LETTERS TO A PROTESTANT ENQUIRER
(By Monsignor Benson, in the Universe.)
I.—GENERAL. My Dear Sir, . You told me the other day, when we had a conversation together, that the chief obstacle to your becoming a Catholic was that sense you .had of the tremendous gulf that would separate, you in future (should you make your submission to the Church) from all your past experiences; that the gulf was so great that you did not feel justified in attempting to leap it; and that until further light or conviction came to you, you preferred, therefore, to remain where you were. Now, at the time that you said this, I did not (I am afraid) seem to pay much serious attention to it. I said, if you remember, that that would be all right when once that you had leapt the gulf, and that a certain sort of ' blindness ' was a necessary element in any act of sheer faith.. And then we went on to talk of other matters, and to discuss particular points of Catholic belief about which you had difficulties. The result of the interview was (to my mind) rather unjg actory, and, I think, to yours, too. ' ' Will you allow me now to return to that general statement about the ' gulf' that you made, and to explain, as well as I can, certain questions that you raised from that point of view ? Because I believe that, after thinking it over, I understand better now what
your principal difficulty is; and I think that, if we can get that right, the rest will, follow easily enough, v May I begin by expressing in my own words what I think it is that you feel ? - ( You feel that, for good or evil, the religion in which you have been educated has profoundly influenced your mind, that it has, indeed, become a part of your very self and that, further, as a matter of fact, that religion is right and true and good. At any rate, it seems the best of which you are capable. '' • You have learned, for instance, in the denomination of which you are still a nominal member certain tremendous truths about God, and have received in your worship communications from that God—lights and graces— you can never possibly deny. You are absolutely certain, for example, that God is your Father, that Jesus Christ is your Redeemer, that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and contains His Revelation, that the Holy Spirit guides both you and all other sincere souls who seek and submit themselves to that guidance. There are other matters rather more doubtful in your mind; for instance, you have never learned very distinctly—or, at any rate, now you do not know very clearly— you ought to believe about Baptism and the Lord's Supper; you are certain that they were instituted by Christ, and must be used, therefore, by all Christian people; and, more, that they are in some sense real means of grace; but beyond that you are rather suspicious of any precise dogmatising on these points. These, however, are not vital and certain to you, as are the other great fundamental doctrines I have mentioned. These other doctrines the Fatherhood of God, the Redemption of the Word by Jesus Christ, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, especially to those who accept the Bible as God's Word—these seem to you really to matter, and to be (as I should partly agree, too) the most fundamental truths of Christianity. You have grown up in them, you have made progress in the spiritual life along their lines, you are absolutely certain that they are the chief truths which Christ came to reveal. Now, on the other side, you happen to have been brought into contact with Catholicism, . and a number of things have conspired to attract you towards that religion. For instance, you mentioned the following arguments that have appealed to you:You have been struck by-the undoubted historical continuity of the Roman Catholic Church, by its extraordinary vitality, by the unity of faith among its members, by their, churchgoing habits, by their obedience to what they believe to be Divine authority, by their zeal for conversion, by the ardor and reverence of their worship. These first drew you towards the Church, in spite of certain other points which repelled you. Then you began to read a little, and were impressed by the very logical arguments of our controversialists; and you began to see that we Catholics really had a good deal to say for ourselves. Then you inquired yet further of various Catholic friends, and you were astonished by the reasonableness, and the identity, too, of their answers. You learnt, for instance, that we did not adore the Blessed Virgin Mary as God, but gave her reverence for the sake of Him Who was her Son,: and so on. So, little by little,,you began to come nearer to us, until, it might be said, you had a tolerably true and comprehensive view of what it was that we Catholics really believe; and you got rid, at the same time, of a good many untrue ideas about that same Faith of ours. . . Then, a little before you came to see me for the first time, it actually dawned upon you, at ! any rate as a possibility, that we Catholics really might be right after all; that the Catholic religion might be; true in a way that the Protestant religion was not, and : that, if so, it might be some day your appalling duty to become a Papist, to turn your back upon your past and begin all over again. You saw, in a word, the apparent reasonableness of the Catholic claim; you could not detect any evident flaws in the process of argument by which we defend that claim; and, almost at the same moment, that difficulty I mentioned at the beginning of my letter occurred to you , with crushing force. Even though/ you said to yourself, the Catholic religion is true in * a certain kind of
way, so, too, is my old religion true in a certain kind of way y, and it has the advantage for me that I have been brought up in it, 'by the Providence of God. After all, too, does not my old religion contain the ) essentials of Christianity?? God is my Father, , Christ '■ is my Saviour, the Holy Ghost is my Guide. What can -anyone want more than, that ? Perhaps, if I could have chosen for myself originally, I would have chosen to be a Catholic: certainly ■ the ; Catholic religion has a coherence and;i& s system and a force that my own religion has not. But )I. am not prepared to make such ; leap on my own responsibility. I am not prepared to break with the past to such an extent as this; I am too old and ? too mature to begin again.✓ Besides, how can I give the lie to my past experiences? If I cannot trust my convietioiL with regard to the past, how can I trust it any more with regard to the future Certainly I will never speak against Catholicism again, as I used to, and I will always respect (and even, perhaps, a little envy) Catholics. But I cannot break with the past and leap and begin again. The gulf is too wide. Surely I must be tolerably safe as I am !' - Now, my dear Sir, I think that is a fair summary of what you feel, is it not? Again and again I thought I perceived something of that feeling in your' mind, during our conversation, or, rather, I see now that I perceived it. . .So, with your leave,' I will try to give.my answer to the difficulty. I will begin to-day with just'a, sketch of what I shall have to say more fully afterwards, unless you tell me to stop. For I think that if we can get rid of this difficulty, all the others you mentioned will disappear. Now, I should be the last person in the world to deny the existence of the gulf between the Catholic and Protestant religions. There is a gulf, and an exceedingly deep one. It goes down to the very roots of things. But I wish most emphatically to say that itis not nearly so wide as you think, and that it is not nearly so wide as it 'is deep.- Let ins explain. The enormous and vital difference between a Catholic and a Protestant lies in the reasons for which each believes what he believes. On a very large number of points they believe, in substance; exactly the same things, as I shall try to show later. But they believe them for totally different reasons. The Catholic believes because a Living, Speaking Society on earth, called the Church, tells him these things, just as any. disciple of Jesus Christ believed Christ's doctrines because the Living Voice of Christ told them to him. The Protestant believes because lie finds the doctrines in a Book. Catholics believe that the Word of God is larger than any book, however divinely inspired; that is, they believe in Tradition as well, focussed in the successor of St. Peter, which is another name-for the Living Mind and Voice of the Church. Protestants believe that the whole Word of God (so far as they are concerned) is bound between the covers of the Bible. Now that is, indeed, a deep gulf, and I do not deny it; and it is a gulf that separates the Eitualist from us, just as much as it separates the Congregationalist; for the Ritualist, although I know that he talks a good deal about tradition, is never able to give a very clear account as to how he finds out what is true Tradition and what is false. A phrase that is very usual in the mouth of the Ritualist is, ' The Church to teach, and the Bible to prove,' which is, of course, fundamentally just what the Wesley an and Congregationalist believe, too. However, that is not our point to-day. I know you agree with me pretty well that a Ritualist is no more what you call ' a real Catholic' than you are yourself.
