If God Exists, Then Why Are Catholics and Protestants so Divided?

Okay, so why even approach this question in the first place? I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t sure about choosing this as a topic for a Questioning Christianity lecture. The last thing I want to do is create any unnecessary division by not speaking clearly or compassionately on the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.

The plan is for us to have some kind of Questioning Christianity event every year as a church—we did 3 topics over 3 weeks last year, and we’re just doing 1 week this year (all of last years’ talks and Q&A are recorded and on the church’s website, by the way)—but as the summer started a few months ago I had no idea what we were going to talk about for our QC lecture in the fall.

And then I started trying to exercise again. To be more clear: I started running. And running is awful. It’s the worst part of any sport. You take away the physical contact, you take away the ball and scoring goals, and you’re just left with running—being out of breath and sweating. It’s my least favorite thing to do.

But, it was an easier starting point than getting back into a gym and didn’t take as much time as lifting weights, and I knew I wanted to start doing something. So, I started running around the neighborhood a few days a week. And at some point on my route, every time, I run (or walk) past Our Lady of the Lake, the Catholic Church over here on Lafitte St.

It’s a large church. It’s a really active church. I don’t know Father Doug, but he has a pretty powerful story of how he got into ministry. And every time I would run (or again, walk) past the property, I would pray for the church. And finally, one day I was convicted about it: I have nothing to do with these people. What I know about Father Doug is what I’ve read online.

I know I have some real issues with several aspects of their theology, but these are also real people. They’re my neighbors. And you can’t love your neighbors well if you don’t know anything about them. Restoration Community Church is a Protestant Church in a historically Catholic context, and we will not love our Catholic neighbors well—we won’t be able to engage them well—we won’t be able to serve them well or stand on any common ground of unity we have well—if we’re not intentional to know them and what they believe.

Earlier in the year, I recorded a podcast with one of the Presbyterian pastors that’s part of the Northshore Gospel Network with us, Jason Wood. We talked about how to navigate theological differences—specifically for that podcast we talked about how their church baptizes infants and our church only baptizes professing believers.

One of the things he said that stuck with me on that podcast was that the best way to dialogue with someone you disagree with is to make it your goal to know their position as well as they do. We don’t want to create straw men and caricatures. I don’t want to over simplify why Catholics and Protestants disagree.

But this is a question worth addressing because Jesus, in the longest prayer we have from him, the high priestly prayer found in John 17, prays for the future, global church in verse 21—not asking for their success or their strength, but asking for their unity. He says,

John 17:21 ESV

²¹ that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

If the unity of God’s people is meant to be a spotlight on the truth of Christ’s salvation, then the opposite will also be true. When people see division among Christians, it casts doubt on both the reality and the authority of the God they claim to follow.

And so for as many actual, regenerate followers of Jesus that there are in our Protestant and Catholic churches, we want to do everything in our power to hold fast and hold united to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Now, how do we do that? I would argue that unity doesn’t happen because we avoid our disagreements. It can only happen when we understand our disagreements in the light of our most foundational agreements. And that won’t be the same for every practicing Catholic and every practicing Protestant.

But, at the risk of spoiling the end right here at the beginning: neither camp is king—only Jesus, and no matter what your background is, there is only one name under heaven by which we must be saved.

So, we’re going to divide our time tonight into three sections before we get to our Q&A at the end. We’ll start in the past, asking, What was the “first” church? Was it Catholic like they claim it was? Then, we’ll move into the meat of the conversation as we ask, What divided the church? Finally, we’ll bring the discussion to our goal of unity with the question, What is the true church? So, a little bit of history, then a little bit of theology, before landing the plane with some practicality.

What was the “first” church?

