Transcript

Well, 2017 is the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation, usually dated to October 31st, 1517. So a lot of us are reflecting on the significance of this great event in the history of the Church and indeed of civilization.

I've always been kind of sympathetic with a remark made by Yves Congar, the great Dominican theologian, who said, you know, if things had been a little different in the 16th century, both on the Protestant and the Catholic side, There might be an order in the church today called the Lutheran order as we have a Franciscan or Dominican or Benedictine order.

In other words, if things had gone a little bit differently and things had been a bit more balanced on both sides, we might have been able to take in the observations and critiques of Luther without leading to a split, a fundamental split.

And of course, Congar was himself very active at Vatican II. Now, you read the text of Vatican II, and you can do it under different rubrics, but one of the most illuminating rubrics is an overture toward Protestants.

Look at the themes emphasized in Vatican II, from a recovery of the Bible, to the priesthood of all believers, to, in the wake of the Council, a communion under both kinds.

There were a number of gestures toward the great themes of the Reformers.

So obviously from, you know, Congar and through the Council on, a lot of us have recognized great value in the Reformation.

Now look at the moves of Pope Francis recently.

I think he too is recognizing that, that we can benefit from some of these insights.

At the same time, we draw back.

And what I want to do in the course of this very brief presentation is talk about both of those sides.

So first of all, on the positive side, what is the great contribution of I would say this, a renewed emphasis on the principle of the primacy of grace.

I think arguably the fundamental biblical principle is the primacy of grace, namely that God's love comes first.

Israel is a chosen people.

Why?

Because they're the most heroic?

No, on the contrary.

Whatever heroism there is, it's because they've been chosen.

Jacob is chosen.

Why?

Because he's obviously so much a better guy than Esau?

No, no.

The primacy of God's love is what we notice.

David is chosen.

Why?

Oh, he's clearly the most gifted, the handsomest of the sons of Jesse.

No, we're told on the contrary.

God chooses.

God gives.

God graces.

And everything else flows from that.

When we forget this principle, and mind you, it has been forgotten a lot over the Christian centuries, whenever we do that, we get into serious spiritual trouble.

Now, to give it a technical name, it becomes Pelagianism, which is a theory, it's grounded in Pelagius, this early patristic figure, of auto-salvation, right?

that I can save myself through my heroic efforts.

If I'm just morally good enough, I will, as it were, compel God to save me.

My moral excellence comes first.

Auto-salvation.

When we get on that track, what happens?

The whole biblical thing, all of Christianity, basically falls apart.

Because in that case, I don't really need a savior.

And Jesus does, in fact, devolve.

You see it a lot over the centuries, including today.

Jesus devolved into being a vague religious teacher rather than a savior.

So in the measure that Luther and his colleagues re-emphasized, brought right to the fore, this issue of the primacy of grace, I say, good.

I say, yes, the church must always hear that message.

And may I say this, especially today when not only do we believe in auto-salvation, We now believe, look around our culture, in the auto-generation of meaning.

I give meaning to my life.

I determine what the purpose of my own life is.

As I've argued many times, Nietzsche's will to power, Sartre's existence preceding essence, all the high philosophy is now the ordinary view of most people in our culture.

Do we especially now need to hear the primacy of grace?

It's not you who've chosen me, it's I who've chosen you.

It's God's love comes first and whatever we have comes second.

Yes, indeed.

And I think it's great on the anniversary of the Reformation if we all reiterate that principle.

Okay, so how come you're not a Lutheran, you might say to me?

How come you don't just accept the Lutheran critique?

How come there isn't a Lutheran order in the Catholic Church, as there is a Franciscan and Dominican?

Well, I think a lot of it hinges on this little fact.

If Luther had stopped at saying, Grazia prima, I'd be okay.

Grace first.

The trouble was, he pushed it and said, Grazia sola, by grace alone.

And that's where the Catholic Church relying on its ancient tradition and its roots very much in the Bible and the church fathers, balked and said, no, that's too strong.

Now, where's this come from?

And we got to get a little bit arcane here and a little bit philosophical.

Luther and company were largely formed philosophically in a nominalist tradition.

Now, nominalism goes back to people like William of Ockham, before him to Duns Scotus in the Middle Ages.

One of the basic principles of the nominalists is that God and the world can be categorized according to a univocal conception of being.

And you say, well, what in the world does that mean?

It just means that they can both be fit under the same general heading of the category of being.

What that means in turn is that God, no matter how great God is, how infinite God is, God is still one being among many.

He's one being alongside the nexus of finite things.

This was a departure from St. Thomas Aquinas, who defended an analogical conception of being whereby God is what it means to be in the full sense.

God is ipsum esse.

And then all other things, all created things, aren't so much competitors alongside God's being, Now, that implies that God and the world are not in a competitive relationship.

They're not competing for space on a shared ontological grid, if that makes sense.

The upshot is, we don't have to say, the more glory God gets, the less I get.

Or if I get glory, I'm taking it away from God.

See, that's true of you and of me.

If I say, well, I get everything on this grid, then you've got to get nothing.

But if God and the world are not on the same ontological grid, they don't exist competitively.

In fact, we can say with Saint Irenaeus, gloria Dei homo vivens.

The glory of God is a human being fully alive.

That's the tradition, I would argue, that Thomas Aquinas inherited, and that's the tradition from which Scotus and Ockham departed.

And Scotus and Ockham's school is what trained Luther and the Reformers.

I think thereupon hangs a very important tale, that the Reformers inherited the view that for God to get all the glory, which is a great thing, of course, I think God should get all the glory too, But that shouldn't imply that now I get none of the glory, or that my cooperation with grace is somehow an affront to grace.

Now, read the great statement of the Council of Trent.

I love the Council of Trent.

I taught it for many years when I was a teacher in the seminary, and the Tridentine Fathers were very sharp, and they read the Reformers carefully, and they affirmed what I affirmed at the beginning of this little video.

namely, the primacy of grace.

And when we Catholics today read Trent, I think what we're struck by is how Protestant they sound in many ways.

Because they were nodding vigorously toward the primacy of grace principle.

There is no auto-salvation.

We can't initiate the process of salvation.

We don't act and achieve our way to salvation.

Trent is very clear on that.

At the same time, Trent insists that cooperation with grace is ingredient in the process of salvation.

They speak of justification, whereby God reaches out to us, and then an increase in justification, whereby we cooperate with the grace of God.

I know these are kind of standard themes in Catholic-Protestant debates, but I think it's important on this anniversary that we do say what's right and good and true in the Reformers.

Even as we pull back from what I think is an errant philosophical formation, if I might close in the spirit of the Reformers on a biblical note, go back to the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament, when the prophet says, It is you, O Lord, who have accomplished all we have done.

See, to me, that sums up the noncompetitive principle.

We've done it.

We really have.

But, Lord, you accomplished it.

And there's no competition there.

Lord, you've accomplished all that we really have done.

That, to me, is the tradition that the Catholic Church pulled right from the Bible up through the Fathers and the medieval doctors all the way to Trent, and what I still think needs to be stressed today.