Amity No Substitute for the Whole Truth
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If there is any typically American religious attitude, it is an attitude of doctrinal indifferentism. One may be unencumbered by any other religious opinions, but to be religiously normal in America one must subscribe to the opinion that it does not matter what one believes or how one worships God so long as one does what he thinks is right.
Amity or Truth?
It is an almost universal experience of American Catholics, whenever they "talk religion'' with their Protestant friends, to be confronted with this very innocent-appearing proposition. With an air of intimate confidence our Protestant friend assures us that it is his candid conviction that it does not matter what one believes so long as he does what he thinks is right. This intimate disclosure is made with such assurance and finality that one would think it epitomized all the religious convictions of Protestantism.
And yet we know this is not the case. For our Protestant friend this proposition of doctrinal indifferentism is not so much a religious conviction as it is a bold overture of religious peace, for it implies that even Catholicism is admissible. More than a religious conviction, his proposition is a generous and sweeping compromise. It is a venture far out into the no-man's-land of religious neutrality where any opponent of good will would be willing to venture for the sake of religious friendship. He is apparently oblivious of the fact that the opinion that it does not matter what one believes" is itself a religious opinion; and it is not a neutral position, but one of two possible positions that might be taken on that very fundamental religious question — and it may be the false one!
Indifferentism is Reducibly Private Interpretation
It is the strong Catholic conviction — a conviction supported by 2,000 years of consistent Catholic tradition and martyrdom that it matters a great deal what one believes! So the Catholic is placed, with the best of good will on the part of his friend, in the embarrassing position of either repudiating a very fundamental tenet of his own religion or rejecting the overture of friendship.
Implying, as he does, by his doctrinal indifferentism the admissibility of the Catholic interpretation, the Protestant has no suspicion of how agreeably Protestant his position is.
Doctrinal indifferentism is a position quite consistent with the first principle of Protestantism: the principle of private interpretation. If the proper interpretation of divine revelation is to be derived by private inspiration, there is no legitimate reason why one could not be led to embrace the Catholic interpretation just as well as any of the many and variant Protestant interpretations. Practically, one is either forced to admit that it does not matter what one believes or to abandon one's first principle of private interpretation. Catholicism never admitted the first principle of Protestantism, nor can it subscribe to the practical consequences of this principle: doctrinal indifferentism.
Tact — Without Sacrifice of Principle
No doubt the Protestant experiences considerable pain when his generous offer of friendship is rejected. Only by considerable skill and tact on the part of his Catholic friend can he be spared the bitter impression that even his closest Catholic friend is steeped in all the religious bigotry and arrogance Catholics have been reputed to have.
The Catholic finds the experience equally painful, for he usually lacks the required skill and tact needed to avoid offending his friend. How can he reject the proffered compromise without giving personal offense? And how can he support the Catholic conviction that it does matter what one believes without giving the impression of arrogance?
Added to this is the inherent difficulty of explaining the Catholic position. It must be admitted that if people do all in their power to live as they ought, as God gives them the light to see their obligations, He will not allow them to be lost. This is a conclusion based upon the known salvific will of God. From the revealed fact that God wishes the salvation of all men it follows that He will not deny anyone the necessary means of salvation. However, we also have it on good authority that "Wide is the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who enter that way!" (Matt. 7, 13). We must suppose that these "many" received the necessary means of salvation; but for them the "necessary means" did not suffice.
From the fact that the necessary means of salvation will be given to those who have not come into contact with Christian Revelation, it does not follow that this Revelation is a matter of indifference. It may be possible to swim the English channel; but not everyone would make it. It may be possible to navigate the Atlantic in a canoe, but that possibility does not make more adequate means of trans-Atlantic travel a matter of indifference. This is especially true if the trans-Atlantic trip is one which must be made by all.
Else Why Did Christ Teach?
