My new book The Catholic Perspective on Paul is now officially published and available!

Please consider watching the book’s trailer on YouTube:

You can download the book’s Table of Contents and the first 30 pages by clicking here.

You can also preview and purchase the book at amazon.com.

Both the new book and The Crucified Rabbi are available at amazon.com in paperback and Kindle formats:

My new book The Catholic Perspective on Paul (part 2 in the “Catholic Origins” trilogy) is finally edited and the cover is ready! Above is a sneak peak of the cover art by Steven Nelson.

In the next month or so I’ll release a free chapter from the book.

Click the following link to check out the book’s Table of Contents: Table of Contents for The Catholic Perspective on Paul.

I hoping for a release date of October 31, 2010 (take that, Martin Luther!).

Taylor Marshall

Saint Paul, pray for us!

Thank you and please feel free to pass along suggestions and criticisms. I’ll try not to flinch too badly.

By the way, Was Saint Paul a Catholic Priest (Episode #9) is still the post popular podcast. The book was original named “Saint Paul was a Catholic Priest.” Now I’m wondering whether I should have changed it…

• Comments [3]

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27 minutes.

Therefore, when receiving true and Christian justice, they are bidden, immediately on being born again, to preserve it pure and spotless, as the first robe given them through Jesus Christ in lieu of that which Adam, by his disobedience, lost for himself and for us, that so they may bear it before the judgment-seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, and may have life everlasting.

This eschatological emphasis demonstrates what modern scholarship is currently revisiting. Justification isn’t merely an act that is “once and for all” (as is the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection). Instead, when we “receive true and Christian justice,” we are bidden to preserve it as a clean robe and “bear it before the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I would like to engage some of N.T. Wright’s comments made in the context of his response to me in the recent Christianity Today article: “Not All Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Protestant debate on justification is reigniting questions about Rome.” I recounted how I began to read N.T. Wright’s books as a seminarian at Westminster Theological Seminary, and how this experience opened my eyes and heart to the Catholic Church. Wright answered that his theology does not necessarily lead to Catholicism. Trevin Wax recently published N.T. Wright’s full response here.

Wright’s response left me with ten questions. I realize that it is unlikely that I will receive another response from Bishop Wright. He is a busy man, an Anglican bishop, and a world renowned theologian—so I won’t hold my breath. Meanwhile, at least others who have read Wright’s books might ponder these questions and suggest educated answers. No matter how it turns out, here are the Ten Questions:

1. Bishop Wright, in your new book Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (page 141) you write concerning 2 Cor 5:21:

“The little word genometha in 5:21b-‘that we might become God’s righteousness in him’-does not sit comfortably with the normal interpretation, according to which ‘God’s righteousness’ is ‘imputed’ or ‘reckoned’ to believers. If that is what Paul meant, with the overtones of ‘extraneous righteousness’ that normally come with that theory, the one thing that he ought not to have said is that we ‘become’ that righteousness. Surely that leans far too much towards a Roman Catholic notion of infused righteousness? How careless of Paul to leave the door open to such a notion!”

Question: You seem to indicate here that Saint Paul does in fact teach the “Roman Catholic notion of infused righteousness.” How would we be wrong if we were to assume that you are here denying justification by imputation and favoring “a Roman Catholic notion of infused righteousness”?

2. Also in Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (p. 164), you wrote: “what damage to genuine pastoral theology has been done by making a bogey-word out of the Pauline term synergism, “working together with God.”

Question: Should we conclude that you agree with Trent regarding syngergism and disagree with Luther and Calvin on monergism?

3. Bishop Wright, on p. 230, you write: “Thus when [John] Piper says (22) that ‘Wright makes startling statements to the effect that our future justification will be on the basis of works’, I want to protest: it isn’t Wright who says this, but Paul.” Your words conform nicely to the Council of Trent’s Session Six, Chapter 10: “faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified.”

