, someone somewhere would have raised concerns.

Remember what data we’re appealing to: universal consensus among all the Churches that existed prior to the Reformation. You can see for yourself, in the footnotes and the materials they cite, the reality of this agreement. Consensus exists today. It got there somehow. Showing that its existence is unlikely doesn’t undermine the fact that it does exist any more than learning the vanishingly small odds of life’s formation in our universe would make you doubt the existence of humans. Indeed, the same solution suggests itself in both cases: things have not been left to themselves, but go on under the guiding hand of an Author.

Moreover, if the beliefs were not original, it should be a simple matter to identify when and how they got in. In other cases of heterodoxy (i.e., foreign and false teachings), we have an antagonist pushing heresy, a protagonist defending orthodoxy, and truth’s eventual triumph. Here is my one historical claim: when we turn to these doctrines, we come up empty. Apparently these beliefs, and only these beliefs, came in later without raising a single eyebrow—no fracas about asking saints for their intercession, no schism over prayers for the dead.2 But remember: according to the objector, theological progress just doesn’t happen without fighting. The conclusion is that these doctrines are not the result of theological development. But that admits that they are original to the teaching of the Apostles.

It would be one thing if there were a conflict and the objector simply thought that the Catholic Church (and every other Apostolic Church) ended up on the wrong side of it. Then the objection might be made to work. But even a very modest request, “Show me the debate that went the wrong way,” cannot be met. In fact, the few doctrines on the list that did see conflict at any point before the Reformation were reacted against as the already-established position.3 That is to say, they weren’t facing resistance to their becoming established, which is the kind of conflict the objector needs if he wants to show that they were not original. Reactionary conflicts, far from posing a problem for my argument, demonstrate the existence of an earlier consensus and so, again, end up strengthening the position.

In point of fact, I disagree with the objector’s portrayal of history, and his understanding of what “universal agreement” means. But since it doesn’t affect the argument I’m advancing one way or the other, wading into specifics would only muddy the waters. Do not let a swarm of names and claims cloud your vision. We have the relevant consensus ready to hand as a matter of empirical fact right now (again, you can see it for yourself). The task is to consider possible explanations for that consensus, and the only reasonable story we seem to be left with is that this was the teaching of Peter, Paul, John, James, and ultimately Our Lord himself.

The Speed Drift Objection

It is well-known that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” I grant that there is no record of disputes over the listed doctrines. It doesn’t follow that there were no disputes, because there is a reason to expect that even if such disputes took place, we might not end up with their records. Namely, we have very few writings from the earliest days of the Church. This is because the circumstances at the time (constantly being persecuted and martyred) left little time for writing, and because later circumstances (the Great Persecution in the early fourth century) destroyed much of what was written, and then what survived was winnowed down even further by the consuming passage of time.

So if I want to claim that the disputed doctrines have their origin in theological drift, all your argument proves is that I have to place that drift before roughly 313 A.D., when large-scale persecution (the kind that could destroy all records) ended. And given the other wacky heresies Christians witnessed in those centuries, it’s not at all unreasonable to think that the Marian doctrines, the 73-book canon, and the rest popped up during that period. There were disputes, surely—we just don’t, and shouldn’t expect, to have records of them.

And a last thought: if someone thinks it unlikely that the drift happened so fast, they don’t know the history of theology in the 20th century. Every mainline Protestant denomination flipped on basically every contentious social issue, and they let a lot of old Trinitarian and Christological heresies in along the way. So if we are forced to say the drift happened between 33 A.D. and 313 A.D., that’s fine. Living memory shows this is a window roughly three times larger than is required for huge theological mistakes to be made and spread abroad.

Reply to the Speed Drift Objection

The objector misses key details.

For one, the persecutions did not target all Christian writings, but specifically the Scriptures. The works of Justin Martyr, say, were not systematically rounded up and burned.

And we do have surviving Christian works refuting the wacky beliefs. That’s how we know about them. See, for example, Irenaeus’ monumental Against Heresies from roughly 200 A.D. This and other works systematically catalogued and responded to every erroneous belief attempting to attach itself to the Christian proclamation. Curiously absent from this and other works is the flicker of a doubt about the doctrines listed in the original post. Some of the doctrines are even assumed as background information while arguing against heretics.4

Even amidst great travail, Christians found time to write. The fact that they chose to use their precious moments of peace to work out comprehensive refutations of heresy suggests that if they were alarmed at the introduction of the beliefs I listed (and they surely would have been if they were innovations), they easily could have addressed them.

Yet even if we grant that no one had any objections to these ideas as they spread,5 their geographical dispersal would require a lot of letters, apparently none of which survived anywhere in the entire world. Very suspicious.

As far as the analogy to 20th-century Protestantism goes, it actually gives important evidence for my argument, because in every single mainline church, groups resisted the changes and split off to form their own denominations. If the objector’s parallel case holds, then we should expect to see similar splinters in the first centuries holding to something that looks more Protestant. But we do not.6

Another consideration, one I’ve never seen addressed by Protestant apologists, is that the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East all pride themselves on their extreme theological conservatism. They claim a kind of radical sameness across the ages beyond even Catholic claims to continuity. For Catholics, the Church today is like the grown man to the fetus; the two might look different in striking ways, but it is the very same man at different stages of development, all of which are the natural unfolding of what was there from the beginning. The E.O., the O.O., and the Assyrians, however, claim to be something more like a carefully carved statue whose beauty endures unfaded amidst the rolling tide of centuries. So then the Speed Drift Objection has a problem: if substantial change is of Christianity’s essence, or at least of the early Church’s, what explains the swing to being radically allergic to anything that hasn’t already been explicitly defined? And how did that swing happen three different times in three different places, cultures, and centuries? The kind of Church imagined by the objection is one constantly in flux. But when we examine the character of the communions descended from this time period, they could hardly be less in flux.

What all this shows is that locating the alleged drift “somewhere” in the first several centuries relies on a vagueness that even a general understanding of early Christianity cannot sustain. The objection itself pushed the date back to 313 A.D., and then we saw several reasons to think the drift could not have happened before then. The conclusion that these doctrines were part of the original teaching of the Apostles is all that remains.

Or is it? One more response deserves consideration, since I heard some version of it more than once while giving my argument.

The Grand Censorship Objection

There is another reason the disputes may have happened without leaving a historical record. Remember who we’re talking about here: the Catholic Church. The same people who brought you the Inquisition, the Crusades, and thousands of heretic executions are more than capable of deleting a few scrolls from the stacks. Consider the depth of their influence: as the custodians of the sacraments, Catholic higher-ups wielded a kind of spiritual dominance for much of history that is difficult for modern, secularized people to understand. Consider also its breadth: all of Europe and more. The organizational reach extended far enough to successfully quash resistance wherever it sprang up.

Given that, it is not at all unreasonable to think that the Church would have worked to suppress documents that undermined its claims. This isn’t even really speculation: we know a pope forged the Donation of Constantine, a purported letter from the emperor giving care of the western Roman Empire to the bishop of Rome. Saying that men like that wouldn’t have stooped to the comparatively easy task of having some records quietly destroyed is like saying the same man would accept a bribe of $30,000 but not $35,000. The Church has the means and the motive. The lack of documents describing the fight over the introduction of these doctrines is exactly what we would expect: of course those would have been first on the docket to disappear.

Reply to the Grand Censorship Objection

The objector swamps us with assertions,7 but the logic doesn’t hold up.

Let’s start with logistics.

If there was a suppression campaign, it needed to succeed everywhere from France to Ethiopia to Turkey and even India. This gives the Catholic Church too much credit. It would mean finding and overcoming every monastery in every nook and cranny of the world. It would mean securing the agreement of every document holder to first hand their papers over and then suffer them to be burned.8 It would mean coordinating efforts in five or six major languages on three continents. And all that without either A) missing a single document or B) leaving a paper trail of any kind on the administrative side. So the objection asks us to assume, off the bat, that the Catholic Church managed a global operation with perfect cooperation and perfect accuracy across thousands of miles and tens of thousands of people. Any organization that could pull that off would have to be divine.

And about the dissenters themselves: what happened to them? If they simply faded away without a trace, it’s hard to believe they were the bearers of the true Christian doctrine. If they were violently repressed, we wonder how the Church of the first few centuries, itself politically powerless, managed to persuade the authorities to persecute internal dissenters even while the Church was itself an outlaw suffering persecution. And that, of course, without a paper trail on the imperial-bureaucratic side.

This invites us to ask: when, exactly, should we place this censorship campaign? If we go with the height of the powers of the papacy in the West, the argument will fail, because the consensus under discussion is shared by Churches separated as early as 431 and 451 A.D. The Catholic Church had no ability to carry out its purported suppression in Assyria or Egypt or Armenia after that. Remember also that Christianity was illegal until 313 A.D. This changes things: now we aren’t looking at combing the world methodically over centuries, slowly destroying all the offending records. Now we have a scant hundred years, assuming the Church had the resources to instantly go from being literally underground to operating on a level unknown to bureaucracies ancient or modern.

Even if the long, systematic approach were possible, the objector still asks us to assume that popes from different centuries, different languages, different cultures, could keep up one long conspiracy theory without any big administrative glitches. They functioned without error and without intermission. Judge for yourself: if we grant the objector impossibilities (like the pope having the ability to enforce his will in Churches lost to schism), and then his argument turns on yet another impossibility, that seems like a sign that we’re not on the right track.

Two more problems.

First, we actually have something a little like this with Islam. It’s a bad look to claim that your holy book was divinely delivered word-for-word and then have conflicting versions floating around. For this reason, a seventh-century caliph named Uthman had all versions besides his authorized one burned. Lots of things, like military might and proximity to the religion’s founding (Uthman was a contemporary of Muhammad), made this more manageable in Islam than Christianity. Even so, his success fell short of the success our objector accords the papacy; Uthman’s victory was not total. Paper9 was expensive for much of history, and as a result some unauthorized versions of the Qur’an were not burned but merely erased and written over with other texts. Modern technologies allow us to read the original, so anyone who can google Sana’a Qur’an can see images of an alternate version for themselves. This look at the closest historical analogy to the objector’s scenario gives us empirical reason to heavily doubt that the Catholic Church could have had a 100% success rate eliminating more manuscripts over a larger area with nothing like the caliph’s army, and then cover up the purge itself. That doesn’t seem even distantly possible to me. It’s hard to get much further into specifics than this, because although the objector claims the Catholic Church cleansed the historical record, he does not know when or where or even really how this was carried out. It’s pure, unmixed conjecture.

Second, even if we granted every single logistical fantasy the objector proposes, one more whopping problem remains. Namely, that’s just not how the Church deals with heresy. Even in times and places where heretical texts were burned, there remain the writings of Catholic theologians who rose up to answer them. I think of it like antibodies: when a new heresy pops up (or an old heresy in a new guise), it exercises an initial pull on the population and leads some of them into error. This provokes a defense of orthodoxy tailored to the specific error, and the lesson of the conflict is eventually absorbed into the Catholic immune system as the defense is disseminated throughout the Church. This is why heresies tend to grow and die in waves: they capture an initial chunk, and then find it hard to convert more Catholics to their cause as the centuries wear on. Thus at the Reformation there were initial waves of conversion to Lutheranism or Calvinism, but no mass movements of Catholics after that.10 Today it’s Evangelicals and Charismatics in Latin America. Tomorrow it will surely be something else. And something else after that.

This process doesn’t work, though, if the writings of orthodox Catholics are themselves suppressed. And indeed, we know about the heresies we do mostly because their memory has been preserved by the Catholics who opposed them.11

Here’s where this leaves us: the objector asked us to believe a success story of wild improbability that becomes more incredible with every turn. And once we have given him everything he asks for, he concludes by asking us to believe, well, what? That only in cases where Catholic theologians of the first centuries were responding to Proto-Protestant doctrines, the Church changed tack and destroyed even the work of her defenders? That she preserved the names of Arius and Marcion,12 who attacked the very heart of Christianity, but obliterated the names of their contemporaries who (with Apostolic mandate, according to the objector) opposed venerating the saints? It just doesn’t work. We always try to preserve the memory of a heresy because it is crucial for understanding the pressures that forced the Church to clarify her teaching, and to be prepared against similar errors springing up in the future.

I have tried to give thorough responses to what seemed to me the best objections to my argument. The upshot of all this is that the story about slow accretions and gradual drift peddled by men I otherwise respect, like Protestant apologist Gavin Ortlund, relies on making vague historical claims. Once the claims become concrete, the story becomes untenable. The present-day consensus of the ancient Churches must be dealt with, and for my money I can’t see any way to do that besides accepting that in them we hear the voice of those who walked with God in Galilee.

< 1000 Dumb Dogs | All Unorganized Arguments | How to Investigate Catholicism >

• You gather the data you wish to explain.

• You see how well different stories explain them.

• You provisionally endorse the story that explains them best.

Let’s gather our data, then. On the eve of the Reformation, every Christian Church in the world, from India to Ireland, held to some version of the following doctrines:1

• Scripture includes at least the 73 books recognized by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.2

• Tradition handed down from the Apostles is a source of revelation.3

• Mary never committed any sins.4

• Mary was a perpetual virgin.5

• Mary was assumed bodily into heaven at the end of her life.6

• We can ask the saints to pray for us, and they may intervene with miracles.7

• Christians on earth have a duty to pray for the Christian dead.8

• There are seven sacraments, understood how Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrian Church of the East understand them today. This is a big-ticket item. It includes baptism for the forgiveness of sins and impartation of the Holy Spirit, confession to a priest for absolution from sins committed after baptism, Holy Orders/Ordination as a permanent mark upon the soul of a man empowering him to celebrate the other sacraments and join the divinely-instituted hierarchy of the Church, and the Eucharist after consecration as no longer bread and wine but the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.9

• Apostolic succession as a succession of bishops, not merely of beliefs.10

• Justification as a lifelong process of transformation by the Holy Spirit, not a mere change of names or designations as per Luther. Instead, the moment of salvation was understood primarily as adoption to sonship.11

• The veneration of relics and images.12

• The liturgy taught by the Apostles as the center of Christian prayer and life.13

Here’s a plausible story for making sense of this data.

Following the death of Jesus Christ, wicked people persecuted and killed many Christians. Others drifted from the principles taught by Christ and his Apostles. The Apostles were killed, and the Church was tasked with maintaining fidelity to the teachings left behind in their writings. Because the Church was no longer led by Apostolic authority, error crept into its teachings. Good people and much truth remained, but the gospel as established by Jesus Christ gradually, perhaps by imperceptible degrees, became unrecognizable.

This piecemeal apostasy resulted in the formation of many churches with conflicting teachings. During this time, many men and women sought the truth, but they were unable to find it. Many good people believed in God and Jesus Christ and tried to understand and teach truth, but they did not have the full gospel or biblical grounding. As a result, each generation inherited a state of apostasy as people were influenced by what previous generations passed on, including changes to Christ’s gospel.

Yet God knew there would be an apostasy. Through an Old Testament prophet, He said:

Behold, the days come … that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:

And [people] shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. (Amos 8:11–12)

Some inspired people, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, recognized that practices and doctrines had been changed or lost. They initiated a reform in the Church to which they belonged. Their descendants have continued this reform down to the present day.

It seems reasonable enough. This story looks at the data I gathered above, then judges it the natural result of a slow and steady drift, a kind of liturgical telephone in which each successive generation gets a little more confused, until the whole thing is a morass of haphazard man-made religion.14 Presumably the advent of the printing press marks the turning point, for it means that the game of telephone can end. We have a recording of the original message, so to speak, and are now in a position, perhaps for the first time, to make it the direct basis for Christianity. Gutenberg is like a new Josiah, handing us tools to cut away the husk and retrieve the kernel, to chip away the accretions and reveal the pristine face of Christ hidden under so much hardened muck.

But here’s an interesting fact. The italicized text, with a few minor alterations to avoid giving the game away, is taken directly from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website. Strange bedfellows indeed.

The first schism in Church history is almost quaint, in retrospect. During the reign of Pope Victor I, roughly 189-199 A.D., a fierce debate erupted between the churches in Asia and the Bishop of Rome over how to determine the date for the Easter Mass. The Asian churches calculated it according to the reckoning of the Jewish Passover, regardless of which day of the week it fell on, while the Roman church, along with most of the rest of the Christian world, always celebrated it on a Sunday.15

Technical. Dull, even. But remember: these people were obsessed with Jesus Christ. They cared passionately about seeming trifles because they didn’t want to let a single drop from the fountain of the Gospel fall wasted to the ground. Into such an assembly, fevered with devotion to the point of martyrdom and twitching with vigilance against the incursion of heresy, the Subtle Apostasy story invites us to imagine that someone (who?) first murmured, perhaps in a voice pitched low with deference, “Hey, we’ve been just praying to Jesus so far… What if we added Mary?” And then everyone, everywhere, adopted it instantly without question or comment.

Okay maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that. But the point is this: If the Subtle Apostasy story is true, then there was some definite point at which the creep of heresy went from zero to one. And not just once. The Subtle Apostasy story requires that, again and again, bizarre aberrations were introduced and universally accepted without a shred of protest.

What if I tried this today? What if I walked into a Baptist, or Anglican, or Lutheran, or Presbyterian church and meekly suggested that maybe we have our sick touch the bones of the founding pastor and see if it heals them. I’d even have biblical precedent!16 I don’t imagine I would have much success, let alone be invited to teach Sunday School. But that’s exactly what the Subtle Apostasy story requires us to say happened. Who has the strength to believe that the Church freshly founded by Jesus Christ and recently ruled by the Apostles would be easier to subvert than your preferred modern Protestant church?

Suppose I did succeed in creating a band of bone-kissing Baptists. Would the development pass without a single written comment from the pastor? Without a measly one sermon celebrating our new reliquary? But again, that’s precisely what the Subtle Apostasy story tells us happened in the early Church. Christians everywhere, against the teaching of the Apostles, accepted the early versions of what would develop into the practice of Christians at the dawn of the sixteenth century. And no one said a thing.

We know from the Easter dating controversy that they cared—a lot—about getting Christianity right. We know from the works surviving to us that the theologians of the first several centuries were highly sophisticated. So they weren’t too apathetic or too stupid to detect problematic doctrine. And it won’t work to say that they didn’t notice it because they were trained to ignore the cognitive dissonance from a young age; the entire Subtle Apostasy story turns on the idea that all the things listed above were not actually taught by the Apostles, that there was a distinct time when no Christians believed those doctrines, and a later time when they were normalized, global, and completely integrated into Christian teaching.

I’m no Sherlock, but something seems off.

Fortunately, I don’t need to be Sherlock. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself has left us with a perfect analogy for the situation. In The Adventure of Silver Blaze, Sherlock observes one such conspicuous silence:

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?

Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.

Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.

Holmes: That was the curious incident.

The dog didn’t bark because the intruder was someone the dog knew well and expected to be in the house: its owner. Likewise, the early Church had no controversies over the doctrines I outlined above because they were already inside, put there by our own Master. To be extremely clear, the argument is NOT that the Church couldn’t have been wrong on such a large scale for so long. It’s that if these doctrines were not original, there would be no way for them to be introduced and widely adopted without comment.17

The insurmountable problem for any version of the Subtle Apostasy story, no matter how gradual the slope to infidelity is made to be, is that the Church has always been populated by hundreds, even thousands, of watchdogs. When the first person suggested that Mary might have been free from personal sin, or that Sirach be counted along with Proverbs as Scripture, or that priests were deputized by Christ to hear and forgive sins, not a one of them raised the alarm—not even a whimper.18 What a strange bunch this makes early Christians out to be: one bishop questions the practice of calling Mary the Mother of God, and the whole world gathers to answer him. But when Christians of every tongue begin calling upon her for aid—something I have been assured by strangers in coffee shops and bus stops is sheer idolatry—it escapes the notice of every preacher and theologian.

In the course of this argument, I have left out (or shoved into footnotes) a great many things that would help my case. To attend to them would distract from the main point: The Subtle Apostasy story just cannot capture the data. It should be scrapped for something that sits more easily atop the throne of history. Here is one such story: the “accretions” are not accretions at all, but original elements of Christianity. The same men who defined the canon of Scripture, worked out the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and much more, did not suddenly become incompetent when they turned their attention to other areas of no small concern. In other words, it’s all original, baked into the Last Supper and built into the threshold of the first cathedral.

It’s elementary.

Subscribe now

14

Some readers will find this story very familiar, expressing exactly what they’ve been taught in church, perhaps with visuals like the following:

Others will find “apostasy” language too strong. That’s fine; as long as you think the doctrines listed above were not taught by the Apostles, the argument will apply.

Welcome!

I grew up evangelical, vaguely Presbyterian. I loved it, and I retain a deep gratitude for those who patiently taught me Christianity by their words and deeds. But I have come to believe, with a conviction I would take to my death, that the Catholic Church is the fullness of the Christian Faith, the institution established by Christ to steward and announce the Gospel until the world’s end.

Even in high school and college, I found myself something of a spiritual leader in my circles. Since my reluctant road to Rome happened mostly on the opposite side of the country from everyone I knew and loved, I felt that I owed an explanation to the communities who had supported, encouraged, and at times even funded my pursuit of the Lord. And so I wrote the Essay that grew into this Substack. The big thesis is this: moving from Protestantism to Catholicism can be a journey of continuity and fulfillment rather than rupture and abolition. And not only that: the Catholic Church has what Protestants need to preserve the fruits that have grown up during our sad separation. And Protestants, especially Evangelicals, have what the Catholic Church needs to take on the challenge of a new Apostolic Age, as we rise to the task of re-converting what C.S. Lewis calls our “un-christened” society.1

I see now that the American Church is already learning this lesson. Scott Hahn and John Bergsma, both Protestant pastors and scholars who became Catholic, have produced the gorgeous (and gargantuan) Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. Fr. Mike Schmitz’ Bible in a Year podcast continues to be a top show, Pints with Aquinas and the whole array of Catholic Answers podcasts carry the faith to curious seekers across the world, and of course Bishop Barron with Word on Fire Press produces a stream of high-quality, beautiful content without any sign of letting up. The Eucharistic Congress gathered tens of thousands of Catholics in Indianapolis a year or two ago, and rising adult baptism rates across the world provide a glimmer of hope that the tide might finally be turning.

More examples could be adduced. But the point is this: it’s happening. And wouldn’t you know it, everywhere I look, I keep finding Protestants-turned-Catholics leading the way. Not in every case, mind you—but a lot of them. One exemplar, Bishop Eric Varden, even preached the Lenten retreat for Pope Leo and the cardinals2 living in Rome.

