Friday, January 17, 2014

R.C. Sproul, Roman Catholicism, Part V,"Marian Doctrines" Commentary by Teresa Beem

This is the last of the lectures of this series. The person who I am writing this for is only going to get just a general understanding of how the professor gets the topic wrong, because I have only so much time to work on this. However, here’s my quick comments about Dr. Sproul’s version of the Catholic dogma of Mary. 

Dr. Sproul used the terms without defining them as Catholics define them. Often Protestants read into these terms more than they mean. 
  • Veneration means respect or revere. (Not worship.)
  • Cultus means a system or variety of religious worship. Christians were called the cultus of Christ. 
  • The Rosary prayer is a prayer with Mary reliving her experiences with Christ. She prays with you to Christ. 
  • Prayer to a Catholic means petition, not worship. One can use prayer to worship God, like you can use praise to worship God, but they are not in themselves worship. You can also petition a local judge or praise your children. But that is not worship.
Dr. Sproul talks about the liturgy and the “Hail Mary” in it (as if weekly at mass the Hail Mary is in it.) No. There is only one day a year we give to remember Mary in the mass itself. Many churches have daily reciting of the rosary, but not during the worship of the mass.

The Church’s Veneration of Mary

While I, along with a lot of Catholics, might consider some of the Mary veneration way over the top (and like I said, a few may consider her almost divine.) I have never witness among even the maximalists anything that could be construed as worship--except on a History Channel Documentary on a remote area of South America where they have mixed idolatry with Mary and actually worship her as the pagans worshipped idols. (We need to talk about what worship means to Catholicism.) 

Dr. Sproul says there is a fine distinction in how we use the term worship and venerate. No, there is actually a very wide gulf in what venerating something is...giving it honor and worshipping something. That would be like saying there is a fine distinction between giving your mother flowers on Mother’s day and making love to your wife. That is nonsense.

Dr. Sproul doesn’t understand what worship is. Bowing down to Mary is not worshipping her anymore than bowing down to Queen Victoria is worshipping her. Dr. Sproul says bowing down is worship. Look at scripture. Everyone is bowing down to everyone. Even to the temple. He needs a study on what worship is. 


Pope Francis as well as the last three popes have cautioned the over veneration of Mary...but also cautioned against never giving her any honor since she professed that all generation would call her Blessed. We need to be balanced in our honor of Mary.


1854-Immaculate Conception Dogma
Mary was conceived without original sin. Mary was born as the New Eve sinless but not like God, not divine. (Please see end of post where there are early Church Fathers who used this comparison, showing the Catholic Church didn’t make it up later.) Lots of humans have never sinned, babies baptized and then who died before they sinned.

Mary could not have redeemed us from sin because she was a human. Her sinlessness was like Eve’s not Christ’s. She needed a Savior just like the rest of us. The church has always taught that Mary needed a Savior.

Dr. Sproul said it wasn’t until the middle ages that Mary was seen as sinless.  (See church fathers quotes at end.)


Then Dr. Sproul emphasized that the church’s greatest theologian, the angelic doctor, St Thomas Aquinas denied the sinlessness of Mary. No.

St. Thomas’ understanding of Mary’s holiness was far from the Protestant view and extremely close to the Catholic. St. Thomas claimed that Mary was conceived with original sin. But it was removed by God after she was conceived. She was also the recipient of an abundance of grace so that she was protected from all sin. Here is St. Thomas from Summa Theologica, III, q.27:

….even in her birth the Blessed Virgin was holy. Therefore she was sanctified in the womb. For it is reasonable to believe that she, who brought forth “the Only-Begotten of the Father full of grace and truth,” received greater privileges of grace than all others: hence we read (Luke 1:28) that the angel addressed her in the words: “Hail full of grace!”
…. The Blessed Virgin was sanctified in the womb from original sin, as to the personal stain; but she was not freed from the guilt to which the whole nature is subject, so as to enter into Paradise otherwise than through the Sacrifice of Christ; the same also is to be said of the Holy Fathers who lived before Christ.
…. Augustine says (De Nat. et Grat. xxxvi): “In the matter of sin, it is my wish to exclude absolutely all questions concerning the holy Virgin Mary, on account of the honor due to Christ. For since she conceived and brought forth Him who most certainly was guilty of no sin, we know that an abundance of grace was given her that she might be in every way the conqueror of sin.”
...But she would not have been worthy to be the Mother of God, if she had ever sinned. ...Secondly, because of the singular affinity between her and Christ, who took flesh from her: and it is written (2 Corinthians 6:15): “What concord hath Christ with Belial?” Thirdly, because of the singular manner in which the Son of God, who is the “Divine Wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:24) dwelt in her, not only in her soul but in her womb. And it is written (Wisdom 1:4): “Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins.”

Dr. Sproul misrepresented the Catholic view of Mary’s need of a Savior.

Mary was saved from sin. There are many ways which God saves, but it is salvation in all of them. A person can be saved by a person sinning and then the person repents (the ordinary means of salvation from effects of sin). Saving grace can also help one resist temptation before sinning (extraordinary means of salvation from effects of sin.) A person is forever thankful to a fireman who rescues the person from a burning building and also one who sees a dangerous fire hazard and prevents the fire. Both are saving the person from dying. This second method is the one of Mary. Christ was her Savior by preventing her from sinning.

She could have sinned even without the stain of original sin... just like Eve. 

What is so frustrating about all this is that Dr. Sproul could have easily just quoted from the Catholic Catechism that states this clearly. Why does he not go directly to the Catechism?


1950-Assumption of Mary Dogma
One quick note, Dr. Sproul says Mary’s Coronation as Queen of Heaven is dogma. Not so. That is a tradition in which you can believe or not believe.  That was the pope’s personal opinion based upon the traditions of the Davidic Kingdom in Israel to put the mother on the right hand of the king and title her “Queen Mother.” In the Davidic Kingdom court you were required to address the queen mother with great veneration before you address the king about the purpose in coming. This can be supported Biblically.


Popes' Love of Mary
Dr. Sproul found the following comments by popes especially repugnant, I hope I can shed a little light.

Leo XIII, “nothing more sacred or dear as the veneration of Mary.”  

He probably said it because it is with Christ we love His mother. Jesus picked Mary of all women ever conceived from the beginning of creation to be God’s mother! Catholics think about how much He must have loved her while a little boy growing up and how much He loves her now and so we love her like He does. Catholics tend to pour out emotional and sentimental words of love for Mary because we know how much we love our mommies and then times that by millions for Jesus’ mother. And Catholics teach that when Jesus gave His mother to St. John while on the Cross, He was giving His mother to all believers, to the whole church. And that is how the early church treated her before she died. The Apostles often went to her for council and love. St. Luke went to her at Ephesus to learn the birth story for his gospel.

Tradition says that the early church was known for its vehement protection of her, for they secreted her away so the Romans could not get to her (some of her family was brought before Emperor Nero and threatened.) There were even secret codes they had in messages about her between each other so that her name was never recorded in early literature as far as if she were alive and where. 


Pius XI “with Jesus Mary has redeemed the human race.” 

How? By sacrificially giving birth to Him, raising Him, teaching Him and suffering with Him on the road to calvary. Catholics teach that when, in the most agony on the cross, when Christ couldn’t feel the Father near, that looking at His mother, the symbol of the church... He could see us ALL! That gave Him the love to continue the sacrifice. Not that He couldn’t have done it without her, but that she helped Him and we as Christians should see her as intimitely connected to Jesus and our salvation because JESUS wants to honor her for being there with Him.  We honor her through Jesus just as we can honor Jesus through her. She is not divine, but His precious mother.

