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Is the Catholic Church a CULT?

<div>Would God for some reason rescind a person's salvation? </div><div>To be clear, if someone falls out of grace and ultimately goes to hell, it’s the person’s fault, not God’s. God will judge us accordingly for such unrepentant mortal sin, but we will have refused God’s gift of salvation:
<blockquote>We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: &#8220;He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.&#8221;612 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.613
<blockquote>To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God&#8217;s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called &#8220;hell&#8221; (<a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm">CCC 1033</a>, emphasis added).</blockquote>
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For more on this subject, <a href="https://www.catholic.com/search?q=salvation">please see our various online resources</a>.
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Losing My Religion (and Salvation)

<div>How did the polar bears and penguins reach Noah’s ark?</div><div>That’s a good question. The answer depends on what actually happened in history.
The Catholic Church does not prohibit interpretations of Genesis 6-8 that include a worldwide flood, but neither does the Church require there to be a worldwide flood in all interpretations of these passages. Instead, according to Pope Pius XII, “in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured,” the first eleven chapters of Genesis “both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people” (Humani Generis 38).
Consequently, the flood could be understood as impacting the entire world, or possibly a large region of the world. If it did impact the entire world, animals in distant regions would likely have been miraculously transported to the ark.
On the other hand, if the flood was more regional, a view which has gained increasing traction in recent centuries because of scientific findings, then all the animals of the world would not have been destroyed, and thus polar bears and penguins would not have been affected.
For more on this topic, please see this <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/a-catholic-perspective-on-a-new-attraction">article</a> in Catholic Answer Magazine Online.
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Two Views of the Flood

<div>What is the Church’s teaching on atonement?</div><div>The eminent theologian Ludwig Ott defines atonement in the following way:
<blockquote>By atonement in general is understood the satisfaction of a demand. In the narrower sense it is taken to mean the reparation of an insult. This occurs through a voluntary performance which outweighs the injustice done (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 186-187).</blockquote>
Ott distinguishes between full value atonement and incomplete value. If the reparative act completely counterbalances the grievousness of the guilt, then the act is adequate and complete (full value). If the act is not commensurate with the grievousness of the offense but is graciously accepted as sufficient, then the act is inadequate and not of complete value. Finally, if the act of atonement is not performed by the offender, but by another in his stead, then the act is one of vicarious atonement.
The Church teaches that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is one of vicarious atonement that is complete with full value for the redemption of the human race. Concerning the vicarious nature of Christ’s sacrifice, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
<blockquote>By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who “makes himself an offering for sin,” when “he bore the sin of many,” and who “shall make many to be accounted righteous,” for “he shall bear their iniquities.” Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father (615, emphasis original).</blockquote>
The Catechism articulates the full and complete value of Christ’s atoning sacrifice in this way:
<blockquote>Christ’s death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men . . . and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the &#8220;blood of the covenant” (613, emphasis original).</blockquote>
The Church’s teaching on atonement is consistent with what Jesus himself taught: “The Son of Man is come . . . to give his life as a redemption for many” (Matt. 20:28).
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A Primer on Atonement

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Join Catholic Answers Live as Cy Kellett interviews Fr. David Michael Moses on reaching young people through social media and evangelization in today’s digital age!
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Why Evangelize on Social Media? – Fr. David Michael Moses (Encore)

