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Q u i c k Q u e s t i o n s
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This Rock
Volume 1, Number 5
 May 1990 
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"Belief in Angels Is Just Ancient Superstition, Right?"
Q: I don't believe in angels as shown on old holy cards. That's just ancient superstition, isn't it?
A: Basing your theology on art is a bad idea, especially if the art is bad. It's little wonder people who think of angels as fat, winged babies can't take the idea of angels seriously.
People who look at angels this way aren't interpreting angelic representations as they were intended. The baroque artists who covered ceilings with these bouncy, Hosanna-singing messengers didn't really think that's how angels look (can any great artist be that dumb?).
Remember, if you're going to represent angels artistically, you have to show them as something. You can't leave a blank space labeled "Pretend an angel is here." That's why when angels appear to men in the Bible, they usually take on human form. By nature they're pure spirit and as such are incapable of being seen.
In art angels traditionally have appeared as youths (winged or unwinged) or as scantily-clad infants.
However inadequate the artwork, the fact remains that angels exist. It's unfortunate that "enlightened" people today discount the existence of angels. Actually, there's nothing enlightened about such an attitude--quite the opposite: It's a species of closedmindedness.
Q: I'm worried about my daughter. She left the Catholic Church and goes to this "Bible believing church." Her pastor says he's a prophet. He's always saying,"God told me to do this" or "God told me to do that." Then he asks his congregation to foot the bill for his projects, many of which never get finished. I think he's doing a lot of harm and is going to make lots of people unhappy. How can I get my daughter to see through this baloney?
A: Just because someone claims to be guided by the Holy Spirit doesn't mean he is. Sometimes people in extreme Pentecostal churches say God told them to do something when they really mean they feel like doing it or they think God wants them to do it.
Ask you daughter why, if her pastor gets such clear messages from the Holy Spirit, anyone needs the Bible. After all, if the Spirit ordinarily speaks so directly and clearly through her pastor, why should she waste time looking in the Bible for answers?
Also, be sure to keep track of these alleged prophecies and messages from the Holy Spirit. Over time you'll see a certain amount of vacillation: God supposedly saying one thing now, something completely different later on. You'll also see how some projects are begun as "what God wants to do with his people right now," only to peter out when the enthusiasm (and funds) drop off.
Your daughter needs to be reminded that these prophesied events haven't come to pass. Then have her read Deuteronomy 18:22 and come to her own conclusions about this alleged prophet.
Q: What can you tell me about the Assemblies of God?
A: It's a Pentecostal denomination--the largest Pentecostal church, in fact, in the United States and one of the fastest growing religious groups in the world. The denomination has some 16 million members worldwide.
As an organized Christian denomination, the Assemblies of God goes back to 1914. It was started by a group of Evangelicals who came out of the Pentecostal movement, which began around the turn of the century.
The Assemblies of God is fundamentalistic in its approach to the Bible, although it is distinguished from "mainstream" Fundamentalism by its Pentecostal beliefs. Many of the arguments used by "mainstream" Fundamentalists against Catholicism are employed also by members of the Assemblies of God.
The Assemblies of God also stresses eschatology a great deal. The members believe in the pretribulational rapture and a millennial kingdom on Earth.
In some ways, the Assemblies of God is really just a Pentecostalized version of the Baptist faith. For instance, it observes only two ordinances: the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion, which is interpreted as a mere memorial of Christ's death, and baptism. Infants are not to be baptized, and water baptism is regarded as little more than a public declaration of one's commitment to Christ.
The Assemblies of God differs from most Baptist groups, though, on the doctrine of eternal security. Generally Arminian in theology, they believe it's possible for a Christian to fall into sin and be lost.
Since they're Pentecostal, members of the Assemblies of God stress the charismatic gifts mentioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 (gifts of prophecy, speaking in tongues, miraculous healing). Pentecostals believe these spiritual gifts should be in full operation in the life of the Church.
By way of church government, the Assemblies of God combines elements of Presbyterianism and Congregationalism. Local congregations are independent. Each congregation hires and fires its own pastors and oversees its own affairs.
At the same time, the general interests of the denomination are addressed in their top legislative body, the General Council, or by the General Presbytery when the Council is not in session.
Many of the more colorful television evangelists have had ties with the Assemblies of God. Both Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart were Assemblies of God ministers before being defrocked.
