Radio Replies Vol 2 - Catholic Apologetics Online

That is not so. Keep in mind that mortal sin cuts one off from God's grace and friendship, whilst venial sin does not, even though it renders the soul less pleasing in God's sight. Now the Book of Eccleciasticus, in warning us against sin, says, "He that contemneth small things shall fall little by little." XIX., I. That is, succeeding sins tend to become greater as the conscience is deadened. Proverbs XXIV., 16, tells us that even the just man falls often. In other words, whilst remaining just or justified by grace, he still has his small sins. Christ said that it would be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for Bethsaida, clearly indicating degrees in guilt. Matt. XI., 21. So, too, in Jn. XIX., 11, Christ said to Pilate, "He that hath delivered me to you hath the greater sin." We cannot say the "sin is sin," and there are no different kinds of gravity.

No one suggests that lesser sins are not sins; nor that any sin is pleasing to God. All sin is hateful to Him. But some sins are more hateful than others. You say that the principle behind this distinction is at fault. But take the principle that we owe obedience to the laws of the state. One who violates a traffic law violates the principle of obedience to law. So does the gangster who murders a fellow citizen. Will you say that one is just as much a violation of the law as the other, and hang them both? Or if we take simply theft, can you see no difference between the child who steals a cake from the cupboard and the cold-blooded miser who robs a widow of her lifesavings?

By the very nature of the thing forbidden; by the necessity of particular virtues to which particular vices are opposed; and also by the extent of damage done to others where justice is concerned. For example, according to the nature of the thing forbidden, some sins are always mortal, as direct hatred of God, deliberate blasphemy, murder, adultery, etc. When measured by the necessity of virtue, a deliberate denial of one's faith is a mortal sin because it implicitly denies God. Sins against justice are measured by the seriousness of the injury done to others. The more grave the injury the graver the sin. In addition to these factors, circumstances must be taken into account, as the degree of knowledge possessed by the person offending; the degree of advertence to the law before breaking it; the extent of really malicious will entering into the evil conduct.

Yes. In particular cases difficulties can arise, of course. But in all doubts the Catholic knows that he has but to submit his case to the priest who is well trained in moral theology, and the priest will tell him what is lawful or not lawful; and what is a grave violation of the law, or a venial offense. It is because they lack such help and training that non-Catholics are so confused in this matter. Where they would consult a civil lawyer in difficulties of civil law, they consult no one as to whether their conduct is within the law of God or not, and as to the gravity of that law. So they speak of one sin being just as much a sin as another, making no allowance for degrees of guilt. If such ideas were transferred from moral disease to physical disease, one would have to say: "One disease is just as much a disease as another. There are no mortal diseases as cancer and consumption, and lesser diseases as measles and mumps. The principle is the same--all diseases are opposed to the law of physical health just as all sins are opposed to the law of spiritual health." These analogies from civil law with its varying degrees of guilt, and from physical diseases with the variations in intensity, show how inadequate are your ideas of sin.

Yes; but as a dead member. He receives no blood from the heart of the Church, which is Divine Love. He does not obey the directing inspiration of the Church, which is the spirit of Christ. He has no right to the Eucharist, which is the bread of life, and which should be nourishing the life he lacks. Though he still associates with living members, and kneels side by side with them in the Church he attends, he is like a paralyzed limb. He has cut himself off from communion with the Church from within. And it is his duty to recover the life of grace by Confession and repentance, and thus become a living member of the Church once more.

Yes. Original sin is the inherited guilt by which we participate in the first sin committed by Adam as representative of the whole human race. Actual sins are all sins subsequent to that first sin, whether in itself or in its derivation.

Yes; that is evident from the drastic consequences.

That is so.

The sin of our first parents did not produce the atonement. God produced the atonement in order to repair the sin of our parents and of all subsequent generations. And as the sin of our first parents was not necessary, but was their own morally evil choice, God rightly blamed them.

No one would deny the severity of the treatment. And that should at least impress upon us how grave an evil in God's sight must be the moral disease called sin. But, whilst not called upon to deny the severity of the treatment, I do deny that God has treated the human race unjustly. It has deserved far more suffering than it has received, and has not deserved the great blessings God has deigned to bestow upon it.

A better job could not be made of it, in view of what God wanted man to be. God's will, of course, is the ultimate criterion of the qualities and perfections to be bestowed upon His various creatures. A cabbage has not the right to complain that it is not a horse; a dog has no right to complain that it is not a man. We cannot say that God would have made a better job of a cabbage had He made it a cat instead. Since He wanted to make a cabbage, it must be content to be a cabbage. Had God wanted to make a cat, and only a cabbage resulted from His work, there might be some room to complain that a better job might have been made of it. So, in the case of a human being, endowed with intelligence and free will.Man was as perfect as possible in accordance with God's plan for him. But the gift of free will, of course, left man's destiny in his own keeping; and that included the possibility of an evil moral choice. Had that possibility not been present, man would not have had the honor and dignity of a free being; and no better job would have been made of man by depriving him of this honor and dignity.

That would not have been in keeping with God's plan that man's destiny should be in his own hands. By his nature, man is made for earth rather than for heaven, and could have no natural right to be in heaven. God gave him all that his nature could rightly demand. In addition, God offered freely to man the prospect of an eternal supernatural happiness in heaven, provided man made a correct use of his mind and will by obedience to God's law. And He offered the help of Divine Grace for this purpose. Far from complaining that God did not do more for them, men should be grateful that He should have done so much in their favor.

If you think so, you cannot have a right apprehension of Catholic dogma.

That is not true. If you wish to attack a teaching of any religion, you must first correctly state that teaching. That man's will was "very weak" and the devil "very strong" is your own invention. Again, it is opposed to Catholic teaching that God provided any devil at all. The devil, as evil, was not the work of God. An objection based on a wrong statement of Christian doctrine requires no answer save an indication that it is an effort to refute what the Christian religion does not teach.

That is true. But that was not the only thing that God knew. He knew that Adam would not be compelled to fall; and He knew also that, granted sin, side by side with His justice, His mercy would so provide for mankind that good would result from the evil; so much so that it would be infinitely better for mankind to have been created, and to fall from grace, than not to have been created at all.

That is not a correct presentation of the case. Adam forfeited graces and privileges which were above the normal requirements of human nature, and never really due to man at all. He went from a privileged state to an unprivileged state.

Firstly, Adam did not fall a victim to an enemy far stronger than himself. We are dealing with sin, and sin is an evil choice of a free will. Now, even as God Himself would not coerce the will of Adam in favor of fidelity, so the devil could not coerce the will of Adam in favor of sin. He might tempt, suggest, allure; but he could not touch the will of Adam or Eve. Our first parents remained in control of their own destinies, and they were fully responsible for their choice. Secondly, mercy did grant ultimate forgiveness to them, for Scripture tells us that God drew them from their sin. (Wisd. X., 2.) But mercy itself demanded that this should be only after they had learned humility from consequent miseries. Physical sufferings are secondary when compared with wreckage of character. And if such sufferings contribute to the restoration of character they are not an unmitigated evil. Emotional pity and sentiment often lead human beings to mistake weakness for mercy. Parents who say they are too merciful to punish wrongdoing in their children are not really merciful to their children at all. They are too weak to do their duty; and how cruel they have really been is evident from the miserable and spoiled characters of those children throughout all their later years. There is something in being "cruel in order to be kind"; and God knows what is best for the welfare of human souls, whatever their circumstances.

