Introduction

Gregg R. Allison’s Roman Catholic Theology and Practice is a fantastic work describing the components of Roman Catholic theology from Rome’s Catechism while providing a Protestant evangelical assessment of Rome’s core doctrines. Allison’s goal is not to brutally attack Roman Catholicism but to explain it accurately and respectfully. However, he does not leave room for misunderstanding the many pitfalls and dangers of Roman Catholicism. Instead, he sees Roman Catholicism as an interconnected system of theology that is deeply flawed, even at its foundations.

The Two Axioms

Allison describes Roman Catholicism as having a foundation on two axioms: nature-grace interdependence and Christ-church interconnectivity. Upon these two ideas, the entire theology of Rome is built, starting with nature-grace interdependence. Nature comprises everything that God has created; both physical and spiritual. This includes things such as water, dirt, oil, trees, demons, angels, humanity, and everything else in all creation. Grace is what God has done in relation to His creation in His providence and redemptive plan (Allison 2015, 46), In this way, nature is capable of “receiving and becoming a conduit of grace” (47). These two are interdependent, relying on each other in such a way that “nature is to be a channel of grace, and grace is to elevate or perfect nature” (46).

This bond is so strong that, at the Fall, sin did not totally sever the two, but nature still retains the ability to “receive, transmit, and cooperate with grace” (47). In regards to human nature, it was wounded at the fall, with a loss of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted (121). Of course, this also remains true for other parts of nature, like water and oil, which can still receive infused grace, even after the fall. As will be discussed next, Rome’s solution to corrupt human nature after the fall is the sacrament of Baptism, especially that of infant baptism, incurring grace unto nature (122).

This first axiom is crucial to the logic behind all seven of the Roman Catholic Sacraments. Water, which is of nature, can receive and become a conduit of grace, conferring grace upon the one who is baptized (p. 47), even perfecting the recipient upon the Sacrament being administered (260). Rome’s Catechism says that Baptism is the “gateway to life in the Spirit” and the “sacrament of regeneration.” Specifically, it frees its recipients from sin, makes them members of Christ, and incorporates them into the Church (260).

In the same way, in the Eucharist, bread and wine become conduits of grace nourishing, cleansing from past sins, and preserving from future sins (310). In the Eucharist, nature is infused with grace in such a way that it is transformed into the thing it represents. The bread and wine are consecrated by the Church and transformed by the working of the Spirit through transubstantiation (303). In this way, though not apprehensible to the senses (309), the bread becomes the very body of Christ and the wine the very blood of Christ (308). Christ gives the Church the very body that He gave up for His them on the cross (306).

The second axiom is the Christ-church interconnection, yet it is still closely connected to nature and grace. Allison quotes Leonardo De Chirico, saying, “A mediating subject is needed to represent nature to grace and grace to nature” (56). The primary example, yet not the only example, of this mediator was of course Jesus Christ. However, with Jesus ascending, the new mediator on earth were the apostles, especially Peter since Jesus gave him the keys to His church. Once Peter died, his successor took over, inheriting the power Christ gave to Peter. Thus, now the Roman Church itself is the mediator of grace to nature, standing “between God and the world” (57) as Jesus did, and prolonging Christ’s incarnation (58). The Church is the real, physical body of Christ on earth (59). In this way, “the whole Christ, in the totality of his divine and human natures, together with his body, the Church, is currently present as and in the Catholic Church,” (60).

The power that the Church inherits through this apostolic succession is wide-reaching. As previously mentioned, the Church is the mediator of grace to nature on the earth. Because of this, they are the ultimate authority for what Christians believe, even determining what constitutes the canon of Scripture. The Church also grants faith to its members (61) and forgives sins by various Sacraments as described above. The Church is so connected to Christ that when the Church administers Sacraments, it is Christ who is administering them. When the Church baptizes, Christ baptizes (62).

Because the Church is Christ on earth, the Church is able to make infallible assertions that are on the same level as Scripture. In this way, Rome sees Scripture and the Church’s Tradition as the infallible rule of faith. When Rome’s pope speaks ex-cathedra, he is speaking for Christ and is able to define new Christian doctrine. This is possible only because of the Church’s connection to Christ.

Lastly, it must be mentioned how the nature-grace and Christ-Church connection come together to form Mariology, an essential doctrine of the Roman Catholic church. Here the interconnected system of Rome’s theology is seen clearly. Because of the way Rome sees nature and grace, and because Jesus was of a perfect nature, He had to have been born of a woman with a perfect nature. To accomplish this, from the moment of Mary’s conception, she was preserved from the stain of original sin and was blessed more than any other human being on account of her Son’s merit, remaining sinless her entire life (132-133). This perfection also led to her perpetual virginity and her Bodily Assumption into heaven (190).

