Are Catholicism and protestantism different religions?

[brain2dead]

would Saint paul view – the teachings of the RCIA – what he taught???

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth,

experiences in RCIA- catholic training

First of all thanks for being willing to share our faith.

I have been involved with RCIA for over 30 years

orthodox teaching

4 main sources when developing a lesson plan…

1…Holy Scripture…

2…The Catechism…

3…The teaching of the early Church Fathers

4… finally my personal experience as living as a Catholic for the past 65 years.

Trust me when I say that people are hungry for the truth…don’t water down our beliefs.

I spend a lot of time with topics that protestants have a hard time accepting…

.1…The Papacy…

2…The Real Presence…

3…Saints…

4…Sola Scriptura…and

5…especially devotion to Mary.

God Bless you in your efforts.

Galatians 3 - The Christian, Law, and Living by Faith

A. The principle of continuing in faith.

1. (1) Paul confronts their blurred vision of Jesus and His work for them.

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

a. O foolish Galatians! The strong words were well deserved. Phillips even translated this, “O you dear idiots of Galatia.” In calling the Galatians foolish, Paul did not mean they were morally or mentally deficient (the ancient Greek word moros had that idea and was used by Jesus in parables such as in Matthew 7:26 and 25:1-13). Instead, Paul used the ancient Greek word anoetos, which had the idea of someone who can think but fails to use their power of perception.

i. The principles Paul referred to are things the Galatians knew, things they had been taught. The knowledge and understanding were there, but they were not using them.

b. Who has bewitched you: Bewitched has the idea that the Galatians were under some type of spell. Paul didn’t mean this literally, but their thinking was so clouded - and so unbiblical - that it seemed that some kind of spell had been cast over them.

i. Barclay translates bewitched as put the evil eye on. The ancient Greeks were accustomed to and afraid of the idea that a spell could be cast upon them by an evil eye.

ii. The evil eye was thought to work in the way a serpent could hypnotize its prey with its eyes. Once the victim looked into the evil eye, a spell could be cast. Therefore, the way to overcome the evil eye was simply not to look at it. In using this phrasing and the word picture of bewitched, Paul encouraged the Galatians to keep their eyes always and steadfastly upon Jesus.

iii. It is wonderful to have a soft, tender heart before God. But some people have softer heads than hearts. Their minds are too accommodating to wrong, unbiblical ideas, and they don’t think things through to see if they really are true or not according to the Bible. This is a sign of spiritual immaturity, even as a baby will stick anything into its mouth.

 

[rcwitness]

would Saint paul view – the teachings of the RCIA – what he taught???

RCIA is, hopefully in as many parishes as possible, Teaching the complete Apostolic gospel, not only Paul’s in particular.

First of all thanks for being willing to share our faith.

I have been involved with RCIA for over 30 years

Welcome to the forum, and your service to the Lord.

4 main sources when developing a lesson plan…

1…Holy Scripture…

2…The Catechism…

3…The teaching of the early Church Fathers

4… finally my personal experience as living as a Catholic for the past 65 years.

Number 4 is good to have, for sure.

Who has bewitched you: Bewitched has the idea that the Galatians were under some type of spell. Paul didn’t mean this literally, but their thinking was so clouded - and so unbiblical - that it seemed that some kind of spell had been cast over them.

Though they did not have the complete Bible, of course. Yet they apparently had sufficient Word to be convicted, yet lacked particular efforts which Paul extended to them gracefully, and boldly AND which then became Scripture itself…

It is wonderful to have a soft, tender heart before God. But some people have softer heads than hearts. Their minds are too accommodating to wrong, unbiblical ideas, and they don’t think things through to see if they really are true or not according to the Bible. This is a sign of spiritual immaturity, even as a baby will stick anything into its mouth.

I like that!

So, after all this in your post… What do you think about the thread topic? And what is AOG?

 

[andrewstx]

Oh, those folk. Well…

GKC

The Continuum is not mainstream or mainline, at all. They are really motley, to say the least.

 

[andrewstx]

RCIA is, hopefully in as many parishes as possible, Teaching the complete Apostolic gospel, not only Paul’s in particular.

Welcome to the forum, and your service to the Lord.

Number 4 is good to have, for sure.

Though they did not have the complete Bible, of course. Yet they apparently had sufficient Word to be convicted, yet lacked particular efforts which Paul extended to them gracefully, and boldly AND which then became Scripture itself…

I like that!

So, after all this in your post… What do you think about the thread topic? And what is AOG?

