North of the Shire

There is one area of difference between the Protestant Evangelical way of seeing the world and the Catholic way that I find runs very deep. In fact, within my own understanding of the faith I come across it in myself at various levels.

I remember at one point talking to my Bishop about my own upbringing and that sense of the Christian faith and I made the remark that what I had come from was almost Gnostic. He seemed a little surprised at the strong word that I used but as I explore deeper into the Catholic faith in all of its history and richness I find that the descriptor I used to be perhaps inaccurate in the literal sense, yet in the deeper understanding of faith to be more and more accurate. Perhaps the word Manichean would be more accurate, or perhaps Hellenistic captures what I see looking back. And I find to my own surprise how deeply rooted it is within me.

[Edit:Dec.14/9 - Note: It has come to my attention that the use of the term "Gnostic" here requires at least some explanation. Fair enough.
As I see it, there is a strong element of dualism in the theology and worldview of many Protestants, at least those of the Evangelical stripe. This is evident in their rejection of the sacraments as anything other than symbols, and any other possibility of the Holy Spirit using corporeal things as channels of grace. The objection seems to me, and I will hear any other explanation, to be centered on a dualistic view of this world, more subtle perhaps but much in line with the Gnostics and/or the Manicheans of the early centuries, such that "this world" is thoroughly corrupt, not just in the sense of man's sinfulness outside of God's grace, but in the corporeal sense as well, by extension. In this, the Catholic position is much more balanced, using the term "wounded" to describe human nature as well as the state of the earth and the cosmos since the fall of mankind. We must remember that God called the world "good" when he created it and that included physical human beings, not just their souls. Moreover, Jesus Christ entered this corporeal world and became one of us, blessing us all in our human nature just by that one act.
The total depravity model of humanity that we see in Calvin comes from the dualist way of thinking. But if we pause a moment, we have to wonder whether Christ's admonition to "be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" was just a cruel joke or whether it is actually possible to be perfect with the help of God.

The other aspect of Evangelicalism in particular that leads me to think of Gnosticism is the heavy reliance on the subjective as the ground of salvation. That is to say, that "being saved" or "getting saved" is a strictly internal process, and that any objective measurement or act such as baptism has no efficacy through the power of the Holy Spirit when received with that internal movement of heart we call faith. One of the marks of the Gnostics was this "secret knowledge" (gnosis) that would lead a person to that state wherein they would escape this corrupt body.

Again, the Catholic position is "both/and" regarding the sacraments in particular. That is to say that they operate "ex opere operato" objectively doing what they signify by the power of the Holy Spirit, provided the conditions are in place. The graces that should flow to the recipient of the sacrament can be blocked by that person's lack of faith. So we are not denying the internal movement of faith, the internal conversion of heart that is always an essential part of salvation, but at the same time, there is also objective power in the sacrament itself.

So as I see it, the intense internalization and strict spiritualization of faith to the exclusion of all corporate and corporeal elements in the Church founded by Christ represents a parallel to the "secret knowledge" of the Gnostics.

-Les]

To take a cursory overview of what I am referring to let us look to St. Paul in his letter to the Romans chapter 12 and verse 2;

Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

This is one classic example of how St. Paul discusses “this world” in the negative sense such that Christians are to be separated from it. The difference that I am talking about between my own Protestant Evangelical upbringing and the Catholic faith is contained in our understanding of what St. Paul means here when he speaks of “this world.”

This difference of thinking runs throughout almost all doctrine and casts its influence in almost every area of disagreement between Catholics and Protestants. But rather than simply casting heretical descriptors toward the religious context of my upbringing let us rather attempt to shed some light on what I am gradually discovering to be the Catholic world view. Now, it has been more than six years, so either this is a very deep contrast or I am particularly thick between the ears. Perhaps it is a bit of both.

Let’s start with a couple of sermons from Fr. Barron of Chicago, an especially articulate spokesman for the Catholic faith.

Sermon #464 and Sermon #465, the first two Sundays of Advent.

The readings:
First Reading: Jeremiah 33:14-16
Psalm: Psalms 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3:12 — 4:2
Gospel: Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

http://www.wordonfire.org/WOF-Radio/Sermons/2009/Sermon-464-The-End-of-the-World-as-We-Know-It.aspx

The readings:
First Reading: Baruch 5:1-9
Psalm: Psalm 126:1-6
Second Reading: Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11
Gospel: Luke 3:1-6

http://www.wordonfire.org/WOF-Radio/Sermons/2009/Sermon-465-Be-Ready!-Second-Sunday-of-Advent.aspx

In the first he is speaking of the coming end of the world and the need to look to Jesus. In speaking of the manner that this world passes away, all of it even ourselves, he points out that there has been a solution that in particular the Manicheans tried, which was the position of St. Augustine before he became a Christian. That the idea of the dichotomy between the physical world and the spiritual are irreconcilable, even unnatural, this world being evil and the other being good in part precisely because this world is changeable, subject to decay and will eventually pass away. Many of the heresies over the centuries held a similar view, in one form or another. The Gnostics held a similar idea. Much later in France, the Albigensians held a parallel view of the world and even when we move further along and come to John Calvin, and to some extent Luther, their idea of total depravity of humanity and the “world” echoes this same sentiment.

