Darrell Bock
So this magisterium, this role of tradition this – and it's designed to function – let's
talk about how it functions – it's designed to deal with, if I can say it, new situations
that come up that need the judgment of the church. And so if scripture doesn't directly address
something, if you have a tradition that comes alongside and this is authoritative, it can
be addressed and solved, if I can say it that way, all at the same time. And again, we're back to this picture of a
structure that is at one level very functional because it solves dilemmas in ways that are
more straightforward than perhaps other models. Scott Horrell: And that's not to deny the
debates with it, those different voices you're talking about within historic Catholicism,
not – we tend to look back and think all Catholicism has been unanimously what it is
today. Not so. Even back to the 11th century, the debate
over whether Mary was born without sin, Anselm said, "No, you can't say that." So did Aquinas. He said, "That takes away the glory from Christ." And yet on the other side was Yadmir and then
Duns Scotus arguing, no, for her to be the vessel of the Savior's birth without sin,
she too much be without sin. So you have these debates going back and forth
that are formalized sometimes centuries later: the Council of Trent or then of course the
Vatican and so forth. Darrell Bock
Well, Immaculate Conception doesn't take place as a formal doctrine that's recognized officially
by the church until the 19th century. So I mean – so you're – again, we've got
this model of watching people reflect, reflect, and even though this move towards infallibility
and decision making is somewhat selectively exercised, it's selectively exercised at very
key points – Scott Horrell: Indeed. Darrell Bock
– to resolve things, and sometimes it make take centuries before an official stamp is
there, but you should never forget that that official stamp is there, but you should never
forget that that official stamp is actually reflecting, because of the role of tradition,
a long conversation that has been taking place in which this formal stamp at the end, my
German picture of the stempel and the role of the stempel in German culture where you
stamp something and that makes it official. Michael Svigel
It becomes what they call "dogma." Rather than just doctrines that different
people have held different – it becomes a dogma of the church that is now binding
on all people in the church. Darrell Bock
Okay. Well, that's the magisterium and the role
of scripture and tradition. And it's very clear that in Protestantism,
of course, with the Sola Scripture, you don't have tradition functioning in nearly the same
way. There may be traditions, little "t," operating
in various denominations that help to define what they are sociologically and how they
operate and what they hold to and won't let go. But it isn't handled in the same kind of way,
generally speaking, in the Protestant tradition. The claim always is: if you can't take it
back to scripture, then something's missing, and it is – it doesn't quite have the level
of authority and bindedness, if I can say it that way, generally speaking. Scott Horrell: There is the issue of the Eastern
Orthodox, as well, which do not approach tradition the same as the Roman Catholic Church. If you go back to the Seven Councils trended
in the eighth century, and those become the absolute that interpret scripture. But then there are various traditions with
small "t" that come after that. So they have certainly rejected the infallibility
of the pope and his primacy as well, and that constitutes another major group of Christendom. Darrell Bock
So you've got basically three models, if I can say it that way. You've got the Sola Scriptura model, which
is Protestantism. You've got scripture and tradition together
in the Roman Catholic Church with that tradition ongoing through the authority of the pope. And then in between, if I can say it that
way, you've got the Greek Orthodox Church, which has a role for tradition, but that tradition
is defined in relationship to councils primarily as opposed to an ongoing office that now takes
care of things. Fair to – Scott Horrell: The Anglican Church and some
other things in there too, the Archbishop of Canterbury and decisions to be made. But that basically gets the spectrum of things,
yeah. Darrell Bock
Yeah, I mean and the Anglican concern in kind of a similar role of playing between their
– kind of their hybrid Protestants maybe or hybrid Catholics. I'm not sure which label to give them because
they fall in between of course the origins of the Anglican Church had very little to
do ultimately with theology. So that's a whole other conversation, probably
a whole other podcast when we want to talk about kings and queens and all that kind of
thing. Let's go to another big area that is important
that we've alluded to in that we see the church as this interpreter on the one hand. Now let's come to the Doctrine of Justification
and think through the role of the church, not just as interpreter, but also as to some
