Castle Church Discussion on Francis Beckwith Converts to Roman Catholicism

AboutFaceBook

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 10:35:37 GMT

Josh Harris writes on why he stopped doing FaceBook after one week:

But even if I weren't writing a book, I don't need another reason for staring at a computer screen. I'm constantly needing to evaluate is how much time I spend emailing, browsing and blogging. Now obviously a lot of that activity is good, useful work. But sometimes it can be a time-waster. I think God's been helping me improve at knowing when to unplug from cyberville and connect with the real, rich world of reality--playing with my kids, talking to my wife, taking a walk. Throwing Facebook in the mix of my online options is just a little too much for me right now. The other reason I feel right about making my time with Facebook just a visit is a little harder to explain. How do I put this? I found that it encouraged me to think about me even more than I already do--which is admittedly already quite a bit. Does that make any sense? Without any help from the internet I'm inclined to give way too much time to evaluating myself, thinking about myself and wondering what other people think of me. If that egocentrism is a little flame, than Facebook for me is a gasoline IV feeding the fire. I need to grow in self-forgetfulness. I need to worry more about what God is thinking of me. I need to be preoccupied with what he's written in his word, not what somebody just wrote on my "wall." And, finally, I need to read more. There are so many good books I want to read and so little time. If I added up the few minutes here and there that I spent checking Facebook this past week it wouldn't be an insignificant amount of time. I'd rather give that time to reading. Anyway, all of the above is totally personal and is in no way an indictment on other Facebookers. This is just where I'm at right now. Who knows...I might be back when the kids are grown and the book is written and I have more self-control.

You can read the whole thing.

Science and Faith

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 02:05:24 GMT

Even if you don't care about the intersection of science and faith, you should buy and read Jack Collins's Science and Faith: Friends or Foes? The reason I say that you should read it even if you don't care about science (and obviously you should if you care about Christian truth and witness!) is that simply reading it and tracing the author's argument builds critical thinking skills.

I read some more chunks of it last night. Collins, as I mentioned before, is not only an MIT grad, but also has a PhD in Hebrew, OT, and linguistics from the University of Liverpool. That makes him ideally suited to write a book on science and faith. But what makes the book unique is his down-to-earth wisdom and good cheer--this is a guy who likes to quote Lewis, Chesterton, and Sherlock Holmes to make his points! The genesis of the book was a call from a homeschooling mom who wanted a resource for teaching her children science. So Jack wrote a book!

In a separate post I'll highlight a helpful little section on some cautions on the "culture wars."

Interview with Francis Beckwith

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 01:05:20 GMT

Greg Koukl conducts a two-hour interview with Frank Beckwith on his conversion to Roman Catholicism.

(HT: Denny Burk)

At the heart of Reformed Theology

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 06:15:58 GMT

"At the heart of Reformed Theology, at the heart of Luther and Calvin's struggle, and in Knox and Jonathan Edwards, were men who were awakened to the greatness, to the majesty, to the holiness, and the sovereignty of God. By contemplating the holiness and sovereignty of God, they were driven to develop their doctrines of the grace of God. Because until you meet a God who is holy and is sovereign, you don't know what grace means. I don't think we are ever going to see a healthy evangelical church until the evangelical church is solidly Reformed, where it takes biblical Christianity seriously with a right concept of a sovereign God.

That's because unreformed Christianity has failed in our culture. It has been pervasively antinomian (no law, no Lordship), and has been pervasively liberal in it's trends and tendencies away from scripture, because there's been no real basis in the sovereignty of God.

Today's evangelicals are never amazed by grace, because they don't understand sovereignty. They don't understand God. The evangelical church today is sick, more sick than it has ever been. We need a style and a variety of Christianity that is not a religion, but is a life and a worldview, where at the heart and foundational structure of it is a sound and deep biblical concept of the character of God."

R. C. Sproul - from his series "A Blueprint for Thinking."

Francis Beckwith Begins to Give His Reasons (#4)

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 11:05:10 GMT

I began working through the reasons offered by Frank Beckwith for his reversion to Rome contained in a recent National Catholic Register article, found here. Of course, such an article cannot provide an exhaustive accounting, but so far we have seen indications that the foundations of this move were rather hastily constructed, or, more accurately, the actual foundations went back a long way (i.e., his non-Catholic standing had long been less than informed), and this reversion seems to have more to do with that long-standing consistency of theological and philosophical viewpoint than it does a brief four-month run through selected works of certain early Christian writers. What has become quite clear is that Dr. Beckwith was representative of a very large portion of what was once called evangelicalism: he was a non-Catholic who did not know why he was a non-Catholic, though, in his case, he was a former Catholic as well. His confusion in answering the question "Why are you not a Catholic" reveals a major problem with many "evangelical leaders" today who likewise can only give an answer to that question that is surface level at best.

Then I read the Council of Trent, which some Protestant friends had suggested I do. What I found was shocking. I found a document that had been nearly universally misrepresented by many Protestants, including some friends.

Again, any "Protestant" leader who has never even bothered to read the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent should be ashamed of themselves. Seriously! I would invite Dr. Beckwith to substantiate his "nearly universally misrepresented" statement on the basis of my own published works. And what is more, I would challenge him to do so not on the basis of some 21st century, Americanized, a-historical reading of Trent in light of post-Vatican II theology, but on the basis of the historical context of Trent and in light of the commentary on its meanings provided by those who were actually at the Council, and on the basis of the catechism produced to support it.

I do not believe, however, that the misrepresentation is the result of purposeful deception. But rather, it is the result of reading Trent with Protestant assumptions and without a charitable disposition.

One should surely read Trent with Catholic assumptions, i.e., in the context of the kind of Roman Catholicism that produced it (and may I suggest Post Vatican II Roman Catholicism is vastly different in tone and outlook?), but once again, what kind of "charitable" disposition is required to accurately interpret historical documents? Does "charitable" mean "willing to allow modern Roman Catholicism to redefine historical documents so as to maintain a facade of consistency and unity over time"?

For example, Trent talks about the four causes of justification, which correspond somewhat to Aristotle's four causes. None of these causes is the work of the individual Christian. For, according to Trent, Gods grace does all the work. However, Trent does condemn faith alone, but what it means is mere intellectual assent without allowing Gods grace to be manifested in ones actions and communion with the Church. This is why Trent also condemns justification by works.

So, since Rome condemns Pelagianism, all is well? Did Beckwith actually think that was the issue all along during his time outside of Rome? How could anyone who has read even a smattering of Calvin or Luther or any of the relevant Reformation literature think that saying "none of these causes is the work of the individual Christian" is even slightly relevant? Once again, no one was arguing the necessity of grace. They were arguing the sufficiency of grace. As far as numbers go, Rome has won, since, obviously, the majority of "Protestants," in ignorance, agree with Rome on the matter. Not that there are too many left in Rome to care, given her own internal collapse, but that is another subject. Man's religions are quite happy to confess the need for God's grace. Man's religions cannot possibly confess the sufficiency of that grace. Once you do so, you cut out the necessity of the "middle man," in this case, the Roman sacramental system, which, of course, is the lifeblood of the Roman Curia. Sufficient grace replaces the centrality of Rome's sacraments. And hence the battle.
What do these words mean? "...without allowing Gods grace to be manifested in ones actions and communion with the Church." I join in condemning mere intellectual assent as being saving faith (Hodges/Wilkinism). But are we to truly believe that this was Trent's context? If so, were they simply ignorant of what the Reformers were teaching? If they were not, then why use their language while condemning an error no one was promoting? This is what I mean when I say we cannot interpret Trent in a 21st century context but must allow the original context to stand. And what does it mean to have God's grace manifested by communion with the Church? Is this a reference to the sacraments? It would seem so, but unfortunately, the article is too brief to allow for a full examination of these tantalizingly brief statements.

I am convinced that the typical Council of Trent rant found on anti-Catholic websites is the Protestant equivalent of the secular urban legend that everyone prior to Columbus believed in a flat earth.

Does it follow, I wonder, if the typical type of "faith alone is only found in James 2:24" "rant" found on anti-Protestant websites (if Beckwith is going to start with the anti-Catholic rhetoric, let's at least keep it consistent) is the Catholic equivalent to a secular urban legend as well?

But what was shocking to me is that one never finds in the Fathers claims that these doctrines are unbiblical or apostate or not Christian, as one finds in contemporary anti-Catholic fundamentalist literature. So, at worst, I thought, the Catholic doctrines were considered legitimate options early on in Church history by the men who were discipled by the apostles and/or the apostles disciples.

I wonder why Beckwith, as a scholar, chooses to focus upon "anti-Catholic fundamentalist literature" rather than serious historical and theological works reflecting a Reformed critique of Roman Catholicism? Is it because all he is familiar with is, in fact, "fundamentalist" literature of the Jack Chick variety? I would truly like to ask Beckwith if he has seriously read and studied Calvin's Institutes, and if so, when?
But more to the point, if this reasoning is what brought Beckwith back to Rome, why didn't the absence of so much of unique Roman teaching keep him away? Sure, you can always do the Newman thing, but if you do that, why bother with history at all? Why say, "Well, I can find part of these teachings in early writers, and for the rest, I can do the acorn/tree thing ala Newman"? How is this kind of argumentation compelling?

At best, the Catholic doctrines are part of the deposit of faith passed on to the successors of the apostles and preserved by the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.

At worst, they are a perversion of the gospel, without historical foundation, some even being completely unknown for great expanses of the early centuries, forced upon men and women by the false authority of Rome.

At this point, I thought, if I reject the Catholic Church, there is good reason for one to believe I am rejecting the Church that Christ himself established.

Thats not a risk I was willing to take.

