Balthasar, Christ and the Beatific Vision

I apologize for dwelling so much on Balthasar as of late (here and here), but I do believe that Catholics who value our tradition need to start coming together and challenging the prevalence of Balthasarian theology in much of Catholic academia. His presence is truly all-encompassing. Well-respected popular teachers like Fr. Barron state that Balthasar is "probably right" about Hell being empty; disciples of Balthasar are being promoted to the cardinalate (Scola and Oullet); major, otherwise orthodox Catholic publishing companies are promoting von Balthasar; and Cardinal Ratzinger himself, at Balthasar's funeral, said that"he is right in what he teaches of the faith." Truly, there is no escaping the influence of von Balthasar.

Despite his eminence, many have raised concerns about his teaching, notably his thesis that Catholics may reasonably and with sincere hopefulness postulate that hell may be empty. This is the most often criticized doctrine of Balthasar's, if for no other reason than it is the most easy to understand. Yet it is not the most troubling of his teachings. Among other things, Balthasar attributes to Christ ignorance and positive error, denies the Traditional understanding of the "Harrowing of Hell", suggests that Christ suffered the pains of the damned, says the blessed in heaven have faith, states that the Incarnation can be "suspended", suggests the theoretical possibility of the blessed in heaven still turning their back on God and losing their salvation, posits more than one Divine Will in the Godhead, calls God the "Super-Feminine" and "Super-Death", and denies that Jesus Christ experienced the Beatific Vision.

Though in my uneducated, arm-chair theologian opinion, an assertion of any one of these points would make Balthasar a heretic, in this article I wish to tackle on the last mentioned assertion: that Jesus Christ, while on this earth, did not possess the Beatific Vision. In this article, we will (1) explain Balthasar's theory of the visio immediata, (2) explain Balthasar's reasoning, and (3) demonstrate how they are at variance with traditional Catholic theology. All quotes will be cited; sources are at the bottom of the post. Unless otherwise stated, all works are by Balthasar.

The Teaching of Balthasar

Traditional Catholic Christology states that Christ, from the first moment of His conception and uninterrupted throughout His earthly life, possessed the Beatific Vision by virtue of the Hypostatic Union between the human nature of Jesus and the Word of God. Actually, this vision is actually greater than the Beatific Vision experienced by the saints, because the attachment of a normal human soul to God through grace is accidental - we receive the grace of God gratuitously through adoption; but the attachment of Christ's soul to God is substantial, proceeding from a union of natures. Therefore, Christ not only has the Beatific Vision, but experiences it in a unique way that surpasses the experience of even the saints.

Note that the possession of the Beatific Vision by Christ has also traditionally been offered as an explanation as to why He is free from sin.

Balthasar denies that Christ possesses this vision, as we have defined it above. Instead, he posits something that he calls the visio immediata Dei in anima Christi, or "immediate vision of God in the soul of Christ"(1). This terminology in and of itself is not problematic; the phrase visio immediata Dei has sometimes been used interchangeably with visio beatifica in Catholic Tradition (see, for example, Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals, pg. 162). But, as we shall see, Balthasar here uses traditional vocabulary but drastically redefines what is meant by the term. The visio immediata of Balthasar has nothing in common with the Beatific Vision of Tradition.

In the first place, Balthasar states that it is necessary for Christ's mission that His human knowledge may not possess "supratemporal contents, nor contents from another period of time" (2). Christ has no infused knowledge of the past or the future.

Secondly, though this visio immediata reveals God's will to Christ, it is not constant, but rather moment to moment:

"[the visio immediata Dei] at the very least...may fluctuate between the mode of manifestness (which befits the Son as his "glory") and the mode of "concealment" which befits the Servant of Yahweh in his Passion...The second mode here is derived from the first: a living faith is content to stand before the face of God who sees, whether or not one sees himself" (3)

Notice that the visio immediata 'may fluctuate' depending on whether God wants to glorify Christ or conceal Himself from Him at any given time. In other places, Balthasar will states that what Christ knows about Himself and His mission is "successively revealed" (4) and changes over time (5); it is manifest to Him "step by step", sometimes clearly, other times obscurely (6).|

Also note the phrase "whether or not one sees himself." This alludes to Balthasar's assertion that Christ does not see God in His human soul but appropriates Him through faith, just like every other believer:

"It is an indispensable axiom that the Son, even in His human form, must know that He is the eternal Son of the Father. He must be aware of the unnbreakable continuity of His procession and His mission...nonetheless the Son, insofar as He is man, must also be able to experience faith" (7).

Christ experiences this "faith" precisely because He does not have an immediate vision of God. If He did, He would not need faith, as faith does not pertain to those who see, since seeing pertains to knowledge, the end of faith. The vision of the Father is obscured from Christ, especially on the cross. Nevertheless, as Balthasar says, "His obedience remains intact, and to that extent we must also say that Christ has a real 'faith'" (8). So for Balthasar, Christ does not suffer the Passion in full knowledge that this is the will of God and that He is carrying out God's plan, but He does this in ignorance of God's ultimate design, an act of "faith."

If this visio immediata is not the Beatific Vision, and if it can "fluctuate" as God wills it, then what is its purpose? According to Balthasar, to purpose of the visio immediata is very simple: it is through this vision, mediated by the Spirit, that Christ becomes aware of His mission, however vaguely:

"Jesus is aware of an element of the divine in His innermost, indivisible self-consciousness...but it is limited and defined by [His] mission-consciousness. It is of this, and of this alone, that he has a visio immediata..." (9).

So the only purpose of the visio immediata is to make Jesus "aware of an element of the divine" within Himself, but how powerfully He becomes aware of this can "fluctuate." This is its sole purpose, as Balthasar makes clear by the phrase "and of this alone" in the above citation. Now we are beginning to see how far the visio immediata is from the Beatific Vision. Lest you think I am drawing connections where there are none, Balthasar himself will go on to explicitly deny any connection between his visio immediata and the Beatific Vision:

"[Awareness of His divinity] only came to Him through His mission, communicated by the Spirit. This would exclude the Beatific Vision of God...Jesus does not see the Father in a visio beatifica but it presented with the Father's commission by the Holy Spirit, that is, His awareness of His mission is only indirect" (10)

He also states that we ought not to presume that Christ enjoyed the Beatific Vision because of His intimacy with the Father. The fact of the Hypostatic Union "need not mean that His spirit must already enjoy a perpetual visio beatifica" (11).

These excerpts should make it abundantly clear that Balthasar denies (or at least seriously calls into question) the belief that Christ enjoyed the Beatific Vision. He is very clear in this denial. What prompts Balthasar to make this denial?

Balthasar offers several explanations, many of them seemingly based on a misunderstanding of what the Beatific Vision is. For example, saying that it is not possible for Jesus to have seen the Father with His physical eyes: "It is not said that Jesus, with His human eyes, saw the Father but only that He saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon Him" (12). Here he seems to be thinking of the Beatific Vision as akin to the orthodox concept of Hesychasm. The classic doctrine of the Beatific Vision of course does not state that it consists in seeing God with one's physical eyes. How Balthasar could have got this wrong I haven't the foggiest.

He also objects on the grounds that the very concept of the Beatific Vision is too static, too much like watching a movie. Here he not only denies that Christ possesses the Beatific Vision, but questions the very nature of the Beatific Vision itself, even among the Blessed in heaven:

"Eternal life cannot simply consist in 'beholding' God. In the first place, God is not an object but a Life that is going on eternally and yet ever new. Second, the creature is meant ultimately to live, not over against God, but in Him. Finally, Scripture promises us even in this life a participation - albeit hidden under the veil of faith - in the internal life of God; we are to be born in and of God, and we are to possess His Holy Spirit" (13).

Again, Balthasar grossly misrepresents or misunderstands the traditional notion of the Beatific Vision, as if the vision were static and not transformative; as if it lacked a vital and intimate communion; as if the Thomistic concept of the Beatific Vision somehow places the creature outside of God; as if the classic concept of the Beatific Vision does not also imply a participation in the life of God. Again, for such an erudite theologian to misconstrue so terribly what the classical theory of the Beatific Vision is constitutes either an appalling ignorance or a willful misrepresentation. Compare, for example, Aquinas' explanation of the Beatific Vision in the Summa Contra Gentiles and note the emphasis on seeing, although the seeing is explained as much more than corporeal sight and presupposes what Aquinas calls 'assimilation':

"If God's essence is to be seen, the intelligence must see it in the divine essence itself, so that in such vision the divine essence shall be at once the object which is seen and that whereby it is seen. This is the immediate vision of God that is promised us in Scripture: 'We see now in a glass darkly, but then face to face' (i Cor. xiii, 2): a text absurd to take in a corporeal sense, as though we could imagine a bodily face in Deity itself, whereas it has been shown that God is incorporeal...Nor again is it possible for us with our bodily face to see God, since the bodily sense of sight, implanted in our face, can be only of bodily things. Thus then shalt we see God face to face, in that we shall have an immediate vision of Him, as of a man whom we see face to face. By this vision we are singularly assimilated to God, and are partakers in His happiness: for this is His happiness, that He essentially understands His own substance. Hence it is said: 'When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is' (i John iii, 2). And the Lord said: 'I prepare for you as my Father hath prepared for me a kingdom, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom' (Luke xxii, 29). This cannot be understood of bodily meat and drink, but of that food which is taken at the table of Wisdom, whereof it is said by Wisdom: Eat ye my bread and drink the wine that I have mingled for you (Prov. ix, 5). They therefore eat and drink at the table of God, who enjoy the same happiness wherewith God is happy, seeing Him in the way which He sees Himself" (source).

