Dear Matt…
Do you Know You’re Going to Heaven?
In the past, I have addressed CARM (“Christian” Apologetics Research Ministry) before on the Legion (see: here, and here). This month of November, I wish to respond to Matt Slick over at CARM. I will attack the sophistry he throws at the Holy Roman Catholic Church over on his website. He has a whole section over at his website dedicated to spreading his heretical vomit. While I believe Matt is contorting his intellect for error in all of these articles, there is none better that illustrates this as much as the piece I’ll address in this post.
Matt writes a letter asking us Catholics “do you know for sure if you are going to heaven?” in order to demonstrate the falsity of our beliefs. The reason I say that Matt is contorting his intellect, is because he’s debasing his capacity to think by teaching obvious error. Matt’s error is not only in misunderstanding scripture, its also in failing to properly apply it to his own false doctrine of Calvinism.
Matt makes the following argument,
If you’re a Catholic, do you know for sure if you are going to heaven when you die? As a Protestant, I can say that I know I am going to heaven. This isn’t arrogance. It is confidence in the work of Christ and not my own work. It is confidence in the ability of Jesus to save me completely, to have fulfilled all of the Law perfectly, and to have cleansed me from my sin totally. Therefore, because all my hope and trust are in him and not what I can do, I know I am going to heaven. If my salvation depended on my goodness and abilities in any way, then I can’t have any confidence that I will make it to heaven because I am an imperfect sinner. But God is perfect and requires holiness (1 Pet. 1:16). This is why God provided Jesus who fulfilled the Law (Matt. 5:17), including loving God (Deut. 6:5) and loving your neighbor (Lev. 19:18). In other words, Jesus did everything that is necessary for us to do. This is why we should trust Jesus alone and not Jesus and our goodness or Jesus and our church or Jesus and our ability to love God and our neighbor.
Matt’s argument can be formulated in the following way,
P1 — If Jesus did all the work for my salvation, then I can be confident in my salvation.
P2 — Jesus did all the work for my salvation
C — I can be confident in my salvation.
The fault seems to be in the first premise, which, if not carefully understood, could equivocate salvation in the following two senses,
- A state of affairs where if a person dies now, they will not be damned.
- A state of affairs where if a person dies in the future, they will not be damned then.
If it is the first sense whereby we understand and have the confidence in our salvation, then yes, Catholics can have confidence in their salvation. If it is the second sense, than no, we cannot, but neither can the Calvinist. Given that Matt, as a Calvinist, would want to commit himself to the second understanding of the first premise, I will refute this later on, but, for now, I will argue that the Catholic can have confidence in their salvation.
Matt quotes some parts of the Catechism to make his case, but fails because he lacks the knowledge to contextualize them properly.
But, what about you? Do you have that confidence? If not, perhaps it is because of the requirements that the Roman Catholic Church has stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
- “The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation,” (CCC 1257).
- “Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation,” (CCC 846).
- “This sacrament of Penance is necessary for salvation for those who have fallen after Baptism, just as Baptism is necessary for salvation for those who have not yet been reborn,” (CCC 980).
- “The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation, (CCC 1129).
- “Service of and witness to the faith are necessary for salvation,” (CCC 1816).
- “The authority of the Magisterium extends also to the specific precepts of the natural law [i.e., 10 Commandments, CCC 2070], because their observance, demanded by the Creator, is necessary for salvation,” (CCC 2036).
Are you as a Catholic able to keep all the requirements that the Roman Catholic Church says are necessary for salvation? We both know you can’t.
The proper way to contextualize these passages is through the dichotomy of mortal and venial sins. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, these are the following properties of mortal sins,
Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him. Mortal sin, by attacking the vital principle within us — that is, charity — necessitates a new initiative of God’s mercy and a conversion of heart which is normally accomplished within the setting of the sacrament of reconciliation For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met:
“Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.” Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: “Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother.”
The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger. Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. (CCC 1855–1859)
Mortal sin requires one to
- Commit a sin by placing an inferior ‘good’ over God
- with full knowledge and deliberate consent
- concerning a grave matter like what is spelled out in the ten commandments
Given that mortal sin requires full knowledge, if we were in such a state and honest with ourselves, we can be confident concerning whether or not we would avoid damnation if we were to die right now. If we have committed mortal sin, we have an easy correction available to us in confession.
Venial sins, according to the Catechism, “allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it” (CCC 1855). When one commits venial sin we do so by not observing “the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent (CCC 1862).”
The effects of venial sins are that they weaken “charity; it manifests a disordered affection for created goods; it impedes the soul’s progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good; it merits temporal punishment. Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin. However venial sin does not break the covenant with God. With God’s grace it is humanly reparable. “Venial sin does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity, and consequently eternal happiness (CCC 1863).”
Given the first sense of the proposition, I can honestly tell Matt that I can be confident of my salvation. Matt might want to try to commit us to the second sense of the proposition, and it is at this point where I want to refute such an attempt. If it were the case that Matt has confidence in his salvation, then he is being rationally inconsistent with his Calvinist doctrine.
Matt believes in the doctrine of the Perseverance of the saints, which is the belief that “we [Christians] are so secure in Christ, that we cannot fall away.” [1] There are countless people who left Protestant ‘Christianity’, Slick would call them apostate (take former Presbyterian ministers like William E. Orchard). The question to ask, of these countless people who no longer identify with the “true” faith, how does Matt know he is not currently among them?
Consider the following argument, there are currently two groups;
Group 1: True Christians.
Group 2: Self-identified Christians who will claim to reject their faith later on.
Unless Matt claims to possess the power to see the future, he cannot be confident he is in group 1 or 2. For any claim he makes about his mentality, someone in group 2 could make the same claim. How could Matt demonstrate he is not in group 2? If he cannot, then it cannot be demonstrated with confidence that Matt will be saved.
End Notes
[1] Matt Slick, What is TULIP in Calvinism, Link
