A Reply to James White on Rick Warren (Part II)

This is the second part of my response to Protestant apologist, James White's video in which he accuses Pastor Rick Warren of compromising the gospel with his comments on the Catholic Church. Pastor White's video can be found here and part one of my response can be found here.

On the subject of Mary and the Saints, Pastor White is of the view that, whatever we officially may say, Roman Catholicism implies the worship of Mary. At about the 9:45, he rhetorically asks Pastor Warren if he is aware: "..[T]hat Calvin specifically dealt with the fraudulent, ridiculous kind of differentiation between lateria and dulia, within Roman Catholcism."

I don't know whether Pastor Warren has read Calvin on the subject, but I have. In Bk. I Chap. XII, section II of The Institutes of the Christian religion, he writes:

"The distinction of what is called dulia and latria was invented for the very purpose of permitting divine honours to be paid to angels and dead men with apparent impunity. For it is plain that the worship which Papists pay to saints differs in no respect from the worship of God: for this worship is paid without distinction; only when they are pressed they have recourse to the evasion, that what belongs to God is kept unimpaired, because they leave him latria."

First, for the benefit of those unfamiliar, Catholics use the term "latria" for that worship due to God alone, we use the term "dulia" to refer to the honour given to the angels and "hyper-dulia" for that unique honour given to Mary because of her unique position as the mother of God incarnate.

So, according to Calvin, this is a distinction without any real difference. But the difference is massive. Let's examine the most famous of Marian prayers, the "Hail Mary".

The prayer says "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death, amen."

Perhaps the first key phrase is "full of grace". The point of this phrase is the Our Lady is the greatest recipient of God's grace. This alone ought to demonstrate the real difference between latria and hyperdulia; God is worshipped as the source of grace and salvation, Mary is honoured as the greatest recipient of that grace.

A second point should be noted in the way that the prayer repeatedly stresses Mary's relationship with God and Jesus. We honour her because "the Lord is with [here]" and because she is "mother of God".
That is the second great difference, God is worshipped for who He is, Mary is honoured because of her relationship to Him.

Finally, the prayer ends with the request that Mary "pray for us sinners". In other words, when we pray to God we petition Him, knowing that He has the power to directly grant what we ask of Him, our prayers, to Mary are radically different, addressing her as a fellow creature and asking her to pray for us.

There you have it, in that short prayer, three fundamental differences between the honour Catholics give to God and that we give to Mary: He is honoured for who He is, she is honoured for her relationship to Him, He is honoured as the source of all Grace, she is honoured for being the foremost recipient of his grace, He is petitioned because he can grant prayers, she is petitioned because, as a fellow creature, she can pray for us.

To these three, let me add a fourth distinction, Catholics believe that the mass is the highest form of prayer and we offer the mass to the Holy Trinity alone. Calvin may claim that the distinction between latria and hyperdulia is a distinction without a difference. In fact, the difference is as radical as that between creature and creator.

Response to Pastor James White on Rick Warren (Part I)

As most will have heard, Pastor Rick Warren, of the famous Saddleback Church in California, recently made comments about the importance of Catholics and Protestants working together. He also, while noting the many differences which exist between Catholics and Protestants, argues that the great truths we believe in: the Trinity, the incarnation, salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ are far greater than what divides us.

Not everyone agrees. One noteworthy critique comes from Pastor James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. In a video found here, White accuses Warren of "capitulating" on fundamental issues of the Gospel.

At approximately the 3:35 mark of his video, Pastor White declares:

"There is a reason why, at the reformation, the solas were promoted... it is Christ ALONE, it is by the Grace of God ALONE, it is by faith ALONE; those solas have a reason." (emphasis Pastor White's).

This is a constant theme in Dr. White's criticism of Roman Catholicism. I've heard him say many times, for example, that the issue of the Reformation was the sufficiency of grace, that both sides agreed that grace is necessary to salvation but that the reformers believed grace alone saves while Rome held that salvation is by grace plus something else.

This is completely wrong. Both sides of the Catholic/Protestant debate have always affirmed that salvation is by grace alone through Christ alone. The contrary heresy, that humans, unaided by grace, can do anything towards our own salvation, is called Semipelagianism (as opposed to Pelagiansim which affirms that we can be saved without grace.) Semipelagianism was solemnly condemned at the Council of Orange in 529. A reaffirmation of this condemnation is implicit in chapters 5, 6, 8 and 13 of the Council of Trent's Decree on justification.