Your notion of weakening the enemy is based on the wrong idea that the devil had or has some compelling power over the human will, or that the human will is fully guilty where there may be present a diminished responsibility. In reality, justice does not demand the removal of the sources of temptation. Man's destiny is in his own keeping, and he must attain that destiny by the service of God and the practice of virtue. But there could be no just reward for a service of God which costs us nothing; and virtue is exercised in the midst of temptation. There is no particular virtue in being good when there is no inducement to be otherwise. It was quite just to leave us the opportunity of practicing true virtue in the midst of temptation; and it was merciful that forgiveness should be available for failures of which we repent.

We all commence our earthly existence without that life of Grace which would have been ours had Adam not sinned. Spiritual death is the state of every soul as individuals are born into this world. For we are all born children of wrath, as St. Paul says in Eph. II., 3. In other words, we are all born in a state of original or inherited sin.

Because He knew that men need not sin; and that His knowledge of what would eventuate did not cause them to sin. Also, included in His knowledge of the fall of man was His knowledge of the Incarnation of His own Son by whose redemptive merits every single sinner from the time of Adam would have a true opportunity of salvation from eternal loss. Finally, God knew that, however many people do lose their souls, viewing creation as a whole and relatively to human beings, the sum total of good will far outweigh the sum total of evil. It is a mistake to concentrate on the thought of individuals who are lost. God had not to choose between creating only those who are lost, and not creating at all. He had to choose between not creating, and creating a whole human race, not one of whom need go to hell, and of which, if some do lose their souls, multitudes do not. Why should those who save their souls be deprived of eternal happiness because others, who need not do so, choose to sin and to die without repenting?

It is Catholic dogma that God the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became man in order to redeem us; and from the moment of His Incarnation, He retains both His Divinity and His assumed humanity for all eternity. His death meant the separation temporarily of His human soul from His earthly body, but not the separation of either His soul or His body from its union with His Divinity. In the resurrection, His human soul and body were reunited; and having risen from the grave, Christ ascended body and soul into heaven, there to continue for eternity in His glorified humanity. In His human nature, of course, God the Son took the name of Jesus Christ.

Under no conditions could any sinner be saved by believing in God only. Mere belief will save no one. The sinner would at least have to repent of his sins. But even so, your question will come—why could not sinners be saved by belief and repentance, without the necessity of the Incarnation? The answer is that they could have been saved in that way had God decided on that plan of salvation. But God did not. He decided to send His own Son for our redemption, and that because it was the better thing from every point of view. He thus manifested in a special way how greatly He loved us. He made things easier for us merely human beings who depend so much on visible manifestations. Faith in an unseen God is not so easy as faith in a God who has been in our midst, proving His power and His mercy in a way which human history can record. Our hopes are immeasurably lifted and stimulated, for man need not despair of attaining to God when God is willing to stoop to man's own level. And justice is safeguarded when reparation for our sins is made to God in a human nature drawn from a race which had offended God in the first place.

He gave much new teaching on ethics and morals, both in matter and spirit. For example, His teachings on poverty, humility, simplicity, virginity, marriage, love of one's neighbor, supernatural motives of conduct, and the ordaining of moral conduct to spiritual as opposed to temporal ends—these, and much else, were new.

Yes. Jesus quoted Rabbinical standards when He said, "You have heard that it hath been said: Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy. But I say to you: Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you." Matt. V., 43-44. It is true that much of the moral teaching of Christ finds a counterpart in the Rabbinical writings. The teachings of Jesus included those of natural morality and of the Old Testament. Rabbinical literature, therefore, had but to set down the ethical ideals of the natural moral law, or of their own religious precepts, and they could not but record much that Jesus would teach. But Jesus instilled a far greater significance into common teachings, and laid quite a new emphasis upon them. Moreover, He went beyond them again and again, and came into conflict with the Pharisees repeatedly because He did so.

Merely verbal and external similarity of expression means little. Where the moral law is concerned, two things have to be considered—the statement of the law, and the sense in which it is interpreted. Now, in comparison with the ethical teachings of Jesus, Rabbinical literature gives a most inadequate statement, and fails almost entirely to rise to the level attained by Christ. As for the Golden Rule, it cannot be said that the form in which Christ taught it was already familiar to the Rabbinical writers. In its negative form the saying is found in both Jewish and pagan sources before the Christian era; i. e., "Do not do to another what you would not wish him to do to you." Yet even in this negative form, no one insisted upon it, giving it the urgency imposed upon it by Christ. But when we leave the negative form, and turn to the positive form, "Do to others as you would have them do to you," we are given a distinct advance upon other teachings, and carried forward to the region of an all-embracing charity in the order of faith and divine grace. This is beyond the order of natural ethics; and no man can fulfill it without an interior power impelling him to put it into practice.

Undoubtedly. I have based it on the study of expert writers on the subject. Let me quote one unimpeachable authority, the Jewish scholar, Joseph Klausner, who published a "Life of Jesus of Nazareth" in Hebrew in 1922. An English translation of this book was published by Danby, of London, in 1925. Klausner admits that the moral teaching of Jesus transcends that of any other master. Here are his words: "Jesus was a wandering preacher, differing from others in certain aspects, such as His emphasis on the moral commandments to the exclusion of formalism, in the original and direct nature of His teaching, and the miraculous element of His mission. He was not a mere teacher among the teachers of His day; His originality was incomparable; and as a moralist and as a spiritual leader no man in Israel has ever approached Him. But considered from the Jewish standpoint Jesus is not, and cannot be the Messiah; the Kingdom of Heaven and the days of the Messiah have not yet come. But Jesus still remains, even for the Jews, a moralist without a peer; and the moral teaching contained in the Gospel of Jesus, if it is separated from the rest, is one of the most glorious jewels in the literature of Israel throughout the ages."

No. Far more often the advance of years makes for a man's complete disappearance from history and the memory of man. A man has to be of striking personality and accomplishments before his contemporaries or posterity will magnify him and enshrine him in the gallery of fame. Where religion is concerned, I admit that there is always the tendency to a growing idealization of a striking personality, often with the creation of an almost completely unhistorical tradition concerning him. But the check on that is historical research. And research has shown that Christ was just as we know Him to be. The Gospels were written by eyewitnesses; and their integrity is certain.

Not one of these is worshipped as Christ is worshipped. Not one, whether in personal character, or in teaching, or in work, accomplished anything inexplicable by ordinary human and natural powers. Nor will the records of any of them stand intensive critical research. A mass of legends and myths has grown up around them. That they have thousands of followers is but natural. Men are incurably religious; and, if unaware of the true religion, they will grasp at some substitute religion offered by almost any dominant personality, provided it does not demand too much self-denial.