Alright, so, What was the “first” church? The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that,

“The sole Church of Christ ... subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him.” —The Catechism of the Catholic Church

Clearly, their claim is that from the very beginning, the Catholic Church has been the one, true church. And there’s a way in which Protestants should certainly affirm that. Somewhere around 107-110 AD, the early church father, Ignatius of Antioch wrote,

“Where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” —Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8.2

This is the earliest mention we have of the “Catholic Church”, and it happens 80 years or less from the life and ministry of Jesus. That’s incredibly early. When you play a game of telephone, the message tends to get more distorted the more it’s passed down the line from one person to the next, but here you’re talking within 1-2 generations from when Jesus actually walked the earth. That’s significant.

But the Greek word that Ignatius used was Katholikos, and that matters too. Because Katholikos means “universal” or “on the whole.” When he spoke of the Catholic Church 80 years after the life of Jesus, Ignatius wasn’t referring to the later denominational label “Roman Catholic”. He was referring to the entirety of the church, not just a local congregation—the “universal church”.

We see the same expression used in both the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed that Protestant churches still affirm and recite today, using the phrase “holy catholic church” to represent all believers in all places. But just because we don’t seem to have an account that the institution of the Catholic Church in the way we know it today is representative of the first church, that doesn’t mean the first Christians were necessarily Baptist or Presbyterian or some other denomination either.

The church in Rome (which would be representative today of Roman Catholicism) mattered really early as the movement began to institutionalize. And that’s the way all movements create any staying power. We experience a lot of viral trends in everything from social media to fashion to values to politics. But an organic movement outlasts it’s moment when it can successfully institutionalize it’s vision.

Think of Giving Tuesday. That started as a simple, social media hashtag in 2012 to promote generosity after Black Friday, but gradually it institutionalized: a formal nonprofit was created, businesses developed their own GivingTuesday organizations and campaigns, and now it’s become a part of our culture’s annual calendar all while maintaining it’s original character.

In order to maintain unity and clarity as the early church lived on mission, history shows that from the ministry of the Apostles in the New Testament to the councils of specific churches, there was an increasing structure that took shape as the church developed. Rome was clearly a part of that.

But does that mean that Rome was the universal papal authority over the entire church? When we get to the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, we seem to learn that they’re one of several churches that carried substantial influence rather than being the ultimate leader. Canon 6 in the First Council of Nicaea says,

“Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the other provinces, let the Churches retain their privileges.” —The First Council of Nicaea, Canon 6

This leaves open the possibility that Rome, along with Antioch, Alexandria, and others, each carried a large degree of regional jurisdiction. While more development would certainly come, Nicaea itself does not explicitly articulate the later Catholic understanding of Roman primacy in 325 AD. There isn’t any mention here of the pope’s “supreme, full, immediate, and universal” jurisdiction.

If we fast forward over a century later to the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, Canon 28 brings up the city of Constantinople and calls it “New Rome”, saying the church there should have “equal privileges” to “Old Rome” and rank second only to Rome because Constantinople is now the imperial capital.

Rome, however, didn’t agree with this canon, and Poe Leo rejected it insisting that their primacy was rooted in Peter and the apostolic structure he believed Christ had established. But that means that, even by 451 AD, the nature of Roman primacy was still being contested in the broader church.

And that’s an interesting point to consider. Because while Protestants and Catholics might have different understandings of the first church, there’s a third party involved that doesn’t get as much of a voice over here in the west, and that’s the Eastern Orthodox Church. They claim, just like Roman Catholics, to be the one, historical, and true church. But the Western and Eastern expressions of Christianity gradually developed in different ways over the centuries before formally dividing during what’s known as the Great Schism in 1054 AD.

One of the arguments the Eastern Orthodox made against Roman primacy is claiming that it’s early prominence was largely because Rome was the imperial capital. That argument seems to parallel what’s being said about Constantinople in 451 AD when they call that city “New Rome” and give it the same privileges as “Old Rome” precisely because it’s now the capital.

