"Protestantism is dangerous. ..."

It is an explosive and ultimately uncontrollable force that can destabilize and undermine church and government. It can reject time-honored truths, traditions and institutions—including its own—and posit new ones in their place, only to repeat this process again and again. Protestantism is infinitely restless, constantly moving in many divergent directions at the same time. Like evolution, it possesses astonishing power to create highly adaptive religious organisms and equally astonishing power to destroy them if they fail to develop appropriately.

No, that isn't from a Catholic apologist; it is from Ronald K. Rittgers, who teaches German Reformation studies at Valparaiso University in Indiana, in his review, for The Christian Century, of Alister McGrath's recently published Christianity's Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution—A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First:

This is how Alister McGrath, professor of historical theology at the Univer sity of Oxford, depicts Protes tantism in Christianity's Dangerous Idea. Why is Protestantism so dangerous? Because it is based on a dangerous idea: that the Bible is the main source of authority for the Christian religion and that all Christians have the right to interpret it for themselves. This conviction is the source not only of Protestantism's vitality and flexibility, but also of its lack of fixedness and its innate tendency toward schism. McGrath makes much of the former without losing sight of the latter.

<snip>

McGrath also stresses that early Protestantism was not a single, unified, coherent movement; it was a movement of movements that was characterized by conflict, tension and flux from the start. The only thing the early Protestants shared was the dangerous idea. And they quickly learned just how dangerous it could be when they found themselves unable to reach consensus on important matters of doctrine. After examining the failure of Luther, Zwingli and others to resolve their differences on the Lord's Supper, McGrath observes, "We see here the fundamental difficulty that the Reformation faced: the absence of any authoritative interpreter of scripture that could give rulings on contested matters of biblical interpretation."

And? What then?

Protestants attempted to remedy this problem by constructing various interpretative authorities—Luther's catechisms, Calvin's Institutes, the marginalia of the Geneva Bible—but none could furnish truth claims that were accepted by all Protestants. Whatever external coherence early Protestants had was largely dependent on the presence of a defining other—Catholics in the early modern period and secularists in the later modern era. This need for an external source of self-definition became part of the core of Protestantism.

Which finally leads to this:

It is true that the defining Pro testant idea is dangerous. But one can question whether McGrath has plumbed the full depths of its threat. The real danger is that when confronted with the competing Protestant truth claims about crucial matters of faith—including those that touch on salvation—theologically reflective Protestants may lose confidence in their ability to interpret or even trust scripture, and thus their ability to know God. Sebastian Franck saw this danger already in the 16th century and thus opted for a Spiritualism that sought to transcend all dogmatic claims about God—except Spiritualist ones, of course. Fortunately, most Protestants do not experience this complete loss of epistemic confidence, at least not on a permanent basis, which may be the reason McGrath avoids discussing the risk.

Some people view the Bible largely as a human artifact that contains important human wisdom about God but needs to be supplemented and corrected by more modern sources of wisdom. McGrath makes clear that such liberal Protestants are a small minority in the Protestant world. It seems that most—including McGrath, perhaps—continue to believe in the perspicuity of scripture. It is remarkable, after all, that the vast majority of Protestants agree with one another and with most non-Protestant Christians about the essentials of salvation—that is, that it comes only through Christ and requires grace and faith. But one wonders if this surprising agreement is not owing to another yet dangerous idea that was present in the primordial materials from which Protestantism burst forth and that thus became part of its genetic code: the importance of clinging to the ancient rule of faith. If this is the case, Catholicism did not simply motivate the construction of a unified Protestant front; it also provided Protestants with a certain immunity against the most destructive possibilities of their core idea.

That is part of the argument, interestingly enough, made by Fr. Louis Bouyer (a former Lutheran pastor), in his important book, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism. In reviewing that book, Mark Brumley wrote:

The negative principles of the Reformation necessarily led the Catholic Church to reject the movement–though not, in fact, its fundamental positive principles, which were essentially Catholic. Eventually, argues Bouyer, through a complex historical process, these negative elements ate away at the positive principles as well. The result was liberal Protestantism, which wound up affirming the very things Protestantism set out to deny (man’s ability to save himself) and denying things Protestantism began by affirming (sola gratia).