What do you mean by the distinction you make? If I were to say, "So-and-so is not a man, but merely the human son of a man," I am sure you would ask me to explain myself more clearly. A son is one who is generated in the same nature as his father. A human father has a son possessing human nature also. And if Christ is the Divine Son of God, He possesses the Divine Nature also, and is God. The only alternative is that He is not the Divine Son of God, but merely a human creature made by God on the same level with other human beings.

You really mean that you do not believe Christ to be God at all. But that is a complete denial of the Christian Faith, for when St. Thomas the Apostle addressed Christ as "My Lord and my God" he would have been quite mistaken, and Christ's acceptance of such a tribute would have been blasphemous.

The expression "Divine Sonship" can be ambiguous. It is necessary to accept the Deity of the Person of Christ without any half measures. Jesus is God in virtue of His Divine Nature possessed in union with and equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The expression "Divine Sonship" can be ambiguous because both words have been employed by men with various grades of meaning. People speak of a "divine poet," or of a "divinely beautiful character." A Protestant friend once told me that he believed in the divinity of Christ, but not that He is God. Now when we Catholics use the word "Divine" of Christ, we mean absolutely that He is God. Again, the word "Sonship" can be ambiguous. We sometimes speak of our being the children of God by creation. At other times we may speak of sonship by adoption as opposed to actual generation. Or one may simply mean sonship by a mutual paternal and filial affection. But none of these senses means what we intend by the "Divine Sonship" of Jesus. We mean by that expression that the Person of Jesus is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, eternally generated by the Father in one and the same Divine Nature, equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit in all things, infinitely perfect, and as truly God as the Father Himself. Jesus is not only the Son of God. He is God the Son.

Precisely because He shared in the same Divine Nature as His heavenly Father of Whom He was begotten from all eternity long before He appeared on this earth in human form, that is just as one would expect Him to speak.

That does not prove that Christ is not God. In the first part of this text He is teaching His listeners that no earthly parental authority can supplant the authority of God. In reference to Himself, however, He did not hesitate to say, "I and the Father are one." And even whilst saying that God alone is the supreme Father and Master, He puts Himself on the same level as God by saying, "One is your Master, Christ." If Christ were not God, He should have said, "One is your Master-God."

Christ was there speaking in virtue of His assumed human nature. The knowledge was proper to Him as God, but not proper to Him as man. He did not know God's moment in virtue of the human nature in which He had come to teach mankind, and He merely brought out the fact that this particular piece of information was not part of the message He had to reveal to men. Briefly, it was but a way of saying, "That is God's secret." The text in no way disproves the identity of our Lord's Divine Nature with that of the Father.

Christ said much else also. Nor do these words imply that Christ is not God. He would not contradict Himself. He knew, however, that those around Him saw only His human nature or created humanity, and that they had not yet attained the faith to see beyond merely human appearances to His Divinity. And He once more tried to lift their thoughts to God as the Source of all created goodness. It was a warning that we must not stop at any created goodness which is but a reflection of the infinite goodness of God, and meant to lead us to Him. On another occasion, when Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father," Christ rebuked him also for not rising above thoughts of His merely human characteristics, and said, "Philip, he who sees me sees the Father also. Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?" Jn. XIV., 8-11.

The Eternal Son of God, after the Incarnation, possessed two natures, the uncreated Divine Nature, and the created human nature born of the Virgin Mary. When He said, "I and the Father are one," He referred to His Divine Nature. When He said, "The Father is greater than I," He referred to the created visible human nature which appeared before the eyes of those to whom He was speaking.

The unity prevailing between Himself and His Father, of which Christ spoke, was more than a merely moral union of purpose and desire. It was a unity in one and the same Divine Nature. It was on the occasion of these words that the Jews declared themselves determined to stone Him because, as they said, "Being a man, thou makest thyself God." They knew quite well that Jesus was claiming much more than a merely moral union with God by purpose and desire. Had Christ merely intended that, they would not have accused Him of blasphemy; nor would they have wanted to stone Him to death.

Yes. They were one with Him by the reality called grace which incorporated them all in one and the same Christ by a physical even though spiritual union; He the vine; they the branches. At the same time, in the words you quote, Christ was stressing the necessity of complete unity, not the nature of that unity, which necessarily differs in God from that possible to man. Christ prayed that His disciples would be one in the way possible to them, as He and His Father were one in the way proper to God.

All those expressions were proper to Christ in His mission on earth and in virtue of the created human nature in which He fulfilled that mission. They also suppose the distinction between the Eternal Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, taught by Catholic theology. But they do not exclude Christ's participation in the Divine Nature, nor His claim to be God.

That is true. Since mankind had forsaken God by sin, it was but just that mankind should be forsaken by God. But the Eternal Son of God took a human nature in which to expiate man's sin. On the Cross, He allowed that human nature to experience the bitter sense of dereliction by God. Hence the cry. But such an experience in His human nature has no bearing at all upon the question of His identity in the Divine Nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Not in the sense you have in mind. But, since men deserve to be forsaken by God, then if the Eternal Son of God takes to Himself a human nature in which to expiate sin, it is not surprising that in that human nature He should experience an overwhelming sense of that dereliction by God which sin deserves. And that sense of dereliction in His human soul was more than enough to justify the momentary expression, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" That this sense of dereliction, though so intense, was but a transitory sword of anguish is evident from the confidence in our Lord's later words, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit."

The cry from the lips of Christ expressed that sense of abandonment which He willed to experience in His human nature only. There could be no question of abandonment insofar as He shared in the Divine Nature with the Father, the first Person of the Most Holy Trinity. But in His human nature He could certainly undergo the experience of the pain and misery and sense of dereliction which abandonment by God will involve for those people who die estranged from their Maker. And that temporary experience was quite properly expressed from the human point of view by the cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me."

I knew it would come to that in the end. Jesus is to be merely a man, and not Divine at all! And you ask what do we lose by such a belief? We lose our Christian religion. We lose the Faith of the ages. We lose all hope of ever being redeemed by Christ, for if He be not God His work was in vain. We lose the conviction that "God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son." We lose the right to call ourselves Christians any longer. We join the rationalists and other enemies of Christ, and brand ourselves as guilty of false pretenses so often as we lay claim to the Christian name.

We cannot say that, when the Second Divine Person became man, the other Divine Persons remained in the celestial sphere. There can be no question of the Second Divine Person being somewhere whilst the other Divine Persons are elsewhere. In fact, since the three Divine Persons in the one Divine Nature constitute God, then, because God is everywhere, the three Divine Persons must be simultaneously everywhere. The difference between Jesus and an ordinary man is this: An ordinary man is a created personality in one created human nature. Jesus is an uncreated personality in two natures, one Eternal and Divine, the other created and human, existing only from the moment of its conception in time. Take yourself. You are an ordinary man. You are an entirely created personality, consisting of a material body and an intelligent spiritual soul. That body and soul make "you," rejoicing in an independent and responsible existence. Beyond your body and soul, the principles of your created being, "you" would not exist. Nor did "you" exist prior to the creation of your soul which, together with your body, constitutes "you." Now Jesus vastly differs from this. You are an entirely created personality. The personality of Jesus is uncreated. The human body and soul of Jesus, though created, never had an independent and responsible existence. The Second Person of the Trinity took that body and soul to Himself in personal union, so that both body and soul were ever dependent upon Him and He was responsible for all that resulted from His activities in them. Apart from your body and soul there would be no "you." "You" did not exist prior to their production. But the Person manifested to us in Jesus did exist before the Incarnation. For Jesus is the name given to a unique and Divine Personality, pre-existing eternally as God, yet possessing also from the moment of the Incarnation a created human nature without in any way ceasing to retain His eternal participation in the Divine Nature. Surely, then, there is a vast difference between Jesus and an ordinary man.

