Since @ThomasdelVasto has made a couple "main-Motte" religious posts I thought I'd join in the fun.
I'm a Protestant with strong Reformed leanings. My wife, on the other hand, has just converted to Catholicism. This has led me to explore aspects of Catholic teaching, though necessarily at a surface level given the rich history. Aquinas alone would take months if not years to digest. I expected to disagree on Mary (perpetual virginity, immaculate conception, assumption) and the Pope (infallibility); and I still do (though I was surprised how recently these have become "dogma": I would have found it much easier to be a Catholic in 1800 than today). I am pleasantly surprised at how much weight they place on Scripture, Christ, and Assurance: there are far more shared hymns than I had anticipated, as as an example.
What follows is some of the reflections I had to this surface exploration. I would be thrilled to be corrected or critiqued by any of the Motte's Catholics, if nothing else to better understand my wife's flavor of the Christian faith. Many of these are reactions to "Catholicism" by Bishop Robert Barron, which my wife kindly bought to introduce me to the titular topic. While I presume he is orthodox Catholic, his interpretations may not be universally accepted by Catholics. If I challenge particular arguments from Barron, it should not be interpreted as an argument against Catholicism unless Barron is arguing for Church Dogma. His "Catholicism" is also meant as an introduction and for popular consumption, and his actual beliefs may have more nuance.
As part of this journey (which is certainly not over yet!), I also read (the dense and repetitive) "Divine Will and Human Choice" by Richard Muller and "Christus Victor" by Gustaf Aulén. These, too, have varying degrees of rigor. Muller and Aulén were both Protestants.
God’s freedom
While Reformed theology would affirm that God predestines both those who are saved and those who are damned, Catholics balk at this concept; arguing that this implies a God who would cause sin. God cannot will that which is against his nature. Catholics would appeal to God’s provision and common grace that allows humans consciences to (partially and weakly) discern good and evil. Yet we cannot perfectly discern this apart from divine revelation (scripture). And scripture states multiple times in the Exodus narrative that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Aquinas (as if often the case) provides the most rigorous Catholic argument I’ve heard for this hardening. God through an act of his will withdrew what grace was granted to Pharaoh. Absent God’s grace Pharaoh drew more into his sin. While Aquinas argued this case for the individual case of Pharaoh, it seems consistent to assume that were God to withdraw his common grace more broadly that all would fall into a state where our consciences are no longer capable of even partial discernment of good and evil. This is also consistent with God giving humans over to their lusts in Romans 1.
So far, this interpretation is consistent with scripture, though I am discomfited by the constraints this threatens to place on God: constraints that come perilously close to being primarily informed by our own interpretation or perspective of scripture and sin. God works and wills, including in sin.
Barron, if I read him correctly, goes a step further. He puts the "problem of sin" as one of the best arguments against God. I’ve never understood this as a problem for Christians. It is a deep problem for atheists, who have to explain or excuse their visceral (though often mis-aligned) desire for justice despite no objective basis for these judgments. Christians have no such need to explain or excuse: of course we are all deeply desirous for justice since we have (again, weakly and with great room for error) a sense of what transcendent goodness could be. A consistent perspective on the problem of evil would be that God defines good, and if we don’t understand his actions to be "good" that is a fault (a mis-calibration) of our fallen nature. The fact that Barron does not take this tack hints that he believes humanity’s desire for a "good" God is compatible with humanity’s definition of "good". This runs the grave risk of putting ourselves as a "judge" or external arbiter of God’s behavior.
Barron continues to put a soft face on hard truths. Later in the book, Barron says "God sends no one to hell, people freely choose to go there". This sharply contradicts scripture. Jesus talks about casting sinners into the outer darkness. Peter says the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. John’s Revelation describes those who receive a mark on their forehead drinking the wrath of God, mixed in the cup of his anger, and tormented with fire and brimstone. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Again, God is not passive: he works and wills.
How does God work and will (1)? Does God have a an array of potential actions, any of which he can actualize? Yet this runs the risk of these potential actions being "outside" God. Does God create the potentials as he actualizes them? Thus no "possibles" exist for God, simply "actuals"? This also could be seen as a constraint on God and limit his radical freedom. Both these potential concepts of God’s will and freedom (of which I’m sure there are hundreds of alternative concepts) seem to be operating at a level above how Barron conceptualizes God’s freedom. Put crassly, Barron seems to be hinting that God could not "make a triangle a square", that is, that God is constrained by logical impossibilities. But this is such a small view of God. God creates our minds and universe. Our minds invent or discover things like logic, or define things like squares or circles. Whether spawned by our intellect or embedded in the structure of the cosmos, these concepts (including logic!) are part of Creation itself. God created the conditions under which we can model physical reality with math, structure, and logic. Logic is a model. Logos is Truth. Logic is created. Logos is the Creator.
God’s atoning work
The freedom God enjoys in his omnipotence has implications for a theological understanding of Atonement. The "big two" theories of Atonement, Satisfaction and Substitution, emphasize the sacrificial nature of the cross. This sacrificial interpretation retains God’s complete sovereignty with Christ’s death being an act of perichoretic propitiation. The incarnation and death was necessary because of God. It was not necessary because of anything external to God.
