Differences between Catholics and Protestants Part III How We Are Saved Section II

The Differences Between Catholics and Protestants PART III Section 2

Catholics and Protestants Irreconcilable  Differences

PART III How We Are Saved

Section 2 Details, Details, Details...

Alright, sorry to be just getting back to this. To review: Part 1, the Introduction to this series is here. Click here for Part II, the Protestant issue with Authority. (Authority's second section: A More Detailed Background, is here.) Click here for the first section of this segment, Part III How We Are Saved. 

So, the basic problem with Protestantism is:

• It misreads the Bible, and ...
• It does so because it refuses to accept the Church's long-standing authority to interpret the Bible. Therefore, its basic problem is Authority.
• Now, since I've already discussed the authority issue, and have a forthcoming section specifically on how it misreads the Bible (the famous Sola Scriptura), here let me describe how this misreading misled Luther's understanding of what St. Paul was trying to teach. (This will consist of an Overview and Three Points, with Notes.)

Overview

Luther claimed Romans 3:28 as the verse that "launched the Reformation". "For you are saved by faith and not works of the law." But he answered the obvious questions 3:28 raises from wholly within his own ideas; i.e.: What is Faith? Is it just an act of will or a gift of God? Or both? How does St. Paul himself see faith, and what is it to the other New Testament writers. Can they be matched up or (as Luther taught) do they profoundly disagree? Secondly, what is this mysterious "works of the law" that the verse mentions? Opinions, after all, have differed. St. Augustine held it to be all law, both Jewish ritual law and basic 10 Commandments-style moral law; St. Jerome, who had studied with Jews at one point in his career, said it meant only the ritual laws that distinguished the Jews from everyone else. Since then, the argument has raged on and on.

However:
The only time in the New Testament that "Faith alone," Sola Fide, one of the two battle cries of the Reformation (the other being Sola Scriptura), is mentioned in the New Testament is in St. James, and he only brings it up to condemn it. (St. James 2:24: "You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone." Nothing could be more counter-Protestant.) Thus Protestant divines have traditionally explained St. James by "explaining him away", reinterpreting him in such a way to say he somehow means the opposite of what he says. That may work once or twice, here and there (actually, it doesn't, yet let's just pretend it might, for a moment), but Protestants have had to do it all the time. 

• This reality drives – or should drive – Protestants crazy for the simple reason they've always insisted anyone, anyone at all, can pick up a Bible and read it and "be convicted of their sins and seek repentance". They've been forming Bible Societies to print up Bible and pass them out to working men, laborers, travelers, all and sundry, for ages (as noted in Section 1).
• Luther himself humorously noted that any peasant could read a few lines of his German translation of the Bible, and, quote: "Set himself up as a doctor of theology, and think he swallowed the Holy Ghost, feathers and all!" (Good one! A hard image to forget!)
• Yet how can average folks read the Bible when Protestant divines have to spend barrels of ink explaining what it really means? Clearly, there's a massive disconnect there.
• The Bible is just full of verses that seem so outré to Protestantism. For this section of this series, we'll see below how they do it with some important verses involving Faith Alone. (Luther famously – or infamously, if you are Catholic or Orthodox – added the word "alone" to "faith" in Romans 3:28. Later Lutherans removed it.)

More profoundly in the wrong, however, than even adding words to the Biblical text, Luther misread St. Paul's quoting of the Old Testament verses that Paul precedes 3:38 with. It was on that misreading that Luther erected his new understanding of how Salvation worked. These verses are in Romans 3:10-18, and consist of extracts from Psalms 14:3, 5:9, 140:3, 10:7, Isaiah 59:7-8 (the only non-Psalm quoted) and Psalm 36:1. Because of these references, Luther argued one is NOT changed in one’s nature. One cannot change, Luther insisted. He thus argued contrary to traditional Church teaching as expressed by St. Paul himself, for example in Romans 8:14-17: i.e., receiving the spirit of sonship to cry 'Abba', Father ("Abba" meant one's particular father, one's actual father); or as St. Thomas Aquinas phrased it: "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." (Opusc. 57, 1-4; CCC 460). 

• For Luther and all subsequent Protestants, the effects of Original Sin are irreversible, and one enters Heaven via faith, understood to be an act of will (Luther) or God's predestination (Calvin), yet stinking to High Heaven because we still possess our fallen, sinful nature, albeit covered in God's grace as in Luther's famous metaphor of a manure pile covered with snow. (See Note 1 below for more Biblical verses about the opposite teaching: Theosis.)