Now there is a leap that leaves the rest of us standing there wondering what just happened. How he got from "I found some doctrines in the early writings I didn't expect to find" to "well, that means it is best to bow to the Pope's authority" may have been included in the interview material but didn't make it into the published account, but that's unlikely. Let me see if I can take another stab at it. "At this point, though I had only been spending a matter of weeks looking at this material, and had not, in fact, taken the time to read the 'other side,' and though I found no evidence of the unique Roman Catholic dogmas relating to Mary, or Papal power, in the early sources, I had found enough things to make me believe it would be best to submit to Rome anyway." And this is not taking a "risk"? Obviously, something is missing here, something very important, something that has yet to be revealed or discussed publicly.

After all, if I return to the Church and participate in the sacraments, I lose nothing, since I would still be a follower of Jesus and believe everything that the catholic creeds teach, as I have always believed. But if the Church is right about itself and the sacraments, I acquire graces I would have not otherwise received.

Think this one through for a moment, and you might see why even conservative Roman Catholics might find this reasoning a tad bit less than compelling, or even helpful. But more to the point, consider this in light of Paul's warnings to the Galatians. Beckwith sees that Rome's sacraments are the "added" feature. So I wonder how he views these words:

Galatians 5:1-4 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

Christ will be of no benefit to whom? To the one who adds a single thing to the gospel, a single action that "controls" the grace of God. I continue to stand amazed at men who can read this, and, knowing Rome's sacramental system, knowing her penances and the like, can squint so hard as to say, "No, no, I don't see Rome adding anything to the message of faith in Christ alone." I do not know if Beckwith has considered these things, as so far, I have not heard of him actually sitting down with anyone but Roman Catholics during his "study." I have found this a commonality with RC converts, sadly.

Evangelicals can learn from Catholics that Christianity is a historical faith that did not vanish from the earth between the second and 16th centuries.

This again makes one wonder, very strongly, just what Beckwith's views were about church history as a "non-Catholic." Comments like these do not cause us to think his was a very deep-seated study of the Reformation and the literature produced therein.

Much of what evangelicals think of as the odd beliefs of Catholics have their roots deep in Christian history.

Yes indeed. For example, the Gnostic Gospels beat modern Roman Catholicism to many of the Marian dogmas by many centuries. Is this the kind of "roots" he is looking for? Possibly not, but, is he even aware of this? Has he looked into it? We cannot tell.
More information will probably come out, slowly, over time. But so far, I, for one, am left wondering just how "non-Catholic" this Catholic revert ever was, and I am once again forced to recognize how many post-evangelicals are non-Catholic only by tradition or taste, not by conviction. -- James R. White

Mother knows best

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 22:05:19 GMT

(Posted on behalf of Steve Hays.)

The reasons for Francis Beckwith’s reversion to Rome continue to dribble out:

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2007/fbeckwith_intervw1_jun07.asp

Let’s examine a few of his reasons in a recent interview.

Having said that, I do think that there is something about philosophy and the natural law tradition that makes a transition to Catholicism easier for an Evangelical trained in philosophy and open to natural law. The latter goes hand-in-hand with natural theology, which claims that one can discover some truths about God and ultimate reality apart from special revelation. So, for example, when I read the Nicene Creed and come across the line that the Lord Jesus Christ is "not made, being of one substance with the Father," I understand that this scripturally supported truth is made coherent by a philosophical notion of substance that the Council of Nicea brought to the text of Scripture in order to illuminate its content and to make sense of the phenomena of God found there. After all, if one denies the realist view of substance assumed by Nicea, then it becomes difficult to make sense of what it means for God the Son to be of one substance with God the Father. Although Nicea is saying that Jesus and the Father are different persons, it is also saying that they share both the same nature as well as the same being or substance. These distinctions, though subtle, are philosophically profound, and for that reason, they were instrumental in helping the council to properly fix the historical trajectory of the Church and its theology. That is why it is plain to me that these carefully crafted, well-reasoned creeds could not have arisen from a church that had an understanding of theological knowledge that isolated sola scriptura from the authority of a visible ecclesiastical body. Those who think it is possible to do this are like a son spending his rich father's inheritance but calling it salary.

I say all this because the Council of Nicea spoke authoritatively for the church universal, and did so in order to publicly and visibly resolve a theological controversy. And in the end, it offered to us a creed that is a model of clarity and economy, one that resulted from weaving together an elegant tapestry of scriptural, historical, and philosophical arguments. As someone trained in philosophy, it is a marvel to behold, for it is a testimony to the undeniable fact that the church derives its doctrine from a reading of Scripture through the inherited eyes and practices of its theological predecessors and with the assistance of philosophical reflection. And once an issue like this is settled, future generations of believers, including Protestants, are provided a bequest that assists their reading of Scripture that makes it unlikely that the Church will stray from sound doctrine.

This statement is odd in several respects:

i) He appeals to natural theology to underwrite the Nicene Creed. Let’s assume that this is correct.

He then appeals to ecclesiastic authority to underwrite the Nicene Creed.

But these two arguments are obviously inconsistent. An appeal to natural theology is an appeal to reason rather than authority. If it’s natural theology that underwrites the Nicene Creed, then ecclesiastical authority is superfluous.

ii) Another problem is that he acts as if the Roman Catholic church holds the copyright to the Nicene Creed. How is the Nicene Creed an argument for Roman Catholicism? It wasn’t produced by the Church of Rome.

iii) In what sense did the councils speak authoritatively for the universal church? At the councils, there were winners and losers. And dissent was criminalized. It was illegal to be on the losing side.

Is this the kind of authority that Beckwith has in mind? Coercive authority? Not persuasion, but the force of law?

The issues on which many Evangelicals and Catholics are united, such as the sanctity of life and the institution of marriage, have helped forge alliances that would not have seemed possible three decades ago.

It’s true that Evangelicals can form political alliances with conservative Catholics on certain social issues. But even in this respect, our views intersect rather than coincide.

i) On the one hand, Catholicism denies any Scriptural grounds for divorce. On the other hand, Catholicism has a very lax policy on granting of annulments.

By contrast, conservative evangelicals generally admit at least two Scriptural grounds for divorce (infidelity and desertion).

ii) In contemporary Catholicism, the sanctity of life has come to include opposition to the death penalty as well as practical pacifism.

By contrast, conservative evangelicals generally support capital punishment and the right of self-defense.

iii) Catholic opposition to abortion also includes opposition to artificial birth control, whereas evangelicals generally support contraception.

Something else concerning authority factored into my internal deliberations as well. But I do not think I can conjure up the words to properly express it. So, I will just rely on an elegant insight offered in First Things by a recent Catholic convert, R. R. Reno, which perfectly echoes my own sentiments: "In the end, my decision to leave the Episcopal Church did not happen because I had changed my mind about any particular point of theology or ecclesiology. Nor did it represent a sudden realization that the arguments for staying put are specious. What changed was the way in which I had come to hold my ideas and use my arguments. In order to escape the insanity of my slide into self-guidance, I put myself up for reception into the Catholic Church as one might put oneself up for adoption. A man can no more guide his spiritual life by his own ideas than a child can raise himself on the strength of his native potential."

i) That’s a telling comparison. On this view, the layman plays the child, while the bishop plays the grown-up. The layman can’t be left unsupervised. He’s a life-long minor. He never outgrows curfew. He must be chaperoned by the episcopate whenever he leaves the house.

For their own part, the bishops do not require adult supervision. The laity is answerable to the hierarchy, but not vice versa.

ii) Some of us have seen what this sort of thinking leads to. It leads to the Renaissance papacy. It leads to a subculture of clerical pederasty.

iii) What is also lacking here adequate doctrine of providence. For Beckwith, the only form of spiritual guidance is institutional guidance. Otherwise, we’re thrown back on our own individual resources.

This is the same thinking that underwrites fortunetelling and witchcraft. Fear of the future. So we must either know the future or control the future.

But it’s because a Biblically grounded Christian believes in providence and prayer that he has no use for divination or witchcraft. He doesn’t need to discover God’s will. Between Scripture, providence, and prayer, he has all the resources he needs to do God’s will.

I've not read all of them. I did read the first one published in 1994 as well as "The Gift of Salvation." The latter was particularly important to me, since it said things about salvation in a way that were inconsistent with what I had read by Protestant authors on Roman Catholicism. I also read some of the Protestant criticisms of the document. But some of these critics, though certainly not all, seemed bent on not allowing the Catholics to speak for themselves. It was almost as if these critics were jealously guarding the Catholicism that even the Catholics didn't believe.

This raises more questions than answers.

i) Who is speaking for Catholicism? The Vatican? Or did this document express the private opinion of a few catholic theologians and Bible scholars?

Needless to say, this document hardly enjoys the same dogmatic authority as Trent.

ii) And which Catholicism are they speaking for? Tridentine Catholicism? Pre-Reformation Catholicism? Counter-Reformation Catholicism? Vatican II Catholicism? Post-Vatican II Catholicism?

Once wonders how deeply he’s bothered to work through either the exegetical permutations of this debate or the church historical permutations. For example:

http://www.etsjets.org/jets/journal/40/40-4/40-4-pp581-608_JETS.pdf

Continuing:

But embracing such a view means that Dr. Mohler has to qualify sola scriptura to include certain interpretative requirements that cannot themselves be derived from Scripture since they are necessary conditions for the reading of Scripture. In fact, it was just such reasoning that pushed me toward Catholicism. I thought to myself that if sola scriptura can result in everything from the philosophical theology of Calvinism to the Open View of God, from Nicean Trinitarianism to social trinitarianism to Oneness Pentecostalism's rehabilitation of Sabellianism to 19th-century Unitarianism, then sola scriptura is not a sufficient bulwark for sustaining Christian orthodoxy.

i) Is he saying that each of these positions is equally scriptural? Is he a postmodern relativist who believes that one interpretation is just as good as another?

ii) If he thinks that Christian orthodoxy is underdetermined by Scripture, then does he believe in continuing revelation? An open canon?

