Hi Dave,
I think "humorous" is a politically correct and diplomatic way to describe Hay's article and general argumentation. Scott Hahn has multiple television shows on the world's largest Catholic Television network started by a nun and writes books recognized by catholics of all stripes - and yet he's really got a hybrid faith.
Same goes for you. Your site, your books, your articles in Cathoic Magazines and appearances on Catholic Radio shows run by cradle Catholics, well, they all evidence that yours is a hybrid faith as well and not the real Catholic McCoy. And for some reason, this has escaped the perception of all those cradle Catholics with whom you interface and even your own publishing house.
I don't know how you do it, Dave, but it's hard for me to take these guys seriously and to remain cordial.
God bless you for your patience.
James P. Caputo
Poor chap. My family has a good friend in the Assembly of God who genuinely thought she was giving us a compliment about our conversion by saying that she thought Catholics can be saved, and could not recognize that she was essentially saying that we were saved because of whatever Protestant evangelical baggage we brought with us. It's like listening to someone extol the virtues of phrenology or offering theories about extraterrestrials building the pyramids.
PS. My faith is a hybrid of of the Jehovah's Witness faith, Protestantism and Catholicism. Even though I've sung over 600 masses, have worked with dozens of priests and discussed my faith with them, have led numerous people to the Church and teach CCD classes - well, it's still a hybrid faith. Just stands to reason, right?
IT makes me think the Catholic Church that Steve Hays hates does not really exist. In fact, if it did, most Catholics would hate it too. A church that worships Mary, that beleives in salvation by works and not grace, and refuses to think about theology for fear of contradicting the pope. This is the church many protestants, like Scott Hahn, were surprised not to find when they came to the Catholic church. Steve Hays does not know this but he would love the real Catholic church if he only took the time to learn what it is all about.
>I don't know how you do it, Dave, but it's hard for me to take these guys seriously and to remain cordial.
Only by mostly ignoring them and appreciating the humorous aspects, believe me.
>IT makes me think the Catholic Church that Steve Hays hates does not really exist. In fact, if it did, most Catholics would hate it too. A church that worships Mary, that beleives in salvation by works and not grace, and refuses to think about theology for fear of contradicting the pope.
Not only that: did you see how he thinks Vatican II established the Church as officially liberal too? That was a real screamer. Now he's talking like our Catholic so-called "trads." It's no surprise to me that their analysis would simultaneously line up with an anti-Catholic Protestant and liberal; I've been saying that for years, and here is yet another confirmation.
Another insight into Steve Hays' utterly incoherent picture of Catholicism:
"2.And at this point I’d also say: thank God for denominations!
"Unlike a big tent affair, such as Roman Catholicism, Protestants don’t have to fudge a Delphically duplicitous compromise position in order to keep everyone under the same roof.
"I’m grateful for liberal denominations. I’d glad to have a clear-cut separation between Bible-believing Christians and nominal believers."
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2...re-is-
less.html
That's why, if anyone strikes Hays as a theological "conservative" and is a convert (you know who!), he simply assumes that those elements must be "carryovers" from evangelicalism, where all truth resides (separated into a million compartments, of course, but it's there for the discerning seeker).
Since everyone who disagrees with you is automatically an "anti-Catholic" can I just call you an "anti-Calvinist" from now on?
What Hays thinks is evangelical baggage (e.g. biblical inerrancy) is actually just traditional Catholicism. Read any traditional Catholic Bible commentary or statement on the Bible and you will see the same thing.
Lacking any rational reply, Hays resorted a second time to humor:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2...-be-
damned.html
At least he knows when its wise to give up the ghost.
Calvin Dude,
*sigh* If you;d bother to read what Dave actually writes. He dosn't call everyone who disagrees with him anti-Catholic. He quite frequently debates protestants of various stripes without calling them anti-catholic. The reason he calls Steve Hayes anti-Catholic is because Hayes does not recognise Catholics as Christians. By this logic, no you can;t call Dave anti-calvinist, he accepts Calvinists as brothers in Christ. You can however, call certain extreme-trads anti-calvinist or anti-protestant, but Dave is (rightly) very critical of their attitude.