Dr. Sproul found the conclusion of Pius XII encyclical of 1943 where he said of Mary that she gave her “consent” to bear Jesus and offered up Jesus on the cross as a sacrifice as the “probably the most repugnant statement ever to come out of the Catholic Church about Mary.”

Oh brother! The whole Catholic Church does that at each mass. We all and each individual must offer Jesus up to the Father as our sacrifice for our sins. Dr. Sproul said it may have meant that Mary was offering Jesus in the priestly position. That absolutely cannot be the Catholic interpretation because women can never, ever have the role of priest. That is an abomination to God. She was offering up her Son as a gift to the Father out of love, it was not sacramentally. Any educated Catholic could have explained that to Dr. Sproul in a few sentences.


Keep always in mind that to a Catholic Mary is also the symbol of the church. Everything Mary is given is a promise to be given to us--sinlessness, being one with Him, bodily assumption. She is a living promise of our future.

The Bible is clear that the prayers of a righteous man availeth much. So why would Dr. Sproul become so agitated that Mary’s prayers are powerful!? To say her prayers were the reason for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is just a true misunderstanding of Christ’s economy of salvation. All our prayers are powerful. When Jesus answers our prayers we say, “Jesus answered our prayers.” We give our prayers power but that does not mean God would not have done it without them! We just pray in obedience to Him and He wills what happens. 

Again, Dr. Sproul makes much ado about Pope Pius saying Mary is reigning in heaven. However that is exactly what is promised to the saints in heaven. We are co-heirs with Christ. Jesus has thrones in heaven that the elders sit on. He says we will be judging the angels and nations. This isn’t unbiblical. We glorify Mary because Jesus said we will be glorified in heaven. 

Mary as Eve
Dr. Sproul scoffs that the Catholic Church would compare Mary to Eve and assumed it was trying to make a parallel with Christ being the New Adam as if that was raising Mary to the dignity of Christ.  Mary is the New Covenant Eve, just like Peter is the New Covenant Moses and like John is the New Covenant Elijah. Dr. Sproul assumes that somehow a comparison is evil.

Then Dr. Sproul claims the church also titles Mary the “mother of  the faithful” in a direct comparison to Abraham who was “father of the faithful.” I have never heard nor read any official document of Mary being compared with Abraham in his position as “father of the faithful.” (And I have done a ton of reading about Mary because it seemed so much like idolatry to me when I was a Protestant.) I have read in Catholic unofficial literature Mary’s faith being compared to Abraham’s, but not the title. Wish Dr. Sproul had sourced that. Don’t know why that would be a big deal anyway.

Dr. Sproul read Revelation 12: 1 and Genesis 3 and says that these are doctrinally Mary but then he goes on to say that certain Catholics scholars are telling the church they are wrong. 

Okay, perhaps the church is wrong on these texts. 
(But I doubt these texts are defined by the church infallibly--so the church could say, “We were wrong.” These things are not about salvation but about trying to understand scripture.)

Dr. Sproul often uses the verbiage “the raging controversy in Catholicism” or something similar and I can tell you he may be talking about what a few scholars are debating, but these issues are not topics at all...raging or not... with lay Catholics. Most of them would never know anything about the controversy. Theologians are always debating, Dr. Sproul should know that. It certainly doesn’t mean anything to Catholic doctrine or day to day Catholic culture.

Significance of Mary’s Fiat:
Mary is giving consent to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit “Be it done unto me according to your word.” Dr. Sproul says that there are many Catholics who view this statement as a command to God by Mary. Okay, that is possible that some Catholic believe that, but I have never ever heard a whiff of that from any  source and I have spent a lot of time studying Catholicism. Where Dr. Sproul is digging up these extremely peripheral debates about Catholicism I don’t know and I keep my thumb on the pulse of Catholicism by daily reading its news outlets (both liberal and conservative, both local and international, both for the masses and for the educated, its major online newspapers, I have subscriptions to Catholic magazines, I listen to Catholic radio. I watch Vatican tv. He’s picking this stuff up from some weird esoteric source, not mainstream Catholicism.

He says that Catholic believe that if Mary had said no, then Christ wouldn’t have come. Well, no. (In fact, the official Catholic sites I have seen on this tell us we should not speculate too greatly on what would have happened if Mary had said no.)


But the Catholic mindset of Mary’s yes is important. This is a matter of God’s sovereignty. God had predestined Mary from the beginning to be His mother. He prepared her with sinlessness. If she had said no, that would have meant God’s salvation plan had failed! Not that He couldn’t come up with second plan, but the mystery of salvation would have been thrown into chaos because God’s sovereignty would have been undone.

It was a tense moment in the cosmos. (Not for Christ, of course) but for the angels watching. Would Mary submit to God? They had watched Eve fall....so it was theoretically possible. But the church never says that if Mary had said no that there would have been no further plans for man’s redemption. Only the unthinkable idea that this plan, God’s original plan, would have been thwarted--something that had never happened.


(Mariology) Maximalist and Minimalism
What I will tell you from experience is that the few Catholics who are maximalists--those who want to always be exalting Mary’s position and seem almost to consider her divine (just a small part really of even the maximalists), are the pushiest and most obnoxious of Catholics. They seem to have a couple in every church I have attended and they target new Catholics and bombard them with stuff about Mary that they insist is dogmatic, which when you prove to them it’s not, they will argue till they’re blue in the face that the rotten Vatican II weakened Mary’s role. They make you feel you cannot be a true Catholic without believing as they do. They insist you believe in all the Marian apparitions. (I don’t and I am a good Catholic. You absolutely don’t have to believe they are authentic because there is a cardinal who has spoken out loudly against them and even Pope Francis is telling the maximalists to cool it, that our focus should be on Jesus and not Mary.) And if you even hint that you are not daily doing the rosary or devoting your life to her and don’t have several statues of her...then they descend upon you with books and pamphlets and prayer cards and blessed Mary statues. They are obnoxiously sweet and pushy. They make up for their very small numbers by their aggressive theology!

So in this Dr. Sproul is correct, though small in number this is truly an issue in mainstream cultural Catholicism. He gives the impression that a lot of Catholics are maximalists but that is untrue.

He says that Mary’s bodily assumption is to assure us that one day we will be resurrected. Then he says Christians use Christ’s example for assurance and they don’t need Mary’s. That somehow Mary’s assumption takes away from Christ’s ascension! That is like saying that it was ridiculous for Hebrews 11 to be put in the Bible because the story of people’s faith takes away from Christ’s sacrifice. Like the story of those resurrected after Christ’s death and walked around Jerusalem--their resurrection took away from Christ’s death. Like St. John’s martyrdom is ridiculous because it takes away from Christ’s sacrifice. The Bible has stories about people throughout to bring us comfort and hope in our faith journey. We better not tell our personal testimony because that brings the focus on us instead of Christ. To suggest that Mary’s story takes away from Christ is to negate the stories of the early Christian martyrs as taking away from Christ.

One of the reasons the pope chose that time to add the Marian dogma of the bodily assumption into heaven was because it was a time of worldwide crisis about God versus evolution. Since the pope was already dealing with a bunch of people pushing him to dogmatize that belief which he wasn’t planning on doing--even though the church had officially taught it from the beginning. He rethought it and decided that perhaps it would serve as a sign of hope for those across the globe that there is a God and that one day we will see God. Mary is an example of that hope. She is a prophecy of the second coming, what happens to her is promised will happen to us. It was for the purpose of giving people hope of a life after death. That’s the stated reason for the dogma of the Assumption. So, even if he disagrees, Dr. Sproul doesn’t have a clue as to how Catholics see this. We are the Bride. We are Mary. She shows us by example who we are to Christ. She in no way takes away from Christ anymore than a wife’s accomplishments and beauties take away from her husband’s! They are His glory!