The trip across the sea of life is a trip we must all make. And we have it on the authority of the Son of God Himself that it is in the Christian dispensation that God has provided us with the ample means of reaching in safety the harbor of our eternal destiny. What type of canoe He provides the pagans who never heard of Christianity, we do not know. The extraordinary disposition of Divine Providence is an unrevealed mystery. But we have unimpeachable evidence that the ordinary disposition of Providence is that we find the necessary means of salvation in the Christian Revelation: "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be condemned" (Mark 16, 16).
Everything about the conduct of Christ would suggest that, far from being a matter of indifference, what we believe is a matter of very great difference! Why did Christ spend so much of His time preaching and teaching and preaching and teaching if what He was saying and whether or not He was properly understood were matters of indifference? Why the long hours of preaching to the people in parables by day and explaining the parables to His Apostles by night if what He was saying was not important? When explaining the parables to the Apostles, Christ said, "To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God" (Mark 4, 11) — and why was this given to them were it not that they might "Go into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature'' (Mark 16, 15)? Why should He bother to send them the Holy Spirit of Truth who would teach them "all truth" (John 16, 13), were it not that they might go and teach "all nations" to observe all things that He had commanded them (Matt. 28, 20)? Why should He send those whom He had chosen and loved in a special way as "sheep among wolves," knowing all the while "They will expel you from the synagogues; yes, the hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering worship to God" (John 16, 2) — why all this if what they had to say was a matter of insignificance or of minor import?
"Acceptance of Christ" Is Not Enough
Many of the exponents of religious indifferentism, when pressed, like to modify their original statement. They admit that "belief in Christ" or "accepting Christ as one's Savior" is necessary, but whatever other specific beliefs one might have is of minor importance. His miracles and much of His preaching were meant to provide the Jews (and subsequent generations) with ample evidence that He Himself was "He that is to come," the promised Messias. But it is also true that much of the preaching and most of the parables were designed not to preach Christ, but the Kingdom. True, Christ wanted people to believe in Him as the Messias; but it is equally true that He expected them to believe in the other religious truths which He came to preach and which constitute the deposit of faith.
Striking evidence of this was given on the occasion when Christ promised the Holy Eucharist. The audience on that occasion was made up, for the most part, of people who were very devoted to Him. On the day before, when Christ had tried to "retire across the sea of Galilee," they followed Him clear around the northern edge of the sea. There in a desert place they had listened to His words all day; when evening came, they were fed miraculously — all five thousand of them! And then they were going to make Him king. Clearly, they had "accepted Christ as their Savior," but that was not enough. They had to believe what He had to tell them. The very next day, when Christ told these same Jews, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you," they found this "a hard saying . . . and many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him." Jesus suffered them to go. Not only that; He turned to His Twelve with the query, "Do you also wish to go away?" Belief in Christ, therefore, is not enough unless that belief includes acceptance of all the truths which He came to ennunciate.
"We do not Adulterate the Word of God"
St. Paul was especially harrassed by the fear that someone would pollute the faith of his spiritual children.
To the Corinthians Paul wrote: "I am anxious about you. The serpent beguiled Eve with his cunning; what if your minds should be corrupted, and lose that innocence which is yours in Christ? Some newcomer preaches to you a different Christ, not the one we preached to you . . ." (II Cor. 11). He recalls that when God asked Eve why she had sinned, her answer was: "The serpent deceived me, and I did eat." St. Paul realized that the power of the Father of Lies is in his power to deceive. Deception does not involve throwing everything overboard; it involves merely being mistaken about one little point. But, as Eve learned the hard way, the consequences of that little deception is spiritually devastating. "Corruption of the mind" will lead to "loss of innocence" — and loss of Christ! It was not that the newcomers were preaching Christ that bothered St. Paul; it was that they were preaching a "different" from the true Christ. What arsenic is to stew, that error is to revealed truth. It's fatal. And St. Paul knew it.