Question: Are you not affirming with Session Six of the Council of Trent that our justification (with it’s future implications) will be on the basis of works? John Piper doesn’t want to let you off the hook on this one.

4. Bishop Wright, in What Saint Paul Really Said (page 119) you wrote that justification is about ecclesiology before soteriology. This lines up nicely with Session Six of the Council of Trent (especially Chapter Seven) which relates justification in the traditional terms of catechumens and the Church.

Question: How is your teaching in What Saint Paul Really Said substantially different from the Council of Trent’s formulation?

5. Bishop Wright, you note that Heinrich Schlier was a fine New Testament scholar. In fact, Schlier states that it was Sacred Scripture that lead him into the Catholic Church.

Question: Do you believe that Schlier was so naïve as to believe that being Bultmannian or being Catholic were the only two options available to him?

6. Bishop Wright, you state the Council of Trent provided the wrong answer regarding “nature/grace question.” As far as I can tell, Trent only touched upon this question in Session Five and even there the word “nature” only appears twice.

Question: Could you clarify what you mean by “Trent gave the wrong answer, at a deep level, to the nature/grace question”? To which session would I turn in the Council of Trent to find the alleged “wrong answer”?

7. Bishop Wright, you state that Trent’s “wrong answer to the nature/grace question” led to Catholic abuses in Marian doctrine and devotion.

Question: Are you referring to something as general as the prayers to Mary or something more specific like her bodily assumption into Heaven?

8. You indicated that the Catholic Church has sought to prevent the belief that God works through women and lay people. You wrote: “Communal, yes, but don’t let the laity (or the women) get any fancy ideas about God working new things through them.”

It is rather noteworthy that the two greatest saints of the Catholic Church are the Blessed Virgin Mary (a woman) and Saint Joseph (a layman).

Our profound love for the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role in the incarnation goes without mentioning. Moreover, the Catholic Church venerates three female Doctors of the Church (St Teresa of Avila, St Catherine of Sienna, and St Therese of Lisieux) who stand next to the other great Doctors of the Church like St Augustine, St Basil, St Thomas Aquinas, et al.

Question: Could you be more specific as to how the Catholic Church devalues the role of women and laymen?

9. You write that the Reformed, Anglican, charismatic, and emergent traditions can encompass the best of what it means to be “sacramental, transformational, communal, eschatological.” Yet, these four traditions (Reformed, Anglican, charismatic, and emergent) are in fundamental disagreement over what a sacrament is, how a human is justified and/or sanctified, what the church is, and what the eschaton is and how it will occur. Even within their own jurisdictions (e.g. Anglican Communion), there is vast disagreement over all of these issues. You say there are “bits of it” in the emergent church, but we could also say that there are “bits of it” when I pray the Our Father with my children before they fall asleep – yet “bits of it” do not entail the climax of the covenant as anticipated in Isaiah, Daniel, or the Minor Prophets.

Question: If what it means to be sacramental, transformational, communal, eschatological “can be found in” these four contradicting traditions, doesn’t it entail that each of these four (or even all four together) do not actualize what it means to be sacramental, transformational, communal, eschatological? In other words, “these elements can be found in their congregations” doesn’t entail “these elements constitute their congregations.”

10. Bishop Wright, you write: “Trent, and much subsequent RC theology, has had a habit of never spring-cleaning, so you just live in a house with more and more clutter building up, lots of right answers to wrong questions.”

On the contrary, since the Reformation, only the Catholic Church has continued to hold councils and examine the deposit of faith. Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists still appeal to the same dusty articles of faith that they drafted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They do not hold doctrinal councils. They are unable to reform. They are what they are. So the accusation that the Catholic Church doesn’t clean house is actually more appropriately directed toward Protestant denominations.

Question: Is it the case that Protestant theology is clean and tidy when compared to Catholic theology?

Bishop Wright, you wrote:

I am sorry to think that there are people out there whose Protestantism has been so barren that they never found out about sacraments, transformation, community or eschatology. Clearly this person [that’s me, Taylor] needed a change. But to jump to Rome for that reason is very odd.

