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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 4, Number 8
 August 1993 
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DOES GOD DISLIKE RELIGION?
Q: How can I answer him when a Fundamentalist tells me Christianity
is not a religion and God doesn't want us to have a religion, but
a relationship with him?
A: Tell him to read his Bible. James 1:27 says, "Religion
that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care
for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep onself unstained
by the world." We are supposed to have "religion that is
pure and undefiled before God." When your friend takes a holier-than-thou
attitude because he does not have "religion," point out
he is speaking against something God endorses in the Bible. There
is no contradiction between religion and relationship. The fundamental
basis of all true religion is a relationship with God and his Son,
Jesus Christ.
Q: When Abraham was justified by God in Genesis 15:6, did
he at that point become a son of God, the way one does when he is
baptized?
A: "Son of God" has multiple senses. The most obvious
is the sense in which Christ is the unique Son of God (Matt. 16:16),
but there are other senses. Sometimes angels are called sons of God
(Job 1:6). Sometimes all men, even pagans, are called children of
God (Acts 17:28-29). And sometimes only the righteous can be said
to have God as their Father (John 8:41-44).
There is a special sense in which Christians are sons of God because
they have received "the Spirit of sonship" (Rom. 8:15, Gal.
4:5-7). This is a blessing of the New Testament (Gal. 4:4-5). Abraham
would not have shared this form of sonship because it had not yet
been given. (He has it today because he and the other Old Testament
saints now have the blessings of the New Testament). Abraham would
have had other forms of sonship. He, like all the righteous, had the
form of sonship discussed in John 8:41-44. Although the term "son"
is not applied to Abraham in that passage, Christ indicates he is
precisely the kind of person under discussion (John 8:39-40).
The Catholic Church recognizes that the Bible teaches there are different
forms of justification.
Initial justification is when we first come to God and enter a state
of grace ("get saved"). Initial justification is normatively
received through baptism, as even Martin Luther taught. (His Smaller
Catechism states baptism "effects the forgiveness of sins,
delivers from death and the devil, and grants eternal salvation to
all who believe.")
We are progressively justified when we grow in righteousness after
we have come to God. According to the Council of Trent (Decree
on Justification, ch. 10), this was the kind of justification
James was talking about when he said "man is justified by works
and not by faith alone" (Jas. 2:24). James was not talking about
initial justification, but about growth in righteousness.
Genesis 15:6 does not record Abraham's initial justification, but
a later one. This can be proven to a Protestant because Hebrews 11:8
states Abraham already had faith when he left his home for the promised
land (Gen 12:1). We know that in Hebrews 11 the kind of faith being
discussed is justifying faith, for "by it the men of old received
divine approval" (Heb. 11:2). So Abraham was already justified
in Genesis 12. His initial justification must have come before that
time. When he became justified in Genesis 15:6, it was a different
kind of justification. It probably involved the forgiveness of sin,
because Paul uses it in a way suggesting this (Rom. 4:1-8).
In addition to the two justifications of Abraham already mentioned,
Scripture indicates Abraham was justified in Genesis 22, when he offered
Isaac on the altar (Jas. 2:21; cf. 1Macc. 2:52).
Q: I heard a nun who was teaching an RCIA program say the
Catholic Church used to have more than seven sacraments. Is she correct?
A: No. The nun is misinformed. She is giving a distorted version
of the truth. The term "sacrament" was used in the early
centuries of Church history to denote virtually any religious ritual,
including minor ones we now call "sacramentals" (for example,
crossing oneself or using holy water).
Eventually, "sacrament" came to be used more narrowly and
was applied only to the most important rituals--ones which had
been instituted by Christ for the purpose of giving grace. When this
change of meaning occurred, the Church recognized there were only,
and always had been only, seven rituals which fit the new definition:
baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, the anointing of the
sick, marriage, and holy orders.
These seven are the only rituals which fit the current definition
of a sacrament, so the Church may be said to have had exactly seven
sacraments from the beginning, even though the term "sacrament"
was not always applied the way it is now.
Q: If a person receives baptism of desire, why should he
go on to be water baptized?
A: Two reasons: (1) because God wants him to and (2) because
he needs to complete the sacramental reality his baptism of desire
has already initiated. Only in this way will he receive the fullness
of grace God offers in baptism. The Council of Trent held that baptism
of desire is sufficient for salvation (Decree on Justification,
ch. 14). It is not, though, the gateway to the other sacraments;
for that you need water baptism. The need for water baptism after
baptism of desire is confirmed by Peter's order to have the Gentiles
water baptized even after they have received the gift of the Spirit
(Acts 10:47-48).
Q: My priest, who is normally orthodox, recently returned
from Ireland and was excited about using something called a divining
rod. He had two sticks, one in each hand, and when he would pray they
would twist in his hands and cross over each other. Does the Church
permit this?
A: No. This practice is known as dowsing, water-witching,
and using a divining rod. It is commonly used to find water, gold,
oil, or lost objects. There are three principal ways in which it is
done. One way involves using a forked stick which is grasped by the
two forks, usually with the hands facing inward and downward. Another
way is by using two separate sticks or rods (sometimes made out of
coat-hangars). A third way is by using a pendulum.
