Roman Catholic Theology and Practice

An Evangelical Assessment

Gregg R. Allison

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781433545412
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

In this balanced volume, Gregg Allison—an evangelical theologian and church historian—helps readers understand the nuances of Roman Catholic teaching. Walking through the official Catechism of the Catholic Church , Allison summarizes and assesses Catholic doctrine from the perspective of both Scripture and evangelical theology.

Noting prominent similarities without glossing over key differences, this book will equip Christians on both sides of the ecclesiastical divide to fruitfully engage in honest dialogue with one another.

1

Introduction

Comically speaking, the genesis of this book occurred when I, as a five-year-old, was told by a similarly young (pre-Vatican Council II) Catholic neighbor girl that I was headed straight to hell because I wasn’t Catholic. Greatly upset and fearing for my eternal destiny, I asked my parents if we could go to church, and they promptly responded by taking me to the local United Methodist church. Though that choice did nothing to change the neighbor girl’s assessment of and warning about my future condemnation, it at least started me down the Protestant pathway. After nurturing me on the works of Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, John Wesley, and many others, this road has brought me to the place where I am today: an evangelical systematic theologian of the Reformed Baptist variety.

Seriously, however, the origin of this book began in May 1976, when my fiancée (now wife, Nora) and I were visiting a businessman in Chesterton, Indiana, near South Bend. We had received permission from Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru) to begin raising support for our future campus ministry with that parachurch organization. During our conversation, in which Nora and I presented our upcoming work, the businessman jokingly exclaimed, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if the two of you were assigned to be Cru staff at the University of Notre Dame.” After a hearty laugh—“Sure, a Protestant missionary movement on the campus of the premier Catholic university in the United States!”—we concluded our presentation and said our thanks and good-byes. Getting into our car to return home, Nora (from the passenger side) and I (from the driver’s side) looked at each other and, together, with a strong, divinely given conviction, said, “God is calling us to the University of Notre Dame.”

After our wedding, honeymoon, and the commencement of our preparation as Cru staff, we received a Placement Request Form as part of our training. One of the questions on this form had to do with where we hoped to be placed. We promptly wrote in our assignment preference: “the University of Notre Dame.” Soon after receiving our response, Cru leaders responsible for staff placement called us in for a little chat. They were quite intrigued that we wanted to go to Notre Dame (ND), as the Cru ministry was just beginning on that campus, and they were looking to assign more staff to join the small initial team. Nora and I, however, failed to meet their three qualifications: we did not come from a Catholic background, we were not veteran staff (who usually are responsible for starting new campus ministries), and we did not have children (so as to be in a similar season of life as the Cru staff couple already working at ND). Strike one. Strike two. Strike three. The Allisons were not going to be Cru staff at Notre Dame.

A bit later, to the same question on the second Placement Request Form, we wrote, “the University of Notre Dame.” Somewhat perturbed, our placement leaders called us in for another conversation, wondering what about the initial “No, you are not going to be assigned to Notre Dame” we didn’t understand. They tried to comfort us with the possibility that we would end up at Notre Dame after we had been on Cru staff for a number of years, but they assured us ND was not in our immediate future. Of course, we assured them that we were willing to go anywhere they assigned us. But deep down inside lingered the firm conviction that God was calling us to Notre Dame.

Accordingly, when the third Placement Request Form was distributed a week or so later, our reply to the now infamous question was “the University of Notre Dame.” The placement leaders’ flustered and emphatic response to what seemed like an intractable stance on our part was, “Perhaps God is calling you to Villanova or some other Catholic university, but you are not going to the University of Notre Dame!”

Another strike three for the second out.

Shortly thereafter, and along with all the new Cru staff, Nora and I received our Placement Envelope. Written on the form inside was our future assignment. Bound by a promise that we would not discuss the enclosed content with anyone else for a period of silence (twenty-four hours, which was to be used solely for the purpose of praying about our assignment), we found an isolated spot outside under a palm tree and nervously yet excitedly ripped open the envelope:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is . . . the University of Notre Dame.

After the day-long period of silence—which for us was filled with great thanksgiving verging on giddiness—the Cru placement leaders confirmed with us that our crystal clear call to be on staff at ND outweighed any and all obstacles to our being assigned there. Upon completion of our staff training, Nora and I raised our support, packed our belongings, and moved to South Bend, Indiana, to begin our ministry at the University of Notre Dame.

So began a two-year stint (1976–1978) as part of a Protestant missionary movement on the campus of the most well known and highly regarded Catholic university in America. At the beginning of our second year, more than two hundred and fifty students expressed a desire to be in one of our weekly Bible studies; we ended up being able to accommodate one hundred and fifty of them. Communicating the gospel with clarity, teaching how to read and study the Word of God, discipling new believers, developing leaders in ministry—these core Cru ministries were contextualized for a Catholic university. Indeed, with more than 80 percent of Notre Dame students being Catholic, we learned a great deal about Catholic theology and practice and developed a deep burden for ministering to and with Catholics.

