Where to begin with the good Doctor Dial (Letters, Oct. 18-19)?
First, at a time when the Catholic and Lutheran churches are working hard to reconcile differences and find common ground, when Pope Francis even praised Luther as someone who “reminds us that God always takes the initiative, prior to any human response, even as he seeks to awaken that response,” it is rather lamentable that Dr. Dial would so falsely represent and malign the Catholic Church and her teaching, and thereby exacerbate the division among Christians.
As a convert to the Catholic faith, one of my heroes has been St. Thomas Aquinas, and one of his greatest virtues was that he would always strive to accurately present the arguments of his opponents. He did it out of a concern for truth, but also for charity. One feels in reading Dr. Dial’s descriptions of “Medieval Catholicism” that no such consideration was given.
On the issue of justification, for example, if Dr. Dial had bothered to read the official 16th-century decree of the Church on the matter, he would have found that the Church held that “we are therefore said to be justified gratuitously, because none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification.” (Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter 8)
Luther himself misunderstood the teachings of the Church and so was revolting against a straw man, to a great extent.
But he wasn’t alone. While the actual teaching of the Church at the time (and still today) was solidly biblical and banned such things as selling indulgences, it is also true that they were often misunderstood and misapplied by the laity and the priesthood, and Luther was no different from his contemporaries in this way.
The abuse at the time, and still today since the church is always composed of sinners, did cry out for reform, but much of what Luther was seeking to reform was based on an incomplete or idiosyncratic understanding of the issue at hand.
And in fact, the “Reformers” didn’t so much seek to reform as to tear down. And so what began as an angry response to a German monk illegally selling indulgences turned into a full-fledged revolt against the Church and her teachings.
It was replaced by Luther’s “solas,” as Dr. Dial recounts, but these solas have led to a solo-Christianity, with some 30,000 official denominations in the world when there had been only two (Catholic and Orthodox).
Is this splitting of the Body of Christ and fundamental disagreement on Biblical interpretation healthy for the mission of Christians??
I would argue not.
Jesus gave us the Eucharist, his actual body and blood, showed us the meaning of Baptism, and entrusted to his church, founded on the rock of Peter, with the power to bind and loose, not so these things could be reduced to meaningless spiritual Red Bulls, but so that we, as material beings, could have material means to connect to the invisible power of grace.
But these sacraments, which the current Church believes in just as strongly as the “Medieval” Church did, do not make us spiritual automotons. We still have to respond to and act on the the graces they convey so that we can be healed and to live our faith through works.
Dr. Dial said that “God wants not our goodness but our trust,” yet James said that “faith without works is dead” and Jesus warned that those who call him Lord, but do not take care of their neighbor, will be cast out.
The Sacraments are a help God gave us to do these things, to live in his grace and be a true part of the Body of Christ.
Let us put aside these caricatures and deal in the reality of what is actually taught so we can strive to attain the true unity that Christ wants in his Body of believers.
Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.
