The Gospel and the Paradox of Glory

Dr. Michael Horton

In my previous post I considered the implications of the thesis that man does not participate in his salvation. Here I wish to consider the ecumenical implications of granting that man may participate in his salvation.

Recently I read Michael Horton's article "What Still Keeps Us Apart?". I genuinely like and respect Michael, and even as a Catholic I've recommended some of his books to others. Some of his writings were instrumental in helping me become Reformed. I remember meeting him in 1995, when he kindly signed my copy of one of his books: "To Bryan, Soli Deo Gloria! Mike Horton". I was a seminary student, and he was both gracious and friendly to me. I used to listen to him every week on his radio program, "The White Horse Inn". Michael has an engaging personality, and so much of what he describes of his religious upbringing in Evangelicalism, I too experienced. His book In the Face of God is a great antidote, in my opinion, to what I call "Montanistic gnosticism", which characterizes much of contemporary Evangelical / Pentecostal spirituality.

So I wish very much that Michael and I could be in full communion. So does Michael. He opens his article by describing his experience of visiting St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. While there, he finds himself wishing that this could be part of a shared history that includes both Protestants and Catholics. He writes, "It is the same feeling one has (and a surely justified sense of shared history) when reading Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas—or Bonaventure, Bernard, or Gregory the Great." Indeed. I know that feeling.

What then, according to Michael, still divides Catholics and Protestants? (His words are in blue font.) He writes:

"There is only one thing standing in the way: The gospel itself."

That gives me great hope, because it shows that if we can reach agreement about the gospel, then we can be reconciled in full communion. Michael is not the sort of Protestant who has forgotten that Protestantism came from the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century. He therefore understands that this division should be reconciled, and that the reconciliation should take place not by compromising the truth, but by mutually embracing the truth. Thus if Michael is right that a disagreement about the gospel is the only thing standing in the way of the reconciliation of Catholics and Protestants, then resolving this disagreement will result in the end of a painful schism that has continued for almost five hundred years.

What exactly is the point of disagreement between the Catholic teaching on the gospel, and Michael's conception of the gospel? What I argue here is that the disagreement is not fundamentally a matter of exegesis, because the texts can be interpreted by reasonable persons according to either paradigm, on account of what might be called underdetermination of hermeneutical disambiguation. Fundamentally, according to my argument, the disagreement involves a philosophical principle within Michael's hermeneutic that seeks to maximize divine glory by maximizing divine causality.

Michael quotes the Council of Trent's teaching that "they who by sin had been cut off from God may be disposed through his quickening and helping grace to convert themselves to their own justification by freely assenting to and cooperating with that grace." Then, explaining the Catholic position, he writes:

So, while a person is not "able by his own free will and without the grace of God to move himself to justice in his sight," he can and must cooperate with grace.

That is correct. If we cannot cooperate with grace, then we are left with the temporal nihilism I described in my previous post. In Catholic doctrine, grace does not destroy nature but restores and perfects it. Grace works faith into our hearts, so that we desire (implicitly or explicitly) baptism. In that way we cooperate with the Holy Spirit; we are not dragged to the baptismal font by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit moves us, not by coercion or violence to our will but by drawing us, so that we freely choose to be baptized. (I'm speaking of adult baptisms here.) In baptism we receive the "washing of regeneration" that St. Paul speaks of in Titus 3:5, and in that font we are justified, having our sins washed away, and receiving within us the righteousness of Christ. This understanding of baptism is what we find both in the New Testament and in the Church Fathers, as I showed here. Likewise, this same cooperation between the Spirit and the baptized believer who has committed sin leads him to the sacrament of penance.

Michael continues:

Justification is defined [by Trent] as "not only a remission of sins but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man through the voluntary reception of the grace and gifts whereby an unjust man becomes just." The Protestants never denied the sanctification and renewal of the inward man, but this was identified in Scripture as sanctification, not as justification. Rome simply combined the two concepts into one: God justifies us through the process of our moving, by the power of God's Spirit at work in our lives, from being unjust to becoming just. This, however, rejects Paul's whole point in Romans 4:1-5, that justification comes only to those who (a) are wicked and (b) stop working for it. God justifies the wicked as wicked, the sinner as sinner. That is the good news of the gospel, and the scandal of the Cross!

Michael does not seem to consider the possibility that there are two senses of the term 'sanctification', one that is instantaneous and occurs at our baptism when we are marked as holy unto God, and instantly made holy by the work of the Holy Spirit through sanctifying grace, and another sense of the term 'sanctification' that is progressive over the course of a believer's life. If only the progressive sense of the term is noted, then obviously sanctification cannot be intrinsic to justification, because the justification that takes place at baptism is immediate. But if we acknowledge both senses of the term 'sanctification', then sanctification need not be separated from baptismal justification, because there is no reason to believe that our initial sanctification is not part of our justification.

St. Paul uses this instantaneous sense of the term 'sanctified' when he writes, "Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor 6:11) He is speaking there of the [instant] sanctification that takes place at the moment of washing (i.e. baptism), and by which we were [instantly] justified. Notice also there that sanctification precedes justification, suggesting that the justification is based on the [instant] sanctification. Similarly, in Romans 8:30 St. Paul writes, "and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified." Where is sanctification? How could someone be glorified without being sanctified? Did St. Paul forget to include sanctification? No. St. Paul has included it within justification. These brief considerations show that the Catholic position is at least compatible with the Scriptural data.

Michael then goes on to list some of the canons of Trent that are relevant to this disagreement about the gospel. He writes:

The most relevant canons are the following:

Canon 9. If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone (supra, chapters 7-8), meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.

Canon 11. If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost (Rom. 5:5), and remains in them, or also that the grace by which we are justified is only the good will of God, let him be anathema.

Canon 12. If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy (supra, chapter 9), which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.

Canon 24. If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works (ibid., chapter 10), but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of the increase, let him be anathema.

Canon 30. If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema.

Canon 32. If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and in case he dies in grace the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema.

Then Michael summarizes what he thinks these canons mean with respect to the gospel.

In other words, men and women are accepted before God on the basis of their cooperation with God's grace over the course of their lives, rather than on the basis of Christ's finished work alone, received through faith alone, to the glory of God alone. There are indeed two fundamentally different answers to that recurring biblical question, "How can I be saved?" and, therefore, two fundamentally different gospels.