In relation to the Christ-Church connection, Mary also functions as another mediator as the Mother of the Church (202). Because she is the mother of Christ and the Church is the body of Christ on earth, Mary is the Mother of God and the Mother of the Church (133). Rome believes that Mary actually suffered with Christ, joining in His sacrifice. She also became the mother of all humanity by Jesus’ dying words to John “Behold your mother!” (202). For Rome, Mary is the “most perfect realization of the church” (134) and is interceding for the church on their behalf.

What the Reformation Changed

During the Reformation, there were many doctrines that the reformers kept without alteration, altered to bring them in line with Scripture, or rejected entirely. Rome’s doctrine of Christ was, for the most part, carried over without alteration from Rome to Reformed Protestantism. Rome and evangelicals both agree in the hypostatic union of Christ, stating that Jesus is of two natures, fully God and fully man, in one Person. They both agree that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, was begotten and not made, and physically died and resurrected. This death and resurrection bought the salvation of God’s people, though Protestantism departs from Rome on who Jesus’ death was effective for and if that salvation can be lost. They also agree with the doctrine of the Trinity, stating that God is three Persons in One. Rome officially agrees that the Father, Son, and Spirit are co-equal members of the Trinity, though at times it seems Rome might unintentionally set the Spirit on a lower tier.

The reformers also brought some of Rome’s doctrine over to Protestantism, yet needed to alter key points to bring them in line with Scripture. Most importantly would be that of original sin. As stated before, Rome believes that original sin wounded nature but that the human nature was not completely corrupted by sin. This is crucial to their interconnected system of doctrine, yet Protestantism and the Bible reject it. The reformers saw that Paul says, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one,” (Rom. 3:10-12 [ESV]). This verse alone at the least suggests that the Fall totally corrupted humanity in such a way that no one seeks God or does anything good. Protestantism takes sin deadly seriously, while it seems Rome at times sees it as an inconvenience that the Church has the ability to rectify by a Sacrament. By viewing sin as a lesser consequence of the Fall, the importance of Jesus’ work in His life and death is diminished. If the problem is not great, the solution is not great.

Additionally, parts of the Christ-Church interconnection were brought over from Roman Catholicism and reformed to the teaching of Scripture. Protestantism does not agree with Rome’s view of the literal, one-for-one correlation between Christ and the Church as His body on earth. Instead, they see this relationship as symbolic with the Church representing Jesus to the world as they are conformed more and more to His image. As such, Protestantism does not see any of its members as infallible during any part of one’s ministry. The hierarchy expressed in Rome’s liturgy is also rejected by Protestants. Instead, elders of evangelical denominations are called to a special vocation to lead and preach but are still co-equal members of the Church. Finally, because the Church is not literally Christ on earth, Rome’s doctrine of Tradition is altered. Protestantism sees tradition as a helpful tool to see how the Holy Spirit has worked throughout Church history, but not as an infallible source of doctrine.

Two of Rome’s Sacraments are carried over to Protestantism, but with significant adjustments. For Rome, both the Baptism and the Eucharist infuse such grace into the recipient that they are cleansed from sin. In this way, the Sacraments themselves, when consecrated by the Church, are the things that bring salvation and cleansing from sins. This was entirely rejected by the reformers, instead arguing that the Sacraments are a sign of the work of God. In the Eucharist, Protestants also argue that the bread and wine are not transubstantiated into the actual body and blood of Jesus, since His human nature is not omnipresent, but are instead symbolic of His sacrifice. All other five of the Sacraments are rejected by Protestantism as Sacraments. However, Rome’s Sacrament of Matrimony is of course practiced in Protestantism but without the Sacramental terminology.

Lastly, it must be discussed what major Roman doctrines the reformers rejected completely. The most significant would be that of Mariology. Almost no aspects of Mariology are carried over into Protestantism. This is primarily because the vast majority of Rome’s views of Mary are not to be found in the Scriptures, but only in Tradition. It has already been discussed that Protestantism rejects infallible Tradition, thus this argumentation does not hold up for Protestantism. Additionally, Rome’s intense veneration of Mary is rejected in the Bible by Jesus. In the Gospel according to Luke, we find a passage where someone exclaims to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” (Luke 11:27), and Jesus replies “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:28). Jesus redirects any specific blessing on Mary to the blessing of any and all the saints, effectively giving her the same amount of “veneration” as every other regenerate Christian.