Sufficiency of Christ’s Sacrifice

Dr. Sproul says that the entire problem with Catholicism is that we don’t believe in the sufficiency of Christ. That we depend on Mary and works etc. Well, we could reverse that on Protestants to make the same exact point. You Protestants, you do not believe in the sufficiency of Christ because you need the Bible and prayer and a born-again experience. You teach sola scriptura and sola fide--terms unknown to scripture. 

Dr. Sproul has definitively shown in this series that he has a preconceived and warped view of Catholicism. He was not giving the lectures to explain Catholicism but expose Catholicism’s evil theology. He was not fair nor accurate.

I hold no ill will towards him. I am just sorry that we continue to spread slander against each other within the Body of Christ. I beg you Lord our humble forgiveness. For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. 


I could spend a dozen posts showing you the Biblical support for the Marian Doctrines. But instead, please go to Catholic Answers website and they have an abundance of articles, tracts, books, radio shows, blogs and articles on the Marian Dogmas. 

_______________________________
The following is a compilation of some of the early Church fathers‘ writings about Mary that show the Catholic Church’s doctrines have a paper trail all the way back to the Apostolic age.


2nd Century

Justin Martyr (Mary compared to Eve)
"[Jesus] became man by the Virgin so that the course which was taken by disobedience in the beginning through the agency of the serpent might be also the very course by which it would be put down. Eve, a virgin and undefiled, conceived the word of the serpent and bore disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced to her the glad tidings that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her, for which reason the Holy One being born of her is the Son of God. And she replied ‘Be it done unto me according to your word’ [Luke 1:38]" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 100 [A.D. 155]). 
Irenaeus (Mary compared to Eve, Mother of God)
"Consequently, then, Mary the Virgin is found to be obedient, saying, ‘Behold, O Lord, your handmaid; be it done to me according to your word.’ Eve, however, was disobedient....was made the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race; so also Mary, betrothed to a man but nevertheless still a virgin, being obedient, was made the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race. . . . Thus, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith" (Against Heresies 3:22:24 [A.D. 189]). 
"Furthermore, the original deception was to be done away with—the deception by which that virgin Eve (who was already espoused to a man) was unhappily misled. That this was to be overturned was happily announced through means of the truth by the angel to the Virgin Mary (who was also [espoused] to a man). . . . So if Eve disobeyed God, yet Mary was persuaded to be obedient to God. In this way, the Virgin Mary might become the advocate of the virgin Eve. And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so it is rescued by a virgin. Virginal disobedience has been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience. For in the same way, the sin of the first created man received amendment by the correction of the First-Begotten" (ibid., 5:19:1 [A.D. 189]). 
"The Virgin Mary, being obedient to his word, received from an angel the glad tidings that she would bear God" (Against Heresies, 5:19:1 [A.D. 189]). 
 3rd Century
Tertullian
“It was while Eve was still a virgin that the word of the devil crept in to erect an edifice of death. Likewise through a virgin the Word of God was introduced to set up a structure of life. Thus what had been laid waste in ruin by this sex was by the same sex reestablished in salvation. Eve had believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel. That which the one destroyed by believing, the other, by believing, set straight" (The Flesh of Christ 17:4 [A.D. 210].   
Hippolytus (Mother of God)
"[T]o all generations they [the prophets] have pictured forth the grandest subjects for contemplation and for action. Thus, too, they preached of the advent of God in the flesh to the world, his advent by the spotless and God-bearing (theotokos) Mary in the way of birth and growth, and the manner of his life and conversation with men, and his manifestation by baptism, and the new birth that was to be to all men, and the regeneration by the laver [of baptism]" (Discourse on the End of the World 1 [A.D. 217]).                                       
Origen
"The Book [the Protoevangelium] of James [records] that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end, so that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word . . . might not know intercourse with a man after the Holy Spirit came into her and the power from on high overshadowed her. And I think it in harmony with reason that Jesus was the firstfruit among men of the purity which consists in [perpetual] chastity, and Mary was       women. For it were not pious to ascribe to any other than to her the firstfruit of virginity" (Commentary on Matthew 2:17 [A.D. 248]). 
Gregory the Wonderworker
"For Luke, in the inspired Gospel narratives, delivers a testimony not to Joseph only, but also to Mary, the Mother of God, and gives this account with reference to the very family and house of David" (Four Homilies 1 [A.D. 262]). 
"It is our duty to present to God, like sacrifices, all the festivals and hymnal celebrations; and first of all, [the feast of] the Annunciation to the holy Mother of God, to wit, the salutation made to her by the angel, ‘Hail, full of grace!’" (ibid., 2). 

