The Catholic View of the World
There are three basic world-views: Materialism, Spiritualism, and Judeo-Christianity.
Materialism is the view that all that there is, is the material world. There is no spiritual world, nothing beyond the physical. Of course, this is the view of atheists. They do not believe that anything exists beyond matter.
Spiritualism is the opposite extreme. It believes that all that exists is the spiritual. Usually this is the belief of the Eastern religions. Whereas materialists are atheists, spiritualists tend to be pantheists. “Pantheism” comes from the word “pan”, meaning “all”, and “theism” meaning “God”. It is the belief that everything is God. The material world is either just an illusion, irrelevant, or evil. The
In between these two views, there is the Judeo-Christian worldview. This world view sees that the world consists of BOTH the spiritual and the material.
Obviously this view sees that there is more to the world than just the material. It sees that the world is filled with angels and demons. It sees that a person has a soul. When he dies, his essence continues apart from his body. And most of all, this view believes in God, the Supreme Being without a physical body who cannot be seen but is there. As the Bible says, we walk by faith and not by sight. There is more to this world than what we can merely see.
But the Judeo-Christian view sees not only the spiritual realm but the physical realm as well. God created everything and said it was good (Genesis 1). The Israelites placed the Ten Commandments in an
The reason this is so important to understand is that in so many ways Protestants have a misunderstanding of the beliefs and practices of Catholics. They see it as silly superstition and carry-over from paganism. But that is not true at all. It is based on what is taught in the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments.
The Sacraments
The Catholic definition of a sacrament is an outward sign of an inward act of grace. God actually caused the grace to happen to the believer of what the physical sign is supposed to symbolize. The Protestant has a difficulty understanding this. Why should God need a physical matter to give us His grace? Why can’t He just give us His grace directly?
God does not need the material things to give us His grace, anymore than He needed to become man in order to save us. He did not need to die on the cross to save. And He could have just been raised spiritually instead of physically from the grave. But God chose to do it this way because it just pleased Him to do it this way. He did not have to. But He saw this as a fitting way to save us. So the sacrament does not mean that God has to bestow this grace on us through a certain matter. He just deemed this fitting to be done this way. In the Old Testament, the prophet Essias told the leper king to dunk himself in the river
Also, God is not bound to the sacraments. God is infinite in his mercy, and if He had chooses to give grace to someone apart from the sacraments, who is going to stop Him? This is why the Catholic Church sees many non-Catholics in heaven – Protestants, Jews, Muslims, etc. God looks at the heart, and could give His grace to someone who is sincerely ignorant of the importance of the sacraments but still loves God and seeks to please Him. So we Catholics are not judging anyone as not experiencing the grace of God unless they receive it through the sacraments.
The physical, outward sign is the dunking our sprinkling of water. This symbolizes us being cleansed from our past sins. God actually cleanses us from our sins through the use of physical water. This cleansing means we are then children of God. If we died at that time, we would go straight to heaven. This is supported in scripture.
20 who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water.
21 And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
1 Peter 3
The Bible clearly states that we are saved by baptism. Some would argue that this is not referring to water baptism, but to a spiritual baptism when we accept Christ into our lives. They would argue that there are two baptisms, water baptism and spiritual baptism, and this passage is not about water baptism. But in verse 20, Peter linked this baptism that saves us with Noah and water, so clearly Peter meant water baptism. He writes that just the eight people were saved through water, so does baptism now save us.
Communion
Baptism gets us started, but the Eucharist is necessary for continuing in the grace of God for the Catholic. The physical matter is, of courses, the bread and wine. They symbolize the body and blood of Christ. It may shock some Protestants to know that we Catholics do in fact believe that the bread and wine symbolize the body and blood of Christ. What we disagree with our Protestant brothers and sisters over is when they say that the bread and wine ONLY symbolizes Christ’s body and blood. The Eucharist is a sign and it actually is what it is a sign of.
Confession
Confessing our sins to a priest is an outward sign of confessing our sins to God. When the priest says the words to absolve us, this symbolizes God absolving us of our sins. But this is NOT ONLY a symbol. It is far more than that. It is a sacrament. And as a sacrament, it actually is what it signifies. So when the priest speaks the words of absolution, God actually absolves us.
22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, `Receive the Holy Spirit.
23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'
John 20
In verse 22, Jesus breathes on them and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit. Obviously something mystical is going on here. They are receiving some sort of gift from the Holy Spirit. In verse 23, Jesus makes it clear. They are given the charism to forgive sin. Only God can forgives sins, and He can delegate this authority to anyone He so chooses. Jesus, being God in the flesh, so chose this.