The biggest problem Balthasar has with Christ possessing the Beatific Vision, however, is that it would presumably detract from His full sharing of human nature and serve to dull or lessen His sufferings during the Passion. He states that Christ's physical death would be rendered "innocuous" if He possessed the Beatific Vision (14). It is necessary that Christ not possess the Beatific Vision if He is to truly experience the penal nature of the Cross:

"Jesus willed out of love to experience only the judicial character [of the redemption], and therefore to renounce everything that would have comforted and strengthened Him" (15).

So, in other words, for Christ to truly bear the full weight of sin, the comfort or strength He could draw from His intimate union with the Father must not be available. The Father must be veiled from Him. Indeed, so veiled is the Father from Christ in the Passion, that Christ Himself believes He is forsaken. In other words, He believes positive error through ignorance. This is not impossible for Balthasar, since he already admits that Christ has faith (which presupposes a condition of at least partial ignorance) and states that Christ can have no knowledge of "supratemporal contents, nor contents from another period of time." He can have no knowledge that His death will result in Resurrection. He must fully despair.


The Teaching of the Church

How does Balthasar's dogma stand up to traditional Catholic Christology? Poorly, I am afraid.

Balthasar states that Christ's human knowledge can have no "supratemporal contents, nor contents from another period of time." Catholic teaching has traditionally affirmed that Jesus knew, through His union with the Word of God, all real things, past, present and future, including people's thoughts and intentions. St. Thomas is in agreement, again, placing the reason for this on the Hypostatic Union. He states that Christ has knowledge of

"[A]ll that in any way whatsoever is, will be, or was done, said, or thought, by whomsoever and at any time. And in this way it must be said that the soul of Christ knows all things in the Word" (STh, III 10, 2).

A reply of the Holy Office in 1918 condemned the following proposition:

"Nor can the opinion be called certain which has established that the soul of Christ was ignorant of nothing, but from the beginning knew all things in the Word, past, present, and future, or all things that God knows by the knowledge of vision" (D 2184)

Note clearly the how condemnation is worded. The condemned proposition is that it cannot be called certain that Christ was ignorant of nothing. Therefore the correct proposition is that it is correct that Christ was ignorant of nothing. It also condemned the opinion that "the limited knowledge of the soul of Christ is to be accepted in Catholic schools no less than the notion of the ancients on universal knowledge" (D 2185).

Christ's "universal knowledge" is traditionally understood to be infused knowledge (scientia infusa), concepts immediately and habitually communicated by God. The argument Christ possesses this infused knowledge is an argument from fittingness - Christ is the head of the angels, and the angels know by virtue of infused knowledge. If the angels have this knowledge, then it is fitting that Christ, as the head of angels, should possess the form of knowing proper to angels. Furthermore, it is appropriate that the human nature assumed by the Word should lack no perfection, and this infused knowledge is such a perfection (STh III, Q. 9, art. 3). St. Thomas says that this infused knowledge extends to all which could be the object of natural human cognition and everything communicated by supernatural revelation from God to man. It does not, however, include the beatific vision, whose object is the essence of God Himself (STh III, Q. 2, art. 1).

St. Thomas affirms the infused knowledge of Christ, which is universal in scope, according to the Holy Office and Aquinas. Thomas also affirms Christ's experience of the Beatific Vision, which is confirmed infallibly by the teaching of Pius XII. Balthasar denies both Christ's universal knowledge and the Beatific Vision.

Balthasar also stated that the visio immediata that Christ experiences instead of the Beatific Vision can "fluctuate" depending on whether God wants to glorify Christ or (as at the Passion), hide Himself from Him. Pope Pius XII teaches otherwise, stating both that Christ enjoyed the Beatific Vision and that it was constant, not fluctuating:

"Also that knowledge which is called vision, He possesses in such fullness that in breadth and clarity it far exceeds the Beatific Vision of all the saints in heaven...For hardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the Beatific Vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him, and He embraced them with His redeeming love. O marvelous condescension of divine love for us! O inestimable dispensation of boundless charity! In the crib, on the Cross, in the unending glory of the Father, Christ has all the members of the Church present before Him and united to Him in a much clearer and more loving manner than that of a mother who clasps her child to her breast, or than that with which a man knows and loves himself" (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 48, 75).

Balthasar's comments about the "fluctuating" vision of God were written in 1982, thirty-nine years after Pius XII's Mystici Corporis. Balthasar could hardly have been ignorant of the Holy Father's teaching.

What about Balthasar's belief that Christ had faith? Dr. Ott comments on this point:

"Christ's soul possessed [the Beatific Vision] in this word (in statu viae) and indeed, from the very moment of its union with the Divine Person of the Word, that is, from the Conception. Christ was therefore, as the Schoolmen say, viator simul et comprehensor; that is, at the same time a pilgrim on earth and at the destination of His earthly pilgrimage. It follows from this that He could not possess the theological virtues of faith and hope" (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 162).

If Christ possesses the Beatific Vision, as Pius XII clearly teaches, then He cannot experience faith. The Beatific Vision is simply the consummation of sanctifying grace, which ends in a participation in the very life of God. It is the end to which Faith tends. Therefore, if Christ in His human soul is already at that terminus, He cannot possess Faith, a virtue which is proper only to those who do not yet see God. But Christ does see God. For this reason, too, He does not have hope. "For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen, is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he hope for?" (Rom. 8:24).

In His faith, Balthasar has Christ believing positive error in thinking that His mission would be futile and that He is forsaken by God. Based on the condemnations by the Holy Office of the propositions that Christ's knowledge was incomplete, this is impossible. How could one who "in whom are all treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3) be in positive error about something so fundamental as the efficacy of His mission?

Finally, what of Balthasar's contention that Christ cannot have the Beatific Vision if He is to truly experience the suffering that the Cross entails? Does the Beatific Vision render the suffering of the cross "innocuous", as Balthasar asserts?

St. Thomas easily explains how the bodily suffering of Christ can be reconciled with the Beatific Vision, since bodily pain is felt with the lower powers of the soul and the joy Christ experiences through the Beatific Vision is limited to His spiritual soul. Thomas says:

"As was said above, by the power of the Godhead of Christ the beatitude was economically kept in the soul, so as not to overflow into the body, lest His passibility and mortality should be taken away; and for the same reason the delight of contemplation was so kept in the mind as not to overflow into the sensitive powers, lest sensible pain should thereby be prevented' (III, Q. 15, art. 5).

This follows from the nature of the Incarnation, in which Christ, because of His union to the eternal Word, should experience the Beatific Vision, but as true man should still suffer the conditions natural to man (sensible pain, hunger, etc).

A larger problem is how Christ could experience the spiritual joy of the visio beatifica and at the same time experience the interior, spiritual sorrow necessitated by the Passion. There have been various theories on this, but St. Thomas teaches, in the words of Dr. Ott, "that he bliss proceeding from the immediate vision of God did not overflow from the ratio superior (=the higher spiritual knowledge and will directed to the bonum increatum) to the ratio inferior (=human knowledge and will directed at the bonum creatum) nor from the soul to the body." Thus, Christ experiences sorrow and sadness in His soul insofar as His truly human soul is directed towards things of earth; but insofar as Christ's soul, reason and will are fixed on God, He experiences joy. This joy of the higher reason (ratio superior) does not overflow into Christ's ratio inferior (STh III, Q. 46, art. 8).

This is an admittedly complex answer, but unraveling the mystery of the Incarnation is not simple. The important point is that Thomas, and the Church, begins with the fact of Christ's experience of the Beatific Vision and interprets Christ's sufferings in light of this fact; Balthasar, on the other hand, begins with certain novel assumptions about the nature of Christ's sufferings and than proceeds from there to eliminate the Beatific Vision.

In conclusion, we see a clear disconnect between Balthasar's Christology and that of Pius XII, Aquinas and the Church's theological tradition. I know there was a lot of theology here, and I apologize if it was a bit much. But, when we come down to it, here is the essential dilemma. Balthasar, when explaining the nature of Christ's sufferings states:

"This would exclude the Beatific Vision of God...Jesus does not see the Father in a visio beatifica" (10).

