Christians often think that Christianity is purer–more Christlike–when it is less doctrinal. Tim Staples explains the dangers of this grave error.
Cy Kellett:
Hello and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers Podcast for living, understanding, and defending your faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. Tim Staples with us this time. Tim, of course, the author of Behold Your Mother – A Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines.
I mentioned that in particular because we’re going to talk to Tim about doctrine because you might hear, well, not that you might hear, if you’re a Christian person, you will hear fellow Christians saying on the internet or at your church or wherever, in the living room, all we need is Jesus, we don’t need all of that doctrine. The idea, I guess, is that doctrine itself is like the barnacles that attach to the ship. If you could just clear away all that chatter, you’d have a better, sleeker, more efficient ship of the church. Is that true, Tim?
Tim Staples:
It is absolutely not true. But I know from experience being a former minister in an assembly God community where you don’t have a magisterium, I knew pastors who were sitting on the same Deus or whatever we called it back then, we didn’t really have a sanctuary, who disagreed over the nature of Christ, the nature of the Trinity, the nature of salvation. Can you lose your salvation or not? Baptism is the name of Jesus, in the name of Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Do you dunk? Do you bored? Do you squirt?
I mean, we’re talking disagreements about essential matters that Hebrews 6 talks about are the foundation. The inspired author says, let’s move on from these basics. Well, we got disagreements on all of those basics from Hebrews 6. What ends up happening is theology is understood as those barnacles that you talked about because there’s really no way to get at the purity of truth. You can talk about sola scriptura all day long, but it’s almost meaningless in the trenches. When you’re a pastor and you’re dealing with people in your church and they disagree with you, where do you go?
Well, the Bible. Well, they disagree with you on the Bible. What ends up happening is compromise after compromise, and that’s why you have tens of thousands of denominations today teaching different things on essential matters of the faith. One last thing, Cy. When you look at scripture itself, how far away is scripture from this mentality that says, doctrine doesn’t matter, all that matters is Jesus?
I mean, think of St. Paul in 1 Timothy 4:16 who says to Timothy, a young bishop that he had ordained, he says, “Timothy, take heed unto yourself and unto the doctrine. For in so doing, you will both save yourself and them that hear thee.” We’re talking about salvation here when we’re talking about doctrine. Why is that? Because ultimately doctrine is not arguing over some abstract concept. But when we’re talking about doctrine, ultimately we’re talking about a person. Why? Cy, you and I were talking about this a little while ago.
Just take any doctrine you want to talk about, but justification. We have had wars for 500 years with our Protestant friends over the nature of justification. Well, this is not just some argument over an abstract concept. Why? St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:30, Christ is for us, sanctification, justification, wisdom, et cetera. Jesus himself said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except by me.” When we’re disagreeing about truth, who are we disagreeing about? Jesus.
When you get it in that perspective, all of a sudden doctrine becomes very important. And then the wars, I think, would have a lot more meaning if we could get more of our Protestant friends, because I find more and more are dropping off and not engaging any longer because really it’s almost a despair, Cy, that there’s no way of knowing the answers anyway.
Cy Kellett:
Even about things where the answers are quite knowable.
Tim Staples:
Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Cy Kellett:
One way that this gets phrased sometimes is… You really do hear this. There’s a certain group of people who will say, well, Constantine. With Constantine, the church took this turn. But there’s another group of people who make a kind of intellectual argument that it was the introduction of Greek philosophy. Why do we need Athens when we have Jerusalem?
Tim Staples:
Yes and absolutely.
Cy Kellett:
Why do we need Athens if we have Jerusalem?
Tim Staples:
It’s interesting, St. Paul and Colossians 2:8 warns against vain philosophies, and they will use that, just like when Jesus warns in Matthew 15:7 and following about the traditions of men which nullify the word of God. Notice he’s not nullifying philosophy is St. Paul in Colossians 2:8. He says vain philosophies and traditions. The same way Paul’s not condemning all tradition, and of course not because elsewhere in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, he says, “Stand fast in the traditions you have been taught either by word or written letter.”
As far as philosophy goes, St. Paul himself is the one who stood on Mars Hill in Acts 17 and reasoned with the Stoics and other philosophers on Mars Hill using their own philosophers, Aratus and Epimenides, quoting from them in order to make a case from natural law. This is anything but denying philosophy. In fact, you find philosophical principles peppered throughout St. Paul’s writings. We could go on on this side, but how about John 1? In the beginning was the word.
The word was with God. The word was God. When did Jesus ever say he was the word? He never did. John, where did you get this from? Well, John is using a very common term among the Stoic philosophers. The word, the lagas, was the ultimate substratum from which all things come and toward, which all things go. Now, they believed it to be a mindless sort of Star Wars force.
