Justification Apart From Baptism Among Pre-Reformation Lollards

I've written a lot over the years in response to the false claim that nobody believed in justification through faith alone prior to the Reformation or between the time of the apostles and the Reformation. See here, for example. The claim often focuses on the relationship between baptism and justification. We'll be told that all of the church fathers believed in baptismal regeneration or that none of the patristic or medieval sources believed in justification apart from baptism, for example. In recent months, I've written some posts about support for justification through faith alone, including justification apart from baptism in particular, in the first two centuries of church history. See here, here, and here. What I want to do in this post is discuss some examples at the other end of the spectrum, from the closing years of the medieval era.

More Patristic References To Mary As A Sinner

I've posted collections of examples of scripture and extrabiblical sources prior to the Reformation referring to Mary as a sinner. See here, here, and here. Other examples:

"A woman from the multitude cries out, that blessed was the womb that had borne him, and the breasts which had given him suck. And the Lord answers, 'Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it' [Luke 11:28]: because even before this he had rejected his mother and his brethren, because he prefers those who hear God and obey him. For not even on the present occasion was his mother in attendance on him. It follows that neither on the previous occasion did he deny having been born. So now, when he hears this once more, once more he transfers the blessedness away from his mother's womb and breasts and assigns it to the disciples: he could not have transferred it away from his mother if he had had no mother." (Tertullian, Against Marcion, 4:27)

"But He on the Cross, committeth His mother to the disciple, teaching us even to our last breath to show every care for our parents. When indeed she unseasonably troubled Him, He said, 'Woman, what have I to do with thee?' [John 2:4] And, 'Who is My mother?' [Matthew 12:48] But here He showeth much loving affection, and committeth her to the disciple whom He loved." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On John, 85:2, v. 24)

"Having signified how great mischiefs are bred from not believing the resurrection, he takes up the discourse again, and says, 'But now hath Christ been raised from the dead;' [1 Corinthians 15:20] continually adding, 'from the dead,' so as to stop the mouths of the heretics. 'The first-fruits of them that slept.' But if their first-fruits, then themselves also, must needs rise again. Whereas if he were speaking of the resurrection from sins, and none is without sin;—for even Paul saith, 'I know nothing against myself, yet am I not hereby justified;'—how shall there be any who rise again, according to you?" (John Chrysostom, Homilies On First Corinthians, 39:5)

"So too Christ our Lord Himself teaches us, at one time calling Himself Son of God and at another Son of man: at one time He gives honour to His Mother as to her that gave Him birth; at another He rebukes her as her Lord." (Theodoret, Dialogues, 2)

We want a king!

We should keep in mind that one of the reasons people can have for being Roman Catholic or finding Catholicism appealing is the sort of interest in a king that the ancient Israelites had, an interest that can be sinful. People can have sinful reasons for desiring some other belief system, including Protestantism, but my focus here is on Catholicism and the connection between the papacy and a monarchy. We should keep in mind that a desire for a monarchical form of church government can be, and I think often is, part of why people are Catholic or are attracted to Catholicism. And the motives for wanting that sort of authority structure don't have to be entirely sinful in order to be partly sinful or to be inadequate to justify accepting the papacy.

"your wickedness is great which you have done in the sight of the Lord by asking for yourselves a king" (1 Samuel 12:17)

The Largeness, Complexity, And Difficulty Of Extrabiblical Tradition

It's often suggested that sola scriptura is too difficult to live out. How do you know which documents are canonical and which aren't? There are so many disagreements over Biblical interpretation. Many of our questions aren't answered, or aren't answered explicitly, by scripture. A lot of people throughout church history have been illiterate. How are they supposed to follow sola scriptura? And so on.