I would like to point out that I am not simply an isolated “this person” who “needed a change.” It’s quite ironic that Wright should says this the wake of the Pope’s announcement of the new Anglican Personal Ordinariates. I’m not the only one. Thousands and thousands of clergy and laity from his own denomination have appealed to the Pope as a result of the Anglican Communion losing its sacramental and communal nature. If Anglicanism can provide a Christianity that is “sacramental, transformational, communal, and eschatological,” then why are these Anglicans so deeply dissatisfied with Anglicanism? Would Wright also say that their “jump to Rome” is “very odd”?

Thank you for reading. As a grateful fan and reader of N.T. Wright’s books, I am continually amazed by his profound insights into Sacred Scripture. As a Catholic, I continue to enjoy his books and find myself returning to his works on a regular basis. I have the highest regard for Bishop Wright and wish him all the best.

I’d like to open up the comments and ask for responses. Would you agree that within Wright’s writings and public comments, “there are some things in them hard to understand”? What are we to make those passages that allege to be “not magisterially Protestant” but “not magisterially Catholic” either?

Please look for my new book: The Catholic Perspective on Paul (Summer 2010). It is based on the conviction that the Pauline epistles contain the primitive and pristine doctrines of the Catholic Faith (that is, the Patristic “old perspective” on Paul). In the Pauline corpus we discover a Paul who is Catholic, a theologian who is sacramental, a churchman who is hierarchical, a mystic who is orthodox.

Listen to Episode #1: RABBI SAUL BECOMES APOSTLE PAUL.

This recording is in two parts. The first half explains how I became a Christian (through a baseball autograph from Tom Monaghan), then an Episcopal priest, and then how I became a Catholic Christian. The second half is a presentation on the Anglican Personal Ordinariates and a public Q&A session on that topic.

A special thanks to an Anglo-Catholic friend Tony Clark who recorded this talk and edited it.

Subscribe to “PaulCast” via iTunes | Subscribe to RSS feed | Download the mp3 file directly by right clicking

Here’s a brief video about it (if you saw the old one, you may want to check out this new one):

Once Saved Always Saved?
Most Evangelical Christians hold that a Christian is “once saved always saved,” by which they mean that once a person has committed his life to Christ, he can never do anything to undo this gift of salvation. The explanation assumes that since the gift of salvation was freely granted, there is nothing that one can do lose it. Contrary to this, we know that gifts can be abandoned, rejected, or destroyed by of the ill will of the recipient. A father may purchase a sports car and freely give it to his son as a gift. It is rightly assumed that a gift cannot be “ungifted” or taken away. I am sure that the son would receive the car gleefully. However, the son may turn around and sell the car for drugs, crash the car, or neglect the car so that it no longer functions. The gift was not “ungifted”. Rather, the worth of the gift was rejected through negligence.

Catholicism views salvation in a similar way – a gift is given freely, but it may be spurned and squandered. The Father freely gave His Son Jesus Christ to suffer, die, and rise again for our salvation. Through the Holy Spirit, God pours out this love upon us so that we become the children of God. In the words of Saint Paul, we become earthen vessels containing inestimable treasure (1 Cor 4:7). And this salvation is a gift. As Saint Paul wrote:
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God – not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Eph 2:8-10)
This gift of God is not “earned by works of our own doing” but rather is received “through faith”. However, notice that salvation has a purpose in this life. We are “created in Christ Jesus for good works…that we should walk in them.” Paul is opposed to certain persons trying to earn salvation through works without faith, but he finds no tension between faith and good works once faith has been established in the Christian. In fact, Paul expects that good works will necessarily grow up as the fruits of faith. Remember that Saint Paul, like the Catholic Church, finds salvation through “faith working through love” and not through “faith alone”.

