Journey Home - Open-Line First Monday - Marcus Grodi with David Anders - 12-06-2010

good evening to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program this is the open line episode of the journey home program in which we want to have as many of your phone calls and emails as possible for this episode I always invite back a former guest who has already shared the the fullness is fullness of his journey but he's here to answer your questions so tonight our guest is David Anders he was a great joy to have on before and he was a former Presbyterian and if you'd like to even start now phone calls or emails if you have a question for David I remember when he was on the program before we had a lot of great emails and phone calls even after the program because of the topics that well that you'll talk about also in a moment but if you'd like to email or call us please do one eight hundred two two one nine four six oh sure outside North America give us a call at 205 270 129 80 or you can send us an email at journey home at ewtn.com welcome back David thank you very much it's great to have your basket of a program good to be here and I remember your your time on the program before because you were trained in theology you have all that background but now you're doing business financial planning I my guess is though you're aching to be focusing more on the theology side which is your love I think well you know Providence Providence has Providence's purposes but I know at the very least the Lord gave me all that training to bring me into the church right and for that I'm eternally grateful yeah so of course that's that's a big part of our Catholic theology is accepting where God has planted us and being grateful and thankful for whatever he's called us to do you know I was reflecting with my wife the other day that I've got a lot of friends who are older and I always ask them how did you get where you got in life in your profession or whatnot and I would say 95% of the people that I meet will tell me you know I'm not doing what I thought I was going to do whatever that might be and and they often say and I'm glad I'm glad the things turned out differently and I had planned because the Lord had a better plan yeah right right well that old that old adage that it's it's hard to turn the Queen Mary if she's at dock you know it's when we move in obedience to the Lord that then the Lord can move us into what he really wants us to do as opposed to sit down and say show me what you want me to do so he moves us even if we don't want to be made well let's do two all right what I normally do in this episode David is first and invites you to give a snippet of your journey okay the audience wants to hear your whole journey they go to ewtn.com sure sure okay well briefly I grew up in this city Birmingham Alabama a Presbyterian evangelical very conversion istic revivalist to born-again type of typical American Protestant Church and walked away from the faith came back to the practice of faith in college and eventually ended up in Christian College and Seminary and plan to become a church history professor that was my goal so I wanted to get a PhD in church history studied the Reformation theologians early church fathers did the Greek and Hebrew all of that and and along the way discovered that the picture of the way scripture and history fit together that I had been taught growing up as a Protestant which is fundamentally untrue you know we always thought growing up that that you're saved by faith alone and that's what the doctrine of the early church allegedly the doctrine of st. Paul that the Scriptures alone are the rule of faith that they're the final authority for Christian living that that that you have to be born again in a personal conversion that's the beginning of the Christian life and then that the medieval church went away from all these things and the Reformers allegedly brought them all back and I've discovered through my study that lo and behold the early church did not believe that you're saved by faith alone the picture of salvation I found in the early church was that the grace of Christ inwardly transforms us and elevates our nature this transforming concept of grace rather than just the forgiveness of sins and that further study into the scriptures and even into Protestant biblical study led me to the conviction that this is the conclusion of the best Protestant biblical study as well as Catholic biblical study and then I was really shocked when I found out that even my own founders John Calvin Martin Luther the original Protestants even they had no concept of this conversion istic revivalist at Christianity that I had grown up with no born-again Christianity they all saw the beginning of Christian life in Baptism and nourished in the sacraments which is we always thought was a Catholic point of view I found out it was even an early Protestant point of view so the whole story sort of fell apart I realized that not only my career plans but my my personal life was had to take a different turn and with a lot of soul-searching and prayer eventually came into the fullness of the Christian faith embraced the Catholic teaching on salvation the church and everything else so you would affirm what Newman Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman would say when he makes that quote to become deep in history as it ceased to be Protestant I can't see any other way and you know if they're really really good competent Protestant historians who have come to the conclusion when they look at the data you know it's just not there in the early church the doctrines of Sola scriptura or scripture alone and faith alone they're not to be found now they have a lot of nuanced theories that they try to bring to bear to explain how they can still be in continuity with this church that believes something different than they do but even good good competent of angelical historians that do it but you know we can't find it there so those that in our seminaries sure that seemed to see the data but don't right I mean right provide the same data sure and they don't see it when it's so clear you think it's either that from every minut point along the way that continue to look at through their own doctrinal glasses so that every little step is nuanced so then in the end it's all nuanced or as a possible to someone just don't take the time well you know my own experience was that becoming a Catholic well I look back on it with such fondness and joy it was the hardest thing ever had to do my entire life and I could never have done it without the grace of God and and quite honestly if it hadn't been such a shattering experience I mean I had had personal issues family issues