Pastor White goes on to argue that, even where we agree, the agreement is superficial because of our reasons for agreeing. At approximately the 4:15 mark, he says.:

"Why does a Roman Catholic believe in the Trinity? Because the Church tells him so. Why do I believe in the Trinity? Because God has revealed it to be true in His Word. Why do I believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Scriptural authority. Why does the Roman Catholic believe? Church Authority."

To say the least, it's quite a bit more complicated than that. While I'm certainly glad to have the many magisterial declarations on the Trinity, I affirm that the truth of the Trinity can be amply defended on the basis of the Bible alone and I'd be very happy to prove this in debate with any Jehovah's Witness, Mormon or 'Biblical Unitarian'. In fact, I've pretty much done it already, in my debate with Muslim apologist Abdullah Kunde, and I can recall Pastor White having some reasonably complimentary things to say about my performance.

As for the resurrection, no, my reason for believing in the resurrection is not Church authority, actually it's the other way around. I was first convinced of the historical fact of the resurrection, convinced from the this fact that Christ was who He claimed to be. I was then persuaded that Christ established the Catholic Church to teach in His name. So, far from me believing in the resurrection because of Church authority, it would be closer to the truth to say I believe in Church authority because of the resurrection.

I will, Deo volente, continue my response to Pastor White in the coming days.

The Death of Christ Means Everything!

So, it's been a while, hasn't it? There are a few reasons I haven't blogged in a while, most of those having something to do with the fact that my health has not been the greatest of late. I've been spurred to blog again by this article, written by Islamic apologist Ijaz Ahmad, responding to remarks by Protestant apologist, James White. The article deals with one of the most important topics imaginable, the death of Christ.

For those unfamiliar with some of the relevant theology the Catholic belief, shared by Protestants and most of the Eastern Churches, is that Christ is one person but with two natures, these natures being the divine and the human. A less formal way of saying this, might be that in Jesus, there are two what's (God and human) but one who (the God-man Jesus Christ). It's important to understand that these natures were not, somehow mixed together, the divine nature remains eternally divine and the human nature is fully human, but these natures are united in a single person.

It is also important to understand that, according to Catholic belief (and again this Catholic belief is shared by protestants and others) the death of Christ was a death that affected the human nature, that is to say that His human soul was separated from His body. However, and this is absolutely crucial, while the death effected His human nature, it is not a nature which dies but a person. In this case, the person who died was God. Therefore, while the divine nature was not directly effected by the death, it is theologically accurate to say that, when Jesus died on the cross, God died.

It has to be said, Ahmad does a poor job of understanding this basic Christian teaching.

Ahmad quotes from The Catholic Encyclopedia, as distinguishing three, position, the Catholic, Nestorian and Monophysite views on the incarnation. I found it annoying that he did not tell us which article in said encyclopaedia (or even which edition) he was citing; doing so would have made it easier to check the context of his citation. He then tells us that in this context “Catholic” means “Trinitarian Christian.” This is quite wrong, both Nestorians and Monophysite's were Trinitarians as well; their heresies don't touch on the question of the Trinity.

Ahmad continues to write: “Christ has two natures, his divine nature known as the Son and his human nature known as the flesh and blood of the Christ. If he died a physical death and this what is being claimed, then the flesh and blood of Christ died, that is the human nature died.”

This is very wide of the mark. “The Son” is not a name of the divine nature but of the whole person. The Bible affirms in numerous places that the man, Christ is the Son of God (Mark 15:39 being a good example). Further, the human nature is not merely flesh (that would be a variant of the ancient heresy of Apollinarianism) but a fully human soul as well.

Once this misunderstanding is made clear, much of Ahmad's argument can be seen to be off-base. For example, his claim that, since only the human nature died, John 3:16 is disproven, since the Son, he thinks, does not die, is shown to be a radical misunderstanding.

Also, Ahmad's claim that death would mean the breakup of the union between God and man are shown to be based on a misunderstanding. At death, the human soul separated from the human body but this involved no separation between the divine and human natures and only Ahmad's failure to grasp actual Catholic teaching obscures this.