4th Century 
Pseudo-Melito (The Assumption of Mary)
"If therefore it might come to pass by the power of your grace, it has appeared right to us your servants that, as you, having overcome death, do reign in glory, so you should raise up the body of your Mother and take her with you, rejoicing, into heaven. Then said the Savior [Jesus]: ‘Be it done according to your will’" (The Passing of the Virgin 16:2–17 [A.D. 300]).
Methodius
"While the old man [Simeon] was thus exultant, and rejoicing with exceeding great and holy joy, that which had before been spoken of in a figure by the prophet Isaiah, the holy Mother of God now manifestly fulfilled" (Oration on Simeon and Anna 7 [A.D. 305]). 
"Hail to you forever, you virgin Mother of God, our unceasing joy, for unto you do I again return. . . . Hail, you fount of the Son’s love for man. . . . Wherefore, we pray you, the most excellent among women, who boast in the confidence of your maternal honors, that you would unceasingly keep us in remembrance. O holy Mother of God, remember us, I say, who make our boast in you, and who in august hymns celebrate your memory, which will ever live, and never fade away" (ibid., 14). 
Peter of Alexandria
"They came to the church of the most blessed Mother of God, and ever-virgin Mary, which, as we began to say, he had constructed in the western quarter, in a suburb, for a cemetery of the martyrs" (The Genuine Acts of Peter of Alexandria [A.D. 305]). 
"We acknowledge the resurrection of the dead, of which Jesus Christ our Lord became the firstling; he bore a body not in appearance but in truth derived from Mary the Mother of God" (Letter to All Non-Egyptian Bishops 12 [A.D. 324]).
Cyril of Jerusalem
"The Father bears witness from heaven to his Son. The Holy Spirit bears witness, coming down bodily in the form of a dove. The archangel Gabriel bears witness, bringing the good tidings to Mary. The Virgin Mother of God bears witness" (Catechetical Lectures 10:19 [A.D. 350]).  
Ephraim the Syrian
"Though still a virgin she carried a child in her womb, and the handmaid and work of his wisdom became the Mother of God" (Songs of Praise 1:20 [A.D. 351]). 
Hilary of Poitiers
"If they [the brethren of the Lord] had been Mary’s sons and not those taken from Joseph’s former marriage, she would never have been given over in the moment of the passion [crucifixion] to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each, ‘Woman, behold your son,’ and to John, ‘Behold your mother’ [John 19:26–27), as he bequeathed filial love to a disciple as a consolation to the one desolate" (Commentary on Matthew 1:4 [A.D. 354]). 
Athanasius
"Let those, therefore, who deny that the Son is by nature from the Father and proper to his essence deny also that he took true human flesh from the ever-virgin Mary" (Discourses Against the Arians 2:70 [A.D. 360]). 
"The Word begotten of the Father from on high, inexpressibly, inexplicably, incomprehensibly, and eternally, is he that is born in time here below of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God" (The Incarnation of the Word of God 8 [A.D. 365]). 
Ephraim the Syrian
"You alone and your Mother are more beautiful than any others, for there is no blemish in you nor any stains upon your Mother. Who of my children can compare in beauty to these?" (Nisibene Hymns 27:8 [A.D. 361]). 
Epiphanius of Salamis
"Being perfect at the side of the Father and incarnate among us, not in appearance but in truth, he [the Son] reshaped man to perfection in himself from Mary the Mother of God through the Holy Spirit" (The Man Well-Anchored 75 [A.D. 374]).
"And to holy Mary, [the title] ‘Virgin’ is invariably added, for that holy woman remains undefiled" (Medicine Chest Against All Heresies 78:6 [A.D. 375]). 
Gregory of Nazianz
"If anyone does not agree that holy Mary is Mother of God, he is at odds with the Godhead" (Letter to Cledonius the Priest 101 [A.D. 382]). 
Jerome 
"We believe that God was born of a virgin, because we read it. We do not believe that Mary was married after she brought forth her Son, because we do not read it. . . . You [Helvidius] say that Mary did not remain a virgin. As for myself, I claim that Joseph himself was a virgin, through Mary, so that a virgin Son might be born of a virginal wedlock." (Against Helvidius: The Perpetual Virginity of Mary 19, 21 [A.D. 383]).  
"As to how a virgin became the Mother of God, he [Rufinus] has full knowledge; as to how he himself was born, he knows nothing" (Against Rufinus 2:10 [A.D. 401]). 
"Do not marvel at the novelty of the thing, if a Virgin gives birth to God" (Commentaries on Isaiah 3:7:15 [A.D. 409]). 
Didymus the Blind
"It helps us to understand the terms ‘first-born’ and ‘only-begotten’ when the Evangelist tells that Mary remained a virgin ‘until she brought forth her first-born son’ [Matt. 1:25]; for neither did Mary, who is to be honored and praised above all others, marry anyone else, nor did she ever become the Mother of anyone else, but even after childbirth she remained always and forever an immaculate virgin" (The Trinity 3:4 [A.D. 386]). 
Ambrose of Milan
"Mary’s life should be for you a pictorial image of virginity. Her life is like a mirror reflecting the face of chastity and the form of virtue. Therein you may find a model for your own life . . . showing what to improve, what to imitate, what to hold fast to" (The Virgins 2:2:6 [A.D. 377]). 
"The first thing which kindles ardor in learning is the greatness of the teacher. What is greater [to teach by example] than the Mother of God? What more glorious than she whom Glory Itself chose? What more chaste than she who bore a body without contact with another body? For why should I speak of her other virtues? She was a virgin not only in body but also in mind, who stained the sincerity of its disposition by no guile, who was humble in heart, grave in speech, prudent in mind, sparing of words, studious in reading, resting her hope not on uncertain riches, but on the prayer of the poor, intent on work, modest in discourse; wont to seek not man but God as the judge of her thoughts, to injure no one, to have goodwill towards all, to rise up before her elders, not to envy her equals, to avoid boastfulness, to follow reason, to love virtue. When did she pain her parents even by a look? When did she disagree with her neighbors? When did she despise the lowly? When did she avoid the needy?" (ibid., 2:2:7). 
"The first thing which kindles ardor in learning is the greatness of the teacher. What is greater than the Mother of God? What more glorious than she whom Glory Itself chose?" (The Virgins 2:2[7] [A.D. 377]). 
"Come, then, and search out your sheep, not through your servants or hired men, but do it yourself. Lift me up bodily and in the flesh, which is fallen in Adam. Lift me up not from Sarah but from Mary, a virgin not only undefiled, but a virgin whom grace had made inviolate, free of every stain of sin" (Commentary on Psalm 118:22–30 [A.D. 387]). 
"Imitate her [Mary], holy mothers, who in her only dearly beloved Son set forth so great an example of material virtue; for neither have you sweeter children [than Jesus], nor did the Virgin seek the consolation of being able to bear another son" (Letters 63:111 [A.D. 388]).
Pope Siricius I
"You had good reason to be horrified at the thought that another birth might issue from the same virginal womb from which Christ was born according to the flesh. For the Lord Jesus would never have chosen to be born of a virgin if he had ever judged that she would be so incontinent as to contaminate with the seed of human intercourse the birthplace of the Lord’s body, that court of the eternal king" (Letter to Bishop Anysius [A.D. 392]). 
Augustine
"Besides, there is a great mystery here: that just as death comes to us through a woman, life is born to us through a woman; that the devil, defeated, would be tormented by each nature, feminine and masculine, as he had taken delight in the defection of both" (Christian Combat 22:24 [A.D. 396]). 

5th Century 
Timothy of Jerusalem
"Therefore the Virgin is immortal to this day, seeing that he who had dwelt in her transported her to the regions of her assumption" (Homily on Simeon and Anna [A.D. 400]).  
John the Theologian
"[T]he Lord said to his Mother, ‘Let your heart rejoice and be glad, for every favor and every gift has been given to you from my Father in heaven and from me and from the Holy Spirit. Every soul that calls upon your name shall not be ashamed, but shall find mercy and comfort and support and confidence, both in the world that now is and in that which is to come, in the presence of my Father in the heavens’" (The Falling Asleep of Mary [A.D. 400]).
Augustine
"That one woman is both mother and virgin, not in spirit only but even in body. In spirit she is mother, not of our head, who is our Savior himself—of whom all, even she herself, are rightly called children of the bridegroom—but plainly she is the mother of us who are his members, because by love she has cooperated so that the faithful, who are the members of that head, might be born in the Church. In body, indeed, she is the Mother of that very head" (Holy Virginity 6:6 [A.D. 401]). 
"In being born of a Virgin who chose to remain a Virgin even before she knew who was to be born of her, Christ wanted to approve virginity rather than to impose it. And he wanted virginity to be of free choice even in that woman in whom he took upon himself the form of a slave" (Holy Virginity 4:4 [A.D. 401]).
"And from that time forth all knew that the spotless and precious body had been transferred to paradise" (ibid.).  
Theodore of Mopsuestia
"When, therefore, they ask, ‘Is Mary mother of man or Mother of God?’ we answer, ‘Both!’ The one by the very nature of what was done and the other by relation" (The Incarnation 15 [A.D. 405])
"It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?" (Sermons 186:1 [A.D. 411]). 
"Having excepted the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, on account of the honor of the Lord, I wish to have absolutely no question when treating of sins—for how do we know what abundance of grace for the total overcoming of sin was conferred upon her, who merited to conceive and bear him in whom there was no sin?—so, I say, with the exception of the Virgin, if we could have gathered together all those holy men and women, when they were living here, and had asked them whether they were without sin, what do we suppose would have been their answer?" (Nature and Grace 36:42 [A.D. 415]). 
"Heretics called Antidicomarites are those who contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary and affirm that after Christ was born she was joined as one with her husband" (Heresies 56 [A.D. 428]). 
Leporius
"We confess, therefore, that our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, born of the Father before the ages, and in times most recent, made man of the Holy Spirit and the ever-virgin Mary" (Document of Amendment 3 [A.D. 426]).  
John Cassian
"Now, you heretic, you say (whoever you are who deny that God was born of the Virgin), that Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, cannot be called the Mother of God, but the Mother only of Christ and not of God—for no one, you say, gives birth to one older than herself. And concerning this utterly stupid argument . . . let us prove by divine testimonies both that Christ is God and that Mary is the Mother of God" (On the Incarnation of Christ Against Nestorius 2:2 [A.D. 429]).  
Cyril of Alexandria
"I have been amazed that some are utterly in doubt as to whether or not the holy Virgin is able to be called the Mother of God. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how should the holy Virgin who bore him not be the Mother of God?" (Letter to the Monks of Egypt 1 [A.D. 427]). 
"This was the sentiment of the holy Fathers; therefore they ventured to call the holy Virgin ‘the Mother of God,’ “ (First Letter to Nestorius [A.D. 430]). 
"If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the holy Virgin is the Mother of God, inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [John 1:14]: let him be anathema" (ibid.)
"[T]he Word himself, coming into the Blessed Virgin herself, assumed for himself his own temple from the substance of the Virgin...Therefore he kept his Mother a virgin even after her childbearing" (Against Those Who Do Not Wish to Confess That the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God 4 [A.D. 430]).  
Council of Ephesus
"We confess, then, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and a body, begotten before all ages from the Father in his Godhead, the same in the last days, for us and for our salvation, born of Mary the Virgin according to his humanity, one and the same consubstantial with the Father in Godhead and consubstantial with us in humanity, for a union of two natures took place. Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be the Mother of God because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple he took from her" (Formula of Union [A.D. 431]). 