Notice that Michael does not demonstrate any of these canons to be false (at least he does not do so here). Rather, he points out (correctly) that these canons affirm that man must cooperate with God's grace. And this, he assumes, is enough to show them to be a false gospel. But if Michael wishes to be consistent in his belief that man cannot cooperate with God's grace, then he must be willing to embrace temporal nihilism. However, I do not wish to use only a negative argument against the monocausal position. I want to examine the positive intention that is motivating it. What is the underlying principle behind Michael's rejection of the notion that man may cooperate with grace? We can see it more clearly in his book Putting Amazing Back into Grace, where he writes:

"Why do we insist on having something to do with God's gift? Why can't we just say, "To God alone be glory" – and really mean it? Any reference at all to "our part" immediately tends to make for a salvation by works, not grace; hence, salvation would be a product of humans and God, rather than God alone." (p. 158)

Michael's concern is that the doctrine that man participates in his salvation takes some glory away from God, and gives it to man. This concern is based on three implicit philosophical assumptions:

(1) that God gets the most glory when God alone receives glory,

(2) that glory is the sort of thing that is lost by the giver when the giver gives it to others,

and

(3), that the degree of glory is determined entirely by the degree of causality exercised, such that the greater the causality exercised, the greater the glory.

But each of these three assumptions is not true. If (2) and (3) were true, then God would lose glory by creating creatures and giving them actual causal powers, since St. Paul tells us that creatures already have glory simply by the kind of nature that they have. (1 Cor 15:41) Moreover, if each of these three assumptions were true, then if God wished to maximize His glory, He would have either to avoid creating anything at all, or He would have to give only the illusion of causal powers to creatures, reserving all causality to Himself. This position is called occasionalism, and I have discussed it elsewhere.

Let's consider what St. Thomas Aquinas says about this. Regarding our genuine participation in God's providential governance of the world, Aquinas argues that it is more perfect for God to give causality to creatures than to make creatures but withhold causality from them. (Aquinas's words are in green font.)

"[T]here are certain intermediaries of God's providence; for He governs things inferior by superior, not on account of any defect in His power, but by reason of the abundance of His goodness; so that the dignity of causality is imparted even to creatures [ut dignitatem causalitatis etiam creaturis communicet]." (ST I Q.22 a.3)

"If God governed alone, things would be deprived of the perfection of causality [subtraheretur perfectio causalis a rebus]." (ST I Q.103 a.6 ad.2)

"Some have understood God to work in every agent in such a way that no created power has any effect in things, but that God alone is the ultimate cause of everything wrought; for instance, that it is not fire that gives heat, but God in the fire, and so forth. But this is impossible. First, because the order of cause and effect would be taken away from created things: and this would imply lack of power in the Creator: for it is due to the power of the cause, that it bestows active power on its effect. Secondly, because the active powers which are seen to exist in things, would be bestowed on things to no purpose, if these wrought nothing through them. Indeed, all things created would seem, in a way, to be purposeless, if they lacked an operation proper to them; since the purpose of everything is its operation. ... We must therefore understand that God works in things in such a manner that things have their proper operation." (ST I Q.105 a.5)(my emphasis)

It takes a greater power to make a creature with actual causal powers than a virtual reality in which God is the only causal agent. Therefore, creating creatures that have actual causal powers gives God more glory than creating creatures that have no causal powers. Since *natural* causal activity on the part of creatures does not detract from God's glory but further reveals His great power and thus enhances his glory, so also the causal activity of rational creatures in cooperation with *grace* does not detract from God's glory, but likewise enhances it. Regarding our genuine participation in God's salvific work, Aquinas writes:

"In this way God is helped by us; inasmuch as we execute His orders, according to 1 Corinthians 3:9: "We are God's co-adjutors." Nor is this on account of any defect in the power of God, but because He employs intermediary causes, in order that the beauty of order may be preserved in the universe; and also that He may communicate to creatures the dignity of causality [ut etiam creaturis dignitatem causalitatis communicet]." (ST I Q.23 a.8 ad.2)(my emphasis)

Notice that Aquinas quotes St. Paul's statement that [the Apostles] are God's "co-adjutors". In the Greek this reads: θεοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν συνεργοί. "For we are God's co-workers." Of course St. Paul is speaking about the work of preaching the gospel and building up the Church through prayer and teaching and service. But, if man may be a co-worker with God in the salvation of others, then it would be ad hoc to claim that man may not in principle be a co-worker in his own salvation. St. Paul implies as much when he states explicitly to the Philippians that they should "work out [their] salvation with fear and trembling" [μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου τὴν ἑαυτῶν σωτηρίαν κατεργάζεσθε]. (Phil 2:12) Aquinas continues:

"Now it is a greater perfection for a thing to be good in itself and also the cause of goodness in others, than only to be good in itself. Therefore God so governs things that He makes some of them to be causes of others in government; as a master, who not only imparts knowledge to his pupils, but gives also the faculty of teaching others." (ST I Q.103 a.6)

Likewise, this is why Aquinas makes a distinction between operating grace and co-operating grace. First he quotes St. Augustine:

"Augustine says (De Gratia et Lib. Arbit. xvii): "God by cooperating with us, perfects what He began by operating in us, since He who perfects by cooperation with such as are willing, begins by operating that they may will." [quia ipse ut velimus operatur incipiens, qui volentibus cooperatur perficiens] But the operations of God whereby He moves us to good pertain to grace. Therefore grace is fittingly divided into operating and cooperating." (ST I-II Q.111 a.2)

In his responseo of that article, Aquinas quotes the line from St. Augustine that directly follows the one previously quoted:

"He [God] operates that we may will; and when we will, He cooperates so that we may perfect [ourselves]. [ut autem velimus operatur, cum autem volumus, ut perficiamus nobis cooperatur].

Why is this not semi-Pelagianism? Semi-Pelagianism is the heresy that claims, among other things, that human free will, apart from grace, turns to God, who then provides grace. The Second Council of Orange (529 AD) condemned this notion. It is a de fide dogma of the Catholic Church that there is a "supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will". This supernatural intervention imparts prevenient (also called 'antecedent') grace. The Council of Trent declared, "In adults the beginning of justification must proceed from the antecedent grace of God acquired by Jesus Christ." (Session VI.5) Even our desire for salvation is a result of God's antecedent grace working in us, to open our eyes and ears, and soften our heart.

We cannot perfect ourselves (for heaven) by ourselves; to deny that is Pelagianism. Nor can we even begin to perfect ourselves (for heaven) apart from antecedent grace; to think otherwise is semi-Pelagianism. But between semi-Pelagianism on the one hand, and the notion that God does everything in our salvation without any cooperation from us on the other hand, is the Catholic position. Since it is more perfect that we participate in our becoming perfect than that we not participate in our becoming perfect, therefore God brings us to our perfection by cooperating with us, so that the perfection of our participating in our becoming perfect is preserved. For this reason, by saving us in a more perfect way (i.e. by preserving our participation in our perfection), God receives more glory than He would if He were to save us without any cooperation with us.