How does Sacred Tradition function in his mind? Is it revelatory? If not, then how does it supplement the witness of Scripture?

iii) Does he think that sola scriptura commits an evangelical to the belief that Scripture is the only source of knowledge? Even if some of our beliefs are underdetermined by Scripture, this doesn’t negate sola scriptura. Rather, it simply means that some of our beliefs are more or less authoritative than others.

vi) Why does Beckwith suppose that if sola Scriptura cannot immunize the reader from error, then this means that certain interpretative requirements that cannot themselves be derived from Scripture since they are necessary conditions for the reading of Scripture?

Does a belief in Sacred Tradition immunize Beckwith from error when he reads the Bible or the Nicene Creed or the church fathers or the Council of Trent or Vatican II or Unam Sanctam?

vii) One can have all of the right hermeneutical principles in place and still misinterpret Scripture—or any other document. For one thing, human beings are fallible.

For another thing, there is more to error than ignorance. There can be an element of willfulness in the way a document is understood. Just consider the way in which some Supreme Court justices discover hidden rights in the text of the Constitution. Rights which even the Founding Fathers were unable to perceive.

For example, the open theists claim that classical theism is just Greek philosophy Christianized and all that they are doing is getting us back to the pure, non-corrupted, view of God in Scripture. The emergent church charges traditional Evangelicals with corruption as well, but in this case the corruption is Enlightenment rationalism and an overemphasis on American culture war issues such as abortion and homosexuality. But both groups are simply taking the Protestant Principle to its logical conclusion. For this reason, unless Evangelical critics of these movements are willing take a more modest view of sola scriptura and a more charitable posture toward tradition, they do not have the resources to respond to these movements in an effective way.

Other issues aside, cults and heresies take the status quo as their point of reference. In a Protestant nation, cults and heresies will tend to be a parody of Protestant ecclesiology. You will have Protestant heresies. Quasi-Protestant cults.

But in Catholic countries, the cults and heresies will tend to be a parody of Catholic ecclesiology. Indeed, religious cults ordinarily mimic a high-church rather than a low-church polity. Religious cults are generally authoritarian personality-cults, with a hierarchical command-structure. Cult-members are accountable to the cult-leader, while the leader is answerable to no one. The same is usually true with various breakaway sects and splinter groups.

Beckwith can point to Evangelical excesses because he’s an American. And America is traditionally Protestant, but allows for freedom of dissent..

If, however, the whole world were Catholic, then there would be parallel developments of a Catholic cast. Even now, consider the sedevacantist organizations. Or consider the Old Believers in Russia.

The difference is that back when Catholicism was strong, it suppressed dissent; and after it weakened, there was a public backlash in the form of anti-clericalism—which afforded more radical alternatives to Catholicism.

But this means that "the gospel" is not reducible to one theory of justification, one theory of ecclesiology, or one theory of scripture's sufficiency. For someone like my friend, who equates the gospel with the doctrines that arise in 16th century Christianity as a unified and interdependent set of beliefs for the first time in the church's history, the thought that one may have the gospel without the Reformation is conceptually unfathomable. But unlike my friend, I do not believe one is saved by embracing one particular cluster of contested theories on justification, authority, and scripture. One is saved by Jesus Christ and his grace alone, which is exactly what the Catholic Catechism, the Council of Trent, and the Bible all teach.

Two problems:

i) His disclaimer is quite disingenuous. By rejoining the church of Rome, Beckwith has committed himself to one particular theory of ecclesiology. And that, in turn, commits him to whatever theories of justification or other dogmas that Rome has chosen to formally define as de fide articles of the faith.

ii) No one is claiming that you need to be doctrinally inerrant in order to be saved. But that’s no excuse to trivialize sound doctrine.

St. Paul, in writing to the Galatians, didn’t regard every theory of justification as equally valid. Indeed, he regarded the theory of the Judaizers as downright damnable. For St. Paul, the integrity of the true Gospel was very much bound with which “theory” of justification you espoused.

Francis Beckwith Begins to Give His Reasons (#3)

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 06:35:10 GMT

Beckwith then begins to recount, briefly, his steps back into full communion with Rome, which included David Currie's book, Born Fundamentalist, Born-Again Catholic. The time-frame is also interesting. His reading of "the Early Church Fathers" and the Catholic Catechism began long, long ago...in January. Given I blogged his conversion in early May, which went back to late April, not even four months passed by. Just how much of the patristic corpus can one tackle in that time period, I wonder? Very little, of course. I have a feeling, given the comments I have seen so far, that we have another "Jurgens Conversion" here when it comes to patristic materials. That is, quote books, like Jurgen's collection, are the main-stay of those who claim that they have "read the early Church Fathers." What they have read are selections, carefully chosen, but not the actual sources themselves. That is how they can glibly speak of unity and harmony and the like while passing over all the contradictory evidence.
Likewise during this time Beckwith notes he read Noll's Is the Reformation Over? a particularly bad book I reviewed for the CRI Journal. This then leads to this very telling statement:

This led me to read the “Joint Declaration on Justification” by Lutheran and Catholic scholars. While consulting these sources, I read portions of a book by my friends Norm Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences. It is a fair-minded book.
But some of the points that Norm and Ralph made really shook me up and were instrumental in facilitating my return to the Church.

Yes, I'm sure Geisler's work has functioned that way for more than one person, as I warned when it first came out long ago. That's what happens when your primary author is Jesuit trained, and you run it by Jimmy Akin for editorial suggestions and corrections. Nothing shocking here, to be sure.
In this long, in-depth and intensive study of patristic sources, Beckwith concludes, "Then when I read the Fathers, those closest to the Apostles, the Reformation doctrine was just not there." Really? Maybe it was next to the discussion of purgatory, indulgences, the treasury of merit, transubstantiation, Papal infallibility, the immaculate conception of Mary, and the bodily assumption of Mary, which are all not to be found in any reading of the early writings of the Christian faith? I wonder why those facts would not keep Beckwith from Rome, while this other alleged "fact" would? Truly hard to say, isn't it? But I wonder, did Dr. Beckwith find the following in his patristic sources, or was time just too pressed to notice it in passing?

This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He approved the time of working iniquity which then was, but that He sought to form a mind conscious of righteousness, so that being convinced in that time of our unworthiness of attaining life through our own works, it should now, through the kindness of God, be vouchsafed to us; and having made it manifest that in ourselves we were unable to enter into the kingdom of God, we might through the power of God be made able. But when our wickedness had reached its height, and it had been clearly shown that its reward, punishment and death, was impending over us; and when the time had come which God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how the one love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great long-suffering, and bore with us, He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors! Having therefore convinced us in the former time that our nature was unable to attain to life, and having now revealed the Savior who is able to save even those things which it was [formerly] impossible to save, by both these facts He desired to lead us to trust in His kindness, to esteem Him our Nourisher, Father, Teacher, Counselor, Healer, our Wisdom, Light, Honor, Glory, Power, and Life... (Mathetes to Diognetius, Chapter 9).

That sure sounds like what I believe! But, it must not be, for we have Rome assurance that it is not! But then again, let's say I could not find texts like this. What did Augustine teach me?

What more shall I teach you than what we read in the apostle? For holy Scripture fixes the rule for our doctrine, lest we dare to be wiser than we ought....Therefore, I should not teach you anything else except to expound to you the words of the Teacher. (Augustine, De bono viduitatis, 2, NPNF Series I, III:442; Migne PL 40:431. Note especially the phrase, "Scriptura nostrae doctrinae regulam figit," that is, "Scripture fixes the rule for our doctrine.")

You ought to notice particularly and store in your memory that God wanted to lay a firm foundation in the Scriptures against treacherous errors, a foundation against which no one dares to speak who would in any way be considered a Christian. For when He offered Himself to them to touch, this did not suffice Him unless He also confirmed the heart of the believers from the Scriptures, for He foresaw that the time would come when we would not have anything to touch but would have something to read" (In Epistolam Johannis tractus, 2).

Let us not hear: This I say, this you say; but, thus says the Lord. Surely it is the books of the Lord on whose authority we both agree and which we both believe. There let us seek the church, there let us discuss our case. (Augustine, De unitate ecclesiae, 3)

Let those things be removed from our midst which we quote against each other not from divine canonical books but from elsewhere. Someone may perhaps ask: Why do you want to remove these things from the midst? Because I do not want the holy church proved by human documents but by divine oracles (Augustine, De unitate ecclesiae 3).

Whatever they may adduce, and wherever they may quote from, let us rather, if we are His sheep, hear the voice of our Shepherd. Therefore let us search for the church in the sacred canonical Scriptures (Augustine, De unitate ecclesiae 3).

And just one more for now,

Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-95): "..we make the Holy Scriptures the canon and the rule of every dogma; we of necessity look upon that, and receive alone that which may be made conformable to the intention of those writings. (On the Soul and Resurrection).

Were these texts missing from Dr. Beckwith's 100 day examination of patristic writings, or were they simply missing from Jurgens or such secondary sources?

To be sure, salvation by grace was there. To be sure, the necessity of faith was there. And to be sure, our works apart from God’s grace was decried. But what was present was a profound understanding of how saving faith was not a singular event that took place “on a Wednesday,” to quote a famous Gospel song, but that it was the grace of God working through me as I acquiesced to God’s spirit to allow his grace to shape and mold my character so that I may be conformed to the image of Christ. I also found it in the Catechism.