ASSEMBLY OF GOD. A Pentecostal Protestant denomination roughly a century old.

 

[SyroMalankara]

Church of England, a balancing act between Luther and Calvin:

archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/12th-january-1901/7/calvinism-lutheranism-and-the-church-of-england

 

[andrewstx]

Church of England, a balancing act between Luther and Calvin:

archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/12th-january-1901/7/calvinism-lutheranism-and-the-church-of-england

The Tablet article is nearly impossible to read. It omits letters and in some cases. entire words.

 

[GKC]

The Continuum is not mainstream or mainline, at all. They are really motley, to say the least.

And thanks be for that.

GKC

 

[SyroMalankara]

The Tablet article is nearly impossible to read. It omits letters and in some cases. entire words.

In the month of October, 1898, Dr. Temple, the then newly-appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, startled the Anglican world by a pronouncement on the doctrine of the Church of England in respect to the Real Presence in Holy Communion, He pointed out that the controversy on the Real Presence arises from the varying answers given to the question, “When does the congregation, in which the Hcly Eucharist is being celebrated, receive the Gift— not as individuals but as a congregation ? " “To this question,” he said, “the Church of England has given no answer ; and Hooker—undoubtedly a very high authority on the doctrine of the Church of England—maintained that the Real Presence should not be looked for in the consecrated elements, but in the receivers. . . The Church,” he continued, " certainly teaches Hooker’s doctrine, but to this it must be added that the Church nowhere forbids the further doctrine that there is a Real Presence in some way attached to the elements at the time of consecration and before the reception. . . Though [Hooker’s] explanation entirely satisfied all the language of the Articles and the Prayer Book, it was nowhere explicitly asserted so as to exclude altogether the other opinion.” This other opinion, remarked the Primate, has been sanctioned, or at least not condemned, by the Privy Council, and there was nothing in the Anglican formularies which explicitly forbade a man to hold or teach it. It was indeed difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between it and the Lutheran Consubstantiation, but nevertheless it was imp)rtant that it should be clearly understood that it was not unlawful to hold and teach it within the Church of England.

Great was the consternation aroused by this statement in the two opposing camps of High and Low Church. The latter were indignant that the Primate of All England should, in the very heat of the Ritualistic battle, sanction by his great authority any doctrine of the Real Presence. The High Church, on their part, were dismayed to hear their ecclesiastical chief pronouncing a doctrine, indistinguishable from Calvinism, to be the official teaching of the Anglican Church, and declaring that their own doctrine was to be tolerated only because it was in fact the Lutheran heresy of Consubstantiation.

The statement of the Archbishop is somewhat ancient of date as we reckon dates in these fastmoving days of ours, and especially so in a community in such perpetual flux of opinions as is the Church of England. But the question has been brought to the front again by the holding of the Round Table Conference at Fulham Palace, and in particular by the one “regrettable incident” which marred the otherwise gentlemanly agreement to differ observed in this Anglican gathering. Each side had propounded its views wnen in the fourth session Dr. Sanday “wished to ask Mr. Dimock whether he thought the expres3ions of Lord Halifax’s statement other than compatible with loyalty to the teaching of the Church of England.” Mr. Dimock replied “that the Church of England had with great care—evidently ex induslria—perhaps even with excess of caution—but certainly with a settled purpose— eliminated from her formularies the language which might seem to support or to warrant the teaching of the Real Preseace as sacramentally identified with the consecrated element.” He contended further that Article Twenty-nine “gave unmistakeable evidence of the Church of England having taken her stand clearly and strongly on one side of a doctrinal gulf, on the other side of which stood the teaching of eke real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in or under the form of hi ead and wine.”

We must confess to a feeling of sympathy and admiration for the frank utterance of Mr. limock. The odium 17leologicum is proverbial ; and there are numbers of our fell men who are surprised and scandalised by the warmth which a theological discussion often produces. They cannot understand why it should not be carried on with the calm which characterises a discussion on scientific or other mundane affairs. We are rather sceptical of this alleged calmness on the part of men of science or men of the world. We think that the calm changes very quickly into a stiff b:eeze as soon as ever the controversy gets to touch upon fundamental principles. That man will not do much in any sphere of life and action who has not certain principles which he is as ready to defend as the apple of his eye. The more fundamental the principle, the more important the subject, the greater will be the energy he displays. in repelling any attack thereon. To a religious mind nothing is so sacred as those questions and principles which have to do with the relation of the soul to its God, And if to religious feeling a man add an acquaintance with theological science the vigour with which he meets and battles with an opponent will increase in proportion as the latter’s propositions threaten some dogma held to be all-important and fundamental. In this age of indifferentism in religion the spirit which prompted St. John the Evangelist to fly in haste from the public bath because the heretic Cerinthus was there does not find many imitators. It was, therefore, a pleasure to find a man with the courage of his convictions and a belief in their truth strong enough to move him to deny the truth of their contradictories ; all the more because he belongs to a Church whose very raison d’etre, we ale told, is to afford a home both to those who affirm and to those who deny some of the most fundamental Christian dogmas.