Here's the list of the relevant St. Paul quotes from Chapter 3, via the NIV Bible:

Verses 10-12 (Psalm 1:1-3, 53:1-3)

As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;

11

    there is no one who understands;

    there is no one who seeks God.

12

All have turned away,

    they have together become worthless;

there is no one who does good,

    not even one.”

Verses 13-14 (Psalm 5:9; 140:3)

“Their throats are open graves;

    their tongues practice deceit.”

“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”

14 (Psalm 10:7)

    “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”[e]

Verses 15-17 (Isaiah 59:7-8)

“Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16

    ruin and misery mark their ways,

17

and the way of peace they do not know.”

Verse 18 (Psalm 36:1)

    “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now, to understand how Luther went wrong, and how Protestantism has been wrong from its beginning – because Luther's Simul justus et peccator is Protestantism 101, the foundation on which it rejects the Historical Church's Theosis teaching which is, as St. Athanasius put it, "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." (De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B and CCC 460) – one must first understand three points, all of them intimately related to the above.

First Point

That these chapter numbers and verse numbers didn't exist in the ancient New Testament times.This humble, prosaic point is quite important. It's one of those things you wouldn't normally think about, but it must be detailed.

• The Jews had a system of dividing up the text, and it varied a bit depending on where you lived. They developed another one in the 10th century, as well. 
• It was Archbishop Stephen Langton (c. 1150 – 1228; i.e., the height of Catholicism's Golden Age) and archbishop of Canterbury from 2017 till his death, whose system of chapters is considered the one to be that which has come down to us. 
• The Frenchman Robert Estienne, a more or less Calvinist printer (he ended up in Calvin's Geneva, but started out printing the Lutheran Melanchthon's school books) created the system of verse numbers which is the one we use today. Numbering the verses was a handy way for printers to know they had the necessary material in each chapter to print. This first appeared in a now rare 1551 Greek New Testament edition, and he used the same again in a French-language edition that appeared a couple of years later. It stuck after that. (Note that Luther died in 1546, so he had use of the chapters but not Estienne's verses.)

Now, the point for us is that the long-involved process of developing the custom and tradition of dividing the Bible up into chapters and then verses puts us today – and those in the 16th century, as well – in a far distant comprehension matrix from how St. Paul would have read the Old Testament, and thus how he composed items that would eventually be included in the New Testament.  Both Biblical sections are called "testaments" because of the covenants they related (covenant = testament): they're essentially histories of God's interaction with Mankind, from the old covenants with the patriarchs building up the the New Covenant, the seal of which, and the essential participation in, is the Holy Eucharist). They're about covenants, or contracts, unbreakable treaties that involve real people, moving up the population ladder from Adam and Eve, through Noah and his family, Abraham and his tribe, Moses and a nation, then David and his kingdom, to Christ, who makes all the peoples of the world potentially into a New (and very visible) Israel. (Romans 8 again.)

• To see how essential this is to Christianity, Islam in the Koranic Sura 56 expressly curses the Jews for teaching that God makes covenants. 
• To Muslim theologians, such an idea is monstrous and blasphemous, because it would restrict Allah's will. 
• Nothing, bar nothing, separates Islam from both Judaism and Christianity as much as this rejection of the covenantal idea. 
• Covenants are the framework upon which all Salvation History is built upon. 

Now, as Saul of Tarsus, the future St. Paul trained under the famous Rabbi Gamaliel. 

1. Covenants were essential to their understanding, just as much as a visible, real Israel was. The very real, wholly visible Israel existed precisely because God made covenants, just as the real, visible, Church must exist to confect the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, the seal of the New Covenant and by which we are saved (See St. John, chapter 6, for Jesus' insistence that we partake of His Body and Blood for Salvation).
2. Covenants are simply how God interacted with the human race, specifically, starting with Abraham in terms of those who would become the Jews. 
3. Also, for St. Paul and people of his day, when one quoted a verse from a text in the Old Testament, one was conjuring up, as it were, putting on the laptop's desktop, not just that verse actually quoted, but its entire context it existed in. 