Bouyer contends that the only way to safeguard the positive principles of the Reformation is through the Catholic Church. For only in the Catholic Church are the positive principles the Reformation affirmed found without the negative elements the Reformers mistakenly affixed to them. But how to bring this about?

Bouyer says that both Protestants and Catholics have responsibilities here. Protestants must investigate their roots and consider whether the negative elements of the Reformation, such as extrinsic justification and the rejection of a definitive Church teaching authority and Tradition, are necessary to uphold the positive principles of sola gratia and the supremacy of Scripture. If not, then how is continued separation from the Catholic Church justified? Furthermore, if, as Bouyer contends, the negative elements of the Reformation were drawn from a decadent theology and philosophy of the Middle Ages and not Christian antiquity, then it is the Catholic Church that has upheld the true faith and has maintained a balance regarding the positive principles of the Reformation that Protestantism lacks. In this way, the Catholic Church is needed for Protestantism to live up to its own positive principles.

Read Brumley's entire review essay, "Why Catholicism Makes Protestantism Tick: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation."

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles:

• Evangelicals and Catholics In Conversation | Interview with Dr. Brad Harper
• Has The Reformation Ended? | An Interview with Dr. Mark Noll
• Thomas Howard and the Kindly Light | Ignatius Insight
• From Protestantism to Catholicism: Six Journeys to Rome
• Objections, Obstacles, Acceptance: An Interview with J. Budziszewski | IgnatiusInsight.com
• Thomas Howard on the Meaning of Tradition | Ignatius Insight
• Surprised by Conversion: The Patterns of Faith | Peter E. Martin
• Reformation 101: Who's Who in the Protestant Reformation | Geoffrey Saint-Clair
• The Tale of Trent: A Council and and Its Legacy | Martha Rasmussen

Comments

[LJ]

Whatever external coherence early Protestants had was largely dependent on the presence of a defining other—Catholics in the early modern period and secularists in the later modern era. This need for an external source of self-definition became part of the core of Protestantism.

Catholicism did not simply motivate the construction of a unified Protestant front; it also provided Protestants with a certain immunity against the most destructive possibilities of their core idea.

This is why a certain vehement anti-Catholicism is still alive and well within Protestantism, because those who go to the core of their faith can really only understand it in relation to Catholicism. That produces either some kind of uneasy intellectual compromise for the sake of peace, or an anti-Catholic religious fervor. And for some it produces conversion to the Catholic Church.

It also supports the teaching that anyone saved outside of the communion of the Catholic Church will be saved because of the Church, not despite her.

[M. L. Hearing]

Some good stuff here. I couldn't have articulated like this, but I was sensing some of these same things shortly before I became Catholic. (And then we converts always seem ever afterwards to view Catholicism only in contradistinction to Protestantism.) One good thing about Protestantism, though: it force me to learn the word "fissiparous."

M. L. Hearing

[Steve Perkins]

Thank you for the post of regarding both books. I am a Protestant who has been wrestling mightily for about six months with this exact issue. "Sola scriptura" is, at the end of the day, an incoherent idea. The proliferation of so-called, often self-called, authorities that conflict with one another cannot be what our Lord meant when He said that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth. I look forward to reading both these books.

[Evan]

I greet this with a bit of a shoulder shrug. Any Protestant willing to recite the Nicene Creed recognizes the debt to the Catholic Church. But let me let you in on a little secret... when we affirm the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church", we aren't trying to fool ya! We really do intend to affirm it!

If the Catholic Church in communion with the bishop of Rome doesn't wish to recognize us as part of the Catholic Church, well, it's a problem for all the whole Church, but it has come up because it's first their problem. One must remember that the communion whose head is in Rome is not the only Christian communion claiming to stand within the catholicity of the body of Christ.

[Ben]

"In this way, the Catholic Church is needed for Protestantism to live up to its own positive principles."

Bouyer's whole argument here is incoherent.