 

[SyroMalankara]

Nevertheless we are compelled to admit that Mr. Dimock was in the wrong. In the subsequent Session one member after another rose to proclaim his own conviction that Lord Halifax’s doctrinal position was tenable in the Church of England. Canon Armitage Robinson, after quoting from Dr. Temple’s charge, added that, though he did not desire to associate himself with the words of the doctrine which the Privy Council had sanctioned, he did desire most emphatically to associate himself with the words of the Archbishop, who had elsewhere said, “You cannot narrow the Church of England.”

Nor is it only the Archbishop’s statement and the Privy Council’s sanction that lead us to conclude that Mr. Dimock was wrong. He appealed to the formularies of the Church of England, and in particular to her Articles, as supporting his contention. Now there are few men, if any, in England who are Mr. Dimock’s equals in the historical and critical knowledge of the Aiticles. Yet we venture to think that he has omitted to notice an argument in favour of his opponents which may be drawn from the history of Article Twenty eight.

It has been usual to trace the origin of the Anglican formularies to Lutheran sources—notably, the Confession of Augsburg. However ti ue this may be in regard to many of them, it seems to us that the Church of England doctrine on the Holy Communion is more directly due to Calvinistic teaching. Let us put side by side Article Twenty-eight and a brief summary of Calvin’s doctrine on the Lord’s Supper.

Art. XXVI II.

1. The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign . . . but rather a Sacrament of our Redemption … , insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is, 2. Transubstantiation . . . cannot be proved by Holy Writ ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and bath given occasion to many superstitions.
2. The Body of Christ is c/

veil, taken, and eaten in the SuppTr, only af:er a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Chi ist is received and eaten in the Supper, is Faith.

1. The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped. Calv. Inst., lib. iv., c. 17. nn. r. "We must beware of so emphasizing the signs as

to separate them from the mysteries with which they are connected. . . . In truth the

thing by them signified is offered and exhibited by Christ

to all who sit down to that spiritual feast ; although it is fruitfully received by the faith fill only. . . . Wherefore the Apostle saith : The Bread which we break is, &c."

or. 12-15. Popish Transubstantiation is refuted " y the

sense of Scripture ;" has occa sioned "many and great superstitions ; " is " repugnantto

Scripture and the primitive Church ;" and by it “the nature of a Sacrament is overthrown.”

nn. 16 30 (Summarised , below).

OD. 31-34. "However, those are g’eatly deceived who con

ceive of no Presence of Christ’s Flesh except it be placed (s-s.

tatue) in the bread. . . . For in His Holy Supper Christ bids me, under the symbols of bread and wine, to take, to eat and drink, His Body and Blood 7 in no wise do I doubt but that He truly gives (fiorrigat) and I receive them. . . . By Faith we no less sumptuously and plentifully feast upon His Body than do they who draw Christ Himself from heaven."

nn. 35-39. The Papists “have excogitated rites utterly alien to Christ’s ordinance. … They consecrate a host, as they call it, that they may carry it about with pomp, and set it up to be gazed upon, worshipped, and invoked.”

It is hard to conceive that a parallelism so close is the result of mere accidental coincidence. And perhaps more striking than the frequent verbal identity is the strict parallelism in the order in which the subject is worked out. The paragraphs of the Article correspond in sequence to the sections of Calvin’s chapter, with one only exception, viz., sections 16 30 hava no corresponding paragraph in the Anglican Article. And in this omission lies the argument for our present contention. The Article as it now stands is the result of a revision carried out in 1562, after Elizabeth had been some years upon the throne. In the original edition of 1552 there was an additional clause holding a place between paragraphs 2 and 3, which we will therefore call par. ; b. We will compare it with the omitted sections of Calvin’s Institute :

 

[SyroMalankara]

Art. XXVIII.