Dowsing is a form of divination, as is obvious from the fact one is
using a divining rod. Since divination is an occult
practice forbidden by the Church, extreme caution must be used when
dealing with any practice that resembles it.
The idea of saying a prayer over the divining rods before or while
they are being used might or might not render the practice innocuous,
depending on what else was being done, such as whether one was trying
to gain information by using the divining rods. If one is trying to
get supernatural information by the use of the rods, then it is definitely
an occult practice that is forbidden by the Church.
Even if one is not using the rods to conduct divination, the practice
of associating them with anything supernatural (such as prayers to
God) makes the practice too similar to divination to be safely presented
to the faithful. It has the appearance of superstition and of the
superstitious use of occult practices (much as the religion of Santeria
takes African god-spirits and gives them the names of Christian saints,
overlaying a pagan practice with a Christian veneer). Dowsing therefore
should not be taught to the faithful.
Q: I've been reading a book about how the Bible was formed
and have come across references to a codex. What is that?
A: A codex is a book which has its pages bound to a spine.
The alternative is the scroll, which is a book that has its pages
sewn end to end and then rolled up.
Codices were not commonly used during Bible times, but they began
to be common shortly after the New Testament was written. This is
why many of our best early manuscripts of the Bible are known as Codex
Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, and Codex Sinaiticus.
When one sees references to books in Scripture, the word for book
is always the word for scroll, so phrases like "the Book of Life"
could be translated "the Scroll of Life." One reason codices
became popular was it was possible to fit many more pages in them
(no one would want to roll through a scroll hundreds of pages long).
An interesting consequence is that the Bible was never regarded as
a single book when it was written, but as a collection or library
of scrolls. Even once codices became common, it was to be hundreds
of years before the Bible was bound under a single cover. The first
printed Bible, the famous Guttenberg Bible (published in the mid-1400s)
was a two-volume edition.
Q: After reading Karl Keating's statement on extraterrestrials
in ' What Catholics Really Believe', I wondered whether it would
be okay to admit the possibility of a second Mother of God. In other
words, would it be permissible to admit that God may have been incarnated
into an extraterrestrial species? Would this not contradict the Catholic
doctrine that Mary is the greatest and most exalted of all creatures?
A: You are asking two separate questions. Christ might incarnate
into another species without having a mother. Whether he would have
a mother in a different species depends on the kind of reproduction
the species uses, and there are numerous possibilities that do not
involve mothers or the equivalent of mothers. (Read some science fiction
on this point; also, don't forget there theoretically coult be unfallen
races or fallen races God chose not to redeem; see next question).
Catholic theologians have long held that while many aspects of the
atonement were fitting, they were not necessary. This extends to the
level of the Incarnation itself. According to Thomas Aquinas, God
could have redeemed us without sending Christ to earth, though it
was very fitting he do so (see Summa Theologiae III:1:2).
God might redeem some races without an incarnation. He might incarnate
in some without having parents but simply by creating (out of nothing
or out of something already existing) a body and spirit for himself.
He might incarnate in a species that does not have mothers or in a
way that does not involve a mother. There are numerous possibilities.
Aquinas says, "Although the Son of God could have taken flesh
from whatever matter he willed, it was nevertheless most becoming
that he should take flesh from a woman" (III:31:4).
Your other question concerns the privileges Christ's mother would
have in a different species. Theologians have taught that while it
was very fitting for Mary to be immaculate, ever-virgin, and assumed
into heaven, these beatitudes were not necessary. If Christ had a
mother in another species, she might not have all of these properties
(because what is fitting in our case might not be fitting in another).
On the subject of whether, in another species, there could be a Mother
of God co-equal with Mary, this possibility could not be dismissed
out of hand. The Church teaches that Mary has been blessed with the
greatest privileges of any human other than Jesus and that she has
authority over angels (as one day we all will; see 1 Cor. 6:3), but
this does not entail that there are no members of alien species who
might be equal to Mary. This possibility was not investigated by Marian
theologians of the past, and so the subject has not been explicitly
addressed.
The teaching that Mary is the "greatest" of all creatures
has not been formally defined by the Church, and the term "creatures"
can be taken in a restricted sense. In Colossians 1:23 Paul states
that the gospel has been preached to every creature under heaven.
This statement has two restrictions: The reference to every creature
under heaven includes only humans, not other species on earth (the
gospel was not preached to bunnies and frogs and cows), and even when
limited to humans the statement is hyperbolic (not all humans have
had the gospel preached to them even now, much less by the mid-first
century).
Until the Church rules that the designation of Mary as the greatest
of all creatures includes extraterrestrial species, the statement
cannot be taken in the most absolute sense.
Q: In March 1993 you published a response to a letter in
which you said that if Mary had said "No" to Gabriel in
Luke 1:38, then the Incarnation would not have occurred. It seems
to me God would have had a back-up plan unless Mary was pre-ordained
to say "Yes." But if she had been pre-ordained to say "Yes,"
this would have negated her free will and eviscerated the meaning
of both Gabriel's question and her answer.