It does not follow that, because God is everywhere, He must be part of man's being. Man's being is finite and created. The Infinite and Uncreated God could not be a component part of created finite being. God and man are in two totally different orders of being, and their co-existence in the same place or space could not make them part of each other. As a matter of fact, God is not even conditioned by space as are creatures. But even in the natural and physical order, thought and brain co-exist in a human head without thought becoming part of the brain. The brain belongs to the material order; thought to the spiritual order. If thought were part of the brain, the brain would increase or diminish as thought increased or diminished. But it does not. And just as thought can co-exist in one's head with a material brain without becoming a component part of that brain, so God's existence everywhere does not make Him a part of man's being. What then was the difference between the relationship of Jesus to God, and that of ordinary men? It cannot consist in any aspect of God's omnipresence, since the human nature assumed by the Second Person existed as much within the immensity and omnipresence of God as you do. It must consist in something over and above that relationship to the omnipresence of God; in something proper to Jesus, and not possessed by any other human being. What was it? It was this: Apart from the Divine Attribute of omnipresence possessed by the Divine Nature, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity entered into possession of, and controlled the human nature born of Mary, so that this human nature never became a created human personality as you or I, but remained the created instrument of a Divine Personality. Thus, within the omnipresence of God, which no created being can escape, a new bond is established between the human nature of Christ and God, a bond which does not exist in the case of any other human nature. It is a personal bond, enabling the one Person of the Eternal Son to say equally, "I am God," or "I am man," according to His possession of both a Divine and a human nature. Other human beings can never say, "I am God." They are restricted to the expression, "I am a man." But the human nature of Christ was gripped into a bond of personal union with the eternal and Divine Son who possessed and controlled it, making it integral to His one Personality for the purposes of our redemption in a nature drawn from that human race which was to be redeemed.

It had to be by what is known as a conditional necessity. God could have exercised His mercy only, and condoned our sins without exacting expiation on the part of the human race. But if God wished to satisfy the claims of justice even whilst exercising His mercy, then the Incarnation and death of Christ were necessary. The Son of God freely chose to offer Himself in sacrifice, and that sacrifice was the logical necessity consequent upon His choice. He need not have chosen to die, and to die in such a way; but having chosen to do so, the fact necessarily followed.

I do not know. Nor does anyone else save God alone. In dealing with God's work for the salvation of souls, our knowledge is limited to what He has revealed and actually accomplished. It is impossible to say what would have been done by God if what has happened did not happen. We must take things as they are, and be content to let curious speculations go unanswered.

Just as the sins of mankind in general from which Christ came to redeem us were not willed by God, so the evil dispositions of those who actually put Christ to death were not willed by God. Thus, the treachery of Judas, the injustice of Pilate, the hatred and malice of the Jews—these things were evil and opposed to God's will. And those guilty of such evil dispositions were blameworthy before God. You must not think of God as planning that Christ should die, and then arranging that some men will be evil enough to kill Him. Where we think one thing after another, God sees all things simultaneously. He sent His Son to a world which He knew was wicked, and needed redeeming; and into the midst of men who would, as a matter of fact, be evil enough at heart to condemn Him to death. But the evil was the fault of men, not of God. God did not ordain, nor cause the evil; but he permitted it to be the death of His Son who had undertaken to expiate it.

The sacrifice of Calvary was not a purely human sacrifice. The atonement was made by God because the Person, whose human nature was nailed to the cross, was God. The Person, and not the nature under the control of that Person, is the terminus of attribution. If I commit murder, I do it. It's no use saying, "My hand did it." The human nature which was nailed to the cross was His who was and is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. And the sacrifice, though directly involving the death of the human nature, derived its dignity from the Person to whom it belonged. It was, therefore, an atonement of infinite value derived from the infinite dignity of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. One may or may not agree with our explanation; but in no sense can one say that on this explanation a purely human sacrifice took place on Calvary. That could follow only if we admitted that Jesus was a purely and merely human person. That we have never admitted.

The Catholic doctrine says that Christ died for the purpose of saving sinners. But note this: Christ did not die to save sinners unconditionally, as if His death means that all sinners are necessarily saved. His death provides salvation for all who are willing to comply with the conditions laid down by Himself.

That is true. But Christ did not die to force salvation upon anybody. He did die to offer the means of salvation to all mankind, and, therefore, to every single member of the human race. In that sense His death will avail for you personally, if you personally comply with the conditions prescribed by Christ. It is as if you personally were in debt, and I lodged sufficient money in the bank to discharge that debt, giving you a checkbook to draw upon the money. I could truly say that I had done enough to save you from beggary. But if you refused to put your name to a single check, and would not walk a step towards the bank, despising my arrangements, you would not be saved from beggary. That would be your own fault, however, and no proof that my provision for you was not efficacious in itself. Christ did not die for sinners so that they could go on being sinners, yet be sure of salvation in spite of themselves.

People who are now dead, who were sinners during life, but who repented of their sins, and did their best to comply with the conditions imposed by Christ, have been saved by Him from hell. People who are still living have not yet been saved by Christ. He has paid the price necessary for their salvation, if they choose to avail themselves of it. Those who are actually sinners in grave matters are not availing themselves of it at present; and if they die without changing their dispositions they will not be saved at all. Those sinners who do abandon their sins, repenting of them, and die in a state of such repentance, appealing to Christ for salvation, will be saved by Him—from hell.

He did not die to save sinners or anyone from death in the ordinary physical sense of the word. Even those who will be saved and who have been saved, were not intended to be freed from the necessity of death as the termination of this earthly life. Their salvation is from a future and eternal hell—that living death of all man's hopes and aspirations for happiness.

It will not be applied to you. But the fact will remain true for all eternity that Christ did do His part to atone for your sins, and the privilege of salvation was possible for you. The atonement was there, but you did not avail yourself of it.

One who has no faith in Christ, as Christ really was and is, could alone speak like that. If Christ be reduced to the merely human level, and emptied of His Divinity, then it becomes a question of merely man and man; and we all admit that, where man and man are concerned, no mere man could satisfy for the sins of another man; and that he who sins should do so, if it be possible to him. But in reality, no mere man can satisfy adequately for sin against God, however well able he may be to repair injuries against his fellow creatures. And only the true Christian doctrine solves the problem of reparation of sin against God.

We have no choice in the matter. For it is an accomplished fact that Christ died for the redemption of mankind. The only choice left to us is rejection of Christ's sacrifice, or acceptance of His redeeming work. He who has no faith in God's revelation and no sense of sin or real understanding of what sin means will reject it.