We can see this exemplified when St.Paul says to the Thessalonians, "For you are our glory and joy". (1 Thess 2:20) He is not saying [contra (2)] that he lost glory in giving himself pastorally to the Thessalonian believers. Nor is he saying [contra (3)] that insofar as the Thessalonian believers exercise their causal powers, they deprive him of glory. Rather, he is saying that insofar as they flourish and thrive as a church in fidelity to what he taught and planted, they bring glory to him. Their free exercise of their causality is a necessary condition for their being his glory. What does this imply? What St. Paul says to the Thessalonians in this verse is also what Christ says to the Church, "You are my glory and joy", for St. Paul tells us that woman is the glory of man (1 Cor. 11:7), and that this is a type of the relation between the Church as Bride and Christ as Groom. (Eph. 5:32) And therefore assumptions (2) and (3) are no less false as applied to the relation between Christ and the Church than they are as applied to the relation between Paul and the Thessalonian believers.

The paradox of glory has to do with assumption (1). The paradox is precisely this: that the more glory God gives to creatures, the more glory is given to God. That is in part because the effect can never exceed the cause. The greater the glory revealed in the creatures, the greater this reflects back upon the Creator from whom they come, from whom they have their natures and powers, and from whom they have the healing salve of grace by which their wounded nature is restored. God is shown to be greater and more glorious not by doing everything Himself and monopolizing causality, but instead by giving actual causal powers to creatures. God could have created all rational creatures such that they were already in the beatific vision of heaven. But it was more glorious and more perfect for God to create rational creatures in a condition in which they were not fully complete, so that they themselves could participate freely in their own formation and perfection.

That is why some angels fell, because they were given by God the opportunity to complete their creation by choosing whether to love God above all things or to love themselves above all things. Similarly this is why we are here, now, on earth, and not in heaven. This earthly life is our opportunity to participate in the completion of our own creation, by our free will in what is called self-determination. Grace does not destroy that gift of self-determination, because grace does not destroy nature. Grace restores nature and, insofar as we cooperate with grace, allows us to participate again in attaining what we were made for, namely, seeing God (Matt 5:8). That is why we who have been baptized are still here on earth, and not in heaven; we have been graciously gifted with the opportunity to participate in our salvation and the salvation of others. This is why our post-conversion life on earth has meaning and purpose. (See here.)

One possible objection to what I have argued here is that because we are dead in our sins (Eph 2:1,5), therefore we cannot make ourselves alive, or cooperate in making ourselves alive. And thus we cannot cooperate in our regeneration. But in Catholic theology, regeneration is a step-wise process, as was the healing of the blind man in St. Mark 8:22-26. It begins with antecedent grace, by which our will is enabled to turn to God and desire baptism (either implicitly or explicitly), and then is completed when we are baptized. In this way we have the opportunity to participate even in our regeneration, by freely willing (after the reception of antecedent grace) to be baptized.

Another possible objection is that St. Paul teaches that we are saved by faith and not works. (Romans 3:20, 28; 9:32, 11:6, Gal 2:16, 3:2,5,10) Was St. Paul denying human participation in our salvation, and thus implicitly endorsing temporal nihilism? No. The first thing to notice is that believing God is itself a cooperation with God, for it is not God who has faith, but man who believes, as a gift of God. Secondly, in these verses St. Paul is talking about works apart from [grace and faith]. He is not talking about the works that result from grace and faith. If we keep in mind the distinction between ungraced-works and graced-works, then we will recognize that we cannot assume that St. Paul's "grace and not works" dichotomy eliminates the salvific contribution of [graced] works in the life of the believer.

When we recognize that God is given greater glory by our participation not only in the sufferings of Christ and in the salvation of others through our testimony to Christ's gospel, but also in our own salvation, then we do not need to fear that the gospel is at stake when the Church teaches that God has given us the privilege, gift, and responsibility of cooperating with Him in working out our salvation in fear and trembling. My hope and prayer is that in pursuing earnestly the resolution of that which is at the heart of what has kept Protestants and Catholics separated for almost 500 years, we may, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, receive from Christ the peace and unity He bestowed upon His Apostles when He said, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you." (St. John 14:27)

"Now if we are children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." (Romans 8:17)

Monocausalism and Temporal Nihilism

"The Scream"
Edvard Munch (1893)

This is a follow-up to "Monocausalism, Salvation, and Reconciliation".

There is a profound and troubling question that faces any Protestant who believes that man does not participate in his salvation. The question is profound because it goes to the heart of our existence as rational beings. And it is troubling because it threatens to destroy the meaningfulness of our choices and our entire lives here on earth. That question is simply this: "Why are you here?" The question looks innocent enough, but consider the significance of the term 'here.' A question of this sort makes sense only if one could possibly be elsewhere. For this question, the 'elsewhere' denoted is heaven. So the question asks the Protestant why he is here rather than in heaven, given that God is all-powerful and perfectly good and loving.

The Protestant might first consider whether the answer to this question is that God has a plan for his life, even a wonderful plan. But he sees that this answer will not do, because what could be more wonderful than being with God in heaven? It simply backs up the question: Why are you here in the midst of this wonderful plan for your life, rather than in heaven?

He might next consider whether the answer is that God needs to sanctify him. But he sees that this answer also does not work, because he believes that God can (and will) sanctify him instantaneously, since he believes that Christians who die not yet fully sanctified (i.e. all Christians) do not need to go through purgatory, but are at that very moment instantly and completely sanctified so that they can see God. (Matthew 5:8, Heb 12:14) Nor does he need to be here on earth to thank or glorify God, since he can do those things just as well in heaven. He does not believe that our ability to thank and glorify God decreases when we go from this life to heaven. Nor does he need to please God by his good works here on earth, because he believes that God has been fully pleased by the perfect work of Christ. The perfection and sufficiency of Christ's work on his behalf mean that God is already as pleased with him as He will ever be. Not only that, but he believes that in this life sinful imperfection taints his every thought, word, and deed, and that "there is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation." (WCF XV.4) So he believes that in his every thought, word, and deed in this life, he is continually doing what deserves eternal damnation.

He might then consider whether the answer to this question is that God wishes to use him to reach other people with the gospel and the love of Christ. But he recognizes that this answer too is problematic. The reason has to do with a fundamental principle stated by Benjamin Warfield: "There are fundamentally only two doctrines of salvation: that salvation is from God, and that salvation is from ourselves." (The Plan of Salvation, p. 27) Since salvation is from God, therefore salvation cannot be from man. That is why man does not participate in his own salvation. But that is also why man cannot participate in the salvation of other men. It would be ad hoc to grant that man may participate in the salvation of other men, while denying in principle that man may participate in his own salvation. Nor does God, being omnipotent, need him in order to save souls. In fact, if he were to play some role in the salvation of others, it would rob God of some of the glory God could receive for saving them. Since he believes that God wishes to maximize the glory God receives (Soli Deo gloria!), he recognizes that God does not want him to play any role in the salvation of others. Thus playing a role in the salvation of others cannot be a reason for him to be here rather than in heaven.