Out of this burgeoning interest in Catholic ministry, Nora and I signed up for a Cru summer project in Rome (1978), where the majority of our first few weeks was spent sharing the gospel with students at the University of Rome. Though we didn’t know much Italian, we quickly learned one phrase that was part and parcel of most of our conversations with Italian young people: “Non credo in Dio” (I don’t believe in God). Because this widely entrenched atheism had not been our experience working with Catholics at Notre Dame, we desperately asked the Italian national director of Cru if he knew any evangelical Catholics. “Do you mean Catholics who have become evangelicals?” he replied. “No,” we clarified, “do you know any Catholics who are Catholics but who believe as we evangelicals believe about the gospel, justification by grace through faith alone, and so forth?” His response caught us by surprise: “Yes. Would you like to meet some?” The next day, as we walked into a meeting of dozens of Catholics who believed as evangelicals believe, we participated in the launch of a Catholic lay evangelization movement called “Alfa-Omega: perché Cristo sia tutto in tutti” (“Alpha-Omega: that Christ may be all in all”). This encounter was the beginning of the fulfillment of a vision implanted several years earlier. Indeed, we committed to return to Italy to work with this movement.

After our return to the United States following the summer project, we raised support for our new assignment, completed three months of international staff training, and, moving to Firenze, studied Italian for six months before settling down in Rome. For the next three years (1979–1982), Nora and I were Cru staff embedded in Alfa-Omega. I served as the movement’s first training center director, helping prepare Catholic laypeople in how to share the gospel, lead Bible studies, disciple new believers, prepare leaders, organize evangelistic meetings, train Bible study leaders, and the like. We also led weekly Reading Groups of the Gospel that, meeting during the week, would focus on the text of the Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday mass while teaching a very simple inductive Bible study method consisting of the reading of the text, observation, interpretation, application, and prayer. Our goal was to expose Catholics to the person and work of Jesus Christ as presented in the Gospels so that they could embrace the good news of salvation. Following Alfa-Omega evangelistic campaigns in parishes in Sorbara and Nonantola (near Modena, in the province of Emilia-Romagna, in northern Italy), Nora and I would remain behind for several weeks to help train Bible study leaders to work with the hundreds of residents who signed up to be in weekly Reading Groups of the Gospel.

Along with our ministry within Alfa-Omega came numerous opportunities to work with priests, meet one of the bishops of the Province of Rome, attend a “private” audience with Pope John Paul II (along with 9,998 other invitees), sneak the Jesus film into what was then called Yugoslavia, speak before hundreds of Catholic clergy (bishops, priests, monks, nuns, and seminary professors) on the topic “The Importance of the Bible in Ministry,” train other Cru staff for similar ministries with Catholics, and much more.¹

In addition to this robust experience ministering to and with Catholics, when working on the MDiv degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (1982–1985), I took a class, “The Documents of Vatican II” (S212; Fall 1983), at the nearby St. Mary of the Lake Seminary. Though this course was the extent of my formal training in Catholic theology and practice in a Catholic higher education context, I took a seminar on Roman Catholic Theology (DST 845A; Winter 1991) during my PhD studies at Trinity, regularly taught the Catholic theology elective course at Western Seminary (1994–2003), continue to regularly teach it at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where I am Professor of Christian Theology (2003–present), and attempt to keep up with developments in Catholic theology through reading and writing. My writings that interact with Catholic theology and practice are, “The Bible in Christianity: Roman Catholicism,” in the ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 2613–2615; “The Theology of the Eucharist according to the Catholic Church,” in The Lord’s Supper: Remembering and Proclaiming Christ until He Comes, ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Matthew R. Crawford (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2010), 151–192; and “A Response to Catholicism,” in Journeys of Faith, ed. Robert Plummer (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 115–128.

This introductory background sketch serves to highlight two points: First, though I do not have a Catholic background, I am an evangelical theologian whose experience with Catholic theology and practice is more extensive and personal than that of most evangelicals. Hopefully, this familiarity puts me in a position to be a trustworthy guide for evangelicals who desire to know about Catholicism. Second, my experience helps to explain the purposes of this book, which are twofold. One purpose is to highlight the commonalities between Catholic and evangelical theology, agreements or similarities that prompt intrigue. These shared doctrines and practices—e.g., the Trinity; the full deity and full humanity of Jesus Christ; worship and prayer—need to be recognized and appreciated, and they lead to thanksgiving for a limited yet real unity between Catholicism and evangelicalism. The other purpose is to underscore the divergences between Catholic and evangelical theology—disagreements or dissimilarities that require critique. These doctrinal and practical disparities—e.g., apostolic succession, transubstantiation, the immaculate conception of Mary, praying for the dead in purgatory—are serious points of division that must be faced honestly and sorrowfully, yet with a humble conviction that avoids minimizing the substantive distance between Catholicism and evangelicalism.

