1993: My Catholicism in Eclipse – Part 1
In which Teófilo attempts to explain his decision to leave the Church in 1993
(Caveat emptor: this and the following posts on this series is, and will be, hard to write. I expect to revise them many times before I complete the final first draft. I’ll appreciate your understanding on this matter).
Then I left the Catholic Church. It was the most painful decision I’d ever reached up to that time in my life. I was a string ball of confusion before, during, and after reaching that decision, and I needed peace.
Initially, I chose to adopt Luther’s views on faith, grace and ecclesiology. I explored Calvinist theology with the help of the Reformed apologist I mentioned earlier. In fact, Calvin’s theology of God’s sovereignty and predestination fascinated me, although his interpretation of predestination raised some issues. As I saw it, Calvin believed that God intentionally created certain individuals for eternal condemnation to show His justice. What that means is that God’s positive wish is to deny His saving grace to some, but not others. I understand the principles in play, but I couldn’t stomach Calvin’s “TULIP” solution to the quandary.
Although I disagree with Calvin on predestination, it’s essential to recognize that God elects some for salvation. That's a black-and-white biblical proposition (Romans 8:29).
As a consequence, we can’t escape predestination. It is as a revealed fact. But, the notion of predestination often clashes with the truth that humans have free will.
The TULIP theological assumptions analyzed
Consider this: like us Catholics, Reformed Protestants understand that the Bible contains numerous propositional truths. Now, using these truths as first principles, they reason out syllogistically the truth of absolute predestination of some to hell. Like Aquinas in some of his syllogisms, many Reformed Protestants support their reasoning with further biblical verses that already presuppose what they need to prove. By doing so they make a hidden circular argument that proves itself, in this, case, predestination to hell.
However, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Let us assume, for a moment, that they formulate a perfect proof, formally and informally correct, based on first biblical principles, leading to the conclusion that God in fact does predestines some for eternal perdition. Would it be true necessarily? Who’s to say outside of the circle of Reformed Protestant Christians who agree with the notion already?
Validation must come from outside the formulation of the proposed theological truth. It comes from the reception of the proposed truth by the Church as whole in time. That is to say, Tradition validates the proposed truth, regardless of how perfect the proof for the proposed truth may be. Otherwise, everyone would be arguing in circles, assumptions already contained in the argument and in the proof.
Something analogous occurs in physics. A physicist can device a perfect, formal mathematical proof to explain some process or phenomenon. In fact, the proof might exhibit beautiful, flowing mathematics. But if the experiments scientists design to test the theory fail to prove it, all we have left is wallpaper displaying beautiful mathematics. The proof must conform to the universe, not the universe to the proof. Experimentation is to scientific hypotheses what Tradition is to a potential truth a theologian proposes for reception by the Church.
Tradition does not support the Reformed TULIP tenets. No Church Father proposed them together as a system. No Church Father ever said human nature was totally depraved. No Council ever did. No one has come from hell saying “God created me to perish to show His justice.” God himself has never said so Himself. Concatenating a number of biblical verses to make God say so proves nothing in the end.
Freedom. Utterly terrible freedom.
With my newfound ‘Protestant freedom,’ I questioned the authority of the Catholic Church from a fresh perspective. I felt the Church had no grounds to demand my intellectual submission to her teachings. I felt she had no claim on my fidelity because she didn’t give proper authority to ancient Church Tradition. I was becoming a churchless Catholic. That's ironic, because Protestantism itself has little use for an ancient, normative Tradition.
I kept coming back to this thing tradition. I repeat, by tradition I didn't mean the one transmitted only through the Mass and rubrics of St. Pius V and Trent. I didn't equate tradition with the Tridentine Mass and the pre-Vatican II Church.
I understood Tradition as the transmission, in Word, Liturgy, and Sacrament, of the interpretative key of Scripture. I found it odd that the Holy Spirit would inspire Scripture without providing the Church with the key to interpret it. This "key" is Tradition. I saw Tradition as an integral part of Revelation. Scripture may be the norm of theology, but it doesn’t interpret itself. The Church does it through Tradition.
Despite their claims, the Reformers and their followers also adhere to a tradition. The Protestant tradition rests on the foundational principles of Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, and free examination. That's their tradition, a tradition Protestants invented.
We began attending a Missouri Synod Lutheran church in San Antonio while I found my safe port. I sensed my Protestant phase wasn't going to last long.
(I can say one good thing about this Missouri Synod Lutheran church. They treated their eucharist with more respect than the Catholic Church did that time, in my view. Good for them!)
I contemplated my remaining options. I talked to my friend Robert Gurley, himself a priest in a non-Roman Anglo-Catholic group at the time. The solution had been staring at my face all along: I would join them.
(To be continued).
Bonus Video
Johan Tetzel doesn’t come out looking good in this scene…