Cy Kellett:
Force. Yeah, right, right.
Tim Staples:
May the force be with you sort of thing. But what is John doing? He’s saying the word is real, but the word is a person. Let me introduce you to him. This idea that philosophy is bad, tradition is bad is absolutely unbiblical.
Cy Kellett:
You have debates with people over some of these things. And like you said, the key to this always is actually the relationship with Jesus. And that if we can’t be clear about who he is and the meaning of his nature, what his nature is and all that, the relationship is hindered. Philosophizing and theologizing about Jesus is not there to get in the way, but to help.
You had a recent debate about person, about what kind of person is Jesus, and you made the outlandish claim, the radical claim that Jesus is not a human person. This upset your interlocutor in this debate. This is exactly what you’re talking about, where a little doctrine clarifies a lot here.
Tim Staples:
That’s right, and also good philosophy.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, okay.
Tim Staples:
What you find is often, in fact, it is remarkable how often it is that bad philosophy is that the foundation of bad theology. Philosophy is the handmade of theology as we learned in the seminary. You just look at Luther and his denial of transubstantiation. Well, that makes sense because he denied substance. He was basically infected with nominalism. He denied the existence of substance. Of course, he would deny transubstantiation. In fact, he didn’t even teach consubstantiation.
That’s something that came from his followers later. It was anachronistically read back into Luther. The point is that nominalism also affected him on justification and everything else. Bad philosophy leads to bad theology. This was a case of that with this man. I have to say, I’m not going to name him because I didn’t get his permission to, but he’s a very sharp guy, knows Greek very well. And really I love talking to people like that because you don’t have to do a lot of extra work because he knows the scriptures really well.
And knowing Greek, I can quote Greek words and such to him and it becomes very helpful. But I discovered with this fellow, basically we had a philosophical problem, a problem with understanding definitions that the church has made concerning the nature of Christ. And yes, philosophy had a huge part to play in it, but this is not uncommon, Cy. I mean, look at the Council of Nicaea dealing with the Aryans. There was an argument on the floor over the use of the term homoousios, which was basically created by the church in order to deal with the mystery of Christ.
Cy Kellett:
It’s an invented word really, isn’t it?
Tim Staples:
It really is. It was never used as such, and it was very problematic. There were some saying, it’s not a biblical term. What are we doing here? But of course, the church used it. Why? Sometimes the mysteries of the faith transcend our linguistic parameters and we do have to invent words in order to explain. That’s something to keep in mind. I’ll tell you something else I discovered, Cy. Ultimately, you see once again why the magisterium is so important. When you get into these arguments with people and whatever it may be, you realize over and over again, if Jesus…
As my Greek professor Father Patrick Brennan used to say, he said, “If Jesus established his church upon the formal principle of sola scriptura, well then, Jesus ain’t very smart.” Because my goodness, I mean, we have problems enough with the magisterium. We have scripture tradition as interpreted by the magisterium. But you take away the magisterium and you just give people a book. That would be insane. I would predict that if you were to establish a church on that formal principle, I’d say within 500 years you’d probably have tens of thousands of different church.
Cy Kellett:
I don’t think that’s a prediction. I think that’s a reflection. I am curious how the conversation went though. You say Jesus is not a human person, which is upsetting to somebody. I know that many people who have been to catechism class say, “Wait a minute, he’s fully God and fully man. He’s a human person.”
Tim Staples:
That’s right and that’s why we titled it that. That was a provocative title, and I got a lot of bites on that article. It’s been really good responding to folks on it. But here’s the key. What this fellow did, and he’s very educated, he has seminary level education that you can tell he’s very, very sharp, and he used what’s called the Cappadocian principle, which I was very familiar with. It basically says that what Christ did not assume, Christ could not heal. He said, your article is fatally flawed.
He was a bit upset because he was going to report me to my bishop and said, “You saying he’s not a human person is like you saying he’s not fully human.” Of course, that’s not the case, but he was a bit indignant. What I did is I started with the quote, the famous quote. You have to go, folks, if you want to read up on this. St. Gregory Nazianzen wrote his Letter 101 to Cledonius the Priest, and he was writing against Apollinarius. Now, it’s very important that we… Who is Apollinarius?
Apollinarius was a heretic who denied that Jesus had a human soul. He had a human body, he said, but not a human soul. The divine nature took over, and so the soul was unnecessary. That is the human soul. In effect, his human soul was the divine nature. Let me read as I did with my friend what he actually said. Again, Letter 101 to Cledonius the Priest. If anyone has put his trust in him as a man without a human mind, he is really bereft of mind and quite unworthy of salvation.