So here’s what I do. I spend a lot of time trying to help Protestants see the truth of Catholicism. Not because I hate Protestantism, but because I love it. Too much, in fact, to see it vanish without a fight.3 To that end, I not only try to teach and persuade in ways pitched for the ears of my separated brethren, but imagine what it might mean to welcome them home at scale. My most ambitious projects think about liturgical and ecclesial integration of the best Protestant prayers and devotions into Catholic life. More than anything, though, what I want is the true spirit of Protestantism, the zeal for souls and readiness to commit every breath to the glory of Christ.

I have been deeply blessed to get to know some of my readers who have found my writing helpful on their journey to the Church. If you are interested but hesitating, drawn and repelled, infatuated yet intimidated by the staggering edifice of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church—if that is you, then we already understand one another, and I will be honored to be of whatever service I can. You are warmly invited to get in touch.

This is an exciting time to be Catholic. It is springtime in the Church. Perhaps you will be the next green shoot. Our world hurtles into a new era, and we need new saints to help us discover what total devotion to Christ means in the age of doomscrolling and children with AI playmates. Perhaps the secret is locked away in your heart, ready to explode in leaves and branches and ripe fruit with proper cultivation. Christ wishes to give you what is needful, and as in former times he deigns to do so through a particular people in a concrete place. Won’t you come and share in the work he’s set before us, as we woo the world back to the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe?

-Your sin has separated you from God and set you on a path to death.
-God sent Jesus to save you with his death.
-If you accept Christ as Lord, you can receive the forgiveness on offer and have peace with God.

What’s been occupying me is how underwhelming I now find this. Once, I was drilling it with flashcards and practicing the hypothetical conversation with my friends. I even used it in real life a few times (it never led to conversion).1 Now it just feels like a letdown. And not the beautiful kind.

What would you say is the most central, important doctrine of the Faith? This is not a hypothetical question; answer it for yourself before continuing. What is the second? Maybe write it down or say it out loud to lock it in.

Did you say “the forgiveness of sins based on the death and resurrection of Christ”? That’s what I would have said, once.

When I was a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, I began studying Catholicism in earnest. Somewhere in my first year the plausibility of Catholicism passed a tipping point, and discovering whether it was true or not became an overriding concern. During this time, I began asking my fellow seminarians, Lutheran, Reformed, and Methodist alike, what they would consider the most important doctrine. Many of them didn’t have a ready answer, but those who did generally said something along the lines of what I wrote above: Jesus died so your sins could be forgiven. Some mentioned the Resurrection, too.

Do you know what my Catholic friends said? They said it was the Trinity. The second was the Incarnation. Somewhere under the latter fall the events of the life and death and surprise second life of Christ.

This floored me. It seemed so simple, so obvious. So in line with the best insights of Calvin! The most important thing is God Himself in His own interior blessed life, not what He does for me. God, God above all, God and only God. The second moment brings creation into the picture: God becomes man. Even here, we have not reduced the Incarnation to a debt-paying mechanism. For Catholics the Incarnation is the center of reality, the event and Person that remakes creation down to its roots.2 If God takes on matter, matter is elevated. If He takes on a living body, life is elevated. If He takes on a human soul, humanity is elevated.

Does the death of Christ pay our debts? Yes! Does his resurrection guarantee our own? Yes! But we’re just at the threshold, standing on the edge of the mountain with our skis halfway over the edge, wobbling on the precipice of the divine mysteries.

Christ saved you from sin, yes. But what did He save you for?

If I were going to create my own version of the Romans Road, or its shorter and better-loved sister, the Four Spiritual Laws, it would crescendo into a grand explosion with 2 Peter 1:3-4.

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Notice: Escaping the corruption in the world is merely groundwork for the real treasure: participating in the divine nature.

Participating in the divine nature?!?!?!?!?!?

Yes.

You were not created to have your sins forgiven. You were not created to enjoy earthly life just x1000 better. That’s what the medievals called Limbo. You were created to enjoy the very inner life of the Trinity.

In St. Paul’s words, “we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” Now, we see “only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now [we] know in part; then [we] shall know fully, even as [we are] fully known.”

The language of the medieval theologians followed this thread and spoke of man’s final end as the “beatific vision;” the Church Fathers followed St. Peter and spoke of “divinization” or “theosis.” In the end, though, it all comes back to the teaching of Our Lord.

Where in Scripture do we get a compact summary of what God expects from us? Many, I suspect, would say it is the 10 Commandments. Certainly, Americans seem obsessed with getting them up everywhere we can. Do you know what the Two Big A’s3 said? The Beatitudes. For Augustine, the Beatitudes form the “charter for the Christian life.”4 They sketch the path from worldly living up to the summit of divine love.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

When we recognize our poverty before God, our utter inability to muster anything we can claim for ourselves and consequent need for grace, only then are we able to begin the spiritual life. So far, the Roman Road and Four Spiritual Laws are keeping pace, as they too begin by recognizing our urgent helplessness.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

Classically, this has been taken primarily to refer to sorrow for our sins. We first recognized our need for God; now we repent of our sins, which God promises to reward by embracing us. Turn, and be healed. At this point, we’ve come to the end of the Romans Road and the last of the Spiritual Laws. Far from the “happily ever after” these approaches offer, the life outlined by the Beatitudes is only just beginning.

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.

When we submit to God’s just correction, when we accept all things (even evil done to us) with equanimity flowing from our hidden life in Christ, we reach a kind of self-possession and steadiness that can’t be shaken. We’ve taken a definitive step beyond my old evangelism tools.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.

We’re not just going for spiritual stability. God wishes us to burn for Him. When we seek Him with all our heart, He promises that He will be found, and we will be satisfied. Our labor is not in vain. There is, by the way, an overt Eucharistic allusion here, as explained in this footnote.5

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.

Follow the progression thus far: we acknowledged our need, turned to God, repented of our sins, and found steadfastness of soul in a land we cannot be evicted from. This brought us to a crucial turning point, as we began to share in God’s own righteousness and action. Now we imitate God concretely. Having had our sins forgiven, we turn to forgive others. The prodigal is welcomed home; now he must learn to be like the father. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”6

Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.

Here it is. Everything has led to this moment. It might not sound like much, but remember that in the Old Testament, no one could look on God and live. We are stepping into a bright abyss, beyond all markers and guideposts. When we became imitators, indeed sharers in the divine mercy, we became conduits of God’s own love. That love, or rather Love, empowers us to exceed the ordinary bounds of human capacity, and we are made able to love God in a truly divine way. We approach Him through His own Love.

Do not let this go by quickly. Follow the logic, and the Trinitarian mystery will begin to reveal itself. We have received God’s Righteousness, not merely as a name but as a new principle of life. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. Thus we turn back to the Father to offer Him the love of the Son. In case you’re not up on your Trinitarian theology, that’s the manner in which the Holy Spirit proceeds.

The Holy Spirit is the “pledge of love” between Father and Son. He proceeds from the “kiss” or “sigh” (Latin suspiro) of love between the first two Persons. So when we love God with God’s own Love, we are replicating, in miniature, the very interior procession of Persons within the Trinity. The Trinity “happens again” inside us. Or, if you like, the Spirit’s presence in us “loops us in” on God’s interior dynamics of divine gift and self-gift. You may behold God, not as an appreciative spectator beholds a sunset or tsunami, but as a “partaker in the divine nature.”

Forget the Romans Road. We’re past the Milky Way at this point.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.

You might have thought things would end with seeing God. But this is not so. To truly imitate the Son, for Christ to live through us, it is not enough to be satisfied within ourselves. We have come to share in the Trinity—now we will share in the Incarnation. Like the Son, we go out into the world to reconcile it to God, Christ making his appeal through us. Then we can say with St. John, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 Jn 3:1). His Sonship becomes truly our own when we share in his mission.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Of course, the way of Christ entails suffering and death. Yet if we share in a death like his, we shall be raised to a life like his. And so we receive what was promised to us from the beginning.

The picture gets even richer, if you can believe it. The saints, and especially Mary, play a key role here. St. Irenaeus, disciple of St. Polycarp, disciple of St. John the Apostle, tells us that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” Being raised to the heights of divine sonship does not erase you, but makes you more fully yourself. The starry array of saints proves this. As each conformed more closely to Christ, their individual quirks, talents, and interests did not vanish but intensified, and the Church’s entrusting different domains of human life to the care of particular saints reflects this.

You will only find yourself when you give yourself over to the Trinity and are born again in imitation of the Son’s Incarnation.

Probably some Protestant readers, up until the last paragraph, have been wondering what about this is uniquely Catholic. Can’t it just be incorporated into Reformed, Lutheran, Evangelical, or Charismatic theology? Maybe, maybe not. Luther and Calvin, I think, have too weak an understanding of justification to give this its full due. That’s not really the point, though.

Assume that all this is generally compatible with Protestantism. The painful question is, Why weren’t you taught this? Even if it can be made to take root, why does it have to come in like an invasive species? In fact, if the two visions are compatible, that’s an even more difficult question, as there seems to be no reason to downgrade from this vision to one that centers upon the mere forgiveness of sins. My speculative answer is going to anger some, but it seems the most plausible explanation to me.

I think the reason is that Protestantism, as a system, has always been more interested in what God gives man than in God Himself.

And yes, I mean all Protestant systems. It’s baked in from the beginning.

When I said earlier that my discovery of the Trinity’s centrality was in line with the best insights of Calvin, I was referring to the God-centric impulse that runs throughout his work. But it is not the dominant theme. A harmony, yes, but the controlling melody is not the doctrine of God; it’s the assurance of salvation for individual Christians. The absolute sovereignty of God follows as an immediate consequence, because the God who irrevocably decrees human destinies from his dark whirlwind will surely accomplish his purposes. If He has elected you, that is simply the end of the matter. And so you see the direction of inference: from human anxiety to the nature of God.

“Very well,” you might say, “you’ve shown me I have been too interested in myself. Perhaps this is a defect I share with Calvin. But it simply doesn’t follow that I should cease to be Protestant.”

If this were a mere historical accident, I might grant the point. But I do not think it is. The Romans Road mindset recurs too frequently, too universally, to be anything other than the inner logic of a system working itself out. For my part, I am still trying to understand what the core of that inner logic is. It is, in a way, getting at the question of what the difference is between Protestantism and Catholicism as systems, the question whose answer a very close Protestant friend of mine referred to as my “white whale.” Well, call me Ishmael.7 But just because I haven’t caught my white whale, don’t think that makes it any less real. Whether it’s pragmatism, individualism, or some other -ism without a name, it is deep in Protestant theology, deep enough that it is as ubiquitous in the original movement as its descendants today. It’s in the DNA.

As always, I polemicize out of love for the things I’m criticizing. All Protestant traditions have their moments of deep friendship with the Lord, and are credited by exceptional individuals bearing the fruits of the Spirit. Tim Keller, for instance, has an absolutely delightful sermon on the Trinity (though its strength mostly comes from being based on a C.S. Lewis passage). That’s why I’m criticizing systems.8 The Protestant systems do not naturally exalt the Trinity and the Incarnation as the highest elements of Christian revelation because they are naturally more concerned with man’s experience of God than God in Himself. Even so, they need not be demolished; I have argued elsewhere, and will continue to argue, that all strains of Protestantism have vital insights into Christianity, and far from being destroyed, will only be preserved from the oblivion of time if they are brought into communion with the Catholic Church. The living water flowing through them will only become sweeter, clearer, and more refreshing for having filtered out the silt.

Yet systems will be what they are, at least for the time being. There is a more pressing question before us: What will you do? If you’re floored by the prospect of participating in the very inner life of God, if you’re delighted that Christianity is so much better than you ever dared dream, believe me when I tell you that there’s more where that came from. You have lived your Christian life on the threshold—perhaps it is time to come inside.

The either/or is a theological immune system. It seeks points of resistance in the human spirit to God’s call, then eliminates whatever it is we’ve wrongly latched onto. Although the world is not in fundamental conflict with its Maker, fallen man tends to set his loves up that way.1 “You cannot serve two masters”—“Let the dead bury the dead”—“consider yourselves dead to the power of sin and alive to God”—be “prepared to hate father and mother for my sake.” The echo of these divine words never loses its prophetic relevance.

Two domains specially belong to the either/or. Namely, sin and error. Whereas the both/and looks for ways to harmonize and bring everything into one order with the Trinity at the center and Christ linking every creature, no peace at all can be made with sin or error. This is because they are, strictly speaking, not “things” at all, but types of non-being.

To err is to assent to a statement that does not correspond to reality. Just to the extent that a false belief connects to the rest of our beliefs, and ultimately our actions, errors introduce disorder into our lives. It is impossible to reconcile with what is essentially disordered. It’s not dangerous like a poison; a poison is a thing in its own right and could have a legitimate use, perhaps even to make medicine. It can, in principle, be harmonized with our ultimate orientation to God. Error is more like being maimed; the damage inflicted is not beyond God’s ability to redeem, but the wound itself is just evil. Sin functions similarly, but in the will rather than the intellect. It means choosing to orient oneself away from God. Just like error, it can become the occasion for great goods, but remains evil in itself.

This last point is worth clarifying, because in conversation I often find a tendency to blur a wound together with its redemption. Imagine someone, because of TikTok-bred paranoia, wrongfully convinced that their spouse is cheating. They decide to suddenly leave, and years later start a new family elsewhere. The children that result from this second union will be complete and unqualified goods. That does not mean that the original suspicion is somehow retrospectively justified or made good. The error and resulting sin still took their toll, and will continue to do so until corrected. In theology, as in everything else, error and sin are always evil, even if God’s unfathomable mercy uses them to bring forth new and beautiful things. Thankfully, as in the example above, though going back and setting things right may be demanding, it won’t mean erasing the goods brought about—the new children won’t need to be exterminated!

As sin differs in consequence and severity, so too with error. Some errors will be culpable, others not. Some will produce immediate and dramatic consequences, others will unfold their disease over centuries. But, as with sin, errors left to fester will collect their due in one form or another. For this reason, there can be absolutely no quarter given to sin or error. They may need to be corrected gradually and with great care, but corrected they must be. This is why the either/or is indispensable. We say an unqualified “No!” to God’s rivals.

The either/or can also be applied in an analogous2 way to all created goods. The reason Christ and the Apostles warn us even about genuine goods like family and the body is that fallen man has a temptation to prefer God’s gifts over their Giver. This does not mean that they’re not genuine gifts. Just the opposite! Precisely because they’re so good, we’re apt to settle for them instead of following them back to their Source. Strictly speaking, the Scriptures do not warn against family or the physical body. They teach us the proper way to integrate these gifts into our lives via the careful application of the both/and. They warn us, rather, against our tendency to make blessings an accomplice to sin, which, again, must be rejected absolutely. Even as the either/or turns us away from the path that leads to destruction, so too it warns us against settling for spiritual mediocrity, stopping halfway along the path to eternal life. “Be ye perfect, even as I am perfect.”

Christianity without the either/or is on a trajectory to cultural compromise, and ultimately the death of faith in a region. There are a depressing number of examples to choose from, but one that stands out is Christianity in the Middle East. Before the spread of Islam, much of the area was Christian. Small remnants of the ancient Churches, descended from a converted Persian Empire, survive in the Melkite and Maronite Catholics, as well as the Assyrian Church of the East. Although conquered by Muslims, their society was not, on the whole, converted by the sword. It capitulated slowly, as the cultural institutions reshaped the religious intuitions and impulses of a people, gradually but unmistakably eroding the Christian influence on hearts and minds.3

Sound familiar?

Christians addicted to alarmism always seem to think Satan is on the brink of unveiling his master plan to shutter churches and throw Christians in jail just for being Christian. While the U.K. has recently been obliging this fantasy, the real threat is much, much more dangerous. We have been living under a host of secular ideologies spawned by the Enlightenment for several hundred years, and they are every bit the foreign conqueror to us that Islam was to Middle Eastern Christians. Satan has no need for the police to board up local churches; he just needs to convince Americans that religion is a private matter. No need to subvert anyone’s doctrinal orthodoxy; he can simply teach them to judge the value of those doctrines by how much they contribute to a host of “pastoral” concerns, from personal assurance of salvation to feelings of acceptance. If he can make you uncritically accept radical individualism and unfettered capitalism simply by making you afraid of communism, that will do just as well as installing a dictator. Perhaps better! The consequences of accepting the world’s assumptions are even now playing themselves out, and a sizeable number of Christians in America today would struggle to recognize that many of their cherished beliefs fit about as well with Christianity as Islam does.

Without the either/or, Christianity first welcomes another worldview into the market, then becomes its shell corporation, and is finally (sub)merged into it.

The either/or carries its own risk, though. A risk that is, in the long term, almost as dangerous as not employing it at all: it can become an autoimmune disorder. It can turn against things that are properly Christian if the individual or community in question doesn’t see the connection between a particular doctrine or practice and the rest of Christianity. When the either/or reigns supreme, everything, even what manifestly stems from devotion to Christ, is eyed with suspicion.4 This is how you get John Calvin raging against Christmas hundreds of years before Italian Evangelicals would launch a self-described “War on Christmas,”5 Seventh-Day Adventists claiming that meeting on Sunday mornings is the Mark of the Beast,6 and William Lane Craig denying multiple Ecumenical Councils. Because these denunciations can come with all the fervor and force of a prophet decrying idolatry, it will paint even genuine developments of Christian doctrine and practice as compromises. The iconoclast always enjoys the perception of righteous austerity. If this course is followed to its logical ends, Christians will hack Christianity to bits trying to find the acorn inside the oak tree.

Even if the both/and is brought in as a secondary principle, putting the either/or in the driver’s seat causes all sorts of unnecessary collisions. The history of Christianity, and especially Protestantism, is littered with the wreckage. I try to avoid drive-by polemics, so please accept these examples as merely gesturing to larger debates. Let us examine how just one mistake, say, assuming competition between creature and creator, can generate a host of bad conclusions, including:

-Christ must be either God or man. (Nicea, Chalcedon)

-Mary must be either the mother of Christ or the mother of God. (Ephesus)

-Christ must have either a divine will or a human will. (Constantinople III)

-We must pay attention either to God or created things. (Nicea II)

-Salvation is either the work of man or the work of God. (Orange, Trent)

-The Bible is either a human text or has a divine Author.

-The Church is either a human institution or a divine institution.

-One can honor either Mary and the saints or God.

Applying the either/or just to the relationship between creature and creator breeds a host of problems. Applying it to other areas of Christian thought will generate just as many. If you want to test yourself to see how much you’ve inculcated the either/or, observe your reaction to the following statements:

• The Exorcist teaches great spiritual truths.

• The halo used in Christian iconography was developed out of images of Sol Invictus, the Roman god of conquest.

• Lots of pagan religions had the concept of a god who dies and rises again.

• Marx has insightful critiques of capitalism.

If you found yourself recoiling at some or all of these, you probably favor the either/or. Here’s Bishop Barron talking about how The Exorcist is effectively pro-Christian propaganda, a Christian historian on the use of iconography under Constantine, C.S. Lewis on “good dreams” among the pagans, and as for Marx, he is clearly descriptively right about how people tend to turn one another into tools under capitalism. If you find yourself reaching instinctively for, “But communism bad!” I agree, yet “communism bad” doesn’t imply that Marx isn’t right about some of capitalism’s problems. The point is precisely that the either/or sets us up to miss the diamond in the rough, the kernel in the husk. It may even lead us to discard whole stacks of diamonds carefully gathered for us by a thousand generations. Not every theological error comes down to putting the either/or before the both/and, but a lot of them do.

So my practical advice. When you’re exploring Catholicism, if you experience a knee-jerk reaction against something, ask yourself: “Does this come down to an either/or? What would a both/and look like here?” I suspect it will reveal a world hidden inside of what first appeared to be a drab wardrobe.

The risks of the either/or duly noted, still, someone has to wield the doctrinal sword, ruling on what accords and conflicts with the Gospel. Who would you trust with the task, knowing you are essentially putting your soul in their hands, not to mention those of your children and neighbors? I won’t belabor the point beyond observing that this is the sort of thing one might expect Christ to have foreseen, and perhaps even provided for.

In the second installment, we were introduced to the both/and. Now, having looked at the either/or, we are ready for the big event. Seeing that neither is sufficient on its own, the next installment will propose a way to coordinate and synthesize the two. From there, we’ll be ready to put them to use examining points of conflict between Catholics and Protestants.

What is the Mass? For some 1.4 billion Catholics today and countless more over the past 2,000 years, it is nothing short of heaven on earth. This is because the Mass contains the very essence of the Christian faith. The central message of Christianity is that God is deeply in love with you; so much so that He became man, a man, Jesus Christ. By Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, He has made it possible for you to enter a relationship of love with God that will heal, transform, and grow you into who you were created to be. These realities are all present in the Mass. Not merely symbolically present, but really present. More on that to come.

At the most general level, the Mass has four parts: the Introductory Rites, the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and the Concluding Rites.

Introductory Rites

The Introductory Rites prepare us to come before God with the right posture of heart and mind. After greeting the congregation with an exchange modeled on Jesus’ greeting to His disciples (John 20:19, “Peace be with you!”), the priest leads the people in humbly acknowledging their sin and unworthiness in the face of the endless love of God. Moving from repentance to praise, the congregation recites the “Glory to God,” a prayer based on the angels’ message to the shepherds announcing the birth of Christ. After the priest says the day’s designated prayer (called a “collect”), the Introductory Rites conclude and the people sit down.

Liturgy of the Word

The next section, the Liturgy of the Word, is a feast for the soul. A passage from the Old Testament is read, a psalm is recited responsively, and a passage from the New Testament letters is read. Then the Liturgy of the Word reaches its climax: the Gospel is announced, and the people stand. The priest proclaims, “A reading from the Holy Gospel according to [Matthew/Mark/Luke/John].” Everyone makes the Sign of the Cross over their forehead (thoughts), lips (words), and heart (deeds), a sort of physical prayer that God would use the words of the Gospel to transform us to more thoroughly reflect His love. After the Gospel is read, the people sit for the homily, a short sermon.

The point of the homily is to help the congregation understand the various biblical readings they’ve just heard. The readings are set in a fixed three-year cycle, and are universal across the entire Catholic Church.2 It is up to the priest’s discretion which readings he wants to focus on, though there is a natural gravitation toward the Gospel passage. The goal is to help the faithful connect the words of the Lord to their daily lives, so they can be a living testimony to Jesus’ message of hope.