degree mediator of blessing because I think this is another – if we think of Sola Scriptura
as being one big difference hermeneutically, this is the other big area that we walk into:
how justification is seen and the church's role in saving, if I can say it that way. So what are we dealing with here, Mike? Michael Svigel
Sure. One thing we have to make clear is that no
official church doctrine would – Roman Catholic Church dogma would say that people are saved
by works. This is absolutely reprehensible. Now at popular lay level folk theology, some
people may think that. But some people in the Protestant tradition
think that. They would say that we are absolutely saved
by grace, but how they define that grace and how you receive that grace is really the issue. And so in the Medieval as well as the Post-Reformation
Catholic Church, grace is treated almost as if it's a substance, something that can be
dispensed through various avenues of change and means: through the magisterium, through
the official ordained leadership of the church, participating in various rites that are prescribed,
the mass, the Eucharist, Baptism, the various sacraments, that these things become means
of saving grace, grace that improves you, perfects you, moves you more and more toward
the goal of salvation. So justification really is seen as a process
in which you participate in the life of the church, receiving grace. Darrell Bock
And the more grace you have the better off you are. Michael Svigel
You are, yeah. And that's a somewhat crude way of saying
it, but in contrast to the Protestant model, grace is something – we also believe in
means of saving grace. We would – Protestants would say it is the
word and faith. So by grace are you saved through faith. It's interesting when you look at commentators
in the Medieval Period on Ephesians 2:8-9, Protestants read them and they think how could
Roman Catholics not see it's by grace are you saved through faith, not of yourselves. Well, you see comments on that that say, "Well,
it's by grace that you're saved through the faith," meaning the Roman Catholic faith,
and that not of yourselves, the whole system itself is a gift of God. So you have ways of working around these things. So they would definitely say you're saved
by grace, but how you receive that grace and what that grace does and whether it's a one-time
entrance into the life, the Christian life, or if it's a constant movement toward salvation,
that's really the big difference between Protestantism after Luther and the Roman Catholic Church. Darrell Bock
And so this is why the mass becomes such a central feature –
Michael Svigel Essential. Darrell Bock
– of the Roman Catholic process. I used to always ask myself, "Why do you go
to mass everyday," I mean to a very faithful Catholic. I mean it just, it just seemed – coming
out of a – I came out of a Protestant tradition, obviously, so it seemed odd that there would
be every single day. But this idea of the dispensing of grace on
a daily – Michael Svigel
Yeah, why would you eat everyday? That's the same kind of question. Darrell Bock
Exactly. That's right. Michael Svigel
You need the nourishment in the process. Darrell Bock
And so the picture is of the way in which the mass is executed. Let's talk a little bit about the theology
of the mass itself because it's really – Scott Horrell: Could I go back just a little
bit, though? Darrell Bock
Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Scott Horrell: Because I think what we're
talking about, even in terms of justification's importance, all the way back to the fall,
how is the fall interpreted when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit and were alienated from
God. It's very interesting that the catechism itself
says that Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their
own first sin, hence deprived of original righteousness, and right after that, again,
weakened; human nature is weakened in its powers. They don't see, as Luther and Calvin argued,
that there is a deadness in sin and transgression blinded by Satan and all the rest. Darrell Bock
It's damaged but it's not devastating. Scott Horrell
Yes. And so that has – that plays into then how
are we made right with God, as Adam and Eve were apparently brought back to zero, but
then the actual becoming righteous, that becoming just, is that working out of the process. And so the church becomes this repository
of saving grace, just as with the Bible we were talking about, in a sense, the Bible
is the product of the church. The church is God's community. And so it's the community through which he
saves the world. And so God, through Christ and through the
Vicar of Christ, the pope and the sacraments, it is that means by which God distributes
saving grace into the world, which does bring us to the mass, but of course you have baptism
as that which cancels original sin and therefore is the beginning of membership into that covenant
community, and then on from there the mass being the one we typically focus on as that
