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Q u i c k Q u e s t i o n s
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This Rock
Volume 2, Number 4
 September 1991 
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Who Were the Fathers?
Q: Your magazine frequently refers to the "Fathers of the Church." Who were these men, and what did they do to earn the title?
A: The Fathers of the Church are so called because of their leadership in the early Church, especially in defending, expounding, and developing Catholic doctrines. For the first two centuries, most of these men were bishops, although in later years certain priests and deacons were also recognized as Fathers.
The list includes such notables as: Clement of Rome (d. A.D. 97), Ignatius (d. 110), Polycarp (d. 155), Justin Martyr (the Church’s first major lay apologist; d. 165), Irenaeus (d. 202), Cyprian (d. 258), Athanasius (d. 373), Basil (d. 379), Cyril of Jerusalem (d. 386), Ambrose (d. 397), John Chrysostom (d. 407), Jerome (d. 420), Augustine (d. 430), Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), Pope Leo the Great (d. 461), and Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604).
The Church demands four major characteristics to be exhibited in the life and works of an early Church leader if he is to be considered a Father of the Church. These are antiquity, meaning that he lived before the eighth century (the death of St. John Damascene [cir. A.D. 750] is generally regarded as the close of the age of the Fathers); doctrinal orthodoxy; personal sanctity; and approval by the Church.
Q: As a Bible-believing Christian I must tell you the Catholic Eucharist cannot be the blood of Christ because the glorified Jesus has no blood. The Bible teaches that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 15:50). When Jesus appeared to his disciples after his Resurrection, he said to them, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke 24:39). Notice how he didn’t mention his blood? This demonstrates that he had none, so the Catholic Eucharist is a sham.
A: Your interpretation undermines your own beliefs as a "Bible- believing Christian" and refutes your own argument against the Eucharist. If 1 Corinthians 15:50 proves the risen Jesus has no blood and therefore the Eucharist can’t be his blood, the same text shows he has no flesh and therefore he couldn’t have been raised bodily.
Luke 24:39 shows that the glorified Jesus has flesh ("a spirit hath not flesh and bones"), so 1 Corinthians 15:50 can’t mean resurrected beings have no flesh or blood. What does Paul mean, then, when he declares, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God"? He’s saying that natural, physical life as it is now constituted cannot inherit the kingdom of God. A supernatural transformation must occur first (1 Cor. 15:53).
You’re correct when you say Christ doesn’t mention his blood in Luke 24:39, but what of it? Under the circumstances, there’s no reason to expect he would mention his blood, so his failure to do so proves nothing.
Q: If God’s creative word in justification makes Christians righteous (as Catholic theologians such as Newman and Schmaus claim), rather than merely declaring them to be righteous but not changing them in their essence (as Reformed theologians teach), does God’s declaration that a man is unjust make him so?
A: No, because there’s an antithesis between justification and condemnation as well as a parallel. That antithesis is summed up in Romans 3:22: "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Both justification and condemnation have declarative aspects to them, but this shared declarative quality doesn’t negate the more fundamental differences between them. Condemnation is earned as the "wages of sin," whereas justification is received as a gift from God through faith in Christ.
Although both justification and condemnation are declarative, the basis on which they are received is not the same (condemnation is earned; justification is freely received). We can’t conclude, based on the declarative nature of justification and condemnation, that if God makes one righteous by declaring him so this means he must make him unrighteous when he pronounces him so.
Q: I’m tired of all this theological stuff. Why can’t we have the simple gospel of Jesus? Too much head and not enough heart, that’s the problem with Christianity today.
A: Your objection is well-intentioned--Christianity means more than knowing the catechism. At the same time, God gave us heads as well as hearts, presumably because he wants us to use them. The man who refuses to think well about religion is condemned to think poorly about it. Jesus said he was the truth as well as the way and the life (John 14:6). Truth involves knowledge and obliges us to study to the extent our station in life permits. This is why Peter could write, "Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge" (2 Pet. 1:5).
Q: In Acts 2:47 Luke states, "Day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved." Luke seems confident these folks were going to heaven. How does this fit with the Catholic view that we can’t be absolutely certain of heaven, even if we’re believers?