Pope Pius XII, on the other hand, states very clearly:

"[H]ardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the Beatific Vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him" (Mystici Corporis, 75).

Does Christ have a continuous and direct vision of God the Father throughout His earthly life, a vision that endures and is constant (as constant as the Hypostatic Union) even in His Passion, or does He have a fluctuating sort of inner hunch about His own mission that is not identified as the Beatific Vision and leaves Him at certain times, especially at His Passion, allowing Him to even doubt the success of His mission? Balthasar says one thing and the Church says another, and this ought to be problematic for any Catholic.

References
1) Explorations in Theology, "Some Points on Eschatology" (Ignatius Press, 1989), pg. 264

2) Mysterium Paschale, pg. 122

3) The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 1, p. 329
4) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 3, p. 166

5) Ibid., 522

6) Ibid., 171

7) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 4, pg. 194
8) Ibid., 124
9) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 3, pg. 166
10) Ibid., pp. 195, 200
11) The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 7, pg. 216
12) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 3, pg. 195
13) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 5, pg. 425
14) Mysterium Paschale, pg. 122
15) The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 7, pg. 223

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Balthasar in Hell?

I know I said I wasn't going to post for awhile, but I couldn't resist once I saw this article. Apparently, some nun in England claims to have had some kind of vision in which she saw Hans Urs von Balthasar! It's only a private revelation, of course, but it might have some implications for how his doctrine is received in the future. Please click here to read the entire article from the Telegraph.

The "sojourner" and the "foreigner"

The following is taken from Los Pequenos Pepper from the Diocese of Albequerque on the fascinating question of the use of Sacred Scripture in the debate on immigration in this country. Regardless of how you feel about illegal immigration, this article in very enlightening as it takes a look at the legal status of the "sojourner" in the ancient world. The original article is by James K. Hoffmeier is Professor of Old Testament and Near Eastern Archaeology at Trinity International University.

"Secularists and liberals, both political and religious, are typically loath to consult the Bible when it comes to matters of public policy. So it is somewhat surprising that in the current debate about the status of illegal immigrants, the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible is regularly cited in defense of the illegal. Debra Haffner, a Unitarian Universalist minister — a denomination not known for taking Scripture seriously — offered a recent critique of the Arizona illegal immigration law in the Washington Post online (May 25, 2010), saying “It’s as if the 70 percent of Arizonans who support the law have forgotten the Biblical injunction to ‘love the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.’” This verse and others like it are frequently quoted in the name of “justice” for the illegal immigrant. A left-wing Christian advocacy group Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, which is affiliated with Sojourners, had this passage on its website: “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the stranger. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you.” (Leviticus 19:33)

A second area where advocates for illegal immigrants rely on the Bible (whether they know it or not) is the “sanctuary city movement” that defies the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Cities like New York, New Haven, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Denver have declared themselves to be “sanctuary cities” and will not cooperate with federal authorities in matters related to illegal immigrants. Some

churches have even permitted their facilities to be so-called sanctuaries for illegals.

As an Old Testament scholar I was first intrigued by the fact that the Bible was even being used in the immigration debate, and yet knew that the Bible was not being read seriously. So I decided to do just that. The result of my study was a small book, The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible (Crossway, 2009). The observations made in this article summarize briefly some observations reached in that book.

The very positive statements about the treatment of strangers in the Bible, some of which were already quoted, show compassion for the alien in ancient Israel. The defenders of illegal aliens point to these passages as the rationale for rewriting current laws. The problem is that they make a simplistic correlation between the ancient Israelite social law and the modern situation as if the Bible was addressing the same problem. Three important questions must be raised before one attempts to apply Israelite law to the modern situation:

(1) Was there such a thing as territorial sovereignty in the second millennium B.C. when these laws originated;
(2) Within that socio-legal setting, what was a “stranger” or “sojourner”?
(3) How does one obtain this status?

Regarding the first, the answer is unequivocal. Nations small and large had clearly recognizable borders, typically demarcated by natural features such as rivers, valleys, and mountain ranges, much as they are today. Warring Egyptian Pharaohs often claimed that they went on campaigns to widen or extend Egypt’s borders. Wars were fought over where boundary lines would be drawn, and forts were strategically placed on frontiers to defend the territory and to monitor movements of pastoralists. Permits akin to the modern visa were issued to people entering another land. In the tomb of Khnumhotep, governor of central Egypt (from ca. 1865 B.C.), a band of foreign travelers are shown before the governor. An official presents him with a permit or visa, which spells out that there were 37 people from Syria-Canaan. At the key entry points of Egypt, forts would have issued such entry permits. Recent excavations in north Sinai have revealed a pair of such forts at Tell Hebua, located less than two miles east of the Suez Canal. Three miles southeast of the second Hebua fort is Tell el-Borg. Nearby are two forts that guarded the road to Egypt between 1450 and 1200 B.C. The ancient Egyptians were very careful about who they allowed into Egypt.

The Israelites were well aware of the need to respect territorial sovereignty. After the exodus from Egypt, Moses and the Hebrews lived a nomadic existence for 40 years in Sinai. Since no country, not even Egypt in those days, claimed hegemony over the peninsula, the Hebrews could move freely and required no permission [Not entirely true - Egypt used Sinai for mining purposes, but it was not heavily inhabited - Boniface]. But when they left Sinai, they needed to pass through Edom in southern Jordan, and permission of the host nation was necessary, as Numbers 20:14-21 reports:

“Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom: ‘Thus says your brother Israel … here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory. Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or vineyard, or drink water from a well. We will go along the King’s Highway. We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.’ But Edom said to him, ‘You shall not pass through, lest I come out with the sword against you.’ And the people of Israel said to him, ‘We will go up by the highway, and if we drink of your water, I and my livestock, then I will pay for it. Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.’ But he said, ‘You shall not pass through.’ And Edom came out against them with a large army and with a strong force. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory, so Israel turned away from him.”

Despite politely seeking permission and offering to compensate the Edomites, the Israelites were refused; furthermore, Edom sent out their army to make sure the Israelites did not enter their territory. It is clear: foreigners had to obtain a permit to enter another land.

Secondly, what about the “stranger” or “alien”? The Bible is not “a living breathing document” that can mean whatever you want it to say. This question must be answered contextually and based on what the key words meant when they were written before we apply what that might mean in our own times. The most significant Hebrew word for our discussion is ger, translated variously in English versions, which creates some confusion, as “stranger” (KJV, NASB, JB), “sojourner” (RSV, ESV), “alien” (NEB, NIV, NJB, NRSV), and “foreigner” (TNIV, NLT) [The Latin Vulgate uses the ambiguous term advena, "foreigners", or more literally, "visitors from abroad"-Boniface].  It occurs more than 80 times as a noun and an equal number as a verb (gwr), which typically means “to sojourn” or “live as an alien.” The problem with more recent English translations (e.g. TNIV and NLT) is that they use “foreigner” for ger, which is imprecise and misleading because there are other Hebrew terms for “foreigner,” namely nekhar and zar. The distinction between these two terms and ger is that while all three are foreigners who might enter another country, the ger had obtained legal status.

There are several episodes in the Bible that illustrate how a foreigner became a ger. The individual or party had to receive permission from the appropriate authority in that particular culture. Perhaps the best-known story has to do with the Children of Israel entering Egypt. In the book of Genesis, we are told of how during a time of famine in Canaan, the sons of Jacob did the natural thing under the circumstances — go to Egypt where the Nile kept the land fertile. Even though their brother Joseph was a high-ranking official who had recommended to Pharaoh that they be allowed to settle in the northeast delta of Egypt, they felt compelled to ask Pharaoh for permission:

“And they said to Pharaoh, ‘Your servants are shepherds, as our fathers were.’ They said to Pharaoh, ‘We have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. And now, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.’ Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Your father and your brothers have come to you. The land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen.’” (Genesis 47:3-6)

Here we notice that they declare their intention “to sojourn” (gwr) and deferentially they ask “please let your servant dwell in the land of Goshen.” No less authority than the king of Egypt granted this permission. This means that the Hebrews, though foreigners, were residing in Egypt as legal residents, gers.

A second story illustrates how permission or an invitation to a foreigner to reside in a foreign land resulted in Moses becoming a “sojourner,” “stranger,” or “alien.” After Moses struck and killed an Egyptian taskmaster, he fled Egypt and crossed Sinai, ending up in Midian (most likely in northwestern Arabia). At a well he met the daughters of Jethro, the local priest, who had come to water their flocks. When they were harassed by other shepherds, Moses came to their aid and helped them, so that they were able to return from their chore earlier than normal. So their father asked:

“‘How is it that you have come home so soon today?’ They said, ‘An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.’ He said to his daughters, ‘Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.’ And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, ‘I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.’” (Exodus 2:18-22)

While the details are limited, it is apparent that Moses, after being invited to Jethro’s home (tent?) for a meal, made an arrangement in which Zipporah, the priest’s eldest daughter, was married to Moses who then took on responsibilities caring for Jethro’s flocks (see Exodus 3:1). Moses was thus able to call himself a sojourner (ger), not a foreigner (nekhar), even though he lived in a foreign (nakhiriyah) land. Gershom, his son’s name, contains the word ger, reflecting his change of status.

