Links and Things: February 24, 2016

Let's go around the horn and look at a few points of interest....

Amy Wellborn reminds us, clearly, calmly, and rationally, that we need not get ourselves in a dither over this or that of the Holy Father's comments--and that we need not defend them, either, in Against Popesplaining at her blog, Charlotte Was Both. (It's a little lengthy, but do press on, especially to the point below the **** across the bottom of the page.)

Scott Eric Alt exposes a statistic commonly used by Catholic apologists as hogwash in We Need To Stop Saying That There Are 33,000 Protestant Denominations at the National Catholic Register. (The multi-denominational argument is strong enough on its own; it needs no embellishment.)

Professor Anthony Esolen writes a moving thought experiment, looking at the modern world through the eyes of our forebears, in What Would Our Ancestors Think of Us? over at Crisis Magazine. (And no, I did not choose this simply because there is a picture of the TARDIS in the article.)

Enjoy!

The View Beyond the Frame

Recently the subject of relics came up between me and a Protestant classmate. The whole concept seemed strange to him. He knew that Catholics made use of the relics of the saints, of the belongings or portions of the bodies of the saints, in their devotions and worship, but he personally couldn't see the appeal or the reasoning for it. What's the deal, he asked? Where did it come from?

Thinking that my Protestant friend would likely respond well to a passage from the Bible supporting this practice, I referred to Acts 19:11-12, which says that "So extraordinary were the mighty deeds God accomplished at the hands of Paul that when face cloths or aprons that touched his skin were applied to the sick, their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them." The current Catholic practice is nothing different, I said. He responded with skepticism in his voice: "That's your scriptural warrant for relics?"

For a while I had been attempting to think of a pithy and illustrative way to describe the different approaches of Catholics and Protestants to Scripture; I think this encounter was a perfect exemplar. For our Protestant brethren, the Bible is the sole source for the faith. If some notion or practice cannot be explicitly (and usually repeatedly) found in the pages of Scripture, then that notion or practice, they conclude, has no basis for being believed. One almost gets the sense that the point in question must be spelled out in a divine command, or in the form of a proposition, in order to be accepted. So, even if the Protestant reads this passage, or Acts 5:15 (where Peter's shadow heals the sick), or Luke 8:44-47 (where the woman touches Jesus's garment and is healed), or all of them together, it seems he is not likely to conclude from them that the presence of a holy person, or a holy person's things, or a deceased holy person's body, can have positive spiritual effect. It's not explicit enough, it's not clear enough, it's not sure enough.

Of course, this attitude ignores an entire dimension of evidence: practice, or tradition. Surely if we would like to determine whether this use of relics is congruent with Christianity, it would be useful to ask whether Christians have always and everywhere made such use? Would that not be a strong indication that the practice is indeed Christian?

In this conception, the Scriptural stories are like snapshots of moments within the life of the Church; they are best understood and interpreted by those who witnessed them and were present, and by those to whom those witnesses gave their testimony. If you were to find pictures of some of your relatives on a beach trip, your aunt who was on the trip would be able to give you the context and significance of the events captured in the photos--who else was there, why a certain person wasn't there, what everyone was laughing about--much more accurately and precisely than a stranger who came along and began inspecting the photos, no matter how good the stranger's detective work and methods of analysis were.

For the Catholic, Scripture is like those snapshots, and the Tradition is like those family stories that give you the context for the pictures. The Catholic, having the rest of the story, is able to see beyond the picture's frame. The Protestant looks only at the picture, and misses the rest of the story.

Was Paul Crucified for You?

I thought this joke was pretty funny:

They say the Protestant Reformation was the triumph of Paul over Peter, and that Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Jesus.

This may require some explaining, and one rarely wants to explain a joke as it usually kills the humor, but this may provide some insight into the mindset of the Fundamentalist.

First, why would the Reformation be called the "triumph of Paul over Peter"? One might see it that way if one thought that the "Petrine" Catholic Church, with its emphasis on the successor of St. Peter and tradition and apostolic succession and works and such, had been conquered by the "pure Gospel" of justification by faith found in the letters of St. Paul, with his free-wheeling preaching all over the Mediterranean, even "opposing Peter to his face" (Galatians 2:11). No more popishness interjecting itself into our relationship with the Lord. Once again, Peter has been opposed to his face!