Pope Leo I
"His [Christ’s] origin is different, but his [human] nature is the same. Human usage and custom were lacking, but by divine power a Virgin conceived, a Virgin bore, and Virgin she remained" (Sermons 22:2 [A.D. 450]). 

6th Century
Gregory of Tours (Assumption of Mary)
"The course of this life having been completed by blessed Mary, when now she would be called from the world, all the apostles came together from their various regions to her house. And when they had heard that she was about to be taken from the world, they kept watch together with her. And behold, the Lord Jesus came with his angels, and, taking her soul, he gave it over to the angel Michael and withdrew. At daybreak, however, the apostles took up her body on a bier and placed it in a tomb, and they guarded it, expecting the Lord to come. And behold, again the Lord stood by them; the holy body having been received, he commanded that it be taken in a cloud into paradise, where now, rejoined to the soul, [Mary’s body] rejoices with the Lord’s chosen ones and is in the enjoyment of the good of an eternity that will never end" (Eight Books of Miracles 1:4 [A.D. 584]). 
"But Mary, the glorious Mother of Christ, who is believed to be a virgin both before and after she bore him, has, as we said above, been translated into paradise, amid the singing of the angelic choirs, whither the Lord preceded her" (ibid., 1:8). 
















Dr. Sproul, Roman Catholicism Series, Lecture 4 "Sacraments" by Teresa Beem

I am trying hard not to be emotional as I write. But Dr. Sproul had a prayer at the beginning of the lecture that asked divine help to be “fair and accurate” with presenting Catholic doctrine. He was neither fair nor accurate. 

Okay to it

Let me start with some worldview differences that Dr. Sproul either doesn’t understand or refuses to use when explaining Catholic beliefs.

Different Sources
Protestants go back to the Bible to form their worldview and create their theology. When confused, they pray and study in order to correctly interpret the written Word of God. The written Word is directly their source.

The source of Catholics dogma is not scripture. They use God’s written Word to support their theology, but it is directly sourced from the teachings of Christ--what He said, what they heard which came forth from His mouth. The early church heard the words of Christ and passed them down. The oral Word of God is supported by the written word, it is not the source of Catholic dogma. 


Contemporary subjects like contraception, cloning and euthanasia, not directly spoken about by Christ, is another matter. The church sees them as fitting under the umbrella of what Christ said was a sin. So the church does go beyond the explicit words of God and as a body rules these things to be sin because they fit into the already stated category of dogma. Dogmas can never be changed. They are truths on faith and morals that are considered infallible. (That is why abortion, same-sex marriage and a male priesthood can never be changed by the church or any pope. They are dogma or what Christ taught.)

For church disciplines, where Christ did not directly speak about a subject, the church interprets what God spoke both in the oral and written word. But disciples are not infallible and can change according to the time. (An unmarried priesthood is one of these church disciplines. Pope Francis could change that anytime the evidence shows it is necessary.)

So the church today can derive a new discipline based on scripture (such as declaring a day of fasting and prayer). But dogmas and doctrines come directly from the entire oral Word of God, which was later, in part, written down.

So when Dr. Sproul says that the Catholics decided on seven sacraments and the Protestants two, the Catholics would be horrified by that statement. For the forty days after Christ’s resurrection He taught the Apostles more about the Kingdom of Heaven than what He was able before His death. “There are more things I wish to tell you that you are not able to bear now.” (John 16:12)

Jesus taught the seven sacraments during those forty days after the Resurrection. Catholics did not look to the scripture to try and figure out the sacraments through interpretation. I am not writing that Jesus called them sacraments nor did he say explicitly seven. 
More than likely, Jesus called the sacraments “mysteries” and explained how they brought grace. Jesus commanded these rites, perhaps without fully explaining them. The Apostles obeyed them and passed them on by electing leaders who would obey these rites after they left the area or died. 

As the years passed, the church came up with terms to describe the rites Jesus instituted. They went back to Church history and the early church Father's writings as well as scripture in order to find theological terms that might describe and explain the ancient practices. 

Like all dogmas and doctrines, as we obey God, profess them, teach them, experience them we find more and better ways of explaining them. Their meanings deepen. The Roman Church (much more than Eastern Church mentality) has always desired to clarify and define all these little nuances. 

In America, the Catholic Church attempts to use Bible proof texts, when speaking to Protestants because they want to engage them inside a Protestant worldview rather than insist they come into a Catholic worldview. But when Catholics use scripture, oftentimes Protestants assume that is their source, but it is not. The source of Catholic dogma was what Christ said personally to the Apostles, what they heard with their ears, not what they read.

To the lecture on Sacraments.

[One other note. The whole theology of sacraments is extra-biblical. There is no place in scripture that says Jesus gave us two or ten sacraments. So, if the idea to a Protestant is not Biblical, then why do they assume two?]


Definition of sacrament
Dr. Sproul didn’t give the Catholic definition so here it is. The sacraments are sacred signs producing grace; the outward sign of inward grace.

Think about this in this way: A ceremony of some type, some ritual or public agreement is necessary for something to be constituted a true marriage. The words, “I pronounce you man and wife” is the moment you are married. It is efficacious and necessary for a valid marriage. That is what a Catholic means when they say the sign (the verbal pronouncement) makes it so.


The Sacraments and the Early Church

The Christian church began observing these mysteries (later called sacraments) from the beginning. One way of proving this is through the early church writings. Second century bishop, Tertuallian gives us a glimpse because he wrote to some pagans refuting that the Christians had adopted the sacraments from Mithraism. 

The devil whose work it is to pervert the truth, who with idolatrous mysteries endeavors to imitate the realities of the divine sacraments. Some he himself sprinkles as though in token of faith and loyalty; he promises forgiveness of sins through baptism; and if my memory does not fail me marks his own soldiers with the sign of Mithra on their foreheads, commemorates an offering of bread, introduces a mock resurrection, and with the sword opens the way to the crown. Moreover has he not forbidden a second marriage to the supreme priest? He maintains also his virgins and his celibates (Tertullian, De paraescriptione haereticorum, 40:3-4).
Likewise [the Mithraists] honor the gods themselves by washings. Moreover, by carrying water around, and sprinkling it, they everywhere expiate country-seats, houses, temples, and whole cities: at all events, at the Apollinarian and Eleusinian games they are baptized; and they presume that the effect of their doing that is their regeneration and the remission of the penalties due to their perjuries (De Baptismo, ch. 5).
There are hundreds of quotes from the early fathers supporting the Catholic sacraments. I have 50 pages of them in pt. 12 font that is only a small portion of them. Later I will give a few more.

Last Rites/Extreme Unction 
Dr. Sproul gets the idea of Last Rites (Extreme Unction) wrong. The church has always had anointing of sick people. But since I don’t think anyone thinks that is a big deal, let me know if you want it explained and I will do a post on it.