Some would argue that only God can forgive sins, citing Luke 5:21, 22. But certainly this verse does not mean that God CANNOT delegate this authority to someone else if He chooses. Who would be able to stop Him if He did choose to do this? And the verse in John is saying that God does choose to impart this onto His apostles. Whatever sins they forgive will be forgiven.
Confirmation
27 As for you, the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and so you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, abide in him
1 John 2
The outward sign is the anointing of oil on the forehead by the bishop. Again, as a sacrament, it symbolizes and it actually does what it symbolizes. In the Bible, the anointing of oil symbolizes the grace of God being on someone to serve God faithfully. The word “Christ” actually means “Anointed One”. Jesus was commission, or anointed, by the Father to save the world. In the same way, when we are confirmed, we are strengthened in our faith to serve God loyally.
Marriage
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word,
27 so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.
28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Ephesians 5
Marriage is a symbol of Christ’s union to His church. But just because it symbolizes our union to Christ, that does not mean that the man and woman are not actually united as well. Again, what the marriage act symbolizes actually is done to the man and woman.
Although the Bible does mention husbands and wives, and how they should relate to each other, nowhere does it actually spell out what a man and a woman must do to be married. There is no mention of an exchange of vows needed or that a man of the cloth must pronounce them man and wife or that weddings rings must be exchanged. These are all part of tradition. So it seems to me inconsistent that Christians who believe that every single belief and practice must be supported in the Bible and yet they have marriage ceremonies where nothing that is done is supported in the Bible.
Holy Orders
6 They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
Acts 6
The priest or bishop enters into the order by the laying on hands. The laying on of hands is mentioned several times when a person is commission for special service to God. This is how we get apostolic succession. The apostles laid hands on their disciples, who then became bishops. Those bishops would lay hands on others. And so on. And so on.
The priest or bishop also gets married, but his marriage is to His Church. The priest is a sign of Christ, the Bridegroom of the Church. Since the priest is a sign of Christ, the priest would always have to be a man. There will never be a female priest, not in the Catholic Church. To allow a female priest would be to confuse the gender of Christ. Pope John Paul II said very explicitly that the Church could never allow women to be priests. This has nothing to do with the Church being run by a club of male chauvinists. If that was the case, the Church would not venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary. A bunch of male chauvinists would not have canonized so many women as saints, and even make some to be Doctors of the Church. No, the reason that the Church does not allow women priests is because the priest is a type of Christ. And as Christ was fully a man, the priest must be a man. In the upper room, Jesus only gave charge to his apostles to perform Holy Communion. His mother was not there, and Mary Magdalene was not there. If the gender was not an issue for Him, He would have had them there.
Not only that, but the priest being a symbol of Christ is also why the priest is to be celibate. Jesus was celibate, and so it is fitting that the priest should be celibate as well. Protestants accuse the Catholic Church of forbidding marriage, which is condemned in the Bible. But the Church is not forbidding anyone to marry, because no one is obligated to become a priest. If a man does not think he can be a celibate, he then should not become a priest. Being a priest is not a right, but a calling.
Anointing of the Sick
James 5
This used to be called Extreme Unction, but the Church changed its name. Oil soothes a person, and so oil symbolizes the healing of God. And since a sacrament actually does what it symbolizes, God actually brings on a healing when the sick or dying is anointed, either physically or spiritually.
Sacramentals
Although they sound similar there is a difference – sacraments must be supported in the Bible, sacramentals do not. A sacramental is a physical object that conveys some sort of blessing, healing, or grace from God. A sacramental is the brown scapular, the miraculous medal, holy water, blessed salt, the water from the river at
Sacramentals are not based on silly pagan superstitions. These are based on the Bible. It is not that these objects have special power; the power comes from God alone. When Jesus applied the mud on the blind man and the man was then healed, this did not imply at all that there was any power in the mud! The power is totally within Jesus Christ! The use of mud was strictly arbitrary. He could have chosen to heal the blind man with milk instead! Or He could have just touched Him with His hand! Or not even that! He could have just said “Be ye healed”! Or not even that! He could have just willed it, and he would have been healed! There is an infinite number of ways He could have chosen. But He chose, in this instance, to heal him by spitting on mud and applying it to the man’s eyes. He could have chosen any other way. He is God. He can do what He wants.