He might then recall that the Bible talks about heavenly rewards for earthly deeds. This isn't salvation, of course, but simply jewels in his heavenly crown. When he thinks carefully about this, he concludes that he has no desire for jewels in heaven, even spiritual jewels. If salvation means to have Christ, and he already has salvation, then he has Christ for all eternity, and there is nothing else his heart desires or could desire. Besides, he knows that even when God rewards us for our good works, He is merely crowning His own gifts, as Augustine said, so that God gets all the glory. But God could just as easily give those gifts in heaven, as on earth. Therefore, he concludes, there is no principled need for him to be here on earth, in order to be given these gifts.

But what other answer remains? If he does not need to be here to be sanctified, or to glorify, thank or please God, and he cannot participate in the salvation of himself or of others, and there is no principled need for him to be here to receive heavenly jewels, then what answer remains to our question? He is left with this prospect: from the moment of his conversion, his life on earth is utterly meaningless. He simply awaits death, continually, every second of every waking hour for the rest of his earthly life. There is no point to anything he does; there is no need for him to suffer what he suffers. He faces the prospect of lifelong temporal nihilism, a temporal version of the Nietzschean or Sartrean sort. Yet he can't commit suicide, because his assurance level is not high enough that he can be sure that suicide would take him to heaven rather than indicate that he never had saving faith in the first place, and so he can't take the chance.

At some point in this inquiry, a Gestalt shift should occur. Instead of embracing the temporal nihilism entailed by his starting premise that man does not participate in his salvation, the inquirer should recognize that the meaningfulness of his present life is more certain to him than is the truth of the thesis that man does not participate in his salvation. At that point, the implications of his thesis serve as a reductio ad absurdum (literally), an argument against the truth of his initial thesis, by showing that it leads to an absurdity.

In his Fr. Brown mystery titled "The Blue Cross", G.K. Chesterton describes the climax of a conversation between Fr. Brown and the thief, Flambeau, who is dressed as a priest, and who has been trying to deceive Fr. Brown into believing that he is a priest.

Fr. Brown: "But, as a matter of fact, another part of my trade, too, made me sure you weren't a priest."

"What?" asked the thief, almost gaping.

"You attacked reason," said Father Brown. "It's bad theology."

One way of attacking reason is, as Aquinas says, by adopting what is less certain and using it to overturn what is more certain. Aquinas writes, "Whoever by his own reasoning does away with certain [principles] which are better known to him than the ones which he posits, adopts an absurd position." (Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, 990a17-22)

And one thing that reason tells us is that our lives are meaningful, and that in saving us, a loving God would not rob our lives of meaning.

"It would be a poor kind of love that made us in His image and left us nothing to do for ourselves; it is a divine love that sets out a man's work for a man's life and stands by a man's own decisions. He has indeed left us something to do with our mind and our will as well as with our hands and our feet. If we do these things, we are fulfilling the divine will; if we do not, we are not thwarting God but ourselves, for our eternal happiness hangs on the condition of our activity." - Walter Farrell O.P.

Thus even reason tells us that grace, if it is to be grace, does not destroy nature but perfects it.

Of course many (if not most) Protestants will reject the thesis that man does not participate in his salvation. The follow-up to this post will consider the ecumenical implications of rejecting that thesis.

The Humanity of the Church

The recent discussion at De Regnis Duobus led me to Michael Horton's article titled "Transforming Culture with a Messiah Complex".

Michael implies that Catholics and Emergentists are guilty of an "overealized eschatology". He seems to be saying that Catholics and Emergentists believe that Christ is present here now, and are therefore in some way at least implicitly denying that Christ is in heaven. By 'overealized eschatology' he means that we are, so to speak, bringing Christ back before He has actually come back. We do this, in his view, by substituting the Church for Christ. And Catholics also do it, in Michael's view, by believing in Christ's real presence in the Eucharist. Michael's position seems to offer us the following dilemmas. We must choose between affirming that the Church is truly the Body of Christ on the one hand, and on the other hand affirming that Christ ascended into heaven and will return in glory at the end of the age. Furthermore, we must choose between affirming the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and affirming that Christ ascended into heaven and will return in glory at the end of the age.

What lies behind these false dilemmas? It seems to be a form of monocausalism, in this case a sort that allows only one mode of being. For Michael (seemingly), Christ cannot be both absent (i.e. in heaven and yet to return in glory) and present here on earth (either in His Mystical Body the Church or in the Eucharist) at the same time. But the solution to this difficulty involves a philosophical distinction between being and mode of being. Christ can be absent in one respect, and yet present in another respect, without contradiction. He Himself tells us that He will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5), and that where two or three are gathered together in His name, there He is in the midst of us. (St. Matthew 18:20)

His presence through the Church as His Mystical Body is a different mode of presence than will be His presence when He comes again in glory. We can see that in Catholic documents such as Mystici Corporis Christi. Likewise, Christ's sacramental presence in the Eucharist is a different mode of presence than will be His presence when He comes again in glory. In the Eucharist He is veiled under the accidents of bread and wine, as St. Thomas explains in Questions 75 and 76 of Summa Theologica III. But when Christ appears in glory, then we shall "see Him as He is". (1 John 3:2) So Catholics can adore Christ in the Eucharist, and we can function as His hands and feet to the world, without undermining our irrevocable belief (actually, *dogma*) that Christ truly ascended into heaven and will truly return in glory at the end of the age, a belief we affirm every week when we recite the Creed together.

Why is it that both Catholics and Emergentists fall under Michael's criticism? Emergentists emphasize action and service. Confessional Protestants tend to emphasize the Word, preaching, teaching and study. Both of these are true expressions of our human nature. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that man's life is fittingly divided into the active life and the contemplative life. (ST II-II Q.179) These two are exemplified in the sisters Mary and Martha. The Church cannot be only one or the other, because human nature is not reducible to only one or the other. Emergentism seems to be, in part, a reaction to a deficiency with respect to service on the part of confessional Protestantism. And likewise, those attracted toward confessional Protestantism tend to be responding to a deficiency with respect to doctrine on the part of mainline liberalism, fundamentalism, or broader Evangelicalism.

The Catholic Church encompasses both action and preaching, work and prayer, Sisters of Charity and hermits, Franciscans and Dominicans, service and study. She has always held together both of these aspects of human nature, without excluding one or the other. Michael criticizes the Catholic Church along with Emergentists, because both exemplify the active aspect of human nature. But recognizing this aspect of human nature fills out our understanding of the Church as the Body of Christ.

