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Jerome, there are multiple conflicts between every point of Calvinism and the doctrines of the Catholic church.boughtwithaprice said:
First is the belief of man's total depravity. As you know if you studied Calvinism, this part of the acrostic does not imply that man is utterly depraved. IOW, we know that man is not as bad as he can possibly be. God's grace, in some form of restraint, falls on the just and the unjust keeping him from being as bad as he can be, be he elect or not. What "total" does allude to is the scope of man's fall. His nature was corrupted at every point, down to the deepest point of his origin. This corruption has resulted in man's complete moral inability to seek God. The problem with this point of the chain is that the Roman church does not ascribe a complete inability of all men to recognize his need for a Savior. They preach a form of semi-Pelagianism as I understand it. As I have been led to believe by other Catholics, your church teaches that though man, in his fallen state, is unable to come to Christ apart from the grace of God, that very grace does not always accomplish it's intended result, i.e., a person's salvation. For me this begs the question, "why does it lead to salvation for some but not for others?" I ask, "where is the difference to be found?" The answer I invariably get is, "the difference is found in ourselves, in our free will to accept or reject that grace." Is this how the Calvinist sees fallen man? Is there any part of our theology in which we point to ourselves, be it our will, our actions, our faith, or our works as the definitive basis for our own salvation? Of course not. Unlike the Catholic we do recognize our own inability. We do view our Fall in the proper light. You see, though Catholics will acknowledge man's fall as devestating to his morality, they do not see this corruption as Paul saw it. He [Paul] recognized that this corruption was so devestating to man's nature that it was, in fact, a form of death. Do dead men seek God? Do dead men respond in faith? Both Catholic and Protestant would answer, unequivocably, no. Diversion point number two. Catholics see the Fall as devestating but not fatal. They carry the analogy too far. They, and we, recognize that man still has a nature so the Fall can't have literally killed his nature. The difference is that they see the Fall as merely "wounding" the nature of man. Now, let it be known, reformed Christians understand that the Fall is analogous to death but it is not a literal death. We know that humans, both regenerate and unregenerate, live, at least in the humanistic sense. We breathe, we make decisions, we take action. However, we also understand that man's nature is beyond wounded. He has no "island of righteousness" of which the Roman would point to as a fallback. We fully acknowledge that in our fallen, unregenerate state we are completely incapable of desiring to serve God, much less actually doing it. The first letter of the acrostic T.U.L.I.P. leaves much to be desired if we are looking for common ground.
On to the second, the "U." I'll try to be brief because I don't think there is much disagreement that Catholics don't see eye to eye with reformed Christians on the belief of God's unconditional election. I've never been led to believe that Catholic Christians believed in unconditional election. The closest form of election with which most Catholics will even associate is the view of God's "foreknowledge." This word, "foreknowledge," too is misused. It does not mean merely "to know ahead of time," though it does definitely include that. The Catholic will tell you that God looked at time and saw who would, of their own "free will," apart from any divine intervention, choose God. On that he made His decision. That is not unconditional, but rather completely conditional. Ironically, they use the same passage to support their view as the Calvinist uses to dispute it:
Romans 9:11
for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls
The Catholic will tell you that this passage clearly points out their view, that God chose the younger of the brothers, Jacob, over the older, Esau, before they had done any good works, in fact, before they were even born. Their argument is that neither of the twins had physically done any good works but God, being omniscient, knew that Jacob would choose to serve Him "of his own free will" so He picked Jacob on that basis before Jacob was even born, but that choice did not exclude Jacob's own freely willed choice to serve God.
Again Jerome, this is completely different than what the Calvinist would purport, and, IMO, taking a piece of Scripture that is quite explicit and reading their own anthropocentric beliefs into it. I am not sure how the Catholic reads this passage and gets anything other than that Paul is saying that God chose the younger over the older, contrary to popular Jewish tradition, before they had done any works, in fact, before they were born so that His purpose ACCORDING TO ELECTION would stand. It says, "not of works but of Him who calls." How does the Catholic read that and interpret it as "not of works already performed but of Him who calls?" Please explain?
You have already said that there is conflict with the idea of limited atonement so I will not address that here, though I do want to address your comments on that belief in a moment. On to irresistable grace. My favorite author/theologian uses a completely different acrostic that, IMO, does a much better job of coveying the reformed view of these issues, though, it does not ring with the same catchiness as T.U.L.I.P. He, and I, prefer R.S.D.E.P. These refering to "Radical corruption, sovereign election, definite atonement, efficacious grace, and preservation of the saints."
