This is part two of my series of articles on Roman Catholicism. I wrote this to challenge those who are thinking about converting to the RCC. We pick it up with questions 5-10.

(5) I assume you also now believe that “justification entails the sanctification of his whole being” (CC, 1995). That is to say, you must now reject the forensic notion of justification that you’ve always believed, according to which God graciously imputes/reckons/counts the righteousness of his Son to us through faith alone and declares us righteous in his sight. Is that correct?

(6) Do you believe that the veneration of the relics (bones, hair, ashes, clothing, and other articles of deceased “saints”) is a means to gain an indulgence either for yourself or for the dead? If so, why? As a person deeply immersed and widely read in Scripture, I confess that I find your belief in such a profoundly unbiblical idea quite surprising.

(7) Are you prepared to acknowledge and believe in the distinction between so-called venial and mortal sins? If so, why? Where in Scripture do you find such an idea? Do you believe in the double-effect of sin as found in the Catechism, and the resultant doctrine of purgatory, in spite of the fact that neither of these is found anywhere in Scripture? Here is what you must believe if you choose to convert to Catholicism:

“Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the ‘eternal punishment’ of sin. On the other hand, every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification [in purgatory] frees one from what is called the ‘temporal punishment’ of sin” (Catholic Catechism, 1472).

As for purgatory itself:

“All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned” (CC, 1030-31).

Why would you believe that anyone can “achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” other than Jesus Christ who obtained this for us by his sinless life, substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection? Why would you insult the precious blood of Christ and his saving work by arguing that it wasn’t enough to bring us into the immediate presence of our great Triune God but that we must, in ourselves, continue to suffer for our sins until entirely cleansed and purified from them?

How is it that the sufficiency of Christ’s suffering for sin is applied by requiring Christians themselves to suffer for sins? Was not the former designed to eliminate the latter?

Are you prepared to affirm the divine inspiration and inerrancy of 2 Maccabees (12:44 and 12:46), a document in which alone the notion of purgatory is ever found? Why?

When Rome appeals to 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 to justify the notion of purgatory, are you prepared to ignore the following:

• The text says nothing about believers suffering the temporal consequences for their sins in purgatory; they are not burned or purged in the fire. Their works are burned.

• This text does not refer to the consequence of sin but of the reward for service. The issue is not sin and its punishment but service and its reward. The “loss” one suffers is loss of reward for not having served Christ faithfully.

• The “fire” does not purge an individual or his/her soul from sin but rather serves to reveal or disclose the quality of one’s works (see v. 13). The fire of purgatory is supposed to sanctify and change the soul of the believer to make him fit for heaven. But here the fire reveals or tests the quality of one’s works to determine what is and is not worthy of reward.

• Contextually, this passage focuses specifically on church leaders, those like Paul and Barnabas and Peter who build on the foundation of Christ. There is doubt whether all believers are in view.

• 3:15 may well be similar to Amos 4:11 and Zech. 3:2. Paul’s point is that the person who persists in building badly will be saved, but like one plucked from a fire in the nick of time.

• Nowhere does the passage say this occurs during the intermediate state. Why could not Paul be referring to what happens on the day of final judgment preceding entry into heaven, especially given the emphasis in v. 13 on “the day” (a likely allusion to the Day of the Lord or the Day of Judgment on which Paul often speaks)?

Are you now prepared to deny that 2 Corinthians 5:8 and Philippians 1:21-24 teach that upon physical death we enter into the immediate presence of Christ, and that instead we enter into an indeterminate experience, often hundreds of years in length, of suffering to purify us from the sin for which Christ himself suffered and died?

(8) If the role and absolute necessity of the seven sacraments was so important to the spiritual salvation and welfare of the believer, why did it take so long for the RCC to come to the point of recognizing them as such?

Initially only baptism and the Eucharist were acknowledged as sacraments. To these, Peter Abelard added confirmation and extreme unction. His pupils added matrimony. Robert Pullus (d. 1150) added penance and ordination. In The Sentences of Peter Lombard (book 4), these seven were given a final endorsement. They did not receive official RC sanction until the Council of Florence in 1439 and again at Trent in 1545-63.

Do you now believe that the sacraments contain and confer the grace they signify? According to Rome, they do more than teach about or point to the grace of God: they actually transmit and impart such grace. The sacraments confer grace because they possess grace-imparting efficacy as ordained by God. Such is the nature of a sacrament that when duly administered it produces a given effect. One need not look beyond the sacrament itself to account for its power. All things being equal, a burning ember will scorch the human hand. The effect follows as a matter of course. Similarly, the administration of the sacramental element is sufficient in itself to achieve the effect for which God has ordained it.

(9) Do you now believe this about water baptism?

“Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit, and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: ‘Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water and in the word’” (CC, 1213).

Do you truly believe that infants, young, and old are alike “born again” in the water of baptism and are “freed from sin”?