academic professional issues that all came together that enabled me to make this transition it was an agonizing decision because it's like waking up in the morning and finding out that there's no gravity something you've believed to be fundamental to the nature of the universe you wake up and realize that's not the way the world works it's not easy to undo a complete worldview and then rebuild it and and so I my heart kind of bleeds for people you know when they have to go through that because I know it can be very painful do you remember the time in that journey when when you discovered this conflict between what you had always presumed to be true in the very beginning and then at some point you realize the truth of the Catholic faith but at some point in there also you realize there's a mandate that this is just another nice bit of information you can move on but that required the change of your life into the direction of the Catholic Church oh absolutely I remember it very clearly and I remember the day when Protestantism definitively fell apart for me and in in the Calvinist tradition that I grew up in there's this doctrine of the witness of the holy spirit it's a very important part of Presbyterianism that that you know that you know that you know because God speaks to you internally and gives you this this inner awareness okay that the Scriptures are the you know are the Word of God and God exists and all these sorts of things that's that's not while Catholics believe in the Holy Spirit that's not the way they understand religious knowledge okay and so because of this the Protestant the Presbyterian has a tendency to kind of expect faith to happen to him faith is something that's that happens to you more than something that you choose in fact they don't like that language of free choice of the will with respect to things religious and and I was studying Calvin's adoption of the witness of the Spirit and for philosophical reasons having to do with phenomenology I realized this is a missus of no go it's a it's a non sequitur there's some logical problems with this cannot base religious knowledge on some funny internal okay and and so sort of the final piece of my religious identity fell apart and I kept waiting around for the Catholic holy spirit to kick into gear and make me believe Catholicism you know I didn't want to to engage my own will in a matter and I I was in that mode for about a year and I finally realized I'm gonna have to get off the fence and actually do something and make an act of faith and that is the Catholic doctrine that faith is a virtue of the will not strictly of the intellect and we have to choose to believe with good reason we have the motives of credibility but we have to be personally involved in that decision all right well you had listed five write five rhymes that were the keys over those again and any one of those you'd love to because sure while the emails already coming in but any one of those you like to talk about salvation by faith alone scripture alone being the only authority born-again or conversion ISM as the beginning of the Christian life as opposed to baptism then the idea that that the church doesn't matter this was a very evangelical notion that denominationalism different flavors and denominations of so many flavors of ice cream and it doesn't really matter what you believe on these peripheral issues of church government or sacraments as long as you have the essentials okay and then and then finally the idea that that the Reformation was a recovery of the early church doctrine these are the sort of five pillars of evangelion Christianity that I eventually realized each one of them was was untrue okay now you're going to hold those for a second Oh guys we got a phone call sure when I have a guy waiting on the line I think grabbing and I can tell by the possible question that it might have some connection with your Calvinist background this is a Pat from Texas a little Pat what's your question what is your position on pre-death predestination all right Pat thanks a lot okay what is my position on predestination well my position on predestination I hope is the Catholic Church's position on predestination predestination you know is a biblical term Calvinists didn't make it up and the the church teaches that there is such a doctrine as predestination all right and God does have for knowledge and intention about the the condition of who's going to be in the church and the necessity of grace to get there all right but the the Catholic Church is actually pretty nuanced on this and allows a lot of leeway and there are schools of thought within Catholicism on how it all works out there's a kind of a strict predestiny Rhian ism that that ascribes a lot to God's initiative typically associated with the dominican tradition with Saint Thomas Aquinas and with Saint Agustin and then there's a another point of view that describes more to human effort and into the freedom of the will and the church has has kind of refused to take a really dogmatic stance on adjudicating those two and both can be held by a Catholic in good conscience that's a good example of where you have these two opposing views that sound vaguely like the Calvinists and the Methodists right the difference is that there's a higher hierarchical authority that can can tame their anger and help keep them within the fold whereas in the Protestant world those two groups they would form different denominations any time you have a disagreement about the meaning of a biblical verse you got to go start your own church and in the Catholic Church we're truly Catholic Universal big enough to accommodate even different schools of thought in theology and when there's an issue that's really really critical to the identity of the church then the Magisterium can step in and define it dogmatically and say okay all Catholics have to hold this doctrine this way but that doesn't happen all that often right because we just find to be true from your background also that what happens in these different Protestant groups who are trying to base their ID on the scriptures is that each group will have its the idea that scripture interprets Scripture I think that came from the Westminster Confession that certain aspects of Scripture interpret Scripture right so you have your your key verses that will trump others in Luther it was this faith issue right right Calvin it was sovereignty of God verses which seemed to trump everything else so that would push the Calvinists into a far distant corner because always protecting the sovereignty of God in terms of everything else you know you mentioned an issuing point with Lutheran his the way he took one set of verses to interpret the