A few years ago when I told an old priest whom I have known for a number of years that I was becoming Catholic, the first thing he said to me was this: "Remember, the Church is human". I didn't fully understand what he meant. At the time, I took it to mean, Be prepared to find sinners in the Church. But now I see more clearly what he was saying. The Church, as the Mystical Body of the incarnate Christ, is truly human; all of human nature is found within her, for Christ became fully human. (That's why through my fundamentalist lenses as a young man so much of the Church had seemed "worldly"; I didn't understand then the difference between being human and being worldly.)

The catholicity of the Church flows directly from Christ's full humanity. In baptism, we are joined to Christ, incorporated into His Body. In this way we truly participate in Christ's humanity, and He in ours. In the Eucharist we are made partakers of His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). But if in the Eucharist we are made partakers of His divine nature, then surely we are also made partakers of His human nature, for the latter is connatural to us, and Christ is not divided. Therefore, in the Eucharist we are truly and more deeply incorporated into His Body, made into His hands and feet, just as St. Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. Christ's presence in the sacraments is in this way deeply connected to His presence in us and through us as His Mystical Body. (And this is why Emergentism is deficient; it needs the Eucharist in order to be fully and completely, the Body of Christ.)

This is also related, in my opinion, to the reason why it is difficult for some Protestants to perceive Mary as our Mother. Protestants tend to take metaphorically St. Paul's teaching about the Church as the Body of Christ, not conceiving any other mode of being than that of His physical body. But the more we see the Church as a participation not only in Christ's divinity, but also in His humanity, the more we will be able to see Mary as our Mother, for His humanity is her-humanity-given-to-Him. She is our Mother, because she is His mother, and we are joined to Him as His brothers and sisters, in His human family by adoption through baptism. If she is Theotokos (God-bearer), then she is also Mother of His Mystical Body, the Church, and thus in baptism she becomes our Mother.

Since both action and contemplation are essential aspects of our common human nature, both are expressed in the humanity of the Church. You can see both of those aspects in the following video, released by Catholics Come Home.




To Emergentists and confessional Protestants, all those traditions that ultimately trace their origin back to the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century, Catholics invite you to come back as well. Let us heal what was torn, and unite what was divided. We welcome you back with open arms, as brothers and sisters in Christ. (That was Jeffrey Steenson's experience, and it was my family's experience as well.) It is time for all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ to come together, work through our differences in an open and humble manner, and be reunited as one family. The unity of His followers is the passion of the heart of Jesus (St. John 17). It is not just St. Paul, but Christ also who says to us, "Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose." (Philippians 2:2) For Christ explained that His mission was "to bring together the scattered children of God and make them one." (St. John 11:52). As Christ's followers, that must be our mission as well.

Monocausalism and the Rock on which the Church is Built

St. Peter Holding the Key of Paradise
Pierre Puget (1653-1659)

From the Catholic point of view, Christ Himself is the cornerstone of the Church. Christ is one Person in two natures: one invisible, and one visible. So the Church (His Body) likewise has both aspects. It is both a visible organization and a spiritual community. (See CCC 771)

Although Christ is the head and chief cornerstone of the Church, during His absence [between the time of His ascension and the time of His return] He has entrusted the keys of His kingdom to His chief steward. (cf. Matthew 16:18-19, Luke 12:42) In other words, from a Catholic point of view, there is no contradiction between Christ being the head and cornerstone of the Church, and Peter also being a rock (subordinate to Christ) upon which Christ builds His Church, in the sense of making Peter its chief steward.

Often in Catholicism it is not an "either/or", but a "both/and". And the same is true of Matthew 16. But in Protestant contexts we quite commonly encounter the following dilemma: either the rock Jesus speaks of here is Peter or it is Peter's confession. But this is a *false* dilemma. The reason it is a false dilemma is that it is based on an implicit monocausalist assumption, i.e. that only one thing can be the rock on which the Church is built.

From a Catholic point of view there are at least four things the Church is built on: (1) Christ, who is the referent of Peter's confession of faith, (2) Peter the Rock, who makes the confession of faith, (3) the propositional content of Peter's confession, and (4) Peter's act of faith, for which He was commended by Christ, and given the keys by Christ. Each of these last three points to Christ. God the Father had revealed Christ's identity to Peter first, and this was a sign that Peter was to be the chief steward of the Kingdom, that is, the chief representative of Christ. The steward points to Christ because He is Christ's representative, the "vicar of Christ". The propositional content of Peter's confession obviously points to Christ, for Christ is what Peter's words were about. And Peter's act of faith points to Christ too, as an act of worship speaks about the worthiness of the recipient.

These last three are the three "bonds of unity" of the Church. (See CCC 815) I wrote about these in more detail under the section "The Three Modes of Organic Unity" here.

So the Catholic Church does not think it has to choose between Peter being the rock, and Peter's confession being the rock, and Peter's faith being the rock. They are all true, and they are all inseparable.

Here are some paragraphs from the Catholic Catechism that show how the Catholic Church views Peter's faith as the rock (even while, of course, believing that Peter himself is the rock).

"Moved by the grace of the Holy Spirit and drawn by the Father, we believe in Jesus and confess: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. On the rock of this faith confessed by St. Peter, Christ built his Church." (CCC 424)

"Such is not the case for Simon Peter when he confesses Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the living God", for Jesus responds solemnly: "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." Similarly Paul will write, regarding his conversion on the road to Damascus, "When he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles..." "And in the synagogues immediately [Paul] proclaimed Jesus, saying, 'He is the Son of God.'" From the beginning this acknowledgment of Christ's divine sonship will be the center of the apostolic faith, first professed by Peter as the Church's foundation." (CCC 442)

"Simon Peter holds the first place in the college of the Twelve; Jesus entrusted a unique mission to him. Through a revelation from the Father, Peter had confessed: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Our Lord then declared to him: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." Christ, the "living Stone", thus assures his Church, built on Peter, of victory over the powers of death. Because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it." (CCC 552)

In contrast, Protestants tend to see the rock only as the content and/or act of faith in Peter's confession. They tend not to see the significance (with respect to office) in Christ changing Simon's name to Peter and giving him the keys of the kingdom. They tend to read Matthew 18:18 as nullifying any uniqueness in Peter's office shown by Christ giving him the keys.

I have distinguished previously (here and here) between "comparing form" vs. "tracing matter". Here I'm pointing out that the Catholic Church believes that the Petrine office has preserved the faith of the Apostles, and that this is part of the significance of Matthew 16 -- Peter's being made a rock by Christ and being given the keys of the kingdom, and later being charged with feeding Christ's sheep and strengthening the faith of his brothers (the other Apostles) in John 21 and Luke 22. The Church believes that this matter (this office) has been given the keys, so as to preserve the form (i.e. the deposit of faith in its propositional and dynamic aspects) that was entrusted to it. The Church believes that the form and matter always remain united, just as the visible and invisible are held together in Christ's hypostatic union.