You can approach issues like those from a lot of angles, and we've responded to such objections many times (e.g., noting that Protestants aren't the only ones who have to make judgments about what's part of their rule of faith and what isn't, that Protestants aren't the only ones who disagree about how to interpret their rule of faith, that non-Protestant rules of faith also contain written sources that illiterate people wouldn't be able to read for themselves, that a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox layman relying on a local priest or bishop to tell him what to believe is relying on a source who's fallible by Catholic and Orthodox standards, that Catholic and Orthodox laymen are depending on translators and other fallible sources in the process of consulting their allegedly infallible authorities, etc.). One of the factors to take into account in these contexts is how large and complicated extrabiblical tradition is and how it's so often failed to bring about the sort of peace, unity, and easiness its advocates often suggest it will bring about. For example:

"The disagreements ran deep, and the disputes were often bitter and sometimes violent. From the beginning of the fourth century to the middle of the sixth century, more than 250 councils dealt with a wide range of topics." (Robert Wilken, The First Thousand Years [New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2012], 90)

And those councils often disagreed with each other.

We've provided many other examples along those lines, like here.

When You're Deep In History And Have Ceased To Be Protestant

Robert Wilken is a historian who converted from Lutheranism to Roman Catholicism decades ago. He's sometimes mentioned in lists of converts to Catholicism. He appeared on Marcus Grodi's television program "The Journey Home" on EWTN. You often find Catholic scholars making comments like these ones from Wilken's book on the first millennium of church history:

"As the controversy over the dating of the Pasch revealed, there was no central authority within Christianity in the second century. The Church was composed of a constellation of local communities spanning the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East. They had a strong sense of unity among themselves, but they were only loosely organized." (The First Thousand Years [New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2012], 39)

"In the early Church there was no 'private' confession. According to church law the emperor could not present himself quietly before the bishop, confess his sin, and receive absolution. The penitential discipline of the early Church was unremittingly harsh and carried out in front of the Christian people. The penitents were segregated from the rest of the community, assigned a special section in the church, and forbidden to receive the Eucharist." (135)

"By the middle of the third century the bishop of Rome had begun to acquire an unparalleled authority in the West - in Italy, North Africa, Gaul, and Spain. Not, however, in the East. There the churches looked to the bishops in the major cities, Alexandria in Egypt or Antioch in Syria. This geographical fact, that Rome was the principal city in the West, whereas in the East there were several, would lead to a quite different understanding of how the Church was to be governed at the highest level….It is clear from the minutes of the Council of Chalcedon that the bishops, most of whom were from the East, did not view Rome's authority as Leo [the Roman bishop] did." (165-66, 170)

"Apparently [in The Apostolic Tradition, a document of the third century] infant baptism was permissible - though not conventional - and parents or guardians would speak for the children." (176)

Resources For Reformation Day

Reformation Day will be celebrated in a few weeks. Here's a collection of resources on the historical roots of the Reformation and Evangelicalism. I update that page from time to time, and some changes have been made over the last several months. I've added links to articles about the evidence against a Catholic view of Mary in Luke's writings and whether Jesus taught a physical presence in the eucharist. See here for a recent post on the papacy, specifically how we should expect to see the office referred to in the early sources if such an office existed. And here's one I added on the Assumption of Mary.

A Reconsideration Of The Enfield Voice

A few years ago, after I'd finished listening to the Enfield tapes, I wrote at length about my view of the voice allegedly produced by the poltergeist. I've listened to the tapes again since then. I want to revisit the issues surrounding the voice, which are large and complicated, to supplement what I said earlier.

My citations of the tapes will use "MG" to designate one from Maurice Grosse's collection and "GP" to refer to one from Guy Playfair's. Thus, MG33B is Grosse's tape 33B, GP90A is Playfair's tape 90A, and so on.

The Keys In Matthew 18:18

See this Twitter thread from The Other Paul for some good points about Cameron Bertuzzi's recent video on alleged evidence for a papacy in Isaiah 22. We've said a lot about Isaiah 22 and the papacy over the years, and anybody who's interested can search our archives. In the remainder of this post, I want to add some points to the ones made by The Other Paul.

How different is Jesus in John's gospel?

Here's a playlist of several videos Lydia McGrew has produced on alleged differences between the Synoptics and John. And here's a collection of some of our posts on the unity between John and the Synoptics. The collection has been updated since I originally posted it, and I'll probably update it with more material in the future.