But even outside of the historical record, we need to consider the claim that today’s bishops within the Roman Catholic Church stand in continuity with the apostles and that the pope (or the bishop of Rome) uniquely succeeds Peter’s role of primacy in the church. This is what’s called Apostolic Succession, and it’s central to the idea that the Roman Catholic Church is the original church. Vatican II summarizes this clearly when it says,

“This Church ... subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.” —Vatican II, Lumen Gentium

We could look at several places that Catholics point to in the New Testament to build their case for succession, but for the sake of time let’s focus on Matthew 16:16-19 for a moment as one of their primary texts. There, Jesus says,

Matthew 16:16–19 ESV

¹⁶ Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Catholics see Jesus giving Peter a unique role of primacy here while also giving authority to the apostles, and they believe that continues in the pope and bishops throughout history to today. They look to other places like Matthias replacing Judas as an apostle in Acts 1 as a confirmation that this succession was always meant to continue from the original 12.

For them, apostolic succession includes a focus on an office—a position that began with the apostles. They believe this apostolic teaching office continues in what’s known as the Church’s Magisterium, which is guided by the Holy Spirit and, under particular circumstances, protected from doctrinal error.

But for Protestants, we don’t believe that any office has that kind of guaranteed protection, and therefore everything must finally be tested by the apostolic teaching we see preserved in the Bible. When Jesus says, “on this rock I will build my church,” Protestants would largely agree with one of Augustine’s prominent readings of the passage: that Jesus is referring to Christ whom Peter confessed as the “rock” rather than to Peter himself. Although, to be fair, Augustine also spoke very highly of Peter’s role in the church and allowed for both interpretations.

But this is probably one of the most important distinctions in understanding the way both Catholics and Protestants view the early church. Rome claims you can know its primacy because their office of bishops follow one after another traced back to the apostles as they teach the Scriptures. Protestants, however, claim that you can know any teaching is true (or not true) only by measuring it in accordance with what the apostles actually taught.

As an only child (and a conniving child), I grew up trying to figure out ways I could go back and forth between my parents to get what I wanted. If I asked my mom if I could go outside and play with the basketball goal, she might tell me that I couldn’t go play until after I ate my dinner.

But then if I went and told my dad in the other room that mom said I could go play basketball, have I communicated reliably or with my mom’s actual authority? I might be descended from my mom, and my mom might have given me instructions, but my connection to my mom isn’t what gives me truth. I’m only upholding the truth inasmuch as I’m accurately relaying her words to my dad.

Just because one leader might have led to another leader doesn’t mean they’re free from error or will immediately represent the previous leaders’ direction with any reliability. Now, to be fair, even Catholics don’t believe everything that comes from a bishop or a pope is immediately infallible.

They do, however, believe Christ has supernaturally protected the Church’s Magisterium from teaching error under particular circumstances, giving the Church a uniquely authoritative role in interpreting Scripture and apostolic tradition, and that’s where we’d disagree.

But that doesn’t mean that the succession of leadership isn’t important—the tradition of the church certainly matters—but it has to fall secondary to succession of doctrine—what the leaders of the church actually taught.

Protestants believe that the authority of the church rests entirely on the message that was given to it, entrusted to the apostles, and preserved for us in Scripture. So, my title and my ordination as a pastor doesn’t help you if I’m not teaching in accordance with the New Testament. My office carries authority with the faithful teaching of the Bible, not independent from it.

What divided the church?

And this is one of the primary points that divided the institutional church in the Protestant Reformation. Of course, when we say “divided”, I want to be clear that Protestants don’t view themselves as “discovering Christianity” in the 16th century. Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, and others would maintain that they were merely trying to reform the church rather than reinvent the church—they saw their efforts as returning to what the church has always been.

This idea of authority and apostolic succession of office vs. the succession of teaching would eventually come to be known from the reformation through the latin phrase sola scriptura. And that was only one of “Five Solas” that help us summarize the doctrinal emphases of Protestantism. The others are Sola Fide (or, faith alone), Sola Gratia (or, grace alone), Solus Christus (or, Christ alone) and Soli Deo Gloria (or, to the glory of God alone).

