It was five hundred years ago that Martin Luther purportedly posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg cathedral. You can imagine each "thesis" as a debate point which Luther was willing to defend in public.
Well, today I wanted to commemorate this event by posting a 95 Theses of my own. Following the style of the original, it can be read like a lecture broken into various points.
Whereas the original 95 Theses was directed mostly at the indulgence abuses of the 16th century, mine addresses many points of controversy which now exist between different Christian bodies after half a millennium.
Here we go!
Ecclesiology / The Church:
01: The type of Church which Jesus intended to found was visible, authoritative, hierarchical, and one. This is found in such passages as Matthew 16:18 and Matthew 18:20, in which Jesus says the Church can be consulted for a ruling on a matter, and people can be expelled from it. And elsewhere in Hebrews 13 when we're told to obey those who are over us in the Lord.
02: The means Jesus left us for authoritatively transmitting the Christian faith was the Apostles as the ordained leaders and teachers.
03: These men then passed on their teaching authority to others, who were also instructed to do the same. This forms the origin of the principle of Apostolic Succession.
04: Private reading of the Bible could not have been the means Jesus left us for the passing on of the faith. The New Testament did not exist in 34AD. The original Christians had to rely on Apostolic authority.
05: The canon of the Bible - New Testament and Old - remained under debate for some time thereafter. It was only settled at the end of the fourth century.
06: Sola Scriptura is made impossible because the knowledge of which books belong in the Bible is not itself derived from Scripture. But it is something which Christians must hold to if they are profess public knowledge of what books are inspired.
07: If you deny that the Canon is an authoritative doctrine, people would be authorized to remove books from their Bible.
08: Sola Scriptura must also be false because it does not pass its own standard. The Bible does not teach Sola Scriptura. Scripture commends to us the power of the Scriptures, but does not present it as the only binding norm of Christian life and doctrine.
09: Many reject the idea of an infallible Church and claim to be guided by the Spirit themselves. They thus replace an infallible Church with an infallible self.
10: If you gathered two or more of such people together in a room and task them with figuring out a doctrine, you'll come up with multiple conflicting opinions.
11: This means some people must be self-deceived regarding their personal guidance of the Holy Spirit. And how can one know if it isn't himself?
12: This is why there are dozens and dozens of Christian denominations scattered about, with no means of unifying them.
13: Some say they are united on "the essentials". But what, pretell, are the essentials? The original "reformers" thought things like the precise nature of the Lord's Supper and Baptism were essentials. Were they wrong? How does one know?
14: This has led to a dual evolution in Protestant world. One side has small congregations with very specific doctrines. The others are large congregations with almost no doctrines.
15: In either event, this process points us back to the need for a living, public standard bearer of truth which can arbitrate disputes over doctrine. And this was given to us.
16: The fact that Catholic bishops might be wicked and incompetent does not invalidate the Church's claims. The claims rest on the sacramental continuity with the Apostles, not upon the individual holiness of the men in the offices.
17: Everyone's pastor is wicked and incompetent to at least some degree. If we wanted perfect church leadership, there could be no church leadership at all.
18: Human experience points to the necessity of a single, final point of authority. A place where "the buck stops". This is needed to end arguments between leaders.
19: Jesus did not speak the lines in Matthew 16:18 in Greek. He would have said them in Aramaic. Arguments hinging upon the Greek distinctions between Petros and Petra miss the mark. Jesus would have called Peter "kephas", as he does in John 1.
20: In giving Peter the keys of the kingdom, he promised Peter an office which would mirror that of the chief of house in Isaiah 22. An office which Peter was finally given in John 21.
21: If Jesus determined this office necessary at the beginning of church history, it stands to reason that this office would be needed at all other times as well.
22: The Biblical use of the word "antiChrist" applies to those who deny the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, and the humanity of Jesus. None of these apply to the Pope.
23: The fact that Paul rebuked Peter does not mean Peter wasn't the head pastor of the Church. It just means he wasn't above criticism.
24: The existence of an authoritative interpreter of the Bible does not challenge the dignity of Scripture, but the prerogative of an individual to interpret it for himself. A prerogative which is denied in 2Peter1.
25: None of this is to devalue the true Christian devotion of those found outside the formal bounds of the Catholic Church. Because they are joined to that Church by Baptism.
26: Catholics must treat their separated brethren with the honor and respect due to members of Christ's body.
Soteriology / Salvation:
27: If human free will is denied any role in one's salvation, then it inevitably follows that God does not will all to be saved. Because every person's eternal salvation or damnation could only be attributed to the direct action or inaction of God.