Of course salvation by grace was there. Here we see the impact of inconsistent "Protestantism." I have repeated, more times than I can count, the following statement: the issue at the Reformation was not the necessity of grace. Everyone says grace is necessary, even the Mormons (2 Nephi 25:23, Moroni 10:32). That has never been the issue, and when "evangelicals" go all ga-ga over Roman Catholics who speak of grace, they are only demonstrating that they, like Beckwith, have not done their homework on Rome's teachings. Rome anathematized anyone who would say you could be saved apart from grace. Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of Rome knows that. The issue then, and today, is not the necessity of grace, it is the sufficiency of grace! Is grace merely an aid, a helper, that can be frustrated by the mighty will of man (Rome and many today, historic Arminians, most evangelicals such as Geisler, Craig, etc., all agree), or is God's grace powerful, purposeful, sovereign, and all-sufficient?
But what does Beckwith mean in his description of the Roman Catholic view of synergism? Since Rome confuses justification and sanctification, evidently, this is the philosophical restructuring of the concept that appeals to Beckwith (note the lack of Scriptural references). There is little enough in the wording to raise a red flag, until you examine the words in a meaningful biblical and historical context, and realize that "acquiesce" here means "grace tries, but is dependent upon me," and "shape and mold my character" is not merely a statement about experiential sanctification but, due to Rome's confusion of this with justification, destroys the imputation of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ to the believer as their sole standing before a just and holy God. While this phraseology sounds very pious and ecumenical, never forget that what is being promoted is Rome's synergistic theology that results in a mixed merit before God made up of the merits of Christ, Mary, and the saints. Note Beckwith's words:

There was an aesthetic aspect to this well: The Catholic view of justification elegantly tied together James and Paul and the teachings of Jesus that put a premium on a believer’s faithful practice of Christian charity.
Catholicism does not teach “works righteousness.” It teaches faith in action as a manifestation of God’s grace in one’s life. That’s why Abraham’s faith results in righteousness only when he attempts to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God.

Really? Not works righteousness? Clearly, Beckwith is suffering from "recent conversion memory trauma syndrome," a very common ailment I have discovered. Either that, or he never read Calvin or Luther's polemic works from the time of the Reformation anyway (a very strong possibility as well). The mere band-aid of "grace" does not fix the problem of Rome's mixed-merit salvation system, for no serious Reformed writer has ever ignored this very distinction made in their own writings. But we recognize the whole spectrum of Roman teachings, not just the nuanced, modernized, Hahnitized ones. We still read this kind of verbiage coming from Rome, even post-Vatican II:

1. The doctrine and practice of indulgences which have been in force for many centuries in the Catholic Church have a solid foundation in divine revelation which comes from the Apostles and "develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit," while "as the centuries succeed one another the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her."
   For an exact understanding of this doctrine and of its beneficial use it is necessary, however, to remember truths which the entire Church illumined by the Word of God has always believed and which the bishops, the successors of the Apostles, and first and foremost among them the Roman Pontiffs, the successors of Peter, have taught by means of pastoral practice as well as doctrinal documents throughout the course of centuries to this day.
   2. It is a divinely revealed truth that sins bring punishments inflicted by God's sanctity and justice. These must be expiated either on this earth through the sorrows, miseries and calamities of this life and above all through death,[3] or else in the life beyond through fire and torments or "purifying" punishments. Therefore it has always been the conviction of the faithful that the paths of evil are fraught with many stumbling blocks and bring adversities, bitterness and harm to those who follow them.
   These punishments are imposed by the just and merciful judgment of God for the purification of souls, the defense of the sanctity of the moral order and the restoration of the glory of God to its full majesty. Every sin in fact causes a perturbation in the universal order established by God in His ineffable wisdom and infinite charity, and the destruction of immense values with respect to the sinner himself and to the human community. Christians throughout history have always regarded sin not only as a transgression of divine law but also -- though not always in a direct and evident way -- as contempt for or disregard of the friendship between God and man, just as they have regarded it as a real and unfathomable offense against God and indeed an ungrateful rejection of the love of God shown us through Jesus Christ, who called His disciples friends and not servants.
   3. It is therefore necessary for the full remission and -- as it is called -- reparation of sins not only that friendship with God be reestablished by a sincere conversion of the mind and amends made for the offense against His wisdom and goodness, but also that all the personal as well as social values and those of the universal order itself, which have been diminished or destroyed by sin, be fully reintegrated whether through voluntary reparation which will involve punishment or through acceptance of the punishments established by the just and most holy wisdom of God, from which there will shine forth throughout the world the sanctity and the splendor of His glory. The very existence and the gravity of the punishment enable us to understand the foolishness and malice of sin and its harmful consequences.
   That punishment or the vestiges of sin may remain to be expiated or cleansed and that they in fact frequently do even after the remission of guilt is clearly demonstrated by the doctrine on purgatory. In purgatory, in fact, the souls of those "who died in the charity of God and truly repentant, but before satisfying with worthy fruits of penance for sins committed and for omissions" are cleansed after death with purgatorial punishments. This is also clearly evidenced in the liturgical prayers with which the Christian community admitted to Holy Communion has addressed God since most ancient times: "that we, who are justly subjected to afflictions because of our sins, may be mercifully set free from them for the glory of thy name."
   Following in the footsteps of Christ, the Christian faithful have always endeavored to help one another on the path leading to the heavenly Father through prayer, the exchange of spiritual goods and penitential expiation. The more they have been immersed in the fervor of charity, the more they have imitated Christ in His sufferings, carrying their crosses in expiation for their own sins and those of others, certain that they could help their brothers to obtain salvation from God the Father of mercies. This is the very ancient dogma of the Communion of the Saints, whereby the life of each individual son of God in Christ and through Christ is joined by a wonderful link to the life of all his other Christian brothers in the supernatural unity of the Mystical Body of Christ till, as it were, a single mystical person is formed.
   Thus is explained the "treasury of the Church" which should certainly not be imagined as the sum total of material goods accumulated in the course of the centuries, but the infinite and inexhaustible value the expiation and the merits of Christ Our Lord have before God, offered as they were so that all of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. It is Christ the Redeemer Himself in whom the satisfactions and merits of His redemption exist and find their force. This treasury also includes the truly immense, unfathomable and ever pristine value before God of the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, who following in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by His grace have sanctified their lives and fulfilled the mission entrusted to them by the Father. Thus while attaining their own salvation, they have also cooperated in the salvation of their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body. (Indulgentiarum Doctrina, found here.

I feel like reading some Edwards or Spurgeon or something just to wash my mental mouth out after reading about "carrying their crosses in expiation for their sins and those of others, certain that they could help their brothers to obtain salvation from God the Father of mercies" and the like. You can try to "biblicize" Rome's soteriology by ignoring her history and her own practices, illustrated for centuries on end (that's the methodology of certain men in the US today), but facts remain facts, and such a process will always leave you with an empty bag at the end of the day.
Finally, I would challenge Beckwith to put his final statement to the test of sacred Scripture. If Beckwith is right, and "Abraham’s faith results in righteousness only when he attempts to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God" then I submit that Paul's argument in Romans 4:9ff is thereby refuted. And if your understanding of the biblical text turns the authors upon themselves, well, you've obviously gone astray.
[continued] -- James R. White

Francis Beckwith Begins to Give His Reasons (#2)

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 05:50:06 GMT

As I noted a few days ago, Frank Beckwith has begun elucidating his reasons for going back to the Roman communion. In an article in the National Catholic Register [http://ncregister.com/site/article/2772], Beckwith answers various questions about his reversion. I continue reviewing his comments.

For instance, because Protestant evangelicals accept much of the Great Tradition that Catholics take for granted such as the Catholic creeds and the inspiration of Scripture but without recourse to the Churchs authority, they have produced important and significant works in systematic theology and philosophical theology.

   The inspiration of Scripture, pre-existing the time of Christ, of course, is hardly dependent upon any post-NT "tradition" of whatever nature one might theorize. But I find it ironic that while especially Reformed Protestants have stood for the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, producing scholarly tomes in its defense (think of Warfield's work on the topic, for example), Rome's schools are filled with priests and academics who no more believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible than they actually believe Mary was Bodily Assumed into heaven. When one thinks of those who believe in and defend inerrancy, you do not think of Rome.
   And as to having recourse to the (Roman) Church's authority, is that the same authority that cannot give final and clear answers to such issues as the nature of God's act of predestination, but can give clear answers to such obscure and obtuse things as whether Mary was bodily assumed into heaven or immaculately conceived? We have recourse to the church established by Christ, with elders/bishops and deacons, not the monstrosity that has developed over the centuries with Popes and cardinals and every sort of unbiblical, non-apostolic invention that could possibly be created for the self-aggrandizement of the Vatican and the prideful men who have sat upon the cathedra Petri.
   Next Beckwith is asked about the "hostility" he has had to endure regarding his reversion. I wonder, will anyone ask him about the hostility Rome has shown toward gospel believing men and women down through the centuries, and the hostility implicit in his own renunciation of his former confession of faith in such things as sola scriptura and sola fide? For folks who are so often talking about history, it is very odd that we do not hear very much at all about Rome's own history of hostility toward other religious groups, especially those nasty "heretics" with which she was so busy from 1100 up to the time of the Reformation. Strange, no?
   Of course, a repeated statement now by Dr. Beckwith is that this "hostility" is based upon ignorance of the "real" Rome. We read,

Some of the hostility was not surprising, for some of it came from well-meaning Protestants who simply do not have a good grounding in Christian history or the Catholic Catechism. Many of these well-meaning folks, unfortunately, have sat under the teachings of less-than-careful Bible-church preachers and pastors who approach Catholicism with a cluster of flawed categories that make even a charitable reading of the Catechism almost impossible.

Given that Beckwith had launched a strike against John MacArthur on the subject of Lent just a few weeks before his reversion, it is not difficult to figure out who the "less-than-careful Bible-church preachers" are. But I wonder what kind of "charitable" reading of Rome's teachings today allow Beckwith to insist he is still an "evangelical"? Does charity change history? Does it remove the contexts that give meaning to words found in ancient documents? Is this how modern Roman Catholics get around the impossible contradictions in their own history, holding together their modern inclusivism with their historical statements, such as this one?