But the Reformation didn’t start with these clean distinctions of doctrine from the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, it began with two, separate developments converging in Martin Luther’s life. In 1515, Pope Leo X authorized an indulgence campaign with the public purpose of raising money to help rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. If you’re unfamiliar with what an indulgence is, the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes them as,

“a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven…” —The Catechism of the Catholic Church

In 1516 and 1517 a Dominican Friar named Johann Tetzel was brought into the campaign to preach on these indulgences, and even Catholic sources acknowledge abuse in the way he taught on them. In his “Sermon on Indulgences” that’s survived to today, he said,

“You should know that all who confess and in penance put alms into the coffer according to the counsel of the confessor…[they] will obtain complete remission of their sins.” —Johann Tetzel, “Sermon on Indulgences”

Now, indulgences weren’t inherently something Catholics believed needed to be purchased, but this particular campaign explicitly connected financial giving to receiving them. And they weren’t only being offered for the living either, but people could obtain them for their deceased loved ones they considered to be undergoing purification in purgatory as well.

While all this was happening, Martin Luther had spent much of 1515 and 1516 lecturing through the book of Romans, which led to him deeply wrestling with the doctrine he grew up with and what he saw in Scripture concerning topics like justification, righteousness, faith, and grace.

So, when he heard of the messaging in the indulgence campaign and the financial abuses surrounding it, Luther grew concerned in light of his study of Romans that people would place their hope in those indulgences for relief from sin’s punishment rather than resting in genuine repentance and the sufficiency of Christ. He couldn’t help but speak up.

Luther’s original 95 theses that he supposedly nailed to the door of the church in Wittenberg on October 31 weren’t intended to divide the church. His main main interest was to have a fuller discussion on indulgences. But what arose from that conversation sparked the Protestant Reformation and led to the theological convictions that we now summarize as the Five Solas.

Now, we could spend a full semester of seminary classes diving into the theological distinctions of the Five Solas between the Protestant and Catholic Church, and if something interests you, we can touch on anything more specifically—at least as much as I’m able to—later during our Q&A. But for our main time here tonight, I think it would be most hopeful to spend a few moments examining their competing claims regarding the doctrine of justification—How are we as sinners who are separated from God forgiven and made right with God?

I mean, that’s kinda the whole point of the gospel, right? That’s why the late R.C. Sproul, in speaking about the Reformation, said,

“The chief article that caused the controversy to end in division was the doctrine of justification by faith alone.” —R.C. Sproul, “Justification by Death?”

Now, both Catholics and Protestants would agree on our need for Jesus, grace, faith, and holiness. But, I’ll confess, growing up in the Protestant church, I assumed that we believe in grace while Catholics just believe in good works. But that’s just a caricature, and really, it’s inaccurate.

Both Catholics and Protestants believe we need Jesus. We do, however, disagree, on what God does when he justifies someone and on what basis can that person stand righteous before him. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes justification as,

“not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.” —The Catechism of the Catholic Church

For Catholics, justification includes an initial justification that’s ordinarily conferred in baptism as a sacrament of faith in which God graciously forgives sin and makes the person inwardly righteous. But justification for the Catholic also occurs in the ongoing process where they grow in that righteousness through a grace-enabled life of faith, love, and obedience. God’s grace comes first, but the entire work of justification is what the Catholic Catechism calls “a cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom.”

For Protestants, we believe it’s important to separate out these two events. The lifelong journey of sanctification where we’re conformed more and more to the image of the Son is what flows out of our completed justification rather than being included as part of our justification. Another way to put it as that Protestants believe we grow to look more like Jesus because we have already been justified, not as part of the process of becoming justified.

We believe justification is a finished work because Scripture talks about it as a declaration rather than a transformation (the transformation is what follows and demonstrates that the declaration has actually happened). Let’s quickly look at a couple places in Scripture.

