They're Lying About "Protestants"
I wish I had saved it, but I recently saw an interesting bit of Roman Catholic apologetics done by a lady layman. It was interesting for a couple reasons.
First, she took a page out of Blaise Pascal’s book and applied his famous “Wager” to Roman Catholicism. The argument is that Rome makes grandiose claims to being exclusively the one holy catholic and apostolic church. So you should just hedge your bets and join them. If you’re wrong, you’re only belonging to another denomination, but if they’re right, you’ve hitched your wagon to the winning horse. While I think Pascal’s Wager is a helpful conversation starter about God’s existence, it is hardly the source of the knowledge of truth. It would be inconceivable to imagine St. Thomas Aquinas taking such an agnostic tack when it comes to epistemology, that is, how we know whether or not something is true. It is also contrary to Aquinas to misstate the opponent’s argument in order to beat down a strawman. This lady apologist argues that you should pick the most bold and exclusive assertion of truth, and if you’re right, you win the lottery; if you’re wrong, you’re no more wrong than anyone else.
Of course, a Muslim could make the same argument. Really, any exclusive truth claim can use Pascal in this way.
But her attack on “Protestantism” is what I really wanted to focus on.
She applies the Wager argument over and against “Protestants” - listing the various things that “Protestants” believe in. For instance, “Protestants” don’t believe in Purgatory. If you become a Roman Catholic and are wrong, it’s all good, because you go to heaven anyway. So you might as well put your poker chips on Rome and spin the wheel. If you’re right, you might get out of Purgatory, or at least cut off a lot of time. Some “Protestants” in the Anglo-Catholic tradition believe in something similar to Purgatory, though it is more in line with Eastern Orthodoxy than Roman Catholicism - and it is quite different than what other “Protestants” teach. And this is my point: she is using a slippery word to equivocate and confuse her readers, implying a uniformity and homogeneity that just isn’t there.
She says that “Protestants” don’t believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Her argument in favor of it is not that Jesus said, “This is…,” nor that this is the Word of God, nor even an appeal to the earliest of the church fathers. Again, she takes the Pascalian tack that if Rome is wrong, it makes no difference. But if they’re right, you get Jesus in communion. Weak sauce, indeed. “Join Roman Catholicism, hope they’re right, and if they’re wrong, you’re still a Christian,” and, “All ‘Protestants’ reject the Real Presence.’”
Really? That’s what you’ve got?
I would like to ask her if Lutherans are Protestants. I could hardly imagine her saying, “No.” In fact, we may be the most definitive of the lot. But when she says that we deny the Real Presence, her argument is based on a lie. Satan is the father of lies. If you have to lie about what we believe in, if you have to lump all of us together in a dishonest appeal to the strawman to make your point, if your argument boils down to just pick us because we make the most grandiose claims (and hope you’re not wrong) - that exposes a terrible weakness and flaw.
Once again, Aquinas would never have been so weak-minded in his argumentation.
We have been lied about for 500 years. Eck lied about us and broad-brushed us in the 404 Articles of 1530. Also in 1530, the Roman Catholic Church’s finest theologians employed the strawman fallacy in their laughable response to the Augsburg Confession, known as the Confutation (prompting the Lutheran response in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession). The Confutation was so horrible that the emperor rejected the first draft, and the final edition was not shared with the Lutherans (they had to have stenographers take notes as it was read), and it wasn’t published until 1573 (in Latin) and 1808 (in German). That is how ashamed they were of this treatise. It really is that bad. Don’t take my word for it. Read it alongside the Augsburg Confession and the Apology, and you will literally laugh out loud.
Same you-know-what, Different Century.
Since the Roman Catholic Church has changed her theology, now calling us “separated brethren” instead of “heretics,” (but also positing that Jews and Muslims who deny the divinity of Jesus may have salvation, if not full-blown polytheists and even atheists if they “strive to live morally”), we could turn the Wager around on her. What if we Lutherans are wrong? Nothing.
Rather than placing bets and spinning wheels, rather than relying on lies and fallacies, let us search the Scriptures, since all Christians believe them to be God’s Word. Let us examine what the church fathers confessed - not because we believe in their infallibility, but rather to see when and where doctrines were changed, deviated from, or rejected. And, of course, they also lie about what we confess about the Scriptures.
Real dialogue is based on the truth. The truth cannot be discerned by fallacious broad-brushing. Ironically, the very work in which Pascal included the Wager (published posthumously as Pensées, was banned by the Roman Catholic Church, being placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (and, of course, no full disclosure from our lying wager-apologist). That said, I think the best edition of the Pensées was published under the title Christianity for Modern Pagans with commentary from the modern Roman Catholic thinker Peter Kreeft. Fr. David Petersen gifted me with a copy of this book many years ago, and it is required reading for my Apologetics students at Wittenberg Academy, as it has been for the past twelve years. Pascal is no longer banned by the Roman Catholic Church (the Index was abolished in 1966), and he has been cited, quoted, and praised by modern popes running the gamut from Benedict to Francis.
So, reader beware. Be on the lookout for bubulum stercus, and don’t be distracted by grandiose bluster and logical sleight-of-hand.