Catholic World Report has published a nice interview of Francis Beckwith by Tim Drake, about Beckwith’s reversion to Catholicism. In it Beckwith describes the same journey so many of us have already made, myself included, and that others seem to be making with increasing frequency (Beckwith was just one of 100,000 to enter the Church in this country alone this year, a record number). It’s a nice interview in which Beckwith recounts his life from birth and childhood, moving away from the Church and then back again. Near the end he says,
In early January 2007, I began reading the Early Church Fathers and the Catechism, focusing on the doctrines that I thought were key. I also read Mark Noll's book, Is the Reformation Over? This led me to read the Joint Declaration on Justification by Lutheran and Catholic scholars. While consulting these sources, I read portions of a book by my friends Norm Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences. It is a fair-minded book. But some of the points that Norm and Ralph made really shook me up and were instrumental in facilitating my return to the Church. For example, in their section on salvation, they write: "Although the forensic aspect of justification stressed by Reformation theology is scarcely found prior to the Reformation, there is continuity between medieval Catholicism and the Reformers."
There is continuity between medieval Catholicism and the Reformers. I was shocked to discover this just recently myself, in studying the origins and development of the doctrine of justification. Seems the Protestant doctrine finds its roots in the medieval theologian Anselm of Canterbury, a canonized saint and Doctor of the Church. It’s a double irony that Anselm’s was a new development in theology, a departure from the thought of the Fathers of the early Church, not a return to it (and contested today in theological circles, including by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, in his work Introduction to Christianity, where he raises serious questions about Anselm’s theory of justification).
Beckwith continues,
Then when I read the Fathers, those closest to the Apostles, the Reformation doctrine was just not there. To be sure, salvation by grace was there. To be sure, the necessity of faith was there. And to be sure, works righteousness apart from God's grace was decried. But what was present was a profound understanding of how saving faith was not a singular event that took place "on a Wednesday," to quote a famous Gospel song, but that it was the grace of God working through me as I acquiesced to God's spirit to allow his grace to shape and mold my character so that I may be conformed to the image of Christ. I also found it in the Catechism.
And there was an aesthetic aspect to this as well: the Catholic view of justification elegantly tied together James and Paul and the teachings of Jesus that put a premium on a believer's faithful practice of Christian charity. Catholicism does not teach "works righteousness." It teaches faith in action as a manifestation of God's grace in one's life. That's why Abraham's faith results in righteousness only when he attempts to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God.
There you have it. Catholicism does not teach "works righteousness." And Beckwith is correct. But the Catholic teaching is not the same as the Protestant; it is an entire paradigm shift to understand it. Salvation is not just about a one-time event so we can go to heaven; it’s about being perfected in God, becoming the image of God, for eternity. That is the work of God in us, forming and perfecting His image in us by His infused grace, which we receive the more pliant we are in His hands, and takes time.
Then I read the Council of Trent, which some Protestant friends had suggested I do. What I found was shocking. I found a document that had been nearly universally misrepresented by many Protestants, including some friends. I do not believe, however, that the misrepresentation is the result of purposeful deception. But rather, it is the result of reading Trent with Protestant assumptions and without a charitable disposition. For example, Trent talks about the four causes of justification, which correspond somewhat to Aristotle's four causes. None of these causes is the work of the individual Christian. For, according to Trent, God's grace does all the work. However, Trent does condemn "faith alone," but what it means is mere intellectual assent without allowing God's grace to be manifested in one's actions and communion with the Church. This is why Trent also condemns justification by works.
Well, all I can say here is, me too. I read Trent on my way into the Church too, and was amazed – by its beauty, and its consistency with scripture. And yes, Trent condemns both mere intellectual assent and justification by works. We have to be changed, by God, by giving ourselves wholly to Him, so we become His work, the work of His hands, in us.
. . . I returned again to the Fathers and found in them, very early on, the Real Presence, infant baptism, and apostolic succession as well as other "Catholic" doctrines. Even in the cases where these doctrines were not articulated in their contemporary formulations, their primitive versions were surely there. But what was shocking to me is that one never finds in the Fathers claims that these doctrines are "unbiblical" or "apostate" or "not Christian," as one finds in contemporary anti-Catholic fundamentalist literature. So, at worst, I thought, the Catholic doctrines were considered legitimate options early on in Church history by the men who were discipled by the Apostles and/or the Apostles' disciples. At best, the Catholic doctrines are part of the deposit of faith passed on to the successors of the Apostles and preserved by the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.
And again, me too. And look where it led me. And Beckwith. And so many others. We do it individually, and for each of us it is such a discovery, life-changing, eye-opening. And then we meet others who've made the same journey. "What - you, too? My goodness!"
I sometimes think it will be like that in heaven, too, when we start to meet all the other people who will make it there, maybe people we knew in life that we never imaged we would find in heaven. "What - you, too?" Imagine the joy, the thrill, when we meet all the others who also found their way to God. We get a mini-version of that now, in the Catholic Church, the beginning of heaven on earth, the home of heaven on earth, where we worship in the company of angels, in the company of the entire communion of saints, with God Himself in our midst, incorporating us into Him, and Himself into us, in the joyful gift of the Eucharist, Emmanuel, God With Us.