After the homily, the congregation rises together to profess their faith using the Nicene Creed, a prayer written by the Catholic Church 1,700 years ago articulating many of the core tenets of the Faith. The Liturgy of the Word then concludes with the Universal Prayer, in which the whole Church throughout the world, united with the angels and saints in heaven, stands together to ask for God’s blessing, healing, and redemption on behalf of the entire world, especially the friendless and suffering among us. The Liturgy of the Word concludes and the people sit for the Offertory, the presentation of the gifts of bread and wine, symbolizing all of the people’s spiritual sacrifices which they intend to unite with Jesus’ sacrifice on the altar.

Liturgy of the Eucharist

If the Liturgy of the Word is a feast for the soul, the Liturgy of the Eucharist is a feast for the entire person. This section of the Mass is best understood by focusing on the big picture. Recall the audacious claim that the Mass is “heaven on earth.” This is no figure of speech. Against the popular images of harps, halos, and hanging out on clouds, the Catholic Church has always taught that the essence of heaven is complete, perfect, direct, endless union with God Himself, the Holy Trinity. It’s less a place than a person, and that person is Jesus Christ. Jesus is God become man—not the appearance of humanity operated like a puppet, and not a holy man who was simply very close to God. The Christian claim is as uncompromising as it is extreme: Jesus is the one God, the God of ancient Israel.

In the Liturgy of the Eucharist, some of the final scenes of Jesus’ life are enacted, leading up to the phrases, “This is my Body,” and, “This is my Blood.” Here, we arrive at one of the most profound mysteries of the Christian religion. Where Jesus was present earlier through the reading and preaching of the Scriptures, now He is present in His entire Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. That is to say, though the elements still look (and taste and feel) like bread and wine, their inward reality has fundamentally and miraculously changed. They are bread and wine no longer, but have become the very person of Jesus. The Creator of the universe, who in an act of unthinkable humility became a small, helpless baby in the womb of Mary, has done something even more astounding: He has made Himself food and drink, so that we might be united to Him with our whole person. We are, after all, not ghosts driving bodies around. Our bodies are an essential part of what we are, and if we are to be fully united with God, is it so surprising that the means of creating that unity would not be merely cerebral and spiritual, but physical as well?

When Catholics say that the Mass is heaven on earth, this is what they mean. It is a taste (literally!) of the life to come, as we are united to Jesus Christ in the most intimate possible way, receiving Him into the depths of our being, into our very bodies. It is “food for the journey” to strengthen and sustain us as we continue our pilgrimage to our ultimate home and destiny: the perfect, eternal enjoyment of God.

Another important dimension of the Liturgy of the Eucharist is the fact that it is a sacrifice. Rather, it is the sacrifice, the very sacrifice Jesus makes of Himself on the Cross. The Mass is a making-present of the death of Christ. Note well that this is not to say that Jesus suffers or is crucified again. His once-and-for-all sacrifice so many centuries ago is not in need of renewal or addition. It is not that He needs help, but that we do. Every human destiny runs through the Cross; in the end we all either die with Him or die without Him. The sacrifice of the Mass gives us the opportunity to embrace His death—and therefore His resurrection—before we have to face our own.

Given all this, it is not surprising that reception of the Eucharist is restricted to Catholics who are spiritually prepared. It is not something to be taken lightly or in ignorance.

Concluding Rites

After the Liturgy of the Eucharist finishes, the Concluding Rites briefly cover any announcements, a final blessing, and a dismissal. We sing either something from the hymnal or the season’s hymn to Mary, the greatest among the saints tirelessly pointing us to Jesus and helping us love Him more by their prayers. The Mass is complete, though many will stick around to pray in the pews, or move to pray closer to where the Eucharist resides (in a special box called a “tabernacle”) twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Learning The Mass

In Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, C.S. Lewis observes the following:

Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And [Christians] don't go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best—if you like, it "works" best—when, through long familiarity, we don't have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don't notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

If you are new to the Mass, you are still learning to dance and not yet dancing. Do not be discouraged by the strangeness of the steps or how many times you’re caught off guard by a gesture everyone else seems to know by instinct. You will begin to pick up the motions quickly enough—you were made for this, after all. The chief thing is to start “enacting” the service as best you can. Christ has come to meet you here, and not in a general, abstract, disembodied way. He has come to meet you here in person. Attend to Him first, and the rest will follow with time. As Christ Himself has told us, “Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Words from the Saints

“They [Gnostics, a heretical sect] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead.”

-St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. ~125 A.D.)

“On Sunday we have a common assembly of all our members...The recollections of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read...When the reader has finished, the president of the assembly speaks to us; he urges everyone to imitate the examples of virtue we have heard in the readings. Then we all stand up together and pray. On the conclusion of our prayer, bread and wine and water are brought forward. The president [priest] offers prayers and gives thanks to the best of his ability, and the people give assent by saying, “Amen”. The Eucharist is distributed, everyone present communicates [consumes the Eucharist], and the deacons take it to those who are absent.”

-St. Justin Martyr (d. ~165 A.D.)

“Following His Ascension, the Lord sits with his Heavenly Father in the heavens and at the same time, He is present with the faithful Christians in the [Mass]... His Presence fills the earth... and the heavens! Thus, together with Christ, the Christian who is in the Church and communes is at the same time on earth and in heaven.”

-St. John Chysostom (d. 407 A.D.)

"Recognize in this bread what hung on the cross, and in this chalice what flowed from His side… whatever was in many and varied ways announced beforehand in the sacrifices of the Old Testament pertains to this one sacrifice which is revealed in the New Testament."

- St. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430 A.D.)

“Man should tremble, the world should quake, all heaven should be deeply moved when the Son of God appears on the altar in the hands of the priest.”

-St. Francis of Assisi (d. 1226 A.D.)

"I begin each day with holy Mass, receiving Jesus hidden under the appearance of a simple piece of bread. Then I go out into the streets and I find the same Jesus hidden in the dying destitute, the AIDS patients, the lepers, the abandoned children, the hungry, and the homeless. It's the same Jesus."

-St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta (d. 1997 A.D.)

< How Do I Go to Adoration? | The Guide | The Both/And Series >

One of the basic moves of Catholic theology is “both/and.” Truth is a Synthesis, a recent work of dogmatic theology by Fr. Mauro Gagliardi, explains it this way:

…the principle of et-et (both/and)...consists of two aspects: (1) The truths of the faith are generally structured on a fundamental bipolarity of elements; (2) the two elements are in a hierarchical order. Confusion and error regarding faith and morals almost always derive from the negation or simple reduction of one or both of these aspects. (From the Introduction, p. xx)

Jesus Christ is both God and man, but He is a divine and not a human person. We use both faith and reason, but faith judges the apparent results of reason. For salvation we need both faith and works, but faith is the root and cause of our salvation, while works are a fruit that grows out of it. And so on.

“What God Has Joined Together”

The both/and is founded on the person of Christ. It’s already built into the basic Christian proclamation, “Christ is Lord.”

The first few centuries saw furious debate over what this actually meant. It seemed to involve, on the one hand, a man who lived in a particular time in place, made of the gunk of the universe, and was capable of being crucified. On the other hand, “Lord” here stands for the divine name, YHWH. The Holy Immortal One, utterly transcendent, the wick to the flame of existence.

Predictably, most of the early solutions to this puzzling equation involved compromising one or the other of the human and divine. Maybe Jesus wasn’t really God, but a kind of super-being, the top rung on the ladder of God’s works. Or maybe he wasn’t really man, but something more like an avatar or puppet for God.

The default pagan way of thinking about things human and divine was to see them as in conflict. Where the human begins, the divine must necessarily end. The Catholic Church took a radically different approach. It may seem that Jesus must be either truly God or truly man, but the folly of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. Jesus is both completely divine and completely human.

Notice the set-up: two poles, apparently mutually exclusive, come together without confusion, without change, without division. Both are fully themselves. Not only that, but they become more themselves through the synthesis. God’s power is shown perfectly through a human life. Human life is perfected when lived by God. 1

Once you’ve got the trick of the both/and, you discover that Christian doctrine is shot all through with it. Justice and mercy; body and soul; Scripture and Tradition; Old and New Testament. It is not the only thing one needs to understand the Faith, but it is one of the deep motifs that shows the quiet hand of God stitching together the Church’s creeds over centuries, millenia.

“You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight.”

The both/and emphatically does not mean that the two things are basically the same or interchangeable. The ordering matters; the priority of one is what safeguards the unique contribution of each. It is the fact that Christ is GOD that enables him to become man. That there is generally justice allows us to show mercy in a particular case. The soul governs the body, and so can direct it to its proper ends. In each case, inverting the order is either impossible or creates a nightmare.

Far from suppressing one element of the synthesis, hierarchy actually enables each unique element to flourish. This shouldn’t be surprising. Traditional Christian angelology, going back to at least the fifth century, understands the angels as organized in a hierarchy of three levels, with three more levels inside each of these. Yet all angels are fully realized, superabundantly living servants of YHWH, the ones who “always see the face of my Father in heaven,” so bursting with their own perfection that they are often described as “flames of fire.” Consider this extract from the soaring climax of C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra:

And another said, “it [new creation] is loaded with justice as a tree bows down with fruit. All is righteousness and there is no equality. Not as when stones lie side by side, but as when stones support and are supported in an arch, such is His order; rule and obedience, begetting and bearing, heat glancing down, life growing up. Blessed be He!”
…
“In the plan of the Great Dance plans without number interlock, and each movement becomes in its season the breaking into flower of the whole design to which all else had been directed. Thus each is equally at the centre and none are there by being equals, but some by giving place and some by receiving it, the small things by their smallness and the great by their greatness, and all the patterns linked and looped together by the unions of a kneeling with a sceptred love. Blessed be He!”

As the rounds of praise roll on, Lewis returns over and again to the idea that absolute equality is the enemy of harmony. If all instruments and their notes were forced into uniformity, there would be noise, but no music. Melody and countermelody both make the song, but not in the same way. The angels, perfectly conformed to God’s will, are bound together in a hierarchy of love where the lower exists so that the higher may give and the higher exists so that the lower may receive; “each is equally at the centre and none are there by being equals.” The both/and is fundamentally a harmonizing principle working on the assumption that God made everything good, “looped together by the unions of a kneeling with a sceptred love.”

Lewis once said that the devil sends errors into the world in pairs, so that in combating one we fall into the other. As much as I love my spiritual father, I offer him a slight correction. It’s not so much that errors come in pairs, but rather that the truth is a synthesis, and man without grace is always trying to introduce competition where there should be harmony, setting up one side of the synthesis up against the other. We need not look far for an explanation: it is very psychologically comforting to arm yourself with a hammer and the absolute certainty that everything in the world is a nail. But we’ll miss much of what God has given us, like flowers and puppies and sapphires and other things that suffer when treated like a nail.

In the next installment, I’m going to take a brief excursus2 to talk about fiction that reflects the both/and. After that, we’ll move on to consider the either/or, which predominates in Protestant Christianity. To that end, allow me a parting observation.

“Catholic” in its Greek roots means “according to the whole.” It may also be rendered “entire,” or “universal.” The Catholic Faith has the both/and built into it at the deepest level because it is the fullness of the Body of Christ on earth, and the reign of Christ extends over all things. Many insist on calling themselves “little ‘c’ catholics,” but it is telling that throughout the Church’s long history, no challengers have ever seriously and credibly attempted to claim “catholic” as their identifying title. Two separate schisms, 500 years apart, left behind groups calling themselves “Orthodox.” Countless other movements have been called after their sect’s founder. But there is only one Catholic Church; no adjective need be added for you to know which one that is.

Subscribe now

While the Protestant-Catholic conversation takes up a lot of my mental real estate, I also basically never stop thinking about Christianity, so I have a lot of other things to say. That’s why I created a second website, also hosted on Substack, called Christocentric. At first, it was just a place I dumped anything I’d written that didn’t fit Reformation Catholicism—school projects, little homilies, etc. Recently, though, I’ve started writing short commentaries on Scripture every Friday (I call them Friday ’flections because I’m charming), and it’s been very fun. If you’ve never read ancient commentaries on Scripture, I guarantee you’ve never heard takes like these. Scripture is so much more beautiful and strange than I once dared believe.

The long and short of it is that I think Christocentric is worth your time, especially if you enjoy Reformation Catholicism. If you already trust me implicitly, you can subscribe to Christocentric (for free!!!!!!) here:

Subscribe to Christocentric

But maybe you’re the hard-bitten type who needs to be convinced. Here are a few of my reflections on the Passion for Lent:

Atlas Bled

The First Halo

What Have I Written?

And an essay explaining technical Trinitarian theology as simply as I possibly could.

I’m also giving you ~~exclusive pre-access~~ to something I plan to post to Christocentric in the near future: a sermon I preached at a retreat for college students at Princeton University. It’s not perfect, but I think it’s pretty decent, and I’ve already found the section on forgiveness irritatingly relevant, which is how I know I was generally on the money.

Lastly, I want to express my gratitude to those who have been reading along silently, or have reached out to tell me that you found my writing helpful. I often feel like I’m calmly shoveling hours of work and thousands of words into the void, so it’s always deeply encouraging to hear that it’s made a difference. And to those planning to enter the Church this Easter: please know that you are in my prayers.

That’s all for now. Keep an eye out for the continuation of my series on the Both/And and the Either/Or!

The best is yet to come,

Eric

A large sign in front of me read, “St. Perpetua Catholic School.” Dressed in a plaid skirt and navy sweatshirt, I held my mother’s hand and looked up at her.

“But Mommy,” I asked, “why can’t I have communion? I am baptized.”

It was my first day at a private Catholic school, where I would remain for less than a year. My mother had just informed me that when the school had Mass, I could not receive communion– something I found very upsetting.

“You have to be Catholic to take communion here, honey,” my mother said gently.

She did not explain the theology of the Eucharist or mention the deep river that ran between our land of “Protestant” and this strange land of “Catholic.” Yet, to my young mind, it seemed there couldn’t be that great a difference between the two.

I knew that my distant cousin would send my mom prayer cards with saints on them, which were promptly discarded into our kitchen trash can. I also knew my mom opposed sending me to this school. It was Catholic, after all! But my parents were desperate to get me out of California public schools, and St. Perpetua sat within walking distance of our home.

Nevertheless, I was unaware of what made Catholics and Protestants so different.

“Well,” ten-year-old me said thoughtfully, “I will just become Catholic then.”

My mom gazed ahead, her green eyes inscrutable. “If that is a decision you want to make when you grow up,” she said with a shrug, “you can.”

I see now that the Lord was always calling me home to the Catholic Church. From my earliest years, I felt an innate pull to the big families with statues in their gardens and homes. The same ones that had strange dangling beads jostling in the car. But it wasn’t until this past summer that I allowed that yearning to come to fruition.

The home I grew up in spanned the breadth of the Protestant spectrum. My father was raised Episcopalian by an agnostic and a Buddhist, and my mother was raised Southern Baptist with roots in Seventh-Day Adventism. This allowed us to wholeheartedly accept the title of “non-denominational.” (I would later come to realize that my flavor of Protestantism was really sugar-coated Baptist theology vaguely grounded in Calvinism.)

My home was a “Church every Sunday” home. My mom made sure I never said “OMG” or used the Lord’s name in vain. We prayed before meals and before going to bed.

By all standards, I was raised in a good Evangelical home. Yet when the time came, as it always does in adolescence, for faith to transfer from one generation to another, it didn’t.

As a child, I saw Jesus as the genie in a lamp. I would say a prayer at the same time I wished on a star. I talked to God more as a magical master than as the Creator of all.

When middle school hit, a new awareness of the world made it impossible to simply surf the wave of my parents’ faith. I had to find my own. But when the time came, I struggled to catch my wave. Instead, I sank under the currents.

Middle school was a hard time for me. It encompassed a move from California, mental health issues, and strains of Instagram-infographic-style progressivism. I regressed, became a shell, and vented my hatred towards God in word and deed.

High school was different. I paused my anger at God and wondered if He was real and, if He was… who He was. After a long search for truth, I found Him as He had always been–the same God my parents had read me stories about. Only things were different now. Now, I knew Him as an intimate God, a loving Father, and my Creator.

As I came to a place of reconciliation with the Lord, and in true undeniable faith in Him, the strangest thing happened… I had this niggling feeling about Catholicism. Catholicism was something entirely different than the way I had been raised, and I viewed it with unease.

I don’t really know when I started to think about the Church or if perhaps the thought had lingered there all along. What I do know is that Catholicism began to quietly enter my life and my mind, patiently planting seeds.

After my initial conversion to Christianity—marked by a prayer of repentance and faith in my bedroom—I began to look for Christian content online. Some Catholics drifted onto my feed in small waves, while others were more prominent, such as Father Mike Schmitz. Each time, however, I quickly brushed away the ideas they espoused.

Questioning the Protestantism I had been raised with and only recently accepted seemed like far-fetched ideation. It was easy to ignore. Yet, at the same time, I had this weird sense (that I now laugh at) that I would one day marry a Catholic. My father seemed to intuit this somehow, and joked in high school that I would one day marry into a Catholic family.

All the while, I continued to develop in my faith, going through the early steps of sanctification. The Lord weeded out the faults and sins of my life prior to Him, patiently working in my heart. In knowing Him more, I desired to know more about Him, and I began to develop a vigorous appetite for theology

At some point in my junior year of high school, having been a committed believer for a year and a half, I increasingly found myself in Catholic online spaces. I’m not sure if it was the combination of the Catholic political commentators I had come to enjoy or if it was the apologetic debates I consumed, but somehow I had landed in this foreign land—and I was fascinated.

I began watching videos of people describing their conversions, their reasons for their faith, and core Catholic principles. Yet my mother’s disapproval of the Church lingered in my mind, as well as my fears about this unknown territory. With the knowledge that physically going to a Catholic church to ask questions was impossible, the online world became my classroom.

In fact, I created a Reddit account for the sole purpose of learning more about Catholicism.

“Protestant teen looking to learn more about Catholicism,” the header of my post read. I had hopped onto two Catholic forums to ask questions.

In droves, the wonderful Catholics of the internet recommended books, speakers, and websites (which I would not look at until four years later when I remembered them). I looked at bits and pieces of their suggestions, watched some videos, asked some more questions, and then forgot about it.

Most of it, that is.

At some point during this time, I also stumbled upon the concept of “transubstantiation” and I had questions.1

One night at church, my youth pastor sat, reading from Matthew 26, the Last Supper.

It seemed like the perfect opportunity.

My youth pastor had just given us a spiel on not overanalyzing theology and worrying about so-called “tertiary issues.” Yet, as I stared down at the verse in my Bible, I couldn’t help the squirming in my chest and the desperation for answers.

The word “transubstantiation” rang in my ears, begging me to ask. I raised my hand.

“Yeah, Madison?” my youth pastor called on me.

I breathed in sharply. “Isn’t this the verse that Catholics use to justify transubstantiation?”

His brows raised, and he nodded his head slowly. Everyone looked at me with confused expressions. They turned to each other and whispered with scrunched brows. Clearly, none of them had ever heard of this.

“Yes,” he nodded, “they do.”

I waited for the clarification to come. The reason this was wrong. I mean, this wasn’t what we believed.

Instead, another student shot up a hand and blurted out, “What is tran-sub-stant-ee-ate-um or whatever it is called?”

My youth pastor sighed deeply. “Transubstantiation is the Catholic belief that Jesus’ body and blood is physically present in communion,” he began. “Which is not what we believe. We just believe it is symbolic. But, this is one of those less important issues. It doesn’t matter what you believe about it. Let’s focus again on the universal takeaways about Jesus’ character.”

I remember the pointed look he shot me, like a reprimand. While that stung, what was worse was the disappointment I felt at his lack of response. I wanted more. However, being young and trusting of authority, it was easy for me to push this aside and simply listen to him.

It was also easy to find rebuttals of Catholic beliefs online (rebuttals I would later recognize as ill-informed and poorly motivated) that dismissed and temporarily sated my curiosity. Pushed aside and buried deep, I tried to get rid of my thoughts on the topic; yet, despite my best efforts, I was never very successful.

A year and a half later, as I prepared for an Evangelical mission trip in Zambia, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Catholic Church. I spent hours watching videos about Catholic theology and found myself entirely lost and questioning everything.

Having been prepped by my mission organization for “spiritual warfare” prior to the trip, it was easy for me to dismiss my theological confusion as nothing more than an “attack of the enemy.” Even still, there were nights I wrestled with God, losing sleep as I asked Him what was going on.

When I loaded onto the plane to fly across the Atlantic, the girl I sat beside told me her story of leaving the “demonic” Catholic Church and all the “spiritual bondage” that came with it.2

“It is full of so much darkness,” she said sadly, shaking her head.

This was my confirmation. Leave behind all thought of the Catholic Church! It’s as bad as they say!

When we landed on Zambian soil, I would discover that one of the groups that this organization evangelized to was Catholics.

“They often have a work-based mindset,” one leader told me.

“They live in bondage,” another said.

I nodded along, shoving down the part of me that had just been consuming hours of Catholic content. I forced my thoughts into a chest, locked it, and threw away the key.

Now, I was ready to happily share the good news with the Catholics we encountered.

Two weeks after returning to the States, I was off to college as a Christian Ministry major.

The fires of ministry still freshly burning within, I was ready to share my faith with anyone and everyone who would hear it. I yearned to serve the Lord and make Him known to the world.

Within the first two weeks of school, I had shared the gospel with Jehovah’s Witnesses on a street corner, and in the following weeks I prayed over and ministered to anyone I could.

My desires were good… but I quickly realized in conversations with other students in my major (who were more developed in their theological beliefs) that I was theologically confused and without a church home.

My mission trip had taught me many Charismatic—and frankly off-base—theological beliefs that I was freshly unpacking. Paired with the church home hunting that is all too characteristic of freshman year at a private Christian college, it seemed like I couldn’t find my place in the Christian landscape as I knew it.

This coincided with questions that were raised in my classes. Debates and conversations about Calvinism, salvation, “once saved always saved,” and more took place and left me with insufficient answers.

I wandered through my school year, hopping from church to church and asking a million questions.

At some point during this time, in similar fashion to the other times I had “done research,” Catholicism snuck into my social media feed. Only this time, it was not obscure anecdotes; it was full-force facts and shocking claims.

The Eucharist. Contraception. Salvation.

They smacked me in the face.

And for the first time, I began to allow myself to wonder about them. My previous explorations had been like a child digging with a shovel in a sandbox. At first, this time was no different. I did my surface-level dig, finding only rocks instead of treasure. I pushed it off, set it aside, and was going to forget…

And then summer hit.

One day, as I was training for a new job with a long-time friend, I made the mistake of mentioning my “rocks”—my curiosities and questions about the Catholic faith.

