Man's Sanctuary: The Development Of Conscience And Liberty

Hi Jeff,

I just read your conversion story linked to your web page. In part, the essential nature of your conversion is found in these words:

” I had a residual sola scriptura attitude that I had absorbed from society. I understood via the media that any serious Christian thought must be in the Bible. I was concerned that part of what I read I did not also see directly in the Bible.

Fortunately, we had moved to an area that had a Catholic radio station and also had EWTN on cable. The questions asked and the answers given on Catholic Answers Live were an important part of my intellectual conversion. Being in the military, it was easy for me to come to understand that the Church needs a hierarchy and a magisterium to proclaim the truth. The military has written instructions for just about everything, yet we constantly had to interpret for others what they meant. Sometimes we would have to query a higher command to ensure that our interpretation was correct.

I saw that there had to be a living Church to protect doctrines and to interpret and teach them without error. As times passed there had to be a way to address new questions as they developed: By using just Bible study, it would be quite difficult to answer questions with any authority about topics such as in vitro fertilization and cloning.

The founding fathers of the United States understood this problem when they wrote the Constitution. They knew that the Constitution could not interpret itself, and they set up the Supreme Court to do this. Of course, this system breaks down if the Supreme Court makes an interpretation inconsistent with the founders’ intent. Because of original sin, no human organization can keep from falling into error. It is only through the Holy Spirit guiding the Church that we are assured that the Church is not teaching error.

As Augustine said, “I would not believe the Gospels if it were not for the Church.” This was the very Rosetta stone that helped me to believe in the authority of the Church and to accept all that it teaches. Instead of looking at an issue like contraception and wondering if what the Church taught were true, I had the attitude that I accepted this doctrine as true and that I needed to learn why it was true. I have come to appreciate the great and glorious treasure of what the Church has taught through the centuries. The intellectual underpinnings of our faith are something that we can never exhaust, and at times we can come to a deeper understanding of those teachings.”

I am a Christian with a “born-again” conversion experience, somewhat similar to the Martin Luther genre. I found your story to be candid and thus authentic. The above caption from your story appears to be the cornerstone of your faith and the turning point of your conversion. This seems to me to be a normative point of entrance into Catholicism for many non-Catholics, whether religious or not. What I find surprising (to me) is the similarity of confidence and assurance that your experience shares with my own “born-again” experience. You are obviously familiar with Luther’s “sola scriptura” experience and tenet, so I am curious as to whether you have explored the history of the Church in a comparative (honest) analysis of its abuses and over-reaching similar to the Supreme Court’s inconsistencies with the intent of the framers? Is your confidence in the finished work of Christ or the comfort of an earthly agency of dogmatic authority?

Your honest disclosure of bad experiences in some RC churches indicates your satisfaction to let dogmatic authority rest vested in the Church, but does not help explain the nature of her failure to preserve authority over the truth that is required with so many vagrants claiming to be her children. Remember, “wisdom is justified of all her children” Luke 7:25.

It is not that God cannot choose what he may as a divine instrument for preserving truth and the gospel, but he has plainly magnified his ‘Word’ above even his own name (Psalm 138:2). I believe this is the demonstrated intent of God in history as, through the Incarnated Word (Word becoming flesh-Jesus Christ), Christ realizes the shadow intent of the Old Testament in his incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection from the dead, and becomes the fullness of the expression of God’s redemption and the means of preserving it as well. (See Hebrews in entirety.)

The establishment of the Mosaic seat of authority, with its political and religious authority, is the most phenomenal occurrence of Biblical and world history (see Numbers). While God dissolved its political bands with the destruction of Jerusalem by Bablyon, He continued its religious authority until the crucifixion (see Matt. 23 in entirety). But Jesus did not see the seat of Moses as vested with authority to depart from or pervert the truth. Instead, he appealed to scripture as the fundamental expression of truth whether talking to the Devil or to those sitting on Moses’ seat. Indeed, the ringing power of truth is so vested in the scriptures that the proper expression of them transparently exudes truth and authority. Jesus held no position of authority nor did he vest such upon his disciples declaring that such hierarchal systems were gentile (natural) and not to be desired or embraced by spiritual leaders (Matt. 23:11). Yet at the same time in a culture where the seat of Moses held tremendous sway over the people, Jesus simply taught the Word of God with simplicity and clarity. Every element of his teaching was based upon the Word as the prima facia source of authority. When Jesus taught, the people were astonished because he taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes who sat on Moses seat (Matt. 7:28-29).

