Episode 148: 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C
In today’s episode, there are two details that we reflect on from the second reading, taken from 1Timothy 2:1-8. The first detail has a two-fold relation to apologetics. One is that it relates to the topic of “Double Predestination.” The other detail relates to the topic of Hell, which is related to the previous topic of double predestination. The second detail is related to the topic of the invocation of Mary and the saints.
Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Dr. Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In today’s episode, there are two details that we’re going to reflect on from the second reading, taken from 1Timothy 2:1-8. The first detail has a two-fold relation to apologetics. One is that it relates to the topic of “Double Predestination.” The other detail relates to the topic of Hell, which is related to the previous topic of double predestination. The second detail is related to the topic of the invocation of Mary and the saints.
Here’s the entirety of the second reading:
First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers,
petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone,
for kings and for all in authority,
that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life
in all devotion and dignity.
This is good and pleasing to God our savior,
who wills everyone to be saved
and to come to knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God.
There is also one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself as ransom for all.
This was the testimony at the proper time.
For this I was appointed preacher and apostle
— I am speaking the truth, I am not lying —,
teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
It is my wish, then, that in every place the men should pray,
lifting up holy hands, without anger or argument.
The first detail is Paul’s statement in verse 4, “[God] wills everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Now, as I stated in the introduction, there are two apologetical topics that this detail relates to.
The first is what has been labeled as “Double Predestination.” It’s a belief that comes from John Calvin, one of the Reformers. The idea is that from all eternity God “predestines,” or wills, some to heaven and some to hell. And by “will” or “predestines” Calvin understood a direct causation—that’s to say, just as God positively causes or moves us to love him via grace so too God positively causes or moves some to do evil and thus merit eternal damnation.
Of “wicked” and “obstinate” men, Calvin writes,
[God] bends them to execute his judgments, just as if they carried their orders engravenon their minds. And hence it appears that they are impelled by the sure appointment of God (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bk. 1, Ch. 18, sec. 3; emphasis added).
Notice that for Calvin sinners don’t sin merely because God allows them to do so (his permissive will). Rather, he “impels” or “bends” (forces) them to sin.
This stands in stark contrast from the Catholic view that for those who end up in Hell, God permits them to end their lives in mortal sin and thereby merit eternal damnation. Does God know this from all eternity? Yes, which makes this particular end of the damned part of the eternal plan. Nevertheless, the death in mortal sin is merely permitted by God, not positivelycaused.
Now, here is where the detail from our second reading comes into play. Paul says that God “wills all to be saved.” Whatever he means by “wills” we can for sure say this reveals that Calvin’s view of “Double Predestination” is false. Think about it.
If God positively wills that some commit mortal sin and thereby end up in hell, then there’s NO SENSE in which we can say God “wills” those to be saved. There’s no wish for salvation. There’s no order or directionality to salvation. On Calvin’s view, hell enshrouds the person from beginning to end without any note of salvation.
But Paul says God “wills” all to be saved. So, there must be some sense in which God wills all to be saved. Therefore, we can conclude that “double predestination” is false. To state it differently, we can conclude that God doesn’t positively cause or move some to commit mortal sin and thereby merit eternal damnation.
Okay, I mentioned before that this detail also relates to the topic of hell. And you may have already surmised how it does. If Paul says that God wills all to be saved, and God’s will can’t be thwarted, then shouldn’t we conclude that all are in fact saved—a view known as “universalism”?
Well, it depends on how we understand “God’s will.”
If by “God’s will” we mean that some effect will in fact happen, or be actual, then we’d have to conclude that Paul is teaching universalism. But if by “God’s will” we mean that everyone is created for heaven, created with a certain order to the supernatural end of heaven—that’s to say, created with heaven as their destiny, then we wouldn’t have to conclude with universalism. Let me explain.
To speak of God willing everyone “to be saved” could be interpreted as God willing everyone to have this order or life’s directionality to heaven. And, of course, with this order of life’s directionality to heaven would come the real possibility to achieve heaven, since God in justice couldn’t make us for heaven without giving us the possibility to actually achieve it.
You might interpret this “willing” as more of a wishing, although God doesn’t have desires or wishes in the same way that we do. Just trying to give you something from our experience to latch on to here.
Now, an order or directionality to heaven—that’s to say, having heaven as our life’s goal doesn’t logically entail that we in fact achieve that goal. There remains the possibility to not achieve it.
Thus, if we interpret God’s “willing” in 1 Timothy 2:4 on this view that God wills that every human be ordered to or have the directionality toward salvation, then we don’t have to conclude with everyone in fact being saved.
The question now becomes, “Well, which sense did Paul intend when he speaks of God ‘willing’ everyone to be saved? The ‘factual salvation’ sense or the ‘order to salvation’ sense?”
Unfortunately, an adequate answer to this question goes beyond what we can do here. But suffice to say that we’d have to look at other things in Paul’s writings and see whether he ever views hell as a real possibility. And if he does, which I think he does (check out 2 Thess. 1:8-9 for example), then we could conclude that he intends the ‘order to salvation’ sense here in 1 Timothy 2:4.