My friend was shocked. “Madison,” she said, “You are so deep in your faith… I wouldn’t have expected this from you.”

My stomach sank. Within minutes, she was quizzing me on the Catholic Church’s beliefs on salvation, prayer, contraception, priests, and every other entity foreign to our land of “Protestantism.” It struck me the more she asked that I had never really dug at all. That I knew nothing about these little rocks, and I had set aside my shovel before truly digging.

Suddenly, I was faced with the fact that I needed to do something about my rocks. I couldn’t shove them away anymore. The key I thought I had thrown away earlier had resurfaced, and I hesitantly unlocked the chest.

In the following months, I traded my shovel for an excavator, my few inches of depth for hundreds of feet.

Books, Reformation documents, ecumenical documents, and hours of the wisdom of YouTube left me with no place to run or hide. When I faced Catholicism as it truly was for the first time, I was nothing other than entirely convinced.

A wise saint once said, “To be deep in Church history is to cease to be Protestant.”3 When you face the claims of the Church in their truth and entirety… you are backed into a corner.

The claims of the Church can be nothing more than either complete truth or absolute heresy, and if you understand that, you are forced to choose.

As of March 2nd, 2025, nearly a year after my excavator first broke ground, I made my choice.

I joined the Church.

There are a multitude of reasons for this, from Church history, answered prayers, Biblical evidence, and a call that extended throughout my life, but the short summation of them would be this:

1. The Eucharist.

   As a believer of the Christian faith, if someone claims to have your Lord and Savior—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, well… they might be crazy. But if one billion someones make that same claim… Well, that calls for investigation.
   In fact, it absolutely cannot be ignored.

   More so, if every Church Father unequivocally defended that truth, then you face a problem as a Protestant. Either the entire Church was wrong about this for 1500 years, or you are. If Catholics are right, then the greatest conceivable blessing stands to be gained; if we are wrong, then Catholics are perpetuating the largest blasphemy in history.

   You must choose.

2. Fruit.

   “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

   -Matthew 7:15-20, emphasis added.

   Fruit may be the last thing someone thinks to associate with the Catholic Church. In fact, many Evangelicals will point to past historical atrocities the Church committed in order to prove the Church’s fruit is bad.4 However, when looking at the preservation of the Church’s beliefs, especially the preservation of societal standards, the Church’s fruit is very good.
   While by the 1950s every major Christian denomination had allowed for contraception, the Catholic Church denounced this, sticking with historic Christian teaching. As other denominations go so far as to support LGBTQ+ in leadership, advocate for abortion, allow for IVF, and other substantial changes to Christian belief and structure, the Catholic Church has remained steady and unyielding to the shifts of cultural norms. People always fail. There is no doubt that there are historical atrocities people in the Church have committed. But the preservation of faith and the moral standards of the Church has stood the test of time. If that is not good fruit, I don’t know what is.

3. The Focus.
   Tying into one and two, the center of the Mass is the Eucharist. The center of worship… is the Lord.
   I do not say this to assert that Protestant churches do not focus on the Lord or worship Him… but I do say this to make you think:
   What is the center of a Protestant Church service? Is it the breaking of bread? The Lord Jesus Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity? Or is it a sermon? Or rather the person giving the sermon?
   Sermons, while good, ultimately depend on the rhetorical skill of a fallible being.
   In a culture that too often points back to us, there is something poignant about a service that points us back to Him. If the focus of Sunday morning is the gospel readings and the Eucharist, then there is little room for man to be the center of attention. It is not the pastor’s voice filling up space but rather the Lord Himself.

Some of these questions are hard. Some may stir your ire as much as your curiosity. Some are as deeply challenging as convicting. But it is neither our comfort that designates truth, nor the limits of our understanding.

When I realized this, I simply couldn’t turn away anymore. I had tried to lock down, push away, and ignore for years. Yet, the questions never went away and continued to whisper to my soul until I was forced to answer.

You too face this dilemma. You face a choice. And in some way, you must answer. On this side of heaven or the next.

I can’t begin to express the deep wrestling that comes with conversion, the valley of trial and error. But I can express the deep joy that comes in answering the Lord’s call and seeking the truth above all.

I don’t know if the little girl who asked her mother if she could join the Church knew she would one day. She certainly did not understand the gravity of such a decision. But my, I would like to think she would be deeply pleased knowing I sought Jesus and found Him in His Church.

You can find more of Madison’s work here, and more of my work here.

Catholicism wants everything.

And we can have both.

At the center, the very core of all the best Protestant devotion, is the heart that cries, “Solus Christus!” Christ alone! All else is dross, Paul’s skubala and the hymnal’s “sinking sand.” In the jungle of this life there is danger; every gift can, if not carefully monitored, be warped into an idol. Anything, even good things (in fact especially good things), can become so lovely in our eyes that we are tempted to put them before the Creator, abusing them and debasing ourselves. The words of Scripture, spiritual songs, and Christian fellowship together form the indispensable palliative to this human condition. “The human mind is a perpetual forge of idols,” says John Calvin,1 and we cannot have too many helps to ensure that we don’t wander off after them. This is the “either/or.” Either God or the world.

The Catholic says “Totus tuus,” because everything is yours, O Lord. Every sunrise, every raindrop, every chirping bird and singing brook; all of it says God’s name again and again if we but have the ears to hear. Since He bridged the unbridgable gap between creature and Creator, every creature has become his intercom and megaphone. The task, then, is to harmonize and direct, to bring this voice up and that one down, so that we may hear the “music of the spheres” without impediment. This is the “both/and.” Both God and the world.

So who is right, the Protestant or the Catholic? Both, when properly coordinated.

Over the course of several weeks, I’ll be posting *airhorn sounds* my very first multi-part series, working through a vision of how to integrate the Protestant and Catholic theological paradigms. Stay tuned!

Also, I’d like to propose something to you, the reader.

I have a few paid subscribers whom I deeply appreciate, not least because I currently offer no perks at all for going paid. I’m not interested in paywalling my work; I believe in the project too much for that. But I have been kicking around the idea of starting a monthly book report section for paid subscribers that would take academic and popular theology, secular and Catholic fiction, and anything else worthwhile I happen to be reading and offer summary and analysis. I would take requests and continue to set the price at $5/month (the lowest Substack will let me do) or $50 a year. If that would interest you, would you let me know in some way (comment, reply to this email, or DM)?

That’s all for now. Looking forward to exploring the both/and in the coming weeks!

The Eucharist and the Mass

One of the most fundamental Catholic teachings is the Eucharist (from the Greek eucharistia, “thanksgiving”). From the earliest days of Christianity, believers have gathered together to practice their faith, even amidst severe persecution. In a letter to the emperor Trajan, one local official describes the practice of the Christians he is attempting to violently suppress:

…they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food, but food of an ordinary and innocent kind… I judged it so much the more necessary to extract the real truth, with the assistance of torture, from two female slaves, who were styled deaconesses: but I could discover nothing more than depraved and excessive superstition.

–Pliny the Younger, Letters, 10.96. ~112 A.D.

This highly unsympathetic account of Christian worship actually gets a lot right. The “meeting” he’s talking about is called “Mass,” and it’s still celebrated by some 1.4 billion Catholics around the world every day. The “alternate verses” would be passages from the Old Testament, sung together during the “Liturgy of the Word.” In this part of the Mass, the words of the Bible are first read and then expounded by the priest for the instruction and encouragement of Christians in their daily lives. Then we move into the “Liturgy of the Eucharist.” This consists of a series of prayers that culminate in offering bread and wine to God, which He transforms into the Eucharist: the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

Pliny’s comments on the food are important: one of the earliest slanders against Christians was that they were cannibals, as they very insistently claimed to be eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus. This is probably the “depraved and excessive superstition” which the two women continued to profess faith in even under torture. Despite such impressive commitment, the official assures Trajan that the cult is quite harmless, as the ritual only seems to include food that is “ordinary and innocent.” This is the mystery of the Eucharist.

Christians believe God became a human being, Jesus Christ, who is completely human and completely divine. Anyone who met Him on the street would have seen His humanity easily enough. But His divinity was visible only to the eyes of faith. Likewise, in the Eucharist, Catholics believe that what once was bread is bread no more, and what once was wine is wine no longer; they have become Jesus Christ Himself. As with His humanity, the senses alone are insufficient to reveal the full truth. By the power of God, what looks, feels, and tastes like bread and wine is in reality the very Creator and King of the universe.

Adoration

During Adoration, we worship Jesus “hidden” under the appearance of bread. And though He is “hidden” in one way, in another way He is maximally present to us, so much so that you can point to the Eucharist and say, “That is God.”

We come to spend time with God. Of course, God is spiritually present everywhere, but we are not merely spiritual beings. We are embodied, and God is the one who designed us that way. He therefore wishes to be present to us in a way that engages our whole being–just like when He became a tiny baby in the womb of Mary. Simply put, we come to adore Him with our whole selves, and He in turn looks back at us with a father’s love for his children.

This “look of love” isn’t something that you achieve or “do right.” When you come to Adoration, you are in the presence of God whether you’re joyful, frustrated, anxious, content, sorrowful, or anything else. That said, a few tips can help you become more open to receiving God’s love through this hour.

First, take some time to simply enjoy God’s presence. Like the sun’s rays warming a frozen lake, God’s love transforms us slowly, often without our conscious knowledge. As St. Augustine says, “God works within us without us.”

Second, this is a great time to share your interior life with God. Bring whatever is occupying you to Him, and listen carefully for His reply. When Christians talk about “hearing” from God, we aren’t (usually!) referring to an audible voice. Rather, it’s a subtle stirring in heart and mind, a gentle pull. It can be difficult to discern from our own thoughts at first, but over time we learn to recognize His voice as easily as we recognize the voice of anyone we love.

Lastly, you can meditate on the truths of the Faith in a more structured way. Many do this by praying the Rosary, which uses memorized prayers counted on beads to guide you through the life of Christ. Others read the Bible, pausing occasionally to look up and ask for insight from the Word Himself. The writings of saints and other spiritual works can also be a great choice.

Whatever you do, remember that we’re here to spend time with God, to get to know Him better.

Singing

Since the end of the third century, the Church has been singing the “Liturgy of the Hours,” a schedule of prayer, Scripture, and hymns that help orient a Christian’s life entirely to God. Some evening Adoration services end the night by praying Compline together, the last of the daily hours. The selection of psalms and hymns are hundreds and hundreds of years old. “Before the Ending of the Day,” for example, is some 1650 years old. When we sing together, we join our voices with the Church around the world, and indeed throughout history, as we collectively offer an unending song of praise to God.

There will likely be a pamphlet or book that will tell you which parts are sung by the choir and which are for everyone. It will also tell you when to stand, sit, kneel, or make the Sign of the Cross. When in doubt, look at what everyone else is doing. The style of music we use is called “chant,” and is even older than the Liturgy of the Hours itself. Part of the reason it sounds somewhat ancient and mysterious is because it is!

After the priest blesses us by making the Sign of the Cross over us with the Eucharist and the last prayers are finished, we’ll end with a hymn to Mary. Mary, as a good mother, encourages us to grow in our devotion to God, and give ourselves to Him completely. It is therefore fitting that we should end by asking her to help us love Him even more, and to thank God for giving her to us as a spiritual guide. A papyrus from 270 A.D. records the attitude of early Christians toward Mary:

With Mary’s help, along with all the angels and saints, we end the night renewing our dedication to Jesus Christ. Filled up once more, we go back out into the world where we can point others to Him through the lives we live and the words we speak.

Words from the Saints

Here are some passages about the Eucharist for you to contemplate during Adoration:

“I no longer take pleasure in perishable food or in the delights of this world. I want only God's bread, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, formed of the seed of David, and for drink I crave His Blood which is love that cannot perish.”

–St. Ignatius of Antioch, ~110 A.D.

“He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?”

- St. Irenaeus of Lyons, ~189 A.D.

“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ.”

- St. Augustine of Hippo, ~411 A.D.

“…the sacrament of the Eucharist is the greatest of all the sacraments…because it contains Christ Himself substantially, whereas the other sacraments contain [only] a share of Christ's power.”

- St. Thomas Aquinas, ~1270 A.D.

"The Eucharist bathes the tormented soul in light and love. Then the soul appreciates these words, 'Come all you who are sick, I will restore your health.'"

- St. Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879)

“My sweetest Joy is to be in the presence of Jesus in the holy Sacrament. I beg that when obliged to withdraw in body, I may leave my heart before the holy Sacrament. How I would miss Our Lord if He were to be away from me by His presence in the Blessed Sacrament!"

- St. Katharine Drexel (1858-1955)

“When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host [i.e., the Eucharist], you understand how much Jesus loves you now.”

- St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1977)

Before I launch into my apologetic, let me apologize. Although I am unsparing in my evaluation of Cooper’s arguments, I have the deepest respect for Rev. Dr. Cooper himself. He is a highly intelligent man with a deep love for the Lord. His ministry, too is a powerful force for good; thousands of people have found his writing, YouTube channel, and other public-facing works enormously helpful. Not only that, but Cooper’s obvious commitment to clarity and charity comes through strongly in the essay. The Church counts him among the “separated brethren.” Most of this post will deal with the “separated” bit; but this adjective must always be treated within the noun it modifies—“brethren.”

I’ll recapitulate Cooper’s arguments here, but I strongly encourage you to read his thoughtful post first so you can consider it without any bias.

Enough throat-clearing. Let’s get to it.

What Seems to Be The Problem, Officer?

“The problem,” Cooper explains, “is that I don’t even know how to evaluate [Roman] claims such that I could even begin to weigh their veracity. I do not even know what field of inquiry or standard of judgment I am to use in order to determine whether Papal supremacy is or is not a doctrine that is to be assented to.” The argument centers on the papacy because it is with “the doctrine of the Papacy that the Roman Catholic…traditions [sic] stands or falls.” The problem, for Cooper, is that while the papacy does depend on some claims that are falsifiable (or maybe only accidentally unfalsifiable due to lost historical records), the position itself is unfalsifiable. That is to say, if it were false, there would be no way to know. He makes his case exegetically, historically, and philosophically.

Exegetically

FIRST, “any given argument or text is theoretically disposable, while the dogma remains intact.” Imagine a Catholic who holds, as he is permitted to, that Matthew 16 isn’t about the papacy. Maybe he says the papacy is actually mostly clearly attested to by Matthew 17, when Jesus miraculously pays the temple tax for Himself and Peter. Only Himself and Peter, showing that Christ’s provision for His followers comes through Peter. Upon consideration, however, he gives up this text too. It seems his position is unfalsifiable because all supporting verses are non-essential. Whenever you win, he’ll just surrender that verse and move elsewhere.

SECOND, “Rome uses texts—like Matthew 16—to argue for dogmas that clearly go beyond the content of the texts themselves.” Say Cooper grants that Peter is the rock. Are we supposed to go from there to the bishop of Rome being an infallible guardian of Christian teaching for all time? Whatever the basis is for that, it’s not exegetical, and therefore can’t be evaluated on exegetical grounds. Adverting to an extra-textual basis for Catholic claims means that to generate an exegetical argument against the papacy, Protestant exegetes would have to “prove that the text not only does not positively teach the Roman dogma, but positively precludes the RC teaching. Such a thing is basically impossible to do.” Why? Because “[t]he claim that Peter’s confession is “the rock” does not also preclude the idea that Peter himself is also the rock. These types of moves could be made with nearly any Protestant interpretation of common verses used to defend RC dogmas.”

Historical

FIRST, according to Cooper, early Protestant polemics responded to an articulation of Catholicism that thought of the Church’s teaching in the sixteenth century as straightforwardly identical to its teaching in the first century. Their chief strategy therefore turned on identifying some of the obvious differences. But in the nineteenth century, John Henry Newman came along with an alternate theory of Church history, the theory of the development of doctrine. If Catholic apologists need only show that the early Church taught in “seed form” what the contemporary Church teaches, then it shifts the burden of proof. Now, “with the near-impossible exception of the discovery of some early second-century undisputed historical text which boldly states “by the way, there has never been a bishop in Rome,” there is no historical argument which would disprove the papal office.”

SECOND, Cooper makes a quick argument that one cannot identify contradictions between infallible pronouncements because there isn’t a clear list of them anywhere. So if two seem to conflict, the Catholic can always just make up a reason one of the two statements isn’t technically infallible.1

Philosophical

Catholics try to show that leaving the Bible up to individual interpretation creates massive problems; but this is an argument against Protestantism, not for Catholicism. While we’re at it, though, there are plenty of divergent camps in the Roman Church, too. So it really doesn’t count against Protestantism that much.

The Argument So Far

I’ll let Cooper summarize the import of all this in his own words:

Authority, for Rome, is supposedly tied to Scripture, the tradition of the church, and the living magisterium. When the first of these (Scripture) is challenged, RCs often point to the second (tradition), and when those claims are challenged, they ultimately point to the third (the magisterium). As such, the magisterium becomes its own validation.

If the RCC had clear and straightforward claims about its authority and precisely how it is to be proven, I would take claims of its infallibility more seriously. As it stands, no matter which approach to the relationship between Scripture, tradition, and the magisterium the RC defender takes, it appears to me that arguments in Rome’s favor are ultimately circular, leaving no clear and objective criteria by which to judge its claims. And thus, the magisterium becomes its own defense. And that is simply not compelling.

I Answer That…

Cooper’s argument suffers from three underlying problems. Here they are:

• He misses what it means for something to be revealed.

• He assumes Sola Scriptura.

• He doesn’t know about abduction.

I realize these are bold claims. Cooper has several degrees and decades of study on me, so I make them with some fear and trembling. But here I stand; I can do no other.

Revealed Truths

One theme in the essay is frustration that the dogmas and the arguments for them come apart, as if Catholics first commit to the doctrine, and then adopt/discard justifications as needed, like a parasite hopping bodies. Far from finding a damning problem with Catholic thought, Cooper has simply bumped up against how divine revelation works. God does not propose that we believe “X” on the grounds that “A, B, and C.” Far from it. Instead, God most often just pronounces “X” and leaves theologians to contemplate the reasons for it.

Take, for example, the entire ceremonial law. It is reasonable to think that the prohibition against wearing clothing of mixed fabrics is a symbol of the Jewish people’s separation from the Gentiles, and the Christian’s separation from sin. Is this a satisfactory explanation for the revelation? Maybe, but the explanation remains fallible while the revelation itself is not. That’s one way commentaries on the Bible are essentially different from the Bible itself. Even if my gloss on the mixed-fabrics prohibition is wrong, even if I go through a thousand mistaken interpretations and don’t know a single one that’s satisfying on exegetical, historical, or philosophical grounds, it wouldn’t make the prohibition any less divinely revealed.

If the papacy is, as Catholics claim, divinely instituted, then the truth of the claim depends on God’s trustworthiness and not on how impressive any given exegetical, historical, or philosophical argument is. Catholics aren’t being slippery, at least not in any vicious way. They’re behaving exactly as one would expect if their claims were based on divine revelation.2

Aquinas says it best:

“This doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made. Nor does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest. But sacred doctrine makes use even of human reason, not, indeed, to prove faith (for thereby the merit of faith would come to an end), but to make clear other things that are put forward in this doctrine.”3

Cooper is right to the extent that he recognizes that the papacy is not the result of arguments. It’s not something derived from some pre-existing Christian resources. This helpfully brings out a point of deep conflict between Catholic and Protestant theology: Sola Scriptura.

Sola Scriptura

What do you think the Apostles were up to before the New Testament was completed? I’ll tell you what they weren’t doing: they weren’t going around saying, “We’ve got really great news about this guy Jesus. In a few hundred years, when we nail down the list of inspired literature on Him, then things can really get going!” No indeed. One giveaway is that Paul’s letters are to churches he’d already established. So clearly Paul’s work there wasn’t derived from the New Testament. The papacy wasn’t derived from the New Testament any more than the practices Paul handed on to those churches were.

This is obvious once pointed out, but the Church is older than the Bible. Who wrote it? Who discerned which books were inspired? You might say the Holy Spirit, and I’d agree; but the Holy Spirit guiding whom? Cooper wants a definitive cause-and-effect between specific verses and every dimension of the papacy. I can only offer humble apologies. Bilocation, incorruption, prophecy, healing, levitation; these are all known to our saints. But none have yet managed time travel. The papacy is older than Scripture, and since it couldn’t have been established by appeals to the Bible, it’s hardly fair to complain that it’s not.

Do Catholics just not care about the Bible, then? Certainly we care. But Sola Scriptura sends us down the wrong path because it makes us expect the Bible to explain things that it assumes we already know about. Take, for instance, the laying on of hands in the New Testament. If you already know about the seven sacraments, it’s obvious that these are references to either Confirmation or Holy Orders. But if you don’t know about them, you have to reverse-engineer Paul’s references and piece together what he’s talking about. I might be crazy, but if Sola Scriptura were true, I don’t think we’d have to reverse-engineer anything. The Bible would just tell us. In any case, the reverse-engineering strategy has borne some bizarre fruit. Maybe you’re going to hold Sola Scriptura no matter what happens.4 So be it. My point is merely that by assuming Sola Scriptura, Cooper has begged the question against Catholicism. Even so, I am sympathetic to Cooper’s frustration: if we shouldn’t expect to derive the papacy from Scripture, how is anyone supposed to be persuaded to believe in it? Unfortunately, the answer requires philosophy.

Philosophical Interlude

There are three kinds of philosophical arguments. The first two, deduction and induction, admit of proof and disproof. Deduction shows that a conclusion follows with mathematical certainty from given premises; think geometry or formal logic. Induction extrapolates universal truths from particular cases; think “All swans are white.” In the third kind, abduction, or inference to the best explanation, we start with a bunch of phenomena, generate various theories to explain them, then choose the best one. What makes a theory “better”? Three things: power, or how likely the observed phenomena would be to occur if the theory were true; scope, or the number of phenomena it explains; and simplicity, or how many new things the theory introduces to get the job done.

Example

Phenomena:

• When I come home from work, my dog Obadiah has a mullet.

• My nephew, who was looking after it, has Obadiah’s fur all over him.

• My nephew himself wears a mullet, and has a record of unauthorized pet grooming.

My nephew’s proposed explanation:

While he was taking a nap, someone broke in, gave Obadiah an unfortunate makeover, spread some of the fur on him as he slept, and snuck out.

My explanation:

It was my nephew.

Both theories explain all the facts, so they score the same on scope. But even if someone did break in for felonious doggy daycare, it’s hard to see why they would sprinkle my nephew with fur. On the other hand, if it were my nephew, it would be unsurprising to find him covered in Obadiah’s lost locks. Thus my theory is more powerful than his. But where I really excel him is simplicity. His theory requires positing an entirely new person, one with motives beyond ordinary human comprehension. My theory, by contrast, introduces nothing new: we already knew about my nephew’s curiously specific vice.

