Catholic apologist Trent Horn joins Cy Kellett to tackle a thought-provoking question about spiritual gifts in the Catholic Church. Responding to a listener’s experiences in a Pentecostal community, Trent highlights the diverse manifestations of the Holy Spirit, emphasizing how the gifts and fruits of the Spirit are present in the lives of Catholics and the saints.
Transcript:
Caller: We in our church, we have evidence of spiritual gifts, evidence of speaking in other tongues and people getting slain in the Spirit. And we have altar calls for healing and that kind of thing in our church.
Trent: Okay.
Caller: And I have. Of all the Catholics I have known, I have never heard of these things in the Catholic Church. Not that kind, anyway.
Trent: Right. Because, William, the Bible talks about many different kinds of spiritual gifts. Right? Like such as being a teacher, for example, or prophet or things like that. So I’m glad you qualified that, because in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians and other places, including the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you know, we talk about things, the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, referring to things like counsel and wisdom, love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness.
And I think we see many of those things, both the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the fruits of the Holy Spirit in the lives of saints and in the lives of Catholics.
Now, there’s a few things I’d like to reply and ask you some questions about your concern here.
Number one, there are Catholics who manifest these particular charisms or gifts you’re referring to, such as speaking in tongues or being slain in the Spirit, which actually the Bible itself talks about speaking in tongues in a few verses. I’m not aware of the Bible describing being slain in the Spirit anywhere. The Bible talks about people falling on their face in the presence of God, but not the modern phenomenon of being slain in the Spirit. I don’t see that in the Bible at all, actually.
However, those kinds of charisms, you do see them in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. So you can look online, and there are Catholics who testify to having these particular gifts. And the Church says that these kinds of gifts can. The Holy Spirit can give them to people. So you can look up Catholic Charismatic Renewal to show there are Catholics who identify as having these particular gifts, and the Church permits it and says, yes, this can be a valid way the Holy Spirit gives gifts to the faithful.
However, I don’t think it follows that, one, merely showing these gifts shows that you are an authentic church, and two, not having them shows that you’re not.
William, you identify as Pentecostal. Are you familiar with Oneness Pentecostals?
Caller: Yes. They don’t believe in the Holy Trinity.
Trent: They don’t. Do you believe in the Trinity?
Caller: Yes, I do.
Trent: Okay. But the Oneness Pentecostals, they have a lot of tongues and slain in the Spirit too, right?
Caller: Yes, they do.
Trent: Right. But the problem is they’re not even. They’re not Christians even; they don’t even believe in the Trinity. So just because you see these charisms doesn’t even mean that the people have, that they’re even Christian or they have the correct theology.
So these particular charisms, number one, right there, wait a minute, they’re not a guarantee that you’ve got orthodox, faithful Christianity here. And number two, their absence. You know, in my church that I go to every Sunday, people aren’t speaking in tongues or being slain in the Spirit.
Though I will add as a qualifier, when we look in things like 1 Corinthians 14 and other parts of the New Testament, the Bible talks about speaking in a tongue or speaking in actual foreign languages a person may not understand. There’s not a lot of biblical evidence that for speaking in tongues in the time of the Bible is the same as now, which is just kind of incomprehensible utterances. Not to say that that’s not a gift of the Spirit, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to say that, oh, if I don’t see these things, that’s not authentic Christianity.
Because I would ask you, William, where does the Bible say a church needs to have these things in all of its services to be authentic? The Bible describes it happening, but does it ever say anywhere every church needs to have this to be authentic?
You see where I’m going?
Caller: Okay, well, I know the Apostle Paul said that. I think he was speaking maybe at Corinth. He said, I wish all of you had the gift of speaking in tongues.
Trent: Sure. But he also says in First Corinthians, chapter 7, I wish all of you weren’t married like I was.
Caller: Okay, yeah.
Trent: So I mean he can, he can. Paul was very… there were lots of gifts. There’s lots of gifts that God can give us, but we can’t have them all. I mean it’s a gift to be a husband and father, to raise up holy children. And it’s a gift to be single, to devote your life to God, but you can’t have both at the same time.
So I mean there’s… that’s why St. Paul talks about in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 14, he talks about all these different gifts God gives, but not that necessarily everyone’s going to have them or we’ll see them in every denomination.
And as I showed with the Oneness Pentecostals, even certain gifts, you know, that you’re valuing, like tongues and slain in the Spirit, they have those, but they’re not even Christian.
So I think what should lead us towards saying is this: the right church is not merely some of the charisms we may see there, but what’s their theology, what’s their authority?
And for me, what attracted me to the Catholic Church is that the authority of the Church through the succession of the bishops and the Pope goes all the way back to the apostles, that it’s not just a private interpretation of Scripture that the Church gave us. Scripture, you know, sacred tradition and Scripture were entrusted to the Church. Jesus founded through the sacraments that God gives us gifts through charisms.
But also the greatest gift he gave us are the sacraments themselves, like the Eucharist, like confession, confirmation, and things like that.
So I would definitely recommend checking out our website at catholic.com, and you might also like some of the writings at timstaples.com. Tim is our director of apologetics, and Tim himself is a former Pentecostal, so he has quite an affinity for that particular branch of Christianity.
So check out catholic.com and timstaples.com for more.
Cy: Okay, William?
Caller: Okay.
Trent: Okay.
Cy: Thank you so much. Real pleasure to get to talk with you, William. I just feel so humbled today. I don’t know, we just saw so many wonderful callers.