"Saved by ‘Allegiance’ Alone? On a New Attempt to Revise the Reformation" -Book Review by Thomas Schreiner

 

 Calvinistic Baptist theologian and exegete Thomas Schreiner reviews Matthew Bates' book Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King.

  "Saved by ‘Allegiance’ Alone? On a New Attempt to Revise the Reformation" -Book Review by Thomas Schreiner

My Response to a "Catholic Pascal's Wager"

 

In a facebook group a Catholic posted a "Catholic Pascal's Wager." The following is my respond that I posted in the same group year later. I'll quote the wager and then respond to it.

//A Catholic's Pascal's Wager: If sola fide Protestant soteriology is true, then all good Catholics will be saved. If Catholic soteriology is true, then not all good sola fide Protestants will be saved. This is a strong reason to be Catholic rather than sola fide Protestant.//

My two cents worth: I disagree. I believe it's a safer "bet" [so to speak] to be Protestant than Catholic for a number of reasons. For example, because Protestantism is more ecumenical. It can allow for the salvation of many more professing Christians (including Catholics, Orthodox &c.). Baptist Gavin Ortlund has said this numerous times in his videos. Here's one with Ortlund and Lutheran Jordan Cooper together:
What is Protestantism?: https://youtu.be/s7mFQ0lw_3A

Whereas it's disputed *If* and under what *Circumstances* Protestants could possibly fulfill these Ex Cathedra statements:

-"There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all can be saved."- Pope Innocent III, Forth Lateran Council, 1215

-"Consequently we declare, state, define, and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff"-Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctuam, 1302

It's also safer to be Protestant because Protestant theology is more Biblically grounded. Whereas many Catholic dogmas are weakly/hardly grounded [to put it mildly] in the Bible, and some of those Catholic distinctives aren't even believed by other historic traditions, much less have *early* patristic support. For example, (correct me if I'm wrong) even the Eastern Orthodox, Coptics, Oriental Orthodox [et al.] don't believe in Purgatory, the Papacy, some of the Catholic Marian dogmas etc. The early patristic evidence for the Bodily Assumption of Mary is zero and zip. It's clearly late and that's why in debates on the topic Catholics will often focus on appealing to the authority of the Catholic Church rather than on the evidence from the fathers.

Because Protestantism is more directly Biblical, it's more parsimonious and therefore has less doctrinal and practical clutter that can get in the way of salvation. Extra-Biblical teaching might or might not be revelation, whereas we know that Biblical teaching is revelation. Moreover, some the fathers seemed to have taught and practiced a version of Sola Scriptura. Including [sic] Augustine!!

Sola Scriptura Defended Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLshImU6jwhvyFYwH_KCsnU_XVdLAbvSF5

Knowingly or (likely) unknowingly, the Catholic Wager above seems to also equivocate on the word "good." Using or taking advantage of the word "good" in two different senses. "Good" in the sense of consistently believing X theology, and "good" in the sense of living a life of godliness. When it says "good Catholic" it might mean a godly Christian life. If that's what it means, then I'm one of those Protestants who is willing to grant that there's some possibility that some Catholics end up in heaven despite their erroneous theology. Since one is saved by faith alone, and not by a knowledge of and an assent to the doctrine of faith alone.

At the same time, and to balance that candid admission, there are Catholic teachings which, technically speaking, are damnable. For example, worshipping the consecrated host in a monstrance [which is creature worship if transubstantiation is false], and the use of images in worship which was rejected by the church for about the first 600 years, et cetera [damnable RCC errors in doctrine and practice could be multiplied]. In that sense, there are no "good Catholics." That is, in the sense of consistently believing Catholic doctrine and fulfilling Catholic practice which are, according to Protestantism, technically damnable taken as a consistent whole.

When it says "good Protestant" it's not clear whether it's talking about a certain concept of sola fide, or living a moral and godly Protestant life. If it's referring to someone who merely intellectually assents to the Gospel, then that's something which Protestants are divided on.

The historic Protestant view is that mere intellectual assent to the Gospel isn't saving faith. That error is the historic Sandemanian heresy which equates faith with knowledge + assent. Modern Protestants who commit that error include those who hold to the Non-Lordship [or No Lordship] Salvation view (often coupled with a Dispensational theology). A minority of Calvinists also hold a similar view. Usually followers of Gordon H. Clark [see Clark's book "What is Saving Faith?" which combines Clark's books: "Faith and Saving Faith" and "The Johannine Logos"]. Whereas historically Calvinists have held that saving faith includes not just two, but THREE elements: knowledge (notitia), assent (assensus) AND [God given] recombent trust (fiducia).