It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart "into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels" [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church. (Denzinger 714).

All the charity in the world will not change the meaning of those words as they were penned originally. The olympic efforts put forth since then to change that meaning, alter it and neuter it, are only monuments to how far men and women will go to maintain a religious system. As Dr. Beckwith has made reference to a possible book, it will be interesting to see just how consistently you can create a "charitable" framework in which to hold together Rome's many historical, biblical, and theological contradictions.

I actually think there are different circles of evangelicals that overlap each other. There are those who interact with Catholics, and those who dont. I have been with the group that has interacted for quite a while because of my discipline of philosophy and because the cultural issues that I write on are the ones around which evangelicals and Catholics have been aligned.

I noted when the news of this situation first broke that Beckwith's work on "cultural issues" with Roman Catholics was clearly important in his decision. Well over a decade ago, in response to the initial ECT document, I wrote the following, that remains relevant today:

ECT was born out of the common alliance between Roman Catholics and Protestants in our land against such travesties as abortion, pornography, and the general decline in moral values that is readily seen on all sides. Until one recognizes the power that such an alliance can bring to bear upon a person, one will not be in a position to criticize the authors. Many will have nothing but a knee-jerk reaction to this document, rejecting it out of hand without learning from it a very important lesson. We do not live in vacuum; our theological beliefs are impacted by the world around us, and by our interaction with it. When we feel very strongly about an issue, we can allow that perspective to influence many other aspects of our lives.
   As an example, a few years ago I became involved in protesting the murder of unborn children. I believe to this day that abortion is murder, plain and simple, and that those who engage in this activity will answer to God, either now, or in the judgment to come. Indeed, abortion may well be one of the many aspects of God's judgment that is already coming upon one of the most wicked societies the world has ever known. Be that as it may, I became involved with Operation Rescue on a local level in the Phoenix area, even debating abortion rights advocates on local radio stations, and appearing as a representative in the media. It is vital for everyone to understand how strongly one can feel about this kind of issue, and how that strong feeling can overshadow every other consideration.
   It was not long, however, before I became aware of a real problem. It was not, in my situation, stated in writing, but it was understood by all that everyone involved in the work was to be considered a Christian if indeed they claimed to be one. On the practical level, this meant that if I were to find myself in a jail cell with a Roman Catholic it was my duty and obligation to join hands with this person as a fellow believer in Christ, no questions asked. I could not address the issues that separated us. I could not contrast the finished work of Christ, and His free grace, with the Roman concept of the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, and the idea of merit. I could not, if convinced of its necessity, share the gospel of grace with this Roman Catholic, for this would amount to a "division in the ranks" so to speak, and would detract from the focus of the work. This reality quickly drove me from the organization, and helped me to see the very error that has now been enshrined in Evangelicals and Catholics Together.   The tragedy of ECT is to be seen in the fact that while seeking to accomplish something that seems good, it abandons the one thing that can, in reality, bring about the very good it seeks. This was the lesson I learned when fighting against the murder of unborn children. While I may wish to bring an immediate stop to this hellish activity, I had to realize that there is only one true long-term solution, only one means by which I as a Christian can overcome the powers of evil that seek to destroy and kill and maim. It's not like I had forgotten the truth; it just got buried under strong emotions. The truth is rather simple: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16)." It is a verse almost every Christian knows, and yet its truth is so often forgotten. If I want to stop abortion, I must seek to change the hearts of those who would kill little children. How can I change hearts? I can't, but God does, and that by one means, and one means only: the gospel. The gospel of Christ. The gospel of grace. The gospel that speaks of God's holiness, His wrath, and His love demonstrated in the cross of Christ. The gospel preached by the Reformers, the gospel of Paul preached wit h such power by men like Edwards and Spurgeon. That is how I can see hearts changed. "But that takes time!" we are told, "and we don't have that kind of time!" Such is not, however, a statement of faith, but of disbelief. God saves, in His time, in His way. I have to accept His will in these matters, if I am faithful to the Scriptural witness.
   ECT seeks to provide a basis for a common front against the evils of our age, but in the process, it does away with the single means by which those goals can be obtained: the gospel. The simple fact is that Roman Catholics and Protestants, if they are honest, are far apart on the issues of the gospel. There is no unity with reference to the message we preach to the world, and it is pure make-believe to say otherwise. ECT is a lie: it lies to the world when it speaks of a unity that does not exist, and it lies to Christians when it does not properly represent the positions it attempts to make compatible. We may sympathize with the motivations of the authors, recognizing the power of the emotions evoked by abortion and other such evils; but if we wish to honor and love God, we cannot allow our sentiments to overthrow Biblical truth. Instead, Protestants such as Charles Colson should use their positions to powerfully and clearly proclaim the great truths that shook the world four centuries ago, sola gratia, solus Christus, sola fide, sola scriptura. Such would not be politically correct, but it would be Divinely Correct, and such should be the aim of the believer.

Returning to Beckwith:

I knew there were differences and that they were important ones, and that there would be those who would not be entirely happy with my becoming Catholic, but I didnt think there would be those who thought I was becoming apostate as some of my commentators have indicated online.

It is hard for me to believe Beckwith was unaware of the fact that many would see his act as one of apostasy. This would indicate a very limited exposure to theological writings not only of the period of the Reformation but even today.

I didnt fully realize it until the beginning of 2007 that I had assimilated much of a Catholic understanding of faith and reason, the nature of the human person, as well as the progress of dogma.

   This process would be interesting to examine, if for no other reason than to illustrate the depth to which paralyzing error has moved into the very heart of conservative post-evangelicalism, but without more details, such an examination would be more speculative than useful. Surely a future book by Beckwith would fill in the gaps. For now, I truly wonder: given his background and education, was it a matter of assimilating this after a knowing, purposeful rejection of Rome, or did such a break with Rome's fundamental views of man and grace and knowledge ever actually take place at all? Is Beckwith a revert, or a life-long Catholic who took a hiatus in post-evangelicalism for a while? One has to wonder in light of the following:
Looking back, the beginning of my return to the Church, though I didn't realize it at the time, probably occurred at a conference on John Paul II and Philosophy at Boston College in February 2006.
   Several months earlier I had published a small essay in the magazine Touchstone: Vatican Bible School: What John Paul II Can Teach Evangelicals. I incorporated portions of that essay in my BC paper in which I made a case for why anti-creedal Protestants hold to an incoherent point of view on faith, reason, and the nature of the Christian university.
   The first question from the audience came from Laura Garcia, a BC philosophy professor, who is a Catholic and former evangelical Protestant.
   She asked, Why aren't you a Catholic?
   The question took me by surprise.
   Such a question would never, ever, ever take me by surprise, and not only because of who I am and what I do. I can't imagine any elder in a Reformed Baptist Church, for example, who would so much as hesitate at this question, let alone experience surprise. Surely I realize that a large portion of post-evangelicalism would stutter at such a question, in any context, and sadly, most would only give an answer that boils down to taste, or their own traditions, not a knowing conviction based upon serious consideration of the facts. That is why post-evangelicalism is such a wonderfully easy field for the gleaning of Catholic converts...and Mormon converts, Jehovah's Witness converts, even Muslim converts. Given the truth of the statement, "What you win them with is what you win them too," the bubble-gum level gospel found in so many venues today is hardly going to ground believers so that they will not be blown about by every wind of doctrine.

I gave her an answer if I remember correctly that appealed to the doctrines of the Reformation as making all the difference to me. I also tried to account for the churchs continuity as being connected to the reformers and their progeny as well as their predecessors in the Catholic Church. In this way, I could defend the creeds as Spirit-directed without conceding the present authority of Rome on these matters.

I wonder what "doctrines of the Reformation" Beckwith is referring to? Would he stand with Luther against Erasmus? I have a feeling he would not have done so then, and surely would not do so now. I am likewise fascinated by the insistence by so many to elevate the early creeds to some quasi-inspired status (this is an impetus that is exceptionally wide-spread). How anyone can read the history of the church, the politics and chicanery that accompanied the later councils that produced these creeds, and read the accompanying canons and decrees, and yet somehow seek to elevate them beyond the point that their main symbol's consistency with Scripture could rightly provide them, is beyond me. But even here, Beckwith has bought into the "Rome is the church of the councils" argument that is simply not tenable in any meaningful manner. Even with the rise of Roman primacy in the West, there are still far too many problems with the Papal theory related to its own history over the following centuries (does the phrase "Babylonian Captivity of the Church" ring any bells?) to allow for such ease in accepting Rome's claims. I do not expect Roman Catholic reporters to ask tough questions, but I wonder if Beckwith is even aware of these issues? I have seen little evidence that he is.
[continued] -- James R. White

James White on Sola Scriptura (Video)

Thu, 31 May 2007 06:30:05 GMT

This is a closing argument by James White in a debate on the issue of Sola Scriptura.

A Reasoned Reply from the Far Side of the Tiber

Wed, 30 May 2007 22:30:06 GMT

In reference to White's article dated May 30, 2007. "Francis Beckwith Begins to Give His Reasons" It is well expected that Mr. White's comments towards Mr. Beckwith's reversion to Mother Church would not be favorable. What else would one expect from White. What else could White have said, but not speak in a favorable tone. After all White is a Prot. And not only a Prot. but one of the foremost defenders of Prot-ism and avid opponents against Mother Church. So how can anyone take what White writes seriously. I mean he is soooo one sided. White is better off not saying anything at all and letting the matter just die down. He makes it worst by commentting on Beckwith's reversion, thus drawing more attention to the subject of why Prots. revert at all, especially those who are learnered theologians, who at one time held the presidency of the ETS!!