I should probably apolgise for my previous post, it was a little intemperate and probably opoor ettiquette to answer a question that wasnt directed at me. Its just that the aproach of certain Calvinists to the whole "anti" thing really annoys me.
Recently seen on someone else's blog~ "There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church-which is, of course, quite a different thing." ~Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
The reason that Mr. Hays might be confused is due to the fact that the Protestant branch sprung from the Catholic tree. It is the same plant if one would only look close enough. Many Protestants have a distorted view on many things because they don't look closely enough to see what the Catholic Church actually teaches.
>Its just that the aproach of certain Calvinists to the whole "anti" thing really annoys me.
You and me both, Jason. I didn't have the patience to answer the post, so I appreciate your doing so. I don't see that this violates netiquette at all, in a discussion thread. Feel free.
I made a clear distinction between anti-Catholic and Protestant in a recent post on Triablogue (as I've done probably 300 times by now in many many papers). These anti-Catholic clowns half the time don't even read what we write, let alone comprehend it.
Maybe you should have a big red disclaimer on your blog:
WARNING! Anti-Catholic is a term reserved soley for the belief that Catholicism is not Christian. This does not mean that anyone who disagrees with me is anti-Catholic. Comment at your own risk.
Hmm...
So you say that Steve is anti-Catholic because he thinks that Roman Catholics are not Christian. And yet Steve has said:
---
Still, it is possible for a Catholic to be saved, unlike a Muslim or Mormon or other suchlike.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2...n-of-
faith.html
---
And:
---
Unlike the other three, it is possible for a Roman Catholic to be saved.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2...ral-
vision.html
---
And in the Alta Boyz in Da Hood post, he specifically says:
---
But this doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for a Roman Catholic to be saved.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2...-n-da-
hood.html
---
So it's obviously the case that Steve does think there are some saved Catholics. He does not believe all Catholics are damned.
How then does he fit the charge that he's an anti-Catholic, based on your own definition?
That's got nothing to do with it, because anti-Catholicism is the belief that the Catholic system is not Christian: the theology, not the individual person. He says that is "apostate."
If an individual Catholic is saved (in this mentality), it is despite Catholic teachings, not because of them (that's precisely why he has to play games with my own case and make out that I am either ignorant or opposed to teachings of my own Church). That's classic anti-Catholic belief: most anti-Catholic apologists I'm aware of (e.g., White, Svendsen) think this way.
We don't think that way of Protestants. We think that they have errors and lack the "fullness," but that saving grace is possible to obtain within Protestantism through baptism, Bible study, prayer, etc. We even believe that Protestant marriage is a sacrament. We say trinitarian Protestants are fully deserving of the title "Christian" and are members of the Body of Christ just as they are.
I'ts a matter of "very good" and "best" rather than "bad" vs. "good".
That's got nothing to do with it, because anti-Catholicism is the belief that the Catholic system is not Christian: the theology, not the individual person. He says that is "apostate."
CalvinDude,
Dave and most Catholics have tons of experience with this and the words are choosen very carefully. For us, the It-is-possible-for-Catholics-to-be-saved concesson is patronizing. It is like saying it is possible for black people to act like humans.
For me, those who think Catholicism is not Christian no more deserve a hearing than a KKK memeber deserves a hearing about race theory or a conspiracy theorist who thinks extraterrestrials built the pyramids. It's all the same class of nut jobs.
Dave said:
---
If an individual Catholic is saved (in this mentality), it is despite Catholic teachings, not because of them (that's precisely why he has to play games with my own case and make out that I am either ignorant or opposed to teachings of my own Church).
---
Would you not agree that any Calvinists who are saved are saved despite Calvinism?
Scott W.
I doubt that it is any less offensive for you to call me an anti-Catholic than it is for me to say you might possibly be saved in Catholicism.
The term anti-Catholic is extremely loaded and prejudicial. You speak as if the Protestant side is equating it to a racial comment; but that is exactly what you do with your anti-Catholic terms too.