Q: What are the "capital sins?" Are these the worst sins you can commit?
A: The capital sins are pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth. They're called capital sins not because they're necessarily worse than other sins, but because these are the sins which are the bases of other sins. Sometimes these are also known as the seven deadly sins.
Q: What is the millennium the television preachers talk so much about?
A: "Millennium" comes from the Latin mille (thousand) and annum (year). Revelation 20:4 mentions a thousand-year period which is usually called the millennium. In speaking of the saints, Revelation 20:4 says "they came to life and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years."
Based on this passage many people have taught that, after the Second Coming, Christ will reign on Earth for a thousand years. The belief Christ will come before the millennium is called premillennialism. Many television preachers are premillennialists.
Other Christians hold that the millennium is not a literal thousand-year period, but a figurative one used to refer to the time in which Christ reigns on earth through his Church. This time has not yet come.
Some who accept this view believe the world will get better under Christian influence and that there will be a time when society as a whole will be Christianized. This is their version of the millennium.
In this view, Christ will return after the millennium to judge the living and the dead. This idea is called postmillennialism.
There are also those who believe the millennium is symbolic of the entire age of the Church. They point to Bible verses which speak of Christ reigning in heaven now. This is called amillennialism (no millennium), although some prefer to called it realized millennialism because it doesn't deny the millennium, but merely interprets it as a symbol of the Church age.
The Catholic Church has never defined which position is correct. Still, most Catholic theologians have been amillennialists or postmillennialists. We can't think of any who have been premillennialists.
Q: Does the Bible teach reincarnation?
A: No. Scripture teaches that "it is appointed that men die once, and after this comes judgment" (Heb. 9:27). There is absolutely no biblical evidence for reincarnation.
Sometimes people try to find biblical warrant for reincarnation in Christ's words about John the Baptist. In Matthew 17:12 Christ says, "I tell you Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him." Matthew adds, "Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist" (Matt. 17:13).
Is Jesus saying that John was the reincarnation of Elijah? No. Here's the simple reason. According to 2 Kings 2:9-18, Elijah was taken up bodily into heaven without seeing death. Thus, he wasn't a candidate for reincarnation because he was still in his original incarnation.
In Matthew 17:1-8 Moses and Elijah appear to Christ and some of his disciples at the Transfiguration. This occurs after John the Baptist has been executed by Herod Antipas. Why is it, then, that Moses and Elijah appear to Christ and his disciples, and not Moses and John the Baptist?
If Christ doesn't mean John the Baptist is the reincarnation of Elijah, what does he mean? Jesus is speaking figuratively in Matthew17:12. He's comparing the prophetic ministry of John in the New Testament to that of Elijah in the Old. Similarly, Luke 1:17 says John "will go before him [the Lord] in the spirit and power of Elijah."
So there's no biblical basis for reincarnation. A person who is considering reincarnation is faced with a choice of believing other alleged sources of religious truth or believing the biblical witness. To accept the former in this instance is to reject the latter.
Q: From the Catholic point of view, what's the difference between an Eastern Orthodox priest and an Anglican (Episcopalian) priest?
A: The Catholic Church accepts Eastern Orthodox orders as valid. Eastern Orthodox priests really confect the Eucharist, just as Catholic priests do. Eastern Orthodox bishops are true bishops and have the power to ordain other bishops and priests.
Anglican orders, on the other hand, are not recognized as valid by the Church. Anglican priests do not really have priestly powers, and Anglican bishops do not really have episcopal powers. Properly speaking, they are Christian laymen.
Q: I don't see why Mary had to be sinless to pass on a sinless human nature to Christ.
A: Mary's sinlessness derives from the fact that she is the human vessel through which God himself became man. It was from her flesh that Christ received his human nature.
Because Christ is God, it's fitting that he took his humanity from a sinless human nature, although it wasn't strictly necessary that his mother be sinless for him to receive from her a sinless human nature. God could have done it another way.
Nor was it absolutely necessary that Christ be born of a virgin. He could have come into the world via the normal route. The fact that Mary was a virgin and conceived Christ isn't so much a statement about Mary as it is about the dignity of the child she carried in her womb.
Likewise (and ultimately) the Immaculate Conception isn't so much a statement about the dignity of Mary as it is a statement about the dignity of her son. It points out who he is--God incarnate.