This kind note (I wonder what would happen if I started calling Roman Catholics "Papists" as often as they refer to me as a "Prot" or a "Deformer" or, in the loving, yet creepy words of Art Sippo, "anti-Catholic bigot" and a member of the "Kampus Krusade for Kthulhu" and the "Death Eater crowd"?) illustrates a common element of the non-dialogue that normally takes place today about important issues. If you read the first portion of my review, posted only a few hours ago, you will note that I addressed a wide range of things, including the reading of patristic sources, dating the origination of particular doctrinal concepts (like indulgences), etc. It asked serious questions about serious issues related to the gospel. But what did Bob, my Catholic correspondent, hear? Well, basically...nothing. Nothing of substance made it through Bob's filters. Instead, what does he say? White should shut up, because White is wrong. Well, there you go! I'm so "one sided"! Well, like the Pope isn't! I guess the Pope should be less one-sided, Bob?
And as for Beckwith being a learned theologian, he wasn't, and isn't. He's a learned philosopher. There is, of course, a difference. Beckwith is admitting he was an unfounded non-Catholic. By that I mean, he was not a Catholic, and did not know why he was not a Catholic. By his own statements in the article I am reviewing, he had not read patristic literature; his views of grace and man had always been in opposition to Luther and Calvin (as is the case with most non-Catholics today); he did not know why he was not a Catholic, that is, his position was not one of knowing conviction. He had not even read the Council of Trent. And I have a feeling that would describe a large proportion of the membership of the ETS as well. Join this together with his common cooperation with Roman Catholics in other areas (cultural issues, social issues, philosophy), his own background in Catholicism, etc., and the reversion is hardly surprising. One who does not passionately understand why the death of Christ is once-for-all, finished, completed, and perfect (in opposition to Rome's Mass), and who is not committed whole-heartedly to the sole sufficiency of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ as his or her whole and entire standing before God (over against Rome's infusion of grace and synergism) will find things like ecumenism, philosophy, social issues, etc., more than sufficient to overthrow any commitment to mere "doctrines" like sola fide or sola scriptura. -- James R. White

New Roman Catholic Convert Francis Beckwith Begins to Give His Reasons for His Apostasy

Wed, 30 May 2007 22:20:04 GMT

Over at Pros Apologian Dr. James White weighs in concerning Beckwith’s abandoning the Christian faith for the Roman Catholic Church:

I’m sure I am not the first person to note that "the overwhelming historical weight of the dogmas defined by Rome on the basis of tradition, such as Papal Infallibility, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and the Bodily Assumption of Mary, compelled me to bow to the authority of Rome" has not been at the top of Dr. Beckwith’s reasons for returning to Catholicism.

In fact, I haven’t see a word about Mary as yet, and I, for one, would very much like to hear how Dr. Beckwith, who so far has relied very heavily upon nebulous uses of the term "tradition," can pledge his fealty to Rome while at the same time embracing these very a-historical dogmas as if they are definitional of the Christian faith.

Francis Beckwith Begins to Give His Reasons

Wed, 30 May 2007 18:35:04 GMT

I'm sure I am not the first person to note that "the overwhelming historical weight of the dogmas defined by Rome on the basis of tradition, such as Papal Infallibility, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and the Bodily Assumption of Mary, compelled me to bow to the authority of Rome" has not been at the top of Dr. Beckwith's reasons for returning to Catholicism. In fact, I haven't see a word about Mary as yet, and I, for one, would very much like to hear how Dr. Beckwith, who so far has relied very heavily upon nebulous uses of the term "tradition," can pledge his fealty to Rome while at the same time embracing these very a-historical dogmas as if they are definitional of the Christian faith.
I likewise believe I sense a certain amount of hesitancy on the part of some in the RC apologetics community regarding Beckwith's conversion. Note this paragraph from The National Catholic Register:

Because of the magisterium, contemporary leaders, in some ways, are constrained by the precedents of the past. That is more sure of a foundation than one would find in the evangelical world, where a congregation can vote, by fiat, things in or out. I accept the authority of the Church for very good reasons, just as I would accept what my doctor says because he went to medical school.

   I don't know about you, but that does not exactly sound like a ringing endorsement of Papal primacy and infallibility. I'm sure Rome's apologists have noted the lack of such an enthusiastic endorsement of their central authority claims as well, and may be hanging back, waiting to see if Beckwith will be just another of the legion of "sorta-Catholic" scholars that currently fill their educational institutions.
   In any case, slowly the arguments are coming forward, and one is left wondering just how much study went into this decision on Dr. Beckwith's part. He continually speaks of being "amazed" at reading patristic sources. This is a common element of what you hear from converts to Catholicism. But, you never get much in the way of critical thought as to what is so amazing about what they have read. You don't hear them being amazed at the things you find in patristic sources that Rome discards. You don't find any recognition of the fact that in every generation there are those who are insightful and sound in their writings, and those who are not; some strong in one area, weak in others. The impact of persecution, whether a writer knew Greek or Hebrew, the state of the recognition of the canon in his day and in his area, access to the entirety of the Scriptures, etc.--all things that are obviously relevant to the weight to be given to any particular writer or any particular writing--are all missing from the vocabulary of the convert to Rome.
   One statement by Beckwith in particular amazed me:

But what it will do is help the Protestant to appreciate that the very same Christians that deliberated over the content of the Biblical canon also believed in the Real Presence, purgatory, intercession of the saints and indulgences.

   Beckwith has a strong attachment to the idea that Rome fixed the canon of Scripture (it didn't). But I am truly left wondering what the preceding statement actually means. I suppose he could be admitting that the first dogmatic, infallible definition of the canon (from the modern Roman perspective) is that of Trent in 1546, but that would not fit his "primitive" Christianity motif, nor the idea that the early Christians were "closer" to the Apostles than we are. No, I think he is truly speaking of the primitive centuries here, at least as far as the canon is concerned. But that is where the wheels fall off, for any serious student of history who is not a dogged apologist for modern Rome knows the concept of purgatory took centuries to develop and did not in fact arrive at its modern form until the fifteenth century; even the input of Gregory the Great, vital to its development, did not bring it to the current place it has in Roman theology, and surely Gregory is long after the canon issue is, for all intents and purposes, settled. And given that, it is likewise unquestionable that the concept of indulgences, which is grounded in the same merit-theology as purgatory, and which requires the further development of the concept of the thesaurus meritorum ("treasury of merit"), is later than purgatory. So, is Beckwith seriously attempting to argue that these two doctrines were believed by the church of the first four centuries? Did his study leading to his conversion consist solely of Roman Catholic works and defective Protestant ones?
   We are also left wondering at what he means by "Real Presence". Does he recognize the difference between the spiritual presence of Christ with His people and the later scholastic development of transubstantiation, or has he bought into the same kind of historical anachronism that plagues almost all of modern Roman Catholic apologetics writings? Is he prepared to argue that the primitive church, say, up to the end of the fourth century, actually believed what Rome teaches today on such issues as purgatory, indulgences, and transubstantiation? His words here would seem to say yes, but, there is always the Newmanian Wiggle Argument:
Even in the cases where these doctrines were not articulated in their contemporary formulations, their primitive versions were surely there.
   This is the final bastion of the Roman Catholic apologist who attempts to make a coherent argument for his faith.

"We are the one true church, going back to Jesus and the Apostles."

"So, you teach what the Apostles taught?"

"Yes, of course."

"So the Apostles taught about purgatory and indulgences and transubstantiation and Papal Infallibility and the Marian dogmas?"

"Yes...sorta."

"Sorta?"

"Yes. Like an acorn is to a tree...." [ Zen music helps at this point ]

"Oh, so, they taught something that developed, over time, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, into what you believe today."

"Exactly! Living tradition! Magisterium!"

"So as long as I believe in your tradition and your Magisterium, I will believe anything you have to say, whether I can find the Apostles teaching it or not, right? So you can teach, as dogma, whatever your tradition and magisterium say, even if you cannot find a Christian who believed those teachings who can in any logical sense be connected to the apostles; and, you can teach things in the names of the Apostles that have no connection at all to their writings, but, you claim apostolic authority for it anyway, correct?"

   And so on. I wonder if Beckwith read Salmon's Infallibility of the Church during his studies? Whitaker? Goode? I'd be quite interested in seeing his reading list for "the other side," for surely he did, in fact, do that kind of study, did he not?
   Ironically, one book he does mention, is that by Geisler and MacKenzie. His words speak for themselves:

While consulting these sources, I read portions of a book by my friends Norm Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences. It is a fair-minded book.
But some of the points that Norm and Ralph made really shook me up and were instrumental in facilitating my return to the Church.

We shouldn't be too hard on Norm and Ralph: both Geisler and Beckwith graduated from Jesuit schools to begin with, and Geisler ran his book by Jimmy Akin for editing purposes, so there is little reason for feigning too much shock here. But if you have been thinking of using the Geisler/MacKenzie book as a resource, well, here is an endorsement for it that should get your attention.
Another statement that caught my eye is this: "In terms of expository preaching, as well as teaching the laity, Protestant evangelicals are without peers in the Christian world." I agree. But why is this? How can it be the "true" church bores its people into a coma while the "rebels" are able to engage in "expository preaching" in the way they do? Can it be because we honor the Bible as the Word of God in a way utterly outside the capacity of any religion that places itself above the Scriptures as Rome most assuredly does? Is it not very clear that the reason we produce Spurgeons and Edwards and Bunyans and the like is because we have a fundamentally different view of Scripture? Is this not the difference between a heart-felt conviction of sola scriptura vs. the functional attitude of Rome, sola ecclesia? I would think so.
[continued] -- James R. White

Beckwith Explains His Decision

Wed, 30 May 2007 10:35:05 GMT

Frank Beckwith speaks about his decision to return to the Roman Catholic Church.

Time to Build a Bridge Across the Tiber?