I can just as easily say that anyone who uses the term anti-Catholic deserves no more of a hearing than a KKK member too.
I doubt that it is any less offensive for you to call me an anti-Catholic than it is for me to say you might possibly be saved in Catholicism.
But I have not called you an anti-Catholic because you have not said or implied that Catholicism is not Christian. Therefore, it would be rash judgement (as well as rude and offensive) for me to do so.
The term anti-Catholic is extremely loaded and prejudicial.
Any term can be abused, but that does not mean it is not possible to use it correctly. Dave has several papers on this topic. This is your chance to interact with them and show where the error, if any, lies.
But You speak as if the Protestant side is equating it to a racial comment; but that is exactly what you do with your anti-Catholic terms too.
No because there are plenty, in fact many, Protestants that accept that Catholicism is a Christian theology. The ones that don't are simply in a position that is no more intellectually respectable than racial bigotry. It is not what I do with my terms because I believe in spite of my disagreements with it, that Protestant theology IS Christian.
I can just as easily say that anyone who uses the term anti-Catholic deserves no more of a hearing than a KKK member too.
Again, interact with any of Dave's papers on the subject and show why.
By the way, Dave. That looks like a great paper/dialogue title: "Did Vatican II Codify Modernism?: Can anything prevent the RCC from going the way of liberalizing and dying mainline denominations?" (Dave vs. random anti-Catholic wing-nut.)
Scott W. said:
---
But I have not called you an anti-Catholic because you have not said or implied that Catholicism is not Christian. Therefore, it would be rash judgement (as well as rude and offensive) for me to do so.
---
You are correct that you have not called me such; Dave Armstrong, however, has called me an anti-Catholic before (although I doubt he remembers it--we had a discussion on Kerry Gillard's e-mail list back in 1998 or 1999).
In any case, the Council of Trent anathematized me when it said in Cannon 9 (among others, which need not be quoted at this point):
---
"If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema."
---
I do believe in justification by faith alone based on God's eternal election. Indeed, this is the very heart of Calvinism. So am I to suppose you consider me to be an anathematized Christian? (How, exactly, would that work?) Or do you disagree that the Council of Trent was authoritatively binding?
But here is the thing to consider. I believe Justification is the heart of the Gospel. Furthermore, Trent has anathematized my position. Therefore, Catholicism has pronounced a curse on what I believe is the heart of the Gospel. In what way could I consider an institution that curses the heart of the Gospel to be Christian?
Does this make me an anti-Catholic, or does it just make me a consistent Protestant?
"An instisution that CURSES the heart of the Gospel."
Yep, statements like this make you appear to be anti-Catholic.
You seem to take pride in this, why argue it.
Layne wrote:
---
You seem to take pride in this
---
It's always a pleasure to converse with a mind-reader.
On the other hand, you haven't answered any of my questions. Not that I expected any different.
Dave, after all, cannot answer my specific question: "Would you not agree that any Calvinists who are saved are saved despite Calvinism?" He knows that if he says "Yes" to it, then he must by his own definition be an anti-Calvinist; but if he answers "No" to it then he is agreeing that Calvinism is true.
But Layne, you typify the problem with using the term "anti-Catholic." It's a convenient label that lets you avoid all discourse. It's like saying, "Oh, you don't have to listen to CalvinDude. He's an anti-Catholic. Why bother answering his questions? He's a blinded bigot."
If it makes it easier for you, go for it. It's not going to ruin my day any.
Layne wrote:
---
You seem to take pride in this
---
It's always a pleasure to converse with a mind-reader.
On the other hand, you haven't answered any of my questions. Not that I expected any different.
Dave, after all, cannot answer my specific question: "Would you not agree that any Calvinists who are saved are saved despite Calvinism?" He knows that if he says "Yes" to it, then he must by his own definition be an anti-Calvinist; but if he answers "No" to it then he is agreeing that Calvinism is true.