From the foregoing texts we can conclude that in the ancient biblical world, countries had borders that were protected and respected, and that foreigners who wanted to reside in another country had to obtain some sort of permission in order to be considered an alien with certain rights and privileges. The delineation between the “alien” or “stranger” (ger) and the foreigner (nekhar or zar) in biblical law is stark indeed. The ger in Israelite society, for instance, could receive social benefits such as the right to glean in the fields (Leviticus 19:9-10; Deuteronomy 24:19-22) and they could receive resources from the tithes (Deuteronomy 26:12-13). In legal matters,“there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the LORD. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you” (Numbers 15:15-16). In the area of employment, the ger and citizen were to be paid alike (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). In all these cases, no such provision is extended to the nekhar or zar. In a sense, the ger were not just aliens to whom social and legal protections were offered, but were also considered converts, and thus could participate in the religious life of the community, e.g. celebrate Passover (Exodus 12:13) and observe Yom Kippur, the day of atonement (Leviticus 16:29-30). They were, moreover, expected to keep dietary and holiness laws (Leviticus 17:8-9 & 10-12). It is well known that within Israelite society, money was not to be lent with interest, but one could loan at interest to a foreigner (nekhar). These passages from the Law make plain that aliens or strangers received all the benefits and protection of a citizen, whereas the foreigner (nekhar) did not. It is wrong, therefore, to confuse these two categories of foreigners and then to use passages regarding the ger as if they were relevant to illegal immigrants of today.

Finally, a brief word on the biblical practice of sanctuary. This had its origin in the wilderness period in Sinai after the exodus from Egypt. There, the entire community lived with the Tabernacle, Israel’s sanctuary, in the middle of the camp. Exodus 21:12-14 establishes the practice:

“Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death. However, if it is not done intentionally… they are to flee to a place I will designate. But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately, that person is to be taken from my altar (in the sanctuary) and put to death.”

Cases of involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide (Exodus 21:33-36) were not capital offenses. So to keep the lex talionis (law of retribution), “eye for eye, tooth for tooth … life for life” (Exodus 21:23-25) from being carried out by family members, the offender was to run to the sanctuary where he would be safe and his case heard. Once the populace spread throughout their new homeland, it was impractical to have just one place of sanctuary. Consequently six cities of refuge were designated, three on either side of the Jordan River (Numbers 35:11-30; Joshua 20:1-6). Once again the conditions for sanctuary protection are plainly stated, “these six towns will be a place of refuge … so that anyone who has killed another accidentally can flee there” (Numbers 35:15 – NIV). Sanctuary, then, is explicitly a place to get a fair hearing in the case of accidental death, but for no other crime. The cities of refuge were not a place to avoid trial or punishment. American cities that use their communities to circumvent the law to help the illegal aliens in the name of justice are doing a gross injustice to the letter and spirit of the biblical law.

The intention of my above-mentioned book and this paper is not to discourage Americans from consulting the Bible or even using it to shape public policy and law, but to call attention to the abuse of Scripture and to urge that it first be read carefully and contextually."

In case the conclusion of the article above was not clear, it is that when the Bible mentions a "sojourner", such as was Ruth or Moses in the land of Midian, it is not referring to the equivalent of our illegal immigrant, but rather to someone who already had obtained permission to be in the land and had some sort of established legal standing - more like our legal immigrants or foreigners with visas. Therefore, invoking Old Testament verses about how to treat the sojourners and the aliens with regard to the current debate about illegal immigration is misleading because these ancient "sojourners" were not the same thing as our illegal immigrants.

Please note, this article makes no argument on immigration policy one way or another, but only attempts to show that the Scriptural evidence often put forward for a pro-illegal immigrant argument is abused.

Christ's Cry from the Cross

What is a Catholic to believe about the manner in which Christ has redeemed us by His death? That is, what is a properly Catholic soteriology? Anselm has done a thorough job of refuting the common Protestant error of Penal Substitution elsewhere on this blog (look for "Anselm's Posts on Soteriology" on the sidebar), but what, in a positive sense, is a Catholic left with to believe once we have refuted the errors of those who espouse Penal Substitution?

This is a big question with many facets. There are many ways the conversation can go, but I think the following five issues are the few key points for discussion:

1) The Agent of Christ’s Death
2) The Nature of Christ’s Sufferings
3) What About Christ’s Death Makes it Atoning
4) Interpreting Different Scriptural Texts Dealing with the Atonement
5) How Christians Appropriate the Grace Merited in the Atonement

There is no way to tackle this at once, but I think I would actually like to begin with the fourth point on Scriptural texts dealing with the Atonement, especially Christ’s cry of dereliction (“My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” –Matt. 27:46). This verse is usually a proof text for the Protestant claim that Christ is experiencing “abandonment” by God the Father. This abandonment, in the Protestant idea, comes about as a result of Christ literally being “made sin”, that is, loaded with the actual sins of the whole human race in such a way that He assumes the guilt due to us. Because of this, God Himself forsakes Christ and Christ bears the full brunt of the guilt of man’s sin in isolation from God. Thus, the cry from the cross means that Christ is giving voice to this horrendous experience of being forsaken by His Father.

In the first place, I think it is evident that this cannot mean what Protestants think it does. As Anselm has pointed out elsewhere, Christ enjoyed the beatific vision constantly, even during the Crucifixion, and this has been infallibly defined by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis. Christ also specifically references the hour of His passion in contrasting the abandonment of His disciples with the faithfulness of God the Father, who is “always” with Him:

“Behold, the hour cometh, and it is now come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (John 16:32).

This means that the cry of Christ from the cross cannot mean that His vision or union with God the Father was obscured during the Crucifixion. But the point of this post is not to say what the cry of Christ does not mean, but rather explore what it does mean.

There are many theories as to what Christ’s last, anguished cry means. The Church’s most eminent saints disagree at times, and I might add that not all of their opinions are tenable, in my opinion. St. Ambrose, for example, says:

It was in human voice that he cried: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" As human, therefore, he speaks on the cross, bearing with him our terrors. For amid dangers it is a very human response to think ourself abandoned (Of the Christian Faith, 2.7.56).

Though it may be a human thing to think oneself abandoned, it is not something we can attribute to Christ since, even in his human nature, His intellect was free from positive error, and if we were to say that Christ wrongly believed Himself to be abandoned by God, this would indeed constitute a positive error.

Aquinas states that the difficulty with this passage comes in understanding what it means to be “forsaken” or “given up”, and in typical Aquinas fashion, gives several definitions of the phrase:

As observed above, Christ suffered voluntarily out of obedience to the Father. Hence in three respects God the Father did deliver up Christ to the Passion. In the first way, because by His eternal will He preordained Christ's Passion for the deliverance of the human race, according to the words of Isaias (53:6): "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquities of us all"; and again (Is. 53:10): "The Lord was pleased to bruise Him in infirmity." Secondly, inasmuch as, by the infusion of charity, He inspired Him with the will to suffer for us; hence we read in the same passage: "He was offered because it was His own will" (Is. 53:7). Thirdly, by not shielding Him from the Passion, but abandoning Him to His persecutors: thus we read (Mat. 27:46) that Christ, while hanging upon the cross, cried out: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" because, to wit, He left Him to the power of His persecutors, as Augustine says (Ep. cxl). (ST, III, 47, 3).

In my opinion, however, it is St  John Chrysostom who comes closest to the mark here in referring Christ’s cry to Psalm 22 and giving it a prophetic significance. Chrysostom says:

Why does he speak this way, crying out, "Eli, Eli, lama sabach-thani?" That they might see that to his last breath he honors God as his Father and is no adversary of God. He spoke with the voice of Scripture, uttering a cry from the psalm. Thus even to his last hour he is found bearing witness to the sacred text. He offers this prophetic cry in Hebrew, so as to be plain and intelligible to them, and by all things Jesus shows how he is of one mind with the Father who had begotten him (The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 88.1).

Christ’s cry itself, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me” is taken from Psalm 22:1, the same Psalm that prophesies all of the details of the Crucifixion:

~All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads; (v. 7)
~Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet – (v. 16)
~I can count all my bones --they stare and gloat over me; (v. 17)
~they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots. (v. 18)

It is as if, in His final breath, He is saying, “Look, that which is written in the Psalm is coming to pass before your very eyes.” According to Hebrew custom, it is sufficient for our Lord to quote only the first line of the Psalm to bring the whole thing to remembrance, just as it is now when someone says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”, “Te Deum”, or “O’ Say Can You See”; the recitation of the first line calls to mind the whole, and everything the whole implies. Therefore, Christ’s cry can be seen as a kind of final appeal to the Scriptures that testify that He is Who He claims.