Those writers back then could be pretty sharp, his bereft and unworthy of salvation for that. But in the defense of this great saint, we’re talking about grave matters here. We’re talking about who Jesus is, and he’s right. This is talking about salvation. For that which he has not assumed, he has not healed. But that which is united to his godhead is also saved. If only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also. But if the whole of his nature, there’s the keywords, Cy Kellett.
Cy Kellett:
Yes, right, right.
Tim Staples:
If half of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole. Let them not then begrudge us our complete salvation or clothe the savior only with bones and nerves. The portrait of humanity for his manhood is without a soul. What’s clearly going on here is we’re talking about denying a full human nature, which means denying he has a human nature. He becomes just a body, which…
Cy Kellett:
It’s like an automaton kind of.
Tim Staples:
I mean, it leads to all sorts of metaphysical problems. But here, if you take Gregory in context, you see he never says Jesus took upon himself human personhood. In fact, see, I want to pause just for a second to make a point here. Because when we’re reading scripture of the fathers of the church, we have to remember context is crucial, because you can fall into all sorts of nonsense. If you take, for example, Jesus said, “With God, all things are possible,” right? Well, does that mean absolutely all things?
Well, we could argue all things are real things, so they can’t be logical contradictions because they are by nature impossible. We could also say that God, 2 Timothy 2:12, cannot do certain things. Why? Because he cannot deny himself. He cannot lie, Numbers 23. He cannot change, Hebrews 1. I mean, we could go on and on. That’s not Hebrews 1. That’s James 1:17. There are lots of things that God can’t do. Why? Because of his perfection as God. He can’t do lots of stuff because if he did, he wouldn’t be God.
When Jesus says all things are possible, you cannot in every sentence explain everything. It’s easy to take Jesus out of context and say, “Well, then God could sin. God could lie. God could change because he can do anything.”
Cy Kellett:
I see what you’re saying. Right.
Tim Staples:
Take things in context. And here, really for St. Gregory, it’s assumed that, of course, God cannot, that is the second person of blessed Trinity, assume Adam’s person. That is metaphysically absurd. And why is that? Because first of all, listen to what Gregory says, he assumed Adam’s nature. What is our nature? Our nature consists of a hypomorphic union, body and soul. As I explained to my friend, we have to make the basic distinction between person and nature.
The nature, you’ve probably heard this a million times, Cy, but it’s important that we hear it again, the nature is the what of a thing. It’s what something is. The person is the who, and not the rock band, the who. The nature is the what and the person is the who. A person by definition is an individual… That is the great Bohemian definition the church has used for 1,500 years. An individual substance of a rational nature. Notice, an individual substance. Now, what does that mean? Well, the substance we’re going to say is nature.
Substance and nature aren’t exactly the same thing, but here they essentially are, and we won’t get into that. But anyway, we’re talking about nature here. The individual substance that’s being talking about here is an instantiated nature. The nature, the hypomorphic being, is shared by all of humanity. Why? Because that’s the what.
Cy Kellett:
That’s what we are.
Tim Staples:
That’s what we are.
Cy Kellett:
I’m one of those.
Tim Staples:
In fact, the catechism makes this clear in numerous places. There’s a great quote here. Where is that? Every human person created in the image of God has the natural right to be recognized as a free responsible being. Notice, every human person is created. We’ll get to that in a moment. Here it is, created, this is the Catechism Section 1934, created in the image of the one God and equally endowed with rational souls.
All men have the same nature and the same origin. Redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude. All therefore enjoy an equal dignity. Notice, all share the same nature. But now, do we all share the same person? No.
Cy Kellett:
No. That would be weird.
Tim Staples:
Yeah. That would be very weird. In fact, in philosophy, there’s a principle that is referred to the unicity of agency in the created order, which means that in the created order, we’re not talking about divine persons because all bets are off, that’s a whole different focus, but in the created order, there can only be one subject to each created being, whether it’s an animal or even a plant. One subject.
Cy Kellett:
For each created being. That makes sense.
Tim Staples:
There can’t be multiple subjects, even a dog. But we’re talking about here persons, rational persons, human beings. You cannot have multiple subjects. It’s really metaphysically impossible for Jesus to take Adam’s person. He can’t assume Adam’s person. He can’t assume yours or mine. But what he can assume is our nature, and that’s what he did. And that’s what Gregory is talking about, because that’s the way he could save all of us in one fell swoop, because we all share that same nature.