Justification and Monocausalism

The cartoon above by John Dearstyne can be found in Michael Horton's Putting Amazing Back Into Grace (1991), and it represents the [popular] Reformed conception of justification. According to this conception of justification, God, on account of Christ, treats us as though we are righteous, even though in actuality we remain unrighteous. The "good news" according to this conception, is that because of Christ's work on the cross, we are going to heaven, in spite of our remaining unrighteous, if we trust in Christ's work to get us to heaven. (I discussed the problem with this position in greater detail here.)

The common question that arises is this: If Christ's work was sufficient, then what room is left for us to contribute anything to our final justification? The dilemma looks like this: Either part of our final justification is from ourselves, in which case Christ's work was not sufficient for our final justification, or Christ's work was sufficient for our final justification, in which case there is no room or space left for us to contribute to our final justification. Or again: Either all our righteousness is Christ's, in which case we contributed nothing, or our righteousness is some fraction of Christ's righteousness and our own righteousness (e.g. 50/50, or 70/30, etc.).

I want to point out here that this is a false dilemma, because it implicitly assumes the truth of monocausalism. (See my previous post titled "Monocausalism, Salvation and Reconciliation".) How so? Implicit within the dilemma is the notion that if our doing a good work is a righteous act, then the righteousness of that righteous act is not merely "our own" but also "our own and not Christ's". (Notice the monocaualism.) Or, putting it the other way around, since, given monocausalism, a righteous act done by us would be done "only by us and not also by Christ", then since all our righteousness comes from and through Christ, it follows that we cannot do a righteous act. Hence, one of the errors of Martin Luther condemned in the Papal Bull "Exsurge Domine" (June 15, 1520) is this: "In every good work the just man sins." John Calvin similarly claimed that "all human works, if judged according to their own worth, are nothing but filth [iniquinamenta] and defilement [sordes]." (Institutes 3.12.4)

Monocausalism is the philosophical assumption in play behind the treatment of our justification [initial and final] as a mere imputation, and not an infusion. It makes righteousness out to be a quantifiable entity, like a pie composed of, say, eight pieces. If n pieces of the pie were contributed by me, then God could only contribute (8-n) pieces. The more I contribute, the more it detracts from God's contribution, and hence the more I contribute, the more it detracts from God's glory and from my dependence on God for my salvation. That account is based on the mistaken notion that righteousness and glory are quantifiable entities, comparable to something like a pie, and that God's contribution and my contribution are made at the same ontological level. That is why from the point of view of the monocausalist there is no causal room for mutual contribution without competition [e.g. if the whole is 8, and my contribution is n, then God's contribution can be no more than (8-n)].

But righteousness and glory and love are not like that. They are, ultimately, divine attributes; they do not compete for space in God. God is not part love, part righteousness, part glory, etc. Similarly, when God gives love, He does not lose any love. When God gives glory, He does not lose glory. When God gives righteousness, He does not lose righteousness. Similarly, when we love, we do so because He first loved us. Our love is genuine, even though it has its ultimate source in God. To think of love as either only from us, or only from God, is to fail to understand the relation between the Creator and the creature, between first and second causes. It fails to conceive of or imagine the possibility of concurrence.

Everything we have, save sin, is from God. And yet God has given us real powers, real freedom and choice, so that our actions are truly our own. We are actual agents, not robots. For that reason, even though all our righteousness is from God through Christ, nevertheless that righteousness is also (by grace) truly ours, on the inside, by infusion. Our hearts are transformed; we are truly and actually made righteous. That's the good news! We (as real agents, not robots or zombies) actually love God and are made truly righteous, by the grace of God, through faith in Christ, and this grace, faith, righteousness and love are all His gifts to us. They are all 100% divine gift, and yet they are truly and actually ours.

Consider this paragraph from the sixth session of the Council of Trent:

Thus, neither is our own justice established as our own from ourselves, nor is the justice of God ignored or repudiated, for that justice which is called ours, because we are justified by its inherence in us, that same is [the justice] of God, because it is infused into us by God through the merit of Christ. (chapter 16)

Notice here that the justice (i.e. righteousness) of Christ is also actually and truly ours. It is truly Christ's, and truly ours, without contradiction and without confusion or admixture. It is not part Christ's and part ours. It is 100% Christ's, and 100% ours, just as Jesus Himself is 100% God and 100% human, without contradiction or confusion or admixture.

The "mere imputation" view depicted in the cartoon above does not truly *unite* Christ's righteousness to us. It treats Christ's righteousness as remaining extrinsic to us. (That's why the guy in the cartoon is hiding; he is using Christ as his fig leaf, rather than having, as St. Paul said, "Christ in you". Col 1:27). That is because given monocausalism, the only two alternatives for us to be righteous are: (1) for Christ Himself (and Christ alone) to act in us, taking over our will and making our choices for us and in that way turning us into puppets or "possessed" beings, having no genuine causal agency of our own, or (2) we act apart from Christ, in which case if our deeds were righteous then some sort of Pelagianism would be true. To avoid both of those possibilities, monocausalism must settle for "mere imputation", an extrinsic union wherein on account of Christ's righteousness, God the Father treats us as if we were righteous even though we are actually unrighteous, and the problem of our actual unrighteousness is not addressed until we die. (According to Reformed theology we do in theory grow in sanctification over the course of our life after we come to believe the gospel, but nevertheless, even up to and including the last moment of our life, we are still like the guy in the cartoon above: simul iustus et peccator (simultaneously justified and sinner); we are still unrighteous, and all our 'righteousness' is as worthless as filthy rags.

To understand the gospel as something by which we are made actually and truly righteous (and not merely declared to be righteous while remaining in fact unrighteous), we need to consider what exactly the fall did to man, and then in light of that, reflect on what it means to be saved. See my "Prolegomena to the gospel". But my purpose in this post is only to point out the philosophical assumption (of monocausalism) that is at work in the background of the more commonly known Reformed conception of justification, particularly in the claim that if we contribute to our final justification, then Christ's work was not sufficient, and *part* of our righteousness is then coming from [ourselves and not from Christ].

Monocausalism, Salvation, and Reconciliation

One of the impediments to the reconciliation of Protestants and Catholics is an [implicit] philosophical disagreement regarding causation. I have written about this before here and here, but I think more needs to be said about it.

Deism is the notion that God started the world, and from that time on does not do anything but watch from a distance. When creatures act, only creatures act; God is not now doing anything. He is not now causally involved in present events. Christian deism is a qualified form of deism, for it allows for divine interventions here and there in the course of redemptive history. These would be the miracles that we see described throughout the Bible, as well as the life of Christ. This is still a form of deism, for it fails to recognize the present activity of God in sustaining and directing all things.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is what is called occasionalism. Occasionalism is roughly the notion that all events are caused only by God. Creatures are not actual causal agents, but only seeming casual agents. According to occasionalism, while it seems to me that I am picking up this book, actually God is the one picking up the book. God is giving me the illusion that I am the one picking up the book, but in actuality I am not a genuine causal agent.