On Protestantism all who truly believe will be justified. Calvinists like myself believe that justification can't be lost. While some Wesleyans, Arminians and Luthers [et al.] do believe it can be lost.

So, it's true that not everyone who claims to believe the doctrine of sola fide will be justified or persevere. But that's not very damaging to Protestantism because it's also true that on Catholicism not everyone who intellectually assents to Catholic teaching will be persevere and make it to heaven either.

Catholics might respond, "But given that there are at least two understandings of sola fide which often aren't distinguished as you [i.e. me] did above, it can lead to many people having a false sense of security by holding to Non-Lordship Salvation and not being dilligent about living a life of good works and even using sola fide as an excuse to persist in sin." But that very mistaken understanding of sola fide and of God's grace is what evidences it's closer to the Biblical Gospel than Rome's Gospel is. Since, St. Paul's gospel could be mistaken to teach licentiousness [Rom. 6:15; Rom. 6:1-2; Rom 3:8], while the Catholic doctrine could not be mistaken to teach licentiousness. [See the Lloyd-Jones quote below]. Though, the Catholic approach to salvation can also be abused to justify licentiousness. As Catholic members of the mafia sometimes abuse the sacrament of Confession (in not having true contrition) to receive the verbal absolution of sins by a priest.

Moreover, even many of those who teach Non-Lorship Salvation encourage people to live godly lives. It's the wicked believers in Non-Lordship Salvation who naturally abuse a mistaken understanding of sola fide (that's contrary to the historic understanding of sola fide) as an excuse to continue in sin.

The Catholic Wager [to repeat] states, "If Catholic soteriology is true, then not all good sola fide Protestants will be saved." But big deal, if Protestants aren't in the Catholic Church and aren't submitted to the Pope, then he can't be saved anyway. That's the case whichever view of sola fide he holds to and regardless of whether he lives an apparently godly life or not. That Protestants can be in the church and/or under the Pope's authority tacitly and without knowing it is a novel/new interpretation of classic Catholic exclusivistic statements like the two Ex Cathedra statements I posted above. No one who lived in the Ages those ex cathedra statements were given interpreted them in the inclusivistic way many modern Catholics do. That was the case for many generations afterwards as well. The modern Catholic interpretation is anachronistic. BTW, There's a longer ex cathedra statement below that better supports my point.

So, in summary, I think the Catholic Pascal's Wager not only fails, but a better case for a Protestant Pascal's Wager could be made. Which I only briefly outlined above.

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Here's the D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones quote: //"The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel. Let me show you what I mean. If a man preaches justification by works, no one would ever raise this question. If a man’s preaching is, ‘If you want to be Christians, and if you want to go to heaven, you must stop committing sins, you must take up good works, and if you do so regularly and constantly, and do not fail to keep on at it, you will make yourselves Christians, you will reconcile yourselves to God and you will go to heaven’. Obviously a man who preaches in that strain would never be liable to this misunderstanding. Nobody would say to such a man, ‘Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?’, because the man’s whole emphasis is just this, that if you go on sinning you are certain to be damned, and only if you stop sinning can you save yourselves. So that misunderstanding could never arise… …Nobody has ever brought this charge against the Church of Rome, but it was brought frequently against Martin Luther; indeed that was precisely what the Church of Rome said about the preaching of Martin Luther. They said, ‘This man who was a priest has changed the doctrine in order to justify his own marriage and his own lust’, and so on. ‘This man’, they said, ‘is an antinomian; and that is heresy.’ That is the very charge they brought against him. It was also brought George Whitfield two hundred years ago. It is the charge that formal dead Christianity—if there is such a thing—has always brought against this startling, staggering message, that God ‘justifies the ungodly’ [alluding to Rom. 4:5]…//

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Here's the longer ex cathedra statement: Ex Cathedra: "[The Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that none of those who are not within the Catholic Church, not only Pagans, but Jews, heretics and schismatics, can ever be partakers of eternal life, but are to go into the eternal fire 'prepared for the devil, and his angels', unless before the close of their lives they shall have entered into that Church; also that the unity of the Ecclesiastical body is such that the Chruch's Sacraments avail only those abiding in that Church, and that fasts, almsdeeds, and other works of piety which play their part in the Christian combat are in her alone productive of eternal rewards; moreover, that no one, no matter what alms he may have given, not even if he were to shed his blood for Christ's sake, can be saved unless he abide in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church" (Mansi, Concilia, xxxi, 1739) (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.)

ANOTHER TRANSLATION: " The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that NONE of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, UNLESS before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, NO ONE, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church. (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441).