Does the Devil Make You a Catholic?

Credit: Alan Frost

I.

For almost three years now, I’ve written mainly about the doctrinal questions that separate Catholics and Protestants, hoping to remove from Reformed minds some of the obstacles that had existed in my mind when looking into the Catholic faith. But perhaps the most perplexing and anxiety-inducing question in becoming Catholic wasn’t a doctrinal question at all, but a personal, spiritual one: am I being deceived by the devil?

Growing up Reformed, I held it to be an undisputed fact of reality, like water being wet, that the Catholic Church had forsaken the gospel to follow traditions of men. The Mass, priests, veneration of Mary, purgatory, holy water, transubstantiation, relics, the Pope – it all seemed so obviously unscriptural and ungospel-like to my Reformed mind that I didn’t think anyone with a modicum of scriptural knowledge could take it seriously. I don’t think I ever considered the Pope to be the antichrist, but I certainly thought of the Roman Catholic Church as having been thoroughly corrupted by the devil. The very name “Roman Catholic” conjured up all sorts of wrongness.

I won’t rehash here why I got started looking into the Catholic faith in my fourth and final year of Reformed seminary, which you can read about in my post, With Faces Thitherward.

But in short, when I realized that Catholic teaching was not some historical novelty, but went right back to the beginning of the Church; and when I encountered that teaching, not as it had been easily dismissed by me, but as taught, believed, and defended from Scripture by devout Catholics themselves; and when I began to see some of the glaring problems in my own Reformed beliefs – well, the whole thing was accompanied by an acute fear that I was being deceived by the devil.

II.

There was no easy way to deal with that fear. I remember kneeling on the floor of my study many times, emotionally spent, in exasperation begging of God to protect me from evil and to show me the truth. I prayed from Psalm 25 repeatedly:

O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.

There was a terrible helplessness that plagued the whole ordeal. The more I prayed and searched the Scriptures, the more my objections to the Catholic faith fell away. I read the best Reformed apologists I knew of, and yet their case against Rome crumbled when answered by Catholic apologists. I was doing exactly what my Reformed background had taught me to do, and it was the Reformed case against Rome that was failing.

But what if this was due to some spiritual trick? Was I being blinded to something obvious? Was I, in some diabolical way, being kept from seeing the truth of Reformed teaching and the falseness of Catholic teaching? If so, what could I do differently?

That was the troubling part – there was nothing I could do differently. I was already immersed in Scripture and prayer, not to mention attending a Reformed seminary. I couldn’t do anything differently – and all the while I was being convinced of the thing I always thought was the enemy.

At times, I wondered if my whole sense of truth itself was twisted, so that what I was convinced was true was actually false. Of course, that would apply to being convinced of Reformed teaching no less than being convinced of Catholic teaching – it would all be illusory.

It seemed that if I was being deceived, then I could never really know it, and there was nothing I could do about it. This is a wretched and dangerous place to find yourself in, for there appears to be no way out.

III.

But there was a way out. There was a reason why I was experiencing that particular psychological turmoil. The feeling of helplessness was being produced by an incoherence in my thinking, and I was able to pinpoint that incoherence by reflecting on what Scripture said about deception.

The first and greatest act of deception happened in the garden, where “the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning,” as Paul wrote (2Cor.11:3). The deception there was straightforward, and it demonstrates how the devil works.

Eve knew full well that God had forbidden her from eating from the tree. There was no confusion on her part as to what God’s revealed will on the matter was. She wasn’t deceived about that.

Instead, the devil convinced Eve that adhering to God’s revealed will wasn’t in her best interest. She knew what God wanted, but she chose against His will because she thought she found something better. She was saying with her actions, “I know what you want, Lord. But I don’t care. I found something better than you.” And that’s exactly where she went wrong. Therein lay the deception. She was deceived into thinking that something better could be found apart from God’s will.

That is how sin deceives all of us. Sin, whether big or small, deceives us into rejecting God’s will in favour of what we think is better. It’s not that the devil wants what’s best for us – on the contrary, he hates us. He knows that true life is found in being conformed entirely to God’s will, and so he tricks us away from it.

So, if I was being deceived, then the devil was convincing me to reject some part of God’s will. And if the Reformed were right, and God’s revealed will was to be found in Scripture alone, then it meant I was rejecting some part of Scripture. The key question, then, was: what part of Scripture was I rejecting in being convinced of Catholic teaching?

And with that question, I arrived at the incoherence in my thinking. I wasn’t rejecting any part of Scripture. At no point in being convinced of Catholic teaching was I saying, “Lord, I know what you’ve said. But I don’t care. I’ve found something better.”

Even disputing the truth of sola scriptura, the doctrine upon which the entire Reformed case against Rome rested, did not involve disputing the truth of any particular passage in Scripture. It involved disputing what the Reformed said about the Bible, not what God said in the Bible.

That went for every important doctrinal difference, from justification to the veneration of images to the government of the Church. At each point, the Catholic Church did not dispute anything God Himself had revealed in Scripture. Rather, she disputed what the Reformed said that revelation meant. Her dispute was not with God’s words, but with man’s words – and according to Reformed teaching we don’t find God’s revealed will in man’s words, but in Scripture alone.

So, on the one hand, my Reformed faith had taught me that the Catholic Church was the enemy, the arch-nemesis of the gospel, Scripture, and Christ Himself. This was ingrained into me, and I could not draw near to Rome without at the same time feeling a deep sense of wrongness.