John Paul II interprets Christ’s cry from the cross as being a sign of continuing communication between the Father and the Son despite the apparent abandonment of the Son by God – and I think we have to keep that word apparent in the forefront of our minds, because to the Pharisees and those who were watching, it did indeed appear as if He had been abandoned. John Paul II says:

"On the Cross, Christ's total forgiveness, even of his executioners, establishes the new justice. Dearest "Brothers and Sisters, the cry of Jesus on the cross (cf. Mt 27,46) is not the anguish of a desperate man, it is the prayer of the Son who offers his life to the Father for the salvation of all mankind. From the cross Jesus shows the conditions which enable us to forgive. To the hatred with which is persecutors nailed him to the Cross, he responds with a prayer for them. He not only forgives them, he continues to love them, to want their good and to intercede for them. His death becomes the full realization of Love" (Message of John Paul II for World Mission Sunday, 19 May 2002).

The only problem here is that the Pope interprets Christ’s words “not as the anguish of a desperate man” but as a “prayer of the Son who offers his life to the Father” but does not explain why the prayer is then phrased awkwardly in the context of God-forsakenness. I do think JPII is close to the truth here, but it needs better explanation.

St. Augustine has a very helpful explanation, connecting the various threads of thought from Chrysostom, Aquinas and John Paul II. He sees the cry as an expression of Christ’s humanity, akin to “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” In other words, because Christ was a man, He did not, on a natural level, like the idea of being scourged and crucified. But, because His human will was perfectly in accord with His divine will, He was likewise able to say, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” Augustine interprets the cry from the cross similarly:

Out of the voice of the psalmist, which our Lord then transferred to himself, in the voice of this infirmity of ours, he spoke these words: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is doubtless forsaken in the sense that his plea was not directly granted. Jesus appropriates the psalmist's voice to himself, the voice of human weakness. The benefits of the old covenant had to be refused in order that we might learn to pray and hope for the benefits of the new covenant. Among those goods of the old covenant which belonged to the old Adam there is a special appetite for the prolonging of this temporal life. But this appetite itself is not interminable, for we all know that the day of death will come. Yet all of us, or nearly all, strive to postpone it, even those who believe that their life after death will be a happier one. Such force has the sweet partnership of body and soul (Letters, 140 to Honoratus 6).

In his most compassionate humanity and through his servant form we may now learn what is to be despised in this life and what is to be hoped for in eternity. In that very passion in which his proud enemies seemed most triumphant, he took on the speech of our infirmity, in which "our sinful nature was crucified with him" that the body of sin might be destroyed, and said: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" ... Thus the Psalm begins, which was sung so long ago, in prophecy of his passion and the revelation of the grace which he brought to raise up his faithful and set them free" (Letters, 140 to Honoratus 5).

Thus, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” means “O’ God, why was it necessary that the sins of man should demand such a price?” with the implied answer, “Into your hands a commend my spirit,” the “Not my will but thine” statement of the Crucifixion. Thus Christ’s cry becomes one not of despair but of absolute abandoning trust. His sufferings are Job-like, and his cry is reminiscent of Job’s response to his own sufferings, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).

This interpretation takes some thought to come to, and admittedly I do not like it as much as Chrysostom’s straightforward interpretation of the cry as being in fulfillment of Psalm 22. A lot of this also has to be wrapped in to a more thorough treatment of Catholic soteriology, which I do not have time for at the moment but will hopefully get to in the near futue.

Taking Protestants to a Bad Novus Ordo

When the Novus Ordo Missae was first promulgated, it was presumed, almost assumed, that a simplification of the liturgy would mean that the new Catholic Mass would be more acceptable to Protestants. Though this was certainly not a primary motive in promulgating the new Mass, some envisioned that true ecumenical progress could come from the Novus Ordo, and this was seen as a happy consequence of its promulgation. Given that theory, it is ironic that the Novus Ordo that we often get in practice actually has a contrary effect. I am referring to what others have called the "Can't Take a Protestant to a Bad Novus Ordo" phenomenon.

For a moment let us forget about rubrics and papal instruction, on lofty ideals of how the Mass ought to be celebrated and what we ought to get out of it - let us put it all aside and instead look at the experience of an average Catholic at your average parish. Judging by my experience in my own region, I would say that probably 15% of the liturgies are what I would call more or less in line with what the Church envisions, while the other 85%  deviate from the Church's ideal, some to a greater degree than others. You know what I am talking about - inventive liturgies, ad libbed prayers, weak homilies, terrible music, no spiritual development, little sense of the transcendent, bad art, etc. etc. I don't think I need to go on listing the catalog of Novus Ordo bizarrities here.

This fact is bad enough for the Church as it is, but the problem is compounded from an apologetical standpoint when we start to bring into the equation Protestants who are seeking the Truth or whom we actively recruit to come to Mass. It is standard fare of Catholic apologetics to insist upon the superiority of the Mass to any other form of Christian worship, due to its institution by Christ, the sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the ordering of the Mass towards the glorification of God, the participation of the angels and the saints in the worship, the immense graces made available, etc.

This is all well and good, but it is when we actually first convince our Protestant friend to attend a Mass that our real problem begins. If we are lucky, we can convince him to come to Mass where and when we choose, and go alongside with him to ensure his experience is authentic. He of course will want to know why, in the Universal Church, must he only attend a certain, limited amount of parishes and not others, and we will have to explain to him how the vast majority of Catholic parishes are not suitable places to grow in spirituality, that they may not preach orthodoxy, that despite professing, "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church," the reality on the ground is that few parishes actually practice the historic faith as professed in the Creed. The Protestant will invariably ask why this is, and then we introduce them to the entire sorry history of the post-Vatican II era, introducing the Protestant to terms like "liturgical abuse" and other things he would have never heard or even thought of had he not expressed interest in Catholicism; he must learn about liturgical worship and lose his liturgical innocence in the same breath - in short, he must be made aware that since Vatican II, the Church has apparently become schizophrenic. If he ventures to go off on his own to check out a Catholic Mass and randomly attends one of these progressive parishes, he will see confirmation of all of this, at which point he may wonder how the Church professed in the Creed and defended by Catholic apologists relates to the freak-show liturgy and limp-wristed homily he just had to endure. If anything, he goes away shaking his head wondering what this thing called 'Catholicism' is.

To put this into a concrete example: I have a very dear friend, a Protestant, who loves the Lord tremendously, has a hearty respect for Church history and the Fathers, and in all things is an exemplar of a good Christian soul, though being non-Catholic, his faith is imperfect. I desire with all my heart for this friend to come into the fullness of faith. And yet, if he were to suddenly get interested in Catholicism and go to his local Catholic parish on a whim, what he would see would make him laugh (or cry?), and he would come away, not more impressed by the faith, but rather less interested than before. If he were ever to come to a Mass, I would have to go out of my way to make certain that he only went to a parish that I approved of him going to - and this state of affairs ought not be.

In looking at this, I think there are several areas we can meditate on in their relation to how a Protestant might be affected:

1. It is part of the Church's teaching that God is encountered in the Mass in an immediate and exceptional manner. Does the nature of the liturgy reflect this reality?

If we teach that the Eucharistic liturgy is an encounter with the divine, do sparsely decorated sanctuaries, sloppily dressed altar boys, ad libbed, flippant prayers, and banal, poorly executed music serve to reinforce this ideal? Do they not rather detract from it, and leave the outside observer with the impression that we do not practice what we preach? That our faith at best suffers from a disconnect between praxis and dogma and at worst is a hypocritical sham?

2. Our faith tells us God becomes present to us through the Church's liturgical action. We have already examined the role of the clergy; what about the disposition of the congregation? Do they testify that liturgy is a meeting with God?

Lex orandi, lex credendi. We know that these weak liturgies beget congregations who are likewise lukewarm in their participation: people sloppily or immodestly dressed, yammering in the Church, clapping as at performances, little participation in singing the Mass parts, checking cell phones and playing with iPods during the liturgy, chewing gum, and acting in general in a way that is not fitting with the dignity of the liturgy.If an outside observer, knowing what we claim about our liturgy, sees such behavior on the part of the people who claim to be benefiting from the fruits of the Mass, will they not presume that Mass itself must be no less casual than the people attending it? Will they not think that all this talk about Christ being present during the Mass is simply empty words, since the people obviously do not behave as if this were true?

I heard a story once about a murderer in England who was about to be hanged. As he was approaching the gallows, a pastor was walking beside him, telling him, somewhat dryly, as if by rote, about God's forgiveness and mercy. The condemned man looked at the pastor and said, "Do you really believe that? If that were true, I would crawl across England on broken glass just to tell people." Similarly, when an observer witnesses the relaxed, casual, non-chalant way that many of our Masses are said, will he not likewise assume that we either do not really believe what we say or that it is not true?