So when a Catholic wears a miraculous medal, or uses blessed salt, he is not doing so because he believes that these objects have special powers. His faith is not in the objects, but in God who has promised us to bless us through these objects (these promises are not in the Bible but in Tradition, which I had discussed elsewhere way of God revealing His truth to us). A Catholic wearing a miraculous is sign that he trust in God.
Mary the mother of God
Many Protestants would argue that Mary is not the mother of God. But how can this be? If Jesus is God then Mary must be the mother of God. But many say this is not the case. They say that Mary is only the mother of the human nature of Jesus, and not His divine nature.
This is holding onto the spiritualistic, Gnostic view of the world, separating the spiritual from the physical. But if you look closely to this, it just does make sense. Mary was not the mother to a human nature, she was a mother to a person – the person of Jesus Christ. It is doubtful that Jesus addressed Mary as the mother of his human nature. No, she was his mother. The Bible referred to Mary as his mother, not as the mother of his nature (Luke 8:19, John 2:1, 5, 12, 19:25, Matthew 1:18, Acts 1:14).
Calling Mary only the mother of Jesus’ human nature leads to a wrong view of the Incarnation, the Cross, and the Resurrection of Christ. If Mary can be thought of being only the mother of the human nature of Jesus, then the Incarnation is not the fullness of Deity dwelling in bodily form. Then that means that God did not suffer and die, only His human nature did. And since God did not die, then the Cross would not be sufficient for the atonement of our sins.
We need to get back to the wholistic view of God. True, Mary only gave birth to Jesus’ body, His soul pre-existed from throughout eternity in the bosom of the mother. But that does not mean that Mary was not Jesus’ actual mother. After all, only our bodies come from our parents, our souls come from God. That does not prevent us from calling them our parents. And true, Jesus died in His human nature. But still it was the person Jesus who died. And since Jesus is fully God, it can be said that God suffered and died for our sins.
Secularism
Although people in the Middle Ages saw a difference between a calling into the Religious life and being called into the secular life, they did not see a separation between religion and secularism as we do today. Today they are totally separated, with the secular predominating society. This was not the case in the Middle Ages, where Christianity permeated every aspect of society. The cathedral was the largest building and in the center of town, and each home had a crucifix which was a reminder that they belonged to God.
Christianity started science. People were too busy providing for their families, so this was something that only monks and priests could do. Cathedrals were not only beautiful, but were also used as observatories. The people in religious orders were the ones who laid the groundwork that made the work of Gallileo,
Art was done for the glory of God. Artists were employed to create the magnificent architecture of the cathedrals, the statues, and the religious paintings. Music was primarily created to worship God. Writings were done primarily for a religious motive – such as Dante’s Divine Comedy. The best seller at that time was The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a’ Kempis. Monks even preserved for us the writings of the pre-Christian classical period, such as Aristotle and Plato, because they believed that all truth came from God, even if the writers were not Christian.
The government was ruled by kings and eventually the emperor. But there was a check and balance which made the idea of a modern dictatorship a completely alien idea to them back then – and that was the Catholic Church, personified mostly in the pope, served as a conscience to the rulers. The Church stayed out of the affairs of the civil rulers unless these rulers committed a great evil. Only then did the Church speak out. And in those times, the ruler usually paid attention. There were at least two times that the Church excommunicated a ruler for killing his own citizens, and in both cases the rulers repented. In that society, the ruler realized that he was not the ultimate authority. He answered to the Church, which meant he ultimately answered to God.
Most of all, this could be seen by the Catholic view of salvation by faith and works. This doctrine meant that it is not enough to come to church on Sunday to profess my faith. I must put legs on my faith throughout the week. I will be judged by what kind of husband I am, what kind of father I am, and what kind of friend and worker I am. The artist will be judged by his art. Was his art done for the glory of God or for his own self-glory? The ruler will be judged by how well he ruled. The musician will be judged by how well his music glorified God. Do not misunderstand me. God knows we will fail. He judges our heart. He sees if we are doing these things from the heart and doing them out our love for God and others. So an artist with little talent but totally devotes it to the glory of God is more pleasing to God that an artist with much talent and does it only for himself. But as the Bible says, whatever we do, we must do to the glory of God. And whatever our calling in life is, and whatever our talents are, we must do things in obedience to God’s commands. We will be judged on this. A Catholic who understands the doctrine of faith and works realizes the risk to his very soul if he secularizes a portion of his life away from God. The people in the middle Ages understood this. This is why all of life revolved around God.
