In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Joe Heschmeyer to discuss why certain dogmas are now binding on Catholics. Joe explains how revelation and the definition of dogmas impact belief and the consequences of rejecting them.
Transcript:
Caller: I was actually in ocia and unfortunately I stopped going. Well, maybe we can help with that. Maybe we can answer some of the objections. All right, so the question was the dogmas, like the Marian dogmas, people infallibility and all that, these weren’t binding morally or mortally on Christians previously, but now they are. So, like, I could be mistaken, but. So, no, no.
Joe Heschmeyer: Anytime you define a dogma, then you know what, what had been, maybe an area where there was a multiplicity of opinion. The Church has brought the truth into greater clarity.
Caller: Right.
Caller: So, yeah, you’re right.
Caller: The question is, so if I was to become Catholic, you know, I have to believe these things, or if I deny them of my own will and go, you know what? I just don’t care. I don’t believe that because it doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t understand. Then from what I’m reading in the Catechism, it’s a mortal sin if I just declare it not to be true. Right? So if the dogmas weren’t bound on previous Catholics, why, why is it okay to now bind them on Catholics now? Like, it just seems like it’s. It just reminds me of the Pharisees with having the hand washing and all that. Sorry, yeah, Adding.
Joe Heschmeyer: No, no, that’s. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I would just say, think about the way revelation works. I’ll get into the Church’s dimension. But think for a moment. Every time Jesus taught anything, then a person who said, no, Jesus is wrong about that thing has now cut themselves off from salvation in a way that wouldn’t have been true if they just didn’t think that thing a week before, before they’d heard it from Jesus. When he says, blessed are the peacemakers, the guy is like, you know what? I think peacemakers are really overrated. That guy would have been able to hold that opinion before he hears the Sermon on the Mount. Can’t hold that opinion afterwards. That’s the point of revelation, that whatever conclusions you came to on your own, now you’ve got better. We see this within the pages of Scripture itself. In Acts 15. The church defines the right teaching in terms of the Judaizer controversy that hadn’t been defined before, it then gets defined. The Judaizers were wrong before, but once it gets defined, they’re now standing against the Church and against the Holy Spirit because the Church says it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us, and so invokes divine authority in settling the controversy. It is no longer two sides just debating their interpretation of Scripture. Now One side has the authority of the Church and the authority of the Holy Spirit on its side. Does that distinction make sense so far?
Caller: Yeah, it does. It does. I guess I’ve heard people say that the Catholic Church doesn’t teach that there’s new revelation since the Apostles.
Joe Heschmeyer: No. So you’re right. But Acts 15 is also not new revelation. Everything in Acts 15 you could have deduced from the earlier chapters, but it is clarifying with this divine authority. Because I think the answer is this. If you think dogma is a burden, then the right amount of dogma would seemingly be no dogma. And then it should be okay for a Christian to say, well, I don’t believe in the Trinity. I don’t believe in the virgin birth. I don’t believe in the fact that Christ is fully divine and fully human. And I still believe he is Lord. I still believe everything he teaches. But I don’t interpret the Bible the way you do. And I think a normal Christian response to that and the appropriate Christian response to that is, nope, that is not okay. Like, that’s. That is not an acceptable thing to deny. But there is a time in the Church where all of those questions hadn’t been dogmatically defined. There were times in the Church where some of those things were even being debated, where you had people following Jesus, following the teaching of the apostles, confused about what this meant for the Trinity, confused about what this meant for any number of doctrines. And. And so what happens is greater clarity around this. This isn’t about new revelation. It is about clarifying what the meaning of the revelation we already have is. So a good definition of dogma, this is from the Protestant theologian Herman Bavnik, is a faith proposition that claims to be true and demands universal recognition. So it’s not enough that a certain fact be true, but it is true and demands universal recognition. And so the Church has a role in saying this is not only true, everyone must believe this thing. And as things are disputed, then the Church can say, well, there’s a right answer to this and a wrong answer to this. And sometimes as the two sides, or sometimes more than two sides argue that, it starts to become clear that one side’s view is not just wrong, but dangerous. And so then the Church will say, no, you may not believe that thing. So, for example, there was a dispute about original sin in the 4th century. Not everybody believed in original sin as we articulated today. But when you get the Pelagians who deny original sin, it becomes clear that they think that you could maybe just live a perfect Life and make it to heaven. If you just tried hard enough, then it becomes clear why this denial of original sin is really serious. And the Church is very clear. No, you must believe in original sin. Pelagianism is wrong. It’s dangerous. It leads you away from God. Now, ultimately, why does this all matter? Not just for the sake of abstract being correct about stuff. The reason it matters is this. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. And so we want sound dogma because we care about the truth and we want it through the Church because the Church is the way, as Acts of the Apostles tells us. And so this is what it is to live the Christian life. To say you want to follow Jesus and you don’t care about what it is he teaches is a contradiction. To say that you love Jesus and don’t care about who he is would be a contradiction. And so we want to know who he is and what he wants from us. But that means that there are going to be times where different followers of Jesus understand his message differently. And the Church has a role to play in saying which side is right and which side is wrong. Did that make sense to you, Taylor?
Caller: Yes, yes, it does. But, you know, it’ll leave me with having to try to figure out, you know, how would the, you know, assumption of Mary be important? You know, God, I guess.
Joe Heschmeyer: Well, why is the resurrection of the dead important? Why is it important to know that we’re all going to rise again, body and soul? Because this is in the creed we look forward to the resurrection of the dead, life of the world to come.
Caller: Exactly right, because Christ said we would. And then Paul.
Joe Heschmeyer: But it’s not just enough to say Christ said we would. Because not everything Christ said makes it into the creed. Not everything Christ says becomes like an official dogma. Everyone must believe this. The understanding the fate of the body and understanding the you are made for eternity is actually really important for understanding a whole world of things about the whole purpose of human existence. In the case of Mary, I would suggest with the Assumption of Mary, you have two things. One, you have sort of an image of the resurrection of the body. Here is a Christian follower of Jesus who is raised body and soul into glory. And that is the fate all of us are striving for. But second, if you understand Mary as the ark of God, which scripture presents her as in Luke 1, she’s certainly presented as the ark. I’ll talk about that another time. The Psalms, very clear, Mary, that Jesus goes up with the ark of his strength. And so there’s a fittingness to the fact that it is foretold that God will go up with the ark. And then you tie this into Revelation 11 and 12, where you see in the last verse of Revelation 11, the ark appears in heaven. And then in the very next verse, a great sign appears in heaven, and it’s a woman who gives birth to Jesus, and she is enrobed and crowned in heaven. And so you have the ark and the queen of heaven mean the mother of Jesus all wrapped up in one. I would suggest the assumption of Mary is pointed towards in Scripture as well.
Caller: I, however, have to leave that there because Tyler, I’m so happy we got
Caller: to speak with you.