Deconversion and Morality

The latest edition of Protestant apologist, James White’s semi-regular webcast The Dividing Line is on-line here. Dr. White devotes a considerable portion of this episode to this article, written by Rachel Slick, daughter of White’s fellow Protestant apologist, Matthew Slick, telling the story of her deconversion from Christianity.

White has quite a lot to say about the article and, in spite of the differences between his and my theology, I was surprised at how much of what he said I agree with and how much there is in what he says that I think Catholics can and should take to heart.

What I want to focus on, however, is this one section of Ms. Slick’s story. According to her, the crucial crisis leading to her renunciation of the faith happened as follows:


This changed one day during a conversation with my friend Alex. I had a habit of bouncing theological questions off him, and one particular day, I asked him this: If God was absolutely moral, because morality was absolute, and if the nature of “right” and “wrong” surpassed space, time, and existence, and if it was as much a fundamental property of reality as math, then why were some things a sin in the Old Testament but not a sin in the New Testament?

Alex had no answer — and I realized I didn’t either. Everyone had always explained this problem away using the principle that Jesus’ sacrifice meant we wouldn’t have to follow those ancient laws. 
But that wasn’t an answer. In fact, by the very nature of the problem, there was no possible answer that would align with Christianity.



On reading this section I was interested to hear White’s response. White begins dealing with this question at around the twenty minute mark of his podcast. I have to admit, I was surprised at how close White sounded to my own position. White, correctly, I think, remarks that Ms. Slick seems to think that morality is something that exists external to God rather than being a result, as White puts it “of God's nature and purpose.” I thought that was a good answer, or at least the beginning of a good answer, although I was a little confused about how exactly Dr. White understands the relationship between God's nature and His purposes. If Dr. White ever reads this, I'd be fascinated to hear his views in more detail and try to work out how closely aligned our views actually are.

Ms. Slick's question is related to an ancient philosophical problem, first raised by Plato in his famous dialogue, The Euthyphro. In that work, Plato asks whether certain acts are pious because the gods approve of them or whether the gods approve of them because they are pious. Applied to a monotheistic God, the question presents a dilemma between either a moral law which is above God and to which he is subject, or of morality simply defined by what God commands, with the implication that God could command whatever He likes.

To the best of my knowledge, no major Christian theologian or philosopher ever embraced the first horn of Plato's dilemma and affirmed a moral law external to God, to which He was subject. Certain theologians have, however, embraced the position known as voluntarism, essentially the second of Plato's options. Taken to its logical conclusion, and some have, indeed, explicitly, taken it that far, voluntarism holds that, while, as it happens, God has commanded humans love Him and love each other, He could equally have commanded us to hate him and hate one another. If he had done so, hate would have been a virtue and love a vice.

St. Thomas, however, and those who have followed him, reject the dilemma as a false dichotomy. For the Thomist, the basis of morality lies neither in something superior to God, or in something He arbitrarily decided but in who He, of necessity is.
 

St. Thomas distinguishes between four types of law: eternal, natural, divine and human. Describing, in detail, the meaning of these different types of laws and the relations between them is a topic for a book, not a blog post. What's relevant to Ms. Slick's question, (the one that supposedly can't be answered within Christianity) can be summarised reasonably easily.
 

The eternal law is an aspect of God. Since Thomists believe God to be absolutely simple, that really means the eternal law is God himself, viewed from a certain perspective. God loves and and commands love of us because that is what His nature requires, a nature that He could no more change than He could choose not to exist.
 

The divine law, refers to specific commands of God. As is well known, and as Ms. Slick notes, Christians believe that these commands have changed over time, at one time, God's commands prohibited His people eating of pork, today they don't.
 

As I said, explaining, in depth the reasons for these changes and the relationship between the eternal and divine law is beyond a blog post, but I believe, something of the relationship can be understood if we consider the rules parents make for their children.

Good parents have certain obvious aims in raising their kids. They want to keep them safe and do their best to ensure that they grow up into happy, healthy, well adjusted people. They probably also want to ensure a level of education and preparation for later life. Now, in furtherance of these goals, the parents will make rules for the kids, and some of these rules will probably be constant as long as the child is under the parents' care. For example, rules against anything unnecessarily dangerous, or against serious law breaking will probably be constant. On the other hand, some rules will very likely change over time: things forbidden a child of one age may well be allowed once the child is older, things not expected of a five year old may well be expected of a ten year old.

