Understanding Roman Catholicism
An Italian evangelical perspective
EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON POST-VATICAN II ROMAN CATHOLICISM
By Leonardo de Chirico
Bern: Peter Lang, 2003. 337 pages
Having completed degrees in modern history (Bologna) and theology (Evangelical College of Wales), Dr. Leonardo de Chirico is now Vice-Principal of the Istituto di Formazione Evangelica e Documentazione (Institute for Evangelical Training and Documentation, IFED) as well as Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethics and Bioethics and pastor of an evangelical church in Ferrara, Italy.
Established in 1988, IFED is situated in the historic university town of Padua, north-east Italy, and works to promote evangelical scholarship in the areas of Systematic, Historical and Ethical Theology, as well as strengthening evangelical witness by the regular publication of books and journals and the organisation of regional and national theological and ministerial conferences. The aim is to train and equip present and future church leaders to expound and live out the historic Reformed evangelical faith in an Italian church context dominated by Roman Catholicism.
The book's importance
Dr. de Chirico has recently completed his PhD studies at King's College, London. His thesis was published last year by Peter Lang and is entitled Evangelical Theological Perspectives on post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism.
In our present-day context of increased doctrinal confusion, the blurring of historic formulations of faith and an apparently inexorable advancement in the Protestant-Catholic project of ecumenism, Dr. de Chirico persuasively presents the need for evangelicals to engage with Roman Catholicism in a more theologically-integrative way. This is evermore pressing in the light of varied developments within Catholicism since Vatican II (1962-5), which have prompted something of an international change in the way many evangelicals perceive the Catholic Church. Though Roman Catholicism does not share the same presence and influence in the UK as it does in Italy, the growing ecumenical push towards co-operation and dialogue between evangelicalism and Catholicism, in the face of an increasingly secularised Western society, is no less pertinent to our own British context. It is therefore imperative for British evangelicals to apprehend more clearly the nature and strategy of Roman Catholicism, in order to properly offer a theologically-reasoned response when necessary.
An overview of the work
The work explores the way six evangelical theologians (Gerrit Berkouwer, Cornelius Van Til, David Wells, Donald Bloesch, Herbert Carson and John Stott), have grappled with and responded to developments within Roman Catholicism post-Vatican II, as well as summarising the ongoing international dialogue and debate between evangelicals and Catholics since 1965.
The author suggests that evangelicalism's appraisal of Roman Catholicism has lacked systematic awareness, tending instead towards more episodic aphoristic criticism of Roman doctrine, which for all its truth lacks integrated analysis. With this in mind, Dr. de Chirico proposes a critique which (i) applies the category of 'system' or 'worldview' to Roman Catholicism, and (ii) perceives two foundational theological foci in Roman theology - the relationship between nature and grace, and the self-understanding of the Church.
The Introduction describes the changing appraisal of Roman Catholicism and presents the six evangelical theologians pertaining to the study. A summary of international debate defines Evangelical-Roman Catholic Dialogue on Mission (ERCDOM) in the 1970s and 80s, and Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) and Gift of Salvation (GOS) in the US in the 90s, as joint ecumenical ventures exploring the historically divisive issues between evangelicalism and Catholicism, in attempts to tackle the cancerous spread of secularism and relativism in Western society. Yet the author maintains that 'while showing a significant interest in dealing with Roman Catholicism in a constructive way, evangelical theology does not seem to be prepared to address it as Roman Catholicism, i.e. a religion enjoying or claiming to enjoy Catholic breadth and vision as well as institutional and historical particularity'. Because Roman theology has a central core, evangelicalism must refine its approach of engagement.
Evangelical and ecumenical?
Chapter 1 explores evangelical theology as an ecumenical inter-denominational movement with diverse fields of reference and little unified structure or central organisation. Though generally adhering to the four 'sola' defended by Luther (sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura, solus Christus), evangelical theology comprises institutional fragmentation, historical diversity and ecclesiastical pluralism. It strives to remain true to Scripture and the heritage of church especially as set out at the Reformation, yet there is inherent diversity within the broader tradition of evangelical theology.
Chapter 2 considers the way these six evangelical theologians engage with Roman Catholicism. The author traces a shift in the Dutch neo-Calvinist Gerrit Berkouwer's response. Van Til critiques Roman Catholicism as a synthesis of Aristotle via Thomas Aquinas and medieval scholasticism.
David Wells, while acknowledging Vatican II's renewed emphasis upon Scripture's teaching and God's initiative of grace, sees sharp divisions between conservative and progressive wings of the Roman Church.
Donald Bloesch seeks union of Catholic continuity and evangelical fidelity in the face of the contemporary spiritual crisis. Herbert Carson's polemical discourse bemoans the unchangeable nature of Roma dogma, while John Stott recognises the contradictions of Vatican II in relation to earlier Roman theology, insisting 'the Roman Church cannot forever sit on the fence'.