Most abductions will incorporate deductive and inductive arguments into their analysis. But they behave very differently. In a deductive argument, say a geometrical proof, a single counter-example is enough to defeat the argument. Likewise in an inductive argument, just one black swan is enough to show that “All swans are white” is false. Not so in abduction. Although my theory is superior to my nephew’s, enough to warrant vowing never to leave Obadiah in his care again, his theory has not been disproved. It still could be true, it’s just a comparatively poor explanation. Suppose I do some investigation and find every window and door locked. That would further disconfirm my nephew’s theory, as it seems unlikely that the canine cutter would care (or even be able) to lock things up on his way out. But even this wouldn’t disprove his theory; he could make up some explanation that fits with what he’s said so far. But even if he did, it would further weaken the theory’s power, and to that extent make my theory comparatively better.

We can distinguish between three kinds of unfalsifiability:

Total unfalsifiability: A claim is impossible to investigate in any way. “All arguments are merely disguised power plays.”

Accidental unfalsifiability: A claim cannot be verified because while there is or could be evidence for/against it, we aren’t in a position to reach it. This may or may not be vicious depending on the context. “Just before he died, when we were alone, Brent said he wanted me to have the jetski.”

Theoretical Unfalsifiability: A theory is unfalsifiable because we could always add more hypotheses to accommodate new data. But good theories are confirmable and disconfirmable; and if a theory starts relying on a huge string of very implausible claims to deal with disconfirmations, it must either be heavily revised or discarded altogether. Otherwise, the whole thing becomes theoretically cancerous, consumed by its own internal limitations. Unfalsifiable? Technically—but very easy to evaluate as an inference to the best explanation.

And now, patient reader, theology.

The Interlude Applied

Cooper elides the second two kinds of unfalsifiability into the first. Although the papacy is theoretically unfalsifiable, it is very easy to look for confirmation and disconfirmation.

In abduction, we start with the theory, and then test it against the data. Think about it like gathering suspects. You come home and find your window broken and jewelry missing. Obviously you won’t be able to determine much about the thief from this information. But you know that only three people live in a 100-mile radius. So it must be one of them.5 Therefore, you will look for information that confirms or disconfirms each person’s innocence. There are, generally speaking, three competing ecclesiologies: Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic. We know probably one of these is right, as they are the only ones that exist. So the thing to do is look for information that confirms or disconfirms each model. This move makes things a lot simpler.

First, it means we don’t have to derive the ecclesiology from the evidence, any more than you have to derive every aspect of a man’s existence from the scant clues of the robbery. This lays to rest Cooper’s objection about the doctrine of the papacy going beyond what Scripture warrants.

Second, it means we can make use of all the evidence. While we can’t deductively proceed from “Peter is the rock” to every claim Catholics make about the papacy, we can show that it confirms Catholicism.

Third, it allows us to properly weigh to what extent arguments against one side count in favor of the other. Because theories compete with one another to be the best explanation, theoretical strength is to some extent zero-sum. Thus for Catholicism to be confirmed is (insofar as they are incompatible) for Protestantism to be disconfirmed. So when Cooper points out that attacking the anarchy of Protestant ecclesiology isn’t technically an argument for Catholicism, he’s mostly wrong. Return to our three suspects. If we suspect each equally, then for each man there’s a 33% chance that he’s guilty. But say we turn up evidence that disconfirms the guilt of one and makes it only 10% likely that he’s our thief. It immediately follows that the other two are each now 45% likely to be guilty. This is why Cooper makes the second move, that Catholicism has just as much infighting as Protestantism. This would put them back on a par—if it were true. It’s not true, but more on that in the next section.

An Offensive Abduction

Reader, I want to congratulate you. You’ve made it far; the payoff is here. It’s time to revisit Scripture, history, and philosophy to see how the papacy fares as an inference to the best explanation.

Scripture

Cooper’s analysis implicitly acknowledges that the Catholic position is totally comfortable with Scripture. Even if we can’t all agree on exactly what’s going on in the famous Matthew 16 passage, it is the Protestant who takes a posture of “explaining away” Jesus’ words. For the Catholic, it is entirely natural that Jesus would use the singular “you” when giving the keys to Peter. Or again take the Temple tax episode in Matthew 17. It doesn’t prove that Peter is first among the Apostles, and even if it did it wouldn’t establish all the claims of the papacy. But it certainly fits better with those claims than the claim that Peter wasn’t special among the Apostles. Or again, when John runs ahead of Peter to the tomb but stops and lets Peter go first, this doesn’t prove that the archetypal beloved disciple necessarily defers to the ecclesial hierarchy, but it does lend the passage an intelligibility beyond what’s typically reflected in (admittedly funny) Protestant memes about the passage.

Given the scope and intensity of Catholic doctrine about the papacy, isn’t it rather surprising that nothing in the New Testament really disconfirms it? Shouldn’t there be something that cuts against what Catholics say? Maybe there is, but Cooper at least thinks it nearly impossible to generate an exegetical claim that positively opposes the papacy, which he has already told us is the most prominent of his reasons for not “going to Rome.” Perhaps one could point to the Council of Jerusalem in Acts, where James seems to be in charge rather than Peter. This is where history can be helpful. If we add in data about how the Ecumenical Councils were carried out, i.e., always with the pope’s approval but not always with his direct leadership, this makes the roles James and Peter play entirely plausible. Speaking of history:

History

It’s odd how little historical data Cooper’s essay actually attends to. Even if the Church Fathers don’t give the definitions of Vatican I verbatim, it’s clear that what they do say fits strikingly better with Catholic than Protestant ecclesiology. I’ll leave you to peruse this for yourself at my favorite website, ChurchFathers.org. One important episode not covered by ChurchFathers.org (my favorite website), is the “Robber Council,” Ephesus II. Non-Catholics have a hard time explaining why this wasn’t a valid council.

In the early Church, disputes of sufficient import were settled at councils, in which the world’s bishops gathered together to deliberate and vote. The Second Council of Ephesus in 449 debated whether (with the Copts) Christ has one divine-human nature, or two distinct natures, one divine and one human. Representatives of all the major patriarchs were present. When Rome’s legate arrived, he announced that he had a letter from Pope Leo on the matter, but he was told to wait until later to read it. Things got heated, and before he had a chance to weigh in, the assembly voted in favor of the one-nature formula. A mob of Coptic monks physically intimidated dissenting bishops into a unanimous vote, and the resistance leader was beaten so severely that he died of his injuries soon after. The legate had to be smuggled out of Ephesus back to Rome, where Leo, furious, immediately declared the council invalid. When a sympathetic emperor ascended to the throne a few years later, Leo took the opportunity to call a new council. That council took place in 451 at Chalcedon, where they hammered out the Christology that is universally accepted today. And I mean universally, because in response the Copts argued not so much against the actual theology of Leo, but rather that the letter should have been read earlier.

This means that arguably the most important council of all time was the result of a pope unilaterally overruling a previous gathering that, apart from the pope’s endorsement, had all the ingredients for a valid council.

“But the Orthodox,” some will cry, “they were never on board with papal supremacy!!” Untrue. Not only did they accept extreme exercises of papal authority like the overturn of Ephesus II, but on two separate occasions reached satisfactory agreements with Rome to reunify. In the first case, it was ruined (ironically) by Pope Martin IV excommunicating the Byzantine emperor, and in the second case it was rejected by Orthodox laity after being initially accepted by theologians and the hierarchy. Clearly they are not the principled resistors to the papacy that Protestants sometimes like to use them as.

In addition to confirming the Catholic position directly, the Orthodox attest to it indirectly, too. Since the Great Schism, how many ecumenical councils have the Orthodox had? A cool zero. There was an attempted Pan-Orthodox Council in 2014, but in the end the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest Orthodox communion, cordially rejected its authority.

Again, these observations don’t prove the Catholic claims about the papacy. But they are exactly what we would expect to see if those claims were true.

As I noted above, Cooper makes a drive-by argument that since there is no bullet-point list of dogmas, Catholics can always squirrel out of apparent contradictions. All I will say here is that the same goes for the Bible, and gesture at a post I’ve written on a nearby topic.

Philosophy

Cooper’s philosophical argument is a false equivalence. Catholic disagreements differ in kind and in order of magnitude from Protestant ones. They are different in kind because when Catholics today support abortion, gender ideology, and universalism (or alternatively fascism, racism, and neglect of the poor), they are objectively at odds with the pronouncements of the Church whose authority they explicitly identify themselves with. I call this the Argument from Bad Catholics: anyone who consults the Catechism on these matters can easily tell which side aligns with the Church. In others words, we know who the bad Catholics are. In Protestantism, if someone says, “I know what those other guys say it means to be Anabaptist, but we’re telling you what it really means,” there is no definitive way to settle the matter, since there is no living final authority. Please see this joke.

Once we restrict the debate to questions that divide people who seriously subscribe to our respective ecclesiologies, the contrast becomes almost grotesque. The Episcopalians and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are all-in on leftism; fundamentalists think it’s Satanic. Presbyterians meet on Sunday; Seventh-Day Adventists think that’s the Mark of the Beast. Methodists baptize babies; Baptists (ironically) say it’s worthless. Evangelicals think communion is probably just a symbol; on some days Anglicans might even believe in transubstantiation. The present debates between serious Catholics, on the other hand, center on the role of the Church in government, how much Latin should be in the Mass, and how rigorously to police the reception of communion by Catholics who are not in good standing with the Church. Not small issues, to be sure. But claiming that the two situations are on par is… hasty, to put it mildly.

Did We Cheat?

The last claim I want to address from Cooper’s post is that by embracing St. John Henry Newman’s theory of the development of doctrine, the Catholic Church unfairly changed its definition of continuity. I have two replies.

First, while I understand that it’s frustrating to feel that the goalposts are being moved, the Church has always used heresies to clarify her own teaching. This sometimes involves discarding theories that were popular in a given time or place. St. Augustine’s view that Original Sin is passed from one generation to the next by the sexual desire involved in procreation is one such example.

Second, I don’t accept the premise. If some kind of “static doctrine” theory was popular at the time of the Reformation, it was not always. Newman developed his theory (and converted!) through reading the Fathers. Here is St. Vincent of Lerins, c.~434 AD:

But some one will say. perhaps, Shall there, then, be no progress in Christ’s Church? Certainly; all possible progress. For what being is there, so envious of men, so full of hatred to God, who would seek to forbid it? Yet on condition that it be real progress, not alteration of the faith. For progress requires that the subject be enlarged in itself, alteration, that it be transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of individuals as of all, as well of one man as of the whole Church, ought, in the course of ages and centuries, to increase and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that is to say, in the same doctrine, in the same sense, and in the same meaning.6

Moreover, if one doesn’t believe in some kind of development of doctrine, it’s hard to see why the papacy would be as important as the Counter-Reformation apologists argued. If no new questions arise for the Faith, why would we need someone to settle them? And how could Ecumenical Councils declare words that don’t appear in the Scriptures, like “Trinity” and “consubstantial,” necessary to the Christian faith? It is prima facie very difficult for me to believe that defenders of the papacy endorsed a naively static view of doctrine. I can believe they emphasized continuity, perhaps even to a fault, but that’s a different matter entirely.

In Summary

Rev. Dr. Cooper’s core claim was that he didn’t know by what method or standard he was to evaluate the doctrine of the papacy. I submit that the answer to his question is “Abduction, drawing on exegetical, historical, and philosophical data.” I am grateful for Cooper’s thoughtful engagement with Catholic teaching, and am relieved to report that his worries are not too worrisome.

Subscribe now

From Catholics who feel a blanket distrust of anything that comes out of Protestant Christianity, I ask a hearing. From Protestants who feel the Catholic Church just doesn’t exude Christ the way she ought, I ask an open mind. Overcoming the impasse will require us to reject the caricatures and false dilemmas constantly pushed on social media. After all, one of the most basic moves in Catholic theology is “both/and,” that is, showing that two apparent opposites can not only be reconciled, but elevated beyond their natural limits when brought together by grace. We are the Church that Baptized Plato, Aristotle, and Avicenna—surely we can Confirm some of the Protestant giants. To that end, I want to pause and reflect on what makes Evangelical Protestantism so great. 

Tell an Evangelical that his love for Jesus borders on obsession, and he’ll be disappointed, as he had hoped to cross the border long ago. When I think of Evangelical spirituality, I think of fire. If “our God is a consuming fire,” they say, so much the better; “He must increase and I must decrease.” No one says it better than the man himself, Toby Mac:

What will people think when they hear that I'm a Jesus freak?
What will people do when they find out it's true?
I don't really care if they label me a Jesus freak
There ain't no disguisin' the truth 

There is a single-mindedness to Evangelicalism. It systematically produces people willing to sacrifice time, energy, and money to accomplish God’s work. One could call them “mission-driven,” provided “driven” carry the sense Mark employs when he describes Jesus as being “driven out” into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, teeming with an untamable energy. More than any other book of the Bible, Evangelicals embody Philippians. They are a people of decisive action, who feel the words of St. Paul in their bones: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” 

I tend to use “Evangelical” interchangeably with “serious Protestant Christianity.” I probably conflate these two because I have spent my life in highly secularized areas, where denominations either don’t exist in any robust way (the Pacific Northwest) or continue only as atrophied institutions more concerned with keeping up with the times than converting them to the Gospel (The Northeast).

Yet there are serious denominations left, although they are shrinking. I recently visited a friend at a Christian Reformed Church seminary and was delighted by a glimpse into a world I was never really part of: the Protestantism of old, in love with the Bible and exuding a kind of quiet, unflappable strength that evidences decades in service to the Lord. I am reminded of Luis Bouyer’s remark in The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism that Calvinism, in its own way, expresses the highest mysticism. It pays gravest attention to the God who speaks in Sacred Scripture, full of the holy awe befitting one who expects to hear the voice of his Creator. Where Evangelicals burn, the children of Geneva are like glaciers gliding serenely, inexorably, gracefully across the land. 

Hot or cold Protestants may be—but never lukewarm. Above all, they abhor spiritual mediocrity. Despite suspicion of any role for good works in the drama of our redemption, they zealously pursue a life worthy of the name “Christian.” (I note in passing the irony that Catholics, who are constantly accused of promoting “works-based salvation,” are not the ones with a work ethic named after them.) Although most Protestants would be instinctually repulsed by French novelist Leon Bloy’s famous observation that “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint,” the whole Protestant spiritual life reflects this thought exactly. This is the key to understanding Contemporary Christian Music (CCM), the genre that embodies the best (and worst) of today’s Protestantism, both Evangelical and traditional. 

Dionysius the Areopagite was a fifth-century theologian and mystic who, despite being one of the great fountainheads of Christian thought, remains unknown to the vast majority of Christians today. Much could be said about him, but I want to dwell on one idea from his short, mind-bending treatise, Mystical Theology. In this work, Dionysius develops the idea that to reach God, we must be brought outside ourselves, past the limitations of finitude. He calls this ekstasis, from ek-, “out” and -stasis, “being.” We must go “beyond being.” Through prayer, contemplation, and ultimately the condescension of God, we are raised into the heavenly places, and although we do not see God as He is in Himself (our vision remains “through a glass darkly”), we get closer than we otherwise could in this life.

The best of CCM always tends towards the language of ekstasis. We don’t have to go farther than the all-time greatest hits to find ready examples. Here’s a bit from “Oceans.” 

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Saviour

Suppose someone were to ask, “Why can’t your feet wander any deeper?” The answer would be twofold: first, because of sin, and second, because even sinless creatures remain created things, naturally limited. It will take the intervention of God to bring us any farther. This happens when Christ makes Himself present to us, both spiritually and (although the writer certainly did not intend this) in the Eucharist, where we receive the full body, blood, soul and divinity of the Almighty. Christ enters into us so we may exit ourselves. He becomes a passage for us into a wider space, into the heart of God. 

“Great Are You Lord” picks up a similar theme

It's Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise to You only
All the earth will shout Your praise
Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing
Great are You, Lord

While this song doesn’t bring out the theme of ekstasis quite as overtly as “Oceans,” it isn’t far below the surface. It’s easiest to notice when sung with hundreds of others, the music swelling as these lines are repeated again and again, each repetition seeming to pick up first men, then beasts, then plants, and finally every rock and hill, so that all creation joins together in a pure chord that is perhaps best described as the interstellar melody the ancients called “the music of the spheres.” We are lifted out of ourselves into a universal hymn of praise. Dionysius calls this theme exitus et reditus, “exit and return.” God creates us at somewhat of a distance from Himself precisely so that, through the charity given us by the Holy Spirit, we may have the joy of “returning” to Him, closing the circle of loving communion and renewing its course.

The obvious danger here is that a genuine expression of ekstasis is easily confused with or (worse) devolves into mere sentimentality, so that what ought to guide you beyond yourself only becomes a morbid desire to have a certain experience or feeling. No doubt, that happens often enough; though not as often as outsiders assume. In any crowd there is probably a mix. But simple sentimentality is too thin an explanation to anyone who has really lived what I’m describing. A mentor from my high school days once recounted an evening when he had gathered to sing worship music with a few dozen others. As they sang, they lost track of time completely. When someone finally checked their phone, they found they had been singing for more than four hours (and missed about a million concerned calls). They had been drawn outside themselves, or perhaps let into somewhere better. Moments like this make it easy to believe that “the earth will soon dissolve like snow.” 

The point of this excursus is to show that to be Protestant is to desire ever-deeper communion with God. That is the positive element. But there are negative elements too, and it is the great, tragic irony that where one would naturally expect this to spill over into a fanatical devotion to the Eucharist, or at least an acknowledgment that if Christ were incarnationally (and not merely spiritually or symbolically) present in the Eucharist it would be a grace surpassing all expectation, there is nothing. Seen from the vantage of Catholicism, the healthiest expressions of Protestantism resemble a man with perfect command of the English language, except that he doesn’t know any of the words beginning with “P.” If he’s been getting along just fine, it may be hard to convince him that something’s missing—but once he sees the gap he’ll promptly become profoundly more proficient than previously possible. 

While I’m on the topic of Protestant worship music, I want to note the constant trend of Protestant music since the Reformation to re-evolve sacred music. “Sacred music” is music designed expressly for formal, corporate worship. (I would say “liturgical” worship but it’s hard to see how most nondenom services could be called liturgical.) Although a great deal of CCM is indistinguishable from the pop of whatever decade it was produced in, this is not always the case. In fact, there are a handful of genres that serve as a kind of home-gown Protestant sacred music. Black spirituals come to mind, as well as black Gospel choir. Classical Protestant hymnody also has identifiable characteristics—one would not confuse “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” for anything other than a religious hymn, even if the words were unintelligible. In CCM, there are hits I can’t imagine being mistaken for pop—“10,000 Reasons” comes to mind, as does “What a Beautiful Name.” The tendency to evolve and re-evolve sacred music shows two things. First, it is evidence of a genuine religious impulse, an oft-unconscious craving for the sacred, the sense that the things of God should be set apart. Second, it shows that belonging to Christ, even in the Christian communities farthest from His Church, implants in us a longing for the Mass. To be sure, few if any Protestants will agree with this second claim, but that is to be expected. 

My love letter ends with three pleas. 

To Catholics: We will not make headway in restoring our separated brethren to full communion if we refuse to take them seriously. We have to see the wonderful things God is doing among them, and do our best to carve out space to preserve as much of it as possible within the Church. Not uncritically, of course, but not straying into aesthetic jingoism, either. 

To traditional Protestants: I fear that your spiritual legacy is disappearing from the face of the earth. The Church has shown by her creation of the Anglican Ordinariate that she is not only open to dialogue but ready to act. Having seen the destruction of your traditions both in America and Europe (I am thinking of the near-complete failure of Lutheranism in the Scandinavian countries), you must know that Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Methodists, and any other denominations hanging on to life bear the divine promise of preservation no more than the Puritans did. 

To Evangelicals: You will no doubt continue to grow in the decades to come, and God be praised for every person you help bring to Christ. But the things you build—can they last a hundred years? A thousand? Ten thousand? Or will they welter in pastoral anarchy until they finally collapse? The quality of our work will be revealed by fire; and if we have built from wood and straw, we will suffer loss. We have a duty to the souls of this generation, certainly. But we also have a duty to the generations yet unborn. We can’t just build our own little huts. We have to work together if we want to build cathedrals again. That can only happen if we are one in faith, and sacrament, and pastoral leadership. And there is only one Church with a credible claim to universal headship.

I suspect I’ve made everyone a little bit mad. Well, that’s what a good love letter does.3 I also suspect some (like myself) are prone to feel despair when they think about movements at this scale, like a snowflake trying to stop an avalanche. Take heart! The Church may have to wade through hell on her pilgrim journey—but Christ has promised that she will not end there.

Subscribe now

< Baptists: Word and Zeal | Building Reformation Catholicism | F.A.Q’s >

Don’t take this one too seriously. 

There are 73 books in the Bible used by Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox communions. This has clear numerological resonances. Numerology, the use of numbers to represent spiritual truths in Scripture, is real. The Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry ‘The Use of Numbers in the Church” notes its presence in ancient Christianity:

…although the Fathers repeatedly condemned the magical use of numbers which had descended from [pagans,] still they almost unanimously regarded the numbers of Holy Writ as full of mystical meaning, and they considered the interpretation of these mystical meanings as an important branch of exegesis.

The Fathers comment on it extensively, Jesus Himself draws the disciples’ attention to numerology built into His miracles, and the rabbinic tradition is downright obsessed with numbers. So it seems we cannot dismiss it out of hand.

7 is the number of creaturely perfection, appearing first in the 7 days of creation, culminating in God’s sacred rest. In Hebrew, “7” is the same as the word for “rest,” so it’s unclear whether 7 was named after the Sabbath or vice versa; in either case the association goes all the way down. Later in the Old Testament, the Jubilee is scheduled to take place every 7x7 years, while in the New Testament, the disciples gather 7 baskets of leftovers after Jesus feeds the 4,000. We are commanded to forgive our brother 7x70 times. So 7 represents God’s gracious work bringing His creation to its proper state, its shalom.1 

3 is the number of divinity, a bit more elusive in the Biblical narrative. 3 angels appear to Abraham, and 3 items go into the Ark of the Covenant (all of which are figures of Christ).  Augustine divides the 10 Commandments into 3 about God and 7 about man. Above all, 3 is of course the number of the Trinity, the highest truth of the Faith. 