b. Christ on ascending int) heaven, gave immortality to His Body, and did not destroy its nature, for (according to the Scriptures) He continually retains the true nature of man ; and this requires that He should be in one and a defined place, and not be spread out into many or all places at the same time. Therefore, as Christ is taken up into heaven, and there is to remain to the end of the world, and from thence, and from nowhere else (as S. Augustine saith) is to come to judge the quick and the dead, no one of the faithful ought either to believe or to profess a real, or (as they term it) a corporal presence of the Flesh and Blood in the Eucharist. Nevertheless, the Body of Christ is given, &c.*

Calv. Irastit.

nn. 15-3o. Consubstantiation and Ubiquity are to be rejected, "for of Christ’s Body St. Augustine saith : He gave immortality to His Flesh, but did not

destroy its nature.’ He is not to be supposed as d ffused according to this ',human) form into every place. . . . Therefure in the Supper He exhibits Himself present by a special mode … because, as has been said, in His Flesh He is comprehended by the heavens until He shall appear for the Judgment. However those are greatly deceived," tkc.

It is manifest that this excluded clause completes the parallel between the Articles and Calvin. It is a deliberate rejection of the two Lutheran doctrines—Ubiquity and Consubstantiation. If it still stood in the Anglican formularies Mr. Dimock would have had good ground for his contention that any association on the altar of the Real Presence and the consecrated elements is forbidden to be taught by members of the Church of England. But the very fact of its omission in 1562 indicates an intention on the part of the authorities, if not of teaching, at least of tolerating the profession of belief in the Real Presence according to Consubstantiation. We have said that when this omission was made Elizabeth was on the throne. In her youth this queen had been under the direction of Lutheran divines. She is generally credited with a belief in the Real Presence very much in advance of her Calvinistic prelates, and was especially desirous to bring about the Lutheran ideal of a Church coterminous with the State. And, apart from her own prepossessions, there were in England at the outset of her reign many who professed the Lu.heran doctrines. To conciliate these and to win their adhesion to the Establishment, it was necessary to omit such a direct attack upon their belief as was made in this paragraph 2 b. Such is the interpretation put upon the action of the Elizabethan authorities by Bishop IIarold Browne in his “Exposition of the Thirty nine Articles " : “In this twenty-eighth Article,” he writes, " as first drawn up in sere 1552, there was a clause stating that Christ in bodily presence is in heaven, and therefore that we ought not to confess ‘the real and bodily presence (as they term it) of Christ’s Flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.’ This nearly corresponds with the statement of the rubric at the end of our present communion service. Both the clause in the Article and the Rubric were omitted in Elizabeth’s reign ; lest persons inclined to the Lutheran belief might be too much offended by it ; and many such were in the Church, whom it was wished to conciliate” (" Exposition, &c. "third edition, p. 707).

The reinsertion of the “Black Rubric” in 1662, probably by the royal authority only, cannot outweigh the significance of the omission of the clause from so important a formulary as the Article. And therefore we think that the Frivy Council were acting according to the comprehensive spirit of the Church of England in refusing to condemn the teaching of the Real Presence along with continued substantial existence of the elements. Dr. Temple’s declaration is but the recognition of this on the part of the ecclesiastical authority, and henceforth it must be allowed that the two doctrines—Calvin’s and Luther’s—are tenable in the Church of England. We arc surprised that the bishops have not made use of this fact as a ready solution of the Ritual Crisis. If the two doctrines are equally tenable, surely it would logically follow that two systems of ritual and practice should obtain also. If a clergyman and his flock are entitled to believe that the very and true Body and Blood of Christ are associated on the altar with the elements, it is foolish, nay wrong, to forbid them to offer the adoration that is due, and illogical to refuse them the comfort of Reservation. Perhaps it was from a sense of the fitness of things that The Times caught at Lord Halifax’s suggestion of “the alternative use of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI.” The Church of England has often been reproached with inconsistency because Mr. A. performs divine service in the plainest of vestments and the barest of churches, whilst his neighbour, Father B., gorgeous in scarlet and gold, sings High Mass in a well-bedecked building. How unjust the reproach ! She is perfectly consistent with herself, as she began in 1562 with a policy of comprehension that refuses ever more and more to be narrowed within the limits of a single doctrinal system.

 

[Rob_Arnzen]

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.

Not according to Vatican II.

As you read and interpret it.

That reading and interpretation is erroneous.

.

 

[Rob_Arnzen]

Rome has certainly changed her rhetoric since Urban’s infamous “Unam sanctam” bull.

Of course not.