3. What about the manner of life of the Catholics a Protestant is likely to encounter in these poorly executed Novus Ordo liturgies?

If the Faith, and the Mass in particular, really do make available all of the graces that we claim in our apologetics, then Catholics ought to demonstrate the effects of this grace in their lives. Granted, each person is an individual, and tares are always found in the midst of the wheat, but I personally have frequently been disheartened by the worldliness of people I have encountered the times I have had to go to a progressive parish: cussing and blasphemy in the parking lot, all out drunkenness at parish events, liberal and anti-Catholic social causes advocated from the pulpit and supported by the parishioners, and in general a demeanor among many parishioners that reveals a total lack of spiritual formation or even an interest in spiritual things. I want to avoid here making blanket judgments about entire parishes, but I think you know what I am getting at - parishes that are spiritually alive tend to bear good fruit in the lives of their parishioners, while parishes that are spiritually dead tend to replace authentic spirituality with a lot of social causes and parish activities that give the illusion of vibrancy but do not actually contribute to the holiness of anybody. Thus, you tend to find a spirit of worldliness that pervades progressive parishes, a worldliness that will stick out like a sore thumb to any devout Protestant and reinforce their belief that the Catholic faith is something shallow.

4. Another issue likely to raise a red flag with a Protestant inquirer is the fact that poor liturgies tend to go hand in hand with wimpy homiletics.


If anything turns a Protestant off to Catholicism, it is listening to a bad homily. And modern Catholicism has lots of bad homilies. Shallow theology, ignorance of Scripture and Tradition, lack of spiritual insight and sometimes heresy and worldliness, coupled with a dull delivery, certainly contribute to turn Protestants (and even many Catholics) off. But fortunately, the flip side is also true - few things are able to reach out and really draw a Protestant in like a good, solid homily from a holy priest. This was one of the things that people loved about Father Corapi (er, I mean, the Black Sheep Dog) before his fall was his stellar homilies.


This is true with each of these issues - if poor liturgies or music or preaching makes Protestants laugh at us, then reverent liturgies, excellent music and powerful preaching makes them stand up and take notice. Am I being overly sensitive about this issue of not feeling comfortable taking a Protestant to a bad Novus Ordo Mass? Maybe; we have to remember that it is the Holy Spirit's job to convert people, not our own, and that things that seem out of place to us might not to a Protestant. When I first came back to the Church, I was thrilled that there was a liturgy at all, and it took many years before I started questioning the nature of that liturgy. Then again, if we know that something like terrible music or a worldly pastor will be a stumbling block to one interested in the Faith, I don't think we should intentionally put that stumbling block before them.

The real issue is that this is an unjust dilemma - being in the position of defending the Church and the liturgy with our words and writing but then having to apologize for the actual state of it in practice when trying to evangelize others. It simply ought not to be; the liturgy should be the liturgy, and the fact that it is not so, and how this effects my evangelization of my non-Catholic friends, is a problem I have not yet successfully resolved.

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Were David and Jonathan Homosexuals?

Like most Christians, I was completely unaware that the pure and devoted friendship of David and Jonathan as recorded in the book of 1 Samuel is taken by many in the world to be a homosexual relationship. This concept had never crossed my mind until one day when I was perusing the shelves of a used book store in Ann Arbor. I was looking through their history section and noticed a small sub-section on the shelf labeled "Homosexual History." Wondering how homosexual history was different from normal history (and looking to make sure no one was watching me), I pulled a few titles out of this section. The one that caught my eye was titled Homosexual Heroes: David and Jonathan, or something similar. It was an entire booklet, at least fifty pages in length, in which the story of the two friends was told from a homosexual vantage point in which their homosexuality was simply taken for granted, based on a few passages from the Old Testament. As I later found, this assumption that David and Jonathan were gay is very prevalent in the non-Christian world

One of the passages alleged as support for this noxious assumption is 1 Samuel 18:1, which says:

"And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking to Saul, the son of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul."

The "knitting" of the souls is taken to mean that David and Jonathan had a romantic relationship.

A more frequently cited "proof-text" for the homosexuality of David and Jonathan is found in 2 Samuel 1:26, after David hears about the deaths of Saul and Jonathan at the hands of the Philistines on Mount Gilboa. David utters a profound dirge on behalf of the fallen, in which we see David say this about Jonathan:

"I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women" (RSV).

The implication of this passage is that since David's love for Jonathan is "passing the love of women", David must like men more than women, if you know what I mean. Before moving on to address this interpretation, we ought two look at two other translations of the verse. The Septuagint version is pretty similar to the RSV, mentioning David's love for Jonathan being "beyond" what he feels for any woman:

"I am grieved for thee, my brother Jonathan; thou wast very lovely to me; thy love to me was wonderful beyond the love of women" (LXX).

Just for fun, here is the King James Version:

"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women" (KJV).

The Douay-Rheims is interesting. Of all the translations, only this one significantly adds to David's words regarding his feelings for Jonathan. Note how it attempts to clarify what David means when he says he loves Jonathan more than a woman:

"I grieve for thee, my brother Jonathan: exceeding beautiful, and amiable to me above the love of women. As the mother loveth her only son, so did I love thee." (Douay)

This is noteworthy because of its inaccuracy. The last phrase, "As a mother loveth her only son, so did I love thee," does not appear in the Latin. The full Latin of verse 26 says:

"Doleo super te frater mi Ionathan decore nimis et amabilis super amorem mulierum" (Vulgate).

This literally says, "I am beyond sorry for you, brother Jonathan; exceedingly beautiful and pleasing to me beyond the love of women" (super amorem mulierum). There latter phrase about a mother loving her son does not appear in the Latin. It seems, therefore, that this may have been a gloss or footnote inserted to explain the nature of David and Jonathan's love, as if the translators of the Douay were sensitive to a possible misunderstanding of the text.

So, now that we have looked at what the Scriptures say, what can we respond to this? Does this evidence indicate that David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship?

First, from a simple theological standpoint, we know David was not a homosexual, because Scripture states that David was "a man after God's own heart" (1 Sam. 13:14, Acts 13:22). Since David was a man after God's own heart, and since Scripture also plainly states that  "neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals" will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9-10), then we can easily infer that David was not a homosexual, especially since he is mentioned in the New Testament as one of the heroes of the faith (Heb. 11:32). How could God be a man after God's own heart if he routinely practiced a sin that is abominable in the eyes of God?

David did commit adultery, of course, so we are not saying that a man after God's own heart cannot sin. But to live in a constant, active homosexual relationship for years, and to express no penitence or sorrow for it, is quite a different matter, just as committing one sin and being sorry is different from abiding in a permanent state of mortal sin. So, while one can be a man after God's own heart and still fall into sin, I think it is not possible to be described by Scripture as "a man after God's own heart" and live in a constant state of sin.

Second, this pro-homosexual interpretation neglects to take into account the Middle Eastern conception of a man's relation to his wife. In the Middle East, a man's primary kinship is with other men, not with his wife. For example, during dinner time, the wife and daughters would set the table, but when it was time to eat, a man, the sons, and if any were invited, the man's friends, would dine together, while the women would depart and dine separately or after the men. This was still common practice into the 20th century. A man did not have intimate conversation with his wife. If a man wanted advice, or wished to have an intellectual discussion, talk about business, or just wanted to make casual, light conversation, he sought out the company of other males. That's not to say there were not tender moments with the wife, nor that there was no conversation between the two; but it is a well-known fact that, in Middle Eastern culture, a man, if he has anything remotely important to discuss, does it with another man, not with his wife. The friendship of other men is valued higher than that of a man with his wife.

Third, we could also point that the classical Greco-Roman view also parallels the Semitic concept of friendship as superior to marital love; indeed, marital love is only one category of friendship, and any truly happy romantic relationship (amor) must be based first on friendship (amicitia). Though many of the ancients, such as Plato, Seneca, et al, wrote on the nature of friendship, the two most important works are probably Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and Laelius de Amicitia by Cicero. I think the classical view of amicitia is fittingly summed up between these two works.

If we begin with Nichomachean Ethics, we see Aristotle defining friendship as the most superior kind of love - a love that is a kind of "reflection" of self-love, but that teaches us to transcend our selfish tendencies and find good in another, just for the sake that he is:

"The excellent person is related to his friend in the same way as he is related to himself, since a friend is another self; and therefore, just as his own being is choiceworthy him, the friend's being is choice-worthy for him in the same or a similar way" (NE 1170b6-9).

Though Aristotle includes marital love under the concept of friendship, it is primarily a non-romantic friendship between two persons of the same gender (simple friendship) that Aristotle refers to here.