And really ipso facto, he saves every person who’s ever been born because what is a person but an instantiated soul. Really, the person is a mystery. It’s the mysterious result and created immediately by God in the womb, the result of that hypomorphic union between body and soul that creates this person, this mysterious person. We know that. Even the physical sciences help us here.
Because I was reading years ago a book, and it was Dr. Pinfold, who was a brain surgeon, was talking about how in operating on the brain, when they were first making major advances and such, they would keep the… And they still do. You have to keep people awake while you’re operating on their brains. I hope I never have to get operated on my brain because I don’t want to stay awake.
But anyway, with your brain wide open. But he said he would prod certain areas of the brain and his finger would move, his hand would move, but he said it was invariable. The guy would say, “Hey, I didn’t do that.”
Cy Kellett:
Okay, now that is an intense statement because that means the I is something different than the brain.
Tim Staples:
That’s right.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, that’s a beautiful insight.
Tim Staples:
The person, not tends, but transcends in some sense both body and soul, because you and I can struggle to remember the Pythagorean theorem or to remember a philosophical principle and we can also struggle to pick up something off the table. You and I seem to use both our body and our brain as human persons. There is this distinction of person separate from, although absolutely related too. The idea that Jesus had to assume a human person otherwise we can’t be saved is logically absurd.
Number one, he can’t do that. That’s metaphysically impossible. Number two, it’s unnecessary. Because in taking upon human nature, he saves everything that we are, including our persons. You and I sitting here talking about it may seem a little kind of easy, but trust me, when you’re in the trenches dealing with folks, it becomes very, very difficult to communicate what should be a basic truth, but it is complex, isn’t it?
Cy Kellett:
Well, sure. It’s centuries of the church’s reflection too to settle on these terms. Just that while we’re on the topic of the church’s reflection on the person of Jesus, this is an off-topic a little bit, but the idea of person takes a great leap forward because the church reflected on the person of Jesus. When we say, “Oh, the modern idea of person is different than the ancient idea of person,” give credit to Christ for that.
That’s why we have that difference, because the church spent centuries trying to figure out what is this person, Jesus Christ? He gave us the whole, you don’t get to be a modern person with the idea of personhood and rights and all of that.
Tim Staples:
It’s where the very language came from, the foundation of what it means to be human.
Cy Kellett:
This is a historical fact. In history, there is no reflection on the person like what happens in the Christian Church because of the person of Jesus Christ. That’s another thing to say thank you, Jesus for.
Tim Staples:
There’s the fact that when the church was struggling to communicate these truths, we didn’t have the language that was adequate. In fact, I can’t believe you brought that up because this was part of my discussion with my friend. I shared with him a letter, I think it was St. Jerome writing to Pope Damasus, because these things were festering, even back in the 380s when Jerome is writing here. Of course, homoousios had been dealt with, but we have all these other problems of Nestorius and the Monophysites and Monothelites that hadn’t come yet, but some of them were already festering.
It’s obvious because Jerome objects and writes a letter to Damasus saying, “I don’t like this. People are using hypostasis for persona.” Now, this is why I always say, my Greek prof said this to us in class years ago in the seminary, that normally Greek is the more precise language than Latin, especially when it comes to the verb, because you’ve got six principle parts versus the four. You’ve got advantages in Greek like a definite article. Duh! I mean, come on, Latin.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, that does help.
Tim Staples:
How can you not have a definite article? That just drives me crazy. But anyway, in this instance, Latin was much more precise than Greek, because persona and natura were much closer to a developed understanding than the Greek words which were multiple. You had fusis that was kind of nature. You had hypostasis, which was kind of person, but a dog could be said to have a hypostasis, as well as a human being. Prosopon, which that was probably the best word because it has its origins in the old Greek theater.
In fact, prosopon, prosopa means literally in the face of it. It goes back to the old Greek theater where the actors would put a mask in front of their face and they become another person. It’s in the face o, and that becomes the term used for person by the Council of Ephesus. Chalcedon would use hypostasis for person. There was a struggle, what term are we going to use? And here we have a guy like St. Jerome saying, “They’re driving me crazy because hypostasis doesn’t mean person. You can have a dog or a cat being a person.”
But he said, “But I submit to you. Pope Damasus, if you tell me we’re going to use it, I’ll use it because we had already been through the homoousios thing. This becomes really important to understand that we are talking about developing our human understanding of nature because of the incarnation, God becoming man. He came not only to reveal God to man, but to reveal man to man.
Cy Kellett:
And he did.
Tim Staples:
He revealed who we are. Think of this side, Cy Kellett, in my discussion with my new friend here, and I’m looking forward to hearing from him again, when you talk about Christ being a human person, I said, “Sir, with all due respect, you’re not only missing it really over human nature and what a person is, but you’re also creating another Christ. You’re creating a Christ.”