This, then, is the gulf that separates us. I believe because ' Peter (alias Pius X.) tells me. You because the Bible (as interpreted by yourself) %£f ,1s you. ( And that gulf goes down, indeed, to the roots of things; and it is that gulf which you will have to jump if you are to be a Catholic. But, when you have jumped it, what is the landing like ? In what kind of country will you find yourself? Now, that is exactly the point on which I want to reassure you. You will not find yourself— tell you with all the emphasis I have—in completely strange
; surroundings. On the contrary, you will feel you have come home. \ ~ >. -. • Now this letter is already, growing rather long. I will, do no more to-day than just touch on one or two points to which I have already referred. : ;,; ■{; ' (1) The Fatherhood of God is every bit as . much a Catholic doctrine as a Protestant. : You will have to renounce absolutely nothing of all that you have hitherto believed on this point-; oh- the contrary, you will find it taught and emphasised even more strongly than in your own chapel. You will find that we place God in an absolutely unique position. He- is the Creator of all, the Fount of all, the Father of all. The honor and love which we' give to Him we give to no other, even in the faintest degree. No saint or angel, not even Blessed Mary herself, the Mother of God's Son, ever can obscure for one instant' the glorious and awful Face of God. Further,. you will find that this unique Fatherhood of God is brought home to us in a thousand ways in which it cannot be brought home to a Protestant. He is so simply our Father that He.feeds us with Heavenly Bread at His Own Table; we are so simply His children that the doors, of His House are open to us all day long and every day of the week. He washes us in the Living Water which alone can cleanse us. When we have sinned, He 'runs to meet us while we are yet a great way off.' It is the final and supreme reward to which we look forward, that one day we shall see His Face. ' . . If anyone tells you over again that we Catholics have hidden God behind our man-made doctrines, you will know what to say.' • (2) The Redemption of the World by Jesus Christ. Let me say, shortly, that on this point our doctrine is the same as yours. No Catholic ever trusts for his salvation to anything in the universe except the Precious* Blood of Jesus Christ; or rests the weight of his soul upon anything except the Cross. No Catholic teaching about sacraments or saints or priests can ever obscure this for one instant. Nothing in the universe can ever pay the price of sin, or . reconcile a man to his Maker, or wash away the faintest spot of sin, except the Sacrifice of Calvary. Is not this exactly what you believe?"• ' • • .
(3) We believe that the guidance of the Holy Ghost is given to all who ask. You yourself will acknowledge that sometimes even a sincere man will misunderstand that Divine Teaching; for instance, you allowed as much when you were discussing the Plymouth Brethren; you confessed that you'-greatly respected them, but that you did not agree with them. Very well, then, either you or they must have misunderstood God's Voice in your hearts. We then get over this difficulty by believing- that while the Holy Ghost, indeed, guides every man who sincerely wishes it, yet, since men misunderstand sometimes, He speaks in another way which there is no mistaking; and that He guides the whole Church with an infallibility and a certainty which the ordinary, individual cannot claim. Is not this reasonable? At any rate, it does not contradict or omit anything of your own belief. (4) With regard to the Inspiration of the Bible, we, too, believe, as you do,. that it is indeed the Written Word of God, and that no other literature in the whole world can compare with it. We do not, for instance, place _on an equality with it the writings of any saints or doctors. So precious and holy do we think it that we believe that God has provided a special means for its protection and proper interpretation. ' We believe, that is, that the same Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible guides the Church, to whose care it was committed, to interpret it absolutely truly according to God's Mind. Is not that reasonable? It would surely be very odd to think otherwise! For of what value can God's Revelation be to us, if we may mistake its meaning? Now I have done for to-day. Will you let me know if what I write is of any use to you? If it is, I will go on to explain how other Catholic doctrines, too, are in accordance with your own; and how even those which seem to you false or misleading are, as a matter of fact, a necessary and coherent part of the Christian Revelation.
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New Zealand Tablet, 17 July 1913, Page 15
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2,577LETTERS TO A PROTESTANT ENQUIRER New Zealand Tablet, 17 July 1913, Page 15
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