So back then, everything was centered on God – the cathedral, art, music, science, and the government. This was changed with the Reformation, with its emphasis on faith alone. It mattered not what I did throughout the week, all that mattered is what I believed in my heart (although the Bible said that faith alone was not enough – even the demons believed, and trembled). Man was no longer judged by how well I did things for love of God and for others. So now he can do these things for himself primarily. This gave birth to humanism as we know it. Humanism existed as a word before the Reformation, but before then it only meant a love for classical literature and arts. After the Reformation, which lead to the Enlightenment, humanism meant that man is the center of all things.
Read the article “Protestant Revivalism, Pentecostalism and the Drift Back to
On a side note, I want to point something out about this article, which is found at the website www.presenttruthmag.com. This website reprints old articles from Present Truth magazine, a magazine dedicated to bringing back the principles of the Reformation today. I used to love reading this magazine when I was a Protestant. One thing you will notice is that none of the articles from the archives have the name of the author. When I saw this, I thought this was very weird. I knew that most of these articles were written by either Geoffrey Paxton or Robert Brinsmead. I decided to do some research. I found out that Brinsmead has now totally rejected the teachings of orthodox Christianity (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Brinsmead). That would explain the omission of the author's name at this website. It is embarrassing that the founder of this magazine has now basically denied the Christian faith. So the possible author of this article, who decried that modern Evangelicalism is a drift toward
But getting back to music, for the first two hundred years there was no music in the Protestant church. But that does not mean that music went away! It just went away for reasons of worship. That means that worship became secularized. And more and more it became secularized.
In the meantime, Catholics still used music for worship. Some of the greatest classical composers were devout Catholics who wrote their pieces to be played during
But the Catholic says that although what matters most is what is in the heart, the outer form reflects what is inside the heart and can reinforce what is inside the heart. The grandeur of the cathedral, the statues and painting of the saints, the beautiful liturgy all moves me to concentrate on God. I know from personal experience that this moves my heart more towards God than a box-like church with empty walls and a blank cross. Just as seeing a beautiful sunset can inspire my heart to worship God, so does the beauty of the traditional Catholic worship move my heart toward God.
We now have beautiful, tall buildings. But these are no longer for the worship of God. Like the tower of Babel, they are for the worship of man. They are for big business and big government. Art and music are still there, but now most of it is no longer for God. They exist are art’s sake, which means they exist for our self-glory. Art for the glory of God does not mean that it must specifically mention God or it is not art for God. Classical music does not even have words, so they do not specially mention God.
And art for art’s sake has degenerated not only to not be for the glory of God, but to dishonor Him and offend Him. There is a piece of “art” where crucifix is submerged in a bottle of urine. And there is another piece of “art” that depicts Mary covered with dung. Also, art has degenerated into pornography. And music has degenerated to graphic depictions of man having sex with a woman. Modern art often now often offends God.
The greatest literature ever written was written to the glory of God. And the literature does not even need to mention God to bring glory to God. The most recent scholarship has discovered that William Shakespeare, who is considered the greatest English writer ever, was a devout Catholic. His plays, although he never even mentioned God, were about our relationship with God (see http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Shakespeare-Joseph-Pearce/dp/1586172247/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246636496&sr=8-1). In the early part of the 20th century, many writers and poets joined the Catholic Church, as documented in http://www.amazon.com/Literary-Giants-Catholics-Joseph-Pearce/dp/1586170775/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2. We have G. K, Chesterton, Hillaire Belloc, RH Benson, and JR Tolkien.
People today blast the Middle Ages as the corrupt Church. After all it was called the “Dark Ages”, was it not? But it was called the Dark Ages not because of the Church being corrupted, but because Rome was being dissolved by the invasion of the barbarians. If anything, the Church helped the people to survive the Dark Ages by sending missionaries to the barbarians; this caused their conversion to the Christian faith. Yes, there was some corruption, but that is often over-exaggerated. If people one thousand years in the future looked back at our government and the condition of our Christian faith now, they would think that our era is the Dark Ages. I have seen plenty of corruption within my lifetime. I have seen Watergate, the Iran-Contra Scandal and Bill Clinton. I have seen Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Fae Baker, and the priest molestation scandal. Sure, in the middle Ages you had the Inquisition and the Crusades. But look at all the atrocities that were committed in the 20th century – Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and the Khmer Rouge. Compared to the 20th century, the so-called Dark Ages was by far a much safer time to live, and people were more devoted to God.