In Cicero's Laelius de Amicitia, Cicero (online here), Cicero takes us through a very long dialogue on the nature of friendship. The dialogue is between Gaius Laelius and his sons and friends as Laelius reflects upon Scipio Africanus, his dear friend who had just departed. The characters talk about the nature of friendship, what makes a good friend, and how friends grieve for one another when one is lost. Because this so closely parallels the story from 2 Samuel (David grieving for Jonathan), it is a valuable reference to our discussion. Note that all of the following citations refer to friendship (amicitia) between two men:

"If I were to assert that I am unmoved by grief at Scipio's death, it would be for "wise" men to judge how far I am right, yet, beyond a doubt, my assertion would be false. For I am indeed moved by the loss of a friend such, I believe, as I shall never have again, and — as I can assert on positive knowledge — a friend such as no other man ever was to me" (De Amicitia, 3).

Here Laelius asserts that Scipio's friendship to him surpassed that of all others, just as David asserted of Jonathan. Cicero goes so far as to have Laelius state that a man-to-man friendship is the greatest gift bestowed upon mankind by the gods:

"For friendship is nothing else than an accord in all things, human and divine, conjoined with mutual goodwill and affection, and I am inclined to think that, with the exception of wisdom, no better thing has been given to man by the immortal gods" (De Amicitia, 6).

Again, simple friendship is placed as the highest gift to man, higher than marital love. In case you think that I am stretching the meaning of Cicero's words here to apply exclusively to non-romantic friendship, consider the next passage, in which Cicero describes how amicitia springs not from necessity, but from human nature. He states that the love of a parent to a child is the primal form of all friendship, for a parent truly loves his child "as another self", in accord with Aristotle's definition. But he will go on from there to discuss the friendship of men, citing two eminent Roman heroes as exemplars. Marital love is not mentioned:

"Wherefore it seems to me that friendship springs rather from nature than from need, and from an inclination of the soul joined with a feeling of love rather than from calculation of how much profit the friendship is likely to afford. What this feeling is may be perceived even in the case of certain animals, which, up to a certain time, so love their offspring and are so loved by them, that their impulses are easily seen. But this is much more evident in man; first, from the affection existing between children and parents, which cannot be destroyed except by some execrable crime, and again from that kindred impulse of love, which arises when once we have met someone whose habits and character are congenial with our own; because in him we seem to behold, as it were, a sort of lamp of uprightness and virtue. For there is nothing more lovable than virtue, nothing that more allures us to affection, since on account of their virtue and uprightness we feel a sort of affection even for those whom we have never seen. Is there anyone who does not dwell with some kindly affection on the memory of Gaius Fabricius and Manius Curius, though he never saw them? (De Amicitia, 8).

It is not the marital love is not important, but it is that the ancients, both the Semitic peoples and the Greco-Romans, viewed the friendship of a man to a man to be superior to the love of a man to his wife. It is true that, in the later, decadent days of Greco-Roman civilization, this exaltation of same-sex love was sometimes perverted into a preference for pedophilic relationships - yet we must not read the moral degeneracy of some Greeks and Romans into the removed philosophical observations of Aristotle and Cicero, who both make these assertions without reference to erotic relationships. Again, Cicero will say that this friendship excels all other relationships and again incorporates Aristotle's definition, stating that friendship alone can sustain man:

"Seeing that friendship includes very many and very great advantages, it undoubtedly excels all other things in this respect, that it projects the bright ray of hope into the future, and does not suffer the spirit to grow faint or to fall. Again, he who looks upon a true friend, looks, as it were, upon a sort of image of himself. (De Amicitia, 7).

He then ends his discourse with a statement about the deceased Scipio very similar to that which David makes about Jonathan, again reaffirming that it is simple friendship (amicitia), not romantic love (amor), that Cicero has in mind here:

"For my part, of all the blessings that fortune or nature has bestowed on me, there is none which I can compare with Scipio's friendship" (De Amicitia, 27).

The purpose of this long digression is to establish the fact that, throughout the ancient world, the friendship between a man and a man was valued higher than the relationship between a man and a wife. We may not like it, but this is simply the way the ancients thought. It is completely natural that David should have found Jonathan's love surpassing that of women, because Jonathan was his best friend, and in the antique world, a man was expected to be closer to his friends than to his spouse.

We could note that David makes a similar lament for his son, Absalom, in 2 Samuel 18:

"The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Sam. 18:23).

Of course, we find nothing amiss in this impassioned lament, because we understand it to be completely natural that a parent would weep thus for their child. If this is the case, then why should we find it surprising that a man should similarly weep for his friend, seeing that friendship was valued as the highest of all human relations in the ancient world?

So desperate are the promoters of the homosexual agenda to find support in the Bible for their perverted worldview that they twist the pure and admirable friendship of David and Jonathan into the most vile thing imaginable. As with most other attempts of non-Catholic secularists to find support for their base actions in the Scriptures, this one is based on poor theology, ignorance of culture and a desire to conform the word of God to perversion rather than to reform perversion based on God's word.

Update: Summer Theology in Italy

A slight adjustment of the dates of the Scholastic Theology Summer Program which I mentioned recently has been made necessary. The new dates, fixed now and confirmed, are June 18 - June 30.

Here is a quick overview of the program calendar. See the official website for more details.

18 June, Monday: Arrival Day.
19 June, Tuesday: Academic Day.
20 June, Wednesday: Academic Day.
21 June, Thursday: Optional Trip to Assisi.
22 June, Friday: Academic Day.
23 June, Saturday: Academic Day.

24 June, Sunday: Morning in Norcia - Optional Trip to Cascia in the Afternoon.
25 June, Monday: Academic Day.
26 June, Tuesday: Academic Day.
27 June, Wednesday: Academic Day.
28 June, Thursday: Optional Trip to Rome.
29 June, Friday: Feast of Saint Peter and Paul in Rome.
30 June, Saturday: Departure Day (or you can extend your stay in Rome!)

Cardinal Meisner on the Identity of the Priest

As we prepare to embark upon the journey of Lent, it is fitting to reflect on the importance of the sacrament of penance, especially in its relation to the role of the priest and the "ministry of reconciliation" that God has entrusted to His faithful priests. Below are some excerpts from a talk given by Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, Germany, from a talk entitled "Conversion and Mission" that was given at the conclusion of the 2010 "Year of the Priest." The Cardinal speaks about the necessity of frequenting and offering confession as intimately bound up with the identity of the priest and says that priests who do not offer confession (or go to it themselves) are not mature enough to be priests:

"One of the most tragic failings that the Church has suffered in the second half of the twentieth century is to have neglected the gift of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of penance. In us priests, this has caused a tremendous loss of spiritual profile. When the Christian faithful ask me, "How can we help our priests?" I always reply, "Go to them to confess." When the priest is no longer a confessor, he becomes a social worker of a religious kind. In fact, he lacks experience of the greatest pastoral achievement, of working together so that a sinner, thanks also to his help, leaves the confessional newly sanctified. In the confessional, the priest can penetrate into the hearts of many people and, from that, encouragement and inspiration may result for his own following of Christ.

Therefore, it is not sufficient in our pastoral work just to want to make corrections to the structures of the Church, to make it appear more attractive. It is not enough! What is needed is a conversion of heart, of my heart. Only a converted Paul could change the world, not an expert in "ecclesial engineering." The priest, with his being assimilated to the form of the life of Jesus, is so inhabited by Him that Jesus becomes perceptible by others in the priest.

The biggest obstacle preventing Christ being seen through us is sin. It prevents the presence of the Lord in our lives and for that reason nothing is more necessary to us than conversion - also for the purposes of the mission. It is a matter, in short, of the sacrament of penance. A priest who does not frequently take his place on one and the other side of the grille of the confessional suffers permanent harm to his soul and his mission. Here certainly lies one of the major causes of the manifold crisis in which the priesthood has come to find itself in the last fifty years. The very special grace of the priesthood is precisely that the priest can feel "at home" on both sides of the grille of the confessional: as penitent and as minister of forgiveness. When the priest distances himself from the confessional, he enters into a grave identity crisis. The sacrament of penance is the privileged locus for the deepening of the identity of the priest, who is called upon to make himself and believers return to draw upon the fullness of Christ.

If there were nor sinners, who need forgiveness more than daily bread, we could not precisely know the depth of the Divine Heart. The Lord points it out explicitly, "I tell you, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repenting than over ninety-nine upright people who have no need of repentance" (Luke 15:7). Why ever- we ask ourselves once again - does a sacrament that stirs such great joy in heaven evoke such antipathy on earth? The reason is our pride, the constant tendency of our heart to fence itself in, to be sufficient unto itself, to isolate itself, to close in on itself.

For this reason, the spiritual maturity to receive priestly ordination by a candidate for the priesthood, in my opinion, becomes evident from the fact that he regularly receives - at least as often as once a month - the sacrament of penance. Indeed, in the sacrament of penance, I meet the merciful Father with the most precious gifts He has to give, namely the "giving," the forgiving and the giving of grace to us. But when someone, precisely because of his rare attendance at confession, says in fact to the Father, "Keep Your precious gifts for Yourself! I don't need You or Your gifts!" then he stops being a child, because he excludes himself from the fatherhood of God, because he does not want to receive His precious gifts. And if one is no longer a child of the heavenly Father, then he cannot become a priest, because a priest is, first and foremost, the son of the Father through baptism, and then, through priestly ordination is, along with Christ, son with the Son."