But Layne, you typify the problem with using the term "anti-Catholic." It's a convenient label that lets you avoid all discourse. It's like saying, "Oh, you don't have to listen to CalvinDude. He's an anti-Catholic. Why bother answering his questions? He's a blinded bigot."
If it makes it easier for you, go for it. It's not going to ruin my day any.
Sorry for the double posting. My browser hiccupped.
I can't answer for Dave, but I imagine that he would agree with this:
A Calvinist who is saved is saved BECAUSE of his acceptance of the Holy Trinity, and Baptism in Christ, as are all Christians. Being a Calvinist does not alter the fact that he is a Christian.
This is 180 degrees from your statements above. You don't accept a Catholic's Baptism or his beliefs in the Trinity etc. at face value.
Dave makes it a point not to argue with people who do not accept the Catholic Church as a Christian Institution, and that's why he has not answered you.
Dave makes it a point not to argue with people who do not accept the Catholic Church as a Christian Institution, and that's why he has not answered you.
Or he simply has not got around to it.
Layne said:
---
You don't accept a Catholic's Baptism or his beliefs in the Trinity etc. at face value.
---
Where have I said that?
All I have said is that the point that I consider to be the heart of the Gospel, Justification by Faith Alone, is specifically cursed by the Council of Trent.
Apparently, you consider adherence to the Trinity and baptism in Christ to be the heart of the Gospel.
At this point, I can say we disagree; yet I have not anathametized your position, like Trent has mine. At this point, the furthest I would go is to say that not knowing your view of Justification, I would have to be agnostic towards whether you are saved or not. I would not necessarily conclude you are damned.
Trent, on the other hand, doesn't give me this option.
I do wonder why you guys don't follow Trent here if you consider it an authoritative Council.
You said:
---
Dave makes it a point not to argue with people who do not accept the Catholic Church as a Christian Institution, and that's why he has not answered you.
---
That might be the excuse he uses, but the bottom line is that answering the question in either way is bad for him (as I demonstrated above), so the only thing he can do is ignore it.
>Would you not agree that any Calvinists who are saved are saved despite Calvinism?
Really? I have to ignore it?
Whoever is saved is saved by the grace of God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on his behalf. The dispute here is: what is Christian and what isn't, and on what basis?
Trent condemned the absolute separation of faith and works. I don't see that even John Calvin did that. He thought (and so do most Calvinists) that one is saved by "faith alone" but not a faith that IS alone and that any saving faith will necessarily show forth the works that will inevitably flow from it if indeed it is true saving faith.
So there is your cooperation with God; hence that aspect of Calvinism was not, I believe, condemned by Trent. i think what is condemned there is mopre like the extreme faith alone position that John MacArthur opposed in his book, The Gospel According to Jesus (the opposite of Lordship salvation). But that is not classic "Reformation" teaching: it is Anabaptistic or Baptist thinking (even then, one must look at the particular strain of Baptist theology).
For the 753rd time: "anti-Catholic" is currently in use by hundreds of scholars: historians and sociologists. If you don't like my use of it, take it up with them. My use is entirely consistent, but it is James White and Eric Svendsen who apply double standards, since they object to "anti-Catholic" while they freely use "anti-Calvinist" and "anti-Reformed."
>Why bother answering his questions? He's a blinded bigot."
My use does not necessarily imply any such thing at all. It simply means "one who denies that the Catholic theological system, or the Church, is a Christian institution." PERIOD.
Now, it does seem that many who are anti-Catholics do have a personally bigoted view of Catholics (from my long experience and how I myself have been treated by such folks), but the word itself does not include bigotry as part of its definition at all.
I am anti-abortion, anti-homosexual "marriage", anti-feminism, anti-liberalism, anti-terrorist. I'm not bigoted against any of the people who advocate these things. The homosexual activists, for example, would like to make out that being opposed to their lifestyle on moral grounds is bigotry, but of course you and I both know it is not.
The anti-Catholic's main problem is colossal ignorance and a blind spot a mile wide. He starts with false assumptions, relentlessly builds upon them, and will accept no correction, no matter how minor. And his view is viciously self-defeating.