Okay, let’s now turn to the second detail in this second reading, which is Paul’s teaching, “There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.”
Now, many of you listening know why this is significant . . . Yep, that’s right—it’s used as an objection to the Catholic belief and practice of invoking the saints’ intercessions. How can we ask Mary and the saints to mediate or intercede for us, so it’s argued, when Paul clearly says Jesus is our one mediator. It would seem we Catholics are directly contradicting the inspired Word of God. How do we respond?
Well, note that everything I say here in oral form is found in written form and in greater detail in my book The Saints Pray for You: How the Christians in Heaven Help us Here on Earth.
The first thing to say in response is that the objection assumes that to ask the saints to pray for us takes away from Christ’s unique mediation. But this line of reasoning contradicts Christian teaching and practice because it belongs to the Christian life to ask for the intercession of other Christians. If we were to follow the logic embedded in this challenge, then we would have to deny all forms of Christian intercession, which, from a Christian point of view, is absurd.
Even the context of the passage in question proves that intercessory prayer is essential to Christian life. In verse 1, Paul encourages Christian intercession: “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men.” Then, in verse 4, he says such prayers and intercessions are “acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.” Other such passages include Romans 15:30; 2 Corinthians 1:10; and Colossians 1:4, 9–10.
If asking for the intercession of Christians in heaven (the saints) takes away from Christ’s unique mediation, as the challenge proposes, then what is Paul doing encouraging intercession from Christians on earth? Wouldn’t that, too, detract from Christ’s unique mediation? No Christian wants to affirm that conclusion. Most Protestants, like Catholics, pray for and request prayers from their fellow Christians all the time. Since this biblical practice doesn’t conflict with Christ’s role as a unique mediator, neither does requesting prayers from the saints in heaven.
A second reason why Jesus’ unique mediation as the God-man doesn’t prevent us from asking the saints to intercede on our behalf is that he is able to share that ministry with others. According to Matthew 23:8, Jesus is our unique “teacher,” (Greek, didaskalos), yet there are many who participate in his teaching ministry, as seen in Ephesians 4:11 and James 3:1. Jesus is our one “high priest,” as per Hebrews 3:1, yet, according to 1 Peter 2:5 and 9, we’re all priests (albeit of a different kind) insofar as we are Christians.
The same principle could apply to the intercession of the saints. Of course, Jesus is the one mediator, and he “always lives to make intercession,” as Hebrews 7:25 says. But that doesn’t mean he can’t share that intercessory role with his saints.
In fact, we know that he does share that intercessory role with at least some of his saints: the Christians here on earth. (Saints is a word commonly used in the New Testament for all Christians, as seen, for example, in 2 Cor. 1:1, Eph. 1:1, Phil. 1:1). Paul urges Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:1 that “intercessions . . . be made for all men.”
Therefore, it’s at least possible that Jesus could share his intercessory ministry with Christians in heaven, too.
Third, the saints participate in Christ’s unique mediation because they’re members of the mystical body of Christ. As quoted above, Paul teaches in his first letter to the Corinthians that we as Christians are “baptized into one body” (v. 13), which he identifies as “the body of Christ”(v. 27). Christians are united with one another in the body by virtue of their union with the head, Jesus. This union with Christ enables the intercessory prayer of Christians to bring about effects in the lives of other members in the body. As the Catechism states in paragraph 2635, “Christian intercession participates in Christ’s.”
Viewed this way, we see that intercessory prayer of one member of Christ’s mystical body for another no more takes away from Christ’s unique mediation than the individual parts of my body take away from the overall function of my body. It is only because of my life that the different members of my natural body can aid one another for a proper functioning of the whole.
Similarly, it’s because of Christ the head that different members of his body can intercede for one another.
Rather than detracting from the head, the intercession among members of his body manifests the head’s glory.
The saints in heaven are still members of Christ’s mystical body. We know this because Paul teaches in Romans 8:35 and 39 that death is among his list of things that cannot separate us from “the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.”
And the saints are not just average members of Christ’s body; they are “the spirits of just men made perfect,” as Hebrews 12:23 puts it. This matters because James tells us in James 5:16 that “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.” Since the saints in heaven are perfected in righteousness, their prayers will bear much fruit.
So what did Paul mean in 1 Timothy 2:5 if he wasn’t denying mutual Christian intercession? He’s highlighting the uniqueness of Jesus’ intercession, which is twofold. First, Jesus is the only God-man, and thus the only one who can give human beings access to God the Father. Second, he’s the only mediator of the New Covenant (Heb. 8:6, 9:15, 12:24), the way Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant (Gal. 3:19). Nobody else—not even any other Christian—is a mediator in these senses.
Conclusion
Well, my friends, that’s all I have for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. Although there’s nothing in the first reading or Gospel reading that relates to apologetics, at least as far as I can tell, the second reading this upcoming 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C does provide us with some pretty good material for apologetical conversations:
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I hope you have a blessed 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C. Until next time, God Bless.