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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 6, Number 3
 March 1995 
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ARE GOOD WORKS JUST "FILTHY RAGS"?
Q: A Fundamentalist I know has been bashing my Catholic faith by quoting Isaiah 64:6, where the Bible says, "our acts of righteousness are as filthy rags." He says this proves humans have no good works before God. What should I say in return? A: He misunderstands the verse he is quoting. It does not say that all acts of righteousness are as filthy rags to God, but that those being rendered to him in Isaiah's day were.
In context the passage says: "Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. Your sacred cities have become a desert; even Zion is a desert, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and glorious Temple, where our fathers praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins" (Is. 64:4-6, 10-11 [NIV]).
This pertains to a particular historical situation, not to a general condition. The passage appeals to a time when Israelites once had a right relationship with God, when God helped them against their enemies because they waited on him, gladly did right, and remembered his ways.
When they sin against him and did not repent and return to their former state, he abandoned them to the will of their enemies, so that even Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed. (Isaiah speaks of this prophetically, before it happened.)
It was during that period of continued sin, leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., that they had "become like one who is unclean"--they hadn't always been like that. In this state, even the nation's acts of righteousness appeared like filthy rags to God, so he wouldn't help them: "When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!" (Is. 1:15-17 [NIV]).
Protestants are often confused about the role Catholics believe good works play in salvation, so you should clear this up for the Fundamentalist you know. You should explain to him that we do not perform good works in order to enter a state of justification. The Council of Trent stated that "nothing which precedes justification, whether faith or works, merits the grace of justification" (Decree on Justification 8).
In fact, it is impossible for an unjustified person to do supernaturally good works, since these are based on the virtue of charity (supernatural love), which an unjustified person does not have. Good works therefore flow from our reception of justification; they do not cause us to enter a state of justification. Good works increase the righteousness we are given at justification and please God, who promises to give us supernatural rewards on the last day, including the gift of eternal life (Rom. 2:6-7, Gal. 6:6-10).
Q: An anti-Catholic claims that the Church at the Fourth Lateran Council said heretics should be exterminated, but now the Church denies that they should be. What should we make of this?
A: Not much. First, the issue Lateran IV (1215) addressed was not the "extermination" of heretics in the sense of killing them. Anti-Catholics have been confused by the use of the Latin extermino in the Council's decree and have assumed the word means the same as the English verb "exterminate." It does not.
For example, the (non-Catholic) Cassell's Latin Dictionary points out that extermino is derived from ex (from or out of) and terminus (boundary). In English it has come to mean pushing beyond the boundary of life, but it doesn't have that meaning in Latin. Cassell's defines extermino as "to drive beyond the boundaries; hence lit[eral meaning], to drive out, expel, banish . . . transf[erred meaning] to put aside, remove." Cassell's does not list "kill," "exterminate," or any equivalent as a definition.
Thus the relevant passage of Lateran IV reads, "Catholics who take the cross and gird themselves up for the expulsion ["extermination"] of heretics shall enjoy the same indulgence and be strengthened by the same holy privilege as is granted to those who go to the aid of the holy land" (Constitution 3).
Q: Is it true that in his recent book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, the Pope said that everybody will be saved and no one will go to hell?
A: Absolutely not. In fact, the Pope states that one problem in the modern Church is that priests do not preach enough about hell. The pope states, "To a certain degree man does get lost; so too do preachers, catechists, teachers; and as a result, they no longer have the courage to preach the threat of hell. And perhaps even those who listen to them have stopped being afraid of hell. In fact, people of our time have become insensitive to the Last Things" (p. 183).
Concerning the reality of hell, the Pope says, "The problem of hell has always disturbed great thinkers in the Church, beginning with Origen and continuing in our time with Mikhail Bulgakov and Hans Urs von Baltha-sar. In point of fact, the ancient councils rejected the theory of the 'final apokatastasis,' according to which the world would be regenerated after destruction and every creature would be saved, a theory which abolished hell. But the problem remains. Can God, who has loved man so much, permit the man who rejects him to be condemned to eternal torment? And yet, the words of Christ are unequivocal. In Matthew's Gospel he speaks clearly of those who will go to eternal punishment (cf. Mt. 25:46). Who will these be? The Church has never made any pronouncement in this regard. This is a mystery, truly inscrutable, which embraces the holiness of God and the conscience of man" (185-186).
Q: If a Catholic is returning to the active practice of the faith after having been a member of a different religion, say, Fundamentalism, is he obliged to go through RCIA first or just go to confession?
A: It depends on the person's state at the time he left the Catholic Church. If he had been catechized and had received all the sacraments of initiation--baptism, confirmation, Eucharist--then he will normally be able to return by going to confession, mentioning the fact he had joined another church, and being absolved.