So then what's this second bit about? Why would Fundamentalism be called "the triumph of Paul over Jesus"? Here's why: notice that when you talk to a Fundamentalist about salvation, often they don't appeal to the Gospels to make their case; they instead point to the writings of St. Paul. They don't appeal to the words of Jesus, but to the words of Paul. For example:

"So, how are we saved?"
"Romans 8, justified by faith apart from works of the law, sola fide! Salvation by faith alone, irrespective of our works!"
"Yes, faith is certainly important, but Jesus said to gain eternal life, you must keep the commandments. So clearly our works or our actions or our keeping the moral law has something to do with our salvation."
"Yeah, yeah... but... but Paul said in 1 Corinthians...."

Oh, my hypothetical Fundamentalist brethren... You end up pitting Christ and Paul against each other, and you end up choosing Paul. Which is your savior? This is why the joke is funny!

Yes, St. Paul's writings make up the bulk of the New Testament, so his explanation of the Gospel message and the language and phrasing he uses sets a standard for how we understand it. Yes, we're going to rely a lot on his words and works. But we should not get so focused on the messenger that we forget the message. The joke above points to this tendency among some to focus on Paul over Jesus. It's not a new phenomenon; even in his own time people became so devoted to Paul that they primarily identified with him; Paul responded by asking if he had been crucified for them, if they were baptized into him (1 Corinthians 1:13). Paul wants to know nothing but Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). We must strive to do the same.

Divine Logic

Catholics are very familiar with addressing the Blessed Virgin Mary as "Mother of God," just as we do in the Haily Mary: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners." This is an ancient title for Mary, which was officially approved and sanctioned by the Church at the third Ecumenical Council, at Ephesus, in 431 AD. Some people objected to it then because they had a distorted view of the nature of Christ, but this should be an easy one, right? It's simple logic:

Jesus is God.
Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.

But did you know that some Evangelical Christians object to this title today? They say it gives Mary too much honor to be called the Mother of God--to that I would respond, "If the shoe fits, wear it." I also heard one Evangelical in a debate try to show that calling Mary the Mother of God is absurd by making this counter-argument:

God is Trinity.
Mary is the mother of God.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of the Trinity.

"But this is absurd! No Christian believes Mary is the mother of the Trinity! See, Catholic, your logic is flawed!"

Indeed it is absurd, 'cause your logic is flawed.

There are two problems here. One is a formal problem, which may be a little complex to get into here (i.e. I'm not sure I understand it well enough to explain it), but suffice it to say that the way that syllogism is set up renders it invalid. I think it can be demonstrated with another example:

God is Trinity.
The Father is God.
Therefore, the Father is Trinity.

Well, that didn't work, did it? So the first issue is the form of the argument.

The other problem is called the fallacy of four terms. This is when a logical proposition uses one word in two different ways, so that the word does not mean the same thing every time it is used. Here is a handy example (borrowed from the Wikipedia page on the subject of this fallacy):

Major premise: Nothing is better than eternal happiness.

Minor premise: A ham sandwich is better than nothing.

Conclusion: A ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness.

The word "nothing" in the example above has two meanings, as presented: "nothing is better" means the thing being named has the highest value possible; "better than nothing" only means that the thing being described has some value. Therefore, "nothing" acts as two different words in this example, thus creating the fallacy of four terms.

Just as the word "nothing" is being used in to mean two different things in this example, so "God" is being used to mean two different things in the Evangelical example.

The three Persons of the Trinity are each fully God, so that it can properly be said of each, "The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God." We say that "God" can be predicated of each person of the Trinity, and everything that can be predicated of God-ness can be predicated of each of them, e.g. omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, etc. Think of it like this: Nick is human. Jim is human. That means both possess human nature. Everything that can be said of human nature can be said of Nick and Jim: they are rational, they can see humor, etc. Just so, saying "The Father is God" and "The Son is God" means both possess the divine nature, and everything that can be said of the divine nature can be said of each of them: they are all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, etc.

BUT the process does not work in reverse: just because Nick and Jim share human nature, and just because the Father and the Son share divine nature, does not mean that everything that can be predicated of one can be predicated of the other. Though Nick and Jim share human nature, that does not mean that Nick is Jim. And though the Father and Son share divine nature, that does not mean the Father is the Son. The Father's fatherhood is unique to Him, and the Son's place as Son is unique to Him. Likewise, since it is only the Son that became incarnate in the Virgin's womb, only the Son can be said to have been born of her, and thus Mary is said to be Mother of God only as it relates to the Son.

No one should make the mistake of thinking that calling Mary "Mother of God" makes her the Mother of the entire Trinity, and no one should think that this title makes Mary superior or even equal to God. The title simply acknowledges that the one to whom Mary gave birth is truly the God, and that the God to whom Mary gave birth did truly become human. The only way you can deny the title Mother of God to Mary is to either deny that Jesus is truly human or that Jesus is truly God. And I don't think any who call themselves Christian would want to do that.