[Brian J. Schuettler]

This is really very old hat. The "new" insight of Protestantism's lack of continuity resulting from the absence of authority as being an inherent fatal flaw was seen by Luther himself before his death. It has since that time been discussed widely inside and out of the true Church and has motivated many Protestants into full communion with the mystical Body of Christ in search of that woefully missing Magisterium. Pius IX was the first pope to use the term “Magisterium” in the sense that it is understood today, and the concept of the “ordinary and universal Magisterium” was officially established during Vatican I. In addition, this council defined the doctrine of papal infallibility, the ability of the pope to speak without error “when, acting in his capacity as pastor and teacher of all Christians, he commits his supreme authority in the universal Church on a question of faith or morals.” It has taken some time (centuries!) of discussion and debate but it appears that breakthroughs are at hand.

[LJ]

"One must remember that the communion whose head is in Rome is not the only Christian communion claiming to stand within the catholicity of the body of Christ."

I guess then, Evan, all that remains is to closely examine those claims. That is essentially what I did, from the perspective of authority, ie., authenticity, in my own journey to the Catholic Church. One place to start is the point when the term "Catholic" was first used and what was meant by it, considering all that was going on at the time in terms of heresy and the Councils that were defining the faith, including those at Nicea.

Perhaps even before that it would be useful to compare definitions of "church" and "apostolic." That would help to understand from the very outset why the Catholic Church "doesn't wish to recognize" the descendants of those who quite vehemently rejected her in the first place some 500 years ago and took themselves and their descendants precisely out of communion with her. When the "protest" ends, the resumption of communion can begin. I know that from experience.

[Stephen Sparrow]

Protestantism dangerous ? I really don't think so. Without Catholicism it cannot exist. It is in a sense a parasite religious conviction.

[Evan]

"One place to start is the point when the term "Catholic" was first used and what was meant by it, considering all that was going on at the time in terms of heresy and the Councils that were defining the faith, including those at Nicea."

The concept of the Church's catholicity was a good two centuries old by Nicea... interestingly, (and I think someone like Möhler offers a cock-eyed interpretation of Ignatius on this), Ignatius sets up an analogy whereby the congregation is found with the bishop just as "wherever Jesus Christ is, there also is the katholike ekklesia." Now, as you say, how to interpret this? Well, it seems to make Christ the necessary and sufficient presence upon which the Catholic Church is identified. I assume I don't need to cite you statements from modern councils affirming the presence of Christ in the Protestant communities. The oddest part of the whole ordeal is that despite this original usage, there's an affirmation of Christ's presence in the communities of the Reformation without an affirmation of their catholicity. This strikes me as a dangerous separation to make. Certainly we can't ignore the first clause of Ignatius' passage concerning the bishop, but the extent to which a particular model of the episcopate is so privileged in modern Roman Catholic thought as a gate keeper for universality seems to go against the original usage of the term catholic, which at base is Christological.

"Perhaps even before that it would be useful to compare definitions of "church" and "apostolic." That would help to understand from the very outset why the Catholic Church "doesn't wish to recognize" the descendants of those who quite vehemently rejected her in the first place some 500 years ago and took themselves and their descendants precisely out of communion with her."

Luther didn't excommunicate himself, friend. I know, I know... the Reformers rejected the Church and her teachings, placing themselves in a position whereby excommunication was the necessary response. That claim, of course, needs to be just as "closely examined" as anything else, and I see less of this going on than a simple affirmation that the point of schism sits with the Reformers. But a mere affirmation of this simply begs the question, as does an appeal to the particular understanding of the episcopate at work in the Roman Catholic Church.

You think sola scriptura offers up hermeneutical difficulties?! (don't get me wrong, I do to!) Well, the bump in the rug just gets moved over to ecclesiastical structures in your model. And there is no way to smooth out the bump- authority will always encounter the problem of a source without stable justification (because any justification depends upon an appeal to the authority that's being justified). Hence Ignatius' original appeal to Christ as the inbreaking foundation of catholicity that supersedes any immanent claims to authority... claims made either by Protestants who wish to exclude Roman Catholics from catholicity, or Catholics who wish to exclude Protestants from catholicity.