eating of the flesh and blood of our Savior as an ongoing physical, spiritual transmission
of saving grace into our lives as we are then justified or made righteous step by step in
kind of a synergistic way before God. So a human effort together with God's grace
working in us. Darrell Bock
So transubstantiation. Let's get to the technical terminology here. Transubstantiation is the idea that the elements
during the mass become the body and blood of Christ. So you partake, if I can say it again, again
of that which Christ has supplied, taking John 6 in a very, very literal kind of way,
in an ongoing kind of way, and so that actually is the theology through which this ongoing
grace is communicated, right, in the – Michael Svigel
Yes. Scott Horrell
Right. Darrell Bock
– mysterious and miraculous transference of this presence of Christ into the elements
which you then partake and that sustains you. Michael Svigel
Right. So the – at the moment that the priest says,
"This is my body," the invisible, unperceivable essence that you can't – you couldn't see
it even in an electron microscope, but it's there in a miracle, it contains then the body,
blood, soul and divinity of Christ. And that becomes then the means, the fuel,
or the nourishing – spiritual and physical nourishment. As you partake of it, it becomes part of you
and transforms you and makes you more and more righteous. So – and that's an essential part of their
– that's why it's – in fact, the – you have Protestants in the Reformation complaining
about the idolatry of the mass because, if it's true that that Eucharist is the actual
body, blood, soul and divinity of the God-man Jesus, it was a logical step to worship that
and venerate that as God, but if the theology's not right, then the Protestants were right
that this is idolatry, so that's the controversy. Darrell Bock
Now, in contrast to that, we have the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation, which says
that – and I'm not a theologian, so – Scott Horrell
Yeah, we know. Darrell Bock
But which says that – I like to call it "the over, under, around and through" view,
that Jesus Christ surrounds the elements, that he's spiritually present, but he's not
in the elements themselves. The elements don't become –
Michael Svigel Right. That's the key. Darrell Bock
– That's right, don't become and body and –
Michael Svigel It's not transforming into. Darrell Bock
– right, body and blood of Christ. Michael Svigel
He's in, with and under. Darrell Bock
He's everywhere. He's everywhere but in the elements. Michael Svigel
Luther uses the example of if you take a hot rod of iron and put it in the fire and it
turns red and takes on characteristics of fire, but the iron itself is not actually
changed into fire. So that's kind of the idea of consubstantiation. Darrell Bock
Okay, and then obviously a third view that you have that Luther and Zwingli got into
is the memorial view that you're simply commemorating the death of Christ and that there's nothing
happening with the elements or – Michael Svigel
Under or through, yeah. Darrell Bock
– around the elements or whatever, and of course the famous Marburg controversy that
would – that prevented the Swiss and German reformations from coming together where the
legend is that Luther carved into the wood when his discussion with Zwingli, “This
is my body,” and basically said, "Until you can tell me what the meaning of is is,
then this doesn't mean what it says and we've got a problem." It was the only problem out of 15, supposedly,
that they could not solve and come to agreement on. So this has not been an insignificant conversation
in the history of the church. This has been a major issue because of where
it comes from, where it starts off with. It starts off with this transubstantiation
idea and the elements becoming the body and blood of Christ. Scott Horrell: There's even a little distinction
between the Calvinist sacramentalist view and the memorial, the Zwingli view, or at
least what today would typically be a usual Baptist or other view, that is this is simple
a memorial. It is a symbol of what our Lord has done. There is not necessarily any spiritual presence
in that. It has to do with my faith, even though we
may be judged if we partake it unworthily. But the sacramentalist view yet can apply
to a Presbyterian or other perspective where there is literally the spiritual presence
of the Lord there at the taking of the Lord's Supper. Therefore, the judgment is –
Darrell Bock So it's not the elements, per se, but it's
the meal as a whole and the feel of the meal as a whole. Scott Horrell: And Christ is – right. And Calvin would describe it as the Holy Spirit
is binding together the gathered community in Christ as if he were present by mediation
of the Spirit. He's the host of the meal – Darrell Bock: Yeah, I've heard –
Scott Horrell – as if you were sitting at the table with
Christ at the Last Table. Darrell Bock: I've heard Presbyterians describe
it as a kind of covenant renewal, in which you're reaffirming your commitment to the