As I showed in <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/john-calvin-the-gnostic-protestant">Part 1</a> of this series, not only Calvin, but various Protestant sects argue for the sixty-six-book canon of Scripture on explicitly and undeniably gnostic grounds.
In this article, I will show just how thoroughly gnostic Calvin’s argument is by examining his Institutes of the Christian Religion, in which he doubles down on his claim that the means of knowing the correct canon of Scripture is the “inward illumination” and “secret testimony of the spirit.”
In addition to this, he also disclaimed the need for the witness of others (i.e., the Church) to any particular canon of Scripture. He wrote as follows in <a href="https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.iii.viii.html">Book 1, Ch. 7, §5 of the Institutes</a>:
<blockquote>Let it therefore be held as fixed, that those who are inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit acquiesce implicitly in Scripture; that Scripture, carrying its own evidence along with it, deigns not to submit to proofs and arguments, but owes the full conviction with which we ought to receive it to the testimony of the Spirit.
Enlightened by him, we no longer believe, either on our own judgment or that of others, that the scriptures are from God; but, in a way superior to human judgment, feel perfectly assured—as much so as if we beheld the divine image visibly impressed on it—that it came to us, by the instrumentality of men, from the very mouth of God.</blockquote>
Not only does knowing the correct canon come through an “inward illumination” of the “secret testimony of the spirit,” but this “illumination” is taught “in a way superior to human judgment.” Note once more the sleight of hand: Calvin simply labels the judgment of the Church as to the canon “human judgment,” but his own judgment he labels the “inward illumination” of the Holy Spirit. Yet he has made zero argument for why we should believe that his “inward illumination” is from God, whereas the judgment of the Church is a merely “human judgment.” The devil truly is in the details, all of which Calvin assumes rather than argues for.
Calvin thereby not only claims that the knowledge of the canon comes in a gnostic fashion, but has locked the individual inside his own ego—an ego superior to all external witness and authority. The canon is no longer a public revelation imparted by God by means of duly authorized representatives (i.e., apostolic authority), as the Christian faith had always been understood to be. Rather, it is an “inward illumination” that requires no witness from others, no duly authorized representative, and no public testimony to its veracity. Quite contrary to many of his claims about the necessity of ecclesial authority (which was virtually always his personal authority), and its role in speaking for Christ, when it comes to the canon of Scripture, Calvin argues like a Gnostic and maintains his ground like a Gnostic.
What can justify this? Apparently just the word of Calvin, and his purely subjective conviction that he (and those who agree with him) are “enlightened” by God.
Incidentally, whereas Calvin claims that only the elect receive this “inward illumination,” many of those who agree with him on the canon (other Protestants) vehemently disagree with him on other doctrines he claims are necessary for salvation. One wonders why God would give an “inward illumination” to the “elect” to know with perfect and unchallengeable certainty the canon of Scripture, but not the actual doctrines it supposedly taught. Calvin never addresses such blatant incoherence.
The next few sentences of the same section make his gnostic approach even clearer:
<blockquote>We ask not for proofs or probabilities on which to rest our judgment, but we subject our intellect and judgment to it as too transcendent for us to estimate. This, however, we do, not in the manner in which some are wont to fasten on an unknown object, which, as soon as known, displeases, but because we have a thorough conviction that, in holding it, we hold unassailable truth; not like miserable men, whose minds are enslaved by superstition, but because we feel a divine energy living and breathing in it—an energy by which we are drawn and animated to obey it, willingly indeed, and knowingly, but more vividly and effectually than could be done by human will or knowledge.
Hence, God most justly exclaims by the mouth of Isaiah, “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he” (Isa. 43:10).</blockquote>
This is a remarkable statement from a man who claimed to be “reforming” the Church.
First he disclaims entirely the need for arguments—“proofs or probabilities,” as he says—a strange assertion for a man writing a treatise hundreds of pages long explaining why his particular doctrines should be believed. He asserts that his conclusion is based on truth that is “too transcendent for us to estimate.” Upon what basis does he claim this? We don’t know. He denies that he owes anyone any arguments.
But he then proceeds to make one: his sixty-six-book canon of Scripture is correct because he and those of his persuasion “have a thorough conviction” that it is “unassailable truth.” Those who disagree with them are enslaved to “superstition,” he claims. He and his followers, on the other hand, are not merely certain of their conviction, but “feel a divine energy living and breathing” in the canon they have identified—a remarkable appeal to what can only be described as a sort of physical sensation.
