A Basic Beginning
They prefer a feathery fan of churches and theological preferences — some congruent, some incongruent, some consistent, some inconsistent, some even contradictory among themselves, it doesn’t matter — in which the fullness of the truth would be whatever would emerge from a thoroughgoing mélange of all religions, beliefs, and theological opinions. Proponents of this idea consider it charming, non-sectarian, ecumenical, open-minded.
It was mid-morning when he knocked at my office door at International House in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa. At the time, I was the executive secretary of the Tradition Family Property Bureau for Southern Africa. He was a Methodist minister who had come to talk about certain “new doctrines which the Roman Catholic Church had added to the Bible through councils and papal definitions,” as he himself put it.
I am centering this article on him because of the debt of gratitude I owe him, for our conversation that day led me to take my studies of Catholic doctrine more seriously.
After greetings and a few moments of preliminary mutual scrutinizing and deciding on what approach to adopt, he came quickly to the point: “Isn’t it true that the R.C. Church invented the doctrine of Transubstantiation during the Council of Trent?”
Well, I had heard that one before, just as some of you may have. The broken record of anti-Catholic propaganda simply refuses to let itself be fixed.
I knew that a simple and straightforward “No, Sir, that is not true!” would not suffice. He would want more; he wanted to argue. And here is where my debt of gratitude comes in:
A Professor I knew used to say that for one to have a proper discussion, avoiding useless argumentation and thinking clearly to reach a logical conclusion, one had to define some basic, mutually acceptable premises for the argument.
A Proper Discussion
That is the first key to discussing apologetics: One must enrich the premises, establish a solid foundation, for the discussion so that if your interlocutor is logical, he may, by the inner consistency of interconnected truths, come to the proper conclusion.
So, I said to him: “Before I answer your question, let’s establish a basic principle to make sure we are using the same language and talking about the same thing: Nothing can be and not be at the same time and from the same point of view, wouldn’t you agree?”
He frowned for a moment, not being used to thinking about thinking. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll give you an example,” I replied. “Take the Bible. Either it is the word of God or it is not. It cannot be so for one person but not for another and still be true. If it is the Word of God, it is for everyone; conversely, if it is not, it is for nobody. It just cannot be the Word of God for some and not be so for others. Either it is inspired by God, or it isn’t.
Agreed?”
“Naturally,” he replied with a smile, “of course.”
“Very well, then,” I continued. “Take the Divinity of Christ, or the Trinity, the Resurrection, or the virginal birth of Jesus. If these beliefs are true, no number of people who think differently will ever be able to alter their truthfulness. But if these beliefs are not true, no amount of belief on our part will ever make them true. Correct?”
“By all means,” he replied, not without a certain note of exultation. “I am with you on that. Let me give you an example of my own. It’s like the Popes and Council of the R.C. Church. If they added new doctrines to the Bible, no quantity of Catholics who believe that they didn’t will ever alter the historical fact that they did… Correct?”
“Quite correct,” I said, not without a note of exultation of my own. “By the same token, if the Popes and Councils of the “R.C.” Church did not add new doctrines to the Bible, no amount of non-Catholics' propaganda against them will ever change the historical fact that nothing was added… Correct?”
He couldn’t escape the logic and simply nodded his head and cleared his throat, “humph… Yeah.”
“Very well,” I concluded, “That’s what I call ecumenical dialogue. We are working together to reach a conclusion, the only conclusion worth reaching — the Truth. So our basic premise is established.
“Now let us apply it to the Eucharist. If Jesus is not present in the Eucharist, really present in His risen body, blood, soul, and divinity; in other words, if the Eucharist is just a symbol, a sacred symbol to be sure, but just a symbol, then all Roman Catholics who for nearly 2,000 years have bowed in adoration before the Eucharist would have been committing a sin of idolatry — albeit in ignorance — because they have worshipped a piece of bread believing it to be Jesus. Right?”
“Too right!” he emphatically agreed. “And I feel so sorry for them, those benighted Roman Catholics who behave like a bunch of idolaters when they worship a piece of bread at Mass… Poor souls!”
“Most definitely,” I agreed, tongue-in-cheek, “most definitely. Yet you must also concede that they do it in ignorance, for, in their minds, they think that Jesus is there, whereas He would not be — in your view, of course.”
I gave him a couple of seconds to understand my point, and went on: “If they commit any sin of idolatry, it would be committed in ignorance, since they would not know what they were doing — and we know that Jesus forgives sins of ignorance without delay: ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ Remember?”
“Yes, of course,” he said condescendingly. “But we must help them to know the truth, and leave their dreadful state of ignorance. That’s the command Jesus gave His Apostles: ‘Go and make disciples of all people, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you’ — Matthew, chapter 28, verses 19 and 20, you know?”
“Yes, I do know,” I replied with a meaningful nod.
He went on: “It took Luther and Calvin to liberate Christianity from the fetters of Roman obscurantism and superstition, and all the rest.”
“If you say so. But let us move on,” I said. “If Luther and Calvin and their followers are right, we poor R.C. folks are wrong, and idolaters in ignorance. We would be committing a material sin against the first commandment, because we would have a false god before the true God.”
His wide smile sufficed to indicate his total agreement with that.
The Conclusion: Jesus … A Liar?
I proceeded: “But now let us consider the alternative: Suppose, just suppose, that Jesus indeed changed the substance of the bread and wine into His own substance, so that it was only the appearances of bread and wine that remained, and the substance now was His own Body and Blood, soul and divinity. In that case, the Roman Catholics are right, and Luther, Calvin, and their followers are wrong. Correct?”
He condescended a little “Yes,” quickly adding, “But only if.”