rest of the Bible and something that always unnerved me when I was a Protestant reading the Bible through Lutheran lenses was the fact that Luther really had kind of a two-tiered Bible and and he saw conflict between passages of Scripture that Catholics see is utterly harmonious and he would write all these preface --is a preface to the Gospels a preface to the New Testament to explain the proper way to understand the text and because reading the Gospels through a Lutheran lens Jesus and Paul seemed to be at odds and and I remember the first time I ever sat down and read the Gospels for myself I was floored because I thought this is not the Jesus that I always heard from the pulpit this guy actually cares about ethics of morality you know and we were always taught that those things didn't matter for your salvation here he is the finding salvation in very ethical terms of course once you put on the Catholic lens the the alleged conflict between Luther James and Jesus vanishes and they all speak with one voice did what'd you do with the Sermon on the Mount as a Presbyterian uh well he and I their books and Protestantism how do you interpret the Sermon on the Mount is it is it just there to scare you is it actually there to guide you is it just is it some sort of idealistic thing but the one thing you're never supposed to do is a Protestant is take it literally you know you know for heaven forbid Jesus actually meant people to to forsake marriage or wealth or any of these things and live the veils of perfection heaven forbid you know that was the Protestant point of view now all those five things you numerated grab one of them let's talk a little bit about all right while we talk about justification great things all right you know the the notion I grew up with as a Protestant was that salvation is by faith alone all right and nothing in your moral life can contribute it anyway to your standing before God at the end of time that you're if you're going to get there at the end it's only because of what Jesus did imputed to you and your works have no meritorious value at all all right and allegedly they pull this out of the book of Romans when Paul says that a managed justified by faith apart from works of the wall and as clearly Luther's doctrine and and it seemed to have a certain logic that would ring in the in the Pauline literature all right at least that's how I originally grew up believing it and the awakening point for me was believing that the early church was Protestant in its doctrines I dove into st. Augustine of Hippo who is the the Protestant hero from the early church because he writes so much about justification and salvation and when I dove into August and I discovered that he didn't believe anything like what Luther held in fact the doctrine he held was the Catholic doctrine you could take a Gustin you could put him next to the Council of Trent or you could put him next to Thomas Aquinas and you find out that Trent and Aquinas are just echoing Augusta and he's the the quintessential preeminent Catholic on how you're saved well that unnerved me to some to no small extent so I began to go earlier in my study of the Church Fathers and found out that it was even worse when I went into the second century fathers in the third century fathers especially the greek-speaking fathers they were they were so much more farther removed from a Lutheran understanding of Paul that it wasn't even funny I mean it was I finally realized that the the early church had a doctrine of salvation which is completely foreign there's actually a passage in st. Athanasius course the great doctor of the Trinity where he it's one of his letters where he actually poses the rhetorical question could God simply impute forgiveness to the believer without transforming their fundamental moral nature so he which is the promise employment could God actually do this and then his answer is well theoretically yes but then man would just sin again and the whole purpose of salvation would be undone and you know his great treatise on the Incarnation his whole understanding of why God became a man why the whole atonement was the transformation of the human person not just the covering of a sinful nature with some cloak of forgiveness and then I go from there until we have enough uncle we've got a few okay well you know grab one up the others grab a bottle well no this is a great copy we got a call from Rob from New York hello Rob what's your question hi thank you for taking my call my question was going from Presbyterianism to Catholicism was it difficult to invoke the intercession of Saint given I assume you were raised with Jesus being the only intercessor okay thank you very much I love that question um oh yes it initially it's very difficult because you grew up as a Protestant and you're taught that the intercession of the Saints veneration of the Saints is idolatry right and but interestingly this is one of the topics that really helped me become Catholic because while it was I had this great revulsion to the practice initially when I studied the early church I found out that the practice was utterly ubiquitous you you everywhere you looked you found it and I did really kind of an extensive study of the veneration of saints and relics in ancient Christianity to understand where this thing came from how it worked theologically was there any basis for it in scripture at all and what I found to my to my shock and horror was that the practice was not of pagan origin and that's the the Protestant polemic is this this is something that snuck into the church from paganism it wasn't of pagan origin at all in fact the pagans found this to be the most distasteful thing about Christianity namely the veneration of the relics of the saints pagans had a horror of death disease decay in the body the dead body and so their whole legal system even separated the cemetery from from the polis for the city but puts two things in opposite places and it there were strict laws against bringing the bodies of the dead into the city what did Christians do they worshiped in cemeteries they carried around dead bones all the time and and the the historian Peter Brown has a great little book on the occult of saints and Late Antiquity where he actually says you can track the progress of ancient Christianity archaeologically by looking at how the veneration of saints spread through the world so I realized this thing if I'm going to be true to Christianity at all and acknowledge that I have any continuity with ancient Christianity I have to embrace this practice so where did it come from how do I embrace it I study some more and I find out it's a it's of Old Testament origin all right the notion that the holy and