covenant, and there's very much a – there's very much a spiritual affirmation that's going
on with the sense that Christ is present that the feeling is if you leave it as a memorial,
that's almost too detached, and you're not saying enough about the specialness of what
the meal is. Okay, well, we've worked our way through that. Let's talk – come back to justification
because I think this is important. The idea that justification is something,
if I can say, is something that happens to a degree in a moment that makes you saved,
if I can – I'm going to put it in real crass and perhaps oversimplified terms – as opposed
to the idea of justification also being this ongoing process that never ends until you
get to glorification. Is that another difference that we're talking
about here? Michael Svigel
Yeah, the – generally, Protestants speak in terms of a declaration of righteousness. Justification is that moment that you are
now saved. Darrell Bock
God says you are righteous because of what Christ has done? Michael Svigel
You've been declared righteous – Darrell Bock
And that's done. Michael Svigel
– even though you aren't actually doing righteous things. It's not – so you're declared righteous
and then sanctification – and this is one of the geniuses of Protestantism – justification
becomes the one even that you enter into salvation. Then we have a new term, "sanctification,"
that is the process, the progressively being made more and more righteous and conforming
to that. Darrell Bock
So it's recognizing something very similar that the Catholics also recognize. Michael Svigel
Exactly. Darrell Bock
But it's defining it and framing it in a completely different timeframe. Michael Svigel
Yeah. And the sanctification doesn't – isn't the
thing that saves you; it is a result of the saving, the condition of being saved, a result
of the justification. Darrell Bock
So there's a sense for a Protestant in which salvation is very much “already not yet,”
if I can say it that way. Michael Svigel
Yeah. Darrell Bock
You've already saved. You've been justified. You've been declared righteous, but now there's
the working out of what that means in the – and the effects of the giftedness that
you have received as a result of being saved, the spirit and the work and the spirit ____. Michael Svigel
And Protestants even believe in means of sanctification. There are things that you do gathering in
the community, worship, reading scripture, prayer, that contribute to that. So we're not that different from –
Darrell Bock But that doesn't get you saved. Michael Svigel
Exactly. Darrell Bock
It maintains. Michael Svigel
It maintains, and it produces spiritual growth, yes. Darrell Bock
Health of your – it maintains the health of your being saved. Michael Svigel
Yes. Scott Horrell: The idea is there's an imputation
of our sin to Christ and his righteousness imputed at the moment of saving faith to us. It doesn't deny because there's the word group
that Darrell knows all about the dikaios and dikaiosune. We still area to be growing in righteousness. It's kind of the same word, justification
or righteousness. We're to be growing in that through our life. So it is a once imputed righteousness of Christ
to us at the moment of saving faith. But that does work out through our life. We call it sanctification typically in our
evangelical circles. But the word's very similar in, of course,
the Greek New Testament. Michael Svigel
These are theological terms. You can't find – you heard the New Testament. Sanctification doesn't always mean the process
of spiritual growth as we use it. We use these terms so we can distinguish between
that which happened once in the past, our initial salvation and then that which is continuing
on progressively. Scott Horrell
But what the Roman Catholic rejects is that there is an imputed righteousness of Christ
to us at the moment of salvation, that we are counted as fully righteous in the sight
of God of God. Darrell Bock
Right. You know it's interesting because in the new
perspective destruction – and this introduces a whole other dimension of this – that it's
come on in which Protestants have been debating exactly what justification means against its
Jewish background. The whole teaching of imputation has also
come up for conversation, again, from within a Protestant background. And the emphasis is you don't see that many
passages that really are clearly teaching an imputation. I mean most people will acknowledge that the
2 Corinthians 5:20 is probably the clearest imputation passage we have in the New Testament. But beyond that, how many other passages actually
explicitly talk about imputation? We can talk about substitution. We can talk about representation. But imputation that Christ's righteousness
is completely imputed and put in my place, it's more than a declaration of righteousness
that Christ has achieved for me, is something that's also being discussed among Protestants
today. But that's a whole other podcast, and that's
with a whole other panel. Let's deal with the priesthood of believers
