Dialogue for Siblings

In the sibling rivalry of the Christian family. Protestants and Catholics often carp at each other more like brothers and sisters than brethren in Christ. This kind of religious infighting in which slights outweigh insights has no appeal to Jesuit Theologian Gustave Weigel, professor of ecclesiology* at Maryland's Woodstock College. In the current issue of The Catholic World, Father Weigel provides an equably tempered, coolly reasoned analysis of what he calls "The Protestant Stance Today." Conventional Protestants who have given the matter little thought may be somewhat surprised at Father Weigel's spadework in the intellectual subsoil of the ground they stand on.

As Father Weigel sees it, three qualities characterize the style, or stance, of American Protestantism: 1) audacity, 2) intellectuality, 3) modernity. In each he finds a virtue and the defect of that virtue. By audacity, Father Weigel points out, he does not mean "a bullying spirit, much less rudeness." It consists rather of "a naive and energetic thrust forward from an idea sincerely conceived. From Luther's day onward, simplicity of soul and freedom of the spirit were always characteristic of the churches of the Reform." Liberal or fundamentalist, the Protestant derives an "enthusiastic assuredness" from his "unconcern for tradition." The virtue of this attitude is the tolerance of diversity. But this tolerance is paradoxical. The Protestant "is tolerant of anything but intolerance, and the insistence that the Christian faith must be doctrinally one is for him intolerance." The Protestant is not necessarily annoyed by specific Catholic doctrines, e.g., the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist; what makes him "bridle" is the statement that this or other doctrines "must" be held by the Christian. The minus side of Protestant audacity and tolerance, says Weigel, is a logical lack of "total consistency."

St. Immanuel. Disagreeing with those Catholics who "glibly say that Protestantism is emotionalism," Father Weigel insists "it has an intellectuality. It favors scholarship and has always produced it." Scientific exegesis, of scriptural texts has been "mainly a Protestant endeavor." But Protestant intellectualism, according to Father Weigel, is empirical, skeptical, relativistic, qualitatively derived from Kantian philosophy ("Immanuel Kant has rightly been called 'the Protestant Thomas Aquinas' "). Scientifically approached, God, or at least the historical Jesus, becomes "the great unknown." Argues Weigel: "There is here a despair of knowledge." Protestants evade this despair by a leap of faith powered by the will: they make an act of trust on a meaning and power we do not see nor understand. Religion is thus a call for decision."

This process "fascinates and frightens the Catholic," whose church "insists that the intellect can reach truth absolutely." The Catholic position is equally amazing to the Protestant, who believes that "relativism is the most man can expect from his knowledge" and that "certitudes do not derive from knowledge but from voluntary decisions." These opposed methods, according to Father Weigel, render a Protestant-Catholic dialogue very difficult. "Epistemology (i.e., what and how things can be known) divides Catholic and Protestant much more than the tenets of their respective beliefs. Both sides will agree that Jerusalem is in Palestine and that there are 27 books in the New Testament. Things of this kind do not divide us. When it comes to the ultimate meanings of the phenomena, we are in conflict and there seems no way but the grace of God to get us out of it."

Cultural Winds. As for modernity, "the Protestant is up to date." He sails easily before the prevailing cultural wind: "When sociology was in ascendency, the gospel was the Social Gospel; when pessimism overcame optimism, Neo-Orthodoxy was pessimistic. When the spirit of the age is literalistic, then Protestants have a Puritan worship, but when symbol becomes meaningful to the people, Protestant worship is liturgical." Modernity creates an atmosphere of freedom but also displays "resentment against pure intelligence. Modernity gloats in showing that the intelligence of yesterday was really folly."

So wily and ubiquitous an imp is modernity that even wary Father Weigel seems to grant it the last word--in his title.

* The study of social phenomena resulting from religious motives.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.