righteous Dead and the holy and righteous living can intercede that this minority can intercede on behalf of the majority and that God will show grace and favor to the many on account of the righteousness of the few is a thoroughly biblical idea that we find from Genesis all the way to Revelation and in Judaism the practice of venerating the holy dead goes back to pre-christian times it's even mentioned very obliquely once in the Gospels Joachim Jeremias the great german biblical scholar has a whole book on that one little passage it's in German unfortunatly translated and so it's an entirely Hebraic biblical and early Christian practice and the logic again is this whole idea of the righteous view interceding for the many and it fits in with our doctrine of the church that that we the church is not just a collection of individuals it's actually the mystical body of Jesus and these prayers of the Saints are efficacious for us because of their connection to Christ so it doesn't denigrate from the glory of Christ or his grace or his power it actually elevates it because we know it's only through his and his great high priestly intercession that those prayers have any merit or value so I had to work through the theology but initially was very difficult now I find it was one of the most beautiful aspects of our faith all right thank you dude sticker our email this comes from lonardo 'dear dr. Andrews how would you respond to those who say that because the church encompasses all who are baptized that we are all quote in the spirit unquote and thus attribute the divisions and crusade to our sinful nature and brokenness some claim that God speaks directly to people and thus see no need for the Magisterium all right if I understand the question the question is that some people would claim that that we're all participants of the body of Christ through our baptism and and doctrinal differences is this the idea are just arson or just simply isn't any of the well let me ask this question as far as the need for the Magisterium is concerned whether or not I subjectively feel a need for the Magisterium what is the intent of Christ what is the intent of God did God intend to give us the church's Magisterium all right whether or not I think I need it is that his intent does he want us to have a Magisterium does he want us to have a final doctrinal Authority all right now the answer is yes yes he did Jesus was extremely specific very clear that he gave us a rule of faith he gave us a final doctrinal authority when he said to the Apostles whoever hears you hears me when he said all authority in heaven and earth all authority in heaven and earth is given to me therefore you go and teach all nations and I will be with you to the ends of the world as the father sends me so I send you and then you trace it out in the pastoral epistles and Paul says to Titus and Timothy the reason I left you in Crete was so that you could appoint successors men who could teach with authority book of Acts they appointed press porters in every place so we see this this idea of there being a final doctrinal Authority it's not something I don't the church doesn't just invent this to meet some pragmatic need this is the essential Constitution of the church founded and established by Jesus so that's the first question than I need to ask and essentially number one the reason we have a trustworthy New Testament is because we believe that to be true I didn't believe that there was a spirit let Magisterium there wouldn't have been a group that decided which books are going to be in that Canon we would never have had a New Testament right early days of the church all right let's some got another call let's go call David from Wisconsin hello David what's your what's your question for us Marcus great show dr. Enders my question to you as a new conversion uh which source texts affected you most in reading the Old Testament the Hebrew Greek or the Latin and how did that work its way out thank you for your thank you for taking my call you guys have a great Christmas box David thanks a lot in reading the Old Testament which source texts affected me the most the Hebrew the Greek of the Latin well I'm not he breasts so that rules that one out okay now you know I can study commentaries I can ferret out the meaning of a hebrew term if I if I have to but I'm not he breasts to be honest with you Greek did more for me through my reading of the New Testament and you know course the Septuagint and I hope that answers your question but you know I let me let me just tweak this a little bit and say that I think it's a Protestant myth that that that the layman unless he's armed with the Greek in Hebrew is hopeless to understand the meaning of the text alright and and there's a kind of mystique around those who've mastered the biblical language is now I'm not taking away from that I mean myself benefited tremendously from studying the biblical languages help me on my understanding of Paul um but but I think I think that's kind of a myth that you have to have those well again I might be wrong in this but you and I both come from Presbyterian backgrounds but I thought a part of the Westminster Confession was the idea that the Bible's are infallible inspired in their originals that's right which didn't then set up it set it up for the new bishops to be those that could read the original lang the Magisterium of the intelligentsia absolutely yeah and that's electricity came from it's a long idea that there for the ladies should not look to a bishop or hierarchy but to an academic and academic right and that's the big problem which and then those of us that do every week I was trained I was I was supposed to translate the Bible for myself every week before I did my sermon to take the Greek down to the raw and come up with my own translation that's why I was taught at sin right sure which is the arrogance of that is the idea that I know Greek better than all those committees that did the early translations all the way back and you know there's a there's a there's a question begging argument lies at the root of all this and that is that the that the intent of Holy Scripture is to be a theological text book that answers every question alright and that that's that's the the unexamined assumption behind all Protestant theology Singh that's never demonstrated and I recently I conducted a study on the history of the defense the Protestant defense of the doctrine of Sola scriptura how do they defend the side of the Bible's the final authority and and I was looking the entire time for some positive argument as to why the Bible should be the final authority the whole argument is all negative it's always well it's not the church it can't