Roman but Not Catholic

What Remains at Stake 500 Years after the Reformation

Walls, Jerry L., Collins, Kenneth J.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781493411740
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This book offers a clearly written, informative, and fair critique of Roman Catholicism in defense of the catholic faith. Two leading evangelical thinkers in church history and philosophy summarize the major points of contention between Protestants and Catholics, honestly acknowledging real differences while conveying mutual respect and charity. The authors address key historical, theological, and philosophical issues as they consider what remains at stake five hundred years after the Reformation. They also present a hopeful way forward for future ecumenical relations, showing how Protestants and Catholics can participate in a common witness to the world.

1
What We Have in Common

Despite what our title may suggest, we intend this to be a deeply ecumenical book that will ultimately serve the cause of Christian unity. True ecumenism requires forthright and respectful acknowledgment of differences, but even more important, it proceeds from a hearty recognition and appreciation of the more important common ground we share by virtue of our common commitment to classic creedal Christianity. While this book is concerned primarily with exploring honest differences, we never want to lose sight of that common ground. So although this will be the shortest chapter in the book, it is only so because there is no need to belabor points where we agree. Still, we want not only to recognize but also to celebrate the profound fellowship that unites all persons whose hearts and minds have been captured by the incomparably beautiful truth definitively revealed through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Creeds and the Hierarchy of Christian Truth

Let us begin by declaring that we share a commitment to the classic creeds: the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian. The core doctrines summarized in these classic creeds provide the fundamental framework for the Christian faith as professed by Eastern Orthodox churches, Roman Catholic churches, and the churches of the Protestant Reformation.1

Our agreement with the classic creeds is only one aspect of our shared heritage of classic patristic theology. With Roman Catholics, we look to the early centuries of the church and the fathers for seminal theology and doctrinal guidance. Indeed, we also find much to agree about in classic medieval philosophers and theologians, to whom we also look for inspiration and Christian wisdom.

The pivotal role of the creeds is reflected in part 1 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which deals with “the profession of faith” and articulates that profession by expounding the Apostles’ Creed, supplemented by numerous references to the Nicene Creed. As the Catechism states, “Communion in faith needs a common language of faith, normative for all and uniting all in the same confession of faith.”2

The exposition of the Apostles’ Creed in the Catechism is powerful, demonstrating the fact that orthodox Christians of all traditions are indeed united “in the same confession of faith.” This is hardly to suggest that evangelicals and other Christians in the Reformation tradition will agree entirely with part 1 of the Catechism. They surely will not, and Protestants who read through it will likely find it an ambivalent experience, for they will disagree at a number of points while profoundly resonating at many others.

Indeed, where they disagree, they will often judge that points of dispute represent instances where the Church of Rome has overreached and made claims that have greatly harmed the cause of Christian unity. For instance, when it expounds the Nicene affirmation “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church,” the Catechism advances claims for the Church of Rome that are at the heart of some of the most fundamental differences separating Rome not only from Reformation Christians but also from Eastern Orthodox Christians. Moreover, the modest, clearly biblical, and creedal claim that Christ was “conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary” occasions in the Catechism a statement and defense of Marian doctrines that Reformation Christians typically reject because they see no support for them in Scripture. Protestants will be similarly skeptical of the attempt to situate within the affirmation “I believe in the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints” the doctrine of Mary’s bodily assumption. Most will find it extravagant, to say the least, to claim that she has been “exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords, and conqueror of sin and death.”3

These and many other issues and points of disagreement will be taken up in more detail below, but for now they are not our concern. Here is what we want to emphasize now. Despite these differences, which indeed are significant, as we shall argue, the common ground we share is far more important than any disagreements that distinguish and even divide us. As C. S. Lewis observed, the convictions we share are so profound and far reaching that they divide us “from all non-Christian beliefs by a chasm to which the worst divisions inside Christendom are not really comparable at all.”4 Indeed, compared to the chasm that separates us from non-Christians, we might even say that our differences are a mere gully. To be sure, some gullies are fairly wide and difficult to cross, but they are nothing compared to the chasm that separates orthodox Christians from non-Christians.

Consider the core of beliefs we share and how these beliefs are radically at odds with various non-Christian beliefs, starting with the fundamental confession “We believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” The notion that we and our world are creatures, that we owe our very existence to an almighty God who sovereignly chose to give us life and being, separates us profoundly from various atheistic and secular views contending that we are the product of entirely accidental, natural causes that did not intend for us to be here. The conviction that God almighty is a Father, not merely a powerful Lord, is an immediate indication that the purpose for which we exist is full of meaning and positive significance.