You would not say that, did you have a right idea of the doctrine. Try to grasp the position. The gravity of an offense is intensified by the worth of the person offended. Precisely because one's own mother has a special claim upon the respect and reverence of her child, ill-treatment of her is worse than that of another. But sin is against the infinite dignity and majesty and authority of God. No mere creature could make adequate atonement or reparation to the Creator for such an offense. Yet since human nature gave such offense, one in a human nature should make reparation. So the Eternal Son of God became man. Because of His Divinity He could make adequate reparation; because of His humanity, He could make it in our name. Man did not love God enough to keep God's law, but broke that law and became worthy of death. Why should God preserve man in life only that man might offend him? So Christ endured death, expiating our sinful pleasures by His sufferings, and compensating for our own lack of love by the immense love in His human heart for God. And in order that this might not be just one isolated individual suffering for another, even as He blended Himself with our humanity in the Incarnation, so He blends us with Himself by grace. He is the Head and we are the members; and Head and members are one. So Christ sacrificed Himself, making those for whom He did so one with Himself. By this very union of love between Himself and us Christ could say to His Father, "Father, what I offer, they offer; and the love you have for me will be your love for them also." Thus God "so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son." That Son, by shedding His blood for us, atoned for our sins, exemplifying His own words, "Greater love no man has than that he should lay down his life for his friend." Jn. XV., 13. One who sees no spiritual significance in this does not understand ordinary gratitude which cries, "I'll never forget what you have done for me this day; never can I thank you enough; and if ever I can render you a service ask it of me." It is this doctrine of Christ's death on the Cross for us, of His vicarious death, that the Saints found their greatest inspiration, even as St. Paul, who said, "I live in the faith of the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself for me." Gal. II., 20.

Catholics believe that. And the man who rejects it must shut his eyes to the historical evidence available.

That is not so. Factual proof may be either by personal experimental knowledge, or by the evidence of history. If I say that historically a man must shut his eyes to the evidence, or believe that the Battle of Waterloo took place, you cannot say that I am blind to the nature of factual proof.

The Gospels and St. Paul's Epistles constitute five independent historical documents which leave no shadow of doubt. Their being bound in one volume does not affect their independence of each other. You begin by rejecting the resurrection on the score that you will not believe in what seems to you so incredible a thing. You doubt the Gospels precisely because they record what you deem incredible.Did I produce any other documents recording the resurrection, you would have the same reason for doubting their reliability as you make your excuse for denying the reliability of the Gospels! It is not reasonable to refuse to believe unless I can produce evidence other than that contained in the documents which contain the evidence. If I produce five documents, instead of refusing to believe until I can produce more documents, your duty is to disprove the historical value of the five documents produced. Merely to ignore them is to shut one's eyes to the evidence.

You do not doubt, therefore, that the accounts were written by contemporaries of Christ. You base your doubts on the possibility of the writers being insincere; or, granted their sincerity, on the possibility of their being mistaken. Now the possibility that they were insincere has long been abandoned as quite unreasonable by even the bitterest enemies of Christianity. Firstly, it would be so pointless to conspire to impose on the world a religion in which the Apostles themselves did not believe. They had nothing to gain. Men do not break with all their friends, and invite persecution and death, for a lie which they know to be a lie. Nor were the cowardly Apostles rendered suddenly courageous by a conviction they knew to be unfounded. If they were liars, they were not conscious liars. They were sincere. That leaves your second possibility. Were they mistaken? That supposes them to have been deranged, and suffering from some strange hallucination. But that is impossible. It is so evident that they were not expecting Christ to rise. Their tendency was to unbelief, not to belief. And also, there were too many witnesses for them all to be subject to precisely the same hallucination. Nor is it reasonable to admit their sanity on things you are willing to accept, and arbitrarily declare them insane whenever you do not happen to like what they have to say. To make your likes and dislikes the test of credibility is prejudice—not reason.

Quite so. And the historical evidence for the resurrection is better than that for the greater number of events of those times accepted as historical by scholarly men. The only reasons you have advanced against the value of the evidence are suggestions that the writers were either liars or insane. And neither suggestion is reasonable.

All historical evidence consists in the acceptance of the recorded word of others. Such acceptance is not a departure from the strict laws of historical evidence, provided we make sure that the documents are authentic, that there are sufficient witnesses to preclude the possibility of derangement, and that the witnesses were men of unimpeachable honesty.

That is foolish. The fact that an account of an event has been written voluntarily, and not at the instigation of State officials, cannot invalidate the account. We cannot reject history merely because the authors were interested enough to want to write it. I admit that, when extraordinary events are recorded, we must inquire more carefully into the nature of the interest prompting the writers. In the case of the Gospels, there is no interest other than the desire to record the truth.

In the case of the Gospel and Pauline accounts of the resurrection they have been considered, and with a thoroughness with which no one who is familiar with the subject could quarrel. The chances of faked entry are excluded by the very independence of the records. And that human error is responsible for the narration of the event is impossible.

They do not pretend that a proof exists. They say that the historical proofs of the resurrection as a fact render its denial a violation of reason. It is the man who does not want to believe who pretends that the evidence is not sufficient. Yet he has nothing to advance against that evidence except his prejudice against anything supernatural. He practically says, "I do not think that it would happen, and I refuse to accept any evidence that it did happen." But preconceived ideas of the probable and improbable must yield to facts.

Because they believe that she is their spiritual Mother, and that she has not lost her interest in those for whom her Son died, merely because she is in heaven. It is the Christian law, according to St. James, that we should pray for one another. The Saints in heaven pray for us who are on earth and still endeavoring to work out our salvation. And Mary is the greatest of the Saints. It is but an application in practice of our belief in the Communion of Saints, a doctrine we profess every time we say the Apostles' Creed.

We do not pray to Mary instead of to God, but we pray to her as well as to God. And those who retain devotion to Mary are in the habit of offering more prayers directly to God than those who have repudiated devotion to Mary. Moreover, prayers to Mary are prayers to God through her intercession. And you cannot deny that at times it is good to have our Lady praying with us rather than to pray alone to God. Two prayers are better than one, above all when the other whom I have asked to join in my petition is the very Mother of Christ.

That can only be because you have not understood Catholic doctrine on the subject. The Creator alone is God. Mary is as much a creature as any other human being. But whilst she is as much a creature as we are, we have not been honored by God nearly as much as she.

Firstly, Mary has not been elevated by the Catholic Church to a rank quasi-divine, or even remotely divine. In Catholic theology she falls as far short of divinity as I do, and that's infinitely. Secondly, there is no true analogue between the historical Mother of Christ and the purely mythological Isis, and still less can any illumination be derived from a comparison of the two.

It does not say that Mary is omnipotent in power and infinite in mercy. It says that her prayer and intercession have a special efficacy in winning for us the protection of the Omnipotent power of God and His infinite mercy.

The resurrection was but the complement of the redemptive work. Essentially that work was accomplished on Calvary by the death of Jesus on the Cross. And Mary was there, standing at the foot of the Cross, identifying herself with the offering of her Son. By man and woman came our death. Both sexes co-operated in our downfall, and both sexes co-operated in our redemption. God Himself predicted that this would be so. After the sin of our first parents, God said to Satan, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel, and she shall crush thy head." Gen. III., 15. Mary is the second Eve as Christ is the second Adam. And both repaired the evil of our first parents, Christ principally and Mary secondarily and subordinately to Christ.