Catholics consider Substitution theory, which is the most common concept of Atonement in Reformed circles, to be heresy. Belief in the other concepts of Atonement are allowed. In the Satisfaction theory, which my understanding is that most if not all Catholics affirm, Jesus is our great high priest and a perfect offering, but does not receive the judgement of God. Christ died for our sins, but not in our place.
"Christus Victor" makes the historical case for Ransom theory. In principal, this theory could bring Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox together: the church Fathers at least strongly hinted at Ransom theory being the primary lens through which they interpret the cross, and the church universally recognizes the importance of the church Fathers. Aulén makes the case that Luther was also an adherent to Ransom theory. Yet this theory risks making God subservient to morality or law, proposing that Jesus was paid to Satan in exchange for humanity (2). Uncharitably, this theory makes God beholden to the "laws" of commerce, even transaction with a brigand.
However, I do find Ransom theory to have its merits. In heavily Reformed theology Satan is almost considered an afterthought. Satan plays no necessary role in the arc of human redemption and salvation. Ransom theory, on the other hand, puts Satan in a prominent place: he is either the kidnapper of human souls or is the (legitimate, in some sense) owner of human souls. The exchange of Christ for humanity and the subsequent torture and murder of Christ was simultaneously Satan’s crowning achievement and his destruction. This interpretation echos Jesus’ parable of the landowner who sent servants to collect from the tenants only to have them beaten or killed. The frustrated landowner finally sent his own son, but the tenants murdered him hoping to take his inheritance. At the conclusion of the parable, the chief priests react that the landowner will bring the tenants to a “wretched end”. Christ’s death and resurrection was the ultimate victory over Sin, Death, and the Devil, bringing this triumvirate to a “wretched end”. Indeed, this victory can be interpreted as more complete than Satisfaction or Substitution theories: it not only removes the penalty of sin, but defeats the sin itself.
Conclusion?
I plan to read and think more on this topic. Next on my list is "Deification through the Cross" by Khaled Anatolios. Any other book recommendations are welcome. I'm particularly interested in Catholic perspectives Atonement that go deeper than Barron's book.
(1) As I read "The Divine Will and Human Choice" I had to continuously bite my tongue. My mathematical training was screaming "But Kolmogorov!". Yet Kolmogorov is but a model, and Muller was trying to describe reality. Muller, though, had merely words to try to describe reality and I kept mentally begging for a more rigorous algebraic representation to more clearly and concisely communicate. Of course, the algebraic representation is itself a model, but so are words: anyone who uses ChatGPT or Claude is implicitly recognizing that words are not reality but just a map or model of reality.
(2) In CS Lewis' The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan (representing Christ) is beholden to the "deep magic".
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Notes -
Those arguments may be effective to someone who is already Roman Catholic, but they’re unlikely to be persuasive to a Protestant. Your first argument is simply an argument from silence, which is typically recognized as one of the weakest forms of historical argument even by those who deploy it. You’ve bolstered the argument somewhat by citing the visions of St. Brigid and others, but most Protestants are at minimum highly skeptical of such visions, and even those who do grant them some weight would admit that the visions of a 14th century mystic aren’t the most reliable guide to historical events of the first century.
As for your second argument, it is again an argument from silence, but this time in a stronger form. If we have well-attested ancient relics of the apostles, Jesus’s grandparents, early martyrs, etc., but none of Mary, that would seem to be significant. Unfortunately for that argument, most of the relics we do possess can only be traced back to the Middle Ages, and in many cases, their provenance is suspect at best. The body of St. James, last seen c. AD 40, was found in a forest in northern Spain almost 800 years later. James the Less has two bodies—one in Jerusalem and one in Rome. Jude’s body is likewise either in Iran or Rome, depending whom you believe. The most famous relics of the seven-headed St. Anne, meanwhile, were found by Charlemagne and company in France, after having not been seen for some 750 years.
These sorts of provenance issues are a major reason Protestants rejected veneration of relics 500 years ago. John Calvin wrote an entire book on the subject, giving many examples of multi-armed, multi-headed saints.
In that context, given that many of the relics and traditions regarding the saints’ remains only date to the Middle Ages (a time when belief in the assumption of Mary was becoming extremely popular), it isn’t that surprising that her remains were never miraculously rediscovered and made objects of veneration.
I'm not arguing to convince anyone about the Assumption of Mary, so of course my "arguments" are weak.
I'm exploring the logic of what Olive said - The Church Teaches X, I don't find evidence of X before the fifth century, therefore I cannot believe in X and therefore I cannot believe in the Church.
I don't think that this is logical, because something can be not taught for a period of time and still remain true. Our earliest records of Alexander the Great start in the 1st century BC, centuries after his death, but belief in Alexander is still pretty common and uncontroversial.
If you have another reason to believe the Church can issue dogmatic teachings, then it's not a contradiction to have a period of silence. There's just a piece of supporting evidence we'd like to have but which is missing.
No one converts to Catholicism because they find the arguments for the Assumption of Mary just that convincing. They are converted on other grounds and then eventually accept the Church's authority to teach this.