So the difference between belief in such a God and unbelief is far from a merely theoretical issue. Rather, it is deeply practical and has enormous existential implications. The Catechism summarizes these implications in a series of pithy statements: “It means coming to know God’s greatness and majesty. . . . It means living in thanksgiving. . . . It means knowing the unity and true dignity of all men. . . . It means making good use of created things. . . . It means trusting God in every circumstance, even in adversity.”5

We can hardly exaggerate the difference in worldview between believing that all existing things are here by virtue of the purposeful actions of a Father almighty and believing that the blind forces of nature somehow generated us. This fundamental difference of conviction, moreover, is at the heart of many national as well as global conflicts in our world today. Protestants stand firmly united with Roman Catholics in sharing a worldview that starts with belief in God the Father almighty.

But much more is involved in the fact that the creeds call God “Father,” and this brings us to the very heart of distinctively Christian doctrine. The doctrine that God is the creator of all that exists besides himself is shared by Jews and Muslims and many other theists. But for Christian theists, the Father is the First Person of the Trinity, and this extraordinary doctrine divides them from other theistic believers. The Catechism comments on the absolutely pivotal nature of this doctrine as follows: “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and life. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the ‘hierarchy of the truths of faith.’ The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men and ‘reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin.’”6 The doctrine of the Trinity is singled out as “the most fundamental and essential teaching” in a hierarchy of truths. That some doctrines have this status is significant in terms of highlighting common ground between Roman Catholics and Reformation Christians. It is particularly these doctrines that are essential to Christian identity, and it is these doctrines that ground genuine fellowship.

The shared commitment to the doctrine of the Trinity is a common faith in the story of human salvation. Again, certain differences of understanding cannot be ignored, but more important is this central fact: we agree that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God who was born of the virgin Mary and who died and rose again to provide salvation for the human race.

So agreement that God is a Trinity is far more than a matter of agreeing on a speculative theological claim. It is agreement on the fact that human beings are sinners estranged from their Creator, who stand desperately in need of salvation. It is agreement that faith in Christ is necessary for our sins to be forgiven, but that we cannot exercise that faith by our own power. Here we rely on the Third Person of the Trinity, the last of the three to be revealed in the history of salvation, yet the one whose saving action in another sense is first. “Through his grace, the Holy Spirit is the first to awaken faith in us and to communicate to us the new life, which is to ‘know the Father and the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ.’”7

We share, moreover, a common hope for the ultimate end of the human story. We anticipate the resurrection of all persons and the final judgment, after which all persons will either enter eternal joy in the presence of God along with others who have been redeemed or experience eternal separation from God if they have rejected his offer of salvation.

In short, we share convictions that profoundly unite us in heart and mind against the secular worldview that predominates in much contemporary culture. We share a distinctive version of the human story, and we agree that the central events that illumine the story are found in the self-revelation of the Triune God and his acts to provide salvation to his fallen children through the death and resurrection of his Son. And we anticipate a future that will bring the story to a glorious end.

It would be incomplete, if not misleading, however, to leave the impression that what Reformation Christians and Roman Catholics share is only theological or doctrinal. We also share important moral and social commitments, many of which are under pressure in contemporary culture from the forces of secularism. Roman Catholics have consistently been outspoken advocates for justice issues, the right to life, and traditional views of marriage, and we deeply appreciate the important role they have played in these matters. Evangelicals and many other Protestants gratefully join hands with Roman Catholics in support of these vital spiritual and moral values.

Mere Christianity and the Center We Share

Many evangelicals and other Reformation Christians will instinctively respond positively to these lines of thinking in no small part because they have been schooled to think of ecumenical relationships in terms of what C. S. Lewis famously called “mere Christianity.” Lewis was likely the most influential Christian writer of the twentieth century, and his appeal shows no sign of waning as we move well into the twenty-first century. Lewis, of course, was a Protestant from Northern Ireland and a loyal member of the Church of England, but his influence is hardly confined to his fellow Protestants. Certainly he has been, and remains, especially popular in evangelical circles, but he also has a wide following among Roman Catholics.

We think the enormous ecumenical appeal of Lewis is another telling way to see the fundamental core of agreement between Protestants and Roman Catholics.8 Indeed, it is not uncommon for Roman Catholics and Protestants ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. What We Have in Common
• 2. Tradition and the Traditions
• 3. Scripture
• 4. Rome or Nothing?
• 5. Revelation, Biblical Authority, and Creed
• 6. The Church, Part I
• 7. The Church, Part II
• 8. “You Are Your Own Pope”
• 9. Sacraments
• 10. Priesthood
• 11. The Papacy
• 12. Machiavellian Machinations and More
• 13. Papal (Im)Probabilities
• 14. Protestants in the Crosshairs
• 15. Mary
• 16. Mary Again
• 17. Justification Roman Style
• 18. Justification
• 19. Regeneration, Assurance, and Conversion
• 20. The Deeply Divided Church of Rome
• Conclusion
• Author Index
• Scripture and Ancient Writings Index
• Subject Index
• Back Cover