[LJ]

I am glad you mentioned Sola Scriptura, Evan. At the risk of taxing Carl's patience with an extended com-box debate I am reminded of the passage from recent readings wherein Jesus points out to Thomas and the rest how blessed are those who will not see and touch him and yet believe.

That's the nub of it is it not? All of Revelation is witness. Just as Sola Scriptura is selective faith/trust only in those who received that part of revelation and wrote it down, and only secondarily in those who assembled it and those who preserved it; an appeal to Ignatius must necessarily include the intent of his arguments in their historical context. It is an interesting exercise to distill out the Christological focus of his argument and re-insert it after the fact of the Reformation separation, but it still begs the question because it is out of it's context. The point is, without the apostles and their successors we would not know about Jesus in the first place and to toss out the Church structure they gave us and its authority is to tell them we don't believe them entirely and we can take it from here. We are picking and choosing what part of the record we will accept. But casting doubt on part casts doubt on all because it has the same source. That is what I understood by authority.

The other Protestant argument that comes up in the Sola Scriptura debate is the direct immediate living influence of Christ through the Holy Spirit. But just as that doesn't ultimately help the hermeneutic of Sola Scriptura it also doesn't help us with ecclesiology and apostolic succession. The substance of what we believe is in Revelation to which the Holy Spirit attests, and once more we must accept the witness from the record and unless we wish to slide back into Sola Scriptura, that must include the witness of the apostles through the living visible Church. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

[Evan]

LJ, I'm not sure who you're debating... I wasn't the first to bring up sola scriptura here, and I don't think I disagree with you (although I'm not sure entirely what you're arguing).

You say, "The point is, without the apostles and their successors we would not know about Jesus in the first place and to toss out the Church structure they gave us and its authority is to tell them we don't believe them entirely and we can take it from here. We are picking and choosing what part of the record we will accept. But casting doubt on part casts doubt on all because it has the same source."

What I'm confused about is who you're accusing of doing this. Isn't the Reformation argument often that the Roman Catholic Church wasn't given by the apostles, but rather that it's a deviation from the tradition?! Isn't that what all of their patristic citations tried to prove?! And that's not to say you're wrong- you may be right. But simply asserting that one side rejects the tradition of the apostles and ignoring the fact that they're accusing you of the same thing doesn't answer anything. What's needed is an examination of the tradition that both sides cite as precedent and a weighing of each argument.

I don't think that all Protestant arguments can stand up to that weighing, but nor do I think that all of the arguments from Rome or Constantinople do either. But the point is that everyone is making more or less the argument that you're making here.

[Dirk]

Shame on you, Mr. Olson! Words are cheap, and yours seem plentiful. One does not elevate oneself on another's ascribed dung heap. One does not justify oneself on account of other people's ascribed failings. This broad painting of the Protestant brush does no justice to the piety and strengths of a great swath of what is known as the Evangelical churches. To generalize by calling Protestantism "dangerous" is disgraceful. I do not think Pope Benedict would ever support this kind of polemic. Need one ask: Where is Christian charity? For the first time I am disappointed that Ignatius Insight would associate itself with this level of polemic. For good measure, let me add that I am only a recent Catholic "convert," and am I grateful that the Church has had people like Joseph Ratzinger to make up for apologists of your caliber.

[Joe]

"It is remarkable, after all, that the vast majority of Protestants agree with one another and with most non-Protestant Christians about the essentials of salvation... But one wonders if this surprising agreement is not owing to ... the importance of clinging to the ancient rule of faith. If this is the case, Catholicism did not simply motivate the construction of a unified Protestant front; it also provided Protestants with a certain immunity against the most destructive possibilities of their core idea."

Exactly. But I'd say in the last years Evangelicalism has provided the exact same counterweight for Rome, against temptations toward infatuation with liberal Biblical scholarship and ideas like universalism. So the Evangelicals have provided a service to Rome, reminding it of its own best heritage.