I think the real sticking point for lots of Protestants is that that is considered a dealbreaker. The issue is less that it might be true and more that they would be forbidden from arguing that it is.
I say this while being aware that Protestants also often have weird dealbreakers, but the Catholic church has periodically forbidden viewpoints that were held throughout church history. For instance, my understanding is that Nicaea 2 anathematizes iconoclasts, which would excommunicate Catholic saints like Justin Martyr (who wrote that Christians did not crown their images, which is one form of icon veneration.)
This is compounded by the fact that while Protestants can be picky about who they let into their congregation, most Protestants* do not claim that their denomination is the only path to salvation and explicitly would say the opposite.
This doesn't mean Protestants are correct, but the intellectual world for Protestants is much more open and doesn't bind you to as many positions that were historically, at best, points of contention within the church. (For instance being Catholic might not be very appealing if you have doubts about the current understanding of the Papacy, which the Catholic church itself agrees was one that developed over centuries and was never held by large portions of the church.) Although obviously in practice plenty of Catholics believe in all sorts of non-Catholic doctrines and disbelieve all sorts of Catholic ones, it's much easier for a scrupulous Protestant to, say, believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary than it is for a scrupulous Catholic to question it.
*to include those who would profess to be Special Non-Protestants Actually, such as Baptists and Anglicans
Anathematizisation is not Excommunication. You have to go to the specific document that is anathematizing, but every one I've seen is a big list saying at the end, "Some of these are heresy, some of these are impious, some of these might cause scandal. I'm not going to say which is which, just don't do them."
The Church does not "claim that [our] denomination is the only path to salvation." We say that outside the Church there is no salvation, that all who are saved will be saved through the Church Jesus established, including many people who are surprised to discover that this Church was the Catholic Church all along.
Yes it is!
This is a very agreeable sentiment, and one in line with more modern (if rather ambiguous) Catholic...
vibesstatements from e.g. Vatican II, but doesn't Florence explicitly say that "schismatics" are damned unless they join the church, even if they are martyred for Christ?Regardless, the fact remains that the Catholic church closed the door to debate on a lot of topics, and as far as I can tell, can't really re-open those debates without severely undermining its claims to an unbroken and correct tradition.
From your source:
But also I think your Catholic Encyclopedia source is just incorrect on some points, which an Encyclopedia is allowed to be.
And even granting that these anathemas were to excommunicate:
The penalty of excommunication applies to the present, it is not retroactive. It is something faithful Catholics should keep in mind going forward and keep out of obedience, not something that condemns people in the past before the definition was made.
It is a canonical penalty. There are saints who died while excommunicated. People who are excommunicated are still expected to meet the precepts of the Church, come to mass, etc. It's not what people think it is.
This also another area where I think it is important to recognize that Vatican I actually limited Papal authority. Now we have the tools to look back and assess what is morally/theologically certain, what are pious opinions, what are disciplines and canonical requirements. And pious opinions and disciplines can change without impacting the veracity of dogma over time.
Yes, schismatics are damned. Schism is a damnable sin. But how many people who believe themselves outside the Catholic Church are actually personally guilty of the sin of schism? Not that many, especially centuries after the initial break. A bishop who breaks away from the Church is guilty of schism and will be judged accordingly, but someone who follows their bishop all their life without knowing the difference is not guilty of schism. An individual who breaks away from the Church on their own free choice is different from their great grand children who grew up without knowing the Church. And so on.
English Standard Version Catholic Edition (n.p.: Augustine Institute, 2019), Tt 3:10–11.
Let's keep reading:
So according to my source, anathema is excommunication, and furthermore to the extent that there's a difference it's that anathemization is extra bad.
If you can find a contrary source, I would be happy to read it.
This is a fair distinction, but Florence, in context, says that anyone outside of the Church ("all those who are outside the catholic church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the catholic church before the end of their lives") is damned to eternal fire, correct? This makes it hard to believe it was referring merely to those who caused schism.
You can (and my understanding is that the Catholic church in fact to some degree has) lawyer away the meaning of the words into little if anything, but I think you can understand why this raises its own set of problems for literal-minded Protestant types.
Overall I welcome Christian unity and certainly hope you don't feel attacked in this discussion; I'm more trying to show the mindset of Protestants here rather than argue for the Protestant position, if that makes sense.
Yes, this is correct. This does not contradict what I said and it does not contradict what the Church taught previously either.
So consider this - Moses, Elijah, Abraham, these people are uncontroversially saved, right? That is official Church teaching, Abraham is in Heaven, this was known well before the council of Florence. The people at the council of Florence would agree that Abraham is in Heaven and they still wrote what they wrote.
So from the start, we can tell that what Florence is saying here is completely different from how it's been interpreted by various groups (many of whom are Catholic unfortunately.)
What the Catholic Church believes herself to be is the most important obstacle to understanding what she means when she utters statements like this.
They all preceded the formation of Christ's church as current constituted, so it doesn't really seem applicable at all, one way or the other. If you can show me some Jews, pagans, heretics or schismatics who existed after the ascension of Christ who are uncontroversially saved, I am all ears.
I'd be interested in hearing you elaborate on this!
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