A: It is not necessarily the case that God would have had
a back-up plan if Mary had refused to say "Yes." God does
not have to offer salvation to any race. Other races have not received
the grace we have. Peter states, "[I]f God did not spare the
angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them
to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the judgment ...then
the Lord knows how . . . to keep the unrighteous under punishment
until the day of judgment." (2Pet. 2:4, 9 [RSV]; cf. Jude
6). If an angel fell, there was no redemption available to him. If
Mary had said "No," there might not have been any other
redemption available for us. God is under no obligation to save us;
it is purely an act of his grace, and we should not presume upon that
grace.
On the issue of Mary being pre-ordained to say "Yes," God's
foreknowledge alone told him Mary would respond positively to Gabriel's
message. This is no different from God's knowledge of the future in
general. Foreknowledge does not cause a person to lose his free will.
Suppose I were sitting atop a building, looking down at a traffic
intersection. I see two cars speeding toward the intersection on different
streets. The drivers cannot see each other because the building on
which I am sitting is in the way. As they approach the intersection,
I realize that they are going so fast that once they see each other
they will never be able to stop in time and will collide. The mere
fact I know they are going to run into each other does not mean that
the wreck was not the product of the free-will choices the two drivers
made.
I did not deprive them of their free will even though I saw what was
about to happen to them. I knew they would collide, but I did not
cause them to collide. That was the result of their own reckless driving
habits. Similarly, God's knowledge of what we will do in the future
does not cause us to do those things.
The claim that knowledge of the future entails fatalism (lack of free
will) involves committing a basic fallacy of logic. For an excellent
and non-technical discussion of foreknowledge and fatalism, read
The Only Wise God by William Lane Craig (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1987).
Q: Are racially mixed marriages permissible, or do we have
an obligation to keep the races distinct?
A: Mixed-race marriages are permissible. This is indicated
by biblical example in both the Old and the New Testaments. In the
Old Testament, Joseph's wife was the daughter of an Egyptian high
priest (Gen. 41:45), and he had two sons by her (41:50-52), who were
then adopted by his father Jacob (48:5-6) and became the progenitors
of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, even though they were half-Egyptian.
Moses also married the daughter of a foreign priest (Ex. 2:21, 3:1),
and the fact he had taken a foreign wife became a bone of contention
with his brother and sister (Num. 12:1), but God vindicated him of
this and other charges (Num. 12:8).
In the New Testament, Timothy was the product of an ethnically- mixed
marriage since he had a mother who was a Jew but a father who was
a Greek (Acts 16:1).
Because interracial marriages are not condemned anywhere in Scripture,
because the biblical example includes interracial marriages, and because
Christ, in one sense, has obliterated all ethnic divisions (Col. 3:11)
and rendered all people clean so there is no need for ethnic separation
(Acts 10:28-29; Gal. 2:11-14), there can be little doubt that interracial
marriages are permissible.
Contracting a mixed-religion marriage is a different matter (Ex. 34:16,
Deut. 7:3-4, 1 Cor. 7:39), but interracial marriages are no problem.
We are all descended from Adam (and Noah), meaning we are all one
family. There is no need to keep each race distinct because we are
all one race--the family of Adam--even if not all of the children
in the family are identical.
One point of science should be noted on the subject of skin color.
There is actually only one human skin color: melanin brown. All humans
have a skin pigment known as melanin, which is the only skin pigment
there is in humans. The different shades of skin tone are determined
by the level and type of melanin present in the skin. Of the racial
groups, Negroes have the most melanin, Caucasians have the least,
and Asians have somewhere in the middle. In short, there is only one
skin color with variations of shade and hue within this color.
Q: I heard Martin Luther's name adds up to 666. Is there
any truth to that?
A: Luther is one of the people whose names has been made to
total 666. This is done by using one of its Latin spellings (Martin
Lutera) and a Latin alphabet where the first nine letters
are numbered as multiples of one (1-9), the next nine letters are
numbered as multiples of ten (10-90), and the remaining four letters
are numbered as multiples of one hundred (100-400) The Latin alphabet
only had twenty-two letters since J was the same as I, U was the same
as V, W was double-U or VV, and there was no letter Y.
This would give us Martin = M(30) + A(1) + R(80) + T(100) + I(9) +
N(40) = 260; L(20) + U(200) + T(100) + E(5) + R(80) + A(1) = 406;
260 + 406 = 666.
While Luther's name can be made to total 666, this only points to
the futility of identifying anybody as the beast by his name alone.
Numerous people have names that can be made to equal 666 using some
system. (The method used on Luther's name does not use the standard
Latin numbering scheme.) One writer, David Brady, did a survey of
British writers from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries who
tried to identify the beast. These authors found over a hundred people
whose names could be made to total 666 using Greek, Hebrew, or Latin.
See David Brady, The Contribution of British Writers between 1560
and 1830 to the Interpretation of Revelation 13:16-18 (the Number
of the Beast): A Study in the History of Exegesis (Mohr: Siebeck,
Tubingen, 1983).
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