be the church the Pope is fallible the council's are fallible allegedly and we have the scriptures and we know they're inspired on the whole is sharing they can't do tradition and and there's no positive argument because there's nothing for it in the sources there is no text of Scripture there's no locus in tradition where either Christ or the Apostles or the Fathers said if you have a doctrinal question go to these 66 canonical books there is no such source and so it's just it's this 500 years of question begging which is essentially and this is probably true for you as it was for me is that we picked up our assumption on Sola scriptura from somebody we respect from tradition from tradition but often it was also from a pastor or from someone that we respected and rarely did we take the time to examine it for ourselves right right I am we just picked it and carried it and been passed along the last thing that fell for me just you know faith alone and all these other doctrines sort of fell apart and I was the whole time I was reading I was still operating out of this assumption that I had to figure out what the Bible taught on all these issues and it was only at the very end of the process that I went well what about the whole Bible alone issue to begin with and I went back and reread the Reformers with that in mind and I was astounded to find that that Luther who first put this thing on the table never argued for Sola scriptura he just asserted it and it life's sick and worms in other places when he says you know my conscience has captured the Word of God here I standing so on and so forth there's no argument for why that should be the final authority he just asserts it but on the basis of well I know it's not the Pope so it must be Scripture all right Dave let's pause there and we got a lot of emails waiting so we'll come back just a moment four more of these questions Oh you welcome back to the journey home this is our open line program and so we're taking as many phone calls and emails we can for our guest tonight David Anders and boy there's so many things I love talking about on our common journeys for Presbyterian observe the Catholic Church but our guests our questions are getting to that here's an email from Joe from Wisconsin hello Marcus and guests I am a lifelong Catholic who married a man who converted to Catholicism when our oldest child turned one his mom is a staunch Missouri Synod Lutheran who told me I was going to hell and was dragging her son with me if I continued as a Catholic she has softened greatly over the years she is suffering greatly unone during why do you have any suggestions about how I can share the Catholic theology about suffering this is Joe from Wisconsin wow that's an excellent question and that's that's profound you know the Catholic Church has has a beautiful theology of suffering and only after being Catholic do I realize how deficient my Protestant experience was because at the end of the day within Protestantism you can't ascribe any meaning to suffering because we're told that nothing that we do nothing that we bring to the table has any merit or value before God with respect to our justification all we can bear witness if you're if you're Protestant that's your perspective you can bear witness but it doesn't have any direct bearing on your own relationship with God and as Catholics we believe that it is through suffering that we are united to Christ and you know one of the early church fathers the earliest church father who brought this out so clearly with st. Ignatius of Antioch and for him the whole process of discipleship is about sharing in the martyrdom of Jesus of course st. Paul says you know I fill up in my own flesh whatever is lacking in the suffering of Christ and this is a theme that runs through the scriptures especially the Pauline epistles over and over and over again Romans 8 about you know you know we're children of credit the whole list of things that we are and then ends with provided we suffer exactly provided or provided we suffer and you know everyone suffers everyone does I mean it there's no person who doesn't have some disappointment at least if they've even if they have their health if something's not going the way they want to go and in our ability to line our will up with God and say yes thank you and to understand that these things too can happen for our salvation and this is how God wills me to be saved it is such a liberating joyful realization and you know how do you get that across to a Lutheran well it really goes so dead-set against the grain of Lutheranism then I think you know it's it's not an easy sell but if we can live it and show this is not a this is not a doctor this is not a neurotic self tortured sort of thing which is the the stereotype of Catholic theology of suffering this is a liberating thing that allows me to find meaning in a situation that otherwise I might be in despair right I mean we have Protestant brothers and sisters out there that believe that if you're suffering there's something wrong with your faith oh yeah you know I mean they've taken scripture alone and come up with whatever a couple verses and thrown together for a whole trying to deal with suffering from their knee-jerk responses to trying to answer now I have some horror story experiences of friends of mine that are in the Pentecostal and charismatic tradition which is even more that way than than other Protestant groups that actually believe that if you have faith you won't even get sick you will get you won't be poor they forget the fact that you know Jesus didn't have a place to lay his head and so on and so forth and but I've known people charismatic sand Pentecostals who had of course like anyone they had profound physical suffering diabetes paralysis blindness deafness and and they a ganache over it because they couldn't work it into their discipleship if I'm sick there's something wrong with my faith oh and I mean I knew a Pentecostal pastor one time he told me about preachers he knew he would go in the back door doctor's offices they didn't wanna be seen going in the front door but they'd say Oh help me doc I'm so sick but don't tell anybody I came we have a caller Therese from North Carolina hello what's your question hello thank you so much for my question and also for the fire that you convert spring to some of those cradle Catholics I have a several brothers and sisters and many neighbors who are Protestant and they remind me that that it's all really a very simple thing that we must say that we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior and unfortunately I don't know the words but then you say the sinner's prayer and that's pretty much what you have to do to be