Put these together, and 73 represents God bringing perfected creation into contact with divinity. The technical term for this is theosis, a major element of patristic thought championed by Aquinas and many recent Catholic theologians. That 73 comes out very well, I think few would contest.

We get 73 by adding together the 46 books of the Old Testament with the 27 books of the New. The chief association with 4 is the Gospels, but that would be somewhat anachronistic. The more plausible association is 40, which marks periods of moral trial. The waters flood the earth for 40 days and nights while Noah waits aboard the ark.2 The Israelites wander the desert for 40 years as penance and preparation to enter the Promised Land, and Jesus does spiritual combat in the wilderness for 40 days at the start of His ministry. 6 represents falling short of God’s intentions. It is all the toil of creation without the Sabbath, the rest set aside to remember God and walk with Him in the cool of the day. Thus, the story of the Old Testament is the story of God’s people constantly failing to live up to the moral life He calls them to. It seems they will need divine assistance. 

46 is rescued by 27.

2 represents creation, especially its pinnacle, man. Throughout the whole creation narrative, God creates things in pairs. The light and the dark, the sky and the sea, the sea and the land, male and female animals, and above all man himself, ruler of the visible world, created as men and women. 27 is therefore God redeeming man, restoring our wounded nature to perfection, the need for which was revealed by our failed trials.

How many books in the Protestant Bible? 66. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this is one 6 shy of the number of the Beast, but the association is difficult to miss. Even if the connection to the Antichrist is completely denied, 66 is still an uncomfortable number for Sacred Scripture, since it represents not one, but two failures to make it to 7, God’s perfect intention for creation. Not only that, but the fact that it’s exactly 7 books short of the Catholic and Orthodox 73? Odd indeed. Moreover, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from William Tapley,3 my favorite schismatic conspiracy theorist—and there is exactly one thing—it’s this: one reason 666 is the number of the Beast in Revelation is that it is yielded by the fraction 2/3. Using the associations we’ve already established, 2/3 numerologically works out to “man over God”—a sin known as pride. If the Catholic allegation that the Reformers subtracted inspired books from the Bible is right, it would certainly be an instance of humans attempting to play judge over God, even ascribing them the best possible felt motivations.

The obvious trouble with this type of argument is that it can seem a wax nose—so flexible that it will assume any shape, fit any pre-selected conclusion. This worry should be taken seriously, and provides a welcome reminder to apportion our confidence to the evidence. I recognize that the numerological argument is unlikely to convince anyone to become Catholic (in part because strictly speaking the argument works equally in favor of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox communions). Yet I think the argument is good for this: it introduces another small dose of cognitive dissonance into the Protestant picture, like noticing a minor plothole in a movie you’ve seen a thousand times before. And we’re not out on a limb with the associations of 73 or 66—those are some of the most symbol-laden numbers in the Bible. Isn’t it rather peculiar that the Hebrew tradition, which attends so closely to these details, should produce a set of scriptures whose number reminds us of nothing so much as the Devil? Is it simply a divine oversight? An accident to be ignored? Or could it be a hint that although the Protestant Bible has a great deal of God’s truth, it lacks the full perfection of the Faith, leaving its readers undernourished in their pursuit of Christ?

Subscribe now

< Previous Argument | Back to the Unorganized List | F.A.Q.’s >

Despite the undivided focus of someone made in the image of God, Marvel still suffers from substantial errors.1 This extends beyond storytelling and world-building—the multi-billion dollar operation has let other blunders slip past unnoticed. Unnoticed by the studio, at least. The internet always notices, and gleefully points it out. Such was the case with this promo shot from WandaVision: 

This show had a budget of roughly 25 million dollars. Per episode. 

Even so, Marvel Studios represents the best-case scenario for the internal consistency of human creative projects. It has everything going for it: a “Parliament” overseeing the production of every movie and TV show, a dedicated continuity manager, a budget larger than the GDP of some countries, a shared vision, and a profit incentive to make sure each story lines up. They haven’t had to endure the instability of leadership change even once. If a situation could be more conducive to internal coherence, it's hard to see how. And they still fail.2

The Catholic Church does not enjoy these ideal conditions. There have been 266 popes, hailing from divergent theological schools, different modes of life (humble monks to the sons of rich and powerful bankers), different languages, different scientific outlooks, and different personal priorities. They have been scoundrels as well as saints. Some privately taught error or held heretical views before their election. And whereas Marvel has only had to keep things together for a scant 17 years, the Church is on her 1991^st. 

It’s hard to properly articulate how astounding it is that the Church’s doctrine has remained completely self-consistent the entire time, with no exceptions. 

When I first began investigating Catholicism, I thought it would be open and shut. Because the Chuch claims infallibility, if you can get even one clear-cut case of self-contradiction, that would be enough to topple the whole thing. Anyone who has spent time with the Enchiridion Symbolorum, a compilation of the sources of Catholic dogma, will already know that by all human measures, constructing an elaborate systematic theology with perfect internal coherence on this scale is simply impossible. At just over 276,000 words, we see an institution not content to merely repeat the contents of the Apostle’s Creed, or stick to a narrow band of “essentials.” Instead, the Church talks exactly as if she were infallible, fearlessly exercising her authority to condemn some positions and approve others. And this, despite the handful of popes who were too busy sinning to read all the material they were accountable to. How has the Church managed to maintain perfect clarity a hundred times longer than the MCU has even existed? 

One possible response is that she hasn’t. Indeed, a simple Google search will bring up a host of blogs and other sources aiming to show just this. Yet a little digging reveals that these attempts suffer the same defect. I’ve chosen the first decent post that popped up when I searched “Times the Catholic Church has contradicted itself” as an illustration. The post is here, and in many ways it’s an excellent article—lots of primary sources, clear argumentation, and plenty of intellectual charity. But scroll down to the comment by Prasanth. The commenter introduces a few primary source passages conveniently overlooked by the original post, and offers a poignant diagnosis:

Look friend, when you argue on how the Church teaches X here and says Y there- and it’s a ‘contradiction’, then it’s no better than a really foolish Atheist saying that the Bible saying “You shall not Kill” in the Ten Commandments, and then goes on listing a whole range of places where one is not simply allowed, but commanded to kill, and all the places where Death Penalty is mandated in the Mosaic Law.”

“Look friend” is such a funny way to start this paragraph.

The poster’s reply makes a subtle but important move. Once he’s done logic-choping the 10 Commandments example, he completely compromises the argument presented in the main article by retreating from his thesis.

Prasanth uses “X” and “Y” to represent two statements in the Bible that stand in apparent contradiction. Think of them as oil and water—mutually exclusive by nature. At least, if you don’t have an emulsifier. In the Bible, whenever X and Y seem to contradict one another, you should always look for Z, the idea that unites and synthesizes them into a whole. In this case, invincible ignorance is the concept needed to resolve the apparent contradiction urged in the post. And the poster’s reply furnishes proof that Prasanth has hit on the right strategy. Instead of arguing that invincible ignorance doesn’t resolve the contradiction, the poster says that invincible ignorance is unbiblical. But notice what that means: the big, scary claim that we started with, “The Catholic Church Has Contradicted Itself And I Can Prove It,” reduces to “This concept from Catholic theology is unbiblical.” The second claim matters, to be sure, but retreating to it implicitly admits that if invincible ignorance were real, the apparent contradiction would vanish. And that’s just to say that they’re not in contradiction at all, since true contradictions are by nature irreconcilable (this is called the “Law of Noncontradiction” and it’s the fundamental law of logic).3

When more serious thinkers take this angle, they have to go deep for material. I remember listening to hours of Protestant v. Catholic debates about whether a particular pope endorsed a heretic in an obscure encyclical (which was debatably just a private letter anyway) and, if so, whether that is the same as endorsing a heresy. At some point, it struck me how absurd the Protestant apologist’s position was. His argument relied on a wide-reaching definition of the Church’s infallibility, since encyclicals are usually regarded as authoritative, but not necessarily infallible.4 Yet even granting this very expansive understanding of the Church’s infallibility (more expansive than the Church herself claims) he still had to go back more than 1500 years to find a plausible candidate for evidence that the Magisterium, the teaching office of the Church, had contradicted itself. To adapt a phrase from St. Edith Stein, “Only the person blinded by the passion of controversy could deny” that the very premise of the debate is a decent argument for Catholicism. 

Say you grant my argument, at least in outline. You might still disagree about its import. After all, mere coherence isn’t the same as being right (despite what certain epistemologists say). There might be all kinds of explanations for how the Church has managed to preserve an internally consistent set of doctrines across two millenia. Perhaps she just doesn’t say that much. After all, if we limit our view to statements pronounced ex cathedra, that is, solemnly declared dogma of the Church in the most formal way possible, there are only two. If this were the whole picture, the Church would have far less to keep track of than Marvel! But it is not the whole picture. For starters, the ex cathedra pronouncement is only a formalized version of something that has been around since St. Peter, the ability of the pope to definitively settle theological disputes. Past popes might not have used the formula we’ve since designated for such purposes, but they could and did say things like, “Many people have said X, and others Y, but I now declare that Y is true and X is false.” Earlier I mentioned the Encyridion Symbolorum. Again, this book is more than a quarter-million words long. There have been plenty of chances for us to blow it both publicly and permanently. 

When I pitched a version of this argument to an extensively-published philosopher of religion, he said something along these lines: “If these instances are all independent, that’s very impressive. But I just don’t know the history well enough to evaluate it.” In other words, if, as I say, the men who have occupied the Chair of St. Peter come from such disparate circumstances, it is fair to conclude that their mutual theological coherence can be best explained by divine intervention. But the comparison with Marvel Studios shows that this philosopher was too optimistic about human abilities. Even if all the popes were determined to study all previous declarations and quadruple-check for errors before declaring anything (and they weren’t), contradictions would still crop up across 2000 years. A team of people with shared motivations, culture, language, scientific outlook, and a full-time continuity manager can’t even keep it up for 17 years—despite the fact that, compared with the complexity of Catholic theology, Marvel Studios writes nursery tales. This philosopher was also being too modest about his historical abilities. All he needs to do is look at what arguments people go for when trying to dispute the Church’s claim to infallibility, and that will be enough to illustrate the weakness of the objections. 

Let me boil it all down to this:

1. Jesus promised to send His Spirit, who would “lead you (plural) into all truth.” 

2. True statements never contradict one another. 

3. Given enough time and development, all merely human systems produce self-contradictions.

4. Catholic teaching is a system with time and development that has not contradicted itself.

5. Catholic teaching must not be a merely human system. 

6. Therefore, Jesus’ promise must have been given to the Catholic Church. 

This post has been a defense of (3), and an indirect argument for (4). Anyone can see that by all human measures, Marvel ought to be better off here than the Catholic Church. The fact that it’s not is one more reason to suspect the waters of the Tiber aren’t quite as muddy as some would have us believe.5

< Previous Argument | Back to the Unorganized List | F.A.Q.’s >

It is much the same with Catholicism. Our opponent the devil is prowling about like a paper tiger, seeking to confuse, mislead, and distract whomever he may, to hinder our progress in the pilgrimage of this life. He lies, and lies, and lies, and all of his lies together lie in wait for the unwary. The secret blessing of paper tigers, though, is that they hardly ever survive a good solid kick. Once you’ve put your foot through two or three, you’re well on your way to being free of them forever.

Since I wrote my original essay, I have spent hundreds of hours talking to non-Catholics about Catholicism, including non-Christians and Protestants (plus the occasional Orthodox for variety). Through long discourse and longer reflection, I am ready to make an observation: almost every objection to Catholicism, especially from Protestants, is based on a conception of Catholic beliefs that the official teaching of the Church, along with all her best theologians, is at great pains to reject. 

Take for example one of the all-time classic polemics, that Catholicism is a works-based religion. Thanks to Jefferson Bethke’s well-intentioned but thoroughly confused slam poem “Why I Love Jesus, But Hate Religion,” this is a double-whammy, since “religion” in Evangelical circles is usually defined as “man’s attempts to earn salvation.”2 It’s so deeply ingrained in the Protestant view of Catholicism that it’s an instinctual mantra, one of the fixed points and guiding stars in a world of so much theological uncertainty: “Catholicism is works-based.” I remember chatting with a woman working for Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a ministry that focuses on discipling high schoolers. In the course of conversation, I asked out of curiosity whether they worked with any Catholic churches in the area, or just Protestant ones. She seemed both confused and taken aback by the question, and (I swear I’m not hamming this up) stammered, “No—no no, nothing works-based here!” I passed on to less disorienting topics. 

Meanwhile, the Church’s teaching throughout the centuries is clear and consistent. One only need glance at Augustine, or the Council of Orange, or Aquinas’ treatise on grace, or the Catechism of the Catholic Church, to see it. We are, after all, the ones who condemned Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism. (If you don’t recognize those words, the formal terms for the heresies of works-based salvation, you have all the more reason to be grateful to the institution that squashed them, preventing their spread through Christian lands the way the Prosperity Gospel has through Pentecostalism.) The great irony of the paper tigers is that they’re fashioned from the very articles the Church has loudly and publicly condemned for centuries, millenia. 

Another way to grasp this phenomenon is to consider the nature of converts between Protestantism and Catholicism.

Catholics who become Protestant typically share the same story: they grew up going to Mass but never really understood what it was about and didn’t feel a connection to the Faith. They were just going through the motions. Then they are invited to a Protestant Bible study, and for the first time encounter what Alvin Plantinga calls “the great truths of the Gospel,” that Jesus died and rose for them so they could receive forgiveness of sins and personal friendship with God. They catch fire for the Lord and emotionally connect with the Christian life for the first time. Then they come to see their upbringing through Protestant eyes, retrospectively discovering that it was full of Mary worship, superstition, and empty rituals. 

Protestants who become Catholic have their own profile. They grew up in serious Christian homes, knew the Bible from a young age, and had a deep personal relationship with Jesus for as long as they can remember. They’ve always had a passion for evangelism, and a hunger to learn more about theology and Scripture. Eventually, they came into contact with serious Catholics for the first time. Once they’ve gotten over the initial shock, they dig deeper to find a beautiful, rich, and alarmingly persuasive understanding of the Gospel, far more profound than anything they’d encountered before. After much thinking, praying, reading, and agonizing, they decide to “lay down their arms”3 and seek entrance to the Church. 

A tweet I once saw (and now cannot find) puts it harshly but succinctly:

Protestants hate Catholic doctrine because they don’t understand it. Catholics hate Protestant doctrine because they do understand it. 

For all the discomfort the word “hate” evokes, the statement rings true. Step back for a moment from the trees, and the forest asserts itself. Across many individual theological debates played out time and again, a theme emerges. Protestant and Catholic polemics are necessarily asymmetrical because the Protestant must always first prove that the Catholic position is something other than what the Church’s doctors and theologians, councils and popes, constitutions and catechisms say that it is. Only once it has been shown what Catholics “really” believe is the position sufficiently vulnerable to attack.4

There is an appropriate version of this. It may come about in the course of history that some view emerges with internal contradictions, as its various commitments pull it in different directions, until it devolves into something unrecognizable, usually the very evil it was incepted to fight. Thus the Puritans, so named to “purify” the Church of England of Catholic influence (not least the alleged salvation by works) became the harshest, most rigorous, conformity-driven variety of Christianity in history. Calvin, seeking above all else to impart a sense of confidence in one’s salvation, cannot but own that he is also the legitimate theological father of William Cowper, an 18th-century poet convinced that God had revealed his own reprobation to him. Perhaps Catholicism is merely inconsistent, the seeds of its corruption hidden in the very teaching it claims with magisterial authority. Perhaps, but I think not. 

When intellectual excavation is performed on the Reformers, it invariably turns out that their very best insights are but recoveries (often genuine!) of Catholic teaching. Furthermore, the mistake that finally turns their movement against its stated purpose will always be the admixture of an idea that the Catholic Church has long since exposed and rejected.5

Catholicism, on the other hand, gives just the opposite result. Notice that while Protestants constantly accuse Catholics of Mary worship, trusting man-made institutions and empty rituals, or “superstitious” practices like making the sign of the Cross, I have never yet been accused of flat-out inconsistency. I have been told that Purgatory attempts to add human effort to Jesus’ free gift of salvation—I have not been told that I believe this in spite of the Catechism, which says that “All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” We know that only the redeemed are friends of Christ, so it follows that whatever Catholics think purgatory is, it must not be something that adds our effort to Christ’s work. Rather, it presupposes the sufficient work of Christ in our redemption. Given that the official teaching is publicly available in black and white, read every day by Fr. Mike, and reiterated by a small army of theologians and Catholic YouTubers, how is it that we are not accused of intellectual inconsistency on top of heresy? The simple answer is best: because when the clear, consistent teaching of the Catholic Church is acknowledged, the paper tigers go up in smoke and ash. Appropriate, given that the word “purgatory” comes from “pyros,” or “fire,” per 1 Corinthians 3.

One possible reply at this point would be this: “Sure, maybe your top theologians have this stuff straight. But I’ve met plenty of common people who don’t understand these subtle distinctions, and they at least are definitely falling into Mary worship, etc.” This objection has some initial plausibility to me, seeing as I once made nearly this exact comment at a Catholic theology reading group. (I remain grateful for their patience with me.) But Catholicism is not like gnosticism: the practices of the many are the practices of the few. Our theologians pray the same Rosary as everyone else, submit to the same Catechism, ask the same saints for intercession. It is possible to double down here and say that the intellectuals are deceived right along with the public, but this seems a reach. History shows the greatest part of common sense to be with the common folk, and in any case, the sheer philosophical incompetence this would require of Catholic theologians is staggering. Before such a charge could be credible, much effort would have to be expended showing that luminaries such as St. Anselm simply missed the fact that vast swathes of his beliefs were so wildly inconsistent with one another that it boggles the mind to imagine him honestly believing all he claimed to. And it would have to be vast swathes, because this phenomenon isn’t an isolated feature of one or two Protestant-Catholic debates. It’s the one thing that can be relied on no matter what particular issue is under discussion. 

Who benefits from these papers tigers? Has chance alone multiplied them, though they multiply not indeed at the rate of tigers so much as rabbits? No doubt, they accumulate in part from the accretions of 500 years of protesting—protests need someone to point the picket line at, after all. But even the most rabid anti-Catholic, endowed with the enormous creativity required to equate the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church with the Whore of Babylon could surely not inflict such a longstanding and grievous wound to Christian unity on his own. As it happens, there is a super-intelligent, untiring, invisible enemy of the Church who benefits greatly from this arrangement. And there, I think, we have our real culprit. 

It is time to quote C.S. Lewis. This passage is from That Hideous Strength, just after the protagonist, Ransom, has awakened the long-sleeping Merlin to help Britain in its hour of need:

Suddenly the magician smote his hand upon his knee. 

“Mehercule!” he cried. “Are we not going too fast? If you are the Pendragon, I am the High Council of Logres and I will counsel you. If the Powers must tear me in pieces to break our enemies, God’s will be done. But is it yet come to that? This Saxon king of yours who sits at Windsor, now. Is there no help in him?” 

“He has no power in this matter.”  […]

“But what of the true clerks? Is there no help in them? It cannot be that all your priests and bishops are corrupted.” 

“The Faith itself is torn in pieces since your day and speaks with a divided voice. Even if it were made whole, the Christians are but a tenth part of the people. There is no help there.” 

“Then let us seek help from over sea. Is there no Christian prince in Neustria or Ireland or Benwick who would come in and cleanse Britain if he were called?” 

“There is no Christian prince left. These other countries are even as Britain, or else sunk deeper still in the disease.” 

“Then we must go higher. We must go to him whose office it is to put down tyrants and give life to dying kingdoms. We must call on the Emperor.” 

“There is no Emperor.”

There is no Emperor, and the Faith itself is torn in pieces. If the most common, most formidable arguments against Catholicism, those that nine in ten Protestants would cite as the reason they aren’t Catholic, are based on misconceptions, perhaps it’s time for us to stop fighting against flesh and blood, and instead turn our prayers against the powers and principalities of darkness. Then we might heal our nations even as they sink “deeper still in the disease.” In one visible communion, we would make war on the Prince of this world, together going “forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.”

< Investigating Catholicism I | Back to the Guide | Further Reading >

St. Gregory of Nyssa, “A Sermon for the Day of the Lights” (c. 372-385 AD)

“The Day of Lights” is what Eastern Christians call Epiphany, the feast day that celebrates the Baptism of Our Lord. 

Now I recognize my own flock: today I behold the wonted figure of the Church, when, turning with aversion from the occupation even of the cares of the flesh, you come together in your undiminished numbers for the service of God—when the people crowds the house, coming within the sacred sanctuary, and when the multitude that can find no place within fills the space outside in the precincts like bees. 

St. Gregory was a bishop, tasked with overseeing (the Greek for bishop is episcopos, literally, “overseer”) the Church in a given geographical area. The area assigned to a bishop is called a “diocese.” As with modern bishops, all the priests (which comes from the Greek presbuteros, “elder”) and deacons in the diocese answered to him. He also managed other administrative and sacramental tasks. Here, he addresses a packed church during the liturgy of a major feast day. 

[...] The time, then, has come, and bears in its course the remembrance of holy mysteries, purifying man—mysteries which purge out from soul and body even that sin which is hard to cleanse away, and which bring us back to that fairness of our first estate which God, the best of artificers, impressed upon us. 

“Holy mysteries” here is not pious jargon. The “mysteries” of Christianity are those truths that our faith is built on and can ultimately be comprehended only by the mind of God Himself. This is above all the Trinity, and second the Incarnation. In a derivative sense, it applies to the episodes of the life of Christ, such as those commended to us for meditation in the Rosary. In this case, as context will make clear, St. Gregory is referring to the sacraments, which are tangible points at which we receive God’s grace. These are not separate from the fundamental mysteries, nor even the mysteries of the life of Christ, but rather are channels connecting us to them. Thus the “remembrance” of these “holy mysteries” entails not simply recalling them but actually making them present. 

Therefore it is that you, the initiated people, are gathered together; and you bring also that people who have not made trial of them, leading, like good fathers, by careful guidance, the uninitiated to the perfect reception of the faith. I for my part rejoice over both—over you that are initiated, because you are enriched with a great gift: over you that are uninitiated, because you have a fair expectation of hope—remission of what is to be accounted for, release from bondage, close relation to God, free boldness of speech, and in place of servile subjection equality with the angels. For these things, and all that follow from them, the grace of Baptism secures and conveys to us. 