Mary's work was to be our co-redemptress, and to mediate for us together with Christ, but of course in subordination to Him. He is the one principal Mediator to whom we owe all. Do not be disturbed by this association of Mary with the redemptive work of Christ. If all Christians are members of Christ, and are called upon, as St. Paul says, to fill up what is wanting to the suffering of Christ, then you can be sure that as Mary, His Mother, was more closely associated with Christ than we are, so she is more closely associated with His redemptive work. By a special title, therefore, we call her co-redemptress. We call her "Our life, our sweetness, and our hope." For, in bringing forth Christ she brought us forth to life, she is the model of every virtue, and above all should be the glory of all women; and she is our hope as Eve was our despair. All this tells us what she is for. She is our spiritual Mother in heaven, and she fulfills the duties of a Mother, winning for us by her intercession that grace of Christ which is life to our souls and which, please God, will mean eternal life in the end.

The Immaculate Conception does not mean that Mary was conceived miraculously, or that there was anything abnormal in her physical origin. It simply means that her soul was preserved from that taint of original sin which all others inherit from our first parents. It was really an anticipated baptism, a redemption of Mary's soul by prevention of sin's contamination and through the merits of Christ. The Eternal Son of God would not enter this world through a defiled doorway.

She owed her preservation from sin to the anticipated merits of Christ. Christ, therefore, was her Savior by prevention as He is ours by subsequent cleansing.

Mary was not the highest person in existence since Adam. Christ was infinitely higher than Mary. But sin is not the only motive of lowliness or humility. The purest and most innocent of creatures, by the mere fact of being a creature, is infinitely lowly before the Creator. Adam, before his fall from grace, was the lowly servant of God. Jesus Himself, in virtue of the limitations of His created human nature, said, "Learn of Me, that I am meek and humble of heart." Our Lord was certainly without sin, and if He described Himself as lowly of heart, the use of the same expression by Mary is no argument against her sinlessness.

Death is the wages of sin in a very special sense. Sin or no sin, it is natural to man to die. The human body, just as the bodies of animals, has a natural process of growth to maturity followed by age, decay, and death. Naturally, therefore, even Adam and Eve, had they never sinned, would have encountered a natural physical death if no other provision had been made for them. But God promised them a supernatural exemption from any natural process of death if they remained faithful to Him. They fell, forfeited their supernatural immunity from physical death, and nature was allowed to have its way. Therefore death is the wages of sin not as if death were abnormal, but as a normal conclusion of earthly life from which men had lost their exemption. Since Mary was human, it was not unnatural that she should die. But you will ask, "If she was supernaturally preserved from sin, why was she not supernaturally preserved from death?" That we shall see.

I am afraid your thought is here a little obscure. Christ was without original sin, yet saw death, not because He was God, but because He was man. In His Divine Nature He could not die. In His human nature He could. Keep in mind that death is natural to a human nature, quite apart from original or any other sin. A human nature could not be God, and it could, and normally should die, quite apart from sin. By a special privilege God had exempted man from the normal process of death on the condition that he refrained from sin. Man sinned, and lost the privilege. Mary was preserved from all taint of sin, and by that, at least, deserved to be preserved from the natural process of death. But her life and her vocation were so intimately blended with the life and vocation of Christ, that both she and He endured an undeserved death. As when mankind fell, both sexes were represented in Adam and Eve, so both sexes were represented in our redemption. Mary, the second Eve shared death with Christ, the second Adam. The death of Christ was our redemption, but included in the redemptive work of Christ, though subordinate to it, was the death of Mary. The primitive traditions which tell us of the assumption also tell us of the "falling asleep of the Virgin Mary," an expression used to denote the transitory character of her death.

The Catholic Church has defined as an article of faith that Mary remained always a virgin. Every Catholic in the world is obliged under pain of serious sin to believe that on the very authority of God's knowledge and veracity. Now cannot you see that the Catholic Church would be very, very foolish to define such a doctrine, if the opposite were clearly stated in Scripture? Anyone can get hold of a copy of Sacred Scripture. If the opposite of the Catholic dogma were clearly stated there, one would only have to quote the passage to refute the defined doctrine, and the whole case for the Catholic Church would collapse. Should you not suspect that if the Catholic Church has defined that Mary remained ever a virgin, then, to say the least, there cannot be anything in Scripture against it? Don't you think the Church would have made sure of that, before defining what otherwise could so easily be proved to be erroneous?

Because the Jews always kept their genealogies in the male line, and since Mary was of the same tribe as Joseph, his line of ancestry was also hers.

The Bible does not say that. St. Matthew says, "Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus." That says no more than that Joseph was related by marriage to Mary, who, as a matter of fact, gave birth to Christ. St. Luke says at the beginning of his account, "Jesus, being (as it was supposed) the son of Joseph." He knew quite well that Jesus was not the son of Joseph in reality, though Joseph was the legal head of the Holy Family.

The whole of the New Testament is the written Word of God, and as Jesus is the Eternal Word, every utterance in the New Testament is His. When St. Luke writes, "Jesus, being (as it was supposed) the son of Joseph," Jesus accepts full responsibility for those words. No direct utterance from His own lips whilst on earth is recorded, though that is not proof that He never spoke of it. Not every word Jesus ever said was written down. Indirectly His words in John VIII., 14, 23, certainly indicate an origin differing from that of ordinary men. "I know whence I came," He said, "but you know not whence I come. You are from beneath; I am from above." Mary certainly spoke of the fact that Jesus was not the son of Joseph, for all scholars admit that St. Luke got his account of the birth and infancy of Jesus from Mary. But Matthew I., 19, 25, shows clearly that Joseph knew that he was not the father of Jesus. Mary being found with child, Joseph being a just man was minded to put her away privately. But the Angel appeared to him and said, "Joseph, son of David, fear not, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." Reassured that the child of which he knew he was not the father had been miraculously conceived, Joseph did as the Angel of the Lord commanded him.

That reading does not occur in what are known as the Neutral Texts, nor in the Godex Sinaiticus. It occurs in a Syrian translation found on Mt. Sinai some few years ago, and which has been called the Sinaitic Syriac. Now as regards the wording you quote, i.e., "Joseph begat Jesus," I reply that whether it is correct or not it would not necessarily affect the Catholic concept of the Virgin Birth. But also I say that, whilst it would not affect the doctrine whether correct or not, it is not correct. Firstly, even if it were correct, it would not affect our doctrine. For such an expression would be quite normal even when referring to legal paternity as opposed to real and natural paternity. And parallel passages compel the acceptance of legal paternity only. Secondly, however, it is not correct. This isolated Syrian translation must yield to the Godex Sinaiticus and the Godex Vaticanus. Vod Soden admitted the reading you quote into his edition of the Greek text, and met with protests from scholars the world over. His action was against all the principles of Biblical textual criticism, and Lagrange did not hesitate to call it a "critical enormity." The reading, therefore, cannot be accepted as correct, and even if it were, it would not affect the Catholic doctrine of the Virgin Birth.