28: If that is the case, then we admit that God had no desire to save those people who are in Hell, and likewise that He never really loved them.
29: In which case, one cannot honestly approach a stranger and say, "God loves you." Only that God might love him/her.
30: To propose that God punished Jesus for our sins is to propose that God punished an innocent man to acquit the guilty. This is an act of injustice.
31: To propose that Jesus was reprobated from the Father is to deny the unity of the Trinity - because you would have God being estranged from God.
32: If Jesus was truly presented to God as if guilty of the sins of the world, He would not have been the spotless lamb of sacrifice which the Apostle Peter calls Him.
33: When Paul says Jesus "was made to be sin", he is using a shorthand for "sin offering", as it is also done in Hosea.
34: The only time the words "justified by faith alone" appear in the New Testament is when the formula is rejected as a description of our salvation.
35: Proposing that a true saving faith is composed of believing in the promises of Christ and trusting in him for salvation is not sufficient - for even a man living an unrepentant wicked life could have that kind of faith.
36: Most Christians would deny that a wicked man's faith is truly salvific. But explaining why it isn't requires one to describe a saving faith in the Catholic way - as a faith formed by love, repentance, and obedience.
37: For those who would say the wicked man's faith -is- salvific, they deny what is said by Paul in 1Corinthians 6 and Galatians 5 regarding the fate of wicked people.
38: To propose that we are saved by the forensically imputed righteousness of Christ, while remaining unrighteous ourselves, denies what Paul said in Romans 5 about being "made righteous".
39: To propose that God reckons us as righteous even though we are not, implies that God can reckon something as true which is actually not true.
40: When John says in 1John 5 that we can know we have eternal life, he is not referring to an unconditional, infallible certainty of one's eternal destiny.
41: Those who believe we should have infallible certainty are forced to say that all those who fall into apostasy or grave sin were never truly Christians at all - even if they thought themselves to be Christians.
42: This possibility of deceiving oneself about one's eternal fate destroys the notion of infallible certainty. To attain pure certainty, one would need certainty that he isn't self-deceived… which is impossible to have.
43: To say a Christian cannot lose His salvation is to deny the meaning of the parable of the sewer, and of many other texts in the New Testament.
The Communion of Saints:
44: God is the God of the living, not the dead. In some sense, the righteous in Heaven are more alive than we are. To assert otherwise would make Christ out to be a liar, for He promised we would never die, but have eternal life.
45: The New Testament portrays the experience of life in Heaven, pre-resurrection, as being a conscious one. It even alludes to the blessed in Heaven being aware of earthly events.
46: The Saints in Heaven are shown to be part of the prayer life of the Church in Revelation 5:8, in which they offer to God our prayers.
47: If the Saints can be aware of events on Earth, it is perfectly reasonable to ask them to pray for us. For the "prayer of a just man is very powerful".
48: If it is wrong to ask the saints in Heaven to pray for you because "you should just go to God directly", then it would be wrong to ask ANYONE to pray for you for the same reason.
49: Arguments stemming from the fact that the Bible does not expressly command us to petition the Blessed for their prayers are based on the notion that the Bible is meant to describe every normative part of the Christian life… which it isn't.
50: To compare this practice to necromancy or spirit channeling shows great ignorance of what those practices really are.
51: If God thought all religious statues were illicit, He would not have commanded Moses to construct two of them in Exodus 25.
52: Christians who think we shouldn't have statues of Mary should throw out their nativity scenes.
Mary and Marian Devotion:
53: When Jesus said to the "disciple whom Jesus loved" that Mary was his mother, this was not only directed at John, but at all Christians.
54: This is confirmed in Revelation 12, where the mother of the Messiah is explicitly named as the mother of all Christians.
55: If Paul's phrase that "all have sinned" was taken absolutely, it would mean that Christ, the angels, and babies have sinned. But we know that none of them have sinned. Therefor Paul's statement allows exceptions.
56: To suppose that Mary never sinned does not imply she didn't need a savior. Her salvation would have just occurred from the first moment of her existence, and have been so complete that she never sinned at all.
57: To deny that Mary is the "mother of God", is to either deny that Jesus was God or that Mary was His mother.
58: To deny that Mary is a queen is to deny that Jesus is King - as the mother of the king is, in fact, a position of royal queenship.
The Eucharist / The Lord's Supper
59: Christ was being serious when He said in John 6 that the bread He'd give for the world was His flesh, and when He said at the Last Supper that the bread was His body.
60: When Christ said that His words were "spirit and life", He did not mean that the preceding statements were analogies or symbols.
