Are Catholicism and protestantism different religions?

[Rob_Arnzen]

• Roman Catholicism teaches that baptism is the instrument of justification. Reformed confessions teach that faith alone is the instrument of justification, and baptism is the sign and seal.

Catholicism teaches that Baptism provides access to the life of grace, not that it is the instrument of justification.

• Roman Catholicism teaches that God’s grace can be effectively resisted by someone who wills not to be saved. Protestantism teaches that all men will not to be saved, until they are effectually called by God, in which case their disposition towards God changes. This is sometimes called “irresistible grace” or more accurately “effectual calling”.

Catholicism teaches that human beings are capable of sin, including mortal sin.

• Roman Catholicism generally teaches that God elects and reprobates according to what he knows in advance people will choose. So he “elects” you because he knows you will co-operate with his grace. He “reprobates” you based on his knowledge of you rejecting co-operation with his grace. Protestantism teaches that God elects some to salvation despite their sins, and because of the work of Jesus Christ, and reprobates others in just punishment for their rebellion and sin. i.e. RCism - God chose us because we choose him. Protestantism - we choose God because he chose us.

Catholicism teaches that God offers salvation to every person. As human beings they exercise free will and choose to accept or reject that salvation. While God, Who exists outside of time and knows everything that has happened or will ever happen, knows what choices you will make, He in no way elects or reprobates in any way that will result in less than perfectly free will on anyone’s part.

• RCism teaches that justification is a process, begun in baptism and increased (a transformation of the individual soul) by an infusion of grace throughout the life of the believer. This is accomplished by participation in the sacraments, and if we “make shipwreck” of our faith by “mortal (serious) sin” we can regain it by the sacrament of penance. If this process of subjective transformation of the sinner is not complete by death, such that perfect righteousness “inheres” in the believer, then the believer will spend time in Purgatory to make up the difference. Protestants including Anglicans teach that justification is the reckoning or imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the account of the believer - Christ’s righteousness reckoned to us (God counts us righteous, although we are not) and our sins reckoned to him (God counted Jesus a sinner at the cross, and punished him, in our place). This is called “the great exchange”.

Catholicism teaches that once baptized, access to other sacraments - which provide grace ex opere operato - assists us in strengthening ourselves for the race, provide spiritual food and drink, and bring us closer to God. This objective transformation, this spiritual strengthening, brings us into closer communion with God and his saints. Christ’s one sacrifice on the Cross makes this communion possible.

Since every offense requires redress, in common with late Judaism Catholics believe that some souls will undergo some additional purgation prior to entering eternal life. The precise nature of this purgation is a matter of theological speculation.

In common with most non-Catholic Christians Catholics believe Christ’s atonement makes this life of grace possible. In common with our brethren separated from communion with us in the first ten centuries, we believe the sacraments do what Christ promised they would ex opere operato. This belief is shared by many of our Anglican and Lutheran brothers.

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[Per_Crucem]

Not in my immediate environs, for obvious reasons.

GKC

Present sane company excepted, of course But I was referring to the mainline communion.

 

[GKC]

Present sane company excepted, of course But I was referring to the mainline communion.

Oh, those folk. Well…

GKC

 

[Peter_J]

I wouldn’t, either. Aside from disagreements over the papacy, I’ve never thought of high church Anglicans as particularly “Lutheran” in anything they believe. I could be wrong.

To me anglicanism is very unique. I agree. I don’t see anglicans as being high church lutheran.

Right. High-church Lutherans are called, well, high-church Lutherans.

Which isn’t to say that Anglicans and Lutherans (high-church or otherwise) don’t have things in common. Indeed, I think they have more in common than most other pairs you could consider, since both of them are “catholic and protestant” (or “Catholic and Protestant” as some people prefer to write).

 

[catholictiger]

my answer yes (I’m Catholic)

First we follow the same Christ (well sorta). Most protestant religions follow God who we believe is a trinity and the son is named Jesus Christ. But some protestant religions don’t believe in a trinity (different religion), there are even some protestants who don’t believe Jesus is God but is rather someone who was chosen by God. There are many different beliefs of Protestantism that doesn’t exactly go together with Catholicism, even if they believe in Jesus Christ.

But this is nothing compared to the differences when it comes to our religions. First Catholicism has it’s basis for belief the way it lives its life, along with many other things, in ancient and medieval philosophy and theology. I don’t know how many protestants believe this but some have puritized so to speak our bodies. We think bodies bad spirit good. But the Church believes that the body is good and so is the spirit.

To put it simply, from what I have seen of protestants they are mostly working from a modernist groundwork, a very individualistic approach to Christianity. How many times have you heard people say I don’t need to go to Church I can have a relationship with Jesus Christ without Church. That is so fundamentally contrary to Catholic Thought that we wouldn’t possibly be following the same religion.