Rome teaches that “The baptismal water is consecrated by a prayer of epiclesis . . . The Church asks God that through his Son the power of the Holy Spirit may be sent upon the water, so that those who will be baptized in it may be ‘born of water and the Spirit’” (CC, 1238). Where in Scripture do we find anything remotely approaching this? That the phrase “born of water and the Spirit” in John 3:5 does not refer to Christian baptism is easily proven. I urge you to read my discussion of this text in my book, Tough Topics 2 (pp. 136-149).

Do you genuinely believe that,

“born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. . . The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth” (CC, 1250).

If you convert to Rome, you must also affirm that “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism” even though “he himself is not bound by his sacrament” (CC, 1257).

Are you prepared to affirm as true that “Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte ‘a new creature,’ an adopted son of God, who has become a ‘partaker of the divine nature,’ member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit” (CC, 1265).

I assume that you now believe that “Our Lord tied the forgiveness of sins to faith and Baptism” (CC, 977). Not just to faith, mind you, but also to baptism. Thus, we read that “by Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin” (CC, 1263).

(10) Do you truly believe that Scripture teaches the doctrine of transubstantiation, according to which the bread and wine are literally transformed or converted into the literal/physical body and blood of Christ?

Do you believe this happens when

“the Church asks the Father to send his Holy Spirit (or the power of his blessing) on the bread and wine, so that by his power they may become the body and blood of Jesus Christ and so that those who take part in the Eucharist may be one body and one spirit. . . In the institution narrative [when the priest speaks the words of blessing or consecration: “Hoc est corpus meum” (“This is my body”)], the power of the words and the action of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, make sacramentally present under the species of bread and wine Christ’s body and blood, his sacrifice offered on the cross once for all” (CC, 1353).

Really? Is this what you now believe? If so, why? Catholics often point to John 6 as evidence for the doctrine of the “real presence” of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist. May I simply point out the following in regard to this passage.

Jesus is clearly drawing upon the episode in John 6:1-15 where he fed the multitudes the bread and the fish. He pointed out that people were seeking him because they ate their fill of the loaves (6:26b). He then makes use of this to emphasize that physical food isn’t what they need but rather the spiritual food of knowing and believing and loving him, the true bread of heaven.

The emphasis throughout this chapter is on believing Jesus, not eating and drinking anything. “This is the work of God,” said Jesus, “that you believe in him whom” God has sent (John 6:29b). When the Pharisees asked that Jesus give them the “bread of heaven” which he himself claimed to be, he declared: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Their problem is that they had seen Jesus but did not “believe” (6:36b) in him. Again in v. 37 he calls believing a “coming” to him.

Then he states that “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (v. 40). This statement is obviously parallel with v. 54 where he says: “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.” Do you not see that looking on the Son and believing in him is the same as feeding on his “flesh and drinking his blood”? To eat his flesh and drink his blood is simply a very graphic metaphor for coming to Jesus in faith and believing him.

Again, it is the one who “believes” that “has eternal life” (v. 47). Thus, the point of Jesus is to take advantage of the physical experience of eating the loaves and fish to make a point about what is required if one is to gain eternal life: one must come to him and believe him, that is to say, one must “eat” the bread of life that comes from heaven.

Are you prepared to say that those who deny transubstantiation do not have “eternal life”? Jesus said in John 6:54 that “whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”. If one does not literally eat the flesh and literally drink the blood of Christ they must not have eternal life. As you’ll see from my quote from the Council of Trent below, to deny transubstantiation is to incur the “curse” or “anathema” of Rome. I assume then that you are prepared to speak a “curse/anathema” on the lives of your friends and family and all other Protestants. Yet Jesus says that “whoever believes has eternal life” (6:47).

Most Catholics also contend that Jesus would always give an indication when he didn’t mean to be taken literally, and thus the words, “This is my body” and “This is my flesh” must be taken literally. But this is simply false. On numerous occasions Jesus employed the figure of speech called “metaphor” without saying, “Oh, but be sure you understand that I’m speaking figuratively and not literally.” He said “I am the door” and “I am the good shepherd” and “I am the light of the world” and “you are the salt of the earth” and “you are the light of the world” and “I am the bread of life” and “I am the vine” and numerous other “I am” or “you are” or “this is” statements that would be impossible to take other than in a figurative sense.

Related to the former, what biblical reason do you have for believing that after transubstantiation the “substance” of the bread and wine are miraculously changed but the “accidents” (the external, physical features and appearance) remain the same?

And if you are consistent and insist that we must take the words of Jesus literally then what will you do with Luke 22:20 where Jesus said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood”? Are you prepared to believe that the “cup” itself is the “new covenant”? Surely you would agree that the cup was symbolic of the new covenant. Paul repeated the words in 1 Corinthians 11:25 – “this cup is the new covenant in my blood.” Surely you don’t believe Paul meant that literally, that the “cup” itself was the new covenant. But why would you take one statement as literal and physical and not the other?

If transubstantiation was so essential to the celebration of the Eucharist, why was it not officially declared binding and true doctrine until the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 (by the action of Pope Innocent III)?

To be continued . . .