Cy Kellett:
You can’t have two persons.
Tim Staples:
No.
Cy Kellett:
No. Right.
Tim Staples:
You’re creating a Christ that has no power to save anyone. You’ve heard me use this analogy before, but imagine if you had a friend come over one day and he says, “Cy Kellett, I have met Jesus and he changed my life,” and you say, “Wow, that’s great.” He says, “I want you to meet him too. He lives right down the street here. He’s Hispanic, so call him Jesus when you meet him.” Now, all of a sudden, we had a paradigm shift. You went from wow, he’s magic to uh-oh. Why? Because you got the wrong Jesus.
And remember, if you’re talking about the incarnation, and the word was made flesh, he becomes man, Philippians 2:5, you’re talking about the created order in a human nature. If you start saying that Jesus is a human person, then you’re talking about someone who has no power to save anyone because he is a distinct person, has no power to reconcile us to God. If there’s one thing that is so plain in sacred scripture, it’s 1 Timothy 2:5. There is one God, one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ. Why?
He is the only mediator, because he’s the only one that can reconcile the two estranged parties. He is God to offer the ultimate and infinite sacrifice necessary to appease an infinitely holy God, and he is man to make fitting sacrifice for men and to join both together. That’s what his priesthood is all about. He is the mediator between God and men. The only reason why you and I can be mediators with a little m, little priests. We’re all priests according to 1 Peter 2:5-9.
We’re not members of the sacerdotal priesthood, which there’s a difference between the universal priesthood and the priesthood that God calls out to minister to his people. But we’re all priests. In that sense, we’re mediators because we’re in Christ. Of course, for those who have the sacrament of holy orders, they act in persona. Christian reconciling men to God as well. But all of us can only be priests because we are in the one priest, Jesus Christ, the only person in the universe that can reconcile God to men. But if he becomes a human person, it all goes up in smoke.
Cy Kellett:
Right. That’s right. Listening to you, first of all, it’s wonderful and thank you very much for it. It’s just so exciting to think about these what can seem like minor little distinctions the church is obsessing on for centuries. The importance of the distinctions though is meeting the person of Jesus Christ as he really is, not by some strange imposition on him. Most people can’t do all this though.
Tim Staples:
Amen.
Cy Kellett:
Those of us for whom this is not our vocation, you’d almost say… You wanted to title this conversation the importance of doctrine, but it’s really the importance of the magisterium.
Tim Staples:
Ultimately, it is. I remember sitting on a panel with one of my heroes, James Likoudis, and pray for him. He’s getting up there in years right now. He is a wonderful guy. I’ve known him for many years. But we were on a panel, we had spoken at a big conference, and there were a bunch of people a lot smarter than I. I was a kid. I’m going, oh my gosh, what am I doing here with all these smart people? It was the Peter Kreeft, Jim Likoudis kind of folks that are so smart, it makes me mad.
The question came up about the Blessed Trinity. I was excited. I got to admit it, Cy, I’m a prideful guy. I hope I’ve been humbled over the years, at least some. I was not even speaking to the crowd.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, I know what you mean.
Tim Staples:
I learned over the years, talk to the people, man.
Cy Kellett:
Don’t try to impress the other panel members. That’s what you were doing, huh?
Tim Staples:
That’s right. I waxed eloquent talking about the two processions, three persons, four relations. I’m rattling off all this. I wasn’t that long out of the seminary. It was fresh in my mind. After I had spoken way too long, Jim Likoudis said… And I think we should mention as well that none of us would know any of this without the magisterium of the Catholic Church, because you don’t get this by reading the Bible. He said something like that, although more eloquently than I just did.
I remember I just kind of sunk down in my seat because there was such a humility that came from him when he made that statement. Ultimately, Jesus loves us and that’s why he wants us to know him, because he is the one who can save us. He wants us to know him, and he gave us the magisterium so that the truth about Christ and all of the truths necessary for our salvation would be protected, and so that we could know, as Vatican Council 1 says, we can know all of these truths with facility, accuracy, and without the admixture of error.
Whether you’re a PhD in philosophy or theology, or you’re a dude with an eighth grade education working at a gas station, we can all know these truths simply by reading in faith the teachings of the church.
Cy Kellett:
Tim Staples, thank you very, very much.
Tim Staples:
God bless you, brother.
Cy Kellett:
Thank you to our listeners as well. Hey, if you want to contact us, you can send an email. Focus@catholic.com is our email address. Focus@catholic.com. We’d be very much appreciative if wherever you’re listening to this podcast, you’d give us the five stars and a nice review. That does help to grow the podcast.
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