The medical standpoint is that children normally result from the activities of both a father and a mother. And with that standpoint I am in full agreement. But then, we have never said that the birth of Christ was a normal event. And no medical standpoint demands the admission that God is bound always to observe normal procedure according to the natural laws we usually observe. Once we assert a miraculous birth outside the normal teachings of medical experience, there is no medical standpoint left. There is a philosophical standpoint, as to whether an Infinite Creator could do immediately what He usually does mediately by secondary causes of His own making. And, granted the philosophic possibility of His doing so, there arises the historical standpoint as to whether He did so. And the Virgin Birth is an historical certainty.

That is not so. What is an illegitimate child? An illegitimate child is one born as the result of unlawful relations between two people not married, and who is not legally accepted in the eyes of the state as belonging to a lawfully married couple. But the Child Jesus was not the result of any unlawful relations on Mary's part with any person to whom she was not married. The very Bible which says that St. Joseph was not the natural father of Jesus also makes it clear that no other created human being was the father. St. Joseph was told that God Himself had miraculously caused Mary to be with child; and it is as legitimate for God to dispense with the need of a human father as to allow normal processes of generation. So, from the viewpoint of His conception Christ was certainly not illegitimate. Secondly, Joseph and Mary were lawfully married, and the Child born of Mary was legally accepted by the State as belonging to a lawfully married couple. In the external order, therefore, Jesus was legitimate also in civil law. Both by origin and public acceptance, then, He was quite legitimate.

The author of that uncanonical Gospel was orthodox in his faith, and in no way intended to discredit that faith.

It is not improbable that the Jews thus slandered Christ. And the author mentions it as a slander. If the Gospel of Nicodemus has any value for you, you can get nothing more out of it than that the enemies of Christ made a charge against Him and that the charge was false. But you, apparently, wish to accept the record of a false charge as sufficient evidence that the charge was true.

The matter is not supported by Celsus. Celsus, the pagan, and the bitter enemy of the Christian Church, repeated and amplified whatever slanders he could find. And the fact that Celsus slandered Christ in the second century no more militates against the historical character of the Gospels than the fact that you approve of those slanders in the twentieth century. Origen refuted Celsus centuries ago, showing the obviously fictitious nature of his calumnies. No reputable scholar attaches any weight to the utterances of that bitter pagan.

It was. And such was to be expected. Bitter enemies of the Church in those days no more hesitated to indulge in the propaganda of lies and calumnies than they do in these days. But, as Origen points out, the enemies of the Church had no sources of information against Jesus save the Gospels themselves. The very name of your Greek officer, Pantheras, was probably no more than a corruption of the Greek word for Virgin, "Parthenos." The attacks of these early opponents of the Christian religion have but one real value only. In their own perverted way they furnish important evidence of how essential to the Christian Faith was the doctrine of the Virgin Birth in the estimate of all the early Christians. But you repeat very old charges when you fall back on the objections of early Jewish and pagan enemies of Christianity. Do you really think that, after surviving those for nearly two thousand years, the authenticity of the Gospels is going to collapse under them now?

For a Christian it is essential to believe all that God has revealed. To deny the truth of what God reveals is to accuse God of not knowing what He is talking about, or of being a deliberate liar, surely not a very Christian attitude towards God! In the Apostles' Creed Christians for centuries have professed their faith that Jesus Christ was "conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary." The Gospels very clearly state God's promise to Mary that her Child would be due to the immediate operation of the Holy Ghost and the Divine Omnipotence without the necessity of any relations with the opposite sex. They also show that St. Joseph knew quite well that he was not the father of Jesus, and that he was told that the Child to be born of Mary was "of the Holy Ghost." To repudiate the fact that Jesus was born of a Virgin Mother is, therefore, to repudiate the direct teaching of Sacred Scripture.

It would not matter in the least if it could not! What is true does not cease to be true, merely because it does not prove useful for every purpose. The truth that there are other planets besides this earth does not serve to strengthen one's character. But men do not deny the truth because of that. However, belief in the Virgin Birth of Christ does strengthen one's character, for it is due to one's faith in God, and the man of deep faith in God is strong where others are weak. To deny what God has revealed to be true is the rebellion of pride, and pride is the beginning of all sin and corruption of human character.

Most decidedly. For if indeed Christ be God coming to seek us, instead of our merely seeking God, then an impetus is given to our love of God which cannot rest content without reciprocal generosity. It may be said that the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ could be independent of that concerning the Virgin Birth. But not so. Is it not significant that attacks on the Virgin Birth come from those who reject all the supernatural and miraculous aspects of Christ? True Christians have ever held fast to the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, not only as a fact revealed by God, but as a guarantee of the real humanity of Christ because born of a human mother, yet not less decisively as a guarantee of His super-human dignity because born without the agency of a human father. The conviction that Jesus is my God is the greatest possible encouragement to Christian living. And His supernatural Virgin Birth, having for its end the founding of a new and regenerated humanity, and the introduction of a Redeemer with the divine forces needed for the world's salvation, is the normal corollary of the doctrine of Christ's Divinity. Natural generation has never resulted in a truly human, yet at the same time, a super-human being. Therefore those who have lost faith in the super-human character of Christ attack the Virgin Birth, and insist that His was a merely natural generation by an ordinary father and mother in the ordinary way. But their rejection of the Virgin Birth is a mutilation of Scripture, a contradiction of the Christian Faith from Apostolic times, and a surrender of Christian teaching into the hands of advocates of a non-miraculous, purely humanitarian Christ who may be ranked only with Buddha, or Confucius, or Mahomet, as each may wish.

I will reply to that question as Christ replied to His adversaries on another matter. Do you remember how the chief priests said to Him one day, "Tell us by what authority Thou dost these things?" and He replied, "Answer Me one question, and then I will tell you. The baptism of John, whence was it, from heaven or from earth?" They would not answer. Now let me ask you a question. If the Virgin Mary is not in heaven yet, where is she? Will you suggest that our Savior did not save His own Mother, and that she is in hell? Or, if you won't admit that, will you suggest that she is not in heaven yet because she is still in purgatory?

The doctrine merely says that, after the Blessed Virgin Mary died, her body was not allowed by God to corrupt as is the case with others. This was prevented by the resurrection of her body before corruption could set in. Reunited with her soul, her body was spiritualized and glorified; at once being assumed into heaven. In other words, God anticipated for the Blessed Virgin Mary what is going to happen to all the saved on the last day.

Death and corruption are penalties of original sin. But Mary, by her Immaculate Conception, was preserved free from all taint of original sin. You may ask, "Why, then, did she die?" Though innocent, she died in union with her innocent Son. She shared in the whole work of redemption, identifying herself with Jesus in all His sorrows and sufferings. And she accepted death as He accepted death. But, as she shared in His redemptive work, so also she shared in the privilege of His resurrection and glory. After all, it was just as easy for God to take her glorified body to heaven at once as it will be to take the glorified bodies of all the saved at the last day.

No. And you will find no support for your belief in the Bible. Christ Himself warns us to watch and pray lest we enter into temptation. That is meaningless, if temptation in no way endangers the soul. He said, "Blessed is that man who, when his lord cometh, is found watching." Lk. XII., 37. That implies that it is possible not to be in a fit state when called to judgment. Again and again He warns us of the danger of losing our souls, and puts the question, "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?" St. Paul tells us to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. Those who think themselves to stand are told to beware lest they fall. Your once saved, always saved idea finds no justification in the Bible.