Protestantism also completely rejects Rome’s view of Purgatory and Indulgences. Again, this is primary because the Scriptures do not speak about these two doctrines at all. Instead, Protestantism sees indulgences as an abuse of power by Church leadership and a means to buy one’s salvation which is completely denied in every aspect of the Gospel. Purgatory is also denied along with Protestantism’s rejection of the nature-grace interdependence. In most Protestant denominations, the salvation of a child of God is secure from the moment they are regenerated. They cannot ever lose any type of grace imparted to them. Instead, Jesus’ death on the cross was substitutionary, meaning that no one of His children will ever face the eschatological wrath of God for their sins. In the doctrine of Purgatory, however, a child of God must pay off sins that are not forgiven or cleansed by the Sacraments. This completely flies in the face of all that Jesus did in His life and death, and completely misunderstands the purpose of God through the course of human history.

Why Protestants Need to Understand Roman Catholic Theology

Finally, it would be helpful to bring together these key points of Roman Catholicism as well as the discontinuities between Rome and Protestantism to see how the nature-grace axiom of Roman Catholic theology is its downfall. The main problem with the nature-grace axiom is that if it is disproved, the majority of Rome’s significant doctrines begin to unravel. Roman Catholic theology is like a snowball. It begins with a small ball of the nature-grace interdependence which gets pushed along to develop into the apostolic succession, Mariology, the Sacraments, purgatory, indulgences, and much more. Soon, you have this massive snowball of theology but when you really look at it, it is all based on this one doctrine of nature and grace. This can become incredibly troublesome because if this axiom can be disproven or rejected, the system of theology Rome has created will quickly begin to crumble. This is exactly what Protestantism does.

Protestantism rejects Rome’s view of nature and grace. This is one reason why it is so incredibly important for a Protestant to understand Roman Catholic theology; the basis for how Rome sees reality can be easily torn down. If nature was totally corrupted at the Fall, as the Bible and Protestantism say it was, then Rome’s entire view of the nature-grace interconnection is entirely wrong. Due to the topic of this paper and lack of given space, this axiom cannot be disproved here. However, Allison does fairly quick work of this axiom within just the first few chapters. If Allison and Protestantism are right, and some would say a basic reading of the Bible would prove it to be so, especially that of the aforementioned Romans 3:10-12, then the basis for how the system of Rome’s theology works is false. Understanding this is crucial for any follower of Christ. They must understand the flaws of a system that many in Rome would claim to be infallible.

Additionally, Protestantism is closely tied to Roman Catholicism as it finds its history in the developments of Roman Catholicism, whether Protestants like it or not. The Protestant church must know where they came from. The Roman Catholic church is, for the most part, what the church of the apostles grew into. This is very important to grasp because it shows just how skewed humanity can make the things of God while presenting them as godly. Over centuries, Rome took the teachings of Jesus and the apostles and distorted them into a works-based religion which builds up its authorities. This slow distortion was almost unrecognizable because of the control Rome had over the Scriptures and its congregations. They eventually became so greedy and immoral that finally, in the 16th century, Martin Luther and many others saw that it needed to be changed. Because of this, the church has Protestantism.

Learning about the history and theology of Rome is so important because it guards the Christian from falling into these same pitfalls again. Roman Catholic theology is the result of sinful humans reinterpreting the Scriptures and adding how they think God should work to them. Learning about how this happened can stop someone in their tracks if they begin down this road again. Knowing how those have fallen in the past helps the Christian from committing the same failure in the future. It keeps the Christian from having the same debates that the Reformers settled centuries ago. It shows how the Holy Spirit worked through His church and, by an act of mercy, preserved it from going into total darkness.

Without Roman Catholic theology, the Reformation would have never happened. The Reformation was so effective because its leaders, like Martin Luter for example, were knowledgeable in what they were discussing. They were not going into debates with Rome blind but understood the details of Rome’s theology. If it was not for this, the Reformers could not have dissected Roman Catholicism and proved the doctrine of Scripture so well. If Protestants are to evangelize to Roman Catholics, they must understand what they believe. Going into a conversation blind can be dangerous and can end up doing more damage than help.

Conclusion

Overall, Roman Catholic theology finds its foundation in two axioms: the nature-grace interdependence and the Christ-Church interconnectivity. On these two foundations, the vast majority of Roman Catholic doctrines find their validity. This means that if one can disprove these foundations, as many would argue the Bible itself does, the interconnected system of Rome’s theology begins to crumble. Understanding this is essential for Protestants as it helps them understand the pitfalls of Rome’s theology, keep from falling into the same mistakes, remember where Protestantism came from, and evangelize to Roman Catholics. For these reasons, Roman Catholic theology must not be left in the dark but should be understood, exposed, and reformed by faithful Christians of the Word.