quickly, because I think we've pretty much set the table by much of what we've said. One of the standouts, I remember I was taught
– I majored in European history and really concentrated on Reformation and – Renaissance
and Reformation up to the Enlightenment in that time, and I had a student of one of the
most famous reformation historians operating in the humanities, a guy named Louis Spitz. His – I had one of his students at the University
of Texas. And I remember two things being emphasized
in his presentation of the Reformation. He would emphasize the Sola Scriptura debate
and the role of scripture vis-à-vis tradition. And then the other thing that he would emphasize
in presenting this was the priesthood of the believers, that the idea that there is a priesthood
of believers that's important; in fact, let me segue back to the mass to talk about this:
I think there was a time – I think I remember this correctly – in which during the mass
a layperson would only get one of the elements. Scott Horrell: Oh, yes. Darrell Bock
And so to suggest – and if you think back and you think about this, you will – you'll
understand what's going on, that the symbolism is very thought through. So the layperson only gets one of the elements. The priest takes the – Scott Horrell: The priest gets both, yeah. Darrell Bock
– both, and as a representative – Scott Horrell: On behalf, yes. Darrell Bock
– on behalf of the laity who are attending the service. Scott Horrell: That was a huge issue, even
before Luther. It was John Hus was a big advocate of having
the Eucharist in both kinds. It was a huge issue. Darrell Bock
And so that's very, very important. And if you just think about that and the symbolism
of what that represents, then we move very easily to why the priesthood of the believers
is a big deal, because now everyone is equally – has equal access to God. There is no other mediator between God and
man other than Jesus Christ. There's no church coming alongside. There's no priest coming alongside. What we get is the priesthood of all believers
in which everyone has access to the same level of grace and has the same status before God. Michael Svigel
Yeah, there's actually two aspects to that in the Reformation theology. One is that we don't need a mediator other
than Christ, and we come by simple faith to him. It's not the mediation of the church, as you
described. The other aspect that was really emphasized
by the reformers as well was believers are each other's priests, that we are praying
for one another. All of the one another’s in the New Testament
takes on a whole new life in the Protestant church so that – Darrell Bock: So the emphasis on a community
– Michael Svigel
Community as well, so there's the individual "I don't need someone to…" that's true,
because it's my own faith. People can't have faith for me and this kind
of thing. But then there's also the priesthood of believers
– Scott Horrell: Horizontal, yeah. Michael Svigel
– the horizontal, and these are two things that have – I think sometimes as you go
forward from the Reformation, the individual part is emphasized and you forget that we
are each other's priests to hold each other accountable, confess our sins to one another. And so what's interesting is, that which was
reserved just for the magisterium, the ability to bind and loose to forgive and withhold
forgiveness through the sacraments and through penance and such, that was just the role of
the priest; now in – from Luther on, was we have the ability to confess our sins to
one another, pronounce forgiveness as the scripture says. So the whole – the binding and the loosing
and the forgiving and the holding accountable and exhorting to love and good works becomes
– we all have a set of keys now. We are –
Darrell Bock So rather than having a structure that goes
like this [gestures vertically], you have a structure that goes like that [gestures
horizontally]. Michael Svigel
Exactly, yeah. Darrell Bock
And it flattens everything out. And it's a significant difference. Michael Svigel
Yeah, it goes back to, even the Old Testament. Let's face it: as the church grew and saw
itself more and more as the new Israel, then the hierarchical paradigm that we see in the
Old Testament, or the high priest and then the Levitical priest, the Aaronic priesthood,
the Levitical priesthood, you see all of that being adopted, assumed, including the vestments
and everything else, the military. You had a very centralized kingdom in the
Old Testament. But with the New Testament that seems to be
inverted as suddenly the world is our parish, go into all the world, preach the gospel. There's no long a Jerusalem to which we call
the nations to worship; rather, we're set out where two or three are gathered, there
I am, where now not only priests, but sons and daughters of the living God. There's a lot of things that shift between
Old and New Testament, and yet as time went on and the church saw itself, Augustine, City
of God and so forth, as the new Israel, the paradigm of the Old Testament was assumed