I wouldn't compare anti-Catholics (not most of them today) to the KKK at all; my comparison would be to those who believe in a flat earth or the man in the moon. It's not a matter of intelligence, but of gullibility and acceptance of false premises through environment, denominational requirement, etc.
The leading anti-Catholics are not unintelligent men. White, Svendsen, Hays, are all very intelligent. But intelligence itself is no particular indicator of a person holding a true or cogent position or not.
My paper on the scholarly use of "anti-Catholic":
Use of the Term Anti-Catholic in Protestant and Secular Scholarly Works of History and Sociology
http://web.archive.org/web/20040...smus/
RAZ222.HTM
Here is one example:
James Davison Hunter [one of the leading Protestant sociologists of religion of our time], Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, New York: HarperCollins, 1991:
". . . although much of the anti-Catholic hostility was born out of economic rivalry and ethnic distrust, it took expression primarily as religious hostility -- as a quarrel over religious doctrine, practice, and authority." (p. 71)
Dave,
The authentic Catholic position towards Protestantism is almost exactly the same as Steve Hays' position towards Catholicism. Protestantism is an objectively heretical system. Their salvation scheme is blasphemous. If any Protestants are saved, they are saved because of the elements of the Catholic Church (e.g. baptism) which they possess, but which belong really to the Catholic Church and drive toward unity with the Catholic Church. If Protestants are saved, they are saved as Catholics and not as Protestants per se. It is only by inculpable ignorance that a Protestant is able to hold onto his distinctively Protestant beliefs without Christ immediately spitting him out of His mouth.
Hi Ben,
This simply isn't true. Protestantism is a Christian system. But the anti-Catholic does not grant that to the Catholic Church.
>Their salvation scheme is blasphemous.
I don't see how, since they believe in sola gratia. They have to work (to varying degrees) more on the relationship of faith and works.
>If any Protestants are saved, they are saved because of the elements of the Catholic Church (e.g. baptism) which they possess, but which belong really to the Catholic Church and drive toward unity with the Catholic Church.
I think baptism belongs to the Church, yes, but give them some credit: they do accept a legitimate sacrament.
The general tenor of your comments is, of course, against the grain of Vatican II (gee, why am I not surprised?).
Dave wrote:
---
Trent condemned the absolute separation of faith and works. I don't see that even John Calvin did that. He thought (and so do most Calvinists) that one is saved by "faith alone" but not a faith that IS alone and that any saving faith will necessarily show forth the works that will inevitably flow from it if indeed it is true saving faith.
---
You are correct in saying that Calvinists believe that works follow faith. But they follow faith as evidence of justification, not as merit. Unfortunately for you, Trent also says:
---
Canon 24.
If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema.
---
Since Calvinists teach that good works are "the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase" then Calvinists must still be anathematized by Trent, right?
So either Trent must be wrong, or Vatican II must be wrong.
For anyone interested, here is a short article on what an anathma is in contrast to what people think and anathma is and gives a hint why Trent vs. Vatican II is a false dilemma: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock...00/
0004chap.asp
Most Calvinists do connect good works with justification. They see justification as a one time event so it is not the ebb and flow type thing we see in Catholic thinking. Still if a person's one time justification has not happened then good works mean it is more likely to happen than sinful works. Also, in the lives of people around said person. Good works are more likely to be associated with people around him becoming justified. Now when you move from an association to a causal relationship then things get confused. Still connecting good works with an increase in justification seems like enough to satisfy Cannon 24 of Trent.
Protestantism is a Christian system.
It contains a sufficient amount of orthodox Christianity that we call it heresy instead of apostasy. But denying just a few more dogmas would put Protestantism about on par with Arianism.
I don't see how, since they believe in sola gratia. They have to work (to varying degrees) more on the relationship of faith and works.
Their scheme of forensic justification has God punishing an innocent man for the crimes of the guilty, and declaring people to be perfectly righteous while they are in fact sinful. It is contrary to God's justice and honesty.