Such a book is intended for two primary and two secondary audiences. As for its primary audience, the first group consists of evangelicals who desire to become familiar with Catholic theology and assess it in terms of both Scripture and evangelical theology. The second group is evangelicals who wish to know better their own evangelical theology as compared with and contrasted to Catholic theology. As for the book’s secondary audience, the first group consists of Catholics who want to learn what evangelicals think about Catholic theology and how they assess it. The second group is Catholics who want to learn evangelical theology as it is compared with and contrasted to Catholic theology, perhaps because they are moving toward embracing the evangelical faith.

It should be underscored that this book is not intended as a rabid anti-Catholic diatribe. Though it will strongly critique certain Catholic doctrines and practices, this criticism must be placed in the context of intrigue—the book’s appreciation of and thanksgiving for the many commonalities between Catholic and evangelical theology. Furthermore, it must be emphasized that this book is not intended as an ambiguous presentation emphasizing the similarities and minimizing the divergences between the two theological positions in an attempt to promote some type of “lowest common denominator” ecumenism. Though it will underscore with gratitude the many agreements between Catholic and evangelical theology, such approbation must be placed in the context of critique—the book’s negative evaluation of certain Catholic doctrines and practices against which evangelical theology does and must take a strong stand.

To accomplish this task, I have designed Roman Catholic Theology and Practice to be a walk through the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Beginning in chapter 3 of this book, for each section of the Catechism, I first describe in summary form and without comment the Catholic theology or practice addressed in that section; then I offer an assessment of that Catholic theology or practice from the perspective of both Scripture and evangelical theology. In chapter 2, I explain my interpretive approach to Scripture and outline the evangelical theological perspective that I use throughout the book. In that chapter I also address my understanding of and approach to Catholic theology as a system that is characterized by two axioms: the interdependence between nature and grace, and the Catholic Church as the ongoing incarnation of Jesus Christ. I then briefly set forth how these two tenets manifest themselves in concrete Catholic doctrines and practices. I conclude this chapter with an assessment of the two axioms.

Following closely the structure of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, chapters 3 through 6 will cover its first part, entitled, “The Profession of Faith,” because it describes Catholic theology as it is professed in the Apostles’ Creed (with a few additions from the Nicene Creed). Chapters 7 through 11 treat the second part of the Catechism, “The Celebration of the Christian Mystery,” which explains the Catholic Church’s sacramental economy and seven sacraments. Chapters 12 and 13 discuss the third part of the Catechism, on “Life in Christ,” which presents salvation, law, grace, justification, merit, and the like. Conclusions and applications will be drawn in chapter 14. The chapter divisions in this book are somewhat random and do not follow the divisions (noted according to their Part, Section, Chapter, Article, and Paragraph numbers) within the Catechism itself; rather, my chapter divisions are used to divide the large amount of Catholic theology and practice into manageable portions for readers.

For ease in following the flow of the Catechism, two structural notes may be helpful: From broadest to narrowest divisions, the Catechism moves from Part to Section to Chapter to Article, with some Articles being further divided into specific topics with Paragraph headings. For example, Part 1, “The Profession of Faith,” is subdivided into two sections: Section One, treating “I Believe”—“We Believe”; and Section Two, covering The Creeds. This Section Two is further subdivided into twelve Articles, one of which is Article 3 on the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ, entitled, “He Was Conceived by the Power of the Holy Spirit, and Was Born of the Virgin Mary.” This Article 3 is further subdivided into three Paragraphs treating “The Son of God Became Man” (Paragraph 1), “Conceived by the Power of the Holy Spirit and Born of the Virgin Mary” (Paragraph 2), and “The Mysteries of Christ’s Life” (Paragraph 3).

The second structural note is that every paragraph in the Catechism is consecutively numbered for easy reference. Here I use the word “paragraph” in a different sense than how it was just used as part of the overall structure of the Catechism—specifically, a Paragraph as a subheading under an Article. In contrast, “paragraph” is now used in a grammatical sense to refer to a series of sentences marked off by indentation and each of which expresses a self-contained idea or theme. Used in this grammatical sense, each paragraph of the Catechism is numbered, and throughout my book I will refer to these paragraph numbers (e.g., CCC 813) as I describe and assess each main idea or theme of Catholic theology and practice. It should be noted that paragraph numbers are different from page numbers. These paragraph numbers are the same for all versions and languages of the Catechism, while page numbers vary.

Three versions of the Bible are used in this book. Because citations of Scripture found in the Catechism are taken from the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version, whenever the Catechism is quoted and a biblical citation is embedded in that quotation, it will come from either the RSV or the NRSV.² All other citations of Scripture will come from the English Standard Version.

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¹ The claim by Dave Armstrong that I was “an undercover saboteur trying to find fault with Catholicism” during my ministry with Alfa-Omega is completely unfounded and false. I firmly deny the accusation (see http://art-of-attack.blogspot.com/2011/08/brief-refutation-of-gregg-r-allisons.html).

² Because the Catechism makes no attempt to distinguish which version is being quoted, I will no...