Mortal/Grave Sins
Dr. Sproul defined a mortal sin as one that destroys justifying grace in the believer's soul. I looked in the Catechism and other places but could not find a Catholic source that used the term "justifying." Catholics say a mortal sin is one that kills grace. That may seem like I am being picky, but there might be people that think a sin of that type is an automatic ticket to hell. It is not. 


To explain a venial versus moral sin, here’s a parallel: Someone falls into a swimmin pool (like someone falling into sin). There may be someone who comes near a pool and kinda wonders what it will feel like jumping in. They are tempted. Then because they are peering over too much they accidentally fall in. That is not a grave sin. That is a venial sin. Or lets say a person behind them pushes them in. Again that is not a grave sin. A mortal sin has several preconditions: 1. It has to be a very serious sin--such as hating someone, abortion or murder or stealing or idolatry, etc. Not like telling a little white lie or feeling anger at someone when they don’t deserve it. 2. The person has a full and clear understanding that a sin is mortal and will kill grace. 3. With intent to sin, a person does something of their own free will.

A person accidentally becoming addicted to alcohol is not a moral sin, for they are not fully willing themselves to sin. But that doesn’t automatically get an alcoholic off. They must try and become sober. It is just not a sin that will cause you to loose grace. 
St. John tells us that there is a sin that causes death (or mortal sins). 

“If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that.” John 5: 16
And Christ said blasphemy won’t be forgiven, so there are  degrees of sin, some of them mortal sins. That is biblical.


The Eye of the Tornado
Dr. Sproul called Justification and Authority the eye of the tornado for the true difference between Protestants and Catholics. After I read the joint declaration between the Lutherans and Catholics on Justification a few years ago, I don’t think that the theology is near as different as the Church and Reformers thought. It is mostly semantics. So that is no longer a real difference. 
However I would totally agree that the eye of the storm is authority. 

However, because Dr. Sproul really hacked the Catholic doctrine on Justification, penance and merits to pieces, I need to clarify them.

Penance
R.C. Sproul again says the church instituted the sacrament of penance. No absolutely not. Christ instituted it. The church obeyed by doing it. Why this is so important a point to a Catholic is because it would be like a widow being accused of only knowing her husband through his memoirs. No, she didn’t get her information from a book but knowing him, living with him, having children with him.

Penance is very biblical. Israel did penance.

If an Israelite stole something, not only would he have to return it but he would have to add a fifth to it (penance) as well as then make a sacrifice of reparation.

Most sins break your relationships with two people: the one you sinned against and God. Both 
must be restored. There is also a two fold consequence--eternal (the life to come) and temporal (life here). If you were to steal something you would not only have to go to jail (temporal punishment), but ask forgiveness from God (eternal punishment). Since Christ paid our eternal punishment all that is required is to confess and repent to heal the eternal wound. All eternal consequences were paid for by the Cross. 

Penance is not about eternal consequences. Penance is about the temporal consequences to our sin. If you can’t repair the sin for some reason with your fellow man, then penance takes care of that for you. I know someone who stole something as a young man and they became so embarrassed the they never went back and faced the person and returned the item they stole. Many decades passed and the guilt returned and they tried to find the person to make amends, but he could never locate them. This man would need to do penance, not to satisfy his eternal punishment, but the temporal.

Penance is also for the purpose of spiritual discipline to help you not fall into that sin again. What if a young man confessed to his priest that he was having difficulties with pornography. For his penance (spiritual discipline) the priest might say that the young man should not turn on his computer without saying an "Our Father" prayer and to stop and kneel and pray it every time he was tempted. This is the point of penance, to become holy. It has nothing to do with satisfaction for eternal life. 

Indulgences
Dr. Sproul gave a very limited and poor explanation of indulgences, so if you wish to know more about that let me know and I will write another blog post. 

Merits
Catholics do not trust in their own merit. Nor do we have a certain number or volume we must attain to gain salvation. 
That is a complete misunderstanding of Catholic doctrine. In the second century, the technical Latin term for "merit" was introduced as a synonym for the Greek word for "reward." And the New Testament is replete with texts about merit/reward:
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you. Matt. 5: 12

For the Son of Man will come...and then He will reward each according to his works. Matt. 16: 27


I tell you, use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. In this way, your generosity stores up a reward for you in heaven. Luke 16: 9

For [God] will reward every man according to his works: to those who by perseverance in working good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. Rom. 2: 6-11

 There will be . . . glory and honor and peace for every one who does good. Gal. 6:6–10

And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Hebrews 11: 6

(See also Matt. 5:46; 6:1; 10:41; 20:8; 24: 46 see whole context, Mark 9:41, Luke 6:23, 35; 14:12; 19:17; 23: 41; John 4: 36-38; 12; 26)


Catholics do not believe that one must do good works to come to God and be saved. This is exactly the opposite of what the Church teaches. The Council of Trent stressed: "[N]one of those things which precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification; for if it is by grace, it is not now by works; otherwise, as the Apostle [Paul] says, grace is no more grace" (Decree on Justification 8, citing Rom. 11:6). 

From Catholic Answers:

“And the Catholic Church teaches only Christ is capable of meriting in the strict sense—mere man cannot (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2007). The most merit humans can have is condign—when, under the impetus of God’s grace, they perform acts which please him and which he has promised to reward (Rom. 2:6–11, Gal. 6:6–10). Thus God’s grace and his promise form the foundation for all human merit (CCC 2008). 
“Virtually all of this is agreed to by Protestants, who recognize that, under the impetus of God’s grace, Christians do perform acts which are pleasing to God and which God has promised to reward, meaning that they fit the definition of merit. When faced with this, Protestants are forced to admit the truth of the Catholic position—although, contrary to Paul’s command (2 Tim. 2:14), they may still dispute the terminology.  
“Thus the Lutheran Book of Concord admits: "We are not putting forward an empty quibble about the term ‘reward.’ . . . We grant that eternal life is a reward because it is something that is owed—not because of our merits [in the strict sense] but because of the promise [of God]. We have shown above that justification is strictly a gift of God; it is a thing promised. To this gift the promise of eternal life has been added" (p. 162). 
It all goes back to when you believe you are born-again, because all Christians know you must have good works after you have entered the family covenant with God and are His child. Both Catholics and Protestants believe you have good works after justification not to be justified.
The Early Church Fathers Quotes on Merits
So what did the early church believe about merits and rewards? Here's some quotes. (This is by no means a full list, only a selected few) 
Ignatius of Antioch"Be pleasing to him whose soldiers you are, and whose pay you receive. May none of you be found to be a deserter. Let your baptism be your armament, your faith your helmet, your love your spear, your endurance your full suit of armor. Let your works be as your deposited withholdings, so that you may receive the back-pay which has accrued to you" (Letter to Polycarp 6:2 [A.D. 110]). 
Justin Martyr"We have learned from the prophets and we hold it as true that punishments and chastisements and good rewards are distributed according to the merit of each man’s actions. Were this not the case, and were all things to happen according to the decree of fate, there would be nothing at all in our power. If fate decrees that this man is to be good and that one wicked, then neither is the former to be praised nor the latter to be blamed" (First Apology 43 [A.D. 151]. 
AthenagorasFor . . . the examination relates to individuals, and the reward or punishment of lives ill or well spent is proportioned to the merit of each." (The Resurrection of the Dead 25 [A.D. 178]). 
Theophilus of Antioch"He who gave the mouth for speech and formed the ears for hearing and made eyes for seeing will examine everything and will judge justly, granting recompense to each according to merit. To those who seek immortality by the patient exercise of good works [Rom. 2:7], he will give everlasting life, joy, peace, rest, and all good things, which neither eye has seen nor ear has heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man [1 Cor. 2:9]. For the unbelievers and the contemptuous and for those who do not submit to the truth but assent to iniquity . . . there will be wrath and indignation [Rom. 2:8]" (To Autolycus 1:14 [A.D. 181]).  
Irenaeus"[Paul], an able wrestler, urges us on in the struggle for immortality, so that we may receive a crown and so that we may regard as a precious crown that which we acquire by our own struggle and which does not grow upon us spontaneously. . . . Those things which come to us spontaneously are not loved as much as those which are obtained by anxious care" (Against Heresies 4:37:7 [A.D. 189]).  
Tertullian"Again, we [Christians] affirm that a judgment has been ordained by God according to the merits of every man" (To the Nations 19 [A.D. 195]).  
Lactantius"Let every one train himself to righteousness, mold himself to self-restraint, prepare himself for the contest, equip himself for virtue . . . [that he] may gain for himself incorruptible treasures by good works, that he may be able, with God for his judge, to gain for the merits of his virtue either the crown of faith, or the reward of immortality" (Epitome of the Divine Institutes 73 [A.D. 317]).  
Cyril of Jerusalem"The root of every good work is the hope of the resurrection, for the expectation of a reward nerves the soul to good work. Every laborer is prepared to endure the toils if he looks forward to the reward of these toils" (Catechetical Lectures 18:1 [A.D. 350]).  
Jerome"It is our task, according to our different virtues, to prepare for ourselves different rewards. . . ." (Against Jovinian 2:32 [A.D. 393]).   
Augustine"We are commanded to live righteously, and the reward is set before us of our meriting to live happily in eternity. But who is able to live righteously and do good works unless he has been justified by faith?" (Various Questions to Simplician 1:2:21 [A.D. 396]). 
"He bestowed forgiveness; the crown he will pay out. Of forgiveness he is the donor; of the crown, he is the debtor. Why debtor? Did he receive something? . . . The Lord made himself a debtor not by receiving something but by promising something. One does not say to him, ‘Pay for what you received,’ but ‘Pay what you promised’" (Explanations of the Psalms 83:16 [A.D. 405]).  
"What merits of his own has the saved to boast of when, if he were dealt with according to his merits, he would be nothing if not damned? Have the just then no merits at all? Of course they do, for they are the just. But they had no merits by which they were made just" (Letters 194:3:6 [A.D. 412]).  
"What merit, then, does a man have before grace, by which he might receive grace, when our every good merit is produced in us only by grace and when God, crowning our merits, crowns nothing else but his own gifts to us?" (ibid., 194:5:19).  
Council of Orange II"[G]race is preceded by no merits. A reward is due to good works, if they are performed, but grace, which is not due, precedes [good works], that they may be done" (Canons on grace 19 [A.D. 529]). 
These quotes perfectly express Catholicism's doctrine of merits today. 

