I'd like to make a general observation about conversions to Catholicism. Conversions range along a continuum. Theological identities are packages. Some packages have far more in common than others.
Some conversions involve a minor adjustment in the convert's theology. Suppose a paedobaptist becomes a credobaptist or vice versa. That changes one variable, leaving pretty much the rest of his theology intact.
Suppose a Baptist becomes a Lutheran. He has to make many more adjustments to his overall theology.
But depending on the theological package, some variables are more central than others. The prophethood of Muhammad and Joseph Smith are cornerstones of Islam and Mormonism. If they were false prophets, then that falsifies the whole package. For the contents of the package depend on the authority of Muhammad or Joseph Smith.
A further consideration is that conversion often involves, not merely changing one or more of your theological positions, but changing your supporting arguments for or against the positions in question.
Take the case of Luis Dizon, who recently switched back to Roman Catholicism. I believe he was a Reformed Baptist. Moreover, he's a Christian apologist, so I assume he was used to arguing for his Reformed Baptist beliefs and arguing against Roman Catholicism. Let's compare some of the contents of each package.
I. Reformed Baptist
1. Sola Scriptura
2. The Protestant canon
3. Absolute predestination, unconditional election, reprobation
4. Definite atonement
5. Spiritual inability
6. Monergistic regeneration
7. Sola fide
8. Imputing Adam's demerit to his posterity, imputing the demerit of the elect to Christ, imputing the merit of Christ to the elect
9. Perseverance of the saints
10. Penal substitution
11. Believer's baptism
12. Exclusivism
II. Roman Catholicism
1. Apostolic succession
2. The pope as Christ's vicar on earth
3. The Magisterium as the authoritative interpreter of Scripture
4. The Catholic canon
5. Infused merit, congruent merit, supererogatory merit.
6. The priesthood
7. Seven sacraments
8. Baptismal regeneration/justification
9. Transubstantiation
10. Penace, auricular confession, absolution, indulgences
11. Indissolubility of marriage
12. Purgatory
13. Intercession and veneration of saints
14. Immaculate Conception
15. Assumption of Mary
16. Perpetual virginity of Mary (including in partu virginity)
17. Mary as Queen of Heaven, Mother of the Church, and Mediatrix
18. The Rosary
19. Renuciation of capital punishment
20. Inclusivism (Vatican II)
In each case, that's a sample. Compare the two packages. To convert from one to the other, he most now repudiate all the positions he use to believe and defend as a Reformed Baptist. Conversely, he must now believe and defend all the positions he used to repudiate.
What is more, he must now renounce all the arguments he used to deploy in defending the Reformed Baptist position and opposing Roman Catholicism. Conversely, he must now adopt most-all of the Catholic arguments he used to view as bogus.
Consider how artificial that is. Has he really vacated all the former arguments at one stroke? Did he eliminate them one by one? Did all the arguments he used to find convincing become unconvincing while most-all of the arguments he used to find unconvincing become convincing? Is it like reversing the domino effect, where all the dominos used to fall in one direction but now they all fall in the opposite direction?
Surely it must feel schizophrenic to change sides so that you find yourself arguing with your mirror image. You're now resorting the same arguments whose weaknesses you used to recognize. Has your perception really undergone a complete gestalt shift?
BTW, these aren't symmetrical alternatives. An intellectual conversion from Catholicism to evangelicalism is a lot simpler because there was no direct evidence for many Catholic dogmas. Rather, that was contingent on the authority of the Magisterium to promulgate dogma. All it takes to drop out of Catholicism is to lose your conviction in the authority of the Magisterium. Pull that one cornerstone and the entire edifice crumbles in a heap of dust.
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ReplyDelete// All it takes to drop out of Catholicism is to lose your conviction in the authority of the Magisterium. //
ReplyDeleteConversely, be convinced of the authority of the magisterium, and you don't (absolutely) need to have arguments for all of the distinctive doctrines of RCism. As a public apologist, Luis is going to be pressured by many to defend those distinctives which other Catholics who aren't apologists don't necessarily have to. I can imagine, for example, the difficulty he'll have explaining the worship of the Host to Shabir Ally.
Maybe Catholic apologists can derive arguments from Maximus the Confessor on how he may have defended the real presence of Christ in the eucharist to Muslims. I don't know. Nevertheless, the concept of transubstantiation, with all the Aristotelian nuances Aquinas employed, was not on Maximus' radar screen. Modern Roman Catholics have more to defend that Maximus did.
DeleteIslam teaches God, in his omnipotent sovereignty, can unilaterally forgive sins without the need for atonement. Yet, Catholicism teaches propitiation is made constantly and repeatedly (and often daily) in the Mass. I can see how Muslims could perceive that as an even greater demonstration of the weakness of the Christian God as compared to Allah. With worship of the Eucharistic Host as the epitome of idolatry.
Personally, I think the successful spread of Islam during its early years was partly due to the perceived idolatry of much of the Christianities at the time (Nestorian, Monophysite, Adoptionist Christologies etc.). The exaltation of Mary is seen in the Qur'an when it misinterprets her to be part of a "Trinity". If Christianity back then had been more consistently Biblical, Islam wouldn't have spread as quickly and widely as it did.