on forever in God's good graces and go straight to heaven and no works no anything and I'm just wondering if either of you could comment on that thank you so much Teresa thank you so much you just opened ask a question that we could spend hours talking about it's a great issue sure yeah that that's that's the tradition I was raised in I understand that point of view very very well there's a these little booklets they give you when you grow up you know evangelistic booklets you're certain to pass out that give you the sinner's prayer and walk you through this little process for too low for spiritual laws exactly and I can remember one time when I was still a Protestant and I was actually trying to evangelize a Catholic and and I wanted to find a really clear verse that would sort of lay the whole process out a passage of Scripture that I could show this Catholic it's okay see here's point one point two point three and then you do this and you're in and there wasn't one and I realized that I couldn't do it from the Bible so I had to go get the four spiritual laws I had to go get you know which is a little yellow booklet that what it does is takes one verse from this context one verse from that context never mind what the context is strings them all together to create this spurious argument that's nowhere found and laid out in Scripture sorry I don't think you can do any better than reading the Sermon on the Mount read Matthew you know five six seven eight in your studies did you can you put a finger on when that theology kind of began you have any idea on that that whole movement well that you know that of being saved by faith alone which is which is not identical to what our caller is describing okay that that comes in with Luther lieu of course right but but it evolves and it evolves away from say a sacramental conception of the faith for example so the Lutheran Calvin still had a sacramental understanding of the Church of the initiation and de grace Calvin talks about being regenerated in Baptism Luther talks about regeneration being born again taking place in Baptism and it really is until you get into English Puritanism and the Puritans were alienated from the established Church the Anglican Church the hierarchy and they had to go create these little convinced outside of the church and and because they no longer had access to the sort of corridors of ecclesiastical power they began to denigrate and play down that aspect of the faith and so seventeenth century you begin to see hints of this theology and it really in the 18th centuries when it comes to its fruition in the and the revivals of New England and Wakefield and we're filled with Leslie on the top and Evers and so forth but as far as your neighbors and friends are concerned this is not this is not the teaching of Jesus I mean you don't have to look outside the book of Matthew now you know they they have a way of basically doing away with Jesus the same way Luther did well he didn't really mean those verses yeah but if you read Sermon on the Mount Jesus says you know whoever says to me Lord Lord well not I'll so I'd highly recommend go give a really hard look at the second chapter of the book of Romans Protestants really like to start reading in Chapter three a plan a plan B thing all right go look at chapter 2 where Paul says that it's not those who hear the law who will be justified but those who obey the law that will be justified all right email from Michael from PA dear Marcus and David can you provide a few comments on different Protestant views on the Eucharist along with an explanation of consubstantiation why did Luther develop the concept of consultation as compared with Catholic teaching on transubstantiation all right this is a very complicated and in-depth topic so we'll just hit on a few highlights okay the Luther had a real dislike of Aristotle the Greek philosopher Aristotle and of his influence over late medieval Catholic theology and I think he just had kind of a knee-jerk reaction to throw out anything that smacked of Aristotelian philosophy and transubstantiation as a doctrine that is couched in the rest Italian terms from Aristotelian metaphysics right however what Luther never wanted to throw out was the very biblical and patristic notion that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus so that when we receive the the Eucharist we're receiving the real Christ and there Luther could be very inconsistent and there's somehow since tramatic he was not systematic there's a passage where he's debating over the nature of the Eucharist and he says how on earth can you throw out a doctrine that's always been held by the church from time immemorial you know can you imagine Luther excuse me wake up but so I think that was Luther's point of view now in when you move over into Calvinism you get a completely different flavor all right you get a completely different flavor and and there the Calvinists were very exorcised about what they saw as Catholic idolatry and they were very interested in what they understood to be the reform of the liturgy and they wanted the preaching of the word to be the center of the liturgical action and so while they didn't they didn't get rid of the Eucharist they wanted to reinterpret the Eucharist in such a way that it would give preeminence to the preached word and would eliminate any possibility of what they called idolatry so that Catholic practice of veneration of the sacred host for example is Anathem to Protestants I mean to Calvinists so Calvin still retained adoption of Christ being mystically present in the Eucharist and he had a very very high doctrine compared to most evangelicals and in fact it's worth mentioning he wrote a little treatise in 1541 I think in in French on the doctrine of the Eucharist where he actually said a proper understanding of the Eucharist is necessary for salvation something that no evangelical would ever ever say to death so he had a very high view but not as high as Luther's and then of course once you you you get out of Geneva and you get into Pearson ISM you know it the farther you move away from the church as the center of the life Christian life the weaker and weaker the doctor the Eucharist becomes all right that's a good picking and choosing if that's a big subject is it's an important one very importantly it makes for the wonderful summary a phone call David from Missouri hello David what's your question hi yes I've been a convert for two years now from the Assembly of God and my question is does it take you a while to really subtle into the Catholic Church there's times I have some real highs and lows I mean I love it sometimes like if some I could say a statement I can work I could go into a