So St. Paul's leading off with a quote from Psalm 14 is highly significant. It's a relatively short Psalm that is one of the few places in the Bible where atheism is mentioned (its opening verse is, "The fool says in his heart that there is no God"). So, in the context of the Psalm as a whole, an expression of one idea, can we draw Luther's conclusion: that St. Paul meant all humans, the entire race, when he wrote, "There is no one righteous, not even one"? What, indeed, is the Psalm about? What does it say?

Here it is, the NIV version of the entire Psalm 14:

1

The fool says in his heart,

    “There is no God.”

They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;

    there is no one who does good.

2

The Lord looks down from heaven

    on all mankind

to see if there are any who understand,

    any who seek God.

3

All have turned away, all have become corrupt;

    there is no one who does good,

    not even one.

4

Do all these evildoers know nothing?

They devour my people as though eating bread;

    they never call on the Lord.

5

But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,

    for God is present in the company of the righteous.

6

You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,

    but the Lord is their refuge.

7

Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!

    When the Lord restores his people,

    let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

Wow. Wait – what? Who are these "Company of the Righteous"? Any "Righteous" in Biblical terms would necessarily have to be those whom God had justified.

Now you can see the problem for Luther and the Protestant position: this Psalm doesn't say what they think it says, or need it to say: that all Mankind sins and falls short of perfection in God. 

• The Psalm is clearly written to encourage "the company of the Righteous", and therefore Righteousness must be possible for us on a metaphysically real, actual level because this Psalm talks about people who are so accounted. 
• In fact – they all do, all the references here in Romans 3 do that, with the exception of Isaiah, the chapter which is quoted from being pretty dour, but the chapters before and after are not so bleak. 

Bottom Line: He didn't understand what he was reading
The reality is that Luther was focusing on justification because no matter what he himself did as a Catholic Christian, he never felt justified, he never felt "a new creation in Christ", so he refashioned the religion into one where he cold feel as sinful as he ever felt but at the same time believe he was absolutely justified: truly, Simul justus et peccator.

However, St. Paul (and modern Protestants doing computer-based word-count research discovered this) only brings up justification in his writings when he's talking about the Judiazers, (Jewish Christians who insisted non-Jewish converts to Christianity had to be circumcised, and keep all the Jewish ritual laws). These folks were St. Paul's bête noire. He confronts them most famously in Galatians, but here in Romans, he has opened this section of his letter (now our Chapter 3) with Jewish references. "3:1 What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? 2 Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God." But after enumerating all that, he has to back up a bit so as to not provide fodder for the Judiazers. By verse 9, he's writing: 3:9 "What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin." And from there he gets into the Psalm quotes detailed above.

Therefore, because Luther missed this essential theme in St. Paul's oeuvre, he seemed to think St. Paul was "proof-texting" (i.e., using a single verse to justify something not justified by its actual use in context), and thus just stringing together some cool-sounding quotes to make a point the actual context of those quotes could not possibly, remotely make. So, based on this misunderstanding and misreading, Martin Luther redefined Christianity from how it had been understood since the beginning. (More on this idea of just how early Christianity understood itself, and how Protestantism see early Christianity, in the subsequent sections of this series.)

It is ironic in the extreme that the young, fervent, passionate German who considered himself such a Biblical maven misunderstood his Bible. Classic hubris. And not a little Narcissism. It makes him into Protestantism's King Lear, really, when one considers the unimaginable forces his stubborn pride unleashed on Christendom, and how he had to watch so much of it sidelined by bolder, more courageous men. (For example, Luther hated and feared Huldrych Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer, who, had he lived, might have been a 16th century Swiss Oliver Cromwell; when Luther heard Zwingli had been killed in battle, Luther said, "Good! I'm glad he's dead!")

Second Point

The above review demonstrates a deeper truth: a Protestant understanding of Romans 3 is impossible from other sources in the Old Testament. 

First: Deuteronomy 30. Moses is talking about the ability to keep the Law. The excerpt below starts at verse 11, but the answer is in verse 14:

"11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it."

If you rely on God, wholly, you can indeed keep all the Mosaic laws.

Contrary to this, the essential idea of Protestantism is that it is – always and ever – impossible to keep the law. So regardless of whether "works of the law" means just specific Jewish ritual laws or whether it means keeping the basic moral law, as in the 10 Commandments, that's all irrelevant. One simply can't do it. But here in Deuteronomy 30, Moses is saying one can, and he seems to be invoking the Holy Spirit. (St. Augustine said the New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old is revealed the New.)