A: Luke doesn’t write, "Day by day the Lord added to their number those who were certainly going to heaven." Salvation has a number of meanings in the Bible, only one of which refers to going to heaven.
Sometimes it means bodily healing, as when Jesus says to the blind beggar, "Have sight; your faith has saved you" (Luke 18:42). Christ himself was "saved" in this sense when he was raised from the dead, as all Christians will be at the resurrection.
In addition to salvation of the body, there’s the salvation of the spirit. Spiritual salvation comes in various forms. There’s having your sins forgiven and being embued with the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit. This is the sense in which the believers in Acts 2:47 were being saved--they were being saved from sin.
There’s also the salvation we "work out" through the power and impulse of God at work in us (Phil. 2:12-14). This is the process of sanctification or growth in the life of holiness and righteousness. Then there’s the completion of this process which must be occur for us to enter heaven (Heb. 12:14).
Only salvation of the last kind guarantees heaven. All the other forms of spiritual salvation can be lost or undone through serious (mortal) sin.
Q: How do you reconcile the pope’s claim to be the "universal bishop" or ecumenical patriarch with Pope Gregory the Great’s statement that anyone who claims such a title is the Antichrist?
A: How? By carefully observing how the term is used differently in different instances. In its approved sense, the title "universal bishop" suggests that the Bishop of Rome’s jurisdiction and authority extend to the whole Church, something with which Gregory was in hearty agreement.
But it can be used in an incorrect sense also, and it is this sense that Gregory condemned. In the condemned sense the title is taken to mean that in the Church there is only one true bishop, with all others who claim the title merely acting as the true bishop’s delegates or deputies.
Although Gregory believed the papacy to possess a universal jurisdiction and supremacy of authority, he didn’t think, nor does the Catholic Church teach, that this means only the bishop of Rome is truly a bishop endowed by Christ with the power to teach, sanctify, and govern in Christ’s name.
Q: I don’t have a problem with Christianity per se. I believe Jesus was a holy man and a prophet, even though I don’t think he was unique or God’s only Son.
A: You may not think you have a problem with Christianity, but you do, because Christians believe Jesus was (and is) God incarnate. It won’t do to call Jesus a mere prophet or holy man. Prophets and holy men claim to speak for God, but they don’t claim to be God, which is exactly what Jesus did. He identified himself with the all-powerful Lord (John 8:58; 10:30). Either he was who he claimed to be, or he wasn’t. If he wasn’t, he wasn’t a holy man or a prophet, but a wicked man or a fool.
Q: Mark 1:9-10 reveals that Jesus was baptized by immersion. How do you square this with Catholic tradition?
A: This passage doesn’t say Christ was baptized by immersion, only that after his baptism, Jesus "came up out of the water." This phrase could refer to immersion, but needn’t. Jesus could have stepped into the shallows and had John the Baptist pour water on his head. Even if Christ had been baptized by immersion, this wouldn’t present a problem for Catholics; we accept baptism by immersion as a valid mode of receiving the sacrament.
Q: In a recent article in your magazine, the author used probability as an argument in favor of a miraculous, non-natural explanation for the apostles’ belief in the Resurrection. He overlooked the fact that, by definition, a miracle is more improbable than any natural explanation. This means if we’re going to look for the most probable explanation of an apparently miraculous phenomenon, it won’t be a miraculous one.
A: Your assumption that "by definition, a miracle is more improbable than any natural explanation" is false. While we may be able to compare the probability or improbability of natural events, we can’t make such comparisons with supernatural events because we have no way to calculate from natural events the likelihood of a supernatural event. Natural events can tell us only about the likelihood (or unlikelihood) of another natural event.
Of course, experience teaches us that miracles happen infrequently. Whether this is because God chooses rarely to intervene in the natural order or we lack the prerequisite faith, we can’t say. What we do know is that the frequency of miracles isn’t decided by what happens in the natural order, but by the sovereign will of God. We can no more argue for the improbability of miracles based on the predictability of the natural order than we can predict a change in the bus schedule by considering when the bus usually arrives.
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