In fact, the very founding of the church was in direct disobedience to directives from that heavenly authorized institution of Moses’ seat. When forbidden by the ‘church’ authorities to preach in the name of Jesus, Peter and the apostles with him declared that they must obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29). Thus in retrospect, the higher seat of authority is in a man’s conscience toward God, for that conscience alone, when compelled by God, will obey against its own natural instincts even under the pain of death because it submits itself to Him who alone has the authority to condemn one to hell. That is why the teaching of Jesus centers upon refusing to be coerced by fear of death into submission to expectations of earthly authority that would deprive the conscience from obedience to God. Here is a short sample: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matt. 10:28) (see Matt. 10 in entirety). This reminds me of the military tribunals during the post-WWII era that discounted criminal acts done under the guise of obedience to superiors.

In short summary, God never relieves a man’s conscience of its duty to obey him above all. There never has been nor ever will be an earthly agency that can have the power to resist its own sinful inclinations toward corruption. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is the transformational power of the Word of God, which is preached that has the power to save. Indeed the Psalm is true, “The Lord gave the word: great [was] the company of those that published [it].” (Psalm 68:11). One might say that history is the stage of men doing battle of conscience. Gentile powers rage against its expression as rebellion, but consciences by hope of resurrection undauntedly resist such false authority as tyranny.

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, [saying], Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou [art] my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give [thee] the heathen [for] thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth [for] thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish [from] the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed [are] all they that put their trust in him. PSALM 2

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word. The Word is spoken infallibly in natural revelation by the creation and in supernatural revelation by the Scriptures (Romans 1). The former brings obligation without excuse, the latter brings truth without fear of man or demon. The scripture is given by inspiration of God and in its own right is profitable and able to make one wise unto salvation (2Timothy 3:14-17). Scripture is of no private interpretation (2Peter 1:19-21). It is understood accurately by the Holy Spirit and perverted by the fleshly motives of men (2Cor. 2). It is not so remarkable that there are many interpretations among professing Christians, for the flesh is yet in enmity against God, and it is quick to argue for its own benefit. What is remarkable is the homogeny that exists in truly orthodox teachings of the scriptures by people of integrity and conscience with varied associations who love not their life to the death in true and sincere faith toward God as revealed by His Word.

I often hear the commendation that RC church authority solves the massive confusion of unfettered Protestant missives as if the existence of contradiction between two consciences is a more compelling justification for external authority than the dismissive failure of conscience altogether by those who love their life more than their God and assent to a dogma out of the fear of death. (These [words] spoke his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. John 9:22; Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess [him], lest they should be put out of the synagogue: John 12:42)

All over the world there are false churches in every denomination. The RC church no more can enforce orthodoxy of practice and teaching in her many churches than your personal experience relates. I for one cannot trust an earth-bound agency of the church with such abandon that I do not question its practice and expressions when they do not conform to the Word of God in its most natural reading, in context, as it weighs upon my conscience before God by the Holy Spirit (1Cor. 1-2).

For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: Let him turn aside from evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord [are] over the righteous, and his ears [are open] unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord [is] against them that do evil. And who [is] he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy [are ye]: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For [it is] better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (1Peter 3:10-18)

Conscience toward God, not dogmatism is the ultimate means by which God preserves both a people and His Word. That for me has been my confident and liberating experience, being born-again by the Holy Spirit of God (John 3:16)

By faith alone in Christ alone, by authority of Scripture alone,
Gary Cox