Relics

Relics and their veneration are Catholic’s practice that have at least negative connotation for Protestants and “Bible only” Christians. Many would consider them as superstitious belief copied from other religions and even condemn them as idolatry, i.e. “worshipping” pieces of cloth or personal belongings of departed saints, their bones and believing they have supernatural power. 

The teaching of the Church on veneration of relics and of images is related to that of the Communion of Saints and is declared at Council of Trent (Session XXV) and summarized below (emphasis in bold letters is mine):

• The saints [in heaven] who reign together with Christ [2 Timothy 2:12] offer up their prayers to God for men, that it is good and beneficial suppliantly to invoke them and to have recourse to their prayers, assistance and support in order to obtain favours from God through His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone is our redeemer and saviour.
• The holy bodies of the holy martyrs and of others living with Christ, which were the living members of Christ and the temple the Holy Ghost, to be awakened by Him to eternal life and to be glorified, are to be venerated by the faithful, through which many benefits are bestowed by God on men.
• The images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of the other saints are to be placed and retained especially in the churches, and that due honour and veneration is to be given them; not, however, that any divinity or virtue is believed to be in them by reason of which they are to be venerated, or that something is to be asked of them, or that trust is to be placed in images, as was done of old by the Gentiles who placed their hope in idols; but because the honour which is shown them is referred to the prototypes which they represent, so that by means of the images which we kiss and before which we uncover the head and prostrate ourselves, we adore Christ and venerate the saints whose likeness they bear.
• Great profit is derived from all holy images, not only because the people are thereby reminded of the benefits and gifts bestowed on them by Christ, but also because through the saints the miracles of God and salutary examples are set before the eyes of the faithful, so that they may give God thanks for those things, may fashion their own life and conduct in imitation of the saints and be moved to adore and love God and cultivate piety.
• In the invocation of the saints, the veneration of relics, and the sacred use of images, all superstition shall be removed, all filthy quest for gain eliminated, and all lasciviousness avoided, so that images shall not be painted and adorned with a seductive charm, or the celebration of saints and the visitation of relics be perverted by the people into boisterous festivities and drunkenness, as if the festivals in honour of the saints are to be celebrated with revelry and with no sense of decency.

If there are miracles attributed to relics Catholics believe they come from God.  Examples from Scripture are: bones of prophet Elisha were able to bring back to life a dead person (2 Kings 13:21) and handkerchiefs or apron, upon touching apostle Paul’s body, have healing power and are able to cast away evil spirit (Acts 19:12). Granted that not all relics have such miraculous power and the Catholic Church never encourages belief in a magical virtue, or physical curative efficacy residing in the relic itself (Source: Catholic Encyclopaedia ). While veneration of relics has parallel with similar practices in other religions it is not the reason to reject it.  Other religions have priesthood system, which also belongs to Christianity.  The belief that God became man is neither unique to Christianity nor Christianity was the first who teaches such thing.

Myths on Indulgences

I found interesting article about indulgences written by Michael P. Foley, an associate professor of Patristics in the Great Texts Program of Baylor University.  His article clarifies myths about indulgences, commonly believed by non Catholics (and by many Catholics as well). It is published in Baylor’s student newspaper, Lariat, which you can access here.

Luther on Purgatory

It is interesting to know that Luther did believe in purgatory, though he was not able to find any support from Scripture.  He therefore argued that purgatory should not be considered as Church’s dogma, i.e. those who do not believe in it are not heretics. Below is what he wrote on purgatory (emphasis in bold is mine):

The existence of a purgatory I have never denied. I still hold that it exists, as I have written and admitted [Unterricht auf etlich Artikel. WA 2, 70] many times, though I have found no way of proving it incontrovertibly from Scripture or reason. I find in Scripture that Christ, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Job, David, Hezekiah, and some others tasted hell in this life. This I think was purgatory, and it seems not beyond belief that some of the dead suffer in like manner. Tauler [c. 1300 to 1361, Dominican monk who, under the influence of his teacher Meister Eckhart, taught at Strassburg a deeply mystical piety] has much to say about it, and, in short, I myself have come to the conclusion that there is a purgatory, but I cannot force anybody else to come to the same result.

There is only one thing that I have criticized, namely, the way in which my opponents refer to purgatory passages in Scripture which are so inapplicable that it is shameful. For example, they apply Ps. 66[:12], “We went through fire and through water,” though the whole psalm sings of the sufferings of the saints, whom no one places in purgatory. And they quote St. Paul in I Cor. 3[:13-15] when he says of the fire of the last day that it will test the good works, and by it some will be saved because they keep the faith, though their work may suffer loss. They turn this fire also into a purgatory, according to their custom of twisting Scripture and making it mean whatever they want.

And similarly they have arbitrarily dragged in the passage in Matt. 12[:32] in which Christ says, “Whoever speaks blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come.” Christ means here that he shall never be forgiven, as Mark 3[:29] explains, saying, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” To be sure, even St. Gregory [Gregory the Great, Dialogorum Libri, IV, chap. 89. Migne 77, 396] interprets the passage in Matthew 12 to mean that some sins will be forgiven in the world to come, but St. Mark does not permit such an interpretation, and he counts for more than all the doctors.