The fact that so many Christians throughout the ages had included other books in the canon of Scripture never seems to enter Calvin’s mind. These great saints could no doubt, likewise, claim to experience “an energy by which [they] are drawn and animated to obey it [Scripture], willingly indeed, and knowingly, but more vividly and effectually than could be done by human will or knowledge.” Yet they often believed that the canon of Scripture included seven additional books that Calvin excluded.
So which one is right? Those with the stronger “thorough conviction that, in holding it, we hold unassailable truth”? But even by this “standard,” would not the conviction of so many centuries of saints—especially martyrs—count on the scale far more than that of just Calvin, who was just one man at the head of a small sect, who did not die a martyr?
Calvin concludes his “argument” as follows:
<blockquote>Such, then, is a conviction which asks not for reasons; such, a knowledge which accords with the highest reason, namely knowledge in which the mind rests more firmly and securely than in any reasons; such in fine, the conviction which revelation from heaven alone can produce. I say nothing more than every believer experiences in himself, though my words fall far short of the reality.
I do not dwell on this subject at present, because we will return to it again: only let us now understand that the only true faith is that which the Spirit of God seals on our hearts. Nay, the modest and teachable reader will find a sufficient reason in the promise contained in Isaiah, that all the children of the renovated Church “shall be taught of the Lord,” (Isa. 54:13). This singular privilege God bestows on his elect only, whom he separates from the rest of mankind. For what is the beginning of true doctrine but prompt alacrity to hear the Word of God? And God, by the mouth of Moses, thus demands to be heard: “It is not in heavens that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart,” (Deut. 30:12, 14).
God having been pleased to reserve the treasure of intelligence for his children, no wonder that so much ignorance and stupidity is seen in the generality of mankind. In the generality, I include even those specially chosen, until they are ingrafted into the body of the Church.
Isaiah, moreover, while reminding us that the prophetical doctrine would prove incredible not only to strangers, but also to the Jews, who were desirous to be thought of the household of God, subjoins the reason, when he asks, “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Isa. 53:1). If at any time, then, we are troubled at the small number of those who believe, let us, on the other hand, call to mind, that none comprehend the mysteries of God save those to whom it is given.</blockquote>
The gnostic nature of Calvin’s argument could not be clearer, as he applies it not only to the canon of Scripture, but to the Christian faith itself. It bears a disturbing resemblance to religious and secular ideologies of succeeding centuries that disavowed the need for reason, argument, and logic to defend their positions.
Calvin speaks of “knowledge in which the mind rests more firmly and securely than in any reasons”—a gnostic claim that cannot be countermanded.
Calvin describes this knowledge: “Every believer experiences in himself.” So now “experience” is the criterion of dogmatic veracity—just not, apparently, the “experience” of countless generations of Christians over the preceding 1,500 years that contradicts him. And who can ever contradict that which is experienced “in himself”? No one.
Calvin says to whom this knowledge is given: “This singular privilege God bestows on his elect only, whom he separates from the rest of mankind . . . God having been pleased to reserve the treasure of intelligence for his children.” So once again, every one of the countless Christians and saints who identified a different canon from Calvin are apparently not among the “elect” or the “children” of God—not among those “specially chosen”—even while those who apparently qualify are at the same time at odds with Calvin on many other doctrines.
Should Calvin or those who follow him be disturbed at how few have ever believed anything like what he proposes? No, he says, because “none comprehend the mysteries of God save those to whom it is given.”
Calvin has thus sealed himself and the “elect” of his sect off from not only the Christian public witness of apostolic authority from the first century onward, but from argument, reason, and logic, all while very selectively appealing to a set of subjective experiences, namely those of his sect.
It is impossible to imagine anything more circular and gnostic than this. Calvin claims that God reveals the canon only by an inward illumination of the individual, and then he locks the ego of that individual in a self-sealed container that has no need to appeal to any other witness, testimony, or authority, satisfied in the assertion that God speaks directly to him, but the perennial witness and authority of the Church is mere “human judgment.”
Is anything like this found in Christian history? For that matter, is anything like this found in Scripture?
The answer to both is a firm “no.” With respect to the canon, Calvin has invented his own religion in order to guarantee that he arrives at his own conclusion, and that religion is nothing less than a revival of a novel form of Gnosticism under a veneer of Christianity.