The cunning of these newcomers made them especially dangerous. "Such men are false apostles," he tells the Corinthians, "dishonest working-men, that pass for apostles of Christ. And no wonder; Satan himself can pass for an angel of light . . ." (II Cor. 11, 12). It was the fact that they looked like "angels of light" and "apostles of Christ" that made them dangerous; if they didn't look good, they wouldn't be listened to. Seeing the doctrine of Christ mutilated by these "false apostles" was a cause of great distress for Paul. "We do not, like so many others, adulterate the word of God; we preach it in all its purity, as God gave it to us . . ." (II Cor. 2, 17).
Again in his epistle to his beloved co-worker, Timothy, Paul warns him (and future apostles) of the struggle for doctrinal purity and of the importance of that struggle. "Now the Spirit expressly says that in after times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of devils" (I Tim. 4, 1). From his prison in Rome this great champion of the truth sends, as his last will and testament, this urgent instruction to his beloved Timothy: "I adjure thee in the sight of God, and of Jesus Christ, who is to be the judge of the living and the dead, in the name of his coming, and of his kingdom, preach the word, dwelling upon it continually, welcome or unwelcome . . . The time will surely come, when men will grow tired of sound doctrine, always itching to hear something fresh; and so they will provide themselves with a continuous succession of new teachers, as the whim takes them, turning a deaf ear to the truth, bestowing their attention on fables instead. It is for thee to be on the watch, to accept every hardship, to employ thyself in preaching the gospel, and perform every duty of thy office, keeping a sober mind" (II Tim. 4, 1-5).
St. Peter similarly gave warning: "There were false prophets, too, among God's people (the Israelites). So, among you, there will be false teachers covertly introducing pernicious ways of thought, and denying the Master who redeemed them, to their own speedy undoing. Many will embrace their wanton creeds, and bring the way of truth into disrepute, trading on your credulity with lying stories for their own ends . . . destruction is on the watch for then" (II Pet. 2).
The Truth — and Nothing but the Whole Truth
Though these quotations from Sts. Peter and Paul, thus far given, emphasize not so much the importance of truth as they do the danger of error, there is very much in Sacred Scripture to indicate in a positive way the supreme importance of the fullness of revealed truth in the Christian economy of salvation.
As noted before, in entered the world by a ruse of the serpent, for by the same clever deceit with which the devil led our first parents into sin, he led the entire human race captive. With reason could he on the mountain of temptations show Christ "all the kingdoms of the earth" with the arrogant claim: "These are mine!" They were his, and it was to rescue them from his servitude that Christ had came. And, to rescue God's children, Christ would not bargain with the Father of Lies, but would instead supply them with the instrument of their own liberation: the truth. As they had been led into captivity by being induced to forsake the truth and submit to deception, so would they be liberated by being induced to forsake deception and submit to the truth. Christ tells His disciples: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8, 32).
The transmission of divinely revealed truth to His infant Church was, in the mind of Christ, a most important function. Standing before His human judge on the day of His execution, He bore eloquent witness to the importance of divinely revealed truths in the Christian economy of salvation: "This is why I was born, and why I have come into the world: to bear witness to the truth" (John 18, 37).
Little wonder, then, that St. Paul would be so anxious to preserve that truth in all its integrity. When he was sent to preach to the Gentiles, Paul was told, "Thou shalt open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God" (Acts 26, 18). He assures the Romans: "I am not ashamed of this Gospel. It is an instrument of God's power, that brings salvation to all who believe in it" (1, 16).
Now, if it does not matter what one believes, one is free to believe whatever he wills, and the urgency of paying any serious heed to Divine Revelation vanishes. It is only natural, therefore, to ignore the God of Revelation and fashion a god according to one's own fancies. Religious indifferentists, therefore, bear a striking resemblance to the Jews described in the Book of Exodus (Ch. 32), for, when Moses delayed too long in the mountain, the Jews confronted Aaron with the demand: "Make us gods that may go before us." Aaron collected the gold and fashioned for them a molten calf: "These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt." So that religious indifferentists might profitably recall the warning of St. Paul (Hebrews 12, 25): "See that you do not refuse him who speaks. For if they did not escape who rejected him who spoke upon earth, much more shall we not escape who turn away from him who speaks to us from heaven."
© Joseph F. Wagner, Inc.
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