by the church. And so we came back to this hierarchy of priests
and all the rest. Darrell Bock: The other thing that's going
on here, and I haven't used this metaphor yet, but I was planning to is that the Roman
Catholic Church is very much a sponge in the way it absorbs what's going on culturally
around it and the way it adapts it. And there are two scenes in my mind that show
this. And so when you appeal to the background of
the Old Testament, the other background that's also very much in play is this idea of the
church being a kingdom, and the model of what we get out of the Roman Empire being the substitute
and the replacement for the Roman Empire. So we get a title for the pope that actually
matches the title that you gave to emperor. Michael Svigel
Oh, yeah, and the jurisdictions for diocese just followed the standard political boundaries. Darrell Bock: And so it's a political structure
as well – Michael Svigel
Yeah, the hierarchies. Yeah. Darrell Bock: – that has nothing to do,
or not that much to do or as much to do with the Old Testament as the social political
model that you had coming out of the Roman Empire and the associations of it being the
replacement in some ways from – and what I mean by a sponge is it culturally absorbs
what's around it so that, for example, when you go to Guatemala and you go to certain
places, you see this syncretism between Pagan worship and practice, which the Catholic Church
has absorbed, like a sponge, resignified in terms of its meaning –
Michael Svigel Baptized it. Darrell Bock: – and sanctified it so that
the move that a person comes coming out of Paganism to Roman Catholic Church if they
come out of local religions into the Roman Catholic Church is not that great for them
to make, and they have all these things that go alongside. And the thing that struck me living in Europe,
this is a part of living in Europe, and you go to the Catholic sections of Europe, and
you see things and practices that you associate, if you know European history at all, that
you associate with things that happened in the political structures that now have shown
up in the Catholic Church. You see – and the veneration of the saints,
for example, and the way in which that operates and other practices, this sponge where you
take things that were done in a Pagan polytheistic context and now have been Christianized and
sanctified, if I can say it that way, and are now applied and given new meaning so that
it becomes safe, but it's usable, and the distance a person has to move in order to
move from wherever they've been into Roman Catholicism is not as great and as radical
as if you say, "Oh, polytheism…" you don't do any of that. You cut – that's all cut off. That's – there's nowhere to go there. It's one of the sociological phenomenon, and
one of the things that I hope people are getting as we're talking our way through this, is
to see how sociologically structured Roman Catholicism is to deal with people moving
out of one religious environment into another and making the Catholic Church kind of an
acceptable and easy place structurally to land, if I can say it that way. Scott Horrell
And that's entitled – Pagan religions or primitive religions are considered, officially,
divine forms of pre-evangelism to lead people into the church. Darrell Bock
Well, again, you can see how they've structured their – they've structured the way they
look at things to make these moves more gradual and in some ways less radical than, generally
speaking, you hear in a Protestant context. Well, that – I'm going to use that transition
to the last topic that we're going to talk about and that's the Cult of the Saints, which
leads into the Mariology. Probably if you were to ask two people what
makes Catholicism different from Protestantism on the street, I think the two answers that
you would get, I would say, would be two – just think of two people, okay? Think of the pope and think of Mary, okay? And those would be the two differences that
you'd immediately sense. So we're going to kind of end where we began
by coming to this second person who is so dominant in Catholicism. Let's start off first by probably asking this
question: why is Mary so important to Catholicism, and why has she not had, relatively speaking,
the same level of importance in Protestant circles? Michael Svigel
I can answer the second part first. The reason why Protestants don't have a high
place for Mary is because the Roman Catholics did. And so part of it is reactive. Darrell Bock
Interesting. Michael Svigel
When you look at the history of the church, though there wasn't prayers to or veneration
of Mary early on, there was still a high regard for her. She was viewed as the second Eve who undid
what – where Eve messed up. She was viewed the Theotokos, the Mother of
God, which originally was not a confession of who Mary was, but a confession of who Jesus
was. And the idea was, if Jesus is truly the God
man, he was a God man at conception, at birth, at death, through the whole thing. So confessing Mary as the giver – the one