I could go on, but to put it simply, Catholics and Protestants are VERY different. Sure we both follow Jesus Christ and that is important, but there are so many things different about our two faiths that we are not the same.

 

[johnnyc176]

my answer yes (I’m Catholic)

First we follow the same Christ (well sorta).

We might love the same Jesus but we certainly are not following the same Jesus. I find it similar to how the Church looks at Muslims in that we worship the same God but their understanding of God is not the same. Love requires obedience. Jesus instituted the Sacraments and founded the Catholic Church to dispense those Sacraments as a means to Grace. He also founded the Catholic Church to help us in our approach to His Word. The divide on that alone pretty much points to a difference.

 

[Genesis315]

The word translated into English as “subsists” was chosen specifically to avoid using the word “is”.

The reason is that there are those not visibly united with the Church who are in the bosom of God, and therefore the Church includes them.

In a more formal way the document describes the varying relationships of communions and associations of persons with the visible Church.

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That’s not how the Church has explained the use of “subsists” for Lumen Gentium. Having a relationship to the Church, even a salvific one, and being identified as the one Church are not the same thing. In my last post, I have given the word “subsist” the same meaning in Dignitatis Humanae as the Church has given to the word “subsist” for Lumen Gentium.

The CDF has explained this multiple times (in the Notification on the Book “Church: Charism and Power” by Father Leonardo Boff, also quoted in the document Dominus Iesus, and in the Note on Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church.)

CDF:

The interpretation of those who would derive from the formula subsistit in the thesis that the one Church of Christ could subsist also in non-Catholic Churches and ecclesial communities is therefore contrary to the authentic meaning of Lumen gentium. “The Council instead chose the word subsistit precisely to clarify that there exists only one ‘subsistence’ of the true Church, while outside her visible structure there only exist elementa Ecclesiae, which — being elements of that same Church — tend and lead toward the Catholic Church.

CDF:

In number 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium ‘subsistence’ means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church[8], in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth.​

Nevertheless, the word “subsists” can only be attributed to the Catholic Church alone precisely because it refers to the mark of unity that we profess in the symbols of the faith (I believe… in the “one” Church); and this “one” Church subsists in the Catholic Church.[10]

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html

Again, just as the true Church cannot be said to subsist in non-Catholic communities, so can the true religion not be said to subsist in them. If the true religion does not subsist in them, their religion cannot be said to be identified as that same religion. That’s what “subsistere” or "subsistit in’ mean–it’s a special kind of identification, one that is perduring and unique.

But, as I mentioned in my earlier post, that doesn’t mean other religions don’t include elements of the one true religion or that other communities don’t possess some sanctifying elements that belong to the one Church, but only the Catholic Church and the Catholic religion can be identified as the one true Church or the one true religion.

“Subsists” was chosen precisely to make this distinction and was proposed at the Council by Fr. Sebastiaan Tromp for this very reason. The recorded acts of the Council show precisely that this word was intended to mean “to be perpetuated in” and it was emphatically chosen because it meant an exclusive perpetuation (the draft originally had “adest,” which was more vague on this point).

For more detail, here’s a good article on this by now Cardinal Josef Becker, which also includes a discussion of the phrase “present and operative”:

ewtn.com/library/Theology/subsistitin.HTM

 

[GKC]

Right. High-church Lutherans are called, well, high-church Lutherans.

Which isn’t to say that Anglicans and Lutherans (high-church or otherwise) don’t have things in common. Indeed, I think they have more in common than most other pairs you could consider, since both of them are “catholic and protestant” (or “Catholic and Protestant” as some people prefer to write).

I like “Catholic and protestant”, if one chooses those terms.

GKC

 

[Rob_Arnzen]

That’s not how the Church has explained the use of “subsists” for Lumen Gentium. Having a relationship to the Church, even a salvific one, and being identified as the one Church are not the same thing. In my last post, I have given the word “subsist” the same meaning in Dignitatis Humanae as the Church has given to the word “subsist” for Lumen Gentium.

The word “subsists” was used because of disputes such as that with Leonard Feeney, SJ, over the necessity of membership in the visible Roman Catholic Church for salvation.

Your quotes address the erroneous interpretation of this distinction to mean that non-Catholic churches are somehow “sister” churches and that belonging to one of them is equivalent to membership in the Catholic Church in that sense. These citations deal with communions, not with individuals.

There are those fully incorporated into the Church who are not visibly joined to it, including those who have attained salvation - including worthies of the Old Testament, and those known only to God in this life.

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[Indifferently]

Catholicism teaches that Baptism provides access to the life of grace, not that it is the instrument of justification.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life.