The correct position is a middle position between these two. When a creature acts, God is also acting as a primary cause while the creature is acting as a secondary cause. William Carroll explains this well when he writes:

Aquinas shows us how to distinguish between the being or existence of creatures and the operations they perform. God causes creatures to exist in such a way that they are the real causes of their own operations. For Aquinas, God is at work in every operation of nature, but the autonomy of nature is not an indication of some reduction in God's power or activity; rather, it is an indication of His goodness. It is important to recognize that divine causality and creaturely causality function at fundamentally different levels. In the Summa contra Gentiles, Aquinas remarks that "the same effect is not attributed to a natural cause and to divine power in such a way that it is partly done by God, and partly by the natural agent; rather, it is wholly done by both, according to a different way, just as the same effect is wholly attributed to the instrument and also wholly to the principal agent." It is not the case of partial or co-causes with each contributing a separate element to produce the effect. God, as Creator, transcends the order of created causes in such a way that He is their enabling origin. Yet the "same God who transcends the created order is also intimately and immanently present within that order as upholding all causes in their causing, including the human will." For Aquinas "the differing metaphysical levels of primary and secondary causation require us to say that any created effect comes totally and immediately from God as the transcendent primary cause and totally and immediately from the creature as secondary cause."

This also applies to redemption. On the one hand, the deistic equivalent is Pelagianism, i.e. we [alone] are the agents of our own salvation. Christ was, at most, a good example. We get to heaven by our good works. On the other hand, the occasionalist equivalent is a form of monergism that rejects any causes of our redemption other than Christ alone. We get to heaven because of "Christ alone" (Solus Christus). Nothing we or anyone else does contributes to our salvation. Notice that both of those positions are forms of monocausalism. Either it is all man, or it is all God; these two positions are the redemptive equivalent of deism and occasionalism, respectively.

B.B. Warfield was a famous Presbyterian at Princeton Seminary in the early twentieth century. Here is a quotation from Warfield's The Plan of Salvation (the 1935 edition):

... the Council of Carthage of A.D. 417-418, which refused to be satisfied by anything less than an unequivocal acknowledgment that "we are aided by the grace of God, through Christ, not only to know but also to do what is right, in each single act, so that without grace we are unable to have, think, speak, or do anything pertaining to piety." The opposition between the two systems [i.e. Pelagianism and Augustinianism] was thus absolute. In the one, everything was attributed to man; in the other, everything was ascribed to God." (p. 30)

Warfield reasons that if without grace we are unable to do anything pertaining to piety, then everything must be ascribed to God. But neither Augustine nor the Council of Carthage were affirming monocausalism or occasionalism. There are different ways in which everything can be "ascribed to God". One way is occasionalism, of course. Another way is to acknowledge that all our existence and causal power comes from God, and all the goodness of our good acts comes from God. In this latter way, we are truly causal agents even when doing righteous deeds, but in the former way (i.e. occasionalism), we are not truly causal agents. My point is that occasionalism is not the only way to "ascribe everything to God", and if one insists that occasionalism is the only way to ascribe everything to God, then "ascribing everything to God" comes into conflict with the doctrine of creation, in which case God doesn't want us to "ascribe everything" to Him, for He wants us to believe that He created us, and that we are real agents, and not mere brains in a divine vat under the illusion of being causally efficacious agents.

Warfield continues:

Pelagianism dies hard; or rather it did not die at all, but only retired more or less out of sight and bided its time; meanwhile vexing the Church with modified forms of itself, modified just enough to escape the letter of the Church's condemnation. Into the place of Pelagianism there stepped at once Semi-pelagianism; and when the controversy with Semi-pelagianism had been fought and won, into the place of Semi-pelagianism there stepped that semi-semi-pelagianism which the Council of Orange betrayed the Church into, the genius of an Aquinas systematized for her, and the Council of Trent finally fastened with rivets of iron upon that portion of the church which obeyed it. The necessity of grace had been acknowledged as the result of the Pelagian controversy: its preveniency, as the result of the Semi-pelagian controversy: but its certain efficacy, its "irresistibility" men call it, was by the fatal compromise of Orange denied, and thus the conquering march of Augustinianism was checked and the pure confession of salvation by grace alone made forever impossible within that section of the Church whose proud boast is that it is semper eadem. It was no longer legally possible, indeed, within the limits of the Church to ascribe to man, with the Pelagian, the whole of salvation; nor even, with the Semi-pelagian, the initiation of salvation. But neither was it any longer legally possible to ascribe salvation so entirely to the grace of God that it could complete itself without the aid of the discredited human will -- its aid only as empowered and moved by prevenient grace indeed, but not effectually moved, so that it could not hold back and defeat the operations of saving grace." (pp. 30-31)

What is driving Warfield here? Monocausalism. That is why he conceives of any genuine participation on the part of the human will as detracting from (or in competition with) divine grace. And that is why he rejects the Council of Orange (529 AD), rejects Aquinas, and rejects the Council of Trent. Here's how Warfield is thinking. If the human will, even aided by prevenient grace, can say no to God, then the will, by saying yes to God, is contributing to salvation, and thus salvation cannot be "entirely" ascribed to "the grace of God". The hidden premise in Warfield's argument is that the only way for salvation to be "entirely" ascribable to "the grace of God" is if no other cause (than God Himself) is operative in salvation. The hidden premise, in other words, is monocausalism.

Warfield does not show awareness that God being the only cause of salvation is not the only way that salvation can be truly by grace alone. When we say "grace alone", we have to understand the term "alone" in its respect-to-whatness, i.e. its proper context. Otherwise "grace alone" would eliminate creation. The proper context for understanding "grace alone" is not the absence of creatures having real causal powers.

Consider the angels. As rational spirits, they were created with a free will, and thus with the privilege of being participants in their own creation through the completion of their creation, by choosing once and for all, for the rest of eternity, whether to be angels (those spirits who love God) or demons (those spirits who hate God). Because they were given a will, they were each thereby given the privilege and power of freely determining, in one monumental choice, the kind of being they would be for all eternity. God did not create them in their final state. To have done so would have taken from them the privilege and perfection (for a creature) of being a participant in their own creation, and thus the self-possession that belongs to those who are what they have chosen to be, insofar as that is possible. Choosing what one will be for eternity is the closest a creature can come to imitating God's act of creating, and that is why it is such a privilege, a privilege that non-rational creatures cannot receive.