Trapped in the Mind of John Calvin

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
In both the call of the first disciples in John 1 and the call of 1 Samuel 3, we see an emphasis on personal encounter: the Lord sees people and calls them by name. In the case of Peter, he even gives a new name.
Names are intimate things, words of power. The fact that naming is so central in the magical systems of countless fantasy worlds stems from a basic reality that we all know. We notice when people call our name. Maybe we don’t want our name to be called, so this is not a power that is intrinsically good.
Learning to recognize our names is an important part of growing up. When a child responds to her name, we rightly understand that her sense of identity is developing; she begins to see the world not just as light and dark, Mom and not-Mom. She begins to know that she is a person.
When God reveals his name to Moses in Exodus 3, we see a radical development in human knowledge. God’s personal character is already implied with his call of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, his promises of blessing. Yet to reveal his name suggests that this covenant, while not exactly between equals, is nonetheless a covenant between persons. The God who meets Moses is not merely some force who happened to interact with his ancestors; he has a name. The fact that pious Jews have always recognized this name as holy—set apart, unpronounceable—is not mere superstition or magical thinking. It is awe and gratitude in the face of an unimaginable gift: that the transcendent God who is the source of all being would want a relationship with us.
For that really is the heart of these call stories in Samuel and in John. God doesn’t call people just to become transmitters of certain choice pieces of information. He calls them by name so that he can communicate to his people by means of a personal relationship. To say this is to touch on a whole bundle of mysteries, chief of which is that the incarnate divine Son leaves us not a body of writing or ideas, but a group of men charged with inviting others into the same school of discipleship. They have ideas, to be sure, but the heart of their mission <a href="https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-secret-ingredient-to-evangelizing">involves persons</a>.
A recurring theme of implicitly anti-Catholic rhetoric involves emphasizing Jesus’ personal call at the expense of what is usually labeled religion. At heart, I find these statements rather sad in their ignorance, for the heart of Catholic religion is a relationship with God. If it is not, it is not the Catholic religion. We are all called by God and named in baptism. Further, we must all at some point continue in maturity to recognize this call in a more personal way.
Indeed, religion in its core sense involves nothing but relations. That is what the word means. If it has been dumbed down and reduced to something like a set of rules abstracted from relationship, that is the fault of modernity and its antagonism to tradition, not of the Catholic religion as it is actually taught and practiced. In any case, it would be ridiculous to say that Jesus’ personal call is somehow opposed to rules or to exterior practices. Otherwise, instead of “come and see,” he would have told Andrew and Peter to go back to their homes and think nice thoughts about how God loves them. A God who gives us relationship without any content, boundaries, or goals is not the God of Samuel or of Jesus Christ.
That is how we must understand St. Paul’s call to sexual morality in 1 Corinthians 6. I suppose we could say here that Paul has abandoned the relationship at the heart of Christianity for a set of rules—and there are those today, in various progressive Christian pulpits, who would. But again, this would be to misunderstand both what Paul taught and what Jesus said. The reason that the body matters is precisely because of the relational call at the heart of Christianity. God calls us each by name to follow him. He doesn’t just call our souls. He calls persons who are body and soul. I cannot follow Jesus with just my mind and my heart. If I am invited to someone’s house for dinner, I cannot spit on his table, light fire to his couch, and make fun of his children, all the while saying that what really matters is the relationship. The body and its actions are meaningful. Everyone knows this, even though modern culture takes great pains to convince us otherwise. We cannot escape from this reality.
Because bodies have meaning, when Jesus tells us that he gives us his body and his blood, it doesn’t take a full grasp of the Mosaic Law’s understanding of blood to sense that he is giving us something intimate and personal. His body is his self, and his blood is his life. Once again, the invitation is completely personal. He isn’t, like some spiritual guru, pointing us to a path of enlightenment that has nothing to do with him. He is asking us to join our life to his so that our lives—our souls and bodies—can share in his own goodness. This is so much more than following a set of rules. But there are rules in a very natural sense: if you want to share the life of a person, you have to configure your own life so that it is capable of doing so. I can say that I love my children, but if I order my days so that I never see them, or that I always prioritize other things, I am not doing a very good job of it.
We may be inclined to insist, as an immature child might insist, that the relationship must happen on our own terms as we define them. But such a relationship will only become disordered. In his meditation on 1 Samuel 3, Peter Kreeft points out that, when faced with someone wiser than ourselves, we should always listen more than speak. Eli wisely instructs Samuel not to unload his thoughts and feelings to the mysterious voice, but rather to listen.
How hard that is for us in our relationship with God! We just want to explain everything, justify everything, frame everything on our own terms rather than simply listening at the times when he tells us to listen: in the proclamation of Scripture, in the breaking of bread, and in the silence of our hearts in his presence. The problem with so much modern theology—call it “contextual” or “from below” or whatever—which wants to start with us and move to God, is that we never actually get to God. We just get to pseudo-divinized versions of ourselves, which it turns out aren’t really capable of salvation, just of endless introspection.
The opposite temptation, I suppose, is to listen in such a way that we cannot take a step without direction. Should I brush my teeth tonight? Let me pray on it. That, too, is the wrong posture, for it places the voice of God in competition with our ordinary natural life, suggesting that any decision I make on my own is somehow apart from God’s providence.
The virtue of religion—there’s that word again—might be described as the virtue of right relations, the virtue of listening and acting well with God, neither becoming automatons who need strict programming nor agents of chaos who value ourselves over the relationship. A right relationship remembers the past, appreciates the present, and looks forward to the future. I’d suggest that we need all three of those things for a healthy relationship with God: diligence over what he has revealed in the past, patience and attentiveness to his presence today, and a willingness to grow more fully into the life he intends for us. May we hear his call to us and respond, like Samuel and the first disciples, with faith. “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