From the Miles Christi newsletter, #136, Feb, 2012
www.mileschristi.org

The Heresies of Balthasar

For the past month, I have been slogging through Alyssa Lyra Pitstick's monumental tome Light in Darkness, subtitled, "Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic Doctrine of Christ's Descent into Hell." It is a massive work, but tremendously thorough and takes on von Balthasar like few in the post-Conciliar Church have been willing to do. Balthasar is most known, of course, for his idea that we may reasonably hope that hell may be empty, but Pitstick takes the fight to the heart of Balthasar's theology: his doctrine that Christ was abandoned by the Father and suffered the pains of hell on Holy Saturday. As Pitstick demonstrates, this theology of the "Descent" is actually central to all of Balthasar's theology and actually serves as the premise upon which he will build his conclusion that we may hope for universal salvation.

I have not finished the book yet, though I am drawing close. Even so, I can say that Miss Pitstick has done us all a tremendous service in putting this work together. I for one an appalled that so many otherwise orthodox individuals in the Church, from theology professors right on up to John Paul II and Benedict XVI, find Balthasar's theology credible. I dismissed his "hope for universal salvation" theory as completely contrary to our tradition about two seconds after somebody explained it to me, and it mystifies me that so many other learned persons continue to dally with it. But Pitstick's book does more than expose the flawed thinking behind Balthasar's empty hell theory - it exposes him as heretical (or at least extremely counter to tradition) in his Christology, soteriology, Trinitarian theology, sacramental theology, ecclesiology and almost every other area across the theological spectrum, leading the reader to the conclusion that, not only is Balthasar mistaken on his empty hell hypothesis, but his entire corpus of theology is extremely questionable and that this man is far from the trustworthy theologian that Ignatius Press and many in the Magisterium would have us believe.

Case in point (and there are many cases to which we could point); Balthasar's concept of sin. The traditional Catholic concept of sin is that sin is understood as a privation, especially with reference to original sin, which is a privation of grace. St. Thomas says that every sin is a kind of privation, either of "form or order or due measure" (De malo, 2:2). St. Thomas affirms Augustine's teaching on sin as a privation of the good:

"Sin is nothing else than a bad human act. Now that an act is a human act is due to its being voluntary, as stated above, whether it be voluntary, as being elicited by the will, e.g. to will or to choose, or as being commanded by the will, e.g. the exterior actions of speech or operation. Again, a human act is evil through lacking conformity with its due measure: and conformity of measure in a thing depends on a rule, from which if that thing depart, it is incommensurate" (STh, I-II, Q. 71, art. 6).

Here we see Thomas stating that sin is an act that falls short of a standard ("due measure"); in other words, it is a lack of the good, a privation of something that ought to be, although Thomas is careful to explain that sin is not a "pure privation" (I-II, Q. 72, art. 1); in other words, to say it is a privation is not to say that sin is "nothing." Sin is "a word, deed, or desire, contrary to the eternal law" (I-II, Q. 71, art. 6),   "an act deprived of its due order"; since all creatures desire the good, truly or mistakenly, sin occurs when a lesser, perceived good is substituted in place of the eternal good. This act falls short, is defective of perfection, but is nevertheless a real act, though an act whose nature is to be sinful by defect. Thus, sin as an act willed by the sinner is certainly a reality, but it has no ontological existence, nor could it, being understood as a privation.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states:

"The act [of sin] is something positive. The sinner intends here and now to act in some determined matter, inordinately electing that particular good in defiance of God's law and the dictates of right reason. The deformity is not directly intended, nor is it involved in the act so far as this is physical, but in the act as coming from the will which has power over its acts and is capable of choosing this or that particular good contained within the scope of its adequate object, i.e. universal good" (source).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church will also use terms that present sin as a privation; it is a "failure", a "wound" (CCC 1849), the latter of which was a popular term in antiquity and the Middle Ages to explain the concept - just as a wound or sickness is the privation of health, so sin is the privation of the good.

Most readers of this blog are familiar enough with the traditional doctrine of sin as a privation that I don't think I need to cite any more sources to establish it. This is an important point, however, because Balthasar will go on to misinterpret the traditional approach taken by St. Augustine and St. Thomas to mean that sin is "nothing." He will state that the idea of sin as a privation does not adequately grasp the reality of sin's horror.

It stands to reason that, since a privation does not have ontological existence, it cannot be objectively separated from the subject in which that privation is found. One cannot have sickness in and of itself apart from a subject who is sick (we may have a cancer cell isolated in a test tube, but that is not sickness. Sickness does not arise until that cancer attacks a human host, who, as a person, becomes sick due to the absence of health brought about by the cancer). Similarly, we cannot isolate sins from the sinner. The way sin must be handled is to be "washed away", "blotted out" or "expiated" in the context of the restoration of the sinner himself. A piece of wood with a hole in it cannot be repaired by trying to remove the hole from the wood; the hole must be filled in the context of the wood, because a hole can only exist in something.

Balthasar's dissatisfaction with the privation theory of sin leads him to posit a real, ontological existence for sin, contrary to Augustine, Thomas, the implications of the Catechism and almost all of ancient and medieval Catholic tradition. Sin becomes an ontological reality by a sort of negative creation, in which man, by the passion and willfulness that he puts into sinning, turns sin into a positive reality. Balthasar says:

"It is possible to distinguish between the sin and the sinner...Because of the energy that man has invested in it, sin is a reality, it is not 'nothing.'" (Theo-Drama, vol. V, pp. 266, 314).

Because sin has this ontological reality, it can be abstracted from the sinner and, consequently, removed to another locus. Here Balthasar's theology of sin crosses into his soteriology. Because sin is a reality that can be separated from the sinner, it is possible to "load" it on to Christ, who literally assumes the sins of every person in His death, but especially in His Descent:

"[Sin] has been isolated from the sinner...separated from the sinner by the work of the Cross" (ibid., 285, 314).

Thus, because sin is able to be loaded onto Christ, Christ literally takes the sins, and the guilt, of every sinner on to Himself, and in His death and Descent, literally becomes sin, in such a real, metaphysical sense that Balthasar makes the shocking statement that the Incarnation is "suspended" while Jesus is in the tomb:

"Holy Saturday is thus a kind of suspension, as it were, of the Incarnation, whose result is given back to the hands of the Father and which the Father will renew and definitively confirm by the Easter Resurrection" ("The Descent into Hell", Spirit and Institution, Explorations in Theology, vol. IV, pp 411-412).

If all sin and all guilt and all punishment for sin has been loaded upon Christ by the Father, who wills to actively "crush" and punish the Son as if He had sinned, then there is no more wrath or punishment left that any sinner could endure eternally. All his sins have been abstracted from him and loaded on to Christ. Conversely, if there is no wrath left for the sinner, there is no real merit left for the saint, at least in the way traditional Catholic theology has understood it. Here, Balthasar sounds downright Lutheran in his understanding of salvation:

"[The sinner's] hope can only cling blindly to the miracle that has already taken place in the Cross of Christ; it takes the entire courage Christian hope for a man to apply this to himself, to trust that, by the power of this miracle, what is damnable in him has been separated from him and thrown out with the unusable residue that is incinerated outside of the gates of the Holy City" (Theo-Drama, vol. V, 321).

The language of the sinner clinging "blindly" to an act that has already taken place reminds one of the Protestant jargon of "resting in God's finished work"; as with Luther, the sin of man is separated from him and placed on Christ, who in turn bestows upon us righteousness. The difference between Balthasar and Luther here is that Balthasar appears to make the operative principle the virtue of hope rather than faith. Balthasar vehemently denied that his soteriological doctrine was Lutheran, because he emphasized charity and hope along with faith and thus technically did not teach "faith alone" (and Balthasar emphasized the redemptive nature of the Descent, something Luther ignored), but in practice, it seems that Luther and Balthasar are very close together here inasmuch as they both agree in sins being abstracted from the sinner, "loaded" upon Christ who is then punished with God's wrath, and the sinner appropriating the righteousness of Christ by faith-hope in a finished work that has already been completed.

There is so much more we could point to with Balthasar, but here I merely wanted to show how he breaks from Catholic Tradition not only in his teaching of an empty hell, but on many other things as well; in this case, the idea of sin having a positive existence that can be abstracted and separated from the man, as opposed to the traditional Catholic idea of sin as a privation.

I highly recommend Pitstick's book. I will also probably do some more stuff on Balthasar in the future on here because his teachings are so pernicious. I knew he was questionable, but until I read Pitstick's book, I did not understand how truly horrific and contrary to Tradition some of his concepts really are.