Catholic Heaven and Protestant Heaven
Again the idea of heaven is different among Catholics and Protestants. American Catholics use the word heaven (life beyond the grave) in Protestant ways because that is the cultural norm and Catholics thought it unnecessary to always make the distinction. But technically the Catholics believe the Kingdom of Heaven begins at baptism for the believer. Catholics do not see the Second Coming as ushering in heaven. We are in heaven now when we are in the Catholic Church. We are preparing for the capitol city of Heaven (the New Jerusalem) to come down to earth and Christ will reign. Not to say Heaven will be restricted to a new earth, but the New Earth is a perfect earth 


The Catholic Church is not the completion of heaven but the seed, the beginning of heaven. What Catholics look forward to once they die to to be able to see Jesus face to face (the Beatific vision)--not a new place to reside. The Kingdom of Heaven came with Christ. Christ is coming again to receive His Kingdom, His Bride. Now instead of worrying about our eternal salvation Catholics are focused on preparing for the wedding feast when Christ comes and be coming that perfect, pure and spotless Bride.

We don’t earn merits for heaven because we are already there. We earn merits/rewards that we may share in His glory and help others share in God’s glory. This isn’t a matter of emphasis, it is a matter of definition. Catholics live in the Kingdom, in the eternal covenant, in the family. 


Treasury of Merits
Dr. Sproul does not understand the doctrine of the treasury of merits. He says the Protestants believe in an infinite treasury of the merits of Christ. That is exactly what Catholics believe.

I find it unbelievable when so much evidence is out there about what Catholics actually believe that a man as smart as Dr. Sproul will continue to repeat absolute lies about Catholic doctrine. It reminds me of Adventist professors... good men! Smart men who believe and repeat garbage and think it to be true. I just have to shake my head in disbelief.

The Lord’s Supper: the Real Presence and Sacrifice

Since this is getting so lengthy I will take this one sacrament--the Lord's Supper--and show how the early church fathers passed on the teachings of the Apostles and how they continue to be preached by the Catholics today. 

These quotes will specifically show the Catholic theology of the real presence of the Eucharist (the body and blood are not symbols, but mysteriously the true body of blood of the risen Christ). And these quotes will show how the early church saw the mass as a sacrifice of the Eucharist (a new covenant, bloodless sacrifice.)

1st Century
The Didache"Assemble on the Lord’s day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one. Anyone who has a difference with his fellow is not to take part with you until he has been reconciled, so as to avoid any profanation of your sacrifice [Matt. 5:23–24]. For this is the offering of which the Lord has said, ‘Everywhere and always bring me a sacrifice that is undefiled, for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is the wonder of nations’ [Mal. 1:11, 14]" (Didache 14 [A.D. 70]).  
Pope Clement I"Our sin will not be small if we eject from the episcopate those who blamelessly and holily have offered its sacrifices. Blessed are those presbyters who have already finished their course, and who have obtained a fruitful and perfect release" (Letter to the Corinthians 44:4–5 [A.D. 80]). 

2nd Century
Ignatius of Antioch"I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible" (Letter to the Romans 7:3 [A.D. 110]).  
"Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).  
"Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist; for there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with his Blood, and one single altar of sacrifice—even as there is also but one bishop, with his clergy and my own fellow servitors, the deacons. This will ensure that all your doings are in full accord with the will of God" (Letter to the Philadelphians 4 [A.D. 110]).  
Justin Martyr"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).  
"God speaks by the mouth of Malachi, one of the twelve [minor prophets], as I said before, about the sacrifices at that time presented by you: ‘I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I will not accept your sacrifices at your hands; for from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, my name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the Gentiles . . . [Mal. 1:10–11]. He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us [Christians] who in every place offer sacrifices to him, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and also the cup of the Eucharist" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 41 [A.D. 155]).  
Irenaeus"He took from among creation that which is bread, and gave thanks, saying, ‘This is my body.’ The cup likewise, which is from among the creation to which we belong, he confessed to be his blood. He taught the new sacrifice of the new covenant, of which Malachi, one of the twelve [minor] prophets, had signified beforehand: ‘You do not do my will, says the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept a sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice; for great is my name among the Gentiles, says the Lord Almighty’ [Mal. 1:10–11]. By these words he makes it plain that the former people will cease to make offerings to God; but that in every place sacrifice will be offered to him, and indeed, a pure one, for his name is glorified among the Gentiles" (Against Heresies 4:17:5 [A.D. 189]). "If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?" (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).  
Clement of Alexandria"’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children" (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]). 
3rd Century 
Tertullian“... the flesh feeds [in the Eucharist] on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God" (The Resurrection of the Dead 8 [A.D. 210]).  
Hippolytus"‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’ [Prov. 9:2] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper [i.e., the Last Supper]" (Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs [A.D. 217]) 
Origen"Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way . . . now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit. Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink’ [John 6:55]" (Homilies on Numbers 7:2 [A.D. 248]).  
Cyprian of Carthage
"He [Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, ‘Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. All these warnings being scorned and contemned—[lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord" (The Lapsed 15–16 [A.D. 251]).  