Upcoming Enfield Documentaries

There are two I know of that are on the way, and one of them should be out next month on Paramount Plus. See the section titled "Hauntings" here. The series is about more than the Enfield case, but Enfield is one of the cases they'll be covering. Judging by the photographs on the first page linked above, it looks like Rosalind Morris, Graham Morris, and Richard Grosse (Maurice's son) participated. A producer was in contact with David Robertson as well, but I don't know how much he'll feature in the program.

MetFilm seems to be close to finishing their Enfield documentary. The last I heard, it should be a three-part series. In an interview last month (at 17:06 on the page just linked), Melvyn Willin of the Society for Psychical Research said the documentary should be out within a few months.

What should we make of Jesus' resurrection appearances to biased believers?

About five minutes into one of his recent programs, Greg Koukl responded to the objection that it's suspicious that the risen Jesus only appeared to people who already believed in him. Koukl made a lot of good points in response to the objection, but I want to expand on some of the issues involved.

A Head Of Brass And Hands Of Gold

"If Christ had been some delicate person, if our glorious Head had been reposing upon the soft pillow of ease, then might we, who are the members of his Church, have expected to go through this world with joy and comfort; but if he must be bathed in his own blood, if the thorns must pierce his temples, if his lips must be parched, and if his mouth must be dried up like a furnace, shall we escape suffering and agony? Is Christ to have a head of brass and hands of gold?" (Charles Spurgeon, The C.H. Spurgeon Collection [Albany, Oregon: AGES Software, 1998], Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 47, p. 114)

Focusing Too Much On The Patristic And Medieval Eras

One of the most popular criticisms of Protestantism, and one that seems to go a long way in convincing people, is the allegation that various Protestant beliefs were absent or not popular enough during the patristic and medieval eras. We're told that justification through baptism was widely accepted during that timeframe, for example, or we're even told that it was universally believed. Or look at how popular it was to pray to the saints and angels. Look at all of the agreement on such issues among the apostolic churches. And so on.

The Aimless, Meandering Christian

Because of fallen human nature, the nature of the culture in which we live, and other factors involved, it's important to frequently remind people what work needs done in religious contexts: missions, evangelism, apologetics, theology, philosophy, the sciences, the paranormal, Bible translation, etc. I've often cited the example of patristics. There's a steady stream of patristic documents being published in English for the first time, and many that have already been published for a long time haven't been studied or discussed much. Evangelicals can repeatedly come across patristic issues in various contexts - claims about the canon of scripture, claims about the authorship of the gospels, etc. - yet have little or no concern about researching those subjects or disseminating whatever valuable information they come across. Similarly, I've often discussed the need for Christians to do more work on the paranormal. And many other examples could be cited, some of which I've discussed in the past. What parents, pastors, friends, and other people in positions of influence - all of us - should be doing is reminding people from time to time what work needs done. Mention parts of the world where missionaries need to go, languages into which the Bible still needs to be translated, philosophical issues that need studied further, Biblical passages whose historicity needs studied and discussed further, and so on. And model the sort of work that needs done by doing it yourself and talking to other people about the work you're doing.

I often hear people, including professing Christians, commenting on how "bored" they are or expect to be in retirement, how they "can't find anything to do". They'll even go back to working a job that doesn't have much significance or retire later than usual. And the people who are finding things to do are typically doing things that don't have much value. It's commonplace to hear people talk about how concerned they are about the state of the culture and the world, then, five minutes later, refer to how they're going to spend the rest of the day watching movies, gardening, etc. They rarely or never refer to anything they're doing in contexts like the ones I've referred to in the paragraph above, and what they do refer to doing in such contexts tends to be of a lower rather than higher nature.

You ought to have specific objectives in mind to advance the kingdom of God in substantial ways. Aim for accomplishments "worthy of the calling with which you have been called" (Ephesians 4:1) and run hard after them.

"Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim" (1 Corinthians 9:24-26)

"In a corruption of sound doctrine so extreme, in a pollution of the sacraments so nefarious, in a condition of the Church so deplorable, those who maintain that we ought not to have felt so strongly, would have been satisfied with nothing less than a perfidious tolerance, by which we should have betrayed the worship of God, the glory of Christ, the salvation of men, the entire administration of the sacraments, and the government of the Church. There is something specious in the name of moderation, and tolerance is a quality which has a fair appearance, and seems worthy of praise; but the rule which we must observe at all hazards is, never to endure patiently that the sacred name of God should be assailed with impious blasphemy — that his eternal truth should be suppressed by the devil’s lies — that Christ should be insulted, his holy mysteries polluted, unhappy souls cruelly murdered, and the Church left to writhe in extremity under the effect of a deadly wound. This would be not meekness, but indifference about things to which all others ought to be postponed." (John Calvin)

Thinking About The Veneration Of Images

The Other Paul and River Devereux recently produced a video on the Second Council of Nicaea and images that makes many good points. Gavin Ortlund interviewed a former Eastern Orthodox priest, Joshua Schooping, and the veneration of images is one of the topics they discussed. We have a lot of posts on the subject in our archives.

Justification Through Faith Alone In The Second Century

In the excerpt from the Epistle To Diognetus below, notice the reference to "faith, to which alone", followed by the concluding references to "trust" and "faith", with no reference to baptism and other works. The first mention of faith is immediately followed by some comments on the kindness of God and the gracious benefits given to us in his Son, and the section of the document that follows (9) is highly soteriological, all of which indicate that justifying faith is being referred to. The author refers to having faith in God later in the Christian life as well and discusses good works and expects them to follow from faith, but the focus here is on faith, even including the qualifier "alone", and the substitutionary nature of Jesus' work. The reference to faith alone in such a soteriological context makes the most sense as a reference to justifying faith. At the opening of the document, the author refers to how Diognetus wants to know "what God they [Christians] trust in, and what form of religion they observe, so as all to look down upon the world itself, and despise death, while they neither esteem those to be gods that are reckoned such by the Greeks, nor hold to the superstition of the Jews; and what is the affection which they cherish among themselves; and why, in fine, this new kind or practice [of piety] has only now entered into the world" (1). So, it's evident that faith (trust) is being distinguished from the actions that result from faith, and other terms are being used to refer to works, such as "observe" and "practice". So, we shouldn't think that the references to faith in sections 8-10 of the document are including works within them. Even if we only had the usual meanings of words to go by, it would be unlikely that a reference to faith includes works. It's doubly unlikely when the document in question so clearly distinguishes between faith and works. Section 10 refers to love resulting in our imitation of God's kindness, saying, "if you love Him, you will be an imitator of His kindness". That which is in the heart leads to outward actions. The author seems to have in mind an inner response to God that's distinguished from the outer actions that follow, with the inner faith justifying. As Michael Bird and Kirsten Mackerras write, salvation in the Epistle To Diognetus is "by faith alone (8.6; 9.6; 10.1)" (in Michael Bird and Scott Harrower, edd., The Cambridge Companion To The Apostolic Fathers [New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021], 323). In section 9, we're told that our works are excluded. The substitutionary nature of Christ's work is discussed, even with a reference to the "sweet exchange", the paralleling of Jesus' taking our sin with our taking his righteousness, and a reference to our sins' being covered by Jesus' righteousness, which is reminiscent of the dunghill analogy attributed to Martin Luther:

The Two-Way Street Of Religious Discussions

"Whenever a Christian converses with a non-Christian about the truth of the faith, every request of the non-Christian for the proof of Christianity should be met with an equally serious request for proof for the non-Christian's philosophy of life. Otherwise we get the false impression that the Christian worldview is tentative and uncertain, while the more secular worldviews are secure and sure, standing above the need to give a philosophical and historical accounting of themselves. But that is not the case. Many people who demand that Christians produce proof of our claims do not make the same demand upon themselves....If the Christian must produce proof, so must others." (John Piper, Desiring God [Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Books, 1996], 273-74)