In other words, no man can be lost, in whatever wickedness he may indulge, and even though he persists in evil dispositions until his last conscious moments! According to your doctrine, therefore, it does not matter whether a man tries to live a good life or not. Whether he wants it or not, he's got to be saved. There is no other alternative. Christ was talking folly, according to you, when He said, "Fear not those who can kill the body, but who cannot kill the soul; but I will tell you whom to fear. Fear ye him who has power to destroy both body and soul in hell." Matt. X., 28. If all men are necessarily saved, there's no need to fear anything at all. Again, why does our Lord tell us that, on the last day, all men will be judged, the good being rewarded, and the wicked sent to the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels? Your ideas do not harmonize with the Bible at all.

If that text is rightly interpreted as meaning that the just man must have faith, and must live in practice according to the requirements of his faith, it expresses the truly Catholic position. But the original Protestant position was that good works were in no way necessary for salvation, and that man is saved by faith alone. I call that the original Protestant position, for not one in a hundred Protestants today accepts it. Where the first Protestants said, "Not what a man does but what a man believes is the test of salvation," the modern Protestant says just the opposite. "Not what a man believes, but what he does," is the slogan among Protestants now. When Protestants say they will never lose their Protestant inheritance, I say they have lost it. The original Reformers, men like Luther, and Calvin, and Knox, would denounce their present position with violent rebuke.

If we turn to the real teaching of the New Testament, we find St. James saying, "Faith without works is dead. Do you not see that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only?" Jas. II., 20-24. Thus speaks St. James. He taught that both faith and works are required, and that both are taken into account at our judgment. But even if we take, not New Testament teaching, but Protestant teaching, we cannot say that good works fulfilled in order to obtain salvation are today regarded as utterly damnable by Protestants. That was Protestant teaching. It is not now.

Compassion for those whom you believe to be unfortunate is certainly to your credit. But your belief that Catholics are unfortunate is not justified by anything you urge in your letter. When the women of Jerusalem wept over our Lord during His passion, He said to them gently, "Weep not for Me. Weep for yourselves and your children." Lk. XXIII., 28. And I say the same to you, because, whilst believing in Christ, you pity Catholics precisely because their conduct is in accordance with Christian principles.

God

Man

Religion

The Religion of the Bible

The Christian Faith

A Definite Christian Faith

The Protestant Reformation

The Truth of Catholicism

The Church and the Bible

The Dogmas of the Church

The Church and Her Moral Teachings

The Church in Her Worship

The Church and Social Welfare

Comparative Study of Non-Catholic Denominations

To and From Rome

Catholic Apologetics in Question & Answer Form

God

Man

Religion

The Religion of the Bible

The Christian Faith

A Definite Christian Faith

The Protestant Reformation

The Truth of Catholicism

The Church and the Bible

The Dogmas of the Church

The Church and Her Moral Teachings

The Church in Her Worship

The Church and Social Welfare

Comparative Study of Non-Catholic Denominations

To and From Rome

QUESTIONS IN VOLUME 2

602. The Bible certainly gives no grounds for saying that there are two kinds of sins.

603. The principle is at fault. All theft is sin, and hideous in God's sight. One sin is as much a sin as another.

604. If there are two kinds of sins, how do you distinguish one kind from another?

605. Do all Catholics understand these things?

606. Does a Catholic who commits mortal sin still belong to your Church?

607. Besides distinguishing between mortal sin and venial sin, you also make a distinction between original sin and actual sin?

608. Was the original sin a mortal sin?

609. You maintain that the doctrine of the fall and that of the atonement are interdependent?

610. Since the sin of Adam was necessary to produce the atonement, why did God blame Adam?

611. Were not our first parents somewhat harshly treated, to say nothing of subsequent generations?

612. In making man, why did not God make a better job of it, if He did not want man to fall into sin?

613. If God wanted man to attain heaven, could He not have placed man there in the first place?

614. The whole idea of the Catholic dogma concerning the fall of man and its patching up by the redemption implies folly in God, and merciless injustice.

615. God gave man a very weak will and provided a very strong devil to test it.

616. Before creating Adam, God knew that he would fall.

617. Then God drove Adam out of the comparative safety of the Garden of Eden into a world abounding in pitfalls and dangers.

618. When our first parents fell victims to an enemy far stronger than themselves, true mercy would have forgiven them.

619. True justice would have weakened the enemy to prevent further occurrence of such a catastrophe.

620. Do you mean that we are all born in a guilty state before God?

621. Why did God give men their freedom, when He knew beforehand that so many would misuse it and be lost for eternity?

622. Is it Catholic dogma that, in order to accomplish mankind's redemption, God became man for thirty-three years?

623. Why should the Son of God have to come to earth to save sinners? Could they not have been saved by believing in God only?

624. I have not been able to find any new teaching on ethics or morals given by Jesus.

625. Is there a single moral aphorism attributed to Jesus which cannot be paralleled in Rabbinical literature?

626. Most of the recorded sayings of Jesus can be paralleled verbally in the Rabbinical writings, and even the Golden Rule is there.

627. Will any scholar admit your verdict?

628. Isn't it just the advance of years that makes for a man's greatness such as Jesus Christ?

629. Look at Mahomet, Buddha, and Confucius, each with his thousands of worshippers.

630. Does it matter whether Christ was God, or merely the Divine Son of God?

631. I cannot accept more than that Christ was the Divine Son of God.

632. What more can be demanded than the acceptance of the Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ?

633. Christ often spoke of "My Father in heaven." He would not do that if He was God.

634. In Matt. XXII, 9-10, He says, "Call none your father upon earth, for one is your Father who is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters, for one is your master, Christ."

635. In Matt. XXIV., 36, He says, "Of that day and hour no one knoweth, no, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone."

636. Christ did say, "Why callest thou Me good? One only is good—God."

637. Christ said, "The Father is greater than I." Jn. XIV., 28.

638. When Christ said, "I and the Father are one," He meant no more than in purpose and desire.

639. Later on Christ prayed that His disciples would be one with Himself as He and His Father were one. Were His disciples one with Him in any other sense than by accord?

640. He said, "I came to do the will of My Father." Also, "The words I speak are not mine, but His that sent Me." Also, "Of Myself I can do nothing; but if you ask the Father anything in My name He will give it to you."

641. On the Cross Jesus cried, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

642. Would God forsake His own Son?

643. If Christ was God the cry would mean, "Myself, Myself, why hast Thou forsaken Myself?" Rather absurd!

644. If we take Jesus merely as a perfect man, what do we lose?

645. If Jesus Christ was in mortality, whilst the other Divine Persons remained in the celestial sphere, what difference was there between Jesus and an ordinary man?

646. If God is everywhere, He must fill every man even as He filled Jesus. What was the difference between the relationship of Jesus to God, and that of other men? God must be part of all.

647. Did Christ's death on the Cross have to be?

648. Had no one attempted to crucify Christ, what would have become of our salvation?

649. If it was ordained that Christ should die, why does any blame attach to those who put Him to death?