Precisely.

I attended a Baptist church and heeded the altar call, went up to the front where someone walked me through the “accept Jesus into your heart” prayer. But previous to that, some Baptist missionaries who happened to be walking through my neighborhood, somehow got to my gang of friends, and we ended up in a circle reciting the sinner’s prayer (isn’t that what the “get saved” prayer is called?).

We were convinced that this would result in our being saved. The problem was that I got lost, I didn’t hear a part of it and therefore didn’t repeat it along with everyone else, and was too soft-spoken and shy to ask the guy to repeat it. So I had doubts whether my salvation “took”. And that was why I later heeded the altar call and “got saved” again.

Both these events occurred prior to the age of ten. This may seem incongruous with my statement that I was never an evangelical. But it’s true, I never really was. I was baptized Catholic but my parents never took me to mass, nor did I receive instruction.

I was specifically taught that there was no particular reason to believe in God, and on my own eventually reached the conclusion that we just couldn’t know if God existed or not. Nevertheless at various times during my childhood I became concerned with religion and salvation, and I guess I basically took it wherever I could find it. So when these missionaries came around they offered to pick me up and take me to church on Sundays, and my parents said it was OK so I did.

Anyway, just another illustration of how this “conversion experience” criterion for judging your own salvation, can be misleading and confusing, at least for kids.

Thus, he is not evangelizing in the sense of presenting the gospel to non-believers or those fallen away from the faith. However, watching it again I do think there is an entire group of people for whom this discussion would hold appeal in evangelistic terms. I spent some time many years ago on the fringes of the New Age and this speaks in their language.

However, the question, “why was the cross necessary,” is perhaps ambiguous as well. By that question we could mean “why would I have need of the cross, or why do I need salvation?”

On the other hand, as I was thinking, we could also ask, “why did not God provide a way of reconciliation other than the cross? Why did it have to be suffering and death in such a way?” In that case, we presuppose the necessity of salvation, we know and accept the problem of our separation from God, and his plan of reconciliation.

If we look at how Father Barron begins, he mentions two of the various views of the necessity of the cross as the means of our reconciliation, first St. Anselm and then Aquinas, as the classical poles of the discussion. St. Anselm’s view might be considered closest to the view of Calvin, although not nearly as exclusive. Aquinas, Father Barron says, did not want to limit God, in the sense that God could be compelled by necessity to save us at all, and specifically in the manner of crucifixion.

As a metaphysical alternative (and that is what he is discussing here) he brings the perspective of Von Balthasar and describes that view.

Perhaps I should have made a lengthier post in explanation. I think the principle reason that I posted this was because he provides an understanding of the larger picture of redemption that does not rely heavily on the “angry God” model requiring punishment from someone, and thereby punishing his own son in our stead.

There is that element within the teaching of the Church, both in Scripture and from the Fathers, but there is much more. I tend to think that the satisfaction for sin is the simpler understanding often necessary for direct evangelization, to wake up the dead in sin, so to speak. It is much like the expression, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom, which Scripture tells us. Yes, fear comes first, but it is clear that what God desires of us is our love. This is the same principle that I found in my own upbringing. At one point, there was fear of the punishment of my father, but by the time I left home, my fear was more in disappointing him.

The problem is that our understanding of justice, and God’s understanding are different. Ours pales by comparison. If we look at it strictly in terms of our justice, we already get what we deserve, without Christ’s incarnation, passion and resurrection. There is no necessity for our salvation other than the love of God for us.

Once we recognize that, then the cross becomes an even deeper mystery, because we can then ask, “why was it necessary to go to that length to save us?” Is not God all powerful? Could he not just simply change us, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, to borrow an expression from Scripture?

What goes unsaid in Father Barron’s discussion, which underlies all of Catholic theology and brings us to a point of conflict with some non-Catholics, is our free will. God did what he did on the cross because he respects our free will, and the cross was a necessity only because God made it so by limiting himself to seeking our love only from our own free will.

Thus, as Father Barron points out, not only did the Word become flesh but he went all the way with us, to the darkest corner of our existence. In that act of unconditional love for us, he provided the means for us to be reconciled with him. That is the way. Jesus said it, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

The Catholic understanding of the cross goes very deep, and is always with us. As St. Paul says, we preach Christ and him crucified. So much so that we have been criticized for it. We make the sign of the cross in prayer, reminding us of the Trinity, of our own baptism and of Christ’s passion. We depict Christ on the cross for the same reason, following the practice of the early Church that St. Paul refers to.

Having said all of that, I understand perfectly where you are coming from Stephen, and far from dismissing your comment I would like to take it up in another post, because I think the issue is not so much theology as methodology. But it is something that I have thought about at various times.

I have to tell you, though, I was sorely disappointed by Barron’s explanation of the cross. Here was an excellent opportunity for him to present the gospel… but the gospel did not come through.

What must I do to be saved? Not a word. Why should I be grateful for the cross? Not clear.

As a Protestant this kind of presentation only further confirms why I am not Catholic. Even if we could put aside most of our differences it seems, to me, deeply troubling that the gospel does not come through.

Jesus did not die merely to be present in death or to participate in our death. He died as our substitute. He took our penalty on Himself… and it was necessitated by the justice of God. Justice had to be served somehow, and the glory and wonder of the cross is that it was served by Jesus so that if we will come to Him in faith and repentance we need not serve it ourselves.

Point taken Stephen. I would agree that the dispensationalist theology does indeed segment the whole of Scripture and the history of salvation in a very pronounced way, with special emphasis on a break in the New Covenant from the Old. Their influence is quite widespread in Protestantism, even among those who would not necessarily call themselves dispensationalists.

“In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus was describing the Christian… not how to become a Christian but what a Christian is and what a Christian does.” This goes to the issue that I was discussing in the post regarding Mike Gendron more recently.

There is a definite blurring of the distinction regarding sin in general and sin on the part of a Christian. As Catholics we believe that our baptism removes original sin (and any personal sins up to that point in our lives if we are baptized as adults) and then as Christians there are degrees of sin as we “work out our salvation in fear and trembling”, striving for holiness. But any sin as Christians requires us to repent and seek forgiveness.

I think the same blurring sometimes goes on with respect to the Law. As Scott Hahn pointed out, in the minds of those of Israel serious about their faith in God, the Law was considered a gift, a grace if you will, from God, and therefore precious beyond measure.

Thus when the Word became flesh for all time and dwelt among us, and once the final, for all time blood sacrifice was made on the cross and the promised Holy Spirit had come after the ascension, grace abounded and for St. Paul, that realization caused him to exclaim that in comparison everything that he was before was nothing.