The general tenor of your comments is, of course, against the grain of Vatican II (gee, why am I not surprised?).
No, it's just Dominus Iesus put a little more bluntly.
With regard to Trent's view of present-day "mainstream" Protestant soteriology; it is my understanding that only a fringe, extreme Protestant conception of "faith alone" is condemned.
I wrote about this in my paper:
The Catholic Understanding of the Anathemas of Trent and Excommunication
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ71.HTM
See particularly sections 13 and 19 (the latter by Jimmy Akin). Excerpt from the latter:
--------------------
Many Protestants today realize that Catholics adhere to the idea of salvation sola gratia (by grace alone), but fewer are aware that Catholics also do not have to condemn the formula of justification sola fide (by faith alone), provided this phrase is properly understood . . . Whether a Catholic will condemn the idea of justification by faith alone depends on what sense the term "faith" is being used in. If it is being used to refer to unformed faith then a Catholic rejects the idea of justification by faith alone (which is the point James is making in James 2:19, as every non-antinomian Evangelical agrees; one is not justified by intellectual belief alone).
However, if the term "faith" is being used to refer to faith formed by charity then the Catholic does not have to condemn the idea of justification by faith alone. In fact, in traditional works of Catholic theology, one regularly encounters the statement that formed faith is justifying faith. If one has formed faith, one is justified. Period.
. . . A Catholic would thus reject the idea of justification sola fide informi but wholeheartedly embrace the idea of justification sola fide formata. Adding the word "formed" to clarify the nature of the faith in "sola fide" renders the doctrine completely acceptable to a Catholic.
. . . if a Protestant further specifies that saving faith is a faith which "works by charity" then the two soteriological slogans become equivalents. The reason is that a faith which works by charity is a faith which produces acts of love. But a faith which produces acts of love is a faith which includes the virtue of charity, the virtue of charity is the thing that enables us to perform acts of supernatural love in the first place. So a Protestant who says saving faith is a faith which works by charity, as per Galatians 5:6, is saying the same thing as a Catholic when a Catholic says that we are saved by faith, hope, and charity.
. . . a document written a few years ago under the auspices of the (Catholic) German Conference of Bishops and the bishops of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (the Lutheran church). The purpose of the document, titled The Condemnations of the Reformation Era: Do They Still Divide?, was to determine which of the sixteenth-century Catholic and Protestant condemnations are still applicable to the other party. Thus the joint committee which drafted the document went over the condemnations from Trent and assessed which of them no
(cont.)
. . . longer applied to Lutherans and the condemnations of the Augsburg Confession and the Smalcald Articles, etc., and assesses which of them are not applicable to Catholics.
When it came to the issue of justification by faith alone, the document concluded:
"[T]oday the difference about our interpretation of faith is no longer a reason for mutual condemnation . . . even though in the Reformation period it was seen as a profound antithesis of ultimate and decisive force. By this we mean the confrontation between the formulas 'by faith alone,' on the one hand, and 'faith, hope, and love,' on the other.
"We may follow Cardinal Willebrand and say: 'In Luther's sense the word 'faith' by no means intends to exclude either works or love or even hope. We may quite justly say that Luther's concept of faith, if we take it in its fullest sense, surely means nothing other than what we in the Catholic Church term love' (1970, at the General Assembly of the World Lutheran Federation in Evian).
If we take all this to heart, we may say the following: If we translate from one language to another, then Protestant talk about justification through faith corresponds to Catholic talk about justification through grace; and on the other hand, Protestant doctrine understands substantially under the one word 'faith' what Catholic doctrine (following 1 Cor. 13:13) sums up in the triad of 'faith, hope, and love.' But in this case the mutual rejections in this question can be viewed as no longer applicable today
"According to [Lutheran] Protestant interpretation, the faith that clings unconditionally to God's promise in Word and Sacrament is sufficient for righteousness before God, so that the renewal of the human being, without which there can be no faith, does not in itself make any contribution to justification. Catholic doctrine knows itself to be at one with the Protestant concern in emphasizing that the renewal of the human being does not 'contribute' to justification, and is certainly not a contribution to which he could make any appeal before God. Nevertheless it feels compelled to stress the renewal of the human being through justifying grace, for the sake of acknowledging God's newly creating power; although this renewal in faith, hope, and love is certainly nothing but a response to God's unfathomable grace. Only if we observe this distinction can we say
"In addition to concluding that canons 9 and 12 of the Decree on Justification did not apply to modern Protestants, the document also concluded that canons 1-13, 16, 24, and 32 do not apply to modern Protestants (or at least modern Lutherans)."