This difference demonstrates that for Saint Paul and the Catholic Church, salvation is understood as progressive and multidimensional. When Evangelicals read Paul, they observe a stress on “faith” and so they focus on this aspect of Paul’s teaching. The Catholic Church reads Paul and discovers in his writings a stress on faith but in the context of various over doctrines: baptism, the church, good works, tradition, liturgy, sanctification, etc. To use an illustration, it is as if two different people look at a written piece of music. The first looks at the piece and after studying concludes, “The note “D” seems to be predominate.” Then he walks over to the piano and strikes a “D” on the piano. The other person studies the same sheet of music and concludes, “This piece of music is in the key of D.” He then walks over to the piano and plays the beautiful piece of music from the sheet in the key of D. The first person tried to distill the music down to one note and as a result, he neglected the rest. However, the second person realized that “D” was the overarching theme and yet he incorporated all the other notes so that something more beautiful resulted.
Evangelicals and other kinds of Protestants in their commendable zeal often distill the writings of Saint Paul to such an extent that they miss the complexities and nuances of the Apostle. This is especially the case when it comes to Saint Paul’s doctrine of salvation. As a result, the Evangelical doctrine of “once saved always saved” misses the nuances of Paul’s doctrine. Paul does in fact teach that “nothing can separate us from the love of God” (Rom 8:39). However, he also clearly states that certain Christians have “fallen from grace” (Gal 5:4). What does the Apostle mean when he says that certain Christians have fallen from grace?

The Apostle explains, “I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 Cor 9:27). Here the prize is salvation, as is clear from the preceding verses. Saint Paul follows a disciplined life because he knows that there is a possibility that he might forfeit the salvation that he preaches. For this reason, in the very next chapter, Paul encourages the Christians in Corinth to do the same: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall” (1 Cor 10:12). The “fall” here is the “fall from grace” spoken about by Paul in Galatians 5:4. Interestingly enough, the warning about falling from grace in Galatians 5:4 is immediately followed up by Paul’s exhortation to have “faith working through love” in Galatians 5:6.

Since the Apostle believes that one might fall from grace, he elsewhere encourages the Christians in Philippi to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). Here again we see Paul’s emphasis on a “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). We are to work out our salvation. While it is a gift, it requires our effort. If you receive the gift of a bicycle, it is worthless until you actually get on the bike and start peddling. If the giver of the gift saw the bicycle leaning against the wall in your garage covered in dust, he would be offended. The giver wanted the recipient to enjoy cycling, but this intention was never realized. The same is true of salvation. The gift of salvation has been given to us so that we can be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom 8:29). This is a profound honor. We are called not only to believe in Christ, but also to become like Christ. We participate in the life of Christ. It is for this reason that we are called Christians. This means that our life is characterized by acts pertaining to faith, hope, and charity (1 Cor 13:13). When we willingly break the bond our bond of charity with Christ, we fall from grace.

We learn from Saint John that some sins are “mortal sins” and some sins are not mortal in this way:

If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal (1 Jn 5:16-17).

Following John’s classification of these two kinds of sins, the Catholic Church teaches the following about mortal sin:

Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him. Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it” (CCC § 1855).

Mortal sins are called “mortal” because as Saint John explained, they bring death to the soul. The other class is called “venial sin” from the Latin word venia, meaning “forgiveness” or “pardon”. Evangelicals understand the difference between mortal and venial sins whether they acknowledge it or not. If you were playing golf with your pastor and he let out a cruse word when he hit his golf ball into the forest, you would be disappointed, but not broken-hearted. However, if your pastor were engaged in an adulterous affair with the church’s secretary, you would have cause for alarm. The same is true in marriage. There are certain sins that inhibit the growth of love between a husband and wife, but they do not rupture the loving relationship, as would adultery or physical abuse.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, three conditions must be met in order for a sin to be mortal: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent” (CCC §1857). Would Paul agree with this? As a matter of fact, the Catholic Church looks to Paul as the foremost delineator of mortal sins. The Catechism cites no less than seven passages from the letters of Paul as examples of mortal sins (CCC §1852), but in particular it cites the Apostle’s Epistle to the Galatians:

Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5:18-21).