Humans too, as rational beings, were each given a will, and are thereby given the privilege of being participants in God's act of creating. We do this not only through procreation, but also through our free choices, much like the angels, except that unlike the angels, we are all one species, and we are material beings and in time. That is why we are affected intrinsically by Adam's sin, and also why it is not the case that our first choice determines what we will be for all eternity. In the case of a human, what determines the state of the soul for all eternity is the state of that soul at the moment of death, whether there is charity (i.e. love for God) in the soul, or whether the soul is in the state of mortal sin. This life is our time of testing; there is no second time of testing in a life to come -- that would be the error of cyclical reincarnation. "It is appointed unto man once to die, and then the judgment." (Heb 9:27) All that is the philosophical background and context to understanding the gospel.

And thus it is the context for understanding "grace alone". Given that background, we can understand why being saved by "grace alone" does not mean that God alone is the causal agent of salvation, because gratia non tollit naturam, sed praesupponit et perficit (grace does not take away or destroy nature, but presupposes and perfects it). Grace is a divine gift that allows man to do what God created us to do through our nature, choose to love Him for all eternity. Grace does not take away man's free choice; grace gives to man the real possibility to freely love God, because without grace man cannot love God. But grace does not force man to love God, or bypass man's will in bringing man to a state of loving God, because that would be the equivalent of God creating man in a state of already loving Him, without the privilege of participating in the choice of his final state.

Monocaualism, you may see, makes this present life superfluous. God might as well have created us all in the final state, some in heaven forever, and others in hell forever. This present life, with our opportunities to love God or reject Him, to serve and obey Him, or to rebel against Him, makes sense only if monocausalism is false, only if our choices here make a difference for the life to come. This present life is for us the equivalent of what, for the angels, was their first and ultimate eternal choice: "Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. (Joshua 24:15) That is why Christianity (though not its monocausal or fatalistic aberrations) makes this present life meaningful and eternally significant. What we choose here in this life determines who we are for the rest of eternity. Atheism, monocausalism and cyclical reincarnation philosophies undermine the significance and meaningfulness of our present choices. Catholicism preserves the eternal significance of our present choices while maintaining that we are saved by grace alone, because nothing good that we do would be possible without God's grace, for in every good deed that we do, God is always at work in us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)

Once we understand why monocausalism is false, then we see why the notion that either we are saved by Christ or by our works is a false dilemma. We can see why the notion that if Christ is the mediator between God and man, then no one else can be a mediator between Christ and man is a non sequitur. We can see why the notion that if Christ is forgiving our sins, then we must not need a priest to absolve us is a non sequitur. We can see why the notion that if Christ saves us, then the merits of the saints can do nothing for us, is a non sequitur. All these arguments are based on the hidden premise of monocausalism. Since tomorrow the Church celebrates the 2000th anniversary of the birth of St. Paul, let us consider something that he wrote.

Consider Colossians 1:24

Νῦν χαίρω ἐν τοῖς παθήμασιν ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, καὶ ἀνταναπληρῶ τὰ ὑστερήματα τῶν θλίψεων τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου ὑπὲρ τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ, ὅ ἐστιν ἡ ἐκκλησία,

Qui nunc gaudeo in passionibus pro vobis, et adimpleo ea, quae desunt passionum Christi, in carne mea pro corpore eius, quod est Ecclesia.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you [plural], and in my flesh I fill up the deficiencies of Christ's afflictions for His body, which is the Church.

Some people who do not know Greek think that St. Paul is saying that there are deficiencies in St. Paul's flesh which he [St. Paul] is filling up with the afflictions of Christ. Others claim similarly that by "deficiencies of Christ's afflictions" St. Paul is speaking of himself as united to Christ, and thus of the deficiencies in his [St. Paul's] own sufferings, which, because of the union of St. Paul with Christ, can thus in some sense be said to be deficiencies in Christ's-sufferings-in-St.-Paul. But these hermeneutical gymnastics are all necessitated by the presupposition of salvific monocausalism. The very idea that Christ's sufferings could be in some sense deficient or lacking for our salvation is, for salvific monocausalists, anathema.

St. Paul is talking about his own sufferings for the Colossians. He is saying that Christ's afflictions in His passion and death, though sufficient for their purpose, were not causally sufficient in themselves and by themselves to save the Colossians without the labors and sufferings of the Apostles, and particularly in this case St. Paul. St. Paul's suffering in the flesh for the Colossians is filling up what is lacking in Christ's suffering for His Mystical Body, the Church. In the Greek it is clear that the deficiency to which St. Paul is referring is a deficiency in Christ's afflictions, not in St. Paul's flesh. St. Paul is rejoicing that he gets to be a genuine causal agent in saving the Colossians. That in no way detracts from Christ's saving work, as though St. Paul's sufferings nullify or refute the fact that all grace comes to the Colossians through Christ and His saving work. Rather, through Christ's saving work, St. Paul himself has become an agent of salvation for the Colossians. Christ's saving work works in and through St. Paul, such that St. Paul's choices, labors, and sufferings truly and genuinely causally contribute to the salvation of the Colossians, while at the same time, everything that St. Paul does and gives to the Colossians comes from Christ who lives in St. Paul. (Gal 2:20) Once again, it is neither Christ to the exclusion of all other causal agents, or man alone. We do not have to choose between occasionalism or deism. Both are a form of monocausalism. Monocausalism is, fundamentally, a denial of the doctrine of creation, for agere sequitur esse (a thing acts according to what it is). And if God is the only actor, then there is no creation. And if nature is the only actor, then there is no Creator. The doctrine of creation necessarily holds together the genuine existence and causal agency of both God and creation.

Those who reject monocausalism are typically dismissed as 'synergists', which is viewed as some species of Pelagianism. (Think of Warfield's characterization of the position of the Council of Orange as "semi-semi-pelagianism".) In response to the charge of synergism, ask the person who is making the charge how he avoids both deism and occasionalism. Then ask him why his solution cannot also apply to salvation, if his position is not to be ad hoc. We should not be afraid of labels like "synergism" or Warfield's neologism "semi-semi-pelagianism". In order to evaluate what is under the label, we have to evaluate the *concepts* underlying the terms. Positions cannot be rightly evaluated on the basis of the labels alone, without unpacking those underlying concepts. If it turns out that when unpacking the concept, the 'error' of synergism is simply that it is not monocausalism, then it is time to call monocausalism into question. (See Dr. Phillip Cary's article "Augustine and the Varieties of Monergism".) It seems to me that in order for Protestants and Catholics to be reconciled regarding our respective doctrines of salvation, we have to confront the underlying philosophical disagreement regarding monocausalism. Otherwise we are talking 'above' the fundamental reason for our disagreement.

Lord Jesus, please help Protestants and Catholics to be reconciled and reunited, in one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of us all. And please use my little work here as a genuine cause in that reconciliation and reunion. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.