Tue, 22 May 2007 00:45:09 GMT

In the wake of the conversion of Frank Beckwith other evangelicals are announcing that they are also "swimming the Tiber." The latest, of which I'm aware, is Robert Koons, a philosopher at the University of Texas. Judging by this 90+ page paper (PDF), Koons has on the Road to Rome for some time.

Nominally Lutheran (for the moment) he seems a little better informed about historic Protestantism than Beckwith, who seems to suffer at least some of the misapprehensions about Rome shared by a lot of evangelicals. Nevertheless, Koons seems to have been "making it up" as he goes along for a while. His account of sola Scriptura is interesting but not confessional. In this regard, I recommend a recent essay in Modern Reformation vol 16, No. 2 by Keith Mathison where he gives a good brief account of Sola Scriptura over against the Anabaptist/modern evangelical biblicism (solo Scriptura).

His reading of the history of theology is problematic. Take one example. He assumes as a given that the late medieval church was unified (A Lutheran's Case for Catholicism, 7) and that Luther's doctrine of justification destroyed that unity. That's a huge and unproven assumption. It assumes that visible, institutional, nominal unity is genuine unity.

In fact, there was (and remains) a great deal of theological diversity within the Roman communion. It's not obvious to me, that despite the valiant attempts by Abelard (indirectly) and by Lombard and later by the Sententiators (commentators on Lombard's Sentences) and by Thomas to demonstrate the sort of unity Koons and others assume to have existed, actually existed. The degree of diversity that existed is really quite remarkable. Under the same big tent existed folk who opposed the papacy in ways that anticipated Luther's rhetoric and those who pledged total devotion to it, there were proponents and opponents of what has become Marian dogma, proponents and opponents of transubstantiation, proponents and opponents of Augustine's doctrine of predestination, proponents and opponents of a sort of limited atonement. Much of this diversity was gradually silenced, at least officially, culminating at Trent.

Okay, one might say, that was all theological wrangling. Who cares? Fine. Anyone care to talk about Three Popes at once? Have you any idea of the number of anti-popes and the degree of (if we're being honest here) about which pope should be considered "the pope" and which should be the "anti-pope" and how arbitrary that denomination can be?

Since the Reformation, the impression that Roman apologists have sought to give is that, while the church was morally corrupt, there was nothing that a little house cleaning couldn't fix. Indeed, most of the Council of Trent was taken up with that house cleaning and moral reform work.

The neo-converts seem to want to ignore or revise Trent, but it can't be done. The language is too clear, too stark. Consider canon 4 of Session 6 (1547) which effectively and eternally condemns Augustine's anti-Pelagian and anti-semi-Pelagian writings (and Augustine himself) as well as Thomas Aquinas, Gottschalk, Bradwardine, Rimini, and all the Protestants:

If any one says, that man's free will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-operates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of Justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive, let him be anathema.

If one takes ecclesiastical language seriously, and we should, then any anti-preparationist is eternally condemned, but we're just getting warmed up. Here's canon 17 of session six:

If any one says, that the grace of Justification is only attained to by those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.

Oops. I think Thomas it takes in the here too.

Canon 10:

If any one says, that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby he merited for us to be justified; or that is by the justice itself that they are formally just; let him be anathema.

In case this isn't clear, here's canon 11 (stop me if you've heard this one before):

If any one says, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is inherent in them; or even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the favor of God; let him be anathema.

Okay. Here it is. We confessional Protestants who confess the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to be the sole ground of justification are, according to magisterial Roman doctrine, eternally condemned. If we deny justification through infused grace and righteousness formed by cooperating with grace, we're eternally condemned.

Must I continue?

The great tragedy of Trent is that when the Roman communion finally spoke magisterially on justification, she condemned what we understand to be the gospel. Remember that about 25 years prior, the Holy See had already excommunicated Martin Luther.

You might be asking, "But I thought all this changed at Vatican II?" The short answer is, no it didn't. How do I know that? In two ways:

1) Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church (3.3.2; beginning with paragraph 1987 on justification). Look at the footnotes. To which Councils did the Congregation (i.e., committee) for Sacred Doctrine appeal? The Council of Trent. Rome affirms and teaches now what she has always taught, justification on the ground of intrinsic righteousness formed by infused grace and cooperation with grace. How are you doing today? Got perfect intrinsic righteousness?

2) Nothing about Vatican II overturned the doctrine promulgated at Trent. To think that the Roman communion changed her mind at Vatican II reveals a profound misunderstanding of how Rome works. Yes, occasionally popes will cop to making a boo boo (like watching in silence as Jews were being shipped off to death camps). That's not quite the same thing as overturning precedents. Does she, in substance contradict herself? Yes. Does she admit it? No.

The principle document in question here is Unitatis Redintegratio (The Decree on Ecumenism). Where in this decree did the Council re-admit Luther and Calvin back into the Roman Communion? See section III.ii where the Western "schisms" are addressed. It's very careful language. The rhetoric is not Trent's but where's the substance? Where are the anathemas lifted? For my part, where has Rome embraced justification sola gratia, sola fide?

There's still a river between confessional Protestants and Rome. Ecumenists can't have it both ways. They can't say, "Oh the differences are all gone, so come on home"? If the differences are gone, then am I not already home? If there are differences, then Vatican II didn't make them go away.

I understand the desire for resolution of the tension that drives these conversions, but that resolution is an illusion. You've traded one divided communion for another. For you folk about to take the plunge, you might do a little research first. The water might not be as warm as you think.

More on Beckwith Move in the Wall Street Journal from David Howard, Former ETS Pres - May 21

Mon, 21 May 2007 19:05:06 GMT

There is more feedback and perspective on the move of Frank Beckwith to the Roman Catholic church.

David Howard brings a rare combination of credentials to his response, published Friday in the Wall Street Journal.

He is a former ETS President.

His uncle made a similar move in the 1980's.

His family history has a deep evangelical pedigree. I think you will find his remarks give an important angle on these events.

On Post Evangelicals

Sat, 19 May 2007 05:15:07 GMT

David Howard, a past president of ETS and an executive board member, has written in response to Francis Beckwith's return to the faith of his childhood. Interestingly, the article affirms the propriety of Beckwith's resignation and seems to make it clear that the ETS's statement of faith, as interpreted by the executive board, does, in fact, hold to sola scriptura. Both of these issues were part of my initial post regarding Beckwith's reversion. For some reason, I was attacked and ridiculed for affirming these positions. Even a short period of time has vindicated my observations. Note his words:

The phrase "the Bible alone" in the ETS context refers to the 66 books in the Old and New Testaments of the Protestant canon and thus rules out Mr. Beckwith's continued membership, given that the Roman Catholic Church accepts additional books in the canon, commonly referred to as deuterocanonical or apocryphal books. Mr. Beckwith maintains that he can still sign the ETS statement with full integrity because it does not enumerate the 66 books, but he voluntarily withdrew his membership in the interests of avoiding a rancorous debate in the society.

   These comments are all very interesting and very relevant, to be sure. My readers will note that in my initial comments on the reversion of Beckwith I did not go into the key issues of the gospel simply because Beckwith had yet to reveal the form of Roman Catholicism he is promoting today. Anyone who does not recognize the spectrum of beliefs in modern Roman Catholicism is living in denial of reality. I have yet to delve fully into even the few comments he has, in fact, made, for they are still quite preliminary.
   The reason I wrote about Beckwith's reversion was simple: the gospel. The issue will always be: the gospel. And when someone like Beckwith goes back to the Roman system, we see just how central the gospel is to many who call themselves "evangelicals" today. You see, I am in no way surprised when men return to Rome. Rome's religion is very attractive. Indeed, unless a soul is convicted of its utter sinfulness and inability, and its utter guiltiness before God, and its utter dependence upon grace, and grace alone, it will always find comfort in man's religions, in pomp and circumstance, in religious pageantry and show--anything that makes God's grace subject to man's will, to man's control.
   Many of those who do not bow the knee to Rome do so not out of a faith-affirming, soul-grounding conviction of the utter necessity of the gospel of grace, but simply out of their own traditions. The number of non-Catholics who are so out of knowledgeable conviction is small indeed. But I will likewise say, it is those who are thusly convinced who stand with the greatest clarity and firmness against Rome's denial of the gospel of grace, and Rome's enchantments find no place in their minds. Most in academia today purposefully distinguish themselves from such as these, so when one of them, or a group of them, decide to try out the far bank of the Tiber, it is hardly surprising.
   Howard notes that "A small number of evangelicals have reacted as if he [Beckwith] committed an act of betrayal." If by this he refers to a betrayal of Beckwith's own heart-felt commitment to the gospel of grace, I could not possibly comment, since this would require me to know his heart and whether he had, in fact, ever been thusly committed. One cannot betray a gospel to which one is not pledged heart and soul. If I were to bow the knee to the Pope and pray to Mary, I would be betraying the gospel, knowingly, purposefully, and to my soul's destruction, without doubt.
   There was a day, not too long ago, when the term "evangelical" referred to a person who actually believed the gospel defined the Christian faith---that the message of the cross was not a negotiable item, a secondary, if important, issue, upon which compromise could be allowed. But that day has passed. For many reasons I will not delve into at the moment, confidence in the gospel has vanished, and while many will still profess it to be "vital" or "important," in reality, most confess that it is just too difficult a subject, and "too many good men have disagreed" on the matter, so that the real conclusion is that we just can't really know the gospel with enough clarity to allow it to function in a definitional sense. The result of this is seen in the willingness to extend the faith to the "big tent," and refer to our "Roman Catholic brothers and sisters." The movement is on (seen in the willingness of some to pray with Mormon apologists and scholars) to extend the big tent even further, so that even Trinitarian heresy is not "enough" to exclude fellowship (witness T.D. Jakes, PC&D, etc.). And so the downgrade progresses, ever farther away from a biblical standard.
   Howard writes,

Among many more, including us on the executive committee, the response has been one of cordial disagreement on some critical matters, accompanied by an acknowledgment that we nevertheless have much in common as fellow Christians...For myself, I can say that I have lost a valued colleague in the ETS, but I remain his brother in Christ and wish him well in his new spiritual home.