None of the above means that the parents are making arbitrary rules or that there is no consistent, objective principles. The objective principles are the goals that I outlined, but how those principles need to be applied will legitimately differ.

This is somewhat analogous (I don't claim the analogy is perfect) to the relationship between eternal and divine laws. The eternal law determines God's purpose in relating to humanity, but there is no contradiction between this and the suggestion that that purpose required different specific commands for different times in history.

Book Review: "What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Quran" by James White

I've just finished reading James White's newest book, What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Quran. James White is director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a reformed protestant apologetics ministry, and is an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church of Phoenix, Arizona. I'll admit to being something of a “fan” Pastor White; on the many issues on which he and I agree I frequently find his work incredibly helpful; on the issues where he and I disagree I generally find his arguments among the most challenging to overcome and argue against. This book falls, largely, into the first category and certainly is one that I found very helpful and which, I imagine, I will be returning to many times in the future.

One note that should be made, the book's intended audience is made clear in its title. If you are a non-Christian considering reading this book, you should realise that it is not really written for you. This is not to say that such a reader will get nothing out of this book; if you are a Muslim wishing to understand why Christians reject what you believe to be God's word or if you are neither a Christian nor a Muslim but have an interest in inter-religious debate, then you will almost certainly find this book of interest. Such readers, however, should be aware that they are not the target audience of this book. (Although, keep in mind, this advice comes from an adult male whose current favourite T.V. show has a target audience of pre-teen girls.)

It should be added, if you are looking for a neutral or “dispassionate” discussion of the Quran, you should look elsewhere. This is not to say that the book is dishonest or unscholarly, but it is very much the work of a Christian apologist whose aim is to make the case, to Muslims, for the claims of

Christianity and to assist other Christians in doing the same.

I'm aware of a review of the book on Amazon which argues that the book would be more accurately called “What Every Christian Scholar Should Know About the Quran.” In this person's opinion, the book is too complex for the average lay reader. I disagree. I think a reasonably intelligent person without any scholarly background in religion should be able to understand what is being said. Having said that, I will give this warning, White does expect his reader to be able to follow an argument over the course of a chapter; if you are one of those people whose response to any argument longer than a page is “tl:dr” then this book is probably not for you.

The first three chapters give a brief introduction to the Quranic text and the history of the Quran's being written. The real polemic begins with chapter four. In this chapter, White looks at the Quran's handling of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. White's argument is clear and, it seems to me, compelling: the author of the Quran seems to have believed that the Trinity meant worship of Allah, Jesus and Mary as three separate Gods. By the time of Mohammed, the actual Christian teaching was well defined and, even assuming this doctrine to be erroneous, one would expect God to know what that doctrine was. From this, we can reasonably conclude that the Quran is not the word of an omniscient God.

The next several chapters consider a number of different subjects but all make arguments similar to that advanced in chapter four. These chapters consider topics such as the crucifixion of Christ, the relationship of the Quran to the Gospels and the alleged prophecies of Mohammed in the Bible. In each chapter, White argues that the Quran makes claims about history, Christian belief and the Christian scriptures which simply will not stand up to scrutiny.

At this point, I should mention one place where the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism substantially effect the argument. Chapter seven deals with the question of salvation in the Quran. This is not really the place to go into the long standing differences between Protestant and Catholics over soteriology but I will say this: White lays out what he calls the arbitrary role of God in pardoning whom he chooses in Islam, and contrasts this with the Reformed Protestant view of God pardoning the elect because Christ has been punished in their place. White argues that Islam gives no grounds on which a holy God can forgive sinners while still allowing His justice to be satisfied. As I said, this is not the place to go into such question in depth but I must add that I think, to many readers, it will be less than obvious that justice is truly satisfied in the punishment of an innocent, even if willing, victim.

The final two chapters deal with the alleged perfection of the Quran. Chapter ten examines the evidence that the Quran, contrary to orthodox Islamic claims, was influenced by apocryphal Jewish, Christian and even gnostic legends while chapter eleven gives a brief over-view of the early history of the Quaric textual transmission. I found chapter eleven one of the best parts of the book and think White did an excellent job showing how many difficulties are raised in claiming, with any degree of certainty, that the Quran we currently posses is what Mohammed originally wrote.

 

All told, I think this is a fine book which I would recommend to any Christian seeking to better share his or her faith with Muslim neighbours.