Catholic and Reformed Conceptions of Assurance

Catholic and Reformed Conceptions of Assurance

June 22, 2007

In my experience, the common Reformed conception of assurance involves knowing that one is decretally elect.[1] If one does not know that one is decretally elect, then one does not know that Christ died for oneself, and therefore one does not know that one is saved and going to heaven. This conception of assurance produces difficulties for Reformed theology, because Reformed ecclesiology has no way to determine definitively that any particular person is decretally elect, at least not until after the person has died (at which point assurance is no longer needed). So even though this is a very lofty conception of assurance, and if attained would produce incredible joy and comfort, it seems to me that ordinarily no one can justifiably attain it in this life. So one either pretends that one has knowledge of one's decretal election status, or one just claims it by a fideistic leap and/or by force of reiteration to oneself.

If one asks such a Reformed person how he knows he is saved, he will typically say that Scripture tells him so. And if you ask him to show you where, he will point to verses that teach that whoever believes shall be saved. Then he says that since he believes, he is therefore assured that he is decretally elect. Then you point out that apostates-to-be read the same passages and conclude the same thing. These people also believe, but then fall away and die in that state of unbelief. He replies that those people never *truly* believed. So you ask him how he knows that he "truly believes". You ask him how he knows that the kind of faith he now has is the kind that no apostate-to-be ever had. He generally has no answer for this question. (Notice that now he is no longer deriving assurance from Scripture alone, but from some sort of introspection.) Sometimes, at this point, he appeals to the witness of the Holy Spirit. When you point out that Mormons also appeal to the witness of the Holy Spirit, he has no substantive reply.

I want to contrast that with the Catholic conception of assurance. Assurance in Catholicism does not involve knowledge of one's decretal election. Assurance in Catholicism comes from a good conscience *and* the Church's declaration concerning me. When I confess all my sins, so far as they are known to me, and my conscience is clear that I am not witholding secret sins from the priest, then when the priest absolves me, I have assurance that if I were to die at that time, I would go to heaven. This is a 'weaker' conception of assurance, in the sense that it does not take hold of one's decretal election status. Ironically, however, this level of assurance is attainable, and so one ends up with more assurance (at least more justifiable assurance) than one has under Reformed theology.

What are the fundamental differences between the Reformed and Catholic conceptions of assurance? The primary difference is that the [common] Reformed conception of assurance is based on knowledge of one's decretal election status, whereas the Catholic conception of assurance is based on one's conscience and one's relation to the Church. Another factor underlying this difference is the Reformed doctrine of the priesthood of all believers that only *functionally* distinguishes the ministerial priesthood. The Reformed rejection of the sacramental understanding of Holy Orders and Apostolic succession means that the Reformed pastor does not have the power to forgive sins, not anymore than the individual Christian has the power to forgive his own sins. For that reason, while the Reformed pastor can confidently say to anyone that if he believes and is baptized and perseveres, he will be saved, the Reformed pastor cannot, with divine authority, say to a particular person, "Your sins are forgiven; go in peace." The promises can only be left as conditionals.[2]

That is why Reformed Christians try to turn to Scripture to find assurance. They never say, "My pastor forgave all my sins last week, and I have not committed any mortal sins since then." For Reformed Christians the idea of looking to one's pastor for assurance is highly offensive to their deep commitment to sola Christi. (This is the primary reason, I think, why they have difficulty with the liturgical and devotional attention the Catholic Church gives to Mary and the Saints; it is viewed as incompatible with sola Christi.) Furthermore, Reformed Christians generally do not recognize the distinction between mortal and venial sins, and they typically think that we sin daily in thought, word, and deed. That combination leads to looking outside themselves for assurance, i.e. to Scripture, or to the work of Christ, or possibly to their baptism. But when one points out that baptized people can go to hell, and that [in their theology] the work of Christ applies only to the decretally elect, and that the promises in Scripture regarding salvation apply only to those with genuine faith, not to those with a faith that will fade away, they have no choice but to look inward for assurance. They engage in some introspective evaluation of the qualitative nature of their faith. But since they have no grounds for declaring that their faith is qualitatively distinct from that of apostates-to-be, they have no grounds for assurance, at least not that they are decretally elect.

[1] �This is related to the problem in Reformed theology of attempting to view everything from the point of view of eternity, as I have discussed here.

[2]� The Protestant Reformers were in a difficult position regarding the ministerial priesthood. If they entirely rejected it, then they were left with individualism and anarchy. But if they retained it as sacrament, then this exposed their own rebellion against their Catholic sacramental authorities. So they rejected it as a sacrament, and then tried to re-establish it non-sacramentally. But without genuine sacramental authority, this ad hoc position collapses into individualism.