Nobody can know whether they are among the elect – True or false?

[BartholomewB]

On another website, in the course of a debate between Catholics and Protestants about the “elect”, one of the Catholics used a very short and simple argument that silenced his opponent on the spot, but I’m not sure whether his argument was fully in accordance with Catholic teaching. It was this: Catholics pray to be received into the fellowship of the elect, while you [a Calvinist, I think] say you already know that you are one of the elect. But you can’t know that, in any meaningful sense of the verb “to know”. The verb “to know” can be stretched to cover a wide range of meanings, but that would be stretching it beyond breaking point.

So my question is this: Is the argument about the meaning of the verb “to know” an authentically Catholic argument with which to challenge a Protestant who claims to know he is one of the elect? And, a secondary question, is it only Calvinists who make that claim, or other Protestants as well?

Thank you for your help.

Kind regards,
Bartholomew B

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

It is an authentically Catholic argument and a typically logical one. The various Reformed churches hold to the Calvinist approach to various degrees; but even many Baptist Churches of late are leaning in the Calvinist direction.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.