 "What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction" (ibid., 272). 
4th Century 
Cyril of Jerusalem"The bread and the wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, but the invocation having been made, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ" (Catechetical Lectures 19:7 [A.D. 350]).  
"Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by the faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy of the body and blood of Christ. . . . [Since you are] fully convinced that the apparent bread is not bread, even though it is sensible to the taste, but the body of Christ, and that the apparent wine is not wine, even though the taste would have it so, . . . partake of that bread as something spiritual, and put a cheerful face on your soul" (ibid., 22:6, 9). "Then, having sanctified ourselves by these spiritual hymns, we beseech the merciful God to send forth his Holy Spirit upon the gifts lying before him, that he may make the bread the Body of Christ and the wine the Blood of Christ, for whatsoever the Holy Spirit has touched is surely sanctified and changed. Then, upon the completion of the spiritual sacrifice, the bloodless worship, over that propitiatory victim we call upon God for the common peace of the churches, for the welfare of the world, for kings, for soldiers and allies, for the sick, for the afflicted; and in summary, we all pray and offer this sacrifice for all who are in need" (Catechetical Lectures 23:7–8 [A.D. 350]).  
Ambrose of Milan"Perhaps you may be saying, ‘I see something else; how can you assure me that I am receiving the body of Christ?’ It but remains for us to prove it. And how many are the examples we might use! . . . Christ is in that sacrament, because it is the body of Christ" (The Mysteries 9:50, 58 [A.D. 390]). "We saw the prince of priests coming to us, we saw and heard him offering his blood for us. We follow, inasmuch as we are able, being priests, and we offer the sacrifice on behalf of the people. Even if we are of but little merit, still, in the sacrifice, we are honorable. Even if Christ is not now seen as the one who offers the sacrifice, nevertheless it is he himself that is offered in sacrifice here on Earth when the body of Christ is offered. Indeed, to offer himself he is made visible in us, he whose word makes holy the sacrifice that is offered" (Commentaries on Twelve Psalms of David 38:25 [A.D. 389]).  
Serapion"Accept therewith our hallowing too, as we say, ‘Holy, holy, holy Lord Sabaoth, heaven and earth is full of your glory.’ Heaven is full, and full is the earth, with your magnificent glory, Lord of virtues. Full also is this sacrifice, with your strength and your communion; for to you we offer this living sacrifice, this unbloody oblation" (Prayer of the Eucharistic Sacrifice 13:12–16 [A.D. 350]).  
Gregory Nazianzen"Cease not to pray and plead for me when you draw down the Word by your word, when in an unbloody cutting you cut the Body and Blood of the Lord, using your voice for a sword" (Letter to Amphilochius 171 [A.D. 383]). 

John Chrysostom
"When you see the Lord immolated and lying upon the altar, and the priest bent over that sacrifice praying, and all the people empurpled by that precious blood, can you think that you are still among men and on earth? Or are you not lifted up to heaven?" (The Priesthood 3:4:177 [A.D. 387]). 
"Reverence, therefore, reverence this table, of which we are all communicants! Christ, slain for us, the sacrificial victim who is placed thereon!" (Homilies on Romans 8:8 [A.D. 391]).  

"‘The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not communion of the blood of Christ?’ Very trustworthy and awesomely does he [Paul] say it. For what he is saying is this: What is in the cup is that which flowed from his side, and we partake of it. He called it a cup of blessing because when we hold it in our hands that is how we praise him in song, wondering and astonished at his indescribable gift, blessing him because of his having poured out this very gift so that we might not remain in error; and not only for his having poured it out, but also for his sharing it with all of us. ‘If therefore you desire blood,’ he [the Lord] says, ‘do not redden the platform of idols with the slaughter of dumb beasts, but my altar of sacrifice with my blood.’ What is more awesome than this? What, pray tell, more tenderly loving?" (Homilies on First Corinthians 24:1(3) [A.D. 392]).  

"In ancient times, because men were very imperfect, God did not scorn to receive the blood which they were offering . . . to draw them away from those idols; and this very thing again was because of his indescribable, tender affection. But now he has transferred the priestly action to what is most awesome and magnificent. He has changed the sacrifice itself, and instead of the butchering of dumb beasts, he commands the offering up of himself" (ibid., 24:2). 
5th Century
John Chrysostom
"What then? Do we not offer daily? Yes, we offer, but making remembrance of his death; and this remembrance is one and not many. How is it one and not many? Because this sacrifice is offered once, like that in the Holy of Holies. This sacrifice is a type of that, and this remembrance a type of that. We offer always the same, not one sheep now and another tomorrow, but the same thing always. Thus there is one sacrifice. By this reasoning, since the sacrifice is offered everywhere, are there, then, a multiplicity of Christs? By no means! Christ is one everywhere. He is complete here, complete there, one body. And just as he is one body and not many though offered everywhere, so too is there one sacrifice" (Homilies on Hebrews 17:3(6) [A.D. 403]).  
Theodore of Mopsuestia
"When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood’; for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements] after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit not according to their nature, but receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord. We ought . . . not regard [the elements] merely as bread and cup, but as the body and blood of the Lord, into which they were transformed by the descent of the Holy Spirit" (Catechetical Homilies 5:1 [A.D. 405]).  
Augustine
"Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body’ [Matt. 26:26]. For he carried that body in his hands" (Explanations of the Psalms 33:1:10 [A.D. 405]). 
"I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ" (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]). 
"In the sacrament he is immolated for the people not only on every Easter Solemnity but on every day; and a man would not be lying if, when asked, he were to reply that Christ is being immolated. For if sacraments had not a likeness to those things of which they are sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all; and they generally take the names of those same things by reason of this likeness" (Letters 98:9 [A.D. 412]). 
"For when he says in another book, which is called Ecclesiastes, ‘There is no good for a man except that he should eat and drink’ [Eccles. 2:24], what can he be more credibly understood to say [prophetically] than what belongs to the participation of this table which the Mediator of the New Testament himself, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, furnishes with his own body and blood? For that sacrifice has succeeded all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, which were slain as a shadow of what was to come. . . . Because, instead of all these sacrifices and oblations, his body is offered and is served up to the partakers of it" (The City of God 17:20 [A.D. 419]). 
Council of Ephesus
"We will necessarily add this also. Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the unbloody sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Savior of us all. And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and associated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his flesh, he made it also to be life-giving" (Session 1, Letter of Cyril to Nestorius [A.D. 431]). 
Sechnall of Ireland
"[St. Patrick] proclaims boldly to the [Irish] tribes the name of the Lord, to whom he gives the eternal grace of the laver of salvation; for their offenses he prays daily unto God; for them also he offers up to God worthy sacrifices" (Hymn in Praise of St. Patrick 13 [A.D. 444]). 
6th Century 
Fulgentius of Ruspe

"Hold most firmly and never doubt in the least that the only-begotten God the Word himself became flesh [and] offered himself in an odor of sweetness as a sacrifice and victim to God on our behalf; to whom . . . in the time of the Old Testament animals were sacrificed by the patriarchs and prophets and priests; and to whom now, I mean in the time of the New Testament . . . the holy Catholic Church does not cease in faith and love to offer throughout all the lands of the world a sacrifice of bread and wine. In those former sacrifices what would be given us in the future was signified figuratively, but in this sacrifice which has now been given us is shown plainly. In those former sacrifices it was fore-announced that the Son of God would be killed for the impious, but in the present sacrifice it is announced that he has been killed for the impious" (The Rule of Faith 62 [A.D. 524]).

I can furnish these types of quotes from the early church fathers on all the sacraments as well as Bible texts that support each sacrament. Please let me know if you would like me to. 


One more short comment. Dr. Sproul spoke about the dividing of God's human nature and body as being in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the risen body of Christ, not the human body.

Thank you for reading and God bless you.

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