It is important to remember, as Pope Benedict XVI points out in his Regensburg address, that Hellenism has been the source of the separation of the soul and body in our thinking far beyond the unnatural separation that occurs at death upon which we can all agree takes place. By unnatural we mean that it was not intended to be this way. Indeed, it is the result of the fall of mankind into sin of Adam and Eve; that caused this unnatural ripping apart of the soul and the body. However, much later we see that in Hellenistic philosophy and in many of the heresies we have mentioned that the error is premised on a notion of the soul and body whereby the soul is what is natural, higher and eternal and the body is incidental or even a prison for that soul in some thinking. The vision of heaven that many Christians have is of disembodied souls, that the higher order that is our end, the eschaton, is only a spiritual existence, and beyond our understanding for that reason. It may well be beyond our understanding but there is much more that we can and do know of the eschaton and it comes from the Church and Scripture.

If we simply go back to the Apostles Creed and from there to St. Paul in particular we recall that we believe in the resurrection of the body. We know from our reading of the Gospel of Mark, Luke and the Book of Acts that Christ ascended into heaven, yet he was in his glorified body. The apostles touched him, had dinner with him after his resurrection. He did have a physical body. St. Paul tells us that we will be raised incorruptible, in a new body that even he didn’t quite understand, yet it will be a body. This will happen before the final judgment and before the new heaven and new earth are created. Just a little bit of logic, based on this revelation shows us that our natural state is and will be an integrated body and soul.

In Fr. Barron’s second sermon, #465, he speaks of understanding how the Israelites viewed themselves, their captivity, their future and the coming Messiah at the time that John the Baptist arrived on the scene. He compares what was happening at the time of Baruch to the situation for Israel at the time of John the Baptist. And he makes an interesting point;
Israel’s woes were not just political, they were theological. Their vision was of all the world someday coming to worship at the temple in Jerusalem. The Messiah was to make that happen in their view. But while they were in Babylonian exile and then under the cruel regime of the Roman Empire in John the Baptist’s time, these things could not come to pass. If we look forward in Scripture once more to St. Paul’s discussion of the Law and Grace in the epistle to the Romans he mentions that Abraham’s faith was counted as righteousness. Let’s not miss that. From the first covenant with Abraham, this story has been about faith.

This brings up something very important, so obvious perhaps, that we miss it in reading the Old Testament history of Israel. They were chosen by God so this had to be a theological story by definition. The covenants of the Old Testament that were culminated and fulfilled by the final Covenant in Jesus Christ’s passion, death and resurrection, were always about faith. Perhaps we have been inclined to think that Jesus Christ’s Incarnation was Plan B, when the Israelites did not make the grade, so to speak. Their failure was our gain. And if we take the Manichean view of the nature of mankind or even the much subtler Hellenistic view, we tend then to see the New Covenant as a great divide, wherein now our salvation is spiritual in nature only.

This was not the view of the early Church but we can see where this line of thinking leads us. Where does the idea that there is no continuity of liturgy and worship between the old and the new come from? It is rooted in this view of mankind.

From where comes the idea that Christ uses nothing of this physical world as a channel of Grace, be it the sacraments or the sacrametals or even, by extension, the Saints? Again it is rooted in this view of mankind’s nature such that when salvation was generalized to all mankind, not just the Jews, it was also spiritualized and removed totally from the physical realm. Indeed, it was spiritualized in large measure, and individualized as well, but neither was the corporate nature of Christ’s Church abolished, or the physical nature of humanity and the means of Grace.

We must remember that Jesus Christ’s Incarnation was permanent. Let us ponder that. He became a man for all eternity. He is the second person of the Trinity and he is also man forever. The very thought of that must cause Lucifer to gnash his teeth, metaphorically speaking of course because we know he, like the angels is pure spirit. That is why it is so critical to get this right. God is now a man and still God. The doctrine that Mary is the “mother of God” is also critical for that reason, and was affirmed very early in the Church to be a marker of the true faith while many were speculating that Jesus was either not truly man or not truly God or some variation of the same error. Again, the separation of man’s body and soul in our thinking is what leads us to suppress the importance of the humanity of Jesus, when in reality that miracle, that great mystery carries on to this very day and to all eternity.

I have found, as I have also mentioned in times past, that to dive deeply into the depths of Catholic understanding, the first and best way to do that is to meditate on the Incarnation. We are in the season of Advent and a very appropriate time to do so.

I think, if we reflect upon it, we can see that the great Reformation doctrines of Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura have at their very root, perhaps well hidden in some cases, a distorted view of mankind, from which also a distorted view of Christology, Ecclesiology and even Eschatology follow. And in our critique of the Jews of the time of Jesus, it distorts our understanding of precisely how Jesus came to fulfill the law and not abolish it. It leaves us with a greater gulf between the Old and New Covenants, a disconnect that did not exist in the early Church and does not exist today in the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

I believe also, that in understanding and internalizing the true view of the nature of mankind and his current wounded state, it is possible to have some sort of peace and détente between how we are asked by Jesus Christ to live and love in this world, and the fact that the world around us makes that kind of life very difficult. If we know why we are hated and persecuted and know that it is sin that causes such things, we are better able to see the humanity of our persecutors and love them as Christ told us to love them.

It is also then possible to understand that our physical life is to be lived wisely and justly and what we do here does matter to our future beyond this life, and whether we will see that new heaven and new earth that Christ promised in St. John’s Apocalypse. And it also gives us the understanding to be detached appropriately from the “things”, the “goods” of this world while using them for God’s purpose.

It is also then possible to understand that the gospel that Jesus preached was about the Kingdom, and that as baptized we are part of the Kingdom that is now, and is also becoming. And we can face death, even though it is not natural, yet with hope, because we know that death has been conquered and we are on the side of the King.

Moreover and perhaps most importantly, we can wholeheartedly seek the grace that flows by the power of the Holy Spirit through the sacraments, the Eucharist being the summit of our sacramental life.