The “initiated” here are practicing Christians who have already received the Sacraments of Initiation, particularly Baptism. The uninitiated about to receive this sacrament look forward to three graces in particular, which St. Gregory will unfold throughout the homily. First, they will receive the Holy Spirit. Second, they will receive healing from the wound of original sin. Third, all sins to date will be totally forgiven. Later, he will make reference to Confirmation, another Sacrament of Initiation, which would have been administered immediately after Baptism. But the nature of the feast day naturally leads him to emphasize Baptism first and foremost. 

Therefore let us leave the other matters of the Scriptures for other occasions, and abide by the topic set before us, offering, as far as we may, the gifts that are proper and fitting for the feast: for each festival demands its own treatment. So we welcome a marriage with wedding songs; for mourning we bring the due offering with funeral strains; in times of business we speak seriously, at times of festivity we relax the concentration and strain of our minds; but each time we keep free from disturbance by things that are alien to its character.

Christ, then, was born as it were a few days ago—He Whose generation was before all things, sensible and intellectual. Today He is baptized by John that He might cleanse him who was defiled, that He might bring the Spirit from above, and exalt man to heaven, that he who had fallen might be raised up and he who had cast him down might be put to shame. 

This is the beauty of the Church calendar. The Apostolic Churches, i.e., those directly descending in a chain of bishops from the Apostles themselves, follow a cycle of readings and celebrations that orient the year toward salvation history. For St. Gregory, Christ was in one sense baptized three hundred years ago. In another sense, though, it is right now in liturgical time, time as ordered by the life of the Church. 

[...] Christ, the repairer of [Adam’s] evil-doing, assumes manhood in its fullness, and saves man, and becomes the type and figure of us all, to sanctify the first-fruits of every action, and leave to His servants no doubt in their zeal for the tradition. Baptism, then, is a purification from sins, a remission of trespasses, a cause of renovation and regeneration. By regeneration, understand regeneration conceived in thought, not discerned by bodily sight. For we shall not, according to the Jew Nicodemus and his somewhat dull intelligence, change the old man into a child, nor shall we form anew him who is wrinkled and gray-headed to tenderness and youth, if we bring back the man again into his mother's womb: but we do bring back, by royal grace, him who bears the scars of sin, and has grown old in evil habits, to the innocence of the babe. For as the child new-born is free from accusations and from penalties, so too the child of regeneration has nothing for which to answer, being released by royal bounty from accountability. 

This is important because of how distinctly Catholic it is, and how uncontroversial St. Gregory takes it to be. Baptism is the moment of rebirth/regeneration in the life of a Christian. It’s not merely a public declaration of inward faith. It restores us to the innocence of a baby. But not by magic, as we are about to see. 

And this gift, it is not the water that bestows (for in that case it were a thing more exalted than all creation), but the command of God, and the visitation of the Spirit that comes sacramentally to set us free. But water serves to express the cleansing. For since we are wont by washing in water to render our body clean when it is soiled by dirt or mud, we therefore apply it also in the sacramental action, and display the spiritual brightness by that which is subject to our senses. 

It’s not the water itself, but the water sacramentally united to the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, operative in and through the washing with water, effects a change in us. This initial sketch sets up a lengthy and beautiful inquiry into Scripture, some of which I include below. 

Let us however, if it seems well, persevere in enquiring more fully and more minutely concerning Baptism, starting, as from the fountain-head, from the Scriptural declaration, Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  Why are both named, and why is not the Spirit alone accounted sufficient for the completion of Baptism? Man, as we know full well, is compound, not simple: and therefore the cognate and similar medicines are assigned for healing to him who is twofold and conglomerate:—for his visible body, water, the sensible element—for his soul, which we cannot see, the Spirit invisible, invoked by faith, present unspeakably. For the Spirit breathes where He wills, and you hear His voice, but cannot tell whence He comes or whither He goes.  He blesses the body that is baptized, and the water that baptizes. Despise not, therefore, the Divine laver, nor think lightly of it, as a common thing, on account of the use of water. For the power that operates is mighty, and wonderful are the things that are wrought thereby. 

St. Gregory uses a key concept of Catholic theology, namely, that human beings are not souls or bodies, but body-soul composites. This is why the Sacraments are so important, the reason Christ instituted physical rituals instead of encouraging us to simply believe in our hearts: God does not wish to bypass our embodied nature in the story of our salvation. We have bodies, so He took a body to Himself that we might know Him. Likewise, He has ordained physical means for us to receive spiritual grace. Precisely because the Spirit is “present unspeakably,” we need something that can be spoken in order to come to know and love Him. Of course, God doesn’t need Baptism in order to send His Spirit to us. The physical, embodied nature of Baptism is a divine condescension, a special grace given to us who inhabit a physical, embodied world. 

For this holy altar, too, by which I stand, is stone, ordinary in its nature, nowise different from the other slabs of stone that build our houses and adorn our pavements; but seeing that it was consecrated to the service of God, and received the benediction, it is a holy table, an altar undefiled, no longer touched by the hands of all, but of the priests alone, and that with reverence. 

What makes this stone an altar and not merely a table? Altars are used for sacrifice. St. Gregory here is referencing the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist as a re-presentation, a “making present” of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. Just as “today He is baptized,” so also at every Mass “today He is sacrificed.” 

The bread again is at first common bread, but when the sacramental action consecrates it, it is called, and becomes, the Body of Christ. 

This is a description of the Eucharist, which not only represents but “is called, and becomes” Christ Himself, body, blood, soul, and divinity. This language comes from 1 John 3:1, where St. John says that we “are called, and are, children of God.” Grace not only names us “sons” but makes us sons, since the Word of God always creates what it declares (as in Genesis 1, Luke 22:19, etc.).

So with the sacramental oil; 

Oil is used in three sacraments: Confirmation, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick. 

so with the wine:

That is called, and has become, the Precious Blood of Christ. 

though before the benediction they are of little value, each of them, after the sanctification bestowed by the Spirit, has its several operation. 

Each sacrament is ordered toward sanctifying and healing a different part of us. They are not reducible to any one effect beyond uniting us to God. And although God’s grace is made available to us through many and sundry means, nothing can replace the specific graces conferred by each of the Sacraments. In other words, different graces do not boil down to good moral influence—they are, or may be, incommensurable. This is not so strange; no amount of knowledge about God, for example, could truly replace access to the Bible. Both are important, to be sure—but it would be a mistake to think having one makes the other irrelevant. 

The same power of the word, again, also makes the priest venerable and honourable, separated, by the new blessing bestowed upon him, from his community with the mass of men. While but yesterday he was one of the mass, one of the people, he is suddenly rendered a guide, a president, a teacher of righteousness, an instructor in hidden mysteries; and this he does without being at all changed in body or in form; but, while continuing to be in all appearance the man he was before, being, by some unseen power and grace, transformed in respect of his unseen soul to the higher condition. 

A priest is consecrated by a bishop through the sacrament of Holy Orders. This “higher condition” doesn’t refer to a “stat boost” of some kind, such as increased intelligence or strength. Rather, it specially conforms a man to Christ, so that he can lead his community into greater love and knowledge of God and bring them the Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist in the Mass. 

And so there are many things, which if you consider you will see that their appearance is contemptible, but the things they accomplish are mighty: and this is especially the case when you collect from the ancient history instances cognate and similar to the subject of our inquiry. The rod of Moses was a hazel wand. And what is that, but common wood that every hand cuts and carries, and fashions to what use it chooses, and casts as it will into the fire? But when God was pleased to accomplish by that rod those wonders, lofty, and passing the power of language to express, the wood was changed into a serpent. [...] And the wood of the Cross is of saving efficacy for all men, though it is, as I am informed, a piece of a poor tree, less valuable than most trees are. [...] And all these things, though they were matter without soul or sense, were made the means for the performance of the great marvels wrought by them, when they received the power of God.

Common things becoming instruments of grace is nothing new. Note the passing reference to the Cross, which St. Gregory has apparently heard described. This is especially interesting because this sermon was preached roughly 40 years after St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, is supposed to have discovered the True Cross. This comment seems just casual enough to indicate rumors of the True Cross were known, but had not yet stabilized into concrete traditions, which is probably just right for the amount of time and distance between them. You are, of course, free to believe or disbelieve traditions of this sort, but it is interesting that people St. Gregory had spoken with claimed to have seen the Cross itself first-hand. 

Now by a similar train of reasoning, water also, though it is nothing else than water, renews the man to spiritual regeneration, when the grace from above hallows it. And if any one answers me again by raising a difficulty, with his questions and doubts, continually asking and inquiring how water and the sacramental act that is performed therein regenerate, I most justly reply to him, “Show me the mode of that generation which is after the flesh, and I will explain to you the power of regeneration in the soul.” You will say perhaps, by way of giving an account of the matter, “It is the cause of the seed which makes the man.” Learn then from us in return, that hallowed water cleanses and illuminates the man. And if you again object to me your “How?” I shall more vehemently cry in answer, “How does the fluid and formless substance become a man?” and so the argument as it advances will be exercised on everything through all creation. How does heaven exist? How earth? How sea? How every single thing? For everywhere men's reasoning, perplexed in the attempt at discovery, falls back upon this syllable how, as those who cannot walk fall back upon a seat. To speak concisely, everywhere the power of God and His operation are incomprehensible and incapable of being reduced to rule, easily producing whatever He wills, while concealing from us the minute knowledge of His operation. 

There’s a reason we call them the Sacred Mysteries. We can’t know exactly how it works, we have to trust God. But this shouldn’t be too hard, given that there are a lot of things going on in this world and we have no idea how they work.

[...] Let us then leave the task of searching into what is beyond human power, and seek rather that which shows signs of being partly within our comprehension:—what is the reason why the cleansing is effected by water? And to what purpose are the three immersions received? That which the fathers taught, and which our mind has received and assented to, is as follows:[...] Now our God and Saviour, in fulfilling the Dispensation for our sakes, went beneath the [...] the earth, that He might raise up life from thence. And we in receiving Baptism, in imitation of our Lord and Teacher and Guide, are not indeed buried in the earth (for this is the shelter of the body that is entirely dead, covering the infirmity and decay of our nature), but coming to the element akin to earth, to water, we conceal ourselves in that as the Saviour did in the earth: and by doing this thrice we represent for ourselves that grace of the Resurrection which was wrought in three days: and this we do, not receiving the sacrament in silence, but while there are spoken over us the Names of the Three Sacred Persons on Whom we believed, in Whom we also hope, from Whom comes to us both the fact of our present and the fact of our future existence. 

[There follows an extended argument that all three Persons are equal. St. Gregory frequently disputed against a faction that thought of the Holy Spirit as lesser than the Father and the Son.]

I find that not only do the Gospels, written after the Crucifixion, proclaim the grace of Baptism, but, even before the Incarnation of our Lord, the ancient Scripture everywhere prefigured the likeness of our regeneration; not clearly manifesting its form, but foreshowing, in dark sayings, the love of God to man. And as the Lamb was proclaimed by anticipation, and the Cross was foretold by anticipation, so, too, was Baptism shown forth by action and by word. Let us recall its types to those who love good thoughts—for the festival season of necessity demands their recollection.

“Types” here refers to typological molds that set up a foreshadow-fulfillment relationship between a figure, event, object, or institution in the Old Testament and a fuller completion in the New Testament. If you’re confused, don’t worry; St. Gregory is about to give you a lot of examples. This is one of the primary methods of interpretation among the earliest Christians, including Peter and Paul.

Hagar, the handmaid of Abraham (whom Paul treats allegorically in reasoning with the Galatians), being sent forth from her master's house by the anger of Sarah—for a servant suspected in regard to her master is a hard thing for lawful wives to bear—was wandering in desolation to a desolate land with her babe Ishmael at her breast. And when she was in straits for the needs of life, and was herself near unto death, and her child yet more sore for the water in the skin was spent (since it was not possible that the Synagogue, she who once dwelt among the figures of the perennial Fountain, should have all that was needed to support life), an angel unexpectedly appears, and shows her a well of living water, and drawing thence, she saves Ishmael. Behold, then, a sacramental type: how from the very first it is by the means of living water that salvation comes to him that was perishing—water that was not before, but was given as a boon by an angel's means. Again, at a later time, Isaac—the same for whose sake Ishmael was driven with his mother from his father's home—was to be wedded. Abraham's servant is sent to make the match, so as to secure a bride for his master, and finds Rebekah at the well: and a marriage that was to produce the race of Christ had its beginning and its first covenant in water. Yes, and Isaac himself also, when he was ruling his flocks, dug wells at all parts of the desert, which the aliens stopped and filled up, for a type of all those impious men of later days who hindered the grace of Baptism, and talked loudly in their struggle against the truth. Yet the martyrs and the priests overcame them by digging the wells, and the gift of Baptism over-flowed the whole world. According to the same force of the text, Jacob also, hastening to seek a bride, met Rachel unexpectedly at the well. And a great stone lay upon the well, which a multitude of shepherds were wont to roll away when they came together, and then gave water to themselves and to their flocks. But Jacob alone rolls away the stone, and waters the flocks of his spouse. The thing is, I think, a dark saying, a shadow of what should come. For what is the stone that is laid but Christ Himself? For of Him Isaiah says, “And I will lay in the foundations of Sion a costly stone, precious, elect:” and Daniel likewise, “A stone was cut out without hands,” that is, Christ was born without a man. For as it is a new and marvellous thing that a stone should be cut out of the rock without a hewer or stone-cutting tools, so it is a thing beyond all wonder that an offspring should appear from an unwedded Virgin. There was lying, then, upon the well the spiritual stone, Christ, concealing in the deep and in mystery the laver of regeneration which needed much time—as it were a long rope—to bring it to light. And none rolled away the stone save Israel, who is mind [sic.] seeing God. But he both draws up the water and gives drink to the sheep of Rachel; that is, he reveals the hidden mystery, and gives living water to the flock of the Church.

Add to this also the history of the three rods of Jacob. For from the time when the three rods were laid by the well, Laban the polytheist thenceforth became poor, and Jacob became rich and wealthy in herds. Now let Laban be interpreted of the devil, and Jacob of Christ. For after the institution of Baptism Christ took away all the flock of Satan and Himself grew rich. Again, the great Moses, when he was a goodly child, and yet at the breast, falling under the general and cruel decree which the hard-hearted Pharaoh made against the men-children, was exposed on the banks of the river—not naked, but laid in an ark, for it was fitting that the Law should typically be enclosed in a coffer. And he was laid near the water; for the Law, and those daily sprinklings of the Hebrews which were a little later to be made plain in the perfect and marvellous Baptism, are near to grace. Again, according to the view of the inspired Paul, the people itself, by passing through the Red Sea, proclaimed the good tidings of salvation by water. The people passed over, and the Egyptian king with his host was engulfed, and by these actions this Sacrament was foretold. For even now, whenever the people is in the water of regeneration, fleeing from Egypt, from the burden of sin, it is set free and saved; but the devil with his own servants (I mean, of course, the spirits of evil), is choked with grief, and perishes, deeming the salvation of men to be his own misfortune.

Patristic commentary really makes modern scholarship feel like stamp collecting. He’s not even done. 

Even these instances might be enough to confirm our present position; but the lover of good thoughts must yet not neglect what follows. The people of the Hebrews, as we learn, after many sufferings, and after accomplishing their weary course in the desert, did not enter the land of promise until it had first been brought, with Joshua for its guide and the pilot of its life, to the passage of the Jordan. But it is clear that Joshua also, who set up the twelve stones in the stream, was anticipating the coming of the twelve disciples, the ministers of Baptism. Again, that marvellous sacrifice of the old Tishbite,

That is, Elijah. He’s talking about his showdown with the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18.

that passes all human understanding, what else does it do but prefigure in action the Faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and redemption? For when all the people of the Hebrews had trodden underfoot the religion of their fathers, and fallen into the error of polytheism, and their king Ahab was deluded by idolatry, with Jezebel, of ill-omened name, as the wicked partner of his life, and the vile prompter of his impiety, the prophet, filled with the grace of the Spirit, coming to a meeting with Ahab, withstood the priests of Baal in a marvellous and wondrous contest in the sight of the king and all the people; and by proposing to them the task of sacrificing the bullock without fire, he displayed them in a ridiculous and wretched plight, vainly praying and crying aloud to gods that were not. At last, himself invoking his own and the true God, he accomplished the test proposed with further exaggerations and additions. For he did not simply by prayer bring down the fire from heaven upon the wood when it was dry, but exhorted and enjoined the attendants to bring abundance of water. 

This next bit is phenomenal.

And when he had thrice poured out the barrels upon the cleft wood, he kindled at his prayer the fire from out of the water, that by the contrariety of the elements, so concurring in friendly cooperation, he might show with superabundant force the power of his own God. Now herein, by that wondrous sacrifice, Elijah clearly proclaimed to us the sacramental rite of Baptism that should afterwards be instituted. For the fire was kindled by water thrice poured upon it, so that it is clearly shown that where the mystic water is, there is the kindling, warm, and fiery Spirit, that burns up the ungodly, and illuminates the faithful. 

[There follow many, many more examples, well worth reading, which mostly go along the same themes: Baptism heals/cleanses/remits sin, and Baptism is the beginning of Christian life, imparting the Holy Spirit.]

But here we must make an end of the testimonies from the Divine Scriptures: for the discourse would extend to an infinite length if one should seek to select every passage in detail, and set them forth in a single book.

But do ye all, as many as are made glad, by the gift of regeneration, and make your boast of that saving renewal, show me, after the sacramental grace, the change in your ways that should follow it, and make known by the purity of your conversation the difference effected by your transformation for the better. For of those things which are before our eyes nothing is altered: the characteristics of the body remain unchanged, and the mould of the visible nature is nowise different. But there is certainly need of some manifest proof, by which we may recognize the new-born man, discerning by clear tokens the new from the old. And these I think are to be found in the intentional motions of the soul, whereby it separates itself from its old customary life, and enters on a newer way of conversation, and will clearly teach those acquainted with it that it has become something different from its former self, bearing in it no token by which the old self was recognized. This, if you be persuaded by me, and keep my words as a law, is the mode of the transformation. 

The man that was before Baptism was wanton, covetous, grasping at the goods of others, a reviler, a liar, a slanderer, and all that is kindred with these things, and consequent from them. Let him now become orderly, sober, content with his own possessions, and imparting from them to those in poverty, truthful, courteous, affable—in a word, following every laudable course of conduct. For as darkness is dispelled by light, and black disappears as whiteness is spread over it, so the old man also disappears when adorned with the works of righteousness. You see how Zacchæus also by the change of his life slew the publican, making fourfold restitution to those whom he had unjustly damaged, and the rest he divided with the poor—the treasure which he had before got by ill means from the poor whom he oppressed. The Evangelist Matthew, another publican, of the same business with Zacchæus, at once after his call changed his life as if it had been a mask. Paul was a persecutor, but after the grace bestowed on him an Apostle, bearing the weight of his fetters for Christ's sake, as an act of amends and repentance for those unjust bonds which he once received from the Law, and bore for use against the Gospel. Such ought you to be in your regeneration: so ought you to blot out your habits that tend to sin; so ought the sons of God to have their conversation: for after the grace bestowed we are called His children.

And therefore we ought narrowly to scrutinize our Father's characteristics, that by fashioning and framing ourselves to the likeness of our Father, we may appear true children of Him Who calls us to the adoption according to grace. For the bastard and the supposititious son, who belies his father's nobility in his deeds, is a sad reproach. Therefore also, methinks, it is that the Lord Himself, laying down for us in the Gospels the rules of our life, uses these words to His disciples, “Do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” For then He says they are sons when in their own modes of thought they are fashioned in loving kindness towards their kindred, after the likeness of the Father's goodness.

This is standard Catholic theology following Ephesians 2:8-11. We are saved by grace, through faith, for works. Works are necessary not in the sense of causing salvation, but in the sense of inexorably following from it. This fits very naturally with the earlier assumption on St. Gregory’s part that grace is transformative.

Therefore, also, it is that after the dignity of adoption the devil plots more vehemently against us, pining away with envious glance, when he beholds the beauty of the new-born man, earnestly tending towards that heavenly city, from which he fell: and he raises up against us fiery temptations, seeking earnestly to despoil us of that second adornment, as he did of our former array. But when we are aware of his attacks, we ought to repeat to ourselves the apostolic words, “As many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death” (Romans 6:3). Now if we have been conformed to His death, sin henceforth in us is surely a corpse, pierced through by the javelin of Baptism, as that fornicator was thrust through by the zealous Phinehas (Numbers 25:7-8). Flee therefore from us, ill-omened one! For it is a corpse you seek to despoil, one long ago joined to you, one who long since lost his senses for pleasures. A corpse is not enamoured of bodies, a corpse is not captivated by wealth, a corpse slanders not, a corpse lies not, snatches not at what is not its own, reviles not those who encounter it. My way of living is regulated for another life: I have learned to despise the things that are in the world, to pass by the things of earth, to hasten to the things of heaven, even as Paul expressly testifies, that the world is crucified to him, and he to the world. These are the words of a soul truly regenerated: these are the utterances of the newly-baptized man, who remembers his own profession, which he made to God when the sacrament was administered to him, promising that he would despise for the sake of love towards Him all torment and all pleasure alike.

It was standard practice at the time to perform exorcisms on candidates for Baptism that could take up to a month. 

And now we have spoken sufficiently for the holy subject of the day, which the circling year brings to us at appointed periods. 

Another reference to the Church calendar. 

We shall do well in what remains to end our discourse by turning it to the loving Giver of so great a boon, offering to Him a few words as the requital of great things. For You verily, O Lord, are the pure and eternal fount of goodness, Who justly turned away from us, and in loving kindness had mercy upon us. You hated, and were reconciled; You cursed, and blessed; You banished us from Paradise, and recalled us; You stripped off the fig-tree leaves, an unseemly covering, and put upon us a costly garment; You opened the prison, and released the condemned; You sprinkled us with clean water, and cleanse us from our filthiness. No longer shall Adam be confounded when called by You, nor hide himself, convicted by his conscience, cowering in the thicket of Paradise. Nor shall the flaming sword encircle Paradise around, and make the entrance inaccessible to those that draw near; but all is turned to joy for us that were the heirs of sin: Paradise, yea, heaven itself may be trodden by man: and the creation, in the world and above the world, that once was at variance with itself, is knit together in friendship: and we men are made to join in the angels' song, offering the worship of their praise to God. For all these things then let us sing to God that hymn of joy, which lips touched by the Spirit long ago sang loudly: “Let my soul be joyful in the Lord: for He has clothed me with a garment of salvation, and has put upon me a robe of gladness: as on a bridegroom He has set a mitre upon me, and as a bride has He adorned me with fair array.” And verily the Adorner of the bride is Christ, Who is, and was, and shall be, blessed now and for evermore. Amen.