Saint Paul lists a set of sins and concludes with, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21). Who is Paul warning? He is warning Christians. If they do these things, then they will fall from grace. In other words, they “shall not inherit the kingdom of God”. Paul shows that there are certain sins that are mortal. These sins disqualify a Christian from inheriting the kingdom of God. The Apostle could not explain it any more clearly. In fact, these “mortal sin lists” are a common feature of Paul’s epistles. For more examples of Paul’s lists of mortal sins, see also Rom 1:28-32; 1 Cor 6:9-10; Eph 5:3-5; Col 3:5-8; 1 Tim 1:9-10; 2 Tim 3:2-5.

We find further confirmation of “falling from grace” when we turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews. While the Epistle to the Hebrews does not bear the name of Paul, Catholic tradition has held to be “Pauline” in origin. Some have speculated that its core was by Paul and that it was later composed and polished by Saint Luke on behalf of Paul. Others believe that it lacks the signature of Paul because it is addressed to the Hebrews. This makes sense when we remember that Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles. Whichever the reason, the epistle certainly incorporates the theology of Paul and resembles Galatians in many ways.

In The Epistle to the Hebrews, we find three passages that echo the exhortations found in the other epistles of Paul about falling from grace. In Hebrews 4:1 we read, “The promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.” Here, the assumption is that a Christian may “fall short” of entering into Heaven. Hebrews 6:4-6 is a difficult passage for Evangelicals and is often admitted to be the one passage that refutes the Evangelical doctrine of “once saved always saved”.

For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt (Heb 6:4-6).

Here we have persons who have been “enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit,” and yet they are able to “commit apostasy” and reject the Son of God. Two verses later, he compares such apostates to thistles worthy only of being burned (Heb 6:8).
The Epistle to the Hebrews later takes up the problem of apostate Christians in its tenth chapter. It is worth quoting in full. The emphases are mine:

For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:26-31).

This passage confirms Paul’s doctrine of apostasy and the warning set forth in the sixth chapter of Hebrews. A man will fall into “a fury of fire” (Heb 10:27) who has “spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace” (Heb 10:29). Notice how the person in question has already been “sanctified” by the “blood of the covenant”. This person has received the gift of redemption of the New Covenant through the precious blood of Christ. And yet such a man will forfeit all those benefits and fall into the fires of Hell. Clearly, the Epistle to the Hebrews and the epistles of Paul in general teach that the Christian can “fall from grace”. This fall occurs through apostasy or through committing mortal sin and this accords perfectly with the Catholic doctrine of salvation as it regards the possibility of falling from grace.

Perhaps the most important passage in the decree is the seventh chapter listing the “five causes of justification.” They are as follows:

1. the final cause indeed is the glory of God and of Jesus Christ, and life everlasting
2. the efficient cause is a merciful God who washes and sanctifies gratuitously, signing, and anointing with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance
3. the meritorious cause is His most beloved only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies, for the exceeding charity wherewith he loved us, merited Justification for us by His most holy Passion on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us unto God the Father
4. the instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which (faith) no man was ever justified
5. lastly, the alone formal cause is the justice of God, not that whereby He Himself is just, but that whereby He maketh us just, that, to wit, with which we being endowed by Him, are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and we are not only reputed, but are truly called, and are, just, receiving justice within us, each one according to his own measure, which the Holy Ghost distributes to every one as He wills, and according to each one’s proper disposition and co-operation.

Note that the meritorious cause is the suffering and death of Christ. Human being are not the source of the justifying merit. Note also that the sacraments are “instrumental”. The sacraments are the “instruments” in the hand of Christ.

The formal cause is the “justice of God” not our own justice. Nevertheless, we receive His “justice within us, each one according to his own measure.”

Not even a foaming-at-the-mouth Calvinist can find fault with this aspect of Trent. It’s air-proof.

Any thoughts from either Catholics or Protestants?