So, irresistable, or efficacious, grace. What does that mean, and does the Catholic church support the belief? Well, in the reformed circle it means that God's grace always, yes always, accomplishes that for which it was purposed. God never fails. This does not mean that men never resist His grace. We do. It's just that our resistance is not sovereign over God's grace. Now, the Catholic, as well, will tell you that God never fails. However, it is highly inconsistant to say that God seeks the salvation of all of humankind yet does not accomplish that which He seeks but it isn't His failure because He only seeks our salvation so long as we willingly acquiesce. Either God is sovereign and He seeks His own glory by overcoming our fallen obstinacy and redeeming us to the glory of His Son, the reformed view, or, He is more concerned with our glory and ultimately leaves it to us to obtain by accepting His "offer" of salvation, the Catholic view. Where He makes that "offer" in Scripture I'm yet to read. The Catholic will tell you that God seeks our salvation until it is clear that we willfully reject it, and then He stops seeking it. The Catholic will tell you that God will not force His desire upon us at the cost of our free will; Whereas, the reformed Christian will tell you that prior to His intervention we are not free because we are enslaved to our fallen, sinful nature and it is His very act of sovereign, divine intervention that sets us free. It is this act, which involves giving us a new heart (not the muscle but rather the inner man), that creates in us the desire to serve Him willingly, a desire that we lost in the Fall. Once again, the Catholic and reformed views of the points of Calvinism are at odds.
Let's move on to the last point, perseverance/preservation of the saints. The Calvinist will tell you that our salvation was bought at the price of the blood of Christ. It was a required legal transaction between the Father and the Son. It was required because God is Just. He could not just arbitrarily circumvent His own Law, which required payment of death for sinful actions. Had He just disregarded His own Law He would cease to be Holy because He would have lied. Additionally, we would never be able to take comfort in any of the other promises of God. If He just disregarded His own Law on the price of sin how would we know He wouldn't disregard His promise to finish the good work He started in us? How would we know He wouldn't change His own Law to say, "Whosoever believes in the Son has eternal death?" Nothing would be stable at that point. The Calvinist will tell you that the reason we can't lose our salvation isn't because we "persevere" and, by our own power, hold on to it. On the contrary, if the preservation of our salvation was left up to us we'd all, once again, willingly and willfully give it away, just as Adam and Eve did. No, we remain saved because our place in Heaven is held for us by the power of God:
1 Peter 1:3-5
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
The Catholic, on the other hand, does not believe that we have any security in our salvation unless we persevere. Our salvation does not rely on the power of God, for which we are to be joyful, but rather upon our own power to love the Lord more than we love the world. In short, we can lose our salvation because remaining saved is a responsibility left to us. The Calvinist, OTOH, will tell you that if we do love the Lord more than we love the world then it is His grace which causes, not enables, causes us to do so. He is the root of our being. He is the cause of our righteousness.
Now, let me briefly address the rest of your post:
This is in complete accordance with the reformed view of limited atonement. We profess that God has limited the scope of His work on the Cross, not the value. We fully agree that we were commissioned to preach the Gospel to ALL people. We also fully agree that we were never commanded to know, or to determine, the identity of the elect, other than our own status with God. If you study the scope of evangelical missionary work you will see that reformed Christians play a huge role in the process of spreading the Gospel. Calvinists are great contributors to the effort to spread the Word of God because we know that God will bring about His plan through our work of evangelism. If this is true, and it is, wouldn't that contradict what you say here?:
If it were as you say, that the belief of limited atonement is actually anti progressive to the cause of spreading the Gospel, why, pray tell, would we try so hard? I'll tell you what causes "unnecessary discord and strife in the body of Christ and leads to endless speculation as to the identity of those elect." It's the inaccurate understanding of the Great Commission. You see, Christians were commanded to go out and make disciples of all nations, right? Why are we successful at it? Is it because those who do the missionary work are so learned in the Gospel? How about because they're so articulate? No. Absolutely not. We are successful because God brings the increase. There are two different calls given by God. One is the external call, in which we participate, the preaching of the Gospel. Then there is the internal call of God. God, and God alone, is the causal agent in this call. He sovereignly calls a person from the bondage and death of their sinful fallenness into the grace and mercy of His light, much in the same way Christ resurrected Lazurus. To be sure, Lazurus responded, just as those who receive the inward call of God respond. He, and we, respond in the way a man who has been brought to life responds. We live. And, just like Lazurus, we were helpless to do anything prior to that call. Lazurus didn't seek the Lord and ask Him into his heart. He didn't ask Him to bring him back to life. He was dead.
So, as I see it, the Catholic and the Calvinist disagree on the effect the Fall had on man's nature (T), the basis for being chosen by God (U), the scope of His purpose in atonement(L), the efficacy of God's grace(I), and the source of our preservation(P).
Calvinism teaches these same things. No conflict here, as you mention of my signature.
Of course.
God bless,
Don
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