who gave birth to God was a confession of who Jesus was. Darrell Bock
That's the Council of Ephesus 431. Michael Svigel
Council – 431, Council of Ephesus. Darrell Bock
Yes. Michael Svigel
So that was a – however, you have language Theotokos, Mother of God or God Bearer, in
popular piety as they hear that, really the veneration of Mary and the saints is, by most
historians' accounts, it starts at the popular level, and it just kind of eventually works
its way into liturgies and into prayers. Darrell Bock
It's a sponge. Michael Svigel
It is a sponge. And then eventually, and surprisingly late
in the history of the church, the ever-virginity of Mary, the immaculate conception, many people
don't understand immaculate conception is not – the virgin birth is not about Jesus. It's Mary herself is born without – or is
conceived without sin so that she can be the holy vessel of Jesus. And these things, you can see where they start
to come in prayers and liturgies, and then eventually go to doctrine, and they're debated,
usually in the Medieval Period. Some are for it; some against it. Big names too. I'm not talking about just – I'm talking
about people like St. Bernard and Anselm and these taking different sides on it, and then
a century or so later, eventually by papal and magisterial authority, become dogma. So it has a long and storied history. Darrell Bock
So when it comes to the doctrines associated with Mary, just to show how light the official
dogmatic stamp is, Immaculate Conception 1854, Assumption of Mary 1950. So I mean we're – you're in the very recent
times in the big scheme of things. Michael Svigel
Which doesn't mean people started believing them then. They believed them for centuries. That's when it becomes, "Oh, now you must
believe this as a Christian." Darrell Bock
That's right. This becomes an official –
Michael Svigel Official doctrine. Darrell Bock
– of the church. Now – so the cult of the saints and Mary,
I have always seen – and I – the Eastern Orthodox has this too, so it's not just the
Roman Catholic Church – I tend to see it as a move towards being sensitive to the polytheistic
background that a lot of people came out of. And the reverence of the saints isn't a way
of making other gods, but it is a way of acknowledging the greatness of the saints and give people
many models and symbols to attach themselves to in their religious devotions. Scott Horrell
Heroes. It was a –
Darrell Bock Yeah, heroes. Scott Horrell
It's a thin veneer in Latin America, for example, that the saints really can often be seen as
the gods of indigenous African religions and so forth, or Indian religions behind them. I think, having been in Latin America, this
– we have traditionally emphasized the deity of Christ. And so as we think of the medieval church
and all the rest, how does a person then relate to God? Well, Jesus was tempted, but he's God; of
course he's not going to sin. And so Chalcedon was warped. That language, Mother of God, which we all
affirm understood rightly, came to mean that Jesus is completely God. He's not going to fail. So he – but Mary, she's truly human and
full of grace. Darrell Bock
So we can't relate to Jesus as the model. We can't be like Jesus is the model, because
in our minds we say, "Oh, he's just different." Scott Horrell
That's right. Darrell Bock
And – but we can relate to anybody else as a model and example. And so we just stack up these models and examples. Scott Horrell
Especially Mary, yeah. Darrell Bock
Yeah. Michael Svigel
Yeah. I would also say that, with the cult of the
saints – and by "cult" we aren't trying to be derogatory. It's the –
Darrelll Bock Veneration of the saints. Michael Svigel
– the veneration of – and so with the veneration of the saints and intercession
of the saints, they will – officially they'll say, "We aren't praying to or worshipping
the saints. We are praying through them," as I might say,
"Darrelll, could you pray for me? I'm going through something hard." You would say, "Sure, I'll be praying for
you," and you intercede for me. Well, the idea is, they're still alive, and
they're even more glorious than they were in this life. Scott Horrell
They're part of the cloud of witnesses, Michael Svigel
And they're part of the cloud of witnesses. It's one church of departed and living. And so therefore they're going to continue
to intercede for us and pray for us, and it makes sense that we should be able to ask
for their prayers as well. So that's the logic. Now there is – very briefly, there is an
eschatology attached to this and this realized eschatology that says the saints are currently
experiencing this growth in glory whereas in the earlier church, there was a sense that
that didn't happen until resurrection. You had to wait for this. So there's some of that playing in that, in
the early centuries, would have actually disallowed that kind of theology to develop. But after the third or fourth century is when
you start seeing not just commemorating the saints and the martyrs, which happens right
away, just as we visit the graves and put up memorials of famous people, but the intercession
