This
year marks the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, the
culmination of important and much-needed reforms of the Late Middle Ages but
also the flashpoint for the unfortunate fissure of Western Christianity. Like
fish in water, most of us were raised in a world wet by this unhappy division.
We don’t know any different. We assume notions about “the other” through the same
cultural matrix that informs our views about privilege, punctuality, poverty
and pizza. “Catholics believe in salvation by works and Protestants proclaim
salvation by grace.” Right? (sigh)
Well,
we’ve come a long way since 1517. While differences remain, we’ve straightened
out a lot of the nonsense about works righteousness, ringing coins and souls
springing from purgatory. Today Protestants and Catholics acknowledge one
another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We are children of one Father,
members of one Body, cleansed by one baptism, united by one Spirit, proclaimers
of one faith, disciples of one Lord, evangelizers of one world, redeemed by one
Savior, Jesus Christ. “We are all in the same boat and headed to the same port!”
Pope Francis says. “Let us ask for the grace to rejoice in the gifts of each,
which belong to all.”[1]
However,
in the latest edition of Christianity
Today, the subject of grace (of all things) seems to rear the ugly head of
division yet again. And quite unnecessarily, I might add. The article features
two contributors - one from the Catholic perspective and another representing
the Protestant tradition - who have been asked to reflect on the nature of
grace. Hence the title – “Grace
First or Grace Alone? What Catholics and Protestants Now Agree On – And What
Still Divides Us.”
I
was eager to read the article, even more so when I discovered that the initial
reflection was written by Bishop Robert Barron. Barron, a brilliant systematic
theologian and adept ecumenist, offered a characteristically even-handed and
conciliatory treatment of the Reformation, particularly in light of the Second
Vatican Council. Extending the ecumenical olive branch, Barron notes:
Vatican II valorized a number of themes dear to
the hearts of the Reformers: the primacy of Christ, the need for ardent
evangelization, the central place of the Bible in the life of the church, using
both bread and wine in Communion, the priesthood of all believers, etc. And it
expressed its fervent hope for the unification of all those baptized into the
body of Christ.[2]
“For
this,” Barron continues, “both Protestants and Catholics should give thanks.” True
to the Catholic tradition, Barron takes nothing away from the primacy of grace
in the economy of salvation but his argument hinges on how Luther interprets
“being”.[3]
Does human cooperation with grace take away from or magnify God’s primacy and
glory? This is the question Barron posits as the essential kernel. No mention
of human “merit”, no suggestion that we have anything to boast about when it
comes to salvation. It’s all by grace.
So
it was particularly confusing (ok, disheartening) when the Protestant
contributor strikes a notably different tone, immediately picking up the tired
bone of Pelagianism. He states:
Our main objection to Catholic theology is the
implication (if not straightforward claim) that merit other than Jesus’ own
comes into play in the sinner’s reconciliation and right standing with God. . .
All [Protestants] agree that, whatever the case may be, there can be no talk of
human ‘merit’ and no ground for boasting of salvation.[4]
Hold
on. What? Merit? Boasting? As a student of Catholic theology myself, I wondered
what resources were informing his understanding of Catholicism.
While
there are necessary distinctions to be made about efficient and instrumental causes
of salvation, both Protestants and Catholics agree that God’s gift of grace
through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the whole kit and caboodle of Christianity. The heart of our common message has
been, and will always be the same, God’s love revealed in the crucified and
risen Christ. We’re not talking about “merit” here. That case was closed
definitively in the 1999 Joint
Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification: “Together we confess, by
grace alone, in faith in Christ’s work and not because of any merit of our own,
we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while
equipping and calling us to good works.”[5]
Pope Francis further clarifies, “No human efforts, however good they may be,
can enable us to merit so great a gift [as salvation]. God, by his sheer grace,
draws us to himself and makes us one with him.”[6]
Catholics don’t depend on our efforts toward salvation any more than we go
around boasting about our cooperation with God’s grace. Good gracious!
Barron
started his essay by citing Yves Congar, French Dominican, ecumenist and major
architectural contributor to Vatican II (which Cardinal Dulles referred to as
“Luther’s Unfinished Council”).[7]
Congar suggested that if both sides had not given in to exaggerations and
over-reactions, there would be no split in the Western Church. Such is the
poignant lesson today.
Jesus
calls us to loving communion, to abide in one another as we abide in Christ. To
heal the divisions in the one body we must listen to one another, truly listen. We must not give into the
temptation of opening old wounds, stirring old controversies, and harboring uncritical
prejudices. “How do we proclaim the Gospel of reconciliation after centuries of
division?” Pope Francis asks. Through an open posture of good will. Through a
faith that seeks understanding. By seeing a separated brother to be loved, not a
contested argument to be won. By “losing our lives” for one another so that the
world may believe in the power of God’s reconciling mercy.[8]
We
are one in Christ. I pray that
by God’s grace we can all live into that mystery as we commemorate (for the
first time in history) the Reformation together.
[1] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of
the Gospel), 99.
[2] Bishop Robert Barron, “Grace First or
Grace Alone? What Catholics and Protestants Now Agree On – And What Still
Divides Us,” Christianity Today
(April 2017), 44.
[3] The underpinnings of Luther’s notion of
being rest in nominalism, a
philosophical movement of the late medieval period championed by William of
Ockham. Ockham asserts that God and creation are categorically univocal,
meaning that God is one being (albeit “supreme being”) amongst other beings.
This unintentionally posits a sort of ontological competition between God and
humans, a zero-sum game when it comes to grace and glory. Accordingly, human
“cooperation” with grace, as presented in the Catholic tradition, is said to
compromise God’s absolute primacy in the economy of salvation.
Catholicism, on the other hand,
grounds its notion of being in the work of Thomas Aquinas. Thomas presents God,
not as one being amongst others, but the sheer act of being itself, the very
agency through which all creatures have their existence. This understanding
sees human cooperation with grace not in competition with God’s being but
exemplifying and magnifying it.
[4] Roger E. Olson, “Grace First or Grace
Alone? What Catholics and Protestants Now Agree On – And What Still Divides
Us,” Christianity Today (April 2017),
45.
[5] The Roman Catholic Church and Lutheran
World Federation, Joint Declaration on
the Doctrine of Justification (1999), 15.
[6] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of
the Gospel), 112.
[7] Notre Dame theologian Richard McBrien
notes, “By any account, Yves Congar is the most distinguished ecclesiologist of
this century and perhaps of the entire post-Tridentine era. No modern
theologian’s spirit was accorded fuller play in the documents of Vatican II
than Congar’s.”