61: When Christ said that "the flesh avails nothing", He was not saying all flesh is useless. If He had, then the offering of His body on the cross would have availed nothing.
62: Rather, Christ was using "the flesh" in the way He and Saint Paul do elsewhere - referring to worldly ways of thinking and acting.
63: All the early Christians believed that the Eucharist was the body and blood of Christ. To say they were wrong is to suppose the Holy Spirit allowed the entire Church to fall into seriously grave error.
64: To suppose that the whole Church fell into grave theological error means denying that the Holy Spirit would lead it into the truth. Likewise, it makes a false prophet of Christ, who said the gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church.
65: If the Eucharist isn't substantially God, it would violate the First Commandment to worship it. If the Eucharist is substantially God, it would be a sacrilege not to worship it. Christians are driven to make a choice on the matter.
66: The Catholic Mass is said to be a sacrifice, but the theology of the Church denies that it "re-sacrifices" Christ. Rather, it is a participation in the offering of Christ's sacrifice, which Scripture says He eternally presents to the father.
Baptism:
67: Paul did not understand baptism to be a rote symbol, because in Romans 6 and elsewhere he attributes agency to the sacrament of Baptism.
68: Peter likewise does not understand baptism as a rote symbol, because in 1Peter 3 he says "baptism now saves you"
69: The early Christians did not believe baptism was a rote symbol, as one can discover in Acts 22:16 and in the writings of Saint Justin Martyr
70: Baptism is not opposed to faith, because it is faith which leads us to trust that Jesus bestows salvation in the Sacrament.
71: When Jesus referred to being "born of water", he did not mean natural birth. In the very next sentence He refers to natural birth as "born of flesh".
72: The formula of baptism given by Jesus is "in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit". References to baptizing "in the name of Jesus" are a shorthand.
73: The New Testament does not specify a method of baptizing. But there is enough data to imply that immersion wasn't the only valid method.
Marriage:
74: Jesus did not present divorce among Christians are merely wrong. He presented is as impossible, because He says the man who divorces his wife can still commit adultery against her. How do you commit adultery against a woman you're not married to?
75: The "pornea clause" in Matthew's account does not grant an exception for situations of adultery. If it did, it would make it very simple for a man to put his marriage asunder.
76: Rather, the Pornea Clause refers to unchaste unions which would not be considered truly marital from the beginning - such as the one found in 1Cor 5:1.
77: Consequently, it is possible for a person to attempt to enter into the bond of marriage falsely or invalidly. This is the basis for annulments.
78: All Christians once believed that contraception was gravely wrong.
79: Admitting the liceity of contraception means OK-ing the separation of the unitive aspect of sex from the procreative end. In doing so, it becomes very difficult to explain why homosexual unions are wrong.
Priests:
80: If Christ did not intend for us to confess our sins to His ministers, He would not have given them the authority to forgive or retain sins in John 20.
81: That there would be a ministerial priesthood in the New Covenant was prophesied by Isaiah in chapter 66.
82: Those who object to calling priests "father", based on Matthew 23, mysteriously have no issue calling their mother's husband "father". Nor do they think twice about calling people "teacher" or "doctor" - both of which would be banned by a strict reading of Christ's command.
83: If Paul really taught that Christ's ministers had to be married, then he would have been banning himself from ministry.
84: Paul presents celibacy as a superior state for those seeking to devote themselves to the work of the Lord in 1 Cor 7.
The End Times
85: The Bible does not teach the "Rapture" theory as defined by modern Dispensationalists.
86: By aligning Revelation 20 with 2Thes2:6, one can determine that the New Testament "millennium" is actually occurring now.
Purgatory:
87: Heaven is described as a place where everything and everyone is perfect.
88: If one admits that in this life we have many character flaws, but in the next life we don't, some kind of post-death change is logically necessary to bridge the gap. Catholics call it Purgatory.
89: This change is alluded to in passages such as 1Cor 3:15 - where Paul describes ministers going through it. It is also alluded to by analogy of "paying back every penny" in Matthew 5:26.
90: The length of this change may not be measurable in physical time. Thus there is no reason why the Good Thief could not enter paradise on "that day".
91: Then again, it is also possible for a person to reach a state in this life where no further purification is needed. Purgatory would be unnecessary for them.
92: It is appropriate to pray for people who may be undergoing this final change.
93: Since God's knowledge transcends time, it is appropriate to pray for the salvation of people who lived long ago.
94: Before one criticizes indulgences, that person should be able to pass a basic knowledge exam on what they actually are.
95: Praise be to God forever and ever, and to His mighty angels, and to all His glorious saints.
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