The Church has always recognized Baptism of Blood and Baptism of Desire, as evidenced by the inclusion of the Holy Innocents and John the Baptist in its calendar.

And the Church consistently excommunicated those who gave literal meanings to “outside the Church” right up to the eve of the Second Vatican Council, most notoriously Leonard Sweeney, SJ.

Church teaching can only be understood both in context and in continuity.

.

 

[Rob_Arnzen]

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

It strikes me that at one time the Church of England taught that birth control was immoral, that women could not be ordained, and that divorce and remarriage was forbidden.

Is there some context in which these 180 degree turns, two of them involving the fundamentals of the sacraments of Orders and Marriage, can be understood as not having once taught one thing and now teaching another?

I ask because the only way that the Church’s teaching that “outside the Church there is no salvation” can be understood as teaching one thing and now teaching another is removing it from both its historical context, and the continuity of the Church’s teaching, rendering them mere excerpted “proof texts”.

My impression, and I would be pleased to be corrected, is that the same thing cannot be said about the three complete turnabouts of the Church of England.

.

 

[Indifferently]

It strikes me that at one time the Church of England taught that birth control was immoral, that women could not be ordained, and that divorce and remarriage was forbidden.

Is there some context in which these 180 degree turns, two of them involving the fundamentals of the sacraments of Orders and Marriage, can be understood as not having once taught one thing and now teaching another?

I ask because the only way that the Church’s teaching that “outside the Church there is no salvation” can be understood as teaching one thing and now teaching another is removing it from both its historical context, and the continuity of the Church’s teaching, rendering them mere excerpted “proof texts”.

My impression, and I would be pleased to be corrected, is that the same thing cannot be said about the three complete turnabouts of the Church of England.

The Church of England does not claim it is an infallible church and rejects the very notion that the visible church is fallible. Hence, the synod’s straying into error on marriage and orders is what happens when a fallible church strays from the infallible Scripture. The same thing, we Protestants argue, happened before the Reformation - the Western Church (fallible) had strayed from the Bible (infallible) and replaced the faith of the apostles with something else.

 

[Darryl_B]

I went from seeing Catholic and protestant as different religions when I was a protestant, to now being transitioned by the grace of God to seeing Catholic and protestant as different religions as a Catholic. I thought somewhere along that transition that there was a semblance between me protestant and me Catholic. What I thought was wrong was right, and what I thought was right was wrong, and what I thought was protestant was only modern, and what I thought was Catholic is actually ancient. What I thought I knew, I didn’t, and what I wanted to know was already known.

 

[Rob_Arnzen]

The Church of England does not claim it is an infallible church and rejects the very notion that the visible church is fallible.

One can see why. Clearly if one believes the visible church is fallible, one would be foolish to construct one’s moral life based on its pronouncements.

The same thing, we Protestants argue, happened before the Reformation - the Western Church (fallible) had strayed from the Bible (infallible) and replaced the faith of the apostles with something else.

You’ve already admitted that the Protestants are fallible. How can the fallible Protestants pick the nit in the Catholic eye and claim it replaced the faith of the apostles with something else while at the same time making 180 degree turns on sexual morality and the sacraments?

In any case, every teaching of the Church must be understood in context and continuity. The Church has, from its earliest times, recognized that those not joined to the visible Church are saved by Baptism of Blood, by Baptism of Desire, judged as St Paul taught by the law written in their hearts. That fairly destroys the apparent contradiction proposed by “outside the Church there is no salvation”.

.

 

[rcwitness]

In any case, every teaching of the Church must be understood in context and continuity. The Church has, from its earliest times, recognized that those not joined to the visible Church are saved by Baptism of Blood, by Baptism of Desire, judged as St Paul taught by the law written in their hearts. That fairly destroys the apparent contradiction proposed by “outside the Church there is no salvation”.

True.

The statement “Outside the Church, there is no salvation.” Demands more contexts and Teaching related to it.

Your reference to St Paul is most relavent. Why does the Protestant readily accept St Paul’s statement about those who are saved who follow a natural law written in their hearts, yet Jesus said, I am the only way to the Father.

Catholic Teaching rightly recognizes the profound union between Jesus Himself and His Bride, the Church. She does not divorce herself from this relationship, even when issues are extremely against social acceptance.

 

[rcwitness]

If the genuine Protestant, according to the Catholic Church (who isn’t directly protesting the Catholic faith, but accepting the gospel delivered to them AND applying it to their works and testimony) is accepted into the saving grace of Baptism, nourishished by the Word of God through Scripture and a desire to receive His true Eucharist… then how are we able to seperate them from our Religion?

