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In Search of the Ancient Protestant Church

Trent Horn

This past October, Protestant scholars Jerry Walls and Kenneth Collins released a book called Roman but Not Catholic: What Remains at Stake 500 Years after the Reformation. The idea behind the title is that Protestants are the true defenders of the early Christian church, before it became the corrupted “Roman Catholic Church.”

Of course, this is a popular idea among many Protestants. What is supposed to make this book unique, however, is that the authors present their critique of Catholicism in light of a solid Protestant alternative. According to the Protestant apologist John Bugay in his review of the book:

Rather than arguing from the point of view of an ill-defined “evangelical theology” as [Protestant apologist Greg] Allison does, Collins and Walls locate their arguments firmly in in the perspective of what they call “the ancient ecumenical church”—that is, the ancient “catholic,” or “universal,” church of the first four centuries, prior to any of the schisms that arose out of conciliar activities.

I addressed Walls’s attempts to promote “catholic Protestantism” in a previous article, but perhaps even more dubious is his and Collins’s claim that if no “significant theological changes” had been made after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 then the Protestant Reformation would never have happened.”

This claim is implausible in light of two problems with this book, and with all arguments in favor of a Protestantized early Christianity. First, Walls and Collins provide no evidence that the early Church believed in the Protestant doctrines of sola scriptura and sola fide. Second, they ignore or reject doctrines that were widely held during that same period of Christian history.

So Long “Solas”

Walls and Collins are correct that Catholics and Protestants (as well as the Eastern Orthodox) share a profound agreement on central doctrines of Christianity such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. However, they err in reducing the theology of the early Church to what is stated in documents like the Nicene Creed.

It’s true that the Nicene Creed does not contain a reference to Mary’s Immaculate Conception, for example, but neither does it mention important doctrines, such as eternal punishment in hell, that most Protestants accept. Walls and Collins would probably object that even if the doctrine of hell is not stated in the Nicene Creed, it is clearly taught in Scripture and so it is a part of the faith of the “ancient ecumenical church.”

But here is where the duo run into a problem.

Walls and Collins present neither a biblical case for the doctrine of sola scriptura nor an historical case that this was believed in the early Church. Instead, they simply make a logical argument that sola scriptura is necessary for keeping heretical beliefs from spreading (p. 82). But let’s consider the words of Martin Luther’s debate opponent Johann Eck, who said, “There is no one of the heresies which have torn the bosom of the church, which has not derived its origin from the various interpretation of the Scripture. The Bible itself is the arsenal whence each innovator has drawn his deceptive arguments.”

It is not Scripture per se that refutes heresies: it is the correct interpretation of Scripture that refutes heresies. That is why in the fifth century St. Vincent of Lerins wrote, “It is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.”

Walls and Collins also fail to provide any evidence that the early Church believed in the doctrine of sola fide, or salvation by faith alone. In fact, when we examine the patristic evidence, we find that some of the Fathers condemned ideas that resembled sola fide. Saint Augustine said, “We should advise the faithful that they would endanger the salvation of their souls if they acted on the false assurance that faith alone is sufficient for salvation or that they need not perform good works in order to be saved” (On Faith and Works 14.21).

Martin Luther testifies to the fact that Augustine did not teach justification by faith alone when he says, “At first I devoured, not merely read, Augustine. But when the door was opened for me in Paul, so that I understood what justification by faith is, it was all over with Augustine” (Luther’s Works, 54:49–50).

The Ancient, Catholic Church

Despite their claim to represent the theology of the “ancient, ecumenical church” of the first five centuries, Walls and Collins hold views that were rejected by many, and in some cases, all major theologians from this time period. Here are just a few examples.

  • The Old Testament Canon: Walls and Collins claim that a “veritable litany of church fathers” rejected the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament like Tobit or Maccabees. Unfortunately, they only mention eight Church Fathers and do not cite any of their works. When we examine those authors we find they either did not reject these books or they did not consider their rejection to be a popular view (even St. Jerome, a Father whom Protestants love to cite on this subject, included the deuterocanonical books in his translation of the Vulgate). Walls and Collins also do not interact with the work of Gary Michuta, who is probably the best Catholic authority on the deuterocanonical books and has documented hundreds of instances where the Fathers cite these books as Sacred Scripture.
  • The Perpetual Virginity of Mary: Nearly all the Church Fathers believed this dogma and, according to the Protestant author David Wright, there was “almost universal acceptance of Mary’s continuing virginity” among the Protestant Reformers. But instead of embracing this dogma as a fundamental part of the “ancient ecumenical church,” Walls and Collins dismiss it with age-old objections that fail to interact with modern apologetic works on the subject.
  • Baptismal Regeneration: Walls and Collins view Jesus’ requirement in John 3:5 that one must be “born of water and spirit” in order to enter the kingdom of heaven “as pointing to natural birth” even though no one in the “ancient ecumenical church” held this interpretation of that passage. Walls and Collins ignore the testimony even of non-Catholic historians like J.N.D. Kelly who say that in the early Church, “[baptism] was always held to convey the remission of sins,” as well as the work of Catholic apologist Steve Ray who provides a lengthy treatment of the subject in his book Crossing the Tiber.

Overall, I was pleased that this book lacked the harsh polemic that other criticisms of Catholicism possess and that the authors affirm that Catholics are Christians. They even say their goal is not to “de-convert” Catholics but to merely keep Protestants from becoming Catholic. But, on the other hand, I was disappointed their book did not engage the best in current Catholic apologetics and that it also fails to present a modern Evangelical reclamation of the beliefs of the early Church.


For a more thorough treatment of the subjects raised in Roman but Not Catholic, I recommend my book The Case for Catholicism: Answers to Classic and Contemporary Protestant Objections.

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