appealing to them as not just means of prayer but also they're able to spill over their
overabundance of grace to us. Scott Horrell: Coming back to Mary just a
little bit – Michael Svigel
Sure. Scott Horrell: – as the Mother of God, the
perpetual virgin, ever virgin, immaculately conceives. So her – as you've said, Mike, her conception
was without sin, and her ascension into heaven and her role as co-redemptrix, as the one
who, because of her purity, was partner in, even allowed the incarnation. She was there through Jesus', of course, birth,
childhood, his ministries at many points, at the cross, at the Resurrection. She was there in the upper room in Acts 1
praying. For a good reason, far more candles are burning
to Mary than to anyone else in the Catholic Church. She is the mother of our Lord, and therefore
she is the mother of his body, and his body is the church, so she is the mother of the
church. He is the creator of all things. So she is the mother of angels. She is the mother of humanity, as is sometimes
said. Michael Svigel
Queen of heaven, yeah. Scott Horrell
The queen of heaven, and perhaps – Darrell Bock
That's why she sits at the top at many churches, Roman Catholic Churches. Scott Horrell
She does, indeed. Darrell Bock
Yeah. Scott Horrell
And of course with John Paul II, who was a Marian pope, there was a petition with at
least 7 million names on it wanting him to make as dogma Mary as co-redemptrix, to actually
use that terminology, because it's with her cooperation that redemption is offered to
the human race. That, by the grace of Christ and God himself,
of course. Darrell Bock
So that's how it's seen. Obviously very, very different in Protestantism. Protestants, generally speaking, don't do
this. Like I say, the Greek Orthodox do have an
element of this, but Protestants generally do not. And it's back to this, if we can say, Sola
Scriptura, Sola Christi, okay, Sola Fide, a emphasis that is a part of Protestantism
that we have these very focused Christologically, how do I say it, laser-like way that we deal
with salvation so that we only have scripture. We only have Christ. It's only by faith. Those are some of the emphases that you see
Protestants making. And we don't see this development. Now there are a couple of things that we haven't
talked about that I'm not going to take the time, but I'm going to mention it here because
they are part of the conversation. Obviously, we have a different look of scripture
itself when we think of the Old Testament, when we think about Catholics versus Protestants. We haven't mentioned that, but you have the
– what are known, what will sometimes be called "the Apocryphal books" or sometimes
called the Deuterocanonicals, these books – mostly these Jewish works that first Maccabees,
second Maccabees Sirach 14 books total that make up a difference, which allow room for
some other teachings to come in, things like Purgatory, which we haven't talked about. That's another difference that Catholics and
Protestants generally have, and the support for those kinds of doctrines you don't see
in the traditional Hebrew Old Testament, but you do see it in some of these Apocryphal
texts. So we've got some other things that are also
– if we were to make a more comprehensive list and be really obsessive about it, we
could keep going for another hour and add some more things. But I think we've talked about the big ones. We've talked about the role of scripture in
relationship to tradition and how that produces a completely different model. We've talked about how the Roman Catholic
Church sees the church as, in some sense, a mediator or a blessing in the continuing
of grace because they have a different view of the way justification works. We've seen the role in which the church has
as this kind of sponge to help people adapt from whatever non-Christian background they
come out of into the church and make that walk across that bridge less radical than
perhaps it is in the Protestant tradition, that kind of thing, and we've seen the – very
effectively, I think, a sociological structure that has some very simple categories to work
with. There's one pope. There's one church. There's one dogma. And even though the Catholic Church is big
and there are lots of conversations happening within it, there is a very clear place where
the buck stops in the Catholic Church that you tend not to see as clearly in Protestant
circles, with Protestants being much more open-ended in terms of the way those things
operate sociologically. So I want to thank you for taking the time
to come and discuss the Catholic Church and – the Roman Catholic Church and the difference
between them and Protestants with us, and we hope this has been beneficial to you, the
listener, as you think through why do we have these differences between Protestantism and
Roman Catholicism. We've tried to be descriptive here, mostly,
and hopefully it's been helpful to you. And we hope that you will come back and sit
at the table with us in the future. Thank you very much. Thanks.