Q: The Catholic Church claims to be united on doctrine, yet it seems to me there are as many divisions among Catholics as there are among Protestants. Isn't this the case?
A: Not really. Division isn't inherent in Catholicism as it is in Protestantism. To the extent there's doctrinal disunity among Catholics, this isn't the result of Catholics living by their own principles. It's caused by Catholics being insufficiently Catholic--by not following the teachings of the Church.
In a sense, dissenting Catholics are really Protestants (of a sort) because, while they may not dissent from Catholic teaching on the same issues as the Reformers did, they still reject the Church's teaching and replace it with their own ideas about what Christianity is.
Protestant disunity is due, at least in part, to Protestants following their principle of sola scriptura. Even when sin and pride are excluded from the equation, Protestants still interpreted the Bible differently on important issues--sometimes even on questions directly related to salvation (like the nature of baptism or whether Christians can lose their salvation). This points to a defective method of discerning what it is God has revealed, not merely to defective discerners.
Q: Who are the Melkites?
A: They're Byzantine Catholics who opposed the Monophysites and who were faithful to the Byzantine emperors in their support for the orthodox Christology of Chalcedon (451). Their support of the emperors is evident in their name. Melkite comes from the Arabic word malek or melek, meaning king or emperor.
Originally part of the Greek Schism, the Melkites were reunited with Rome in the eighteenth century.
Melkites follow the Byzantine rite in Arabic and are illustrative of the Catholic Church's unity within diversity.
Q: What is pantheism?
A: Pantheism is the belief that God is everything and everything is God. Some versions of pantheism aren't quite this crude, but all tend to be monistic--seeing reality, both God and his creation, as essentially one thing.
Some pantheists say we're all part of God, since we're all part of the universe which is God. Others see the universe as the embodiment of the divine essence. In either case individual existence is illusory, since all that is is one.
This reduction of everything to a sort of divine cosmic soup means than fundamental reality (God) is ultimately impersonal. The distinction between persons and things is discarded.
On the psychological level, if the essential distinction between God and his creation is abolished, then you and I are God. We can, in effect, create our own reality.
If this is so, then whatever problems exist in the world are, in the final analysis, self-inflicted, either because we are God and have forgotten it or we're all one and don't know it. From the Christian perspective, this is just a repetition of the serpent's promise to Eve (Gen. 3:5).
Eastern religions like Hinduism are pantheistic. The New Age movement, to the extent it's a Westernized version of Eastern religion, is also pantheistic.
Q: At the Presentation, why did Mary make a sin offering (Luke2:24, Lev. 12:8) if she was without sin?
A: For the same reason Jesus was baptized by John, though he had no sins to repent of. Mary fulfilled the Law.
According to Leviticus 12:2-8, a mother was purified forty days after the birth of a son, and she was required to offer a lamb as a burnt offering and a young pigeon or turtledove as a sin offering. A poor woman could substitute another pigeon or turtledove for the lamb, thus offering two of them.
The purification had to do with ritual uncleanliness and didn't imply a moral fault in childbirth. As Jesus would later, Mary fulfilled all the precepts of the Law, which, clearly, wasn't written to make allowances for a sinless man (the Messiah) or his sinless mother.
Q: When missionaries come to my door, I just tell them to go away. Some are persistent, so I have to slam the door in their faces. Don't you think this is the best approach for someone who doesn't know much about the Catholic faith? I don't have confidence that I can explain the faith fully.
A: No, it's not the best approach, either for the missionaries or for you.
It's not the best approach for them because you look rude. What do you think that tells them about the Catholic faith? We'll tell you: It tells them the Catholic faith makes bad Christians. Now we know you're not a bad Christian, but all they know of you is the door being slammed in their faces.
Your technique is also bad for you because it gives you an excuse not to learn more about your religion. If you made a resolution to talk with missionaries in the future, you'd find yourself doing a little homework. It doesn't matter how long you've been away from school--no one is too old to learn.
Besides, learning about our faith is both easy and fun. Many Catholics kick themselves for having put off studying for too many years. Now, after just a little time with the books, they have a better appreciation for their faith and find the Mass, the Bible, and their devotions mean much more to them. Don't hide behind a door. Learn your faith--and proclaim it!
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Catholic Answers