Q: Some groups, such as Christadelphians, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Seventh-Day Adventists, claim that we are not conscious between the time of our death and our resurrection but that our souls either cease to exist or are asleep. They cite verses that picture death as a sleep (e.g. Dan. 12:2, 1 Cor. 15:51). How can we refute this?
A: These verses use what is known as phenomenological language, the language of appearances. Phenomenological language occurs when we describe something as it looks, irrespective of how it is. The classic example of phenomenological language is talk of the sun rising and setting. The sun appears to rise and set , but this motion is actually due to the rotation of the earth rather than to motion of the sun around the earth.
Verses that speak of the dead sleeping use phenomenological language. For example, Daniel 12:2 states, "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." This image is of people getting up much as a sleeper rises in the morning. The sleep being discussed is phenomenological sleep, not literal sleep (Daniel is not talking about living people who sleep on the ground). Because dead people look like they are sleeping, especially when lying on their deathbeds (and notice that people often die on beds, enhancing the sleep analogy), the Bible often uses "sleep" as a euphemism for "death." In fact, this euphemism is common today.
There are two versions of the :soul sleep" theory.
The Jehovah's Witness claims that the soul ceases to exist at death and then is re-created by God at the resurrection. If their theory were true and there were no soul which survives death, it is difficult to see why the re-created "you" is not just a copy of you. It may have all your memories, but it is hard to see why it is not just a copy. If God had created this copy while you still existed, the fact it is a copy rather than the real you would be obvious.
If it is a copy, that causes problems of justice. Because you ceased to exist, you--the real you--were never punished for your sins or rewarded for your good deeds; you simply ceased to exist. Similarly, the copy of you which was created on the Last Day is then punished or rewarded for things it never did.
Once one has distinguished between the Jehovah's Witnesses' view and the view that claims that our souls simply sleep between death and resurrection, one can go on to refute these ideas by using the Bible. The following verses apply to both versions of the doctrine.
In Revelation 6:9-10, John writes, "When he [Christ] opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, 'O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?'"
Here John sees the disembodied souls of early Christian martyrs. The fact they are disembodied is known because they have been slain. Thus disembodied souls exist. The fact they are conscious is known because they cry out to God for vengeance. Unconscious people can't do that. Thus conscious, disembodied souls exist.
In Revelation 20:4 John sees these souls again: "Then I saw . . . the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God and who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years."
Here again we have disembodied souls (they had been beheaded). John sees them coming to life to reign with Christ--hence they are in a pre-resurrection state. Some scholars argue that this is a spiritual resurrection rather than a physical one. Even if that were so, it would only strengthen the case for conscious, disembodied souls because, after having been beheaded, they would be reigning with Christ in heaven in a disembodied state.
Q: I've used the story Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) to show consciousness between death and resurrection, but Jehovah's Witnesses argue that it is just a parable and thus does not tell us anything about the real world. How can I respond to this?
A: Point out that Jesus' parables tell us much about the real world. He takes common elements of human experience--sons and fathers, judges and kings, the rich and the poor, buying and selling, planting and harvesting, fishing and wine-making--and uses these elements to teach theological points.
In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man Jesus uses human experiences of life and human experiences of death to teach that one's life affects one's fate, that one's fate is sealed at death, and that those who will not listen to God's word will not take heed of his own Resurrection either.
Point out that if his other parables reflect human experience when they talk about comfort and suffering in this life then this parable reflects human experience when it talks about comfort and suffering in the afterlife between death and resurrection.
To press the issue more sharply, point out that the second half of the parable (where the two are dead) reflects human experience as much as the first half (where the two are alive) reflects human experience. If there were rich men and beggars in Jerusalem in Jesus' day, then, when they died, they went to hell or Abraham's bosom in Jesus' day.
They went to hell if unrighteous (the Catechism of the Catholic Church, following the historic Christian interpretation, cites the rich man as an example of one who has died in mortal sin [CCC 1859]) or to Abraham's bosom if righteous (today the state of the righteous dead is even more glorious since the gates of heaven have been opened and the righteous, after purification if needed, now go to be with God (CCC 1026).
Note that some argue this isn't a parable at all but a historical account. Nothing in the text says it is a parable, and it is different from other parables in that Jesus names one of the characters--Lazarus. If it is a parable, it is the only parable where that happens.
A few last points. When the rich man suggests Lazarus be sent back from the dead, Abraham does not say that he won't go back, but that if he does go back those who will not hear the Law and the prophets will not take heed of Lazarus's rising either. In John's Gospel we read that Jesus has a friend named Lazarus who dies and comes back from the dead (John 11), and when he does so those who do not listen to God's word do not heed his raising either (John 11:45-53); they even plan to kill Lazarus because of the evidence his raising provides for Jesus' messianic claims (John 12:9-11)!
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