In Romans 3:23, the apostle Paul states that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It makes sense that if a perfectly holy God is the standard of righteousness, then no matter who you are, everyone will fall infinitely short. But what’s interesting is that in the very next verse Paul uses our sinful shortcomings as the backdrop for claiming that we “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

That means that, while we are still sinners, while we are still short of God’s glory, he justifies us through Christ. He uses that same Greek word, δικαιόω, again in verses 28 to say, “we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” So, while we were doing no good works, while we were sinners in the eyes of God, he justified us.

And from the Greek translation of the Old Testament to Paul’s own usage elsewhere in the book of Romans, the word for “justify” here most often carries a forensic quality to it; it was a judicial term that describes the image of a courtroom. In a trial, some people are condemned by the judge and some people are justified. Even if the defendant actually committed the crime, if he’s justified, if he is “declared innocent”, then he receives all the legal benefits of that innocence.

That’s the picture Paul is trying to give us in Romans 3; not the start of a process where we might be found innocent in the end, but an immediate declaration of Christ’s innocence attributed to us while our guilt is attributed to him.

That’s why, immediately after mentioning our justification in Romans 3:24, verse 25 says Jesus was put forward “as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith, meaning that Christ’s sacrifice turns away God’s wrath from us and allows us to be declared righteous. All because of Jesus, and all in a single moment of declaration. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

If we turn to the very next chapter, Paul uses the word for “justify” once again, this time saying in Romans 4:5 that Jesus “justified the ungodly.” That means we are pronounced righteous while still being ungodly. That’s how Protestants understand the grace of the gospel, and it’s distinct from the Roman Catholic view that includes both initial justification and a subsequent increase in the righteousness received through a grace-enabled life of faith and obedience.

Finally, if we turn just one more chapter again in the book of Romans, we read Paul in Romans 5:1 describing our justification as something that happened in our past but which bears current fruit. He says, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith (past tense), we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Our justification is not a process. We are fully saved and fully declared righteous in a moment when God draws us to himself and we repent of our sin and believe in Christ. It’s like going from a dark room to a light room—it’s instantaneous. But then, after the light is turned on, the rest of your life is the outworking of that light as you become increasingly like Jesus in living your life for him. That’s not part of what saves you. It is the fruit of Jesus saving you. That’s the core emphasis of what it means to be Protestant.

And, if that’s the case, if we are declared something we aren’t because of something Jesus is, then I believe we have a much firmer foundation for assurance of our salvation because our hope rests in Christ’s finished work rather than depending in any way upon our own good works.

And while every discussion throughout the Protestant Reformation mattered, this is an issue that I believe is worth dividing over—not for the sake of theological definition but for gospel clarity. When I stand before God one day, where will I look for the righteousness that makes me acceptable to him? Will I look partially at what God’s grace has accomplished with me? Or will I look entirely outside of me?

Like Alistair Begg once said preaching about what answer the thief on the cross would be able to give for why he should be allowed to enter heaven. He said, “The man on the middle cross said I could come.” Our faith is not valuable simply because we have it. But it is by faith we are fully justified precisely because our faith lays hold of Christ.

What is the true church?

It’s all about Jesus. And that’s really the answer to our third and final question: What is the true church? You are not a true Christian because you’re Catholic, and you are not a true Christian because you’re Protestant. You are only a true Christian because, when faced with the question, “What are you trusting in to make you right with God?”, your answer is: only Jesus!

I do believe a growing Christian in the Catholic Church will increasingly struggle with the Church’s position on things like authority, the necessity of the sacraments, the infusion of grace in a lifelong process of justification, and their prayers to the saints, but I wholeheartedly believe there are Catholics who are holding fast to their faith in Christ alone for their genuine salvation just like I believe there are people within the Protestant church who honor God with their lips while their hearts are far from him.

Our path to unity as the universal church is not our confessions or our labels—it is our common conviction that there is no other name under heaven but Jesus by which we must be saved.