God Wants More of You

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DAY 218
CHALLENGE
“Christians are a bunch of hypocrites.”
DEFENSE
Yes. And?
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Consciousness of the fact that we don’t think and act the way we should is a human universal. So is the desire for others to think well of us. Everyone wishes to save face and, at one time or another, either shades the truth or flat out lies to appear better than he is. This makes hypocrisy another human universal, and it applies to Christians and everyone else.
When confronted with the fact that we don’t live up to our moral standards, we have several options. One—which is not good at all—is to abandon our standards. Reviewing them to make sure they are correct is one thing, but tossing them aside so we can indulge in im- moral behavior is another. It also will not work in the long run, for we cannot escape the moral law written on our hearts. We can only temporarily suppress it.
A second choice—also not good—is to pretend we are better than we are. This is the option of hypocrisy. It is not good because it’s an offense against the truth. Hypocrisy is a form of lying—specifically, lying about our own behavior, using either words or deceptive actions (CCC 2483). Hypocrisy is also risky, because in the long run the truth tends to be found out, and people will see you for the hypocrite you are. For Christians, hypocrisy takes on added gravity because it can push people away from God (Rom. 2:23–24).
The third choice—and the only good one—is the hardest. It means maintaining our moral standards, being honest about the fact that we don’t live up to them and seeking God’s grace to do better in the future. This doesn’t mean telling everyone everything we’ve done wrong (CCC 2489). Frequently, it is none of their concern, and in some situations knowing could even hurt them (e.g., marriages can be harmed by a naive and imprudent sharing of information about one’s sexual failings). However, it does mean being humble and willing to admit the fact that we are sinners.
Christians may share the universal inclination to hypocrisy, but that doesn’t mean Christianity is false. Christianity teaches that we are all sinners. The good news is that there is mercy, even for hypocrites like us.
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Christian Hypocrisy

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Which came first: the Bible or the Church? Let’s talk about it.

<div>Is being a good person selfish if I am doing it in fear of being sent to hell?</div><div><a href="http://www.baltimore-catechism.com/lesson18.htm">The Baltimore Catechism</a>:
<blockquote>Q. 767. What is imperfect contrition?
A. Imperfect contrition is that by which we hate what offends God because by it we lose heaven and deserve hell; or because sin is so hateful in itself.
Q. 768. What other name is given to imperfect contrition and why is it called imperfect?
A. Imperfect contrition is called attrition. It is called imperfect only because it is less perfect than the highest grade of contrition by which we are sorry for sin out of pure love of God&#8217;s own goodness and without any consideration of what befalls ourselves.
Q. 769. Is imperfect contrition sufficient for a worthy confession?
A. Imperfect contrition is sufficient for a worthy confession, but we should endeavor to have perfect contrition.</blockquote>
It is obviously better to be sorry for sin solely because it is wrong and is an offense against God&#8217;s love but being sorry primarily because we are afraid of hell is still a good thing.  It shows that we trust what Jesus has taught us about the effects of sin and that we respect his judgment.  Imperfect contrition is a good starting point to help us focus on why sin separates us from God and one another and deepening our relationship to God.
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Am I Selfish If I Fear Being Sent To Hell?

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DAY 338
CHALLENGE
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“Unanswered prayer disproves Christ’s teaching on prayer. Jesus said, ‘If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you’ (Matt. 17:20b). But experience shows that we can’t do such things by prayer.”
DEFENSE
Jesus’ teaching is more complex than this challenge suggests. It doesn’t involve a promise that we’ll always get what we ask.
First, Jesus makes the statement when the disciples have just failed to exorcise a demon. When they ask why they were unable to drive it out, he says, “Because of your little faith” (Matt. 17:20a). If the apostles, who were accustomed to working miracles, including driving out demons (Matt. 10:1, 5–8), could have inadequate faith, then we may, too. (Also, in this instance the disciples were trying to cast out a particularly powerful type of demon; Mark 9:29).
Second, the statement that having faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains does not mean that faith has some magical power of its own. The point is that it is God who performs miracles, and he is omnipotent. The size of the miracle is therefore not dependent on the size of the person’s faith but on God.
Third, this means that we do not have a promise that simply anything we pray for will happen. It must be the will of God (cf. Luke 22:42; James 4:13–15; 1 John 5:14).
Fourth, the fact that mountains usually do not move in response to prayer indicates it is usually not God’s will for this to happen. That’s why Jesus uses this example—because of how striking it is. He is using hyperbole (exaggeration to make a point). The point is that our prayers are dependent on God, not the size of our faith; Jesus is not issuing a promise that simply anything we ask for will be granted.
Fifth, elsewhere Jesus indicates that in some cases we will need to believe without doubting (Matt. 21:21; cf. James 1:6–7).
Sixth, the New Testament indicates that our individual dispositions can affect the outcome of our prayers in other ways, particularly with regard to whether we are living in a way pleasing to God (John 15:7; James. 4:3, 5:16; 1 Pet. 3:12; 1 John 3:22).
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