I have discussed all this in order to show that no one is bound to believe more than what is based on Scripture, and those who do not believe in purgatory are not to be called heretics, if otherwise they accept Scripture in its entirety, as the Greek church does. The gospel compels me to believe that St. Peter and St. James are saints, but at the same time it is not necessary to believe that St. Peter is buried in Home [Rome] and St. James at Compostella [Santiago de Compostella, a famous place of pilgrimage in Spain] and that their bodies are still there, for Scripture does not report it. Again, there is no sin in holding that none of the saints whom the pope canonizes are saints, and no saint will be offended, for, as a matter of fact, there are many saints in heaven of whom we know nothing, and certainly not that they are saints, yet they are not offended, and do not consider us heretics because we do not know of them. The pope and his partisans play this game only in order to fabricate many wild articles of faith and thus make it possible to silence and suppress the true articles of the Scripture.

But their use of the passage in II Macc. 12[:43], which tells how Judas Maceabeus sent money to Jerusalem for prayers to be offered for those who fell in battle, proves nothing, for that book is not among the books of Holy Scripture, and, as St. Jerome says, it is not found in a Hebrew version, the language in which all the books of the Old Testament are written. [Jerome, Preface to the Books of Samuel and Malachi. Migne 28, 600ff] In other respects, too, this book deserves little authority, for it contradicts the first Book of Maccabees in its description of King Antiochus, and contains many other fables which destroy its credibility. But even were the book authoritative, it would still be necessary in the case of so important an article that at least one passage out of the chief books [of the Bible] should support it, in order that every word might be established through the mouth of two or three witnesses. It must give rise to suspicion that in order to substantiate this doctrine no more than one passage could be discovered in the entire Bible; moreover this passage is in the least important and most despised book. Especially since so much depends on this doctrine which is so important that, indeed, the papacy and the whole hierarchy are all but built upon it, and derive all their wealth and honor from it. Surely, the majority of the priests would starve to death if there were no purgatory. Well, they should not offer such vague and feeble grounds for our faith!

Career of the Reformer II, Luther’s Works, Vol. 32

Infused righteousness versus imputed righteousness – which one entitles us to enter heaven?

There is still on-going discussion on infused righteousness (Catholic position) and imputed righteousness (Protestant/Reformer position).  Rev. Chase Sears of Reformed Baptist Church wrote a number of posts on this issue in his blog (http://chasesears.info/) – he already closed his blog.  It is quite natural (and he is entitled to do so) that he tried his best to defend Protestant’s position and tuned down that of Catholic. 

Imputed righteousness means we use Christ’ righteousness accepted by faith alone to cover our unrighteousness – in other words we do not contribute anything and we are declared righteous.  It is like Christ covers our dirty robe (the dirt represents our sins) with his spotless robe and He needs to do it only once.  Infused righteousness, on the other hand, means God through Christ helps us to become righteous.  Note that the source of righteousness is God, not us, yet the outcome of justification is we become righteous.  Using similar analogy of dirty robe representing our sin, in infused righteousness God through Christ helps us to clean our dirty robe.  This needs our cooperation and it is an on-going process.  Our dirty robe is first washed clean through (Sacrament of) Baptism. Whenever we make it dirty again through sinning, God through Christ helps us to clean it through (Sacrament of) Reconciliation.  When we die with our robe still stained with venial sin then purgatory will cleanse it.    Imputed righteousness concept cannot go inline with purgatory – purgatory makes what Christ did (covering our dirty robe) insufficient.

Which righteousness entitles us to enter heaven? In Matthew 25:31-46 the sheep are welcomed into heaven while the goats are sent to hell  Verse 46 boldly says that the righteous will go to eternal life.  Are they declared righteous or made righteous (hence are righteous)?  Verses 35 and 36 tell us that they did righteous acts, i.e. they did not use Christ’ righteousness to cover their unrighteousness or to make their unrighteous things appear righteous (before God).   1 John 3:8 defines righteousness as “He who does right is righteous, as he [Christ] is righteous”.   Certainly to believe in Christ is one act that leads to righteousness – but it is not the only one.  The phrase “He who does right” implies our cooperation. The goats are condemned to hell because they did not do righteous acts or they are not unrighteous (1 Corinthians 6:9).  They are not declared unrighteous but they are indeed unrighteous.

The reason why Protestants are against infused righteousness is they view it as work-based justification, in contradiction to their concept of faith alone justification.  Catholics do not believe in working on or earning our justification either.   God’s Grace always first moves us to do righteous acts, be they believe in Christ, love one another, repenting etc.  This means without His Grace we can neither do them nor even have the initiative to do them.  Protestants, while insist on justification by faith alone, at the end of the day have to admit that faith that justifies is not alone as what Rev. Sears, quoting from Calvin, wrote below (emphasis added):

Calvin said, “When we say a man is justified by faith alone, we do not fancy a faith devoid of charity, but we mean that faith alone is the cause of justification.” Again Calvin makes this remarkable statement “I wish the reader to understand that as often as we mention Faith alone in this question, we are not thinking of a dead faith, which worketh not by love, but holding faith to be the only cause of justification. It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone.”