I like this chap, I thought. He can use logic. How I wish that more of our “up to date” Catholics would be like him. Then the Church would not be in the state She is now.
“But there is more,” I went on. “If such is the case, that is, if Jesus meant it literally about His Body and Blood being really present in the Eucharist, if that is the case, then Luther, Calvin, and company are committing a formal sin against the second commandment: you are blaspheming against God, because you are calling Jesus a liar.”
I said it slowly, so that my words might sink into his mind, good and proper.
“I — beg — your — p-p-pardon?” he stammered, somewhat irate, as though I had insulted him down to the marrow of his bones. “You mean that…”
“All I mean is if you are wrong, I did not say you are actually wrong. But if you are, then you are actually saying that when Jesus said, ‘This is my Body,’ and it actually wasn’t, He did not mean what He said, and when one does not mean what he says, he is lying, purely and simply. If He is not in the Eucharist, then He misled millions of Christians who for all these hundreds of years have believed in His words and taken them literally. Pretty serious, eh?”
I gave him a couple of moments to digest the implications of that. Manifestly, he could not evade the logic of the argument. It appeared he was thinking about the option between Catholic idolatry and Protestant blasphemy.
Suddenly, his eyes shone with a special light. Obviously, he had gotten a good idea, and before you could spell ‘transubstantiation’ he said: “Quite right, but you know that sometimes Jesus speaks figuratively and sometimes He speaks literally, don’t you? So, how do you know if He spoke the words at the Last Supper as a parable, a metaphor, just as when He said, “I am the door,” you don’t take it literally, do you? He does not become wood, does He? Or when He says, “I am the vine,” He doesn’t grow leaves, does He? So there!”
“Excellent!” I agreed. “There are times when Jesus wants us to take His words literally, and times when He wants us to take them figuratively. But how do you propose to distinguish between the two?”
My visitor replied with a smile: “It all depends on how you interpret it, of course.”
I just could not let that one pass: “Excuse me, my friend. How can it be literal in one person’s interpretation, and figurative in another’s? Either His walking on water is historical fact or it isn’t. He cannot walk figuratively for me and literally for you. Either He multiplied bread and fish or it was just a figure of speech. It cannot be both! Whatever happened to logic? It is irrational for the Eucharist to be a matter of individual interpretation. Either He changed bread and wine into His Body and Blood, or He didn’t.”
“But all reformed theologians affirm the principle of individual interpretation,” he said.
“But all of them are wrong in affirming it,” I replied. “Remember that you agreed with me at the beginning of our discussion that ‘Nothing can be and not be at the same time and from the same point of view’? How can you switch now into religious relativism?”
“But we Bible Christians interpret the Bible by the light of the Holy Spirit!” He asserted, very earnestly.
“I am a Bible Christian too, for your info, and it was a group of bishops in my Church who, in the very early days, wrote the whole New Testament, inspired directly by the Holy Spirit. Another group of our bishops, over 300 years later, put the Bible together, keeping only the books that were inspired and leaving out those that were not. Moreover, it was a fellow-Catholic of mine, a chap called Gutenberg, who invented the printing press and used it for the first time to print a Catholic Bible. For nearly 2,000 years, his Church has interpreted the Bible and taught its contents to the people without contradiction, even making explicit what was only implicit.”
“But we Bible Christians interpret the Bible by the light of the Holy Spirit!” He asserted, even more earnestly.
“Is that so?” I asked. “Tell me then, why is it that there are so many contradictory interpretations of the Bible among non-Catholics? Look at the multiplicity of non-Catholic denominations, movements, sects, and sub-sects — thousands of them, Bible in hand, interpreting it individually and reaching contradictory conclusions! What is the result? Doctrinal chaos. Will you tell me now that the Holy Spirit is guiding them into contradictory conclusions, producing chaos? Or is it some other spirit — no names mentioned — that inspires this doctrinal confusion”?
“The truth shall set us free!” he affirmed, staring me the face.
“Quite right!” I agreed, enthusiastically, staring right back. “The Truth, not opinions and personal interpretations. But let me tell you more: Why is it that today, every Tom, Dick and Harriett (please excuse a spot of inclusive language, since there are also women, not just us males, who deny the oneness of the Truth) can interpret the Bible privately, all supposedly reasonably, guided by the Holy Spirit, etc., etc., but when the Catholic Church interprets it, they all say we are wrong? Surely you do not own the Holy Spirit!”
My visitor suddenly remembered having another appointment, and it really was getting late. As we moved to the door, I concluded: “Yes, there are times when Jesus speaks figuratively, and His words must be taken figuratively by everyone, Catholic and Protestant alike. And there are times when He speaks literally, and all who call themselves Christian must take His words literally. Come again another time and we’ll take a look at chapter 6 of St John’s Gospel and see for ourselves whether Jesus spoke figuratively or literally in His long discourse on the Eucharist. Will you come?”
My visitor said he would, we shook hands, and he left. But he never came back.
I hope and pray that my interlocutor will some day open his heart and mind to the guidance of divine grace, which the Holy Spirit freely grants to all who wish to receive it, and draw the logical conclusions from the premises that he himself accepted.
If – or when – he does so, he will become a Catholic.
Since Our Lord is the Truth, whatever He taught can only be one thing; it cannot be two things at the same time.
We would all do well to remember – as we read, study, and reflect – to think according to the mind of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Love the Truth, never compromise it, and learn to enrich the basic premises of your arguments with Truth. The rest shall be added unto you, so to speak.
Raymond de Souza is a Catholic apologist who writes from Perth, West Australia. You may visit St. Gabriel Communications for more articles like this one by Mr. de Souza.