On the other hand, my Reformed faith also taught me that God’s revealed will was found in Scripture alone. And since Rome didn’t reject anything God had said there, drawing near to her did not mean rejecting any part of God’s revealed will. It only meant rejecting what the Reformers said.

That was the incoherence responsible for my feeing of helplessness – being told that I was wrong and not wrong at the same time. It was a fear that couldn’t actually be defined. My Reformed faith was telling me, “You’re doing something terribly wrong in being convinced of Catholicism!” But when I asked it what that wrong thing was, the answer was, “Nothing, since you aren’t rejecting any part of God’s will.”

Not even by Reformed standards was the devil making me a Catholic.

IV.

Christ Accused by the Pharisees, by Duccio di Buoninsegna – 14th C.

But there was a different angle to this whole issue yet, and it too came from Scripture. I began to notice a pattern in the gospels that I hadn’t noticed before, a pattern that showed up in how Christ and the Jewish religious leaders interacted.

The leaders accused Christ of being in league with the devil:

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons” (Mark 3:22).

They accused Him of being deceptive:

The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived?” (John 7:46-47)

They accused Him of blasphemy:

Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” (Mt.26:65-66).

And Christ promised the very same treatment to His followers:

A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household (Matthew 10:25).

According to Christ, His followers could expect the same accusations He received, particularly those of a diabolic nature.

The reason this pattern stood out was that it matched very closely the attitude I’d had toward the Catholic Church, the attitude that had filled me with fear. It was precisely because I’d thought of Rome as deceptive and corrupted by the devil that I was afraid of being deceived myself.

And yet here Christ was teaching that the attitude I’d had toward Rome was the same attitude His enemies would have toward His followers.

On its own, of course, the similarity didn’t prove anything about the Catholic Church. Christ wasn’t saying that anyone accused of being a blaspheming deceiver in league with the devil was thus proven to be a true follower of His.

But I wasn’t alone in thinking that way about Rome, nor were Protestants in general. Long before the Reformers showed up, the Catholic Church was already being called “the devil’s harlot,” and Catholics, “servants of Antichrist”:

Accordingly, by Montanists, Catholics were called “the carnal;” by Novatians, “the apostates;” by Valentinians, “the worldly;” by Manichees, “the simple;” by Aërians, “the ancient;” by Apollinarians, “the man-worshippers;” by Origenists, “the flesh-lovers,” and “the slimy;” by the Nestorians, “Egyptians;” by Monophysites, the “Chalcedonians;” by Donatists, “the traitors,” and “the sinners,” and “servants of Antichrist;” and St. Peter’s chair, “the seat of pestilence;” and by the Luciferians, the Church was called “a brothel,” “the devil’s harlot,” and “synagogue of Satan.”^[1]

These groups were the opponents of the Church Fathers and councils who gave us the Nicene, Apostles’, and Athanasian Creeds. And it was these opponents of orthodoxy that shared my antipathy toward Rome.

This is true still today. Reformed people have little in common with Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and the crackpot end times theorists you can find online. Yet they all share the belief that the Roman Catholic Church is the enemy, the epicentre of corruption, the source of the falsehoods that historically led the faithful away from true biblical faith.

This opposition to Rome isn’t even confined to religious groups. In 1979, Pope John Paul II was preparing to visit his homeland, Poland. Poland at the time was under Communist rule, and the government understood the risk posed by such a momentous event. Not only was John Paul II an outspoken opponent of Communism, but he was the first Polish Pope in history. His visit to Poland would be deeply inspiring to the people, and thus threatened the control of the Communist party.

So, in preparation for the Pope’s arrival, the Communist party sent a memo to the nation’s schoolteachers, “explaining how they should understand and explain the pope’s visit:”

“The pope is our enemy,” it said. “Due to his uncommon skills and great sense of humor he is dangerous, because he charms everyone, especially journalists. Besides, he goes for cheap gestures in his relations with the crowd, for instance, puts on a highlander’s hat, shakes all hands, kisses children. . . . It is modeled on American presidential campaigns. . . Because of the activation of the Church in Poland our activities designed to atheize the youth not only cannot diminish but must intensely develop. . . In this respect all means are allowed and we cannot afford any sentiments.”^[2]

Most conservative Christians will agree that Communism was one of the greatest anti-Christian movements in history. Not only did the Communists actively “atheize the youth” through education, and not only did they imprison and kill countless Christian leaders, but the entire Communist system was an act of rebellion against heaven, much like the Tower of Babel.

And according to the people who ran that system, “the Pope is our enemy.” He wore hats. He shook hands. He kissed babies. He was “dangerous.”

Communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Arians, Nestorians, and Manichaeans – all these groups, from my Reformed perspective, had in diverse ways either abandoned orthodoxy or were outright opposed to Christianity. And yet there was one belief common to them all: the Catholic Church is the enemy.

That malice, then, that I had had toward the Catholic Church fit very well with what Christ foretold. The type of opposition that Rome has faced throughout history, and faces across the world today, is not one of polite disagreement or dismissal. There is a deep-seated and active animosity toward her, and it shows up in every movement that has been, and remains, opposed to Christ.

And it had showed up in my own heart, too. The thing responsible for the incoherence in my thinking, the thing that not even my own Reformed system could justify, was not a thing born of the Spirit of Christ, but born of opposition to Him.

The devil doesn’t make you a Catholic. The devil keeps you from ever becoming one.

 

[1]John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, (London: Aeterna Press, 2014), p.168-169.

[2]Peggy Noonan, “We Want God,” Wall Street Journal, April 7 2005, taken from her website on August 30, 2019: http://peggynoonan.com/302/