The Miracle Of John The Baptist's Existence

To add to my last post, consider the example of John the Baptist. He apparently didn't perform healings, exorcisms, or other such miracles during his public ministry. But his existence was a miracle. He shouldn't have been conceived. And there were other miracles surrounding his childhood. Since most of what we're told about John's background comes from Luke, see here regarding Luke's general credibility, here regarding an important line of evidence for his material on John the Baptist's childhood in particular, and here and here for examples of other early sources corroborating Luke. John's popularity probably was partly a result of those aspects of his background. Even where healings, fulfilled prophecy, and other forms of evidence aren't closely, directly, or explicitly involved, they're often involved in a more distant, indirect, or implicit way. Much of the apologetic nature of the Bible and the events it records is overlooked or underestimated, because people aren't thinking about the issues enough or aren't being honest about them.

Apologetics In Action

There are many Biblical passages that explicitly refer to the importance of apologetics and closely related concepts. See the examples discussed here. But there's also a lot of implicit reference to the importance of apologetics in scripture. Think of the evidential significance of the miracles performed by the prophets in the Old Testament era, the evidential significance of Jesus' prophecy fulfillments, the apologetic use made of the healings, exorcisms, and other miracles performed by Jesus and the apostles, and so on. As I've mentioned before, the Bible is structured around a framework of apologetics. The early Christians often referred to the two Testaments of scripture as "the prophets and the apostles" (e.g., The Muratorian Canon; Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, 1:1; cf. 2 Peter 3:2). Josephus and other ancient Jewish sources refer to how the closing of the Old Testament canon was brought about by the cessation of the prophets and prophecy. Evidential concepts like fulfilled prophecy and eyewitness testimony (apostles had to be eyewitnesses of the risen Christ) formed the parameters of scripture.

Because so much of the Biblical support for apologetics is of that less explicit nature, people often underestimate the value of apologetics. It's misleading to measure how much we should be involved in apologetic work on the basis of something like how often we come across explicit references to apologetics in scripture. Jesus and the apostles largely argued by means of healings, fulfilling prophecy in the presence of their audience, and performing other miracles. The less we're involved in such activities, the more we need to make up for that absence by means of argumentation and the citation of evidence. Much of what Jesus, the apostles, and other Biblical figures did in apologetics was of a nonverbal nature, but has to take on a verbal form where that nonverbal one isn't present.

The Cleverness Of The Enfield Poltergeist

I've often discussed apparent differences between the entity behind the poltergeist and the individuals sometimes alleged to have faked it or produced it through their psychic abilities. See my article on the poltergeist voice, for example, which provides many examples of paranormal knowledge exhibited by the voice, its being ignorant of information the Hodgson children were aware of, etc. One of the categories I referred to there was knowledge the voice had that was above that of the children. I want to expand on what I said there, but with regard to the poltergeist in general rather than only the voice, and I want to focus on a particular form of knowledge it exhibited. It sometimes seemed more clever than you'd expect the Hodgson children to be.

By its nature, that sort of characteristic is going to provide weaker evidence than what we have for the poltergeist's authenticity and identity in other contexts. A child, or an adolescent in particular, could be unusually clever. As I've mentioned before, the magician Milbourne Christopher explained the Enfield case as a hoax perpetrated by the Hodgson girls and referred to Janet as "very, very clever". (The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 9, No. 2, Winter 1984-85, "A Final Interview With Milbourne Christopher", 161) But we don't begin with a default assumption that a person is so unusually clever, we have evidence I've discussed before that Janet and Margaret weren't so clever (e.g., what we know about their academic records, how poorly they faked phenomena on the occasions when they're known to have done so, the lack of such cleverness reflected in their later lives), and cleverness falls well short of explaining everything that needs to be explained. Furthermore, the argument from cleverness doesn't have to give us certainty or even a high degree of probability in order to have some significance. If the cleverness of the entity behind the poltergeist seems better explained by some entity other than the ones alleged to have faked the case or alleged to have produced genuine phenomena through paranormal abilities they had, that better explanation doesn't have to be better by a large margin. It just has to be better. A larger margin would be preferable, but a preference isn't a necessity.