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The Reformation: a God-ordained renewal or a colossal misunderstanding?
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Today is Reformation Sunday, a day on which many Christian churches celebrate the theological heritage of the 16th century Reformation of the Church.
The issues that led to and surrounded the Reformation were many and complex, but the over-arching issue that divided the Reformers from their doctrinal opponents was “justification by faith alone.”
Not all of the Reformers spoke with the same voice on every issue. Luther, for example, largely retained the medieval church’s teaching on baptismal regeneration and the physical presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Zwingli would have seen baptism as being more of a symbol of salvation, rather than a means to it, and he believed the Lord’s Supper was, first and foremost, a memorial, not an actual eating and drinking of Christ’s Body and Blood. Calvin, perhaps the most loved, most hated, and most misunderstood theologian in Christian history, stuck to a middle view on the sacraments, not agreeing entirely with Luther or Zwingli.
However much the Reformers disagreed with each other on some issues, they all spoke with the same voice when it came to justification—they all believed that God declares sinners righteous in his sight, not on the basis of their own righteousness, but rather solely on the basis of Christ’s righteousness credited to their account. For the Reformers, this was no peripheral issue that could be taken or left—Calvin and Luther both called justification by faith alone the “hinge” on which the Christian church stands or falls.
For the medieval Church, this was also no peripheral issue. The 16th century Council of Trent placed all who adhered to the doctrine of justification by faith alone under anathema (a word meaning “God’s eternal curse”).
In other words, Rome believed that the Reformers, in believing in a false teaching concerning justification, were no longer a part of Christ’s Church, and, on the flip side, the Reformers believed that Rome, however orthodox she may be on some points, was no longer a valid or true expression of the Body of Christ because she held to a false teaching on justification.
In our own day, one finds both Protestants as well as Roman Catholics who believe their ancestors were unnecessarily rigid theologically, who believe that an actual middle ground between the two schools of thought may be reached concerning justification.
Consider the following excerpt from Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft (Handbook on Christian Apologetics, 1994):
“The issue of salvation sparked the Protestant Reformation and split the Church. It seemed to both sides at the time that Protestants and Catholics taught two radically different gospels, two religions, two answers to the most basic of all questions: What must I do to be saved? Catholics said you must believe and practice good works to be saved. Luther, Calvin, Wycliffe, and Knox insisted that faith alone saves you. Unfortunately, both sides have been talking past each other for 450 years. But there is strong evidence that it was essentially a misunderstanding and that it is beginning to be cleared up.
Both sides uses key terms, faith and salvation, but in different senses.
1. Catholics used the term salvation to refer to the whole process, from its beginning in faith, through the whole Christian life of works of love on earth, to its completion in heaven. When Luther spoke of salvation, he meant the initial step—like getting into Noah’s
2. By faith, Catholics meant only one of the three needed “theological virtues” (faith, hope, and love), faith being intellectual belief. To Luther, faith meant accepting Christ with your whole heart and soul.
Thus, since Catholics were using salvation in a bigger sense and faith in a smaller sense, and Luther was using salvation in a smaller sense and faith in a bigger sense, Catholics rightly denied and Luther rightly affirmed that we were saved by faith alone…Both sides spoke the truth. Since truth cannot contradict truth, the two sides did not really contradict each other on this most important of all questions.”
Kreeft goes on to assure those who fear that such an assessment is “unduly optimistic” that this is not his own private opinion—he cites the “Joint Statement on Justification” signed by Lutheran and Catholic leaders (and endorsed by Pope John Paul II) in the 1990s, which essentially said the two sides were, more or less, in agreement with each other now.
While Kreeft brings up a number of valid points, it seems that he is unfortunately oversimplifying matters to a great extent. There is more common ground between Catholics and Protestants on this important issue than is often understood by people on either side of the debate. However, the weight of the evidence seems to confirm that some real, substantive (not just apparent or semantic) contradictions were at the heart of the doctrinal dispute of the Reformation.
1. The Fallacies in Kreeft’s Outlook
Kreeft is comfortable saying that the doctrinal dispute of the Reformation was essentially a misunderstanding. If he is, in fact, correct, some devastating consequences would logically follow.
First of all, if the Roman Catholic Church failed to understand that Luther was simply using alternative terminology while essentially reiterating its own teachings, this would make the Church look embarrassingly naïve, theologically speaking. As was mentioned earlier, the Church went so far as to anathematize all who affirmed Luther’s “faith alone” doctrine.
If Kreeft’s assessment is correct, if due to the terminological differences that weren’t understood at the time, “Luther rightly affirmed that we were saved by faith alone,” then the Church was wickedly acting in error when she excommunicated 16th century Protestants, for she, the infallible Church, had no excuse to not know better. Furthermore, if Kreeft’s assessment is correct, the Church is still in wicked error for not, once and for all, officially repudiating the conclusions that were reached at the Council of Trent.
Conversely, if Kreeft’s assessment is correct Luther was certainly in wicked error for calling the papacy the antichrist if, in reality, papal theology wasn’t substantively different from Luther’s, and it was simply a matter of terminology.
The Church explains that modern “faith alone” believing Protestants are not under anathema, but the only way to maintain this is by redefining the word “anathema.” Biblically, the word means to be under God’s curse, and it is, therefore, inherently a permanent state. If a doctrine is damnable in God’s eyes today, it will certainly be damnable in God’s eyes tomorrow, unless God is not immutable. If someone or some group is under God’s curse for believing a cursed doctrine, the only way to escape the curse would be to cease believing in the cursed doctrine. If those who believe in “faith alone” today do not deserve to be anathematized, then 16th believers in “faith alone” ought not to have been anathematized either, and the Church erred in condemning them.
Has
Kreeft, it appears, is saying that Roman Catholicism has not changed her teaching on justification, but she has become more inclusive and accepting about how the teaching is articulated. For the sake of consistency, a Roman Catholic is hard-pressed to ever concede that the Church ever changes her position on any given doctrine, for to change a doctrine would be an admission of previous error. As Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul wisely points out:
“The doctrine of infallibility always lurks in the background. If the change in formulation involves an actual change in the doctrine’s meaning or substance, by way of correction, it would be tantamount to acknowledging error in a doctrine that has been defined ‘infallibly’ by the church. In this case, not only would an error in doctrine be admitted, but infallibility would be repudiated as well.”