Chapter 3 explores the contribution of the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF) to the debate, and its establishment of ongoing constructive dialogue. Its publication Evangelical Perspective on Roman Catholicism perceives the central issues of disagreement as the relationship within Catholicism between Scripture and tradition, Church and Sacrament. Chapter 4 treats Common Statements, notably Evangelicals and Catholics Together (1994) and The Gift of Salvation (1997), which despite their bold claims to new-found unity, propound a naive simplistic approach to such questions as justification by faith, precisely because 'the Roman Catholic epistemological framework is characterised by a comprehensive pattern which enables it to hold together things which are different'.
The system
Chapter 5 begins to expound a Critical Appraisal of Roman Catholicism, by encouraging evangelicals to view this as a 'system', modelling both unity and diversity. An adequate evangelical response to Rome must learn from the neo-Calvinist Abraham Kuyper's (1837-1920) systemic approach. Though Kuyper's belief in the declining power of Rome in the face of a growing Calvinistic 'Weltanschauung' has proved historically erroneous (Romanism has expanded its influence post Vatican II), his 'life-system' offers a useful starting-point for an evangelical hermeneutic, precisely because Roman Catholicism is a living, complex yet unitary system with a distinct core and professed goal, aiming at continuous development and long-term expansion. As long as the institutional structure preserving unity remains intact, everything can find its home within the Catholic system (thereby allowing ecumenical debate with evangelicals). It is the author's conviction that 'Roman Catholicism is a master at incorporating into its system many elements which are not only different but contrasting and perhaps even incompatible, at least as far as the perception of other religious systems like the evangelical one is concerned'. Contemporary evangelical reflection has failed to take sufficient account of this.
Nature and grace
Chapter 6 continues to offer evangelicalism a more systemic critique of Roman Catholicism, by perceiving in Roman theology two main loci: the relationship between nature and grace and the self-understanding of the Church. Historically the Roman magisterium has given assent to both the Augustinian tradition (philosophically influenced by Neoplatonic thought) and the Thomistic tradition (emerging from a Christian reinterpretation of Aristotle via Aquinas). Whereas Augustinianism has stressed the corrupting reality of sin and the utter primacy of grace, Thomism has given a more positive account of human nature's intrinsic disposition towards the operations of grace. Both traditions manage to coexist, for 'the Roman Catholic system provides a sufficiently capable platform which can host both, while not being totally identified nor identifiable with any one of them. This is another significant pointer to the catholicity of the system itself'. The spheres of nature and grace are thus in irreversible theological continuity, as 'nature' in Catholicism incorporates both creation and sin, in contrast to the Reformed distinction between creation, sin and redemption. This differing understanding of sin's impact means grace finds in 'Roman' nature a receptive attitude (enabling Catholicism's humanistic optimism), as against a Reformed doctrine whereby entrenched sin leaves us unaware of our reprobate state. This stark anthropological difference underpins even Catholicism's veneration of Mary, as when Dr. de Chirico writes: 'the Roman Catholic epistemological openness, its trust in man's abilities, and its overall reliance on the possibility of human co-operation all converge in the articulated theology regarding the biblically sober figure of Mary. In this respect, Mari-ology expresses, therefore, the quintessential characteristics of the Roman Catholic nature-grace motif'.
Secondly, Catholicism needs a mediating subject to relate grace to nature and nature to grace; namely the Roman Church. The Church is considered a prolongation of the Incarnation, mirroring Christ as a Divine-human reality, acting as an altera persona Christi, a second 'Christ'. It is therefore impossible for Roman Catholicism to cry with the Reformers solus Christus, for this would be seen as breaching the organic bond between Christ and the church. The threefold ministry of Christ as King, Priest and Prophet is thus transposed to the Roman Church - in its hierarchical rule, its magisterial interpretation of the Word and its administration of the sacraments. There is never solus Christus, only Christus in ecclesia and ecclesia in Christo.
The book therefore contends that evangelical theology since Vatican II, though it has offered several contributors proposing a consistent response, has betrayed a lack of theological awareness of the systemic nature of Roman Catholicism. In fact the author maintains that a profound systemic analysis of Roman Catholic theology can only derive in the last analysis from an evangelical theology that itself is both self-consciously and thoroughly integrated.
This important work is highly recommended, not only for the Italian evangelical church in its calling to preach Christ within a Roman setting, but also for evangelicalism more widely. For it lays down a challenge both properly to understand Roman Catholicism as a historical, philosophical and theological unitary system (despite its apparently abundant diversity), and also to strive towards a Reformed evangelical theology that is more self-consciously integrated, historically-informed and equipped to discern the heartbeat of Rome's theological alternative.
John Paul Aranzulla
For more information on the work of IFED, please contact the Institute in Italy (ifed@libero.it or 00 39 049 619 623), visit the website www.ifeditalia.org or indeed contact me as co-ordinator of 'British Friends of IFED' at aranzulla@bigfoot.com.
The new residential college in Padua welcomes all visitors interested in IFED's work and offers the possibility of lodging as residents on holiday, making use of the centre as a base from which to explore the delights of north-east Italy (with Padua, Verona, Venice and the Dolomites within extremely easy reach). The website offers relevant photos.