tailspin spiral and say did I do the right thing I just uh you know just depends on like I might hear something in the math itself and I get a little disturbed sometime but and you got touch on that about you know the do you think I'll take it a while to get used to it even think thanks for your call it's a super question a super quick I'm so glad we got that question no you know let me let me say first of all who are the original charismatic sand Pentecostals all right they're Catholics all right and and you know if you if you grew up in the Assemblies of God you've probably heard a lot about the denominational pastors that don't believe in the gifts of the Spirit all right the Presbyterians and the Episcopalians and all these guys who don't believe in the gifts of the Spirit now if you study the history of that rejection of spiritual gifts and you understand why that evolved in Protestantism it was to get rid of the Catholics because the Catholics always appealed to miracles in the life of the church and of course the preeminent miracle is the transubstantiation of the host of the Eucharist right from the early Protestants well not the very early Protestants what process wanted to get rid of this whole miraculous sacramental view of Christian life and so they articulate this doctrine of cessationism that gifts and miracles only happen in the early church and then they cease Catholic Church has never taught that and everything that you have in Pentecostalism is is incipient Lee in Catholicism the baptism the Holy Spirit we understand that is really given in his fullness in confirmation right so all those passages from acts that the Pentecostals love to point to oh well you know the Spirit comes here and not in conversion we yeah we're with you on that that's what confirmation is for okay so I would encourage you to explore all the ways in which Pentecostalism in the charismatic movement really have a strong affinity with the Catholic Church okay that's that's point number one secondly you know there are charismatic Catholics Paul the sixth gave his imprimatur said it's perfectly permissible for Catholics to enjoy that type of spirituality all right as far as the the difficulty of the transition I think most Protestants that come into the Catholic Church are shocked at the culture of the parish because the parish is different in the Catholic Church than a lot of the Protestant congregations because there's more focus on the Eucharist and the sacraments there's less focus on the Sunday school or the winds-day night Bible study and it may be a little harder to transition in and make the relationships right off the bat but they're there they're there if you go to daily Mass for example you'll start to find those people that you can really connect to who and you find your your your fellowship around the sacraments and it can be very deep and very profound and very lasting as far as what you said you have occasionally maybe hear something from the pulpit in the Catholic Church and it makes you a little uneasy understand when you're a Protestant when the pastor stands up and preaches from the pulpit there's no one there's no authority outside his own pulpit to say if he's right or wrong and he is the final authority he's going to interpret the scripture from the Greek of the Hebrew and tell you what it means I have the Liberty as a Catholic if I go into a Catholic Mass and the priest stands up and says something that I know is not in line with the teaching of the church I that's not in line with the teenagers I'm not listening to that priest on that issue if I know that the Magisterium has defined that doctrine differently and so the church is much bigger than my local congregation and if there's something funny in one parish will then go find a parish it isn't funny I might recommend to these to the caller some books by father can't Allah Mesa if you haven't read one I'm not sure I can spell it right but just kind of sound that out on the internet you'll find it how the candle of Mesa is the preacher to the papal household oh yeah and he has some wonderful books that look at the the the gifts of the Spirit within Catholic theology one I highly recommend is called sober intoxication of the Spirit by father candle of Mesa so it's the study of the Ephesians 5:5 passage so thanks for that and encourage you to you know another thing I was going to just comment on that you know the difference between the cultures of the parish in the local Protestant Church from your experience you addressed an important thing in the Protestant world because it's all about faith then often what happens at the local level is all intellectual teaching-learning Bible studies sermons in the Catholic environment it's about being holy and worship and about prayer and and and talking to our Lord and the sacraments empower us to do that I mean there's a radical difference in sometimes what you experience it's the local level that is so true that Protestantism worship has devolved into being merely the dissemination of information and that's why I new seminarians in who didn't go to church because their attitude was I'm studying theology all week why do I need to go to church for and and the Catholic view is that we go to Mass to experience a mystical communion with Jesus we're going to feast on the his body and blood we're going to receive absolution from our sins and the sacrament of reconciliation we're going to worship Him in the Blessed Sacrament there's a wonderful story in the seventeenth century there was a protestant a convert from from Catholicism to Protestantism and he and he went into his local Protestant churches in southern France one weekday to pray and the pastor caught him and shook his finger at him and said how dare you do such a thing and the man looked up at the pastor astounded and said surely I had not known until now that it was wrong to pray to God but that captures the depths of the Protestants so any kind of prayerful devotional activity in a church outside of the liturgy was suspect of idolatry the Catholic man understood the formerly Catholic man that this is what I went to church to be with God in that different trajectories was all would also emphasize why the Protestant world slowly over time pushed our Blessed Mother completely out of the equation whereas Catholics have always had a high honorable devotion to Our Lady you know one other story if I can share do you know the story about the the peasant that in AH and the Curia vile who found the peasant in the church you remember this when he was a little peasant man would come into the church every day and spend an hour is in front of the tabernacle and the Blessed Sacrament and the curiae was very