One might well call for the renaming of the organization to the "Post-Evangelical Theological Society" if, in fact, this is the case. Again, I am not at all surprised by these things, but many who are not familiar with the "theology rot" inside Christian academia might be. The "E" of "ETS" is no longer defined by the "e" of "euangelion," the "gospel." I have no idea what it is in fact defined by, but if returning to the church of infallible Popes, Mary Immaculate and Assumed (the object of incessant prayer), the imperfect sacrifice of the Mass, the sacerdotal priesthood, and purgatorial sufferings, is to be likened to just another "spiritual home," the definitional standard is radically different than the one once held that long-vanished breed known as "Evangelicals." -- James R. White

Howard on Beckwith in WSJ

Fri, 18 May 2007 13:40:11 GMT

David Howard pens an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal on Frank Beckwith's return to Rome and resignation from ETS and its presidency.

Beckwith Aftermath: Vatican II on Scripture

Wed, 16 May 2007 12:20:04 GMT

Andreas Köstenberger posts an explanation from Gregg Allison of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, one of the deliverances of Vatican II (the last Roman council that met 1962-65. The official documents are here.

One might also consider the relevant sections of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which say:

76 In keeping with the Lord's command, the Gospel was handed on in two ways:
- orally "by the apostles who handed on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the institutions they established, what they themselves had received - whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or whether they had learned it at the prompting of the Holy Spirit";
- in writing "by those apostles and other men associated with the apostles who, under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to writing".

. . . continued in apostolic succession

77 "In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority." Indeed, "the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time."

78 This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, "the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes." "The sayings of the holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer."

79 The Father's self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church: "God, who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the Spouse of his beloved Son. and the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church - and through her in the world - leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness."

NB that Rome confesses continuing, canonical revelation. That canonical revelation is an "tradition" that is transmitted through the church and preserved by apostolic succession (hmm, maybe that's where Joseph Smith got the idea?). Tradition and Scripture are two distinct but closely related sources of authoritative. They are twins.

Confessional Protestants, in contrast, confess that Scripture is the principium (the source) of knowing (cognoscendi). We confess the benefit, use, and even necessity of tradition, but it is always subordinate to Scripture. We read Scripture with the tradtion, but we never norm Scripture with the tradition and we never equate tradition with the Scripture.

Sola scriptura does not mean, "I and my Bible in the closet." That is the Anabaptist (and often, pietist) approach to Scripture. It does mean that Scripture norms all other authorities. Our confessional documents and other ecclesiastical deliverances have authority because (quia) they are biblical.

There is more to be said, but in our reaction to the latest evangelical drama let us not retreat into a sub-Protestant view of Scripture and tradition.

Evangelicals and Catholics Together?

Tue, 15 May 2007 14:35:04 GMT

Subsequent to Dr. Francis Beckwith’s recent ”conversion” to Roman Catholicism and his resignation from the ETS presidency and as an ETS member there has been a good amount of discussion as to whether or not Roman Catholics can sign the ETS doctrinal statement while remaining true to the Roman Catholic doctrine of Scripture and divine revelation. To shed light on this matter I decided to get some insight from Dr. Gregg Allison, a former missionary to Italy, professor of Systematic Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and an expert in Roman Catholic theology. Below is my query and Gregg’s response.

Dear Gregg:

I am writing to see if you can clear up an issue for me about which there seems to be some confusion out there in the aftermath of Dr. Francis Beckwith’s departure from the ETS. Some have repeatedly made the argument in recent days that Roman Catholics could sign the ETS statement because, while they may hold to other sources of authority besides the Bible, they, too, only consider “the Bible alone” as “the word of God written.” In my view this may be true with regard to the Magisterium and ex cathedra statements, but not with the Apocrypha. Assuming that “the Bible” spoken of in the ETS doctrinal base is the 66 books of the Protestant canon, would it not be true that the reference to “the Bible alone” would rule out Roman Catholics since they consider other books besides the 66 books (i.e. the Apocrypha) to be the Word of God written? I would greatly appreciate it if you could shed any further light on this.

Cordially,

Andreas Kostenberger

Response from Gregg Allison:

Andreas,

I am including in this e-mail the entire second chapter of the Vatican II document entitled “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation” (Dei Verbum, November 18, 1965). [NOTE: instead of including the second chapter here, a link to Dei Verbum is provided below.] This is the authoritative Roman Catholic statement on divine revelation, and chapter 2 addresses the issue at hand.

In my opinion, we should not assume that Roman Catholics can readily affirm the expression in our doctrinal basis that “the Bible alone … is the Word of God written,” because such an expression is not how Roman Catholics view this issue. They affirm that the Word of God is Tradition and Scripture.

Note the following (with my emphases): “Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, committed to the Church” (section 10).

Again (from section 10): “But the task of authentically interpreting the Word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the Word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on. …”

The reason for this intimate union of Tradition and Scripture is spelled out in section 9: “Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For sacred Scripture is the Word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the Word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this Word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known.”

In my opinion, Roman Catholics should find the wording of the ETS doctrinal basis strange at least, for it does not view the Word of God as consisting of both Tradition and Scripture. The statement “the Bible alone … is the Word of God written” is a woefully inadequate statement about what Roman Catholics believe about the Word of God, and I would seriously doubt that informed Roman Catholics would sign it.

On your second point - the canon of Scripture - I think you are right on target. Certainly, the founding theologians and biblical scholars of the Evangelical Theological Society, and those who formulated the doctrinal basis of our Society, were Protestant evangelicals who, when they made the statement about “the Bible,” made reference to the Protestant Bible that contains sixty-six books and does not contain the apocryphal writings.

If authors’ intent means anything, then the ETS statement concerning “the Bible” means that those sixty-six books constitute “the Word of God written.” Roman Catholics cannot agree with this, because for them “the Bible” refers to the seventy-three books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees are included) with expanded editions of Esther and Daniel.

Thus, that to which the ETS statement concerning “the Bible” refers, and that to which Roman Catholics refer when they use that term, are different matters. This is a second reason that I would seriously doubt that informed Roman Catholics would sign the ETS doctrinal basis.

I hope this helps.

Gregg

For further reading, here is a link to Dei Verbum.

Beckwith, Trueman, and the Holy Spirit

Tue, 15 May 2007 14:20:11 GMT

Thanks Carl for the link to Dr Michael Liccione's response to your piece on Beckwith. I found it most illuminating. On the key issue of tradition and authority, Liccione's main argument is that when it comes to interpreting Scripture we must either throw in our lot with the authority of the Church or the authority of private interpretation. He sees the Protestant approach relying on the latter. What he fails to appreciate, in this response at least, and what many other critics of the Reformation fail to appreciate (including evangelical postmoderns) is that we are not relying on the authority of private interpretation but upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This is the lynchpin of Reformed hermeneutics, our conviction from the Scriptures that the Spirit will lead God's people into truth by the Word (Jn. 16:13). Whereas Liccione and other Roman Catholics see the divide as consisting between ecclesiastical and individual authority, Reformed theology sees a divide between church authority and the authority of the Holy Spirit. We are not relying on private interpretation, but on the witness of the Spirit to the Word in the church to the people of God.

Everyone sees the chaos in church history when it comes to Bible interpretation and each side blames the other: Rome blames individualism and Wittenburg blames tradition. I would blame both, but then I would turn to the witness of the Holy Spirit as the solution and hope. I suppose that if I had to choose between the witness of the Church and the witness of private interpretation, I, too, would reluctantly submit to Rome. Fortunately, I am faced with no such dichotomy, because in step with the Reformed faith for the last half-millennium I may rely on the Spirit's authority for both the church and the private individual.

What Evangelicals Can Learn From Francis Beckwith’s Conversion to Catholicism

Tue, 15 May 2007 14:15:03 GMT

The Events (can be skipped by those familiar with the story)

The news of prominent evangelical scholar Francis Beckwith’s conversion to Roman Catholicism is not a breaking news story anymore (though some of you may be learning about it for the first time). To those outside the camp of evangelicalism, the story is largely irrelevant and only makes them wonder, “Who’s Francis Beckwith?” or “What’s an evangelical scholar anyway?” In fact I’m sure many within evangelicalism have asked these questions as well. I’ll answer both in turn. Francis Beckwith is a professor of philosophy at Baylor University specializing in jurisprudence, political philosophy and applied ethics. He is a prolific writer with about a dozen books and scores of articles to his credit. Furthermore, he is the President of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) and one of the most respected scholars in evangelicalism. That is, he was until recently.

Beckwith, who converted to evangelicalism from Catholicism as a teenager, has returned to the Catholic church - much to the dismay of many evangelicals. Foreseeing the impact of his decision upon ETS Beckwith submitted his resignation as president of the society and withdrew his membership.

What Beckwith’s Decision Means for Evangelicalism

There’s a certain sense of betrayal that many evangelicals feel over Beckwith’s decisions. (more…)

Gregg Allison on Beckwith and ETS

Tue, 15 May 2007 14:05:11 GMT

Andreas Kostenberger writes:

Subsequent to Dr. Francis Beckwith’s recent "conversion" to Roman Catholicism and his resignation from the ETS presidency and as an ETS member there has been a good amount of discussion as to whether or not Roman Catholics can sign the ETS doctrinal statement while remaining true to the Roman Catholic doctrine of Scripture and divine revelation. To shed light on this matter I decided to get some insight from Dr. Gregg Allison, a former missionary to Italy, professor of Systematic Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and an expert in Roman Catholic theology. Below is my query and Gregg’s response.

Here is their exchange.