There's also St. Luke's Gospel, chapter 1:5-6 "In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. 6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly."

That's another WOW, even a W.O.W! An inspired Gospel writer plainly says the Righteous existed in Jesus' day. How can Protestantism reconcile this verse to its teaching? Only by "explaining away" the plain meaning of the text, of course.

Finally, Jesus Himself admonishes his hearers to "be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) Either we can attain this state or Jesus is being unspeakably cruel.

Third Point

No one – or at the very most, extremely few people really – want Luther to be right. Why? Is entering Heaven in the equivalent of a cocooning body diaper, one "fully loaded" with manure, the way you want to spend Eternity? Here's C.S. Lewis:

The more you think about the Protestant idea the less savory (shall we say) it is. Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, ‘It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy’? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.’ ‘It may hurt, you know.’ – ‘Even so, sir.’

That's in Lewis' Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer, Letter 20.

Honestly, who in their right mind would want to enter into the Eternal Presence of God in the way Luther and Protestant divines since Luther have held? 

• Today, of course, in reality, most Protestants probably don't think of this – if they know about it at all. It is no more stressed than John Calvin's predestination ideas (which would horrify most evangelical Christians). 
• The basic Protestant or Evangelical idea is that somehow Christ's sacrifice saved all those who choose to believe in Him. Choose to believe, and you have "assurance of salvation", such as Billy Graham preached for decades.
• Getting to Heaven is the point of popular Protestantism: getting there and knowing you are going for certain, the "assurance of salvation". You do that by a public affirmation of faith. HOW it works is irrelevant. Just have faith. 
• That simplification would have appalled both Luther and Calvin, both of whom insisted one had to be baptized, a member of the Church (their own version, obviously), and a regular Eucharistic communicant. 99 out of 100 modern Protestants would not think this.

So, the obvious question about the traditional Protestant Saved by Faith Alone is:

• Why keep Sole Fide? Because the Reformation and the "Wars of Religion" were officially fought precisely to defend it; that, and because it existed historically, Protestantism itself exists. 

And, my friends, that's about it.

Notes:

Note 1

Here's a list of verses that say plainly that we are "new men" in Christ, "a new creation."

·   John 1:12 “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Obviously, a new creation)

·   2 Cor 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (Again, a new creation, and perhaps the best-know verse on this.)

·   2 Peter 1:4 might well put it best – but Protestants essentially only read St. Paul: So, see Romans, 6:4, 7:6, 12:2; Galatians 3:27; Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 3:8-12. In other words, St. Paul mentions it a lot. It's "in the air" in Apostolic times.

·   Two Old Testament examples that seem along the same lines: Isaiah 65:17; Ezekiel 36:25-26

·        Note: In general, Jesus seems to demand the impossible of “ordinary” humans. In Matthew 5, during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents the Beatitudes, then says we are “salt of the earth” and “light of the world”, discusses how He has come not to do away with the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them. He discusses elevated behavior regarding anger, adultery, divorce, making oaths and not retaliating (“turn the other cheek”) and love our enemies. He ends with "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." (5:48) That is something manifestly impossible for “normal” human beings to do.

Catholicism traditionally taught that we are infused with God's grace (and thus "new creations" whereas Protestantism has taught God imputes grace (assigns it to us).
Why the Incarnation? Why did God have to become man? To make Infusion of Grace possible.

·     The Incarnation is absolutely necessary and central to salvation because God had to become man in order to elevate our nature to be transform in Him. 

·   God’s Incarnation didn’t lower God so much as elevate human nature, in Christ, enabling…

·   "Theosis" (Divinization) which by grace – not by nature – is our incorporation into Christ, raising us up to participate in His Divinity (as St. Peter teaches in 2 Peter 1.4). Usually described in the Western Church as an Infusion of Grace, our natures are changed. Protestantism teaches Imputation of Grace: God assigns grace to us but doesn’t actually divinize or change our nature.

Note 2: 
Interestingly, Lewis also defended praying for the dead in the same letter I quoted from above: 

“Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden.”

"Jack" was clearly right about Purgatory: the Vatican I Church's (and going back to the Counter-Reformation Church, too) idea of Purgatory being exactly like Hell would have horrified Dante. Read the Purgatorio for a better understanding of Purgatory. Or read J.R.R. Tolkien's Leaf by Niggle for another insight into what Purgatory is like.