impressed with his devotion and he stopped him one day and said what he what do you say what are you doing there in prayer and he says well I look at him and he looks at me and that spoke so beautifully to what the Catholic you mean I'm going to explain it theologically sure but he knew our Lord Jesus all right we've got an email from Bruce dear he says good evening Eve sin was an act of the will which occurs in the mind is this since instilled in us when we receive our soul which comes from God himself why would our Lord create us in sin thank you Bruce for it so what we're getting into heavy-duty stuff here this is a great question all right a critical difference there's a very critical difference in understanding the Catholic teaching and original sin and the Protestant teaching on original sin right the Protestant teaching on original sin is that original sin is a vitiation of our nature that our nature becomes evil and so no matter what you do however outwardly good it may seem it is inwardly vitiating that my theology professors use the example of a glass of order with a drop of ink the ink covers everything and makes it all corrupt okay that's the Protestant view of original sin the Catholic view of original is this original sim is not a positive corruption of our nature what God makes is good you're correct and it cannot be evil created the created world is good original sin is a privation of original justice what that means is that Adam and Eve were created in a perfect loving fellowship with God that was not merited it was a gift of God okay God get granted this to them by a supernatural act when they willfully chose to sin God removed that sanctifying grace that deprivation of sanctifying grace coming into the world without being intrinsically in a relationship with God is what we mean by original sin in the catholic context not the deprivation of our nature and therefore justification salvation is sanctifying grace is the restoration of that relationship that was lost than Adam and Eve all right so it's a very different conception and you're right our nature is good dot God doesn't create anything evil that's mantequilla ism all right the call from Jesse from Kentucky hello Jesse what's your question hi Marcus nice to speak with you and hi to your guests I was wondering what church fathers can I quote to prove that the church has always believed in devotion to Mary because I have Protestant friends who said they've read the church fathers and don't see her in there anywhere all right thanks Jesse great question well you need you need to take a look at st. Irenaeus second century father you need to look at Tertullian and I would also recommend there's an essay by Cardinal Newman on exactly this talk to you yes not that the title escapes me but if you google search it you're going to find Newman's essay on Mary and the constant teaching of the church fathers constant is that Mary is the second Eve all right now you have to rework this through the church fathers understanding of the nature of salvation again okay the idea of the church fathers is that Christ's incarnation his divinity is joined with our humanity and fundamentally transforms it so Jesus being the second Adam creates a new race of of spiritual men and women okay now if that's the case if the in car is the is the keystone of our salvation because it's the transformation of our nature alright then then Mary plays a critical role she's not just some sort of receptacle alright she she is actually the medium through which the Incarnation takes place and as Jesus is the second Adam the church fathers all taught that Mary is the second Eve now all you have to do is unpack that concept of the second Eve and every marian Dogma falls into place if she's the second Eve then she has to be created in the same state of original Justice that the that the first Eve was created hence her Immaculate Conception all right her continued sinlessness and so go look at Aaron ass look at Justin Martyr Tertullian and then find Newman's essay on on Mary sometimes I was thinking that it was called second Eve by Newman your honor on that one I said there's more than one vision it was one of them's edited and truncated and I don't remember the time killing all right but they'll find it on the internet so or maybe even on ewtn.com the resources that are available on the do a search for Mary well you your computer will fill overflowing on all of EWTN resources on Mary but I'm sure you could find some information of course email well these one last email dear dr. Andrews if you are not saved by faith alone what else is required what can we add to Jesus's sacrifice for us thank you Jim for that email okay well I will tell you what st. Paul says and I'll tell you what Jesus says and I'll tell what the church fathers say we are saved 100% by grace all right we can we can do nothing of our own all right but God rewards his own gifts the whole nature of salvation is that it will be a transformation of our nature not just the imputation of Christ's righteousness but our renovation all right and in His divine plan he has chosen to reward our free response that takes place through this gift of grace so it can I can I do anything that's in transit of its own worthy of eternal happiness of course not of course not but God chooses to give me eternal happiness through this process of the renovation of my nature because that's what salvation means is being transformed from a life of sin to a life of holiness and that's the teaching of Scripture is Romans chapter 2 book of Mathew well something else you said earlier also that faith is an act of the will not merely of the intellect sure I mean that that's all when you're thinking of faith as accepting Jesus as God or something as opposed to faith if that's true that I'll live differently I mean that's right part of what would faith it David thank you very much for joining us I appreciate appreciate you have a website though in case someone wants oh yeah Calvin to Catholic Ciel VI in number two Catholic calm so calm apologetic yeah it's got some links on their articles I've written so forth so I used to be a Calvinist now i'ma Catholics of Calvin to Catholic calm so you fight the battles in the internet war that's right yes okay thank you very much appreciate it thank you so much thank you for joining us on this episode the journey home I hope it was an encouragement god bless you you you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 36,008

Rating: 4.734139 out of 5

Keywords: ewtn, catholic, journey home, marcus grodi, david anders, presbyterian, Catholic, JHT01289

Id: whhQZldd1Gc

Length: 56min 33sec (3393 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 07 2010