During the drafting of this document, the Protestant participants asked what kind of authority it would have in the Catholic Church, and the response given by Cardinal Ratzinger [now Pope Benedict XVI] (who was the Catholic corresponding head of
(cont.)
. . . the joint commission) was that it would have considerable authority. The German Conference of Bishops is well-known in the Catholic Church for being very cautious and orthodox and thus the document would carry a great deal of weight even outside of Germany, where the Protestant Reformation started.
Furthermore, the Catholic head of the joint commission was Ratzinger himself, who is also the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, which is the body charged by the pope with protecting the purity of Catholic doctrine. Next to the pope himself, the head of the CDF is the man most responsible for protecting orthodox Catholic teaching, and the head of the CDF happened to be the Catholic official with ultimate oversight over the drafting of the document.
Before the joint commission met, Cardinal Ratzinger and Lutheran Bishop Eduard Lohse (head of the Lutheran church in Germany) issued a letter expressing the purpose of the
document, stating:
"[O]ur common witness is counteracted by judgments passed by one church on the other during the sixteenth century, judgments which found their way into the Confession of the Lutheran and Reformed churches and into the doctrinal decisions of the Council of Trent. According to the general conviction, these so-called condemnations no longer apply to our partner today. But this must not remain a merely private persuasion. It must be established in binding form."
I say this as a preface to noting that the commission concluded that canon 9 of Trent's Decree on Justification is not applicable to modern Protestants (or at least those who say saving faith is Galatians 5 faith). This is important because canon 9 is the one dealing with the "faith alone" formula (and the one R.C. Sproul is continually hopping up and down about). It states:
"If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, so as to understand that nothing else is required to cooperate in the attainment of the grace of justification . . . let him be anathema."
The reason this is not applicable to modern Protestants is that Protestants (at least the good ones) do not hold the view being condemned in this canon. Like all Catholic documents of the period, it uses the term "faith" in the sense of intellectual belief in whatever God says. Thus the position being condemned is the idea that we are justified by intellectual assent alone (as per James 2). We might rephrase the canon:
"If anyone says that the sinner is justified by intellectual assent alone, so as to understand that nothing besides intellectual assent is required to cooperate in the attainment of the grace of justification . . . let him be anathema."
And every non-antinomian Protestant would agree with this, since in addition to intellectual assent one must also repent, trust, etc.
So Trent does not condemn the (better) Protestant understanding
(continued)
. . . of faith alone. In fact, the canon allows the formula to be used so long as it is not used so as to understand that nothing besides intellectual assent is required. The canon only condemns "sola fide" if it is used "so as to understand that nothing else [besides intellectual
assent] is required" to attain justification. Thus Trent is only condemning one interpretation of the sola fide formula and not the formula itself.
----------------
See also the related papers:
Trent Doesn't Necessarily Exclude All Variants of Imputation (Kenneth Howell)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...xclude-
all.html
Catholic Underemphasis on Justification by Faith: My Theory on Why This Is (Dave Armstrong with Dr. Edwin Tait)
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...mphasis-
on.html
Reflections on Faith and Works and Initial Justification
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...ks-
initial.html
Catholic "Initial Justification" & Protestant "Faith Alone": Significant Common Ground?
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/
2...tification.html
Peter Pike (I keep thinking of "Peter Pike picked a peck of pickled peppers . . . ") has responded further on his blog:
http://calvindude.com/dude/blog/...ize-calvinists/
http://calvindude.com/dude/blog/...aking-it-jello/
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