On the other hand, if you define Protestantism as different than the genuine individual protestant who, through no fault of their own, does not intend to seperate himself from communion with the whole body, and view Protestantism as a heretical religion, which willfully rejects what the Lord has called us to do, then there might be a case to be made.

So I think it not ONLY depends on how we define “religion” but also how we define Protestantism. As so many of us have learned here, we know that Protestantism is not easily classified. It is a house of many communions. The saving elements in any genuine Protestant community are Baptism, Sacred Scripture. This is NOT denied of them according to our Catholic religion.

 

[Tomster]

If the genuine Protestant, according to the Catholic Church (who isn’t directly protesting the Catholic faith, but accepting the gospel delivered to them AND applying it to their works and testimony) is accepted into the saving grace of Baptism, nourishished by the Word of God through Scripture and a desire to receive His true Eucharist… then how are we able to seperate them from our Religion?

On the other hand, if you define Protestantism as different than the genuine individual protestant who, through no fault of their own, does not intend to seperate himself from communion with the whole body, and view Protestantism as a heretical religion, which willfully rejects what the Lord has called us to do, then there might be a case to be made.

So I think it not ONLY depends on how we define “religion” but also how we define Protestantism. As so many of us have learned here, we know that Protestantism is not easily classified. It is a house of many communions. The saving elements in any genuine Protestant community are Baptism, Sacred Scripture. This is NOT denied of them according to our Catholic religion.

"In the unbaptized just, and in those of the Protestant and Orthodox groups, the soul of the Church is, as it were, in formation, yet can nowhere come to fulfillment. For even where sacramental grace attains the fullness of its being and of its modalities, as among the Orthodox, it lacks light, encountering directives which are not always sufficient and not always certain, neither infallibly guaranteed as a whole nor protected from the corrosive influence of modern errors; and it cannot possibly achieve that plenitude which would issue in the created soul of the Church, the immanent ruling form of the Mystical Body of Christ.

It is important to note here that when we say that the Church is in formation outside the Church, we are looking at things in a way which, from an ecclesiological standpoint, is accidental and secondary. We mean that those who broke with the Church took with them certain good things which by their nature belong to her. In themselves, in virtue of their own internal exigencies, these scattered fragments demand to be reintegrated in the Church, and we know that the universal saving virtue of the God of mercy works mysteriously and incessantly for their reintegration. But clearly this reintegrating movement works in precisely the opposite direction to the original movement by which the dissident Churches cut themselves off from the true Church, and it gain ground only by sapping the specific principle by which these Churches willed, and still will, to differ from the one true Church. Outside the Church the Church is in formation, but this comes about accidently, by violence done to the course things have taken. Outside the Church, the Church, of itself, is in decomposition. Any fragments of life broken off from her are no sooner detached from their native whole and subjected to the influence of dissidence, than they begin to disintegrate and decay.

Thus it is entirely right to hold that the struggle of light against darkness is the struggle of the Church against the world; but we must add that even in this world the Church has One who works for her in secret, the hidden God who mysteriously enlightens every man, whose wisdom reaches from end to end of the universe, and who does not reap where He has not sown.

Other things being equal - that is to say, supposing an equal intensity of charity everywhere - membership of the Church by desire possesses a greater and greater degree of perfection as we pass from the non-baptized just to those of traditionalist Protestant Churches, and then to those of the Orthodox Churches. But by a very disconcerting paradox, the movement of conversion to the Church is not necessarily in direct, but rather in inverse, ratio to the religious perfection of these various groups. It may be that there is some mystery here like that of the Gentiles, whose conversion en masse is to precede the entry of Israel into the Church."

• “The Church of the Word Incarnate”, Charles Journet

 

[Indifferently]

Your reference to St Paul is most relavent. Why does the Protestant readily accept St Paul’s statement about those who are saved who follow a natural law written in their hearts, yet Jesus said, I am the only way to the Father.

Orthodox Protestantism does not teach that anyone can be saved apart from faith in Christ. Paul’s teaching in Romans 2 about the law of God being written on the hearts of the Gentiles (the Jews of course having the law written in Scripture as well) was that nobody has an excuse before the throne of God for his guilt, and nobody who will be punished on the day of judgement will be able to say the punishment is unjust.

Thus, everyone needs a different righteousness, an alien righteousness, the righteousness of Christ which comes through faith.