 

[Indifferently]

Referring back to the title of this topic, this is what it appears to me:

• A Roman Catholic considers non-Roman Catholics who are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost Christian although not possessing the fulness of truth. This does not mean the non-Roman Catholic is saved, nor does it lessen the obligation on him to submit to the Pope of Rome.
• A Protestant who is Reformed however does not consider the faithful Roman Catholic to be a Christian, on account of the Roman Catholic Church’s clear anathematization of the Gospel as Protestants understnad it, at the Council of Trent.

To an above poster, whether or not Calvinism is “orthodoxy” depends on your understnading of a) Calvinism; and b) orthodoxy. I personally don’t think Reformed theology should even be called “Calvinism”, nor do I think the “five points of Calvinism” (so called, and not themselves coined by John Calvin, or the Synod of Dort for that matter) are a sufficient summary of Reformed doctrine.

 

[Rob_Arnzen]

• A Roman Catholic considers non-Roman Catholics who are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost Christian although not possessing the fulness of truth.

With an exception of those baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.

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[Rob_Arnzen]

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life.

The use of the word “justification” in this English translation is unfortunate since it has a particular meaning among many Protestants which this passage does not intend to convey.

The reference is to Romans 3:21-26.

However, even the translation makes clear that it is the Passion of Christ which is the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men, not Baptism. Baptism is the door of the spiritual life; by it we are made members of Christ and incorporated with the Church. The effect is the remission of all sin, original and actual, as well of all punishment which is due for sin.

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[Peter_J]

A Protestant who is Reformed however does not consider the faithful Roman Catholic to be a Christian,

As is your right to believe. Clearly there are people on both sides who regard us as different religions rather than separated groups within one religion.

 

[Per_Crucem]

As is your right to believe. Clearly there are people on both sides who regard us as different religions rather than separated groups within one religion.

At least 19 Catholics, on this forum. Which is disturbing to me. But that’s neither here nor there.

 

[Genesis315]

There are those fully incorporated into the Church who are not visibly joined to it, including those who have attained salvation - including worthies of the Old Testament, and those known only to God in this life.

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Not according to Vatican II.
Lumen Gentium:

They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops.

This is the whole purpose of the distinction between “partial communion” and “membership,” to distinguish what is the Church with those who, in the words of Lumen Gentium, are only “linked to” or “related in various ways to” that Church. In fact, defining the Church was the whole point of Lumen Gentium.

Anyway, this thread is about religion, not the Church (which I was using analogically). How can two religions be the same, if they have mutually exclusive dogmas?

 

[Indifferently]

Rome has certainly changed her rhetoric since Urban’s infamous “Unam sanctam” bull. Whether she has changed her theology (Second Vatican Council) is up for debate.

 

[Genesis315]

Rome has certainly changed her rhetoric since Urban’s infamous “Unam sanctam” bull. Whether she has changed her theology (Second Vatican Council) is up for debate.

St. John Paul reaffirmed that the dogma of the bull Unam Sanctam remains part of the Church’s tradition:
St. John Paul II:

Since Christ brings about salvation through his Mystical Body, which is the Church, the way of salvation is connected essentially with the Church. The axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus"–“outside the Church there is no salvation”–stated by St. Cyprian (Epist. 73, 21; PL 1123 AB), belongs to the Christian tradition. It was included in the Fourth Lateran Council (DS 802), in the Bull Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII (DS 870) and the Council of Florence (Decretum pro Jacobitis, DS 1351).

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19950531en.html

Boniface VIII just clarified the traditional axiom by identifying outside of which Church there is no salvation: the one subject to the Roman Pontiff.

 

[Indifferently]

St. John Paul reaffirmed that the dogma of the bull Unam Sanctam remains part of the Church’s tradition:

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19950531en.html

Boniface VIII just clarified the traditional axiom by identifying outside of which Church there is no salvation: the one subject to the Roman Pontiff.

This modern fashionable view (pseudo-universalism, which the deceased pontiff John Paul II taught) that unbelievers and non-Roman Catholics are saved “through the church” clearly was neither the meaning or intent of either the decree of Lateran IV or Unam Sanctam, which both make it plain that there is no salvation outside the visible communion of the Pope of Rome.

The later theological gymnastics, including the invention of the concept of “invincible ignorance”, seem to demonstrate that although the language might stay the same, the meaning of the words has changed.

In other words, the “infallible” church seems to have once taught one thing, and now teaches another - using the same vocabulary of course.

 

[Isaiah45_9]

Rome has certainly changed her rhetoric since Urban’s infamous “Unam sanctam” bull. Whether she has changed her theology (Second Vatican Council) is up for debate.

That was Pope Boniface VIII.