No wonder this sermon has been passed down for almost 1700 years. Let us briefly recapitulate the distinctly Catholic elements of St. Gregory’s teaching:

• Baptism washes away all sin.

• Baptism imparts the Holy Spirit. 

• The oil of anointing, the church altar, the bread and wine, and the priest are all transformed by the act of consecration, each then able to communicate God’s grace to Christians after their “several operations.” 

• Several sacraments are recognized, and although not all are explicitly named, there are clearly more than the two admitted by Protestants (Baptism and Communion).

• Humans are seen as a combination of body and soul, aligning with the Aristotelian and later Thomistic theory of hylomorphism, a favorite even today among Catholic philosophers. 

• Baptism takes place according to the Church calendar, which also exists and seems standardized. 

• Several references to relics, both from the Old Testament and the New. 

All this amounts to a sermon that reads as very natural to a Catholic, and very unnatural to a Protestant. It is especially telling that many of what would now be seen as distinctly Catholic views appear to have been totally uncontroversial—the only claim St. Gregory goes out of his way to defend is about the Holy Spirit. He’s clearly willing to argue for positions he knows are contested, so it’s not just a preference to avoid conflict. Rather, he thinks that the vast majority of his discourse is theological common knowledge, neither innovative nor surprising to his audience. 

Perhaps things had gone totally off the rails by the late 300’s, but this line of response runs the risk of triggering the General Apostasy Dilemma. It seems we are forced to say that by at least St. Gregory’s time, Christianity was Catholic. And if Catholic Christianity was the norm by the close of the 300’s, one cannot help but feel it disingenuous to maintain that true Christianity had sprouted, spread, died, and been universally supplanted in such a short time, or had mutated the same defects evenly across cultural, linguistic, and geographic barriers. Given Jesus’ promise that the Church would endure, it would be better and simpler to suppose that St. Gregory’s Christianity was the Christianity of the 200’s was the Christianity of the 100’s was the Christianity of the Apostles, which came from Christ. But if what St. Gregory takes as given has its roots in Christ, then so does the Catholic Church of the 2000’s when she proclaims the same. This massive continuity is obviously beyond the reckoning or powers of mortals; it is another grace from God. In the end, we must agree with the words of Lumen Gentium:1

Resources and Further Reading

…the opposed Protestant beliefs on this subject call forth feelings which go down to the very roots of all Monotheism whatever. To radical Protestants it seems that the distinction between Creator and creature (however holy) is imperilled: that Polytheism is risen again.2

Lewis’ characteristically effortless prose conceals exact precision. He is right to describe the Protestant reaction as involving both belief, which tracks reason, and feeling, a kind of aesthetic and even moral disgust. It’s an instance of what I call the “Cathol-ick.” I’ll set that aside for the moment, though in reality it plays just as important a role in the reaction against veneration as any syllogism. Here, I treat the belief side—the side directly responsive to reason.

The question is whether anything separates two supposedly distinct actions (veneration and worship). We must begin, then, by thinking about the nature of action.3

Actions are always done for reasons. They aim at bringing things about. Because of this, actions are inherently intelligible; the aim of an action is built into it, so to speak. You can read the intention in the action itself. When you furtively bury Fireball airplane shooters beneath a mound of popcorn in the movie theater lobby, anyone watching will clearly understand what you’re up to: you’re hiding alcohol. Furthermore, several actions (and therefore several intentions) can be nested together. So you have a larger project, Sneaking alcohol into the movies, composed of several smaller actions, each designated by a specific intention and each directed toward the larger project. So you will bring the Fireball, then buy popcorn, then hide the alcohol, then bootleg it in. In any action with a structure like this, you have the intention of the specific action in question as well as a motivation, the larger project it’s part of. So you intend to sneak in the alcohol (including all the sub-actions that entails), and your motivation is to survive the latest in the relentless onslaught of Marvel movies you only keep watching because of a decade of sunk costs. 

For an action to be morally acceptable, neither the intention nor the motivation may be tainted with evil. You may neither intend intrinsically evil actions (i.e., dismembering an unborn infant) nor undertake morally neutral actions for evil motivations (i.e., using social media as a way to avoid the painful spiritual work of reckoning with God’s call on your life). To be clear, the ends do not justify the means; you may not will an intrinsically evil action even if the motivation is good and it seems like your hand has been forced by necessity. You may not, for example, drop an atomic bomb on thousands of civilians (including two-thirds of Japan’s Catholics), even to avoid what would otherwise have been a gruesome land invasion. Elizabeth Anscombe says it with the appropriate implacability: “Whatever human hopes for the happiness of mankind may be, the only way to that happiness is the observance of God’s law without any deviation.”4 Because the intention of an action is built into the action itself, there is no room for saying, “Well yes, I did scan a Nintendo Switch as a banana in self-checkout, but I intended to pay for it!” Clearly you did not. 

The trouble with this straightforward picture is that it can be very difficult to determine the intention (much less the motivation) of an action from the outside. Like a passage of difficult prose, you may need more context than you have to determine its meaning, although the meaning is no less fixed. To the untrained eye, a gardener may seem to be destroying a fruit tree when he is only pruning it. To make matters more confusing, the range of possible intentions far outstrips the range of human expressions. C.S. Lewis notices this, commenting on how strange it is that speaking in tongues (or glossolalia) should be outwardly identical to spewing gibberish:

It looks, therefore, as if we shall have to say that the very same phenomenon which is sometimes not only natural but even pathological is at other times (or at least at one other time) the organ of the Holy Ghost.5

It’s a bit like how you sometimes have to look very carefully before you can tell whether someone is crying or laughing, and then, if they’re crying, you may have to use context to infer whether it’s from joy or grief. Notice: two emotions, exactly opposite, share the same physical expression. Discerning intention sometimes requires more information than the outward act itself offers. Motivation can be even harder—a broader sense of an individual’s goals and self-understanding is often essential. 

Catholics can be accused of idol worship along two possible lines. First, the Catholic use of images could be wrongly motivated. That is, whatever the status of “bowing in front of an image,” Catholics are engaged in a sustained effort to displace the Creator with creatures. This seems implausible to me, given what I’ve argued here. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s a passage from Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, a book that systematically reports the Church’s teaching without additional theologizing: 

The Old Testament prohibition of the making and veneration of images  (Ex. 20:4ff) on which the opponents of the veneration of images rely, was intended to prevent the Israelites from relapsing into the idolatry of their pagan environment. The prohibition is valid for Christianity only in so far as it prohibits the idolatrous worship of images. Further, even the Old Testament knew exceptions from the prohibition of the making of images: Ex. 25:18 (two cherubim of gold on the ark); Numbers 21:8 (the brazen serpent). Owing to the influence of the Old Testament prohibition of images, Christian veneration of images developed only after the victory of the Church over paganism.6

You don’t have to take Ott’s word either; here’s the Catechism (quoting a combination of St. Basil, Trent, and Vatican II, then St. Thomas Aquinas at the end):

The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, "the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype," and "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it." The honor paid to sacred images is a "respectful veneration," not the adoration due to God alone: “Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.” 

A large-scale motivation to worship idols is out. The second line of attack accuses Catholics of directing actions to images that intrinsically intend worship and, if directed towards a physical object, automatically express an intention to worship that object. This argument is much more interesting. To simplify things, let’s treat bowing before an image as a paradigm case; if bowing before a depiction of Mary, a saint, or even Christ crucified is worshipping that image, then all other image-related devotions are also corrupt. But if it’s vindicated, then image veneration in general is.

Subscribe now

The puzzle to solve is whether bowing before an image is ambiguous between several possible intentions or always entails a specific, in this case illicit, intention. Is it like the earlier case of cutting the limbs off a fruit tree (which could equally express an intention to prepare it for removal or to flourish come spring), or is it like torture (which always requires forming an evil intention)? Remember, good motivation alone is not enough to get Catholics off the hook. We must cleave absolutely to God’s law. 

The place to start is the Bible. I found this interesting post on Stack Exchange while poking around before writing this article:
Question:

Joshua 7:6

Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the Lord, remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads.

Does this break the First Commandment that one is to worship God alone? Why is Joshua permitted to bow down before the Ark?

Answer: 

You can show reverence to God's holy ark, and thereby honor God, without considering it God. Is kneeling or bowing to a king necessarily worship? No, nothing in that action assumes they are God, even if you can also do that before God. One distinguishes any action as worship in their heart; the external gestures might look identical. For example, when you ask Jesus for some grace, versus ask your friend to pray for you. The gesture of asking will look the same, but not the inward intention or consideration of who the one being asked is.

Bolding added. The responder’s username is “Sola Gratia;” no Catholic sympathizer, yet I couldn’t ask for a better articulation of the Catholic position. Gratias’s insight is what makes this painting legible:7

But I go further: the act of bowing isn’t intrinsically ordered even to veneration, much less worship. It was a Reformed philosopher who first drew my attention to the import of this passage from 2 Kings 5 (ESV): 

Then [Naaman, the healed Syrian] returned to the man of God…And he said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel…from now on your servant will not offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god but the Lord. In this matter may the Lord pardon your servant: when my master goes into the house of Rimmon to worship there, leaning on my arm, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon your servant in this matter.” [Elisha] said to him, “Go in peace.”

Naaman is literally bowing before an actual idol, yet Elisha accepts his explanation. Naaman will be bowing as he supports the weight of his elderly master, but won’t be worshipping along with him. This agrees with God’s word to Samuel: “The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” Note well: the action would be intrinsically different if he weren’t physically supporting his master. The point is emphatically not that it’s ok to venerate idols so long as you don’t “intend” it. That would be a contradiction in terms. The point is that “venerate” is not automatically included in “lower yourself to your knees and bend at the waist.”

What this means is that it is impossible to automatically equate bowing before an image with worshipping it. The action is ambiguous between several different intentions. The question, then, is what Catholics do intend when they bow before an image. And to answer that, it is perhaps best to simply ask them. Or their theologians. Or their Catechism. (See above.)

Could it be that Catholics worship images in spite of Catholic teaching, out of deep confusion? This can only be maintained with a strong dose of elitism. It requires the following line of reasoning: “Granted, Eric, when you use images as part of your worship, or you bow before a statue of Mary, or anything else, you understand that you’re really worshipping God and not Mary. But most Catholics don’t get it.” I respond: If millions of Protestants can understand that God alone is God, why couldn’t 1.4 billion Catholics? Recall that every Rosary begins with the Apostle’s Creed, the Sunday Mass includes a group recitation of the Nicene Creed and (as I mentioned in the last post about veneration) features a declaration in the Glory to God that’s as strong as could be asked for:

For You alone are the Holy One,
You alone are the Lord,
You alone are the Most High,
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit,
in the glory of the Father.

In light of all this, you can rest easy when you see things like this: 

It works on the exact same principles that explain how worshipping at or even “through” the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is not the same as praying to it, even if an uninformed first glance seems to say otherwise:

The images that Catholics use are not “graven images” in the biblical sense any more than the angels on the Ark were. We worship neither saint nor stone. Our motivations and intentions are fixed firmly on the Lord. And we hope in faith that through these venerable images, we may join our prayers with those depicted and all the more fervently proclaim with the Mass:

Therefore with angels and archangels,
and with all the company of heaven,
we proclaim your great and glorious name,
forever praising you and saying:
Holy, holy, holy Lord,
God of power and might.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.

< Veneration II: Idolatry Begets Sin | F.A.Q. List | The Church F.A.Q.’s >

But suppose Protestants are right that when Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox venerate Mary and the saints, they’re actually (secretly? accidentally?) worshipping them. Even as the early Christians dogmatically proclaimed that Christ was fully God and fully man, they were filling their churches and homes with Church-sanctioned versions of the very same idols they had cast away at conversion. And this apostasy has remained hidden from the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Churches in the intervening centuries, so that today more people worship idols in churches than ever did in Roman temples. It has become so deeply interwoven with the lives of these so-called “Churches” that their greatest expositors of the Gospel, “Saint” (for no idolater can be called a true saint) Thomas Aquinas, “Saint” Francis of Assisi, “Saint” Anselm, “Saint” John Paul II, and countless lesser lights including the present author, failed to notice that they’d wholesale abandoned the one true God. What’s puzzling, of course, is that this obviously is not the case. 

Adapting a phrase from Andy Crouch, idols begin by demanding nothing and giving you everything, but end by demanding everything and giving nothing. All is consumed, even the very pleasure we thought we had chosen over God.1 It is instructive that Judas came to find even the silver he’d traded Christ for hateful. Sin observes no appeasement treaties. It keeps on coming until it is finally victorious or totally eradicated. It follows that if the Catholic Church (and the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Oriental Orthodox Churches) has fallen into deep idolatry, it is utterly shocking that after 1500 years2 of worshipping Mary and the saints through icons, statues, songs, and festivals, you’d find a statement like this one from the late Pope Benedict XVI:

Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

Benedict is orienting us not towards “practices,” or “works,” or even “ideas,” but a person: Jesus Christ. This is not an anomaly. If Catholics are idolaters, wouldn’t it be equally surprising to find, say, the Nicene Creed read at every Sunday Mass? Or, better still, consider this bit from the Glory to God, another prayer read at every Sunday Mass:

For You alone are the Holy One,
You alone are the Lord,
You alone are the Most High,
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit,
in the glory of the Father.

If I were Satan, and I had a 1500-year stranglehold on the Church via ubiquitous idol worship, elimating this prayer would become my number one priority. Additionally, I would never permit any of my highly-useful images to look like this: 

This image, Our Lady of Guadalupe, is almost single-handedly responsible for converting Mexico, and in time became important for all of South America. Did the Catholic Church lead millions to simply trade one idol for another? Attend to the image itself. What is Mary doing? Praying. She has her head bowed in humility, her hands folded in supplication. She is acknowledging her creaturely status and pointing us to the Creator. As in the Wedding at Cana, she brings us to Jesus and says “Do whatever He tells you.” The vague but gripping worry that Catholics treat Mary as a kind alternative god vanishes like so much vapor in sunlight when you ask what would normally be an obvious question but is studiously avoided in all anti-Marian polemics: WHY do Catholics (and Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox) esteem her so highly? If she were an idol, the only answer you could dependably rule out is “Because she points us to Jesus.” But in practice, when you ask even ill-formed Catholics, this is always the answer.3 Mutatis mutandi for the saints: Why do we venerate the great Christian men and women who have gone before us? So that we can learn from their example and benefit from their prayers as we seek to deepen our love and friendship with the Lord.

So here it is: either A) The Catholic Church does practice idolatry, but hamartiology (the doctrine of sin) has to be completely rewritten to account for a form of idolatry that happily coexists with almost overbearing love for the Trinity and fanatical focus on the Incarnation, or B) the Catholic Church does not practice idolatry, which implies that there really is a distinction between worship and veneration. (A) is clearly false since there can be no peace between God and sin. As Christopher Watkin puts it, “God is only angered by sin; God is always angered by sin.”4 But if (A) is false then (B) is true, and Catholics are absolved from all blanket charges of idol worship where Mary and the saints are concerned.

This conclusion is compatible with feeling discomfort at how particular devotions manifest. A later post will deal with the “But you’re literally bowing to an image!!!!!” objection. For now, it is enough to note that for this feeling of disgust to resolve into a real argument with premises and conclusions, you will inevitably have to equate veneration with idolatry, at which point you trigger the dilemma above.

Subscribe now

< Veneration I: Analogical Predication | F.A.Q. List | The Church F.A.Q.’s >

The central claim of Catholicism is this: The Triune God created us for a loving relationship with Himself, and although we are in rebellion against Him, He came to heal us by becoming human, living among us, dying at our hands, and rising again. Now, by joining ourselves to His Body, the Church, we can be restored and sent out to proclaim the Good News of man’s reconciliation with his God. 

This should all be pretty familiar to the Protestant audience I write for. What is less familiar is everything the Catholic Church teaches is contained within it. If the picture is so simple, where did all this stuff come from? We leave the Church in the Acts of the Apostles living out a kind of communitarian arrangement, with her leaders roaming around planting new parishes and trying not to get killed. How did she get from there to a global system of priests and bishops, from spontaneous proclamations of the Gospel to dozens of memorized prayers, from preaching about Christ to setting out moral teachings on birth control, euthanasia, and more? And when did she get so wealthy? 

All fair questions, though I would object to some of their premises. The point is, when making substantial contact with Catholicism for the first time, many Protestants find it all utterly baffling. Arcane, elaborate, and apparently pointless. It instantly calls to mind what Jesus says to the Pharisees: 

Thus you [Pharisees] nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.1

Remember, though, that Our Lord also says:

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat [Greek cathedra]. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. 

The question is not whether the Catholic Church today is identical in all respects to the Church of 33 AD, any more than Jesus was concerned to show that the practice and teaching of the Pharisees were exactly those of Moses. Instead, the question is whether the Catholic Church has inherited the authority to speak definitively about what the Gospel reveals. That’s the big-picture question—let’s start with something more modest (and more pressing): How would you even begin finding something like that out? What follows are some principles and tips for those trying to understand Catholicism. 

When I explore new topics, I think of the subject as a blank map, which reading, listening, and conversing slowly fill in, first with the most prominent landmarks, then later with details about all the trails and streams. Here are some of the first features you should add to your Catholicism map:

• The Church 

The claim is not that the Roman Church simply has the highest percentage of correct teachings, or that she is simply the biggest and best of all denominations. Rather, it is that Jesus has given us His promise that her teaching will never err in matters of faith and morals. Church leadership can be understood in three broad tiers: First, local priests (Greek presbuteroi) look after individual churches or “parishes.” Their function is to guide their flocks, teach them the Faith, and administer the Sacraments. Second, bishops (Greek episcopai) look after the parishes within a geographical territory called a diocese. They are primarily teachers, a sort of local doctrinal magistrate, but they also oversee the various administrative and disciplinary tasks of the diocese. Third, the Pope is the bishop of Rome, which is important because that is the seat (Greek cathedra) of St. Peter, to whom Christ entrusted the Keys of the Kingdom. The Pope is not a C.E.O. or a king, but a global head pastor and final court of appeals on matters of faith and morals. He is the shepherd of all Christians, whether they recognize his authority or not, and it is his task to guide the Church through the turbulent cultural and political waters the Church constantly finds herself in during her earthly pilgrimage. 

• The Sacraments 

The seven Sacraments are means instituted by Christ for Christians to become “partakers of the divine nature.” Akin to how the sacrificial system of the Old Testament provided objective ways to make freewill offerings to God, seek forgiveness, and more, the Sacraments are objective ways for Christians to sanctify their lives and mark them as dedicated to Christ, both by outward signs and the inward changes they effect. It would be too involved a task to take up even an brief summary of each here, but you should think of the Sacraments as the chief equipment, training, and diet we need to make it up the mountain to our home. Because their power is simply the power of Christ, this helps remind us that we contribute nothing to our homeward journey that doesn’t come from God in the first place. 

• The “Stuff” 

When you first hear Catholics talk about the spiritual life, you will likely be struck by the sheer variety and strangeness of it. If you, like me, encountered the fantasy genre long before Catholicism, it might seem that “Supreme Pontifex,” “charisms,” “the Liturgy of the Eucharist,” “mystical visions,” “the Magisterium,” and “thuribles” all sit more comfortably next to “elves and dwarves” than “taxes and ties.” And if you, also like me, were raised Evangelical, your instinctual reaction to all this will be to recoil, as the question “What could all this possibly have to do with Jesus?” leaps to mind with sirens and flashing lights. Permit me to counsel patience. It really is like learning a new language. You may not presently even have the conceptual scaffolding to make sense of the intercession of the saints, much less the “luminous darkness.” Take it one step at a time, and feel free to simply ignore anything that isn’t helpful for the time being. I myself did not warm up to Marian piety for almost a year after I became Catholic. I promise that if you take your initial reaction not rhetorically but as a serious line of inquiry, you will find that every Catholic practice is radically Christocentric, though it may not be obvious to the mistrustful or untrained eye. 

This first sketch of the Catholic Church, of course, does not represent what are necessarily the most important Catholic doctrines. This is an introduction with a specific audience in mind, not a systematic theology. The Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement and Resurrection, the Bible—all these would feature prominently in a work like that. But because Protestants and Catholics are generally on the same page about these matters, I have passed over them for the time being. 

So you’re ready to depart, map and pencil in hand; where to next? Obviously, I will keep writing here, but there are many other great resources. And many bad ones! I keep a running list of the good ones here. Anything outside of these are worth taking with a grain, bucket, or barge of salt. If you find yourself on Catholic Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, you’ve taken a wrong turn. If you stumble on anything talking about “trads,” just go ahead and close the tab for now.2 Focus on prayer, careful study, and attentively listening to what the Spirit might be saying to you. It has never been easier to study these matters, both because of the quantity and availability of excellent resources, and because since Vatican II the Catholic Church has endeavored to use language less opaque to nonCatholic Christians, our “separated brethren.” 

Turning to practical recommendations, look at the Mass times for your local parish. They will have several on Sunday and probably some on Saturday night, so you won’t have to skip your church’s Sunday morning service. When you visit, find out (the priest will know) when they are running OCIA (Order of Catholic Initiation for Adults) and check that out. Even if you’re not intending to become Catholic, these classes are designed to walk you through the basics. They will also put you in touch with other people asking questions, and (ideally) a competent priest or layperson capable of answering them. If you look around and can’t find a good dialogue partner/theological guide, please reach out and let me know—I keep up several correspondences and would be happy to talk! 

It will also be helpful to ask your Protestant pastors and friends why they’re not Catholic. You will quickly discover almost all of them either haven’t thought much about it or believe common misconceptions (Catholics worship Mary, believe in works-based salvation, etc.). During this process, record your questions, either on paper or in your Notes app. Start by asking yourself this: “What would it take for me to be convinced Catholicism was true?” List as many objections that would need to be answered, claims that would need to be defended, etc., as possible. It would be great to add anything new your Protestant conversation partners bring up. When you ascertain the Catholic response, jot it down. If it puts your initial question to rest, mark it as closed. If it raises new questions or objections, indicate that your original question is closed and then list the new ones. Why all this record-keeping? It’s biblical. Over and over, the Israelites are entreated to remember. Remember that you were slaves, remember that the Lord brought you from Egypt, remember that He drove out the nations before you, remember the Covenant. We are prone to forget what is not right in front of us. Satan, of course, does not want you to give sustained attention to your questions. Do not let “the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful;” Remember. 

Lastly, follow your interest. The questions and subjects you are most drawn to are the best ones to start with.

That’s enough to get you started. I leave you with the words of Pope St. John Paul II: 

Back to The Guide